Perceptions of the Cardiologists and Oncologists: Initial Step for Establishing Cardio-Oncology Service

Background: Over the last years, there was no established cardio-oncology service in Iraq and no firm data about the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among patients with cancer. As an initial step, we decided to conduct a national cardio-oncology online survey for cardiologists, oncologists, and their residents which would help us to understand the expected prevalence, problems, and readiness for collaboration between the two specialties.Objectives: For evaluating the current national practice in the cardiology and oncology specialty fields and to identify the hidden gaps associated with the development or worsening of CVD among patients with cancer.Methods: An online survey including 19-question for cardiologists/cardiology residents (CCRs) and 30-question for oncologists/oncology residents (OORs) about cardio-oncology service was sent to them including all Iraqi cities using Google document form during December 2020.Results: The total number of responses was 164, mainly 62.2% from CCRs while 37.8% from OORs. Hypertension was the main baseline risk factor (71%). A 77.5% of CCRs prescribe cardiovascular drugs vs. 35.5% by OORs. About 76.5% of CCRs and 79% of OORs are facing difficulties in the management of patients with cancer with established CVD. CVD was the leading cause of both hospitalization (30.7%) and mortality (48.4%). About 62.8% of CCRs and 64.5% of OORs have an interest to work in cardio-oncology service.Conclusion: Based on the perception of cardiologists and oncologists, CVD is the main cause of hospitalization and mortality among patients with cancer. High interest among CCRs and OORs to work in cardio-oncology service. Positive initiatives are available to take the action plan in this emerging field.

Skill complementarity in production technology: New empirical evidence and implications

Danish manufacturing firm data reveal that 1) industries differ in within-firm worker skill (= wage) dispersion, and 2) within-firm skill dispersion positively correlates with firm productivity in industries with higher average skill dispersion. We argue that these patterns reflect technological differences between industries: firms in the “skill complementarity” industries profit from hiring similarly able workers, while the “skill substitutability” firms thrive on skill differences. Our study produces a robust, data-driven and theoretically validated classification of industries into the complementarity and substitutability groups, unveils hitherto unnoticed technological heterogeneity between industries within the same economy, and illustrates its importance through simulations.

A comparative study of red brick powder and lime as soft soil stabilizer

Background: Soil has an important role to play in planning buildings because it supports the loads above it. Different types of soil with poor mechanical properties require more attention. Therefore, it is necessary to put in more effort to stabilize soil in order to improve its properties. This study aimed to compare the potential of lime and brick powder as stabilizers based on the values of California bearing ratio (CBR). Soil stabilization can be defined as the process of stabilizing soil properties by chemical or physical means to improve its engineering efficiency. The main objectives of stabilizing soil are to increase the bearing capacity of soil, to increase its resistance to weathering processes, and its permeability. Methods: In this work laboratory tests were done with disturbed and undisturbed soil samples. The proportions of lime or red brick powder additives mixed together are 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% of the original soil sample. From the results of the laboratory tests, the soil type obtained is MH soil based on the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS). The MH soil type is a low plasticity silt soil. Results: The study’s results showed that with the addition of lime and brick powder, the soil could be stabilized. In both soaked and unsoaked CBR tests, there was an increase in the CBR value for each proportion of the mixed additives. However, red brick powder had a significant increase of 15%. Conclusions: This study found a very large range of variations because of the many material requirements for each test. We suggest other researchers perform the CBR test by reducing the range of variations in the additives to get firm data and using our experimental procedure in this study for further research.

Networks of Innovation: Measuring Structure and Dynamics between and within Helices, Regions and Spatial Levels. Empirical Evidence from the Baltic Sea Region

In the quantitative, macro-oriented triple helix literature, synergy is measured indirectly, through patent data, firm data and other secondary statistical sources. These macro-level quantitative studies do not open up for understanding how different processes of cooperation create different outcomes, in terms of synergies. This article presents an alternative method of measuring quantitatively how different networks of innovation in a variety of ways create different types of complex synergies. This opens up for an empirical analysis of variations of synergy formation, seen as innovation networks with different structures, formed within and between helices, regions and geographical levels. Data was collected through a snapshot survey in 10 regional cases in the Baltic Sea Region. The analysis presents how different networks of innovation within and between helices are formed by different combinations of expectations, experiences and gaps.

Digital Finance and Firm Exit: Mathematical Model and Empirical Evidence from Industrial Firms

From the perspective of financial constraint, this paper constructs a mathematical model to analyze the impact of digital financial development on firm exit probability. The relationship between digital finance and firm exit was tested empirically based on the industrial firm data in 2011–2013. The results show that digital financial development significantly suppresses firm exit probability. Mechanism analysis suggests that digital financial development can ease the information asymmetry of the credit market, facilitate the credit acquisition of firms, and alleviate the constraint on corporate financing, thereby reducing the probability of firm exit. This paper provides the theoretical basis and empirical evidence for controlling firm exit from the angle of digital finance development.

Welfare Effects of Capital Controls

This paper studies the effect of capital controls on misallocation and welfare in an economy with financial constraints. We build a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms, financial constraints and international trade and calibrate it to the Chilean economy. Since high-productivity and exporting firms need to borrow more to reach their optimal scale, capital controls that tax international borrowing hit them harder. As a result, misallocation increases relatively more for this group of firms, and for young firms that are still trying to reach their optimal scale. In terms of welfare, the model predicts a sizable aggregate loss of 2.39 percent when capital controls are introduced, with welfare decreasing twice as much for high-productivity firms. We empirically corroborate the main insights in terms of misallocation obtained from the model using Chilean manufacturing firm data from 1990 to 2007.

Does insourcing of processes pay off?

Purpose This study aims to examine whether insourcing of processes pays off and verifies key hypotheses regarding the financial ratios of organisations. Design/methodology/approach This paper randomly selects and then surveys 1996 organisations, of which 9.5% (190) stated that they used insourcing, 1.9% (37) made a decision to implement insourcing in the near future and 88.6% did not use insourcing. Then, for available firm data (100 insourcing firms and 100 firms without it), the financial statements of the surveyed companies were obtained to compare the most important financial ratios. The financial situation was compared at four-time points. The mean and median values of individual indicators were compared with the significance of relevant statistical tests. Findings A U-shaped curve of financial results in the time of enterprises that implemented insourcing and reverse U-shaped curve for enterprises that did not have insourcing are seen. Thus, the insourcing of processes pays off in the long run. Research limitations/implications Limitations exist in the generalisation of the results obtained, due to the limited number of samples qualified for analyses (limited reliable financial data). Practical implications The research highlights the importance of effective insourcing projects in the long term. Originality/value This study is the first to quantify the financial performance of companies that have used insourcing in comparison with a reference group. This paper defines insourcing and contributes to the growing number of studies on insourcing by bringing attention to the financial outcomes in the long run.

Sector categorization using gradient boosted trees trained on fundamental firm data

We examine to what extent the GICS sector categorization of equity securities may be systematically reconstructed from historical quarterly firm fundamental data using gradient boosted tree classification. Model complexity and performance tradeoffs are examined and relative feature importance is described. Potential extensions are outlined including ideas to improve feature engineering, validating internal consistency and integrating additional data sources to further improve classification accuracy.