Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Postlicensure evaluation of the effectiveness of seven valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine

Objective. To evaluate the impact of the introduction and routine use of seven valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine on the epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal disease within the Northern California Kaiser Permanente (KP) population. Methods. Surveillance for invasive pneumococcal disease has been in place within KP since 1995. Isolates from normally sterile sites in children are routinely sent for serotyping. Cases of invasive disease are identified through review of automated microbiology records within KP. Incidence rates of invasive disease were compared for the period before and after routine use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in children. Results. The incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease caused by vaccine serotypes before the licensure and routine use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine ranged between 51.52 and 98.15 cases per 100 000 person years in children <1 year of age and fell to 9.35 after introduction of vaccine. The incidence in children <2 years of age was 81.67 to 113.80 before introduction and 38.22 cases per 100 000 person years after introduction of the vaccine into the general population. These reductions in disease rates exceeded the average vaccine coverage substantially in each age group. No increase in disease incidence was observed for possibly cross-reacting serotypes or nonvaccine serotypes. Conclusion. The introduction and routine use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in our population have been associated with a substantial reduction in invasive disease incidence in children <5 years of age.
The Impact of Servicescape Cues on Consumer Prepurchase Authenticity Assessment and Patronage Intentions to Ethnic Restaurants

In the context of ethnic dining services, authenticity is the key ingredient. This study aims to investigate the impact of servicescape dimensions on consumers’ prepurchase authenticity perceptions and patronage intentions to ethnic restaurants. The authors propose that three key dimensions of the servicescape—the physical setting, service providers, and other customers—provide ethnic-associated cues for consumers to assess authenticity in the preconsumption stage. Empirical results from a between-subject experimental design suggest that servicescape dimensions can induce preconsumption authenticity perceptions of ethnic restaurants and that the dimensional cues interplay to affect authenticity assessments. Furthermore, a customer’s ethnicity (referent ethnic vs. mainstream) affects how she/he interprets servicescape cues and, therefore, his/her authenticity assessment. The perceived authenticity, together with a consumer’s trait of cosmopolitanism and his/her familiarity with such ethnic restaurants, consequently affect consumers’ patronage intentions. These findings contribute to hospitality research on consumers’ authenticity assessments of ethnic restaurants. Furthermore, managerial implications for ethnic restaurants in terms of marketing strategies will be discussed.
Board Independence and Real Earnings Management: The Case of R&D Expenditure

This paper analyses the role of boards of directors in constraining research and development (R&D) spending manipulation. Extant research on earnings management indicates that independent directors reduce accounting accruals manipulation. However, there is limited evidence on their effectiveness in limiting potentially value reducing R&D cuts motivated by short-term earnings pressures. Using a large sample of UK firms, I study whether independent boards are efficient at detecting and constraining this type of real earnings management. The results indicate that independent directors have sufficient technical knowledge to identify opportunistic reductions in R&D, and efficiently constrain opportunistic R&D spending. This evidence supports the emphasis recent policy statements have put on increasing the number of independent directors on corporate boards.
The Causal Eect of School Reform: Evidence from the Quality Education Investment Act

In the 2007-2008 school year, California’s Quality Education Investment Act went into eect. The act required semi-randomly selected schools to institute a number of reforms, primarily class size reduction and increased teacher experience, and provided additional per-pupil funding for schools to meet these requirements. Conditional on known propensity scores, selection was exogenous, allowing for non-parametric identication of the causal eect of QEIA by propensity score weighting. Exemplifying Hirano, Imbens, and Ridder (2003), I show that treating the probability of selection as unknown, and estimating it using the true probability as a leading term dramatically increases eciency.
A knowledge management paradigm in the supply chain

Supply chain management has profited tremendously from the advance of Web technologies during the last decade. New applications as well as optimized existing applications have used the Web as the medium to provide efficient and effective services to internal and external company users. The new paradigm in the universal World Wide Web is the semantic web, where the use of ontologies allows for knowledge management in ways that were not possible before. The supply chain management sector can benefit immensely by moving toward such technologies. The basic elements of a prototype knowledge management system for supply chain management are presented in this paper. In these basic characteristic sets of ontologies we examine how the semantic web can provide considerable improvements over previously used paradigms.
Differences in Education and Earnings Across Racial and Ethnic Groups: Tastes, Discrimination and Investments in Child Quality

Viewing the United States as comprising many racial and ethnic groups, it is shown that group differences in earnings, schooling, and rates of return from schooling are striking and that the groups with higher levels of schooling also have higher rates of return. These data are shown to be consistent with a child quality investment model, but they are not consistent with the hypotheses that the primary determinants of schooling level are discrimination, minority group status, differences in time preference (discount rates), or “tastes” for schooling. Group differences in fertility and female labor supply are examined as partial determinants of investment in child quality. Policy implications are discussed.
Nurses’ Encounters With Older Adults Engaged in Self-Neglectful Behaviors in the Community: A Qualitative Study

Objective: Alongside clinical tasks and decision making, there is a growing awareness of the emotions that arise during nurses’ interaction with clients and its significance in relation to meeting the demands of one’s role. This study aims to delve deeper into the experience of community care nurses’ encounters with older adults engaged in self-neglectful behaviors. Method: In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 22 experienced nurses in Israel, who worked with older adults engaged in self-neglectful behaviors in the community. Results: Three main themes emerged: “Everything is amplified in old age”: An age-related decline in functioning produces situations of self-neglect, Self-neglect as an experience imprinted on the nurse’s work: The struggle for treatment, and “What is our role here? ”—Nurses’ obligations in cases of self-neglect. Conclusion: The complexity of older adults engaged in self-neglectful behaviors results in feelings of confusion and ambiguity regarding the nurses’ role.
EXPLORING VARIATION IN FITNESS SURFACES OVER TIME OR SPACE

As the number of studies estimating selection on multiple traits has increased in recent years, fitness surfaces have become a fundamental tool for understanding multivariate selection and evolution. However, rigorous statistical comparisons of multivariate selection surfaces over time or space have been limited to parametric analyses of selection coefficients estimated using a quadratic regression model. Although parametric comparisons are useful when selection is approximately linear or quadratic in nature, they are limited when confronting the complex nature of rugged fitness surfaces. Here, I present a novel solution to comparing nonparametric fitness surfaces over time or space. Using a Tucker3 tensor decomposition, which is essentially a higher order principal components analysis, I show how major features of fitness surfaces can be compared statistically. Combined with a bootstrap algorithm, I develop three statistical tests that identify (1) differences in the shape of nonparametric fitness surfaces, (2) differences in the contribution of each surface to variation in fitness across time or space, and (3) specific areas of the surfaces (trait combinations) that vary significantly over time or space. I illustrate the tensor decomposition and statistical analyses using idealized fitness surfaces.
Hospitals as Cultures of Entrapment: A Re-Analysis of the Bristol Royal Infirmary

High performance is often attributed to an organization's culture. However, culture can just as easily undermine performance when it blinds decision makers to important performance issues and entraps them in unfortunate courses of action from which they cannot disengage. The dynamics of cultural entrapment are explored in the case of the Bristol Royal Infirmary, in which pediatrie cardiac surgeries continued for over a fourteen-year period despite evidence of poor quality care and performance that was far below that of other comparable pediatrie surgical centers. A single organizational process of behavioral commitment explains how the cultural mindset originated and why it persisted. The sequence of small, public, volitional, and irrevocable action; socially acceptable justification for that action; and the potential for subsequent activities to validate or threaten the justification created a causal loop that stabilized subsequent action patterns.
Disability Pensions Due to Musculo-Skeletal Disorders among Men in Heavy Occupations A Case-Control Study

The relative risk of disability pension due to musculoskeletal disorders has been studied with regard to occupation and work load. The study population comprised men born 1915 to 1934, living in Stockholm county. 1307 men who received a disability pension during 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1984 due to disorders from the low back, neck/shoulder, hip, and knee were compared with 298 randomly selected men concerning occupation and occupational work load. Disability pensions were more common both in men with medium and high physical work load compared to men with low physical work load. Construction workers and metal workers had a high relative risks of receiving disability pensions because of disorders in all four body regions, and men in many other occupations had disorders in two or three regions. In office workers the risk of disability pension because of musculo-skeletal disorders was low.
Breakaway Unions: A Study of the Australian Entertainment Industry

Previous research reveals that failure to resolve intra-union conflict may lead to the emergence of breakaways. Drawing on evidence from the Australian entertainment industry, this study examines the more unusual case of an attempt to secede by elements of the leadership (rather than membership) from the Australian Theatrical and Amusement Employees Association. Following secession, the breakaway group merged with a different union. The paper argues that the country's system of industrial relations shaped the form of the breakaway and ultimately provided the legal vehicle for the disaffected group to split from its parent union. It further shows how union breakaways are not necessarily caused by union merger activity although it often appears that they are.
Cervical Musculoskeletal Impairment in Frequent Intermittent Headache. Part 1: Subjects With Single Headaches

Musculoskeletal disorders are considered the underlying cause of cervicogenic headache, but neck pain is commonly associated with migraine and tension-type headaches. This study tested musculoskeletal function in these headache types. From a group of 196 community-based volunteers with headache, 73 had a single headache classifiable as migraine (n = 22), tension-type (n = 33) or cervicogenic headache (n = 18); 57 subjects acted as controls. Range of movement, manual examination of cervical segments, cervical flexor and extensor strength, the cranio-cervical flexion test (CCFT), cross-sectional area of selected extensor muscles at C2 (ultrasound imaging) and cervical kinaesthetic sense were measured by a blinded examiner. In all but one measure (kinaesthetic sense), the cervicogenic headache group were significantly different from the migraine, tension-type headache and control groups (all P < 0.001). A dicriminant function analysis revealed that collectively, restricted movement, in association with palpable upper cervical joint dysfunction and impairment in the CCFT, had 100% sensitivity and 94% specificity to identify cervicogenic headache. There was no evidence that the cervical musculoskeletal impairments assessed in this study were present in the migraine and tension-type headache groups. Further research is required to validate the predictive capacity of this pattern of impairment to differentially diagnose cervicogenic headache.
Intellectual capital disclosure in India: content analysis of “TecK” firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the extent of voluntary intellectual capital disclosers in India's emerging information, communication and technology sector and the relationship between the size of the firm and the extent of disclosures.Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis of the 30 technology, entertainment, communication and other knowledge (TecK) companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange is carried out. A list of intellectual capital (IC)‐related terms is searched for its presence or absence within the annual reports of these forms for the financial year 2005‐2006. The list of terms is determined based on the extensive survey of literature on content analysis and IC.Findings – The results find significantly small extent of IC disclosures in Indian firms. Information technology industries disclosures are more than any other sectors disclosures, closely followed by the telecommunication industry. Entertainment industry shows the minimal disclosures. There was no significant .
Geographical Concentration of Manufacturing Industries in China: The Importance of Spatial and Industrial Scales

Using the most recent data from the first economic census in China, a team of China-based and American economic geographers investigates the geographical concentration of manufacturing industries at the provincial and county levels by integrating proxy variables for natural advantages, agglomeration economies, and institutional changes (e.g., decentralization) associated with economic transition. The authors focus their investigation on manufacturing activity as a whole, as well as on manufacturing categories at the two- and three-digit levels of aggregation (the latter representing a finer scale of analysis than used in almost all previous studies). Interesting differences emerge in the locational patterns of industries whose enterprises pursue strategies of globalization vis-à-vis local protectionism. Differences also are apparent in the impacts of agglomeration economies and knowledge spillover at different spatial scales. The findings suggest that both spatial scale and level of industrial aggregation matter when analyzing patterns of industrial agglomeration in China. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L10, L20, L60, O18. 5 figures, 5 tables, 50 references.
Seven Fears and the Science of How Mobile Technologies May Be Influencing Adolescents in the Digital Age

Close to 90% of U.S. adolescents now own or have access to a mobile phone, and they are using them frequently. Adolescents send and receive an average of over 60 text messages per day from their devices, and over 90% of adolescents now access the Internet from a mobile device at least occasionally. Many adults are asking how this constant connectivity is influencing adolescents’ development. In this article, we examine seven commonly voiced fears about the influence of mobile technologies on adolescents’ safety (e.g., cyberbullying and online solicitation), social development (e.g., peer relationships, parent–child relationships, and identity development), cognitive performance, and sleep. Three sets of findings emerge. First, with some notable exceptions (e.g., sleep disruption and new tools for bullying), most online behaviors and threats to well-being are mirrored in the offline world, such that offline factors predict negative online experiences and effects. Second, the effects of mobile technologies are not uniform, in that benefits appear to be conferred for some adolescents (e.g., skill building among shy adolescents), whereas risk is exacerbated among others (e.g., worsening existing mental health problems). Third, experimental and quasi-experimental studies that go beyond a reliance on self-reported information are required to understand how, for whom, and under what conditions adolescents’ interactions with mobile technologies influence their still developing social relationships, brains, and bodies.
Numerical treatment of boundary conditions to replace lateral branches in hemodynamics

In this paper, we discuss a technique for weakly enforcing flow rate conditions in computational hemodynamics. In particular, we study the effectiveness of cutting lateral branches from the computational domain and replacing them with non‐perturbing boundary conditions to simplify the geometrical reconstruction and the numerical simulation. All these features are investigated both in the case of rigid and compliant walls. Several numerical results are presented to discuss the reliability of the proposed method.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Impact of Restricted Voting Share Structure on Firm Value and Performance

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: In this study, we examine whether firm value, operating performance, and stock performance of the Canadian firms which have issued restricted voting shares (RVS) is different from comparable non-RVS firms. We test two competing hypotheses – the controlling shareholder expropriation hypothesis and the investor protection and substitution hypothesis for the Canadian RVS firms. Research Findings/Insights: Based on a ten-year panel data sample and extensive robustness tests, we do not find that the RVS firms have lower firm value, operating performance, or stock performance than the non-RVS firms in Canada. There is also no evidence of shareholder value expropriation in key financial decisions, such as mergers and acquisitions and dividend payments. The study does not support the controlling shareholder expropriation hypothesis in the Canadian RVS firms. Theoretical/Academic Implications: The RVS structure has been criticized for lack of shareholder rights protection and risk of value entrenchment in the corporate governance literature. However, the existing empirical evidence is mainly based on the firms in the United States. Using a Canadian sample, we show that these results are a function of corporate governance and regulatory environment and the US results cannot be generalized. We find no evidence of shareholder value appropriation nor do we find differential value or performance implications. We believe that a blanket rejection of RVS structure may not be warranted. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our study concludes that the RVS structure in Canadian firms is influenced by the nature of these firms and the regulatory environment in Canada that protects minority shareholders from wealth appropriation. Our evidence suggests that policy makers and practitioners should evaluate RVS firms on their individual merit and in individual countries – no generalization is warranted.
Iowa Consumer Trends and Participation in Agritourism Activities

As the agritourism industry grows and develops in Iowa, it is important to identify the knowledge and participation levels of prospective agritourism consumers. This article focuses on current consumer trends and participation levels in Iowa agritourism activities. The results revealed a majority of Iowans believe they have at least some understanding of agriculture and food production and have participated in agritourism activities, but were relatively unfamiliar with agricultural-related tourism terms. The results can be used by Extension educators, state agricultural and economic development organizations, and the agritourism owner/operator to create a consumer profile and understand their prospective audiences.
Inequalities in the Financial Inclusion in Sri Lanka: An Assessment of the Functional Financial Literacy

This paper explores the existing pattern and the levels of disparity of the functional financial literacy in the Sri Lankan context. The study, mainly using quantitative data, selected the sample representing the three main settlement types: urban, rural and estate sector using multi-stage sampling technique related to cluster sampling. The analysis generated five ‘domains’ of financial literacy scores that capture respondent’s relative skills using factor analysis. Tobit regression analysis and cluster analysis were used for testing the determinants and disparity of financial literacy among the respondents. Moreover, descriptive statistics and other statistical techniques such as key driver analysis and correlation analysis were also appropriately applied. The study found that the socio-economic-demographic characteristics have a very strong association with the financial literacy of individuals. The results of the study highlights that the majority of the respondents demonstrate a modest financial knowledge and can be categorized as a literate (bankable) group. The functional financial literacy was quite diverse across respondents depending on the levels of education, income, gender, age, etc. Moreover, the study unveils the characteristics of the individuals with different levels of financial literacy for those who need it for policy actions. Furthermore, the study identified the target group for emphasizing in the provision of financial education to minimize inequalities with an increase in the financial inclusion of the country.
Cultural Malleability in an East Asian Context

Research in cross-cultural management and cultural diversity has often implicitly viewed national culture as a stable, enduring characteristic that can affect individual and organizational behavior. This article draws attention to the utility of considering national culture as a malleable rather than a fixed construct. Based on this conception of national culture, the authors examine the potential impact of culture and cultural change on business strategy. This examination is based on observations of differential business strategy employed among firms in Singapore compared to firms in Hong Kong and Taiwan. These differences, viewed as a reflection of cultural differences, suggest that significant partial changes in national culture can occur in a relatively short period of time. Although much of the previous literature has emphasized the factors of socioeconomic development and technological advancement as sources of influence on cultural change, this article considers the influence of government policies on national culture and business behaviors.