Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Residents' Perceptions towards the Impacts of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

The aim of this article is to identify and examine the host residents' perceptions towards a mega event, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and its impacts. An impact scale comprising 20 impact items with four factors—social-psychological impacts, urban development impacts, economic development impacts, and social life impacts—was developed. It was found that the majority of respondents perceived the impacts of the 2008 Games very positively, particularly for those related to the social-psychological, urban development, and economic development factors. Residents' perceptions towards some social life impacts (e.g., overcrowding, higher prices) were mixed. Based on their different social representations (i.e., perceptions towards the impacts of the Games), residents were classified into two groups: “embracers” and “tolerators. ” The three most significant factors that influenced residents' perceptions towards the Beijing 2008 Olympics were residents' perceptions/attitudes about government performance, their preference of more tourism development, and tourism-industry work experience.
The Clash of Missions: Juxtaposing Competing Pressures in South Africa's Social Enterprises

Abstract Social enterprises seek resource combinations to provide some assurance of sustainability as they create social value in a defined domain of action. However, this resource-seeking mandate also constitutes a distraction that complicates the operations of any social enterprise. How do social enterprises manage the implicit duality of maintaining a commercial mission in order to achieve their social mission? Using the context of South Africa, this study examines the process trade-offs that enhance or limit social impact under the referenced duality. The study clarifies the nature of these trade-offs, as a basis for appropriating efficiency-enhancing process design in enterprises that create, but do not capture value. The author proposes a unique intersection between the logic of control and the logic of empowerment in the field of social entrepreneurship, and suggests that value chain processes be controlled to the extent that the enterprise acts as a custodian of community empowerment for its target beneficiaries.
Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: The Moderating Role of Gender

The purpose of this study is to investigate customer satisfaction as a mediator of the effects of service environment, interaction quality, empathy, and reliability on loyalty. The present study also aims to examine gender as a moderator in the relationship between the aforementioned service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. Data were gathered from the customers of retail banks in Northern Cyprus. The results based on hierarchical multiple regression analysis reveal that customer satisfaction mediates the impacts of service environment, interaction quality, empathy, and reliability on loyalty. The results also indicate that gender moderates the effects of empathy and reliability on customer satisfaction. Implications of the results are discussed, and avenues for future research are offered.
Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: English banking concentration and efficiency, 1870-1914

This article examines the bank amalgamation movement in England between 1870 and 1914. I assemble data on all publicly traded English bank equities and use a simple finance model to estimate the effects of concentration. Holding returns on English bank stocks declined steadily over the period, which I attribute to a negative demand shock resulting from banks' declining importance relative to other financial intermediaries. Once this decline is accounted for, increased concentration appears to have bolstered bank returns. This suggests that increased concentration may have rendered English banks less efficient as allocators of capital and may have contributed to Britain's industrial decline. [The amalgamation] movement appears to have by no means reached its limits, and it is neither safe nor easy to predict with any confidence the eventual outcome of a movement of which the development is incomplete. Whether or not â€¦ in the course of a few more years all banking business in this country will be monopolised by some half dozen powerful institutions, there seems little reason to doubt that many of the old inducements to amalgamation still operate, and that the closing years of the century will witness a further reduction in the number of existing banks. In any event, conjecture as to the ultimate outcome of the tendency must be mainly based on past experience, and in light of that experience the question of whether the movement is likely on the whole to be a beneficial one must be discussed.1
In a Spirit of Solidarity? Justifying the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in National Parliamentary Debates

This article examines national parliamentarians’ approval of the increased budgetary capacity of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in autumn 2011. Following the analysis of vote outcome and plenary debates in 11 euro states, it is found that the financial position of a state (creditors versus debtors) does not explain the patterns of support and opposition. Rather, two other factors account for these differences: Euroscepticism, and the government and opposition cleavage. In particular, whereas Eurosceptic MPs voted and argued against the EFSF, the parliamentary majorities supported it. Surprisingly, although the legal basis of the EFSF draws on solidarity among the European Union Member States, the supporters of the EFSF did not refer to this principle in their speeches but rather to pragmatic considerations such as national economic interests.
Towards Glocal Leadership: Taking up the Challenge of New Local Governance in Europe?

In recent years local leaders have become simultaneously intensely local, in fostering partnerships with local players, and intensely global, in going abroad to get resources, be they political, cognitive, or financial, to implement large urban projects; they have become ‘glocal’ leaders. At the same time, local stakeholders such as metropolitan or regional authorities, chambers of commerce, firms, or civil society organizations have pursued their own international objectives independently. Not all cities have therefore developed such a thing as a strategy. Nor have they all played the same hand in the international game. From this, two questions immediately arise: (i) why have some cities succeeded in carrying out an international strategy and others not? (ii) why have the successful ones chosen different paths? By focusing on local political leadership patterns in three European case studies, we argue that along with their institutional strengths the personal traits of the mayors are more than crucial to understanding why some cities have strategically played the international game and how they have played it. But this does not tell the whole story. One needs to make a detour via place-specific governance patterns, and more precisely the key local stakeholders to be convinced, persuaded, or cajoled, to properly assess the urban international strategies. With these major findings, we conclude that the ‘new international city era’ phenomenon tends to personalize local power.
Europeanization and Italian policy for the Mezzogiorno

The change in Italy's main regional policy (for the south) in the course of the 1990s provides a prima facie case of Europeanization tout court for scholars of Europeanization. A new policy was adopted that was evidently inspired by the European regional policy launched in 1988. However, examining Europeanization only from a top-down perspective (in terms of policy outcome) provides a limited insight into the process. A bottom-up approach that evaluates the impact of Europeanization through a temporal dimension of change, integrating the Europeanized and domestic effects, allows a more precise assessment of the degree to which Europeanization may have caused or reinforced a process of change in Italian southern policy.
Addressing the divergence between environmental strategy formulation and implementation

Despite growing evidence that large UK organisations are increasingly incorporating the environment into corporate strategy, there continues to be considerable scepticism as to whether this is leading to any meaningful action to reduce industry’s environmental impact. One possible explanation is the existence of a “gap” between policy formulation and implementation, and the authors suggest that this may be due to a failure on the part of business to ensure congruence between organisational context, values and capability. Utilising data drawn from a recent survey of corporate environmental policies and practices, the authors explore the interaction of external and internal factors with regard to policy development, and search for evidence of congruence. They conclude that very often policy formulation takes little consideration of the organisation’s capability to implement environmental strategies, and suggest that until this question is taken seriously, a gulf will always exist between what companies aim to do, and what they actually achieve.
Performance Management in Local Government: Is Practice Influenced by Doctrine?

ABSTRACT Successful performance management is presumed to be dependent on several practices and organizational conditions prescribed in performance management doctrine, including the presence of sound performance measures, a clear sense of goals and objectives, devolved decision authority, engaged executives, and incentives and sanctions tied to performance. Their presence, according to doctrine, is necessary for performance management to function properly. The authors of this study examine the presence of these prescribed practices and conditions in 66 U.S. cities and counties that have been recognized for their performance management efforts, and in a subset of these governments perceived by the authors as more fully engaged in performance management than others in the set. They find considerable evidence of doctrine’s influence on the adoption of some practices, but much less on others. Variation in reported benefits among the performance management reputational leaders provides evidence in support of the efficacy of some of these prescribed practices individually and hints at the efficacy of the set of practices in combination.
Publishing In The Accounting Journals: Is There A Gender Bias?

To publish or not to publish? … that is the question (adapted from William Shakespeare). In the world of academe, the answer is short and sweet… publish or get out. This rule holds true for both male and female faculty members, yet it is sometimes postulated that there may be some inconsistencies on how this rule applies across the genders. This study focuses on whether male and female accounting academics have distinctive patterns of representation as authors in top ranked accounting journals. Archival data, consisting of author information and article information was collected for two journals, The Accounting Review and Journal Accounting Research . Consistent with previous research findings, preliminary results suggest that females represent a disproportionately small minority of authors in both of these two top accounting journals.
Intellectual Obsolescence and Intellectual Makeovers: Reflections on the Tools of Government after Two Decades

This article reflects on the mixture of ideology, technological change, and interests that have made government instrumentalities central to the analysis of public policy over the two decades since the publication of the author’s Tools of Government in 1983, and distinguishes three main strains of analysis of policy instruments: analytic approaches that count forms of institutions as tools, analytic approaches that focus on the politics of tool selection, and generic approaches that aim to be institution- and technology-free. The article argues first that the three main strains differ over the questions they ask rather than comprising different ways of answering the same question (though it distinguishes competing forms of generic approach); second, that beneath surface obsolescence, the generic policy tools analysis has not become fundamentally outdated over two decades; and third, that changes in technology makes technology-free analysis all the more necessary as a tool of comparison.
Early-onset chronic axonal neuropathy, strokes, and hemolysis

Objective: To identify the underlying etiology of 3 patients in a multiplex family with strokes, chronic immune-mediated peripheral neuropathy, and hemolysis. All had onset in infancy. Methods: We performed genome-wide linkage analysis followed by whole exome sequencing (WES) in the proband, Sanger sequencing, and segregation analysis of putative mutations. In addition, we conducted flow cytometry studies to assess CD59 expression. Results: In a 2-generation–3-affected family with early-onset immune-mediated axonal neuropathy, cerebrovascular event both in the anterior and posterior circulation, and chronic Coombs-negative hemolysis, we detected CD59 deleterious mutation as the underlying cause. Linkage analysis and homozygosity mapping using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarrays in the family followed by WES in one index case allowed identification of a homozygous missense mutation in the CD59 gene (c.A146T:p.Asp49Val). Sanger sequencing validated the mutation, showing cosegregation with the disease phenotype. Flow cytometry using blood cells in the 3 patients showed a lack of CD59 expression at the cell membrane compared to control and CD55 labeling. Conclusion: We added to the knowledge base about inherited CD59 deficiency.
Innovation in Homebuilding and the Future of Housing

Problem: The future of housing depends in part on innovation by homebuilders. Planners should know how to influence innovation in homebuilding in order to promote innovative practices that conserve the environment, improve quality, and reduce costs. Purpose: This article explains challenges involved in innovation in home building, as well as providing planners with strategies to influence innovation in the industry. Methods: I review the literature and identify sources of resistance to or acceptance of innovation in home building. I also report the results of two national surveys of innovation adoption and use regression analysis to test variables likely to inhibit or promote innovation. Results and conclusions: Small builders receptive to innovation are likely to be led by a technology champion and to build custom homes for a relatively affluent and informed clientele. These firms provide a likely audience for technology innovations that require more upfront investment, as with some green building products, but can be marketed as highly innovative to homebuyers interested in higher performance in energy efficiency, sustainability or durability. In order to impact a larger portion of the housing market, large production builders should be the target for innovations that contribute to affordability in entry-level homes or to energy efficiency, sustainability and durability in higher priced houses. Takeaway for practice: Planners aiming to encourage innovation in homebuilding should craft strategies that recognize the opportunities, the structure of the industry, and the factors influencing innovation adoption. Local builders with owners who champion innovation are good targets for demonstration programs that involve custom homes. Larger production builders will want strategies that can be replicated in multiple market areas, and are likely to avoid localities whose codes and regulations would require them to change their production models. Research support: This research was partially funded by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Partnership to Advance Technology in Housing (PATH) program.
Normal Telomere Length Maintenance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Requires Nuclear Import of the Ever Shorter Telomeres 1 (Est1) Protein via the Importin Alpha Pathway

ABSTRACT The Est1 (ever shorter telomeres 1) protein is an essential component of yeast telomerase, a ribonucleoprotein complex that restores the repetitive sequences at chromosome ends (telomeres) that would otherwise be lost during DNA replication. Previous work has shown that the telomerase RNA component (TLC1) transits through the cytoplasm during telomerase biogenesis, but mechanisms of protein import have not been addressed. Here we identify three nuclear localization sequences (NLSs) in Est1p. Mutation of the most N-terminal NLS in the context of full-length Est1p reduces Est1p nuclear localization and causes telomere shortening—phenotypes that are rescued by fusion with the NLS from the simian virus 40 (SV40) large-T antigen. In contrast to that of the TLC1 RNA, Est1p nuclear import is facilitated by Srp1p, the yeast homolog of importin α. The reduction in telomere length observed at the semipermissive temperature in a srp1 mutant strain is rescued by increased Est1p expression, consistent with a defect in Est1p nuclear import. These studies suggest that at least two nuclear import pathways are required to achieve normal telomere length homeostasis in yeast.
Pathogenesis and management of bleeding and thrombosis in plasma cell dyscrasias

Unexpectedly high rates of venous thromboembolic events (VTE) concurrent with the introduction of highly effective immune modulating drugs thalidomide and lenolidomide for treatment of multiple myeloma have focused attention on the incidence and underlying pathophysiology of VTE in patients with plasma cell dyscrasias, and on thromboprophylaxis approaches. While bleeding complications are relatively uncommon in patients with lymphoproliferative disorders, acquired von Willebrand syndrome, typically occurring in patients with monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance, and acquired coagulopathies associated with primary amyloidosis can present with haemorrhagic complications and both are challenging to manage. This review highlights these important haemostasis‐related complications of plasma cell dyscrasias and provides an overview of other uncommon bleeding and thrombotic events that can affect diagnostic and therapeutic management of clonal plasma cell disorders. Due to the infrequency of most of these haemostasis complications, available information is typically based on retrospective cases or series.
A survey on the relationship between trust, customer loyalty, commitment and repurchase intention

Multiple Intelligences is closely related to the organizational affairs. By developing multiple Intelligences and studying its effects on general self-efficacy, we will have employees more compatible in every sophisticated and complicated issue. By investigating these kinds of relationships, managers will consider the importance of multiple intelligences and general self efficacy. This paper will review the literature of both in general because of its importance. Key words: Multiple intelligences, general self-efficacy, public and private organization, Maragheh.
Can Policy Facilitate Partial Retirement? Evidence from Germany

In 1996, Germany introduced the Altersteilzeit (ATZ) law, which encouraged longer working lives through partial retirement incentives. Using matched pension system and establishment survey data, we estimate changes in part-time employment and retirement after ATZ. We find the policy induced growth in part-time work for men and extended men's expected duration of employment by 1.8 years. As the policy evolved to include an abrupt retirement option, the worklife gain for men fell to 1.2 years. Among women, part-time employment grew less and employment duration changed little initially but later declined by 0.2 years when abrupt retirement became available.
Imaging Update: Acute Colonic Diverticulitis

Because the incidence of colonic diverticulosis is high in the general population, incidental asymptomatic diverticulosis is commonly seen on radiology imaging studies. However, diagnostic imaging performed specifically for diverticular disease is essentially limited to imaging of suspected acute colonic diverticulitis (ACD) and its complications. The clinical diagnosis of ACD can be challenging, and imaging has become an essential tool to aid in diagnosis, assess severity of disease, and aid in treatment planning. Computed tomography (CT) has replaced contrast enema as the imaging procedure of choice for diverticulitis. Ultrasound has also been successfully used for diagnosis, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has significant potential as a radiation-free imaging test for acute colonic diverticulitis.
Minimum Wages and Employment

We review the burgeoning literature on the employment effects of minimum wages – in the United States and other countries – that was spurred by the new minimum wage research beginning in the early 1990s. Our review indicates that there is a wide range of existing estimates and, accordingly, a lack of consensus about the overall effects on low-wage employment of an increase in the minimum wage. However, the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect. A sizable majority of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries. Two other important conclusions emerge from our review. First, we see very few – if any – studies that provide convincing evidence of positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on the broader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model predicts disemployment effects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups.
Comparison of endothelial function of coronary artery bypass grafts in diabetic and nondiabetic patients: Which graft offers the best?

Objective: Diabetes associated endothelial dysfunction, which determines both long and short term graft patency, is not uniform in all coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) grafts. Herein this study, we aimed to investigate the degree of endothelial dysfunction in diabetic radial artery (RA), internal mammarian artery (IMA) and saphenous vein (SV) grafts in vitro tissue bath system. Methods: This is a prospective experimental study. Fifteen diabetic and 15 non-diabetic patients were included to the study. A total number of 96 graft samples were collected; 16 graft samples for each graft type from both diabetic and non-diabetic patients. Arterial grafts were harvested with pedicles and SV grafts were harvested by ‘no touch’ technique. Vasodilatation response of vascular rings to carbachol, which induces nitric oxide (NO) mediated vasodilatation, was designated as the measure of endothelial function. Results: The IMA grafts had the most prominent NO mediated vasodilatation in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients, concluding a better preserved endothelial function than SV and RA. The ‘no-touch’ SV and RA grafts had similar vasodilatation responses in non-diabetic patients. In diabetic patients, on the other hand, RA grafts exhibited the least vasodilatation response (ie. worst endothelial function), even less vasodilatation than ‘no touch’ SV grafts (p<0.0001). Conclusion: Deteriorated function of RA grafts in diabetic patients, even worse than SV grafts made evident by this study, encourages the use of ‘no touch’ technique as the method of SV harvesting and more meticulous imaging of RA before its use as a graft in diabetic patients.