Universal Demand Research Articles

Needs Analysis of Medical Personnel’s English Communication Skills

Globalization brings new challenges for education and training program as it demands new skills, awareness, approaches, and training. This demands medical personnel to serve clients who come from other countries around the world with effective English communication skill. In a more specific purpose in a job setting, an employee will need specific English related to his job description. As far as medical profession is concerned, medical personnel need English language in their professional settings. The demand for English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) grows proportionally to the universal demand for employees, who can function in English, in their fields of specialization. It therefore demands medical personnel to acquire English competences to meet with their desired level of English proficiency skills. What English competences are needed and whether they need English training program will determine the urgency needs analysis on the medical personnel English communication skills. This study is aimed at investigating the communicative needs of medical personnel at professional level in survey-based research. The data were collected, analyzed and interpreted qualitatively by administering observational notes, interview, and questionnaire among medical representatives. Further, this study is expected to gain beneficial outputs such as research report, proceeding after having been presented in national or international conference, and could be further developed into learning module for training program.

Shareholder Litigation and Conservative Accounting: Evidence from Universal Demand Laws

ABSTRACT We use the staggered adoption of the Universal Demand Laws (UD Laws) to examine the effect of an exogenous reduction in shareholders' ability to litigate on the extent of accounting conservatism. On average, we find an increase in reporting conservatism post-UD. The increased conservatism is concentrated in firms that contemplate equity issuance, with a high proportion of monitoring investors, and high corporate governance quality. In contrast, firms with specific short-term incentives for aggressive accounting—such as those narrowly beating benchmarks, those with abnormal insider trading, and those likely to violate debt covenants—weakly governed firms, and firms with high ex ante litigation risk decrease reporting conservatism after UD. Our results suggest that the relation between the litigation environment and reporting conservatism is complex and dependent on specific characteristics and unique circumstances of the firms.

The Art of Leadership Qualities in Human Governance of Human Capital

Talking about leadership is in line with followers' confidence in the credibility and integrity of a leader in an organization. The qualities of a leader are not only based on the language of his words, but also the language of his body which must conform to what is implied in his mind and soul, which is reflected in his behaviour. Leaders are a guide to the design and direction of their followers in accomplishing their common goals and objectives. In line with this, the conceptual paper here is to discusses some of the leadership qualities needed in the formation of strong human governance of human capital. These leadership qualities include a positive dimension of values that should be interpreted explicitly and implicitly. It can give the impression that leadership responsibilities are not only subject to the dominating entities that directly control followers, but also need to emphasize the value of a leader who works from a positively personal aspect. The dark side of a leader will only change the landscape of the organization because there will be a pattern of reckless compliance with followers who dispel their ethics and manners. Therefore, a leader needs to put the goodness side of themselves as a highlight based on leadership to ensure that everything is in line with universal values and society demands.

Shareholder litigation rights and capital structure decisions

We exploit the staggered adoption of the universal demand (UD) laws across U.S. states, which impedes shareholder rights to initiate derivative lawsuits, as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the relation between shareholder litigation rights and firm capital structures. We find that weaker shareholder litigation rights due to the UD laws adoption lead to higher financial leverage, which enhances firm value. Furthermore, the positive relation between the UD laws adoption and financial leverage is more pronounced for firms exposed to higher shareholder litigation risk ex ante or financially constrained firms. Our evidence is consistent with lower shareholder litigation threats motivating firms to increase financial leverage.

Shareholder Rights and Capital Structure: Evidence from Derivative Lawsuits

We examine how changes in shareholder rights influence firms’ capital structure. We exploit the staggered passage of Universal Demand (UD) laws in 23 US states over a twenty-year period as an exogenous decrease in shareholder rights. UD laws introduced a significant hurdle for shareholders to file a derivative lawsuit on behalf of the firm. Since litigation by shareholders is a major avenue for enforcing shareholder rights, the passage of UD laws reduces investor protection. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find a higher financial leverage for firms incorporated in states which passed a UD law compared to firms incorporated in states that have no UD law. We also find a lower likelihood of equity financing and a higher likelihood of debt financing following the passage of UD laws. For debt financing, we find that firms tend to use loans, instead of bonds, following the passage of a UD law. Examining the underlying mechanism, we find that the shift from equity to debt financing is attributable to a lower stock market liquidity, caused by more severe agency conflicts between shareholders and managers, which arise due to restrictions in shareholder rights.

Shareholder Litigation Rights and Capital Structure

We exploit the staggered adoption of the universal demand (UD) laws across U.S. states, which impedes shareholder rights to initiate derivative lawsuits, as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the relation between shareholder litigation rights and firm capital structures. We find that weaker shareholder litigation rights due to the UD laws adoption lead to higher financial leverage, which enhances firm value. Furthermore, the positive relation between the UD laws adoption and financial leverage is more pronounced for firms exposed to higher shareholder litigation risk ex ante or financially constrained firms. Our evidence is consistent with lower shareholder litigation threats motivating firms to increase financial leverage.

Litigating Dividends or Not? The Case of Derivative Lawsuits

Recent anecdotal evidence suggests that high litigation risk may induce firms to cut dividends. By comparison, litigation can be an effective governance tool for shareholders to force firms to distribute cash. Therefore, it is unclear how litigation risk affects dividend payouts on average. To address this issue, we exploit the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws across various U.S. states as quasi-exogenous shocks. We find that firms increase dividend payouts significantly after UD laws raise the hurdle of filing derivative lawsuits. In particular, the adoption of UD laws discourages the emission of cash dividends while encourages the initiation of share repurchases. The main effect is more pronounced for firms faced with higher litigation risk, that are more financially distressed, and operating in more competitive product markets. Our overall findings suggest that excessive threats of derivative lawsuits may dampen financial flexibility and deter the distribution of cash to shareholders.

“Ours from the top to the very bottom”: Seneca Land, Colonial Development, Proto-Conservation, and Resistance in the Early American Republic

This essay focuses on the Senecas of western New York and their transformation, resilience, and resistance in the early nineteenth century. Rooted in a hybrid economy and environmental practice, among the postcolonial threats they faced in the context of white territorial expansion, republican and capitalist ideology, was an emerging new instrumental view of property, a radically changing economy, and embryonic ideas about “conservation.” Colonial expansion in the early American republic came at the expense of the Senecas and other Indians—or least that was the design. This expropriation has often been less visible because its story mostly is told from the perspective of (white) nationalism, democracy, and expanding opportunity embedded in the promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In addition, such colonialism in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth has often been masked by another emerging, “greenish” ideology, that of conservationism. Native (residual) rights, autonomy, and sovereignty could be ignored or overwhelmed by the supposedly objective, universal, scientific, and progressive demands that land and resources be conserved, not only from outsiders, but from Native people themselves. Thus, occurring at the expense of American Indians and environmental justice, conservation could be as exploitive and unjust as development.

Shareholder Lawsuits and CEO Turnover Decisions

We study the effect of shareholder litigation rights on CEO turnover policies using U.S. states’ staggered adoption of Universal Demand laws, which restrict shareholder lawsuits that allege a breach of fiduciary duty by directors or managers. We document that reduced shareholder litigation rights are associated with greater CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, and that this effect is more prominent in firms with existing blockholders and higher ex-ante litigation risk. The empirical evidence suggests a substitute relationship between active monitoring through CEO turnover policies and disciplinary shareholder litigation. Our study contributes to the debate on the role of shareholder litigation in corporate governance.

Tribological Study of Vegetable Oil Based Lubricants - A Review

Lubricants have a very crucial role in machinery industry for friction reduction and wear reduction between two relatively moving parts. The current study enlightens the works from various authors on evaluating the tribological behavior of environment friendly vegetable based oils as emerging biodegradable lubricants. The influences of the vegetable oils on friction and wear performance using different Tribometers were reported. The review focuses efforts on the development and commercialization of these vegetable based oils as industrial lubricants for manufacturing industries, mainly, metal forming and metal cutting. The review reveals that, many vegetable oils can be used as industrial lubricant, due to their exemplary attributes in terms of friction and wear reduction, which would help to decrease the universal demand of commercial lubricants which are based on petroleum resources to a great extent.

Auction-Based Relay Selection and Power Allocation in Green Relay-Assisted Cellular Networks

Nowadays, wireless communication has become a fabric of our daily life, and it has been a universal demand for higher capacity and longer battery lifetime. For the sake of solving these problems, this paper considers taking the advantage of cooperative communication with the assistance of green relays. So, in this paper, we design an auction market that is composed of one base station (acts as the auctioneer), multiple green relays (act as sellers), and multiple mobile terminals (act as buyers). The terminals need to pay for the cooperative service, and the relays sell it for revenue. In addition, the terminals can raise their bid according to their residual energy; thus the terminals that lack energy have more opportunities to get cooperative service to avoid energy exhaustion. At the same time, the relays can reduce the price based on their instantaneous energy harvesting amount, and, hence, the relays can serve more terminals when they can harvest more energy from the environment. This paper also proposes three different auction rules to show the effect of relay selection. Furthermore, power allocation among relays and terminals is adopted to minimize the power consumption of terminals under the SNR requirement. Simulation results show that the three relay selection rules perform diversely and have their own advantages and disadvantages, but all of them can improve system capacity and prolong the lifetime of the mobile terminals effectively. And, with power allocation, the terminal can utilize the least energy to achieve its SNR requirement.

Decision, betrayal, and faith

Søren Kierkegaard rejects the Kantian argument that the universal demand of ethics is the highest claim upon the individual. Whilst his Christian existentialism focuses on existence as ethical existence, within his existential framework the highest level of existence is the religious. Kierkegaard makes a distinction on this level between Religiousness A, or the last stage before faith; and Religiousness B, true Christianity. This essay explores the movement from religiousness A to B, and questions the location of the actual transition point, the boundary zone of humour. Since, for Kierkegaard, the divine is both immanent and transcendent, the fluidity of this boundary zone opens up the possibility that religious transition entails a double transcendence. This essay suggests that the highest point of Religiousness A is a movement to a certain form of the divine, whilst the absolute movement to Religiousness B is the reclamation of true faith.

Does Litigation Risk Deter Insider Trading? Evidence from Universal Demand Laws

We exploit US states’ staggered adoption of Universal Demand laws to study how the risk of shareholder lawsuits affects opportunistic insider trading. UD laws, which make it harder for shareholders to bring derivative lawsuits against directors and officers (see, e.g., Houston, Lin and Xie 2018; and Appel 2019), lead to significantly more profitable insider trades, especially sales. This effect is greater in firms with higher information asymmetry or lower institutional monitoring, and comes from more opportunistic and riskier timing of trades. Our findings suggest that a decrease in litigation threat emboldens insiders to increase risk-taking and trade more profitably.

National security and human security concepts in the study

Security reflects a permanent and complex movement that complies with international and societal needs and developments in all its dimensions, interactions and levels. To constitute a universal demand for all States, communities and individuals. The question of security is one of the most important motivations and motivations that govern the behavior, and even the objectives of those societies and States. These groups or individuals have always sought to avoid fear and harm, and to provide stability, safety and security. In the light of this, security studies have been among the important fields of study in the field of international and strategic relations. The field witnessed many theoretical efforts, from the traditional perspective, which limited understanding of specific dimensions, to the renaissance of this field during the Cold War era, And the emergence of a new environment with new interactions whose demands, structures and needs differ from past periods, to produce new concepts that adapt and respond to this environment. One of the most prominent of these adaptations was the shift in levels of interest in security studies from the states To individuals and to meet the needs of this environment and its data, including the emergence of the concept of human security, which was consistent in his movement with the concept of national security

Director Liability Protection and Board Quality

We investigate how state Universal Demand statutes (UD) that lower the risk of shareholder derivative lawsuits affect recruiting and retention of outside directors. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we document improvements in outside director experience following UD adoptions, especially for firms facing greater litigation risk or smaller local supplies of director candidates. UD adoptions also make high-quality director candidates from non-UD states firms more willing to join boards at firms incorporated in UD states. We find some limited evidence that UD adoptions help attract outside director candidates with better educational and certain professional backgrounds and reduce voluntary departures of high-quality directors.

Does Shareholder Litigation Risk Cause Public Firms to Delist? Evidence from Universal Demand Laws

The number of listed firms in the U.S. has fallen by half since the late 1990s. Our paper examines whether and to what extent the costs of shareholder litigation have contributed to this trend. Using the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws, we find that the reduction in shareholder litigation risk lowers incidences of firms delisting from stock exchanges. Furthermore, the effect is concentrated among firms facing higher ex ante litigation risk. UD law adoptions also encourage new listings. Overall, our findings suggest that the pressure imposed by shareholder litigation increases the costs of listing.

Litigation Risk and Managerial Contracting: Evidence from Universal Demand Laws

Litigation Risk and Managerial Contracting: Evidence from Universal Demand Laws

Corporate Investment Under the Cloud of Litigation

We study the effect of legal risk on firms’ investment. Using legal risk measures based on the number of litigious words in SEC 10-K filings, we find legal risk reduces investment. Underlying mechanisms include both i) a financing channel, whereby legal risk reduces credit ratings, increases bank loan costs, and decreases borrowing, and ii) an attention channel, whereby legal risk consumes top-management’s attention. Accordingly, we find legal risk has negative effects on firms’ investment efficiency and stock performance. We address endogeneity concerns through a DiD analysis utilizing staggered adoptions of universal demand laws across states.

Shareholder litigation rights and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from universal demand laws

We exploit the staggered adoption of universal demand (UD) laws, which hinders shareholders’ rights to initiate derivative lawsuits, by 23 states in the United States from 1989-2005 as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the effects of shareholder litigation as a corporate governance mechanism on corporate cash holdings and its implication for shareholder value. We find that reduced derivative lawsuit risk following the passage of UD laws leads to lower level and higher value of cash. Further analysis indicates investment as a channel through which UD laws affect the level and value of cash. Our evidence highlights the dark side of shareholder litigation, which induces firms to pursue a conservative liquidity policy that hampers shareholder value.

Developing curricula for english for Occupational Purposes: A case study at a South African University of Technology

The demand for English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) is growing proportionally to the universal demand for employees, who can function in the lingua franca , English, in their fields of specialisation. Therefore, the training of students at universities of technology, which aim to produce graduates who can perform successfully upon entry into the occupational world, should include the teaching and learning of EOP. This study set out to determine how best to develop EOP curricula, using wants and needs analyses, including all stakeholders at a university of technology, and adopting a case study approach. There was particular focus on: the students, since EOP is learner-centred; the authenticity of learning materials per field of specialisation; and, collaboration between language services-rendering and language services-requesting departments. The main conclusions drawn were that English proficiency plays a central role in the success of learning EOP, and direct feedback from industry on student wants and needs emerged as essential in curriculum planning.