Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Market-Focused Organizational Transformation in China

Summary To help us develop an understanding of successful Chinese companies as they emerge into a more market-oriented economic environment, a sample of senior managers in 100 Shanghai-based companies were asked to profile their own values and to evaluate their companies in terms of innovation, market orientation and the nature of their organizational cultures and climates. There are, of course, distinctly identifiable patterns in both the values of the individual managers and in the nature of the Chinese organizations. In comparison to a similar sample of Japanese firms, the Chinese firms are on average relatively Bureaucratic, but are also relatively Entrepreneurial. Within China we find that Joint Ventures are more Competitive and less Bureaucratic than State-Owned Enterprises. We find that the better performing Chinese firms follow a pattern which we have found elsewhere in the industrial and industrializing world, and which we now call the “Universal Market-Focused Model. ” Successful firms, compared to other Chinese firms, are innovative, market oriented, and have cultures and decision-making climates which are externally oriented. There are, however, distinctly identifiable patterns in both the values of the individual managers and in the nature of the Chinese organizations which distinguish them from samples of managers from other Asian nations.
A Field Study of the Emerging Practice of Beyond Budgeting in Industrial Companies: An Institutional Perspective

The accounting literature differentiates between key functions of budgeting, such as planning, control, and evaluation, and mostly assumes that firms carry out an annual budgeting exercise. The purpose of this paper is to explore how an institutionalised practice, such as budgeting, changes and to examine the implications of such change for the functions of budgeting. We conduct a field study of five industrial companies that recently either abandoned their annual budgeting system or radically simplified it. Our findings suggest that although new management accounting tools replace the budgeting system, the planning, control, and evaluation functions remain. We observe two approaches for the emerging practice of Beyond Budgeting. In the first approach, firms differentiate between target setting and forecasting. This differentiation appears to be a driver for budget abandonment. In the second approach, target setting and forecasting remain interlinked and many characteristics of traditional annual budgeting remain, albeit in a simplified form.
Travel Time Variability and Airport Accessibility

We analyze the cost of access travel time variability for air travelers. Reliable access to airports is important since the cost of missing a flight is likely to be high. First, the determinants of the preferred arrival times at airports are analyzed. Second, the willingness to pay (WTP) for reductions in access travel time, early and late arrival time at the airport, and the probability to miss a flight are estimated, using a stated choice experiment. The results indicate that the WTPs are relatively high. Third, a model is developed to calculate the cost of variable travel times for representative air travelers going by car, taking into account travel time cost, scheduling cost and the cost of missing a flight using empirical travel time data. In this model, the value of reliability for air travelers is derived taking “anticipating departure time choice” into account, meaning that travelers determine their departure time from home optimally. Results of the numerical exercise show that the cost of access travel time variability for business travelers are between 0% and 30% of total access travel cost, and for non-business travelers between 0% and 25%. These numbers depend strongly on the time of the day.
National culture and firm investment efficiency: international evidence

This paper examines the impact of national culture on firm investment efficiency using data of listed companies from 18 countries. We measure culture using Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity. We follow extant literature to measure firm investment efficiency. Our results indicate that individualism is positively correlated with firm investment bias and that uncertainty avoidance and masculinity are negatively correlated with firm investment bias. In addition, the influence of national culture on firm investment efficiency was more pronounced during the global financial crisis of 2008. Our results show that national cultures have significant influence on firm investment efficiency. This paper enriches the literature on the relationship between national culture and firm investment and has important implications for the investment decisions of firms.
Prefrontal function at presentation directly related to clinical outcome in people at ultrahigh risk of psychosis.

BACKGROUND The prodromal phase of psychosis is characterized by impaired executive function and altered prefrontal activation. The extent to which the severity of these deficits at presentation predicts subsequent clinical outcomes is unclear. METHODS We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging in a cohort of subjects at clinical risk for psychosis and in healthy controls. Images were acquired at clinical presentation and again after 1 year, using a 1.5-T Signa MRI scanner while subjects were performing a verbal fluency task. SPM5 was used for the analysis of imaging data. Psychopathological assessment of the "at-risk" symptoms was performed by using the Comprehensive Assessment for the At-Risk Mental State (CAARMS) and the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS). RESULTS In the at-risk mental state (ARMS) group, between presentation and follow-up, the CAARMS (perceptual disorder and thought disorder subscales) and the PANSS general scores decreased, while the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) score increased. Both the ARMS and control groups performed the verbal fluency task with a high degree of accuracy. The ARMS group showed greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus but less activation in the anterior cingulate gyrus than controls. Within the ARMS group, the longitudinal normalization of neurofunctional response in the left inferior frontal gyrus was positively correlated with the improvement in severity of hallucination-like experiences. CONCLUSIONS The normalization of the abnormal prefrontal response during executive functioning is associated with 12-month psychopathological improvement of prodromal symptoms.
Agricultural Science and Technology Teachers' Perceptions of iPod and Mp3 Technology Integration into Curricular and Cocurricular Activities.

The purpose of this study was to describe agricultural science and technology teachers’ reaction to iPod and mp3 technology use and potential use in both curricular and cocurricular activities. A total of 112 unique respondents provided written responses to open-ended questions. Study findings reveal that agricultural science and technology teachers see iPod and mp3 technologies as beneficial, yet some teachers find this technology to be unusable due to campus restrictions and student abuse. Teachers provided a multitude of possible applications for iPod and mp3 technologies: contest preparation and team training, general classroom enhancement, specific classroom content areas that could benefit, applications for absence/make-up work and homework support, use with substitute teachers, assisting special populations, use for organization of content, and additional creative applications. Overall, teacher reaction to the use of iPod and mp3 technologies was positive and yielded findings that can be useful to teachers, researchers, and providers of educational content. This article strives to give voice to the individual teacher.
Managing marketing externalities in innovative natural resources-based clusters

Abstract Regional clusters have been the basis for global competitiveness in smaller countries that may lack the domestic market necessary for growth, and for companies in developing economies with weaker infrastructure and limited supporting industries. For this reason, this study explores more specifically the development of co-marketing activities and cooperation between firms operating in innovative resources-based clusters of the salmon farming industry in two leader producers’ countries: Scotland and Chile. The results suggest that social networking activities enhance inter-firm co-operation. This may yield marketing externalities and create new cooperative long-term competitive strategies among firms.
Innovation, Product Cycle, and Asset Prices

This paper constructs a simple endogenous growth model featuring the product cycle, i.e., the transition from monopoly to perfect competition, and studies its implications for both asset market and business cycle statistics. I find that the product cycle is a powerful amplification mechanism; the model incorporating the product cycle is able to generate nearly twice as large an equity premium as the model without the product cycle and, as a result, matches the equity premium data. The current paper thereby contributes to advancing a promising theory on the economic sources of long-run risks, postulating that innovation and R&D cause long-run uncertainties in economic growth.
Part 2: Patient information, informed decision‐making and the psycho‐social impact of prostate‐specific antigen testing

England and Wales in September 2001 [4]. The pack includes health-professional reference material and an information sheet that is provided to men when they request the PSA test. This sheet is designed to allow men to gain a greater understanding of the possible benefits and harms of the PSA test, and the consequences of having the PSA test. The PSA test alone carries no significant risks, given that it is a simple blood test. However, there are several potential risks relating to the consequences of having the PSA test, including the possible harms of further testing (e.g. biopsy) or the potential sideeffects associated with the available treatments. Given that the most uncertainty and lack of conclusive scientific evidence is related to the consequences of having the PSA test (e.g. the benefits of early detection, the effectiveness of prostate biopsy, doubt surrounding the impact that treatment may have on a man’s quality of life, etc.) it is vital that men are fully informed of the possible ramifications that having a PSA test may hold.
Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of famotidine and ranitidine in critically ill children

To characterize and compare acid suppression (pharmacodynamics) and pharmacokinetics of IV famotidine and ranitidine in critically ill children at risk for stress gastritis. Single‐blind, randomized study in PICU patients 6 months to 18 years requiring mechanical ventilation with continuous gastric pH monitoring, randomized to IV famotidine 12 mg/m2 or ranitidine 60 mg/m2 when gastric pH < 4.0 >1 hour with serial blood sampling following first dose. Twenty‐four children randomized to either famotidine (n = 12) or ranitidine (n = 12). Sixteen out of twenty‐four completed both PK and PD study arms (7/12 famotidine; 4.7 ± 3.4 years; 9/12 ranitidine; 6.6 ± 4.7 years; p = 0.38). Time to gastric pH 4.0 and total time pH above 4.0 similar with no difference in pH at 6 and 12 hours (p > 0.2). No difference between drugs in clearance, volume of distribution and half‐life (p > 0.05). Ratio of AUC pH to AUC drug concentration 0–12 hours after first dose was significantly greater for famotidine (0.06849 ± 0.01460 SD) than ranitidine (0.02453 ± 0.01448; p < 0.001) demonstrating greater potency of famotidine. pH lowering efficacy of both drugs is similar. Greater potency of famotidine may offer clinical advantage due to lower drug exposure and less frequent dosing to achieve same pH lowering effect.
The RICH Entrepreneur: Using Conservation of Resources Theory in Contexts of Uncertainty

This research was designed to extend the scope and conversation of conservation of resource theory (COR) to contexts of uncertainty, including entrepreneurship. In doing so, the resource–induced coping heuristic (RICH) construct is introduced, developed, and validated. Results from two investigations, involving three samples and a total of 813 participants, indicated strong reliability, and internal validity for the theoretically justified, three–factor measure. Also, results of validity tests show the RICH as a robust predictor of factors pertaining to entrepreneurial success, including financial performance and perceived entrepreneurial success. Practical and academic implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.
A Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Network for Symbolic Melody Generation

In recent years, neural networks have been used to generate symbolic melodies. However, the long-term structure in the melody has posed great difficulty to design a good model. In this article, we present a hierarchical recurrent neural network (HRNN) for melody generation, which consists of three long-short-term-memory (LSTM) subnetworks working in a coarse-to-fine manner along time. Specifically, the three subnetworks generate bar profiles, beat profiles, and notes, in turn, and the output of the high-level subnetworks are fed into the low-level subnetworks, serving as guidance to generate the finer time-scale melody components in the low-level subnetworks. Two human behavior experiments demonstrate the advantage of this structure over the single-layer LSTM which attempts to learn all hidden structures in melodies. Compared with the recently proposed models MidiNet and MusicVAE, the HRNN produces better melodies evaluated by humans.
Boosting capacity through small cell data offloading: A comparative performance study of LTE femtocells and Wi-Fi

Due to the significant increase in mobile data traffic volume during the last few years, offloading techniques have been considered for alleviating the traffic load from cellular networks. Two principal small cell offloading solutions are LTE femtocells and Wi-Fi. Femtocells are low power user-deployed LTE base stations that overlay the macro-cellular network and share its licensed spectrum, whereas Wi-Fi devices operate in unlicensed bands using the distributed CSMA/CA MAC protocol to coordinate neighbouring transmissions. Given the fundamentally different spectrum use regulations, MAC, and PHY layer capabilities of these two technologies, the resulting interference environments of the respective small cell networks are significantly different. It is thus not trivially obvious which offloading solution realistically provides a better and future-proof capacity extension for service providers. In this paper we present a thorough system-level comparative study of IEEE 802.1 In Wi-Fi against LTE femtocell performance for a range of representative network densities and deployment scenarios, considering realistic propagation effects, multiple interference sources, and several resource allocation schemes. Our results show that in low density suburban and rural scenarios the high spectral efficiency of LTE femtocells yields a higher throughput than Wi-Fi, but that the CSMA/CA MAC protocol enables Wi-Fi to outperform LTE femtocells in dense urban scenarios, where the need for extra capacity is most urgent. We show that future high density heterogeneous networks may be best served by a new hybrid small cell offloading solution, combining the superior PHY of LTE and the distributed co-tier interference coordination afforded by the MAC of Wi-Fi.
Interest rates in backward agriculture: the role of economic and extra-economic control

This paper examines the nature and roles of personalized control exercised by the rural moneylender over a class of poor borrowers to extract as much as possible in the form of high interest charges and income from undervalued and/or forfeited collaterals. Based on primary survey data from rural India, it analyzes the strategies adopted by the lender, through economic and extra-economic instruments, to enforce the credit contracts to accomplish his goals. It also provides a vivid picture of the variations in the level of interest rates and the reasons for it across a class of borrowers in the sample. Copyright 1990 by Oxford University Press.
Intra-day periodicity, temporal aggregation and time-to-maturity in FTSE-100 index futures volatility

Intra-day periodicity has been widely observed in financial data. Recent research examining intra-day foreign exchange rate volatility dynamics reports that failure to account for this periodicity results in inconsistent GARCH parameter estimates in relationship to theoretical predictions on temporal aggregation. This article seeks to appraise the generality of this conclusion to the FTSE-100 index futures market. The nature of periodicity is first examined. Subsequent empirical results concerning the temporal aggregation of GARCH models show that the use of returns that are not adjusted for such periodicity are misleading. However, adjustment using a sine-cosine wave method or standardization by mean absolute returns provide more consistent results, the latter method dominating in out-of-sample forecasting of the volatility of successive individual futures contracts. The potential time-to-maturity effects of single contracts are also considered, but are statistically rejected for both forms of periodicity-adjusted data.
When Do Global Pipelines Enhance the Diffusion of Knowledge in Clusters?

abstract Recent studies have stressed the role played by global pipelines in fostering the growth of clusters and innovativeness. In this article, we develop a formal model to investigate when global pipelines contribute to an increase in local knowledge, depending on various characteristics of clusters such as size, knowledge endowment, and the ease of transmission of internal knowledge. This model is an extension of C owan and J onard’s () model in which we introduce the concept of cluster and a role for spatial proximity in the diffusion of knowledge. Our results reveal that there is a natural tendency of actors within global pipelines to act as external stars, rather than gatekeepers of knowledge. Global pipelines are beneficial for the accumulation of knowledge only if the cluster is either characterized by a high-quality local buzz or is small and weakly endowed in terms of knowledge.
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY KNOWLEDGE: DESPERATE CALL FROM BUSINESS ENTERPRISES IN COMING SMART WORKING ERA

AbstractScience and technology is critical for execution and operations of modern businesses. As business operations consists of purposeful execution of technologies with appropriate social cooperation and coordination, knowledge in use is actually cross-disciplinary irrespective of domain or discipline of business. As information technology infiltrates today's businesses, people would need to work smarter using technologies including information technologies. This study explores executives’ perceptions of cross-disciplinary knowledge in coming era of smart businesses. An instrument was developed, asking questions about relative weights of different cross-disciplinary knowledge, frequencies and necessity of cross-disciplinary training, decision criteria in recruiting new employees and in promoting existing employees, and preferences in cross-disciplinary curriculum and sequence of relevant training courses. Results indicate that executives maintain high opinions concerning the value of science and technol.
Incidence of Colorectal Cancer in Relation to Glycemic Index and Load in a Cohort of Women

Background: Dietary glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) affect circulating insulin concentrations. Elevated circulating insulin concentrations can increase insulin-like growth factor-1, and both of these hormones may have growth-promoting effects within the colorectum. Methods: We examined associations of GI and GL with colorectal cancer (CRC) among participants in the Iowa Women's Health Study (n = 35,197; ages 55-69 years at baseline in 1986). Over 15 years of follow-up, we identified 757 cases of colon cancer and 209 cases of rectal cancer (954 CRC cases). Results: Overall, neither GI nor GL were significantly associated with incident CRC. However, among obese women (baseline body mass index ≥30 kg/m2) CRC incidence was increased in the highest versus lowest quintiles of GI (relative risk, 1.66; 95% confidence intervals, 1.13-2.43; P for trend = 0.02) and GL (relative risk, 1.79; 95% confidence intervals, 1.19-2.70; P for trend < 0.01). This pattern of increased risk for obese women with high GI or GL tended to hold for both colon cancer and rectal cancer, and for nondiabetic women as well. No statistically significant associations were observed between GI or GL and CRC among subjects whose baseline body mass index was <30 kg/m2. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that high GI or GL are not major CRC risk factors among older women in general, but may increase CRC risk among women who are obese. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(5):392–6)
Patterns and determinants of human resource management change in Korean venture firms after the financial crisis

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the changing patterns of human resource management (HRM) systems of Korean venture firms. This study is an extension of Bae and Yu's (2005) research in its inclusion of the second data set. This research was conducted in two phases. In phase I, the changing patterns of HRM in venture firms were descriptively analyzed between 1998 and 2001 using 251 Korean venture firms. In phase II, hypotheses on determinants of changes were tested based upon organizational theoretical perspectives. In the results, several findings were derived. First, Korean venture firms widely changed their HRM systems, 58.4% of a total of 231 firms. Second, the most dominant pattern of change was from a control-based HRM system to a high-performing HRM system. Third, four explanatory factors (i.e. blueprint, inertia, strategic choice and unavoidable choice) had different effects on ‘the changer’ and ‘the keeper’ of control-based and high-performing HRM systems. In conclusion, several implications from this study were discussed: (1) the effect of resource availability, (2) comparison with large corporations in Korea, (3) comparison with the US venture firms and (4) lessons for other Asian countries.
Market Consequences of Earnings Management in Response to Security Regulations in China

Under the 1996â€ 98 security regulations in China, the accounting rate of return on equity (ROE) has to be greater than 10 percent for three "consecutive" years for a firm to qualify for stock rights offers. Despite declining economic conditions during this period, the percentage of firms reporting ROE between 10 and 11 percent is about "three" times that for 1994â€ 95. This unique regulatory environment provides a natural experimental setting for the empirical assessment of earningsâ€ management behavior and its consequences. This study examines whether listed Chinese firms manage earnings to meet regulatory benchmarks and whether regulators and investors consider the quality of earnings in their respective regulatory and investment decisions. On the basis of a sample of listed Chinese firms from 1996 to 1998, we observe that managers execute transactions involving belowâ€ theâ€ line items and use incomeâ€ increasing accounting accruals to meet regulatory ROE targets for stock rights offerings. The firms that apply for, but fail to receive, regulatory approval manage earnings more significantly than do firms that receive approval and pairâ€ matched control firms. Our market study also suggests that investors differentiate the quality of earnings and put less value on earnings suspected of a greater degree of management. Overall, our results imply that the regulatory bodies and investors to some extent make rational adjustments for the quality of earnings.