Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A longitudinal analysis of government expenditures, fundraising and charitable donations in the Dutch voluntary sector

Can changes in giving best be understood due to individuals compensating for changes in government funding or as the result of fundraising by nonprofit organizations? This paper examines relations between subsidies and donations in the Dutch voluntary sector by matching individual-level survey data from the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Study (GINPS) with organizational-level data from the Dutch Central Bureau on Fundraising (CBF) from 2002 to 2012. Results from fixed-effects models show that across all organizations government subsidies are negatively related to private donations. Donations are equally responsive to government funding when there is no news coverage on changes in subsidies, making it unlikely that it is individual decisions driving crowding-out. Contrary to previous research, this study finds that organizations generally use subsidies to increase fundraising and collect more private income. The conclusions challenge the wide-spread belief that government support for nonprofit organizations has detrimental effects on their fundraising efforts.
Outside Director Equity Compensation And The Monitoring Of Management

Using a sample of firms that are first time users of outside director equity compensation, I examine the effect of outsider director equity compensation on director monitoring by investigating firm performance and earnings management. My results, although lagged and not noticeable until year three, show that those firms that compensate outside directors with a higher percentage of equity compensation have higher stock performance, but lower accounting performance. These same firms also have lower discretionary accruals (i.e., less earnings management). These results suggest that outside directors do increase their monitoring by lowering discretionary accruals and thereby, lowering accounting earnings. In addition, this increased monitoring has a positive effect on stock performance. The results indicate that increased monitoring of accounting earnings results in lower discretionary accruals and thus lower, but more accurate earnings, and stock performance for the same period is not negatively impacted.
[Treatment and prognosis of primary esophageal small cell carcinoma: a report of 151 cases].

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The treatment and prognosis of primary esophageal small cell carcinoma (PESC), an uncommon esophageal malignant tumor, have seldom been reported. This study was to analyze the clinical characteristics, treatment and prognosis of PESC. METHODS Clinical data of 151 patients treated in Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, from 1982 to 2007 were reviewed. The median age of the patients was 59 years. According to VALSG criteria, 138 patients had limited disease (LD), 13 had extensive disease (ED). Patients received surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. The survival rate was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method and the log-rank test using SPSS 13.0 software. RESULTS The 6, 12, 24, 36 and 60-month survival rates of these patients were 86.6%, 56.7%, 24.8%,17.4% and 12.0% respectively. The clinical stage and vessel involvement were independent prognostic factors of PESC. The median survival time was longer in LD patients(12.3 months) than in those underwent local treatment alone (surgery or radiotherapy). CONCLUSIONS PESC is a malignant tumor with early metastasis and poor prognosis. Combined therapy based on chemotherapy may improve the short term survival of PESC patients.
Executive Pay, Talent and Firm Size: Why has CEO Pay Grown so Much?

We exposit an integrated agency model of multi-period career concerns and labor market equilibrium with managerial reservation utility levels, and thus pay levels, determined endogenously for firms of different sizes. Based on observations from a long time-series of S&P 1500 companies, we estimate the stochastic production function describing the incremental wealth created by the manager as a function of “effort”, latent raw “talent”, idiosyncratic firm risk (asset volatility) and the opening value of assets employed. We show that CEO talent affects the marginal productivity of the firm at approximately twice the rate as effort. Since asset volatility is also more subject to scale effects than effort, risk per marginal product of effort is higher in larger firms. Due to the cost of compensating managers for risk, pay-performance sensitivity optimally declines with size. Furthermore, our talent estimates explain much of the increments to real CEO pay levels and income over recent decades as a response to increases in talent and as compensation for higher risk borne by executives, with firm size growth playing a negligible role. We also identify the most talented CEOs who earned enterprise returns 17 times higher than the CEOs of the largest firms.
Auditor Quality, Tenure, and Bank Loan Pricing

Using a large sample of US bank loan data over the 9-year period from 1996 to 2004, we investigate the effect of two auditor characteristics, namely auditor quality and tenure, on the price term of bank loan contracts. Our results show the following: First, we find that banks charge a significantly lower rate for borrowers with Big 4 auditors than for borrowers with non-Big 4 auditors. Further analysis shows that banks charge a higher loan rate for borrowers who change their auditors in general, and they charge a substantially higher loan spread for borrowers who downgrade their auditors from Big 4 to non-Big 4 auditors in particular. Second, we find that the loan spread is inversely related to auditor tenure, suggesting that banks view auditor tenure as a credit risk-reducing factor. Third, we find that the relation between loan spread and audit quality is conditioned upon the level of credit risk perceived by credit rating agencies. Our study provides direct evidence that banks take into account audit quality when assessing borrowers' credit quality and determining the price term of loan contracts.
Principles and Limitations of Computational Algorithms in Clinical Diffusion Tensor MR Tractography

SUMMARY: There have been numerous reports documenting the graphic reconstruction of 3D white matter architecture in the human brain by means of diffusion tensor MR tractography. Different from other reviews addressing the physics and clinical applications of DTI, this article reviews the computational principles of tractography algorithms appearing in the literature. The simplest voxel-based method and 2 widely used subvoxel approaches are illustrated first, together with brief notes on parameter selection and the restrictions arising from the distinct attributes of tract estimations. Subsequently, some advanced techniques attempting to offer improvement in various aspects are briefly introduced, including the increasingly popular research tracking tool using HARDI. The article explains the inherent technical limitations in most of the algorithms reported to date and concludes by providing a reference guideline for formulating routine applications of this important tool to clinical neuroradiology in an objective and reproducible manner.
Implementation of Food Safety Management System in Thai Small and Medium Food Processing Enterprises: Institutional and Resource Dependence Perspective

This study integrated institutional theory and resource dependence theory to construct a framework for analyzing the factors determining the implementation of food safety management systems (FSMSs) in food processing SMEs in Thailand in responding to the food safety pressures. A survey questionnaire was employed to probe a sample of Thai food processing SMEs. The standardized questionnaire was mailed to managers who were responsible for food safety in 820 such firms. The 195 valid questionnaires were returned (23.8 percent response rate). The findings revealed that the FSMSs implementation by Thai food processing SMEs can be predicted by (1) expected social legitimacy to be gained from the implementation, (2) top management commitment to implementing FSMSs, (3) the extent of FSMSs implemented by competitors, (4) the exchange of food safety knowledge and information between firm and other organizations within food industry, and (5) firm size in terms of employee numbers. The results suggested that government should disseminate food safety management knowledge and practices particularly to top management of food processing SMEs, and the top management should be aware of the potential benefits as well as the importance of the implementation of a suitable FSMS in their firms. In addition, government should direct its attention and resources towards the smaller food processing firms.
Service addition as business market strategy: identification of transition trajectories

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how manufacturers evolve when aiming at increasing customer value via the service addition path. More specifically, it aims to identify drivers and inhibitors as well as trajectories to reach “ideal” service addition types.Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a multiple case study design. In total 12 in‐depth interviews were conducted with managers from machine building manufacturers resulting in five longitudinal case studies of “best practice” companies. The paper is grounded in the “integrated solutions” research paradigm.Findings – Four types of service addition can be identified based on this multiple case study. Diverse drivers push companies to higher degrees of customization and to less tangible offerings via different trajectories. On these trajectories, though, they are likely to encounter inhibitors.Research limitations/implications – The qualitative nature of this paper acts as a basis for future research efforts. On the one hand this .
Studying the roles of W86, E202, and Y337 in binding of acetylcholine to acetylcholinesterase using a combined molecular dynamics and multiple docking approach

A combined molecular dynamics simulation and multiple ligand docking approach is applied to study the roles of the anionic subsite residues (W86, E202, Y337) in the binding of acetylcholine (ACh) to acetylcholinesterase (AChE). We find that E202 stabilizes docking of ACh via electrostatic interactions. However, we find no significant electrostatic contribution from the aromatic residues. Docking energies of ACh to mutant AChE show a more pronounced effect because of size/shape complementarity. Mutating to smaller residues results in poorer binding, both in terms of docking energy and statistical docking probability. Besides separating out electrostatics by turning off the partial charges from each residue and comparing it with the native, the mutations in this study are W86F, W86A, E202D, E202Q, E202A, Y337F, and Y337A. We also find that all perturbations result in a significant reduction in binding of extended ACh in the catalytically productive orientation. This effect is primarily caused by a small shift in preferred position of the quaternary tail.
Dissociation between the induction of potassium efflux and cytostatic activity of polyene macrolides in mammalian cells

The paper contains data on the induction of K+ efflux and viability of baby hamster kidney (BHK-21) cells after their treatment with macrolide antibiotics inducing specific pores in membrane. New water-soluble semisynthetic derivatives of amphotericin B and aureofacin (N-glycosyl and trimethylammonium methyl ester derivatives) as well as the parent compounds were used to compare the concentration of antibiotics inducing permeabilizing and cytostatic effects. We found that a two- to eight-times-higher concentration of polyene antibiotic was required to observe a cytostatic effect than for release of 50% of the cellular potassium (K50 concentration) from BHK-21 cells. These differences were larger for water-soluble derivatives than for the parent compounds. The amount of intracellular potassium in treated cells incubated under optimal growth conditions was higher than in cells which had been further washed with K+-free maintenance medium. The membrane permeability changes induced by low concentrations of specific polyenes were observed to be reversible. BHK-21 cells were able to repair polyene-induced membrane permeability within 3 to 12 h under optimal growth conditions, after cell treatment with K50 concentration of specific macrolide antibiotics. The repair phenomenon is postulated as an explanation for the dissociation observed between permeabilizing and cytostatic effect of specific polyenes in BHK-21 cells.
The Relationship Between Firm Size and Growth in the Manufacturing Sector in Jordan

The fact that most jobs are created by relatively small size firms and that small firms grow faster than the large ones has an important implication for job generation and employment policy, especially in developing countries. As a result, a focus for both researchers and policymakers is to identify the key factors influencing the growth of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). However, in the developing countries, there is almost nothing written on the relationship between the size and the growth performance of SMEs known. Furthermore, in countries such as Jordan very little is known about the growth of SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of firm size on the growth of manufacturing plants in Jordan during the period 1998-2003. In Jordan, unemployment is a serious problem, and if it is shown that the size of a firm has a significant effect on its growth then from a policy point of view as a way of reducing unemployment this should act as an incentive for programs that promote the birth, survival and growth of small firms. The data used in this study are provided by the Jordan Chamber of Industry. This paper shows that the law of proportionate effect (Gibrat’s Law) invalid in the manufacturing sector in Jordan, as smaller firms grow at faster rates in comparison with their larger counterparts. The implication is that the firm size should be an important consideration in the policymaker’s attempts to create jobs as a remedy for unemployment.
Vulnerability of weighted networks

In real networks complex topological features are often associated with a diversity of interactions as measured by the weights of the links. Moreover, spatial constraints may also play an important role, resulting in a complex interplay between topology, weight, and geography. In order to study the vulnerability of such networks to intentional attacks, these attributes must therefore be considered along with the topological quantities. In order to tackle this issue, we consider the case of the worldwide airport network, which is a weighted heterogeneous network whose evolution and structure are influenced by traffic and geographical constraints. We first characterize relevant topological and weighted centrality measures and then use these quantities as selection criteria for the removal of vertices. We consider different attack strategies and different measures of the damage achieved in the network. The analysis of weighted properties shows that centrality driven attacks are capable of shattering the network’s communication or transport properties even at a very low level of damage in the connectivity pattern. The inclusion of weight and traffic therefore provides evidence for the extreme vulnerability of complex networks to any targeted strategy and the need for them to be considered as key features in the finding and development of defensive strategies.
Impact of Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Major Lung Resection on Immune Function

Video-assisted thoracoscopic major lung resection for early stage non-small-cell lung carcinoma has been associated with less postoperative pain, better preserved pulmonary function, shorter hospital stay, and enhanced tolerance of adjuvant chemotherapy compared to thoracotomy. Initial concerns regarding safety, oncological clearance, and cost effectiveness were unfounded. Several recent trials have reported improved long-term survival in patients with early stage non-small-cell lung carcinoma undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic major lung resection, compared to the open technique, although there are inconsistencies. Interestingly, the immune status and autologous tumor killing ability of lung cancer patients have previously been associated with long-term survival. Video-assisted thoracoscopic lung resection results in an attenuated postoperative inflammatory response, but more importantly, it better preserves postoperative immune function. Circulating natural killer and T-cell numbers, T-cell oxidative activity, and levels of immunochemokines such as insulin growth factor binding protein-3 are higher after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery than after thoracotomy. Recently, interest has developed in the role of the angiogenesis factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, after cancer surgery. Whether differences in immunological and biochemical mediators contribute towards improved long-term survival following video-assisted thoracoscopic major lung resection for cancer remains to be confirmed.
Radiosynthesis and Characterization of 11C-GSK215083 as a PET Radioligand for the 5-HT6 Receptor

The development of a PET radioligand for imaging 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) 6 receptors in the brain would, for the first time, enable in vivo imaging of this target along with assessment of its involvement in disease pathophysiology. In addition, such a tool would assist in the development of novel drugs targeting the 5-HT6 receptor. Methods: On the basis of in vitro data, GSK215083 was identified as a promising 5-HT6 radioligand candidate and was radiolabeled with 11C via methylation. The in vivo properties of 11C-GSK215083 were evaluated first in pigs (to investigate brain penetration and specific binding), second in nonhuman primates (to confirm brain penetration, specific binding, selectivity, and kinetics), and third in human subjects (to confirm brain penetration and biodistribution). Results: 11C-GSK215083 readily entered the brain in all 3 species, leading to a heterogeneous distribution (striatum > cortex > cerebellum) consistent with reported 5-HT6 receptor densities and distribution determined by tissue-section autoradiography in preclinical species and humans. In vivo saturation studies using escalating doses of GSK215083 in primates demonstrated saturable, dose-dependent binding to the 5-HT6 receptor in the striatum. Importantly, 11C-GSK215083 also exhibited affinity for the 5-HT2A receptor; however, given the differential localization of these 2 receptors in the central nervous system, the discrete 5-HT6 binding properties of this radioligand were able to be determined. Conclusion: These data demonstrate the utility of 11C-GSK215083 as a promising PET radioligand for probing the 5-HT6 receptor in vivo in both preclinical and clinical species.
Effect of saccharin on albino rats’ blood indices and the therapeutic action of vitamins C and E

The present work aimed to study some blood indices of rats as affected by saccharin and the therapeutic action of vitamins C and E. The used adult female Rattus norvegicus albino rats in the present study were weighing 100—120 g. Administration of saccharin at a dose of 35 mg kg—1 body weight (b.wt.) day—1 for 35 days significantly decreased serum glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, total protein and albumin values. These decrements were by 20.16%, 22.76%, 44.92%, 20.16% and 40.44%, respectively, compared to control level (p value < 0.01). But it increased levels of kidney function indices. The effect of saccharin was more pronounced on creatinine. Activities of Alanine aminotranferease (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) increased significantly following saccharin treatment to rats. Concerning hematoligical parameters, the more obvious changes were observed in the increment of white blood cell (WBC), mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and platelets (PLT) and the decrease in hematocrit, hemoglobin (Hb) and red blood cells (RBCs) count in response to the administration of saccharin. In general, vitamin C or E (150 mg kg—1 b.wt. day—1 for 35 days) was able to reduce the effects of saccharin intake. Both vitamins, however, generally have beneficial effects in reducing the changes in the studied parameters.
Does Access to Finance Lower Firms' Cost of Capital? Empirical Evidence from International Manufacturing Data

Lack of access to finance is argued to be one of the most binding constraints for firm growth. There is, however, limited empirical evidence on the relationship between access to finance and the cost of capital. This paper uses international manufacturing data to analyze the effect of access to finance on firms? cost of capital. Using a unique dataset that covers tens of thousands firms in more than 80 countries, I examine the effect of credit access on firms? cost of capital. I address the endogeneity of credit access by instrumenting it with indicators of the strength of firms? political connections. The results show that credit access has significant negative effect on the cost of capital. Taking advantage of the large country coverage of the dataset, I also relate firms? cost of capital to country-level measures of financial development and find that financial development reduces cost of capital.
Signalling with Debt Maturity Choice

This paper, presents a game theoretic approach to the choice of the debt maturity by firms. The maturity of the debt can be viewed as a signal about the firm's quality sent to the financial sector. Two situations are investigated when the firm declares bankruptcy: the firm's assets may have zero or positive value. In the first scenario, it is shown that under positive reputational loss concerns from the part of the firms, we can achieve a separating equilibrium where the good quality firm issues short maturity for its debt whereas the bad quality firm issues long maturity. In the second scenario, again the same type of separating equilibria occur. However, some equilibria do not require a costly signal to get separation of the two types.
The Influence Of Satisfaction, Trust, And Switching Barriers On Thai Tourists Retention

The objective of this paper is to study factors influencing Thai tourist retention to create value and revenue in the service sector. Quantitative research is employed in this study. The researcher collected data by interviewing 440 Thai tourists who traveled between Bangkok and Pattaya, Chonburi province. The results show that the majority of respondents are female and between 25 and 34 years old. They are a) single with bachelor degrees, b) employed in the private sector with monthly incomes between THB10,001-15,000 and c) resident in Bangkok. The results of testing hypotheses are as follows: 1. Trust, switching barriers, and satisfaction are important factors influencing Thai tourist retention towards attractions in Bangkok with statistical significance at the . 01 level. The adjusted R 2 is equal to 21.8 %. 2. Switching barriers, satisfaction, and trust are important factors influencing Thai tourist retention towards attractions in Pattaya with statistical significance at the . 01 level. The adjusted R 2 is equal to 23.9 %.
Corporate Ownership in Latin American Firms: A Comparative Analysis of Dual-Class Shares

We assemble a new data on dual-class firms in Latin America and analyze the relationship between the largest shareholder characteristics and its decision to leverage voting rights. First, we describe who are the largest shareholders in Latin American firms. Second, we find that both the type and origin of the largest shareholder, together with firm- and country-level characteristics, are key determinants to explain the decision to separate voting from cash-flow rights. To tackle the determinants of ownership in Latin American publicly listed firms has both managerial and policy implications, because the largest shareholders are those in charge to define business strategies and the allocation of firms’ resources.