Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Independence Threats, Litigation Risk, and the Auditor's Decision Process

This study examines the effect of independence threats and litigation risk on auditors' evaluation of information and subsequent reporting choices. Using a Web-based experiment, I tracked auditors' information gathering and evaluation leading to a going-concern reporting decision. Specifically, forty-eight audit managers assessed client survival likelihood, gathered additional information, and suggested audit report choices. I found that auditors facing high independence threats (fear of losing the client) evaluated information as more indicative of a surviving client and were more likely to suggest an unmodified audit report, consistent with client preferences. In contrast, auditors facing high litigation risk evaluated information as more indicative of a failing client and were more likely to suggest a modified audit report. In addition, the association between risk and report choice was fully mediated by final information evaluation. This suggests that it is unlikely that different reporting choices resulted from a conscious choice bias but rather that motivated reasoning during evidence evaluation plays a key role in the effect of risk in auditor decision-making.
Interlocal Agreements as Collaborations

Interlocal agreements (ILAs) have long been a useful tool for municipal and county governments to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of local government services. Yet although they have a long history in practice, there is little empirical study of the impetus and success of ILAs, especially on a statewide basis. This study presents results from a statewide survey of ILAs in Iowa created in the period, 1993-2004. Results suggest that ILAs are created to increase the effectiveness as well as efficiency of local services. The impetus for ILAs provides a focusing effect. Moreover, equitable sharing of benefits is important for the success of ILAs, and population and type of service also matter.
Implications of future fertility trends for contraceptive practice.

If the estimated contraceptive prevalence and total fertility rates for 1984 are approximately correct then it is clear that a dramatic change in reproductive behavior has taken place in most of the developing world over the past 2 decades. Aggregate total fertility has dropped from 6.0 in the early 1960s to about 4.0 at present; contraceptive prevalence increased from 9 to 43% over the same period. East Asia experienced the most rapid change which was almost entirely due to an extrordinary decline in Chinas fertility transition. Latin America and most of South Asia have also made major progress into the fertility transition. Only in Sub-Saharan Africa is there no significant trend in reproductive behavior. The most recent long-range global and regional population projections made by the UN assume that fertility will decline in all major regions of the developing world. Reducing fertility further according to the trends incorporated in the UN medium projections will require that contraceptive prevalence in the developing world be increased from 43% at present to 68% in 2025. While this will hardly be a simple task the momentum built over the past 2 decades suggests that this is an obtainable goal. This future trajectory of prevalence implies very rapid growth in the numbers practising contraception from about 256 million at present to 736 million in 2025 because both the prevalence level and the number of married women of reproductive age are increasing. During this period (1984-2025) the largest increases in contraceptive prevalence will be required in Africa (12 to 59%) while East Asia needs only a 5% point increase. Corresponding prjections of the number of women practicing contraception by region are also presented. The contraceptive methods used are likely to continue to be the modern clinical ones such as sterilization the IUD pill and injectables. As a consequence a rapid expansion of family planning services provided by both the public and private sectors will be required over the next several decades. (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)
Immune response during disease and recovery in the elderly

The present article reviews immune ageing and its relationship with nutritional ageing, with a particular insight into the influences of disease on both ageing processes. Immune ageing can be described primarily as the progressive appearance of immune dysregulations, mainly acquired immunity (mature: immature, naive: memory T lymphocyte subset decreases) leading to gradual increases in T-helper 2: T-helper 1 cells. This change is due initially to decreased thymic function, and later to accumulative antigen pressure over the lifespan. In contrast, innate immunity (macrophage functions) is preserved during the ageing process and in the elderly this leads to macrophage–lymphocyte dysequilibrium, which is particularly critical during on-going disease. Indeed, any disease induces long-lasting acute-phase reactions in aged patients and leads to body nutritional reserve (mainly protein) losses. Episodes of disease in the aged patient progressively deplete body nutritional reserves and lead to protein–energy malnutrition, undernutrition-associated immunodeficiency, and finally cachexia. Undernutrition is a common symptom in the elderly; protein-energy malnutrition is found in more than 50 % of hospitalized elderly patients and in most elderly diseased subjects. In addition, micronutrient deficit or low levels are common in home-living self-sufficient apparently-healthy elderly subjects. All these nutritional deficits induce decreased immune responses, and micronutrient deficits are now thought to be partly responsible for the decreased immune responses (immune ageing? ) observed in the apparently-healthy elderly. Indeed, several studies have shown that micronutrient supplements induce increased immune responses in the healthy elderly. The progression of infectious diseases depends on immune responses and on nutritional status before the onset of illness in aged subjects. In addition, recovery depends on the intensity of acute-phase responses in the undernourished elderly. In fact, chronic acute-phase responses, commonly associated with diseases in aged patients, lead to progressive lowering of metabolic responses in the undernourished elderly. This can be quantified by increased production of free radicals during treatment and these increases may explain the difficulty in successfully treating aged patients. Nutritive therapy in order to improve metabolic processes and also to maintain body reserves should be considered as a necessary adjuvant therapy in the treatment of elderly patients.
Decomposition of mutual fund underperformance

This article follows a three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach proposed by Fried et al. (2002) to decompose mutual fund underperformance, in order to obtain pure managerial performance. In the first stage, DEA is used to compute each fund's performance. In the second stage, a stochastic frontier regression decomposes fund underperformance into characteristics (including fund and management attributes), managerial inefficiency, and statistical noise. In the third stage, DEA with slack-adjusted data is used to find out the pure performance. It is found that a fund's performance significantly increases with its size, previous performance, manager's tenure and education, while it decreases with the age of the fund and number of managed funds.
Research Note: Relationship versus Transactional Marketing in Travel and Tourism Trade Shows

The hypothetical mix of relationship marketing and transactional marketing perspectives is a major theme in the general literature that should be researched in relation to tourism and travel shows. This issue is addressed in the present paper which analyses the effect of managing relationships among three partners (trade organizer, exhibitor and end customer) on the exhibitor's performance during the fair, and comparing that effect with the influence of transactional marketing management, in which business performance depends on conventional tools. The results point to an overbalance on the side of transactional marketing in the case of tourism and travel exhibitors. By contrast, in the case of the business-to-business relationship between trade show organizers and exhibitors, the weight of relationship marketing seems to be comparatively higher and, most relevant, to affect the exhibitor's performance in terms of their business with end customers during the show.
Wide-Area Mobile Content Delivery

Hybrid mobile content delivery systems improve performance of wide-area networks by combining both wide-area and local-area communications. In hybrid content delivery, service providers send data packets first to a small number of selected users (e.g., those with good channel quality) and then these mobile users help forward the packets to others (e.g., those with poor channel quality). The central theme of our work is to identify the initial target set composed of influential mobile users (i.e., individuals with high centrality in their social-contact graphs) and thus improve the efficiency of hybrid mobile content distribution. We first present two centralized algorithms for this target-set selection problem. The greedy algorithm has a provable performance guarantee, due to the submodularity of the underlying information dissemination function. The heuristic algorithm exploits the regularity of human mobility and is more practical than the greedy algorithm. We then propose a lightweight and distributed protocol to identify these influential users through random-walk sampling. This distributed protocol leverages random-walk probe messages to sample mobile users and estimates their centrality based on how many times they are visited by the probe messages. This protocol has low communication and computation overhead and lends itself well to mobile content delivery. We verify the effectiveness of these approaches through extensive trace-driven simulation studies using real-world mobility traces.
Effects of a new clinically relevant antiestrogen (GW5638) related to tamoxifen on breast and endometrial cancer growth in vivo.

PURPOSE Cross-resistance is an important issue for the evaluation of new antiestrogens to treat advanced breast cancer patients who have failed tamoxifen therapy. In addition, postmenopausal patients treated with long-term adjuvant tamoxifen show a 3-4-fold increase in the risk of developing endometrial cancer. Consequently, a new second line agent should be more antiestrogenic and less estrogen-like on the uterus, and be effective at controlling the growth of breast cancer after exposure to tamoxifen. The purpose was to evaluate the effects of the new tamoxifen analogue GW5638 on breast and endometrial cancer growth. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN Athymic mice were transplanted with an endometrial tumor model (ECC-1 E2) that is responsive to estrogen and has never been exposed to antiestrogen. In addition, we used three breast tumor models: a tamoxifen-naïve tumor (T47D-E2) and two tamoxifen-stimulated tumors (MT2 TAM and MCF-7 TAM LT). The antiestrogen GW5638 (1.5 mg daily), tamoxifen (0.5 mg or 1.5 mg daily), and raloxifene (1.5 mg daily) were given p.o. The pure antiestrogen ICI182,780 (5 mg once a week) was given s.c. Western blots from MCF-7 TAM breast tumors were performed to demonstrate the regulation of estrogen receptor alpha expression by different ligands. RESULTS Estradiol and GW5638 down-regulated the receptor compared with control. ICI182,780 completely degraded the receptor but tamoxifen had no effect. GW5638 did not promote tumor growth, and was effective in blocking the effects of postmenopausal estradiol on the growth of tamoxifen-naïve breast and endometrial tumors. However, raloxifene did not completely block the effects of postmenopausal estradiol on the growth of tamoxifen-naïve endometrial tumor after 14 weeks. GW5638 and ICI182,780 but not raloxifene were also effective in blocking the tamoxifen-stimulated breast tumor growth in athymic mice. CONCLUSIONS GW5638 is more effective than raloxifene in blocking the effect of estrogen on tamoxifen-naïve endometrial cancer. More importantly, GW5638, like the pure antiestrogen ICI182,780, is able to block the growth of breast cancer stimulated by tamoxifen differently from raloxifene. GW5638 down-regulates estrogen receptor but does not completely destroy the receptor. Therefore, based on our findings, GW5638 could be developed as a second line agent for advanced breast cancer patients and an important first line agent to evaluate as an adjuvant treatment or chemopreventive.
Skeletal differences between black and white men and their relevance to body composition estimates

Skeletal differences exist between closely matched Black and White women, although it is unknown if similar differences also exist between Black and White men after controlling for age, body weight, and stature. The aim of this study was twofold: to test the hypothesis that Black men have greater bone mass, higher bone mineral density, and longer limbs compared to White men of similar age, weight, and height; and second, to establish if ethnic variation in skeletal characteristics has an impact on the models upon which three widely used methods for estimating total body fat are based. Twenty‐four healthy Black men were matched by age (±5 years), height (±3 cm), and weight (±2 kg) to 24 healthy White men. Skeletal characteristics and body composition were studied using anatomical and compartment estimates derived by anthropometry, 3H2O dilution, hydrodensitometry, whole‐body 40K counting, and dual photon systems. Black men had greater bone mineral mass (P = 0.007), higher bone density (P = 0.054), longer femurs (P = 0.002), longer anthropometric arm and thigh lengths (P = 0.001 and P = 0.002, respectively), lower spine to femur ratio (P = 0.004), and similar spine length (P = 0.271) compared to White men. Total body fat and fat‐free body mass (FFM) were estimated in the men using a four‐compartment model. Black and White men had similar total body fat, K (TBK), water (TBW), and FFM. Density of FFM and TBK/FFM were also similar between Black and White men, suggesting that current two‐compartment hydrodensitometry and TBK models for estimating fat may not require adjustments for ethnicity. The TBW/FFM ratio, which is the main assumed steady‐state relation for the two‐compartment TBW method of estimating fat, was modestly increased (P = 0.05) in Black men (x̄ ± SD, 0.744 ± 0.018) compared to White men (0.732 ± 0.021). These results confirm that Black and White men differ significantly in some skeletal characteristics and these differences have implications in the study of both osteoporosis and human body composition. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Corporate social reporting: empirical evidence from Indonesia Stock Exchange

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of board size, foreign ownership, firm size, profitability, and leverage on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting and the possible effect of CSR reporting on a firm's future performance. Design/methodology/approach - Annual reports were analyzed by content analysis method and multiple regression was used to test hypotheses. Findings - Evidence was found that board size has a positive and non-linear (quadratic and concave) relationship with CSR. This result confirms predictions that a larger board will be able to exercise better monitoring, but that too large a board will make the monitoring process ineffective. Firm size has a positive effect on CSR. This suggests that larger firms have more resources to devote to social activities and a larger asset base over which to spread the costs of social responsibility. They also face more pressure to disclose their social activities for various groups in society. Profitability and leverage, however, do not have significant influence. Little evidence was found of positive impact of CSR on future performance. This result could encourage firms to disclose their CSR activities because there seems to be a positive affect on future performance. Research limitations/implications - The measure of CSR may involve subjective judgement and is only limited to annual reports. Practical implications - The paper shows that it is important for a company to increase its awareness on corporate social activities and also its disclosure in the annual report. Originality/value - The paper shows that board size has a positive and non-linear effect on CSR, which has been rarely examined in previous research.
Heavily doped transparent-emitter regions in junction solar cells, diodes, and transistors

An analytical treatment of heavily doped transparentemitter devices is presented that includes the effects of bandgap narrowing, Fermi-Dirac statistics, a doping concentration gradient, and a finite surface recombination velocity S at the emitter surface. Transparency of the emitter to minority carrier is defined by the condition that the transit time τtis much smaller than the minority carrier lifetime in the emitter τp,\tau_{t} \ll \tau_{p}. As part of the analytical treatment, a self-consistency test is formulated that checks the validity of the assumption of emitter transparency for any given device. The transparent-emitter model is applied to calculate the dependence of the open-circuit voltage VOCof n+-p junction silicon solar cells made on low-resistivity substrates. The calculated VOCagrees with experimental values for highS_{P}( \geq5 \× 10^{4}cm/s) provided the effects of bandgap narrowing (modified by Fermi-Dirac statistics) are included in the transparent-emitter model.
Assessment of criteria and clinical significance of circumferential resection margins in esophageal cancer.

OBJECTIVE To assess the clinical significance of circumferential resection margins according to current criteria of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) and the Royal College of Pathology (RCP) in esophageal and esophagogastric cancer. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING Single-surgeon database. PATIENTS One hundred thirty-five patients (mean age, 64 years) with T3 tumors who underwent esophageal resection for cancer between 1991 and 2006. Main Outcome Measure Resection margins criteria and survival. RESULTS Three hundred seventy-four consecutive patients were prospectively identified from an institutional review board-approved database between 1991 and 2006. All patients with T3 tumors (n = 135) had their original pathologic slides reassessed by a single gastrointestinal pathologist. Operative mortality was 0.7% and mean follow-up was 3.1 years. Follow-up was complete in 81% of patients. Positive margins were identified in 16 cases in the CAP group vs 83 cases in the RCP group. Five-year Kaplan-Meier survival curves in the CAP group demonstrated a significant (P < .001) difference in survival, whereas the RCP group showed no difference (P = .20). In comparisons of negative vs positive margins, respectively, median survival in the CAP group (29.8 months [95% confidence interval (CI), 22.7-36.9] vs 8.33 months [95% CI, 4.4-12.3]) was significantly different from the RCP group (28.47 months [95% CI, 19.7-37.2] vs 22.23 months [95% CI, 13.6-30.8]). At 60-month follow-up, the positive predictive value with respect to survival was 100% in the CAP group vs 81% in the RCP group. Univariate and multivariate analyses identified R1 margins in the CAP group and lymph node ratio as being directly linked to survival. CONCLUSIONS Positive circumferential resection margins are prognostically important and the CAP criteria provide a more clinically meaningful assessment. Universal adoption of the CAP system can improve interpretation of international clinical trials and allow more accurate comparisons of outcomes.
Social Capital and Poverty Reduction Strategies: The Case of Rural India

In this essay - Social Capital and Poverty Reduction Strategies: The Case of Rural India, Claudio Cecchi, Luca Molinas and Fabio Sabatini discuss the role of social capital as a policy tool against poverty and inequality in the development strategies enhanced by international agencies in rural India. The authors argue that the role plaid by social capital in development processes suffer of some sorts of ambiguity. It is not clear whether the lack of ‘good’ social capital can be considered in theoretical terms as a main cause for the failure of development strategies, or whether this it is only one among other causes. Moreover – as the authors show – there is also evidence that social capital is not influent at all, or that, due to its ‘bad’ quality, can become an obstacle to growth. At the same time, from a policy point of view, a careful reading of programmes and reports of international organisations shows a basic incoherence between the verbal emphasis on social capital and the actual role that is assigned to it. The essay is organised in three sections. In the first, the authors define social capital and its links with development; then, they summarise the available information on poverty and inequality, both in general terms and with reference to rural India. Finally, they focus on a few examples of development projects in rural India in which social capital is assigned a key role.
RGS2 Is a Mediator of Nitric Oxide Action on Blood Pressure and Vasoconstrictor Signaling

The nitric oxide (NO)-cGMP pathway regulates vascular tone and blood pressure by mechanisms that are incompletely understood. RGS2, a GTPase-activating protein for Gqα that is critical for blood pressure homeostasis, has been suggested to serve as an effector of the NO-cGMP pathway that promotes vascular relaxation based on studies of aortic rings in vitro. To test this hypothesis and its relevance to blood pressure control, we determined whether RGS2 functions as an NO effector in smooth muscle of the resistance vasculature. We report that 1) the ability of the NO donor sodium nitroprusside to reduce blood pressure is impaired in RGS2–/– mice, 2) vasopressin-triggered Ca2+ transients are augmented in smooth muscle cells from resistance arteries of RGS2–/– mice, and 3) cGMP analogs fail to inhibit vasopressin-triggered Ca2+ transients in smooth muscle cells from resistance arteries of RGS2–/– mice even though cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG)1α and PKG1β are expressed and activated normally. These results indicated that the NO-cGMP pathway uses RGS2 as a novel downstream effector to promote vascular relaxation by attenuating vasoconstrictor-triggered Ca2+ signaling in vascular smooth muscle cells. Genetic or epigenetic impairment of this mechanism may contribute to the development of hypertension, and augmenting it pharmacologically may provide a novel means of treating this disease.