Social capital and management innovation: The case studies of two Chinese Private SMEs

China’s small and medium-sized private enterprises play a vital role in promoting economic growth, technological progress and social development. This thesis investigates the survival environment of China’s small and medium-sized enterprises, discusses their responses to various market risks and systemic obstacles and more deeply explores why they have become the main drivers of Chinese economic growth. Firstly, this thesis systematically reviews the development history and relevant research of China’s small and medium-sized enterprises. Secondly it reviews theory on small enterprises’ corporate governance, social capital theory and incentive theory. Thirdly, we analyze two cases of Chinese private enterprises with the purpose to illustrate emerging problems, devise possible solutions and seek clarification from the theories reviewed. The first case concerns an entrepreneurial company set up by Mr. and Mrs. Y, a couple who has worked and studied abroad. The company is engaged in the pavement construction of highways and in the sale of relevant road high-tech materials. The second case concerns a poultry and pig-breeding enterprise built by a peasant family. The main conclusion of this thesis is that private enterprises in China not only have to deal with risks caused by industry, but also have to face policy volatility and overcome financing difficulties through social capital and social networks. In national capital monopolized sectors, policy volatility will make it hard for private enterprises to survive and social capital will be faced with limitations. So private enterprises have a larger room for development in industries where state capital is less prevailing. The key reasons for the rapid development of private enterprises in China have been innovation spirit and management innovation. This is the main innovation method of the above-mentioned two enterprises.As pequenas e médias empresas (PME) privadas na China têm desempenhado um papel vital na promoção do crescimento económico, no progresso tecnológico e no desenvolvimento social. Esta tese analisa a envolvente em que as PME chinesas operam, discute a forma como respondem não só aos mais diversos riscos de mercado mas também a obstáculos sistémicos e explora as razões pelas quais se tornaram nos principais motores do crescimento económico chinês. Em primeiro lugar a tese apresenta uma perspetiva histórica do desenvolvimento da iniciativa privada na China através da literatura mais relevante. Em segundo lugar faz uma revisão teórica da governação aplicada às PME e da literatura sobre capital social e incentivos. Por fim analisa os casos de duas empresas privadas chinesas com o objetivo não só de ilustrar os principais problemas, mas também de procurar caminhos para a sua solução e de encontrar clarificação através das teorias estudadas. O primeiro caso diz respeito a uma empresa fundada pelo Sr. e pela Sra. Y, um casal que trabalhou e estudou no estrangeiro. A empresa dedica-se à construção de vias de comunicação e à venda de materiais de alta tecnologia para pavimentação.No segundo caso é estudada uma empresa de produção animal iniciada por uma família de camponeses. A principal conclusão desta tese é que as empresas privadas na China têm não só de enfrentar as barreiras próprias dos setores onde atuam, mas também de lidar com a volatilidade das políticas e de ultrapassar dificuldades de financiamento utilizando para tal o seu capital social e as suas redes de relacionamento. Em setores dominados pela presença de monopólios estatais a volatilidade das políticas é um fator que dificulta a sobrevivência das empresas e onde o capital social se defronta com as suas próprias limitações. É precisamente em setores onde o capital estatal está menos presente que as empresas privadas têm mais espaço para se desenvolverem e prosperarem. Como estes dois casos bem representam as razões principais para o rápido desenvolvimento do setor empresarial na China têm sido o espírito de inovação e a inovação em gestão

CH radio emission from heiles cloud 2 as a tracer of molecular cloud evolution

A mapping observation of the $J=1/2$ $\Lambda$-type doubling transition (3.3 GHz) of CH has been conducted toward Heiles Cloud 2 (HCL2) in the Taurus molecular cloud complex to reveal its molecular cloud-scale distribution. The observations were carried out with the Effelsberg 100 m telescope. The CH emission is found to be extended over the whole region of HCL2. It is brighter in the southeastern part, which encloses the TMC-1 cyanopolyyne peak than in the northwestern part. Its distribution extends continuously from the peak of the neutral carbon emission (CI peak) to the TMC-1 ridge, as if it were connecting the distributions of the [C I] and C$^{18}$O emissions. Since CH is an intermediate in gas-phase chemical reactions from C to CO, its emission should trace the transition region. The above distribution of the CH emission is consistent with this chemical behavior. Since the CH abundance is subject to the chemical evolutionary effect, the CH column density in HCL2 no longer follows a linear correlation wit the H$_2$ column density reported for diffuse and translucent clouds. More importantly, the CH line profile is found to be composed of the narrow and broad components. Although the broad component is dominant around the CI peak, the narrow component appears in the TMC-1 ridge and dense core regions such as L1527 and TMC-1A. This trend seems to reflect a narrowing of the line width during the formation of dense cores. These results suggest that the 3.3 GHz CH line is a useful tool for tracing the chemical and physical evolution of molecular clouds.Comment: 8 page

Empirical Research on Information Transmission in the Hang Seng Index Markets: Evidence from Index Futures, Flagship Index and Finance Index

This paper investigates the price discovery mechanism in the Hang Seng Index markets. The analysis is based on the cross-market volatility spillover effects by using the daily sets of Hang Seng Index (HSI), Hang Seng Finance Index (HSFIN), and Hang Seng Index futures (HSCIS00). In order to testify the influence of 2007 financial tsunami on the volatility spillover effect, the study employs the vector autoregressive model (VAR) and the bivariate GARCH model based on the BEKK parameterization. The testing period has been divided into the pre-crisis (1 April, 2003 to 31 July, 2007) and the crisis & recovery period (1 August, 2007 to 1 April, 2013). The empirical results depict that there exists bi-directional volatility spillover effect between HSI and HSCIS00 for the whole testing period. In contrast, a strong bi-directional volatility spillover effect between HSFIN and HSCIS00 is only recognized after the outbreak of the 2007 financial crisis

A Low Latency Adaptive Coding Spiking Framework for Deep Reinforcement Learning

With the help of Deep Neural Networks, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has achieved great success on many complex tasks during the past few years. Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) have been used for the implementation of Deep Neural Networks with superb energy efficiency on dedicated neuromorphic hardware, and recent years have witnessed increasing attention on combining SNNs with Reinforcement Learning, whereas most approaches still work with huge energy consumption and high latency. This work proposes the Adaptive Coding Spiking Framework (ACSF) for SNN-based DRL and achieves low latency and great energy efficiency at the same time. Inspired by classical conditioning in biology, we simulate receptors, central interneurons, and effectors with spike encoders, SNNs, and spike decoders, respectively. We use our proposed ACSF to estimate the value function in reinforcement learning and conduct extensive experiments to verify the effectiveness of our proposed framework

Synthesis and Crystal Structure as well as Cytotoxicity Analysis of Dichloro-Terpyridine-Copper Complex

Malignant tumors, recognized as one of the most threatening diseases of the 20th century, continue to exhibit a rising incidence trend in the 21st century. Against this backdrop, metal complexes have attracted considerable attention due to their unique antitumor activities. In this study, we unexpectedly obtained a copper-based complex coordinated with 2,2':6',2''-Terpyridine and chloride anion ligands, and characterized its crystal structure using X-ray single-crystal diffraction technique. The cytotoxic effects of this metal complex against various tumor cell lines were evaluated through MTT assays, and the findings provide significant theoretical and practical foundations for developing novel anticancer drugs

MELO: Enhancing Model Editing with Neuron-Indexed Dynamic LoRA

Large language models (LLMs) have shown great success in various Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks, whist they still need updates after deployment to fix errors or keep pace with the changing knowledge in the world. Researchers formulate such problem as Model Editing and have developed various editors focusing on different axes of editing properties. However, current editors can hardly support all properties and rely on heavy computational resources. In this paper, we propose a plug-in Model Editing method based on neuron-indexed dynamic LoRA (MELO), which alters the behavior of language models by dynamically activating certain LoRA blocks according to the index built in an inner vector database. Our method satisfies various editing properties with high efficiency and can be easily integrated into multiple LLM backbones. Experimental results show that our proposed MELO achieves state-of-the-art editing performance on three sequential editing tasks (document classification, question answering and hallucination correction), while requires the least trainable parameters and computational cost.Comment: In Proceedings of The 38th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligenc

Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using √s=8 TeV proton-proton collision data

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing high-p T jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS experiment in s√=8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, with a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Results are interpreted in a variety of simplified and specific supersymmetry-breaking models assuming that R-parity is conserved and that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1330 GeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino. For a simplified model involving the strong production of first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 850 GeV (440 GeV) are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino, assuming mass degenerate (single light-flavour) squarks. In mSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan β = 30, A 0 = −2m 0 and μ > 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 1700 GeV. Additional limits are set for non-universal Higgs mass models with gaugino mediation and for simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos, each decaying to a top squark and a top quark, with the top squark decaying to a charm quark and a neutralino. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous searches with the ATLAS detector

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Whole-genome sequencing of cultivated and wild peppers provides insights into Capsicum domestication and specialization

As an economic crop, pepper satisfies people's spicy taste and has medicinal uses worldwide. To gain a better understanding of Capsicum evolution, domestication, and specialization, we present here the genome sequence of the cultivated pepper Zunla-1 (C. annuum L.) and its wild progenitor Chiltepin (C. annuum var. glabriusculum). We estimate that the pepper genome expanded similar to 0.3 Mya (with respect to the genome of other Solanaceae) by a rapid amplification of retrotransposons elements, resulting in a genome comprised of similar to 81% repetitive sequences. Approximately 79% of 3.48-Gb scaffolds containing 34,476 protein-coding genes were anchored to chromosomes by a high-density genetic map. Comparison of cultivated and wild pepper genomes with 20 resequencing accessions revealed molecular footprints of artificial selection, providing us with a list of candidate domestication genes. We also found that dosage compensation effect of tandem duplication genes probably contributed to the pungent diversification in pepper. The Capsicum reference genome provides crucial information for the study of not only the evolution of the pepper genome but also, the Solanaceae family, and it will facilitate the establishment of more effective pepper breeding programs

Measurement of the production of a W boson in association with a charm quark in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production of a W boson in association with a single charm quark is studied using 4.6 fb−1 of pp collision data at s√ = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In events in which a W boson decays to an electron or muon, the charm quark is tagged either by its semileptonic decay to a muon or by the presence of a charmed meson. The integrated and differential cross sections as a function of the pseudorapidity of the lepton from the W-boson decay are measured. Results are compared to the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD calculations obtained from various parton distribution function parameterisations. The ratio of the strange-to-down sea-quark distributions is determined to be 0.96+0.26−0.30 at Q 2 = 1.9 GeV2, which supports the hypothesis of an SU(3)-symmetric composition of the light-quark sea. Additionally, the cross-section ratio σ(W + +c¯¯)/σ(W − + c) is compared to the predictions obtained using parton distribution function parameterisations with different assumptions about the s−s¯¯¯ quark asymmetry