Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Board Diversity and Corporate Payout Policy: Do Free Cash Flow and Ownership Concentration Matter?

This study investigates the effect of board diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity on dividend payout policy when a firm has free cash flow agency problem. It also tests whether the probability of diverse boards would minimize free cash flow agency problem through making large dividend payments is more pronounced in firms with high ownership concentration. We find that our results differ based on how corporate dividend policy is measured, and vary by the level of free cash flows and ownership concentration. More specifically, we find that women’s (Malays’) presence on boards has positive impact on dividend yield (dividend payout), and this effect conditional on the level of free cash flows generated by firms. Our results also show that the role of female and Malay directors in forcing controlling shareholders of firms with substantial free cash flows to cash out the firms’ resources through making higher dividend payments is more prominent when the firms’ ownership structure is concentrated in the hand of largest shareholders. The findings of our study, to some extent, support the government calls for increasing the number of women participation on corporate boardrooms and the participation of Malays in corporate sector.
Calibration of the LaCoste-Romberg 906 by Comparison with the Superconducting Gravimeter C021 in Membach(Belgium).

Three months of simultaneous and collocated observations by a superconducting and a spring gravimeter in Membach are used to calibrate the spring gravity meter. We show that a precision of 0.1% on the amplitude calibration factor can be achieved with two weeks of data. The time variation of this calibration factor over the three months is found to be less than 0.1%. This is the precision required for our specific application of the spring meter, to validate the ocean tides models along the Atlantic coast. The determination of the instrumental phase lag is not satisfactory. A precision of only a few seconds has been achieved. For phase calibration, other methods are more successful.
The 'Tomahawk' and the 'Healing Balm': Drug Treatment Courts in Theory and Practice

More than 2,000 drug courts now operate throughout the U. S. and in a number of other countries. Hundreds of other problem-solving courts derived in one way or another from drug courts are also in operation. The data seem to indicate that drug courts increase the retention rate of clients in treatment and, for those participants who complete the program, may lead to reduced rates of either re-arrest or re-conviction relative to control groups of substance misusing offenders processed through the traditional criminal system. There is, however, considerable variation in outcome associated with offender characteristics and local institutional practice. Consequently, it is virtually impossible to make confident global assertions that these enterprises generally are a success or a failure.This article examines a variety of outcome studies, in order to provide an overall picture of drug treatment courts in the United States. In addition, it discusses two detailed observational studies of specific drug treatment courts, in order to provide some insights into why these courts may succeed for some participants and fail others. The article suggests that drug treatment courts share the tendency of virtually all treatment/punishment hybrids to collapse into predominately punitive enterprises. In addition, the moral disapproval that attends drug misuse complicates efforts to provide supportive, reintegrative treatment within the context of the criminal blaming system. Given the totalizing moral judgments that pervasively are directed against drug users throughout American society, it is difficult even for professionals in the fields of social work and medicine to maintain an empathic and respectful stance toward clients and patients who suffer from drug use disorders. To the extent that these disorders are chronic, relapsing conditions, it is inevitable that some significant number of defendants in drug court will fail to adhere - often in a serious and sustained way - to the requirements of the program. At those moments, the exercise of moral discretion required of treatment court judges is necessarily vulnerable to being corrupted by the background normative understandings of addicts and addiction that derive from the very criminal justice policies within which these courts are embedded.
A better understanding of cloud optical thickness derived from the passive sensors MODIS/AQUA and POLDER/PARASOL in the A-Train constellation

Abstract. Cloud optical thickness (COT) is one of the most important parameter for the characterization of cloud in the Earth radiative budget. Its retrieval strongly depends on instrument characteristics and on many cloud and environment factors. Using coincident observations from POLDER/PARASOL and MODIS/AQUA in the A-Train constellation, geographical distributions and seasonal changes of COT are presented, in good agreement with general cloud climatology characteristics. Retrieval uncertainties mainly associated to sensor spatial resolution, cloud inhomogeneity and microphysical assumptions are discussed. Comparisons of COT derived from POLDER and MODIS illustrate that as the primary factor, the sensor spatial resolution impacts COT retrievals and statistics through both cloud detection and sub-pixel cloud inhomogeneity sensitivity. The uncertainties associated to cloud microphysics assumptions, namely cloud phase, particle size and shape, also impact significantly COT retrievals. For clouds with unambiguous cloud phase, strong correlations exist between the two COTs, with MODIS values comparable to POLDER ones for liquid clouds and MODIS values larger than POLDER ones for ice clouds. The large differences observed in ice phase cases are due to the use of different microphysical models in the two retrieval schemes. In cases when the two sensors disagree on cloud phase decision, COT retrieved assuming liquid phase is systematically larger. The angular biases related to specific observation geometries are also quantified and discussed in particular based on POLDER observations. Those exhibit a clear increase of COT with decreasing sun elevation and a decrease of COT in forward scattering directions due to sub-pixel inhomogeneities and shadowing effects, this especially for lower sun. It also demonstrates unrealistic COT variations in the cloudbow and backward directions due to inappropriate cloud optical properties representation and an important increase of COT in the sun-glint directions in case of broken cloud.
Ownership Structure and Accounting Method Choice: A Study of European Real Estate Companies

Abstract Companies can under IAS 40 Investment Properties choose between the fair value and the cost models. The fair value model arguably results in more relevant information but is also more costly to use. Based on studies suggesting that financial reports are a more important medium for communication with investors if ownership is dispersed, we hypothesize that the use of the fair value model is positively associated with ownership dispersion. We study European Real Estate firms and find support for this prediction. We also find a positive association between trade of shares and ownership dispersion, supporting the view that financial statements are less important if ownership concentration is high. Finally, we examine whether the choice depends on the identity of large owners. Companies with a financial company as the largest owner are somewhat more likely to choose the fair value model. Overall, the results indicate that accounting rules facilitating optional accounting policies have benefits.
Feature Encoding of Spectral Descriptors for 3D Shape Recognition

Feature descriptors have become a ubiquitous tool in shape analysis. Features can be extracted and subsequently used to design discriminative signatures for solving a variety of 3D shape analysis problems. In particular, shape classification and retrieval are intriguing and challenging problems that lie at the crossroads of computer vision, geometry processing, machine learning and medical imaging. In this thesis, we propose spectral graph wavelet approaches for the classification and retrieval of deformable 3D shapes. First, we review the recent shape descriptors based on the spectral decomposition of the Laplace-Beltrami operator, which provides a rich set of eigenbases that are invariant to intrinsic isometries. We then provide a detailed overview of spectral graph wavelets. In an effort to capture both local and global characteristics of a 3D shape, we propose a three-step feature description framework. Local descriptors are first extracted via the spectral graph wavelet transform having the Mexican hat wavelet as a generating kernel. Then, mid-level features are obtained by embedding local descriptors into the visual vocabulary space using the soft-assignment coding step of the bag-of-features model. A global descriptor is subsequently constructed by aggregating mid-level features weighted by a geodesic exponential kernel, resulting in a matrix representation that describes the frequency of appearance of nearby codewords in the vocabulary. In order to analyze the performance of the proposed algorithms on 3D shape classification, support vector machines and deep belief networks are applied to mid-level features. To assess the performance of the proposed approach for nonrigid 3D shape retrieval, we compare the global descriptor of a query to the global descriptors of the rest of shapes in the dataset using a dissimilarity measure and find the closest shape. Experimental results on three standard 3D shape benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed classification and retrieval approaches in comparison with state-of-the-art methods.
RELATIONS OF MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND MAXIMAL OXYGEN CONSUMPTION OF FOURTH GRADE PUPILS BASED ON GENDER

On a sample of 71 respondents, 37 boys and 34 girls, age of fourth grade elementary school, accordingly 9 years +/- 6 months, it is assessed correlation and prediction of maximal oxygen consumption based measures of morphological range. Maximum oxygen consumption was measured by indirect method, using a fi eld test of maximal multiple load of feedback running at 20 meters. Range of morphology was analyzed based on 5 measures of longitudinal dimensionality, 4 measures of volume and body mass and 3 measures of transversal dimensionality. Results of correlation analysis showed that in both sexes there was no statistically signifi cant correlation between results of maximal oxygen consumption and measures of longitudinal dimensionality, while regression analysis confi rmed that there was no statistically signifi cant prediction of maximum oxygen consumption based on measures of longitudinal dimensionality. While the correlation analysis deduced that part of volume measures and body mass and transversal dimensionality have statistically signifi cant correlation only with female respondents with results of maximal oxygen consumption. Regression analysis showed statistically signifi cant prediction of maximal oxygen consumption based on part of volume measures and body mass and transversal dimensionality. It is determined that female respondents with larger volumes of the thigh and lower leg, accordingly with smaller diameters of knee joint and ankle joint most likely will achieve better results in applied test, and therefore higher maximal oxygen consumption.
Men, Women, and Leadership Centralization in Groups Over Time.

The authors propose a model for predicting the emergence of group norms from the demographic composition of groups. They use this model to study gender and leadership centralization in groups over time. Results from 2 longitudinal studies were consistent with their predictions: (a) Women, more than men, preferred equality norms in groups; (b) all-male and majority-male groups had relatively centralized leadership structures; (c) all-female groups had relatively decentralized leadership structures; and (d) balanced and majority-female groups were relatively centralized at the onset of group interaction but decreased in centralization over time. Much research and theory has addressed how being male or female influences an individual’s chance of emerging as a leader in a small group or team (cf. Carli & Eagly, 1999; Eagly & Karau, 1991). Little is known, however, about how the sex composition of a group influences its emergent leadership structure: that is, whether a group develops a more centralized structure, whereby leadership is concentrated in one or a few group members, or a more decentralized structure, whereby leadership is shared among members (e.g., Pearce & Sims, 2002). This is an important issue to understand, as centralized structures have been linked to lower levels of group cohesion (Widmeyer, Brawley, & Carron, 1990), satisfaction (Porter & Lawler, 1964), and performance (e.g., Bloom, 1999; Janis, 1989) and to higher levels of tardiness, absenteeism, and turnover (Durand, 1985; Spink & Carron, 1992). Moreover, conventional wisdom and some theories suggest that a group’s leadership structure is shaped by its sex composition. This article represents one of the first contributions to this endeavor. We propose a dominant norms model of how a group’s sex composition determines its leadership centralization, both early in its development and over time. This model is based on the idea that individuals with different social characteristics and backgrounds prefer different interaction norms in groups. It considers these preferences, along with differences in status between the social groups in question, to predict which norms will initially and eventually dominate group interaction. We test the model with two longitudinal studies of groups with different sex compositions.
Environmental Concern Behaviours in Africa: An Exploratory Study

Environmental concern, including environmental behaviour continues to receive attention in both the public media and academic research. The purpose of the paper is to investigate environmental behaviour (both purchasing and non-purchasing behaviour) in an African context. Use was made of a quantitative study among a convenience sample of selected Africans. Statements reflecting non-purchasing behaviour indicated lower mean scores when compared to purchasing behaviour statements. Statistically significant differences were found to exist between different age groups with respect to both purchasing and non-purchasing behaviour as well as between different nationalities with regard to their purchasing behaviour. The findings have the potential of impacting the strategies of organisations operating on the continent. The major contribution of this paper is that is provides insight in the behavioural aspects as seen in an African context, and consequently provides detail on both purchasing and non-purchasing behaviour and the role of marketing aspects (such as price) in influencing purchase behaviour of Africans.
Concept‐Based Bayesian Model Averaging and Growth Empirics

In specifying a regression equation, we need to specify which regressors to include, but also how these regressors are measured. This gives rise to two levels of uncertainty: concepts (level 1) and measurements within each concept (level 2). In this paper we propose a hierarchical weighted least squares (HWALS) method to address these uncertainties. We examine the effects of different growth determinants taking explicit account of the measurement problem in the growth regressions. We find that estimates produced by HWALS provide intuitive and robust explanations. We also consider approximation techniques which are useful when the number of variables is large or when computing time is limited.
Work force retention: role of work environment, organization commitment, supervisor support and training & development in ceramic sanitary ware industries in India

Purpose: Although retention of employees has become hot topic in this career turbulent era, practically no empirical research is carried out in the fast growing ceramic sector till now and this research fills the gap in the literature. The literatures surveys reported that organization commitment is an important determinant of retention and work environment, supervisor support and training and development are the most relevant antecedents increasing commitment towards organization. This paper examines the impact of the above factors over organization commitment and explores the effects of organization commitment on retention, and verifies the mediating effect of organization commitment on the relationship between proposed factors and retention. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was completed by 416 employees working in five ceramic sanitary ware factories located at different places in India. Questionnaire consisting of items adopted from previous researches were used to collect data. The selection of respondents was based on the simple random sampling. Findings: Findings reveals that organization commitment influences retention and all the above factors enhances it. Moreover organization commitment partially mediates the relationship between proposed factors and retention. However multiple regression analysis indicated that training and development did not have any notable influence on retention. Limitations: This study was conducted in a particular country and also in a particular sector of manufacturing industry, which limits generalization . Possibility of bias towards their organization and assumption that respondents know about their organization are other limitations. Implications: This paper offers recommendations to HR(Human resource) managers that they should extend their support to work environment, supervisor support and training and development in order to generate better relationship with employees and to reduce their likelihood of leaving the company. Originality/value: This article makes significant contribution to most turnover prone Indian environment, highlighting the important factors to be given priority for employee’s retention.
The Impact of Transthoracic Aortic valve Replacement on Quality of Life : A Mixed Methods Study

Objective: To provide an in-depth understanding of patients' views about the impact of transcatheter aortic valve implantation on self-reported quality of life. Background: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation is considered to be the gold standard of care for inoperable patients diagnosed with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. Midto long-term clinical outcomes are favourable and questionnaire data indicates improvements in quality of life but an in-depth understanding of how quality of life is altered by the intervention is missing. Methods: A mixed methods study design with a total of 89 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with participants (39% male; mean age 81.7 years), 1 and 3 months post TAVI, recruited from a regional centre in England. Data were triangulated with questionnaire data (SF-36 and EQ5D-VAS) collected, pre, 1 and 3 months post implantation. Results: Participants' accounts were characterised by four key themes; shortened life, extended life, limited life and changed life. Quality of life was changed through two mechanisms. Most participants reported a reduced symptom burden and all explained that their life expectancy was improved. Questionnaire data supported interview data with gradual improvements in mean EQ-5D scores and SF-36 physical and mental domain scores at 1 and 3 months compared to baseline. Conclusion: Findings suggest that TAVI was of variable benefit, producing considerable improvements in either mental or physical health in many participants, while a smaller proportion continued to deteriorate. Introduction The ageing of the population means that by 2050 one in five people will be over 60 years of age.1 Acquired aortic stenosis (AS) is typically a disease of ageing which
In vitro Methanogenesis, Microbial Profile and Fermentation of Green Forages with Buffalo Rumen Liquor as Influenced by 2-Bromoethanesulphonic Acid

The interaction of fibre degrading microbes and methanogens was studied using two forages, lucerne (Medicago sativa) hay and maize (Zea mays) hay, as substrate and 2-bromoethanesulphonic acid (BES) as an additive in an in vitro gas production test. Gas and methane production (ml/g dry matter) were significantly higher (p 98% of control) inhibition of methanogenesis. The proportion of acetate decreased, whereas that of propionate increased significantly by inclusion of BES, resulting in narrowing of acetate to propionate ratio. In vitro true digestibility (IVTD) of lucerne was significantly higher as compared to maize but BES inclusion did not affect IVTD.
RECOGNITION OF PHRAGMITES AU STRAUS SUBSP. AMERICANUS (POACEAE: ARUNDINOIDEAE) IN NORTH AMERICA: EVIDENCE FROM MORPHOLOGICAL AND GENETIC ANALYSES

Horn Point Laboratory Department ofBotany University ofMaryland Center National Museum ofNatural History for Environmental Science Smithsonian Institution PO Box 775 Washington, District ofColumbia (DC) 20013-7012, U.S.A. Cambridge, Maryland 21613, U.S.A. peterson.paul@nmnh.si. edu kristin.saltonstall@aya.yale. edu soreng.rob@nmnh.si. edu ABSTRACT A new native subspecies of Phraginites australis subsp. americanus Saltonstall, P.M. Peterson & Soreng is described. The new subspecies can be separated from the introduced and Gulf Coast North Ameri- can lineages of P. australis by having caducous leaf sheaths, ligules 1.0-1.7 mm long, lower glumes 3.0-6.5 mm long, upper glumes 5.5-11.0 mm long, lemmas 8.0-13.5 mm long, and by possessing chlo- roplast DNA haplotypes of A-H, S, Z, AA. The new subspecies is clearly distinguished in a PCA analysis and when bivariate plots of the morphological features are compared. Additional work is needed to morphologically distinguish the introduced from Gulf Coast lineages. Phragmites berlandieri is lectotypified. A key and distribution maps to the three lineages are included. RESUMEN Se describe una nueva subespecie nativa Phragmites australis subsp. americanus Saltonstall, P.M. Peterson & Soreng. La nueva subespecie puede separarse de los linajes introducidos en la Gulf Coast de Norte America de P. australis por tener vainas caducas, ligulas de 1.0-1.7 mm, glumas inferiores de 3.0-6.5 mm, glumas superiores de 5.5-11.0 mm long, lemas de 8.0-13.5 mm, y por tener haplotipos del DNA plastidial A-H, S, Z, AA. La nueva subespecie queda claramente diferenciada en un analisis de PCA y cuando se comparan graficos bivariantes de las caracteristicas morfologicas. Se necesita trabajo adicional para diferenciar morfologicamente los linajes introducidos de la Gulf Coast. Se lectotipifica Phragmites berlandieri. Se incluyen una clave y mapas de distribucion de los tres linajes.
Teamwork and Performance of Selected Transport Companies in Anambra State

This study ascertained the nature of relationship between teamwork and organizational performance of selected transport companies in Anambra State. The specific objective is to determine the type of relationship that exists between team members’ commitment and performance of the focused transport companies. To achieve these objectives, descriptive survey research design was employed. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to analyze data from two hundred and nineteen respondents. The result revealed a positive significant relationship between commitment and revenue generation of the selected transport companies. It is therefore recommended that service industries such as the transport sector, should encourage and sustain the use of teamwork as part of their operational strategies. Managers and team leaders should offer and encourage sound team commitment.