George C. Anastassopoulos

MNE subsidiaries versus domestic enterprises: an analysis of their ownership and location-specific advantages

This paper compares the ownership advantages of multinational enterprises (MNEs) subsidiaries and domestic enterprises (DMEs) in Greece. Previous studies have tested the hypothesis that ownership-specific advantages (Oa) are a major source of firm differences. This study analyses the processed food sector (SIC=20) - the leading industrial sector in Greece with the highest inward and outward internationalization degree - using a panel data set of 75 firms and 5 years. The findings of a probabilistic regression analysis indicate that there are significant differences between the two groups of firms in the degree of possession of observed ownership advantages. MNE subsidiaries have higher market shares, use multiplant operations and have higher advertising and R&D to sales ratios compared to DMEs. DMEs use their well-established position (knowledge of domestic and regional market conditions, and size economies) in order to compete effectively with MNE subsidiaries. It is inferred that pursuit of domestic market development is an important motivation in such subsidiaries, in an attempt to build on (rather than substitute for) the strong and distinctive established product base of Greek food industry companies. By assimilating Greek food knowledge alongside their own the MNEs developed export-orientation into their subsidiaries in Greece, which eventually have played a notable role in the regional market (Balkans).

ELPIDA: a general architecture for medical imaging systems supporting telemedicine applications

During the next years, profound changes are expected in computer and communication technologies that will offer the medical imaging systems (MIS) industry a challenge to develop advanced telemedicine applications of high performance. Medical industry, vendors, and specialists need to agree on a universal MIS structure that will provide a stack of functions, protocols, and interfaces suitable for coordination and management of high-level image consults, reports, and review activities. Doctors and engineers have worked together to determine the types, targets, and range of such activities within a medical group working domain and to posit their impact on MIS structure. As a result, the fundamental MIS functions have been posed and organized in the form of a general MIS architecture, denoted as ELPIDA. The structure of this architecture was kept as simple as possible to allow its extension to diverse multimode operational schemes handling medical and conversational audiovisual information of different classes. The fundamentals of ELPIDA and pulmonary image diagnostic aspects have been employed for the ndevelopment of a prototype MIS.

An homogeneous medical tele‐working domain supported by a new remote expert consultation conferencing service

This paper proposes a new multimode communication service, denoted as Remote Ex- pert Consultation Service (REC-Service) which determines the way group teleworking is realized among distributed entities (workstations, data bases, etc) during a conference for medical diagno- sis. The REC-Service organizes the involved operations into five different types, called Confer- encing Modes (CM), where each CM yields a traffic with variable attributes and requires of the network a special quality of service. Moreover, the structure of a Broadband user-Network Inter- face Unit (BNIU) is defined. BNIU statistically multiplexes the traffic of the entities working in different CMs into an Integrated Broadband Communication (IBC) network. The maximum num- ber of entities served per BNIU and the bandwidth usability have been calculated for several oper- ating modes by modelling the BNIU as a queueing system and by applying special quality criteria, delay demands and traffic assumptions.

Image processing on compressed data for medical purpose

This paper proposes a new service element (SE) of the OSI presentation layer, that contains functions for multimode medical images manipulation. The order of the image data compression and processing is determined within each mode on the basis of the reduction of total response time of the conferencing system, as well as the amount of transferred data through the underlying network. The introduction of the SE functions within the communication function stack of a conferencing medical system enhances the total performance of the conferencing entities (e.g., workstations, databases, modalities).

A prototype user interface for medical multimedia application

An efficient method for the handling and management of objects and services, involving various media, through a physician-defined interface facility is presented. Although it is implemented for application-specific requirements, it is characterized by an openness and adaptability which allows the developed system to be applicable to a wide variety of medical applications.<<ETX>>

A multistage moving image data compression scheme for angiocardiography

This paper deals with the development of a new two stages image data compression scheme, suitable for transmission and storage of medical angiocardiography stream (moving) images. This scheme is implemented by constructing multi — frames (images) matrices and applying on them serially Predictive Coding (DPCM) and Transform Coding (Discrete Cosine Transform). Inside each stage the multi — frame data is divided in several groups which are processed in parallel providing a considerable reduction on saving data and compression — decompression processing time. The above technique has been applied and tested on real time dynamic analysis and diagnosis of the artery stenosis. It is noted that this scheme is applicable in medical workstations handling files or messages based on the ACR-NEMA or PAPYRUS formats.

Globalization of Technology and the Movement of Scientific Personnel in Multinational Enterprises in Europe

In this chapter we examine the movement of scientific personnel involved in Research and Development (RD Chapter 7). Papanastassiou and Pearce have shown in previous work that MNEs have a globalized perspective on technology which is closely related to the different roles of MNE subsidiaries. Although MNEs try to internalize most of their creative resources through the development of internal linkages many external linkages are also developed in order to make more efficient the creation and spread of these assets. In this chapter we examine some aspects of the generation of internal linkages in the creation and transmission of technology within MNE groups.

New medical communication service for teleradiology application

This paper presents a new medical communication service which supports consultation procedures in the modern tele-radiology. The systems perspectives and requirements are studied and analyzed by considering an interactive communication environment, which consists of geographically distributed entities working together and channels for either synchronous or asynchronous inter-communication.

New image compression scheme for digital angiocardiography application

The present paper deals with the development and evaluation of a new compression scheme, for angiocardiography images. This scheme provides considerable compression of the medical data file, through two different stages. The first stage obliterates the redundancy inside a single frame domain since the second stage obliterates the redundancy among the sequential frames. Within these stages the employed data compression ratio can be easily adjusted according to the needs of the angiocardiography applications, where still or moving (in slow or full motion) images are hauled. The developed scheme has been tailored on the real needs of the diagnosis oriented conferencing-teleworking processes, where Unified Image Viewing facilities are required.

Developments and coupling between medical imaging diagnostic systems and image processing functions

Image data produced by Medical Imaging Systems (modalities) during patient examinations are stored/retrieved to/from the common Data Bases by means of PACS for real time and post image analysis and processing. Physicians handle the patient data using Medical Workstation by employing special displaying and processing techniques. The present paper investigates, studies and analyzes a number of modalities in order to implement a sophisticated and flexible library of special purpose operators. Also, it contains modules for low-level and high-level image processing operations.