Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Critical (Realist) Reflection on Policy and Management Research in Sport, Tourism and Sports Tourism

Abstract The paper revisits the ontological and epistemological grounding of economic, social science and management research in sport, tourism and sports tourism that has, as its motivation, a desire to inform policy and management. To inform policy and management requires an implicit assumption about the generality of insights and, moreover, access to enduring phenomena upon which policy levers can operate and upon which management decisions can be based. Yet these assumptions are not typically made transparent in applied work emanating from an economic or management perspective and much social science research rejects the concepts. In what sense, therefore, can research inform policy or management advice, or can policy and management failures be understood? This paper argues that critical realism can provide the philosophical framework from within which answers to these questions can be offered. Moreover, critical realism imposes some clear guidelines upon the nature of research design. As well as research design, the paper revisits concepts of cause, including agency and emergence. The arguments are illustrated with reference to applied research into sports tourism.
Pilot study of a new posterior chamber phakic intraocular lens (epi.lens) for high myopia.

PURPOSE To report the first safety and efficacy results of a new posterior chamber phakic intraocular lens (PIOL) (Epi.Lens, Acri.Tec/Carl Zeiss Meditec) implanted in the ciliary sulcus to correct high myopia. METHODS The Epi.Lens was implanted for the first time in 48 consecutive eyes of 25 patients in an ongoing two-center clinical study. Pre- and postoperative manifest refraction, uncorrected (UDVA) and corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA), intraocular pressure, slit-lamp and funduscopic examination, and ultrasound biomicroscopy were evaluated. Follow-up examinations were performed at 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months postoperatively. For each patient, the latest follow-up data were considered. RESULTS The study cohort consisted of highly myopic patients with mean preoperative manifest refraction spherical equivalent of -9.90 ± 2.53 D, which was reduced to -0.26 ± 0.84 D postoperatively. Two (4.2%) eyes lost one line of CDVA postoperatively, whereas 19 (40%) met and 27 (56%) eyes exceeded preoperative CDVA values, thus improving mean CDVA from 0.83 ± 0.30 to 1.03 ± 0.26. Mean postoperative UDVA (0.85 ± 0.37) was similar to preoperative CDVA (0.83 ± 0.30). When considering all eyes with good visual potential (preoperative CDVA ≥ 1.00 [20/20] [n=25]), 20 (80%) achieved postoperative UDVA ≥ 1.00 (20/20), and 24 (96%) achieved UDVA ≥ 0.80 (20/25). One lens with a small diameter showed contact of the Epi.Lens and crystalline lens with subsequent slight anterior subcapsular cataract; however, CDVA was 1.00 (20/20) at last follow-up 2 years postoperatively. CONCLUSIONS The results of this Epi.Lens pilot study demonstrate good safety and efficacy. The preliminary data are encouraging, and longer follow-up results are anticipated.
Diverse osteoclastogenesis of bone marrow from mandible versus long bone.

BACKGROUND Mandibles (MB) and maxillae possess unique metabolic and functional properties and demonstrate discrete responses to homeostatic, mechanical, hormonal, and developmental stimuli. Osteogenic potential of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) differs between MB versus long bones (LB). Furthermore, MB- versus LB-derived osteoclasts (OCs) have disparate functional properties. This study explores the osteoclastogenic potential of rat MB versus LB marrow in vitro and in vivo under basal and stimulated conditions. METHODS Bone marrow from rat MB and LB was cultured in osteoblastic or osteoclastic differentiation media. Tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) staining, resorption pit assays, and real-time polymerase chain reaction were performed. Additionally, osmotic mini-pumps were implanted in animals, mandibles and tibiae were isolated, and multinucleated cells (MNCs) were measured. RESULTS MB versus LB marrow cultures that were differentiated with receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL) and macrophage colony-stimulating factor produced more TRAP(+) MNCs and greater resorptive area. To explore MB versus LB BMSC-supported osteoclastogenesis, confluent BMSCs were cultured with parathyroid hormone (PTH), 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3), or PTH+1,25D3. 1,25D3- or PTH+1,25D3-treated LB BMSCs expressed significantly higher RANKL and lower osteoprotegerin (OPG) mRNA and increased RANKL:OPG ratio. When whole marrow was cultured with PTH+1,25D3, more TRAP(+) MNCs were seen in LB versus MB cultures. Ultimately, rats were infused with PTH+1,25D3, and MB versus tibia MNCs were measured. Hormonal stimulation increased osteoclastogenesis in both MB and tibiae. However, higher TRAP(+) MNC numbers were observed in tibiae versus MB under basal and hormonal stimulation. CONCLUSION Collectively, these data illustrate differences of both osteoclastogenic potential and OC numbers of MB versus LB marrow.
Measuring Public Corruption in the United States: Evidence From Administrative Records of Federal Prosecutions

A growing empirical literature examines public corruption in the United States, but most of these studies use survey data on federal corruption convictions that is aggregated, sparse, and of dubious quality and provenance. This article describes an alternative data source from administrative records that provides more detailed and reliable information on corruption prosecutions and convictions by type of state official and by lead charge. Contrary to conventional wisdom, corruption convictions are not increasing and mostly involve low-ranking federal or local officials. Administrative data on public corruption are not highly correlated with survey data in state-year observations. Consequently, prior empirical findings based on survey data may not be replicated when reexamined with administrative records on corruption prosecutions. The availability of more reliable and detailed data on corruption prosecutions is a boon to scholars interested in the causes and consequences of public corruption in the United States.
Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and Customer Loyalty in Indian Commercial Banks

This article examines whether service quality of Indian commercial banks increases customer satisfaction that fosters customer loyalty. Data were collected from 350 valued customers of scheduled commercial bank branches in Orissa (India). A questionnaire elicited information on socio–demographic variables along with human, technical, and tangible aspects of service quality, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. Results suggest that better human, technical and tangible aspects of service quality of the bank branches increase customer satisfaction. Human aspects of service quality were found to influence customer satisfaction more than the technical and tangible aspects. Customer satisfaction furthers customer loyalty. Increase in service quality of the banks can satisfy and retain customers. In the Indian banking sector, human aspects are more important than technical and tangible aspects of service quality that influence customer satisfaction and promote and enhance customer loyalty.
Accompaniment, Workplace Representation and Disciplinary Outcomes in British Workplaces Just a Formality?

The Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 provides data that, for the first time, measure the extent to which workforce representation is part and parcel of grievance and disciplinary processes in British workplaces. This article explores the impact of the introduction of the statutory right to accompaniment at grievance and disciplinary hearings on rates of disciplinary sanctions, dismissals and employment tribunal applications. It concludes that there is little evidence to suggest that either the right to accompaniment or the operation of formal grievance and disciplinary procedures moderates disciplinary outcomes. Instead, it argues that trade union and employee representatives may be influential in facilitating the resolution of workplace disputes.
Brain’s compensatory response to drug-induced cognitive impairment

ABSTRACT Introduction: Topiramate (TPM), a frequently prescribed antiseizure medication, can cause severe cognitive side-effects. Though these side-effects have been studied behaviorally, the underlying neural mechanisms are unknown. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover study of TPM’s impact on cognition, nine healthy volunteers completed three study sessions: a no-drug baseline session and two sessions during which they received either TPM or placebo. Electroencephalogram was recorded during each session while subjects performed a working-memory task with three memory-loads. Results: Comparing TPM with baseline we found the following results. (a) TPM administration led to declines in behavioral performance. (b) Fronto-central event-related potentials (ERP) elicited by probe stimuli, representing the primary task network activity, showed strong memory-load modulations at baseline, but the magnitude of these load-dependent modulations was significantly reduced during TPM session, suggesting drug-induced impairments of the primary task network. (c) ERP responses over bilateral fronto-temporal electrodes, which were not load sensitive at baseline, showed significant memory-load modulations after TPM administration, suggesting the drug-related recruitment of additional neural resources. (d) At fronto-central scalp sites, there was significant increase in response amplitude for low memory-load during TPM session compared to baseline, and the amplitude increase was dependent on TPM plasma concentration, suggesting that the primary task network became less efficient under TPM impact. (e) At bilateral fronto-temporal electrodes, there were no ERP differences when comparing low memory-load trials, but TPM administration led to an increase in ERP responses to high load, the magnitude of which was positively correlated with task performance, suggesting that the recruited neural resources were beneficial for task performance. Placebo–TPM comparison yielded similar effects albeit with generally reduced significance and effect sizes. Conclusion: Our findings support the hypothesis that TPM impairs the primary task network by reducing its efficiency, which triggers compensatory recruitment of additional resources to maintain task performance.
Modelling and forecasting long memory in exchange rate volatility vs. stable and integrated GARCH models

The purpose of this article is to compare stable, integrated and long-memory generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models in forecasting the volatility of returns in the Turkish foreign exchange market for the period 1990–2005 and for the subperiod that covers the floating exchange rate regime 2001–2005. In the first period, we found that long-memory GARCH specifications capture the temporal pattern of volatility for returns in US and Canadian dollars against Turkish lira. For the same period, the temporal pattern of volatility for returns Australian dollar, Japanese yen, Euro and British pound against Turkish lira are best captured by stable GARCH specifications. We found that in the subperiod, only the stable GARCH models are relevant and the return series no longer exhibit the long-memory properties. It was also concluded that all return series except British pound against Turkish Lira have asymmetric effects. Our analysis has shown that when long memory, asymmetry and power terms in the conditional variance are employed, together with the skewed and leptokurtic conditional distribution (of innovations), the most accurate out-of-sample volatility is produced for the first and subperiod. Thus is useful for financial decisions which utilize such forecasts.
Supermodularity in Unweighted Graph Opitimization III: Highly-connected Digraphs

By generalizing a recent result of Hong, Liu, and Lai on characterizing the degree-sequences of simple strongly connected directed graphs, a characterization is provided for degree-sequences of simple $k$-node-connected digraphs. More generally, we solve the directed node-connectivity augmentation problem when the augmented digraph is degree-specified and simple. As for edge-connectivity augmentation, we solve the special case when the edge-connectivity is to be increased by one and the augmenting digraph must be simple.
Academic Insights: An Application of Multiple-Group Causal Models in Assessing Cross-Cultural Measurement Equivalence

In cross-national marketing research, the question whether measurement accuracy, reliability, and validity are achieved across samples traditionally has hampered research efforts. Measurement equivalence across samples has particularly perplexed researchers in their efforts to evaluate responses regarding latent variables. Recently, multiple-group structural equations modeling has been suggested as a reliable method for determining measurement equivalence. To date, however, the use of this approach has remained limited. In this study, the authors apply multiple-group structural equations modeling to assess measurement equivalence in three distinct constructs across U.S. and Korean samples on data derived from cross-cultural advertising research. The authors propose an extension of this method using the measurement error covariance matrices, which will enable researchers to evaluate measurement reliability across samples better and to attempt to disentangle cultural differences in instrument usage from measurement-related differences. The authors evaluate the results and discuss the findings, as well as outline the implications and limitations of this method for further research.
A survey on author profiling, deception, and irony detection for the Arabic language

The possibility of knowing people traits on the basis of what they write is a field of growing interest named author profiling. To infer a user's gender, age, native language, language variety or even when the user lies, simply by analyzing her texts, opens a wide range of possibilities from the point of view of security. In this paper, we review the state of the art about some of the main author profiling problems, as well as deception and irony detection, especially focusing on the Arabic language.
Peripheral blood lymphocytes from Eimeria tenella infected chickens produce gamma‐interferon after stimulation in vitro

Protective immunity to infection by Eimeria parasites has been demonstrated to be dependent on T‐cell mediated immune responses and may be associated with the release of cytokines. We have previously shown that the proportion of CD8‐expressing T‐cells in the peripheral blood of chickens increases transiently at 8 days after a primary infection with Eimeria tenella oocysts. The increase in the CD8+ population coincided with an increased proliferative lymphocyte response upon stimulation with E. tenella sporozoite antigen in vitro. In this study, we further investigated the functional activity of these peripheral blood leucocytes (PBL) by determining both the potential to proliferate and to produce IFN upon stimulation with E. tenella sporozoite antigens and mitogens. Enhanced proliferative responses to parasite antigen were accompanied by reduced responses to T‐cell mitogens around 1 week of infection. The IFN activity in the supernatants of the stimulated PBL was measured by the ability to inhibit Semliki Forest Virus (SFV) replication in chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF) and to activate macrophages, as measured by nitric oxide production. At eight days after infection the highest levels of virus inhibition and NO‐production were detected upon stimulation with both E.tenella sporozoite antigen and mitogen. A strong correlation between the individual data of the two methods was found at this timepoint indicating that the produced cytokine was indeed IFN‐γ. These results suggest that around eight days after a primary E. tenella infection a parasite specific T‐cell subset with the capacity to produce IFN(‐γ) is circulating which could be involved in the induction of protective immunity against Eimeria tenella.
Strategy dynamics in industrial marketing: a business types perspective

Purpose – Industrial marketing covers a broad range of heterogeneous products and services. In response to this heterogeneity, researchers have developed a variety of systematisations of transactions on industrial markets. These systematisations have provided insights for the identification of different types of transaction processes (business types), and for deriving type‐specific marketing recommendations. Based on this literature, the paper considers the consequences of interpreting the typological criteria as variables that can be influenced by the transaction parties, instead of treating them as data.Design/methodology/approach – Transaction cost economics provides the main theoretical foundations. Focusing on seller‐initiated strategy, the paper develops a conceptual framework for shifts between business types that are derived based on differing degrees and horizons of asset specificity.Findings – The paper proposes a conceptual framework and discusses technological and contractual ways of implement.
Off-farm Employment and Food Consumption at Home and away from Home: Evidence from Farm Households in Taiwan

A body of literature has addressed off-farm work by the farm household, but little is known about the association between off-farm work and food consumption. This paper investigates the extent to which off-farm employment by the farm operator and the spouse affects food expenditures at home and away from home. A dual treatment effect model is developed to estimate a simultaneous equation system of four food categories consumed at home and aggregate food away from home, with binary endogenous off-farm employment by the operator and spouse. Off-farm employment by farm operator and spouse both increase food expenditure away from home, while operator’s off-farm employment decreases staple food consumption at home. Socio-demographic characteristics also play important roles in food expenditures at home and away from home.
Ensemble cryo-EM uncovers inchworm-like translocation of a viral IRES through the ribosome

Internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs) mediate cap-independent translation of viral mRNAs. Using electron cryo-microscopy of a single specimen, we present five ribosome structures formed with the Taura syndrome virus IRES and translocase eEF2•GTP bound with sordarin. The structures suggest a trajectory of IRES translocation, required for translation initiation, and provide an unprecedented view of eEF2 dynamics. The IRES rearranges from extended to bent to extended conformations. This inchworm-like movement is coupled with ribosomal inter-subunit rotation and 40S head swivel. eEF2, attached to the 60S subunit, slides along the rotating 40S subunit to enter the A site. Its diphthamide-bearing tip at domain IV separates the tRNA-mRNA-like pseudoknot I (PKI) of the IRES from the decoding center. This unlocks 40S domains, facilitating head swivel and biasing IRES translocation via hitherto-elusive intermediates with PKI captured between the A and P sites. The structures suggest missing links in our understanding of tRNA translocation. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.14874. 001
Tetrandrine suppresses adhesion, migration and invasion of human colon cancer SW620 cells via inhibition of nuclear factor-κB, matrix metalloproteinase-2 and matrix metalloproteinase-9 signaling pathways

Tetrandrine (TET) exhibits biological activities, including anticancer activity. In Chinese medicine, TET has been used to treat hypertensive and arrhythmic conditions and has been demonstrated to induce cytotoxic effects on human cancer cell lines. However, to the best of the author's knowledge, no previous studies have revealed that TET affects cell metastasis in SW620 human colon cancer cells. The present study demonstrated that TET decreased the cell number and inhibited cell adhesion and mobility of SW620 cells. Furthermore, a wound healing assay was performed to demonstrate that TET suppressed cell movement, and Transwell chamber assays were used to reveal that TET suppressed the cell migration and invasion of SW620 cells. Western blotting demonstrated that TET significantly reduced protein expression levels of SOS Ras/Rac guanine nucleotide exchange factor 1, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, growth factor receptor bound protein 2, phosphorylated (p)-c Jun N-terminal kinase 1/2, p-p38, p38, 14-3-3, Rho A, β-catenin, nuclear factor-κB p65, signal transducer and activator of transcription-1 and cyclooxygenase-2, in comparison with untreated SW620 cells. Overall, the results of the present study suggested that TET may be used as a novel anti-metastasis agent for the treatment of human colon cancer in the future.
Ownership structure and diversification in a scenario of weak shareholder protection

This work examines the influences of ownership concentration and insider ownership on corporate strategies for diversification within a scenario characterized by poor protection of shareholder interests. We find evidence of a quadratic relationship between ownership concentration and diversification, and a cubic relationship between diversification and insider ownership. These results point towards the high probability of both expropriation and entrenchment phenomena, respectively, in this kind of scenario. We also find that concentrated ownership requires high levels of insider ownership, in order to prevent negative externalities of diversification. Another result shows that entrenchment externalities affect diversification before they erode firm value, which suggests that for low levels of diversification, firm value is still not negatively affected. Additionally, our results show that control mechanisms, such as debt, director remuneration and compliance with codes of good practice, are negatively related to the level of diversification. Overall, our results confirm the theoretical relevance of agency theory in explaining managerial attitudes towards corporate strategy, i.e. diversification. Furthermore, companies characterized by deficiencies in shareholder legal protection, concentrated ownership structures and a higher likelihood of managers being entrenched, should focus on the correct functioning of corporate governance mechanisms.
Health-related quality of life issues in women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the influence of obesity, fertility status, and androgenism scores on health-related quality of life in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). DESIGN Cross-sectional, correlational. SETTING Private reproductive endocrinology practice in two southeast U.S. cities. PARTICIPANTS Convenience sample of 128 women with PCOS, half of whom were attempting to conceive in addition to being treated for PCOS. Most were White (97%), married (78%), with a mean age of 30.4 years (SD +/- 5.5). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The Health-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire (PCOSQ) for women with polycystic ovary syndrome. A laboratory panel and clinical measures, including body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, and degree of hirsutism. RESULTS The most common health-related quality of life concern reported by women with PCOS was weight, followed in descending order by menstrual problems, infertility, emotions, and body hair. CONCLUSIONS The psychological implications of PCOS are easily underestimated and have been largely ignored. Nursing has a pivotal role in recognizing these concerns and implementing therapy to improve quality of life in women with PCOS.