Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transcripts for two members of the transforming growth factor‐β superfamily BMP‐3 and BMP‐7 are expressed in developing rat embryos

Bone morphogenetic protein‐3 (BMP‐3) and BMP‐7 are members of the transforming growth factor β superfamily that have been implicated in the formation of cartilage and bone. Using in situ hybridization, we localized mRNAs for BMP‐3 and BMP‐7 during organogenesis in rats. Both mRNAs were expressed in a variety of cells, in particular, in the developing hair follicle, tooth, kidney, and lung tissues, in which reciprocal epithelial‐mesenchymal interactions are essential. In some tissues, the distribution of BMP‐3 and BMP‐7 mRNAs overlapped. In other tissues, the patterns of expression were quite different. Moreover, the site of expression of the transcripts changed from one cell type to another during organogenesis. These results suggest that BMP‐3 and BMP‐7 play important roles in organogenesis and that the differential patterns of their expression might reflect their distinct roles in embryogenesis. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Exploration of Crime-Scene Characteristics in Juvenile Homicide in the French-Speaking Part of Belgium

This study explores modeling crime-scene characteristics of juvenile homicide in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Multidimensional scaling analysis was carried out on crime-scene characteristics derived from the court files of 67 individuals under 22 years old, who had been charged with murder or attempted murder (1995-2009). Three thematic regions (Expressive: multiple offenders; Instrumental: theft; Instrumental: sex/forensic awareness) distinguished types of aggression displayed during the offense. These themes reaffirm that the expressive–instrumental differentiation found in general homicide studies is valuable when attempting to discriminate juvenile homicides. The proposed framework was found useful to classify the offenses, as 84% of homicides were assigned to a dominant theme. Additionally, associations between crime-scene characteristics and offenders’ characteristics were analyzed, but no associations were found, therefore failing to provide empirical support for the homology assumption. Cultural comparisons, as well as the influence of age on the thematic structure are discussed.
Analisis Pengaruh Market Timing Terhadap Struktur Modal Perusahaan non-Keuangan yang Terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia

The aim of this study is to analyze the persistence of the impact of market timing on capital structure of non-financial firms listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange. Market timing is measured from the perspective of IPO event, and divides the market into two sections, hot market and cold market. Firms that go public in hot market are identified as the market timers. From 93 sample data, the result shows that hot market-firms substantially issue more equity than cold market-firms do. Therefore, market timing has no impact on capital structure of non-financial firm in Indonesia, both in short-term and long-term. After going public, the impact of market timing vanished, which is indicated by the rise of the leverage level of hot market-firms in Indonesia. Keywords: Market timing, IPO, hot market and cold market, capital structure
Mediation effect of customer satisfaction on the relationships between service quality and customer loyalty in the Nigerian foods and beverages industry: Sobel test approach

The objectives of this paper are to explore the most common constructs for quality in the food and beverages industry that influence customer satisfaction, and to examine the mediating effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty in the context of the food and beverages industry in Nigeria. Questionnaires were used to collect data from 208 valid respondents by a simple random sampling method. SPSS version 18 was used to analyse the data and SOBEL was used to test the mediating relationships. The results of the study show that there is a positive and significant link between customer satisfaction and the constructs of service quality, and further study inferred that customer satisfaction is positively significantly related to customer loyalty. Consequently, firms have to specifically focus on these variables in order to forge long-term and jointly profitability relationships with customers and create loyalty as competitive advantages in the market.
Challenges of mega construction projects in developing countries

On the one hand, these projects are charaterised with the need for high design knowledge and technical skills; competent human resources and managerial capabilities as well as excessive cost investment. Conversely, developing countries experience shortage of many of these requirements, which obstruct the development of (MCPs). This paper aims to identify, validate, and classify the challenges of delivering (MCPs) in developing countries. Towards achieving this aim, two approaches were employed, namely literature review and case studies, to accomplish four objectives. • Reviewing the nature and characteristics of developing coun-tries and (MCPs); identifying the challenges of delivering (MCPs) in developing countries and establishing the need for (MCPs) in developing countries. • Validating the challenges identified from Litearture review through collecting and analysing 36 case studies of (MCPs) in developeding countries. Case studies confirmed many of the identified challenges and added new insights that were not cov-ered in current literature. • Classifying the identified clalenges into four categories: engineering challenges, human development challenges, man-agerial and political challenges and sustainability challenges. • Outlining research conclusions and recommendations useful for delivering successful (MCPs) in developing countries.
Elevated serum interleukin 6 levels in patients with acute intestinal ischemia.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Early diagnosis of patients with acute intestinal ischemia may be possible by measuring serum cytokine levels. METHODOLOGY Forty-six patients presenting in emergency with an acute abdomen where intestinal ischemia was a possible diagnosis were evaluated. A single blood sample was collected in emergency prior to any intervention and the patients were then followed prospectively. Serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6 levels were determined at a later date. Serum levels in patients with proven acute intestinal ischemia were compared to patients with other diagnoses. RESULTS Serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels were moderately increased in patients with acute intestinal ischemia compared to controls 96.9 +/- 98.9 pg/mL vs. 60.8 +/- 63.7 pg/mL, P = 0.16. Serum interleukin-6 levels were significantly increased in patients with acute intestinal ischemia, 15.778 +/- 21.349 pg/mL vs. 2.844 +/- 5.625 pg/mL, P = 0.01. CONCLUSIONS Serum interleukin-6 levels may prove useful in diagnosing patients with acute intestinal ischemia.
L'internationalisation du prât‐à‐porter: The case of Kookai and Morgan's entry into the UK fashion market

This case examines the internationalisation of fashion retailing and is based upon the entry of French fashion retailers, Morgan and Kookai, into the UK. The case considers their motivation for entry into the highly competitive UK fashion retail market, and explores, in particular, the methods of entry adopted by these companies. The case concludes with an assessment of the potential barriers that exist in respect of successful fashion retail internationalisation and seeks to identify the internal competencies that are required of fashion retailers in order that they might replicate their domestic market success within other countries.
General guidance on exploratory and confirmatory subgroup analysis in late-stage clinical trials

Abstract This article focuses on a broad class of statistical and clinical considerations related to the assessment of treatment effects across patient subgroups in late-stage clinical trials. This article begins with a comprehensive review of clinical trial literature and regulatory guidelines to help define scientifically sound approaches to evaluating subgroup effects in clinical trials. All commonly used types of subgroup analysis are considered in the article, including different variations of prospectively defined and post-hoc subgroup investigations. In the context of confirmatory subgroup analysis, key design and analysis options are presented, which includes conventional and innovative trial designs that support multi-population tailoring approaches. A detailed summary of exploratory subgroup analysis (with the purpose of either consistency assessment or subgroup identification) is also provided. The article promotes a more disciplined approach to post-hoc subgroup identification and formulates key principles that support reliable evaluation of subgroup effects in this setting.
Essays on Mergers and Acquisitions and Governance

There is a recent strand of corporate finance literature that explores the impact of executives and directors’ social connections on firm value, performance, and governance. Those studies document that such social connections could be beneficial when they enhance the sharing of information and knowledge, but could also be detrimental when associated with CEOs, as they could provide the CEO with a source of influence that makes her more entrenched and powerful. In the first essay, I use four common measures of network centrality to compute the position of the CEO within the social network of all executives and directors of US public companies. This differentiates this study from previous research as it focuses on the overall connectedness of CEOs rather than studying the effect of bilateral social connections across executives, directors, or firms. Furthermore, I investigate the determinants of such CEO network centrality. I find that graduating from an “elite” university, having a prior career path in a publicly listed firm, serving on the board of directors of other S&P firms, and being successful in the past career path positively increases a CEO’s position in the social network. However, spending a longer period of time in the career prior to holding the CEO position, and being more optimistic decreases the CEO’s position in the social network. Finally, I investigate the impact of such CEO network centrality on the firm’s overall valuation, performance, and CEO compensation. I find that increases in CEO network centrality after holding the CEO position increases the firm’s value when measured by market to book ratio, doesn’t significantly increase the firm’s accounting performance when measured by ROA, and significantly increases the CEO’s compensation. In the second essay, I examine the impact of CEO network centrality on M&As which are considered to be one of the most important events that adversely impact the value of firms, and in which the CEO plays a crucial role in exploiting any power that she could have as a result of her influential central position in the social network. I find that in the specific context of M&A’s, higher CEO network centrality increases the frequency of mergers, and not only creates losses to the acquirer shareholders but also decreases total expected synergies. This evidence is consistent with the managerial entrenchment hypothesis; more centrally positioned bidder CEOs are insulated from both the disciplinary market for corporate control and the executive managerial
Approaches to corporate sustainability among German companies

In this article we present the results of an online survey on the state of corporate sustainability in German companies. The survey focused on the meaning and relevance of sustainability to German companies, the motivations behind their commitment to sustainability and the use of different management tools to implement sustainability in corporate practice. Although the majority of the companies declared that sustainability plays an important role, our analysis reveals considerable differences between these companies' approaches to corporate sustainability. A cluster analysis enables us to distinguish between three significantly distinct types of approach to corporate sustainability among the respondents: sustainability leaders, environmentalists and traditionalists. These three types are characterized and discussed against previous research. The results suggest that there are substantial differences with regard to the motivation for and the implementation of corporate sustainability that are covered behind the corporate rhetoric of a high commitment to sustainability. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Competence Gaps Among Unemployed New Nursing Graduates Entering a Community-Based Transition-to-Practice Program

Multiple reports document competence gaps among employed new RN graduates. Less is known about the competence and confidence of new RN graduates who have not yet found employment in nursing. As part of an academic/practice partnership model, 4 collaboratives provided transition-to-practice programs for newly graduated and licensed, but unemployed, RNs. The authors describe the new nurses’ characteristics on program entry and discuss implications for nursing education and practice.
Hospital utilization and costs in a cohort of injection drug users.

BACKGROUND Many injection drug users (IDUs) seek care at emergency departments and some require hospital admission because of late presentation in the course of their illness. We determined the predictors of frequent emergency department visits and hospital admissions among community-based IDUs and estimated the incremental hospital utilization costs incurred by IDUs with early HIV infection relative to costs incurred by HIV-negative IDUs. METHODS The Vancouver Injection Drug User Study (VIDUS) is a prospective cohort study involving IDUs that began in 1996. Our analyses were restricted to the 598 participants who gave informed consent for our study. We used the participants' responses to the baseline VIDUS questionnaire and, from medical records at St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, we collected detailed information about the frequency of emergency department visits, hospital admissions and the primary diagnosis for all visits or hospital stays between May 1, 1996, and Aug. 31, 1999. The incremental difference in hospital utilization costs by HIV status was estimated, based on 105 admissions in a subgroup of 64 participants. RESULTS A total of 440 (73.6%) of the 598 IDUs made 2763 visits to the emergency department at St. Paul's Hospital during the study period. Of these 440, 265 (160.2%) made frequent visits (3 or more). The following factors were associated with frequent use: HIV-positive status (seroprevalent: adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.7, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2-2.6; seroconverted during study period: adjusted OR 3.0, 95% CI 1.6-5.7); more than 4 injections daily (adjusted OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1-2.1); cocaine use more frequent than use of other drugs (adjusted OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.2-3.6); and unstable housing (adjusted OR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1-2.2). During the study period 210 of the participants were admitted to hospital 495 times; 118 (56.2%) of them were admitted frequently (2 or more admissions). The 2 most common reasons for admission were pneumonia (132 admissions among 79 patients) and soft-tissue infections (cellulitis and skin abscess) (90 admissions among 59 patients). The following factors were independently associated with frequent hospital admissions: HIV-positive status (seroprevalent: adjusted OR 5.4, 95% CI 3.4-8.6; seroconverted during study period: adjusted OR 2.9, 95% CI 1.4-6.0); and female sex (adjusted OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.1-3.1). The incremental hospital utilization costs incurred by HIV-positive IDUs relative to the costs incurred by HIV-negative IDUs were $1752 per year. INTERPRETATION Hospital utilization was significantly higher among community-based IDUs with early HIV disease than among those who were HIV negative. Much of the hospital use was related to complications of injection drug use and may be reduced with the establishment of programs that integrate harm reduction strategies with primary care and addiction treatment.
Efficiency ranking method using DEA and TOPSIS (ERM-DT): case of an Indian bank

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a tie-breaking procedure for computing performance efficiencies to improve benchmarking and performance evaluation process in a business situation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose a unified approach based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), to overcome the difficulty of unique ranking in the prevalent benchmarking and performance evaluation processes such as DEA, Super efficiency DEA model, etc., under constant return to scale (CRS) assumption. This model is called as efficiency ranking method using DEA and TOPSIS (ERM-DT). In order to check the consistency of the approach, various input-output combinations (to calculate the efficiencies) have been illustrated. Further, the authors present a case of an Indian Bank to illustrate an application of the proposed approach. Findings – The proposed approach, ERM-DT enables assign a unique rank to decision making units.
[Reproducibility of spirometry in Mexican workers and international reference values].

OBJECTIVE To describe spirometric function and adjustment to foreign prediction equations in Mexican workers claiming work related disability. MATERIAL AND METHODS We reviewed 5771 spirometries done at the Mexican National Institute of Respiratory Diseases performed with equipment and methods proposed by the American Thoracic Society. With the spirometries we generated multiple regression equations separated for men and women based on age and height, compared to other in common use reported by Knudson and Hankinson in North America and by Quanjer in europeans. RESULTS 80% of the tests were reproducible for FVC and FEV1 according to ATS, whereas 10% were reproducible for neither. Mean FVC in men was 12% above values reported by Quanjer, 22% above Knudson, 3% above Hankinson and 6% above Rodriguez-Reynaga, whereas similar values for women were 18%, 10%, 0% and 1%. Excluding obese and those who had less than 2 acceptable maneuvers, the numbers increase by 1-2%. FEV1 was also above predicted. CONCLUSIONS Most workers requesting disability are able to generate a reproducible spirometry. However for the same gender, age and height, workers had a FEV1 and a FVC above normal values reported by Knudson and Quanjer and are more similar to those reported by Hankinson in Mexican-Americans. While a set of appropriate reference values are obtained, regression equations obtained from the studied group will generate less error in the evaluation of disability in mexican workers. The English version of this paper is available at: http://www.insp. mx/salud/index.html.
Stakeholder relations and the persistence of corporate financial performance

We examine the effect of a firm's relations with its nonfinancial stakeholders, including its employees, suppliers, customers, and communities, on the persistence of both superior and inferior financial performance. In particular, integrating and extending the resource-based view of the firm and stakeholder management literatures, we develop the arguments that good stakeholder relations not only enable a firm with superior financial performance to sustain its competitive advantage for a longer period of time, but more importantly, also help poorly performing firms to recover from disadvantageous positions more quickly. The arguments are supported by the analysis of a series of first-order autoregressive models. Our findings further suggest that the positive effect of good stakeholder relations on the persistence of superior performance is not as strong as that of some other firm resources, such as technological knowledge, but it is the only factor examined that promises to help a firm recover from inferior performance. Therefore, the role of positive stakeholder relations in helping poorly performing firms recover is found to be more critical than its role in helping superior firms sustain their performance advantage. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conducting a situation analysis for volunteer organizations: an improved model

Asserts that competitive pressures make careful applications of marketing management tools imperative for the survival of time‐dependent non‐profit organizations. Illustrates a pragmatic tool which a volunteer‐dependent organization can use to determine its strengths and weaknesses vis‐a‐vis the competition. This tool is used to assess the competitive weaknesses and strengths of Big Brothers/Big Sisters vis‐a‐vis Special Olympics. Concludes by offering constructive advice as to how Big Brothers/Big Sisters can turn a “latent competitive advantage” into a “solid competitive advantage”.
Patients with pseudoseizures

We compared cognitive and intellectual performance of patients with pseudoseizures (pseudoseizure-only group), pseudoseizures and epilepsy (mixed seizure group), and generalized epileptic seizures (generalized seizure group). The pseudoseizure-only group performed significantly better on all measures except those of simple motor function. There were no significant differences between those with mixed and generalized seizures. Therefore, cognitive and intellectual performances of patients with pseudoseizures are influenced by the presence or absence of concomitant epilepsy, and suggest that it is necessary to distinguish patients with and without epilepsy in studies of pseudoseizures.
Effects of probiotics on gut microbiota: mechanisms of intestinal immunomodulation and neuromodulation

Recent explorations of the human gut microbiota suggest that perturbations of microbial communities may increase predisposition to different disease phenotypes. Dietary nutrients may be converted into metabolites by intestinal microbes that serve as biologically active molecules affecting regulatory functions in the host. Probiotics may restore the composition of the gut microbiome and introduce beneficial functions to gut microbial communities, resulting in amelioration or prevention of gut inflammation and other intestinal or systemic disease phenotypes. This review describes how diet and intestinal luminal conversion by gut microbes play a role in shaping the structure and function of intestinal microbial communities. Proposed mechanisms of probiosis include alterations of composition and function of the human gut microbiome, and corresponding effects on immunity and neurobiology.
Company reputation and its influence on consumer trust in response to ongoing CSR communication

Abstract There is considerable disagreement in academic scholarship and beyond as to whether, in cases of bad reputations, companies will want to communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities because this kind of communication is likely to increase consumers’ skepticism. In this regard, the two empirical studies discussed in this article examine the influence of prior company reputation on consumers’ trust in response to CSR communication in general and the development in response to continuous CSR activities and their ongoing communication by companies as well as by the media in particular. The two studies show that consumers’ trust in companies’ CSR activities increases after a second presentation of information by companies even in instances when companies had prior negative reputations. The second study in particular fills a gap in the literature on underlying mechanisms of consumers’ reactions to CSR communication. The results suggest that companies with prior negative reputations do not need to remain silent about their CSR activities; instead, CSR communication can help improve consumers’ trust in companies. However, the findings of these two studies also suggest that this positive development is short-lived. Consumers’ developing trust in companies’ CSR activities decreases significantly if they are exposed to negative information on these companies.