Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Constraints and the Costs and Benefits of Vertical Integration

Does vertical integration reduce or increase transaction costs with external investors? This paper analyzes an incomplete contracts model of vertical integration in which a seller and a buyer with no cash need to finance investments for production. The firm is modeled as a "nexus of contracts" across the intermediate input supply and the financing transaction. The costs and benefits of vertical integration depend on the relative importance of a positive "contractual centralization" effect against a negative "de-monitoring" effect: the firm centrally organizes the nexus of contracts reducing the extent of contractual externalities while the market disciplines decisions driven by private benefits. Larger projects, more specific assets, and low investors protection are determinants of vertical integration.
The Evolution of Buyout Pricing and Financial Structure

This paper presents evidence on systematic changes in the pricing and financial structure of 124 large management buyouts completed between 1980 and 1989. We find that over tine (1) prices increased relative to current cash flows with no accompanying decrease in risk or increase in projected future cash flows; (2) required bank principal repayments accelerated, leading to sharply lower ratios of cash flow to total debt obligations; (3) private subordinated debt was replaced by public debt while the use of strip-financing techniques declined; and (4) management teams invested a smaller fraction of their net worth in post-buyout equity. These patterns of buyout prices and structures suggest that based on ex ante data, one could have expected lower returns and more frequent financial distress in later buyouts. Preliminary post-buyout evidence is consistent with this interpretation.
The human green office experience: Happy and healthy or sick and frustrated?

Adopting the proposition that the effect on people using, interacting or working in a ‘green’ workplace environment is not currently clear nor fully understood, the purpose of this research is to examine what the green workplace environment is like from the perspective of one of this sub group – the users’/employees’– especially when it comes to satisfaction levels and health outcomes. This study examines and compares responses between employees in green and in non-green workplace environments in order to determine if a gap exists between the satisfaction and health levels of these two groups. The survey covers 351 employee respondents occupying ten green office buildings (Green Star-rated in accordance to Green Building Council Australia) and 159 employee respondents occupying eleven non-green office buildings. The findings from this study are clear: the human benefits of a green workplace are massive. Employees in green workplace environments consider themselves to be happier and healthier than employees in non-green workplace environments. The large sample of office space users provides empirical evidence of what sets green workplaces apart from non-green, and provides a good reference point for similar studies in the future, leading to the establishment of clearer, more useful benchmarks of green building occupier satisfaction and health. The findings from this study are useful for green building industry practitioners, business managers, occupants and health professionals and will deepen their understanding of the green workplace environment and its impact on employees.
Antidepressants Differentially Influence the Transcriptional Activity of the Glucocorticoid Receptor in vitro

Functional normalization of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in depressive patients by successful treatment with antidepressants is associated with increased efficiency of corticosteroid signal transduction. Accordingly, some antidepressants have been shown to influence the activity of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in cultured cells. It is not clear, however, whether this is a common principle for all antidepressants throughout all classes. Therefore, we screened a range of 18 antidepressants of different classes for their effect on GR signaling in a reporter gene assay using the mouse hippocampal cell line HT22. We evaluated GR-mediated gene transcription after short-time incubation (24 h) with different concentrations of each antidepressant (1 or 10 µM) in the presence or absence of the synthetic steroid dexamethasone (0.01 or 1 µM). The majority of antidepressants had a tendency to enhance steroid-induced GR-mediated gene transcription at high concentrations of antidepressant and low concentrations of steroid. Some antidepressants reduced the steroid-independent background activity of GR. This reduction was not due to unspecific inhibition of GR by oxidative stress, since no induction of intracellular peroxides was detectable in the concentration range of antidepressants used in our study. Furthermore, no significant change in GR activity was observed by concomitant treatment of HT22 cells with the antioxidant α-tocopherol (vitamin E). In conclusion, we report that many antidepressants enhance GR signaling in an in vitro neuronal system at clinically relevant concentrations. Those not showing an effect in vitro apparently use different mechanisms to influence GR activity that require an in vivo setting.
The Microstructure of Individual Equity Options: Firm-Level and Common Effects on Liquidity

This study utilises an extensive dataset from three European exchanges, namely NYSE LIFFE Amsterdam, London and Paris, to study cross-sectional commonality in liquidity for individual equity options. We document that individual option liquidity is strongly associated with the underlying market activity, a finding that is consistent with the derivatives hedging theory. The implementation of the Premium Based Tick Size rule has lead to increases in liquidity. In contrast to previous studies that use daily data, we use an intraday dataset that allows us to construct a novel daily index of commonality in option liquidity. We show that the proportion of variance explained by a common liquidity factor is 15% for Amsterdam and 27% for London and Paris. In general, the first principal component explains about 11% of the variability of liquidity and the three main factors explain 15% of the variation at a sub-ticker level. Finally, commonality in liquidity for calls increases in an up market and decreases in a down market whereas commonality for puts is unaffected by market conditions.
What Drives Customer Loyalty and Profitability?: Analysis of Perspectives of Retail Customers in Ghana's Banking Industry

Customer loyalty as a concept is a critical strategic option in today’s competitive environment. It is no surprise therefore that managers and researchers have increased their study and understanding of the concept as a strategic marketing imperative over the past decades to capture market share and improve profitability. Indeed the theoretical perspective is that competitive pricing as well as company image and reputation contribute to customer satisfaction and that service quality along a number of pathways drives customer loyalty and profitability thus: service quality--> customer satisfaction--> customer loyalty --> market share --> profitability. A few empirical studies have found these linkages to be true. However these factors differ in importance based on the cultural setting. We investigate (1) whether these relationships exist and (2) which of these factor(s) is/are important in motivating consumer loyalty from the perspectives of retail banking customers in Ghana. The study draws on customer behaviour and attitude premised on the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF models originated by Parasuraman et al., (1988), Cronin and Taylor (1992), and Brady and Cronin (2001) respectively as well as other researches based on the literature on customer satisfaction and loyalty. We used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches in our study and have drawn from both primary and secondary sources of data. We made use of a 7 point likert scale to develop indexes for the main constructs measured in this study and applied correlation, chi square (χ2) and regression analyses to evaluate the hypothesised relationships. Further we qualitatively analysed aspects of the data hinging on explanatory aspects of our research. The results among other things reveal that whilst service quality (especially empathy and reliability) and bank image and reputation are important instigators of customer satisfaction and loyalty, competitive pricing showed a weak linear relationship with customer satisfaction and loyalty (r < 0.5). On the other hand, increased market share was found to influence banks’ profitability. Finally we discuss the management implications of the study in terms of customer retention and profitability strategies for the banks in Ghana. We emphasise that management strategies that are service quality conscious, use person-organisation fit approaches to recruitment and effectively communicate strategies could help institutionalise a culture that is customer relation centred, help banks survive the competition, retain their customers and in the long run increase their profitability.
Electrophysiological evidence for transient topographic organization of retinotectal projections during optic nerve regeneration in the lizard, Ctenophorus ornatus

In the lizard, Ctenophorus ornatus, anatomical studies have revealed that optic axons regenerate to visual centers within 2 months of nerve crush but that, from the outset, the regenerated projections lack topographic order (Beazley et al., 1997; Dunlop et al., 1997b). Here we assess the functional topography of the regenerated retinotectal projections by electrophysiological recording of extracellular multiunit responses to visual stimulation and by observing the lizards' ability to capture live prey. At the completion of the electrophysiology, DiI was applied locally to the retina and the topography of the tectal projection later assessed. Electrophysiology revealed that, at 2–4.2 months, responses were weak and habituated readily; no retinotopic order was detected. Between 4.5–6 months, responses were more reliable and the majority of lizards displayed a crude retinotopic order, especially in the ventro-temporal to dorso-nasal retinal axis. Although responses were variable between 6–9 months, they tended to be more reliable again thereafter. However, from 6–18 months, the projection consistently lacked topography with many retinal regions projecting to each tectal locus. Lizards, including those with electrophysiological evidence of crude retinotopy, were consistently unable to capture live prey using the experimental eye. Labelling with DiI confirmed the absence of anatomical retinotopy throughout. Taken together, the electrophysiological and anatomical data indicate that retinotopically appropriate axon terminals (or parts thereof) are transiently active whilst inappropriately located ones are silent. Presumably in lizard map-making cues fade with time and/or the mechanisms are lacking to stabilize and refine the ephemeral map. Moreover, the transient retinotopy is insufficient for useful visual function.
Sixth annual Global Survey of Supply Chain Progress : still chasing the leaders

Subtitle: This year's survey results show that companies continue to make steady supply chain progress across a range of competencies -- though some have progressed a lot faster than others. For those companies following the leaders, the message from the 2008 survey -- our largest and most geographically disperse ever -- is clear : You can't afford to be playing catch-up anymore.
Outage Probability of Interference-Limited Amplify-and-Forward Relaying with Partial Relay Selection

The outage probability of dual-hop amplify-and- forward (AF) relaying scheme with partial relay selection is derived when the multiple interferences affect on the relay nodes. In contrast to the previous works, we focus on analyzing the effect of multiple interferences which make the transmission channel degraded. Following the partial relay selection policy, the best source to relay path is selected based on the comparisons of signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR) among all source to relay paths. An exact expression of outage probability is presented and simulation results are also presented for the validity of the analytical result. This result shows the effect of multiple interferences on cooperative AF relaying system in multicell environment.
From Human Resource Strategy to Organizational Effectiveness: Lessons from Research on Organizational Agility

As a field of study and practice, strategic human resource management (SHRM) has come a long way in recent years. Still, at this point, the domain incorporating and connecting human resource strategy (HRS) and organizational effectiveness (OE) is essentially a theoretical and empirical "black box". Here we use our ongoing research on people in agile organizations to peer into this "black box" and draw implications for future theorizing and research. Suggestions are made for reconceptualizing OE, incorporating organizational capability as a key concept, taking a broader than usual view of HRS, and systematically assessing vertical and horizontal alignment of HR activities.
Optimized Full-Duplex MIMO DF Relaying With Limited Dynamic Range

This paper investigates the transceiver optimization of full-duplex multiple-input multiple-output decode-and-forward (DF) relaying by taking into account the practical factor of limited dynamic range (LDR). Focusing on the maximization of end-to-end achievable rate which involves highly coupled variables, we develop a convergent block coordinate ascent (BCA) algorithm to deal with the complicated optimization problem. In each iteration of BCA, the optimal source beamformer, relay receive beamformer, and destination receive beamformer all admit closed-form solutions. As for the optimization of relay transmit beamformer, we transform the corresponding non-convex maximin problem into a single second-order cone program problem which thus allows an efficient optimal solution. Simulations validate the remarkable performance gain attained by incorporating LDR into the full-duplex DF relaying transceiver optimization.
Customers and Investors: A Framework for Understanding Financial Institutions

Financial institutions have both investors and customers. Investors, such as those who invest in stocks and bonds or private/public-sector guarantors of institutions, expect an appropriate risk-adjusted return in exchange for the financing and risk-bearing that they provide. Customers of a financial intermediary, in contrast, provide financing in exchange for a specific set of services, and do not want the fulfillment of these services to be contingent on the credit risk of the intermediary, even when they are not small, uninformed agents lacking in sophistication. This paper develops a framework that defines the roles of customers and investors in intermediaries, and uses the framework to provide an economic foundation for the aversion to intermediary credit risk on the part of its customers. This customer-investor nexus has implications for a host of issues related to how contracts between financial intermediaries and their customers are structured and how risks are shared between them, as well as the consequences of (unanticipated) deviations from the ex ante efficient contractual arrangement for institutional design, regulatory practices, and financial crises. Moreover, customers and investors are often intertwined in practice, and so this intertwining provides insights into the adoption of “too-big-to-fail” policies and bailouts by regulators in general.
Is parental burnout distinct from job burnout and depressive symptomatology?

Parenting can be difficult, and when difficulties are experienced as being chronic and/or overwhelming, parental burnout may occur. It is not yet clear, however, to what extent parental burnout can be distinguished from job burnout (which shares core definitional features) or depressive symptoms (which often co-occur with parental burnout). Here we present two studies (N = 3,482) which suggest the distinctiveness of parental burnout. First, items aimed at measuring parental burnout, job burnout, and depressive symptoms loaded on different factors. Second, although job burnout, parental burnout, and depressive symptoms had some common consequences (e.g., problematic alcohol use, disordered sleep, somatic complaints), parental and job burnout also each had specific consequences (e.g., parental neglect and parental violence for parental burnout; intent to leave the company for job burnout) that are not explained by depressive symptoms. These results support the distinctiveness of parental burnout and the added value of this construct.
Evaluation of Serum Bactericidal Antibody Assays for Haemophilus influenzae Serotype a

ABSTRACT Haemophilus influenzae type a (Hia) is an important pathogen for some American Indian, Alaskan native, and Northern Canada aboriginal populations. Assays to measure serum bactericidal activity (SBA) to Hia have not been developed or validated. Here, we describe two methods for the measurement of SBA: SBA with a viability endpoint (CFU counts) and SBA with a fluorometric endpoint using alamarBlue as the metabolic indicator. Both SBA assays measure Hia-specific functional antibody and correlate with anti-Hia IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) concentration of naturally acquired antibodies.
Feature detection in human vision: a phase-dependent energy model

This paper presents a simple and biologically plausible model of how mammalian visual systems could detect and identify features in an image. We suggest that the points in a waveform that have unique perceptual significance as ‘lines’ and ‘edges’ are the points where the Fourier components of the waveform come into phase with each other. At these points ‘local energy’ is maximal. Local energy is defined as the square root of the sum of the squared response of sets of matched filters, of identical amplitude spectrum but differing in phase spectrum by 90°: one filter type has an even-symmetric line-spread function, the other an odd-symmetric line-spread function. For a line the main contribution to the local energy peak is in the output of the even-symmetric filters, whereas for edges it is in the output of the odd-symmetric filters. If both filter types respond at the peak of local energy, both edges and lines are seen, either simultaneously or alternating in time. The model was tested with a series of images, and shown to predict well the position of perceived features and the organization of the images.
Performance Analysis of a Reconfigurable Shared Memory Multiprocessor System for Embedded Applications

This paper presents a method to predict perform processor cores in a reconfigurable system for embe dded applications. A multiprocessor framework is developed with the capability of reconfigurable processors in a shared memory system optimized for stream signal processi ng applications. The framework features a discrete time Markov based stochastic tool, which is used to analyze mem ory contention in the shared memory architecture, and to predict the performance increase (speed of execution) when the number of processors i variations of other system parameters, such as diff erent task allocations and the number of pipeline stages are possible were verified by experimental results of a green sc re and run on a Xilinx Virtex
Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination

Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination provides a comprehensive introduction to fraud detection and deterrence for both students and professionals. The text follows the model curriculum for education in fraud and forensic accounting funded by the U.S. National Institute of Justice and developed by a Technical Working Group of experts in the field. Whether getting inside the mind of these criminals in “From the Fraudster’s Perspective,” or utilizing the included IDEA software for meeting documentation standards, this text offers real world practicality. This easy to read, comprehensive textbook includes essential learning pedagogies and engaging case study examples that bring technical concepts to life.
UWB Square Monopole Antenna with Omni-Directional Radiation Patterns for Use in Circular Cylindrical Microwave Imaging Systems

─ In this paper, a novel ultra-wideband printed monopole antenna (PMA) for the use in a circular cylindrical microwave imaging system is presented. The proposed antenna consists of a square radiating patch and a ground plane with a pair of L-shaped slots and two L-shaped conductor back plane, which provides a wide usable fractional bandwidth of more than 130 % (3.02 GHz 15.21 GHz). By cutting two modified Lshaped slots with variable dimensions on the ground plane corners and also by inserting two Lshaped conductor back plane on the other side of the substrate, additional resonances are excited and hence much wider impedance bandwidth can be produced, especially at the higher band. The proposed antenna has an ordinary square radiating patch, therefore displays a good omni-directional radiation pattern even at higher frequencies, and also its radiation efficiency is greater than 82% across the entire radiating band. The designed antenna has a small size of 12 × 18 mm. Simulated and measured results are presented to validate the usefulness of the proposed antenna structure for circular cylindrical microwave
Signal Enhancement, Not Active Suppression, Follows the Contingent Capture of Visual Attention

Irrelevant visual cues capture attention when they possess a task-relevant feature. Electrophysiologically, this contingent capture of attention is evidenced by the N2pc component of the visual event-related potential (ERP) and an enlarged ERP positivity over the occipital hemisphere contralateral to the cued location. The N2pc reflects an early stage of attentional selection, but presently it is unclear what the contralateral ERP positivity reflects. One hypothesis is that it reflects the perceptual enhancement of the cued search-array item; another hypothesis is that it is time-locked to the preceding cue display and reflects active suppression of the cue itself. Here, we varied the time interval between a cue display and a subsequent target display to evaluate these competing hypotheses. The results demonstrated that the contralateral ERP positivity is tightly time-locked to the appearance of the search display rather than the cue display, thereby supporting the perceptual enhancement hypothesis and disconfirming the cue-suppression hypothesis.
PENGARUH TEKANAN MANAJEMEN KLIEN DAN AUDIT TIME BUDGET PRESSURE TERHADAP INDEPENDENSI AUDITOR

Men auditor deals with pressures from client, auditor will react on two ways, functional and dysfuncyional behaviours. Auditor will sacrifice independency if auditor choose the dysfuncyional behaviour, i.e. reduced audit quality practices (RAOPs) and under reporting of time (UR7), as respond to the client pressures. The study has objective to examine factors that influence toward auditor independency. The study identify two factors, i.e. client manage¬ment pressure and audit time budget pressure, which influence auditor independency. The study uses survey method. Of 48 questionnaires were sent, 43 questionnaires were returned and used in analysis. The method used in analysis is multiple linear regression. The findings showed that client management intervention has positive influencial on auditor independence. By contrast, there is no significant influential between severance of work connection and replacement auditor towards independency auditor. Meanwhile, high fee audit positive and significant influential towards independency auditor. On audit time budget pressure, the study also find various results. There is no significant influential between tight audit time budget towards independency auditor. By contrast, sanction of audit over time budget has positive influencial towards independency auditor.