Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gastroesophageal reflux-related chronic laryngitis: con.

Hypothesis: Increasingly, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is suggested to cause laryngeal signs and symptoms, often referred to as laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). But can LPR still be said to exist in a patient who is unresponsive to aggressive therapy? What should we tell the group of patients whose symptoms or laryngeal signs do not improve under acid-suppressive therapy? Here are a few selected answers from my “learned” colleagues: (1) Patients’ symptoms are most definitively still caused by LPR, and lack of response to acid suppression does not rule out reflux as the cause. (2) Intermittent acid reflux may still occur in this group causing patients’ findings. (3) Acid is truly not the culprit, and pepsin is the main agent responsible. And (4) Surgical fundoplication should be attempted in the patients who do not respond to therapy. All of these suggestions assume that reflux is the symptoms’ cause and never question whether the LPR diagnosis was incorrect in the first place. Should we continue to insist on reflux as the diagnosis just because we may not know what else might be the cause of patients’ persistent symptom complex? I would argue that this is not good clinical care. Herein, I discuss the role of acidsuppressive therapy, review the current lack of evidence on effectivenessof theseagents inLPRtreatment, and address why patients might not respond to treatment. I ask the critical reader to draw his or her own conclusions about the data and not blindly accept what the “experts” think. Expert opinions over the years have not been based on rigorous scientific evaluation of objective data.
Unions and the Welfare Impact of Foreign Direct Investment - a Wisdom Extension

This paper extends the recent literature, e.g. Leahy and Montagna (Economic Journal 110: 80-92, 2000), in relation to the link between unionization, inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and country welfare in an oligopoly market structure. It is shown that the common results, that unions may reduce welfare under FDI while multinational enterprises (MNEs) will strictly trade off union wages at each location, are generally driven by the assumption relating to the scope of the bargaining with the union, namely the 'right to manage' (RTM). In particular, our extension to efficient bargaining (EB) demonstrates that union power may increase welfare in the presence of FDI, while the MNEs' choice between FDI and exports will include profit-sharing arbitrage with unions, in addition to the usual wage comparison considerations.
Meeting or Beating Analyst Expectations in the Post-Scandals World: Changes in Stock Market Rewards and Managerial Actions

The pressure to meet/beat analysts' expectations is often blamed for the recent onslaught of accounting scandals. We investigate changes in the meeting/beating phenomenon post-scandals and find that the stock market premium to meeting or just beating analyst estimates has disappeared while the premium to beating by a larger margin has diminished. In the post-scandals period, managers tend to meet or just beat analysts' forecasts less often. Further, managers rely less on income-increasing discretionary accruals and more on earnings guidance. Consistent with lower earnings management, the relation between meeting/beating and future operating performance has increased post-scandals, suggesting that the decline in market premium is possibly unwarranted.
The size and composition of corporate boards in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore

It is generally held that the choice of size and composition of the board of directors is endogenous to firm and recent theoretical models support this contention. This article focuses on the factors that might explain the size and composition of the board using a unique sample of the larger listed firms in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. While there is evidence of a size effect explaining board size, the impact of growth options and the existence of chief executive officer who is also chairman are found to be important in explaining board composition.
Innovation Contests: A Review, Classification and Outlook

Innovation contests as a means to realize innovative product or service solutions are growing in popularity among practitioners and researchers. An increasing number of organizations worldwide have adopted innovation contests, not only for innovation purposes, but also for other reasons such as promoting sustainability. At the same time, innovation contests represent a growing research field to scholars from different backgrounds, e.g., economics or information systems. In this article, first, the growing body of literature on innovation contests is reviewed and classified into five research categories: economic perspective, management perspective, education focus, innovation focus and sustainability focus. Second, some design elements of innovation contests that are central for the understanding, design and management of innovation contests are presented based on the current body of literature. Finally, current research gaps are presented and some of the research questions are developed that could be explored to contribute to the body of literature.
MRI and Ultrasonographic Imaging of a Patient with Carotidynia

A patient presented with a painful, pulsating nodosity with marked tenderness on the right side of her neck. Cervical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exhibited pathological signal changes in the perivascular tissue of the carotid bifurcation area and around the external carotid artery. Similarly, Doppler sonography revealed an echo-poor wall change with outward bulging and slight narrowing of the affected vessel lumen. The clinical symptoms and our findings led to the diagnosis of carotidynia. We proposed that cervical MRI and Doppler sonography could be used for diagnosing carotidynia.
Patients with workers' compensation claims have worse outcomes after rotator cuff repair.

BACKGROUND Previous studies have demonstrated varying correlations between Workers' Compensation status and the outcome of rotator cuff repair. However, none of those studies have formally accounted for potential confounding factors with multivariable analysis. We hypothesized that patients with Workers' Compensation claims who undergo rotator cuff repair have worse outcomes, even after controlling for confounding factors. METHODS One hundred and twenty-five patients (including thirty-nine with Workers' Compensation claims) who underwent unilateral primary repair of a chronic rotator cuff tear by a single surgeon were studied prospectively and were evaluated one year postoperatively, prior to the settlement of any claims. Outcomes were assessed with the Simple Shoulder Test (SST); the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) index; three visual analog scales (shoulder pain, shoulder function, and quality of life); and the Short Form-36 (SF-36). RESULTS Patients in the Workers' Compensation group were significantly younger, had greater work demands, and had lower marital rates, education levels, and preoperative expectations for the outcome of treatment as compared with those in the non-Workers' Compensation group (p = 0.001 to 0.016). Preoperatively, patients in the Workers' Compensation group had significantly lower scores on the SST, the SF-36 Physical Function scale, and the SF-36 Social Function scale (p = 0.01 to 0.038). One year postoperatively, those patients reported worse performance on the SST, the DASH, all three visual analog scales, and the SF-36 (p = 0.0007 to 0.05) and had worse improvement on the DASH, the visual analog scales for shoulder pain and function, and the SF-36 Bodily Pain and Role Emotional scales (p = 0.0028 to 0.038). Multivariable analysis controlling for age, sex, comorbidities, smoking, marital status, education, duration of symptoms, work demands, expectations, and tear size confirmed that Workers' Compensation status was an independent predictor of worse DASH scores. CONCLUSIONS Patients with Workers' Compensation claims report worse outcomes, even after controlling for confounding factors. The present study provides further evidence that the existence of a Workers' Compensation claim portends a less robust outcome following rotator cuff repair. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic Level I. See Instructions to Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Price Formation and Liquidity in the U.S. Treasury Market: The Response to Public Information

The arrival of public information in the U.S. Treasury market sets off a two-stage adjustment process for prices, trading volume, and bid-ask spreads. In a brief first stage, the release of a major macroeconomic announcement induces a sharp and nearly instantaneous price change with a reduction in trading volume, demonstrating that price reactions to public information do not require trading. The spread widens dramatically at announcement, evidently driven by inventory control concerns. In a prolonged second stage, trading volume surges, price volatility persists, and spreads remain moderately wide as investors trade to reconcile residual differences in their private views. Copyright The American Finance Association 1999.
Comparison of three antipsychotics in the emergency psychiatric setting

In the present naturalistic study, the effectiveness and safety of quetiapine, risperidone and olanzapine were compared in the treatment of non selected acutely psychotic patients. It was observed that the rate of antipsychotic switch because of a lack of efficacy or side effects was higher in the quetiapine treated cases in comparison with the risperidone or olanzapine treated cases. The proportion of cases concomitantly treated with typical neuroleptics was significantly higher in the quetiapine group compared with the other two groups. In the outcome of non crossover cases, there were more improvements in the risperidone and olanzapine groups than in the quetiapine group. The results of this study suggest that quetiapine is not as efficacious as risperidone or olanzapine in the emergency psychiatric setting. Due to the methodological limitations of the study, these results must be considered preliminary and need confirmation. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Justifications and Comparisons in the Division of Household Labor: The Relevance of Gender Ideology

This study tests the direct relevance of justifications and social comparisons (predictors of perceptions of fairness) on different types of household labour distribution, and the importance of masculinity ideology and neosexism on these variables. The participants were heterosexual dual-earner couples. Our results showed that both men and women use more justifications when their housework distribution is not equal, but only women use social comparisons associated with the ways of distributing domestic work. In addition, we observe that, in both men and women, justifications are related to a traditional masculine ideology, but a different model appears in relation to comparisons which are associated with neosexism in men and with traditional masculine ideology in women. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. Este estudio muestra la relevancia directa de las justificaciones y comparaciones sociales (predictores de la percepción de justicia) sobre diferentes tipos de distribución de trabajo doméstico, así como la importancia de la ideología masculina y el neosexismo sobre las citadas variables. Los participantes fueron parejas heterosexuales de doble ingreso. Los resultados demuestran que hombres y mujeres usan más justificaciones cuando su distribución doméstica es desigual, y que solo las mujeres usan comparaciones sociales asociadas a las formas de distribución. Además se aprecia que las justificaciones se relacionan con una ideología tradicional masculina mientras que las comparaciones se asocian con el neosexismo, en el caso de los hombres y con la ideología masculina tradicional en el caso de las mujeres. Las implicaciones y sugerencias del estudio se comentan en relación a la distribución doméstica.
The Challenge of Governance in Regional Forest Planning: An Analysis of Participatory Forest Program Processes in Finland

The opening up of Finnish forest policymaking to new interest groups and a change to more flexible forms of partnerships at multiple levels signals a transition to new governance relations. Drawing on the concept of institutional capacity, we analyze the governance potential of stakeholder forums, called Regional Forest Councils, to balance economic considerations with ecological ones in preparing Regional Forest Programs. More specifically, we look into knowledge resources that are produced and shared in the Regional Forest Program process, relational resources such as trust and reciprocity created and sustained in the Regional Forest Councils, and the capacity to mobilize resources and take action to implement the program. The two processes we have analyzed demonstrate various elements of institutional capacity for collective action, and illustrate the challenges that a traditional hierarchically organized and expert-driven sector can face in developing more inclusive forms of governance.
Testing the Logic of Strategic Defection: The Case of the Philippine Supreme Court—An Empirical Analysis (1986–2010)

It has been argued that, under certain conditions, judges are motivated to engage in strategic defection against their appointer once they perceive the latter to be losing effective power. This behaviour should generate a clustering of decisions unfavourable to the incumbent administration at the end of their term, when they are perceived to be weak. In this article we investigate empirically the application of the strategic defection model on the Philippine Supreme Court in the period 1986–2010. Our results do not seem to strongly corroborate this model. We discuss these empirical results in the context of the Philippines' unstable democracy and general implications for comparative judicial politics.
Ocean heat uptake and its consequences for the magnitude of sea level rise and climate change

Under increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, ocean heat uptake moderates the rate of climate change, and thermal expansion makes a substantial contribution to sea level rise. In this paper we quantify the differences in projections among atmosphere‐ocean general circulation models of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project in terms of transient climate response, ocean heat uptake efficiency and expansion efficiency of heat. The CMIP3 and CMIP5 ensembles have statistically indistinguishable distributions in these parameters. The ocean heat uptake efficiency varies by a factor of two across the models, explaining about 50% of the spread in ocean heat uptake in CMIP5 models with CO2increasing at 1%/year. It correlates with the ocean global‐mean vertical profiles both of temperature and of temperature change, and comparison with observations suggests the models may overestimate ocean heat uptake and underestimate surface warming, because their stratification is too weak. The models agree on the location of maxima of shallow ocean heat uptake (above 700 m) in the Southern Ocean and the North Atlantic, and on deep ocean heat uptake (below 2000 m) in areas of the Southern Ocean, in some places amounting to 40% of the top‐to‐bottom integral in the CMIP3 SRES A1B scenario. The Southern Ocean dominates global ocean heat uptake; consequently the eddy‐induced thickness diffusivity parameter, which is particularly influential in the Southern Ocean, correlates with the ocean heat uptake efficiency. The thermal expansion produced by ocean heat uptake is 0.12 m YJ−1, with an uncertainty of about 10% (1 YJ = 1024 J).
European Integration and the Effects of Country Size on Growth

Does the size of a country affect its economic growth rate? Theory suggests that the existence of a national scale effect is favouring large countries and that small countries may overcome the impediments of smallness once their markets become internationally more integrated. So far, empirical evidence of a distinct impact of country size on economic growth is rather limited. The present study sheds light on this impact from a European perspective. Country size indeed correlates with economic growth and European economic integration enhances the convergence process of the countries. It is further shown that the impact of size varies according to a country’s individual level of economic integration, suggesting that the long-term economic growth path is characterized by multiple transition points. This finding is particularly important given the prevailing imperfections of the European Union Single Market and the increasing number of small European Union member states.
Corporate Capital Structure, Agency Costs, and Ownership Control: The Case of All‐Equity Firms

This paper provides evidence that all-equity firms exhibit greater levels of managerial stockholdings, more extensive family relationships among top management, and higher liquidity positions than a matched sample of levered firms. Further, top managers of all-equity firms with family involvement in corporate operations have greater control of corporate voting rights than managers of all-equity firms without family involvement. These findings are consistent with the interpretation that managerial control of voting rights and family relationships among senior managers are important factors in the decision to eliminate leverage. Copyright 1990 by American Finance Association.
The Linkage between Financial Liberalization and Economic Development: Empirical Evidence from Poland

This paper uses time series empirical data on six key indicators of financial liberalization in Poland to explore the linkage between financial liberalization and economic growth. We begin with a survey of the financial liberalization process and then use monthly empirical data covering the period 1990-2002 to examine the linkages between financial liberalization and economic development. The results of our study indicate that not only is there evidence of a long run positive linkage between financial liberalization and economic growth but also that there is strong evidence to indicate that the direction of causation runs from the former to the latter and not vice-versa. Evidence from all six of the financial indicators (Turnover, Capitalization, narrow money M0, broad money M2, Depth and Share Prices) indicates that they raise industrial production while the latter causes financial development in only two of the cases.
Cost Pass-Through under Delegation

The rate of cost pass-through exceeds 50% under strategic delegation of decision-making to managers with sales revenue contractsregardless of the number of firms in the industry and demand curvature. This contrasts sharply with profit-maximization, for which cost pass-through can take on any positive value. The key intuition is that firms under delegation act as if they faced more rivals than they actually do, thus pushing cost pass-through towards 100%. Cost pass-through with market share contracts is similarly bounded below, and this note also generalizes existing results on equilibrium characterization for this case.
The Relationship Between Market Characteristics and Promotional Price Elasticities

Many empirical studies in marketing and economics have estimated brand price elasticities for specific products in markets. Their results indicate that price elasticities seem to differ across brands, product categories, retail outlets, and regions. However, there has been very little research which examines the factors associated with these observed differences. This paper focuses on the promotional price elasticities of established, major brands in stable categories. It identifies some characteristics of markets which may be associated with differences in price elasticities for frequently purchased nondurables. A cross-sectional model of the effect of these market characteristics on price elasticities is developed and estimated utilizing own price elasticity estimates for brands at twelve stores. The results indicate market characteristics such as brand market share, couponing activity, display activity and feature activity explain a substantial amount of the variation in promotional price elasticities.
Bertrand competition when rivals' costs are unknown

The conclusions of the Bertrand model of competition are substantially altered by the presence of asymmetric information about rivals' costs. Asymmetric information eliminates the discontinuity in the Bertrand model and significantly alters the properties of the market equilibrium. In the Bertrand-Nash equilibrium when rivals' costs are unknown, firms price above marginal cost and have positive expected profit. The analysis is extended to franchise competition. The market equilibrium is sensitive to market structure and yields incentives for entry. Copyright 1995 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Predicting Private Companies Failure in the Sudan

ABSTRACT This paper applies failure prediction techniques to a sample of private companies in the Sudan, an African Less Developed Country (LDC). As a first step, the study uses profile analysis and dichotomous classification techniques to test the ability of univariate models in predicting failure in a simple and less complex economic environment. Next, the study replicates Altman Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA) to the sample but achieved low failure prediction rates relative to those obtained in the developed and developing economies. The study then re-estimates Altman original model parameters with a significant improvement in failure prediction rates. Finally, using a stepwise MDA methodology, the study develops a three-variable model that improves upon Altman replicated and re-estimated models in classifying companies into failed and nonfailed categories.
Profiling geotravelers: an a priori segmentation identifying and defining sustainable travelers using the Geotraveler Tendency Scale (GTS)

This study expands research on geotourism by using the Geotraveler Tendency Scale (GTS) to profile geotravelers. The results demonstrate the GTS's ability to effectively identify different levels of geotravelers. An a priori segmentation was conducted using the respondents’ overall geotraveler score from the GTS as the segmenting criterion. The resulting three segments were labeled “minimal geotravelers”, “moderate geotravelers” and “strong geotravelers”. MANOVA and Pearson Chi-square analysis showed significant differences between the three groups on all items within the GTS as well as significant differences between the segments on the variables of gender, income, country of origin and likelihood to visit national parks. This study (1) confirms the usefulness of the GTS for identifying and segmenting travelers, and (2) provides the sustainable tourism field with a more holistic tool for measuring sustainable travelers. Destination managers interested in marketing to geotravelers can use this tool to identify how many geotravelers come to their area, their level of geotraveler tendencies and what the destination can focus on to attract more of this travel segment. Geotourism is positioned as a sustainable marketing strategy that attracts conscientious visitors whose impacts help promote the “character of place” rather than detract from it.