Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clear skies, dark waters: The Gulf oil spill and the price of coastal condominiums in Alabama

This study focuses on the effect on real estate prices of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Â Based on previous studies on the effects of water contamination on real estate, it is likely that this oil spill, which was not capped for three months, had a drastic effect on real estate prices. Â Using data on condominium prices in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, Alabama, from January 2009 to September 2011, econometric tests suggest that there was a $25 per square foot decrease in condominium sale prices after the oil spill, representing a decline in value of 12.1 percent.
Effects of Differentiation Strategy on Sales Performance in Supermarkets in Nakuru Town Central Business District

Many business firms in Kenya strive for differentiation as a strategy aimed at maximizing sales performance as a result of increased cut-throat business competition in the market. Supermarkets in Nakuru town, have formulated differentiation strategies in a quest to promote sales performance through maintaining and attracting new customers. The purpose of this study was to establish the effects of differentiation strategy on sales performance of supermarkets within Nakuru CBD. The study was carried out amongst the Branch managers, Technical officers (stock controller), and Product line staff of 11 supermarkets. This study employed non experimental research survey design and used purposive sampling and simple random sample to get the sample size of the respondents. Data was collected using questionnaire and interview schedules. It was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The outcome of the study shows that product differentiation and physical differentiation plays a major role in activating annual sales performance at the supermarkets unlike service differentiation which showed a weak relationship. The study recommends supermarkets should scale up on the attributes of product and physical differentiation strategies if they are to compete in the growing market.
THE ROLE OF THE BANKING SECTOR PERFORMANCE IN THE CRISIS OF 2007

The drying-up of liquidity and freezing of the interbank markets during the crisis of 2007 1ed to the debasement of banks' balance sheets. At the same time, both bank lending and business production suffered from the drop in consumer demand. The near-collapse of Bear Stearns and failure of Lehman Brothers are both characterized as liquidity shocks that had a greater impact on financially fragile non-financial firms. In the second half of 2008, after a series of bankruptcies of large financial institutions, the U.S. Treasury poured capital infusions into domestic financial institutions under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), thus helping to avert a complete collapse of the U.S. banking sector. Government regulators had to distinguish between those banks deserving of being bailed out and those that should be allowed to fail. The results of this study show that the CPP favored larger financial institutions whose potential failure represented higher degrees of systemic risk. This allocation of CPP funds was cost-effective from the point of view of taxpayers, as such banks reimbursed the government for their CPP bailouts sooner than expected. In contrast, smaller banks that were heavily into mortgage-backed securities, mortgages, and non¬performing loans were less likely to be bailed out. Finally, the effectiveness of the CPP is analyzed in chapter 4 in terms of restoring banks' loan provisions. Banks that have a higher level of capitalization tend to lend more both during the crisis and in normal rimes. Moreover, bailed-out banks that repurchased their shares from the V.S. Treasury provided more loans during the crisis than those banks that did not.
MANAGEMENT INFLUENCE AND AUDITOR'S INDEPENDENCE IN NIGERIAN BANKS

The study examines the effects of management influence on auditor’s independence in Nigerian recapitalized banks: issues, challenges and prospects. The study made used of a survey design and data were collected by the use of questionnaires and analyzed using the ordinary least square (OLS) method. The results therefore revealed that there is a significant influence between management influence and auditor’s independence. Conclusively, the role of the auditor has evolved from fraud detection to expressing of opinion on the truth and fairness of financial statements. It has been observed that firms including banks in Nigeria have gone insolvent with clean audit reports; when legislation requires the auditor to qualify his opinion if he is of the view that the enterprises is unlikely to continue as a going concern. It is recommended that external auditing firms should be prohibited from providing certain nonauditing services especially those linking them directly to financial information and design, internal control, tax consultancy etc alongside auditing functions. Finally, the accounting professional bodies should team up and establish a monitoring system or mechanism to lead the crusade on transparency and accountability in reporting.
New determinants to Chinese ADRs' long term performance

This study investigates several new aspects that are associated with Chinese ADRs’ long term performance. We find that Chinese ADRs whose underlying firm is incorporated in an offshore center like the Cayman Islands or Virgin Islands perform poorly and whose firm planned to pay dividend at the time of ADRs’ IPO perform better in a three year window. We also find that the Chinese ADRs created by the Bank of New York Mellon perform fairly, while those created by J. P. Morgan or Citi Bank under-perform relative to certain benchmarks.
The role of respiratory measures to assess mental load in pilot selection

Abstract While cardiovascular measures have a long tradition of being used to determine operator load, responsiveness of the respiratory system to mental load has rarely been investigated. In this study, we assessed basic and variability measures of respiration rate (RR), partial pressure of end-tidal carbon dioxide (petCO2) as well as performance measures in 63 male pilot candidates during completion of a complex cognitive task and subsequent recovery. Mental load was associated with an increase in RR and a decrease in respiratory variability. A significant decrease was also found for petCO2. RR and respiratory variability showed partial and complete effects of recovery, respectively, whereas petCO2 did not return to baseline level. Overall, a good performance was related to a stronger reactivity in RR. Our findings suggest that respiratory parameters would be a useful supplement to common measures for the assessment of mental load in pilot selection. Practitioner Summary: Respiratory measures are a promising yet poorly investigated approach to monitor operator load. For pilot selection, we assessed respiration in response to multitasking in 63 candidates. Task-related changes as well as covariation with performance strongly support the consideration of respiratory parameters when evaluating reactivity to mental load.
Protection for profiting from collaborative service innovation

Purpose – Profiting from service innovations can be challenging. It is not only a question of pricing and marketing the services appropriately, but also of keeping competitors from imitating them. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how service innovation differs from technology/product innovation in terms of protection, and how this shows in collaborative innovation activities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper offers a literature review combining discussion related to service research and strategic management. Empirical evidence is provided in the form of a multifaceted case study illustrating some of the aspects of collaborative service innovation.Findings – The results indicate that characteristics separating service innovations from product or process innovations influence the efficacy of protection. This, in turn, may make or break the subsequent value appropriation. Furthermore, as service innovation typically includes collaborative activities, there is another twist to protection: compani.
Contact-force guided radiofrequency vs. second-generation balloon cryotherapy for pulmonary vein isolation in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation-a prospective evaluation.

AIMS In the setting of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF), there are no available data comparing the mid-term outcome of patients undergoing pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) catheter ablation using contact-force (CF)-guided radiofrequency (RF) vs. second-generation balloon cryotherapy. METHODS AND RESULTS Prospective single-centre evaluation, carried out from March 2011 to February 2013, comparing CF radiofrequency (Thermocool(®) SmartTouch™, Biosense Webster, Inc.) (CF group) with cryoballoon ablation (Arctic Front Advance™ 28 mm cryoballoon, Medtronic, Inc.) (CB group), in regards to procedural safety and efficacy, as well as recurrence at 12 months. Overall, 150 consecutive patients were enrolled (75 in each group). The characteristics of patients of both the groups were similar (61.2 ± 9.9 years, women 25.3%, mean AF duration 4.1 ± 4.0 years, mean CHA2DS2-VASc score 1.4 ± 1.3, mean HAS-BLED 1.4 ± 0.6). Duration of the procedure was significantly lower in the CF group (110.7 ± 32.5 vs. 134.5 ± 48.3 min, P = 0.001), with a lower duration of fluoroscopy (21.5 ± 8.5 vs. 25.3 ± 9.9 min, P = 0.017) and X-ray exposure (4748 ± 2411 cGy cm² vs. 7734 ± 5361 cGy cm², P = 0.001). In contrast, no significant difference was found regarding significant procedural complication (2.7 vs. 1.3% in CF and CB groups, respectively; P = 0.56), and PVI was eventually achieved in all cases. At 12 months, AF recurrence occurred in 11 patients (14.7%) in the CB group and in 9 patients (12.0%) in the CF group (HR = 1.20 95% CI 0.50-2.90; log rank P = 0.682). CONCLUSIONS Our preliminary findings suggest that CF-guided radiofrequency and cryotherapy present very similar performances in the setting of paroxysmal AF catheter ablation.
Profit margins in citrus fruit business in Haripur district of NWFP, Pakistan.

The present study was conducted during the citrus production season of year 2008. The study was designed with the core objective to examine the marketing margins in citrus fruit business in Haripur district of NWFP, Pakistan. The area of Haripur is one of the leading citrus fruit producing districts of the province. The results show that growers are receiving only 35.7% of the final price, while rest of the 64.0% price is accumulated into the profit basket of market functionaries. The various intermediaries share this profit bulk as; contractors get 21.3%, 9.8% of the profit margin is taken away by the commission agents and 14.9% by the wholesalers, while remaining 18.4 % profit margin goes to the retailers and other functionaries. This indicates that the marketing system in the project area is not properly regularized and because of which the growers do not receive logical return for their crops. Thus, bulk of the profit (almost 2/3) is taken away by the market functionaries. The involvement of multiple distribution channels in citrus marketing result in malpractices of multifarious natures. Because of these negative tactics the rate of return to the citrus growers is squeezed to the lowest. Study further suggests that to ensure a judicious return to growers the existing marketing system in the district needs to be regularized. The citrus growers in the study district have to be empowered and facilitated through soft loans /credit and skills and techniques of scientific citrus production. Thus they will be able to take rational crop management decisions and ultimately the crop production will increase and produce surplus will generate an export that will earn foreign exchange for the province and the country.
Unfavourable plasma and erythrocyte phospholipid fatty acid profile in elite amateur boxers

Abstract Research on possible physiological changes as a consequence of a specific lifestyle and long-term strenuous exercise in boxing has been sparse. We determined plasma and erythrocyte phospholipid (PL) fatty acids (FA) profile of 16 elite amateur male boxers (22.4±3.3 years of age), and compared them with a control group composed of 19 sedentary (24.4±3.4) year-old men. The percentages of total saturated fatty acids (SFA) and monosaturated FA in plasma phospholipids were significantly higher (P <0.001) in boxers compared to the control group. On the other hand, all studied polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in plasma PL with the exception of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5, n–3) and docosatetraenoic acid (DTA, 22:4, n–6) were significantly lower in boxers than in sedentary men. Total PUFA, n–6 PUFA and n–3 PUFA were also significantly lower in boxers (P <0.001), whereas the n–6/n–3 ratio was higher in boxers than in control group (P <0.01). Boxers had significantly higher proportion of all SFA in erythrocyte PL compared to the control group (P <0.05). In addition, the percentage of linoleic acid was lower in boxers' erythrocyte PL than in the control group (P <0.05). The results show two potentially unfavourable main features of the FA profile of boxers, that is, a higher n–6/n–3 ratio in plasma PL and a higher percentage of SFA in both plasma and erythrocyte phospholipids compared to controls. As SFA correlates directly with the incidence of cardiovascular disease and high n–6/n–3 ratio has been shown to stimulate carcinogenesis and modulate inflammation and autoimmunity, this profile could be detrimental to the health of boxers. The mechanism underlying these differences requires further investigation; however the results suggest benefits of nutritional intervention.
How consumers with disabilities perceive “welcome” in retail servicescapes: a critical incident study

Purpose – This paper aims to extend understanding of the cues that customers with disabilities use to judge inclusion/welcome (or not) in interactions in retail stores.Design/methodology/approach – Critical incident interviews were conducted with 115 informants who provided rich descriptions of 113 welcoming incidents and 105 unwelcoming incidents. Interview transcripts were content analyzed to determine inductively the cues customers with disabilities use to perceive welcoming.Findings – Four primary situational factors explain to what perceptions of welcome/inclusion are attributed: service personnel; store environmental factors; other customers; and product/service assortments. Further, a disability becomes salient only when there is an interaction between these situational factors and consumers' disabilities.Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest an extension to Bitner's servicescape conceptualization in that it specifies that the assessment of an environment as enabling or disabling.
A Comparison of Listed Vs. Non-Listed Firm Capital Structure: Evidence from Sweden

The importance of a number of agency costs of debt and equity which affect capital structure choice differs between listed and non-listed firms. It follows that there should be differences in the capital structure choices and the relationships between debt levels and the explanatory variables commonly employed in empirical capital structure studies between listed and non-listed firms. This paper investigates the capital structure choices of non-listed firms in Sweden over the period 1997-1999 and later compares it to that of listed firms. I find a number of differences in the capital structure of listed and non-listed firms, as well as differences both in the relationship of debt levels to the explanatory variables employed in most capital structure studies between listed and non-listed firms and in the magnitude of the effect of the variables. This supports the expectation of differences based on listed and non-listed firm differences in the agency costs of debt and equity. Of the most important influences on capital structure, tangibility is common to both listed and non-listed firms. If one makes the assumption that firms with a large proportion of tangible assets in their asset structure are the more mature firms, this would point to the fact that for both listed and non-listed firms, growth options are a major determinant of capital structure choice. This would validate the claim by Barclay and Smith (1996) that a firm's investment opportunity set is the primary determinant of its capital structure. It would also explain the differences in the capital structure of listed vs. non-listed firms.
Industry/University S&T Transfers: What Can We Learn from Belgian Cis-2 Data?

The second European Innovation Survey (CIS-2) provides information about different modes of interactions between innovative firms and other research institutions, in particular universities. These data are exploited to estimate an ordered probit model with sample selection of the role played by universities and other partners as a main source of new ideas for firms innovation activities as well as a GHK triprobit model to explore the role of firm and industry characteristics on formal and informal collaborative agreements between firms, universities and other research partners. The results suggest that the factors explaining the use of a particular source of information are not the same according to the type of sources. In a same vein, the determinants of industry collaborations with universities have a different impact when other partners are considered.
STRATEGIES AND CHALLENGES IN THE PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES IN CONTEXT OF HEALTH SERVICE PROVIDERS' SHORTAGE IN TANZANIA: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

This study aimed to assess perceptions on the shortage of health service providers, strategies of coping with shortage of health service providers and implications of the strategies of used in coping with shortage of health service providers. Semi-structured interviews were held with the regional and district AIDS Coordinators, Medical Officers, Health Secretaries, as well as in-charges of health facilities in five regions of Tanzania. Data analysis followed principles of open coding. The shortage of health service providers was described to be a huge problem. Service providers are compelled to ask the patients to wait for some hours, make priorities of the day and thus allocating health workers to the neediest areas and to the critical health conditions, providing services as quick as possible. However, it was reported that specializing in some units is likely to magnify the problem of health service providers’ shortage. Recommendations to improve the situation of health service providers included continuing employing health workers and making sure that employment is based on kinds of available in the job market. Shortage of health service providers results into a heavy burden among service providers and affect the quality of health services.
The Effects of Earplug on Perception of Sleep in Patients of Coronary Care Unit ( Ccu ) Educations

(1) Department of MedicalSurgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences, Jiroft, Iran (2) Department of MedicalSurgical Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran (3) Social Health Determinants Research Center, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran (4) Department of Intensive and Critical Care, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran
Dissecting Volatility Risks in Currency Markets

We investigate the pricing of volatility risks in currency markets. First, we show that pricing ability of volatility risk is concentrated in some of its components. Diffusive volatility dominates jump volatility in pricing carry trade returns, while jump volatility is important in jointly explaining carry trade and momentum returns. Both short-run and long-run volatility components are priced, and the short-run component is more important in general. Second, we suggest that factors similar to volatility in identifying bad states, i.e. volatility of volatility and cross sectional volatility are also priced and are not fully subsumed by conventional volatility measures.
PENGARUH STRUKTUR KEPEMILIKAN DAN KARAKTERISTIK DEWAN TERHADAP AGRESIVITAS PAJAK

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji pengaruh struktur kepemilikan terkonsentrasi dan karakteristik dewan terhadap agresivitas pajak menggunakan SIZE, LEV, dan ROA sebagai variabel kontrol. Penelitian ini menggunakan data sekunder berupa laporan keuangan perusahaan periode 2010 – 2013 yang listing di Bursa Efek Indonesia (BEI). Sampel yang digunakan sebanyak 62 perusahaan manufaktur yang memenuhi kriteria. Teknik sampling yang digunakan adalah purposive sampling method. Teknik analisa data menggunakan regresi linier berganda dengan program SPSS. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa struktur kepemilikan berpengaruh signifikan terhadap agresivitas pajak, sedangkan karakteristik dewan tidak berpengaruh terhadap agresivitas pajak. Variabel kontrol SIZE berpengaruh, sedangkan LEV dan ROA tidak berpengaruh terhadap agresivitas pajak.
Single‐Dose Oral Pharmacokinetics of Three Formulations of Thalidomide in Healthy Male Volunteers

Thalidomide was recently approved in the United States for the treatment of erythema nodosum leprosum, a complication of leprosy. The present study determined the bioequivalence and pharmacokinetics of Celgene's commercial and clinical trial thalidomide formulations and the Brazilian Tortuga formulation in an open‐label, single‐dose, three‐way crossover design. Seventeen healthy subjects were given 200 mg of thalidomide on three occasions, and blood samples were collected over 48 hours. Pharmacokinetic parameters were determined using compartmental methods for the two Celgene formulations and using noncompartmental methods for all three formulations. All subjects reported adverse events, none of which was serious or unexpected. Celgene formulations were bioequivalent when comparing Cmax, tmax, and AUC. There was significant variability in plasma levels from the Tortuga formulation, giving a mean profile that was distinctly different from the two Celgene formulations with a lower Cmax value and a longer terminal phase. The lower Cmax was probably due to slower absorption. The terminal rate constant for the Tortuga formulation was significantly less, giving rise to a terminal half‐life of 15 hours compared to about 5 to 6 hours for the Celgene formulations. Confidence intervals for Cmax between the Tortuga and the Celgene formulations were outside the 80% to 125% range, indicating a lack of bioequivalence. Extent of absorption, as measured by AUC0‐∞;, was approximately equal for all three formulations. Terminal half‐life for Tortuga was two to three times longer compared to the Celgene formulations and is clear evidence for absorption rate limitations. The two Celgene formulations showed similar pharmacokinetic parameters with profiles that were best described by a one‐compartment model with first‐order absorption and elimination. The authors conclude that Celgene's clinical trial and commercial thalidomide formulations are similar to each other and distinctly different from the Tortuga formulation and that all three formulations exhibited absorption rate—limited elimination.