Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE RATE OF REMOVAL OF SUNLIGHT‐INDUCED PYRIMIDINE DIMERS FROM THE DNA OF CULTURED HUMAN DIPLOID FIBROBLASTS

Abstract The rate of excision of sunlight‐induced pyrimidine dimers in DNA of exposed human cells was determined. Two normal excision repair‐proficient human diploid fibroblast strains (WS‐1 and KD) and a repair‐deficient strain (XP12BE, group A) maintained in a nondividing state were exposed to summer noon‐time sunlight for times (5 and 20 min) that induced numbers of dimers equivalent to far UV (254 nm) exposures of 1 and 4 J/m2. Pyrimidine dimers were quantified in extracted DNA using a U V‐endonuclease‐alkaline sedimentation assay. The excision rates of these dimers were similar to those observed for the excision of UV‐induced pyrimidine dimers. No sunlight‐induced inhibition or stimulation of DNA repair was observed in either strain at these low exposures.
Genetics of peanut allergy: a twin study.

BACKGROUND The role of genetics in the etiology of peanut allergy is unknown. For complex genetic traits, twin studies can provide information on the relative contribution of genetic factors to a disease, as the relative confounding effects of environmental factors are markedly decreased. OBJECTIVE This study was performed to search for evidence that genetic factors influence peanut allergy by comparing the concordance rate for this allergy among monozygotic and dizygotic twins. METHODS Twin pairs with at least one member with peanut allergy were ascertained through the Food Allergy Network by advertisements in the organization's newsletters and Web site. Individuals with peanut allergy or parental surrogates were interviewed by telephone. A full atopic history was obtained, and peanut allergy and zygosity were determined using previously validated questionnaires. Heritability of peanut allergy was determined using univariate genetic model fitting by maximum likelihood with the Mx statistical modeling software package. RESULTS Seventy-five twin pairs were recruited. Seventeen pairs were excluded because of unconvincing peanut allergy histories (9 pairs, including 4 of uncertain zygosity) or because one twin had reportedly never ingested peanut (8 pairs). The median age of the 58 remaining twin pairs was 5 years (range 1 to 58 years). Seventy individuals had peanut allergy. In addition to convincing histories of peanut allergy, 52 (74%) had been tested (skin prick testing with or without radioallergosorbent assay) and all had positive reactions to peanut. Twenty-nine of the 70 had experienced >1 reaction to peanut; 29 of 70 had multisystem reactions. Among the monozygotic pairs (n = 14), 9 were concordant for peanut allergy (pairwise concordance, 64.3%) and among dizygotic pairs (n = 44), 3 were concordant for peanut allergy (pairwise concordance, 6.8%; chi(2) = 21.38, P <. 0001). Heritability of peanut allergy was estimated at 81. 6% (95% confidence interval 41.6% to 99.7%) with model fitting using a population prevalence of peanut allergy of 0.4%. CONCLUSIONS The significantly higher concordance rate of peanut allergy among monozygotic twins suggests strongly that there is a significant genetic influence on peanut allergy.
Life Insurance or Lottery: Are Corporations Managing or Taking Risks with Derivatives?

The nature of corporate hedging behavior is largely unexplored in the existing empirical literature. We attempt to fill this gap by analyzing data from annual financial statements of 425 large US corporations. The sample reveals that many firms actively manage their exposures with sizable derivative positions. Non-financial firms are active in both currency and interest rate derivatives. Contrary to current reports of large derivative losses at a few corporations, such losses are atypical. Compared to corporations that do not use financial derivatives, corporations that do use derivatives display few if any measurable differences in their risk characteristics that can be attributed to derivatives. These results are consistent with the notion that firms use financial derivatives to hedge their inherent exposures to underlying price risks rather than as a tool for speculation.
Veterans' perceptions of benefits and important program components of a therapeutic fly-fishing program.

While evidence is emerging for therapeutic recreation programs for veterans with combat-related disabilities, minimal research has been done to understand participants’ perceptions of these programs. The intent of this study was to examine the perceptions of veterans with combat-related disabilities following participation in a therapeutic fly-fishing program. Six focus group discussions were conducted and the constant comparison method of analysis was used to discover the two primary themes of Perceived Benefits and Important Program Components. Based on these findings, implications for therapeutic recreation practice are included.
Governance of large family companies in traditional and new economy industries in India: Effects on financial performance

This study adds a new context to the body of empirical literature on relationships between corporate family ownership, governance and financial performance. The context is large family listed companies in India operating in traditional industries under succeeding generations of family management compared to companies operation in India's 'new economy' industries under first generation family entrepreneurs. Results reveal a negative relationship between family CEO and firm performance, and a positive relationship between family ownership and firm performance, which supports prior findings in other contexts. However, in this study of Indian family companies, the former relationship is found in 'new economy' industries only, whereas the latter relationship is found in traditional industries only. Additionally, in India, Boards that are more actively involved in management processes will record superior financial performance in companies in traditional industries, but Boards less actively involved achieve better financial performance in new economy industries. These results are interpreted in light of historical Indian family business practices and modern changes. Implications for the future of the traditional family business model, as India rapidly progresses towards 'new economy' industries, are drawn from the results.
Results concerning Brand Choice

This article is concerned with stochastic models of consumer purchasing behavior for household purchases of frequently bought nondurable consumer goods, such as foods and toiletries. A model of multibrand purchasing behavior is developed for the "independent" case and the results help to justify some assumptions which have been made by various authors in the construction of models of buyer behavior. The implications for a general model of multibrand buying behavior are then considered.
Professor Brand Advocacy: Do Brand Relationships Matter?

The trend among students to advocate their professors online continues to generate interest within marketing academia. Brand advocacy in products and services has played a vital role in marketing. However, no known research to date has embraced the idea of brand advocacy in marketing education. This research builds on the recent human brand relationship literature and examines the mediating effects of attachment strength and relationship factors on professor brand advocacy. Survey data gathered from 228 marketing students and the empirical findings suggest that when professors are responsive to their students’ innate needs of relatedness and competence, students form strong attachments to the professors. Furthermore, strong students’ attachments to professors influence students’ trust and satisfaction in their professors. These trusting and satisfying relationships determine the willingness of the students to advocate the professor brands. The authors discuss the implications for marketing educators.
Defining the development needs of entrepreneurs in SMEs

This paper focuses on the theme of entrepreneurship education, learning and development and specifically, on the challenge for higher education institutions (HEIs) of supporting entrepreneurial and enterprising individuals and organisations. This is examined from the perspective of the definition of appropriate development needs of entrepreneurs in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). HEIs are undergoing a phenomenal amount of change driven by the various stakeholders (e.g. government, students and local committees). The government continues to emphasise the importance to the economy of the set up and development of SMEs. If this is to happen then SMEs will need support in developing entrepreneurial and enterprising individuals. This convergence of needs presents the opportunity for HEIs to contribute to this support. A prerequisite for this support is the definition of the development needs of entrepreneurs in SMEs.
The cumulative effect of satisfaction with discrete transactions on share of wallet

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model for how consumers aggregate satisfaction with individual service encounters to form a summary evaluation of satisfaction, and further examines its effect on customers’ share of category spending (share of wallet (SOW)). Design/methodology/approach – The data used consist of 10,983 completed surveys from 1,448 customers whose transaction-specific satisfaction with a retailer and their subsequent purchase behaviors in the category were tracked for more than four transactions. Mixed effects models were employed to test the relationship between the cumulative effect of satisfaction with multiple service encounters on SOW. Findings – Cumulative satisfaction is a weighted average of satisfaction with specific encounters, with weights decaying geometrically so that more recent encounters receive more weight. More recent transaction-specific satisfaction levels tend to have greater influence on customers’ next purchase SOW allocations; this, ho.
The relationship between board diversity and firms performance: the Italian evidence

This paper examines the relationship between board diversity, financial performance and risk. Board diversity is intended as the presence of female and foreign directors on corporate boards. We analyze a sample of Italian listed companies during the period 2006-2008. The results show no statistically significant relationship between the number of female directors on boards and firm performance. The same results emerge with regard to the link between gender diversity and firm risk. When we consider the presence of foreign directors, a negative relationship emerges between this variable and firm risk.
Paternal deprivation induces dendritic and synaptic changes and hemispheric asymmetry of pyramidal neurons in the somatosensory cortex

Similar to maternal care, paternal care is a source of neonatal sensory stimulation, which in primates and rodents has been shown to be essential for developing structure and function of sensory cortices. The aim of our study in the biparental rodent Octodon degus was to assess the impact of paternal deprivation on dendritic and synaptic development in the somatosensory cortex. We (i) quantified the amount of paternal care in relation to total parental investment and (ii) compared dendritic and synaptic development of pyramidal neurons in the somatosensory cortex of animals raised by a single mother or by both parents. On the behavioral level we show that paternal care comprises 37% of total parent‐offspring interactions, and that the somatosensory stimulation provided by the fathers primarily consists of huddling, licking/grooming, and playing. On the morphological level we found that, compared with offspring raised by both parents (mother and father), the father‐deprived animals displayed significantly reduced spine numbers on the basal dendrites of pyramidal neurons. Furthermore, paternal deprivation induces hemispheric asymmetry of the dendritic morphology of somatosensory pyramidal neurons. Father‐deprived animals show shorter and less complex basal dendrites in the left somatosensory cortex compared with the right hemisphere. These findings indicate that paternal deprivation results in delayed or retarded dendritic and synaptic development of somatosensory circuits. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2009
The Moderating Effect of Leader Centrality on Team Cohesion and Performance in Software Development Projects

This paper explores the tension between two opposite views on whether leader centrality fosters or impedes the team cohesion-performance effect in teams. Based on a survey of 150 individuals from eight software development teams in Thailand, the authors found that teams with a high-central leader in a task-advice network had a stronger team cohesion-performance effect than teams with a low-central leader. In a task-advice network, a high-central leader can promote work collaborations and integrate the different capabilities of team members in order to enhance the positive results of team cohesion. The results revealed, however, that a high-central leader in a friendship network had less influence on the team cohesion-performance effect. Using data on person-to-person relationships collected from their questionnaire, the authors conducted a social network analysis of leader influences on a team and found that the connection between a team leader and team members had positive results on team cohesion and performance. These results underscore the fact that leaders do not lead in a social vacuum, and show that leaders with high centrality played an important role in connecting team members and minimizing the number of sub-groups in a team.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in Forestry - State and Perspectives

Nacrtak Environmentally sound technologies are a key to reduce resource use and environmental impact. The paper reviews the state of knowledge of an analysis tool, life cycle assessment (LCA), by addressing three issues: 1) methodological foundations of LCA, 2) lifecycle inven­ tory modeling, and 3) environmental performance indicators for wood supply systems. The study results in the following findings: 1) LCA is still not widely used and accepted in the forest operations engineering. 2) Only a few studies are based on state-of-the-art life cycle inventory analysis. 3) The boundaries of the studied systems are often too narrow, limiting comparability with standard LCA studies. 4) Most forest-related studies are based on direct process energy input only and are neglecting environmental burdens of upstream processes. 5) »Truncated LCAs«, neglecting embodied burdens of road infrastructure and forest machines always result in an underestimation of environmental impacts or an overestimation of envi­ ronmental performance, respectively. There is a need for LCA capacity building in the forest operations community, on the basis of which forest-related LCA studies should become more comprehensive and comparable with studies of the core LCA community.
An empirical analysis of capital structure decisions in Dutch firms

This Ph.D. thesis investigates capital structure decisions in Dutch firms. Firms are faced with the choice from a variety of sources of financing for the funding of their activities. These choices determine the firms' capital structures. Building on the well known theorems of Modigliani and Miller, theoretical contributions provided many potential explanations for the choice between debt and equity. Early studies involve taxation and bankruptcy costs. Recently, theoretical contributions are based on agency oblems, which are caused by asymmetric information and divergent interests. This thesis consists of three studies that aim to test the empirical relevance of a selection of theories for Dutch exchange-listed firms. In the third study, a novel empirical a roach on the basis of questionnaires is advocated and implemented. The results of the tests show the relevance of theories of bankruptcy costs and tax benefits that are associated with debt. No evidence is found for the existence of a relation between cap al structure and the manifestation of agency problems between the providers of debt and equity. On the contrary, agency problems between managers and providers of equity are found to play a prominent role in the Netherlands.
DETECTING CORPORATE FRAUD AND FINANCIAL DISTRESS USING THE ALTMAN AND BENEISH MODELS

The Enron debacle is one of the cases of corporate economic fraud that hit the US, and indeed the world, in 2001. This paper uses two detective models – Altman’s Z-Score and Beneish MScore – to determine how early investors, regulators (particularly the SEC) and the other stakeholders could have detected the financial stress of the company. Data used in the analysis were the 10-K reports of Enron drawn from the U.S. SEC Edgar database. The analysis shows that the executives of Enron used various tools to engage in financial statement manipulation. The paper finds that the fraudulent acts of the company could have been detected as early as in 1997, long before its actual filing for bankruptcy in 2001. For a more accurate determination of fraud, the paper recommends that the models be complemented by analysis of the financial statements in totality with much emphasis on the analysis of the cash flow statement.
Interchange Fees and Innovation in Payment Systems

Abstract We analyze the impact of interchange fees on consumers’ and merchants’ incentives to adopt an innovative payment instrument, in a setting with adoption externalities between consumers and merchants. We show that consumer adoption decreases with the interchange fee for high degrees of externality, and varies non-monotonically with it for low degrees of externality. The profit-maximizing interchange fee coincides with the social optimum when externalities are strong, whereas it is too high when they are weak. We also compare the issuers’ incentives to innovate when they cooperate and when they make their innovation decisions independently.
Bundles of Firm Corporate Governance Practices: A Fuzzy Set Analysis

Manuscript Type: Empirical exploration of theory-informed propositions. Research Question/Issue: We explore how the combinations of firm-level corporate governance (CG) practices embedded in different governance national systems lead to high firm performance. Research Findings/Insights: Using fuzzy set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we uncover a variety of findings. First, we show that within each of the stylized national CG models, there are multiple bundles of firm-level governance practices leading to high firm performance (i.e., equifinality). Second, we provide evidence of complementarity as well as functional equivalence between CG practices. Finally, we demonstrate that there can be heterogeneity (“differences in kind”) in firm governance practices within each stylized model of CG. Theoretical/Academic Implications: We build on the configurational and complementarity-based approaches to make the following theoretical claims. First, governance practices within firm bundles do not always relate to each other in a monotonic and cumulative fashion as this entails higher costs and possibly over-governance. Second, practices in bundles do not need to be aligned towards the insider or the outsider model (similar in kind). We argue that non-aligned practices can also be complementary, creating hybrid governance forms. Third, we predict functional equivalence across bundles of CG practices which grants firms agency on which of the practices to implement in order to achieve high performance. Practitioner/Policy Implications: We contribute to comparative CG research by demonstrating that there are multiple governance paths leading to high firm performance, and that these practices do not always belong to the same national governance tradition. Therefore, our findings alert of the perils of ‘one size fits all’ governance solutions when designing and implementing CG policies.
Changes in the interpupillary distance (IPD) with ages and its effect on the near convergence/distance (NC/D) ratio.

This study aims at determining the mean value of the ophthalmic anthropometrics parametar-IPD (Interpupillary distance) and the mean value of NC/D (Near convergence/distance) in 300 subjects aged 5 to 60 years. The influence of IPD on the NC/D ratio in the same subjects will also be investigated. The investigation showed that the mean value of IPD is 60.5 +/- 2.4 cm, and the mean value of NC/D ratio is 4.95 +/- 2.28 prD. Mean IPD of 5.1 cm in 5-year old children increases to 6.3 cm in adult over 20. In adulthood, IPD remains the same, i.e. 6.3 cm. Our study showed that the NC/D ratio is stable during lifetime. Since NC/D is stabile and IPD changes during lifetime, it is evident that factors other than IPD, such as convergence and accommodation, influence the stability of the NC/D ratio.
Virus-induced diabetes mellitus. XXV. Difference in the RNA fingerprints of diabetogenic and non-diabetogenic variants of encephalomyocarditis virus.

Summary The genomes of diabetogenic and non-diabetogenic variants of encephalomyocarditis virus were analysed by nucleic acid hybridization and RNA fingerprinting. Hybridization and thermal elution profiles failed to show any difference between the RNAs of the two variants, whereas fingerprinting of the T1-digested RNAs revealed at least one oligonucleotide, 20 to 25 nucleotides long, missing in the non-diabetogenic variant.
Sources of Funding in a Crisis: Evidence from Investment Banks

We evaluate whether liquidity shock or shocks to fundamentals explain the behavior of investment banks during financial crises. We find that most investment banks maintain funding levels during downturns. The few banks that do face funding shortfalls are the least creditworthy. Further, despite the conventional wisdom, these market makers rarely sell toxic assets at fire sale prices, instead relying on equity issuance and cherry picking of assets as alternative funding sources. We find that shocks to fundamentals, not illiquidity-induced fire sales, are better able to explain the behavior of investment banks during financial crises.
Stock Investment in Nigeria: Its Process and Benefits

Stock investment, which many people referred to as investing in shares is one of the topical issues among, businessmen, employees of both public and private sectors, students, farmers and even political office holders. In Nigeria, this organised system of investment has gained acceptance longtime ago in western part of the country. Thus, this paper aimed at discussing the concept of stock investment in Nigeria. The paper also explores some of the benefits of stock investment, among others include: return on investment by way of dividend payment; bonus issue; capital appreciation; use of share certificate/CSCS Statement for collateral and ability to consummate timely trade on securities of investors as at when required. The data for this paper are mainly from documentary sources. The paper concludes that in Nigeria, among the obstacle to stock investment is the low level of investors’ enlightenment on the benefits of the entire system, which has greatly affected the acceptance level negatively. The paper recommends that the regulatory agencies like the Nigerian Stock Exchange and Securities and Exchange Commission should continue to enlighten Nigerian especially, using major Nigerian languages on the benefits of stock investment.