Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning function and small business growth

Small businesses pay more attention to the ability to maintain the long‐term survival of the company because of the high bankruptcy rate in this sector of the economy. This paper analyses the contribution of the learning function to small business growth. Vinten, Lane and Hayes have reported research providing a Western perspective on this issue, and so this is complementary research providing an insight on the Chinese situation. Based on the findings of the interview survey, it provides suggestions about the learning function for small businesses in China.
Total homocyst(e)ine concentration and the likelihood of nonfatal stroke: results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Elevated serum total homocyst(e)ine [H(e)] is an independent risk factor for stroke. Few studies, however, have examined this association in blacks. METHODS Data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n=4534), a nationally representative sample of US adults, were used to examine the relationship between H(e) and a physician diagnosis of stroke (n=185) in both black and white adults. Multivariate-adjusted logistic regression analyses were used to examine this relationship. RESULTS Serum vitamin B12 and folate concentrations were significantly lower among participants in the highest H(e) quartile (>/=12.1 micromol/L) than among participants in the lowest quartile (</=7.4 micromol/L). Those in the highest quartile were older, had higher mean cholesterol and blood pressure levels, and were more likely to smoke and to have completed <12 years of education. After adjustment for age, the odds ratio (OR) for stroke was 2.9 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4 to 5.7; highest versus lowest quartile). Adjustment for gender, race/ethnicity, education, systolic blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, and smoking reduced the magnitude of the association (OR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.2 to 4. 6). The association between H(e) and stroke did not differ by race [P=0.265 for race-H(e) interaction term]. The multivariate adjusted OR for the highest quartile versus the lowest was 2.5 (1.1 to 5.5) among whites and 1.4 (0.4 to 4.7) among blacks. CONCLUSIONS In this nationally representative sample of US adults, H(e) concentration was independently associated with an increased likelihood of nonfatal stroke. This association was present in both black and white adults.
Distributive Properties of Pensions Systems: a Simulation of the Italian Transition from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution

We analyse the distribution of pension benefits induced by pension systems moving from a defined benefit formula to a notional defined contribution one. We focus on the reforms that took place in Italy between 1992 and 2004, differently affecting various cohorts of workers. We develop a micro-simulation model that enables to compute pension benefits for heterogeneous individuals belonging to different cohorts, according to pre- and post-reform rules. We find that the defined benefit system is highly redistributive along many dimensions, not just earnings. With the phasing in of the NDC system, redistribution in all dimensions is gradually reduced.
Conservation Planning: A Review of Return on Investment Analysis

Land and natural resource conservation programs are increasingly being evaluated on the basis of their return on investment (ROI). Conservation ROI analysis quantitatively measures the costs, benefits, and risks of investments, which allows conservation organizations to rank or prioritize them. This article surveys the literature in this area. We organize our discussion around the way studies treat the core elements of ROI, which include the definition and measurement of the conservation objective, identification of relevant baselines, the types of conservation investments considered, and investment costs. We discuss the state of the art of ROI analysis, highlight some unresolved issues, and make suggestions for improvements. We also describe options for extending ROI analysis beyond biodiversity conservation, which is the typical objective. The literature indicates that conservation planning that uses ROI analysis can considerably alter the location and targets of conservation, lead to more protection and higher quality conservation outcomes, and result in significant savings. The measurement and prediction of baseline ecological conditions and threats remains a central challenge for conservation ROI analysis, as does accounting for landowner and developer responses to conservation investments. Another key priority for future research is the identification of ways to more comprehensively incorporate ecosystem services and multiple environmental objectives into the assessment framework. (JEL: Q20, Q30, Q51, Q57)
Human resource strategies and firm performance: what do we know and where do we need to go?

This research review focuses on the links between human resource strategies and organizational effectiveness. It is likely that bundles of, or configurations of, activities are more important in enhancing labour productivity than any single activity. However, studies are typically limited in theoretical rigour, have quite small samples and are typically non-cumulative. The empirical basis of strategic human resources management is thus circumscribed.
Effects of Spelling Errors on the Perception of Writers

Abstract The authors investigated the perceived relationship between spelling errors and cognitive abilities in a series of 3 experiments. Specifically, they examined whether college students' ratings of an author's intellectual ability, logical ability, and writing ability were affected by the presence of spelling errors. In the 1st experiment, the presence of 4 spelling errors in a short essay did not significantly affect the ratings. The spelling ability of college students, as measured by a standard oral dictation spelling test, was moderately correlated with a brief test of intelligence. In a 2nd experiment, college students rated the author of a short essay as having lower ability when there was a large number of spelling errors. The effect was more pronounced on the ratings of writing ability than it was on the ratings of logical ability or intellectual ability. This finding was replicated in a 3rd experiment, in which the essay contained misspellings actually made by writers. The results suggest that spelling errors can affect how people perceive writers, particularly when there are many spelling errors. College students appear to attribute spelling errors more to writing ability than they do to general cognitive abilities such as intelligence and logical ability.
Trust between Cooperating Technical Systems: With an Application on Cognitive Vehicles

Researchers from the social sciences and economics consider trust a requirement for successful cooperation between people. It helps to judge the risk in situations, in which a person has the choice to rely on another one. In the future, technical systems will face similar situations. Assume for example that, at a large logistics centre, a robot should reload goods of a ship in cooperation. In the beginning, it must find the right partner out of a set of diverse other robots. To do this selection efficiently without exaggerated security mechanisms, the robot needs trust. Here I consider trust a mechanism, which estimates the certainty of the outcome of the partner’s actions. This dissertation formalises trust between technical systems to set the theoretical foundation for the above idea. It reviews the socio-scientific and technical literature and identifies generic requirements for the mechanism trust. Based on the requirements and further considerations, it presents a conceptual, implementation-independent framework. This new framework, called the Enfident Model, incorporates various facets of trust in form of submodels. Amongst others, it regards the temporal development of cooperation, the dependency on the task and bargaining, time-varying behaviour of the cooperation partner, learning from experiences, logical constraints of the present situation, and transfer learning to handle unknown situations. With these manifold features described on a conceptual level, the Enfident Model captures existing trust procedures and is suitable for designing new ones. The theoretical part is complemented with algorithms for prototyping trust in individual applications. These algorithms use statistical relational learning to combine logic, learning, clustering and statistics for trust development. They work on a relational dynamic Bayesian network. Since trust is a social phenomenon, the evaluation features a virtual society of vehicles. These systems cooperate by exchanging information in a vehicular network. They use a trust algorithm to distinguish correct from incorrect information. The simulation shows that the identified trust requirements and the Enfident Model lead to intuitive and consistent results.
A DYNAMIC PROCESS MODEL OF DISSATISFACTION FOR UNFAVORABLE, NON‐ROUTINE SERVICE ENCOUNTERS

This paper explores the effect of expectations and information on customer dissatisfaction in unfavorable, nonroutine service encounters. In complex services (e.g., health care) with multiple encounters and wide range of services, customers use some of the services rarely or only once. In such encounters, customers may not have clear expectations regarding the process and/or outcome of the impending service delivery. This may increase the likelihood of the customer to perceive poor service or be dissatisfied. Hypotheses regarding the nature of expectations—levels, uncertainty, consistency—and its affects on customer dissatisfaction are tested using a dynamic process model of customer dissatisfaction.
Integrated Assessment of Water Framework Directive Nitrate Reduction Measures

This article illustrates a statistical approach for deriving farm economic impacts of policy options aiming to reduce nitrate diffuse pollution. Building upon Fezzi et al. (2008), who assess the costs of Water Framework Directive-related measures on farm accounts data, we estimate regression models allowing such costs to be predicted for any region for which land use patterns and livestock numbers are known. We derive economic impacts in terms of changes in farm gross margin for (a) reducing inorganic fertilizer application, (b) reducing livestock stocking rates, and (c) converting arable land to ungrazed grassland. A case study of the agriculturally diverse Yorkshire Derwent catchment, in the North of England, demonstrates the overall approach. In addition, for this illustration, we combine these cost estimates with prediction of the water quality changes arising from each measure, derived via an integrated hydrological model of the Derwent. This allows a comparison of cost-effectiveness. Finally, we implement our spatially explicit approach to target the measures to specific subcatchments identified as being of particular environmental policy interest.
The Top Management Team, Reflexivity, Knowledge Sharing and New Product Performance: A Study of the Irish Software Industry

In the present study, we develop a model to predict new product performance incorporating the literature on top management team (TMT) composition, trustworthiness, knowledge sharing and task reflexivity in organizations. We hypothesize that diversity and trustworthiness in the TMT should influence knowledge sharing and reflexivity and reflexivity and knowledge sharing would be positively associated with new product performance. We test the model using data collected from 39 indigenous software firms in Ireland. Results indicate that age diversity was positively related to knowledge sharing ability while educational level, tenure and functional diversity of the TMT did not have any direct effect on reflexivity or knowledge sharing ability or motivation. However, educational level of TMT, tenure and age diversity had indirect effects on reflexivity and knowledge sharing through the intervening variable of TMT trustworthiness. Further, knowledge sharing and task reflexivity had direct effects on market new product performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Unintended, but still blameworthy: the roles of awareness, desire, and anger in negligence, restitution, and punishment

ABSTRACT Two experiments (Experiment 1 N = 149, Experiment 2 N = 141) investigated how two mental states that underlie how perceivers reason about intentional action (awareness of action and desire for an outcome) influence blame and punishment for unintended (i.e., negligent) harms, and the role of anger in this process. Specifically, this research explores how the presence of awareness (of risk in acting, or simply of acting) and/or desire in an acting agent's mental states influences perceptions of negligence, judgements that the acting agent owes restitution to a victim, and the desire to punish the agent, mediated by anger. In both experiments, awareness and desire led to increased anger at the agent and increased perception of negligence. Anger mediated the effect of awareness and desire on negligence rather than negligence mediating the effect of mental states on anger. Anger also mediated punishment, and negligence mediated the effects of anger on restitution. We discuss how perceivers consider mental states such as awareness, desire, and knowledge when reasoning about blame and punishment for unintended harms, and the role of anger in this process.
Financial Statement Complexity and Meeting Analysts’ Expectations

We examine whether firms with greater financial statement complexity are more likely to meet or beat analysts’ earnings expectations. We proxy for financial statement complexity using the firm's industry and year adjusted accounting policy disclosure length. Firms with more complex financial statements are more likely to just beat expectations than just miss expectations. Firms with complex financial statements appear to use expectations management to beat expectations, but do not use earnings management. Corroborating these findings, we find analysts rely more on management guidance for more complex firms. Firms with complex financial statements are also more likely to have analysts exclude items from actual “street earnings,” but tests suggest this strategy is not specifically used by complex firms to beat expectations. The effect we document is specific to analyst forecasts and not to other alternative benchmarks.
Revisiting 50 years of market-making: The neoliberal transformation of European competition policy

ABSTRACT The article analyses the evolution of European competition policy. It is argued that the content, form, and scope of competition regulation has undergone a major transformation over the past fifty years, which is related to broader socio-economic developments. Until the mid-1980s, competition policy formed part of the institutional nexus of the postwar order of ‘embedded liberalism’, underpinned by a Fordist accumulation regime and Keynesian welfare institutions. It exemplified strong neo-mercantilist and protectionist traits, allowing for significant distortions of competition, whenever justified for general reasons of industrial and social policy. Since the mid-1980s, gradually, a neoliberal ‘competition only’ vision came to dominate, giving rise to a more market-based competition regime, in which private rather than public actors prevail, and which seeks to create an ever-bigger ‘level playing field’ of free markets. This transformation is linked to the broader context of the disruption of the postwar social order and the rise of neoliberalism. A public–private alliance of transnational actors, consisting of the European Commission's DG Competition and transnational business elite networks, were the driving forces behind the ‘neoliberalisation’ of competition policy.
Isolation, structural elucidation and anti-inflammatory activity of astragalin, ( − )hinokinin, aristolactam I and aristolochic acids (I & II) from Aristolochia indica

Astragalin was isolated for the first time along with ( − )hinokinin, aristolactam I and aristolochic acids (I & II) from the extracts of Aristolochia indica L. using a new, efficient preparative HPLC method. A reversed-phase HPLC method of analysis was developed to analyse the isolated compounds. The crude extracts and the isolated compounds were tested for their anti-inflammatory potential. We report here for the first time the anti-inflammatory effects of ( − )hinokinin and aristolactam I against IL-6 (IC50 = 20.5 ± 0.5 and 52 ± 8 μM) and TNFα (IC50 = 77.5 ± 27.5 and 116.8 ± 83.25 μM), respectively. ( − )Hinokinin exerted its anti-inflammatory effects via NFκB-dependent mechanism whereas aristolactam I may be effective via a mechanism independent of NFκB.
Relationship between Hand-Eye Dominance and Lateral Errors in Free-Throw Shooting

116 Ss took a total of 50 free throws, with 10 shots on each of 5 days. Eye dominance was determined by the “hole-in-card test;” handedness by the preferred hand for performing basketball skills. No statistically significant differences were found in comparing the lateral errors made by the unilaterally dominant Ss with those made by contralaterally dominant Ss.
Relationships between serum aminotransferase levels, liver histologies and virological status in patients with chronic hepatitis C in Taiwan

In patients with chronic hepatitis C, the relationships between serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, histological liver injury and serum hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA titres remain controversial. To evaluate these relationships, 93 Chinese patients with histological diagnosis of chronic hepatitis C were enrolled for this study. Serum ALT levels, HCV‐RNA titres and HCV genotypes were examined. The histology was evaluated according to a modified histological activity score based on the degree of periportal necro‐inflammation, intralobular necro‐inflammation, portal inflammation, total necro‐inflammation and fibrosis. The mean serum ALT level was significantly higher in patients with severe intralobular necro‐inflammation activity than in patients with mild or no activity (P= 0.013). However, scores of intralobular activity were only weakly correlated with serum ALT levels (r= 0.27) and could not be used to adequately predict ALT values. Serum ALT levels showed no significant correlation with the scores of portal inflammation, periportal necro‐inflammation, total necro‐inflammation and fibrosis. Also, there was no significant difference in the mean serum ALT level among different serum HCV‐RNA levels and HCV genotypes. Serum HCV‐RNA titres and genotypes showed no significant correlation with liver histology and serum HCV‐RNA titres were only weakly correlated with the total necro‐inflammatory score (r= 0.27). In conclusion, although serum ALT levels were higher in patients with more severe intralobular necro‐inflammatory activity, the correlation was not strong enough to adequately predict ALT values. Serum HCV‐RNA titres and genotypes also showed no significant correlation with serum ALT levels and liver histologies.
Histochemical heterogeneity of mast cells in rat dermis.

The dermal mast cells of Wistar rats were studied following fixation in either 10% phosphate buffered formalin or Carnoy's solution and staining with either toluidine blue or alcian blue:safranin O. Granules of mast cells appeared heterogeneous following fixation with formalin and staining with alcian blue:safranin O, but not when stained with toluidine blue. The number of mast cells observed in skin fixed in Carnoy's solution was greater than the number observed in equivalent samples of skin fixed in formalin (p < 0.01) when both samples were stained with toluidine blue. In formalin fixed skin stained with alcian blue:safranin O, there were three populations of mast cells designated as "blue," "red" or "mixed. " "Blue" mast cells, containing only alcian blue stained granules, "red" mast cells, containing only safranin O stained granules, and "mixed" mast cells, containing both alcian blue and safranin O stained granules accounted for 77.6 +/- 3.0, 6.6 +/- 2.5 and 15.8 +/- 2.5% of the total mast cell population, respectively. In skin specimens fixed in Carnoy's solution and stained with alcian blue:safranin O the mast cells contained only blue granules (alcian blue positive). The number of mast cells observed in Carnoy's fixed skin sections was less than the number seen in formalin fixed skin sections when both were stained with alcian blue/safranin O. This indicates that there is a group of mast cells which do not stain with safranin O after fixation with Carnoy's solution.
Interferon-induced RIP1/RIP3-mediated necrosis requires PKR and is licensed by FADD and caspases

Significance The interferons are small secreted proteins with powerful antiviral and cytotoxic properties. Here, we outline a signaling pathway activated by interferons that results in the precipitous necrotic death of susceptible cells. Interferon-induced necrosis proceeds via a novel, progressive mechanism that requires RNA transcription, as well as the sequential activity of three serine-threonine kinases: PKR, RIP1, and RIP3. This pronecrotic kinase cascade is normally held in check by FADD and caspases. As FADD can be disabled by phosphorylation during mitosis, our findings suggest the existence of a putative cell cycle-dependent checkpoint that licenses interferon-induced necrosis. Interferons (IFNs) are cytokines with powerful immunomodulatory and antiviral properties, but less is known about how they induce cell death. Here, we show that both type I (α/β) and type II (γ) IFNs induce precipitous receptor-interacting protein (RIP)1/RIP3 kinase-mediated necrosis when the adaptor protein Fas-associated death domain (FADD) is lost or disabled by phosphorylation, or when caspases (e.g., caspase 8) are inactivated. IFN-induced necrosis proceeds via progressive assembly of a RIP1–RIP3 “necrosome” complex that requires Jak1/STAT1-dependent transcription, but does not need the kinase activity of RIP1. Instead, IFNs transcriptionally activate the RNA-responsive protein kinase PKR, which then interacts with RIP1 to initiate necrosome formation and trigger necrosis. Although IFNs are powerful activators of necrosis when FADD is absent, these cytokines are likely not the dominant inducers of RIP kinase-driven embryonic lethality in FADD-deficient mice. We also identify phosphorylation on serine 191 as a mechanism that disables FADD and collaborates with caspase inactivation to allow IFN-activated necrosis. Collectively, these findings outline a mechanism of IFN-induced RIP kinase-dependent necrotic cell death and identify FADD and caspases as negative regulators of this process.
Enduring Consequences of Right-Wing Extremism: Klan Mobilization and Homicides in Southern Counties

Research on the consequences of social movements typically aims to identify determinants of success or to draw attention to ways that social movements are able to secure new benefits for constituents by gaining concessions from political authorities. Yet social movements, even those that are ultimately defeated, may have an enduring impact on the communities in which they were once active. This impact may be far removed from the movement's stated goals and may be detrimental to constituents and to society at large. We identify an empirical relationship between Ku Klux Klan activism in the 1960s and increased numbers of homicides in southern U.S. counties in subsequent decades. We explain this finding by drawing attention to ways in which right-wing extremism can disrupt community cohesion, generate mistrust in legal authorities, and promote interpretations of conflict and conflict resolution that weaken constraints on violent behavior.