How do peace dividends bring about human development and productivity?

Annals of Operations Research - The main purpose of this study was to explore the impact of peace dividends on global changes in national productivity. First, this study assessed changes in...     

Thin strain-relaxed SiGe grown by ultrahigh vacuum chemical vapor deposition

Large-scale preparation of thin strain-relaxed SiGe is achieved by combining ion implantation and ultrahigh vacuum chemical vapor deposition. The resulting materials were analyzed by double crystal X-ray diffraction, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and tapping mode atomic force microscope. Results revealed that 100-nm-thick Si_0.7Ge_0.3 layers with the diameter of 125 mm and full strain relaxation are successfully prepared by pre-modifying the Si substrates using 50 keV Ar⁺ ions. The strain relaxation is also disclosed to change with both ion species and energy. However, post-modification of SiGe by ion implantation will cause serious damage to the crystal structures, and result in the formation of poly-crystal SiGe.     

The impacts of risk-management committee characteristics and prestige on efficiency

We examine the effects of risk-management committee characteristics and prestige on efficiency, as well as the moderating effect of risk-management committee prestige on the association between risk-management committee characteristics and the efficiency of Malaysian insurance companies between 2008 and 2013. We apply the dynamic network slacks-based measure model to estimate efficiency, and truncated regression with a bootstrapping procedure to examine the impacts of risk-management committee characteristics and prestige on efficiency. We find significantly positive relationships among the variables, with the exception of the number of risk-management committee meetings. Furthermore, risk-management committee prestige could minimize the positive effect of risk-management committee characteristics on efficiency.