Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Taking Away the Voting Powers from Controlling Shareholders: Evidence from the Chinese Securities Market

The main agency problem in the Chinese economy comes from a conflict between strong controlling shareholders and weak minority shareholders. In such economy, seasonal equity offerings (SEOs) are used as a means to exploit minority shareholders. This paper examines the effects of a regulation (the classified voting system [CVS]) that attempts to protect the interests of minority shareholders by excluding controlling shareholders from the voting process of SEOs. This results show that the rejection rate significantly increases after the CVS comes into effect. SEOs proposals are more likely to be rejected when perceived private benefits are high and security benefits are low, and when minority shareholders have higher bargaining power. Further, investors receive significantly higher post-SEO stock returns for SEOs approved under the CVS than for those approved before the CVS.
Lyso-thermosensitive liposomal doxorubicin: a novel approach to enhance efficacy of thermal ablation of liver cancer.

BACKGROUND Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer death worldwide. No more than 30% of HCC patients receive curative treatment. Factors limiting curative therapy include tumor size and degree of liver impairment. OBJECTIVE To develop a cure for medium (3.1-5.0 cm) and large (>5 cm) tumors in seriously impaired livers. METHOD Combine radiofrequency ablation (RFA) with lyso-thermosensitive liposomal doxorubicin (LTLD). RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS RFA is used safely in patients with medium/large tumors and severe liver impairment; unclear tumor margins limit its curative efficacy. LTLD concentrates in the liver, where the anti-HCC chemotherapeutic, doxorubicin, is released into tumor margins by hyperthermia. RFA/LTLD can treat Child-Pugh class A-B patients with tumors up to 7 cm, a substantial increase in curable patients.
A DIRECT TEST OF THE EFFICIENCY WAGE MODEL USING UK MICRO-DATA

This paper presents evidence that firm-level productivity increases when either relative wages rise, or the level of unemployment rises. Both facts are consistent with the efficiency wage model. The link between relative wages and productivity may also be explicable by unobserved human capital, but this is unlikely as a variety of alternative controls leaves the size of this linkage largely unchanged. Moreover, the link between unemployment and productivity is more difficult to rationalize in terms of the unobserved human capital model. The authors results may also arise through rent-sharing, but an instrumental variables estimate suggests that this is unlikely to be important. Further, the authors results hold for union and non-union firms alike, which is harder to explain on the rent-sharing view. Copyright 1991 by Royal Economic Society.
Effect of clean intermittent self-catheterization on urinary tract infection in subject with spinal cord injury

Patients with spinal cord injury are often unable to empty their bladders sufficiently. If this condition is left untreated, urinary tract infection (UTI) is unavoidable, with potentially lethal consequences. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of clean intermittent self-catheterization (CIC) on urinary tract infection in subject with spinal cord injury. A randomized controlled design was conducted in subjects who lived at two dormitories were included in this study. They were randomized to clean intermittent self- catheterization or control group. All the subjects were followed for one months. Primary outcome measure was symptomatic urinary tract infection as diagnosed by, pyuria (leukocytes of 100,000 or more per high power field.). Twenty-six patients between 22 to 62 years with cervical spinal cord injuries and urine residue more than 50 cc were recruited. Of the 26 subjects, 18 (69.2%) developed urinary tract infection. The incidence rate of UTI in the CIC group was 5/13 (38.5%); significantly lower than the control group 11/13 (84.6%) (p=0.016). Clean intermittent self catheterization in patient with spinal cord injury decreased the risk of developing urinary tract infection.
Enhancement of Spinal N-Methyl-d-aspartate Receptor Function by Remifentanil Action at &dgr;-Opioid Receptors as a Mechanism for Acute Opioid-induced Hyperalgesia or Tolerance

Background:Intraoperative remifentanil infusions have been associated with postoperative opioid-induced hyperalgesia and tolerance. Using a previously identified subpopulation of spinal neurons that displays an augmentation in N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor current after chronic morphine, investigations were undertaken to determine whether remifentanil induces acute increases in NMDA responses that are concentration dependent and receptor subtype dependent. Methods:Electrophysiologic recordings of NMDA current were made from cultured rat dorsal horn neurons treated with remifentanil at various concentrations for 60 min. Selective &mgr;- or &dgr;-opioid receptor inhibitors and agonists were used to determine the site of action of remifentanil. Results:Remifentanil at 4, 6, and 8 nm, but not higher or lower concentrations, caused significant mean increases in NMDA peak current amplitude of 37.30% (P < 0.001), 30.19% (P < 0.001), and 23.52% (P = 0.025), respectively, over control conditions. This occurred by 36 min of remifentanil perfusion and persisted throughout its washout. Inhibition by 100 nm naloxone or 1 nm naltrindole attenuated the remifentanil-induced NMDA response increase. Selective &dgr;-opioid agonists [D-Pen2, D-Pen5]enkephalin and deltorphin II displayed a similar bell-shaped concentration–response relation for the enhancement of NMDA responses, and 10 nm deltorphin II occluded the effects of 4 nm remifentanil on NMDA responses. Conclusions:Clinically relevant concentrations of remifentanil induce rapid, persistent increases in NMDA responses that mirror the development of remifentanil-induced hyperalgesia and tolerance. NMDA enhancement by remifentanil is dependent on the activation of both &mgr;- and &dgr;-opioid receptors and is inducible solely by &dgr;-opioid receptor activation. Therefore, selective &dgr;-opioid inhibition may attenuate acute paradoxical increases in pain and tolerance to opioids.
An Expanded Palette of Xenon-129 NMR Biosensors

Conspectus Molecular imaging holds considerable promise for elucidating biological processes in normal physiology as well as disease states, by determining the location and relative concentration of specific molecules of interest. Proton-based magnetic resonance imaging (1H MRI) is nonionizing and provides good spatial resolution for clinical imaging but lacks sensitivity for imaging low-abundance (i.e., submicromolar) molecular markers of disease or environments with low proton densities. To address these limitations, hyperpolarized (hp) 129Xe NMR spectroscopy and MRI have emerged as attractive complementary methodologies. Hyperpolarized xenon is nontoxic and can be readily delivered to patients via inhalation or injection, and improved xenon hyperpolarization technology makes it feasible to image the lungs and brain for clinical applications. In order to target hp 129Xe to biomolecular targets of interest, the concept of “xenon biosensing” was first proposed by a Berkeley team in 2001. The development of xenon biosensors has since focused on modifying organic host molecules (e.g., cryptophanes) via diverse conjugation chemistries and has brought about numerous sensing applications including the detection of peptides, proteins, oligonucleotides, metal ions, chemical modifications, and enzyme activity. Moreover, the large (∼300 ppm) chemical shift window for hp 129Xe bound to host molecules in water makes possible the simultaneous identification of multiple species in solution, that is, multiplexing. Beyond hyperpolarization, a 106-fold signal enhancement can be achieved through a technique known as hyperpolarized 129Xe chemical exchange saturation transfer (hyper-CEST), which shows great potential to meet the sensitivity requirement in many applications. This Account highlights an expanded palette of hyper-CEST biosensors, which now includes cryptophane and cucurbit[6]uril (CB[6]) small-molecule hosts, as well as genetically encoded gas vesicles and single proteins. In 2015, we reported picomolar detection of commercially available CB[6] via hyper-CEST. Inspired by the versatile host–guest chemistry of CB[6], our lab and others developed “turn-on” strategies for CB[6]-hyper-CEST biosensing, demonstrating detection of protein analytes in complex media and specific chemical events. CB[6] is starting to be employed for in vivo imaging applications. We also recently determined that TEM-1 β-lactamase can function as a single-protein reporter for hyper-CEST and observed useful saturation contrast for β-lactamase expressed in bacterial and mammalian cells. These newly developed small-molecule and genetically encoded xenon biosensors offer significant potential to extend the scope of hp 129Xe toward molecular MRI.
Effects of Ownership and Management Changes on Productivity in Privatized Montenegrin Firms

This study reflects the relationship between ownership change, ownership concentration, management turnover, and productivity of Montenegrin privatized companies covering the period 2004-7. Results show that ownership concentration and the presence of domestic and foreign private owners are positively related to firms' productivity. Companies that replaced the chairman of the management board also improved their productivity. The study further discusses the results in terms of the specific characteristics of the Montenegrin economy and the relevance of the study results for the general characteristics of the transition economies.
The Effects of Guidance Frequency and Guidance Goal on Managerial Decisions

We conduct an experiment to examine the effects of guidance frequency (frequent vs. infrequent) and guidance goal (accuracy vs. meet/beat vs. truthful) on managers’ operating decisions. We find that frequent guiders sacrifice total earnings for quarterly earnings predictability irrespective of their guidance goals. Furthermore, when guidance is infrequent, guiders with accuracy goals opt for quarterly earnings predictability over total earnings more often than do guiders with either meet/beat goals or truthful goals. These findings have implications for regulators and investors in terms of the unintended consequences of requesting frequent earnings guidance. Further, while managers may perceive that accuracy goals can help their firms establish forecasting and reporting reputations, we show that accuracy goals may result in dysfunctional internal managerial decisions, particularly when guidance is issued infrequently.
Languages learning at Key Stage 2: a longitudinal study

This is the final report of a 3 year longitudinal study of the teaching of French, German and Spanish at Key Stage 2, funded from 2006-2009 by the Department for Children Schools and Families. The report covers the attitudes of teachers and children towards languages; the organisation and administration of languages within primary schools; current practice in the teaching of languages; the development of children's intercultural understanding; children's attainment in target language oracy and literacy; and concludes with a discussion of the future sustainability of languages in the primary curriculum and steps needed to secure this.
Economic and Policy Analysis of University-based Drug “Detailing

The cost-effectiveness of quality assurance programs is often poorly documented, especially for innovative approaches. The authors analyzed the economic effects of an experimental educational outreach program designed to reduce inappropriate drug prescribing, based on a four-state randomized controlled trial (N = 435 physicians). Primary care physicians randomized into the face-to-face group were offered two individualized educational sessions with clinical pharmacists, lasting an average of 18 minutes each, concerning optimal use of three drug groups that are often used inappropriately. After the program, expenditures for target drugs prescribed by these physicians to Medicaid patients decreased by 13%, compared with controls (P = 0.002); this effect was stable over three quarters. Implementation of this program for 10,000 physicians would lead to projected drug savings (to Medicaid only) of $2,050,000, compared with resource costs of $940,000. Net savings remain high, even after adjustment for use of substitution medications. Although there was a ninefold difference in average preintervention prescribing levels between the highest and lowest thirds of the sample, all groups reduced target drug expenditures at the same rate. Targeting of higher-volume prescribers would thus further raise the observed benefit-to-cost ratio from approximately 1.8 to at least 3.0. Net benefits would also increase further if non-Medicaid savings were added, or if the analysis included quality-of-care considerations. Although print materials alone may be marginally cost-effective, print plus face-to-face approaches offer greater net benefits. The authors conclude that a program of brief, face-to-face “detailing” visits conducted by academic rather than commercial sources can be a highly cost-effective method for improving drug therapy decisions. Such an approach makes possible the enhancement of physicians' clinical expertise without relying on restriction of drug choices.
ClimbVis: Investigating In-situ Visualizations for Understanding Climbing Movements by Demonstration

Rock climbing involves complex movements and therefore requires guidance when acquiring a new technique. The classic approach is mimicking the movements of a more experienced climber. However, the trainee has to remember every nuance of the climb, since the sequence of movements cannot be performed in parallel to the experienced climber. As a solution to this problem, we present a video recording and replay system for climbing. The replay component allows for different in-situ video feedback methods. We investigated the video feedback component of the system by studying two example visualization techniques, i.e. a life-sized in-place projection and a real-time third-person view of the climber, augmented by a video showing a successful ascent. The latter is presented to the user on both Google Glass and a projected display. The results indicate that a life-sized projection was perceived as easiest to follow, while most of the climbers had problems with the context switches between the augmented video and the climbing wall. These findings can aid in the design of assistance systems that teach complex movements.
Model-based parametric features for emotion recognition from speech

Automatic emotion recognition from speech is desirable in many applications relying on spoken language processing. Telephone-based customer service systems, psychological healthcare initiatives, and virtual training modules are examples of real-world applications that would significantly benefit from such capability. Traditional utterance-level emotion recognition relies on a global feature set obtained by computing various statistics from raw segmental and supra-segmental measurements, including fundamental frequency (F0), energy, and MFCCs. In this paper, we propose a novel, model-based parametric feature set that better discriminates between the competing emotion classes. Our approach relaxes modeling assumptions associated with using global statistics (e.g. mean, standard deviation, etc.) of traditional segment-level features for classification, and results in significant improvements over the state-of-the-art in 7-way emotion classification accuracy on the standard, freely-available Berlin Emotional Speech Corpus. These improvements are consistent even in a reduced feature space obtained by Fisher's Multiple Linear Discriminant Analysis, demonstrating the signficantly higher discriminative power of the proposed feature set.
Growth performance , carcass morphology and meat quality of meat from roosters 1 slaughtered at eight months affected by genotype and finishing feeding 2 3

21 The aim of this study was to describe the carcass characteristics and the meat quality 22 of the roosters from the autochthonous Mos breed slaughtered at 8 months. With comparative 23 purpose rooster from hybrid line Sasso T44 was used in this study. Birds were reared on their 24 typical production system (extensive indoor or barns and finishing diet whit corn). Both live 25 weight and carcass weight were higher for commercial breed (p<0.001). Drumstick, thigh and 26 wing percentages were greater in Mos breed than in Sasso T-44, while breast was similar for 27 both genotypes. Only significant differences in cholesterol and α-tocopherol content between 28 genotypes have been found, whereas finishing feeding treatment had effect on moisture, 29 intramuscular fat content, cholesterol, tocopherol isomers and in meat yellowness. 30 Unsaturated fatty acids constituted the main contribution to total amount of fatty acid (FA), 31 where monounsaturated oleic acid was the major compound, and found higher concentrations 32 in commercial breed. Mos breed showed higher amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids 33
Comorbid anxiety in bipolar disorder: does it have an independent effect on suicidality?

OBJECTIVE Comorbid anxiety disorder is reported to increase suicidality in bipolar disorder. However, studies of the impact of anxiety disorders on suicidal behavior in mood disorders have shown mixed results. The presence of personality disorders, often comorbid with anxiety and bipolar disorders, may explain these inconsistencies. This study examined the impact of comorbid Cluster B personality disorder and anxiety disorder on suicidality in bipolar disorder. METHODS A total of 116 depressed bipolar patients with and without lifetime anxiety disorder were compared. Multiple regression analysis tested the association of comorbid anxiety disorder with past suicide attempts and severity of suicidal ideation, adjusting for the effect of Cluster B personality disorder. The specific effect of panic disorder was also explored. RESULTS Bipolar patients with and without anxiety disorders did not differ in the rate of past suicide attempt. Suicidal ideation was less severe in those with anxiety disorders. In multiple regression analysis, anxiety disorder was not associated with past suicide attempts or with the severity of suicidal ideation, whereas Cluster B personality disorder was associated with both. The results were comparable when comorbid panic disorder was examined. CONCLUSIONS Comorbid Cluster B personality disorder appears to exert a stronger influence on suicidality than comorbid anxiety disorder in persons with bipolar disorder. Assessment of suicide risk in patients with bipolar disorder should include evaluation and treatment of Cluster B psychopathology.
Making sustainable development sustainable

Purpose – Although all organisations claim to be engaged in sustainable development, research shows that they misunderstand what is involved. This paper aims to reconsider what is meant by sustainability and to show that the way accounting operates in an organisation actually prevents an organisation from recognising sustainable operations.Design/methodology/approach – The paper develops a theoretical argument that sustainability depends upon a redefinition of efficiency and shows the problems with the current descriptions of organisational activity.Findings – The paper shows that efficiency is not demonstrated through cost cutting but through recognising value‐creating activities, and that sustainability cannot be achieved without a consideration of the distribution of the effects of organisational activity.Research limitations/implications – The research shows a different model of sustainability which highlights key aspects that are not normally included; it thereby points the way towards further resear.
Developing an experimental method for a cavity PD based life model

Despite the large amount of activities undertaken in both the area of partial discharge (PD) in cavities and polymeric insulation degradation, degradation of polymeric insulation induced by cavity PD remains a subject where there are more questions than answers. In this paper, an experimental approach is discussed which has the aim of allowing observation of degradation induced by cavity PD. A model based on electron scattering mechanisms in both the cavity gas gap and polymeric insulation is proposed. From observing electron avalanche behavior and its damage mechanisms to the insulation, it may be possible to develop approaches that improve our ability to estimate remaining life of polymeric insulation systems in high voltage plant.
Intra-Industry Profitability Differences in U. S. Manufacturing, 1953-1983

Over the period 1953-83, twelve accounting measures of profitability, which are not on average highly correlated, imply measures of the profitability advantage of large firms that move closely together. All twelve measures decline significantly and substantially over this entire period; there is no acceleration in the 1970s. All measures move countercyclically. Together with recent work on the dynamics of the interindustry concentration-profitability relation, these results point to the existence of important procyclical industry-level changes in the strength of the concentration-profitability relation. Copyright 1989 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Human Capital Investment Specialization and the Wage Effects of Voluntary Labor Mobility

Ahstract-Analyses of voluntary labor mobility suggest that job search facilitates job change while specific training inhibits mobility. Further, given that specific skills cannot be transferred between jobs, and since both search and training are costly, it is reasonable for workers to specialize in search or specific training on a given job. Training or search specialization, however, implies that estimation methods which treat the incidence of a quit as exogenous underestimate mobility effects on wages. The larger wage effects reported here result from simultaneous estimation but also reflect more accurate measurement of wage growth between jobs.
Estimating the Cost of Capital Implied by Market Prices and Accounting Data

Estimating the Cost of Capital Implied by Market Prices and Accounting Data focuses on estimating the expected rate of return implied by market prices, summary accounting numbers, and forecasts of earnings and dividends. Estimates of the expected rate of return, often used as proxies for the cost of capital, are obtained by inverting accounting-based valuation models. The author describes accountingbased valuation models and discusses how these models have been used, and how they may be used, to obtain estimates of the cost of capital.
COMBINED PRODUCTION AND MAINTENANCE SCHEDULING FOR A MULTIPLE‐PRODUCT, SINGLE‐ MACHINE PRODUCTION SYSTEM

Traditionally, the problems of equipment maintenance scheduling and production scheduling in a multi‐product environment have been treated independently. In this paper, we develop a Markov decision process model that simultaneously determines maintenance and production schedules for a multiple‐product, single‐machine production system, accounting for the fact that equipment condition can affect the yield of different product types differently. The problem was motivated by an application in semiconductor manufacturing. After examining structural properties of the optimal policy, we compare the combined method to an approach often used in practice. In the nearly 6,000 test problems studied, the reward from the combined method was an average of more than 25 percent greater than the reward from the traditional method.