Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elementary Geometric/Arithmetic Series and Early Production Theory

Although the evolution of the concept of the law of diminishing returns has now been outlined by historians of economic thought, almost no attention has been paid to the precise form of the marginal and average product functions implied in early statements of the law. Some early exponentsfor example, Sir Edward West and David Ricardo-employed arithmetic series to illustrate the law. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries geometric and algebraic series were used to illustrate certain economic principles. The most famous of these was Malthus' law of population. His example can be interpreted as a statement of the law of diminishing returns. Von Thiinen also employed geometric series in his version of the law of diminishing returns. Curiously, despite the many volumes which have been written about the evolution of this law, it appears that the elementary algebra of Von Thiinen's examples has not been examined and that of Malthus has been considered only briefly by one writer1 (Stigler [1952], pp. 190-92). This is an oversight in the history of economic thought. Both examples turn out to have interesting technical properties. In Section I below, a brief account of some aspects of the earliest statements of the law before the publication of Volume II of Von Thilnen's The Isolated State in 1850 is given to put in perspective the examination of Malthus' contribution in Section II and that of Von Thilnen's greatly underrated contribution in Section III. In Section III, I also comment on an overlooked production function which Von Thunen explicitly stated. The linearly homogeneous Cobb-Douglas production function is a special case of this function. Throughout this paper I confine my attention to the characteristics of these functions. I do not dwell on their significance for the problem of factor pricing or other matters.
Wogonin Attenuates Hippocampal Neuronal Loss and Cognitive Dysfunction in Trimethyltin-Intoxicated Rats

We examined whether wogonin (WO) improved hippocampal neuronal activity, behavioral alterations and cognitive impairment, in rats induced by administration of trimethyltin (TMT), an organotin compound that is neurotoxic to these animals. The ability of WO to improve cognitive efficacy in the TMT-induced neurodegenerative rats was investigated using a passive avoidance test, and the Morris water maze test, and using immunohistochemistry to detect components of the acetylcholinergic system, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB) expression. Rats injected with TMT showed impairments in learning and memory and daily administration of WO improved memory function, and reduced aggressive behavior. Administration of WO significantly alleviated the TMT-induced loss of cholinergic immunoreactivity and restored the hippocampal expression levels of BDNF and CREB proteins and their encoding mRNAs to normal levels. These findings suggest that WO might be useful as a new therapy for treatment of various neurodegenerative diseases.
School-based Supports for Trans Youth in Ontario

Trans youth are some of the most marginalized youths in schools. In 2012, the Ontario Government passed two legislations, one of which was the Accepting Schools Act, strengthening supports for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) students in schools. The other was Toby’s Act, an amendment to the Ontario Human Rights Code including protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and gender expression. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how these two acts have created a political context supporting trans youth in schools. A comprehensive mixed-methods approach was used to examine provincial trends of trans-specific policies in Ontario, while using two school systems in the Waterloo Region as a case study. Overall, there were three sources of data: results from a national survey, policies from the school boards, and interviews with school administrators, staff and a trans youth. Analyzing these data, I met two research objectives: 1) understanding how school board policies support trans youth within schools and 2) contributing to a practical understanding of what other supports are needed to assist trans youth in schools. The results revealed that not all school districts have implemented policies protecting trans youth. Among the public and Catholic school districts, the Catholic school districts had lower compliance rates with adhering to the Accepting Schools Act. Some factors to increase likelihood of trans supports are: devoted gay-straight alliances (GSA) leaders, supportive senior administrators, trans-inclusive policies, framing trans issues in an appropriate way, and staff sharing successful bullying invention strategies.
An empirical analysis of the discontinuance of business for startup contractors and property companies in Japan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that affect the discontinuance of business of start-up contractors and property companies in Japan. It will help managers of start-up contractors and property companies to effectively manage their companies. Furthermore, it will be useful for stakeholders with links to start-up companies to analyse the credit risks associated with these businesses. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses data from the Japan Finance Corporation Business Startup Panel Survey to empirically examine the factors that affect the discontinuance of business of start-up companies. A binary logit model is used as the statistical method. Utilising the resource-based view theory, this study explores the relationships between resources and company capabilities at both start-up and discontinuance of business. Findings – Start-up contractors tend to discontinue their business, as managers grow older and when a sufficient workforce cannot be found at start-up. On the oth.
Convergence and divergence of role stress experience of locally hired Japanese and non-Japanese host country staff: a qualitative study

This qualitative study examines the role stress (comprising of role ambiguity and role conflict) experienced by locally hired Japanese (LJ) and non-Japanese (NJ) staff in a sample of Japanese companies in Australia. Expatriates were also interviewed to gather information regarding the impact of cross-cultural understanding on role ambiguity and role conflict in their work relationships with LJ and NJ staff. Both LJ staff and NJ local staff experienced two types of role ambiguity, resulting from insufficient English competence and information shortage. NJ staff experienced two additional types of role ambiguity due to their lack of cultural understanding about Japan. LJ staff experienced two types of role conflict which were not experienced by NJ local staff. These were caused by their cultural understanding about Australia, and their Japanese cultural heritage and understanding of the society and organisational processes. This study shows that cultural understanding of one's host country and parent country could reduce role ambiguity. In addition, it was found that cultural understanding of one's host country and parent country results in role conflict. These findings suggest that cultural understanding could have positive and negative consequences on role stress. Theoretical and practical implications in the management of white-collar staff in overseas Japanese companies are discussed.
Internationalising into an unfriendly environment: designing a new framework for Western Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

The sometimes unfriendly business environment in transition countries challenges Western Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) internationalising into these markets. The present paper contributes to the understanding of barriers faced by Western SMEs in transition countries by clustering these into a new comprehensive theoretical framework including financial factors, formal rules and informal constraints, as well as task related issues. This can serve as valuable guide for further analysis and is also used for specific barrier-related advices. First empirical results indicate the subjective character of barriers and the importance of financial factors.
The clinical role of cytochrome p450 genotypes in Helicobacter pylori management

OBJECTIVE:The aim of this pharmacogenomics study was to investigate the influence of different cytochrome P450 (CYP) genotypes in Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy.METHODS:The study involved 143 consecutive Italian Caucasian patients with H. pylori infection diagnosed and treated with 1-wk triple therapy according to European Helicobacter Pylori Study Group guidelines. Using human genomic DNA, CYP2C19 (*2 and *3) and CYP3A4 alleles (*1B, *2, and *3) were evaluated by polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism assays and confirmed by sequencing the amplicons.RESULTS:According to the endoscopy-based gold standard, 93 patients achieved H. pylori eradication. Regarding CYP2C19 genotype, the 50 patients who remained infected were all homozygous or heterozygous extensive metabolizers (homEM or hetEM). Carriers of homEM fared significantly less well than those of hetEM; homEM genotype was also predictive of failure at univariate/multivariate analysis. Carriers of CYP3A4 polymorphisms achieved favorable eradication rates similar to patients bearing CYP2C19. All four patients with single CYP3A4*2 polymorphism achieved eradication, and only 29% (5/17) of all CYP3A4*1B carriers did not achieve eradication. All nine patients carrying CYP3A4 polymorphisms in the CYP2C19 hetEM subgroup were cured, suggesting the possibility of a positive synergism between CYP3A4 and CYP2C19.CONCLUSIONS:This first pharmacogenomics study on the influence of different CYP genotypes on H. pylori therapy suggests that, as in Asian populations, CYP2C19 genotype patterns are probably also relevant in Caucasians receiving H. pylori eradication regimens that include omeprazole. The possibility of a favorable drug interaction mediated by CYP2C19 and CYP3A4 requires investigation.
Success Rates of Pulpotomies in Primary Molars Using Calcium Silicate-Based Materials: A Randomized Control Trial

Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare, both clinically and radiographically, the effects of calcium silicate-based materials (i.e., ProRoot MTA [PR-MTA], MTA-Plus [MTA-P], and Biodentine [BD]) and ferric sulfate [FS] in pulpotomy of primary molars. Materials and Methods In this randomized clinical trial, 29 healthy 5- to 7-year-old children with at least four carious primary molars with no clinical or radiographic evidence of pulp degeneration were enrolled. The pulpotomy agents were assigned as follows: Group 1: BD; Group 2: MTA-P; Group 3: PR-MTA; and Group 4: FS. Clinical and radiographic evaluations were performed at 6, 12, and 24 months. Data were analyzed using chi-square tests. Results Total success rates at 24 months were 82.75%, 86.2%, 93.1%, and 75.86%, respectively. No statistically significant differences in total success rates were observed among the groups at 6-, 12-, and 24-month follow-ups. When the groups were compared according to follow-up times, the success rates in each group did not vary significantly among the 6–12-month, 6–24-month, or 12–24-month periods (p > 0.05). Conclusion Although the success rates of BD, MTA-P, MTA-PR, and FS did not differ significantly, calcium silicate-based materials appeared to be more appropriate than FS in clinical practice.
The Effects of Product Placement and Television Drama Types on the Consumer Responses of College Students

This study examines the influence of different types of restaurant product placements in various television dramas on consumer responses to the products. Two experiments were designed to test the hypotheses, and statistical results revealed that (1) when restaurant and TV drama characteristics are well matched, it results in creating a higher placement communication effect; and (2) urban romantic dramas that more closely mirror the characteristics of consumers' real lives achieve higher placement communication effects than mafia dramas. Finally, this research proposes that the plots of TV dramas must be relevant to consumers' daily lives, so that consumers relate to the content more easily. Consequently, the specific features of a TV drama's script must be considered when deciding within which show the product must be placed. The conclusions of this study have important implications for both scholars and industry specialists.
Antioxidant Supplementation in Atherosclerosis Prevention (ASAP) study: a randomized trial of the effect of vitamins E and C on 3‐year progression of carotid atherosclerosis

Abstract. Salonen JT, Nyyssönen K, Salonen R, Lakka H‐M, Kaikkonen J, Porkkala‐Sarataho E, Voutilainen S, Lakka TA, Rissanen T, Leskinen L, tuomainen T‐P, Valkonen V‐P, Ristonmaa U (University of Kuopio, Finland), Poulsen HE (University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark). Antioxidant Supplementation in Atherosclerosis Prevention (ASAP) study: a randomized trial of the effect of vitamins E and C on 3‐year progression of carotid atherosclerosis. J Intern Med 2000; 248: 377–386.
Factors Affecting The Use Of Public Support Services By Sme Owners: Evidence From A Periphery Region Of Canada

Public authorities throughout the world, recognizing both the importance and fragility of SMEs, have over the years created agencies and set up numerous venture development support and assistance measures. Despite all these efforts, SME owner-managers do not appear to make maximum use of the services available. Results from a survey of 70 SME owner-managers show that the likelihood of an SME using public support services increases as the perceived usefulness of public agencies and their services increases, and as the level of knowledge of public agencies increases. Furthermore, the probability of using public support services decreases as the experience of the owner-manager increases. On one hand, many owner-managers do not seem to understand the utility or relevance of the services the agencies provide, while on the other, they do not seem to know enough about the agencies working in their region. However, most of the owner-managers who had used the agencies felt the services they had received were appropriate to their needs. Therefore, the problem appears to lie more with the perceptions of certain owner-managers than with the nature or quality of the services themselves.
Motion by Volume Preserving Mean Curvature Flow Near Cylinders

Center manifold analysis can be used in order to investigate the stability of the stationary solutions of various PDEs. This can be done by considering the PDE as an ODE between certain Banach spaces and linearising about the stationary solution. Here we investigate the volume preserving mean curvature flow using such a technique. We will consider surfaces with boundary contained within two parallel planes such that the surface meets these planes orthogonally. With this set up the stationary solution is a cylinder. We will find that for initial surfaces that are sufficiently close to a cylinder the flow will exist for all time and converge to a cylinder exponentially. In particular, we show that there exists global solutions to the flow that converge to a cylinder, which are initially non-axially symmetric. A similar case where the initial surfaces are compact without boundary has previously been investigated by Escher and Simonett (1998).
FT coverage and UK target price run-ups

We focus on the market expectation hypothesis to explain the increase in share prices and trading volume of target firms before their merger announcements that have conventionally been attributed to either insider trading or market expectation. We use Financial Times (FT) coverage as a proxy of merger expectation and search for relevant articles for 783 UK target firms between 1998 and 2010. We identify a total of 1049 rumour articles and find that the FT market expectation proxy explains a small percentage of the target price run-ups. Results are strong during the sample period, even though the magnitude for both returns and trading volume tends to decrease within recent years. There is also a strong contemporaneous relation between abnormal returns and trading volume. Unexplained increases in target prices and trading volume may be attributed to insider trading.
Early Active Mobilization of Primary Repairs of the Flexor Pollicis Longus Tendon

This study reports the treatment of divided flexor pollicis longus (FPL) tendons from 1989 to 1998. The first 30 patients, in whom the tendon was repaired with a Kessler suture and simple epitendinous suture and mobilized using early active motion with only the thumb splinted, achieved 70/73% (White/Buck-Gramcko assessments respectively), excellent or good results and a rupture rate of 17%. The next 39 patients underwent the same treatment but in a splint with the thumb position altered and the fingers also splinted, with 67/72% excellent or good results and a rupture rate of 15%. The next 49 patients underwent repair with a Kessler suture and a reinforced epitendinous suture and the same mobilization as group 2, with 76/80% excellent or good results and a rupture rate of 8%. The final combination of repair and early active mobilization for primary repair of FPL tendons compares favourably with previous methods of treatment.
Men’s Perception of Women’s Role and Girls’ Education among Pashtun Tribes of Pakistan: A Qualitative Delphi Study

This paper examines how Pashtun men perceive women’s role and girls’ education. A modified two-round Delphi exercise was followed by in-depth qualitative interviews with Pashtun men of diverse backgrounds, including representatives of religious and political groups. The interviews demonstrated that the sociocultural status of women, and consequently their access to education, remains deeply tied to Pashtunwali (tribal code) and rigid religious interpretations. Though at times contradictory, the ideas and stereotypes arising from religion, culture, and politics were found to meaningfully shape men’s attitudes about women’s participation in community and education. However, the study found that, compared to rural and tribal areas, these traditions and restrictions are not as rigidly practiced in the urban and plains areas. Understanding men’s views is a starting point. The next step is to engage men in the collective struggle for gender justice.
Ethical Culture of SMEs and Perceived Contract Enforcement in Ugandan Buyer-Supplier Contractual Arrangements

The study examined the relationship between ethical culture, organizational memory, bargaining power of buyers/suppliers, subjective norms, attitudes and contract enforcement in the developing world context of Uganda. Using a proportional stratified random sampling approach, a sample of 1500 employees was drawn from SMEs in Uganda. Five-hundred and ninety-four (594) fully-filled questionnaires were returned, giving a response rate of 39.6 per cent. Ethical culture, organizational memory, bargaining power of buyers/suppliers, subjective norms and attitudes were found to significantly predict 51.2 per cent of the variance in contract enforcement behaviours in Ugandan SMEs. This finding has both policy and managerial implications which we present in the paper.
Neutrophil Kinetics after Acute Hemorrhage∗

Summary Mice were bled and at intervals thereafter, blood neutrophil concentration, blood band/segmented neutrophil ratio and total number of neutrophils per humerus were determined. Within the first 3 hr after hemorrhage maximal increase in the circulating blood neutrophil concentration was observed. However, this was not accompanied by a significant increase in band/seg ratio in the blood nor was it accompanied by a significant decrease in marrow neutrophils. Therefore, the early neutrophilia after hemorrhage probably reflects a shift of intravascular neutrophils from the marginal to the circulating pool. However, between 3 and 6 hr after hemorrhage there was a striking increase in band/seg ratio in blood and a decrease in total marrow neutrophils. Thus, following the initial pseudoneutrophilia caused by demargination, an increase in the rate of release of marrow neutrophils occurred resulting in a decrease in marrow neutrophils and an increase in the band/seg ratio in the blood. It is suggested that this increase in release rate is triggered by a decrease in the size of the marginal pool. A dose-response relationship between the degree of hemorrhage and the number of neutrophils removed as compared to the number of neutrophils flushed from the bone marrow into the blood was constructed. The relationship between the total amount of blood removed and number of neutrophils flushed was somewhat better than was the relationship between the total number of neutrophils removed from the blood and the number of neutrophils flushed from the bone marrow. It was therefore suggested that the acceleration of neutrophil release rate from bone marrow to blood was primarily a function of changes in intravascular tone rather than a function of actual loss of neutrophils from blood vessels.
Incomplete Information, Trading Costs and Cross-Autocorrelations in Stock Returns

This paper provides an economic rationale for the cross-autocorrelation patterns in stock returns in the context of a microstructure model in which investors have incomplete information. The paper shows that in a market in which investors are informed about only a sub-set of stocks, the emergence of lead-lag, cross-autocorrelations is a function of the cost of trading in other stocks based on information about the sub-set of stocks. If cross-trading costs are high, informed investors will trade only in the sub-set of stocks they are informed about; if cross-trading costs are moderate, informed investors will randomize between trading and not trading in other stocks; and if cross-trading costs are low, they will trade in all stocks. When informed investors trade only in a sub-set of stocks, prices of stocks with more informed trading will adjust to common factor information faster than the prices of stocks with less informed trading giving rise to asymmetric lead-lag cross-autocorrelations. When informed investors trade in all stocks, asymmetric lead-lag cross-autocorrelations will disappear as a result of their cross-market arbitrage trading. These results provide a number of testable implications for lead-lag cross-autocorrelation patterns. The data is consistent with the empirical predictions. Copyright Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, 2004
Fas/Apo-1 (CD95) receptor lacking the intracytoplasmic signaling domain protects tumor cells from Fas-mediated apoptosis.

FAS/Apo-1 (CD95) is an apoptosis-signaling cell surface receptor belonging to the TNF receptor family. Tumor cells resistant to Fas-mediated apoptosis have been described, but to date, the mechanisms responsible for this resistance are not well understood. We found that a series of apoptosis-resistant clones from human HUT78 lymphoma cells express a splicing variant coding for a truncated Fas molecule that lacks the intracellular death-signaling domain. The mutation responsible for the FasExo8Del expression was identified as a deletion-insertion in the intron 7/exon 8 region of the Fas gene. Moreover this mutation affects the phenotype in a dominant negative fashion, i.e., even in the presence of the normal receptor.