Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Franchise Regulation: An Economic Analysis of State Restrictions on Automobile Distribution

FRANCHISE distribution systems are a relatively recent economic development and have proved to be highly effective in industries ranging from hotels to fried chicken restaurants. At the same time, reasons for the economic success and rapid growth of franchise distribution are not well understood. ' Misperceptions about the nature of franchising have led to (or at least not prevented) a confusing tide of new regulations and court decisions pertaining to franchising. In particular, government and the courts have vacillated on the legality of territorial security, which is (at least implicitly) a significant aspect of virtually all franchise arrangements. A second key aspect of the franchise system is that it typically involves a relationship between a large corporation and the owner of a small business. In recent years statutes have been enacted which portend to protect the "little guy" from the rapacious acts of the large and powerful. The interplay between these two concerns is particularly acute in the franchise distribution of new automobiles. Efforts by the states to deal with the issues involved in franchise distribution of automobiles have produced a highly varied collection of regulations. After a brief examination of the economics of automobile franchising, this paper presents an analysis of state regulations of manufacturer-dealer relations in the automobile industry. The analysis provides a basis for an econometric study of the economic impact of the state regulations. Regulations are viewed in the study as producing wealth transfers among the
Isolation of an Inner Membrane-Derived Subfraction That Supports In Vitro Replication of a Mini-RK2 Plasmid inEscherichia coli

ABSTRACT Previous results have demonstrated that the inner, but not the outer, membrane fraction of Escherichia coli is the site of membrane-associated DNA replication of plasmid RK2, a broad-host-range plasmid capable of replication in a wide variety of gram-negative hosts (K. Michaels, J. Mei, and W. Firshein, Plasmid 32:19–31, 1994). To resolve the inner membrane replication site further, the procedure of Ishidate et al. (K. Ishidate, E. S. Creeger, J. Zrike, S. Deb, G. Glauner, T. J. MacAlister, and L. I. Rothfield, J. Biol. Chem. 261:428–443, 1986) was used to separate the inner membrane into a number of subfractions, of which only one, a small subfraction containing only 10% of the entire membrane, was found to synthesize DNA inhibited by antibody prepared against the plasmid-encoded initiation protein TrfA. This is the same subfraction that was also found to bind oriV and TrfA to the greatest extent in filter binding assays (J. Mei, S. Benashski, and W. Firshein, J. Bacteriol. 177:6766–6772, 1995).
The intellectual capital performance of the Indian banking sector

Purpose – The paper seeks to estimate and analyze the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™) for measuring the value‐based performance of the Indian banking sector for a period of five years from 2000 to 2004.Design/methodology/approach – Annual reports, especially the profit/loss account and balance‐sheet of the banks concerned for the relevant years, were used to obtain the data. A review is conducted of the international literature on intellectual capital with specific reference to literature that reviews measurement techniques and tools, and the VAIC™ method is applied in order to analyze the data of Indian banks for the five‐year period. The intellectual or human capital (HC) and physical capital (CA) of the Indian banking sector is analysed and their impact on the banks' value‐based performance is discussed.Findings – The study confirms the existence of vast differences in the performance of Indian banks in different segments, and there is also an improvement in the overall performance over th.
Father/Male Involvement in the Care and Education of Children: History, Trends, Research, Policies, and Programs around the World

A 4-year-old boy from India and his father sing this song, creatively imitating and replacing words of a very popular picture book, Loue You Forever (Munsch, 1995), that narrates the love and bond between , a mother and her son. Most of us at a personal level recognize and acknowledge the fatherchild bond and the important roles that fathers/males play in lives of children. Beginning in the 1960s, ”father involvement” emerged as a formal field of interdisciplinary scholarship, with contributions by scholars from diverse academic disciplines and organizations around the world. There is a recognition that fatherhood is a sociocultural phenomenon that is continuously evolving in response to the changing family structure and ideologies, market realities, state policies (Hobson & Morgan, 2002), advocacy by social organizations and movements, and changing representations of fatherhood in academic discourses and popular media (Lupton & Barclay, 1997). It is with this understanding that the guest co-editors of the 2010 International Focus Issue of Childhood Education brought together an interdisciplinary pool of authors from around the world to discuss sociocultural processes and academic discourses that contribute to research studies, policy framework, and programs related to male involvement in children’s lives. While father involvement has been contextualized and defended within various political positions and debates, social and moral imperatives, legal frameworks, and market realities across the globe, educators clearly recognize the beneficial role of paternal involvement for children, family, and the society as the strongest rationale, thus potentially influencing educational policies and practice in diverse ways. It is important to mention here that while this issue highlights benefits of paternal involvement, it does not adhere to an ”essentialist position” that presents
The Moderating Role of Bridging Ties between Risk-Taking, Proactivness and Performance: The Evidence from Iranian SMEs

This study explores the interaction effect of bridging ties by looking at the relationship between proactiveness,risk-taking, and performance. A questionnaire was administered to 150 manufacturing Small and MediumEnterprises (SMEs) in Iran. A model relating proactiveness and risk-taking to performance with the moderatingrole of bridging ties was tested using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and the results provedsignificant. Our results indicate a positive relationship between proactiveness, risk-taking and performance. Themain contribution of this study resides in addressing the significance of firm performance as a dependentvariable deserving of more attention in the field of entrepreneurship and networking.
The role of legal status in influencing bank financing and new firm growth

This paper examines the characteristics of new firm founders who use loans and overdrafts from the clearing banks to finance initially their business. Bank lending to new firms appears unrelated to the personal characteristics of founders, but related to whether individuals provide personal savings and the legal status of the business. This contrasts with the factors which influence the growth of new firms. Here, the founder's age, employment status and birthplace are associated with larger firms. The only variable which appears to influence consistently both bank lending and the employment growth in firms is whether or not the business is a limited company.
Ideas from ‘across the ditch’? Wedge politics in the 2005 New Zealand election

The 2005 New Zealand election campaign saw the use by the opposition National Party of a racialised and highly divisive ‘wedge politics’. Tensions between Mäori and Pakeha that had previously been managed through care and compromise were inflamed by talk of a New Zealand mainstream and the need for ‘one law for all’. In the context of a difficult national debate about Mäori rights to foreshore and seabed, this talk had strong echoes of recent Australian political discourse. It also had the effect of dramatically increasing the National Party vote in the election, and this research note speculates that, in a different electoral system, this may have been enough to see National form government.
Functional Analysis of 14 Genes That Constitute the Purine Catabolic Pathway in Bacillus subtilis and Evidence for a Novel Regulon Controlled by the PucR Transcription Activator

ABSTRACT The soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis has developed a highly controlled system for the utilization of a diverse array of low-molecular-weight compounds as a nitrogen source when the preferred nitrogen sources, e.g., glutamate plus ammonia, are exhausted. We have identified such a system for the utilization of purines as nitrogen source in B. subtilis. Based on growth studies of strains with knockout mutations in genes, complemented with enzyme analysis, we could ascribe functions to 14 genes encoding enzymes or proteins of the purine degradation pathway. A functional xanthine dehydrogenase requires expression of five genes (pucA, pucB, pucC, pucD, and pucE). Uricase activity is encoded by thepucL and pucM genes, and a uric acid transport system is encoded by pucJ and pucK. Allantoinase is encoded by the pucH gene, and allantoin permease is encoded by the pucI gene. Allantoate amidohydrolase is encoded by pucF. In a pucRmutant, the level of expression was low for all genes tested, indicating that PucR is a positive regulator of puc gene expression. All 14 genes except pucI are located in a gene cluster at 284 to 285° on the chromosome and are contained in six transcription units, which are expressed when cells are grown with glutamate as the nitrogen source (limiting conditions), but not when grown on glutamate plus ammonia (excess conditions). Our data suggest that the 14 genes and the gde gene, encoding guanine deaminase, constitute a regulon controlled by the pucR gene product. Allantoic acid, allantoin, and uric acid were all found to function as effector molecules for PucR-dependent regulation ofpuc gene expression. When cells were grown in the presence of glutamate plus allantoin, a 3- to 10-fold increase in expression was seen for most of the genes. However, expression of thepucABCDE unit was decreased 16-fold, while expression ofpucR was decreased 4-fold in the presence of allantoin. We have identified genes of the purine degradation pathway in B. subtilis and showed that their expression is subject to both general nitrogen catabolite control and pathway-specific control.
Chemotherapy disrupts learning, neurogenesis and theta activity in the adult brain

Chemotherapy, especially if prolonged, disrupts attention, working memory and speed of processing in humans. Most cancer drugs that cross the blood–brain barrier also decrease adult neurogenesis. Because new neurons are generated in the hippocampus, this decrease may contribute to the deficits in working memory and related thought processes. The neurophysiological mechanisms that underlie these deficits are generally unknown. A possible mediator is hippocampal oscillatory activity within the theta range (3–12 Hz). Theta activity predicts and promotes efficient learning in healthy animals and humans. Here, we hypothesised that chemotherapy disrupts learning via decreases in hippocampal adult neurogenesis and theta activity. Temozolomide was administered to adult male Sprague–Dawley rats in a cyclic manner for several weeks. Treatment was followed by training with different types of eyeblink classical conditioning, a form of associative learning. Chemotherapy reduced both neurogenesis and endogenous theta activity, as well as disrupted learning and related theta‐band responses to the conditioned stimulus. The detrimental effects of temozolomide only occurred after several weeks of treatment, and only on a task that requires the association of events across a temporal gap and not during training with temporally overlapping stimuli. Chemotherapy did not disrupt the memory for previously learned associations, a memory independent of (new neurons in) the hippocampus. In conclusion, prolonged systemic chemotherapy is associated with a decrease in hippocampal adult neurogenesis and theta activity that may explain the selective deficits in processes of learning that describe the ‘chemobrain’.
Experimental studies of SDMA schemes for wireless communications

This paper presents some preliminary results of experimental studies of space-division-multiple-access (SDMA) systems for wireless communications to expand capacity, increase coverage, and improve quality. Although SDMA schemes have been studied by a number of researchers, most of these studies are based on theoretical analyses and computer simulations. Very few real RF or microwave experiments have been conducted to validate the feasibility of various signal processing algorithms, such as direction finding and signal copy techniques. Also, no extensive experiments have been conducted to study the channel propagation associated with multiple antennas. The purpose of this paper is to present our preliminary experimental results using our recently developed antenna array testbed. We will also discuss the implications of these results on various array signal processing algorithms.
Risk Perception of Employees with Respect to Equity Shares

Risk perception is the subjective judgment that people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. Risk perception plays a very important role in equity share investment decision of an investor. The objective of the present paper is to find out the level of risk perception of the employees with respect to the different classes of equity investment. It is found that the risk perception of the employees for the shares of their own company as well as the indirect investment in equity shares is relatively lower than the risk perception for the shares of the companies other than their own companies. It was also found that there is lower degree of correlation among the risk perception for the shares of their own company, shares of other company and indirect investment in equity shares which means that risk perception with respect to one share is not influencing the risk perception for other shares.
Isotropic and anisotropic processes influence fine-scale spatial genetic structure of a keystone tropical plant

Propagule dispersal shapes fine-scale spatial genetic structure (FSGS), which is mostly a function of physical distance between individuals. However, such a relation with distance may not occur when asymmetric processes, for instance, wind direction during dispersal, are involved. We combined genetic and seed dispersal data to assess the pattern of FSGS in the keystone species Cyperus papyrus as a function of distance and wind direction. Differences in FSGS between adults and juveniles were detected as a function of distance between individuals. Fine-scale spatial genetic structure was also found to be a function of wind direction during dispersal. Our findings further suggest post-dispersal processes could also influence FSGS.
Malaysia–China in the Liberalization Era: Structural Modelling of International Parity Conditions and Transmission Mechanism

Abstract We construct a structural system that jointly examines Purchasing Power and Interest Parity conditions for Malaysia–China during 1996Q1–2010Q4. Structural VARX, VECMX, over-identifying restrictions, bootstrapping and persistent profiles are utilized in the analyses. We find support for interaction between the goods and capital markets of Malaysia–China, when Asia crisis and sub-prime crisis are taken into accounts. The faster pace of adjustment towards price instead of interest equilibrium implies the non-appearance of sequencing problem in economic integration. Nevertheless, it is of concern that maintaining a rigid foreign exchange with major trading partner could be costly with potentially contagious price instability and financial risk.
Market Structure and Market Value

While the use of market models to determine the sources of economic profits is quite new, at least two empirical studies considering the market structure and market value relation have appeared to date. Interestingly, they conflict. Thomadakis (1977) found a close positive relation between the four-firm concentration ratio and relative excess valuation, measured as the difference between the market value of the firm and the book value of tangible assets, all normalized by sales. As a result, Thomadakis argued that "industry concentration plays a role in the determination of excess profits from currently held assets and those expected from the firm's investment options" (p. 185). In contrast, Lindenberg and Ross (1981) reported no significant relation between concentration and Tobin's Q ratio, measured as the ratio of the market value of the firm to the replacement cost of tangible assets. This result disputes Thomadakis's findings and a purely structuralist interpretation of economic profits. According to Lindenberg and Ross, market power may or may not be evident in highly concentrated markets since "high Q's can occur in concentrated or unconcentrated markets and, conversely, low Q's, indicating no significant market power, can occur in markets that have high degrees of concentration" (p. 28).
Advancements in Therapy for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Blinatumomab

© 2016 Harborside Press® Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a rare form of leukemia, with an estimated 6,250 new cases diagnosed in the United States in 2015 and approximately 1,450 deaths (American Cancer Society, 2015). With current available induction therapies, complete remission (CR) rates in adults are approximately 75% to 90% (Faderl et al., 2010; Bassan & Hoelzer, 2011). After induction therapy, patients with ALL may then receive intensification, consolidation, and maintenance courses of chemotherapy or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). Although CR is obtained in the majority of patients with ALL, maintaining a durable CR is challenging despite the numerous phases of therapy. Standard chemotherapy regimens have resulted in an average cure rate of only 35% (Bassan & Hoelzer, 2011). There are limited treatment options for patients with relapsed or refractory Philadelphia chromosome– negative (Ph–) ALL. Options may include enrollment into clinical trials or singleor multiagent chemotherapy regimens. Historically, these patients have had very poor outcomes, with reported CR rates of approximately 20% to 30% and a median overall survival (OS) of 3 to 6 months (National Comprehensive Cancer Network [NCCN], 2014; Topp et al., 2015). Given the poor outcomes seen with chemotherapy regimens in this setting, novel agents, such as blinatumomab (Blincyto), with alternative mechanisms of action are needed.
Evidence on the Impact of the Agency Costs of Debt on Corporate Debt Policy

Abstract In the last several years, there has been increased theoretical emphasis on the agent-principal problem as it applies to corporate finance. This paper is an attempt to empirically test for the presence of the agency costs and their relation to the debt policy of corporations. We find that firms with higher insider ownership have greater debt ratios than firms with lower insider ownership, which may be explained by the agency costs of debt and/or the agency costs of equity. Other regression results tend to confirm the theoretically optimal relationships put forth by Myers. We find that high-growth firms use less debt rather than more debt, high-operating-risk firms use more debt rather than less debt, and firm size appears to be uncorrelated to the level of debt.
Exploring the effect of Internet marketing orientation, Learning Orientation and Market Orientation on innovativeness and performance: SME (exporters) perspectives

This study explores the relationship between Internet Marketing Orientation, Market Orientation, Learning Orientation, Innovation Capabilities and Performance. The study also investigates the role of Internet Marketing Orientation integration in the linkage between Market Orientation-Innovativeness and Learning Orientation-Innovativeness. From an analysis of usable survey data from 101 Bumiputera SMEs-Exporters, three dimensions of Market Orientation (Customer Focus, Inter-Functional Coordination, Information Dissemination), two dimensions of Learning Orientation (Shared Knowledge, and Vision and Commitment to Learning), one dimension of Internet Marketing Orientation and one dimension of Innovation Capabilities and Performance are extracted from the factor analysis results. The results of regression analysis show that Customer Focus, Shared Knowledge and Vision, and Internet Marketing Orientation directly influenced SMEs' Innovation Capabilities. However, Internet Marketing Orientation is more influential in developing innovation capabilities among SMEs compared to others. While, Shared Knowledge and Vision is the crucial factor in enhancing the business performance among SME (exporters). The relationship among a firm's Internet Marketing Orientation, Learning Orientation, Market Orientation and Innovation Capabilities and Performance are considered a crucial research area in developing countries. The implications for Malaysian SMEs are discussed.
Private concession contracts for toll roads in Spain: analysis and recommendations

Spain has a long history of using the private sector to help build and operate public infrastructure, particularly roads. This article presents new data about toll motorways. The authors found that contracts in Spain are characterized by significant traffic overestimations and frequent renegotiations, which can lead to toll modifications or longer contracts. They suggest reasons for this and some solutions—both of which have significance for other countries.
Listening to the Voice of the Patients: The Marketing Function, Market Orientation and Performance in Hospitals in Emerging Markets

Abstract The present study aims to explore to what extent hospitals adopt a market orientation as their corporate marketing strategy in an emerging-market context which poses many macro-level challenges for health care organizations due to its strong need for economic development, societal development, better quality-of- life (QOL), welfare, ethical practices among others. Hospitals that serve in these markets can benefit from a market orientation since a market-oriented strategy enables them to study understand and respond to their health care customers more effectively. Administrators from 400 private hospitals in Turkey were surveyed. A positive connection was found between the level of the hospital’s market orientation and the presence of a formal marketing department that serves as the informational bridge between the hospital and the society. The results of this study revealed that market orientation is positively related to general performance of the hospital. The present study also showed that a statistically significant difference exists between the general performance of the hospitals having a formal marketing department and of those not having one. Market-oriented private hospitals perform better compared to their less market-oriented counterparts. A formal marketing department that connects the hospital to its customers and the society at large plays a pivotal role in the development of market-oriented strategies and operations and improves hospital performance. Managerial and public policy implications of the research results were also discussed.
Acceptance of vaccination among orthodox protestants in the Netherlands

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