Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Net Inclusion: New Media’s Impact on Deliberative Politics in China

Abstract What is the role of new media in driving political change in China? How do we understand the interaction of rapid increases in connectivity, regime censorship and democratic outcomes? This article seeks to assess the democratic implications of new media in China through the lens of three key and nested criteria derived from general theories of deliberative democracy: information access, rational-critical deliberation and mechanisms of vertical accountability. The key finding is that connectivity expands political opportunity. How this opportunity is exploited is up to users, who often vary widely in their political preferences, values, and norms of behaviour. The results are multiple mechanisms of change taking place simultaneously and the development of a more interactive and pluralistic public sphere. While China obviously still has to develop far more formalised and institutionalised mechanisms for managing state-society relations, political pluralism in the form of online deliberation might be considered a foundational condition for a more interactive and liberalised political order rooted in greater public deliberation and societal feedback. Moderate forms of discourse and societal feedback are tenuous and increasingly exist in a chaotic and diversified online discourse defined equally as much by new methods of authoritarian propaganda and virulent nationalist ideas.
Functional plasticity of macrophages: in situ reprogramming of tumor‐associated macrophages

The extent to which the functional heterogeneity of Mφs is dependent on the differentiation of functional sublineages remains unresolved. One alternative hypothesis proposes that Mφs are functionally plastic cells, which are capable of altering their functional activities progressively in response to progressively changing signaling molecules generated in their microenvironment. This “functional plasticity” hypothesis predicts that the functionally polarized Mφs in chronic pathologies do not represent Mφ sublineages but rather, are mutable phenotypes sustained by chronic signaling from the pathological environment. Solid TAMφs are chronically polarized to provide activities that support tumor growth and metastasis and suppress adaptive immune responses. In support of the functional plasticity hypothesis, administration of slow‐release microsphere‐encapsulated IL‐12 successfully reprogrammed TAMφs in situ, reducing Mφ support of tumor growth and metastasis and enhancing Mφ proimmunogenic activities. Increased knowledge of how Mφ function is regulated and how polarized Mφs can be reprogrammed in situ will increase our ability to control Mφ function in a variety of pathological states, including cancer and chronic inflammatory disease.
Whose Time Is It? Understanding Clock-time Pacing and Event-time Pacing in Complex Innovations

Abstract Time pacing, which refers to the regulation of intensity and direction of people's attention and effort, is central to innovation management. However, in a study of complex product innovation in pharmaceuticals, we find that time pacing is a major source of conflict between managers and scientists over innovation management. Our analysis of this tension reveals that two very different forms of time pacing operate in this complex innovation. Clock-time pacing, which gauges progress by the predictable passage of clock time, is used by strategic managers to reduce unnecessary exploration, focus on necessary questions, and speed up the execution of steps. Event-time pacing, which gauges progress by the unpredictable achievement of learning events, is used by the scientists to develop a deep understanding of how a drug might behave in the body against a disease, to focus on learning by asking many questions, and to integrate emergent results into plausible patterns. We identify four dimensions that differentiate clock-time pacing from event-time pacing, which drive the tension between the two. We summarize negative effects that this tension can have on innovation if left unaddressed, and then suggest ways to integrate clock-time pacing with event-time pacing. We also discuss implications for Chinese management.
WAREHOUSES, TRUCKS, AND PM2.5: HUMAN HEALTH AND LOGISTICS INDUSTRY GROWTH IN THE EASTERN INLAND EMPIRE

"The eastern Inland Empire of Southern California has experienced dramatic growth of the logistics industry since 2000. This paper analyzes the air pollution implications of that expansion. It is found that truck traffic will generate significant air pollution, especially PM 2.5 . The estimated excess mortality associated is 32-64 cases per year, with a combined excess mortality and morbidity value of $247-$455 million per year. This represents 44%-81% of the estimated wages generated by industry growth and $5 million-$9 million per distribution facility. These estimates suggest that policies should be developed to internalize those costs. " Copyright No Claim to Original U.S. Government Works.
Differential expression of the mechanosensitive potassium channel TREK‐1 in epicardial and endocardial myocytes in rat ventricle

Mechanoelectric feedback (MEF) is the process by which mechanical forces on the myocardium induce electrical responses. It is thought that MEF is important in controlling the beat to beat force of contraction in the ventricle, in response to fluctuations in load, and it may also play a role in controlling the dispersion of repolarization. The transduction mechanism for MEF is via stretch sensitive ion channels in the surface membrane of myocytes. Two types of stretch sensitive channels have been described; a non‐selective cation channel, and a potassium selective channel. TREK‐1 is a member of the recently cloned tandem pore potassium channels that has been shown to be mechanosensitive and to be expressed in rat heart. Here we report that the gene expression level of TREK‐1, quantified using real‐time RT‐PCR against glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) as a comparator gene, was found to be 0.34 ± 0.14 in endocardial cells compared to 0.02 ± 0.02 in epicardial cells (P < 0.05). To confirm that this is reflected in a different current density, whole cell TREK‐1 currents, activated by chloroform, were recorded with patch clamp techniques in epicardial and endocardial cells. TREK‐1 current density in epicardial and endocardial cells was 0.21 ± 0.06 pA/pF and 0.8 ± 0.27 pA/pF, respectively (P≤ 0.05). We discuss the implications of this differential expression of TREK‐1 for controlling action potential repolarization when the myocardium is stretched. We hypothesize that the gene expression of TREK‐1 is controlled by the different amounts of stretch experienced by muscle cells across the ventricular wall.
Modeling Potential Impacts of Beach Replenishment on Horseshoe Crab Nesting Habitat Suitability

Beach replenishment has been proposed to increase nesting habitat for horseshoe crabs, but its environmental consequences may compromise the egg development and viability of this declining species. Horseshoe crab habitat requirements were used to build a habitat suitability model in STELLA to predict the potential impacts of beach replenishment on horseshoe crab eggs. A habitat suitability index (H.S.I.) comprised of six variables (dissolved oxygen, sediment grain size, sand temperature, sand moisture, wave energy, and salinity) was developed and compared between replenished and natural beaches. Sediment grain size and dissolved oxygen were higher in the natural beach, whereas sand temperature and moisture were higher in the replenished beach, resulting in significantly higher suitability of the natural beach (p = 5.39 × 10−15, df = 30). The model was most sensitive to air temperature, rainfall, tide, and sediment grain size. This model is useful for understanding the processes affecting horseshoe crabs and predicting impacts of coastal management activities on habitat suitability. Based on the results of this model, beach replenishment is not recommended for increasing or improving horseshoe crab habitat, unless care is taken to match fill sediment to natural grain size and color.
Impact of mitigating tick size on mispricing of index futures in Taiwan stock exchanges

Abstract According to the cost-of-carry model, theoretical settlement prices in futures markets are deduced from spot market prices. When actual futures prices differ from their theoretical prices, such mispricing is primarily due to transaction costs occurred in bid-ask spread, margins, interest rate spread, and commission. Alternatively, the magnitude of tick size is positively related to investor transaction cost, directly affecting spot prices and subsequently futures mispricing. This study determines the impact on futures market of tick size reduction policy in Taiwan. Empirical findings show that abridged tick sizes have significantly reduced mispricing in futures indices.
Cognition and Capabilities: Opportunities Seized and Missed in the History of the Computer Industry

Despite the enormous literature devoted to the subject, there remains little consensus about the organizational sources of innovativeness and inertia. On the one hand, the evolutionary or "capabilities" view of the firm leads us naturally to expect organizational inertia as a natural by- product of competitive success, especially in complex, highly articulated firms. On the other hand, there is a tradition within what is broadly the same view of the firm that stresses the advantages for innovation of large, professionally managed firms over the "personal capitalism" of smaller, more synoptically managed enterprises. This paper attempts to develop a perspective on the debate by treating the organization as a cognitive structure within an evolutionary capabilities framework. It then canvasses the history of the computer industry for empirical examples. That history includes a diversity of organizational types confronting -- both successfully and unsuccessfully -- a significant number of cases of technological opportunity. The central conclusion of the paper is that innovativeness and inertia are not so much results of organizational form considered a priori but rather of the "fit" between the cognitive structure of the organization and the structure of the economic change the opportunity implies.
SMEs' access to bank finance in Scotland: an analysis of bank manager decision making

This paper focuses on supply-side issues relating to access to bank finance by entrepreneurs in Scotland. We analyse bank manager decision making of real business propositions through verbal protocol analysis. The paper discusses the nature of the decision-making process from interviews with bank loan officers utilising verbal protocol analysis with validated real entrepreneur business proposals to give insights into the decision making of bank loan officers in the processing of bank funding proposals. Hence this paper reports the supply-side findings from the larger study on SMEs' access to bank finance in Scotland.
Review article: anti‐adhesion therapies for inflammatory bowel disease

A high proportion of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) do not achieve clinical remission with the current therapies including mesalazine (mesalamine), immunossupresants (IMS) and antibodies against tumour necrosis factor (anti‐TNF). Moreover, IMS and anti‐TNF involve a nonnegligible risk for infections and/or malignancies. The anti‐adhesion molecules are one of the most interesting new treatments because of their gut‐selectivity.
Output growth and the British industrial revolution: a restatement of the Crafts‐Harley view

n the early i98os we published revised estimates of aggregate economic performance during the British industrial revolution which have stimulated reappraisal of the beginnings of modern economic growth.2 These new estimates have led most scholars to abandon the previous orthodoxy which had been based on the pioneering work of Deane and Cole.3 We have subsequently explored further aspects of the industrial revolution using our i982/3 estimates of the rate of growth as acceptable best guesses.4 Recently, however, several papers published in this journal have, with varying degrees of hostility, expressed doubts about our estimates.5 We think it is now opportune to respond to these comments. Our critics have questioned the appropriateness of our estimation techniques and have suggested that our overall view of the industrial revolution is misconceived. While we do not wish to dismiss the points that have been made, we feel both that many of the specific criticisms of our estimating techniques have been erroneous and that our overall view of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has been misunderstood. Initially in section I we present a brief summary of a coherent new view of British growth that emerged from our aggregate estimates. The bulk of the paper then takes up the technical issues that have recently been raised. In particular, we argue the following main points. First, that there is inevitably a range of possible estimates for industrial output growth given the inherent index number and data problems. Both Crafts's and Harley's original estimates fall within this range, as do Jackson's new estimates, whereas Deane and Cole's do not. Second, that we do not accept Jackson's case for preferring what he calls a Crafts rather than a Harley view of industrial output growth nor do we accept his dismissal of the indices of industrial output presented by Crafts, Leybourne, and Mills (CLM) and by Harley. Third, that Hoppit and Berg and Hudson substantially overstate
Disclosure level and cost of equity capital: evidence from the banking industry

The impact of voluntary disclosures on cost of equity capital is of significant interest to investors and managers. Using a disclosure scoring model this association is examined for 135 banks from Europe, North America and Australia. After controlling for the cross-sectional variation in beta, firm size, price to book value and price to earnings ratios, the study found that higher disclosure levels are associated with a reduction in cost of equity capital. Disclosures about risk management practices seem to most influence the reduction in the cost of equity capital. European banks show greater reduction in the cost of equity capital from improved disclosures compared to their non-European counterparts. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Trading-Off Corporate Control and Personal Diversification Through Capital Structure and Merger Activity

In this study we use direct estimates of the portfolio diversification of the largest shareholder in a firm to study the impact of shareholder diversification on the firm. For firms where the controlling shareholder is an individual, our tests indicate that the owner-managers use debt, dual class shares and corporate control transactions (merger activity) to strategically trade off corporate control and the drawback of poor portfolio diversification. However, for firms where the controlling shareholder is an institution, our results indicate that control but not diversification is important.
A “coalesced framework” of talent management and employee performance

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that demonstrates the mechanisms through which talent management (TM) leads to the various dimensions of employee performance. Design/methodology/approach - – A literature-based analysis was employed by combining concepts from TM and employee performance. The syntheses of these two concepts lead to the development of the conceptual framework. Findings - – The findings show that, implementation of a TM system leads to employee performance, but a TM output mediates the relationship between TM and employee performance. Originality/value - – This paper has contributed to the conceptualisation of TM and employee performance which will help to improve theory, research and practice in all fields concerned with individual work performance.
International Comparisons of Manpower in Gastroenterology

Health-care systems vary among countries and we were interested in how this might impact on gastroenterology manpower. We assessed the number of gastroenterologists in Canada and compared this with four countries where data were available over the Internet in either French or English. The number of gastroenterologists per 100,000 of the population was 3.9 in the United States, 3.48 in France, 2.1 in Australia, 1.83 in Canada, and 1.41 in the U.K. This variation in number of gastroenterologists was not reflected in the overall number of specialists per 100,000, which was similar in all five countries. Furthermore, the difference in gastroenterology manpower did not correlate with the amount of gross domestic product spent on health care. Countries with a low number of gastroenterologists per 100,000 all had a strong primary-care gatekeeper system, although this observation may be coincidental, as only five countries were studied. Canada had the most equitable distribution of gastroenterologists across the country with only modest differences among provinces. The United States had the most variation in the number of gastroenterologists per 100,000 of the population among states.
Extracellular matrix proteins expressed by human adult astrocytes in vivo and in vitro: An astrocyte surface protein containing the CS1 domain contributes to binding of lymphoblasts

Primary cultures of human astrocytes, expressing glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), were obtained from postmortem brain tissue samples. These cultured astrocytes produced an extracellular matrix (ECM), containing laminin (Ln) and fibronectin (Fn), as shown with specific antibodies. The perinuclear staining observed in these cells indicated that these proteins were de novo synthesized. Monoclonal antibody (mAb) 90.45, which recognizes the CS1 sequence found in an alternatively spliced form of Fn, also stained cultured astrocytes. Immunohistochemical analysis of normal human brain tissue showed positive staining for the CS1 domain, both on protoplasmic and fibrous astrocytes located in the gray and white matter. In contrast to cultured astrocytes, no immunoreactivity for Ln or Fn was found on astrocytes in normal human brain tissue. These in situ data indicate that the CS1 domain expressed by astrocytes is not part of a splicing variant of Fn. Western blot analysis confirmed that the CS1 domain expressed by cultured human astrocytes is part of an astrocyte protein which is different from human Fn. The CS1 domain is a known ligand for the adhesion receptor α4β1 (VLA‐4). We found that the human lymphoma cell lines Jurkat and Ramos, which express α4β1, bound to cultured human astrocytes, and that this interaction could be partly blocked by mAb 90.45 or a synthetic CS1 peptide. Thus, the novel CS1‐containing surface protein expressed by astrocytes in vitro and in vivo, contributes to binding of lymphoblasts, and therefore may be a relevant adhesion molecule for the recruitment of α4‐integrin expressing leukocytes into the central nervous system (CNS). J. Neurosci. Res. 50:539–548, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
H1-mediated Repression of Transcription Factor Binding to a Stably Positioned Nucleosome*

Previously, we reported that histone H1 binding to nucleosome cores results in the repression of binding of the basic helix-loop-helix upstream stimulatory factor (USF) (Juan, L.-J., Utley, R. T., Adams, C. C., Vettese-Dadey, M., and Workman, J. L. (1994) EMBO J. 13, 6031-6040). We have tested whether this inhibition resulted from H1-mediated changes in nucleosome positioning (Ura, K., Hayes, J. J., and Wolffe, A. P. (1995) EMBO J. 14, 3752-3765) forcing the USF recognition sequence into less accessible locations within the nucleosome. Nucleosome boundaries were determined by assays combining micrococcal nuclease and restriction endonuclease digestion. A unique pair of boundaries were observed, indicating a single nucleosome translational position. This nucleosome position did not change on H1 or USF binding. Thus, H1 repression of USF binding was independent of nucleosome mobility, indicating an alternative mechanism of H1 repression. H1 repressed USF binding at a site 35 base pairs into the nucleosome core more effectively than at a site near the “linker” DNA, suggesting that inhibition by H1 was not simply due to steric occlusion. Instead, these data are consistent with a model by which H1 binding reduces transient dynamic exposure of the DNA from the histone octamer surface (Polach, K. L., and Widom, J. (1995) J. Mol. Biol. 254, 130-149).
Business excellence models and the path ahead

Purpose – Quality research has paved the way for the evolution of several business excellence models/national quality awards (BEMs/NQAs). This paper aims to review the evolution of BEMs/NQAs and takes a comparative view on these models. It also throws some light on the emerging scenario.Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on information gathered through an extensive literature review using print media and research databases like Emerald, EBSCO and Pro‐Quest. Discussions with experts helped in reviewing the effectiveness of BEMs and visualising the emerging scenario.Findings – A paradigm shift has been witnessed in the understanding of quality. Although MBNQA, EFQM and the Deming Prize are the three globally accepted major BEMs, some unique models are also emerging. The paper identifies 100 BEMs/NQAs being used across the world. They are subject to changes according to the evolution of the external environment and are considered a contemporary way to attain excellence. The benefits and limita.
The juvenile and chronic forms of GM2 gangliosidosis

We report the cases of 5 patients from 2 sibships with the “adult” or chronic form of GM2 gangliosidosis and 2 patients from another sibship with the juvenile form. We demonstrated hexosaminidase A deficiency in all cases but in 1 sibship the enzymatic profile was identical to that in Tay-Sachs disease, whereas in the remaining 2 families it was that of the B1 variant. There was no correlation between the clinical features and the enzymatic profile. Hexosaminidase A deficiency should be considered in unexplained progressive neurologic disorders of childhood and adolescence, including isolated dementia. EMG evidence of anterior horn cell involvement in association with neurologic or cognitive deterioration may be a diagnostic clue in the juvenile forms.
The Economics of Stock Exchange Listing Fees and Listing Requirements

Abstract This paper investigates the once and future role of listing fees. We consider the theory of listing fees and why such a pricing structure initially evolved. We show how capital market developments have changed the desirability, and even viability, of this pricing structure. We then analyze the economics of listing fees. While providing revenue to the exchange, listing fees impose large (opportunity) costs, and we analyze this trade-off, presenting evidence from the New York Stock Exchange. We also discuss what types of listing requirements make economics sense for exchanges (or perhaps regulators) to impose on companies. Finally we consider whether listing fees will continue to survive. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: G10, G18, K22, K23.