Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Organizational Ambidexterity and Family Firm Performance

Abstract In our paper, we introduce the concept of organizational ambidexterity (OA) to family firm research and develop hypotheses regarding the impact family influence has on OA and on subsequent firm performance. We argue that as family influence increases family firms achieve higher degrees of OA and firm performance. We empirically test our hypotheses on a dataset of 104 family firms and show that family influence leads to higher degrees of ambidexterity especially through family power and cultural alignment between family and firm interests. Furthermore, we show that higher levels of OA in family firms also result in better financial performance. We contribute to family firm research by introducing organizational ambidexterity into the discussion about family firm performance and family firm heterogeneity, and thus provide an approach for integrating strategy and family firm research.
Variable effects of soy protein on plasma lipids in hyperlipidemic and normolipidemic hemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND Hyperlipidemic factors contribute to the high cardiovascular risk in hemodialysis patients. Soy protein has decreased some atherogenic lipid concentrations in subjects with normal renal function. This study evaluates the effect of soy protein on serum lipid profiles in hyperlipidemic and normolipidemic hemodialysis patients. METHODS Nineteen hyperlipidemic and 18 normolipidemic hemodialysis patients were enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial. After a 4-week run-in phase, subjects in each category were randomly assigned to 2 groups. Thirty grams of isolated soy protein or milk protein was consumed daily as a beverage at breakfast or postdialysis for 12 weeks. RESULTS In hyperlipidemic subjects, soy protein intake significantly decreased total cholesterol levels by 18.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], -11.4 to -25.8; P = 0.04), triglyceride levels by 43.1% (95% CI, -34.0 to -52.2; P = 0.02), non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels by 23.6% (95% CI, -14.7 to -32.5; P < 0.01), apolipoprotein B levels by 15.4% (95% CI, -5.4 to -25.4; P = 0.01), and insulin levels by 49.8% (95% CI, -23.3 to -66.1; P < 0.01). Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration was decreased significantly (-25.8%; 95% CI, -8.3 to -42.7; P = 0.01), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level was increased significantly (17%; 95% CI, 2 to 32.0; P = 0.03), but there was no significant difference compared with the milk protein group (-5.5% +/- 16.9% and 7.0% +/- 11.8%, respectively). There were no significant changes in serum lipid and lipoprotein concentrations in normolipidemic subjects. CONCLUSION These results indicate soy protein substitution has lipid-lowering effects in hyperlipidemic hemodialysis patients. However, soy protein intake had little effect on plasma lipid levels in normolipidemic hemodialysis patients.
Continuous Subcutaneous Insulin Infusion versus Multiple Daily Injections in Adolescents with Type I Diabetes Mellitus: A Randomized Open Crossover Trial

Intensive therapy for type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM) is usually provided by either multiple daily injections of insulin (MDI) or by insulin pump (continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion CSII). We designed an open, randomized, crossover trial to compare CSII with MDI for glycemic control, dose requirements, weight change, incidence of adverse events, quality of life and satisfaction in adolescents.
Perceived brand quality as a way to superior customer perceived value crossing by moderating effects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between perceived brand quality (PBQ), customer perceived value (CPV) and disposition to pay a higher price (DHP) for a product. Such an assessment also seeks to determine if consumer involvement and brand performance measurements have moderating effects on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach – Data from a sample of n = 1,029 purchasers of six different product categories were analysed. The respondents evaluated a product with items based on involvement profile scales. The chosen brands were evaluated using perceived quality, value and brand performance items. Respondents were also asked if a higher price for the chosen product/brand would be paid. Structural modelling was implemented. To corroborate moderating effects, a nested comparison invariance test for structural weights was used. Findings – PBQ has a direct effect on CPV but not on DHP. CPV has a mild effect on DHP. Involvement and brand performance moderating effects wer.
, and Tuomas Sandholm 2 the DGFs , the norm associated with the strong convexity parameter , and set widths of the domains as measured by the DGFs

Sparse iterative methods, in particular rst-order methods, are known to be among the most eective in solving large-scale two-player zero-sum extensive-form games. e convergence rates of these methods depend heavily on the properties of the distance-generating function that they are based on. We investigate the acceleration of rst-order methods for solving extensive-form games through beer design of the dilated entropy function—a class of distance-generating functions related to the domains associated with the extensiveform games. By introducing a new weighting scheme for the dilated entropy function, we develop the rst distance-generating function for the strategy spaces of sequential games that has no dependence on the branching factor of the player. is result improves the convergence rate of several rst-order methods by a factor of Ω(bdd ), where b is the branching factor of the player, and d is the depth of the game tree. us far, counterfactual regret minimization methods have been faster in practice, and more popular, than rst-order methods despite their theoretically inferior convergence rates. Using our new weighting scheme and practical tuning we show that, for the rst time, the excessive gap technique can be made faster than the fastest counterfactual regret minimization algorithm, CFR+, in practice.
Osteoporosis in systemic lupus erythematosus: factors associated with referral for bone mineral density studies, prevalence of osteoporosis and factors associated with reduced bone density

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical characteristics of women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) sent for a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) study, and to analyse the factors associated with a lower bone mineral density in these patients. Women with SLE who had a DEXA done between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 2000 were compared with those who did not have DEXA scans performed. SLE patients with osteoporosis (OP) were compared with those with a normal bone density. Of 516 women with SLE, 205 had a DEXA done. These patients had more traditional risk factors for osteoporosis, higher lupus disease activity, renal involvement, increased damage, higher mean steroid dose, increased use of immunosuppressants and occurrence of avascular necrosis. Of the 205 patients with DEXA, 18% had osteoporosis, 48.8% had osteopenia and 33.2% had normal bone mineral density. The two statistically significant predictors of a low bone density were a higher age at time of DEXA (P 1/4 0.0003) and a higher SDI score (P 1/4 0.0019). Osteoporosis is a significant comorbidity in SLE. Lupus patients referred for a DEXA have more traditional risk factors and use more corticosteroids. The main factors associated with a low bone density were however found to be age and increased damage. Interestingly, disease activity and corticosteroid use were not associated with osteoporosis in this study which may suggest other potential causes such as decreased physical activity associated with damage.
HEAT SHOCK‐INDUCED AUGMENTATION OF VASCULAR CONTRACTILITY IS INDEPENDENT OF RHO‐KINASE

1 In a previous study, we demonstrated that heat shock augments the contractility of vascular smooth muscle through the stress response. 2 In the present study, we investigated whether Rho‐kinases play a role in heat shock‐induced augmentation of vascular contractility in rat isolated aorta. 3 Rat aortic strips were mounted in organ baths, exposed to 42C for 45 min and subjected to contractile or relaxant agents 5 h later. 4 The level of expression of Rho‐kinases in heat shock‐exposed tissues was no different to that of control tissues, whereas heat shock induced heat shock protein (Hsp) 72 at 3 and 5 h. Heat shock resulted in an increase in vascular contractility in response to phenylephrine 5 h later. 5 The Rho‐kinase inhibitors Y27632 (30 nmol/L‐10 mmol/L) or HA 1077 (10 nmol/L‐10 mmol/L) relaxed 1.0 mmol/L phenylephrine‐precontracted vascular strips in a concentration‐dependent manner; these effects were attenuated in heat shock‐exposed strips. Pretreatment with Y27632 resulted in greater inhibition of the maximum contraction in control strips compared with those in heat shock‐exposed strips. 6 The results of the present study suggest that Rho‐kinases are unlikely to be involved in heat shock‐induced augmentation of vascular contractility.
Generation Y and Innovator Employers In The Australian Tourism And Hospitality Industry

It appears that there are employers who believe that Generation Y employees are often problematic. The technology, mass marketing, political times, and pop-culture in which Generation Y have grown up has ensured they have appreciably different ambitions and world views to previous generations. This paper reports the results of a study examining tourism and hospitality employer views of Generation Y employees and how some employers are attempting to draw upon the strengths of these workers. Focus groups with, and interviews of employers in Coffs Harbour, Cairns, South East Queensland, Sydney and Port Douglas were used to gain an understanding of employer views. The focus groups and interviews indicated that a sizeable number of tourism and hospitality managers believe Generation Y’s beliefs in the types of work that they should be doing in their formative years in the workplace is a substantial problem for their organisations. However, a minority group of employers identified Generation Y's attitudes to work as an opportunity to tap into their strengths and to connect with their potential customer base. A number of iconic Generation Y cultural 'tools' have been adopted by this more visionary group of tourism and hospitality employers and are being used for recruitment and retention.
Who cares about your Facebook friends? Credit scoring for microfinance

Microfinance has known a large increase in popularity, yet the scoring of such credit still remains a difficult challenge. In general, retail credit scoring uses socio-demographic and credit data. We complement such data with social network data in an innovative manner i.e. with fine-grained interest and social network data from Facebook. Using a unique dataset of 4,985 microfinance loans from the Philippines, we show how the different data types can predict creditworthiness. A distinction is made between the relationships that the available data imply: (1) look-a-likes are persons who resemble one another in some manner, be it liking the same pages, having the same education, etc. (2) friends have a clearly articulated friendship relationship on Facebook, and finally (3) the \Best Friends Forever" (BFFs) are friends that interact with one another. Our analyses show two interesting conclusions for this emerging application. Firstly, applying relational learners on BFF data yields better results than considering only the friends data. Secondly, the interest-based data that defines look-a-likes, is more predictive than the friendship or BFF data. Moreover, the model built on interest data is not significantly worse than the model that uses all available data, including the friendship data. Hence begging the question: who cares about your Facebook friends when your interest data is available?
Developing Market Specific Supply Chain Strategies

The issues underlying the appropriate matching of pipelines to marketplace needs under conditions of demand volatility and price pressure are examined. The authors describe a scenario where the philosophy of “one size fits all” does not apply to pipeline design, implementation, and control. Research conducted by the authors and others is used to show how appropriate global supply chain strategies can be developed contingent upon market characteristics and which seek simultaneously to achieve higher levels of customer responsiveness at less total cost to the supply chain as a whole. The selection of the right strategy within a supply chain lends itself to a taxonomic approach. We find that three dimensions (leading to eight possible configurations) are adequate for this purpose. These key dimensions are product characteristics, demand characteristics and replenishment lead‐time.
Effective Vs. Efficient Securities in Arbitrage-Free Markets with Bid-Ask Spreads: A Linear Programming Characterization

We consider a securities market with bid-ask spreads at any period, including liquidation. Although the minimum-cost super-replication problem is non-linear, we introduce an auxiliary problem that allows us to characterize no-arbitrage via linear programming techniques. Since no-arbitrage per se does not bound the bid-ask spread of a newly traded security, we introduce the notion of effective new security. We show that effectiveness restricts the no-arbitrage bid and ask prices of a new security to the interval defined by the minimum-cost problem. We discuss in details the cases in which the boundaries of this interval can be reached without violating no-arbitrage. We also compare effectiveness to efficiency as discussed in Jouini and Kallal (2001). We show that effectiveness is not sufficient for efficency, but is equivalent to the weaker notion of zero inefficiency cost.
Iterative machine and deep learning approach for aviation delay prediction

In the aviation industry, flight arrival delays cause approximately 18 billion of loss to customers as stated in the literature. So, it becomes inevitable on the part of the aviation authorities to predict such delays and take necessary action to fix this loss for customer satisfaction. In this paper, an approach based on machine learning techniques is proposed that predicts the flight arrival delays considering input parameters ranging from distance to their corresponding weather details to make a decision of whether the specific flight is delayed or not. It makes use of neural networks and deep learning concepts to estimate flight delay. The proposed approach is tested on real world flight big dataset that gives an accuracy of 77% using deep nets and 89% using neural nets. This approach can achieve reliable prediction with respect to if flight arrival delay is to be expected or not, moving forward the use of such a model can come in handy not only for airline administrators but also the passengers who can rearrange their schedules and arrange accommodation.
A mobile butterfly-watching learning system for supporting independent learning

In this paper, we describe the development of a mobile butterfly-watching learning (BWL) system which supports independent learners by offering a new pattern of outdoor mobile learning (or called as m-learning) activities. The proposed BWL system was designed using a wireless mobile ad-hoc learning environment. In our designed system, each individual learner has a wireless handheld device, which is a PDA (personal digital assistant) with an IEEE 802.11 wireless network card and a small-sized CCD camera. One instructor has a notebook computer with a wi-fi wireless LAN card which serves as the local server. The notebook has a complete butterfly database. All learners' wireless handheld devices and the notebook constitute a mobile ad-hoc learning environment. During the butterfly-watching activity, each learner takes a distinct butterfly picture, and wirelessly transmits the picture to the local server. A content-based butterfly-image retrieval technique is applied to search for the most closely matching butterfly information, which is returned in real time to the learner's wireless handheld device. To illustrate the effect of the BWL system, an outdoor BWL activity was actually performed at elementary school in Taiwan. This article reports on our attempts to develop a new m-learning system to support an independent learning model. We deeply believe that it is worth developing a mobile learning system to provide a possible independent-learning environment for outdoor learners.
Managing a Hotel's Image on TripAdvisor

User-generated content is rapidly gaining traction as an input into the consumer purchase decision making process. After examining the implications of the developing Web 2.0 phenomenon for travel businesses, this article focuses on TripAdvisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com), the largest online network of travel consumers. Using a sample of 100 hotels randomly selected from the London market, it shows that TripAdvisor displays detailed rich data that can be used in travel planning. Content analysis was used to identify common causes of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among reviewers. It was also discovered that few hotels are actively managing their reputation on the TripAdvisor site. Despite a facility to respond to criticism, few hotels used this option, calling into question how seriously hotels are managing user-generated content. Analyses also suggested that the belief that user-generated content sites have been compromised by false reviews is unfounded, with little evidence being found of reviews with characteristics that typify false postings.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and distress in a community-based sample.

BACKGROUND Numerous studies have found Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to be useful for a wide range of problems including anxiety, pain and coping with a medical illness. The primary goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an 8-week MBSR programme in relieving distress in a community based sample. METHODS Subjects (n = 14) were participants in the MBSR programme at a major academic medical center and completed the Profile of Mood States (POMS) and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) prior to starting the class and at the end of the 8-week course. Means and standard deviations were computed for the pre-and post-POMS total and subscale measures and the MAAS. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was conducted. RESULTS There were significant reductions on multiple dimensions of distress on the POMS as well as a significant increase in mindful awareness as measured by the MAAS. CONCLUSION These results suggest that MBSR appears to be associated with a reduction of distress and increased awareness of everyday life experiences in a sample of residents living in a large urban community.
Monolithically Integrated DFB-EA for 100 Gb/s Ethernet

The world's first monolithically integrated distributed feedback laser and electroabsorption (EA) modulator with an expected ges100 GHz -3 dBe bandwidth suitable for 100 Gb/s operation with on-off keying is presented. The design of the EA modulator uses a traveling-wave structure with three active segments and a total active length of 180 mum resulting in ~ 2.5 V peak-to-peak drive voltage for 10 dB optical extinction ratio and low electrical reflection.
The effect of spray drying processing conditions on physical properties of spray dried maltodextrin.

Maltodextrins have wide applications particularly in the food industry. They have many functionalities including usage as wall material, dispersing aid, flavor carrier, bulking agent, viscosifier or fat re-placer, and they exhibit only a slightly sweet taste. Maltodextrin was subjected to spray drying to determine the effect of spray drying conditions on moisture content, particle properties (particle size distribution and particle density) and bulk properties (bulk and tapped densities and porosity) of the powder product. Experiments have been performed in a lab scafle spray-dryer (Bu chiLabortechnik AG, Flawil, Switzerland) using a full-factorial design to provide data and correlations that predict the powder properties as a function of the main operational variables of the spraydryer. The inlet (140 and 200 °C) and feed temperatures (10 and 50 °C), feed flow rate (2.1×10 and 9.6×10 kg s) and atomizing air flow (1.3×10 and 1.9×10 m s) were investigated as spray drying process variables. The effect of spray drying conditions on physical properties of powders was expressed with three dimensional response surface and perturbation graphs. Perturbation graphs revealed that atomizing air flow and inlet air temperature had more effect than feed temperature and feed flow rate on the physical properties of maltodextrin powder. The results showed that the Sauter mean diameter (D3,2) was between 3.503 and 6.045 μm for maltodextrin powders.
Does the financial crisis affect distressed or constrained firms more heavily

We develop a framework to investigate the impact of the financial crisis starting in 2007 and employ an extended GARCH model to test for spillover and contagion effects originating from the financial sector. We find that the financial crisis affected financially distressed firms more heavily than undistressed firms and that financial constraints did not play an equally crucial role during the crisis. Overall, the analysis shows that the financial sector affected the returns of nonfinancial firms during the crisis. We find little evidence that the turbulence in the financial sector expressed in terms of volatility fully encroached upon nonfinancial firms.
DEMUTUALIZATION OF STOCK EXCHANGES AND STOCK MARKET GROWTH: BROADER ECONOMIC INVESTIGATION OF DEMUTUALIZED EXCHANGES

Stock exchanges are traditionally considered as “Brokers club” which inconsequence tarnishes the image of these markets in mind of the people. The advancement of the technology and media explosion have broader the wisdom of business in the field of the stock market. The demutualization is process where any shareholders become the member of company and receiving a mark able response in some countries of the world. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether demutualization lead to better stock market performance of the stock exchanges in all level of economies or for specific? Sample of the study was comprised of thirteen stock exchanges. The data of the study was collected from WFE website for each five years before and after the demutualization. Wilcoxon sign rank was used to evaluate the empirical data regarding the stock market growth of the stock exchanges after the demutualization. Wilcoxon sign rank test showed that stock exchanges are performing better in all level of economies after the demutualization in many dimension except in no of transactions in low level economies. The recommendations of the study are quite helpful for formulating policy of demutualization in Pakistan. The scope of the study can be extended to the other countries of the region and especially the developed countries where demutualization is being exercised.