scholarly journals Microbial Contamination of Photographic and Cinematographic Materials in Archival Funds in the Czech Republic

2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Sabina Purkrtova ◽  
Dana Savicka ◽  
Jana Kadava ◽  
Hana Sykorova ◽  
Nikola Kovacova ◽  
...  

In this study we investigated the microbial contamination of 126 samples of photographic and cinematographic materials from 10 archival funds in the Czech Republic. Microorganisms were isolated from the light-sensitive layer by swabbing it with a polyurethane sponge. Microbial isolates were identified by MALDI-TOF MS (bacteria) or by phenotype testing and microscopy (fungi). Bacterial contamination was more abundant and more diverse than fungal contamination, and both were significantly associated with archives. The most frequently isolated fungal genera were Cladosporium, Eurotium, Penicillium, Aspergillus and Alternaria. The most frequently isolated bacteria were Gram-positive genera such as Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, Kocuria, Streptococcus and Bacillus. This bacterial and fungal diversity suggests that air is the main vehicle of contamination. We also analysed the impact of the type of material used for the carrier (paper, baryta paper, cellulose acetate and nitrate or glass) or the light-sensitive layer (albumen, gelatine, collodion and other) on the level and diversity of microbial contamination. Carriers such as polyester and cellulose nitrate may have a negative impact on bacterial contamination, while paper and baryta paper may have a partially positive impact on both fungal and bacterial contamination.

Author(s):  
Pathirawasam Chandrapala ◽  
Adriana Knápková

The objective of this study is to investigate the role of internal factors in generating financial performance of firms in the Czech Republic. The paper examines the impact of firm specific factors on company financial performance of 974 firms in the Czech Republic over the period 2005 to 2008, using data in the Albertina database. Pooled and panel cross-sectional time series techniques are used for the data analysis. Return on Assets (ROA) is the dependent variable of the model and eight firm specific factors are introduced as the explanatory variables. Using Return on Assets as the dependent variable, it is established that the firm size, sales growth and capital turnover are having significant positive impact on financial performance of firms. At the same time, debt ratio and inventory reflect significant negative impact on financial performance of firms. Overall explanatory powers of the two models are low and further research is necessary to increase the statistical power of the model. The results from the present study may be very encouraging and useful for managers as well as investors to plan investment and operational activities to achieve profitability objectives more efficiently and effectively. The findings have important managerial implications.


2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucie Kanovska ◽  
Eva Tomaskova

The paper is focused on the determination of new knowledge about interfunctional coordination. Interfunctional coordination was defined at the beginning of 90s. It is the coordination of all company activities leading to the increase of business performance. Interfunctional coordination is connected with market orientation. It is one of necessary principle of market orientation. It is not possible to use market orientation without interfunctional coordination. Market orientation is based on marketing conception. The first detailed studies were offered by Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and Narver and Slater (1990). Market orientation is described as a method helping to contribute better managing of a company by many researchers. A lot of papers on this topic were publicized during the last two decades. The earliest papers involved the first definitions of market orientation; offered methods for its measuring; and investigated the impact of market orientation on business performance. The last attitudes towards market orientation agree that market orientation enables managers to focus on external and internal elements and activities, which influence the activity of a company leading to its performance increase (Tomaskova, 2009). At present, we have a lot of methods used for the measuring of market orientation. Using a proper method depends on the branch or economic system. The perception of the implementation of market orientation is changing during the period, as well. However, the main principle is still the same – market orientation has a positive impact on business performance. Nowadays, a lot of authors deal with the implementation of market orientation. Because of this reason, we have prepared research “Research on implementation on market orientation in Hi-Tech Firms” (GA 402/07/1493). The goal of the research was to detect barriers of the implementation of market orientation. We divided the barriers of the implementation into three parts according to managers’ influence in an internal, branch and external environment. State, economy and technologies are named as the main elements of external environment. The main barriers connected with the elements of branch environment are quality and quantity of branch stakeholders. Barriers of internal environment involve the barriers connected with the top management and its personality, skills, knowledge and experiences, all employees of a company and interfunctional coordination. The paper deals with the interfunctional coordination at hi-tech firms. The objective of the paper is to define barriers connected with interfunctional coordination and to detect the perception and importance of interfunctional coordination at hi-tech firms. The theoretical knowledge is noticed in some research studies. The data was acquired by means of a questionnaire. New Method measured market orientation in a company. The questionnaire New Method with 7-point Likert scale constituted by Tomaskova (2005) was used for the research. The complete database was analysed by using standard statistical methods (correlation analysis, Spearman correlation coefficient, chi-square) as well as other sophisticated techniques (Cronbach alpha). The main results of the research show that the level of market orientation at the hi-tech firms in the Czech Republic is high and confirm how important is gaining information and using this information inside the company for market orientation. The main results of the research confirm that interfunctional coordination is the base of market orientation. Hi-tech firms in the Czech Republic perceive interfunctional coordination as very necessary presumption for their future development and prosperity. The highest rate for this part received the following statements confirming positive company attitude for innovation, preference for teamwork and mutual cooperation in firms and also effort to be flexible. On the other hand, the lowest average rate had the statement describing relations between superiors and subordinates and their strictness and formalness.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.23.1.1224


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-84
Author(s):  
Václav Svoboda ◽  
Emil Řepka

The aim of our study is to identify and evaluate the impact of rules changes in 2010 on success of two-point shooting and three-point shooting between selected Czech and foreign players taking part in National Basketball League- top male competition in the Czech Republic who have met with our specifi ed conditions in examined seasons 2009/10 and 2010/11. There are following methods used in the very research in the empirical part: Student’s paired t-test, Two-sample F-test, Student’s unpaired t-test of equality of variances and Size of eff ect. The results of these tests has statistically confi rmed our hypotheses H1 and H2 – it means decreasing of two-point shooting success in season 2010/11 for all examined players and reducing of success at three-point throws between players with Czech nationality. On the contrary, it has not confi rmed the hypothesis H3, thus increasing of three-point shooting success in season 2010/11 between foreign players. Substantively, we consider as an essential result the 20.1% negative impact of the rules changes on success of three-point shooting for players of Czech nationality.


SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824402097823
Author(s):  
Michal Plaček ◽  
Milan Křápek ◽  
Jan Čadil ◽  
Bojka Hamerníková

This article examines the impact of excellence-promoting policies on the actual performance of municipalities in the Czech Republic. In this analysis, the performance of municipalities that have received awards for the use of quality management tools is compared with a selected group of municipalities that did not receive awards. Data envelopment analysis (DEA; with constant and variable returns on the scale), free disposal hull (FDH), and Order-M methods were utilized to represent performance. For the actual performance comparison, a quasi-experimental design was used. The analysis of outputs using the difference impact method found that this specific public policy did not have a positive impact on the efficiency of municipalities. If the difference-in-differences method is used, the opposite is achieved. However, the technical efficiency gains are very small. The use of the quasi-experimental design along with the determination of inputs and outputs which are characteristic of the Czech Republic also offers a contribution when this method is being applied to the assessment of institutions in the form of local governments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 353
Author(s):  
Yilmaz Bayar ◽  
Vladimir Smirnov ◽  
Marina Danilina ◽  
Natalia Kabanova

Environmental degradation is one of the most significant problems of the globalized world. This paper explores the impact of institutional development and human capital on CO2 emissions in 11 EU transition economies over the period of 2000–2018 through co-integration analysis. The co-integration analysis revealed that human capital negatively affected CO2 emissions in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia, and that institutions had a negative impact on CO2 emissions in the Czech Republic. However, both institutions and human capital positively affected CO2 emissions in Latvia and Lithuania.


Ergo ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-9
Author(s):  
Jiří Vaněček

Abstract The Czech R&D underwent 2 major changes in the past 10 years. Evaluation of R&D institutions according to their results has been started in 2004 and the reform of the institutional financing has been announced in 2008. Starting from 2009, the institutional support has been distributed according to the evaluation. Our study analyses the impact of these changes on production of R&D results. Throughout the whole analyzed period 1996-2011, the numbers of publications in journal indexed in Scopus and of EPO patent applications grew faster in the Czech Republic than in 8 other European countries. The fastest growth occurred in the period 2004-2007 after the start of evaluation, but it slowed down after the announcement of the financing reform in 2008. It indicates that financing reform did not have the expected positive impact on result production. The increase of result number was probably due to the fast growth of the R&D financing. It is possible, however, that acceleration of the growth of R&D results could have been partly due to the evaluation of the institutions. Another problem is quality of the results. Citation impact of the Czech publications is the lowest of all analyzed countries. Numbers of the newly concluded patent license contracts and the receipts from them do not increase and are the lowest of all analyzed countries. It is therefore clear that currently used instruments do not fulfill their role and new stimuli supporting the growth of the quality are needed.


SLEEP ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. A18-A19
Author(s):  
Molly Zimmerman ◽  
Christiane Hale ◽  
Adam Brickman ◽  
Lok-Kin Yeung ◽  
Justin Cochran ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Sleep loss has a range of detrimental effects on cognitive ability. However, few studies have examined the impact of sleep restriction on neuropsychological function using an experimental design. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which maintained insufficient sleep affects cognition in healthy adults compared to habitual adequate sleep. Methods This study used a randomized, crossover, outpatient sleep restriction design. Adults who regularly slept at least 7 h/night, verified by 2 weeks of screening with actigraphy, completed 2 phases of 6 weeks each: habitual sleep (>7 h of sleep/night) or sleep restriction (habitual sleep minus 1.5 h) separated by a 6-week washout period. During the sleep restriction phase, participants were asked to delay their bedtime by 1.5 hours/night while maintaining their habitual wake time. Neuropsychological function was evaluated with the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery at baseline (week 0) and endpoint (week 6) of each intervention phase. The NIH Toolbox evaluates a range of cognitive abilities, including attention, executive functioning, and working memory. General linear models with post hoc paired t-tests were used to assess demographically-adjusted test scores prior to and following each sleep condition. Results At the time of analyses, 16 participants were enrolled (age 34.5□14.5 years, 9 women), 10 of whom had completed study procedures. An interaction between sleep condition and testing session revealed that individuals performed worse on List Sorting, a working memory test, after sleep restriction but improved slightly after habitual sleep (p<0.001). While not statistically reliable, the pattern of test results was similar on the other tests of processing speed, executive function, and attention. Conclusion In these preliminary results from this randomized experimental study, we demonstrated that sleep restriction has a negative impact while stable habitual adequate sleep has a positive impact on working memory, or the ability to temporarily hold information in mind while executing task demands. This finding contributes to our understanding of the complex interplay between different aspects of sleep quality (i.e., both sleep restriction as well as the maintenance of stable sleep patterns) on cognition and underscores the importance of routine sleep screening as part of medical evaluations. Support (if any):


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4513
Author(s):  
Summaira Malik ◽  
Muhammad Taqi ◽  
José Moleiro Martins ◽  
Mário Nuno Mata ◽  
João Manuel Pereira ◽  
...  

The success of a construction project is a widely discussed topic, even today, and there exists a difference of opinion. The impact of communication and conflict on project success is an important, but least addressed, issue in literature, especially in the case of underdeveloped countries. Miscommunication and conflict not only hinder the success of a project but also may lead to conflicts. The focus of this paper was to examine the impact of communication on project success with the mediating role of conflict. By using SPSS, demographics, descriptive statistics and correlation were determined. Smart PLS version 3.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal accuracy and validity estimates, hypothesis checking and mediation testing. The results showed that formal communication has a negative impact on the success of a construction project, resulting in conflicts among project team members, whereas informal communication and communication willingness have a positive impact on project success because people tend to know each other, and trust is developed. Task, process and relationship conflicts were used as mediating variables. It was found that task conflict effects the relations positively because project team members suggest different ways to do a certain task, and, hence, project success is achieved. On the contrary, process conflict and relationship conflict have a negative impact on communication and project success. Both of these conflicts lead to miscommunication, and project success is compromised. Hence, it is the responsibility of the project manager to enhance communication among project team members and to reduce the detrimental effects of process and relationship conflict on project success.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3960
Author(s):  
Meng-Meng Geng ◽  
Ling-Yun He

It is a problem worth thinking about whether the government’s environmental regulation policies can meet the residents’ requirements for environmental quality, and benefit the people. The study of the public’s subjective evaluation can more intuitively judge whether the government’s environmental regulation has realized “ecological benefits for the people”. Based on the data of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2013, this paper studied the impact of environmental regulation and environmental awareness on environmental governance satisfaction by an ordered probit model. The study found that environmental regulation has a significant positive impact on environmental governance satisfaction, while environmental awareness has a significant negative impact on environmental governance satisfaction. We also found that when public environmental awareness is taken into account, the positive relationship between environmental regulation and environmental governance satisfaction is affected. The robustness test proved this conclusion.


Südosteuropa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-529
Author(s):  
Kujtim Zylfijaj ◽  
Dimitar Nikoloski ◽  
Nadine Tournois

AbstractThe research presented here investigates the impact of the business environment on the formalization of informal firms, using firm-level data for 243 informal firms in Kosovo. The findings indicate that business-environment variables such as limited access to financing, the cost of financing, the unavailability of subsidies, tax rates, and corruption have a significant negative impact on the formalization of informal firms. In addition, firm-level characteristics analysis suggests that the age of the firm also exercises a significant negative impact, whereas sales volume exerts a significant positive impact on the formalization of informal firms. These findings have important policy implications and suggest that the abolition of barriers preventing access to financing, as well as tax reforms and a consistent struggle against corruption may have a positive influence on the formalization of informal firms. On the other hand, firm owners should consider formalization to be a means to help them have greater opportunities for survival and growth.


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