Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Disclosure Reform and Alternative Sources of Earnings-Related Information on the Market Reaction to Firm-Based Earnings-Related Disclosures

Our study seeks to investigate changes in the market reaction to earnings-related disclosures following the introduction of the New Zealand continuous disclosure reform. We further extend to study whether these changes are different when there exist the alternative sources of earnings-related information. Using the sample of 580 earnings forecasts and 626 earnings announcements released by 94 firms listed on the New Zealand Exchange during the financial reporting periods ending from 31 January 1999 to 31 December 2005, we find evidence that the introduction of the disclosure reform has impacted to the market reaction to earnings-related disclosures and the availability of alternative sources of earnings-related information plays an important role in shaping this impact. Specifically, the market places less emphasis on post-disclosure reform management earnings forecasts issued by firms of which the alternative sources of earnings-related information are available. There is a significant reduction in the market reaction to earnings announcements in the post-disclosure reform period. This reduction is mainly driven by group of earnings announcements issued by firms of which the alternative sources of earnings-related information are not available. These findings suggest that while the enhancement of disclosure regulation in New Zealand is considered to have some positive impact on the financial environment which is consistent with regulatory intent, the regulators should be aware that the benefits from this disclosure regulation may not be universal and thus the increase in compliance costs borne by all firms could not accordingly be equally justified.
Benchmarking Inter-Hospital Alliances against Industry Best Practices

A semi-quantitative analysis of inter-hospital alliances in Germany, Canada and Switzerland was performed to: (a)Analyse the degree to which current inter-hospital alliances comply with best practices for inter-organisationalbusiness alliances; (b) identify management opportunities to improve the efficacy of hospital alliances.An alliance best practices management benchmark was compiled using literature searches and compared with actualhospital alliances. A series of interviews were conducted at 12 different inter-hospital alliances, monitoring theperceived and factual attributes relating to management processes, structure and governance.All alliances studied were perceived as successful. The healthcare contracts were short and pragmatic andmanagement tended to be informal. There was an absence of rigorous partner selection on the basis of due diligenceand no clear communicated, or monitored, alliance targets. The contracts often lacked conflict resolution,anti-solicitation and liability clauses. Clinical parameters specific to the alliance were not measured but animprovement of patient standard of care was perceived. There was a low awareness of financial parameters.Compatible IT systems / databases between the partners were lacking and institutionalised alliance capability is, inEurope, in the planning phase.Healthcare alliances have a high (perceived) success rate yet opportunities remain to improve the partner selectionassessment, setting and monitoring of alliance targets and centralising alliance capabilities. Transparent performancerewards and conflict resolution mechanisms need establishing upfront.
Sources of Corporate Financing and Economic Crisis in Korea: A Micro-Evidence

Using the firm-level data set, the paper attempts to examine the dynamic patterns in the allocation of credit across firms in recent Korea. In particular, the paper examines the dynamic patterns in the allocation of credit across large and small firms before and after the crisis. The data suggest that large firms, to some extent, are leaving banks and going to the capital market for their financing after the crisis. The data also suggest that profitable small firms are gaining easier access to the credit from financial institutions after the crisis. Is this shift (in the allocation of bank credit from large firms to small firms) due to lenders' choice or due to borrowers' changed incentives? The paper suggests that the improved lending practices of banks, at least partially, contributed to this shift of bank credit from large firms to small firms.
A proposal for a simple staging system for intermediate grade lymphoma and immunoblastic lymphoma based on the 'tumor score'.

A new staging system for intermediate grade lymphomas and immunoblastic lymphomas is described. This system is based on the tumor score which consists of assigning a point to each one of five variables that have been previously shown to have a high prognostic value. Ann Arbor stages III-IV, presence of bulky mass, elevation of B-2 microglobulin and LDH as well as presence of 'B' symptoms are the variables utilized in this system. When we applied this tumor score system to a population of 144 patients uniformly treated with CHOP/Bleo/CMED protocol, we observed that this system can accurately divide the population into two prognostic groups without an intermediate category. The first group is made up of those patients with a score of 0-2 points while the second group consists of patients with a score of > or = 3 points. The first group has a time-to-treatment failure (TTF) of 83% at three years in contrast to the second group whose TTF was 24%. If we compare this system with other commonly used systems in our institution, such as Ann Arbor, M.D. Anderson clinical staging system, and M.D. Anderson serological staging system, we observed that the tumor score system is not only more specific and sensitive than the others but also was capable of eliminating an intermediate risk group, thus facilitating therapeutic choices. This tumor score system is easy to apply and potentially reproducible in any institution.
Liquidity, Risk Appetite and Exchange Rate Movements During the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009

Given the deleveraging process in the banking sector, banks were reluctant to lend funds in the interbank market because of uncertainty about their own future need for funds during the financial crisis of 2007 - 2009. Aggregate liquidity then declined. This paper investigates the impact of the market-wide liquidity risk and carry-trade incentives on exchange rate movements. The results suggest that liquidity risk measured by the spread between LIBOR and the overnight index swap rate was a significant factor affecting the exchange-rate movements of the euro, British pound and Swiss franc, while carry trades were important for the Japanese yen, Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar.
Car Replacement and Environmental Policy in the EU: The Case of Greece

Policy makers in Europe have become increasingly aware of the need to curb the adverse effects of transport externalities, in particular the impact of cars on the environment. In some countries of the European Union, economic instruments have been used to reduce emissions generated by passenger cars. The present paper examines the extent to which these instruments are used in the case of environmental policy in Greece for passenger cars.
Effects of ursolic acid and oleanolic acid on human colon carcinoma cell line HCT15.

AIM Ursolic acid (UA) and oleanolic acid (OA) are triperpene acids having a similar chemical structure and are distributed wildly in plants all over the world. In recent years, it was found that they had marked anti-tumor effects. There is little literature currently available regarding their effects on colon carcinoma cells. The present study was designed to investigate their inhibitory effects on human colon carcinoma cell line HCT15. METHODS HCT15 cells were cultured with different drugs. The treated cells were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and their morphologic changes observed under a light microscope. The cytotoxicity of these drugs was evaluated by tetrazolium dye assay. Cell cycle analysis was performed by flow cytometry (FCM). Data were expressed as means +/-SEM and Analysis of variance and Student' t-test for individual comparisons. RESULTS Twenty-four to 72 h after UA or OA 60 micromol/L treatment, the numbers of dead cells and cell fragments were increased and most cells were dead at the 72nd hour. The cytotoxicity of UA was stronger than that of OA. Seventy-eight hours after 30 micromol/L of UA or OA treatment, a number of cells were degenerated, but cell fragments were rarely seen. The IC(50) values for UA and OA were 30 and 60 micromol/L, respectively. Proliferation assay showed that proliferation of UA and OA-treated cells was slightly increased at 24h and significantly decreased at 48 h and 60 h, whereas untreated control cells maintained an exponential growth curve. Cell cycle analysis by FCM showed HCT15 cells treated with UA 30 and OA 60 for 36 h and 72 h gradually accumulated in G(0)/G(1) phase (both drugs P<0.05 for 72 h), with a concomitant decrease of cell populations in S phase (both drugs P<0.01 for 72 h) and no detectable apoptotic fraction. CONCLUSION UA and OA have significant anti-tumor activity. The effect of UA is stronger than that of OA. The possible mechanism of action is that both drugs have an inhibitory effect on tumor cell proliferation through cell-cycle arrest.
International Tourists' Environmental Attitude towards Hotels in Accra

The available literature suggests that there has been a rise in green consumerism not only among general consumers but tourists. This has provided the impetus for the ‘greening’ of hotels as hotel guests have indicated their preference for hotels that ‘take care of the environment’. Ironically, the environmental impacts of hotels especially with regards to the consumption of energy and water are more likely to be exacerbated by their guests. In spite of this, most studies on environmental management in hotels have centred on programmes and initiatives undertaken by management with little focus on the attitudes and behaviour of guests. This study sought to assess international tourists’ environmental attitude towards hotels in Accra and the implications for environmental management by hotels. A sample of 343 international tourists was surveyed at major tourist attraction sites in Accra. The results of the study indicate that a majority of respondents generally held the view that hotels do not destroy the environment but contribute to the global environmental problems. Most of them (83%) were therefore willing to pay more to stay in a hotel with a responsible environmental attitude. There was also a significant positive relationship between some socio-demographic characteristics of tourist such age and sex and their environmental behaviour. The results of this study have implications for environmental education of guests and the marketing of hotels.
The Effect of Subtracting a Constant from all Payoffs in a Hawk-Dove Game: Experimental Evidence of Loss Aversion in Strategic Behavior

Economists and psychologists have documented patterns of individual decision-making behavior (e.g., loss aversion) whereby losses and gains are treated differently. However, there has been little evidence of such patterns in multiplayer games. I report results showing the strongest evidence I know of that this phenomenon is present in games. Experimental subjects play two hawk-dove games that are identical up to a constant; in one, all payoffs are positive, while in the other, payoffs are negative if and only if both players choose “hawk. ” Under both fixed pairs and random matching, differences between the games are substantial, significant, and consistent with loss aversion.
Factors reducing the expected deflection in initial orientation in clock-shifted homing pigeons

SUMMARY To orient from familiar sites, homing pigeons can rely on both an olfactory map and visual familiar landmarks. The latter can in principle be used in two different ways: either within a topographical map exploited for piloting or in a so-called mosaic map associated with a compass bearing. One way to investigate the matter is to put the compass and the topographical information in conflict by releasing clock-shifted pigeons from familiar locations. Although the compass orientation is in general dominant over a piloting strategy, a stronger or weaker tendency to correct towards the home direction by clock-shifted pigeons released from very familiar sites has often been observed. To investigate which factors are involved in the reduction of the deviation due to clock-shift, we performed a series of releases with intact and anosmic pigeons from familiar sites in unshifted and clock-shifted conditions and a series of releases from the same sites with naive clock-shifted birds. Our data suggest that the following factors have a role in reducing deviation due to the clock-shift: familiarity with the release site, the lack of olfactory information and some unknown site-dependent features.
Consumer-to-store employee and consumer-to-self-service technology (SST) interactions in a retail setting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the underlying mechanism of how consumer-to-store employee and consumer-to-self-service technology (SST) interaction qualities contribute to consumer retail patronage. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 300 surveys for each type of in-store kiosk were used for the data analysis. The proposed model was analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings – This study suggests a direct link from SST usage frequency to perception of SST service quality. Also, retail patronage intentions were positively influenced by both interpersonal service quality and SST service quality, and SST usage intentions were positively affected by retail patronage intentions. Lastly, three causal links were shown to be dissimilar between the two types of in-store kiosk: interpersonal service quality-retail patronage intentions, SST service quality-retail patronage intentions, and SST service quality-SST usage intentions. The remaining links were similar for both types .
Disparities in the Prevalence of Obesity in Boston: Results from the Boston Area Community Health (BACH) Survey

Objective. This study examined disparities in the prevalence of obesity to determine how future prevention and/or intervention efforts should be developed to remedy obesity. Methods. We obtained individual information of sociodemographic characteristics, comorbid conditions, and lifestyle behaviors from the Boston Area Community Health (BACH) survey for 2002–2005. To account for the complex BACH sampling design, observations were weighted inversely to their probability of selection, and sampling weights were poststratified to the Boston population from the U.S. Census 2000. We tested all possible two- and three-way interaction terms from a multivariate logistic regression model. Results. After controlling for individual determinants in detail and focusing on the population within a single city, the associations of sociodemographic characteristics, comorbid conditions, and lifestyle behaviors with obesity were consistent with previous findings. Notably, three two-way interaction terms were significantly associated with obesity: (1) race/ethnicity and gender, (2) gender and other people in the household, and (3) race/ethnicity and alcohol consumption. Conclusions. Future obesity prevention and/or intervention programs in Boston need to be primarily gender- and racially/ethnically specific to minimize cost and maximize results. Additional considerations are needed to take into account the differences in age, the presence of other people in the household, and education level.
Performance of earthing systems of low resistivity soils

In a previous paper , the properties of sand with different water contents were investigated under high-magnitude fast-impulse currents, and an equivalent circuit model for soil ionisation was derived. For the hemispherical test cell used, resistance values in the kilo-ohm (Omega) range were obtained. These high values of resistance limited the current magnitudes to less than 300 A before breakdown occurred in the test cell. In practice, however, the resistance of an earth electrode is usually less than 10 Omega and the transient current magnitudes can reach several tens of kiloamperes. It is, therefore, necessary to investigate the behavior of soils under high current magnitudes and compare it with low ac and dc test results. In order to achieve high impulse current magnitudes with the adopted test cell, low resistivity media were utilized as test soils. In this present paper, a new impulse test data using wet clay and sand mixed with controlled amounts of sodium chloride (NaCl) to obtain a range of low-resistivity materials, was analyzed. The characteristics of NaCl are also investigated under low-magnitude low-frequency and high-magnitude impulse currents in order to understand better its effect on sand-salt soil mixtures. Impulse currents up to 5 kA were used during the test program. These new data would be useful in understanding the characteristics of a low earth resistance value (which is a typical condition at field site) under high impulse conditions. By including the nonlinear effect of the soil under high currents, more accurate modelling of protective devices and their performance could be achieved. In addition, the consideration of the nonlinearity in soils can help the optimum design of earthing systems
Critical Concerns in Transfer Pricing and Practice

Tables and Figures Introduction Transfer Pricing Critical Issues in General Transfer Pricing Crisis Corporate Goals of Transfer Pricing Policies Methods for Pricing the Transferred Goods or Services Management Accounting and Transfer Pricing Management Accountants and Transfer Pricing Transfer Pricing and Performance Evaluation of Foreign Subsidiary Managers E-Commerce and Intangible Assets E-Commerce and Transfer Pricing in the 21st Century Intangible Assets and International Taxation Tax Regulations and Practices of Transfer Pricing in Selected Countries The Arm's-Length Price and Advance Pricing Agreement Programs in Selected Countries Documentation and Penalties in Selected Countries Looking Ahead The Future Global Trend of Transfer Pricing Index
[National developments in Emergency Departments in the Netherlands: numbers and origins of patients in the period from 2012 to 2015].

OBJECTIVE Gaining insight into key figures of emergency departments (EDs) in the Netherlands and developments in these figures. DESIGN Longitudinal survey study. METHOD Over the period from 2012 up to and including 2015, the following key data were surveyed: number of EDs, number of ED patients, ED patients' origin, number of hospital admissions from the ED and form of cooperation between ED and a general practitioner centre (GPC). RESULTS An average of 96% of all EDs responded. The number of EDs decreased from 93 to 87. The percentage of EDs that maintained a form of cooperation with a GPC in the hospital rose from 49% to 79%. The total number of patients seen annually in an ED in the Netherlands decreased by 128,000 to 1.951 million. The proportion of patients presenting in the ED via ambulance, mobile medical team or 112 (emergency number) increased by 2.6% to 16.0%. The proportion of patients referred from their own GP or GPCs increased by 7.8% to an average of 50.3%. The proportion of self-referrals decreased by 12.6% to 17.4%. The proportion of patients who came up to the ED through a different route remained constant at around 14%. The nationwide variation in the origin of patients remained high. The average percentage of hospital admissions from the ED increased by 5.6% to 37.2%. CONCLUSION The number of EDs is decreasing and the cooperation between EDs and GPCs has intensified. The number of patients seen in the ED has decreased. The percentage of self-referrals has decreased and the number of hospital admissions from the ED has increased significantly. For a successful and consistent policy, more substantive data on the nature and extent of emergency care in the ED are needed. This requires a national registry.
Predicting the Valence of a Scene from Observers’ Eye Movements

Multimedia analysis benefits from understanding the emotional content of a scene in a variety of tasks such as video genre classification and content-based image retrieval. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in applying human bio-signals, particularly eye movements, to recognize the emotional gist of a scene such as its valence. In order to determine the emotional category of images using eye movements, the existing methods often learn a classifier using several features that are extracted from eye movements. Although it has been shown that eye movement is potentially useful for recognition of scene valence, the contribution of each feature is not well-studied. To address the issue, we study the contribution of features extracted from eye movements in the classification of images into pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant categories. We assess ten features and their fusion. The features are histogram of saccade orientation, histogram of saccade slope, histogram of saccade length, histogram of saccade duration, histogram of saccade velocity, histogram of fixation duration, fixation histogram, top-ten salient coordinates, and saliency map. We utilize machine learning approach to analyze the performance of features by learning a support vector machine and exploiting various feature fusion schemes. The experiments reveal that ‘saliency map’, ‘fixation histogram’, ‘histogram of fixation duration’, and ‘histogram of saccade slope’ are the most contributing features. The selected features signify the influence of fixation information and angular behavior of eye movements in the recognition of the valence of images.
C/EBPβ Gene Inactivation Causes Both Impaired and Enhanced Gene Expression and Inverse Regulation of IL-12 p40 and p35 mRNAs in Macrophages1

The transcription factor C/EBPβ is believed to play a fundamental role in regulating activated macrophage functions. However, the molecular mechanisms and the target genes involved have been, so far, poorly characterized, partly due to the difficulty of reproducibly obtaining homogeneous and abundant primary macrophage populations. In this study, we describe the generation and characterization of immortalized macrophage-like cell lines from C/EBPβ-deficient and wild-type mice. Using these cells, we were able to identify a number of genes involved in activated macrophage functions whose induction was affected in the C/EBPβ−/− cells. IFN-γ/LPS-dependent induction of IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α, inducible NO synthase, and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 mRNAs was variably impaired, while IL-12 p40, RANTES and macrophage inflammatory protein-1β mRNAs were up-regulated in the absence of C/EBPβ. The differential mRNA expression correlated with differential transcription levels of the corresponding genes, and was in most cases confirmed in primary macrophage populations. Moreover, in sharp contrast to the enhanced induction of IL-12 p40 mRNA, C/EBPβ−/− primary macrophages derived from both the bone marrow and the peritoneal cavity displayed totally defective expression of IL-12 p35 mRNA. Therefore, the IL-12 p35 gene represents a novel obligatory target for C/EBPβ in macrophages and this may explain the defective production of bioactive IL-12 and the impaired Th1 responses of C/EBPβ-deficient mice to Candida albicans infection observed in previous work.