Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PREDICTORS OF CIGARETTE SMOKING BY YOUNG ADULTS AND READINESS TO CHANGE

A survey on cigarette smoking of a sample of 406 students aged 16/17 years from a Swiss city was carried out in 1995, and the sample was reinvestigated in 1998. Measures were taken of gender, age, school attendance (vocational or other), negative feelings, perception of danger, parental smoking, and reasons for smoking or not smoking at Time 1. Time-2 measures included stages-of-change in smoking cessation and nicotine addiction. Negative feelings at ages 16/17 were predictive of nicotine addiction at ages 19/20, and highly predictive for starting smoking within this period. Frequent smoking and relaxation as a reason for smoking was more likely for sustained smokers than for quitters. The results suggest that if adolescents begin to smoke in order to cope with negative feelings they continue to do so and increase their smoking. Cessation can probably be promoted by advice to reduce the frequency of smoking. [Translations are provided in the International Abstracts Section of this issue. ]
Does Earnings Management Amplify The Association Between Corporate Governance And Firm Performance?: Evidence From Korea

This paper aims to examine whether earnings management strengthens the causal links between corporate governance and firm performance. It examines the association between corporate governance and real activity-based earnings management and extends it to firm performance. This study involves 1,104 listings on the Korean Stock Exchange and finds that real activity-based earnings management decreases if firms have a well-established governance system, and such earnings management could strengthen the causal link between corporate governance and firm performance as measured by Tobin’s Q. Our study results are the first empirical evidences that real activity-based earnings management is effectively controlled by a corporate governance system and that it has links between corporate governance and performance. This provides the importance of corporate governance which could effectively constrain real activity-based earnings management, such that eventually influences the firm’s performance. In particular, it provides useful insights into corporate structures in which ownership is highly concentrated. Our findings are of great importance for Korea, in which the predominant business structure for large enterprises is that of the chaebol (equivalent to the Japanese keiretsu), which consists of conglomerates of many smaller companies and in which the structure of corporate governance is that of owner control.
The Impact of Acquisitions on New Technology Stocks: The Google–Motorola Case

This paper analyzes the impact of the recent acquisition of Motorola by Google on the subsequent performance of stock returns using an event study methodology. We obtain empirical results by a two-stage regression, by which the impact of market and industry effects can be controlled for. Our findings suggest that the Motorola takeover led to negative and significant excess returns to Google, but positive and highly significant excess returns to Motorola. Additionally, while the event led to significantly positive excess returns to direct competitors, it did not have a strong impact on indirect competitors, suggesting that the importance of the event was restricted to related industries.
Fundamentals, Market Timing, and Seasoned Equity Offerings

Firms conduct SEOs to resolve a near-term liquidity squeeze, and not primarily to exploit market timing opportunities. Without the SEO proceeds, 62.6% of issuers would have insufficient cash to implement their chosen operating and non-SEO financing decisions the year after the SEO. Although the SEO decision is positively related to a firm's market-to-book (M/B) ratio and prior excess stock return and negatively related to its future excess return, these relations are economically immaterial. For example, a 150% swing in future net of market stock returns (from a 75% gain to a 75% loss over three years) increases by only 1% the probability of an SEO in the immediately prior year. Strikingly, most firms with quintessential "market timer" characteristics fail to issue stock and a non-trivial number of mature firms do issue stock, with current and former dividend payers raising more than half of all issue proceeds.
Inhibitors to the adoption of Supply Chain Management in New Zealand

This paper identifies some barriers inhibiting the adoption of Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices in New Zealand (NZ). A two-step methodology was used. Initially two organisations were studied in depth, which led to the identification of a shortlist of barriers to SCM. The second step of the methodology involved verifying this shortlist via interviews with a larger set of organisations. The interrelationships between the barriers were brainstormed, leading to the identification of a number of root causes of indifferent SCM practices. The findings highlight a number of New Zealand-specific issues such as geographical isolation and an independent managerial mindset.
Postacquisition turnover among U.S. top management teams: an analysis of the effects of foreign vs. domestic acquisitions of U.S. targets

An analysis of postacquisition top management turnover among 168 cross-border and 102 purely domestic acquisitions, and a control group of 120 nonacquired U.S. firms, revealed that turnover rates in firms acquired by non-U.S. acquirers were significantly higher than in firms acquired by other U.S. firms or the control group. Further, the timing of postacquisition turnover differed in the foreign vs. domestic acquisitions. Finally, the nationality of the foreign acquirer was found to be an important predictor of turnover in certain acquisition categories. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Compulsive buying.

OBJECTIVE Although compulsive buying (CB) seems to be not only prevalent but even increasing in prevalence, it often remains neglected or minimized in clinical settings. There is a need for a greater understanding and recognition of this problem. The aim of this article is to summarize the current knowledge regarding CB and to offer thoughts regarding classification. METHOD Review of published literature over the period 1994-2013 through Pubmed/Medline, PsychINFO, and Google Scholar using the key words 'compulsive buying', 'impulsive buying' and 'addictive buying'. RESULTS CB is defined by a preoccupation with buying and shopping, by frequent buying episodes, or overpowering urges to buy that are experienced as irresistible and senseless. The maladaptive spending behavior is associated with serious psychological, social, occupational, and financial problems. Treatment-seeking patients with CB suffer from substantial psychiatric comorbidity (eg, anxiety and depressive mood disorders, compulsive hoarding, binge eating disorder). Representative surveys revealed prevalence estimates of CB between 6% and 7% and indicate that younger people are more prone to develop CB. Moreover, European data suggest an increase of CB in the adult population over the last 20 years. While there is no evidence for the efficacy of psychopharmacological treatment, group cognitive behavioral therapy has been shown to be effective. CONCLUSION The relevance of recognition of CB as mental disorder is undeniable in the face of its estimated prevalence and associated burden. As our understanding of contributing neurobiological and etiological factors is limited, further research should focus on these topics, taking into account the heterogeneity of individuals with CB. There is also a need for specific treatment options and for the development of prevention strategies. (Am J Addict 2013;XX:1-6).
Market orientation, service quality and business profitability: a conceptual model and empirical evidence

The authors explore the relationships among market orientation, service quality and business profitability. Based on an empirical study of Taiwan’s security brokerage service industry, the research results show that there are positive associations among the three constructs. More market‐oriented brokerage service firms seem to enjoy superior service quality perceptions and greater profitability. Further examinations reveal that market orientation has a stronger effect on service quality than on business profitability. Also, the service quality‐profitability linkage is stronger than the market orientation‐profitability linkage. The results suggest that service quality is an intermediate factor in the market orientation‐profitability relationship and is a better indicator of the effectiveness of a market‐oriented campaign than profitability measures.
The moderating influence of brand status and source confirmation on third-party endorsement effects in advertising

Two studies were conducted to examine the effect that perceived brand status has on consumers’responses to source confirmation of third-party advertising endorsements. In Study 1, a 2 (ad exposure with opportunity to confirm the source of the endorsement vs ad exposure with no opportunity to confirm) by 2 (topdog brand vs underdog brand) factorial design was used to examine hypothesised effects on message believability and brand attitude. Results indicated that, for underdog brands, augmenting advertising strategies with publicity pieces (source confirmation) is an effective approach in enhancing advertising message believability and producing more favourable brand attitudes. On the other hand, this ad strategy was not shown to have similar added benefits for the topdog brand. Study 2 further examined these interactive effects, finding that, in an underdog brand condition, individuals reported higher levels of involvement with a publicity piece than with an advertisement. An opposite effect (i.e. greater ad involvement than publicity piece involvement) was observed for individuals in the topdog brand condition. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are offered.
Norwegian pig farmers' motivations for improving animal welfare

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore Norwegian pig farmers' motivation for improving animal welfare, and to develop the rudiments of a more general understanding of farmers' animal welfare discourses related to motivation for improving animal welfare.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a discourse analysis of qualitative interviews with 60 Norwegian pig farmers. Supplementary sources are governmental policy documents, research reports and statistics.Findings – The pig farmers' motivation for improving animal welfare is a moral, economic and regulatory question. Their discourse on animal welfare must be interpreted in light of the specific contextual factors, such as public regulation and the market situation of agro‐foods in Norway, which contribute to shaping the farmers' practices.Research limitations/implications – An implication of the study of interest for policy makers is that many pig producers currently look upon animal welfare as a “competitive‐free” zone. This appreciat.
The Good, The Bad, and The Lucky: Projected Earnings Accuracy and Profitability of Stock Recommendations

Analysts who provide more accurate earnings forecasts also issue more profitable recommendations. We demonstrate how investors can profit from this contemporaneous link by differentiating between “able” and “lucky” analysts. In line with previous studies, we find that past track records alone are not sufficient to identify profitable recommendations. Only skilled analysts working in a superior environment provide consistently profitable recommendations. The overall profitability of their recommendations is not driven by a post-announcement drift effect. We find that an implementable, i.e., look-ahead bias free, trading strategy based on the projected – rather than past – earnings accuracy yields substantial excess returns. The main difference of our approach is that we combine analysts’ past earnings accuracy with a broad range of analyst characteristics to assess their ability. This approach enables us to identify ex ante analysts who provide superior recommendations. We show that it is essential to take into account the ability of analysts in addition to their past performance, i.e., to look beyond their track record. Our results suggest that identifying the more skilled processors of information is crucial, while following analysts based on only their past performance alone is not profitable. Moreover, our approach provides a promising avenue for research that uses analysts’ outputs to capture the expectations of market participants or evaluates incentives and compensation of financial intermediaries.
Student's expectations of service quality in tertiary education: A comparison between prospective and current students

The competition for quality students in a highly competitive environment between newly formed tertiary institutions necessitates the employment of managerial techniques to improve the efficiency and quality of their provisions. By examining the factors that influence the buying decisions of prospective and existing students, the most important service quality variables are determined to enable an institution to attract quality prospective students and reduce dropout rates. The overall objective of the article is to determine the most important service quality variables for predegree and degree students when deciding on an educational institution. The most important identified factors that influenced buying decisions among prospective and existing students, in order of importance, were security on campus, computer and library facilities, academic reputation of the institution and reasonable class fees
Sponsorship and the Drinks Industry in the 1990s

Sponsorship has been a growth area in the marketing mix through the 1980s with “corporate” aims joining brand‐directed objectives in recent years. The alcoholic drinks industry has now the second biggest sponsorship spend of any sector. The market is subdivided into five areas. Sports sponsorship has traditionally been the largest sector but new legislation is likely to see sponsorship of the media, especially television, increase very rapidly, at the expense of involvement in sports. Many pundits also foresee a rise in resources applied to the arts, education, social and charitable sponsorship. The drinks industry is likely to make greater use of corporate sponsorship to achieve a positive image to help fight off restrictive legislation.
Dollar Credit to Emerging Market Economies

We profile the US dollar debt incurred by borrowers in a dozen prominent emerging market economies (EMEs). These countries account for the bulk of total US dollar debt owed by EMEs. We measure the dollar borrowing of non-banks resident in these economies as well as that of their affiliates offshore, and relate these items to commonly used debt measures. We also discuss the limitations of our data. These data fail to assign bank debt to the right home country if firms have obtained dollar bank loans through offshore affiliates. And they understate dollar debt when firms borrow dollars indirectly through foreign exchange forwards.
An empirical test of trust-building processes and outcomes in sales manager-salesperson relationships

This study examines three trust-building processes and outcomes in sales manager-salesperson relationships. This study, based on a sample of more than 400 business-to-business salespeoples from a variety of industries, shows two trust-building processes (predictive and identification) to be significantly related to salesperson trust in the sales manager. Interpersonal trust was found to be most strongly related to shared values and respect. Trust was directly related to job satisfaction and relationalism, and indirectly related to organizational commitment and turnover intention.
Can Sales Uncertainty Increase Firm Profits?

The authors add to the sales management literature in three ways. First, they demonstrate that a firm can benefit from higher sales uncertainty. This is contrary to the finding from the standard principal–agent models that more sales uncertainty hurts the firm when agents are risk-averse. Second, the authors find that the risk-averse agent's total pay can increase when there is high sales uncertainty, and this too is contrary to the standard principal–agent model. Third, they provide intuition for this surprising result by showing that it holds when the slope of the sales response function is random but not when the intercept is random. When the responsiveness (slope) of sales to a decision variable (of the firm or the agent) is random, information about randomness becomes decision-relevant and the firm can exploit learned information. In this study's model, the agent and firm can receive noisy signals of random demand. When the customers’ response to effort (or price) is random, the decision about effort (price) responds optimally to information in a way that benefits the firm. When uncertainty is high, there is more potential information for the firm to exploit profitably, owing to the convexity of the sales with respect to the uncertainty parameter. This is enough to dominate the negative impact of uncertainty owing to agents’ risk aversion. When randomness affects only baseline sales (intercept), received signals are not decision-relevant. In that case, higher uncertainty has only a negative impact, just as in standard principal–agent models.
Chapter 3 Towards Understanding Deterrence : Information Security Managers ’ Perspective

The enforcement of information security policy is an important issue in organisations. Previous studies approach policy enforcement using deterrence theory to deal with information security violations and focus on end-users’ awareness. This study investigates deterrence strategy within organisations from the perspective of information security managers. The results primarily reveal that current deterrence strategy has little influence on reducing violations because it is only used as a prevention strategy due to the lack of means of detection. Our study suggests that organisations should shift to detection of violations and identification of violators, and expand the range of sanctions. The research also presents an architecture of information security strategies to be operated in a coordinated manner for use in deterring security violations.
CONGENITAL HEREDITARY ABSENCE OF SOME OF THE DIGITAL PHALANGES

and tlhe cerebro-spinal fluid found to be uinder slighltly in. creased pressure. Cytological and bacteriological examinatiors were carried out, witlh the following results: There were 3,760 cells per cubic millimletre, of which 70 per cenit. were polymorphonuclear leucocytes; colonies of ptire B. coli weree isolated, froin wlhicll a vaccine was prepared. Urotropinie, whvlichl lhad been admniinistered fromi the outset in doscs of 10 grains tlhree times a day, was now increased to 20 grains every four lhours. For tlhree days the tenmperature remained high, ranging from 101.20 to 103.20 F. But clinically the symptomsmuore particuilarly the hjeadachles-were greatly relieved by the luimbar pulncture. The patieut was never unconscious, thouglh cerebration was nmarkedly slow: beyond somiie venous e-ngorgemient tlhere was no abnormality in the optic dliscs. Autogenous vaccine was giveni on June 5tlh anid Juine 7tlh, in doses of 1241 and 25 rilillion. On June 8th the teump-erature fell in thie mornhing to 98.20 F. for the first time. Since that dato the imnprovemenit hias becn maintained witlhout initerruption, and thc patient is now in every respect nornal.
Web Commercials and Advertising Hierarchy-of-Effects

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend a previous study (Stevenson, Bruner, and Kumar, 2000) by further exploring the advertising hierarchy-of-effects and its antecedents in the context of the world wide web. In doing this, the effects of webpage complexity and dynamic content (e.g., animated graphics and commercials) on the hierarchy-of-effects were experimentally tested using non student subjects. It concludes that consumers experiences with the web, and their attitudes-towards-websites are important factors in assessing advertising effects.
Does place of treatment affect prognosis for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)?

Background: It has been shown previously that mortality from acute chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is higher at small hospitals than at large teaching hospitals. Objective: To examine mortality at this acute stage and referral for further treatment by specialities in Finland, and trends in these between the 1990s and 2000s. Methods: Data on all periods of treatment for patients over 44 years of age with a principal or subsidiary diagnosis of COPD beginning and ending in 1995–2004 were extracted from the Finnish hospital discharge register. Particular attention was paid to acute-stage treatment periods managed by a general practitioner, pulmonary specialist, or specialist in internal medicine that had begun as emergency admissions and had a principal diagnosis of COPD, and to any further treatment immediately following these. Results: General practitioners referred 5.1% of their acute-stage patients to a specialist in secondary care in 1995–2004. Of the total of 77 445 acute-stage treatment periods, 3% (2328) ended in the death of the patient, implying the loss of 8.3% of the patients involved. The age- and sex-adjusted risk of death attached to treatment periods managed by a general practitioner relative to those managed by a pulmonary specialist was 0.83 (95% CI 0.75–0.91). Conclusion: It is quite possible to treat acute exacerbations of COPD efficiently and safely in a health centre hospital ward. New treatment modalities and health service structures seem to have led to a decrease in acute exacerbations of COPD since the year 2000, even though the number of patients with this disease has increased as a consequence of ageing of the population. Further research is required on the efficacy of treatment by a general practitioner, e.g., with data on re-hospitalization.
Assessment of ethical decisions and values

Summary. The development and pilot testing of the Professional Decisions and Values Test (PDV) is described. The PDV is designed to assess how ethical conflicts are dealt with by medical and law students and which moral values motivate them. Data from two consecutive classes of entering medical and law students are presented and their action tendencies and ethical values are compared. The findings support the construct validity of the test. Regarding reliability, stability over time is present for action tendencies but not for values. Perhaps the ethical values of entering medical and law students do not become stable until later. Change in ethical values can be studied with the PDV for groups, not individuals, during the first year of professional education.