Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A unified theory of market partitioning: an integration of resource-partitioning and sunk cost theories

Our objective was to integrate a sociological and an economic theory of market partitioning into a unifying framework: Glenn Carroll's resource-partitioning and John Sutton's sunk cost theories, respectively. In so doing, two important theory fragments from organizational ecology and industrial organization are integrated in an attempt to understand the antecedents and consequences of so-called dual market structures. A dual market structure features high concentration and high density, two market structure conditions that in most extant theory are thought to be unrelated. We argue that both theory fragments are highly complementary, offering different stories about the evolution of competition that produce similar market structure outcomes. In terms of the competitive strategies and organizational forms involved, however, the accounts of dual market structure evolution in the resource-partitioning and sunk cost theories are very different. This is instrumental in developing a dynamic theory of Porterian strategic management. We use these insights to reinterpret existing evidence, discussing a series of well-known industry studies. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.
Exploring Corporate Strategy: Text and Cases

Over 750,000 students worldwide have used this best-selling book to understand and explore strategic management through their academic and professional careers. Available in two versions (Text and Text & Cases),Exploring Corporate Strategyhas established a reputation as a pre-eminent textbook in its field, based upon the expertise of authorship, range of cases, depth of commentary and wealth of supporting resources. The 8th edition builds on these strengths, including coverage of key topic areas in this fast-moving discipline such as internationalisation, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is written for students of Strategic Management at all levels.
Varieties of shrinkage in European cities

The issue of urban shrinkage has become the new ‘normal’ across Europe: a large number of urban areas find themselves amongst the cities losing population. According to recent studies, almost 42 per cent of all large European cities are currently shrinking. In eastern Europe, shrinking cities have formed the overwhelming majority – here, three out of four cities report a decrease in population. Shrinkage has proved to be a very diverse and complex phenomenon. In our understanding, a considerable and constant loss of population by an urban area classifies it as a shrinking city. So, while the indicator of shrinkage used here is rather simple, the nature of the process and its causes and consequences for the affected urban areas are multifaceted and need to be explained and understood in further detail. Set against this background, the article presents, first, urban shrinkage as both spatially and temporally uneven. Second, this article shows that the causes of urban shrinkage are as varied as they are numerous. We explore the ‘pluralist world of urban shrinkage’ in the European Union and beyond. The article provides an original process model of urban shrinkage, bringing together its causes, impacts and dynamics, and setting them in the context of locally based urban trajectories. The main argument of this arrticle is that there is no ‘grand explanatory heuristics’ of shrinkage; a ‘one-size-fits-all’ explanatory approach to shrinkage cannot deliver. To progress and remain relevant, one ought to move away from outcome-orientated towards process-orientated research on urban shrinkage.
Pattern Recognition Receptors Require N-Glycosylation to Mediate Plant Immunity*

N-Glycans attached to the ectodomains of plasma membrane pattern recognition receptors constitute likely initial contact sites between plant cells and invading pathogens. To assess the role of N-glycans in receptor-mediated immune responses, we investigated the functionality of Arabidopsis receptor kinases EFR and FLS2, sensing bacterial translation elongation factor Tu (elf18) and flagellin (flg22), respectively, in N-glycosylation mutants. As revealed by binding and responses to elf18 or flg22, both receptors tolerated immature N-glycans induced by mutations in various Golgi modification steps. EFR was specifically impaired by loss-of-function mutations in STT3A, a subunit of the endoplasmic reticulum resident oligosaccharyltransferase complex. FLS2 tolerated mild underglycosylation occurring in stt3a but was sensitive to severe underglycosylation induced by tunicamycin treatment. EFR accumulation was significantly reduced when synthesized without N-glycans but to lesser extent when underglycosylated in stt3a or mutated in single amino acid positions. Interestingly, EFRN143Q lacking a single conserved N-glycosylation site from the EFR ectodomain accumulated to reduced levels and lost the ability to bind its ligand and to mediate elf18-elicited oxidative burst. However, EFR-YFP protein localization and peptide:N-glycosidase F digestion assays support that both EFR produced in stt3a and EFRN143Q in wild type cells correctly targeted to the plasma membrane via the Golgi apparatus. These results indicate that a single N-glycan plays a critical role for receptor abundance and ligand recognition during plant-pathogen interactions at the cell surface.
Measuring Systemic Risk in the Korean Banking Sector via Dynamic Conditional Correlation Models

In this paper we study systemic risks in the Korean banking sector by using two famous systemic risk measures – the MES (marginal expected shortfall) and CoVaR. To compute both measures we employ Engle's dynamic conditional correlation model. Our empirical analysis shows, first, that although these two systemic risk measures differ in defining the contributions to systemic risk, both are qualitatively very similar in explaining the cross-sectional differences in systemic risk contributions across banks. Second, we find that systemic risk contributions are closely related to certain bank characteristic variables (e.g., VaR (value at risk), size and leverage ratio). However, there are differences between the cross-sectional and the time series dimensions in the effects of these variables. Last, using a threshold VAR model, we suggest an overall systemic risk measure – the aggregate MES – and its associated threshold value for use as an early warning indicator.
Dryland Vegetation Functional Response to Altered Rainfall Amounts and Variability Derived from Satellite Time Series Data

Abstract. Vegetation net productivity is a key variable in ecosystem functioning. Understanding how its functional response to rainfall in drylands is affected by altered rainfall amounts and variability is therefore vitally important to understand consequences of climatic change for those water-limited ecosystems. Here, we show how this functional response is affected by below and above 30-year-average rainfall conditions in two arid to semi arid subtropical regions in West and South West Africa differing markedly in interannual rainfall variability (higher in South West Africa, lower in West Africa). Shifting linear regression models (SLRs) were used with annual precipitation (satellite derived African Rainfall Climatology 2, ARC2) as explanatory variable and annual satellite-derived vegetation productivity proxies (normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI) as response variable to estimate the gridded vegetation functional response to rainfall. From the SLRs, time series of responses were derived and analyzed along gradients of mean annual precipitation. Vegetation responses to rainfall show a unimodal response along rainfall gradients. While responses for South West Africa are higher during dry periods for mean annual precipitation
Development of a Method to Assess the Relevant Variables and the Probability of Financial Distress

This study develops a method to select variables, and to specify the relative importance of those variables, as input for failure models. In addition, our method provides estimates of the failure probabilities of organisations at a point in time. The results of tests of our method on Australian credit unions are intuitively appealing, given the recent experiences of the Australian financial market generally, and the credit union industry in particular.
Innocents Abroad: The Hazards of International Joint Ventures with Pyramidal Group Firms

The fundamental unit of production in microeconomics is the firm, and this mirrors reality in the United States and United Kingdom. But elsewhere, business groups can be the more important unit, for business strategy is often formulated at the business group level, not the firm level. In many countries, this is legally enshrined in corporate governance codes that assign officers and directors a duty to act for their business group, not their firm or its shareholders. Even where a duty to individual firms' shareholders exists, business groups often have pyramidal structures of intercorporate blockholdings that entrench controlling shareholders, usually wealthy families, who run their groups to maximize their utility. This can impose exacerbated agency problems. In either case, foreign joint venture partners who expect domestic firms to maximize shareholder value can be sorely disappointed. We explain agency behavior in business groups and how controlling insiders can divert resources between firms they control, including joint ventures, to enrich themselves; and highlight differences between this behavior and agency problems in freestanding firms. We then examine the telecoms industry in Brazil, a country in which most large businesses belong to pyramidal business groups controlled by wealthy families. We find that joint ventures between Brazilian telecoms firms and partners from countries where business groups are rarer have significantly elevated failure rates; while joint ventures with foreign partners from countries where pyramidal groups are more common are more likely to succeed. We then present clinical examples illustrating the mechanisms that drive such divergent performance in joint venture partnerships. While our results are based on a single industry in a single country, we believe they highlight a previously unexamined important issue in international business strategy.
Creating job satisfaction in Africa: A case study from Mozambique

How to set up successful multicultural human resource management programmes remains a contentious issue. This study examined variables that influenced job satisfaction in the workforce of a multinational company operating in Mozambique. It took a mixed methods approach and analysed case study data using a combination of content, thematic, descriptive and statistical techniques. The results indicate that the level of job satisfaction of these employees was comparable to that of employees in former Soviet Bloc countries; however, it varied significantly across levels of employee. The results also demonstrate that, to be more successful, ‘foreign’ management practices should be adapted to the local culture and, further, that humanism in the African workplace can positively mediate a traditional instrumentalist rewards system.
Evidence of the Association between Household Food Insecurity and Heating Cost Inflation in Canada, 1998–2001

Dans cet article, nous analysons différents aspects de l’augmentation de 5,3 points de pourcentage de la prévalence de l’insécurité alimentaire que l’on observe entre 1998–1999 (données de l’Enquête nationale sur la santé de la population) et 2000–2001 (données de l’Enquête sur la santé dans les collectivités canadiennes) au Canada. Nous montrons que cette augmentation touche de façon disproportionnée les provinces de l’Ouest, et en particulier l’Alberta, ainsi que les propriétaires plus que les locataires. Nous calculons également que les différences que l’on observe entre les provinces en ce qui a trait à l’augmentation des frais de chauffage expliquent jusqu’à 61 % des variations de l’augmentation de l’insécurité alimentaire observées entre ces mêmes provinces entre 1988 et 2001.
Dietary fat and mammary cancer.

GROWTH and development of glandular tissue in the breast appear to be influenced significantly by the associated adipose tissue. The glandular tissue develops only within the limits of the framework of the fat pads,1 and successful transplantation and subsequent growth of mammary parenchyma seem to be dependent on the presence of adipose tissue in the transplanted segment and at the site of transplantation.2 The reason for this dependence of mammary parenchyma on adjacent adipose tissue is not known, but it may be related to the fat-solubility properties of steroid hormones, such as the estrogens and progestins, which play
Disposition of Ethanol and Acetaldehyde in Late Pregnant Rats and Their Fetuses

ABSTRACT: The pattern of ethanol and acetaldehyde appearance in blood after an oral ethanol gavage (4 g/kg body wt) was not different at 12 or 21 days' gestation compared to virgin rats. Five min after maternal ethanol administration, concentrations of ethanol in fetal blood were lower than in maternal blood; however, at 15 min after ethanol administration, fetal and maternal blood levels were similar. Ethanol concentrations in fetal blood and amniotic fluid were already at equilibrium 5 min after ethanol administration. Acetaldehyde concentrations in fetal blood and in amniotic fluid were undetectable at all the times investigated, with the exception of fetuses from two pregnant rats studied 3 h after ethanol administration. Alcohol dehydrogenase activity in fetal liver and in placenta at late pregnancy was very low or undetectable, suggesting a very low rate of ethanol oxidation in vivo. After intravenous administration of acetaldehyde (10 mg/kg body wt), blood acetaldehyde concentrations were higher in pregnant than in virgin rats. Acetaldehyde concentrations in fetal blood and in amniotic fluid were similar to maternal blood at 2, 5, and 30 min after injection. When circulating concentrations of maternal and fetal acetaldehyde, obtained after either ethanol or acetaldehyde administration, were plotted, it was found that fetal blood concentrations of acetaldehyde were only detectable when maternal blood concentrations were greater than 80 µM. Concerning the acetaldehyde oxidation capacity, both the high and low affinity components of aldehyde dehydrogenase activity in fetal liver and placenta were very low as compared with maternal liver. However, aldehyde dehydrogenase activity in fetal liver was much higher than in placenta. It is proposed that ethanol present in the feto/placental unit is metabolized mainly by the maternal liver and that there is a threshold for acetaldehyde above which the capacity for acetaldehyde metabolism is surpassed.
Price Fixing: The Probability of Getting Caught

The authors estimate the probability that a price fixing conspiracy will be indicated by federal authorities to be at most between 0.13 and 0.17 in a given year. The authors' estimate is based on conspiracy durations calculated from data reported for a large sample of Department of Justice cases, and a statistical birth and death process model describing the onset and duration of conspiracies. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.
The Market's Differential Reactions to Forward-Looking and Backward-Looking Dividend Changes

Empirical evidence on the signaling hypothesis of dividends is weak and mixed. Recent studies find that dividend changes reflect mostly current and past earnings but not future earnings. We provide a model in which not all dividend changes contain new information about future earnings. Some dividend decisions are backward looking (noninformation or nonsignaling events). Other dividend decisions are forward looking (information or signaling events). The model helps identify the two types of dividend changes and predicts that the market will respond strongly only to forward-looking dividend changes. We provide evidence consistent with the implications of the model. 2003 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.
The effects of cultural factors on innovation in a Thai SME

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to look at a Thai manufacturing small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) in order to develop a basic understanding of the innovation concept and process in Thailand, and to investigate how the five factors associated with innovation interact with Hofstede's five cultural dimensions to influence the innovation process. Design/methodology/approach - This study employs a qualitative methodology, using a case-study approach. Findings - All the studies of national culture and innovation potential use Hofstede's dimensions but this study suggests that in Thailand there may be cultural factors other than Hofstede's that influence innovation and that modify the effects of Hofstede's model on innovation. Allied to this, it appears that the traditional cultural values could be shifting, as younger people absorb an increasing amount of influence from Western media. The first finding from this study suggests that Thai SMEs may tend to more effectively produce or adopt incremental innovations rather than radical ones. The second finding is that, if the research company is typical of Thai SMEs, Thai SMEs are likely to experience difficulties with adopting completely novel innovations effectively. This is because four (except the dimension of long versus short-term orientation) of Hofstede's five Thai cultural dimensions were clearly found to obstruct the innovation process. Also there are some cultural factors peculiar to Thailand, not mentioned by Hofstede, that impact on the innovation process. Research limitations/implications - The paper underlines the need to understand local culture and environment, which play a crucial role in the success or failure of innovation activities of firms, particularly SMEs. Originality/value - There have been very few studies on innovation with reference to Thai SMEs.
Hard Bargains and Lost Opportunities

We examine an Outside Option Game in which player I submits a claim for a share of a cake while player II simultaneously either makes a claim or chooses to opt out. If player II opts out, then she receives an opt-out payment while player I receives nothing. If player II opts in and if the claims total less than the cake, then each player receives his or her claim plus half of the surplus. If the claims total more than the cake, both players receive zero. Tension arises in this game between player I's desire to seek as large a share of the cake as possible and the necessity of providing player II with a sufficiently large payoff to ensure that she will opt in. Economic theories that stress efficiency predict that player II will opt in. We argue that trial-and-error learning processes can teach the competitive skills needed to secure large shares of the cake more effectively than the cooperative skills needed to ensure that the cake is available to be divided. As a result, outcomes will arise in which player II opts out, especially when the payment from doing so is attractive. We conduct experiments in which player IIs commonly opt in when their opt-out payment is small, but frequently opt out for larger opt-out payments.
Auditor size and audit pricing: evidence from small audit firms

In a competitive market, audit prices can vary if the clients believe that the quality of audits varies. Previous research links auditor independence, a key element of audit quality, to auditor size and consequently suggests a positive association between audit quality and auditor size. Moreover, by using the dichotomy approach (Big Five/non-Big Five), numerous studies in many countries have found that the largest audit firms with international reputations earn fee premiums due to their perceived higher quality. Little is known, however, about pricing differences arising from product differentiation among small audit firms. This study examines the relation between auditor size and audit prices by using the data on hourly billing rates and the auditor characteristics from 103 small Finnish audit firms. This study documents, after controlling for the auditor's technical capability, the positive association between auditor size and audit pricing. The results suggest that both size and technical capability have a positive impact on auditor remuneration, implying that product differentiation also takes place among these small audit firms.
Electronic basis of improper hydrogen bonding: a subtle balance of hyperconjugation and rehybridization.

The X[bond]H bond length in X[bond]H.Y hydrogen bonded complexes is controlled by a balance of two main factors acting in opposite directions. "X[bond]H bond lengthening" due to n(Y)-->sigma(H[bond]X) hyperconjugative interaction is balanced by "X[bond]H bond shortening" due to increase in the s-character and polarization of the X[bond]H. When hyperconjugation dominates, X[bond]H bond elongation is reflected in a concomitant red shift of the corresponding IR stretching frequency. When the hyperconjugative interaction is weak and the X-hybrid orbital in the X[bond]H is able to undergo a sufficient change in hybridization and polarization, rehybridization dominates leading to a shortening of the X[bond]H and a blue shift in the X[bond]H stretching frequency.
Optimal energy management for a hybrid energy storage system for electric vehicles based on Stochastic Dynamic Programming

For electric and hybrid electric cars, commonly nickel-metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries are used as energy storage. The size of the battery depends not only on the driving range, but also on the power demands for accelerating and braking and life-time considerations. This becomes even more apparent with short driving ranges, e.g. in commuter traffic. By hybridization of the storage, adding double layer capacitors, the battery can be relieved from the stress of peak power and even downsized to the energy demands instead of power demands. The dimensioning of the storage is performed by a parametric study via Deterministic Dynamic Programming. To determine an energy management to control the power flows to the storage online during operation which considers the stochastic influences of traffic and the driver, Stochastic Dynamic Programming is investigated and compared to the optimal strategy found during the dimensioning.
Alignment of 700 globin sequences: Extent of amino acid substitution and its correlation with variation in volume

Seven‐hundred globin sequences, including 146 nonvertebrate sequences, were aligned on the basis of conservation of secondary structure and the avoidance of gap penalties. Of the 182 positions needed to accommodate all the globin sequences, only 84 are common to all, including the absolutely conserved PheCD1 and HisF8. The mean number of amino acid substitutions per position ranges from 8 to 13 for all globins and 5 to 9 for internal positions. Although the total sequence volumes have a variation ∼2–3%, the variation in volume per position ranges from ∼13% for the internal to ∼21% for the surface positions. Plausible correlations exist between amino acid substitution and the variation in volume per position for the 84 common and the internal but not the surface positions. The amino acid substitution matrix derived from the 84 common positions was used to evaluate sequence similarity within the globins and between the globins and phycocyanins C and colicins A, via calculation of pair‐wise similarity scores. The scores for globin‐globin comparisons over the 84 common positions overlap the globin‐phycocyanin and globin‐colicin scores, with the former being intermediate. For the subset of internal positions, overlap is minimal between the three groups of scores. These results imply a continuum of amino acid sequences able to assume the common three‐on‐three α‐helical structure and suggest that the determinants of the latter include sites other than those inaccessible to solvent.