Failures in Building Partnership for Success in the Competitive Market: The Case of Polish Ski Resorts

The topic of local stakeholders’ collaboration for success on the tourism market is a popular one, however research is usually devoted to well established Western economies. Created in this way, rules of cooperation are not fully suitable for new democracies in Central and Eastern European countries. Western standards of cooperation can not be achieved in Polish winter sports destinations, which is mirrored in the analyzed example of the Polish biggest ski resort – Szczyrk. Mutual mistrust and hostile attitude are typical for stakeholders in this example. The very low competitiveness level of the product is the most visible effect. Additionally, ski product development in Poland is highly criticized from the environmental point of view, which results in another difficult to manage, severe conflict sourced in different interpretations of the idea of sustainable tourism development.ski resort, partnership, Central and Eastern Europe, Polish ski industry

Concreteness and abstraction in everyday explanation

A number of philosophers argue for the value of abstraction in explanation. According to these prescriptive theories, an explanation becomes superior when it leaves out details that make no difference to the occurrence of the event one is trying to explain (the explanandum). Abstract explanations are not frugal placeholders for improved, detailed future explanations but are more valuable than their concrete counterparts because they highlight the factors that do the causal work, the factors in the absence of which the explanandum would not occur. We present several experiments that test whether people follow this prescription (i.e., whether people prefer explanations with abstract difference makers over explanations with concrete details and explanations that omit descriptively accurate but causally irrelevant information). Contrary to the prescription, we found a preference for concreteness and detail. Participants rated explanations with concrete details higher than their abstract counterparts and in many cases they did not penalize the presence of causally irrelevant details. Nevertheless, causality still constrained participants' preferences: They downgraded concrete explanations that did not communicate the critical causal properties

Optimization of tau identification in ATLAS experiment using multivariate tools

In elementary particle physics the efficient analysis of huge amount of collected data require the use of sophisticated selection and analysis algorithms. We have implemented a Support Vector Machine (SVM) integrated with the CERN TMVA/ROOT package. SVM approach to signal and background separation is based on building a separating hyperplane defined by the support vectors. The margin between them and the hyperplane is maximized. The extensions to a non-linear separation is performed by mapping the input vectors into a high dimensional space, in which data can be linearly separated. The use of kernel functions allows to perform computations in a high dimension feature space without explicitly knowing a mapping function. Our SVM implementation is based on Platt's Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO) algorithm and includes various kernel functions like a linear function, polynomial and Gaussian. The identification of hadronic decays of tau leptons in the ATLAS experiment using a tau1P3P package is performed using, beside the baseline cut analysis, also multivariate analysis tools: neural network, PDE_RS and our implementation of the SVM algorithm. The use and the comparison of the three algorithms is presented

Mutations in UDP-Glucose:Sterol Glucosyltransferase in Arabidopsis Cause Transparent Testa Phenotype and Suberization Defect in Seeds

In higher plants, the most abundant sterol derivatives are steryl glycosides (SGs) and acyl SGs. Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) contains two genes, UGT80A2 and UGT80B1, that encode UDP-Glc:sterol glycosyltransferases, enzymes that catalyze the synthesis of SGs. Lines having mutations in UGT80A2, UGT80B1, or both UGT80A2 and UGT8B1 were identified and characterized. The ugt80A2 lines were viable and exhibited relatively minor effects on plant growth. Conversely, ugt80B1 mutants displayed an array of phenotypes that were pronounced in the embryo and seed. Most notable was the finding that ugt80B1 was allelic to transparent testa15 and displayed a transparent testa phenotype and a reduction in seed size. In addition to the role of UGT80B1 in the deposition of flavanoids, a loss of suberization of the seed was apparent in ugt80B1 by the lack of autofluorescence at the hilum region. Moreover, in ugt80B1, scanning and transmission electron microscopy reveals that the outer integument of the seed coat lost the electron-dense cuticle layer at its surface and displayed altered cell morphology. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry of lipid polyester monomers confirmed a drastic decrease in aliphatic suberin and cutin-like polymers that was associated with an inability to limit tetrazolium salt uptake. The findings suggest a membrane function for SGs and acyl SGs in trafficking of lipid polyester precursors. An ancillary observation was that cellulose biosynthesis was unaffected in the double mutant, inconsistent with a predicted role for SGs in priming cellulose synthesis

Financial Crises in Comparative Perspective – Crisis Management and its Phenomenon of Repetition/Return

Crises cause attentiveness in our society and awaken, depending on the degree of consternation, our ongoing interest. These events include financial crises, phenomenal incidents that shock the economic world and pose significant challenges for the governments. Two crises which stand out in this context are the Great Depression in 1929 and the financial crisis in 2007/2008. In addition to the comparative approach, the paper focuses directly on the typical repetitive mechanism (“recurrent pattern of banking and sovereign debt crises” (Reinhart & Rogoff, 2011): overheating, the forming of a bubble and the bursting of the bubble, largely started in the USA. Specific aspects included in this research area are crisis management in the decades mentioned above, the role of governments and banks, as well as the observation as to which crisis can be expected next. We can conclude that the current monetary systems led by complex financial instruments and addicted to low interest rates are prone to deliver another serious financial crisis.Odkar obstajajo krize, njihov izbruh sproža pozornost v naši družbi in tesnobo glede naših tekočih interesov. Finančne krize, ki so incidenti pojava, šokirajo ekonomski svet in vladam postavijo znatne izzive. Krizi, ki izstopata iz tega konteksta, sta velika depresija 1929 in finančna kriza 2007/2008. Poleg komparativnega pristopa članek nameni pozornost tipičnemu mehanizmu ponovitve (npr. Reinhart in Rogoff, 2011: »ponavljajoči se vzorec bančnih kriz in kriz suverenega dolga«): pregrevanje, oblikovanje mehurčka, pok mehurčka, kar se je večinoma začelo v ZDA. Posebna področja te raziskave so krizni menedžment v gornjih desetletjih, vloge vlad in bank, kot tudi ocena, katero naslednjo krizo lahko pričakujemo. Zaključimo lahko, da je trenutni monetarni sistem, ki ga vodijo kompleksni finančni instrumenti in je odvisen od nizkih obrestnih mer, nagnjen k nastanku še ene resne finančne krize

Unions and Decisionistic-Restricted Involvement in the CSR Debate – An Explanation to a Cooperative Approach

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) implies the responsibility of companies for sustainable management in economic, ecological and social terms. The majority of CSR works in science and research were written primarily with the focus on ethics (moral vs. market economy), bearer of responsibility (state vs. companies) and management (e.g. best practice, manuals). This article comes from the perspective of a stakeholder group that is constantly mentioned but receive insufficient attention: unions. Research indicated early on that unions leaned back in the European CSR-debate since its beginning 2001. Based on the case of German unions, the author will analyse their motivation by studying their statements. The systematic literature review provides the basis for his qualitative content analysis of reasonable motives. The results show the unions encountering a complex environment with diverse interests, in which it is difficult to position themselves. Furthermore CSR requirements placed on companies were considered, by economy, to be set very high. Although CSR is not driven by legal regulations, it unfolds quasi-binding rules. For those reasons, it is not surprising that unions were sceptical and restrictive. With its analysis of a defensive CSR strategy, the study contributes to progress in the field of engagement in international debates. The author deals in a theoretical-conceptual way with the existing research results in this field, invalidates them and presents his own attempt with explanation. His explanatory approach extends the existing explanatory patterns by a new perspective for the problem described.Korporacijska družbena odgovornost (CSR) narekuje odgovornost podjetij za trajnostno upravljanje na ekonomskem, ekološkem in družbenem področju. Večina znanstvenih del in raziskav o CSR je bila napisana primarno z osredotočanjem na etiko (moralno vs. tržno gospodarstvo), nosilca odgovornosti (država vs. podjetja) in upravljanje (npr. najboljša praksa, priročniki). Ta članek uporabi drugačen pogled, in sicer pogled skupine udeležencev, ki se jo stalno omenja, vendar dobiva nezadostno pozornost – sindikati. Predhodna raziskava je pokazala, da so bili sindikati v ozadju evropske CSR-razprave, odkar se je leta 2001 pričela. Na osnovi primera nemških sindikatov avtor tega članka s študijem izjav članov sindikata analizira njihovo motivacijo. Sistematičen pregled literature zagotavlja osnovo za kvalitativno vsebinsko analizo smiselnih motivov. Rezultati kažejo, da se sindikati soočajo z zapletenim okoljem z raznolikimi interesi, v katerem se težko pozicionirajo. Nadalje so se obravnavale zahteve do podjetij glede CSR na ekonomskem področju kot zelo visoke. Čeprav CSR ne vodijo pravna določila, razkriva polzavezujoča pravila. Iz teh razlogov ni presenečenje, da so bili sindikati skeptični in restriktivni. Študija z analizo obrambne CSR-strategije prispeva k napredku na področju vključevanja v mednarodne razprave. Avtor se na teoretično konceptualen način ukvarja z obstoječimi raziskovalnimi rezultati na tem področju, jih izpodbija in predstavlja svoj lasten poskus razlage. Njegov razlagalni pristop razširja obstoječe razlagalne vzorce z novimi pogledi na opisani problem

Tourism Development in Croatia – A Qualitative Study to Capture Perceptions and Current Challenges in the Tourism Industry

Despite structural problems, Croatia indicates further expansion. The trend of increasing GDP has continued in recent years. The tourism sector significantly contributes to this development. To give a more detailed insight into this, the authors spoke to tourism industry officials to obtain their assessment and experiences via expert interviews. The methodological approach chosen from qualitative social research aims to identify future challenges, strengths and weaknesses for the Croatian tourism sector and to make recommendations. Preliminary results seem to suggest that, despite the increased tourist numbers, there is doubt as to whether Croatia´s tourism industry will be able to stay competitive with other countries in the future. Clear strategic planning is one of the weaknesses of economic indicators, such as a lack of qualified personnel or tax policy imbalances. The work aims to provide a contribution to the empirical research of Croatian tourism and to advance findings in the geospatial field of future challenges. Sustainability aspects also play an important role in making the country fit for the future

Identification of a Novel Drug Lead That Inhibits HCV Infection and Cell-to-Cell Transmission by Targeting the HCV E2 Glycoprotein

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infects 200 million individuals worldwide. Although several FDA approved drugs targeting the HCV serine protease and polymerase have shown promising results, there is a need for better drugs that are effective in treating a broader range of HCV genotypes and subtypes without being used in combination with interferon and/or ribavirin. Recently, two crystal structures of the core of the HCV E2 protein (E2c) have been determined, providing structural information that can now be used to target the E2 protein and develop drugs that disrupt the early stages of HCV infection by blocking E2’s interaction with different host factors. Using the E2c structure as a template, we have created a structural model of the E2 protein core (residues 421–645) that contains the three amino acid segments that are not present in either structure. Computational docking of a diverse library of 1,715 small molecules to this model led to the identification of a set of 34 ligands predicted to bind near conserved amino acid residues involved in the HCV E2: CD81 interaction. Surface plasmon resonance detection was used to screen the ligand set for binding to recombinant E2 protein, and the best binders were subsequently tested to identify compounds that inhibit the infection of Huh-7 cells by HCV. One compound, 281816, blocked E2 binding to CD81 and inhibited HCV infection in a genotype-independent manner with IC50’s ranging from 2.2 µM to 4.6 µM. 281816 blocked the early and late steps of cell-free HCV entry and also abrogated the cell-to-cell transmission of HCV. Collectively the results obtained with this new structural model of E2c suggest the development of small molecule inhibitors such as 281816 that target E2 and disrupt its interaction with CD81 may provide a new paradigm for HCV treatment

Towards Reliable Automatic Protein Structure Alignment

A variety of methods have been proposed for structure similarity calculation, which are called structure alignment or superposition. One major shortcoming in current structure alignment algorithms is in their inherent design, which is based on local structure similarity. In this work, we propose a method to incorporate global information in obtaining optimal alignments and superpositions. Our method, when applied to optimizing the TM-score and the GDT score, produces significantly better results than current state-of-the-art protein structure alignment tools. Specifically, if the highest TM-score found by TMalign is lower than (0.6) and the highest TM-score found by one of the tested methods is higher than (0.5), there is a probability of (42%) that TMalign failed to find TM-scores higher than (0.5), while the same probability is reduced to (2%) if our method is used. This could significantly improve the accuracy of fold detection if the cutoff TM-score of (0.5) is used. In addition, existing structure alignment algorithms focus on structure similarity alone and simply ignore other important similarities, such as sequence similarity. Our approach has the capacity to incorporate multiple similarities into the scoring function. Results show that sequence similarity aids in finding high quality protein structure alignments that are more consistent with eye-examined alignments in HOMSTRAD. Even when structure similarity itself fails to find alignments with any consistency with eye-examined alignments, our method remains capable of finding alignments highly similar to, or even identical to, eye-examined alignments.Comment: Peer-reviewed and presented as part of the 13th Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI2013

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