Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fragmented structures and vertical control systems: the Swedish experience of resource utilization in human services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problem of management systems in human services dealing with children and young people not supporting efficient resource utilization, as well as how to deal with this problem.Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on six years (2002‐2007) of research into human service organizations with regard to social activities focusing on children and adolescents. The authors conducted this research in collaboration with representatives of social services, health services, schools and pre‐schools in three municipalities in southern Sweden (2002‐2005) and four municipalities and two county councils (2005‐2007) in different parts of Sweden. The researchers met these representatives at seminars held every month. The seminars primarily served the purpose of discussing problems and opportunities, as well as allowing experiences to be exchanged between the representatives.Findings – The circumstances of dependency between social services, schools and pre‐scho.
Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture

The defense community finally has accepted that strategic culture is a vitally important concept with significant implications. There are difficulties, however, in finding a methodology to study it and, indeed, in understanding just how it “works. ” Scholars cannot even agree on how to define strategic culture, even though, clearly, culture is of the utmost importance. This article addresses the many challenges that accompany the study of culture and warns that it is not a panacea for strategic dilemmas. It also warns that it is possible that the current enthusiasm for cultural study and culturally informed strategic behavior soon will fade.
Thermal indices and their applications for livestock environments

[First paragraphs]: Heat exchanges with the environment are crucial processes for maintaining homeothermy by humans and other animals. These exchanges involve heat production, conservation, and dissipation, and are dependent on both biological and physical factors. The complexity of these exchanges has led to many attempts to represent the environmental aspects by surrogate thermal indices as a basis for assessing the biological effect and consequent impact of the thermal environment. Resultant index values represent effects produced by the heat exchange process. For humans, comfort assessment is primary; for animals, assessing performance, health, and well-being have been foremost. Emphasis in this chapter is on thermal indices used in animal studies and their applications, with a view toward strategic and tactical decisions for rational environmental management. Illustrative examples are included, as are considerations for future efforts.
Enzyme Treatment RT-PCR to Differentiate Infectious and Inactivated F + RNA 1 Phages 2

F+RNA phages are recommended as indicators of fecal contamination, the presence 5 of enteric viruses, and as viral surrogates to elucidate the resistance of viruses to adverse 6 conditions or assess the effectiveness of inactivating processes. RT-PCR methods have been used 7 to detect, quantify or identify subgroups of F+RNA phages. However, these methods may 8 overestimate the infectivity of F+RNA phages in test samples since the presence of both 9 infectious and inactivated phages (or naked RNA) can lead to positive RT-PCR signals. In this 10 study, we evaluated the ability of an enzyme treatment (ET) with proteinase K and RNase A prior 11 to RNA extraction followed by RT-PCR to differentiate infectious and inactivated F+RNA 12 phages. Results indicated that ET RT-PCR reduced, but not completely eliminated, false-positive 13 signals encountered by RT-PCR alone. The two-step ET RT-PCR, in which the enzymes were 14 added sequentially, was more effective at reducing false-positive signals than the one-step ET 15 RT-PCR, which involved addition of both enzymes together. Despite its inability to completely 16 eliminate false-positive signals, ET RT-PCR gave more reliable information on the infectivity of 17 F+RNA phages. Thus, this method is better than RT-PCR alone to detect F+RNA phages as 18 indicators to assess the risk of fecal contamination by enteric pathogens, or to evaluate the 19 effectiveness of virus inactivating processes. 20 21 1 CRIFS, Department of Food Science, University of Guelph, 43McGilvray St, Guelph, ON, 22 Canada, N1G2W1 23 * Corresponding author. CRIFS, Department of Food Science, University of Guelph, 24 43McGilvray St, Guelph, ON, Canada, N1G2W1; Email: mgriffit@uoguelph.ca; Phone Number: 25 519-824-4120 x52269 26 AEM Accepts, published online ahead of print on 21 March 2014 Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.03964-13 Copyright © 2014, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved. on O cber 6, 2017 by gest ht://aem . sm . rg/ D ow nladed fom
A Comment on Farmer Education and Farm Efficiency: A Survey

In a widely acknowledged study, Marlaine E. Lockheed, Dean T. Jamison, and Lawrence J. Lau presented a meticulous survey of studies investigating the effect of farmer education on farm efficiency in less developed countries. ' In summarizing 18 different studies in 13 countries, they concluded that education has a positive effect on efficiency and that on average 4 years of education results in a 7.4% improvement in output. Generally, Lockheed et al.'s study confirms a widely accepted view that education has a positive effect on farm productivity. However, a careful analysis of the empirical foundation of their study suggests the need for some skepticism about the conclusions drawn. The estimated coefficients for the education variables in the production functions presented often are not statistically significant and, in some cases, show that education has a negative effect on farm efficiency. For example, if statistical significance is calculated at the . 05 level, only 22 of 39 equations (56.4%) reported in Lockheed et al.'s table 2 estimate a positive and statistically significant coefficient for the education variable. The remaining 44% are either not significantly different from zero or are negative.2 Separating the studies by geographic area reveals another interesting pattern in the studies, namely, how the "expected" result varies across regions. Latin America and Asia are well represented in the sample with 13 and 22 studies, respectively, but only two of the studies are from Africa.3 Of the 13 Latin American studies, only three (23.1%) are positive and significant at the . 05 level. For Asia, on the other hand, over 77.3% (17 of 22) show the expected result. As for the two studies for Africa, one finds a negative effect of education on productivity, and the other finds no significant effect. This indicates that, while there is evidence supporting the beneficial effect of education on productivity
Construction cost analysis under uncertainty with correlated cost risk analysis model

Cost estimation is an important task in construction projects. Since various risk‐factors affect the construction costs, the actual costs generally deviate from the estimated costs in a favourable or an adverse direction. Therefore, not only estimation of the costs but also an analysis of the uncertainty of the estimated costs is required. This requirement gains more importance in projects constrained by money as the main driver. The traditional cost estimation, i.e. predicting the construction costs and simply calculating the total, is deterministic and insufficient. This approach neglects the uncertainty and the correlation effects. A new simulation‐based model—the correlated cost risk analysis model (CCRAM)—is proposed to analyse the construction costs under uncertainty when the costs and risk‐factors are correlated. CCRAM captures the correlation between the costs and risk‐factors indirectly and qualitatively. The efficiency and effectiveness of the model is evaluated through an application of CCRAM and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) based method using the same hypothetical data. The findings show that CCRAM operates well and produces more consistent results compatible with the theoretical expectancies.
Is Pleading Really a Bargain?

A criminal defendant's decision of whether to accept a plea bargain is one with serious consequences both for his or her immediate and long‐term future. Conventional wisdom suggests that defendants are better served by entering into a plea bargain, to avoid what is known as the “trial penalty. ” In this article I present evidence that this notion is likely mistaken. In OLS regressions using data from Cook County state courts, I find that a risk‐neutral defendant seeking to minimize his or her expected sentence would do substantially better by rejecting a plea bargain. I also employ an IV approach to the question and, while the instrument is weak, the results are consistent with the OLS: defendants are better off going to trial.
Trends in mobile services in Finland 2004‐2006: from ringtones to mobile internet

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development in the Finnish telecommunication market and trends in actual and future user behavior with regard to three groups of mobile services. It is the authors' view that service characteristics cannot be ignored.Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on data collected over a period of three years using independent samples. To test the core of our conceptual model the study used structural equation modeling.Findings – The analysis based on the data collected over three years shows that we cannot understand the actual and future use unless we take the subtleties and usability of services, i.e. the specific characteristics, and user values of the services involved, into account. The research clearly indicates that complementary services are dependent on positive attitudes towards mobile innovations and on perceived flexibility. Service composition is of critical importance to the success of 3G and beyond.Originality/value – This paper is.
Identification of an Evolutionarily Conserved Family of Inorganic Polyphosphate Endopolyphosphatases*

Inorganic polyphosphate (poly-P) consists of just a chain of phosphate groups linked by high energy bonds. It is found in every organism and is implicated in a wide variety of cellular processes (e.g. phosphate storage, blood coagulation, and pathogenicity). Its metabolism has been studied mainly in bacteria while remaining largely uncharacterized in eukaryotes. It has recently been suggested that poly-P metabolism is connected to that of highly phosphorylated inositol species (inositol pyrophosphates). Inositol pyrophosphates are molecules in which phosphate groups outnumber carbon atoms. Like poly-P they contain high energy bonds and play important roles in cell signaling. Here, we show that budding yeast mutants unable to produce inositol pyrophosphates have undetectable levels of poly-P. Our results suggest a prominent metabolic parallel between these two highly phosphorylated molecules. More importantly, we demonstrate that DDP1, encoding diadenosine and diphosphoinositol phosphohydrolase, possesses a robust poly-P endopolyphosphohydrolase activity. In addition, we prove that this is an evolutionarily conserved feature because mammalian Nudix hydrolase family members, the three Ddp1 homologues in human cells (DIPP1, DIPP2, and DIPP3), are also capable of degrading poly-P.
Interdependencies in Organization Design: A Test in Hospitals

While there have been numerous empirical and theoretical contributions in both the accounting and management literatures examining independently the implications of strategy and structure on control system design, there has been little research examining the interdependencies among the various elements of organization design. Hospitals represent an empirical setting where a diversity of structural arrangements and strategic orientations are both readily observable and recognized as having implications for other elements of control systems. Using data collected from chief executive officers and medical directors in hospitals, this study examines how strategic choices influence adaptations in structure and performance measurement systems. The findings from this study suggest that there are significant interdependencies between strategic choice, structure, and performance measurement system design and that when the separate elements of organization design complement each other, performance is enhanced.
Changing the Rules: A Comprehensive Approach to Theory Refinement

This paper presents a comprehensive approach to automatic theory refinement. In contrast to other systems, the approach is capable of modifying a theory which contains multiple faults and faults which occur at intermediate points in the theory. The approach uses explanations to focus the corrections to the theory, with the corrections being supplied by an inductive component. In this way, an attempt is made to preserve the structure of the original theory as much as possible. Because the approach begins with an approximate theory, learning an accurate theory takes fewer examples than a purely inductive system. The approach has application in expert system development, where an initial, approximate theory must be refined. The approach also applies at any point in the expert system lifecycle when the expert system generates incorrect results. The approach has been applied to the domain of molecular biology and shows significantly better results then a purely inductive learner.
Differences in knowledge of hepatitis B among Vietnamese, African-American, Hispanic, and white adolescents in Worcester, Massachusetts.

OBJECTIVE To assess the level of knowledge about hepatitis B of Vietnamese adolescents, a group at high risk for hepatitis B, and compare it to the knowledge of adolescents of other races and ethnicities. METHODS A sample of 2816 adolescents was surveyed in 1993 in 2 middle schools and 2 high schools in Worcester, Massachusetts, using a self-administered multilingual questionnaire. RESULTS Knowledge of hepatitis B was low overall. Vietnamese respondents were more likely than were other students to know that hepatitis B affects the liver (35.6% vs 22.6%). However, they were much less likely than were other students to correctly identify sex with an infected person as a risk factor for infection (13.7% vs 32. 8%). Independent predictors of this knowledge were: white race; older age; attending high school versus middle school; having been taught about hepatitis B in school; knowing the definition of hepatitis B; reporting better grades; having a family member with hepatitis B; and being more highly acculturated. CONCLUSIONS Adolescent knowledge about risk of infection was low in this study. Attention should be directed at providing health education on hepatitis B to adolescents, particularly to Vietnamese. Health care providers, community health educators, and others engaged in the effort to control and eradicate hepatitis B should be sensitive to the unique educational and cultural needs of high-risk southeast Asian adolescent populations.
Weighted Data Gravitation Classification for Standard and Imbalanced Data

Gravitation is a fundamental interaction whose concept and effects applied to data classification become a novel data classification technique. The simple principle of data gravitation classification (DGC) is to classify data samples by comparing the gravitation between different classes. However, the calculation of gravitation is not a trivial problem due to the different relevance of data attributes for distance computation, the presence of noisy or irrelevant attributes, and the class imbalance problem. This paper presents a gravitation-based classification algorithm which improves previous gravitation models and overcomes some of their issues. The proposed algorithm, called DGC+, employs a matrix of weights to describe the importance of each attribute in the classification of each class, which is used to weight the distance between data samples. It improves the classification performance by considering both global and local data information, especially in decision boundaries. The proposal is evaluated and compared to other well-known instance-based classification techniques, on 35 standard and 44 imbalanced data sets. The results obtained from these experiments show the great performance of the proposed gravitation model, and they are validated using several nonparametric statistical tests.
PENGARUH GOOD CORPORATE GOVERNANCE TERHADAP EFFECTIVE TAX RATE (ETR) (Studi Empiris Pada Perusahaan Manufaktur Yang Terdaftar Di Bursa Efek Indonesia Tahun 2011-2013)

This research investigates the influence of good corporate governance influences Effective Tax Rate (ETR). Good corporate governance are measured by the audit committee, institusional ownership, number board of commissioner, and percentage of independent commissioner. This research sample is manufactured company registered on the Stock Exchange during the year 2011-2013 by using of method purposive sampling. There are 154 companies fulfilling criterions. This research used multiple regression analysis. The results of this research indicates that institusional ownership affect Effective Tax Rate (ETR) significantly. Meanwhile, the proportion of independent commissioners, the number board of commissioner does not significantly influence the company's Effective Tax Rate (ETR). Keywords : Good Corporate Governance, Effective Tax Rate (ETR), The Audit Committee, and Institusional Ownership, Board of Commissioner, and Independent Commissioner
Ethnocentrism and Its Effect on the Chinese Consumer: A Threat to Foreign Goods?

This study examines ethnocentric tendencies including consumer ethnocentrism, country of origin, product judgments, willingness to buy, and animosity toward foreign products among a sample of economically progressive Chinese college students in a coastal port city in northern China. Survey results suggest that these Chinese consumers held a rather positive view of, and little animosity toward, the United States. They also did not show high levels of ethnocentrism or country-of-origin effects. These results would suggest openness toward foreign products. While Chinese consumers report little animosity or ethnocentric tendencies toward U.S. products, animosity, country of origin, and ethnocentrism are significantly correlated with willingness to buy. This suggests managers need to carefully position foreign products with respect to Chinese consumer expectations. Impacts of traditional collectivist views of the Chinese culture are suggested as an avenue for future research with respect to ethnocentrism and willingness to buy foreign products.
Immunotoxin and Taxol synergy results from a decrease in shed mesothelin levels in the extracellular space of tumors

Recombinant immunotoxins are chimeric proteins composed of the Fv portion of a tumor-specific antibody fused to a toxin. SS1P (CAT-5001) is an immunotoxin composed of an antimesothelin Fv fused to a 38-kDa portion of Pseudomonas exotoxin A. Immunotoxins have been shown to be active in lymphomas and leukemias, but are much less active against solid tumors. We recently reported that Taxol and other chemotherapeutic agents show striking synergistic antitumor activity in mice when immunotoxin SS1P, which targets the mesothelin antigen on solid tumors, is given with Taxol. Using a pair of Taxol-sensitive and Taxol-resistant KB tumors equally sensitive to immunotoxin SS1P, we examined the mechanism of synergy. We show that synergy is only observed with Taxol-sensitive tumors, ruling out an effect of Taxol on endothelial cells. We also show that the KB tumors have high levels of shed mesothelin in their extracellular space; these levels increase with tumor size and, after Taxol treatment, dramatically fall in the drug-sensitive but not the drug-resistant tumors. Because the mesothelin levels in the tumor exceed the levels of SS1P in the tumor, and because shed mesothelin is being continuously released into the circulation at a high rate, we propose that synergy is due to the Taxol-induced fall in shed antigen levels.
The Euro and Regional Price Differences of Individual Products in an Integrated Cross-Border Area

Using individual supermarket prices, this article shows that, even for a narrowly defined geographical and highly integrated cross-border area, absolute deviations from the law of one price (LOP) rise, as distance increases and borders are crossed. Being inside the former Belgian-Luxembourg monetary association has the opposite effect. The latter result suggests that the euro will increase European integration and will help to reduce regional and cross-border price differences in the long term. Furthermore, larger differences in packaging sizes result in larger price deviations. The opposite is the case for prices observed within the same retail group.
PENGARUH INDEPENDENSI DEWAN KOMISARIS, REPUTASI AUDITOR, RASIO HUTANG, DAN COLLATERALIZABLE ASSETS TERHADAP KEBIJAKAN DIVIDEN (Studi Empiris pada Perusahaan Manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia Periode 2009-2011)

The objective of this research is to examine the influences of corporate governance and firm characteristics on dividend policy. In particular, based on agency theory ,variables which allegedly have influence on dividend policy are board independence, auditor reputation, debt ratio, and collateralizable assets. The population of this research is all of the manufacturing entities listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange during the period of 2009-2011. The sampling method used is purposive sampling. The data is acquired from Indonesian Capital Market Directory (ICMD). Linear regression method is conducted to analyze the data. The empirical result s indicate that, partially, board independence and debt ratio have no influence towards dividend policy. Auditor reputation has significantly positive influence towards dividend policy. Collateralizable assets show significantly negative influence towards dividend policy.
WHEN IS FREQUENT FACE-TO-FACE CONTACT NECESSARY IN INNOVATION? A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO DISTRIBUTED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

This paper combines the concept of technological modularity from the product-development literature with the concept of brokers from literature about communities of practice to explain why some innovation project teams require frequent face-to-face interactions to efficiently co-create new technologies, whereas others do not. The explanation is explored through a comparative case-study analysis of two distributed product-development projects in the European software and telecommunications industries. These case-study projects traversed several geographical sites in Norway, Germany, Greece, England and the Netherlands as well various communities of practice related to a number of distinct technological specialisations. The method involved participative observations and 40 in-depth interviews with key project members, managers and consultants.
Valuation of patent – a real options perspective

Both the theoretical model and the empirical analysis methods are examined for valuing patents from the real options perspective. This study not only sets up a real options approach for evaluating patent to conform to the main sensitivity analysis of patent activities, but also establishes an empirical method about valuing patents by a panel data. Cross-sectional and time-series data from 101 Taiwanese electronic firms between 1993 and 2002 are employed for the fixed effects analysis in the panel data model. This study concludes the consist results from the theoretical model and empirical analysis. That is, the patent value increases with increasing the underlying asset, time to maturity and risk-free rate.