Modeling the building blocks of country‐level absorptive capacity: Comparing developed and emergent economies

Abstract. Tunisia has held four elections (legislative2011 and 2014, presidential 2014 and local 2018) since the 2011 Revolution. The last municipal elections held on May 6, 2018 were the first free and fair local elections in the country’s history so far. The political dynamics at play after 2011 are far from being settled. In fact, the first National Constituent Assembly’s election in October 2011 knew a large advance of Ennahda Islamist Party. With the 2014 legislative elections we come to witness the advent of a new political party: Nidaa Tounes. However, in the last local elections the political scene was marked by the breakthrough of many independent lists. Along with the ever decreasing voters participation. It reached only 35.6% of registered voters in 2018 which is hardly half the turnout in 2014.This paper aims to use cartographic illustration at the ‘Imada’ level, the smallest administrative scale in Tunisia to provide a local spatial evidence of voting patterns in Tunisia. To my knowledge, this is the first attempt to map electoral results at such a fine scale in the Tunisian political analysis context.For the purpose of this study, a time-series electoral GIS-based database was designed. The data used was mainly provided by the Independent Higher Election Authority (ISIE). The electoral results are first produced at the scale of polling stations which is the finest scale. They are then aggregated into vote centers which in turn are aggregated into sectors or 'Imadas'. Imadas are the building blocks of higher territorial levels such as municipalities, delegations, and governorates (regions).The Imada-level electoral mapping and analysis will be applied to 2011, 2014 and 2018 elections results.The analysis will be applied to two levels : First, the country-level where we will analyse at one and the same time the electoral geography of the two major political parties, i.e. Ennahda and Nidaa Tounes as well as. The dispersion of votes and the turnout evolution .Secondly, we will explore the impact of redistricting and gerrymandering on local votes. Two case studies will be juxtaposed: the stable region of Tunis which underwent no communal redistricting at all as opposed to the region of Kasserine which was completely restuctured.

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Surviving after Cross-Border Acquisitions: How Business Relatedness, Host Country Experience, and Cultural Distance Affect Acquired Firms

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12176721 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (17) ◽

pp. 6721

Author(s):

Ilaria Galavotti ◽

Daniele Cerrato ◽

Franca Cantoni

Keyword(s):

Host Country ◽

Absorptive Capacity ◽

Home Country ◽

Cultural Distance ◽

Research Question ◽

Cross Border ◽

Knowledge Based ◽

Antecedent Conditions ◽

Country Level ◽

Target Firms

The effects of cross-border acquisitions on the survival of target firms is attracting increasing academic interest. Specifically, whether cross-border acquisitions may hamper target firms’ performance or enhance their sustainable competitiveness represents a highly debated research question. Building on the knowledge-based perspective of mergers and acquisitions, this paper directs attention to absorptive capacity and investigates the likelihood of survival of target firms acquired by foreign investors. In particular, it examines the role played by three potential antecedent conditions of an acquiring firm’s absorptive capacity on the probability of the target firm’s survival: (a) The business relatedness between acquirer and target, (b) previous experience of the acquirer in the host country, and (c) the cultural distance between the countries of the acquiring and acquired firms. Based on a sample of 396 Italian firms acquired by foreign multinationals, results suggest that target firms are more likely to survive in case the acquirer benefits from previous country-level experience and in case of business relatedness, while the cultural distance between the home country of the acquiring firm and Italy does not prove to be a significant determinant of survival versus mortality of acquired subsidiaries. Overall, our analysis confirms that context familiarity, in terms of both country and business contexts, plays a fundamental role in determining the sustainable competitiveness of acquired firms.

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Photochemical Evolution of Interstellar/Precometary Organic Material

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100014585 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 161 ◽

pp. 23-47 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Louis J. Allamandola ◽

Max P. Bernstein ◽

Scott A. Sandford

Keyword(s):

Origin Of Life ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Complex Species ◽

Infrared Observations ◽

Interstellar Ice ◽

Polycyclic Aromatic ◽

Ultraviolet Photolysis ◽

The Origin Of Life ◽

Simple Molecules ◽

Complex Organic

AbstractInfrared observations, combined with realistic laboratory simulations, have revolutionized our understanding of interstellar ice and dust, the building blocks of comets. Since comets are thought to be a major source of the volatiles on the primative earth, their organic inventory is of central importance to questions concerning the origin of life. Ices in molecular clouds contain the very simple molecules H2O, CH3OH, CO, CO2, CH4, H2, and probably some NH3and H2CO, as well as more complex species including nitriles, ketones, and esters. The evidence for these, as well as carbonrich materials such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), microdiamonds, and amorphous carbon is briefly reviewed. This is followed by a detailed summary of interstellar/precometary ice photochemical evolution based on laboratory studies of realistic polar ice analogs. Ultraviolet photolysis of these ices produces H2, H2CO, CO2, CO, CH4, HCO, and the moderately complex organic molecules: CH3CH2OH (ethanol), HC(= O)NH2(formamide), CH3C(= O)NH2(acetamide), R-CN (nitriles), and hexamethylenetetramine (HMT, C6H12N4), as well as more complex species including polyoxymethylene and related species (POMs), amides, and ketones. The ready formation of these organic species from simple starting mixtures, the ice chemistry that ensues when these ices are mildly warmed, plus the observation that the more complex refractory photoproducts show lipid-like behavior and readily self organize into droplets upon exposure to liquid water suggest that comets may have played an important role in the origin of life.

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Laboratory and in-situ analysis of comet dust

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100102122 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 46 ◽

pp. 8-9

Author(s):

D.E. Brownlee ◽

A.L. Albee

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Solar System ◽

Laboratory Study ◽

Isotopic Analysis ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Sem Analysis ◽

Early Solar System ◽

Cometary Material ◽

Comet Dust

Comets are primitive, kilometer-sized bodies that formed in the outer regions of the solar system. Composed of ice and dust, comets are generally believed to be relic building blocks of the outer solar system that have been preserved at cryogenic temperatures since the formation of the Sun and planets. The analysis of cometary material is particularly important because the properties of cometary material provide direct information on the processes and environments that formed and influenced solid matter both in the early solar system and in the interstellar environments that preceded it.The first direct analyses of proven comet dust were made during the Soviet and European spacecraft encounters with Comet Halley in 1986. These missions carried time-of-flight mass spectrometers that measured mass spectra of individual micron and smaller particles. The Halley measurements were semi-quantitative but they showed that comet dust is a complex fine-grained mixture of silicates and organic material. A full understanding of comet dust will require detailed morphological, mineralogical, elemental and isotopic analysis at the finest possible scale. Electron microscopy and related microbeam techniques will play key roles in the analysis. The present and future of electron microscopy of comet samples involves laboratory study of micrometeorites collected in the stratosphere, in-situ SEM analysis of particles collected at a comet and laboratory study of samples collected from a comet and returned to the Earth for detailed study.

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Cryo-TEM of amphiphilic polymer and amphiphile/polymer solutions

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100150216 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 51 ◽

pp. 876-877

Author(s):

Yeshayahu Talmon

Keyword(s):

Microstructural Characterization ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Quantitative Information ◽

Physical Models ◽

Specimen Preparation ◽

Time Resolved ◽

Temperature Changes ◽

Temperature And Humidity ◽

Microstructured Fluids ◽

Air Streams

To achieve complete microstructural characterization of self-aggregating systems, one needs direct images in addition to quantitative information from non-imaging, e.g., scattering or Theological measurements, techniques. Cryo-TEM enables us to image fluid microstructures at better than one nanometer resolution, with minimal specimen preparation artifacts. Direct images are used to determine the “building blocks” of the fluid microstructure; these are used to build reliable physical models with which quantitative information from techniques such as small-angle x-ray or neutron scattering can be analyzed.To prepare vitrified specimens of microstructured fluids, we have developed the Controlled Environment Vitrification System (CEVS), that enables us to prepare samples under controlled temperature and humidity conditions, thus minimizing microstructural rearrangement due to volatile evaporation or temperature changes. The CEVS may be used to trigger on-the-grid processes to induce formation of new phases, or to study intermediate, transient structures during change of phase (“time-resolved cryo-TEM”). Recently we have developed a new CEVS, where temperature and humidity are controlled by continuous flow of a mixture of humidified and dry air streams.

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Building Blocks for Molecular and Macromolecular "Metals" Electronic Structure of Group Iva Phthalocyanine Monomers and Cofacially-Joined Dimers

Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals ◽

10.1080/00268948408071658 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 105 (1) ◽

pp. 273-287 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

William Pietro ◽

Donald Ellis ◽

Tobin Marks ◽

Mark Ratner

Keyword(s):

Electronic Structure ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Group Iva

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Three Paradoxical Effects on Academic Self-Concept Across Countries, Schools, and Students

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040/a000332 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 231-242 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Herbert W. Marsh ◽

Philip D. Parker ◽

Reinhard Pekrun

Keyword(s):

International Student ◽

Student Assessment ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Frame Of Reference ◽

School Level ◽

Self Concept ◽

Positive Effects ◽

International Student Assessment ◽

Country Level ◽

Starting School

Abstract. We simultaneously resolve three paradoxes in academic self-concept research with a single unifying meta-theoretical model based on frame-of-reference effects across 68 countries, 18,292 schools, and 485,490 15-year-old students. Paradoxically, but consistent with predictions, effects on math self-concepts were negative for: • being from countries where country-average achievement was high; explaining the paradoxical cross-cultural self-concept effect; • attending schools where school-average achievement was high; demonstrating big-fish-little-pond-effects (BFLPE) that generalized over 68 countries, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/non-OECD countries, high/low achieving schools, and high/low achieving students; • year-in-school relative to age; unifying different research literatures for associated negative effects for starting school at a younger age and acceleration/skipping grades, and positive effects for starting school at an older age (“academic red shirting”) and, paradoxically, even for repeating a grade. Contextual effects matter, resulting in significant and meaningful effects on self-beliefs, not only at the student (year in school) and local school level (BFLPE), but remarkably even at the macro-contextual country-level. Finally, we juxtapose cross-cultural generalizability based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data used here with generalizability based on meta-analyses, arguing that although the two approaches are similar in many ways, the generalizability shown here is stronger in terms of support for the universality of the frame-of-reference effects.

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Emotional Variability Predicts Tiredness in Daily Life

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000206 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 37 (3) ◽

pp. 181-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Aire Mill ◽

Anu Realo ◽

Jüri Allik

Keyword(s):

Sampling Method ◽

Daily Life ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Experience Sampling ◽

Experience Sampling Method ◽

Building Blocks ◽

Intraindividual Variability ◽

Unique Role ◽

Over Time

Abstract. Intraindividual variability, along with the more frequently studied between-person variability, has been argued to be one of the basic building blocks of emotional experience. The aim of the current study is to examine whether intraindividual variability in affect predicts tiredness in daily life. Intraindividual variability in affect was studied with the experience sampling method in a group of 110 participants (aged between 19 and 84 years) during 14 consecutive days on seven randomly determined occasions per day. The results suggest that affect variability is a stable construct over time and situations. Our findings also demonstrate that intraindividual variability in affect has a unique role in predicting increased levels of tiredness at the momentary level as well at the level of individuals.

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