Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of sensorimotor-based intervention versus therapeutic practice on improving handwriting performance in 6- to 11-year-old children.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of two interventions (sensorimotor and therapeutic practice) on handwriting and selected sensorimotor components in elementary-age children. METHOD Thirty-eight children 6 to 11 years of age with handwriting dysfunction but no identified educational need were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention groups or a control group. Intervention groups met four times per week over 5 weeks. Handwriting was measured pre- and postintervention using the Test of Handwriting Skills. Visual perception (motor-reduced), visual-motor integration, proprioception, and in-hand manipulation were also measured. RESULTS Children receiving therapeutic practice moderately improved handwriting whereas children receiving sensorimotor intervention declined in handwriting performance. The control group did not change significantly. Sensorimotor impairment was noted at pretest in three or four components and selected sensorimotor component function improved with intervention. CONCLUSION Therapeutic practice was more effective than sensorimotor-based intervention at improving handwriting performance. Children who received sensorimotor intervention improved in some sensorimotor components but also experienced a clinically meaningful decline in handwriting performance.
Treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma with adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine without routine granulocyte-colony stimulating factor support does not increase the risk of febrile neutropenia: a prospective cohort study

Abstract Although patients with Hodgkin lymphoma treated with adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine (ABVD) chemotherapy frequently develop neutropenia, febrile neutropenia is uncommon. Three retrospective trials reported that ABVD could be safely administered without dose delays or granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) support. We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 89 patients treated with ABVD and found that the incidence of febrile neutropenia was 0.5% (five of 927 treatments). This prompted a change to our institutional policy so that patients receiving ABVD no longer receive routine G-CSF for uncomplicated neutropenia. We then prospectively assessed the safety of this policy change. Thirty-three patients received a total of 327 ABVD treatments, 185 (57%) of which were administered with a neutrophil count <1.5 × 109/L. Febrile neutropenia occurred in 2/33 patients (6%), complicating 0.6% of chemotherapy treatments (2/327). Eliminating routine G-CSF saved $10 241 per patient. Omission of G-CSF for uncomplicated neutropenic patients receiving ABVD for Hodgkin lymphoma is cost-saving and safe.
Performance of Cross-Border Acquisitions: Evidence from Canadian Firms Acquired by Emerging Market Firms

This paper studies the impact of M&A of Canadian firms by emerging market firms on the stock performance of the acquired firms. Using the short-term window event study, we analyze security prices of Canadian listed firms acquired by emerging market firms from 2000 to 2016. After calculating the abnormal return and cumulative abnormal return of target firms we find that the abnormal return on the event day is about +10.3% and the cumulative abnormal return for 11 days is about +10.55%. The findings indicate that in the short-term, the performance of Canadian firms which are acquired by emerging market firms is positive. Technology and mineral firms have significantly positive abnormal return on day 0 whereas energy firms only have small abnormal return for the same time period.
PENGARUH MARKETING MIX DAN SYARIAH COMPLIANCE TERHADAP KEPUTUSAN NASABAH MEMILIH BANK UMUM SYARIAH DI KUDUS

This study aimed to examine the influence of mix marketing and sharia compliance on customer’s decision in choosing Sharia bank in Kudus. It used purposive sampling method with 120 respondents. Hypothesis testing used multiple linear regression analysis. The analysis of T test showed that product influences the customer’s decision because thitung > ttable (2,239> 1, 657), Price influences the customer’s decision because tcount > ttable (2,563> 1, 657). Place influences the customer’s decision because tcount > ttable (2,002> 1, 657). Promotion influences the customer’s decision because tcount > ttable (4.436> 1, 657). Syariah compliance influences the customer’s decision because tcount > ttable (2,072> 1, 657). Based on F test, it indicated that Fcount > Ftable (11 689> 2.290) which means the mix marketing consists of product, price, place, promotion and Sharia compliance significantly influenced the customers’ decision in choosing sharia banks in Kudus.
Earnings per Share Goals and CEO Incentives

We examine differences in CEO achievement of EPS goals set separately through analyst forecasts and firm bonus plans. Having different goals for the same performance metric enables us to assess their relative importance in incentivizing CEOs. We find CEOs frequently achieve analyst forecasts, but rarely achieve bonus goals exceeding the forecast. Despite lower compensation risk accompanying easier goals, we also find that bonus goals set below forecasts are associated with greater pay, suggesting the use of easier goals to compensate CEOs while maintaining the appearance of pay-for-performance. The results highlight the importance of considering both sets of performance goals simultaneously when evaluating their incentive effects.
The Capital Structure Of Malaysian Firms In The Aftermath Of Asian Financial Crisis 1997

The Asian Financial Crisis 1997 had revealed the issues of excessive leverage that caused the firms in Malaysia for being vulnerable to the economic turmoil. Hence, capital structuring and particularly the establishment of the contingent capital structure have been the central concern. Grounded on the contingency theory and the traditional capital structure theories, this study intends to identify what constitutes organizational-environmental fit to the contingent capital structure in Malaysia and how fast they had adjusted towards their contingent capital structure in the aftermath of the crisis. The findings reveal that while Malaysia has successfully sustained the firms’ leverage to a lower level, it was not so successful to ensure speedy adjustment given its rigorous institutional settings and also access to financial and capital market. A better understanding of the contingent capital structure formulation and adjustment process via fresh empirical evidence do not only provide insights to the practitioners into the adaptation strategy but also have important implications for the design and implementation of the financial reforms in addressing future crisis.
Utility of PAX8 and PAX2 immunohistochemistry in the identification of renal cell carcinoma in diagnostic cytology

The diagnosis of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in cytology specimens may be difficult to confirm on the basis of cytomorphology alone. Often, immunohistochemistry serves as an important adjunct in confirming this diagnosis. Recently, PAX2 was shown to be useful in this regard. In this study, we sought to compare the utility of PAX8 to that of PAX2 immunohistochemistry in the diagnosis of RCC in cytology specimens. First, we verified the performance of PAX8 immunohistochemistry on a tissue microarray (TMA) composed of 54 cases of RCC; PAX8 immunoreactivity was seen in at least 10% of the tumor cells in all cases. Next, we applied PAX8 immunohistochemistry to cell block sections prepared from 24 cases of RCC, obtained from fine‐needle aspirates and effusion specimens. PAX2 immunohistochemistry was performed for comparison. Immunopositivity was defined as the presence of nuclear staining in at least 10% of tumor cell nuclei. Immunoreactivity for PAX8 and PAX2 was seen in 21 (88%) and 20 (83%) of the 24 cases, respectively. The presence of either PAX8 or PAX2 immunostaining was present in 22 of 24 cases, thus showing a total sensitivity of 92%. Overall, the results indicate that PAX8 and PAX2 are diagnostically useful adjuncts in confirming the diagnosis of RCC in cytology specimens. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2012. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Dissatisfied Investors and Hedge Fund Activism

This paper utilizes a rich literature on institutional investors' governance roles and develops simple measures of institutional discontent expressed through holding, trading and voice channels to predict hedge fund activism target selection. Discontent expressed through all three channels leads to subsequent targeting. Medium sized dissatisfied owners and sellers seem to be the main driving force and institutions' discretionary disagreement on management compensation and governance related proposals have the highest explanatory power. Activists are more likely to gain higher announcement returns and threaten to take hostile actions against management with more discontent institutional investors in the target companies. Discontent institutions are more likely to vote pro-activist in the annual meetings after campaigns.
An Individual's Rate of Forgetting Is Stable Over Time but Differs Across Materials

One of the goals of computerized tutoring systems is to optimize the learning of facts. Over a hundred years of declarative memory research have identified two robust effects that can improve such systems: the spacing and the testing effect. By making optimal use of both and adjusting the system to the individual learner using cognitive models based on declarative memory theories, such systems consistently outperform traditional methods (Van Rijn, Van Maanen, & Van Woudenberg, 2009). This adjustment process is driven by a continuously updated estimate of the rate of forgetting for each item and learner on the basis of the learner's accuracy and response time. In this study, we investigated to what extent these estimates of individual rates of forgetting are stable over time and across different materials. We demonstrate that they are stable over time but not across materials. Even though most theories of human declarative memory assume a single underlying rate of forgetting, we show that, in practice, it makes sense to assume different materials are forgotten at different rates. If a computerized, adaptive fact-learning system allowed different rates of forgetting for different materials, it could adapt to individual learners more readily.
Direct household investment in residential rental real estate during the 2000s

This research investigated the household characteristics associated with investment in rental real estate during the 2000s. Furthermore, the effects of changing economic conditions on the household decision to invest in rental real estate were examined. Given limited targeted research, a literature review was constructed incorporating studies related to both investor risk-tolerance and risky asset ownership to develop a basis for understanding household investment behavior. The Life-Cycle Hypothesis of Savings (LCH), with support from Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), was utilized to form a theoretical basis, indicating changes in household investment behavior would be minimal due to short-term trends in market conditions. Data were utilized from the 2001, 2004, and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Bivariate descriptives indicated the majority of rental real estate investors were non-Hispanic, White, married, childless, homeowners, healthy, high net worth, had either some college or a bachelor’s degree, were age 45 or older, lived in the south or west, high income and not housing burdened on their primary home. Furthermore, Non-Hispanics, Whites, Asians, homeowners, married individuals, householders in good health, high income households, high net worth households, highly educated households, and households that were not housing burdened consistently reported higher levels of investment. A series of logistic regression analyses indicated that, holding all else equal, African-Americans, homeowners, and higher net worth households were consistently more likely to be invested in rental real estate, as compared with Whites, non-homeowners, and lower net worth households, respectively. Marital status, age, ethnicity, income, and housing burdened status were significantly correlated at the multivariate level with rental property investment at some point in the decade. Lastly, shifts in the relationship between household characteristics and investment in rental real estate were noted. Characteristics that exhibited changing relationships with rental real estate investment include marital status, age, net worth, and ethnicity. The results and implications of this study provide the foundation for understanding household investment in rental real estate and add to the literature on risky asset investment. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that some investors are sensitive to short term market trends in their investment behavior.
Why Is Europe Falling Behind? Structural Transformation and Services' Productivity Differences between Europe and the U.S.

We explain labor productivity differences of the service sector between Europe and the U.S. through the labor allocation taking place within the service sector. We measure labor productivity using a multisector structural transformation model that decomposes services into 11 sub-sectors comparable across Europe and the U.S. We identify wholesale and retail trade as well as business services to be the two sectors responsible for most of the lack of catch-up in labor productivity between Europe and the U.S. We also investigate which institutional characteristics are associated with the different performances of sectoral productivity across sectors. We empirically explore our country-sector panel measures of labor productivity levels, and our results suggest that differences in taxation, pro-business attitudes, ICT diffusion and rates of innovation are disproportionally correlated with the productivity of wholesale, retail and business services relative to the rest of the sectors in the economy.
Caffeine alleviates the deterioration of Ca2+ release mechanisms and fragmentation of in vitro‐aged mouse eggs

The developmental competence of mammalian eggs is compromised by postovulatory aging. We and others have found that in these eggs, the intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) responses required for egg activation and initiation of development are altered. Nevertheless, the mechanism(s) underlying this defective Ca2+ release is not well known. Here, we investigated if the function of IP3R1, the major Ca2+ release channel at fertilization, was undermined in in vitro‐aged mouse eggs. We found that in aged eggs, IP3R1 displayed reduced function as many of the changes acquired during maturation that enhance IP3R1 Ca2+ conductivity, such as phosphorylation, receptor reorganization and increased Ca2+ store content ([Ca2+]ER), were lost with increasing postovulatory time. IP3R1 fragmentation, possibly associated with the activation of caspase‐3, was also observed in these eggs. Many of these changes were prevented when the postovulatory aging of eggs was carried out in the presence of caffeine, which minimized the decline in IP3R1 function and maintained [Ca2+]ER content. Caffeine also maintained mitochondrial membrane potential, as measured by JC‐1 fluorescence. We therefore conclude that [Ca2+]i responses in aged eggs are undermined by reduced IP3R1 sensitivity, decreased [Ca2+]ER, and compromised mitochondrial function, and that addition of caffeine ameliorates most of these aging‐associated changes. Understanding the molecular basis of the protective effects of caffeine will be useful in elucidating, and possibly reversing, the signaling pathway(s) compromised by in vitro culture of eggs. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 78:684–701, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Therapeutic collaboration: a conversation analysis of constructionist therapy

Collaboration has been a frequently used construct to describe the practices of different therapeutic approaches for working with clients. Missing, however, is a sense of how collaboration is enacted in dialogues between therapists and clients. After defining ‘collaboration’, we analyse the actual conversational practices of Karl Tomm in his work with a couple, using conversation analysis. Our aim is to highlight the conversational accomplishment of collaboration in observable ways that we feel may be linked to enhancing one's conversational and collaborative practice of therapy.
Dynamic Output Feedback H∞ controller design for a class of continuous-time nonlinear systems

This paper is concerned with the dynamic output feedback H∞ controller design for a class of nonlinear continuous-time systems with nonlinear uncertainties. The resulting design is such that the closed-loop system not only is asymptotically stable, but also meets the prescribed H∞ norm constraint. What's worth mentioning is that the paper proposes a new method which combines S-procedure approach to solve the nonlinear uncertainties. A sufficient condition for the existence of such a controller is obtained by using appropriate Lyapunov functional and linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique. In addition, based on this result, a convex LMI-based optimization method is developed to optimize the H∞ performance. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.
A relationship between occupational stress and organisational commitment of IT sector’s employees in contrasting economies

Aim is to examine the relationship between occupational stress and organisational commitment of employees at middle and operational level. Additionally, the occupational therapists role is examined through self-developed ‘stress model’ containing perceived job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and distinctive stressors. Using purposive, snowball and convenience sampling 825 responses (403 from UK and 422 from Pakistan) gathered through on-line matrix based survey questionnaire to gain quantitative perspective. Findings showed female workers are less stress than male workers. Due to low social support, non-managerial employees are vulnerable to stress than their counterpart managerial position employees. Furthermore, Pakistani workforce experience greater stress than UK workforce does. Moreover, personal factors stressed females while organisational factors affect males. Personality often hinders females' organisational commitment while role demand and organisational leadership mainly affect male employees in both countries. Females use support more often than males for overcoming stress. Managerial position males have higher affective commitment whereas managerial level females have high normative commitment and continuance commitment. Although, degree of stress is higher in Pakistan comparing to UK but causes and effects are not significantly different.
What are the Building Blocks of Customer Brand Loyalty in Department Stores? A Multi-Level Mediation Analysis

ABSTRACT Building customer brand loyalty through branding strategies to sustain competitiveness in the retail industry has gathered momentum among researchers. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of brand personality and consumer brand identification on customer brand loyalty via the mediating variables of perceived service quality, perceived value, brand trust, brand commitment, and word-of-mouth communication among Malaysian department stores' customers. Using a self-structured questionnaire, 381 usable responses are considered for data analysis by applying a covariance-based structural equation modeling approach. The results of exploratory factor analysis show that sincerity, followed by sophistication and competence, are the most significant dimensions used to predict brand personality in department stores. The outcomes also reveal that brand personality indirectly influences customer brand loyalty via consumer brand identification. Furthermore, perceived service quality, perceived value, brand trust, word-of-mouth communication, and brand commitment mediate the effects of consumer brand identification on brand loyalty. Finally, the proposed competing model implies that the indirect impact of brand personality and consumer brand identification is inevitable in building department stores' brand loyalty.
Tissue targeting of anti-RNP autoimmunity: effects of T cells and myeloid dendritic cells in a murine model.

OBJECTIVE To explore the role of immune cells in anti-RNP autoimmunity in a murine model of pneumonitis or glomerulonephritis, using adoptive transfer techniques. METHODS Donor mice were immunized with 50 mug of U1-70-kd small nuclear RNP fusion protein and 50 mug of U1 RNA adjuvant. Whole splenocytes as well as CD4+ cell and dendritic cell (DC) subsets from the immunized mice were infused into naive syngeneic recipients. Anti-RNP and T cell responses were assessed by immunoblotting, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and flow cytometry. Development of renal or lung disease was assessed by histology and urinalysis. RESULTS Unfractionated splenocytes from donor mice without proteinuria induced predominantly lung disease in recipients (8 [57%] of 14 versus 2 [14%] of 14 developing renal disease; P = 0.046). However, infusion of CD4+ cells from donors without proteinuria induced renal disease more frequently than lung disease (7 [70%] of 10 versus 2 [20%] of 10; P = 0.01); adoptive transfer of RNP+CD4+ T cells from short-term culture yielded similar results (renal disease in 8 [73%] of 11 recipients versus lung disease in 3 [27%] of 11). Cotransfer of splenic myeloid DCs and CD4+ T cells from immunized donors prevented induction of renal disease in all 5 recipients (P = 0.026 versus recipients of fresh CD4+ cells alone), although lung disease was still observed in 1 of 5 mice. Transfer of myeloid DCs alone from immunized donors induced lung disease in 3 (60%) of 5 recipients, without evidence of nephritis. Cotransfer of splenocytes from mice with and those without nephritis led to renal disease in 4 of 5 recipients, without evidence of lung disease. CONCLUSION These findings indicate that RNP+CD4+ T cells are sufficient to induce anti-RNP autoimmunity, tissue targeting in anti-RNP autoimmunity can be deviated to either a renal or pulmonary phenotype depending on the presence of accessory cells such as myeloid DCs, and DC subsets can play a role in both propagation of autoimmunity and end-organ targeting.
Adverse Selection, Capital Supply, and Venture Capital Allocation

This paper develops a model to explore how adverse selection and search frictions affect the allocation of venture capital. Entrepreneurs have private information about their projects' quality and compete in a search market to attract investors. The combination of low capital supply and information frictions can cause entrepreneurs with valuable projects to avoid the venture capital market. An increase in capital supply reduces the distorting effects of search and information frictions causing entrepreneurs with high quality risky projects to enter the market and venture capitalists to increase their allocations to riskier projects. These effects can persist even if riskier projects are ex ante more valuable. Several other model predictions are also consistent with empirical findings.