Weak Protection Research Articles

History of document development on the transfer of Animal Health Office to fee-based veterinary services

The materials on the history of the development of documents and the experience of the veterinary service to improve the state veterinary inspection over the safety of products of animal origin in the new economic conditions are presented. Many years of experience in veterinary support of cattle breeding revealed a number of significant shortcomings in the organization of veterinary business: lack of adequate conditions for the work of veterinary specialists of the state veterinary network and farms; imperfect remuneration of labor, veterinary specialists' salary does not depend on the level of their professional training, complexity and quality of work; lack of material and technical support; weak legal protection; imperfect legislation on veterinary services, diversion of specialists to perform unrelated to their profession labor activities, and lack of normal social and living conditions. All this leads to the loss of prestige of the veterinary profession, the outflow of veterinary professionals to other areas of production. Hence the low staffing of veterinary institutions and farms. Scientists and veterinary specialists of Novosibirsk have done work on the search for such forms of organization of veterinary services for cattle breeding. The system of organization of self-supporting associations which can effectively operate in all categories of farms is proposed. The necessary guiding documents for the organization and their subsequent practice have been developed. The experience of selfsupporting veterinary associations in a number of districts showed that labor productivity increased by 1.5-2 times, the workload per veterinary specialist increased and the salary increased accordingly. The work carried out has proved the need to improve the activities of the state veterinary service in the context of economic reforms.

The spillover effect of customers' financial risk on suppliers' conservative reporting: Evidence from China

This study examines how customer firms' financial risk affects supplier firms' conservative reporting. Customers' high financial risk increases suppliers' uncertainty in future performance. We find that suppliers, in response to investors' demand, become more conservative in financial reporting when their customers' financial risk is higher. In support of the contracting explanation, we show that this spillover effect is salient for supplier firms in need of bank loans and for those with better corporate governance. In addition, this effect disappears for suppliers in regions with weak protection of investor rights and when customers are state-owned enterprises. Furthermore, we find the effect intensified by the extent of suppliers' dependence on their customers. Our study provides insights into the externality of customers' risk on the suppliers' financial reporting policy in the emerging markets.

Online sexual exploitation of children in the Philippines: A scoping review

Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC) is a rising form of child abuse in the Philippines with significant social, health and wellbeing consequences for survivors. In response, this scoping review was undertaken to advance understanding of the current empirical evidence on OSEC in the Philippines and to identify its characteristics, key drivers and leading intervention and prevention approaches in order to develop improved policy and practice responses. The authors undertook systematic and manual searches of international academic databases and websites to identify empirical peer reviewed research and grey literature studies conducted from 2005 onwards that investigate OSEC in the Philippines. The search located 121 records, of which 19 met all inclusion criteria. The studies identified provide insights into the dominant forms of OSEC and the characteristics of demand-side offenders and survivors, as well as the specific mediums of exploitation and contexts in which OSEC takes place. Key risk factors for OSEC in the Philippines include the vulnerabilities arising from poverty and weak social protection, limited overall understanding of the harms of OSEC, as well as facilitative technology, social media and financial transaction systems. The findings outline that existing evidence on OSEC is insufficient and recommends further research into OSEC prevalence, the socio-cultural contexts that facilitate OSEC, and establishing the efficacy of intervention approaches, suggesting policy responses focus on community-based child safety initiatives.

Does ownership structure affect the ex-ante cost of capital?

The literature on ownership structure in Indian firms does not clearly show how various large shareholdings connected to controlling agency conflicts affect a firm’s outcome. Evidence suggests that large shareholders are in a stronger position to keep a firm’s management more responsible than its dispersed shareholders, thereby positively affecting the firm’s outcome. This research gap has sparked interest in examining the relationship between three large holdings – corporate, institutional, and foreign holdings – and expected returns measured using an ex-ante cost of capital approach in Indian listed firms between 2016 and 2021. The study used a pooled OLS technique to estimate the baseline results and a two-step system GMM technique to validate the baseline results. The results indicate that corporate holdings and expected returns have an inverted U-shaped relationship, institutional holdings and expected returns have a U-shaped relationship, and foreign holdings and expected returns have a U-shaped relationship. The results also reveal that while the threshold for each firm and industry can be different, on average, corporate holdings above 34.3%, institutional holdings below 14.15%, and foreign holdings below 49.80% negatively affect expected returns. The findings suggest that an optimal mix of large shareholders can reduce the risk of any group exerting excessive control over a company and provide benefits in terms of efficient monitoring. Expropriation of minority shareholders can occur in developing countries with weak legal protections. However, this study suggests that large shareholders can mitigate this issue by acting as a check on managerial agency problems, thereby increasing a firm’s efficiency.

ESG performance and corporate risk-taking: Evidence from China

Corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) is vital for sustainable growth, while the motivation of corporate ESG engagement could decide whether ESG participation is green or greenwashing behavior. This paper attempts to understand the motivation of corporate ESG engagement from the firm's risk-taking perspective. Using Chinese publicly listed firm data from 2010 to 2020, we find that ESG rating significantly reduces corporate risk-taking. This finding still holds after a series of robustness tests to address potential endogeneity concerns and alternative risk-taking proxies. Furthermore, the marginal inhibitory impact of ESG on corporate risk-taking is more pronounced in firms with lower information transparency, weaker corporate governance and less external monitoring pressure. Our results shed essential insight on the trade-off between sustainable growth and corporate risk-taking behavior in a relatively weak investor protection institutional environment.

How can MNEs benefit from internationalizing their R&D across countries with both weak and strong IPR protection?

Although MNEs internationalize their R&D not only in developed countries but also in emerging economies that typically feature weak protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), it remains unclear how this strategic decision affects their productivity performance. This limitation has resulted in a rather incomplete understanding of why some MNEs become more productive through R&D internationalization while others do not. This study develops a new explanation, suggesting that R&D internationalization does not affect the productivity of all MNEs equally because of differences in the idiosyncratic way in which MNEs geographically distribute their R&D units across weak and strong IPR protection countries. In advancing this explanation, the study challenges the view that weak IPR protection is disadvantageous for MNEs by showing that (and specifying how) it: 1) increases the efficacy of MNEs' internal R&D, 2) strengthens the advantages of accessing globally dispersed knowledge, and (3) improves MNEs' ability to exploit cross-country differences in IPR protection. The study enhances understanding of the complex role of IPR protection, shifts scholarly attention from the degree of R&D internationalization to how MNEs should internationalize their R&D, and clarifies how the IPR context of their location choices matters.

Joint Space-Time Sparsity Based Jamming Detection for Mission-Critical mMTC Networks

For mission-critical massive machine-type communications (mMTC) applications, the messages are required to be delivered in real-time. However, due to the weak security protection capabilities of the low-cost and low-complexity machine-type devices, active jamming attack in the uplink access is a serious threat. Uplink access jamming (UAJ) can increase the number of dropped/retransmitted packets and restrict or prevent the normal device access. To tackle this vital and challenging problem, we propose a novel UAJ detection method based on the joint space-time sparsity (JSTS). Our key insight is that the JSTS-based feature will be significantly impacted if UAJ happens, since only a small fraction of the devices are active and the traffic pattern for each device is sporadic in the normal state. Unlike the existing detection methods under batch mode (i.e., all sample observations are collected before making a decision), the JSTS-based detection is performed in a sequential manner by processing the received signals one by one, which can detect UAJ as quickly as possible. Moreover, the proposed JSTS-based method does not rely on the prior knowledge of the attackers, since it only cares the abrupt change in the JSTS-based feature on each frame. Numerical results evaluate and confirm the effectiveness of our method.

Peptide-based inhibitors of amyloid beta aggregation and toxicity.

Neurotoxic aggregates of amyloid beta (Aβ) peptide contribute to the etiology of Alzheimer's disease. Aβ1-42 forms oligomeric structures that undergo further aggregation into protofibrils and fibrils. Previous work has shown that seven overlapping fragments of Aβ1-42 can disrupt the process of fibril formation, possibly through intercalation into the growing aggregate. The potential neuroprotective properties of these fragments were not directly examined. In this project, Aβ1-42 was allowed to aggregate in aqueous buffer for 2, 4, or 24 h in the absence and presence of an Aβ fragment, at 1:2 Aβ1-42/fragment molar ratio. Neuronal PC12 cells were then incubated with the samples for 50 h before conducting a cell viability assay. Thioflavin-T fluorescence assays to detect the fibrillar form of Aβ1-42 were also conducted. There was an inverse correlation between the time span of Aβ1-42 aggregation and cellular toxicity, with the 2 h sample exhibiting the greatest level of toxicity. Aβ fragments displayed varying effects on the inhibition of Aβ1-42 fibrillogenesis and suppression of its toxicity. Three fragments completely neutralized the toxicity of the 2 h aggregate, while two others conferred weak cellular protection against Aβ1-42 toxicity. One fragment enhanced Aβ1-42 toxicity at all stages of aggregation. Every fragment disrupted fibril formation to some extent, but there was no obvious correlation between the inhibition of Aβ1-42 aggregation and the inhibition of cellular toxicity. This suggests that fragment intercalation into the growing fibril may block further aggregation but not the toxicity of oligomeric Aβ1-42. Fragments that block both Aβ1-42 aggregation and toxicity represent potential targets for therapeutic development.

The effects of Tech‐Fin on corporate innovation: Evidence from China

AbstractThis paper uses the multi‐period difference‐in‐differences (DID) method to empirically test the effects of Tech‐Fin on the innovation output of companies based on a quasi‐natural experiment to examine China's Tech‐Fin pilot city reform. We find that Tech‐Fin significantly increased the innovation output of high‐tech companies in the pilot cities and in cities with weak intellectual property protection. In addition, Tech‐Fin had no significant effects on the innovation output of pseudo‐high‐tech companies and technology‐intensive high‐tech companies. We further find that Tech‐Fin motivated high‐tech companies to increase their innovation output through innovation correction and risk‐smoothing effects.

A vaccine delivery system promotes strong immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Global coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemics highlight the need of developing vaccines with universal and durable protection against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. Here we developed an extended-release vaccine delivery system (GP-diABZI-RBD), consisting the original SARS-CoV-2 WA1 strain receptor-binding domain (RBD) as the antigen and diABZI stimulator of interferon genes(STING) agonist in conjunction with yeast β-glucan particles (GP-diABZI) as the platform. GP-diABZI-RBD could activate STING pathway and inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication. Compared to diABZI-RBD, intraperitoneal injection of GP-diABZI-RBD elicited robust cellular and humoral immune responses in mice. Using SARS-CoV-2 GFP/ΔN transcription and replication-competent virus-like particle system (trVLP), we demonstrated that GP-diABZI-RBD-prototype vaccine exhibited the strongest and durable humoral immune responses and antiviral protection; whereas GP-diABZI-RBD-Omicron displayed minimum neutralization responses against trVLP. By using pseudotype virus (PsVs) neutralization assay, we found that GP-diABZI-RBD-Prototype, GP-diABZI-RBD-Delta, and GP-diABZI-RBD-Gamma immunized mice sera could efficiently neutralize Delta and Gamma PsVs, but had weak protection against Omicron PsVs. In contrast, GP-diABZI-RBD-Omicron immunized mice sera displayed the strongest neutralization response to Omicron PsVs. Taken together, the results suggest that GP-diABZI can serve as a promising vaccine delivery system for enhancing durable humoral and cellular immunity against broad SARS-CoV-2 variants. Our study provides important scientific basis for developing SARS-CoV-2 VOC-specific vaccines.

Intellectual property rights policy and foreign direct investment: A quasi‐natural experiment from China

AbstractOver the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China has attracted a large number of foreign investment. However, because of China's weak intellectual property protection environment, it is difficult to protect the intellectual assets of transnational enterprises, which will affect their investment decisions to some extent. In order to optimize the intellectual property system and improve the intellectual property environment, national intellectual property demonstration city policy was proposed in 2012 to improve the institutional environment. To explore the impact of national intellectual property demonstration city policy on foreign capital inflow, we explore the relationship between national intellectual property demonstration city and foreign direct investment (FDI) using the multi‐period differences‐in‐differences (DID) method based on city panel data of China from 2003 to 2019. Results shows the following: (1) Compared with non‐demonstration cities, national intellectual property demonstration cities are profit to FDI promotion. If a city is rated as a national intellectual property demonstration city, local FDI will increase by 5% on average. After a series of robustness tests, the conclusion is still tenable. (2) We find that the national intellectual property demonstration city policy has obvious urban heterogeneity. The effect of national intellectual property demonstration city policy on the increase in FDI is more significant in central cities, western cities, and key cities. (3) The mechanism test shows that national intellectual property demonstration city policies have a positive effect on FDI through increasing the government's strategic expenditure on intellectual property, improving urban technology innovation capacity, optimizing human capital structure, and promoting the marketization of cities. Therefore, China should continue to implement the policy of national intellectual property demonstration city, especially increasing the number of national intellectual property demonstration city in key cities, central cities, and western cities. On the one hand, these findings can help government evaluate the attractiveness of demonstration cities for FDI. On the other hand, it also provides relevant policy enlightenment for the Chinese government to select appropriate demonstration cities and further refine and implement the national intellectual property demonstration city policies.

A Family Member or a Professional Manager? The Role of Trust in the Choice of CEO in Family Firms

Using a sample of Chinese family firms from 2008–2015, we investigate the impact of trust on the choice of whether to hire a family member or a professional manager as CEO. We find that the presence of a professional CEO is negatively associated with a higher level of trust in family members. In contrast, it is positively associated with a higher level of trust in non‐family members. Our findings suggest that the trust mode in Chinese family firms is like the ‘differential mode of association’, which describes Fei's (1992) social structure of Chinese society. Moreover, a higher level of trust in family members is associated with native entrepreneurial activities, which strengthens the negative relationship between trust in family and the presence of a professional CEO. Furthermore, the role of trust in family firms’ appointment decisions is more pronounced in regions with relatively weak legal protection and firms with relatively poor governance. Our results hold when we control for endogeneity and after a series of robustness checks. This research links the governance of family firms to the informal institution of trust, enriching the literature on trust and family firm behaviours.

Empowerment of the Fishermen Community in Pabeanudik Village: A Case Study of Legal Protection

This study aims to examine the implementation of legal protection for the fishermen community in Pabeanudik Village. This research combines normative juridical and empirical research methods. The primary data were collected using direct interviews, while the secondary data was collected using literature study techniques. The data obtained in this research were then analyzed qualitatively to describe the problem and answer study purposes. The results show that there are contradictory explanations from several laws and regulations regarding the status of fishermen as legal subjects. In addition, most Fishers do not receive guarantees of safety and security from Fishing Vessel Owner when going to sea on the high seas. In addition to weak legal protection, Fishers also received less guidance and guarantees for legal assistance from the Local Government. Therefore, it is recommended that the Government make amendments to several laws and regulations. In this case, to equalize the explanation of the status of fishermen as legal subjects. Furthermore, the Local Government must implement protection and empowerment policies regulated in laws and regulations. These include business certainty, elimination of high-cost economic practices, provision of production facilities and infrastructure, guarantees against risks in the fishing business, and assistance for fishermen who have difficulty catching fish. In addition, support in the form of protection and empowerment is given exclusively to small fishermen and fishers so that the series of problems described can be minimized in the future.

Minority shareholder protection and dividend policy: Evidence from the material industry

This study investigates the impact of minority shareholder protection on corporate dividend policy. On one hand, strong minority shareholder protection can be associated with a reduction in dividend payment because shareholders want to receive more dividends to mitigate agency costs. On the other hand, weak minority shareholder protection can lead to an increase in dividend payment since shareholders, in order to protect themselves, may require the company to pay more dividends to compensate for weak minority shareholder protection. Our sample consists of 101 Vietnamese listed firms in the material industry during the period from 2015 to 2021. Employing a pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model, we find a negative impact of minority shareholder protection on corporate dividend payment. To deal with the endogeneity problem, we apply a system generalized method of moments (GMM) method. The main result estimated from this method is qualitatively unchanged. The finding of this paper suggests that the manager of a company should enhance the corporate governance of the company to protect the minority shareholders.

Índice de governança corporativa e desempenho de mercado: evidências no mercado acionário brasileiro

ABSTRACT This study aimed to build a corporate governance index for Brazilian companies with stocks traded by the Brazil Stock Exchange and Over-the-Counter Market (Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão [B3]) to evaluate the effect of the best governance practices on their market performance, between the years 2010 and 2020. Despite the different governance indexes created for Brazilian companies, most of the empirical studies used proxies based on B3's Differential Corporate Governance Levels (DCGLs). This scenario is mainly due to difficulty in collecting data and operationalizing these indexes. This article proposes a corporate governance index that is simple to use and, therefore, more accessible when compared to other indexes documented in the literature. The creation of an effective index for assessing corporate governance quality in Brazilian companies is key, given that the influence that governance has on the financial decisions made by these companies is greater in countries with weak legal protection for investors, such as Brazil. Investors see that well-governed companies are less risky, thus they have a better chance of recouping their investments. Thus, the proposed index stands out as a major instrument of financial assessment. The proposed governance index has been supported by previous studies pointing out the most efficient mechanisms in reducing agency problems. As measures of market performance, Tobin's Q and Firm Value were used. Finally, the analysis was performed using ordinary least squares (OLS) models, panel data, and regression models using the instrumental variables approach. The proposed index proved to be a good measure of governance, given the unanimous results among the models. In all estimations, the relationship between corporate governance and market performance was positive, attesting the market confidence associated with the corporate governance quality expressed by the index.

Economic policy uncertainty and green innovation: Evidence from China

Frequent economic policy adjustments lead to significant increases in economic policy uncertainty (EPU). Few studies have investigated whether EPU influences corporate green innovation. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2005 to 2019, we find strong evidence that EPU is significantly and negatively associated with corporate green innovation. Our moderating effect analysis shows that financial constraints exacerbate the negative impact of EPU on green innovation, while government environmental subsidies can significantly mitigate the negative EPU effect. Moreover, the negative relationship between EPU and green innovation is salient in privately owned enterprises, firms with less industry competition, and firms in regions with weak intellectual property protection. This study has important implications for policymakers regarding increasing government expenditure on environmental protection and strengthening intellectual property protection to promote corporate green innovation. • EPU negatively impacts corporate green innovation. • Financial constraints exacerbate the negative impact of EPU on green innovation. • Government environmental subsidies can significantly mitigate the negative EPU effect. • Strengthening intellectual property protection can promote green innovation.

Правовой режим оборота информации

The study examines the problematic issues of making transactions with a unique object, which is information. We consider the definition of information through the analysis of normative legal acts and its significance in the modern period of time. Today, such a transaction object can have a special impact on various fields of activity, for example, such as agriculture, the development of the IT industry, the transition of the state to domestic digital formats, and much more. The provision of information for a fee is of particular importance in connection with the total linking of all spheres of citizens’ lives to debit and credit cards. Such information, when it is distributed or lost by credit organizations, carries quite problematic processes for civil society, because on its basis it is easy enough to analyze and calculate not only the location of a person, his interests and even the sphere of activity and hobbies. The weak protection of personal data makes it possible to develop new technologies of psychological impact on citizens and already with their help transfer victims’ funds accumulated in personal accounts to third-party organizations and other people’s property. Distorted and unsupported information that can be covered by mass media that already have the name and reputation of responsible and honest information companies can create a negative opinion among both a certain category of citizens and the world community. Such actions with the distortion of acquired information can even affect the political and economic situation around the world. So, information, its acquisition, dissemination, distortion, reusable use and protection in the 21st century is the most formidable, influential and one of the leading segments for activities in any direction of human development, including in the commercial sphere.

Применение закладных брусьев для размещения несущих платформ устройств контроля схода подвижного состава

When developing rolling stock derailment monitoring devices, much attention is paid to the choice of load-bearing platforms for placement of monitoring sensors. Existing devices have weak protection of the control electrical circuit from dynamic influences caused by vibrations of the rail-sleeper grid during the passage of the rolling stock, which are transmitted through the rail-sleeper grid to the carrier platform and further to the control sensors, which leads to the false triggering of the devices. The article is devoted to the search for technical solutions for placement of platforms aimed at eliminating the influence of rail vibrations on performance of monitoring sensors. The purpose of the study is to develop recommendations for creating the effective platform design. It is shown that a promising technical solution is the fastening of the carrier platform to the embedded beams.

Flexibility without security: Labour market integration mechanisms in Hungary during the 2010s

The paper aims to summarise the role of social integration in the labour market processes of the 2010s in Hungary. We have left behind a key decade when employment growth reached unprecedented proportions. However, this unprecedented growth had serious social costs, as those excluded from the labour market during the break-up of the welfare state were left without social protection, and because the financial situation of those entering the labour market improved in absolute terms. Still, their relative deprivation did not change or worsened, and in the meanwhile their ability to enforce their interests has been significantly reduced. That is, today’s Hungarian government wants to integrate the members of society into the labour market. To this end, it provides increasingly weak protection for those who, due to old age, long-term illness or unemployment, are forced to stay out of the labour market. Disintegration affects those with the fewest resources, the least capable of conflict and those unable to articulate their problems in public most: these are women, young people and older workers who are ‘traditionally’ in a worse position in the labour market, in addition to those who are forced out of the labour market. The question is whether the current social model or the situation of those who disintegrated from the labour market will continue to deteriorate after the economic slowdown.

МИНУЛЕ В СУЧАСНОМУ МІСТІ: ВИКЛИКИ ТА ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ ЗБЕРЕЖЕННЯ КУЛЬТУРНОЇ СПАДЩИНИ КИЄВА

The article presents the results of the evaluation of cultural heritage objects and the identification of the main drivers, problems and prospects for the conservation and use of valuable buildings in the city of Kyiv. Various categories of historical buildings, the significance of which is fixed in some way in different statuses, the age of the buildings, and the abandoned historical buildings were identified based on the case of the historical area of Podil with characterised by the layering of buildings of different historical eras and the concentration of 70% of Kyiv's cultural heritage objects. The study of monuments and historically significant buildings of Podil revealed a number of existing problems in the processes of conservation and use of cultural heritage. In order to find out the main drivers, problems and prospects for the conservation and use of historically significant of the city of Kyiv, the method of expert evaluations was used. Based on the expert evaluations by representatives of public organizations, historians, lawyers, urban planners and architects, the reasons for the high rate of loss of Kyiv's cultural monuments were determined, and the weaknesses of the heritage conservation system at the municipal and national levels were identified. It was determined that imperfect legislation, weak protection institutions, urban economy, commodification of space, loss of the right to the city, passivity of the community, a new stage of formation of Ukrainian national identity affect the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage. It was revealed that one of the important problems of the city's interaction with heritage is the lack of a defined vision of its use in urban development programs. It was found that the current state of the issue indicates the need for updating approaches to understanding the city history, developing a strategy for the use and protection of heritage on the basis of regulation, the use of economic mechanisms of influence, and participation.