Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Narratives of Natural Recovery: Youth Experience of Social Inclusion through Green Care

The aim of this study has been to investigate the effects of Green Care services for youth in vulnerable situations risking social exclusion. Green Care enterprises represent alternative arenas in which people can work with animals, agriculture and other tasks related to nature. We interviewed nine persons, aged 17–27, working in three different places, two or more times over a two-year period. We looked at essential beneficial factors in order to better understand how the “green” element could add to more traditional recovery factors. We found that the youth described core success factors corresponding to well-known recovery factors such as recognition, supportive relationships, motivation, meaning, positive coping, self-esteem, confidence and hope. The effective factors can be described as: (a) The leader’s ability to create a good group atmosphere, (b) the varied tasks which allow step-wise increases in self-efficacy, and (c) experiences with animals and in nature that provide comfort for youth who lack trust in people and need safe situations to recover a positive sense of self. We followed a process in which several persons gradually regained self-respect and the motivation for further education or a job outside the Green Care enterprise. The study illustrates that Green Care can be an important supplement in helping people back to a satisfying life and meaningful roles in society.
Localization and synthesis of acetylcholine in human leukemic T cell lines

In order to clarify the origin of acetylcholine (ACh) in human blood, we measured the content and synthesis activity of ACh in several human leukemic cell lines. The intracellular ACh content determined by a specific and sensitive radioimmunoassay in the human leukemic T cell lines, HSB‐2, MOLT‐3, and CEM, was 79.6, 36.2, and 9.5 pmol/106 cells, respectively. These values were 9–70‐fold higher than those of other cell lines, including a helper T cell line, Jurkat. Stimulation of HSB‐2 and MOLT‐3 by phytohemagglutinin (PHA) increased both the intracellular content and release of ACh into the culture medium, but did not influence the intracellular content and release of ACh in CEM. ACh synthesis activity was found in all the T cell lines tested. Bromoacetylcholine (100 μM), a choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) inhibitor, and bromoacetyl‐L‐carnitine (100 μM), a carnitine acetyltransferase (CarAT) inhibitor, decreased ACh‐synthesizing activity in MOLT‐3, and HSB‐2 and CEM, by about 50% and 30%, respectively, indicating that both ChAT, and to a lesser extent CarAT, are involved in ACh synthesis in T cells. These results suggest that T lymphocytes have the potential to synthesize and release ACh, which may play a role in regulating T cell‐dependent immune responses. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
On Inequalities And Critical Values Of Fuzzy Random Variables

It is well-known that Holder, Minkowski, Markov, Chebyshev and Jensen's inequalities are important and useful results in probability theory. This paper proposes to extend the usefulness of the above inequalities to the context of unccertainity analysis in intelligent systems. In order to further discuss the mathematical properties of fuzzy random variables, theanalogous inequalities for fuzzy random variables are first proved based on the chance measure and expected value operator. After that, monotonicity and continuity of critical values of fuzzy random variables are also investigated. Finally, a convergence theorem of critical values for fuzzy random sequence is obtained.
When Public Officers Take the Lead in Collaborative Governance

Governments are investing considerable time and resources in the field of collaborative governance as it proliferates throughout many sectors, and how public officers choose to respond to these developments therefore becomes an important question. The increased public involvement that collaborative governance brings is often more costly than traditional forms of governance, while the outcomes are highly uncertain. For these reasons, it is important that collaborative governance is only used when really warranted, and the various forms that it can take should be carefully designed. In this study, we apply a typology of collaboration strategies to examine firstly, the circumstances under which leading officers at four county administrative boards in the Swedish mountain region decide to lead collaboration, and secondly what collaboration strategies they then apply. This study is based on 20 interviews with key officers, and 39 interviews with project leaders of public-private collaborations in the area of natural resource management in the region. We find that officers should take trust levels into account when designing collaboration strategies, not least the lack of official trust. Strategies are found to be not mutually exclusive but complementary, and officers employ several at the same time. Interestingly, the results of this study show that – somewhat counter-intuitively – distrust is a driver for officers to initiate collaboration, a conclusion which questions the common view that more trust unequivocally translates into more participation.
RNA Editing Induces Variation in Desensitization and Trafficking of 5-Hydroxytryptamine 2c Receptor Isoforms*

The 5-hydroxytryptamine2c receptor (5-HT2cR) is subjected to RNA editing, in the second intracellular loop, generating 14 different isoforms in human brain. This post-transcriptional event markedly alters the signaling properties of the receptor by reducing its ability to couple to G-proteins. Although the non-edited form of the receptor is essentially fully constitutively active, edited forms show lesser degrees of constitutive activity. We have used two extensively edited receptor isoforms, VGV and VSV, and the non-edited INI isoform to investigate how variations in constitutive receptor activity affect the trafficking and the interaction of these isoforms with components of the desensitization machinery in HEK 293 cells. We found that cell surface expression of the 5-HT2cR decreased in parallel with increased constitutive activity of the isoforms. The subcellular distribution of the various isoforms was dependent of their ability to interact with βarrestin2, which correlated with the constitutive activity level of each isoform. We observed that the agonist-independent interaction of βarrestin2 with constitutively active 5-HT2cR isoforms was reversed by inverse agonist treatments promoting receptor redistribution to the cell surface. Overexpression of a G-protein-coupled receptor kinase (GRK2) was able to stabilize the interaction of βarrestin2 with constitutively active 5-HT2cR isoforms even in the presence of inverse agonists. Taken together, our observations indicate that the constitutively active 5-HT2cR isoforms are spontaneously internalized in an agonist-independent manner. This endocytosis process is mediated by a GRK/βarrestin-dependent mechanism and is directly correlated with the constitutive activity status of the RNA edited receptor variants. Thus the ultimate physiological output of constitutively active receptors may be determined not only by their agonist-independent activity but also by their interactions with GRKs and βarrestin.
CEO Champions : what drives their success? : can they be effectively replaced?

This thesis constructs unique CEO performance measurements and rankings, which focus on long-term firm performance from different dimensions. The first empirical analysis of this thesis defines CEO Champions and examines whether CEO Champions can be successfully replaced by their successors. Two CEO Champion Leagues are constructed, and performance of these CEOs and their successors are tested. The documented results show that CEO Champions' successors outperform the successors of Non-Champions' on average. Although Champions’ successors cannot sustain their predecessors’ performance in the univariate framework due to luck reversion, growth cyclicality and priorities diversion, they tend to generate as superior operating performance as their predecessors did after controlling for growth cyclicality in the multivariate framework. These robust findings suggest that corporate boards can effectively replace CEO Champions on average by hiring better successors. Also, predecessors’ legacies left within the firms after stepping down substantially affect their successors’ performance in voluntary turnover events. The second analysis of the thesis explores under what circumstances the successors tend to outperform their champion predecessors. It examines corporate governance, successor origin, predecessor influence and controls for changes in CEO and firm characteristics. It documents a robust and negative relation between insider dummy and successful replacement, indicating that outsiders are more likely to replace champion predecessors successfully. In line with the reputational capital view of directorships, a busy board is found to have better capability to replace CEO Champions effectively. Champion predecessors tend to be reappointed to the board, and their successors tend to sustain their success. Champion founders' successors are demonstrated to have greater performance improvement after turnover events, which suggest that champion founders are less likely to be entrenched. The final empirical analysis focuses on constructing two effective CEO performance measurement indices to build CEO rankings and reveal Top 100 CEOs in each CEO list. Results show that the weighted performance CEO ranking is negatively and significantly associated with the forced turnover dummy, suggesting that higher ranked CEOs are less likely to be forced out. Also, the weighted performance CEO ranking in this study has better prediction power than other forced turnover prediction models with single performance measure.
Morphological Assessment of Ancestry using Cranial Macromorphoscopics ,

Ancestry estimation is essential for biological profile estimation in forensic anthropology. Hefner (2009) and Osteoware (Smithsonian Institution, 2011) presented 16 macromorphoscopic traits that can be scored for standardized data collection and can also be used within a statistical framework to estimate ancestry. The primary purpose of this research was to examine the utility of these traits for assessing ancestry. Tests of observer agreement and the range of variation in trait expression were evaluated. A sample of 208 American whites and blacks from the Hamann–Todd Collection were scored, and several classification methods were utilized in accordance with Hefner (2009). Correct classifications for the pooled sex analyses ranged from 73.3% to 86.6% and from 46.7% to 64.3% when the sexes were analyzed independently. Interobserver agreement was variable and was found to be lower than that presented in Hefner (2009). Trait expression was variable in both groups and was generally consistent with Hefner's findings.
The Effect of Financial Literacy and Financial Access to the Performance of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in the Trade Sector of Padang City

This study aims to empirically examine the effect of financial literacy on the performance of SMEs by using financial access as a mediating variable. The object of this study was the small and medium-sized enterprises of the trade sector in Padang City. The sample in this study amounted to 120 respondents selected based on purposive sampling method. Hypothesis testing was done using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis with the STATA version 12.0 program. The results of this study indicate that Financial Literacy has a significant effect on the performance of SMEs and Financial Access has a significant effect and mediates partially the relationship between Financial Literacy on SMEs Performance.
Differences in the Effects of Solution Additives on Heat‐ and Refolding‐Induced Aggregation

Although a number of low‐molecular‐weight additives have been developed to suppress protein aggregation, it is unclear whether these aggregation suppressors affect various aggregation processes in the same manner. In this study, we evaluated the differences in the effect of solution additives on heat‐ and refolding‐induced aggregation in the presence of guanidine (Gdn), arginine (Arg), and spermidine (Spd), and the comparable analysis showed the following differences: (i) Gdn did not suppress thermal aggregation but increased the yield of oxidative refolding. (ii) Spd showed the highest effect for heat‐induced aggregation suppression among tested compounds, although it promoted aggregation in oxidative refolding. (iii) Arg was effective for both aggregation processes. Lysozyme solubility assay and thermal unfolding experiment showed that Spd was preferentially excluded from native lysozyme and Arg and Gdn solubilized the model state of intermediates during oxidative refolding. This preference of additives to protein surfaces is the cause of the different effect on aggregation suppression.
The Hesitant Hai Gui: Return-Migration Preferences of U.S.-Educated Chinese Scientists and Engineers

Managers, research administrators, and policy makers need a greater understanding of the factors that drive employment preferences of foreign science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) doctoral graduates of U.S. universities. To address this need, the authors report the results of a large multischool conjoint survey of return-migration preferences among U.S. STEM doctoral students from China. The survey presents the respondents with potential job offers and yields individual-level estimates of each respondent's indirect utility of a job as a function of location, job status, and salary. The authors use a delayed follow-up choice task to demonstrate stability of the preference estimates both over time and across response modalities. The estimated preferences imply that Chinese doctoral graduates tend to remain in the United States because of a large salary disparity between the two countries rather than because of an inherent preference for locating in the United States. Given these estimated preferences, the authors conduct several policy-relevant, counterfactual simulations of return-migration choice and outline effective targeting and positioning strategy for attracting Chinese STEM talent.
Plasmid Carriage and the Serum Sensitivity of Enterobacteria

The carriage of a range of plasmids by rough, serum-sensitive laboratory strains of Escherichia coli made no difference to their reactivity in human serum as determined by two methods. Plasmid-carrying enterobacteria isolated from polluted river water gave a variety of responses to serum. Smooth E. coli river isolate C8 was killed by serum but only after a delay of 1 h, and curing of antibiotic resistance and colicin determinants from this strain led to a small but significant increase in serum sensitivity. Plasmids from eight strains were transferred by conjugation to a cured derivative of C8 (C8−NalR), and in six cases a significant increase in the serum resistance of the progeny was observed. Plasmid-mediated enhancement of resistance was particularly marked with plasmids R1 and NR1, and a round of replication mutant of NR1 conferred greater resistance than did the normal R factor. However, R1 and NR1 were unable to modify the serum response of a cured strain (P21−NalR) derived from promptly serum-sensitive isolate P21. These findings suggest that lipopolysaccharide O-side chains, the cell surface components responsible for the delay in serum killing, are essential for the expression of plasmid factors that modify sensitivity to serum. Examination of K(A)− variants of two isolates indicated that the K(A) antigen has only a marginal effect on the serum response.
Does Earning Management Happen in Islamic Bank? (Indonesia and Malaysia Comparison)

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in earnings management practices in Islamic Commercial Banks in Indonesia and Malaysia. The method used in this research is descriptive and comparative method. The results of this study occur earnings management in Islamic banks in Indonesia and Malaysia, and there are significant differences. The results of the SPSS statistical tool obtained a significance value of 0.02 <0.05, so there are significant differences between the practice of earnings management in Islamic Commercial Banks in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Heightened Shareholder Interest in Firm Affairs Following the Inception of Credit Default Swap Trade

The literature shows that a lender becomes reluctant to aid a distressed client after it receives insurance on its outstanding debt via a credit default swap (CDS). The onset of CDS trade thus accelerates client bankruptcy. We predict that the client firm’s shareholders would respond by demanding improved corporate governance and financial reporting quality to protect their interests. We find an increase in independence of the board of directors and a decline in the dual position of chief executive office and board chairman following the onset of CDS trading. We also find higher earnings response coefficient and trading volumes around the earnings announcement dates and lower post–earnings announcement drift. Overall, our results are consistent with the idea that shareholders demand higher quality of, or pay greater attention to, financial reports following the onset of CDS trading.
Declining prevalence of HIV‐1 infection in young Thai men

ObjectiveTo evaluate trends in HIV-1 seroprevalence in Thailand. DesignHIV-1 serosurvey of successive cohorts of young Thai men entering service with the Royal Thai Army (RTA) between November 1989 and November 1994. MethodsIn November 1989, the RTA Medical Department began routine HIV-1-antibody screening of men who were selected by lottery for conscription. Between November 1989 and November 1994, 311 108 young men were screened at induction. Demographic data were collected between November 1991 and May 1993 and again in November 1994. ResultsThe seroprevalence of HIV-1 among conscripts nationwide increased rapidly from 0.5% in 1989 to 3.5% in 1992 and reached 3.7% in 1993. In 1994, the overall prevalence decreased to 3.0%. The decrease was greatest in the upper North (from 12.4% in 1992 to 7.9% in 1994), where the prevalence has been the highest. However, decreases were observed in men from all regions of residence in the country, from both rural and urban areas, and at all educational levels. ConclusionsThe decline in prevalence suggests declining incidence and that HIV control programs in Thailand are having an impact on the HIV epidemic.
Time-Varying Effectiveness of Competitive Advertising

Several recent studies report a seemingly counterintuitive result of positive cross advertising effects. We examine this phenomenon, and document its prevalence and persistence using time series data for several mature packaged goods categories. For this purpose we develop a hierarchical dynamic model to capture time-varying market response to both advertising and pricing. The model is estimated using a novel matrix specification of a hierarchical dynamic model, which parsimoniously handles multivariate demand specifications with multiple marketing mix variables, dynamically accounting for both endogeneity and heterogeneity. We use our model to study the time-varying nature of cross effects of advertising, and find that positive cross effects persist over time in many categories. We additionally examine how brand growth or decline occurs due to own and competing brands' effects. Share of voice, novelty, and variety in the media mix are positively associated with these cross effects. We find no evidence that cross effects are associated with competitive intensity. This study advances understanding of those situations in which increased advertising is likely to be effective at driving sales. It also can help managers with temporal allocation of brand-building advertising budgets, with the objective of increasing brand sales volume and market share in a competitive advertising environment.
Face memory impairments in patients with frontal lobe damage

Objective: To determine whether damage to prefrontal cortex is associated with face memory impairment. Background: Neurophysiologic and functional imaging studies suggest that prefrontal cortex is a key component of a distributed neural network that mediates face recognition memory. However, there have been few attempts to examine the impact of frontal lobe damage on face memory performance. Methods:Patients with focal frontal lobe lesions and normal control subjects were administered two-alternative forced-choice and single-probe “yes/no” tests of recognition memory for novel faces. Retrograde memory was assessed by using famous faces as stimuli. Results: Compared with control subjects, patients with frontal lobe lesions showed evidence of marked anterograde and relatively mild retrograde face memory impairment. In addition, patients with right frontal lesions demonstrated increased susceptibility to false recognition, consistent with the breakdown of strategic memory retrieval, monitoring, and decision functions. Conclusions: Prefrontal cortex plays an important role in the executive control of face memory encoding and retrieval. Left and right prefrontal regions seem to make different contributions to recognition memory performance.
New iterative learning strategy to improve classification systems by using outlier detection techniques

The supervised classification of satellite image time series allows obtaining reliable land cover maps over large areas. However, their quality depends on the reference datasets used for training the classifier. In remote sensing, reference data may lack of timeliness and accuracy which leads to the presence of mislabeled data degrading the classification performances. This work presents an iterative learning framework to deal with noisy instances, that can be seen as outliers. Several outlier detection strategies, based on the well-known Random Forests (RF) ensemble classifier, are proposed, evaluated quantitatively, and then compared with traditional methods. Experimental results have been carried out by using synthetic and real datasets representing annual vegetation profiles.
The State of Governance at State-owned Enterprises

Commercial enterprises that are owned and controlled by governments continue to constitute a significant portion of business activity in many parts of the world. This paper examines three critical areas for strengthening the quality of governance of state-owned firms professionalizing government ownership, strengthening commercial orientation, and developing stronger, more independent boards and the challenges involved in implementing reforms.
Does the private equity financing improve performance in family SMEs?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relation between family involvement in ownership and the performance of private equity (PE)-backed SMEs. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 533 European PE-backed SMEs (i.e. 107 PE-backed family SMEs and 426 PE backed non-family SMEs), the author estimate the OLS model where a firms operating performance is a function of the presence or not of family shareholders, various other firm-specific characteristics, the experience of PE investor and a dummy for the financial crisis. To control the robustness of results, the author restrict the analysis to those firms that are incorporated in one of the 15 old member states of the European Union and the author include among the independent variables the one-year lagged values of the dependent variable. Findings The results show that PE-backed family SMEs outperform non-family PE-backed SMEs over the post-investment period. Originality/value This paper aims to extend literature about the link between PE backing and the involvement of family in ownership, considering European countries.