Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Myth of Firm Performance

Firm performance is one of the most prominent concepts in organizational research. Despite its importance, and despite the many developmental critiques that have appeared over the years, performance continues to be a difficult concept to apply in a scientifically rigorous way. After surfacing three potentially viable approaches for conceptualizing performance, we find that most studies are internally inconsistent in their use of these approaches, a situation that creates substantial difficulty in effectively interpreting research. The primary source of inconsistency lies in the use of a generalized abstract conceptualization of performance in theory building (the latent multidimensional approach) coupled with the adoption of one or two narrow aspects of performance in the empirical work (the separate constructs approach). Follow-up analyses designed to determine the best path for resolving these mismatches indicate that our field’s heavy use of abstract performance in theorizing is not scientifically grounded and should be replaced with more specific aspects of performance to match existing practices in empirical work. Although this change would profoundly affect the field and would be resisted by many, it offers a concrete path away from indefensible practices. We offer several explanations for current practices but emphasize forces related to institutional theory. From an institutional perspective, it appears that firm performance is treated in a general fashion in many areas of our academic lives because it has been embraced as an instrument of legitimacy rather than as a scientific tool that facilitates dialogue and the accumulation of knowledge. We recommend and begin a conversation designed to highlight the long-run dangers of focusing our attention on an abstract concept of performance and suggest a set of specific steps that could help to move all of us in a new direction as we attempt to enhance the scientific rigor of our field.
Interest rate pass-through: a nonlinear vector error-correction approach

Abstract This paper analyzes pass-through from money market rates to consumer retail loan and deposit rates in Canada from 1983 to 2015 using a nonlinear vector error-correction model. This model permits estimation of long-run pass-through coefficients while simultaneously accounting for asymmetric adjustments and short-run dynamics. In contrast to empirical frameworks used in previous studies, it also allows testing of commonly made assumptions such as exogeneity of the market rate, making inference more robust. I find that pass-through was complete for all rates before the financial crisis although only after the mid 1990s for the 1 year mortgage rate. Since the end of the 2008–2009 recession, pass-through remains complete in the mortgage market but has significantly declined for deposit rates. Furthermore, many rates adjust asymmetrically but the direction of rigidity differs among rates and time periods.
Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Culture Equilibrium – A Correlation Analysis

Interest in the concept of organizational culture has been growing since the 1980s when textbooks, journals, etc that omitted culture as a topic of study was considered obsolete. This interest is now pervasive in the academia and the business world. Today numerous business articles carry issues that tout culture as the central key to an organization’s success, and suggest that managers who are able to manage through their organization’s culture almost certainly would rise to the top. It is on this premise that organizational culture has emerged as a common topic in management, and as organizations extend their branches to other nations, the study of organizational culture will continue to gain increasing prominence. It is believed that values drive a business and as such managers should develop management philosophies that will drive the organization to prosperity. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational culture equilibrium in organizations. Emotional intelligence helps organizational leaders to cultivate an organizational culture that produces organizational citizenship behaviors. It is also critical for the development of significant cultural identity for organizations and instills high levels of trust and cooperation throughout the organization while maintaining the flexibility needed to respond to changing conditions. Johnson & Johnson’s credo provides a classic example of the efficacy of emotional intelligence on organizational culture balance. A sample (n=294) was taken in Aba. Data were obtained through a questionnaire on seven dimensional factors of emotional intelligence, designed along the Like rt-type scale based on the Schutte scale. The result was obtained using Pearson’s correlation analysis, which indicated, r,=. 99. Therefore, the study found a strong positive association between emotional intelligence and organizational culture equilibrium.
Regulation of planar growth by the Arabidopsis AGC protein kinase UNICORN

The spatial coordination of growth is of central importance for the regulation of plant tissue architecture. Individual layers, such as the epidermis, are clonally propagated and structurally maintained by symmetric cell divisions that are oriented along the plane of the layer. The developmental control of this process is poorly understood. The simple cellular basis and sheet-like structure of Arabidopsis integuments make them an attractive model system to address planar growth. Here we report on the characterization of the Arabidopsis UNICORN (UCN) gene. Analysis of ucn integuments reveals localized distortion of planar growth, eventually resulting in an ectopic multicellular protrusion. In addition, ucn mutants exhibit ectopic growth in filaments and petals, as well as aberrant embryogenesis. We further show that UCN encodes an active AGC VIII kinase. Genetic, biochemical, and cell biological data suggest that UCN suppresses ectopic growth in integuments by directly repressing the KANADI transcription factor ABERRANT TESTA SHAPE. Our findings indicate that UCN represents a unique plant growth regulator that maintains planar growth of integuments by repressing a developmental regulator involved in the control of early integument growth and polarity.
Therapeutic Hypothermia following Out-Of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (Ohca): An Audit of Compliance at a Large Australian Hospital

Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is now largely considered the standard of care for patients following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest caused by ventricular arrhythmias, although the effective implementation of TH for individual patients can be challenging. This study aimed to document the effectiveness of TH when it is used at the discretion of treating physicians and not under the auspices of a research trial or protocol. A retrospective review of intensive care unit admissions over a four-year period detected 43 patients appropriate for TH. In the emergency department, only 20% of patients had TH commenced. Forty-four percent of patients required angiography in the cardiac catheterisation laboratory. It took, on average, 595 minutes for patients to reach their goal temperature, which was not reached at all in 13% of patients. Nineteen patients (44%) had a positive neurological outcome while 24 patients (56%) either died or had a poor neurological outcome. Without the control of a hospital protocol it was apparent that the implementation of TH in patients with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in our institution was inadequate. We recommend that TH is undertaken within the framework of a protocol that encompasses all the relevant departments.
The Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy Over the Business Cycle: A CEE Perspective

ABSTRACT In this article we analyze the effectiveness of fiscal policy—for a group of four Central and Eastern European countries. The recent literature shows that fiscal multipliers in the developed economies are higher during recession than expansion. So far, similar empirical analyses have been lacking for CEE countries. The results presented in this article show that fiscal multipliers in CEE countries differ with respect to the phase of the business cycle. Based on the SVAR methodology in which we allow for deterministic regime switching, we show that the government spending multipliers are significantly higher when the output gap is negative.
Association of Freestanding Children’s Hospitals With Outcomes in Children With Critical Illness*

Objectives:Little is known about the relationship between freestanding children’s hospitals and outcomes in children with critical illness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association of freestanding children’s hospitals with outcomes in children with critical illness. Design:Propensity score matching was performed to adjust for potential confounding variables between patients cared for in freestanding or nonfreestanding children’s hospitals. We tested the sensitivity of our findings by repeating the primary analyses using inverse probability of treatment weighting method and regression adjustment using the propensity score. Setting:Retrospective study from an existing national database, Virtual PICU Systems (LLC) database. Patients:Patients less than 18 years old admitted to one of the participating PICUs in the Virtual PICU Systems, LLC database were included (2009–2014). Interventions:None. Measurements and Main Results:A total of 538,967 patients from 140 centers were included. Of these, 323,319 patients were treated in 60 freestanding hospitals. In contrast, 215,648 patients were cared for in 80 nonfreestanding hospitals. By propensity matching, 134,656 patients were matched 1:1 in the two groups (67,328 in each group). Prior to matching, patients in the freestanding hospitals were younger, had greater comorbidities, had higher severity of illness scores, had higher incidence of cardiac arrest, had higher resource utilization, and had higher proportion of patients undergoing complex procedures such as cardiac surgery. Before matching, the outcomes including mortality were worse among the patients cared for in the freestanding hospitals (freestanding vs nonfreestanding, 2.5% vs 2.3%; p < 0.001). After matching, the majority of the study outcomes were better in freestanding hospitals (freestanding vs nonfreestanding, mortality: 2.1% vs 2.8%, p < 0.001; standardized mortality ratio: 0.77 [0.73–0.82] vs 0.99 [0.87–0.96], p < 0.001; reintubation: 3.4% vs 3.8%, p < 0.001; good neurologic outcome: 97.7% vs 97.1%, p = 0.001). Conclusions:In this large observational study, we demonstrated that ICU care provided in freestanding children’s hospitals is associated with improved risk-adjusted survival chances compared to nonfreestanding children’s hospitals. However, the clinical significance of this change in mortality should be interpreted with caution. It is also possible that the hospital structure may be a surrogate of other factors that may bias the results.
Impact of Customer Relationship Management on Customer Satisfaction: The Case of a Budget Hotel Chain

ABSTRACT Customer Relationship Management (CRM) can bring many benefits to the hotel business, though there are some associated challenges. Such challenges often bring a significant risk of failure, and these risks become more significant in budget hotels. This study considers the changes that have emerged in the last decade as regards customer expectations when staying in budget hotels. We use qualitative approaches to investigate the overlaps between customer expectations and managers’ perceptions of CRM applications. The findings reveal that regardless of all changes, value for money and core products continue to play a critical role in customers’ overall satisfaction with budget hotels.
The Contemporary Emergence of Health Concerns Related to Mobile Phones

Despite the popularity of mobile telecommunications there has been growing concern in the UK since the mid 1990s about possible health effects from the extremely low frequency radiation (EMF) associated with mobile phones and the masts (radio base stations) for transmitting their signals. By early 2000 there were over 300 campaign groups nationally against the siting of particular masts, and similar campaigns in a number of other countries. The campaign highlighting risks from mobile phones has not yet been subject to academic enquiry. The UK government’s reaction to the expression of concerns, particularly through the Stewart Enquiry 1999-2000, has been important in consolidating a precautionary approach in policies governing science related issues of public concern. Similar perceived risks appear likely to prove influential in framing public attitudes and government responses.
What central banks have learned: lessons from pre-EMU Europe *

This paper examines the intentions and outturns of central bank policies in Europefrom the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates until the start ofEMU in 1999. It focuses on the lessons that can be drawn from the three dominant policy strategies of money targeting, exchange rate targeting and inflation targeting. Several of the lessons that are relevant to the euro area are shown to have been incorporated into the monetary policy strategy of the European Central Bank.
Depth from Gradients in Dense Light Fields for Object Reconstruction

Objects with thin features and fine details are challenging for most multi-view stereo techniques, since such features occupy small volumes and are usually only visible in a small portion of the available views. In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm to reconstruct intricate objects using densely sampled light fields. At the heart of our technique lies a novel approach to compute per-pixel depth values by exploiting local gradient information in densely sampled light fields. This approach can generate accurate depth values for very thin features, and can be run for each pixel in parallel. We assess the reliability of our depth estimates using a novel two-sided photoconsistency measure, which can capture whether the pixel lies on a texture or a silhouette edge. This information is then used to propagate the depth estimates at high gradient regions to smooth parts of the views efficiently and reliably using edge-aware filtering. In the last step, the per-image depth values and color information are aggregated in 3D space using a voting scheme, allowing the reconstruction of a globally consistent mesh for the object. Our approach can process large video datasets very efficiently and at the same time generates high quality object reconstructions that compare favorably to the results of state-of-the-art multi-view stereo methods.
Characterization of Wild-Type and Alternate Transcription Termination Signals in the Rift Valley Fever Virus Genome

ABSTRACT Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a mosquito-borne zoonotic disease caused by a phlebovirus of the family Bunyaviridae, which affects humans and ruminants in Africa and the Middle East. RFV virus (RVFV) possesses a single-stranded tripartite RNA genome of negative/ambisense polarity. The S segment utilizes the ambisense strategy and codes for two proteins, the N nucleoprotein and the nonstructural NSs protein, in opposite orientations. The two open reading frames (ORFs) are separated by an intergenic region (IGR) highly conserved among strains and containing a motif, 5′-GCUGC-3′, present on the genome and antigenome, which was shown previously to play a role in transcription termination (C. G. Albarino, B. H. Bird, and S. T. Nichol, J. Virol. 81:5246-5256, 2007; T. Ikegami, S. Won, C. J. Peters, and S. Makino, J. Virol. 81:8421-8438, 2007). Here, we created recombinant RVFVs with mutations or deletions in the IGR and showed that the substitution of the motif sequence by a series of five A's inactivated transcription termination at the wild-type site but allowed the transcriptase to recognize another site with the consensus sequence present in the opposite ORF. Similar situations were observed for mutants in which the motif was still present in the IGR but located close to the stop codon of the translated ORF, supporting a model in which transcription is coupled to translation and translocating ribosomes abrogate transcription termination. Our data also showed that the signal tolerated some sequence variations, since mutation into 5′-GCAGC-3′ was functional, and 5′-GUAGC-3′ is likely the signal for the termination of the 3′ end of the L mRNA.
Hybrid speciation leads to novel male secondary sexual ornamentation of an Amazonian bird

Significance Hybridization between species can produce reproductively isolated lineages by combining parental genotypes in novel ways. Here, we used thousands of genetic markers to demonstrate that the recently rediscovered golden-crowned manakin represents an avian hybrid species from the Amazon basin. This hybrid species has a unique golden-colored crown patch used for display, which differs from the brilliant white coloration of the parental species. We used microscopy to demonstrate that, despite its unique coloration, the crown has intermediate color-producing morphological features at the nanoscale. We propose that these intermediate features disrupted the high reflectivity of the parental species, resulting in a dull hybrid population. Selection then sequestered carotenoids to the crown to compensate for its low reflectivity. Hybrid speciation is rare in vertebrates, and reproductive isolation arising from hybridization is infrequently demonstrated. Here, we present evidence supporting a hybrid-speciation event involving the genetic admixture of the snow-capped (Lepidothrix nattereri) and opal-crowned (Lepidothrix iris) manakins of the Amazon basin, leading to the formation of the hybrid species, the golden-crowned manakin (Lepidothrix vilasboasi). We used a genome-wide SNP dataset together with analysis of admixture, population structure, and coalescent modeling to demonstrate that the golden-crowned manakin is genetically an admixture of these species and does not represent a hybrid zone but instead formed through ancient genetic admixture. We used spectrophotometry to quantify the coloration of the species-specific male crown patches. Crown patches are highly reflective white (snow-capped manakin) or iridescent whitish-blue to pink (opal-crowned manakin) in parental species but are a much less reflective yellow in the hybrid species. The brilliant coloration of the parental species results from nanostructural organization of the keratin matrix feather barbs of the crown. However, using electron microscopy, we demonstrate that the structural organization of this matrix is different in the two parental species and that the hybrid species is intermediate. The intermediate nature of the crown barbs, resulting from past admixture appears to have rendered a duller structural coloration. To compensate for reduced brightness, selection apparently resulted in extensive thickening of the carotenoid-laden barb cortex, producing the yellow crown coloration. The evolution of this unique crown-color signal likely culminated in premating isolation of the hybrid species from both parental species.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Distance, Gender, and Secondary Education Attainment

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the most ambitious scheme ever undertaken by India in secondary education, plans on raising grade completion levels and reducing gender inequity by increasing the supply of schools “within a reasonable distance”. But what are the expected returns from proximate schools? Using Bayesian generalized linear modeling on nationally representative data, I find strong and robust evidence of proximity translating to higher attainment and greater equity. The findings add compelling weight and clarity to the ambiguous existing literature and provides concrete bounds for returns from schooling expansion alternatives.
The Polyclonal CD8 T Cell Response to Influenza M158–66 Generates a Fully Connected Network of Cross-Reactive Clonotypes to Structurally Related Peptides: A Paradigm for Memory Repertoire Coverage of Novel Epitopes or Escape Mutants

Cross-reactivity of T cells is defined as recognition of two or more peptide–MHC complexes by the same T cell. Although examples of cross-reactivity have been reported, a detailed examination of cross-reactivity has not been performed. In this study, we took advantage of the high degree of polyclonality in the BV19 T cell repertoire responding to influenza M158–66 in HLA-A2 individuals to obtain a measure of simple cross-reactivity. We used substitutions that incrementally change the structure of the M158–66 peptide to measure how the HLA-A2–restricted response adapts to these changes. In three HLA-A2 adult subjects, we identified the BV19 clonotypes in the recall response to the influenza epitope M158–66 and 12 M1 peptides substituted at TCR contact position 63 or 65. The fraction of cross-reactive clonotypes in the M158–66 repertoire varied from 45–58% in the three donors. The extent of cross-reactivity, which is the additional number of peptides recognized by a single clonotype, is as high as six. We summarized the data using graph theory, with the cross-reactive clonotypes connecting the different HLA-A2 peptides recognized. The cross-reactive clonotypes form a well-connected network that could provide protection from virus-escape variants. We predict that any new pathogen with an epitope whose shape corresponds to that of the peptides that we studied would find a pre-existing repertoire ready to respond to it. We propose that in adult memory repertoires, previously encountered epitopes may have generated similar cross-reactive repertoires.
Recurrent transfusion‐related acute lung injury after fresh frozen plasma in a patient with hereditary factor V deficiency

To the Editor: Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) can be a serious complication resulting from the transfusion of plasma that contains antibodies against recipient white blood cells. There have been only four previously reported cases of recurrent TRALI [1–3]. We describe a patient with recurrent TRALI, emphasizing potential strategies to prevent this disease. A 25-year-old man with hereditary factor V deficiency and a baseline FV level of <2% received five units of fresh frozen plasma after a spontaneous axillary hematoma and developed TRALI. The patient recovered fully and was discharged 48 hr later. Five months later, he received two units of plasma after a trauma-induced right foot hematoma and suffered a recurrent episode of TRALI. Donors associated with the initial and recurrent TRALI episodes were tested for anti-HLA class I, anti-HLA class II, and antigranulocyte antibodies. Sera from three female donors from the first transfusion episode and one female donor from the second transfusion episode showed antibodies against HLA class I, class II, or both (Table I). None showed antigranulocyte antibodies. The patient could not be HLA-typed because of relocation. Both TRALI episodes of our patient met American–European Consensus Conference criteria, including a new episode of acute lung injury occurring within 6 hr of transfusion, bilateral pulmonary infiltrates on chest X-ray, and no evidence of an alternative risk factor for acute lung injury nor of circulatory overload [4]. Our patient was in good health, did not have any of the known