Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The oral hygiene status of institution dwelling orphans in Benin City, Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION Orphans like other vulnerable children face a number of challenges including limited or no access to basic health care including oral health care, which is one of their unmet health care needs. Neglected oral health care is associated with the development and progression of periodontal diseases among others. OBJECTIVE To determine the oral hygiene status of institution dwelling orphans. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty eight orphans from four orphanages in Benin City, Edo State of Nigeria were clinically examined and their oral hygiene status determined using the simplified oral hygiene index of Greene and Vermillion (OHI-S). RESULTS Seventy-three percent of the orphans were found to have fair oral hygiene comprising mostly of those aged 6-13 years. More females were in this category while more males presented with poor oral hygiene status. CONCLUSION More orphans presented with fair oral hygiene that indicated inadequate oral care. There was poor oral health education and limited access to services. There is need for these to be improved as a solution to poor oral health status of these vulnerable children.
Prolonged consumption of moderate doses of alcohol and in vitro gastro‐duodenal and ileal contractility in the rat

Abstract. The effects of chronic feeding with moderate doses of ethanol (3% vol/vol in drinking water for 8 weeks), which do not induce tolerance, dependence and withdrawal, on the contractility of gastric, duodenal and ileal strips from rats were investigated. Only 50% of ethanol‐treated specimens (as compared to 100% of saccharose‐fed controls) exhibited antral phasic contractions (frequency decreased by 31% and 27% in the antrum and duodenum, respectively; P < 0.03 vs. controls). The depolarizing agent potassium chloride (KG, 80 mm) produced less peak active tension in the fundus of ethanol‐fed rats (P < 0.01). In alcoholic rats the sensitivity of the antrum to acetyl‐choline was fourfold less than that of control specimens. It is concluded that, in the rat, moderate doses of ethanol given chronically impair both spontaneous and tonic contractility of the stomach and duodenal muscle without affecting ileal contraction. It is possible that motility defects in the gut exposed to ethanol concentrations which do not cause tolerance, dependence or withdrawal in the rat may be due to a local rather than a systemic effect on the smooth muscle.
The Voluntary Formation of an Audit Committee

Audit committees are increasingly viewed as a key element of good corporate governance. In some countries their formation is mandatory, and in others it is voluntary. In the Australian setting, only the largest listed companies are required to form an audit committee, although many smaller companies do so voluntarily. There are few regulations over smaller companies, and the operations of audit committees. In a jurisdiction which combines mandatory and voluntary regulatory regimes, this study examines the relative impact of the regimes on audit committee diligence, on corporate governance and on board decision-making. It finds that mandatory audit committees are more diligent than voluntary ones, in terms of meeting frequency, but trade-offs are made between meeting frequency and the use of a Big 4 auditor, and the board’s decision-making is not consistently better. There is evidence that voluntary audit committees are established for legitimacy.
Does Reputation Discipline Big 4 Audit Firms?

Audit quality is thought to occur primarily due to litigation pressure. We report results from a study conducted in a low litigation environment (China) where a Big 4 audit firm (Deloitte) failed to detect a fraud involving a public company (Kelon). We find that Deloitte’s clients have negative abnormal returns of 4.4% at events pertaining to Kelon, and there is a spillover to clients of other Big 4 audit firms (negative abnormal returns of 1.2%) though these negative market reactions are moderated by strong corporate governance. Deloitte loses clients to local audit firms, and all Big 4 firms lose market share in the IPO market. Our results support a reputation rationale for audit quality, and also show contagion among Big 4 audit firms, and vulnerability of Big 4 firms to loss of clients to non Big 4 firms.
Altered states of consciousness: phenomenology and pharmacology

In recent years a conjunction of factors have brought questions surrounding the phenomenology and pharmacology of altered states of consciousness back onto the scientific agenda. These factors primarily involve the re-classification of psychiatric disorders that took place in 1980 with the publication of DSM III, which contained a number of syndromes that could be characterized in terms of altered states of consciousness, and also the recognition of the phenomenon of awareness under anaesthesia. These issues are outlined against a historical background, in which there had been at the end of the last century a primary psychopathological focus on the question of consciousness that was, however, increasingly neglected during the course of this century until its recent return to prominence.
Gastric adenocarcinoma after gastric lymphoma

Three men and one woman developed intestinal‐type moderately or poorly differentiated gastric adenocarcinoma 4 to 15 years after the diagnosis of gastric lymphoma. Treatment of the lymphomas had included partial gastrectomy and follow‐up radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. Review of the literature reveals an additional 12 patients who developed adenocarcinoma 3.5 to 34 years (median, 14.5 years) after diagnosis of gastric lymphoma. In the total series of 16 patients, only four were women, who tended to be younger (median age, 36.5 years) than the men (median, 48.5 years) when lymphoma was diagnosed. Patients with gastric lymphoma seem to have an increased incidence of gastric adenocarcinoma. Carcinoma after gastric lymphoma often arises in the distal stomach and appears to occur irrespective of the type of therapy for the lymphoma.
Orthogonal Decomposition of Symmetric Tensors

A real symmetric tensor is orthogonally decomposable (or odeco) if it can be written as a linear combination of symmetric powers of $n$ vectors which form an orthonormal basis of $\mathbb R^n$. Motivated by the spectral theorem for real symmetric matrices, we study the properties of odeco tensors. We give a formula for all of the eigenvectors of an odeco tensor. Moreover, we formulate a set of polynomial equations that vanish on the odeco variety and we conjecture that these polynomials generate its prime ideal. We prove this conjecture in some cases and give strong evidence for its overall correctness.
Tail Risks and Domino Patterns in Emerging Currency Markets

We identify new structural channels for the transmission of shocks in emerging currencies, and develop a model in which shock propagations evolving from domestic emerging stock markets, liquidity (banks’ credit default swaps), credit risk (Volatility Index) and growth (commodity prices) channels disseminate to emerging market foreign exchanges. We quantify joint downside risks and document that these asset classes tend to experience concurrent extreme shocks. We measure the time-varying shock spillover intensities to ascertain a significant increase in cross-asset linkages during periods of high volatility which is over and above any expected economic fundamentals, providing strong evidence of asymmetric investor induced contagion, triggered by cross asset rebalancing. The critical role of the credit crisis is amplified, as the beginning of an important reassessment of emerging market currencies which lead to changes in the dependence structure, a revaluation and recalibration of their risk characteristics. By modelling tail risks we detect structural breaks and find patterns consistent with the domino effect. JEL Classification: C5, F31, F37, G01, G17.
A Case Study: Integrating a Game Application-driven Approach and Social Collaborations into Software Engineering Education

Teaching software engineering to undergraduate students is a challenge task. Students are expected to understand both technical and social aspects of software engineering. This paper presents a complete case study of a hybrid approach that systematically combines a game application-driven approach and social collaborations into the software engineering curriculum at the undergraduate level. The case study consists of 1) proposing a new curriculum design process, 2) identifying a set of software engineering principles, practices, and online collaborative learning tools by following the design process, 3) proposing a semesterlong game project, 4) integrating the principles, practices, and the collaborative learning tools into the game development process and 5) delivering the principles, practices, and tools to students during the game devolvement. The results of the case study, including analysis of the related project documentation and students’ feedback indicate that adopting the games app-driven approach motivate students to learn in teams, help transferring knowledge effectively between instructors and students and facilitate achieving the student learning objectives.
Artisanal and small-scale mining: challenges and opportunities

Projekt-Consult GmbH Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining More than 13 million people in the South are directly engaged in small-scale mining – many of whom are women and children – with another 80 to 100 million depending on it for some aspect of thei livelihood. These activities are often both illegal and environmentally damaging, and dangerous for workers and their communities. The illegality and lack of regulation often mean that improving the sector is difficult and many of the potential benefits are lost. This paper is an overview of the issues and challenges facing artisanal and small-scale mining stakeholders.
Visual-neural correlate of speechreading ability in normal-hearing adults: reliability.

In 1977, Shepherd and colleagues reported significant correlations (-.90, -.91) between speechreading scores and the latency of a selected negative peak (VN130 measure) on the averaged visual electroencephalic wave form. The primary purpose of this current study was to examine the stability, or repeatability, of this relation between these cognitive and neurophysiologic measures over a period of several months and thus support its test-retest reliability. Repeated speechreading word and sentence scores were gathered during three test-retest sessions from each of 20 normal-hearing adults. An average of 56 days occurred from the end of one to the beginning of another speechreading sessions. During each of four other test-retest sessions, averaged visual electroencephalic responses (AVERs) were evoked from each subject. An average of 49 days intervened between AVER sessions. Product-moment correlations computed among repeated word scores and VN130 measures ranged from -. 61 to -. 89. Based on these findings, it was concluded that the VN130 measure of visual neural firing time is a reliable correlate of speechreading in normal-hearing adults.
Does ISO 9000 accreditation make a profound difference to the way service quality is perceived and measured

The article examines the usage and relative importance of quality measurements in the UK’s largest service companies. The authors analyse the relationship of both internal and customer‐based quality measurements to the importance placed on accreditation to an ISO 9000 standard. The effect of process structure is explored by categorising the service firms as being in front‐room or back‐room dominant service sectors. The authors find that the service firms, which consider accreditation to be important, have a different emphasis on quality than other service firms do. Significantly, their emphasis shifts from one that is in line with their process structure to a more balanced one, where both internal and customer‐based quality measurements receive similar attention. This leads them to conclude that accreditation to an ISO 9000 standard can make a profound difference to the way quality is perceived and measured in large service firms.
Differences in purchasing behaviour between physical and virtual laboratory stores

In operational terms (cost, implementation), a virtual 3D laboratory store offers an attractive alternative to a physical laboratory store for testing in-store marketing initiatives (packaging, price or other). Comparing controlled samples, this study shows that declared attitudes to the product are the same but observes significant differences for in-store shopping behaviour and attention to price. These differences are moderated when the subject is a regular buyer of the brand.
Invisible Brands: An Ethnography of Households and the Brands in Their Kitchen Pantries

This article investigates "invisible brands. " An invisible brand is a brand that is considered mundane and blends into the household environment. Much as someone might purchase a brand for other reasons (e.g., family lineage, low price), people strive for brands that can be made invisible in their lives. A 16 mo. ethnography of households and their kitchen pantries yields insights into the process that shapes the invisible brand. The locus of meaning is in the process of brand storage, not in the consumer's identity or in a well-defined consumer-brand relationship. The data also suggest that the households use storage strategies that parallel camouflaging strategies in nature. (c) 2005 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc.
Short-Term Investors, Long-Term Investments, and Firm Value: Evidence from Russell 2000 Index Inclusions

We document that an increase in short-horizon investors is associated with cuts to long-term investment and increased short-term earnings. This leads to temporary boosts in equity valuations that reverse over time. To estimate these effects, we use difference-in-differences regressions around firms’ additions to the Russell 2000, comparing firms with large and small increases in short-term ownership. We proxy for the presence of short-term investors using ownership by transient institutions. Our results suggest that short-term pressures by investors can lead to myopic firm behavior. This paper was accepted by Shiva Rajgopal, accounting.
Consumer engagement with self-expressive brands: brand love and WOM outcomes

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore attitudes of consumers who engage with brands through Facebook "likes". It explores the extent to which these brands are self-expressive and examines the relationship between brand "liking" and brand outcomes. Brand outcomes include brand love and advocacy, where advocacy incorporates WOM and brand acceptance. Design/methodology/approach: Findings are presented from a survey of Facebook users who engage with a brand by "liking" it. Findings: Brands "liked" are expressive of the inner or social self. The study identifies a positive relationship between the self-expressive nature of brands "liked" and brand love. Consumers who engage with inner self-expressive brands are more likely to offer WOM for that brand. By contrast, consumers who engage with socially self-expressive brands are more likely to accept wrongdoing from a brand. Research limitations/implications: The research is exploratory and is limited to consumers who are engaged with a brand through "liking" it on the Facebook social network. Practical implications: The study offers suggestions for managers seeking to enhance brand engagement through Facebook "liking", and to encourage positive brand outcomes (such as WOM) among consumers already engaged with a brand on Facebook. Originality/value: This paper provides new insights into consumer brand engagement evidenced through Facebook "liking". It charts the relationship between "liked" self-expressive brands and brand love. Distinctions are drawn between brand outcomes among consumers who "like" for socially self-expressive reasons, and consumers who are brand engaged by "liking" to express their inner selves.
Network Analysis of Workforce Development Programs

Network structure is one explanatory variable to explain network performance, but its effect may be uncertain. Much research, however, has not attempted to combine network structures with other characteristics of networks – e.g., network social capital, network management, or network learning – that may operate to explain network performance. The consideration of other network characteristics as well as the combination of network structure with other factors cannot be ignored. This research asks the following questions: What characteristics of a network influence its performance? What relationships exist between network characteristics and network performance? and, What is the extent of influence that each network characteristic has on network performance? This study proposed four characteristics of network and presented an integrated model of network performance. The model included unique aspects (structure, content, process, and management) of networks from four network perspectives. This study first examined simple relationships between each characteristic and network performance, and then extended intermediated effects of each characteristic on others. Based on this approach, 25 research hypotheses were proposed. The research site for this study is the workforce development network in Florida. Three groups (rural, suburban, urban areas) are chosen in terms of similar socio-economic conditions. Data are drawn from surveys and interviews with service providers and employers with respect to frequency of contacts (network structure), trust and legitimacy (social capital), adaptation process (network learning), and stability (network management). This study employs a structural equation model after calculating factor loading scores for each dimension. Data of network structure are analyzed with a social network analysis program (UCINET 6.0) and the rest of data is analyzed with the LISREL 8.0 program. Fifteen of the twenty-five hypotheses proposed in this study were supported. First, this study suggested that more diverse service networks or less centralized networks are more likely to lead to better network performance. Second, there is a positive relationship between network social capital and network performance. This finding is consistent with
Financial Reforms in Sudan: Streamlining Bank Intermediation

The paper reviews the experience of financial reforms in Sudan with a view to assessing their macroeconomic impact and to shedding light on the question why such reforms have not yet brought about visible improvements in financial intermediation. The paper concludes that regardless of the progress achieved in recent years, deficiencies in the reform design, institutional weaknesses, shallow financial markets, shortcomings of the Islamic mode of finance, and strong seasonality remain key factors that constrain financial intermediation. Additional efforts, in particular in bank restructuring, credit instrument design, monetary policy management, and prudential regulation are needed to address the systemic problems of the financial sector and to make it capable of supporting private sector growth.
Liquidity and Financial Cycles

In a financial system where balance sheets are continuously marked to market, asset price changes show up immediately in changes in net worth, and elicit responses from financial intermediaries, who adjust the size of their balance sheets. We document evidence that marked to market leverage is strongly procyclical. Such behaviour has aggregate consequences. Changes in aggregate balance sheets for intermediaries forecast changes in risk appetite in financial markets, as measured by the innovations in the VIX index. Aggregate liquidity can be seen as the rate of change of the aggregate balance sheet of the financial intermediaries.
Corporate Fraud Risk and Stock Market Performance

In this paper we investigate the impact of fraud risk -- measured by the probability for earnings overstatements -- on a firms future stock market performance. Based on an out-of-sample estimation of individual firms' fraud risk, we find that stocks with higher fraud risk earn significantly lower stock market returns. A trading strategy going long in stocks of firms with low fraud risk and short in stocks of firms with high fraud risk delivers a statistically significant alpha of more than 10% per year. This result is robust to controlling for differences in firms' liquidity, downside risk, or investor preferences. Our results suggest that the market does not efficiently price corporate fraud risk. Limits of arbitrage do not explain our results. Furthermore, abnormal returns are higher after periods of high sentiment, suggesting that the return patterns documented here constitute an anomaly.
Ads are watching me

With the advancement of technological platforms, the use of recommendation agents that can provide highly customisable solutions has become more ubiquitous. Marketing academics and practitioners alike have begun to investigate various communication styles and functionality designs of such decision aid systems. One variant of a design of a recommendation agent is to imbue it with humanlike features (i.e. to anthropomorphise it). However, academic research is silent with respect to whether this type of design would lead to more favourable consumer evaluations. To fill this gap, our research investigates the downstream consequences of anthropomorphising a recommendation agent, when the recommendation itself may require the exchange of personally sensitive information, and the message is customised. The results of two experiments reveal that, when a message is customised, the effect of an anthropomorphized recommendation agent on attitude towards the advertisement is predominantly negative and is mediated by consumers’ unwillingness to provide personal information to an anthropomorphic recommendation agent, as well as by greater psychological resistance towards the advertisement. Our research concludes with theoretical and practical implications, as well as further research directions.
Does Green Market focus Learning matters in Achieving Sustainable Competitive Advantage? - Empirical Evidence from Sri Lankan Hotel Industry

Eco friendly business strategies are on rise all over the world. Eco-friendly or green business initiatives have been well known as a strategic business orientation for winning and sustaining competitive advantage in a turbulent business environment. An empirically observed phenomenon in the Sri Lanka hotel sector paved the way to undertake the present study. The major purpose of the study was to explain as to how green market focused learning practices of the hotels as a source of dynamic capabilities can influence achieving green based sustainable competitive advantage. A conceptual model and hypotheses were developed based on literature review. A random sample consisting of 100 star category hotels were chosen for the survey. A structured questionnaire was developed on priori-basis to measure the predefined variables of green market focused learning and green based sustainable competitive advantage and administered to the senior management of the hotels. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. The findings revealed that market focused learning processes had a positive influence on achieving innovation based sustainable competitive advantage for the star category hotels. The study had implications for mangers as well as academia and suggested directions for future research.