Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of the relationships among TOC use, TOC outcomes, and organizational performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the relationships among the three elements of the theory of constraints (TOC), a number of observable outcomes expected to be associated with the application of TOC, and organizational performance.Design/methodology/approach – A model, which incorporates TOC elements as antecedent to TOC outcomes and TOC outcomes as antecedent to organizational performance, is proposed. Data were collected from 110 organizations identified as TOC adopters, and the model was assessed using a structural equation modeling methodology.Findings – Results indicate that the proposed model fits the data well. Adoption of TOC yields observable TOC outcomes, which lead to improved business unit performance. Analysis suggests that the use of TOC is effective in improving organizational performance.Research limitations/implications – Scales are developed for use in future TOC research.Practical implications – TOC is found to be effective in improving organizational perform.
Rethinking Sustainable Cities: Multilevel Governance and the 'Urban' Politics of Climate Change

While sustainable cities have been promoted as a desirable goal within a variety of policy contexts, critical questions concerning the extent to which cities and local governments can address the challenges of sustainability remain unanswered. We use a multilevel governance perspective to examine the discursive and material struggles which take place in creating sustainable cities. In exploring the politics of implementing climate protection through development planning in Newcastle upon Tyne and transport planning in Cambridgeshire, we find that the interpretation and implementation of sustainability are shaped by forms of governance which stretch across geographical scales and beyond the boundary of the urban. We argue that the 'urban' governance of climate protection involves relations between levels of the state and new network spheres of authority which challenge traditional distinctions between local, national and global environmental politics.
Future issues in socio-technical change for UK citizenship: the importance of ‘place’

This paper emphasises the importance of place in relation to identity, community and citizenship. In considering future technological advances it is argued that these concepts will continue to be understood in relation to place. Identification with place is an integral dimension of selfhood and evidence for a positive relationship civic engagement is discussed. In the future, people will continue to define themselves and their communities in relation to place, although identities will be increasingly grounded in virtual spaces created by online community networks. Therefore, citizenship initiatives should be geared towards understanding the complexity of relationships to place and people’s place-based meanings. In addition, the growth of online social networks will enrich and extend offline social networks rather than replace them. However, communities will be increasingly based on shared interests rather than shared locations, and communication devices will become more geared towards personal, rather than spatial, networks. This will create problems for policymakers and it will be necessary to adopt more flexible initiatives. Finally, it is proposed that citizenship will eventually become more fragmented and dislocated from the nation-state. Policymakers should gear interventions towards multiple forms of citizenship spaces, identities and practices, both online and offline.
Acid‐base alterations in ESRD and effects of hemodialysis

Acid‐base alterations in patients with kidney failure and on hemodialysis (HD) treatment contribute to (1) intradialytic hypercapnia and hypoxia, (2) hemodynamic instability and cardiac arrhythmia, (3) systemic inflammation, and (4) a number of associated electrolyte alterations including potentiating effects of hypokalemia, hypocalcemia and, chronically, soft‐tissue and vascular calcification, imparting poor prognosis and mortality. This paper discusses acid‐base regulation and pathogenesis of dysregulation in patients with kidney failure. Major organ and systemic effects of acid‐base perturbations with a specific focus on kidney failure patients on HD are emphasized, and potential mitigating strategies proposed. The high rate of HD‐related complications, specifically those that can be accounted for by rapid and steep acid‐base perturbations imposed by HD treatment, attests to the pressing need for investigations to establish a better dialysis regimen.
Making the Business Case for Enhanced Depression Care: The National Institute of Mental Health-Harvard Work Outcomes Research and Cost-Effectiveness Study

Objective: Explore the business case for enhanced depression care and establish a return on investment rationale for increased organizational involvement by employer-purchasers. Method: Literature review, focused on the National Institute of Mental Health-sponsored Work Outcomes Research and Cost-effectiveness Study. Results: This randomized controlled trial compared telephone outreach, care management, and optional psychotherapy to usual care among depressed workers in large national corporations. By 12 months, the intervention significantly improved depression outcomes, work retention, and hours worked among the employed. Conclusion: Results of the Work Outcomes Research and Cost-effectiveness Study trial and other studies suggest that enhanced depression care programs represent a human capital investment opportunity for employers.
Clinicopathologic, Gross Necropsy, and Histologic Findings After Intramuscular Injection of Carprofen in a Pigeon (Columba livia) Model

Abstract To evaluate the pathologic effects of carprofen in a pigeon model (Columba livia), 52 young adult pigeons were used in a randomized control study design. Sixteen pigeons were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatment groups and received carprofen by intramuscular injection at dosages of either 2, 5, or 10 mg/kg once daily for 7 days. Four pigeons served as saline-injected controls. Four pigeons from each group and 1 control pigeon were randomly selected on days 2, 4, 6, and 8 to obtain blood samples and then were euthanatized and submitted for necropsy. Histologic lesions in pectoral muscle, liver, kidney, and digestive tract tissue samples were ranked in severity as 0, normal/not present; 1, minimal; 2, mild; 3, mild to moderate; 4, moderate; 5, moderate to marked; and 6, marked pathologic changes. Two-way analysis of variance (day × dose) and pairwise t tests revealed significant (P ≤ .05) mild decreases in total protein and glucose concentrations and marked increases in aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase enzyme activities after carprofen treatments. Gross lesions in carprofen-treated pigeons were pale injection sites (23/48 [47.9%]), mottled yellow livers (9/48 [18.8%]), and congestion of small intestines (7/48 [14.6%]). Liver, kidney, and muscle injection sites had significantly increased (P ≤ .05) severity of histologic lesions. In pigeons, intramuscular administration of carprofen is associated with increased aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase enzyme concentrations, gross lesions in muscle injection sites and liver, and histologic lesions in liver and muscle.
Resistance or participation? Fighting against corporate land access amid political uncertainty in Madagascar

Drawing on a micro-level ethnography, this paper explores the process by which a rural municipality managed to pressure the state into temporarily halting the land extension of a large-scale biofuel project in an agropastoral area of southern Madagascar. It documents how the coalition of local leaders and wealthy cattle owners behind the protest resisted threats to their land access and local domination by finding spaces of expression outside the control of local consultation, and creating alliances with influential activists. In a moral economy veering between rationales of autochthony and extraversion, the transnationalisation of the protest sent shock waves through a state apparatus divided and focused on the prospects of coming elections. By analysing the environmental, cognitive and relational mechanisms behind the emergence and repercussions of this bottom-up struggle, this paper points to the varied bargaining endowments that exist within agrarian communities as well as to the issues of authority at stake within corporate enclosure of land. In states where the rural poor have been historically marginalised from decision-making, consultation processes generally offer little space for participation. This paper demonstrates that contexts of political uncertainty open up new spaces for them to claim their rights but that gains made in such circumstances are fragile and contested.
China's approach to the international market for higher education students: strategies and implications

The rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a new destination for international students has been widely reported in both the domestic and international mass media, but academic research into this phenomenon and its theoretical implications are lacking. The purposes of this article are threefold. First, by examining the dynamics underpinning the PRC's efforts to shape the inflow of international students, it reveals the major strategies that have enabled China to become a key competitor for international students. Second, it argues that China has emerged as a destination of choice for international students, not as the result of neo-liberal ideology or the pursuit of economic gains, but because of state-directed efforts to improve its international political and academic relations. Third, drawing upon China's experience, this article improves our understanding of the role of the state in shaping international relations, higher education and international academic mobility, as both a rule-taker and a rule-maker in the context of globalisation.
The Dugout Canoe Trade in Central America's Mosquitia: Approaching Rural Livelihoods Through Systems of Exchange

Abstract For over 300 years, dugout canoes have been traded within and between ethnic groups in the Mosquitia region of Honduras and Nicaragua. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, I describe the development and contemporary dynamics of the canoe trade in order to operationalize, in one particular landscape, recent calls by geographers and anthropologists for greater ethnographic engagement with rural livelihoods. For example, historical analysis of the Mosquitia's canoe trade reveals several unexpected insights into the relationship between remote rural peoples and international capital, including the interaction and co-constitution of local and international trade circuits through time, how rural producers could manipulate canoe production to take advantage of boom-time trade circuits, and how canoe trading took on added importance during recessionary periods. Analysis of contemporary canoe production among Honduras's Tawahka Sumu points, in turn, to the economic viability of canoe trading, especially in contrast to cash crop production. Individual producers, however, face a variety of constraints on their ability to benefit from the canoe commodity chain, with young, undercapitalized households facing the largest barriers to canoe production and sale. Reliance on canoe sales can speak to a household's undercapitalization or to its ability to invest in new opportunities, especially in the form of education for their children. Ultimately, the canoe case study demonstrates how attention to the trade in everyday materialities in remote rural regions can help to envision and operationalize a new form of rural development, in which endogenous projects and capabilities are foregrounded.
The effect of an inhaled steroid on the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis‐which tests should be used?

Inhaled corticosteroids may produce systemic effects which include decreased hypothalamic pituitary‐adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Four tests of HPA axis function were assessed in 12 healthy volunteers, during inhalation of two actuations of beclomethasone dipropionate (250 μg) aerosol four times daily for 15 days, to determine the most appropriate test for this effect of inhaled corticosteroids. Measurement of basal adrenal activity showed that both 24‐hr urinary free cortisol and 0900 hr plasma cortisol were decreased by the fourth day of steroid treatment. All 12 subjects had decreases in basal adrenal activity. Overall the 24‐hr urinary free cortisol showed the greater change, with mean pre‐steroid baseline values of 497 and 515 nmol/24 hr reduced to 167 nmol/24 hr on the ninth day of treatment (P < 0.001). The single‐dose metyrapone test showed marked changes in each of the six subjects tested. The mean 11‐deoxycortisol response was 96 nmol/l on the eleventh day of treatment, compared to baseline and eighth‐day post‐treatment values of 439 and 407 nmol/1 respectively (P < 0.001). In contrast, no consistent treatment‐related changes were observed with the short tetracosactrin test. Only two out of six subjects had an abnormal short tetracosactrin test, although all showed a decrease in basal adrenal activity. From these results, the 24‐hr urinary free cortisol and single‐dose metyrapone test at 0600 hr are recommended to assess the effect of inhaled glucocorticoids on the HPA axis. The short tetracosactrin test failed to detect an effect from the same dose of inhaled beclomethasone dipropionate and cannot therefore be recommended to exclude the systemic effect of an inhaled steroid.
Measuring disability experienced by adults living with HIV: assessing construct validity of the HIV Disability Questionnaire using confirmatory factor analysis

Objectives To assess the construct validity of the HIV Disability Questionnaire (HDQ), a self-administered questionnaire that describes the presence, severity and episodic nature of disability experienced by people living with HIV. Design We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis. We hypothesised that domains in the HDQ characterised six dimensions of disability, each represented by HDQ items: physical symptoms and impairments (20 items); cognitive symptoms and impairments (3 items); mental and emotional health symptoms and impairments (11 items); uncertainty (14 items); difficulties with day-to-day activities (9 items) and challenges to social inclusion (12 items). We developed a measurement model to test these hypotheses. We used maximum likelihood methods of estimation to determine model fit. We considered a threshold for the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of <0.05 as an indication of overall goodness of model fit. We considered variables with factor loadings of >0.30 as representing a given domain of disability. Setting We recruited adults with HIV from hospital clinics, AIDS service organisations and a specialty hospital in Ontario. Participants Of the 361 adults with HIV who completed the HDQ, 80% were men, 36% were 50 or older and 77% reported living with at least two concurrent health conditions in addition to HIV. Outcome Measures We administered the HDQ followed by a demographic questionnaire. Results The model achieved good overall fit as indicated by a RMSEA of 0.030 (90% CI 0.028 to 0.033). All HDQ items represented our hypothesised dimensions of disability (factor loadings >0.30). Factor loadings ranged from 0.34 to 0.90. Domains of disability correlated with each other ranging from r=0.47 (between difficulties with day-to-day activities and uncertainty) to r=0.88 (between mental-emotional health challenges and challenges to social inclusion). Conclusions The six domain structure of the HDQ demonstrated construct validity when administered to adults living with HIV.
Natural Resources, Innovation, and Growth

This paper investigates the connection between resource abundance and innovation, as a transmission mechanism that can elucidate part of the resource curse hypothesis; i.e. the observed negative impact of resource wealth on income growth. We develop a variation of the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model with endogenous growth to explain the phenomenon. In this model, consumers trade off leisure versus consumption, and firms trade off innovation efforts versus manufacturing. For this model, we show that an increase in resource income frustrates economic growth in two ways: directly by reducing work effort and indirectly by inducing a smaller proportion of the labor force to engage in innovation.
Futures Trading and Investor Returns: An Investigation of Commodity Market Risk Premiums

The long-standing controversy over whether speculators in a futures market earn a risk premium is analyzed within the context of the capital asset pricing model recently developed by Sharpe, Lintner, and others. Under that approach the risk premium required on a futures contract should depend not on the variability of prices but on the extent to which the variations in prices are systematically related to variations in the return on total wealth. The systematic risk was estimated for a sample of wheat, corn, and soybean futures contracts over the period 1952 to 1967 and found to be close to zero in all three cases. Average realized holding period returns on the contracts over the same period were close to zero.
Abnormal Returns from Merger Profiles

Several studies indicate the presence of large abnormal returns accruing to shareholders of merged firms in the period immediately before the merger. For example, Mandelker [18] reports that stockholders of acquired firms earn abnormal returns of approximately 14 percent in the seven months preceding merger. Franks, Broyles, and Hecht [15] find abnormal returns of 26 percent for British firms during the four months prior to merger; Elgers and Clark [11] report 43 percent abnormal returns accruing over two years before merger to shareholders of acquired firms.
Innovative Enterprise and Historical Transformation

The social conditions that affect innovation change over time and vary across productive activities. Hence theoretical analysis of the innovative enterprise must be integrated with historical study through the use of what I call a historical-transformation methodology—a methodology that stands in sharp contrast to, but can nonetheless be complemented by, the constrained-optimization methodology favored by conventional economists. In surveying some major attempts to analyze the role of the business enterprise in generating superior economic performance in the advanced economies, including the works of Oliver Williamson, Alfred Chandler, Edith Penrose, and resource-based theorists, I explain what a historical-transformation methodology is and why such a methodology is needed for understanding how and under what conditions business enterprises can in fact be innovative enterprises.
Developing the Psychological Capital of Resiliency

In these turbulent times, we propose the importance of developing the psychological capital dimension of resiliency. After providing the theoretical background and meaning of psychological capital in general and resiliency in particular, the authors present proactive and reactive human resource development (HRD) strategies for its development. The proactive HRD includes increasing psychological assets, decreasing risk factors, and facilitating processes that allow human resources to enhance their resilience. The reactive HRD largely draws from a broaden-and-build model of positive emotions and self-enhancement, external attribution, and hardiness. The article includes specific guidelines for HRD applications and an agenda for future needed research.
Properties of the zeros of generalized basic hypergeometric polynomials

We define the generalized basic hypergeometric polynomial of degree N in terms of the generalized basic hypergeometric function, by choosing one of its parameters to allow the termination of the series after a finite number of summands. In this paper, we obtain a set of nonlinear algebraic equations satisfied by the N zeros of the polynomial. Moreover, we obtain an N × N matrix M defined in terms of the zeros of the polynomial, which, in turn, depend on the parameters of the polynomial. The eigenvalues of this remarkable matrix M are given by neat expressions that depend only on some of the parameters of the polynomial; that is, the matrix M is isospectral. Moreover, in case the parameters that appear in the expressions for the eigenvalues of M are rational, the matrix M has rational eigenvalues, a Diophantine property.
Risk of stroke in children

Methods: Using a California-wide hospital discharge database, the authors analyzed all first admissions for stroke in children 1 month through 19 years of age from 1991 through 2000. Incidence rates were estimated as the number of first hospitalizations divided by the person-years at risk; case fatality rates were based on in-hospital deaths. Results: The authors identified 2,278 first admissions for childhood stroke, yielding an annual incidence rate of 2.3 per 100,000 children (1.2 for ischemic stroke, 1.1 for hemorrhagic stroke). Compared with whites, black children were at higher risk of stroke (for ischemic stroke, relative risk [RR] 2.59, 95% CI 2.17 to 3.09, p < 0.0001; subarachnoid hemorrhage [SAH], RR 1.59, CI 1.06 to 2.33, p = 0.02; intracerebral hemorrhage [ICH], RR 1.66, CI 1.23 to 2.13, p = 0.0001). Hispanics, however, had a lower risk of ischemic stroke (RR 0.70, CI 0.60 to 0.82, p < 0.0001) and ICH (RR 0.77, CI 0.64 to 0.93, p = 0.0004), whereas Asians had similar risks as whites. Boys were at higher risk for all stroke types than girls (ischemic stroke, RR 1.25, CI 1.11 to 1.40, p = 0.0002; SAH, RR 1.24, CI 1.00 to 1.53, p = 0.047; ICH, RR 1.34, CI 1.16 to 1.56, p = 0.0001). After eliminating cases with coexisting sickle cell disease, excess stroke risk persisted in blacks; after elimination of trauma, excess stroke risk persisted in boys. Case fatality rates were similar among different ethnic groups. Compared with girls, boys had a higher case fatality rate for ischemic stroke (17 vs 12%; p = 0.002) but not for ICH or SAH. Conclusions: Rates of hospitalization for stroke are higher among black children and boys; sickle cell disease and trauma do not fully account for these findings.