Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hospitality workplace problems and poor training: a close relationship

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine common hospitality problems with the aim of identifying relationships between them, and the central issue.Design/methodology/approach – Self‐completed questionnaires were used to collect data from hospitality students and employees, and analyses of variance used to identify relationships between the problems, and isolate the central issue.Findings – The paper finds that poor training is associated with workplace problems, and improving training is likely to reduce problems such as under‐staffing and theft.Research limitations/implications – The collection of data on exact lengths of employment would have facilitated a more rigorous analysis of the causes and effects of staff turnover and is recommended for future studies of training and turnover.Practical implications – Investment in training is recommended even when turnover is high, as training reduces workplace problems.Originality/value – This study focuses on the relationships between problems, rather than invest.
Right to Information and Local Governance: An Exploration

Abstract This paper attempts to explore issues related to right to information (RTI) and RTI laws, in the context of local governance. The paper focuses on four case studies—namely, India, Indonesia, Uganda, and Nicaragua—to highlight some of the complexities in campaigning for RTI laws and in implementing them. Based on these, a framework is developed as a tool to map alternative approaches to making local governance more effective and accountable. At present, there are two schools of thought: one focusing on supply‐led or state‐led mechanisms such as public expenditure tracking surveys, and the other focusing on a human rights‐based approach with RTI law at its centre. The framework developed here suggests that these alternative approaches need not be considered mutually exclusive approaches but can be seen in terms of Dreze and Sen’s argument of democratic institutions and democratic practice. Thus, activists can choose approaches that best suit a context at a given point in time as intermediate steps in the journey towards developing just and inclusive institutions.
Technology, offshoring and the task content of occupations in the United Kingdom

Combining employment data with the British Skill Survey (BSS) –which has comparable within-occupation task data for three waves: 1997, 2001 and 2006– we analyse employment changes between occupations (extensive margin) and within occupations (intensive margin). First, we find that the task-content of occupations (i.e. the intensive margin) has experienced significant changes in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2006. Second, our econometric results suggest that these intensive margin changes can be explained by technological improvements (SBTC) and unionisation levels, while offshoring has not been a factor explaining how tasks are organised within occupations. Analysing changes at the extensive margin we confirm previous findings in the literature: there has been job polarisation in the UK, and this job polarisation can be explained by both SBTC and offshoring, though SBTC seems to be a more influential factor.
Financial Development and the Cash Flow Sensitivity of Cash

Abstract Prior research posits that market imperfections and the lack of institutions that protect investor interests create a divergence between the cost of internal and external funds, thereby constraining firms' ability to fund investment projects through external financing. Financial constraints force firms to manage their cash flows to finance potentially profitable projects. A related stream of research documents that financial constraints due to costly external financing are more pronounced in underdeveloped financial markets. We examine the influence of financial development on the demand for liquidity by focusing on how financial development affects the sensitivity of firms' cash holdings to their cash flows. Using firm-level data for 35 countries covering about 12,782 firms for the years 1994–2002, we find the sensitivity of cash holdings to cash flows decreases with financial development. We also consider additional implications of firms' cash flow sensitivity of cash with respect to firm size and business cycles. Overall, we provide new cross-country evidence of the role of financial development on financial constraints.
The Situational Impact of Brand Image BeliefsBATRA

This study experimentally examines some situational influences on the formation and consequences of two brand image beliefs, pertaining to fun and sophistication (classiness). It tests McCracken’s (1986) meaning transfer mechanisms and establishes that nonverbalized personality associations of celebrity endorsers on these dimensions can indeed reinforce equivalent consumer beliefs about a brand’s fun and classiness benefits. However, this occurs only if a social consumption context is evoked, and only if the brand image beliefs are appropriate to the consumer schema for the product category involved. Moreover, under these facilitating conditions, such ad-created brand image beliefs have an impact only on brand purchase intentions and not on brand attitudes. Results have implications for the growing literature on different types of brand imagery associations, as well as for future research on the processing of nonverbal stimuli, the measurement of nonfunctional brand beliefs, and consumer inference processes.
TEACHER ATTITUDES TOWARD STAFF DEVELOPMENT AND RELATED ACTIVITIES IN A RURAL EDUCATIONAL CONSORTIUM

AUTHOR Amos, Neil G. ; Benton, Gary J. TITLE Teacher Attitudes toward Staff Development and Related Activities in a Rural Educational Consortium. PUB DATE Nov 88 NOTE 10p. ; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Associatioh (Louisville, KY, November 8-11, 1988). PUB TYPE Speeches/Conference Papers (150) -Reports Evaluative /Feasibility (142) -Tests/Evaluation Instruments (160)
The Death of the Risk Premium

The authors contend that most of the institutional investing community is expecting far higher returns than are realistic from current market levels. Extrapolating the past is the easiest, and worst, way to forecast the future. Unfortunately, most investors' return expectations are shaped by a simple extrapolation of either recent or long–term past returns. If, instead, the constituent parts of equity market returns are examined, we find that it is remarkably difficult to make a case for a positive equity risk premium (the premium of future stock market returns relative to bond yields) from current market levels. None of this analysis is contingent on any assumption that market P/E ratios or dividend yields should return to historical levels. If market levels are fair and are fully sustained in the years ahead, there is still little or no room for a positive equity risk premium. If there is not a positive risk premium, then actuarial return assumptions are likely to be too optimistic, with far–reaching implications for pension funding ratios, corporate earnings, future pension contributions, and appropriate asset allocation policy.
Impact of Hiatal Hernia on Pediatric Dyspeptic Symptoms

Objectives: Hiatal hernia (HH) affects from 10% to 50% of adult population. The correlation between HH, gastroesophageal reflux disease, dyspeptic symptoms, and esophagitis has long been known in adults. The primary objective of our prospective observational study was to estimate the prevalence of HH in children undergoing esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), irrespective of their symptoms. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 111 consecutive children (48 boys and 63 girls; mean age 94.9 ± 52.3 months) referred for EGD. In all of the patients a symptomatic score assessment based on the Rome III criteria was used to measure frequency, severity, and duration of gastrointestinal symptoms. HH presence was endoscopically defined; esophagitis presence was evaluated either endoscopically and histologically. Children were divided in 2 age-range groups: <48 months (group 1) and >48 months (group 2). Results: Twenty-three patients of 111 (20.7%) had evidence of a sliding HH at EGD. In children from group 2, we found a statistically significant association of HH with heartburn (P = 0.03, 95% confidence interval 1–9.3, r2 = 0.1) and regurgitation (P = 0.003, 95% confidence interval 1.7–20.4, r2 = 0.3). Regarding esophagitis presence, no association was found at any age either with defined esophagitis or with dilated intercellular spaces. Conclusions: Prevalence of HH in our study population was 20.7%. According to our data, HH correlates with the presence of heartburn and regurgitation in children, but not in toddlers. No association was found with esophagitis at any age.
The material of the social: the mutual shaping of institutions by irrigation technology and society in Seguia Khrichfa, Morocco

In this paper we draw attention to the important role technology plays in co-mediating institutions, opening up some courses of action and closing off others. Irrigation studies generally recognize the importance of institutions in making technologies work, but tend to take the precise functioning of institutions for granted. Studies that analyse institutions often do not pay enough attention to the mediating role of technology in allocating benefits, risks and burdens. We show in this paper that (irrigation) institutions are moulded by and come about through the interactions between the technical and the social in dynamic and often contested processes of adaptation to changing environments. We argue that a critical understanding of what institutions do requires more explicit and detailed attention to technologies. We base this argument on a detailed historical analysis of the functioning of Seguia Khrichfa, a farmer managed irrigation scheme in Morocco. Through time, irrigation institutions in the Seguia Khrichfa have undergone transformations to match the changing demands of a heterogeneous and growing group of irrigators, an increased command area and changing cropping patterns, and the introduction of new technologies such as drip irrigation. These institutional transformations consisted of recursive cycles of modifications in technological infrastructure and the rules of allocation and distribution. Technical adaptations prompt alterations in the water rotation schedule and vice versa. We anchor our case in descriptions of a specific technology that played a crucial role in co-steering institutional change: the introduction of open/closed gates. Our analysis of the co-evolution of society and technology in shaping institutions in the Seguia Khrichfa shows how technologies become enrolled in (sometimes implicit) processes of re-negotiating relations of authority and responsibility while obscuring institutional politics.
Lipase‐secreting acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas with polyarthropathy. A light and electron microscopic, histochemical, and biochemical study

A functional acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas is reported. The tumor was found in a middle‐aged, chronic alcoholic whose most persistent complaint was of polyarthropathy, especially of the lower extremities. A malignant tumor of acinar cell origin metastatic to the liver was diagnosed pre‐mortem by electron microscopy. The patient had a pancreatic tumor with extensive liver metastases at autopsy. The tumor contained abundant zymogen granules, and by histochemical and biochemical examination was seen to contain abundant lipase activity. The authors think that electron‐microscopy should be used routinely in the diagnosis of exocrine as well as endocrine tumors of the pancreas regardless of whether the specimen is obtained at surgery or autopsy.
House Prices and Monetary Policy: A Dynamic Factor Model for Korea *

This paper investigates the importance of national, regional, and cityspecific factors to explain the movement of housing prices across South Korean cities in using the Bayesian approach proposed by Otrok and Whiteman (1998). The variance decomposition analysis illustrates that most of the movement of Korean housing prices are ascribed to the national factor that accounts for 56% of housing price variations and over 70% in 5 cities including Seoul and Pusan. This demonstrates the existence of the co-movement of housing prices in Korean cities, which has been vaguely discussed in both academics and the real estate industry. This paper also finds that the contribution of city-specific factors range from 20% to 70%. However, the regional factors have negligible impacts on housing price fluctuations in all cities. This paper also examines the effects of monetary policy shocks on national-level housing prices measured by the national factor. Employing a structural VAR model to disentangle the structural monetary shocks, the study finds that the effects of monetary policy shocks on national-level housing prices are trivial. This finding reveals that the hike in housing prices observed in recent periods are most likely attributable to macro fundamentals rather than autonomous monetary shocks.
Additional Evidence on the Relationship between an Internal Audit Function and External Audit Fees in Australia

Studies examining the relationship between a firm's internal audit (IA) function and its audit fees have produced mixed results with suggestions of possible model mis-specification in these studies. Our analysis reveals that differences in significance for IA with audit fees is driven by the choice of variables proxying for firm size and other firm characteristics, suggesting that prior results are entangled with model specification issues. Specifically, when the sales variable is used as a measure of firm size, IA is insignificant (in explaining variations in audit fees) but subsequently becomes significant when assets and employees are used. To overcome the conflicting results, subsequent factor analysis supported a positive relationship between IA and audit fees. The most significant implication from this study is that previously reported relationships involving audit fees may be the outcome of the model adopted rather than the underlying relationship between the variable of interest and audit fees
Female Auditors and Accruals Quality

SYNOPSIS: This paper examines the association between accruals quality and the gender of the firm's audit engagement partner. In particular, given the documented gender-based differences in diligence, conservatism, and risk tolerance, we postulate that female auditors may improve accruals quality. Using a sample of Finnish and Swedish NASDAQ OMX-listed firms, we run several alternative panel regressions of abnormal accruals on female auditor variables and firm-specific controls. The results suggest that firms with female audit engagement partners are associated with smaller abnormal accruals, thereby implying that female auditors may have a constraining effect on earnings management. In general, our findings indicate that the behavioral differences between women and men may have important implications for the quality of auditing and financial reporting. Data Availability: The data used in this paper are derived from public sources.
Parasites and mutational load: an experimental test of a pluralistic theory for the evolution of sex

Ecological and mutational explanations for the evolution of sexual reproduction have usually been considered independently. Although many of these explanations have yielded promising theoretical results, experimental support for their ability to overcome a twofold cost of sex has been limited. For this reason, it has recently been argued that a pluralistic approach, combining effects from multiple models, may be necessary to explain the apparent advantage of sex. One such pluralistic model proposes that parasite load and synergistic epistasis between deleterious mutations might interact to create an advantage for recombination. Here, we test this proposal by comparing the fitness functions of parasitized and parasite–free genotypes of Escherichia coli bearing known numbers of transposon–insertion mutations. In both classes, we failed to detect any evidence for synergistic epistasis. However, the average effect of deleterious mutations was greater in parasitized than parasite–free genotypes. This effect might broaden the conditions under which another proposed model combining parasite–host coevolutionary dynamics and mutation accumulation can explain the maintenance of sex. These results suggest that, on average, deleterious mutations act multiplicatively with each other but in synergy with infection in determining fitness.
Therapeutic applications of transcription factor decoy oligonucleotides.

As alterations in gene expression have become a better understood component of normal development and disease pathogenesis, transcription factors and other regulators of gene expression have become an increasingly attractive target for potential therapeutic intervention. Transcription factors are generally nuclear proteins that play a critical role in gene regulation and can exert either a positive or negative effect on gene expression. These regulatory proteins bind specific sequences found in the promoter regions of their target genes. These binding sequences are generally 6–10 bp in length and are occasionally found in multiple iterations. Although this protein-DNA interaction is quite sequence-specific, the binding sites for a single transcription factor may vary by several base pairs when found in the promoter regions of different genes; in this case, a common motif, or consensus binding site, can be described. Often a number of different transcription factor binding sites are located in the regions both upstream and downstream from a given transcription initiation site. The binding of these different factors, and the subsequent interactions of these proteins with each other, as well as with RNA polymerases or their cofactors, yield a complex set of conditions that determines the relative transcriptional activity at different times and under varying conditions in different cell types.
Resistance of Spiroplasma citri Lines to the Virus SVTS2 Is Associated with Integration of Viral DNA Sequences into Host Chromosomal and Extrachromosomal DNA

Spiroplasmavirus SVTS2, isolated from Spiroplasma melliferum TS2, produces plaques when inoculated onto lawns of Spiroplasma citri M200H, a derivative of the type strain Maroc R8A2. S. citri strains MR2 and MR3, originally selected as colonies growing within plaques on a lawn of M200H inoculated with SVTS2, were resistant to SVTS2. Genomic DNA fingerprints and electrophoretic protein profiles of M200H, MR2, and MR3 were similar, but three proteins present in M200H were missing or significantly reduced in both resistant lines. None of these three polypeptides reacted with antiserum against S. citri membrane proteins, indicating that they probably are not surface-located virus receptors. Electroporation with SVTS2 DNA produced 1.5 x 10(sup5) transfectants per (mu)g of DNA in M200H but none in MR2 or MR3, suggesting that resistance may result from inhibition of viral replication. The digestion patterns of the extrachromosomal double-stranded (ds) DNA of these lines were similar. Three TaqI fragments of MR2 extrachromosomal DNA that were not present in M200H extrachromosomal DNA hybridized strongly to an SVTS2 probe, and two of these fragments plus an additional one hybridized with the MR3 extrachromosomal DNA, indicating that a fragment of SVTS2 DNA was present in the extrachromosomal ds DNA of MR2 and MR3 but not of M200H. When the restricted genomes of all three lines were probed with SVTS2 DNA, strong hybridization to two EcoRI fragments of chromosomal MR2 and MR3 DNA but not M200H DNA indicated that SVTS2 DNA had integrated into the genomes of MR2 and MR3 but not of M200H. When MR3 extrachromosomal ds DNA containing a 2.1-kb SVTS2 DNA fragment was transfected into M200H, the transformed spiroplasmas were resistant to SVTS2. These results suggest that SVTS2 DNA fragments, possibly integrated into the chromosomal or extrachromosomal DNA of a previously susceptible spiroplasma, may function as viral incompatibility elements, providing resistance to superinfection by SVTS2.
Opioid Pharmacogenomics Using a Twin Study Paradigm: Methods and Procedures for Determining Familial Aggregation and Heritability

Opioids are the cornerstone medication for the treatment of moderate to severe pain. However, analgesic opioid requirements and the propensity to suffer from aversive opioid effects, including fatal respiratory depression and addiction, vary widely among patients. The factors underlying the substantial response variance remain largely unknown and need clarification for using opioids more effectively in appropriately selected patients. This ongoing study takes advantage of the twin paradigm to estimate the genetic and environmental contributions to inter-individual differences in opioid responses. Evidence of significant heritability will justify more detailed and extensive genomic studies. The enrollment target is 80 monozygotic and 45 dizygotic twin pairs who undergo a target-controlled infusion of the opioid alfentanil and saline placebo in sequential but randomized order. In a laboratory-type setting, well-defined pharmacodynamic endpoints are measured to quantify pain sensitivity, analgesic opioid effects, and aversive opioid effects including respiratory depression, sedation and reinforcing affective responses. First results obtained in 159 participants provide evidence for the feasibility and utility of this interventional study paradigm to estimate familial aggregation and heritability components of relevant drug effects. Areas highlighted in this report include recruitment strategies, required infrastructure and personnel, selection of relevant outcome measures, drug infusion algorithm minimizing pharmacokinetic variability, and considerations for optimizing data quality and quantity without hampering feasibility. Applying the twin paradigm to complex and potentially harmful studies comprehensively characterizing pharmacological response profiles is without much precedent. Methods and first results including heritability estimates for heat and cold pain sensitivity should be of interest to investigators considering similar studies.
Is Flexibility Associated with Improved Sprint and Jump Performance

Aim: Many studies have investigated the effect of stretching on sprint and vertical jump performance with contradictory results. However, there are no previous studies investigating if increased flexibility is associated with improved performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate if there is an association of flexibility and sprint time and vertical jump in athletes. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of 37 high school track and field athletes that performed flexibility and performance tests. Hamstring flexibility was evaluated using the sit and reach test and the knee extension angle test. Hip flexor flexibility was determined via the Thomas test. The performance measures used were 100-meter sprint time and vertical jump. Regression analysis was performed between each flexibility measure and the two performance measures. Results: The average knee extension angle was inversely associated with vertical jump height (r= -0.21 R2=0.19; p=0.008). There was no significant association between sit and reach measurement (r= -0.10, R2=0.02; p=0.362) or average Thomas test (r= -0.01, R2=0.00; p=0.950) with vertical jump height. There was no significant association between sit and reach measurement (r=0.05, R2=0.03; p=0.284), average knee extension angle (r= 0.02, R2=0.01; p=0.526), or average Thomas test (r= -0.05, R2=0.01; p=0.569) with 100-meter sprint time. Conclusion: In this first study examining flexibility and athletic performance we found no evidence that flexibility is associated with improved sprint and vertical jump performance. Increased hamstring flexibility, measured by knee extension angle, was associated with a decrease in vertical jump height.