Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dominant Logic and Entrepreneurial Firms‘ Performance in a Transition Economy

Dominant logic is the manner in which firms conceptualize and make critical resource–allocation decisions, and over time develop mental maps, business models, and processes that become organizational recipes. This study compares and contrasts the dominant logic of Polish entrepreneurial firms. We find evidence that a dominant logic characterized by external orientation, proactiveness, and simplicity of routines significantly influences the performance of entrepreneurial firms in this emerging economy. These dominant logic characteristics of high performers serve as a key intangible resource in transition economies that are characterized by the absence of strong institutions and resource constraints. Future research in this critical domain should include how dominant logic needs in transition economies evolve over time as the institutional environment matures and market mechanisms become more solidified.
Predictors of Sexual Intercourse and Condom Use Intentions Among Spanish-Dominant Latino Youth: A Test of the Planned Behavior Theory

BackgroundSpanish-dominant Latino youth represent a growing yet underserved segment of the U.S. population, especially in terms of protection from sexually transmitted HIV infection. There is evidence to suggest that this subgroup engages in both risk and protective behaviors that may be different from the behaviors of English-dominant Latino youth. ObjectiveTo examine theoretical predictors (attitude, subjective norm, behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs, control beliefs) of sexual intercourse and condom use with a sample of Spanish-dominant Latino youth. MethodsParticipants in this study were part of a larger randomized controlled intervention designed to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted HIV among Latino youth. This article is based on preintervention data from 141 Spanish-speaking Latino adolescents (77 girls and 64 boys) who completed a Spanish version of the questionnaire. ResultsMultiple regression analyses showed significant effects of attitudes, perceived partner approval, self-pride, and parental pride on intentions to engage in sexual intercourse. Attitudes, intentions to engage in sex in the next 3 months, self-pride, parental pride, goals, and partner approval predicted sexual intercourse in the preceding 3 months. Attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, partner and parental approval, and impulse control beliefs were significant predictors of intentions to use condoms. ConclusionsThis study represents initial efforts to address the needs of Spanish-dominant Latino youth. The identification of salient beliefs that may predict sexual risk and protective behavior are relevant to the design of culturally and linguistically effective interventions.
How the pain of others enhances our pain: Searching the cerebral correlates of ‘compassional hyperalgesia’

Observing other people's pain increases our own reports to painful stimuli, a phenomenon that can be defined as ‘compassional hyperalgesia’ (CH). This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neural correlates of CH, and whether CH could emerge when exposure to the driving stimulus was subliminal. Subjects received electric somatosensory stimuli while observing images of people undergoing painful or enjoyable somatic sensations, presented during a period allowing or not allowing conscious perception. The intensity attributed to painful stimuli increased significantly when these were delivered close to images showing human pain, but only when such images were consciously perceived. The basic core of the Pain Matrix (SI, SII, insula, mid‐anterior cingulate) was activated by painful stimuli, but its activation magnitude did not increase during CH. Compassional hyperalgesia was associated with increased activity in polymodal areas involved in emotional tuning (anterior prefrontal, pregenual cingulated) and areas involved in multisensory integration and short‐term memory (dorsolateral prefrontal, temporo‐parieto‐occipital junction). CH appears as a high‐order phenomenon needing conscious appraisal of the eliciting visual stimulus, and supported by polymodal areas distinct from the basic Pain Matrix. This suggests that compassion to pain does not result from a mere ‘sensory resonance’ in pain networks, but rather from an interaction between the output of a first‐line processing in the Pain Matrix, and the activity of a high‐order network involving multisensory integration (temporo‐parietal), encoding of internal states (mid‐prefrontal) and short‐time memory encoding (dorsolateral prefrontal). The Pain Matrix cannot be considered as an ‘objective’ correlate of the pain experience in all situations.
Why are Dividends Disappearing? An Empirical Analysis

We investigate the causes of time-series fluctuations in the propensity to pay dividends,including the post-1978 decline documented by Fama and French (2001). We consider explanations based on fluctuations in dividend clienteles, agency problems, information asymmetries, executive stock options, catering incentives, tax code awareness, and short-lived idiosyncratic factors. To evaluate these explanations, we conduct three styles of analysis. First, we count and classify influences on the propensity to pay that were noted in the financial press. Second, we examine time-series relationships between the propensity to pay and proxies for the driving influences in the candidate explanations. Third, we assess whether the candidate explanations are theoreticallycompatible with related time-series patterns involving dividend policy. Overall, theresults are most consistent with the catering explanation. Notably, catering incentives,as measured by the stock market "dividend premium," roughly line up with the four trends in the propensity to pay between 1963 and 2000 and are able to account for the observed magnitude of the post-1978 decline. There is also evidence that idiosyncratic factors, including the Nixon-era dividend controls and the recent growth in options, affected the propensity to pay in specific periods.
Decreased virulence of cystic fibrosis Pseudomonas aeruginosa in Dictyostelium discoideum

The characteristics of clinical and environmental isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa from both hospital and community settings were analyzed in a eukaryotic virulence model employing the AX2 and X22 mutants of Dictyostelium discoideum. Thirty‐one strains, including two Australian epidemic strains, of P. aeruginosa were analyzed, five from environmental sources, six from clinical sources other than cystic fibrosis (CF) patients and nineteen from CF patients’ respiratory secretions. The majority of CF isolates almost uniquely supported the growth of D. discoideum. CF isolates of P. aeruginosa were found to be less virulent than isolates from other sources. Varying degrees of inhibition of the developmental cycle of D. discoideum when growing on CF isolates were also noted. This is the first description of P. aeruginosa isolates from clinical and environmental sources supporting the growth of D. discoideum.
Program verification through soft typing

Over the past 25 years, programming language researchers have developed increasingly sophisticated techniques for statically analyzing program behavior. These techniques have been widely used in optimizing compilers to infer program properties supporting code optimization, but they have had little impact on program development and maintenance. This article explains how these techniques can be used to perform a restricted form of program verification, namely, the automatic proof of the preconditions of primitive operations. Computations in high-level programming languages are expressed in terms of operations on abstract values such as integers, arrays, lists, and functions. Most of these operations are defined only for selected inputs, such as the set of all integers or the set of nonempty lists. Nevertheless, the machine code for an operation always does something regardless of the form of the input. If a language fails to prevent the application of an operation’s machine code to illegal inputs (which are bitstrings), it is unsafe because subsequent program behavior is unpredictable. To ensure safety, some high-level languages prevent the misapplication of operations through a combination of static and dynamic checks. Some safe languages, such as ML and Modula III, rely primarily on static checks, whereas others, such as Scheme and SmallTalk, rely exclusively on dynamic checks. From the perspective of program reliability, static checking is preferable to dynamic checking because it proves preconditions for program operations instead of merely testing them on individual inputs. In essence, static checking is a restricted form of program verification where the invariant assertions are the preconditions of primitive operations. If all the preconditions in a program are valid invariants, then it can never abort with a run-time error. Statically typed languages enforce the preconditions for some operations by including inference rules in the syntax of the language. But the preconditions for many operations, such as extracting the head of a list or an element of an array, cannot be proven by simple syntactic arguments. To support a more aggressive approach to proving operation preconditions, we have developed a generalization of static typing called soft type analysis [Cartwright and Fagan 1991] that is performed by the programming environment rather than the language compiler. A soft type analyzer generates and proves program invariants corresponding to the preconditions of primitive operations. Because these preconditions are undecidable in general, no soft type analyzer can prove every valid precondition. The analyzer flags each primitive operation with an unproven precondition and ensures that the condition is checked at run-time to preserve
Influence of statin use on clinicopathological characteristics of localized prostate cancer and outcomes obtained after radical prostatectomy: a single center study.

INTRODUCTION To assess the impact of statin use on biochemical recurrence (BCR) of prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy (RP). MATERIALS AND METHODS Data from all men treated with robot-assisted laparoscopic RP (RALRP) for localized prostate cancer between 2009 and 2014 at our institution were prospectively collected: age, body mass index (BMI), statin-use status, preoperative prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, clinical T stage, biopsy Gleason score (bGS), D'Amico risk group, pathological T stage, specimen Gleason score (sGS), multifocality, peri neural invasion, positive surgical margins and time to BCR. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed to test associations between statin use and prognostic factors of prostate cancer and/or BCR. RESULTS Overall, 591 patients with a median follow up of 42.3 months [25.8-59.9] were included in the current study and split in two cohorts: statin users (n = 156) and statin non-users (n = 435). When comparing statin user and non-users, no significant difference was found in terms of clinical, biochemical and pathological characteristics except for BMI (median 29 versus 26, respectively; p = 0.04). Regarding BCR, there was no significant difference between men using statin versus those not using them (4.5% versus 4.6%, p = 0.65). In univariate analysis, statin use was not significantly correlated to any prognostic factors of prostate cancer recurrence. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the 5 years biochemical-free survival rates between statin users and non-users (75% versus 73%; p = 0.7). CONCLUSIONS From the current study, statin daily intake was not significantly associated with any prognostic factors of prostate cancer and with BCR after RARLP.
Shariah parameters reconsidered

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain three additional parameters, namely maqasid al‐Shariah, financial reporting, and legal documentation of contract for determining Shariah legitimacy of financial instruments in Islamic financial institutions. Currently, contract ('aqd) is the only parameter recognized by Shariah scholars at the supervisory level.Design/methodology/approach – This analysis begins with examining the pitfalls of the contract approach and proceeds to present the maqasid, financial reporting and legal documentation approaches in ascertaining absolute Shariah compliant of financial products.Findings – The paper argues that the four approaches must be applied in package in determining Shariah compliant status to avoid costly errors that might lead to litigations and loss of competitiveness in the Islamic financing business.Originality/value – The paper provides new insights and integrated analysis of Shariah auditing where knowledge clusters concerning the Shariah, economics, fina.
The Effect of News on Return Volatility and Volatility Persistence: The Turkish Economy during Crisis

Abstract: In this study, we investigate the effect of public information arrival on return volatility for Borsa Istanbul. New information arrival is measured by the number of daily news headlines for Turkey, the United States, and a sample of European countries with close trading ties with Turkey. We classify news headlines by country and type of news. Our findings indicate that, during a recessionary period, new information arrival causes return volatility mostly to decline. Moreover, both economic news and European news cause a significant decline in volatility persistence. However, when news is classified based on origin and type, a larger decline in persistence is observed.
Why are Rates of Inflation so Low after Large Devaluations?

This Paper studies the behaviour of inflation after nine large post-1990 contractionary devaluations. A salient feature of the data is that inflation is low relative to the rate of devaluation. We argue that distribution costs and substitution away from imports to lower quality local goods can account quantitatively for the post-devaluation behaviour of prices.
Do Advertising-Profitability Studies Really Show That Advertising Creates a Barrier to Entry?

FEW issues are as controversial among economists as the economic efficiency of advertising. Opinions diverge, in part, over advertising's truthfulness, its informativeness, and the optimality of its supply. But the point of divergence that has prompted the most extensive analysis is the effect of advertising on competition; does it reduce, increase, or leave unaffected the competitiveness of an industry? The theory most widely accepted, particularly it seems among regulators at the Federal Trade Commission, is that advertising creates a barrier to entry.1 Proponents of this theory argue that advertising increases sales more by raising the probability of repeat purchase than by encouraging switching from competing brands.2 In the terminology of the debate, advertising is allegedly more effective in building "brand loyalty" to the advertised brand than in attracting buyers from competing brands. Thus, it is claimed that advertising benefits an established firm with a large market share that it is attempting to maintain relative to a new firm with a small, perhaps zero, market share that it is attempting to increase. Advertising is consequently labeled a "barrier to entry. "
Comparing the contributions of tourism and non-tourism exports to economic growth in Malaysia

An in-depth study using data from 1974 to 2013 is conducted to assess the role of exports in Malaysia's economic growth through the neoclassical growth model. Unlike previous studies, we segregate exports into four major components, namely tourism, electrical and electronic (E&E), palm oil and rubbers. By doing so, we are able to assess the relative contributions of tourism and non-tourism (i.e. E&E, palm oil and rubbers) exports to Malaysia's economic growth. To achieve the objective of this study, we perform the cointegration, Granger causality and the variance decomposition tests. Our findings suggest that only tourism, E&E and palm oil exports significantly influence economic growth in the long-run. Likewise, our Granger causality results also suggest that only tourism, E&E and palm oil exports Granger-cause economic growth. Thus, it supports the tourism-led growth, E&E export-led growth (ELG) and palm oil ELG hypotheses in Malaysia. With reference to the contributions to economic growth, the long-run estimation results and the results of generalized variance decomposition consistently suggest that tourism is relatively more important than the three non-tourism exports, especially in explaining the long-term economic growth of Malaysia.
Investor Sentiment, Limits to Arbitrage and Private Market Returns

type="main"> This article examines the relation between investor sentiment and returns in private markets. Relative to more liquid public markets, private investment markets exhibit significant limits to arbitrage that restrict an investor's ability to counteract mispricing. Using vector autoregressive models, we find a positive and economically significant relation between investor sentiment and subsequent private market returns. We provide further long-horizon regression evidence suggesting that private commercial real estate markets are susceptible to prolonged periods of sentiment-induced mispricing as the inability to short-sell in periods of overvaluation and restricted access to credit in periods of undervaluation prevents arbitrageurs from entering the market.
A Study of Industry Evolution in the Face of Major Environmental Disturbances: Group and Firm Strategic Behaviour of Spanish Banks, 1983-1997

This paper examines the story of the evolution of a specific industry through the application of dynamic strategic group analysis. In particular, we analyse the relationship between major environmental disturbances and changes that have occurred over time in the competitive structure of the industry regarding two closely related central questions. First, the way in which these environmental transformations have influenced group patterns and stability, and second, the way in which such environmental disturbances has affected the strategic positioning of individual firms. We resort to alternative theoretical perspectives in an attempt to answer both questions. The empirical setting is the population of Spanish banks over the period 1983-1997. We make use of a new grouping algorithm - the Model-based Clustering or MCLUST - which may be enormously fruitful in future empirical works on strategic groups. This method allows researchers to obtain the optimal number of groupings over time in a much more objective way than the cluster techniques used until now. Compared to previous dynamic studies that only consider the largest firms, our research illustrates how a richer analysis of an industry dynamics can be obtained by using a dynamic analysis of strategic groups. Our results show that while there have been no industry-wide identical groupings year to year, there is an important strategic stability at group and firm-level punctuated by a high degree of strategic instability at times of major environmental disturbances.
Medial prefrontal cortex stimulation modulates irony processing as indexed by the N400

ABSTRACT In this study, we investigated whether the ERP responses observed during a verbal irony comprehension task might represent the cortical manifestation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC) activity. We performed a tDCS-EEG study in which we analyzed the effects of tDCS polarities (anode, cathode, sham) over the MPFC during a verbal irony task. We presented visual short stories portraying everyday situations followed by written statements in either an ironic or literal condition, whose meaning was referred to in the previous context. We manipulated the valence of the stimuli by presenting positive sentences or negative sentences in the ironic and literal conditions. The results revealed that the participants who received the anodal stimulation showed no differences in the N400 amplitude in response to the literal and the ironic condition. This could suggest that anodal stimulation has modulatory effects on N400 responses during irony comprehension. Our results indicated that the MPFC might be critical in accessing ironic information at the initial stage of irony comprehension. Finally, we found that the ironic compliments were more difficult to understand compared to the literal ones, suggesting that irony comprehension is affected by the valence of the information presented.
The role of budget speech: a Malaysian Government study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the role of budget speech in the Malaysian Government as a “hybrid” for governing both the economy and social cohesion. Design/methodology/approach – Through archival research, a governmentality framework and the concept of hybrids (Miller et al., 2008) are employed to explore the role of budget speech in articulating ways in which the government managed the economic and social agenda. Findings – Previous governmentality studies have primarily been conducted on economic performance in western liberal democracies. Such research has illustrated the framework, measures undertaken by the government and choices of the governable person in actions for economic life. This paper applies these studies to a South East Asian context and finds that budget speeches between 2007 and 2011 are hybrids, in that they set out ways of achieving the two key priorities of post-independence Malaysia – the need to promote economic development whilst also fostering social harmony. M.
Rural banks' financial capital and livelihoods development of women farmers in Ghana

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find out how financial capital from rural banks is contributing to the livelihoods development of women farmers who constitute the most vulnerable and disadvantaged group in Ghana and other developing countries. Design/methodology/approach – Women farmers were randomly sampled, resulting in 100 beneficiary and 100 non-beneficiary women farmers who were used for the study. The incomes of women farmers were compared and the factors influencing income earnings estimated using simple regressing analysis. Findings – Financial capital from rural banks was found to have positive contributions to the livelihood development of the women farmers and the poor in general. Whereas, the beneficiary women farmers had significant improvement in their access to health care, education and increased income among others, the non-beneficiaries only had marginal improvements. Research limitations/implications – Women farmers do not keep accurate records on their production activities and had to rely on their memories to give costs of production and outputs obtained. This might have slightly affected the results. Practical implications – Governments and development partners in third world countries should integrate the provision of financial capital in their development policy formulations. This is critical for the attainment of the millennium development goals (MDGs), especially on the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger as well as gender equality and empowerment. Originality/value – This research paper brings to light the fact that financial capital is an important tool that can be used to turn life around for poor families and individuals in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. It demonstrates how financial capital is critical for the attainment of the MDGs.