Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Organizational Justice-Based View of Self-Control and Agency Costs in Family Firms

By integrating insights from two seemingly disparate literatures economics and organizational justice within the general agency framework, we advance propositions that suggest a fine-grained explanation of agency costs at family firms. In so doing, we account for the differential effects of the controlling owners' self-control (i.e. the governance mechanisms they adopt and how they administer those mechanisms) on the justice perceptions of the family and non-family employees. Our integrative view allows us to strike a realistic balance between the overly optimistic views about family firm governance that have been expressed by agency scholars and the overly pessimistic views expressed by management scholars in the past few years.
Adenosine Release into Venous Plasma during Free Flow Exercise

Abstract We measured adenosine release into venous plasma as an index of interstitial adenosine concentration during free flow exercise hyperemia. Isolated, blood-perfused dog calf muscles were stimulated at 6 Hz for 10 min at free flow. Plasma samples were collected before, during, and after the exercise period for analysis of plasma adenosine concentration ([ADO]) by HPLC. Adenosine release (R ado) was calculated as plasma flow times venous-arterial [ADO] difference. R ado (nmole/min/100 g) went from −0.1 ± 0.1 at rest to 6.6 ± 4.6 during 6-Hz exercise. Isoproterenol infusion, which caused an increase in blood flow equivalent to 6-Hz exercise, did not result in increased R ado. Infusion of the 5'-nucleotidase inhibitor, α, β, methylene adenosine 5'-diphosphate (AOPCP) did not prevent the increase in R ado during exercise. These results support the hypothesis that interstitial adenosine concentration increases during sustained free flow twitch exercise and that this results in increased release of adenosine into venous plasma.
Government spending, aggregate demand, and economic growth

This paper develops a simple Keynesian model of growth with endogenous technological change in which the long-run rate of growth of the economy is determined by both demand and supply forces to examine the effects of government fiscal policy. The paper first assumes that the government budget is balanced and shows that the long-run rate of growth of the economy is path-dependent, that fiscal policy affects the rate of growth of the economy in the short run as well as the long run, and that different types of government spending have different effects. It then introduces government deficits and debt into the analysis to show that even if one takes into account adverse effects of debt accumulation on long-term interest rates and investment, fiscal expansion can have positive growth effects.
Human resource management – practices, performance and strategy in the Italian hotel industry

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and organisational performance in the Italian hospitality sector. In particular, it investigates the extent of adoption of HRM practices, the existence of formal HR strategies, and the degree of development of the HR function, in the Italian hotel industry. The findings aim to verify whether the effectiveness of HRM is contingent upon the approach to adopted business strategies and whether the hotels, which strategically formally apply HRM practices, outperform those with HRM practices outside a formal organisational strategy. The research finally expands on the underlying factors and managerial implications of the findings to conceptually interpret phenomena and prescribe actions.
Image deconvolution in mirror wavelet bases

Deconvolution in presence of additive noise is an inverse problem that often occurs in image processing. We introduce a restoration algorithm which is regularized with a thresholding technique, in an optimally designed mirror wavelet basis. We prove the asymptotic optimality and the superiority of this procedure over linear methods in the set of signals with bounded variations. Besides, this restoration procedure is fast, provides excellent metric and perceptual results and has been chosen as the best method by satellite images photointerpreters from the French space agency (CNES), among several different competing algorithms.
Electrifying light commercial vehicles for city logistics? A total cost of ownership analysis

Different measures are considered by the authorities to tackle the negative impacts of city logistics. Among them, battery electric vehicles are seen as a promising solution, but high purchase cost represents an important barrier to their adoption. However, these vehicles benefit also from low operational costs. This different cost structure between electric and conventional vehicles makes therefore a comprehensive cost analysis necessary for fleet managers who want to assess the real competitiveness of the vehicles. Hence, we developed a total cost of ownership model to assess the competitiveness of quadricycles and light commercial vehicles for freight transport companies. This paper presents the results for 7 battery electric vehicles, 5 diesel vehicles and 3 petrol vehicles. The results of a sensitivity analysis explored also the possible measures that can support their competitiveness. The model shows that battery electric vehicles have a better competitive position than petrol vehicles but they do not compete yet with diesel vehicles. A sensitivity analysis shows however that their total cost of ownership can become lower than diesel vehicles depending on their utilization, future market conditions or government support. Still, electric quadricycles appear to be currently an affordable solution for transport operators to adopt electric vehicles since their total costs of ownership is lower than diesel light commercial vehicles.
Eradication of Helicobacter pylori increases gastric acidity in patients with atrophic gastritis of the corpus—evaluation of 24‐h pH monitoring

Recent studies have shown that the eradication of Helicobacter pylori results in a gastric acid secretion which decreases to normal levels in patients with duodenal ulcer disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of eradication of H. pylori in a 24‐h study of gastric acidity in patients with atrophic gastritis of the corpus.
Treatment of High-Risk Older Persons With Lipid-Lowering Drug Therapy

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies and observational studies have demonstrated that statins reduce mortality and major cardiovascular events in high-risk persons with hypercholesterolemia. The aim of this study was to review the evidence for treating high-risk older persons with lipid-lowering drugs. A MEDLINE search of the English-language literature published from January 1, 1989, to June 2006 was conducted to review all studies in which lipid-lowering drug therapy was administered to high-risk older persons. The Heart Protection Study showed that statins reduced mortality and major cardiovascular events in high-risk persons, regardless of the initial level of serum lipids, age, or gender. The updated National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) III guidelines state that in very-high-risk patients, a serum low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol level of <70 mg/dL is a reasonable clinical strategy, regardless of age. When a high-risk person has hypertriglyceridemia or low serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, consideration can be given to combining a fibrate or nicotinic acid with an LDL cholesterol-lowering drug. For moderately-high-risk persons, the serum LDL cholesterol should be reduced to <100 mg/dL. When LDL cholesterol-lowering drug therapy is used for high-risk persons or moderately-high-risk persons, the serum LDL cholesterol should be reduced at least 30% to 40%. High-risk older persons should be treated with lipid-lowering drugs according to the NCEP III updated guidelines to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
An analysis of the proteomic profile for Thermoanaerobacter tengcongensis under optimal culture conditions

The genome of Thermoanaerobacter tengcongensis is estimated to encode 2588 theoretical proteins. In this study, we have vitalized approximately 46% of the theoretical proteome experimentally using a proteomic strategy that combines three different methods, shotgun digestion plus high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ion‐trap tandem mass spectrometry (shotgun‐liquid chromatography (LC)/MS), one‐dimensional sodium dodecyl sulfate‐polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS‐PAGE) plus HPLC with ion‐trap tandem mass spectrometry (one‐dimensional electrophoresis (1DE)‐LC/MS), and two‐dimensional gel electrophoresis plus matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization‐time of flight‐mass spectrometry (2DE‐MALDI‐TOF‐MS). Of the 1200 proteins identified, as few as 76 proteins were globally found by all three approaches, and notably, most of these proteins were in the soluble fraction. However, there were a number of unique proteins detected by one method only, suggesting that our strategy provides a means toward obtaining a comprehensive view of protein expression profile. Proteins from the major metabolic pathways are strongly represented on the map, and a number of these enzymes were identified by more than one proteomic method. Based upon the proteins identified in the present study, we are able to broaden the understanding of how T. tengcongensis survives under high temperature environment, whereas several of its properties can not be fully explained by genome data.
Comparison of Economic Efficiency Estimation Methods: Parametric and Non-Parametric Techniques

This paper employs a wide range of parametric and non-parametric cost frontiers' efficiency estimation methods to estimate economic efficiency and economies of scale, using the same panel data of 22 Taiwanese commercial banks over the period 1982-1997. According to our empirical implementation, the two methodologies yield similar average efficiency estimates, yet they come to very dissimilar results pertaining to the efficiency rankings, the stability of measured efficiency over time, the consistency between frontier efficiency and conventional performance measures, and the estimates of scale economies. Thus, the choice of an estimation approach can result in very different conclusions and policy implications regarding cost efficiencies and cost economies. These findings are not meaningless to the extent that they are advisable in making policy decisions and evaluations that rely on multiple techniques and specifications. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd and The Victoria University of Manchester
Exercise-Based Pulmonary Rehabilitation for Interstitial Lung Diseases: A Review of Components, Prescription, Efficacy, and Safety

Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) comprise a heterogeneous group of disorders (such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, sarcoidosis, asbestosis, and pneumonitis) characterized by lung parenchymal impairment, inflammation, and fibrosis. The shortness of breath (i.e., dyspnea) is a hallmark and disabling symptom of ILDs. Patients with ILDs may also exhibit skeletal muscle dysfunction, oxygen desaturation, abnormal respiratory patterns, pulmonary hypertension, and decreased cardiac function, contributing to exercise intolerance and limitation of day-to-day activities. Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) including physical exercise is an evidence-based approach to benefit functional capacity, dyspnea, and quality of life in ILD patients. However, despite recent advances and similarities with other lung diseases, the field of PR for patients with ILD requires further evidence. This mini-review aims to explore the exercise-based PR delivered around the world and evidence supporting prescription modes, considering type, intensity, and frequency components, as well as efficacy and safety of exercise training in ILDs. This review will be able to strengthen the rationale for exercise training recommendations as a core component of the PR for ILD patients.
SME financing in Europe: Cross-country determinants of bank loan maturity

This article examines the influence of cross-country differences on bank loan maturity for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using a sample of 3366 SMEs from 19 European countries. It analyses a country’s legal and institutional environment while controlling for banking structure, economic situation and firm-specific characteristics. The study finds that SMEs in countries that protect its creditors and enforce existing laws are more likely to obtain long-term bank debt. It also shows evidence that banks seem to rely more on the institutional environment when determining loan maturity for micro-firms than for medium-sized firms. Policymakers should take these findings into consideration when proposing policy changes that are likely to impact the legal or institutional environment. For example, policy changes that affect creditor protection may have a direct impact on SME lending, and thus have economic consequences.
CEO Risk‐Taking Incentives and the Cost of Equity Capital

In this paper, we show that the sensitivities of an executive's wealth to changes in stock prices (deltas) decrease the implied cost of equity capital while the sensitivities of an executive's wealth to changes in stock volatility (vegas) increase the implied cost of equity capital. Our findings demonstrate that shareholders understand the risks of firms’ future projects as embedded in executive compensation and price these risks into the cost of equity capital accordingly. The findings have strong implications for optimal executive compensation contract design, project evaluation and cost of capital estimation.
Determining the Number of Priced State Variables in the ICAPM

Abstract Suppose the ICAPM governs asset prices and there is a total of S state variables that might be of hedging concern to investors. Can we determine which state variables are, in fact, of hedging concern? What does it mean to say that these state variables are priced, that is, that they give rise to special risk premiums in expected returns? The goal of this paper is to formulate this problem clearly and show when it can and cannot be solved. Ignoring estimation problems, it is possible to find the set of priced state variables when the state variables are identified (named). When we know the number of state variables, but not their names, confident conclusions about even the number of them that produce special risk premiums are probably impossible, unless the number is zero, so the ICAPM collapses to the CAPM.
The Effects of Children on Married and Lone Mothers' Employment in the United States and (West) Germany

This study focuses on the effects of children on the labour supply of married and lone mothers in the USA and Germany using individual-level longitudinal data and event-history analysis. Employment exits and (re-)entries are examined in various stages of the family life cycle in order to assess the impact of children of various ages on their mothers' employment patterns. Analyses based on the National Survey of Families and Households (USA) and the Socioeconomic Panel (Germany) show that lone mothers have in general equal or lower rates of work exits than married mothers, and equal or higher rates of employment (re-)entries when other factors are controlled. This high degree of work activity among lone mothers is often overlooked in debates that focus on the poverty and welfare dependency of lone-mother households. The differences between lone and married mothers are in general considerably greater in Germany than in the USA. Lone mothers in Germany rely more on full-time employment than married women, for whom part-time work is an important form of reemployment after employment interruptions. Also, in the USA part-time employment is associated only with married women as a way to reconcile employment and children. Finally, the timing of childbearing emerges as an important determinant of how women's careers evolve over the life course
Immigration Policy, Self-Selection, and the Quality of Immigrants

This paper investigates the effects of immigration quotas on the average quality of immigrants by developing a human capital migration model where efficiency in migration depends on skills and emigration rates are higher among skilled workers. Studying the joint determination of the domestic level of wages and immigrants' self-selection, we find a negative relationship between the wage level and the percentage of educated workers among immigrants, which results in a nonstandard downward-sloping labor supply. In our framework, a higher quota increases the skill mix of immigrants through its negative effect on wages and raises aggregate national income.
Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Earnings Momentum in International Markets

This study examines whether cultural dimensions such as individualism and uncertainty avoidance can explain the variation in the profitability of the earnings momentum strategies in international markets. Using the time-varying cultural indices of Tang and Koveos (2008) for 30,383 firms from 41 countries over the period 1995–2008, we show that the level of individualism in a country is positively associated and the level of uncertainty avoidance is negatively associated with earnings momentum profits. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of a comprehensive set of control variables and alternative cultural metrics. The central message is that we emphasize the necessity to go beyond the assumption of perfect rationality and to account for innate differences among international investors to explain how accounting information is incorporated into stock prices. We recommend that cultural dimensions be included in cross-country research to account for innate differences among international investors.
Damned by Place, then by Politics: Spatial Disadvantage and the Housing Policy-research Interface

Abstract In this paper we engage with some fundamental questions about the focus and conduct of academic research and its potential influence on policy in relation to social problems. We use the example of public housing and social-spatial disadvantage as a basis to advance an analysis of the housing researcher's role in informing and framing the policymaking process and its links to research evidence. Although our paper uses the example of Australia, the arguments presented are also applicable to other nation states, such as the UK and US, that have an under-funded public housing stock. The paper proceeds in three stages. First, we detail the role and function of public housing in Australian cities and the politics surrounding public investment in welfare provision. Second, we discuss a series of models developed around the kind of research narratives that have been linked to policy on public housing and neighbourhoods from the academy, arguing that the social composition and management of ‘place’ has been emphasised at the expense of structural imperatives. Third, we examine some of the more abstract concerns raised by the linkages we make, and the potentially delimited role of academic research on social problems such as poverty and locational disadvantage. We conclude the paper by arguing that the weak position of housing research has fuelled an internalised narrative-driven pragmatic realism that has occluded more useful accounts about the nature of social problems. It is therefore incumbent on researchers to challenge, in a more vigorous way, the narratives underpinning this self-restraining form of policy-realism.
Improved Parameters for the Ring-TESLA Digital Signature Scheme

Akleylek et al. have proposed Ring-TESLA, a practical and efficient digital signature scheme based on the Ring Learning With Errors problem. However we have identified there are some problems with the parameters proposed for Ring-TESLA, as we believe they do not ensure the correct operation of the scheme and do not provide the targeted levels of security under either the provable Ring-TESLA reduction, or an assessment of practical modern attacks such as lattice sieving. We recommend new Ring-TESLA parameters that target more security levels and provide for correct, secure, and efficient instantiation. We describe the necessary preliminaries, recap the Ring-TESLA scheme, and present our parameter recommendations, selection methodology, and analysis. We have implemented Ring-TESLA using our recommended parameters, and we place this software in the public domain.
Where is the bug and how is it fixed? an experiment with practitioners

Research has produced many approaches to automatically locate, explain, and repair software bugs. But do these approaches relate to the way practitioners actually locate, understand, and fix bugs? To help answer this question, we have collected a dataset named DBGBENCH --- the correct fault locations, bug diagnoses, and software patches of 27 real errors in open-source C projects that were consolidated from hundreds of debugging sessions of professional software engineers. Moreover, we shed light on the entire debugging process, from constructing a hypothesis to submitting a patch, and how debugging time, difficulty, and strategies vary across practitioners and types of errors. Most notably, DBGBENCH can serve as reality check for novel automated debugging and repair techniques.
CRISPR Generated SIX6 and POU4F2 Reporters Allow Identification of Brain and Optic Transcriptional Differences in Human PSC-Derived Organoids

Human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) represent a powerful tool to investigate human eye development and disease. When grown in 3D, they can self-assemble into laminar organized retinas; however, variation in the size, shape and composition of individual organoids exists. Neither the microenvironment nor the timing of critical growth factors driving retinogenesis are fully understood. To explore early retinal development, we developed a SIX6-GFP reporter that enabled the systematic optimization of conditions that promote optic vesicle formation. We demonstrated that early hypoxic growth conditions enhanced SIX6 expression and promoted eye formation. SIX6 expression was further enhanced by sequential inhibition of Wnt and activation of sonic hedgehog signaling. SIX6 + optic vesicles showed RNA expression profiles that were consistent with a retinal identity; however, ventral diencephalic markers were also present. To demonstrate that optic vesicles lead to bona fide “retina-like” structures we generated a SIX6-GFP/POU4F2-tdTomato dual reporter line that labeled the entire developing retina and retinal ganglion cells, respectively. Additional brain regions, including the hypothalamus and midbrain-hindbrain (MBHB) territories were identified by harvesting SIX6 + /POU4F2- and SIX6- organoids, respectively. Using RNAseq to study transcriptional profiles we demonstrated that SIX6-GFP and POU4F2-tdTomato reporters provided a reliable readout for developing human retina, hypothalamus, and midbrain/hindbrain organoids.
Cluster analysis of non-verbal judgements of facial expressions.

Previous researches on judgements of facial expressions have used either verbal scales, pre-selected or elicited, or non-verbal multidimensional techniques. Certain disadvantages in the methods so far used are described, and a simple alternative procedure is tested. Data from a ‘free-grouping’ task are analysed by a clustering method which is congruent with the assumption that the primary response to facial expressions is in terms of contextual or functional similarity. The principal disjoint clusters obtained are described in detail. The meaning of the clusters and of their interrelationships is discussed. It is suggested that there are wider applications both of the ‘free-grouping’ procedure and of cluster analysis.