Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deficiencies in communication and problem‐solving skills of business graduates: is the business curriculum at fault?

Outlines the dissatisfaction of US accountant graduate employers in relation to graduates’ communication and problem solving abilities. Cites that technical abilities are good and reviews prior research in this area. States that whilst progress is being made in training and graduates are in fact stronger than in previous years, employers’ expectations have yet to be reached. Argues that this may be that other countries are developing their training at a faster rate. Advocates a strong partnership between academics and businesses.
Alcohol Suppresses the Electroencephalographic Response to Visual Erotic Stimuli in Young Men

Although the combination of alcohol and sex is frequently observed in human social interaction, many questions concerning alcohol’s effects on the processing of sexual stimuli and brain functionality remain unanswered. Erotic films eliciting sexual arousal in humans and affect electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. This study examines the effects of alcohol on cortical EEG activity in young men while viewing an erotic film. Heterosexual males participated in an independent alcohol/placebo group protocol. Thirty-five minutes after beverage ingestion, EEGs were recorded at prefrontal, temporal and parietal derivations in three conditions: baseline, and while watching erotic and neutral films. During the observation of erotic films, only the participants who drank the placebo beverage showed a decrease in alpha1 and an increase in the fast frequencies of the prefrontal regions, as well as a decrease in inter-prefrontal synchronization in the alpha and beta bands. Alcohol suppressed the prefrontal EEG changes associated with watching erotic visual stimuli without affect the sexual arousal. EEG data show that alcohol affecting the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, which could interfere with the adequate processing of visual erotic stimuli. These findings may contribute to improving our understanding of the brain mechanisms that underlie alcohol’s effects on the processing of sexual stimuli.
Living Conditions of Migrants in Inland Chinese Cities

Abstract Rural to urban migration has made an important contribution to the urban economic development in China over the last two decades. General features of migrants, particularly those found in the fast growing coastal regions, had been a major research focus in the last few years. This paper examines the living conditions of migrants found in inland Chinese cities. It uses household data collected in 2000 to examine the relationship between housing, employment and income of migrants. It also addresses questions such as how different were the living conditions of migrants from other low-income urban residents? Were living conditions of migrants improving over the time? The paper concluded that not all migrants in China were “floating” or “temporary” residents. Some of them had been in the city for many years. However, their living and working conditions remained very poor. Government policies were major barriers for the integration of migrants with local residents. A more supportive approach is required to ensure the social and economic progress among the migrant population.
Long-Term Contrarian Profits in the Middle East Market Indices

This paper examines whether there is an existence of a long-term contrarian profits at the Middle East (ME) market indices. This paper shows strong evidence for the long-term contrarian strategy in the Middle East indices. The result of this study demonstrates that the long-term contrarian profits for the Middle East markets can’t be explained by two-factor model. In spite of whether winners are smaller or larger than losers, there are long-term abnormal profits. Finally, the findings in this paper suggest that the long-term contrarian profits may be stronger and more enveloping than is usually understood.
Screening and cell‐based assessment of mutations in the Aristaless‐related homeobox (ARX) gene

Fullston T, Finnis M, Hackett A, Hodgson B, Brueton L, Baynam G, Norman A, Reish O, Shoubridge C, Gecz J. Screening and cell‐based assessment of mutations in the Aristaless‐related homeobox (ARX) gene.
A Burden on Business? Reviewing the Evidence Base on Regulation and Small-Business Performance

The evidence base regarding the impact of regulation on small-business performance is reviewed. The substantive findings of various studies and their methodological approaches are critiqued. Many studies suffer from inadequate conceptualisation of ‘regulation’ and methodological shortcomings, and fail to investigate the causal mechanisms through which regulation contributes to business-performance outcomes. In some cases, they positively encourage superficial and misleading results. More sophisticated approaches, using qualitative data, demonstrate that regulations generate a variety of consequences and should not be conceptualised solely in terms of costs and constraints. Rather, regulation can impact upon small businesses directly and indirectly, and both constrain and enable and motivate business owners to act. The impact of regulation is contingent upon business owners' adaptations to particular interventions within the broader social contexts within which they operate. The implications for policymakers are discussed.
Black-box modeling of DC-DC converters based on transient response analysis and parametric identification methods

Today, ¿black-box¿ behavioral models of power converters are becoming interesting for system-level analysis. These models can be used to evaluate the response of power electronics systems which are composed of commercial converters, since they can be fully parameterized by analyzing the actual converter response. In this paper a new identification method of ¿black box¿ models for DC-DC converters is presented. This method is based on the analysis of the step transient response of the converter, which is obtained by means of simple experiments. The identification of the model is carried out using well established fitting algorithms, which can be applied using commercial tools.
Spontaneous Growth in Turner's Syndrome

Growth in Turner's syndrome can be divided into four phases: intrauterine growth is slightly retarded, normal growth occurs up to a hone age of about 3 years, with a tendency to compensate for the loss in growth during intrauterine life, stunting of growth is severe during childhood, after a hone age of about 10 years — the time when puberty normally starts ‐ the growth phase is prolonged, hut total height gain is not essentially reduced. Based on a study of 150 patients with Turner's syndrome whose spontaneous growth was observed, standards of height and height velocity (means and SDs) were calculated to allow mathematical analysis of the spontaneous growth and growth during treatment in these patients. The auxological characteristics in Turner's syndrome do not support the assumption that GH deficiency playsa primary role in the pathogenesis of the growth disorder.
Restraining Overconfident CEOs through Improved Governance: Evidence from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The literature posits that some CEO overconfidence benefits shareholders, though high levels may not. We argue that adequate controls and independent viewpoints provided by an independent board mitigates the costs of CEO overconfidence. We use the concurrent passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and changes to the NYSE/NASDAQ listing rules (collectively, SOX) as natural experiments, to examine whether board independence improves decision making by overconfident CEOs. The results are strongly supportive: after SOX, overconfident CEOs reduce investment and risk exposure, increase dividends, improve postacquisition performance, and have better operating performance and market value. Importantly, these changes are absent for overconfident-CEO firms that were compliant prior to SOX.
Income inequality and access to housing in Europe

This article analyzes the relationship between income inequality and access to housing for low-income homeowners and renters 'at market rent' across Europe. We develop three arguments that explain how inequality affects housing affordability, quality, and quantity—together these dimensions indicate 'access to housing'. First, it is the absolute level of resources, not their relative distribution, that affects access to housing. Second, inequality leads to rising aspirations and status competition, which in turn influence the dimensions indicating access to housing. Third, the impact of inequality is mediated by housing market dynamics. Multilevel models for 28 countries indicate that: (i) higher income inequality increases the likelihood of affordability problems for low-income renters 'at market rent'; (ii) there is a positive relation between inequality and crowding; and (iii) higher income inequality is associated with lower housing quality. Although income inequality restricts access to housing for low-income households, this relationship is complex and not mediated by national house price trends.
Knowledge creation through quality management

Organisations use quality management (QM) to improve process performance. However, further improvements and business excellence require acquisition and integration of new knowledge organisation-wide. It is a challenge for managers to design and execute QM practices so that they create new knowledge as well. This article shows how six QM practices (continuous improvement, statistical quality control, customer satisfaction management, process-improvement techniques, individual learning, and new product development methods) can contribute to the four types of knowledge-creating processes (socialisation, externalisation, combination, and internalisation). Such knowledge can be created through multiple channels and at various organisational levels. This article is new in describing the dynamics of how knowledge can be created through QM. This is relevant for both researchers and practitioners.
PREDICTING LOW EMPLOYABILITY GRADUATES: THE CASE OF UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA

The persistence of the graduate unemployment problem warrants the need for predicting factors that are associated with low employability graduates. It is found that ethnicity, English language proficiency and types of degree obtained are significant predictors of graduates' employability which is measured either by the number of days being unemployed or probability of being unemployed. Compared to the Tobit model, the Probit model which does not accommodate the right censoring bias is found to have less predictive power in terms of the number of days being unemployed.
Epidemiology of Visceral Mycoses: Analysis of Data in Annual of the Pathological Autopsy Cases in Japan

ABSTRACT The data on visceral mycoses that had been reported in theAnnual of the Pathological Autopsy Cases in Japan from 1969 to 1994 by the Japanese Society of Pathology were analyzed epidemiologically. The frequency of visceral mycoses among the annual total number of pathological autopsy cases increased noticeably from 1.60% in 1969 to a peak of 4.66% in 1990. Among them, the incidences of candidiasis and aspergillosis increased the most. After 1990, however, the frequency of visceral mycoses decreased gradually. Until 1989, the predominant causative agent was Candida, followed in order by Aspergillus and Cryptococcus. Although the rate of candidiasis decreased by degrees from 1990, the rate of aspergillosis increased up to and then surpassed that of candidiasis in 1991. Leukemia was the major disease underlying the visceral mycoses, followed by solid cancers and other blood and hematopoietic system diseases. Severe mycotic infection has increased over the reported 25-year period, from 6.6% of the total visceral mycosis cases in 1969 to 71% in 1994. The reasons for this decrease of candidiasis combined with an increase of aspergillosis or of severe mycotic infection might be that (i) nonsevere (not disseminated) infections were excluded from the case totals, since they have become controllable by antifungal drugs such as fluconazole, but (ii) the available antifungal drugs were not efficacious against severe infections such as pulmonary aspergillosis, and (iii) the number of patients living longer in an immunocompromised state had increased because of developments in chemotherapy and progress in medical care.
Effects of corporate reputations, relationships and competing suppliers' marketing programmes on customers' cross-buying intentions

Cross-selling additional services to existing customers can increase their lifetime value. This article therefore investigates how corporate reputations, interpersonal relationships, and competing suppliers' marketing programmes affect customers' cross-buying intentions. The results, obtained from the life insurance industry in Taiwan, show that corporate reputations and interpersonal relationships between customers and salespersons contribute significantly to customers' cross-buying intentions, but corporate reputations can restrain customers from buying from a competing supplier more effectively than can interpersonal relationships. Finally, the article clarifies the perceptual differences between customers and service salespersons of the determinants of cross-buying.
The wages of motherhood: better or worse?

Data from two British cohort studies show that women with children have lower wages than childless women. We develop an innovative decomposition of this 'family gap'. The crude pay gap between mothers and childless women in their thirties was similar in 1978 and 1991, but low pay in part-time work became more important in explaining this gap, and human capital less so. We find that, among full-time employees, women who broke their employment at childbirth were subsequently paid less than childless women. In contrast, mothers who maintained employment continuity were as well paid as childless women, but neither were as well remunerated as men. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.
Towards an Explanation of the Growth in Young Entrepreneur Activities: A CrossCountry Survey of Work Values of College Students

This short exploratory paper aims to study job attitudes of business college students with a view of contributing to the explanation of the reported global growth in young entrepreneur activities. Seven career attitude factors adapted from the theory of planned behavior are used to conduct a comparative study of work attitudes of university business students in the United States and South Africa to establish if there are significant differences across nations. The results show similarity in what the students expect from their future careers but do not necessarily provide an explanation for the observed increase of young entrepreneurs. INRODUCTION
Poverty, property rights and collective action: understanding the distributive aspects of common property resource management

This study examines, in a developing-country context, the contribution of community forestry to household income with particular emphasis on group heterogeneity and equity in benefit distribution. The economic analysis of household-level benefits reveals that poorer households are currently benefiting less in absolute terms from community forestry than less poor households. In terms of the contribution of forests to total household income, the study results suggest that the poor are actually less dependent on forests than the rich, a finding that is somewhat contradictory to results from other similar studies. The average ‘poor’ household obtains Nepalese rupees (Nrs) 7,756 gross income from community forest annually, while the more ‘rich’ households obtain on average Nrs 24,466 per year. In terms of the contribution of forests to net household income, the study results seem to suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship – as income increases dependency on forest resources may decline. Econometric analysis suggests that income from the community forests is related to socio-economic attributes and private endowments of households. Households with land and livestock assets and upper caste households gain more from the commons, while better-educated households depend less on forest resources. Female-headed households benefit less from community forests, further aggravating the inequity in distribution of benefits. The study makes a number of recommendations to improve community forestry in Nepal.
Cost of acute hospitalization and post-discharge follow-up care for meningococcal disease in the US

The combined costs of acute hospitalization and post-discharge follow-up care in patients with meningococcal disease have not been widely documented. In this study, data were retrospectively analyzed from three large databases of hospital discharge records and commercial insurance claims in the US. Cases of meningococcal disease were defined as admissions with an ICD-9-CM diagnosis code in the range of 036.x. From the 2005 HCUP Nationwide Inpatient Sample, 349 (weighted N=1,710) meningococcal-related hospitalizations were identified with a mean facility cost (in 2009 dollars) of $19,526 per admission. Similar estimates ($18,119 and $20,066, respectively) were obtained from 268 admissions identified in the LifeLink (formerly PharMetrics) database during 1999-2007 and from 1,058 hospitalizations in the Perspective Comparative Database (PCD) during 2000-2007. Using insurance claims from LifeLink, we estimated that payers incur an additional $26,178 in non-facility (professional and other ancillary) costs during the course of a meningococcal admission, as well as $22,230 in additional medical and pharmacy expenses for post-discharge care during the ensuing year. The majority of follow-up costs ($14,637) were attributed to repeat hospitalizations. Mean length of stay for meningococcal disease was consistently estimated across databases at 8 to 9 days. Data from the PCD further suggested that meningococcal disease carries, on average, nearly 2 days of intensive care unit utilization. In conclusion, hospital admissions for meningococcal disease are costly to payers. These costs are heightened when non-facility services and post-discharge care are also considered. Awareness of the full cost burden of meningococcal disease is needed when evaluating vaccination programs targeting the disease.
1 PRACTICE VARIATION IN PUBLIC SECTOR INTERNAL AUDITING : AN INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS

This paper aims to analyse the rise of practice variations in public sector Internal Auditing (IA) giving special attention to the role of agents’ embeddedness in multiple institutional arrangements. Internal Auditing’s trends of development and the characteristics of the public sector context, in fact, make IA inherently subject to multiple institutional forces that interact with the system of values and beliefs of individual internal auditors. The empirical analysis, that relies on case study methodology, highlights the inherent tensions associated with the changing role of IA and shows how different types of IA developed in three case settings, shaped by the agents’ embeddedness in different institutional fields. This paper provides a more comprehensive approach to the study of IA adoption and development in public sector organizations than previous literature, and it highlights relevance of the interplay between actors’ contemporary embeddedness in professional systems and the focal social system as a relevant source of practice variation. In this respect, the case of IA can contribute to previous studies of practice variation in the field of management accounting shedding some light on the types of tensions that emerge when persons with mixed professional identities are involved in a field. Key-words: Internal auditing, case study, practice variation, multiple embeddedness
High glucose accelerates the life cycle of the in vivo exposed mesothelium.

BACKGROUND Mouse mesothelium exposed in vivo for 30 days to high glucose solutions develop morphological changes that characterize a population of cells near the end of their life span. METHODS The present study was designed to explore, in mesothelial cell imprints, whether these changes could derive from an early acceleration of the cell population life cycle in mice exposed for periods of up to 30 days to a 4.25% glucose fluid (236 mmol/L/L) prepared in Hank's balanced salt solution (HBSS). Three critical points of the cell's life cycle were evaluated: the G1 checkpoint [proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) expression], DNA synthesis ((3)H-thymidine incorporation), and the prevalence of mitosis. RESULTS Cell populations exposed to a high glucose concentration showed an initial acceleration of their life cycle, as sustained by a peak of mitosis at two hours, an early increase of DNA incorporation sustained during the first 24 hours, as well as a top level of PCNA expression after three to four hours. These significantly higher values, compared with the control animals treated with HBSS, collapsed after 24 hours and were nil after 30 days of exposure. CONCLUSIONS Exposure to a high glucose concentration induced an early and short-lived acceleration of the mesothelial cell cycle, and with a longer exposure this was followed by a depletion of the growth capabilities of the exposed monolayer.
Age-Associated Changes in Mouse Oocytes During Postovulatory In Vitro Culture: Possible Role for Meiotic Kinases and Survival Factor BCL21

Abstract To elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying oocyte senescence, we investigated whether oocytes from female mice of advanced reproductive age exhibit a precocious postovulatory aging that, in turn, may be responsible for the precocious activation of an apoptotic program. During a 9-h in vitro culture, the frequency of oocytes showing MII aberrations, spontaneous activation, and cellular fragmentation increased in old oocytes (P < 0.05), whereas it did not change in the young group. In old oocytes, the activities of MPF (a complex of the cyclin-dependent kinase cdc2 and cyclin B1) and MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) decreased precociously, showing a first drop as early as 3 h after the beginning of in vitro culture (P < 0.05). Immunoblotting and immunocytochemical analysis revealed that, in oocytes of the old group, reduction of BCL2 expression at protein level occurred earlier than in the young group (P < 0.05) and was not associated to the loss of BCL2 transcripts detected by RT-PCR. These changes are followed by an abrupt increase of the rate of TUNEL-positive oocytes after 24 h of culture to a value of 67% ± 6%. Exposure of young oocytes to 20 μM roscovitine or 20 μM U0126, specific inhibitors of MPF and MAPK, resulted in the decreased percentage of oocytes showing positive immunostaining for BCL2 and in an increased rate of DNA fragmentation. Present results suggest that the developmental competence of oocytes ovulated by aging mice may be negatively influenced by a downregulation of MPF and MAPK activities that in turn induces the activation of a proapoptotic signaling pathway.
What Moves Bond Prices?

This article takes a close look at a year in the U.S. Treasury securities market and tries to explain the sharpest price changes. The authors attribute each of the twenty-five largest price shocks during August of 1993 to August 1994 period to a just-released macro-economic announcement. They also measure the bond market's average reaction to various announcements and the reactions to surprise in the announcements headline numbers. The strongest responses are found to come from the employment, producer price index, and fed funds target rate announcements. Significant responses to U.S. Treasury security auctions results are documented for the first time.