Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY, COLLABORATION WITH CUSTOMERS AND INNOVATION PERFORMANCE OF GAZELLE COMPANIES IN KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES

Knowing what customers want and how they use products contribute to company's innovativeness. Absorptive capacity (ACAP) is one theoretical construct that explains how companies gain information about customers and how such information is applied into practice. Yet, empirical evidence on the relationship between ACAP and knowledge from customers is still lacking. This study proposes and tests if customer collaboration is supported by ACAP and mediates the effect of ACAP on innovation performance. An established and previously validated second-order construct of ACAP is suggested to test these hypothesised relationships. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to a sample of 120 selected gazelle companies that have had stable growth rates during the past three years to analyse the proposed relationships. The main finding of the study is that customer collaboration mediates the effect of ACAP on innovation performance.
A Discrete-Time Two-Factor Model for Pricing Bonds and Interest Rate Derivatives under Random Volatility

This paper develops a discrete-time two-factor model of interest rates with analytical solutions for bonds and many interest rate derivatives when the volatility of the short rate follows a GARCH process that can be correlated with the level of the short rate itself. Besides bond and bond futures, the model yields analytical solutions for prices of European options on discount bonds (and futures) as well as other interest rate derivatives such as caps, floors, average rate options, yield curve options, etc. The advantage of our discrete-time model over continuous-time stochastic volatility models is that volatility is an observable function of the history of the spot rate and is easily (and exactly) filtered from the discrete observations of a chosen short rate/bond prices. Another advantage of our discrete-time model is that for derivatives like average rate options, the average rate can be exactly computed because, in practice, the payoff at maturity is based on the average of rates that can be observed only at discrete time intervals. Calibrating our two-factor model to the treasury yield curve (eight different maturities) for a few randomly chosen intervals in the period 1990-96, we find that the two-factor version does not improve (statistically and economically) upon the nested one-factor model (which is a discrete-time version of the Vasicek 1977 model) in terms of pricing the cross section of spot bonds. This occurs although the one-factor model is rejected in favor of the two-factor model in explaining the time-series properties of the short rate. However, the implied volatilities from the Black model (a one-factor model) for options on discount bonds exhibit a smirk if option prices are generated by our model using the parameter estimates obtained as above. Thus, our results indicate that the effects of random volatility of the short rate are manifested mostly in bond option prices rather than in bond prices.
Brazilian Central Bank communication and interest rate expectations

This article presents empirical evidence on the effect of regular Central Bank of Brazil (CBB) communication on volatility and the direction of the interest rates futures market. The volatility of interest rates in the financial market is observed before and after publication of regular CBB communication. Moreover, the period without publication (purdah period) is also considered. Hence, this article combines, in an original manner, the idea presented by Ehrmann and Fratzscher for evaluation of the impact of communication on financial market expectation, and the model developed by Kuttner, for analysis concerning the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rate. The findings support the idea that CBB communication has an effect on expectations of changes in the interest rates and in the expected direction. Furthermore, CBB communication is more effective when made in the periods before meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee and publication of the respective minutes.
A Pneumatically Controlled Reconfigurable Antenna With Three States of Polarization

Many of the existing antennas described in current literature utilize PIN diodes to achieve switchable polarization. In realizing more elaborate reconfigurable antennas, the biasing structures for these DC-controlled components become more complex, which leads to limitations in the RF design as well as losses and undesired radiation. Other reconfigurable technologies, such as MEMS switches and liquid crystals, could be chosen for a particular application depending on various trade-offs, for example efficiency and ease of implementation. An alternative system is a recently developed scheme of using pneumatically controlled solid dielectric slugs, which is low-loss and immune to RF distortion, and eliminates the need for DC biasing structures. To demonstrate the viability of this system, it was incorporated in the design of a reconfigurable ring slot antenna capable of three polarization states (LP/LHCP/RHCP) at 2.4 GHz. The measured axial-ratio bandwidth was 5%, which is comparable to similar low-profile antennas. The simulated and measured antenna performance at all three states showed strong correlation. The pneumatic actuation of four slugs inside a channel to realize the three different states was successfully implemented, demonstrating that pneumatic slug control technology is suitable for inclusion in reconfigurable antennas.
Robust mouse pattern electroretinograms derived simultaneously from each eye using a common snout electrode.

PURPOSE We recorded pattern electroretinograms (PERGs) simultaneously from each eye in mice using binocular stimulation and a common noncorneal electrode. METHODS The PERG was derived simultaneously from each eye in 71 ketamine/xylazine anesthetized mice (C57BL/6J, 4 months old) from subcutaneous needles (active, snout; reference, back of the head; ground, root of the tail) in response to contrast-reversal of gratings (0.05 cycles/deg, >95% contrast) generated on two custom-made light-emitting diode (LED) tablets alternating at slight different frequencies (OD, 0.984 Hz; OS, 0.992 Hz). Independent PERG signals from each eye were retrieved using one channel continuous acquisition and phase-locking average (OD, 369 epochs of 492 ms; OS, 372 epochs of 496 ms). The PERG was the average of three consecutive repetitions. RESULTS Binocular snout PERGs had high amplitude (mean, 25.3 μV, SD 6.6) and no measurable interocular cross-talk. Responses were reliable (test-retest variability within-session, 14%, SD 7; between sessions, 25%, SD 9; interocular asymmetry within-session, 9%, SD 7; between sessions, 13%, SD 5). Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) were the main source of the binocular snout PERG, as optic nerve crush in three mice abolished the signal. CONCLUSIONS The PERG, a sensitive measure of RGC function, is used increasingly in mouse models of glaucoma and optic nerve disease. Compared to current methods, the binocular snout PERG represents a substantial improvement in terms of simplicity and speed. It also overcomes limitations of corneal electrodes that interfere with invasive procedures of the eye and facilitates experiments based on comparison between the responses of the two eyes.
TQM's role in corporate success: Analyzing the evidence

As many managers have discovered, total quality management (TQM) efforts often end with disappointing results. By comparing typical TQM programs with the general pattern in over 150 successful oqanizational turnarounds, this article explains why TQM is not a cure-all and why typical TQM implementation strategies have limited impact, and it offers a more appropriate perspective within which to consider the use of TQM.
Socio-environmental, personal and behavioural predictors of fast-food intake among adolescents

Abstract Objective To identify the socio-environmental, personal and behavioural factors that are longitudinally predictive of changes in adolescents’ fast-food intake. Design Population-based longitudinal cohort study. Setting Participants from Minnesota schools completed in-class assessments in 1999 (Time 1) while in middle school and mailed surveys in 2004 (Time 2) while in high school. Subjects A racially, ethnically and socio-economically diverse sample of adolescents (n 806). Results Availability of unhealthy food at home, being born in the USA and preferring the taste of unhealthy foods were predictive of higher fast-food intake after 5 years among both males and females. Among females, personal and behavioural factors, including concern about weight and use of healthy weight-control techniques, were protective against increased fast-food intake. Among males, socio-environmental factors, including maternal and friends’ concern for eating healthy food and maternal encouragement to eat healthy food, were predictive of lower fast-food intake. Sports team participation was a strong risk factor for increased fast-food intake among males. Conclusions Our findings suggest that addressing socio-environmental factors such as acculturation and home food availability may help reduce fast-food intake among adolescents. Additionally, gender-specific intervention strategies, including working with boys’ sports teams, family members and the peer group, and for girls, emphasizing the importance of healthy weight-maintenance strategies and the addition of flavourful and healthy food options to their diet, may help reduce fast-food intake.
Testing the efficiency of the futures market for crude oil using weighted least squares

It is well known that parameter estimates obtained from ordinary least squares can be distorted by outliers. Given the dramatic fluctuations observed in the price of crude oil, it is surprising that the robustness of parameter estimates has not been scrutinized more closely. This article investigates the efficiency of the New York futures market for crude oil using the basis regression. In addition to ordinary least squares, the model’s parameters are estimated using weighted least squares and trimmed least squares. The results suggest that the presence of outliers may distort parameter estimates obtained from ordinary least squares away from a finding of an inefficient futures market.
Equal Pay for Equal Work? Evidence from Sweden and a Comparison with Norway and the U.S

Using a new data set covering most privately employed workers in Sweden, we compare gender wage differences to those previously reported for Norway and the U.S. The central finding is that the wage gap is small when comparing men and women working in the same type of occupation for the same employer. Segregation of men and women by occupation accounts for more of the gap in Sweden than in the other two countries. In all three countries, we find that segregation by occupation explains more than segregation by establishment, and that institutional changes over the past two decades aimed at improving the status of women had little effect on the gender wage gap. Copyright 2001 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.
The Quality of Internal Control over Financial Reporting in Family Firms

SYNOPSIS: Family firms represent a majority of businesses worldwide, and play a crucial role in the socio-economic development of both developed countries and emerging economies. We study the relationship between family firm characteristics and the quality of internal control over financial reporting, relative to non-family firms. Using a relatively large sample of S&P 500 firms, we report that family firms exhibit more material weaknesses in their internal control over financial reporting than non-family firms. Further investigation suggests that the greater likelihood of material weaknesses is driven by family firms with dual-class shares. Our results are consistent with the entrenchment argument that family owners are motivated to maintain weaker internal controls in order to extract private benefits. Our study contributes to the extant literature on family firms by providing further insight into the mechanisms through which family firms can exert undue influence on internal control over financial repo.
Great Lakes environmental indicators and state of the environment reporting: use, needs, and limitations

Perceptions and use of environmental indicators and state of environment (SOE) reports by local governments and conservation authorities within the Ontario portion of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence basin were examined through a web-based survey and follow-up telephone interviews. Indicator and SOE reporting use are described, as well as information needs and limitations and challenges in using indicators and SOE reports to formulate environmental policy. Information exchange among different levels of governance is also explored. The State of the Great Lakes environmental indicators and SOE reports, developed by the governments of Canada and the United States, were used as a case study.
Sustainability of Persistent Current Account Deficits

This paper puts forward a notion of current account sustainability that explicitly takes into account willingness to pay and willingness to lend in addition to intertemporal solvency. It argues that this notion of sustainability provides a better framework for understanding the variety of country experiences with protracted current account imbalances. Based on this notion, we identify a number of operational indicators related to the structure of the economy, the economic policy stance, and political economy factors. We use these sustainability indicators to evaluate the experience of a number of countries that ran persistent current account imbalances, and derive policy implications consistent with our notion of sustainability.
Tourism Policy and Planning: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

1. Introduction 2. Tourism Policy Issues of Yesterday 3. Tourism Policy Issues for Today 4. International Tourism as a Commercial and Economic Activity 5. Political and Foreign Policy Implications of Tourism 6. Managing Sustainable Tourism 7. Barriers and Obstacles to International Travel 8. Affecting and Influencing Tourism Policy 9. The International Tourism Policy Process 10. Strategic Tourism Planning 11. Transformative Leadership, Poverty Alleviation and Tourism Policies 12. Future World Tourism Policy Issues
Management systems and the CSR engagement

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify the most potent internal resources of a firm that contribute to the CSR agenda. Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a quantitative approach to analyze Malaysian companies. A scorecard is devised according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. A logit/probit model is employed to differentiate firms that are CSR-active from their non-active counterparts. Findings - The results indicate that having universal accredited management systems in place differentiates CSR-active companies from inactive companies. Also, firm size does not matter for CSR performance. Research limitations/implications - The study uses proxies to examine a firm's resources, and thus it might not have captured the implication of the resources fully. Also it identifies resources that have a bearing on the CSR level but does not investigate the conditions in which such resources can be relevant. Practical implications - The results imply that firms that are intent on being CSR-active should consider implementing the various management systems relevant for their businesses. Managers responsible for the CSR agenda might wish to highlight the fact that adherence to such systems actually contributes to the bottom line, thus minimizing resistance from decision-makers, who might view CSR as a costly initiative. Originality/value - The study provides an insight into the influence of management systems on CSR performance among firms in a developing country in Asia. This, to the best knowledge of the authors, has not been studied before.
Chronic Administration of Statins Alters Multiple Gene Expression Patterns in Mouse Cerebral Cortex

Statins have been reported to lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease; however, the mechanism of this potentially important neuroprotective action is not understood. Lowering cholesterol levels does not appear to be the primary mechanism. Statins have pleiotropic effects in addition to lowering cholesterol, and statins may act on several different pathways involving distinct gene expression patterns that would be difficult to determine by focusing on a few genes or their products in a single study. In addition, gene expression patterns may be specific to a particular statin. To understand the molecular targets of statins in brain, DNA microarrays were used to identify gene expression patterns in the cerebral cortex of mice chronically treated with lovastatin, pravastatin, and simvastatin. Furthermore, brain statin levels were determined using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. These studies revealed 15 genes involved in cell growth and signaling and trafficking that were similarly changed by all three statins. Overall, simvastatin had the greatest influence on expression as demonstrated by its ability to modify the expression of 23 genes in addition to those changed by all three drugs. Of particular interest was the expression of genes associated with apoptotic pathways that were altered by simvastatin. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction experiments confirmed the microarray findings. All three drugs were detected in the cerebral cortex, and acute experiments revealed that statins are relatively rapidly removed from the brain. These results provide new insight into possible mechanisms for the potential efficacy of statins in reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease and lay the foundation for future studies.
A flexible magnetization transfer line shape derived from tissue experimental data

To summarize and compare magnetization transfer data from biological tissues, a method was developed to extract the average absorption lineshape of the semi‐solid pool directly from magnetization transfer experimental data along with the four other parameters that characterize the two‐pool model of exchange. Magnetization transfer data for several biological tissues were analyzed using this method and the resulting “flexible” lineshapes were compared with super‐Lorentzian and “Kubo‐Tomita” lineshapes. The use of flexible lineshapes noticeably improves the fit of the two‐pool model to the data. The derived flexible lineshapes of all the tissues analyzed are physically realistic and show remarkably consistent behavior.
Adoption and Utilization of Improved Cookstove in Ghana

Half of the world’s population cooks with inefficient cookstove that run on biomass fuel such as wood, dung, and charcoal. These pose serious health risks to users because they emit excessive smoke due to incomplete combustion. Regardless of commitments by government and civil society organizations to scale up adoption and utilization of improved cookstove in Ghana, the market share is low, approximately 5% of the total cookstove market (GACC, 2012). One key challenge confronting actors in the cookstove program in Ghana is absence of empirical studies on factors that influence adoption and utilization and this study seeks to fill this gap. The study was cross-sectional nature based on primary data collected through a survey process at the study area. The study area comprised six towns in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality, namely, Ejisu, Juaben, Asotwe, Besease and Anwomaso. A sample size of 400 households was used for the purpose of the study. It was evident that adoption of improved cookstove was negatively influenced by household size and positively by composition of adult females in the household. On the issue of utilization or frequency of use, the main influencing factors were income correlates such as household income, number of income-earning members in the household and the level of education of household head. All these factors reduced frequency of utilization because they facilitated households’ ability to provide other improved means of cooking.
A nested case control study of plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations and risk of colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND Low vitamin D status has long been implicated in colorectal carcinogenesis. We investigated this relationship in a nested case-control study within the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS), a large ongoing study of male health professionals living in the United States. METHODS Between 1993 and 2002, 179 colorectal cancer patients were diagnosed and matched to 356 control subjects by age and by month and year of blood collection. Results were also pooled with previously published results from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) cohort, a large female cohort. Conditional logistic regression was used to analyze the association between plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and colorectal cancer, and pooled estimates were calculated using the method of DerSimonian and Laird. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS In the HPFS, we observed a non-statistically significant inverse association between higher plasma 25(OH)D concentration and risk of colorectal cancer and a statistically significant inverse association for colon cancer (highest versus lowest quintile: odds ratio [OR] = 0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.24 to 0.89; P(trend) = . 005). After pooling the results from the HPFS and NHS, higher plasma 25(OH)D concentrations were statistically significantly associated with decreased risks of both colorectal cancer (highest versus lowest quintile, OR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.42 to 1.05; P(trend) = . 01) and colon cancer (highest versus lowest quintile, OR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.34 to 0.86; P(trend) = . 002). Inverse associations with plasma 25(OH)D concentration did not differ by location of colon cancer (proximal versus distal), but the number of patients was small and none of the associations was statistically significant. Opposite relationships between plasma 25(OH)D levels and risk of rectal cancers were found among men (positive) and women (inverse). CONCLUSION Our data provide additional support for the inverse association between vitamin D and colorectal and, in particular, colon cancer risk.
Trends in antimicrobial resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Japan

A total of 184 isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae were recovered from the sputa of patients over a 5-year period in the Nagasaki area and were examined. A total of 30 strains were resistant to penicillin (MIC, > or = 0.10 micrograms/ml), 13 of which belonged to serotype 19B. These strains showed decreased susceptibility to other antimicrobial agents. Vancomycin, cefpirome, and imipenem were the most active agents tested.
Technology development and transfer: experiences from Malaysia

ASEAN is one of the fastest growing economic regions in the world. This region is experiencing a strong economic growth and technological development with a view to maintaining the competitiveness of its firms. The major problem is to formulate a strategic framework for future technology development and transfer taking into account both external and internal factors in countries of the ASEAN. The literature available is reviewed with a view to developing a suitable model for technology development and transfer. The model is illustrated with the help of the experiences obtained from Malaysia on technology development and transfer. A list of strategic options is discussed for effective transfer of technology to developing countries from Malaysian perspectives.