Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementing IFRS in local government: value adding or additional pain?

Purpose - The aim of this paper is determine the impact financial reporting obligations and, in particular, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have on local government management decision making. In turn, this will lead to observations and conclusions regarding the research question: “Does reporting under the IFRS regime add value to the management of local government? ” Design/methodology/approach - Following analysis of a survey instrument distributed to all local governments in all states of Australia, this research reports on interviews within Australia's largest state – New South Wales (NSW). Findings - In general, findings suggest that for smaller councils and those situated away from the major cities, the time spent on complying with IFRS and various other legislative demands results in management accounting issues often being downplayed. Research limitations/implications - A further paper needs to be conducted in order to determine in the second year of implementation the impact of IFRS – both in Australia and, in the future, in other countries – where local government is implementing IFRS. Practical implications will be evident when all Australian states are compared as NSW is the only state where an IFRS template has been produced for all local authorities. Originality/value - This is the first known analysis of IFRS in local government in Australia, and possibly the world. It utilises both survey and interview instruments within an institutional theory framework to capture the full richness of data available.
Growth in Africa: does the source of investment financing matter?

This paper examines empirical evidence for 11 sub-Saharan African countries on the relationship between economic growth and three principal sources of investment funds: foreign aid, foreign direct investment, and domestic saving. In light of the shortcomings of traditional cross-section analyses, the time series approach is used instead. Modern time series methods are rigorously applied, beginning with unit root tests and followed by model specifications that reflect the revealed temporal behaviours of the variables in each of the 11 countries. Domestic saving seems to play a somewhat more important role in generating economic growth than foreign direct investment or foreign aid. However, the mixture of results across the 11 countries implies that, in general, it is not possible to rank one source of investment financing ahead of any other.
Domain-Specific Improvement of Cognition on Memantine in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease Treated with Rivastigmine

Objective: Cholinergic therapy is used in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and antiglutamatergic therapy in moderate-to-severe AD. Global scales, as commonly used in clinical trials, blur specifics of disease progression and drug effects. The objective was to assess combination therapy of rivastigmine plus memantine by specific neuropsychological tests in patients with mild-to-moderate AD. Methods: 12-week-short multicenter open-label pilot study. Ninety patients with mild-to-moderate AD already on stable medication with rivastigmine (3–6 mg b.i.d.) additionally received memantine for 12 weeks. Subscales of the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS-cog), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and additional neuropsychological tests (e.g. span tasks, semantic fluency) were assessed. Results: The scores in the ADAS-cog memory subscale, the MMSE score, and digit span and semantic fluency significantly improved on combination therapy. Conclusion: Memory improvement was correlated with ADAS-cog memory score at baseline and inversely with age at onset of treatment. The data suggest that improvement on combination therapy results from an improvement of attention/executive function with secondary memory improvement, which will need to be confirmed in a subsequent double-blind study on a larger number of patients.
Redistricting and Familiarity With U.S. House Candidates

Redistricting has the effect of placing numerous voters into districts with a different incumbent seeking reelection. This event brings up an important question that has not been empirically tested: Are redrawn individuals, those who have a new incumbent because of redistricting, less likely to know who their new representative is? Furthermore, is there a difference in the rates of recall and recognition of challengers as a consequence of redistricting? This research note examines the influence of redistricting on recall and recognition of U.S. House candidates with use of the American National Elections Studies panel surveys for the 1992 and 2002 elections. Whether the measure is recall or recognition, redrawn respondents are significantly less likely to identify their incumbent as compared with individuals with the same incumbent seeking reelection. In contrast, with the exception of candidate name recall in 1992, redistricting does not affect the likelihood of identifying House challengers. This study demonstrates that redistricting constitutes another institutional feature of the American electoral system that raises the costs of political information because redrawn constituents are less familiar with their new representative.
Causes of Staff Abuse in Health Care Facilities

Verbal and physical abuse of health care workers (HCWs) is prevalent and costly. A 3 month prospective study was conducted to characterize precipitating conditions and the perpetrators of abusive incidents reported by HCWs at a large inner city hospital. Sixty-six HCWs reporting 102 incidents were interviewed by a research nurse within 48 hours of the incident. Abusive incidents resulted from 55 different patients and 11 visitors. Verbal abuse accounted for 42 incidents (41%) and 60 (59%) involved physical abuse. Two thirds of the abuse occurred on psychiatric wards, 20% on inpatient wards, and 13% in other settings. Overall, twice as many abusive incidents were inflicted by males as females. Cognitive impairment accounted for 19% of the incidents and one abuser was intoxicated at the time. Rule enforcement precipitated abuse in 70% of incidents. Researchers concluded that reviewing rules that apply to patients, how HCWs are trained to enforce rules, how to respond when service requested cannot be provided promptly, and how HCWs can protect themselves when performing a service were important elements in the prevention of staff abuse.
Incidence of Cystoid Macular Edema after Uncomplicated Phacoemulsification

We determined the incidence and causes of clinical and angiographic cystoid macular edema (CME) after uncomplicated phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation in otherwise normal eyes. This study comprised 252 eyes of 252 patients who had uncomplicated phacoemulsification with continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis and in-the-bag acrylic intraocular lens implantation. The presence of clinical and angiographic CME was evaluated 45 days after surgery, using fundus fluorescein angiography. Age, sex, cataract type, iris color, and real phacoemulsification time of the patients were also recorded. The mean age of the patients was 69.86 (range 60–82) years). Clinical CME was not detected in any eye at any postoperative visit. There were 23 cases with angiographic CME (9.1%). There were no significant differences between the groups who were later found to be angiographically CME-positive or CME-negative in any variable recorded (p >0.05). The incidences of clinical and angiographic CME after uncomplicated phacoemulsification were 0 and 9.1%, respectively. These results indicate that the occurrence of clinical CME has greatly reduced after uncomplicated phacoemulsification operations, but the incidence of angiographic CME is still nearly equal to the incidence of the extracapsular technique.
Distinct Differences in Repertoires of Low-Molecular-Mass Secreted Antigens of Mycobacterium aviumComplex and Mycobacterium tuberculosis

ABSTRACT Antigens in a 4-week-old culture filtrate (CF) ofMycobacterium avium subsp. avium were separated in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and identified by Western blotting. The culture had minimal lysis of bacilli, giving a CF preparation consisting mainly of secreted proteins. Comparison with a similar CF of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with almost no contamination with intracellular proteins showed the presence of cross-reactive antigens homologous to the four components of the antigen 85 complex, as well as MPT32. These were major constituents of the M. avium subsp.avium CF. In addition, there were several low-molecular-mass bands (<15 kDa) in both species that did not cross-react with polyclonal and polyvalent rabbit antibodies in Western blotting. Furthermore, these bands were not detected in corresponding sonicate preparations, indicating high localization indexes, which is typical of soluble secreted proteins. A 14-kDa protein was selected for purification and more detailed characterization. The N-terminal amino acid sequence was determined, and a matching gene was found within the genomic sequence of M. avium subsp. avium which was highly homologous to Rv0455c of M. tuberculosis. The gene encoded a signal peptide typical of secreted mycobacterial proteins. A rabbit antiserum was raised against the purified protein, and the antigen was demonstrated by Western blotting in CFs of M. avium subsp. avium, Mycobacterium aviumsubsp. paratuberculosis, Mycobacterium intracellulare, and Mycobacterium scrofulaceum but was not detected in M. tuberculosis. This is a new example of a highly homologous gene being differentially expressed by different mycobacterial species.
Environmental reporting in developing countries:empirical evidence from Bangladesh

Most environmental reporting studies have focused on developed countries. Only a handful number of studies are available on the developing countries, concentrating on the newly industrialized countries and African countries. No studies are available from South Asia except the widely quoted one of Singh and Ahuja (1983). Against this background, it is argued that an empirical study on environmental reporting practices in Bangladesh would make a significant contribution to the environmental reporting literature from the context of developing countries in general, and South Asian countries in particular. The study covers 30 recent annual reports of Bangladeshi companies relating to the year 1996. It shows that very limited environmental disclosure has been made. Although we have noted that 90% of companies made some environmental disclosures, the percentage of companies disclosing environmental information comes down to only 20 if we exclude disclosure related to expenditure on energy usage. In general, the quantity and the quality of disclosures seem to be inadequate and poor as compared to the environmental disclosures in the developed countries. The study concludes with an urge for further research in this regard.
The Role of Unions in Achieving a Family-friendly Workplace

The role of unions in achieving a family-friendly organization can be pivotal through bargaining for family-friendly provisions. This role is determined not only by union monopoly power and the gendered structure of collective voice of the workforce, but also by national trends in the organization of work and the role of trade unions, as well as the relationship between individual unions and organizations. This case study of a New Zealand local government organization particularly focuses on the contrasts in family-friendly provisions of collective agreements negotiated by different unions at the same workplace. Using Gregory and Milner’s (2009) framework of ‘opportunity structures’, the article confirms that unions may have a key role in the provision of family-friendly policy, and provides a contextual picture of the relationships between family-friendly policy and organizational and union characteristics. This article suggests that strengthening the positions of unions and collective bargaining may be an effective route for the instigation of family-friendly policy.
Forecasting the Depression: Harvard Versus Yale

Was the Depression forecastable? After the Crash, how long did it take contemporary economic forecasters to realize how severe the downturn was going to be? How long should it Have taken them to come to this realization? These questions are addressed by studying the predictions of the Harvard Economic Service and Yale's Irving Fisher during 1929 and the early 1930's. The data assembled by the Harvard and Yale forecasters are subjected to modern statistical analysis to learn whether their verbal pronouncements were consistent with the data. We find that both the Harvard and Yale forecasters were systematically too optimistic, yet nothing in the data suggests that the optimism was unwarranted.
Technology transfer agencies and regional economic development

Abstract Many regions in Western Europe have set up technology transfer agencies in order to support endogenous potential by encouraging the diffusion of new technologies from universities and large firms to small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). However, many studies have shown that business partners such as customers and suppliers are the most important partners for the stimulation of the innovativeness of SMEs. Universities and transfer agencies are given a very low rank in these studies. These results have led to doubts about the usefulness of these institutions for regional economic development. In order to increase transparency, streamlining of the agencies involved is necessary so that there are fewer actors and more cooperation between them. To be able to reach technology‐following SMEs, at least one transfer organization in every region should employ senior engineers with extensive business experience to visit firms frequently (proactive) to help them come up with some technological issues (d.
Nutrition knowledge and consumer use of nutritional food labels

Factors affecting nutritional food label use in Greece are examined using primary data collected from personal interviews with consumers shopping at supermarkets in Athens. The econometric approach treats nutrition knowledge, where appropriate, as an endogenous variable when estimating the models for general label use, degree of general label use and use of information on nutrient content. The results suggest that nutrition knowledge has a strong effect on general label use, degree of use, and on use of nutrient content concerning fat, ingredients and vitamins/minerals, thus confirming the hypothesised link between consumers' nutrition knowledge and behaviour. Socio-demographic effects are also evident in all models. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Factors Influencing Intentions To Retire: An Empirical Test of Theoretical Propositions

In light of significant changes over the past decade in the nature of the workforce, the workplace, and retirement itself, this article examines the factors that predispose employees to retire. The study uses a sample of older workers who had attended pre‐retirement planning sessions open to employees over age 45. Results suggest that employment status of spouse (rather than marital status per se), continuous years of service (rather than salary), the physical demands of the job (rather than overall health), and certainty about the plans for retirement (rather than the content of those plans) are significantly related to intentions to retire.
The Role of Institutional Investors in Initial Public Offerings

In this article, we use a large sample of transaction-level institutional trading data to analyze the role of institutional investors in initial public offerings (IPOs). The theoretical literature on IPOs has long argued that institutional investors possess private information about IPOs and that underpricing is a mechanism for compensating them to reveal this private information. We study whether institutions indeed have private information about IPOs, retain their information advantage in post-IPO trading, and are able to realize significant profits from their participation in IPOs. We also study institutional IPO allocations and allocation sales to analyze whether institutions play an important role in supporting IPOs in the aftermarket and are rewarded by underwriters for playing such a role. We find that institutions sell 70.2% of their IPO allocations in the first year, fully realize the "money left on the table," and do not dissipate these profits in post-IPO trading. Further, institutions hold allocations in IPOs with weaker post-issue demand for a longer period, and they are rewarded for this by underwriters with more IPO allocations. Finally, institutional trading has predictive power for long-run IPO performance, especially in IPOs in which they received allocations; however, this predictive power decays over time. Overall, our results suggest that institutional investors possess significant private information about IPOs, play an important supportive role in the IPO aftermarket, and receive considerable compensation for their participation in IPOs. The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org. , Oxford University Press.
Selecting product development projects: pioneering versus incremental innovation strategies

In this paper, we investigate project selection choices of duopolists facing two alternatives: undertaking a "pioneering" type project Type A aimed to develop a highly innovative product, or an "incremental innovation" type project Type B aimed to develop a less innovative product such as the modification of an existing product. A key objective of our research is to examine how firm characteristics such as their differential efficiencies in completing projects, differences in the degree of substitutability between Type A and B products, and first mover advantages affect product development strategies. We develop a game-theoretic model to obtain insights into the project selection problem taking into account competitive reactions to a firm's choice of project development strategies and technical uncertainties associated with project completion times. We report model findings on recommended project selection strategies for efficient and disadvantaged firms. Further, we examine how a firm's choice of a Type A project is affected by an increase in the variance of the project completion time of a Type A project relative to that of a Type B project, while the ratio of their mean completion times is held constant.
Pulmonary net release of tissue‐type plasminogen activator during porcine primary and secondary acute lung injury

Background: Tissue‐type plasminogen activator (tPA) is a key mediator of fibrinolysis. Matching of pulmonary perfusion and ventilation is a critical denominator of oxygenation in acute lung injury (ALI). This study investigates pulmonary venoarterial plasma tPA gradients in association with acute ALI induced by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and endotoxinemia (ETX).
Mind over matter – what do we know about neuroplasticity in adults?

ABSTRACT Background: An increasing number of studies have examined the effects of training of cognitive and other tasks on brain structure, using magnetic resonance imaging. Methods: Studies combining cognitive and other tasks training with longitudinal imaging designs were reviewed, with a view to identify paradigms potentially applicable to treatment of cognitive impairment. Results: We identified 36 studies, employing training as variable as juggling, working memory, meditation, learning abstract information, and aerobic exercise. There were training-related structural changes, increases in gray matter volume, decreases, increases and decreases in different regions, or no change at all. There was increased integrity in white matter following training, but other patterns of results were also reported. Conclusions: Questions still to be answered are: Are changes due to use-dependent effects or are they specific to learning? What are the underlying neural correlates of learning, the temporal dynamics of changes, the relations between structure and function, and the upper limits of improvement? How can gains be maintained? The question whether neuroplasticity will contribute to the treatment of dementia will need to be posed again at that stage.
Talented Suppliers? Strategic Change and Innovation in the UK Aerospace Industry

The 1990s marked the start of extensive re-structuring in the aerospace industry throughout the world. While the ensuing consolidation among prime contractors has been widely researched, the changes affecting the aerospace supplier base have received less attention. This exploratory study focuses on the supplier base and points to extensive re-structuring. Unlike many earlier studies, the lean supply model was found to be a rather powerful influence, with suppliers moving away from subcontractor status and taking on the mantle of 'talented' suppliers. However, the bolder predictions of lean supply, in terms of the dynamics of innovation, were less apparent, although there were signs that some suppliers, who genuinely warranted the title 'talented', were engaging in valuable process innovations.
A microeconometric analysis of credit rationing in the Polish farm sector

The objective of this paper is to investigate credit rationing of Polish farms. The analysis is based on cross-section survey data and motivated by a microeconomic farm household model. The results suggest that more than 40 per cent of borrowers experience pronounced credit rationing by rural banks. Credit-rationed households display an average marginal willingness to pay for short-term credit of 209 per cent net of principal. Furthermore, household variables have a significant effect on output supply. Demographic characteristics and a lack of collateral are major determinants of credit rationing. Public interest rate subsidisation contributes little to alleviate rationing of farms. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.
The term structure of interest rates in the 12 newest EU countries

This article uses cointegration and common trends techniques to investigate empirically the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates for the 10 new EU countries, along with Bulgaria and Romania. The empirical results support the expectations theory of the term structure for all countries except Malta. By decomposing each term structure into its transitory and permanent components, we also analyse short-run and long-run interdependence among the term structures of interest rates in these countries. Our results indicate only weak linkages among the term structures of the 10 new EU countries and strong linkages between Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007.
Why Have Estimate Revision Measures Not Worked in Recent Years?

Estimate revisions, whether measured using consensus or individual analyst data, continue to exhibit positive serial correlation. This suggests that the failure of estimate revision strategies in recent years was a result of investor overreaction to the widely known bias in analyst estimates. To measure this overreaction, the author presents a model that compares the persistence of estimate revisions expected by investors and the actual level of persistence warranted by analyst behavior. The results suggest that instead of simply selecting stocks with positive estimate revisions, the new task for active managers is to determine how much information in estimate revisions is already reflected in stock prices.