Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Navigating Shareholder Influence: Compensation Plans and the Shareholder Approval Process

Executive Overview Corporate governance research emphasizes the influence of institutional owners on company outcomes such as strategic decisions, organizational structures, and executive compensation. However, little is known about the process companies use to gain support for management-sponsored compensation plan resolutions. This article reviews prior literature linking institutional ownership and compensation practices and investigates the little-studied process of how management tries to work with owners to secure shareholder approval of compensation plans. In addition, it provides brief cases of two Fortune 300 companies (General Mills and PepsiCo) that received positive votes on their compensation plans. The article ends with several recommendations for managers trying to gain institutional owners' approval of future compensation plans.
A Yeast-Based Chemical Screen Identifies a PDE Inhibitor That Elevates Steroidogenesis in Mouse Leydig Cells via PDE8 and PDE4 Inhibition

A cell-based high-throughput screen (HTS) was developed to detect phosphodiesterase 8 (PDE8) and PDE4/8 combination inhibitors. By replacing the Schizosaccharomyces pombe PDE gene with the murine PDE8A1 gene in strains lacking adenylyl cyclase, we generated strains whose protein kinase A (PKA)-stimulated growth in 5-fluoro orotic acid (5FOA) medium reflects PDE8 activity. From our previously-identified PDE4 and PDE7 inhibitors, we identified a PDE4/8 inhibitor that allowed us to optimize screening conditions. Of 222,711 compounds screened, ∼0.2% displayed composite Z scores of >20. Additional yeast-based assays using the most effective 367 compounds identified 30 candidates for further characterization. Among these, compound BC8-15 displayed the lowest IC50 value for both PDE4 and PDE8 inhibition in in vitro enzyme assays. This compound also displays significant activity against PDE10A and PDE11A. BC8-15 elevates steroidogenesis in mouse Leydig cells as a single pharmacological agent. Assays using BC8-15 and two structural derivatives support a model in which PDE8 is a primary regulator of testosterone production by Leydig cells, with an additional role for PDE4 in this process. BC8-15, BC8-15A, and BC8-15C, which are commercially available compounds, display distinct patterns of activity against PDE4, PDE8, PDE10A, and PDE11A, representing a chemical toolkit that could be used to examine the biological roles of these enzymes in cell culture systems.
Cost Effectiveness of Intrathecal Drug Therapy in Management of Chronic Nonmalignant Pain

Objective:To evaluate the cost effectiveness of intrathecal drug therapy (IDT) compared with conventional medical management (CMM) for patients with refractory chronic noncancer pain. Methods:A probabilistic Markov model was developed to evaluate the cost effectiveness of IDT versus CMM from the perspective of a Canadian provincial Ministry of Health using data from our pain clinic. The model followed costs and outcomes in 6-month cycles. Health effects were expressed as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained. Resources use included drugs, physician visits, laboratory tests, scans, and hospitalizations. Unit costs were gathered from public sources and were expressed in 2011 Canadian dollars. Costs and effects were evaluated over a time horizon of 10 years and discounted at 5% per annum after the first year. Cost effectiveness was identified by deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses (50,000 Monte Carlo iterations). Results:Over 10 years, total costs were $61,442 for IDT and $48,408 for CMM. Thus, the incremental effectiveness of IDT was 1.1508 QALYs at an incremental cost of $13,034, resulting in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $11,326/QALY gained. The probability of IDT providing a cost-effective alternative to CMM was 50% and 84% at a willingness-to-pay threshold of $14,200 and $20,000/QALY, respectively. The results were most sensitive to the cost of CMM, the probability of reaching an optimal health state with dual-drug IDT, and the effectiveness of CMM therapy. Sensitivity analyses showed that results were robust to plausible variations in model costs and effectiveness inputs. Discussion:IDT is cost effective compared with CMM in the management of chronic noncancer pain.
Fuzzy Multiple Ordering Criteria for Examination Timetabling

Ordering exams by simultaneously considering two ordering criteria using a fuzzy expert system is presented in this paper. Combinations of two of the three ordering criteria largest degree, saturation degree and largest enrollment are considered. The fuzzy weight of an exam is used to represent how difficult it is to schedule. The decreasingly ordered exams are sequentially chosen to be assigned to the last slot with least penalty cost value while the feasibility of the timetable is maintained throughout the process. Unscheduling and rescheduling exams is performed until all exams are scheduled. The proposed algorithm has been tested on 12 benchmark examination timetabling datasets and the results show that this approach can produce good quality solutions. Moreover, there is significant potential to extend the approach by including a larger range of criteria.
Student's e-Learning/m-Learning Experiences and Impact on Motivation in Nigeria

The use of blackberries, laptops, PDAs, blogs, CBT, Blackboard, emailing, online discussion forums, SMS, virtual classrooms, social media, Web 2.0 applications and virtual games, etc have continued to grow rapidly in Nigeria. From observation, use of these ICT tools have transformed learning and impacted on learners and staff in developed countries and continue to do so. The investigations from extant literature have shown that e-learning and m-learning support a variety of instructional delivery: sharing of resources, collaborative learning, problem-based and inquiry-based learning, and reflective learning. It is also rife in literature that students gain transferable skills of team working, negotiation, communication and managing digital identities, etc but how generalizable are these in the context of students in Nigeria? Key research questions will be: What e-learning/m-learning resources are the students making use of? What are the patterns of use? What do students identify as affecting their motivation? Can these be attributed to use of e-learning and m-learning? What are the activities of students’ e-learning/m-learning usage? This study investigated users’ (students) acceptance and understanding of e-learning and m-learning resources and how these can affect motivation by gathering evidence on a broad range of learners’ experiences. A quantitative method using survey approach was adopted to carry out the study at a tertiary institution (University of Ilorin). Questionnaire was used for data collection. The findings from the study provide opportunity possibly to rethink traditional roles and responsibilities of staff, faculty and students. Students were motivated by e-learning. In addition, the study showed that students’ technical skills and e-learning/m-learning infrastructure they have access to are not adequate to meet e-learning/m-learning requirements. Students should be trained and equipped to use elearning/m-learning resources to complement traditional face to face teaching. The study recommends amongst others, provision of access to elearning and m-learning tools, application of the tools to motivate students in their learning.
New MRI grading system for the cervical canal stenosis.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to propose a new MRI grading system for cervical canal stenosis and to evaluate the reproducibility of the system. MATERIALS AND METHODS Cervical canal stenosis was classified according to the T2-weighted sagittal images into the following grades: grade 0, absence of canal stenosis; grade 1, subarachnoid space obliteration exceeding 50%; grade 2, spinal cord deformity; and grade 3, spinal cord signal change. The MRI scans of 82 patients (37 men and 45 women; mean age, 65.2 years; range, 60-86 years) were independently analyzed by six radiologists. Interobserver and intraobserver agreements were analyzed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), along with the percentage agreement and kappa statistics. RESULTS The ICC for interobserver agreement was 0.716-0.802, indicating good-to-excellent agreement. For the distinction among the four grades, the percentage of agreement was 63-64% (κ = 0.60-0.62). The percentage of agreement for the presence of cervical canal stenosis (grade 0 vs grades 1, 2, and 3) was 79-85% (κ = 0.51-0.59). The percentage of agreement for insignificant (grade 0-1) or significant (grade 2-3) stenosis was 81-85% (κ = 0.57-0.66). The percentage of agreement for the presence of spinal cord signal change (grade 0-2 vs grade 3) was 92-95% (κ = 0.70-0.73). The overall intraobserver agreement was excellent, as determined by an ICC of 0.768. CONCLUSION The new grading system provides a reliable assessment of cervical canal stenosis.
Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever Transmission and Risk Factors of Contacts, Uganda

From August 2000 through January 2001, a large epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever occurred in Uganda, with 425 cases and 224 deaths. Starting from three laboratory-confirmed cases, we traced the chains of transmission for three generations, until we reached the primary case-patients (i.e., persons with an unidentified source of infection). We then prospectively identified the other contacts in whom the disease had developed. To identify the risk factors associated with transmission, we interviewed both healthy and ill contacts (or their proxies) who had been reported by the case-patients (or their proxies) and who met the criteria set for contact tracing during surveillance. The patterns of exposure of 24 case-patients and 65 healthy contacts were defined, and crude and adjusted prevalence proportion ratios (PPR) were estimated for different types of exposure. Contact with the patient’s body fluids (PPR = 4.61%, 95% confidence interval 1.73 to 12.29) was the strongest risk factor, although transmission through fomites also seems possible.
Filming and Surveying the Behavior of Dutch Primary School Leaders: How Transformational Are the Effective Ones?

We hypothesized that effective school leaders would display more transformational leadership behavior than their less effective counterparts. We sampled 21 primary school leaders of a Dutch city school system and filmed these leaders during regular meetings with their teachers. We then meticulously coded their behaviors and compared them to leadership content obtained through extant survey questions: perceptions of the leaders, their teachers and local school-system experts. All leaders were found to display a diverse behavioral repertoire and their actual and perceived transformational behavior was correlated with independent effectiveness ratings. We conclude that there is added value to systematically filming leaders.
Measuring individual tree crown diameter with lidar and assessing its influence on estimating forest volume and biomass

The main objective of this study was to develop reliable processing and analysis techniques to facilitate the use of small-footprint lidar data for estimating tree crown diameter by measuring individual trees identifiable on the three-dimensional lidar surface. In addition, the study explored the importance of the lidar-derived crown diameter for estimating tree volume and biomass. The lidar dataset was acquired over deciduous, coniferous, and mixed stands of varying age classes and settings typical of the southeastern United States. For identifying individual trees, lidar processing techniques used data fusion with multispectral optical data and local filtering with both square and circular windows of variable size. The crown diameter was calculated as the average of two values measured along two perpendicular directions from the location of each tree top by fitting a fourth-degree polynomial on both profiles. The lidar-derived tree measurements were used with regression models and cross-validation to estimate plot level field-measured crown diameter. Linear regression was also used to compare plot level tree volume and biomass estimation with and without lidar-derived crown diameter measures from individual trees. Results for estimating crown diameter were similar for both pines and deciduous trees, with R2 values of 0.62‐0.63 for the dominant trees (root mean square error (RMSE) 1.36 to 1.41 m). Lidar-measured crown diameter improved R2 values for volume and biomass estimation by up to 0.25 for both pines and deciduous plots (RMSE improved by up to 8 m3/ha for volume and 7 Mg/ha for biomass). For the pine plots, average crown diameter alone explained 78% of the variance associated with biomass (RMSE 31.28 Mg/ha) and 83% of the variance for volume (RMSE 47.90 m3/ha).
The Big Five Trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives.

2 Taxonomy is always a contentious issue because the world does not come to us in neat little packages (S. Personality has been conceptualized from a variety of theoretical perspectives, and at various levels of Each of these levels has made unique contributions to our understanding of individual differences in behavior and experience. However, the number of personality traits, and scales designed to measure them, escalated without an end in sight (Goldberg, 1971). Researchers, as well as practitioners in the field of personality assessment, were faced with a bewildering array of personality scales from which to choose, with little guidance and no overall rationale at hand. What made matters worse was that scales with the same name often measure concepts that are not the same, and scales with different names often measure concepts that are quite similar. Although diversity and scientific pluralism are useful, the systematic accumulation of findings and the communication among researchers became difficult amidst the Babel of concepts and scales. Many personality researchers had hoped that they might devise the structure that would transform the Babel into a community speaking a common language. However, such an integration was not to be achieved by any one researcher or by any one theoretical perspective. As Allport once put it, " each assessor has his own pet units and uses a pet battery of diagnostic devices " (1958, p. 258). What personality psychology needed was a descriptive model, or taxonomy, of its subject matter. One of the central goals of scientific taxonomies is the definition of overarching domains within which large numbers of specific instances can be understood in a simplified way. Thus, in personality psychology, a taxonomy would permit researchers to study specified domains of personality characteristics, rather than examining separately the thousands of particular attributes that make human beings individual and unique. Moreover, a generally accepted taxonomy would greatly facilitate the accumulation and communication of empirical findings by offering a standard vocabulary, or nomenclature. After decades of research, the field is approaching consensus on a general taxonomy of personality traits, the " Big Five " personality dimensions. These dimensions do not represent a particular theoretical perspective but were derived from analyses of the natural-language terms people use to describe themselves 3 and others. Rather than replacing all previous systems, the Big Five taxonomy serves an integrative function because it can represent the various and diverse systems of personality …
Research report on South African university mental skills norms for six sports

The Bull’s Mental Skills Questionnaire, developed in the United Kingdom, is being more extensively used across various South African sport and exercise settings. It comprises seven mental skill subscales: imagery, mental preparation (goal-setting), self-confidence, anxiety and worry management, concentration, relaxation and motivation. Individual subscale scores are calculated and combined into a total score. Previous research has recommended establishment of local sport code norms. The aim of this study was to establish preliminary South African university norms for rugby, cricket, soccer, athletics, hockey and netball. The sample consisted of 121 university students from a South African institution. Norms are presented in means and standard deviations. Sports code norms are compared. Norms are compared with previous studies using similar samples. Recommendations for future research with the scale are made.
DOES FINANCIAL REPRESSION HELP REDUCT THE BUDGET DEFICIT ? EVIDENCE FROM EGYPT

Among the main pillars of Egypt’s latest five-year macro-economic strategy, is the careful management of its public debt and reduction of the burden associated with it, to control its budget deficit. The Egyptian government has relied heavily on the local banking sector to finance its growing budget deficit, accumulating a substantial stock of domestic public debt over many years. Egypt’s debt currently stands at EGP 2.5 trillion, 85% of which is domestic debt which represents 88% of GDP to record one of the world’s highest debt-to-GDP ratios. This puts the reduction of the cost of domestic debt on top of the government’s list of priorities. Egyptian risk-free sovereign yields are exceptionally higher than lending rates, creating disincentives for riskier private lending. One famous path the government usually opts to, in order to reduce its debt burden, is an expansionary monetary policy that cuts down lending rates, to encourage private investment and limit the crowding out effect of government borrowing from banks. This is expected to lower yields on sovereign securities, relieving some of the burden of public debt and signaling a healthy economic environment that is conducive to investment. The question for the case of Egypt remains, however; is a falling interest rate environment expected to lower the budget deficit? Would financial repression be successful in liquidating debt or will it only be a tax on bondholders, mainly banks, through lower interest rates? Are sovereign yield cuts expected to lead to the desired outcome of public debt burden relief and ultimately to a shrinkage in Egypt’s budget deficit? Visual inspection shows that, historically, lower interest rates and sovereign yields have not been accompanied with a lower budget deficit for Egypt. In this paper, a VAR model is built to estimate the impact of sovereign yield movements on Egypt’s budget deficit, using quarterly data over the period from Q4 2004 to Q3 2015. Based on the model results, the decision to adopt an expansionary monetary policy will be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness to boost Egypt’s economy. There is weak evidence that lowering the rates on government securities would kind of free some of Egypt's debt burden or narrow its budget deficit. Draft Version: Please do not quote without author's permission JEL Classification: E4, E5, H3, H5, H6
Giraffe: Using Deep Reinforcement Learning to Play Chess

This report presents Giraffe, a chess engine that uses self-play to discover all its domain-specific knowledge, with minimal hand-crafted knowledge given by the programmer. Unlike previous attempts using machine learning only to perform parameter-tuning on hand-crafted evaluation functions, Giraffe's learning system also performs automatic feature extraction and pattern recognition. The trained evaluation function performs comparably to the evaluation functions of state-of-the-art chess engines - all of which containing thousands of lines of carefully hand-crafted pattern recognizers, tuned over many years by both computer chess experts and human chess masters. Giraffe is the most successful attempt thus far at using end-to-end machine learning to play chess.
Ionizing radiation, cellular telephones and the risk for brain tumours

A case–control study on brain tumours included 233 patients aged 20–80 years and alive at the study time. They had histopathologically verified brain tumour and lived in the Uppsala-Örebro region (1994–1996) or the Stockholm region (1995–1996). Two matched controls to each case were selected from the Swedish Population Register. Two hundred and nine cases (90%) and 425 controls (91%) answered the questionnaire. Results are presented for the whole study group, as given here, and for malignant and benign tumours separately. For workers in the chemical industry the odds ratio (OR) was 4.10, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.25–13.4 and laboratory workers OR 3.21, 95% CI 1.16–8.85. Radiotherapy of the head and neck region gave OR 3.61, 95% CI 0.65–19.9. Medical diagnostic X-ray of the same area yielded OR 1.64, 95% CI 1.04–2.58. Work as a physician gave OR 6.00, 95% CI 0.62–57.7. All three cases had worked with fluoroscopy. Ipsilateral (same side) use of a cellular telephone increased the risk of tumours in the temporal, temporoparietal and occipital areas, with OR 2.42, 95% CI 0.97–6.05 (i.e. the anatomical areas with highest exposure to microwaves from a mobile phone).
Ethylene glycol and methanol poisonings: case series and review.

INTRODUCTION Ethylene glycol (EG) and methanol (MTH) are common industrial solvents and are responsible for accidental, suicidal, and epidemic poisonings.1 Since the clinical signs and symptoms associated with EG and MTH poisoning are nonspecific, it is important for the medical community to consider these toxicities given that early treatment prevents death.2 The hallmark of toxic alcohol poisoning is a combination of a high anion gap metabolic acidosis and osmolar gap.3 In order to determine laboratory abnormalities and outcomes associated with EG and MTH ingestion at our institution, a retrospective chart review was obtained. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective chart review of all adult patients admitted to our institution with a diagnosis of EG or MTH intoxication during a 15-year period was done. Age, sex, EG and MTH levels, degree of acidosis, initial anion and osmolar gaps, renal dysfunction, length of stay in the hospital, need for dialysis, and ADH (alcohol dehydrogenase) blockade treatment were recorded. Hospital outcome included renal function and need for dialysis at hospital discharge. RESULTS The study population consisted of 14 patients.The mean pH was 7.02. The mean anion gap and osmolar gap were 21 meq/l and 48 mOsm/l correspondingly. All patients underwent treatment with either ethanol or fomepizole and hemodialysis. At discharge, three patients had renal insufficiency not requiring dialysis; one remained on dialysis, while seven regained normal renal function. CONCLUSION Most patients with EG and MTH intoxication have a decreased level of consciousness making an adequate history unobtainable. One must rely on laboratory data for clues in making a diagnosis of intoxication. A review of the clinical features, pharmacokinetics, laboratory analysis, and management of EG and MTH poisoning is included in this discussion to help raise medical community awareness of this entity.
Effectiveness of Blended Cooperative Learning Environment in Biology Teaching: Classroom Community Sense, Academic Achievement and Satisfaction.

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of Blended Cooperative Learning Environment (BCLE) in biology teaching on students’ classroom community sense, their academic achievement and on their levels of satisfaction. In the study, quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together. The study was carried out with 30 students in 2012-2013 academic year and with 31 students in 2013-2014 academic year taking the course of “Seed Plants Systematics” in the Department of Biology Education in a state university in Turkey. The results obtained revealed that the students’ classroom community sense developed and that they had a high level of academic achievement and satisfaction. The results were discussed considering the literature, and related suggestions were put forward.