Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
People management issues in Indian KPOs

Purpose: The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in India is evolving rapidly, and one of the key characteristics of this industry is the emergence of high-end services offered by knowledge processing outsourcing (KPO) organizations. These organizations are set to grow at a tremendous pace. Given the people-intensive nature of this industry, efficient employee management is bound to play a critical role. The literature lacks studies offering insights into the HR challenges involved and the ways in which they are addressed by KPOs. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to fill this gap by presenting findings from an in-depth case study of a KPO organization. Design/methodology/ approach: To achieve the research objective we adopted an in-depth case study approach. The research setting was that of a KPO organization in India, which specialises in offering complex analytics, accounting and support services to the real estate and financial services industries. Findings: The results of this study highlight the differences in the nature of work characteristics in such organizations as compared to call centres. The study also highlights some of the key people management challenges that these organizations face like attracting and retaining talent. The case company adopts formal, structured, transparent and innovative human resource practices. The study also highlights that such enlightened human resource practices stand on the foundations laid by an open work environment and facilitative leadership. Research limitations/implications: One of the key limitations is that the analysis is based on primary data from a single case study and only 18 interviews. The analysis contributes to the fields of KPO, HRM and India and has key messages for policy makers. Originality/value: The literature on outsourcing has in general focused on call centres established in the developed world. However, the booming BPO industry in India is also beginning to offer high-end services, which are far above the typical call centres. These KPOs and their people management challenges are relatively unexplored territories in the literature. By conducting this study in an emerging market (India) and focusing on people-related challenges in KPOs, this study attempts to provide a fresh perspective to the extant BPO literature. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Transient response times of a-Si : H p-i-n color detector

Transients and relevant response times of a-Si : H p-i-n photodetector under various illuminations (in the visible range) and bias voltage conditions were studied. The model/method for possible color detection using on and off transient response times is proposed. Depending on illumination and bias pulse types, one or two processes are found to be involved in the conduction mechanism, including transition and trapping of both charge carrier types. Characteristic photocurrent transients and response times under modulated monochromatic and chromatic visible light illumination enable color recognition. The peculiar behavior of the blue light transients has been also plausibly explained by means of the proposed model
Importin β, transportin, RanBP5 and RanBP7 mediate nuclear import of ribosomal proteins in mammalian cells

The assembly of eukaryotic ribosomal subunits takes place in the nucleolus and requires nuclear import of ribosomal proteins. We have studied this import in a mammalian system and found that the classical nuclear import pathway using the importin α/β heterodimer apparently plays only a minor role. Instead, at least four importin β‐like transport receptors, namely importin β itself, transportin, RanBP5 and RanBP7, directly bind and import ribosomal proteins. We found that the ribosomal proteins L23a, S7 and L5 can each be imported alternatively by any of the four receptors. We have studied rpL23a in detail and identified a very basic region to which each of the four import receptors bind avidly. This domain might be considered as an archetypal import signal that evolved before import receptors diverged in evolution. The presence of distinct binding sites for rpL23a and the M9 import signal in transportin, and for rpL23a and importin α in importin β might explain how a single receptor can recognize very different import signals.
Alcohol use by pedestrians who are struck by motor vehicles: how drinking influences behaviors, medical management, and outcomes.

BACKGROUND Injuries to pedestrians struck by motor vehicles represent a significant public health hazard in large cities. The purpose of this study is to investigate the demographics of alcohol users who are struck by motor vehicles and to assess the effects of alcohol on pedestrian crossing patterns, medical management, and outcomes. METHODS Data were prospectively collected between December 2008 to September 2010 on all pedestrians who presented to a Level I trauma center after being struck by a motor vehicle. Variables were obtained by interviewing patients, scene witnesses, first responders, and medical records. RESULTS Pedestrians who used alcohol were less likely to cross the street in the crosswalk with the signal (22.6% vs. 64.7%) and more likely to cross either in the crosswalk against the signal (22.6% vs. 12.4%) or midblock (54.8% vs. 22.8%). Alcohol use was associated with more initial computed tomography imaging studies compared with no alcohol involvement. Alcohol use was associated with a higher Injury Severity Score (8.82 vs. 4.85; p < 0.001) and hospital length of stay (3.89 days vs. 1.82 days; p < 0.001) compared with those with no alcohol involvement. Patients who used alcohol had a lower average Glasgow Coma Scale score (13.80 vs. 14.76; p < 0.001) and a higher rate of head and neck, face, chest, abdomen, and extremity/pelvic girdle injuries (based on Abbreviated Injury Scale) than those with no alcohol involvement. CONCLUSION Alcohol use is a significant risk factor for pedestrians who are struck by motor vehicles. These patients are more likely to cross the street in an unsafe manner and sustain more serious injuries. Traffic safety and injury prevention programs must address irresponsible alcohol use by pedestrians.
Managing time: the integration of caring and paid work by low-income families and the role of the UK's tax credit system

Under the New Labour governments in the UK, successive reforms of the tax and benefit system sought to improve the financial benefits of paid work. Drawing on two waves of qualitative interviews with low-income working families this article examines the role of the UK tax credit system in shaping decisions about employment and unpaid care work. The article suggests that the financial support provided for lone-parent participants by the tax credit system enhanced their temporal autonomy, permitting participation in paid work to align more closely with temporally situated notions of parental responsibility for caring. For couple families however, parental perceptions of responsibility for pre-school children, along with childcare constraints and the structure of the tax credit system served to constrain the autonomy of the main carer and implicitly encourage a gendered specialisation in caring or employment.
Ideas and Welfare Reform in Saskatchewan: Entitlement, Workfare or Activation?

Abstract Many provinces have enacted substantial reforms of their social assistance regime in the 1990s. However, we know surprisingly little about the ideas that underlie welfare reform in Canada. In particular, few empirical studies have directly examined the ideas of policy actors. This article presents a retrospective case study of a major policy initiative, namely Saskatchewan's Building Independence (BI), and examines its alignment with three paradigms of social assistance. Data come primarily from interviews with policy actors. This study concludes that the policy ideas informing BI align closely with the activation paradigm but also share some similarities with the entitlement and workfare paradigms. The significance of this finding is then discussed in light of three issues: 1) Aboriginal people, 2) the perspective of social assistance clients, and 3) “Third Way” ideology. This article concludes with a research agenda on ideas and policy change. Résumé Plusieurs provinces canadiennes ont mis en œuvre des réformes substantielles de leur régime d'aide sociale dans les années 1990. Or, nos connaissances à propos des idées qui sous-tendent ces réformes sont étonnamment limitées. En particulier, peu d'études empiriques ont directement examiné les idées des acteurs de politique. Cet article présente une étude de cas rétrospective d'une initiative saskatchewanaise majeure, soit la réforme Building Independence (BI), et examine sa congruence avec trois paradigmes d'aide sociale. Les données proviennent d'entrevues avec des acteurs de politique. Cette étude conclut que les idées sous-jacentes à BI sont étroitement alignées avec le paradigme de l'activation, mais présentent certaines similitudes avec les paradigmes du droit social (entitlement) et du workfare. Ce résultat est ensuite discuté à la lumière de trois enjeux : 1) les autochtones, 2) la perspective des prestataires d'aide sociale, et 3) l'idéologie de la Troisième voie. Des pistes de recherche sur les idées et le changement de politique viennent conclure cet article.
In Search of Power: A Statistical Power Analysis of Contemporary Research in Strategic Management.

The statistical power of research in the 1982-1984 volumes of the Strategic Management Journal (SMJ) was examined. The mean power figures to detect small, medium, and large population effect sizes (ES) were . 25, . 57, and . 82, respectively. Given the nature of the nonexperimental designs of many strategic management studies, small size effects are especially representative of population ES and thus the above finding was considered serious. Recommendations to improve power analysis and reporting in strategic management research are offered.
The Role of Summary Information in Facilitating Consumers’ Comprehension of Nutrition Information

Percent daily values provide important information that consumers can use to manage the nutritional quality of their diets. The authors report on four experiments that examined conditions in which summary information (such as average or range) may prove more useful than daily values in assessing nutritional content and conditions in which it may not. Two experiments provided evidence that summary information outperforms percent daily values in helping consumers judge the nutritional content of a brand compared with other offerings in that category. Two more experiments identified a key variable—the availability of multiple brands for comparison—that moderates the facilitating effect of summary information.
Innovation Success in the Context of Inbound Open Innovation

The concept or paradigm of open innovation has gained more and more attention over the last couple of years. Firms see open innovation nowadays as an important capability to build and maintain innovativeness, even in dynamic global markets. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding the question which factors determine successful innovation within the open innovation environment. In this regard, based on the dynamic capabilities view, we hypothesise that a firm’s openness, its absorptive capacity and its flexibility primarily determine innovation success in in-bound open innovation environments. To test these hypotheses, we analyse a large scale survey sample of 496 German manufacturing companies from different industries by applying structural equation modelling. As a main result, we find evidence for a positive association between the three mentioned constructs and innovation success.
Studies of Body Temperatures, Blood Lactate, Cortisol and Free Fatty Acid Levels During Exercise in Human Subjects Susceptible to Malignant Hyperpyrexia

Body temperature at a variety of sites (external auditory meatus, rectum, thigh, chest wall, pad of thumb), blood cortisol, lactate and free fatty acid levels and urinary adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine excretion were measured in five human subjects susceptible to malignant hyperpyrexia (MHS) and five normal subjects during a period of progressively severe exercise, starting at rest and going up to an exercise intensity producing heart rates in excess of 180 beats/min. In addition, results are reported of a further study of rectal temperature measurements made during a period of mild exercise in a different group of nine MH susceptible and nine non‐susceptible subjects. The results of the progressive exercise study indicated that as the exercise increased in severity, central (external auditory meatal) temperature rose more in the MHS subjects than it did in the controls. Thumb temperature in both groups rose with exercise but in the MHS subjects this rise was significantly delayed compared with the control subjects. It was thought that this was due to a delay in the onset of vasodilatation which usually accompanies high intensities of exercise. Serum free fatty acids and cortisol levels rose more in the MHS subjects than the controls and during the early stages of exercise blood lactate concentrations in the MHS subjects were higher than in the controls group. During mild exercise, rectal temperature in the MHS subjects was lower than in the controls. It was concluded that the pattern of temperature change was evidence of an abnormality of the heat dissipation mechanisms in the MHS subjects. This, together with the rise in the free fatty acids, could indicate an abnormality of sympathetic activity in individuals susceptible to malignant hyperpyrexia.
Do Stock Markets Matter in Investment Growth in Africa?

The paper investigates the effect of stock market prices on investment growth using dynamic panel data analysis of selected African countries. In line with theoretical expectations investment responds positively to increases in stock prices. Further analysis based on interaction terms reveals that the sensitivity of investment to stock prices increases with stock market development. The paper also finds that even without the inclusion of the most sophisticated market-South Africa, the positive relationship between investment and stock market prices continues to exist in the smaller markets. The findings underscore the importance of stock markets to investment formation in Africa.
Homicide in Adana, Turkey: A 5-Year Review

Violence is a significant public health problem. Thus, so as to prevent this problem, homicide, the severest form of violence depriving a human being of his right to live, deserves a detailed examination. This study is a retrospective research examining the 2951 cases of medicolegal autopsies in Adana during a period of 5 years (1997–2001). Among these cases, 620, which were determined to be homicidal, were taken into the scope of this study. The cases were examined with respect to sex, age groups, the method used during the act of homicide, the number and the localization of the wounds on the body. A total of 620 (21%) of the medicolegal autopsies conducted within this period were homicides. Of these cases, 515 (83.06%) were male and 105 (16.94%) female, and the rate of the males to females was 4.9; 72.74% of the victims were between the ages of 21 and 50. It was seen that 54.83% of the homicides involved firearms, while 35.16% of the victims were stabbed to death with a cutting object. It was also determined that the victims suffered a single wound in 47.35% of firearm-related murders and 29.35% of stabbings resulted in death. Alcohol was found in the blood of 7.58% of the homicide victims, while none had any illicit drugs.
Tax Policy, Tax Competition, and Fiscal Rules: Insights from a Classroom Experiment and Surveys of Politicians

This paper reviews and extends recent attempts to better understand fiscal policy decision-making. Surveys of politicians are complementary to traditional empirical analyses and can be used to extract beliefs of policymakers. There is much heterogeneity across and also within parties. Often ideology plays an important explanatory part in the beliefs of policymakers, even for questions that appear to be nonideological. Furthermore, I report on a classroom experiment, in which student subjects play a simple tax competition game. In one treatment subjects know about the political preferences of other players. In contrast to simple Nash predictions, left-leaning students choose significantly higher tax rates on capital.
Good News, Bad News and Garch Effects in Stock Return Data

It is shown that the volume of trade can be decomposed into proportional proxies for stochastic flows of good news and bad news into the market. Positive (good) information flows are assumed to increase the price of a financial vehicle while negative (bad) information flows decrease the price. For the majority of a sample of ten split-stocks it is shown that the proposed decomposition explains more GARCH than volume itself. Using the proposed decomposition, the variance of returns for younger split stocks reacts asymmetrically to good news flowing into the market, while the variance for older split-stocks reacts symmetrically to good news and bad news.
Momentum in Australia—A Note

Our note examines the momentum effect in Australia using the J-month/K-month methodology of Jegadeesh and Titman (1993, 2001). Our sample consists of stocks listed on the Australian stock exchange from January 1980 to December 2001. We do not find evidence for a momentum effect in Australia during this period. Rather, we find evidence of significantly positive returns for ‘loser’ portfolios in July-the first month of the Australian financial year.
Fecal elastase-1 determination: 'gold standard' of indirect pancreatic function tests?

BACKGROUND Tubeless pancreatic function tests measuring the content of elastase-1 and the activity of chymotrypsin in stool are used with different cut-off levels and with varying success in diagnosing functional impairment of the pancreas. The aim of our study was to re-evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of elastase-1 and chymotrypsin in stool in the assessment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. METHODS In 127 patients displaying clinical signs of malassimilation, the secretin-caerulein test ('gold standard'), fecal fat analysis, fecal chymotrypsin activity and fecal elastase-1 concentration were performed. Exocrine pancreatic insufficiency was graded, according to the results of the secretin-caerulein test, into mild, moderate and severe. Chymotrypsin and elastase-1 in stool were estimated using two commercially available test kits. Fecal elastase-1 concentration of 200 and 100 microg/g stool and chymotrypsin activity of 6 and 3 U/g stool were used separately as cut-off levels for calculation. RESULTS 1) In 65 patients, a normal pancreatic function was found using the secretin-caerulein test. In 62 patients, an exocrine pancreatic insufficiency was found and classified into severe (n = 25), moderate (n = 14) and mild (n = 23). 2) The correlation between fecal elastase-1 and chymotrypsin with duodenal enzyme outputs of amylase, lipase, trypsin, chymotrypsin and elastase-1 ranged between 33% and 55% and 25% and 38%, respectively. 3) Using a cut-off of 200 microg elastase-1/g, stool sensitivities of fecal elastase-1 and fecal chymotrypsin (cut-off: 6 U/g) were 100% and 76%, respectively (P < 0.0001 and P < 0.001 respectively) in severe exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, 89% and 47% respectively (P < 0.001; P = 0.34, respectively) in moderate and 65% for both in mild pancreatic insufficiency. Specificities of elastase-1 and chymotrypsin in stool were 55% and 47%, respectively. 4) Elastase-1 based diagnostic provided a positive predictive value of 50% using a cut-off' 200 microg/g stool in a representative group of consecutively recruited patients with gastroenterological disorders. CONCLUSION Determination of fecal elastase-1 is highly sensitive in the diagnosis of severe and moderate exocrine pancreatic insufficiency and is of significantly higher sensitivity than fecal chymotrypsin estimation. Specificity for both stool tests is low. Correlation between elastase-1 and chymotrypsin in stool and duodenal enzyme outputs is moderate. Neither test is suitable for screening, as they provide a pathologic result in roughly half of 'non-pancreas' patients.
Analysis of Labor Tax Progression Under Heterogeneous Domestic Labor Markets and Flexible Outsourcing

What are the impacts of labor tax reform on wage setting and employment to keep the relative tax burden per low-skilled and high-skilled workers constant in the case of heterogeneous domestic labor markets, i.e. imperfect competition in low-skilled labor and perfect competition in high-skilled labor in the presence of outsourcing? A higher degree of tax progression by raising the wage tax and the tax exemption for the low-skilled workers will decrease the wage rate and increase labor demand of low-skilled workers, whereas it will decrease (increase) employment of high-skilled workers in CES utility function when the elasticity of substitution between consumption and leisure is higher (lower) than one. A higher degree of wage tax progression for the high-skilled worker will have no effect on the high-skilled wage in the presence of CES utility function.
Incident Anal Human Papillomavirus and Human Papillomavirus–Related Sequelae in HIV-Infected Versus HIV-Uninfected Adolescents in the United States

Background Little is known about the incidence of anal human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and related sequelae, as well as factors associated with these outcomes, among adolescents who are HIV infected versus HIV uninfected but at risk. Methods We analyzed the data from a multisite US study, the Reaching for Excellence in Adolescent Care and Health Project. Adolescents aged 12 to 18 years who were behaviorally HIV infected (n = 319) or HIV uninfected but at risk (n = 177) were recruited. Incidence rates for anal HPV, high-risk anal HPV, anogenital warts, and anal dysplasia were calculated using Poisson modeling. Factors associated with these outcomes were examined using Cox proportional hazards modeling. Results Mean age at entry was 16.8 years; mean (SD) follow-up time for detection of anal HPV was 22.4 (10.8) months. Most participants (76%) were female; 70% were black non-Hispanic. HIV-infected (vs. HIV-uninfected) women had a significantly higher incidence of anal HPV (30 vs. 14 per 100 person-years; P = 0.002), high-risk anal HPV (12 vs. 5.3 per 100 person-years; P = 0.04), and anogenital warts (6.7 vs. 1.6 per 100 person-years; P = 0.002) but not anal dysplasia. Although incidence rates were higher for these outcomes among HIV-infected versus HIV-uninfected men, the differences were not statistically significant. Among women, factors associated with anal HPV and related sequelae differed by HIV status and included biological, behavioral, and HIV-related factors. No factors were associated with outcomes in men. Conclusions HIV-infected versus HIV-uninfected adolescent women had higher rates of anal HPV and anogenital warts. Because HIV-infected youth are at increased risk of these outcomes, enhanced HPV prevention efforts such as vaccination are warranted for this group.