Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of pricing behaviour of firms in the euro area and Estonia

In this paper, we review the price setting survey of Estonian firms and compare our findings with the results of similar research in the euro area summarized by Fabiani et al. (2005). Generally, the price setting patterns that emerge from our survey are quite similar to those in the euro zone. There is some evidence, however, that price setting may be somewhat more flexible in Estonia. The findings that suggest more price flexibility in Estonia are as follows: the incidence of time-dependent pricing is lower, the share of firms that are price takers is larger, price changes are more frequent, and, finally, the speed of price adjustments to shocks is higher
Experimental apparatus for measuring the characteristics of HTS coils under controllable magnetic field, orientation and temperature

The electric field vs. current density (E-J) characteristics of high temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes strongly depend on the magnetic field, its orientation and operation temperature. In order to investigate the current distribution and electromagnetic phenomena in HTS tapes, we have developed an experimental apparatus which can measure the characteristics of HTS tapes under various conditions of magnetic field (0-5 T), its orientation and temperature (10-150 K). The magnetic field is generated by cryocooler-cooled superconducting split coils. The field strength as well as its orientation can be freely varied in the sample space (diameter 150 mm, height 30 mm) by controlling the current and its direction of each coil. By applying HTS current-leads with Au-doped Ag-sheathed Bi-2223 tapes for the split coils (100 A) as well as for the sample coil (500 A), the heat in-leak is sufficiently reduced, and hence a flexible experiment without using liquid helium is enabled.
New targets for increasing endogenous testosterone production: clinical implications and review of the literature

Over the past several decades, our understanding of the regulatory mechanisms of testosterone production has increased significantly. Concurrently, the medical treatment of hypogonadism, particularly in the ageing male has increased. This review article consolidates some of our insights into the regulatory mechanisms of endogenous testosterone production and examines promising new targets that may allow endogenous production of testosterone to be re‐established in males with primary hypogonadism. We examined the published scientific literature regarding regulatory mechanisms of testosterone biosynthesis with a focus on Leydig cell physiology and small‐molecule regulation that resulted in increased testosterone production. We identified several pathways that have been manipulated pharmacologically to increase Leydig cell testosterone production, including phosphodiesterases, the cholesterol translocator protein, the electron transport chain of mitochondria, cyclooxygenases and osteocalcin. Manipulation of these pathways with small molecules has helped further our understanding of the regulatory pathways of testosterone biosynthesis. Herein, we identified five future targets that might promote increased endogenous testosterone production through the Leydig cell instead of relying on exogenous testosterone administration.
A pilot study of neuropsychological function in girls with ADHD.

OBJECTIVE Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is known to have neuropsychological consequences that are evident from psychological tests and from measures of school failure. However, most available data are based on studies of boys. Our goal was to assess, in this pilot study, whether ADHD in girls expressed neuropsychological features similar to those found in boys. METHOD Subjects were 43 girls, aged 6 to 17 years, with DSM-III-R ADHD and 36 comparison girls without ADHD. Information on neuropsychological performance was obtained in a standardized manner blind to clinical status. RESULTS Girls with ADHD were significantly more impaired on estimated IQ than comparison girls despite being matched on other demographic variables. Relative to comparison girls, the girls with ADHD were also significantly more impaired on the Freedom From Distractibility subtests of the WISC-R and on arithmetic and reading achievement scores. Although their mean performance on executive function tests was generally poorer than that of control girls, there were no statistically significant differences on these measures. CONCLUSIONS Girls with ADHD have impairments in some tests of attention and achievement. However, neuropsychological performance on tests of executive function was less impaired than that previously documented in boys with ADHD. If confirmed in a larger sample, these findings suggest that girls with ADHD may be less vulnerable to executive function deficits than boys.
The "Speculative Efficiency" Hypothesis

The hypothesis that forward prices are the best unbiased forecast of future spot prices is often presented in the economic and financial analysis of futures markets. This paper considers the hypothesis independently of its implications for rational expectations or market efficiency and in order to stress this fact, the term "speculative efficiency" is used to characterize the state envisaged under the hypothesis. If a market is subject to efficient speculation, the supply of speculative funds is infinitely elastic at the forward price that is equal to the expected future spot price. The expected future spot price is a market price determined as the solution to the underlying rational expectations macroeconomic model. Although the paper is primarily concerned with testing this hypothesis in the foreign exchange market, the methodology introduced in the paper is of general application to all futures markets.
Acoustic Detection of Termite Infestations in Urban Trees

Abstract A portable, low-frequency acoustic system was used to detect termite infestations in urban trees. The likelihood of infestation was rated independently by a computer program and an experienced listener that distinguished insect sounds from background noises. Because soil is a good insulator, termite sounds could be detected easily underneath infested trees, despite the presence of high urban background noise. Termite sounds could be detected also in trunks, but background noise often made it difficult to identify termite signals unambiguously. High likelihoods of termite infestation were predicted at four live oak (Quercus virginiana Mill, Fagacae), two loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L., Pinacae), and two baldcypress (Taxodium distichum Rich. Pinacae) trees that wood-baited traps had identified as infested with Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki. Infestations also were predicted at two pine trees with confirmed recoveries of Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar). Low likelihoods of infestation were predicted in four oak trees where no termites were found. Additional tests were conducted in anechoic environments to determine the range of acoustic detectability and the feasibility of acoustically estimating termite population levels. There was a significant regression between the activity rate and the number of termites present in a wood trap block, with a minimum detectable number of ≈50 workers per liter of wood. The success of these field tests suggests that currently available acoustic systems have considerable potential to detect and monitor hidden infestations of termites in urban trees and around building perimeters in addition to their present uses to detect and monitor termite infestations in buildings.
Context-patch based face hallucination via thresholding locality-constrained representation and reproducing learning

Face hallucination, which refers to predicting a HighResolution (HR) face image from an observed Low-Resolution (LR) one, is a challenging problem. Most state-of-the-arts employ local face structure prior to estimate the optimal representations for each patch by the training patches of the same position, and achieve good reconstruction performance. However, they do not take into account the contextual information of image patch, which is very useful for the expression of human face. Different from position-patch based methods, in this paper we leverage the contextual information and develop a robust and efficient context-patch face hallucination algorithm, called Thresholding Locality-constrained Representation with Reproducing learning (TLcR-RL). In TLcR-RL, we use a thresholding strategy to enhance the stability of patch representation and the reconstruction accuracy. Additionally, we develop a reproducing learning to iteratively enhance the estimated result by adding the estimated HR face to the training set. Experiments demonstrate that the performance of our proposed framework has a substantial increase when compared to state-of-the-arts, including recently proposed deep learning based method.
Corporate sustainability: historical development and reporting practices

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability disclosure methods-instruments practiced by the two most widely employed indexes/instruments (DJSI World and GRI-G3 Guidelines). The paper suggests that the newly created triple bottom line (TBL) reporting practices need to undergo further standardization and enforcement to avoid, or give early warnings about, future corporate mismanagement that leads to socio-economic consequences detrimental to investors and consumers in general. Design/methodology/approach - This paper utilizes sample firms from the DJSI World Index and the GRI-G3 Sustainability Guidelines membership list to draw inferences on sustainability indicators of performance. The authors compare the GRI reporting guidelines with the disclosure indicators of the DJSI World. Findings - The authors' findings suggest that TBL reporting has made enormous progress over the last two decades. However, the two widely used sustainability reporting instruments/indexes (DJSI World and GRI-G3 Guidelines) differ in disclosure practice-methods and the authors recommend that further standardization and enforcement is necessary. The authors' view is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of corporate socio-environmental disclosures. The paper presents evidence that investors have neither rewarded nor penalized firms for adhering to or violating sustainability matters in their corporate decisions. Practical implications - The authors argue for further standardization and enforcement with regard to the disclosure methods of the two widely used (GRI and DJSI) sustainability indicators in order to avoid future corporate mismanagement that leads to (systemic) economic and socio-environmental consequences detrimental to citizen investors and consumers in general. Originality/value - The research is of interest to academicians and practitioners who are interested in the theory and practice of sustainability reporting or TBL reporting. The findings suggest that this newly created disclosure instrument needs to undergo further standardization and enforcement for meaningful and accurate disclosure of economic-social and environmental performance. The authors' view is that the SEC and FASB should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of socio-environmental disclosure of corporate sustainability.
Discretion and Autonomy: Public Administrators’ Dilemmas in the Implementation of National Curriculum Statements

This study contributes to an understanding of teachers, as street-level bureaucrats in South Africa, and their relative discretion and autonomy in the implementation of public policies. We adopted a mixed-method approach that included in-depth interviews (5), observation (65 days), survey (26), and detailed fieldnotes (25 pages). Our findings demonstrate that teachers exercise discretion and autonomy in areas such as ignoring assessment protocols, following school rules and procedures, rescheduling concepts to be taught, and giving little attention to certain policy requirements. These results offer insights for the exercise of discretion and autonomy by teachers and other street-level bureaucrats.
HOW DO AUSTRALIAN FAST-GROWTH SMALL-TO-MEDIUM ENTERPRISES MEASURE PERFORMANCE?

Utilizing a case study methodology, this study investigates ways in which fast growth small-to-medium enterprises (FGSMEs) measure firm performance. This investigation, involving 21 interviews with 18 companies, revealed that FGSMEs seem to adopt a multi-level approach involving different sources and contexts to performance measurement. Apart from the application of standard financial performance measures such as profits and growth, FGSMEs also utilize measures of customer satisfaction, attainment of industry awards, receipt of client reports, website popularity, number and quality of successful innovations adopted, objective employee performance indices, and staff retention. Founders highlight the importance of providing employees with flexible environments and career opportunities as a way to reduce churn. These organizational characteristics signal non-financial benefits and incentives of working in these firms to potential employees and customers. These findings are in accord with extant literature and the balanced scorecard perspective, advocating associations between performance measurement systems and management strategies.
Rapid Assessment of Regional Cerebral Metabolic Abnormalities in Single Subjects with Quantitative and Nonquantitative [18F]FDG PET: A Clinical Validation of Statistical Parametric Mapping

The [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG) method for measuring brain metabolism has not the wide clinical application that one might expect, partly because of its high cost and the complexity of the quantification procedure, but also because of reporting techniques based on region of interest (ROI) analysis, which are time-consuming and not fully objective. In this paper we report a clinical validation of statistical parametric mapping (SPM) using rCMRglc (quantitative) and radioactivity distribution (nonquantitative) [18F]FDG PET data. We show that a 10-min noninteractive voxel-based SPM analysis on a standard workstation enables objective assessment, including localization in stereotactic space, of regional glucose consumption abnormalities, whose reliability can be assessed on statistical and clinical grounds. Clinical validity was established using a small series of patients with degenerative or developmental disorders, including probable Alzheimer's disease, progressive aphasia, multiple sclerosis, developmental specific language impairment, and epilepsy. Analysis of quantitative and nonquantitative data showed the same pattern of results, suggesting that, for clinical purposes, quantitation and invasive arterial cannulation can be avoided. This should facilitate a wider application of the technique and the extension of SPM clinical analysis to H215O PET or high resolution SPECT perfusion studies.
ELF and super-diversity: a case study of ELF multilingual practices from a business context

Abstract This article explores the link between English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and super-diversity in the multilingual business context of a small IT company, where English is used as a lingua franca and various linguistic resources play an important role in the company practices. The aim of the study is to examine the practices, orientations to and use of ELF and multilingual resources within an ethnographically-oriented approach, with data collected through observations, interviews, focus groups and recordings of naturally-occurring interactions. The findings show that the company's practices are highly multilingual, whereby ‘languaging’ is a common and positively valued phenomenon. Results also show that ELF is highly collaborative, both in spoken and written communication, and the staff's sociolinguistic repertoire is sensitive to the interlocutors' communicative resources.
Recent thymic emigrants and prognosis in T‐ and B‐cell childhood hematopoietic malignancies

The concentration of T‐cell receptor rearrangement excision DNA circles (TRECs) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) is currently known to be a marker of recent thymic emigrants. We evaluated the hypothesis that TREC values would be lower in childhood T‐cell hematopoietic malignancies than in childhood B‐cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or healthy controls because the former category may reflect compromised thymic function. From the Greek national childhood leukemia/lymphoma database we obtained all 30 available T‐cell leukemia/non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma cases, 30 age‐ and sex‐matched childhood B‐cell origin cases of ALL and 60 healthy hospital controls. We compared TREC levels in PBMCs using a real‐time PCR assay. There was highly significant reduction of TREC values in children with T‐cell malignancies (median 3,100 TRECs/106 PBMCs), whereas children with B‐cell origin ALL had slightly but nonsignificantly lower TREC values compared to healthy children (medians 19,300 and 22,500 TRECs/106 PBMCs, respectively). During a median follow‐up period of about 19 months, only 4 children died. All of them had a T‐cell hematopoietic malignancy and relatively low TREC values. The number of TRECs was higher among healthy girls than among healthy boys, and a similar pattern was evident in T‐cell malignancies. It appears that there is a pattern of concordance of high TREC values with better disease prognosis in hematologic childhood malignancies. This applies to specific disease entities with better prognosis (B‐cell origin ALL having higher TREC values than T‐cell leukemia/lymphoma) and to gender, another important predictor of prognosis conditional on disease entity (girls having higher TREC values than boys); however, it may also be true for the survival of individual patients. These preliminary findings can be used as hypothesis‐generating indications that should be confirmed in larger data sets. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Expression of endothelin-1 in the lungs of patients with pulmonary hypertension.

BACKGROUND Pulmonary hypertension is characterized by an increase in vascular tone or an abnormal proliferation of muscle cells in the walls of small pulmonary arteries. Endothelin-1 is a potent endothelium-derived vasoconstrictor peptide with important mitogenic properties. It has therefore been suggested that endothelin-1 may contribute to increases in pulmonary arterial tone or smooth-muscle proliferation in patients with pulmonary hypertension. We studied the sites and magnitude of endothelin-1 production in the lungs of patients with various causes of pulmonary hypertension. METHODS We studied the distribution of endothelin-1-like immunoreactivity (by immunocytochemical analysis) and endothelin-1 messenger RNA (by in situ hybridization) in lung specimens from 15 control subjects, 11 patients with plexogenic pulmonary arteriopathy (grades 4 through 6), and 17 patients with secondary pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary arteriopathy of grades 1 through 3. RESULTS In the controls, endothelin-1-like immunoreactivity was rarely seen in vascular endothelial cells. In the patients with pulmonary hypertension, endothelin-1-like immunoreactivity was abundant, predominantly in endothelial cells of pulmonary arteries with medial thickening and intimal fibrosis. Likewise, endothelin-1 messenger RNA was increased in the patients with pulmonary hypertension and was expressed primarily at sites of endothelin-1-like immunoreactivity. There was a strong correlation between the intensity of endothelin-1-like immunoreactivity and pulmonary vascular resistance in the patients with plexogenic pulmonary arteriopathy, but not in those with secondary pulmonary hypertension. CONCLUSIONS Pulmonary hypertension is associated with the increased expression of endothelin-1 in vascular endothelial cells, suggesting that the local production of endothelin-1 may contribute to the vascular abnormalities associated with this disorder.
A Multi-Dimensional View of Entrepreneurship: Towards a Research Agenda on Organisation Emergence

This paper attempts to synthesise the theoretical research on entrepreneurship and social capital undertaken in previous studies, and presents a multi‐dimensional view of entrepreneurship. In examining overviews of past single perspective entrepreneurship research, this study shows that the primary role of entrepreneurs in organisation emergence is to acquire knowledge and create social capital properly. This process is necessarily accompanied by creation of knowledge communities to establish the domain consensus of new organisations among various stakeholders paying particular attention to the fragility and dysfunctional side of entrepreneurship and social capital. The paper concludes with a hypothesis and suggestions towards a future research agenda. It is hoped that, as a result of this theoretical development, this paper will help to focus greater attention on the concept of entrepreneurship in studies of management development.
Knowledge and Choice Uncer tainty Affect Consumer Search and Buying Behavior

Pre-purchase search is an activity which most consumers engage in frequently to extract up-to-date information for a purchase decision. Search is an interesting topic from the practical and academic point of view. We approach the topic by observing the information needs through the concept of uncertainty. Uncertainty is the driving force of consumer search. Search is costly and, thus, no search would be likely to occur if consumers had a perfect knowledge about their preferences and market offerings. While uncertainty is widely acknowledged as the driving force of search, few attempts have been made to relate uncertainty and the choice of pre-purchase information. We studied the generic types of consumer pre-purchase uncertainty: knowledge uncertainty and choice uncertainty, and the connection between uncertainty dimensions and the extent of the search process. Our findings suggest that the aforementioned uncertainties markedly affect the consumer search process and are useful determinants of consumer behavior in pre-purchase deliberation
Board interlocks and corporate performance among firms listed abroad

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the interlock-performance relationship among mainland Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong by taking advantage of a relationship-intensive context whereby such a link is likely to be especially important. Although strategic networks such as interlocking directorates have been found to affect a number of strategic behaviors, the link connecting board interlocks and corporate performance has remained ambiguous. Considerable light has been shed on the strategic networks of firms whose shares are listed abroad, which have been under-studied despite their rising importance in the global economy. Design/methodology/approach – Data come from a particularly interesting historical period – the early 1990s prior to Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to China. Both quantitative and qualitative research have been used. Findings – Empirically, it was found that good performance in an earlier period helps draw outside directors in a later period, and that network centrality and certain types of.
Problems of Sustainable Groundwater Management in an Area of Over-exploitation: The Upper Guadiana Catchment, Central Spain

The problem of achieving sustainable groundwater management in areas of over-exploitation is examined by using the upper Guadiana basin in central Spain as an example. Here, since the early 1970s, high rates of abstraction to provide water for irrigation have lowered the water table by up to 50 m, causing the main rivers to run dry and an internationally renowned wetland to become desiccated. Conflict between farmers, regulators and conservationists has created a difficult problem that legal action, subsidies and engineering solutions have so far failed to combat. Faced with conflicting demands, it is suggested that integrated catchment management provides the best way forward. The various issues that need to be addressed with this type of management system are outlined.