Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hepatitis B viraemia: its heritability and association with common genetic variation in the interferon γ signalling pathway

Objective High viraemia of hepatitis B virus (HBV) influences all phases in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study was designed to estimate the overall contribution of host genetics to HBV viraemia, and investigate the influence of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the interferon γ (IFNγ) signalling pathway, which is pivotal in the non-cytolytic clearance of HBV. Methods We first determined familial correlations and heritability (ie, proportion of phenotypic variation that is attributable to additive genetic factors) for HBV viraemia using 280 HCC families, including 766 adult HBV carriers. Then family-based association analysis was conducted for viraemia with a panel of 40 SNPs across ten IFNγ-related genes. For replication, seven tagging SNPs in identified candidate regions were also tested in a further 1011 unrelated individuals with longitudinal data on HBV viraemia over 16 years. Results After adjustment for HBV genotype and sex, significant correlations for viraemia were detected among both siblings and mother–child pairs. Heritability accounted for approximately 30% (p<0.0002) of the variance of viral load, whereas HBV genotype and sex together explained less than 3%. Heritability estimates increased up to 74.0% after further exclusion of subjects with episodes of liver biochemical abnormalities. Our initial family-based association analysis identified two SNPs (rs2284553 (intronic SNP) and rs9808753 (Q64R)) on the IFNγ receptor 2 (IFNGR2) gene that were robustly associated with viraemia after multitest correction (all p<0.02). The SNPs were also associated with the longitudinal levels of viraemia and the persistence of a high viraemia of ≥4.39 log copies/ml (all p<0.0001) in unrelated individuals. Conclusions HBV viraemia appears to have substantial heritability. Polymorphisms in the IFNGR2 gene appear to be associated with the variability of viraemia.
The Tax Sensitivity of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from Firm-Level Panel Data

Understanding the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) is important for analyzing capital flows and the industrial organization of multinational firms. Most empirical studies of FDI, however, have focused on case studies of nontax factors in overseas investment decisions or on discerning reduced-form relationships between some measure of FDI and variables relating to nontax and tax aspects of the investment decision. In this paper, we examine the effects of taxation on FDI using previously unexplored (for this purpose) panel data on FDI by subsidiaries of U.S. multinational firms collected by Compustat's geographic segment file project. These firm- level data contain information on new capital investment overseas which enable us to measure tax influences on FDI more precisely and allow us to focus on structural models of subsidiaries' investment decision. Our empirical results cast significant doubt on the simplest notion that 'taxes don't matter' for U.S. firms' FDI decisions. Tax parameters influence FDI in precisely the way indicated by neoclassical models. Our results also lend support to the application of the 'tax capitalization' model to the study of dividend repatriation and foreign direct investment decisions.
BI impact: The assimilation of business intelligence into core business process

Leading proponents of business-driven business intelligence (BI) design and development methods have recognized that the BI payoff is created through improved or reengineered core business processes from BI investments (Williams and Williams 2006) , but until now there has been no rigorous empirical data to validate that perspective. As a result of this void, companies in a wide range of industries have struggled to make the business case for BI and have failed to drive BI use into the core business processes that help create business value. To broaden our understanding of how BI creates business value, two empirical studies were conducted at the University of Melbourne (Elbashir, 2007, Elbashir, Collier and Davern 2007). Among their findings: • The assimilation of business intelligence systems (BIS) into business strategies and activities of organizations delivers business benefits, or BI impact • Improved business process performance, enabled by BIS, can improve organizational performance We call these improvements in business process performance and organizational performance BI impact. In this article we examine the management implications of BI impact on how BI is designed, justified, and managed.
The mediating effect of logistics integration on supply chain performance : a multi-country study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of individual logistics-related factors, namely, supplier involvement (SI), length of supplier relationship (LSR), use of information technology (IT), and logistics integration (LI) on a firm's supply chain performance (SCP) and test for the mediating effect of LI in a multi-country survey conducted in Brazil, Korea and India. The paper also develops a composite variable, supply chain competency (SCC), as an overall measure of the quality of a firm's supply chain and demonstrate its effect on a firm's SCP. Design/methodology/approach – The research methodology was based on designing and administering a survey instrument. Data collected from 187 organizations in Brazil, Korea and India were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling methodology. Findings – Results show that for the combined data, the direct effects of SI, LSR and IT on SCP are insignificant while LI has a very significant direct effect on SCP. On the ot.
Emitter Formation and Contact Realization by Diffusion for Germanium Photovoltaic Devices

Standalone germanium solar cells are under development for application in high-efficiency mechanically stacked multijunction solar cells and thermophotovoltaic systems. To realize a suitable device, a more fundamental research has been done on germanium doping, surface passivation, and contact formation. In this paper, emitter formation and contact realization are discussed in detail. Emitter formation is done by phosphorous diffusion from a spin-on dopant (SOD) source. Critical parameters are the diffusion time, diffusion temperature, and phosphorous content in the SOD. Front contact formation is done by an innovative method, where the contacting metal is diffused through the amorphous silicon passivation layer. The specific properties of the diffusing metal, diffusion temperature, and diffusion time are important. Using the developed process, a stand-alone germanium solar cell has been realized with a world-class AM1.5G energy conversion efficiency of 7.8%
Preventive Therapy for Tuberculosis in HIV-Infected Persons: Analysis of Policy Options Based on Tuberculin Status and CD4+ Cell Count

Background To facilitate decisions about the possible implementation of isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–infected persons on a large scale, the benefits and associated costs of various policy options of IPT should be evaluated. Methods Variable values based mainly on a prospective cohort study performed in Italy were used in an epidemiological model to assess the effects of the administration of IPT to the following groups of HIV-infected individuals: (1) tuberculin positive; (2) anergic, with various levels of immunosuppression; and (3) all HIV-infected individuals. The calculations of the costs associated with each policy option were based on the situation within the Italian national health care system. Outcome measures were average cohort survival times, total quality-adjusted life years lived in the cohort, total economic costs, and marginal costs per marginal quality-adjusted life year saved for each policy option. Results Median life expectancy gains from IPT were 104 to 149 days for tuberculin-positive individuals and 19 to 27 days for anergic patients. The largest gains were achieved for individuals with the lowest levels of immunosuppression. For tuberculin-positive individuals, savings from a reduced number of active tuberculosis cases were greater than the costs of the intervention, even for low patient compliance levels. Preventive therapy for anergic persons can result in cost reductions at levels of tuberculosis infection of 15% or higher for a compliance level of at least 95%. For infection levels of less than 10%, cost-effectiveness ratios are unfavorable. Conclusions Isoniazid preventive therapy administered to tuberculin-positive, HIV-infected patients increases life expectancies and reduces medical costs. Its extension to anergic patients may be justifiable on economic grounds in populations with a high prevalence of tuberculosis infection.
Classification of Left and Right Hand Motor Imagery Tasks Based on EEG Frequency Component Selection

In this paper, a method based on the time-frequency analysis of EEG frequency spectral Fisher-ratio is proposed to pre-select the most relevant movement-related EEG features. Within this method, combining EEG spectral time-frequency distribution with Fisher criterion, the detailed separability information of the frequency components between two classes of EEG patterns in time-frequency plane over C3, C4, Cz are well characterized, which provides a good guide for selecting the most relevant EEG frequency components. According to Fisher-ratio distribution of EEG spectrum by Matching Pursuit (MP) with high frequency resolution, the matched method Morlet wavelet filter is applied to extract the most relevant EEG frequency components. With the optimized EEG features, two classes of EEG patterns during left and right hand motor imagery are discriminated. Here, BCI competition data are analyzed offline and the satisfactory classification results are obtained, which verify the effectiveness of the proposed method in selecting the most relevant EEG spectral components.
An Examination of Earnings Surprises for Urban and Rural Firms

: In this paper, we examine the association between firm location and earnings surprises at earnings announcements. Prior studies show that firms located in urban areas draw more attention from the investment community, which may lead to more capital market pressures. In turn, urban firms could have stronger incentives to present “better” performance measures at earnings announcements. Consistent with this view, we find that (1) urban firms are more likely to report non-negative earnings surprises than rural firms; (2) urban firms are more likely to report non-GAAP earnings numbers; and (3) urban firms are more likely to make income-increasing adjustments to GAAP earnings to arrive at non-GAAP earnings than rural firms. We also find that the earnings response coefficient (ERC) of urban firms is smaller than that of rural firms, which suggests that more opportunistic earnings metrics of urban firms are factored into stock prices. consistent with the argument that greater capital market pressures faced by urban firms lead them to use more opportunistic street earnings at earnings announcements. Second, when we examine Urcan’s (2009) explanation using the accuracy of management forecasts of earnings as a proxy of transparency in voluntary disclosure, we do not find evidence that rural firms are more transparent in voluntary disclosure. This is inconsistent with his argument that rural firms are likely to provide higher quality disclosure. Third, we perform various sensitivity analyses to strengthen our conclusion, including the market response test, and document consistent results. These results suggest the robustness of our findings.
The effects of the vascular disrupting agents combretastatin A-4 disodium phosphate, 5,6-dimethylxanthenone-4-acetic acid and ZD6126 in a murine tumour: A comparative assessment using MRI and MRS

The aim of this study was to use magnetic resonance (MR) techniques to non-invasively compare the effects of the three leading vascular disrupting agents, namely combretastatin A-4 disodium phosphate (CA4DP), 5,6-dimethylxanthenone-4-acetic acid (DMXAA) and ZD6126. A C3H mouse mammary carcinoma grown in the right rear foot of female CDF1 mice was used and treatments performed when tumours had reached 200 mm3 in volume. Drugs were prepared fresh before each experiment and intraperitoneally injected into restrained non-anaesthetised mice. Tumour response was evaluated using 31P-MR spectroscopy and T1- and T2- weighted imaging with a 7-Tesla, horizontal bore magnet, before and up to 24 hours after treatment. All three drugs significantly decreased bioenergetic status and pH, and did so in a time and dose dependent fashion, but there were differences; the decrease by CA4DP occurred more rapidly than for DMXAA or ZD6126, while DMXAA had a narrow window of activity compared to CA4DP and ZD6126. Changes in T1 weighted images for all three agents suggested a dose dependent increase in tumour oedema within three hours after treatment, consistent with an increase in vessel permeability. Using T2 weighted images there was some evidence of haemaorrhagic necrosis by DMXAA, but such necrosis was limited following treatment with CA4DP or ZD6126.
Usage of e-resources among the Agricultural Scientists of Himalayan Region of India

The electronic information environment has transformed the way scientists and researchers access and use information. The present study aims at knowing the awareness and use of e-resources by agricultural scientists working in various ICAR research institutes in Himalayan region of India. The structured interview of 112 scientists revealed that Internet is highly used information resource by them. Most of the information sources are preferred in e-format. E-journals and online databases are frequently used e-resources by the agricultural scientists. Awareness and use of e-resources is more in young scientists than their senior colleagues.
The Impact of Ownership Concentration, Structure, and Corporate Governance to the Firm’s Performance and Credit Rating: Indonesian Case Study

The objective of this paper is to provide evidence whether firms with more or less concentrated ownership and better corporate governance will have better performance and enjoy higher credit ratings, as default risk will be reduced. While some theories and empirical studies suggest that ownership structure affects firms’ performance, some others suggest there is no such relationship. Also whether the practice of corporate governance is for the appearance of compliance to the regulation only and therefore it does not have positive impact to the shareholders and creditors.This paper investigates the relationship between ownership concentration and structure, governance mechanism and firm performance in Indonesia listed companies for a sample of 271 firms during 2006.The results of the regressions tend to support the above hypothesis. In Indonesia, companies are still dominated by single largest or majority shareholders, with its positive effect that it will minimize the agency cost with the management, thus improves performance.
A Market Game for Dynamic Multi-Band Sharing in Cognitive Radio Networks

The traditional spectrum auctions require a central auctioneer. Then, the secondary users (SUs) can bid for spectrum in multiple auction or sealed auction way. In this paper, we address the problem of distributed spectrum sharing in the cognitive networks where multiple owners sell their spare bands to multiple SUs. Each SU equips multi-interface/multi-radio, so that SU can buy spare bands from multiple owners. On the other hand, each owner can sell its spare bands to several SUs. There are two questions to be addressed for such an environment: the first one is how to select bands/the owners for each SU; the second one is how to decide the competitive prices for the multiple owners and multiple SUs. We propose a two-sided \textit{multi-band market game} theoretic framework to jointly consider the benefits of all SUs and owners. The equilibrium concept in such games named \textit{core}. The outcomes in the core of the game cannot be improved upon by any subset of players. These outcomes correspond exactly to the price-lists that competitively balance the benefits of all SUs and owners. We show that the core in our model is always non-empty. The measurement of price is set to discrete value. Subsequently, the core of the game is defined as \textit{discrete core}. The Dynamic Multi-band Sharing (DMS) Algorithm is proposed to converge to the discrete core of the game. With small measurement of price, the algorithm can achieve the optimal performance compared with centralized one in terms of total profit of the system.
Normal and abnormal morphology of the corpus callosum

We studied the normal and abnormal morphology of the corpus callosum in 450 midline sagittal magnetic resonance scans. Clinical information was required to differentiate acquired and congenital defects. Four forms of congenital anomalies were observed: focal attenuations, cysts, partial agenesis, and complete agenesis. Acquired changes resulted from hydrocephalus, white matter diseases, vascular accidents, tumor, and trauma.
Changes in Nutritional Composition of Soybean Seed Caused by Feeding of Pentatomid (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) and Alydid Bugs (Hemiptera: Alydidae)

ABSTRACT Changes in protein, lipid, and carbohydrate content, and the weight loss of soybean seeds caused by the feeding of 6- to 7-d-old unmated male adults of the pentatomids Peizodorous hybneri (Gmelin) and Halymorpha halys (Stål), and an alydid, Riptortus pedestris (F.), were examined in the laboratory. Our goals were to determine which species had the greatest capacity to damage soybean seed and to measure the effect of that damage on the nutritional composition of soybean seed. Individuals of the three species were provided with a preweighed dry soybean seed and allowed to feed for 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 d, after which the remaining seed was analyzed for any change in weight, protein, lipid, and carbohydrate concentration. Lipids, carbohydrates, and seed weights were reduced by bug feeding, and the reduction was directly proportional to feeding duration. H. halys was found to be the most voracious feeder, reducing soybean seed weight by 42% after 24 d of feeding. There was a significant interaction between species and feeding duration for changes in nutritional components. Seeds fed on by H. halys had the highest incremental increase in protein content (13%) after 24 d of feeding, followed by those fed on by R. pedestris and P. hybneri. However, carbohydrates and lipid content of the soybean seeds fed by the tested insect species were found to decrease significantly. Soybean pods at mature stages remain in the field for a long period, and findings of our study suggest that longer exposure of the mature soybean pods to these pest species in the field may lead to low-quality seeds and lower yields, and may even affect the germination potential of the seeds.
Accounting for Non-Specialists

About the Author.About the Book: Background, The Market, Scope, Coverage, Special Features.Acnowledgments. Dedication.Introduction to Accounting. Section A: Financial Accounting: The Techniques. The Accounting Background. Recording: Double--Entry Bookkeeping. Main Financial Statements: The Profit and Loss Account. Main Financial Statements: The Balance Sheet. Preparing the Financial Statements. Partnerships and Limited Companies. Main Financial Statements: The Cash Flow Statement. Interpretation of Accounts. Section B: Financial Accounting: The Context. Regulatory and Conceptual Frameworks. Measurement Systems. The Annual Report. Creative Accounting. International Accounting. Section C: Management Accounting. Introduction to Management Accounting. Costing Planning and Control: Budgeting. Planning and Control: Standard Costing. Short--Term Decision Making. Strategic Management Accounting. Long--Term Decision Making: Capital Investment Appraisal. The Management of Working Capital and Sources of Finance. Index.
How control systems influence product innovation processes: examining the role of entrepreneurial orientation

This paper yields insights into the channels through which management accounting and control systems (MACS) exert an influence on product innovation by examining the extent to which different forms of control (i.e. value systems (VS), diagnostic control systems and interactive control systems (ICS)) are directly associated with the distinct phases of innovation processes. Using survey data collected from 118 medium and large Spanish companies, we find that (1) VS and ICS have significant main effects on the creativity, co-ordination and knowledge integration, and filtering (sub-)phases of innovation processes and (2) the significance and direction of these influences vary depending on the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of firms. By highlighting the relevance of EO in shaping the influence of MACS on product innovation processes, this study calls for caution in generalising the expected effects of MACS on innovation.
The role of strategy in the innovation process: A stage approach.

Organizational innovation has been of central interest in recent years because of its importance for organizational survival and competitive advantage. Researchers in the field have divided the innovation process into stages in an attempt to understand the innovation process and the factors that affect it. However, empirical studies that examine the relationship between the stages are scarce. In addition, although business strategy is emphasized as an important factor in the innovation process, little is known about its role in the innovation process and its effect on the stages. This research provides empirical support for the relationship between the stages of the innovation process and the moderating effect of organizational strategy on the relationship between the stages within the two stage model of innovation. In this study, a direct, positive relationship is proposed between the innovation generation (first stage) and innovation outcome (second stage) stages of the innovation process. Dimensions of innovation outcome that are examined include innovation type (product innovation and process innovation), innovation radicalness and innovation frequency. Low cost, differentiation and market orientation strategies are proposed to be moderators on the relationship between the stages. To test the proposed relationships, a survey was mailed to executives who are involved in the innovation process in organizations where innovation is expected to be common and they were asked to complete the questionnaire. Hierarchical regression was the primary data analysis method and General Linear Model was applied as the pot-hoc data analysis method. Results of the primary data analyses provided support for the direct, positive relationship between the innovation generation and innovation outcome stages of the innovation process. Specifically, there was a direct, positive relationship between innovation generation and product innovation, process innovation, innovation frequency and innovation radicalness. Result of the primary data analysis provided support for the moderating effect of strategy (market orientation and differentiation) on the relationship between innovation generation and only innovation frequency dimension of innovation outcome. Post-hoc analysis suggested a significant moderating effect of strategy (market orientation and differentiation) on the relationship between innovation generation and innovation radicalness dimension of innovation outcome. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.