Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Defining goodwill: a practice perspective

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify a definition of goodwill related to how companies describe their purchased goodwill. It focuses on whether there is any consistency in how firms define goodwill in practice in the first year of mandatory application of International Financial Reporting Standards 3 (IFRS3). Design/methodology/approach - The paper builds on an analysis of how companies describe goodwill in purchase analyses related to company acquisitions. The empirical body of this study is represented by the financial statements of Italian and Swedish listed companies. Findings - The overall finding of this investigation is that, in practice, the concept of goodwill is unclear and therefore there is no reference to one singular definition of goodwill. Moreover, in spite of the idea underlying IFRS3, goodwill still appears to be a “black box”, wherefore an accounting inertia is highlighted. Research limitations/implications - The main limitation of this study is that only a sample of firms (those listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and the Milan Stock Exchange) that apply IFRS3 is investigated. The main implication of this paper is that it is possible to identify some general classes of descriptions, but these remain vague. Therefore, some accounting policy suggestions are proposed. Originality/value - First, this paper focuses on a definition communicated by firms, which is different from most other studies, as they tend to focus on a theoretical definition of goodwill. Second, this paper focuses on a goodwill definition in practice, whereas studies of goodwill practice mainly concern impairment testing.
Deliberation and Learning in Monetary Policy Committees

We use records from Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings to investigate the importance of deliberation and learning in monetary policy decision making in the period from 1970 to 1978 when Arthur Burns served as Chairman. We first propose a model of Bayesian learning in which FOMC members learn from each other as they sequentially reveal their policy preferences in a committee meeting. Then, as an alternative, we investigate a model in which members defer to an emerging consensus. Neither model is supported by the data, suggesting that within‐meeting deliberation might have had little effect on the quality of monetary policy decisions in the Burns era.
Dysregulation of X‐linked gene expression in Klinefelter's syndrome and association with verbal cognition

Klinefelter's Syndrome (KS) is a chromosomal karyotype with one or more extra X chromosomes. KS individuals often show language impairment and the phenotype might be due to overexpression of genes on the extra X chromosome(s). We profiled mRNA derived from lymphoblastoid cell lines from males with documented KS and control males using the Affymetrix U133P microarray platform. There were 129 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in KS group compared with controls after Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery adjustment. The DEGs included 14 X chromosome genes which were significantly over‐represented. The Y chromosome had zero DEGs. In exploratory analysis of gene expression–cognition relationships, 12 DEGs showed significant correlation of expression with measures of verbal cognition in KS. Overexpression of one pseudoautosomal gene, GTPBP6 (GTP binding protein 6, putative) was inversely correlated with verbal IQ (r = −0.86, P < 0.001) and four other measures of verbal ability. Overexpression of XIST was found in KS compared to XY controls suggesting that silencing of many genes on the X chromosome might occur in KS similar to XX females. The microarray findings for eight DEGs were validated by quantitative PCR. The 14 X chromosome DEGs were not differentially expressed in prior studies comparing female and male brains suggesting a dysregulation profile unique to KS. Examination of X‐linked DEGs, such as GTPBP6, TAF9L, and CXORF21, that show verbal cognition–gene expression correlations may establish a causal link between these genes, neurodevelopment, and language function. A screen of candidate genes may serve as biomarkers of KS for early diagnosis. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Electromechanical Performance of Rails With Different Cross-Sectional Shapes in Railgun

Railgun is a kind of electromagnetic launcher that can accelerate masses in the range from milligrams to tens of kilograms to velocities more than several kilometers per second. The cross-sectional area's moment of inertia is one of the most important mechanical properties of the rails, affecting the critical velocity and launch performance. The current distribution in the railgun determines its efficiency and contact performance of rail/armature sliding. Factors that affect the electromechanical performance of the rails include geometry and material. To improve the electromechanical performance, two types of rails with convex and concave cross sections are designed by adding and removing arch forms to/from the conventional flat rails. Modified C-shaped armatures are constructed for each rail geometry. This paper presents the results on mechanical performance on the basis of structural analysis and current distribution from coupled EM-structural simulations. The results show that the moments of inertia of convex and concave rails are larger than those of flat rails for a given cross-sectional area and rail width, but the differences in mechanical performance among the three geometries are not significant, and the advantage of rails with larger moments of inertia for a given cross-sectional area is limited. The inductance gradient of the flat railgun is larger than those of the others, and the concave railgun has the smallest; consequently, the concave railgun is the least efficient. Compared with the flat and concave rails, the current density of the convex rail is smaller at the bore-side rail surface, but greater at the contact interface, especially at the trailing edge of the armature.
Open or closed strategy in developing new products? A case study of industrial NPD in SMEs

This case study reports the quality of industrial new product development in five small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Finnish metal industry. The findings indicate that SMEs tend to lack a long run perspective; that the role of new products in business strategy calls for clarity and that the whole goal setting as to future new product efforts is limited. The fit between market requirements and firms’ own resources is managed due to the flexibility SMEs have and by relying on an in‐house knowledge base generated through a close understanding of user conditions. In this respect SMEs are apt to rely on reactive and closed new product strategies only. Even if successful in the past, such strategies risk being unable to identify and take advantage of any business opportunities outside the present product scope. Also, the increasing need of networking may turn out a threat if SMEs cannot establish more open development strategies.
Strategic Planning and Community Involvement as Contributors to Sustainable Tourism Development

This paper is concerned with the role of stakeholder driven strategic planning as a contributor to the ultimate sustainability of tourism development. An initial literature review describes the evolution of theory related to three specific issues in the study of tourism – sustainability of tourism development as a desirable goal, stakeholder participation as a contributor to sustainability, and strategic planning as an appropriate framework within which stakeholder driven development activity can occur. The review concludes that these concepts are well supported in the literature, with little empirical evidence available on which to base any meaningful level of support. It is therefore argued that the value of these propositions may exist more strongly in theory than in practice. After discussing a number of factors which may negatively impact upon the practical implementation of these theoretical constructs, the paper proposes a quantitative instrument by which a specific tourism development planning process can be assessed for its conformity with desirable principles of sustainability in tourism development. Closing paragraphs indicate an intention to test this instrument across a variety of regional settings.
Joint Initial Stocking and Transshipment—Asymptotics and Bounds

A common problem faced by many firms in their supply chains can be abstracted as follows. Periodically, or at the beginning of some selling season, the firm needs to distribute finished goods to a set of stocking locations, which, in turn, supply customer demands. Over the selling season, if and when there is a supply‐demand mismatch somewhere, a re‐distribution or transshipment will be needed. Hence, there are two decisions involved: the one‐time stocking decision at the beginning of the season and the supply/transshipment decision throughout the season. Applying a stochastic dynamic programming formulation to a two‐location model with compound Poisson demand processes, we identify the optimal supply/transshipment policy and show that the optimal initial stocking quantities can be obtained via maximizing a concave function whereas the contribution of transshipment is of order square‐root‐of T. Hence, in the context of high‐volume, fast‐moving products, the initial stocking quantity decision is a much more important contributor to the overall profit. The bounds also lead to a heuristic policy, which exhibits excellent performance in our numerical study; and we further prove both the bounds and the heuristic policy are asymptotically optimal when T approaches infinity. Extension to multiple locations is also discussed.
Testing Models of Differentiated Products Markets: Consolidation in the Cable TV Industry

Research on differentiated products markets often uses structural demand/supply models to identify firms' marginal costs as product‐level cost data are unavailable. Using unique demand and cost data from cable TV, I evaluate a differentiated products model's ability to identify marginal costs. I find firms systematically price below profit‐maximizing levels, leading to biases in the model's marginal cost estimates. I study the implications for merger simulations and find that these biases compromise estimates of merger‐related cost efficiencies, yet do not prevent these models from generating useful predictions of the price and nonprice effects of mergers.
Smart city intellectual capital: an emerging view of territorial systems innovation management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the intellectual capital (IC) approach and concepts could be fruitfully adapted to study the smart city phenomenon from a managerial point of view. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on a long-term, in-depth ethnographic exploration of the vast global community, which is created around the smart city movement. Findings – The analysis suggests that, in order to effectively analyse a smart city context through the IC lens, the traditional IC framework needs to be extended for: expected outcomes, which should also include sustainability, resilience and quality of life; categories of key resources, which should also include institutional capital and environmental capital; units of analysis, which should also include territorial systems, such as transportation or waste; and key managerial challenges implied. As a final result, a smart city intellectual capital (SC-IC) framework is proposed. Research limitations/implications – Most.
An impedance matched phase shifter using BaSrTiO/sub 3/ thin film

We present a distributed phase shifter with an equal ripple return loss at its operation frequency range. The phase shifter is based on a periodic structure and consists of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) line periodically loaded with voltage-variable barium strontium titanate (BST) interdigitated capacitors. Measurements show that its return loss is better than -15dB at frequencies from direct current to 16GHz, and at 9.4GHz, its phase shift is 41/spl deg/ under 120-V applied bias voltage.
Simultaneous presentation of similar stimuli produces perceptual learning in human picture processing.

Human participants received unsupervised exposure to difficult-to-discriminate stimuli (e.g., A and A'), created with a morphing procedure from photographs of faces, before learning a discrimination between them. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that prior exposure enhanced later discrimination and that intermixed exposure (A, A', A, A'.) resulted in better subsequent discrimination than blocked exposure (B, B, .B', B'.). Experiments 3 and 4 showed that simultaneous exposure to 2 similar stimuli facilitated the later acquisition of both a simultaneous and a successive discrimination, and this effect was observed even though simultaneous exposure to 2 stimuli fostered the development of an excitatory association between them (Experiment 5). The findings of Experiments 1 and 2 revealed a perceptual learning effect with pictures of faces, and the findings of Experiments 3-5 are difficult to reconcile with associative analyses of perceptual learning.
Saying no to marijuana: why American youth report quitting or abstaining.

OBJECTIVE This article aims to contribute to the literature by reporting on a nationally representative study of U.S. youths regarding their self-reported reasons for abstaining from or quitting marijuana use and the relationships between such reasons and individual sociodemographic characteristics of gender and race/ethnicity. METHOD This article uses data from in-school surveys obtained from nationally representative cross-sectional samples of U.S. high school seniors from 1977 to 2005 (N = 82,106). RESULTS Results indicate the following: (1) 50% of those reporting past-12-month marijuana use felt they should either stop or reduce their use; (2) among those saying they would not use marijuana in the coming year, the most frequently reported reasons cited were psychological and physical damage and not wanting to get high (reported by more than 60%), whereas the least frequently reported reasons included expense, concerns of having a bad trip, and availability (reported by fewer than 25%); and (3) clear differences existed in reported reasons by gender and race/ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS A significant percentage of U.S. high school seniors who are recent marijuana users wish to either reduce or stop their marijuana use and are basing such desires on a wide variety of reasons that show significant gender and racial/ethnic variation. Marijuana prevention and cessation policy and programming could potentially be strengthened by incorporating the findings from these analyses.
FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI PERILAKU DISFUNGSIONAL AUDIT: PENERIMAAN AUDITOR BPK RI JATENG

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menganalisis penerimaan auditor di BPK RI Perwakilan Provinsi Jawa Tengah tentang pengaruh karakteristik personal auditor seperti locus of control eksternal, komitmen organisasi, dan kinerja terhadap perilaku disfungsional audit. Populasi penelitian ini adalah seluruh pemeriksa yang bekerja di BPK RI Perwakilan Provinsi Jawa Tengah sebanyak 128 orang. Teknik pengambilan sampel adalah convinience sampling . Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode kuesioner. Kuesioner yang memenuhi syarat adalah 39 kuesioner. Analisis data menggunakan Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) dengan Partial Least Square (PLS) Path Modeling dengan alat analisis SmartPLS 2.0 . Hasil penelitian menunjukkan pengaruh negatif antara locus of control eksternal dengan komitmen organisasi dan kinerja. Terdapat pengaruh positif antara komitmen organisasi dengan kinerja. Terdapat pengaruh negatif antara komitmen organisasi dan kinerja dengan perilaku disfungsional audit. Tidak terdapat pengaruh antara locus of control eksternal dengan perilaku disfungsional audit. The purpose of this study is to analyze the auditor acceptance in BPK RI Perwakilan Provinsi Jawa Tengah on the influence of auditor’s personal characteristics such as external locus of control, organizational commitment, and performance of the audit dysfunctional behavior. The population in this study was all the inspectors who work at BPK RI Perwakilan Provinsi Jawa Tengah. There were 128 inspectors involved in this study. The sampling technique used was convinience sampling. 39 respondents’ questionnaires met the requirements. The method of data analysis used in this study is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Partial Least Square (PLS) Path Modeling with 2.0 SmartPLS as the analysis tool. The result of the study showed that there was a negative effect among external locus of control toward the organizational commitment and performance. It was also found that there was a positive effect between organization commitment and performance, a negative effect between the organization commitment and performance toward the dysfunctional audit behavior, and there was no influence between external locus of control and the dysfunctional audit behavior.
“It makes me feel like myself”: Person-centered versus traditional visual arts activities for people with dementia

During a 15-month period between February 2010 and April 2011, video data on (n = 38) people with dementia were collected during a person-centered and intergenerational arts activity program called Opening Minds through Art (OMA) at three different long-term care facilities in Ohio. A subsample of the OMA participants (n = 10) were also video recorded during traditional visual arts activities (e.g. coloring books, scrapbooking). A modified version of the Greater Cincinnati Chapter Well-Being Observation Tool© was used to code the intensity and frequency of observed domains of well-being (i.e. social interest, engagement, and pleasure) and ill-being (i.e. disengagement, negative affect, sadness, and confusion). Descriptive results indicate a high percentage of moderate or high intensities of well-being during OMA sessions with little to no ill-being. Paired-sample t-tests comparing OMA vs. traditional visual arts activities showed significantly higher intensity scores for OMA in the domain of engagement and pleasure, as well as significantly lower intensity scores for disengagement. The findings of this exploratory study contribute to the overall discussion about the impact of person-centered, creative-expressive arts activities on people with dementia.
Determinants of Merchandising Proposals by Vendors: Influence of the Recognition of Transaction Costs

ABSTRACT This study discusses customized merchandising proposals in retailer-vendor relationships, based on transaction cost theory. The theoretical model suggests that trust relationships and the centralization of merchandising authority promote the activeness of customized merchandising proposals. The results from structural equation modeling analysis reveal that customized merchandising proposals by a vendor are actively executed when (a) a trust relationship between a retailer and a vendor becomes long term and stable and (b) the merchandising authority of a retailer's merchandising division becomes centralized.
ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF KETAMINE ON HUMAN ATRIAL MYOCYTES AT THERAPEUTICALLY RELEVANT CONCENTRATIONS

1 Ketamine is widely used for the induction of anaesthesia in high‐risk patients with cardiovascular instability or severe hypovolaemia. However, the ionic mechanisms involved in the effects of ketamine at therapeutically relevant concentrations in human cardiac myocytes are unclear. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of ketamine on L‐type Ca2+ (ICa), transient outward K+ (Ito), ultra‐rapid delayed rectifier K+ (IKur) and inward rectifier potassium (IK1) currents, as well as on action potentials, in human isolated atrial myocytes. 2 Atrial myocytes were isolated enzymatically from specimens of human atrial appendage obtained from patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting. The action potential and membrane currents were recorded in both current‐ and voltage‐clamp modes using the patch‐clamp technique. 3 Ketamine inhibited ICa with an IC50 of 1.8 µmol/L. In addition, 10 µmol/L ketamine decreased the ICa peak current at +10 mV from 5.1 ± 0.3 to 2.1 ± 0.4 pA/pF (P < 0.01), but did not change the threshold potential, peak current potential and reverse potential. 4 Ketamine had no effect on Ito, IKur or IK1, but it reversibly shortened the duration of the action potential in human atrial myocytes. 5 In conclusion, ketamine, at a clinically relevant concentration, shortens the action potential duration of the human atrial myocytes, probably by inhibiting ICa.
Botulinum neurotoxin: Where are we with detection technologies?

Because of its high toxicity, botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT) poses a significant risk to humans and it represents a possible biological warfare agent. Nevertheless, BoNT serotypes A and B are considered an effective treatment for a variety of neurological disorders. The growing applicability of BoNT as a drug, and its potential use as a biological threat agent, highlight the urgent need to develop sensitive detection assays and therapeutic counter measures. In the last decade, significant progress has been made in BoNT detection technologies but none have fully replaced the mouse lethality assay, the current “gold standard”. Recently, new advances in robotics and the availability of new reagents have allowed development of methods for rapid toxin analysis. These technologies while promising need further refinement.
Stock market perceptions of the motives for mergers in cases reviewed by the UK competition authorities: an empirical analysis

A number of studies have considered the motivation of managers to follow a merger strategy. However, as far as we are aware none has looked at the influence of competition regulation on merger motives using stock market data and event study techniques. Data drawn from 63 merger cases in the UK between 1989 and 2003 are examined for the stock market's perceptions of what motivated managers to pursue their initial merger bid. The findings suggest that the Synergy and Hubris dominate as motivations for mergers and that, unintentionally, competition policy may help to reduce the number of mergers motivated by Managerialism. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The U.S. forest service: Toward the new resource management paradigm?

Abstract The attitudes and values of U.S. Forest Service employees toward resource management issues are examined by applying general concepts and empirical observations found in the literature on social change and resource sociology. The concept of a resource management paradigm is developed and operationalized in a nationwide study of Forest Service employees. Its results suggest that the attitudes and values of one particular segment of Forest Service employees, the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (AFSEEE), represent an alternative resource management paradigm that differs significantly from the dominant management paradigm held by the majority of Forest Service employees. The emergence of this extraorganizational group of Forest Service employees dedicated to agency reform is unprecedented in the history of federal land management agencies; their characteristics, both sociodemographic and attitudinal, are compared and contrasted with those of non‐AFSEEE Forest Service .