Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Causal evidence on the “productivity paradox” and implications for managers

The relationship between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and productivity has been widely discussed in the past two decades, but little understood. Since the early 1970s productivity growth in almost all of the world economies has slowed, while expenditure on ICT has risen. This raises the so‐called “productivity paradox” with some economists concluding that there is no relationship between spending on ICT and productivity. The study examines this relationship with time series tools in an attempt to identify whether there is a causal relationship in either direction, or whether there is a third factor affecting both ICT growth and productivity growth. Using the Granger causality procedure applied to Portuguese data from the period 1980‐2000, the paper attempts to understand better the paradox in order to recommend to managers how they might make better‐informed and more effective decisions about ICT investments.
Business Goals and Corporate Governance

Are the goals of business the same the world over? At least patterns of ‘corporate governance’, the ownership and control of corporations, differ vastly between countries. In Asia, family companies abound; in western countries they are more rare. In China, instead of the state as the sole owner, family entrepreneurs and institutions like villages, the army or the police have started their own businesses. In Europe, differences in corporate governance across 12 countries have been studied by Pedersen and Thomsen (1997). They showed that whereas in the UK 61 per cent of the 100 largest companies had dispersed shareholders (no single owner holding more than 20 per cent), in Austria and Italy no large companies at all had this type of ownership. The percentages of dispersed ownership turned out to correlate significantly with this author’s Individualism Index (Hofstede, 2001:384). This is not surprising, as stock market capitalism is historically linked to individualism. The UK inherited the ideas of the Scot, Adam Smith (1723–90) about the market as an invisible hand. In the individualist value pattern, the relationship between the individual and the organization is calculative both for the owners and for the employees; it is based on enlightened self-interest. In more collectivist societies the link between individuals and their organizations is moral by tradition. A hire-and-fire, but also a buy-and-sell approach is considered immoral or indecent. Sometimes firing employees is even prohibited by law. If it is not, selling companies and firing redundant employees still carry a high cost in terms of loss of public image and of goodwill with authorities. Differences in ways of dealing with power also affect corporate governance. Across the same 12 European countries, dominant ownership of the 100 largest companies (one person, family or company owning between 20 and 50 per cent) was positively correlated with this author’s Power Distance Index (Hofstede, op.cit.) In large-power-distance France, banking, the development of large companies, and foreign trade were historically strongly directed and controlled by the state according to the principle of ‘mercantilism’; other fairly large companies continue to be family-owned. In the Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, but also in Austria, 10 or more per cent of the 100 largest corporations were owned by a cooperative – in Britain and Italy, virtually none. The share of cooperatively-owned corporations was negatively correlated with this author’s Masculinity Index. (Hofstede, op.cit.) Cooperatives appeal to the need for cooperation in a feminine society. Semenov (2000) compared the systems of corporate governance in the same 12 European countries plus Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA, and showed that culture scores explained their differences better than any of the economic variables suggested in
Being European by Joining Europe: Accession and identity politics in Lithuania

Desire to belong to 'Europe', expressed primarily through the integration into the European Union, has been the dominant theme in the Lithuanian political discourse after the end of the Cold War. Remarkably, despite the perceived threat to sovereignty and further exposure to Western culture, Lithuanians have remained largely positive about the project. This article aims to explore the national identity constructions vis-a ¤ -vis Europe in this newly independent country where European integration has been largely perceived to anchor the processes of transformation. First, I analyse how European integration has been accommodated into the dominant version of national identity. Secondly, I look at the emerging conceptualisations of the EU and its future in the Lithuanian debate. Finally, I consider the debates about costs the integration process, particularly in relation to Ignalina nuclear plant and Kaliningrad oblast. This article concludes with a look at the future of the debate.
Equity Issues with Time-Varying Asymmetric Information

Abstract This paper develops a formal model of the effect of time-varying asymmetric information on the timing and pricing of equity issues when managers are better informed than outside investors. We assume that as time passes, the adverse selection problem becomes more severe as more managers receive a private signal. Under this assumption, the model predicts temporal variation in the quantity of issues, with a bunching of issues after information releases. It also predicts that the price drop at issue announcement increases with the time since the last information release. These predictions are consistent with several recent empirical studies relating equity issues to earnings and dividend announcements.
Implications of Capital Markets Research for Corporate Finance

N We focus our discussion on the same two areas of capital markets research as does Professor Haugen: the efficient markets hypothesis and asset pricing theory. Our purpose is not to survey the extensive literature that has evolved but to examine the implications of this analysis for the practice of corporate finance. Thus, we focus on how an appreciation of the contributions to capital markets research over the past three decades can help managers make better business decisions. While we disagree with several of Professor Haugen's conclusions, we will not comment on every study or piece of evidence discussed. Rather, we focus mainly on the "big picture" of the research process and the potential dangers of overinterpreting historical data.
Firms’ Qualifications and Subcontracting in Public Procurement: An Empirical Investigation

Using a newly assembled dataset, we empirically investigate the effects of subcontracting on procurement auction prices in Italy. In this setting, the pre-qualifications required for firms aiming to bid on public contracts determine the firms’ different subcontracting formats. We find that fully qualified firms in a position to choose whether to subcontract generally offer lower prices than partially qualified firms, which must proceed with mandatory subcontracts. This result indicates that the firms’ voluntary arrangements tend to improve market performance, while imposed arrangements tend to worsen market performance, in the public procurement supply-chain. (JEL H57, L23, L24, D44)
Sport management: a bibliometric study on central themes and trends

Prompted by the scarcity of analyses of the directions in which sport management research has so far evolved, this study attempts to fill this gap by mapping the most important historical trends that have characterised this discipline. In order to achieve this purpose, a bibliometric analysis is employed, applying citation and co-citation analyses to citations from articles published in three sport management journals between 1987 and 2010. The co-citation relationships between references are analysed by applying a dense network subgrouping algorithm, which generates a number of clusters of influential works. The results point out a number of dominant trends influential over the entire period covered, focused on change in organisations, consumer motivation in sport marketing and diversity in organisations. Less influential trends reflect an interest in the impact of sport events, sport economics and in the status of sport management as an area of research.
All levels versus alternate levels plate fixation in expansive open door cervical laminoplasty

Background Expansive open door laminoplasty with the use of titanium miniplate is becoming popular. Usually, the plate is applied at each level to prevent re-closure of the opened lamina. However, it is also used at alternating levels (i.e., C3, C5 and C7) in clinical settings in order to reduce the cost. Whether they have any difference in clinical efficacy? There is a lack of comparative data between the two kinds of plate fixation in the literature. Materials and Methods 83 patients who underwent cervical laminoplasty with alternating levels plate fixation (51 patients in Group A) or all levels plate fixation (32 patients in Group B) between January 2008 and October 2012 were evaluated in our institute retrospectively. Clinical and radiologic outcomes were assessed. Results No statistical difference was found in the mean operation time, blood loss, incidence of significant axial symptoms and C5 palsy, preoperative anteroposterior diameter (APD) and preoperative Japanese Orthopedic Association score between the two groups. However, Group B showed a higher rate of neurologic recovery after surgery. Postoperative increased APD and open angle in Group B were significantly larger than Group A. The mean cost for Group B (12801 ± 460.6 USD) was higher than Group A (8906 ± 566.7 USD). Conclusions Despite the higher cost of all level fixation, it is more effective in maintaining the expansion of the spinal canal and can obtain better clinical improvement compared to alternating levels fixation.
Combined Fault Location and Classification for Power Transmission Lines Fault Diagnosis With Integrated Feature Extraction

Accurate and timely diagnosis of transmission line faults is key for reliable operations of power systems. Existing fault-diagnosis methods rely on expert knowledge or extensive feature extraction, which is also highly dependent on expert knowledge. Additionally, most methods for fault diagnosis of transmission lines require multiple separate subalgorithms for fault classification and location performing each function independently and sequentially. In this research, an integrated framework combining fault classification and location is proposed by applying an innovative machine-learning algorithm: the summation-wavelet extreme learning machine (SW-ELM) that integrates feature extraction in the learning process. As a further contribution, an extension of the SW-ELM, i.e., the summation-Gaussian extreme learning machine (SG-ELM), is proposed and successfully applied to transmission line fault diagnosis. SG-ELM is fully self-learning and does not require ad-hoc feature extraction, making it deployable with minimum expert subjectivity. The developed framework is applied to three transmission-line topologies without any prior parameter tuning or ad-hoc feature extraction. Evaluations on a simulated dataset show that the proposed method can diagnose faults within a single cycle, remain immune to fault resistance and inception angle variation, and deliver high accuracy for both tasks of fault diagnosis: fault type classification and fault location estimation.
NATURAL RESOURCE ABUNDANCE, HUMAN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE PETROLEUM EXPORTING COUNTRIES

Growth literatures indicate that human capital, education and technology progress are effective factors on economic growth. Empirical studies present that natural resource abundance have an important role on economic growth in natural-resource-rich countries. This paper investigates the relationship natural resource abundance, human capital and economic growth in two groups of petroleum exporting countries: namely A) Major petroleum exporters B) Other petroleum exporters. The paper first, investigated the relationships between related variables by cross section method and then the proposed model is tested by panel data for the period 1970-2004. Findings showed that physical investment and openness have positive impact on economic growth, and resource abundant and government expenditure inversely related with economic growth, but human capital have a different impact in two sample of the paper; so that in first group of countries, human capital have a negative relationship with economic growth while it has a positive relation with economic growth in second group. It is concluded that human capital can be main factor to explain slow growth of resource-rich countries. Abundant of natural resource in this countries and bad usage of natural resource can be cause of negative relationship between human capital and economic growth. In other hands, countries that are rich in mineral and oil neglect the developing of their human resources by devoting inadequate attention and expenditure to education. So these countries have lower growth rate with respect to others.
The Benefits of Rebalancing

This article analyzes the effects of various rebalancing decisions on the risk and return of a multi–asset class portfolio. The findings show that the daily monitoring of a portfolio coupled with interval rebalancing can add to performance net of costs while simultaneously controlling for risk. Implementing a daily monitoring and interval rebalancing system for the multi–asset class (and multi–managed) portfolio requires attentive professional management with the expertise to address structural obstacles in some asset classes.
The Impact of Financial Constraints on Innovation: What Can Be Learned from a Direct Measure?

This paper examines the impact of financial constraints on innovation for established firms. We make use of a direct measure of the existence of financial constraints obtained thanks to a specific survey addressed to French established firms (FIT, Sessi). This is a distinctive feature of this paper as most of previous studies had to rely on proxies (like the cash-flow sensitivity) which may be subject to interpretation problems. The probability to have innovative activities and the probability to face financial constraints are simultaneously estimated by a recursive bivariate probit model. Accounting for the endogeneity of the financial constraint variable, we find that financial constraints significantly reduce the likelihood that firms have innovative activities. The probability to encounter financial constraints is explained by firms' ex ante financing structure and economic performances.
Responsible innovation as an endorsement of public values: the need for interdisciplinary research

This article has a theoretical and a practical objective. The theoretical objective is to conceptualize responsible innovation as the adequate and timely inclusion of public values relevant to technological development. Technological innovations always occur in a specific institutional context, closely connected to stakeholder dynamics. Hence, an ideal approach to responsible innovation requires interdisciplinary research that incorporates: (i) the ethics of technology, to investigate the role of values in design; (ii) institutional theory, to understand the parts played by institutions in realizing values; and (iii) policy, planning and science, technology and society literature, to focus on stakeholder engagement. The practical objective is to explain how this approach can be operationalized. Since values emerge and evolve during the development and implementation of technologies, we take public debate to be the empirical source for extracting public values. Several salient questions need to be addresse.
Monitoring seasonal variation of epicatechin and gallic acid in the bark of Saraca asoca using reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method

Background: Saraca asoca (Roxb.) Wilde (Fabaceae) is a high valued but vulnerable medicinal plant of Western Ghats region. This plant is mainly known for its use in various gynecological disorders. Objective: The objective of the present study was to investigate seasonal variation of the polyphenolic compounds viz., epicatechin and gallic acid in the bark of S. asoca by using Reverse Phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detector (RP-HPLC-DAD) method. Materials and Methods: The bark was collected in six different Ritu (season) viz. Varsha (monsoon), Sharad (autumn), hemant (early winter), Shishir (winter), Vasanta (spring), and Grishma (summer) mentioned in Ayurveda. Results : The RP-HPLC-DAD analysis indicated that levels of epicatechin and gallic acid in the bark of S. asoca vary seasonally. The highest concentration of epicatechin was observed in Shishir Ritu (3315.19 ± 165.76 mg/100g) and gallic acid during Hemant Ritu (211.90 ± 10.60 mg/100 g). Conclusions: In present study, the ability to synthesize and accumulate both the compounds in bark of S. asoca varied greatly throughout the seasons. It was also observed that the compound epicatechin was present abundantly as compared to gallic acid throughout the seasons.
Global state feedback stabilisation of stochastic high-order nonlinear systems with high-order and low-order nonlinearities

ABSTRACT In this paper, the problem of global stabilisation by state feedback is investigated for a class of stochastic high-order nonlinear systems with both high-order and low-order nonlinearities, to which the existing control methods are inapplicable. Based on the generalised stochastic Lyapunov theorem, and by skillfully using the method of adding a power integrator, a continuous state feedback controller is successfully constructed, which can guarantee the global asymptotic stability in probability of the resulting closed-loop system in the sense of weak solution, and also is able to lead to an interesting result of finite-time stabilisation under appropriate conditions. Finally, two simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Knowledge transfer between supply chain partners: a conceptual model

The opportunity to learn more effective practices from firms operating within a strategic supply chain partnership is viewed as critical to enhanced competitiveness. Despite the perceived importance of knowledge transfer in a strategic supply chain partnership there is a paucity of conceptual models depicting the variables that have an impact on transfer effectiveness. This paper presents such a model and discusses how the variables are inter-related, through systematically reviewing the literature. The model development process involved both induction and deduction. The authors contend that the proposed model contributes to the developing literature and is of relevance to both researchers and practitioners.
Modelling nonlinear relationships between extended-memory variables

A definition of extended memory is provided, generalizing the ideas of long memory and persistence, based on the properties of forecasts over long horizons. Specification of nonlinear models with variables having extended memory is considered in terms of the balance of an equation and it is suggested that many more types of misspecification can occur than with usual situations and could produce important specification errors. Tests of linearity and standard methods of nonlinear modeling are briefly considered and advice is given on circumstances in which they can be used. Copyright 1995 by The Econometric Society.
The role of Sgk-1 in the upregulation of transport proteins by PPAR-{gamma} agonists in human proximal tubule cells.

BACKGROUND Cellular sodium and water transport are dysregulated in diabetes mellitus. Synthetic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma) agonists are currently used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, but their use is limited by fluid retention. Recent data suggest that PPAR-gamma agonists stimulate distal tubular epithelial Na transport, potentially through the serine glucocorticoid kinase-1 (Sgk-1)-dependent regulation of the epithelial Na channel. We have recently demonstrated that Sgk-1 additionally regulates sodium reabsorption through the proximal tubular sodium hydrogen exchanger-3 (NHE3). However, the effects of PPAR-gamma agonists on Sgk-1, the water channel proteins aquaporins and on sodium transport in human proximal tubule cells (PTCs) have not previously been studied. METHODS PTCs were exposed to the PPAR-gamma agonists, pioglitazone and the more selective PPAR-gamma agonist L-805645 with and without the Sgk inhibitor (GSK650394A). PPAR-gamma, Sgk-1, NHE3, AQP 1 and 7 mRNA and protein expression were determined by semi-quantitative PCR and western blot. The Sgk-1-specific effect was determined using Sgk-1 siRNA. RESULTS Exposure of PTCs to 10 muM pioglitazone and 8 microM L-805645 increased the mRNA and protein expression of PPAR-gamma (P < 0.005), NHE3 and Sgk-1 (both P < 0.05). The expression of AQPs 1 and 7 was increased by pioglitazone and L-805645 (both P < 0.05). The increases in NHE3 and AQPs 1 and 7 were significantly reduced by pharmacological inhibition of Sgk and when cultures were exposed to Sgk-1-specific siRNA. CONCLUSIONS PPAR-gamma agonists enhanced the expression of NHE3, AQP 1 and 7 channels in human proximal tubule cells through Sgk-1-dependent pathways.
Measuring the regulation of keratin filament network dynamics

The organization of the keratin intermediate filament cytoskeleton is closely linked to epithelial function. To study keratin network plasticity and its regulation at different levels, tools are needed to localize and measure local network dynamics. In this paper, we present image analysis methods designed to determine the speed and direction of keratin filament motion and to identify locations of keratin filament polymerization and depolymerization at subcellular resolution. Using these methods, we have analyzed time-lapse fluorescence recordings of fluorescent keratin 13 in human vulva carcinoma-derived A431 cells. The fluorescent keratins integrated into the endogenous keratin cytoskeleton, and thereby served as reliable markers of keratin dynamics. We found that increased times after seeding correlated with down-regulation of inward-directed keratin filament movement. Bulk flow analyses further revealed that keratin filament polymerization in the cell periphery and keratin depolymerization in the more central cytoplasm were both reduced. Treating these cells and other human keratinocyte-derived cells with EGF reversed all these processes within a few minutes, coinciding with increased keratin phosphorylation. These results highlight the value of the newly developed tools for identifying modulators of keratin filament network dynamics and characterizing their mode of action, which, in turn, contributes to understanding the close link between keratin filament network plasticity and epithelial physiology.
Field-Scale Experimental Designs and Spatial Econometric Methods for Precision Farming: Strip-Trial Designs for Rice Production Decision Making

Site-specific data is spatially variable, precluding traditional econometric analysis. Some field-scale experimental designs present logistical, operational and mathematical problems in estimating treatment differences, specifically when adjacent observations are of different treatments such as with strip-trial designs. A modified spatial interaction structure is presented to analyze strip-trial designs with spatial econometrics.