Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Managers’ EPS Forecasts: Nickeling and Diming the Market?

ABSTRACT: Nearly half of managers' forecasts of annual earnings per share (EPS) end in nickel intervals, whereas only about 20 percent of actual EPS end in nickel intervals. We provide evidence on the attributes, determinants, and consequences of this systematic wedge between managers' predictions and firms' ex post actual performance. Managers' nickel forecasts are not simply a benign response to uncertainty about upcoming earnings, because nickel forecasts are not only less accurate, but also they are more optimistically biased than non‐nickel forecasts. In addition to uncertainty, efforts to protect the firm's proprietary information and self‐serving opportunism in response to managers' economic incentives also play incremental roles in explaining managers' propensity to issue forecasts heaped at nickel intervals. We also find that managers' nickel forecasts spur even active analysts to issue forecasts heaped at nickel intervals, although analysts' forecast revisions partially adjust for the optimism a.
Some Comparative Aspects of Ireland's Economic Transformation *

The Irish economy performed poorly, while the rest of Western Europe boomed, in the period between the end of the Second World War and the first oil crisis. There are elements of delayed catch-up then in Ireland's recent growth performance. There is something deeper going on as well though, as evidenced by the fact that productivity in Irish manufacturing appears to have now surpassed that in the UK, even correcting for distortions due to transfer pricing. Total factor productivity growth has also been strong in Ireland, in stark contrast to the East Asian experience during that region's catch-up phase. Recent outcomes reflect recent policy changes as well as long-established strategies on trade, foreign direct investment and educational access. We compare some aspects of the changes in policy in Ireland and the UK, and contrast Irish and British outcomes over the recent period.
RANDOM WALK TESTS FOR LATIN AMERICAN EQUITY INDEXES AND INDIVIDUAL FIRMS

In this study we re-examine the presence of random walk in stock prices in Brazil and Mexico. We employ variance ratio tests on weekly stock returns for indexes as well as individual firms. The results reveal mean aversion in Mexico at both the index and firm level. In contrast, the Brazil indexes show a greater tendency toward random walk; however, the results for the individual firms suggest mean reversion. The results cannot be attributed to a firm size effect. Evidence is presented in favor of a greater degree of nonsynchronous trading for Brazilian securities than for Mexican securities.
Empirical study of destination loyalty and its antecedent: the perspective of place attachment

Due to the increasing competition in the leisure and tourism market, loyalty-related studies and researches have been gaining attention. This empirical research explores the formation of destination loyalty from the interaction of visitors with hot-spring resorts (place attachment) and examines the relationship between such a loyalty and its antecedents. Based on an attitude framework, this study conceptualizes place dependence, place identity, and behavioural intention as the tripartite framework of destination loyalty. Using the covariance structure analysis, empirical results indicated that the service quality–satisfaction–loyalty model is supported and tourist satisfaction completely mediates the effect of service quality on place dependence, place identity, and behavioural intention.
The impact of culture on HRM styles and firm performance: evidence from Japanese parents, Japanese subsidiaries/joint ventures and South Asian local companies

This paper investigates national and organizational cultural influences among managers in three types of companies: Japanese companies in Japan, South Asian domestic companies and Japanese subsidiaries/joint ventures in South Asia. The findings suggest that a Japanese parent company's culture tends to have a much stronger influence with Japanese companies operating in Japan. Japanese parent company culture tends to have less influence than the South Asian national culture in shaping the HRM styles and practices in Japanese subsidiaries/joint ventures operating in South Asia. While some South Asian firms are in the initial stages of learning about participative HRM from foreign companies, most still tend to maintain their national culture and traditional ways in the operating systems of their organizations.
Evidence from the United States on the Effect of Auditor Involvement in Assessing Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Securities regulators around the world are considering the costs and benefits of alternative policies for providing information to financial markets on corporate internal control. These policy options differ on the level of auditor involvement, among other dimensions. We examine the association of relative auditor involvement and auditor characteristics with Section 302 internal control disclosures made by US ‘non-accelerated filers’ from 2003 to 2005. We find more material weaknesses disclosed in the fourth quarter, when there is relatively more auditor involvement, relative to the first three quarters. Clients of larger audit firms have higher disclosure rates (although they are probably less risky due to more stringent client acceptance standards), but this difference is due to fourth quarter disclosures. Audit firms with Section 404 experience also have greater material weakness disclosure, implying process improvement associated with knowledge sharing across engagements. Collectively, our results shed light on ways to increase the effectiveness of internal control regulation.
Evaluating public leadership: towards an assessment framework

How can we tell good from bad leadership? This crucial normative question is too often overlooked in public sector leadership theory and practice. This article develops a general evaluation framework which suggests that effective public leaders are those who are able to continuously strike a viable balance between the requirements of prudence, support and trustworthiness.
Exploring the Impact of Community and Organizational Social Capital on Government Performance

Civic-republican theories of democracy assume high levels of social capital within the community and within public bureaucracies will be associated with better government performance. This article tests these assumptions by analyzing the impact of community and organizational social capital on the achievements of English local governments. The interdependence between social capital and performance is modeled using a range of primary and secondary data. The statistical results suggest that both community and organizational social capital are positively related to government performance. However, further analysis revealed that the combined effects of these two forms of social capital are not beneficial for performance.
Foreign Ownership Wage Premia in Emerging Economies

In this paper we examine the relationship between wages, labour productivity and ownership using a linked employer-employee dataset covering a large fraction of the Czech labour market in 2006. We distinguish between different origins of ownership and study wage and productivity differences. The raw wage differential between foreign and domestically owned firms is about 24 percent. The empirical analysis is carried out on both firm- and individual-level data. A key finding is that industry, region, and notably human capital explain only a small part of the foreign-domestic ownership wage differential. Both white and blue collar workers as well as skilled and unskilled employees obtain a foreign ownership wage premium. Foreign ownership premia are more prevalent in older and less technologically advanced firms. Joint estimation of productivity and wage equations show that, controlling for human capital, the difference in productivity is about twice as large as the wage differential. The results indicate that the international firms share their rents with their employees
Gaining customer loyalty in the e-tailing marketplace: the role of e-service quality, e-satisfaction and e-trust

In today’s highly competitive environment, the survival/prosperity of e-tailers depends on their ability to provide excellent services to their customers establish successful relationships with them and gain their loyalty. This study empirically tests a model of the determinants of customer loyalty in an e-tailing context. More specifically, e-service quality dimensions and their relationship to e-satisfaction and e-trust, and determine the relevant impact of e-satisfaction and e-trust on e-loyalty are investigated. The analysis of data collected from 451 customers of consumer electronics e-tailers in Greece indicated that: 1) e-loyalty is positively affected by e-satisfaction and e-trust; 2) e-service quality dimensions of reliability/efficiency; privacy/security and ease of use/usability are shown to be antecedents of both e-satisfaction and e-trust; 3) e-satisfaction mediates the relationship between the other three e-service quality dimensions, namely information quality/benefits, responsiveness, and web design and e-trust. Finally, several managerial implications are discussed and further research directions are provided.
Meat Demand in South Korea: An Application of the Restricted Source-Differentiated Almost Ideal Demand System Model

The first difference version of the restricted source-differentiated almost ideal demand system is used to estimate South Korean meat demand. The results of this study indicate that the United States has the most to gain from an increase in the size of the South Korean imported meat market in terms of its beef exports, while South Korea has the most to gain from this expansion in the pork market. Moreover, the results indicate that the United States has a competitive advantage to Australia in the South Korean beef market. Results of this study have implications for U.S. meat exports in this ever-changing policy environment.
Regulation of Amino Acid, Nucleotide, and Phosphate Metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Ever since the beginning of biochemical analysis, yeast has been a pioneering model for studying the regulation of eukaryotic metabolism. During the last three decades, the combination of powerful yeast genetics and genome-wide approaches has led to a more integrated view of metabolic regulation. Multiple layers of regulation, from suprapathway control to individual gene responses, have been discovered. Constitutive and dedicated systems that are critical in sensing of the intra- and extracellular environment have been identified, and there is a growing awareness of their involvement in the highly regulated intracellular compartmentalization of proteins and metabolites. This review focuses on recent developments in the field of amino acid, nucleotide, and phosphate metabolism and provides illustrative examples of how yeast cells combine a variety of mechanisms to achieve coordinated regulation of multiple metabolic pathways. Importantly, common schemes have emerged, which reveal mechanisms conserved among various pathways, such as those involved in metabolite sensing and transcriptional regulation by noncoding RNAs or by metabolic intermediates. Thanks to the remarkable sophistication offered by the yeast experimental system, a picture of the intimate connections between the metabolomic and the transcriptome is becoming clear.
A Critical Analysis of DEA Applications to Seaport Economic Efficiency Measurement

Abstract The significant increase in the adoption of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for seaport efficiency measurement renders a literature synthesis and critical analysis of the application of the technique relevant and worthwhile. This paper provides a thorough review and critical analysis of the major studies undertaken to date, and highlights some problems and limitations in the application of the technique in the seaport context particularly in the specification of parameters, the sampling domain and the type of DEA to be applied. The paper informs the decision process as to the merits and limitations of DEA approaches for seaport efficiency measurement and makes a contribution towards methodological improvement by considering variations not yet applied to the port sector.
The rise and decline of the New South Wales cooperative housing societies

Abstract In the past, New South Wales cooperative housing societies made an important contribution to the financing of housing construction. In this paper the expansion and later contraction of the societies is explained. It is shown that, in recent times, not only have they suffered from a drying up of loan funding, but also a great number have operated at far below their possible level of efficiency.
Commitment to a Policy Decision: A Multi-Theoretical Perspective.

March 1978, volume 23 Subjects in an experimental simulation played the role of a decision maker in the World Bank. This simulation was designed to tap some variables relevant for policy situations and to compare specific predictions derived from six psychological theories. Subjects were asked to allocate resources to one of several courses of action and their commitment was measured following a financial setback. Causal information pertaining to the financial setback was experimentally manipulated as was prior success or failure experience. The results showed that individuals may process information differently after a failure as opposed to a success experience, and that this differential processing may account for differences in commitment to policy decisions.
Heteroduplex Panel Analysis, a Novel Method for Genetic Identification of Aspergillus SectionFlavi Strains

ABSTRACT For genetic identification of Aspergillus SectionFlavi isolates and detection of intraspecific variation, we developed a novel method for heteroduplex panel analysis (HPA) utilizing fragments of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) of the rRNA gene that was PCR amplified with universal primers. The method involves formation of heteroduplexes with a set of reference fragments amplified from Aspergillus flavus, A. parasiticus, A. tamarii, and A. nomius and subsequent minislab vinyl polymer gel electrophoresis. The test panel is compared with species-specific standard panels (F-1, P-1, T-1, and N-1) generated by pairwise reannealing among four reference fragments. Of 90 test panels, 89 succeeded in identifying the species and 74 were identical to one of the four standard panels. Of the 16 new panels, 11A. flavus/A. oryzae panels were identical and typed as F-2 and 4 of 5 A. nomius panels were typed as N-2 or N-3. The other strain, A. nomius IMI 358749, was unable to identify the species because no single bands were formed with any of the four reference strains. DNA sequencing revealed that our HPA method has the highest sensitivity available and is able to detect as little as one nucleotide of diversity within the species. WhenPenicillium or non-Section Flavi Aspergilluswas subjected to HPA, the resulting bands of heteroduplexes showed apparently lower mobility and poor heteroduplex formation. This indicates that HPA is a useful identification method without morphological observation and is suitable for rapid and inexpensive screening of large numbers of isolates. The HPA typing coincided with the taxonomy of Section Flavi and is therefore applicable as an alternative to the conventional methods (Samson, R. A., E. S. Hoekstra, J. C. Frisvad, and O. Filtenborg, p. 64–97, in Introduction to Food- and Airborne Fungi, 6th ed., 2000).
Ice Algae-Produced Carbon Is Critical for Overwintering of Antarctic Krill Euphausia superba

Antarctic krill Euphausia superba (‘krill’) constitute a fundamental food source for Antarctic seabirds and mammals, and a globally important fisheries resource. The future resilience of krill to climate change depends critically on the winter survival of young krill. To survive periods of extremely low production by pelagic algae during winter, krill are assumed to rely partly on carbon produced by ice algae. The true dependency on ice algae-produced carbon, however, is so far unquantified. This confounds predictions on the future resilience of krill stocks to sea ice decline. Fatty acid (FA) analysis, bulk stable isotope analysis (BSIA) and compound-specific stable isotope analysis (CSIA) of diatom- and dinoflagellate-associated marker FAs were applied to quantify the dependency of overwintering larval, juvenile and adult krill on ice algae-produced carbon (αIce) during winter 2013 in the Weddell-Scotia Confluence Zone. Our results demonstrate that the majority of the carbon uptake of the overwintering larval and juvenile krill originated from ice algae (up to 88% of the carbon budget), and that the dependency on ice algal carbon decreased with ontogeny, reaching less than 56% of the carbon budget in adults. Spatio-temporal variability in the utilization of ice algal carbon was more pronounced in larvae and juvenile krill than in adults. Differences between αIce estimates derived from short- versus long-term FA-specific isotopic compositions suggested that ice algae-produced carbon gained importance as the winter progressed, and might become critical at the late winter-spring transition, before the phytoplankton bloom commences. Where the sea ice season shortens, reduced availability of ice algae might possibly not be compensated by surplus phytoplankton production during wintertime. Hence, sea ice decline could seriously endanger the winter survival of recruits, and subsequently overall biomass of krill.
Family caregiver distress with children having rare genetic disorders: a qualitative study involving Russell-Silver Syndrome in Taiwan.

AIM To extend nursing knowledge of distress experienced by family caregivers of children with rare genetic disorders, by exploring the perspectives of caregivers of children with Russell-Silver Syndrome in Taiwan. BACKGROUND Caring for a child with a rare genetic disorder often has profound effects on families, especially when diagnosis and treatment is complex or not yet well developed, such as that in Russell-Silver Syndrome (or Silver-Russell syndrome). This disorder causes dwarfism and developmental difficulties, requiring long-term care planning. Previous research has focused mostly on medical care, but little is known about families' perspectives of caring difficulties, the help they need and nursing care required. DESIGN An exploratory qualitative approach was used to inform this study. METHODS Family caregivers, whose children were undergoing medical care in a leading Taiwan medical centre, were invited to participate in face-to-face, in-depth interviews. Data were analysed by content analysis. RESULTS Fifteen caregivers including 11 mothers, two fathers and two grandmothers participated. Five major themes and 13 sub-themes of care-giving distress were identified: endless psychological worries; the lengthy process to confirm a medical diagnosis; adjustment efforts in modifying family roles; dilemmas in deciding between Western or Chinese traditional medicine; and negative responses to society's concerns. Their primary sources of support were spouses, parents and health professionals, accordingly. CONCLUSION Complex physio-psycho-social and decision-making distress in caring for children with a rare genetic disorder were systematically revealed from the perspectives of ethnic-Chinese family caregivers. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Long-term care plans for children with a rare genetic disorder such as Russell-Silver Syndrome need to focus on positive dynamic family interactions, life-stage development and family caregiver support. Research on care-giving in rare genetic disorders is also warranted across cultures and countries to develop a substantial knowledge basis for nursing practice.
Exports in an Imperfect Competition Framework: An Analysis of 1,446 Exporters

This paper explores empirically how export-competing performance is related to domestic and foreign market structure. Recent theoretical propositions that link elements of international and industrial economics are successfully tested on a vast sample of micro data. By means of nonparametric statistics as well as of regression analysis, firm size, industrial concentration, product differentiation, location, information, and foreign subsidiaries are shown to be important elements in explaining Belgian exports behavior. Among the suggestions for economic policy that emerge, it appears that fostering large domestic sales of a firm and domestic concentration or discouraging direct investment abroad will put a brake on export rates.
Beyond Information Content

When people communicate, their messages convey affect alongside informational content. The affective dimension of messages is often unclear and open to multiple interpretations especially in an intercultural context. Thus, interlocutors may or may not achieve a state of affective grounding in which each person's affective behaviors are correctly interpreted by his/her partners. The current study examines the effects of culture on affective grounding. We conducted a laboratory experiment in which pairs of participants, half from America (A) and half from China (C), collaborated over instant messaging (IM). We found that affective grounding was harder to achieve for AA and AC pairs, but easier for CC pairs. We propose several design solutions to facilitate affective grounding in remote collaborations.
Examining Response to a One-to-One Computer Initiative: Student and Teacher Voices

Abstract The impact of a one-to-one computing initiative at a Midwestern urban middle school was examined through phenomenological research techniques focusing on the voices of eighth grade students and their teachers. Analysis of transcripts from pre-and post-implementation interviews of 47 students and eight teachers yielded patterns of responses to illuminate how one-to-one computing changed students’ learning experiences and teachers’ instructional practices. Key themes that emerged were changes in teacher pedagogy, effect on student learning experiences, impact on classroom behavior and management, potential for improved communications, and suggestions to address professional development needs. The students demonstrated their learning in varied and creative ways through the use of computer-based lessons. However, the altered format presented new demands on teachers as a delivery model. Although some students were distracted by gaming and chatting opportunities, learning benefits were reported for students of varied ability levels. This study builds on the theoretical framework supporting the role and use of technology to foster learning and to prepare students for a global economy. The focus on student and teacher voices provided the opportunity to explore a new perspective and engage middle school students, teachers, and administrators in school change efforts.