Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Executive compensation and ownership structure : Empirical evidence for Italian listed companies

This paper investigates the determinants of executive compensation in Italian listed companies over the period 1995 – 2002. Using a unique database, with yearly data on executive pay and very detailed information on companies’ ownership structures, we explore the impact of performance and corporate governance characteristics on Board compensation. We find that the level of board compensation is significantly affected, as expected, by the size of the firm, accounting returns and market valuation. High ownership concentration is associated with lower executive pay, according to the hypothesis that strong ultimate shareholders have an higher incentive either to monitor the management, and not to extract private benefits via excessive personal compensation. Quite surprisingly, the wedge between cash flow and voting rights seem to exert a negative impact on the level of compensation; control enhancing devices could increase agency costs, but do not seem to induce the extraction of higher board compensation. Looking at the nature of the ultimate owner, the level of Board compensation is higher for family firms, and with a lesser extent, for Widely Held firms; managers of State owned companies receive a significantly lower compensation. Furthermore, within family firms, executive compensation is higher in founder-controlled corporations, while in firms controlled by descendants board remuneration seems very close to widely held firms. Taking into account the compensation received by every board member, emerge that family firms pay higher compensation both for executives and non executive directors. For CEOs cash compensation seem more related to performance and company valuation than other board positions, while president – often a family member compensation is less related to ownership concentration and performance characteristics. Within family firms, directors that are members of the controlling family obtain usually higher compensation, but not for CEO role.
Impact of Attendance on Students’ Academic Performance in ICT Related Courses: Faculty of Engineering, Osun State Polytechnic, Iree.

The impact of lecture attendance on student’s academic performance was investigated based on student’s total score and frequency of class attendance of 598 randomly selected students. Attendance were marked by the lecturer at the end of each contact with the students, Data from the selected students were analyzed using regression and correlation statistical tools. The result of the analysis revealed a positive correlation between class attendance and students performance in the examination. It was finally recommended that attendance register should be marked by lecturers during contact periods. Moreover, a minimum requirement of 70% attendance should be enforced as a prerequisite for writing any end of semester examination. Keywords: Class attendance, student’s performance, student’s score
Leguminous cover crops differentially affect maize yields in three contrasting soil types of Kakamega, Western Kenya

Maize production in smallholder farming systems in Kenya is largely limited by low soil fertility. As mineral fertilizer is expensive, green manuring using leguminous cover crops could be an alternative strategy for farmers to enhance farm productivity. However due to variability in soil type and crop management, the effects of green manure are likely to differ with farms. The objectives of this study were to evaluate Mucuna pruriens and Arachis pintoi on (i) biomass and nitrogen fixation ( 15 N natural abundance), (ii) soil carbon and nitrogen stocks and (iii) their effects on maize yields over two cropping seasons in Kakamega, Western Kenya. Mucuna at 6 weeks accumulated 1–1.3 Mg ha −1 of dry matter and 33–56 kg ha −1 nitrogen of which 70% was nitrogen derived from the atmosphere (Ndfa). Arachis after 12 months accumulated 2–2.7 Mg ha −1 of dry matter and 51–74 kg N ha −1 of which 52-63% was from Ndfa. Soil carbon and nitrogen stocks at 0–15 cm depth were enhanced by 2-4 Mg C ha −1 and 0.3–1.0 Mg N ha −1 under Mucuna and Arachis fallow, irrespective of soil type. Maize yield increased by 0.5-2 Mg ha −1 in Mucuna and 0.5–3 Mg ha −1 in Arachis and the response was stronger on Nitisol than on Acrisol or Ferralsol. We concluded that leguminous cover crops seem promising in enhancing soil fertility and maize yields in Kenya, provided soil conditions and rainfall are suitable.
SPECTRAL ANALYSIS OF DECCAN PALEOSOLS, INDIA: ANALOG FOR PHYLLOSILICATES ON

Introduction: Phyllosilicates have been detected on Mars by OMEGA/MEx and by CRISM/MRO [1-3]. The exact formation processes that took place to form these minerals, however, are still unknown. It has been suggested that clays were formed in the earliest history of Mars through the activity of liquid water on the surface [4]. Other possible mechanisms include formation by the hydrothermal processes caused by meteoritic impacts [5,6]. To fully understand these processes, most often it is best to make a comparison with processes that occur on Earth. One example is the Deccan Paleosols in western India that can be used as an analog for these martian smectites. There are several theories of how the Deccan Paleosols formed. Some have suggested that they are the results of basaltic and volcanic ash weathering [7] and are between 61.5 and 64.4 million years old [8] while others indicate they are of pyroclastic origin [9]. This study focuses on the spectral features of the Deccan Paleosols, compares them to known mineral phases, and attempts to link their origin with the origin of smectites found on the martian surface. Samples and Analytical Methods: Samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Each sample’s reflectance spectrum was recorded using an FTIR in the near-infrared region (1.0 – 2.5 μm) and in the mid-infrared region (5 – 15 μm). For comparison, spectra were normalized using a featureless area of each spectrum. Spectra shown henceforth have been offset for clarity. Results: The eleven samples considered in this study were first grouped into one of three categories: red, yellow, or green. There were seven red samples, one yellow/green sample and three green samples. Color differences are most likely a result of different conditions of heating. Samples were labeled A-I. XRD analysis showed that the samples most closely resemble montmorillonite, an Al-rich smectite (Fig. 1). The large peak at 2θ ~ 6 o indicates the montmorillonite’s layered structure. Other peaks at 2θ = 17.6 o , 19.7 o , 26.6 o , and 29.8 o were also identified as signature peaks of montmorillonite. However, not all peaks identified in the diffractogram were identified as montmorillonite. Peaks at 2θ = 33.2 o and 49.6 o were found in common with a typical nontronite diffractogram. This suggests that these Deccan Paleosols are a mixture of montmorillonite and minor nontronite, although more in-depth analysis is needed. The generally negative continuum slope and the small 1.46 μm are similar to the nontronite spectrum, but instead of a characteristic 2.3 μm Fe-OH band, a strong 2.2 μm Al-OH band, characteristic of montmorillonite, is clearly visible (Fig. 2). Both similarities suggest the Deccan Paleosols are essentially composed of montmorillonite due to the strong absorption band at 2.2 μm with minor traces of nontronite. The deep 1.9 μm bands in the spectra suggest the samples have absorbed water from the atmosphere. Further IR analysis at 150 o C under N2 flow will correct this effect [10].
Effects of dietary probiotic supplementation on promoting performance and serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels in broiler chicks

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of two commercially-available probiotics, based on Enterococcus faecium and Bifidobacterium genera on performance and cholesterol and triglyceride amounts of broiler chicks' sera. One hundred and fifty-six (156), day-old, Ross chicks were randomly divided into groups A, B, and C (52 each). The birds in group A received control diet during the experiment but those in groups B and C were, respectively, given control diet supplemented with Enterococcus faecium and Bifidobacterium genera probiotics based on their instruction. Each treatment had 4 replicates of 13 broilers. Twenty chicks were bled from each group on days 21, and 42 of age. The sera were assayed for cholesterol and triglyceride levels using commercial biochemical kits. Treatment effects on broiler body weight, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio were determined on a weekly basis. The results showed that in group A, the cholesterol and triglyceride amounts increased with no significant changes until 42 days of age. In groups B and C, these amounts had a non significant decline. At first and second bleeding, the cholesterol and triglyceride amounts of B and C groups were significantly lower than group A, but there was no difference between groups B and C. The administration of these two probiotics affected positively on parameters of broiler performance compared to the control group but there was no significant difference between probiotic-treated groups. It is concluded that inclusion of probiotics based on Enterococcus faecium or Bifidobacterium genera displayed a growth-promoting effect that was comparable to control diet and also decreased the cholesterol and triglyceride components of broiler chicks' sera.
'No' to a free mobile: when adoption is not enough

This paper reports on the second stage of a research project investigating young people’s appropriation of mobile technologies. Thirty young Australians were supplied with a free WAP phone for a month; they were tracked from their expectations, the initial encounter and the first month of use of a WAP phone. The findings extend our previous work on technology appropriation and identify the different influences on technology adoption and appropriation. It is clear that studying adoption is only one step towards understanding technology acceptance and use.
The Effects of Living in Segregated vs. Mixed Areas in Northern Ireland: A Simultaneous Analysis of Contact and Threat Effects in the Context of Micro-Level Neighbourhoods

This study examines the consequences of living in segregated and mixed neighbourhoods on ingroup bias and offensive action tendencies, taking into consideration the role of intergroup experiences and perceived threat. Using adult data from a cross-sectional survey in Belfast, Northern Ireland, we tested a model that examined the relationship between living in segregated (N = 396) and mixed (N = 562) neighbourhoods and positive contact, exposure to violence, perceived threat and outgroup orientations. Our results show that living in mixed neighbourhoods was associated with lower ingroup bias and reduced offensive action tendencies. These effects were partially mediated by positive contact. However, our analysis also shows that respondents living in mixed neighbourhoods report higher exposure to political violence and higher perceived threat to physical safety. These findings demonstrate the importance of examining both social experience and threat perceptions when testing the relationship between social environment and prejudice.
Source apportionment of organic aerosol from 2-year highly time-resolved measurements by an aerosol chemical speciation monitor in Beijing, China

Abstract. Organic aerosol (OA) represents a large fraction of submicron aerosols in the megacity of Beijing, yet long-term characterization of its sources and variations is very limited. Here we present an analysis of in situ measurements of OA in submicrometer particles with an aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ACSM) for 2 years from July 2011 to May 2013. The sources of OA are analyzed with a multilinear engine (ME-2) by constraining three primary OA factors including fossil-fuel-related OA (FFOA), cooking OA (COA), and biomass burning OA (BBOA). Two secondary OAs (SOA), representing a less oxidized oxygenated OA (LO-OOA) and a more oxidized (MO-OOA), are identified during all seasons. The monthly average concentration OA varied from 13.6 to 46.7 µg m−3 with a strong seasonal pattern that is usually highest in winter and lowest in summer. FFOA and BBOA show similarly pronounced seasonal variations with much higher concentrations and contributions in winter due to enhanced coal combustion and biomass burning emissions. The contribution of COA to OA, however, is relatively stable (10–15 %) across different seasons, yet presents significantly higher values at low relative humidity levels (RH < 30 %), highlighting the important role of COA during clean periods. The two SOA factors present very different seasonal variations. The pronounced enhancement of LO-OOA concentrations in winter indicates that emissions from combustion-related primary emissions could be a considerable source of SOA under low-temperature (T) conditions. Comparatively, MO-OOA shows high concentrations consistently at high RH levels across different T levels, and the contribution of MO-OOA to OA is different seasonally with lower values occurring more in winter (30–34 %) than other seasons (47–64 %). Overall, SOA (= LO-OOA + MO-OOA) dominates OA composition during all seasons by contributing 52–64 % of the total OA mass in the heating season and 65–75 % in non-heating seasons. The variations in OA composition as a function of OA mass loading further illustrate the dominant role of SOA in OA across different mass loading scenarios during all seasons. However, we also observed a large increase in FFOA associated with a corresponding decrease in MO-OOA during periods with high OA mass loadings in the heating season, illustrating an enhanced role of coal combustion emissions during highly polluted episodes. Potential source contribution function analysis further shows that the transport from the regions located to the south and southwest of Beijing within ∼ 250 km can contribute substantially to high FFOA and BBOA concentrations in the heating season.
Transforming Masculinist Political Cultures? Doing Politics in New Political Institutions *

In the devolved legislative assemblies of Scotland and Wales the proportion of women representatives is approaching parity. This is in marked contrast to Westminster where one in five MPs are women. In this paper we explore the extent to which the masculinist political cultures characterising established political institutions are being reproduced in the National Assembly for Wales or whether its different gendering, both in the numbers of women representatives and in terms of its institutional framework, is associated with a more feminised political and organisational culture. Drawing on interviews with half the Assembly Members, women and men, we show that the political style of the Assembly differs from that of Westminster and that Assembly Members perceive it as being more consensual and as embodying a less aggressive and macho way of doing politics. AMs relate this difference to the gender parity amongst Assembly Members, to the institutional arrangements which have an ‘absolute duty’ to promote equality embedded in them, and to the desire to develop a different way of doing politics. We suggest that the ability to do politics in a more feminised and consensual way relates not only to the presence of a significant proportion of women representatives, but also to the nature of the institution and the way in which differently gendered processes and practices are embedded within it. Differently gendered political institutions can develop a more feminised political culture which provides an alternative to the masculinist political culture characterising the political domain.
The Effects of Visual Feedback and Level of Aggression on the Application of Noxious Stimuli

Sixty-four male undergraduate students who were enrolled in an introductory psychology course were used as subjects to determine the effect which visual feedback and level of aggression have on the application of a noxious stimulus to another human being* Equal numbers of high and low aggressive Ss, based on Edwards Personal Preference Schedule scores, were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups, defined by type of visual feedback. The Ss were permitted to select the intensity and duration of hypothetical electric shock which they could apply to a male confederate as punishment for supposedly incorrect responses in a learning task. Results of the study strongly indicate that shock duration is a function of type of visual feedback but not level of aggression while the opposite is the case for shock
In vitro determination of the antioxidant capacity of extracts and phenolic compounds from Ugni molinae Turcz. leaves

Introduction: Ugni molinae Turcz. , (Myrtaceae) is a plant that is distributed in central-southern of Chile, including Juan Fernandez Islands. The leaves have been used in folk medicine for diarrhea and oral infections due to their astringent and antiseptic properties. Objective: antioxidant activity of two extracts (ethyl acetate and methanol) from U. molinae leaves was assessed in several assays. Methods: HPLC ( high performance liquid chromatography ) for chemical analysis and in vitro antioxidant methods . Results: HPLC profiling of both extracts showed the presence of flavan-3-ols (catechin) and gallic acid, flavonoids and caffeic acid derivates as main constituents. These extracts showed significant activity on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), cupric ion reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC) and hydroxyl radical assays. It is noteworthy that bleaching of b-carotene-linoleate liposomes and copper-induced oxidation of human LDL were prevented by both extracts. Conclusions: results suggest that polyphenol-rich extracts of U. molinae could slow down lipid peroxidation and limit free radical damage.
Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties: A specific disability in regular orthographies.

Two large studies identified substantial numbers of German-speaking children (Grade 3) with marked dissociations between reading and spelling difficulties. These dissociations were expected because German exhibits high regularity in the direction of graphemes to phonemes (forward regularity) but not in the direction of phonemes to graphemes (backward regularity). High forward regularity allows reliance on phonological processing in reading (even in advanced fluent reading), whereas low backward regularity requires reliance on orthographic memory representations in spelling. Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties was associated only with a naming speed deficit—assessed at school entrance— but not with phonological memory or phonological awareness deficits. In contrast, a specific spelling deficit was preceded by phonological deficits. In orthographies with regular grapheme–phoneme relations, difficulties in learning to read take another form than they do in English. In English, the typical problem of children who are dyslexic is to read correctly unfamiliar words, whereas in more regular orthographies, the typical problem is to read fluently. To illustrate, in Landerl, Wimmer, and Frith’s (1997) comparative study, a majority of the 11-year-old English children who were dyslexic had a problem with the word character. Some children refused to read it and others produced misreadings ranging from chancelor and calendar to nonwords such as tshraekter. In contrast, the German children who were dyslexic for the close to identical word Charakter produced few misreadings (all nonwords), but their reading time was between 2 and 3 times higher than that of their peers who read normally. The massive reading fluency impairment of German children who were dyslexic in the context of relatively few errors (even under speed instruction) has been obtained in several studies (Klicpera & Schabmann, 1993;
The effect of maintenance on the performance of sand-filled synthetic turf surfaces

The effect of infill quantity and contamination on the performance of second generation sand-filled synthetic turf sports surfaces was investigated in a laboratory study. Three 1 m2 test surfaces were constructed by placing synthetic turf over a stone–tar-macadam–rubber shockpad sub-base. Ball rebound, ball roll, surface rebound hardness and rotational resistance of a dimpled rubber sole were measured for a range of infill quantities (0–35 kg/m2) and infill contamination concentrations (0, 10 and 20%). Increasing infill quantity increased hardness, reduced ball rebound and reduced rotational resistance linearly (p < 0.01). Ball deceleration increased up to 10 kg/m2 after which there was no further significant increase in the range tested. An optimum infill quantity of 25–30 kg/m2, based on performance characteristics and the length of fibre above the infill, was identified for the synthetic turf surface tested. Increasing contamination also increased ball deceleration and reduced infiltration rate and kept surfaces wetter for longer during drying (p < 0.001), resulting in conditions suitable for moss and algae formation. Maintenance, including regular brushing and monitoring of infill quantity, is required to ensure even distribution of the correct quantity of infill and the minimization of infill contamination in all infilled synthetic turf surfaces.
Social and reputational aspects of personality

Following the notion that the psycho-lexical approach in personality psychology is suboptimal if it does not encompass all the word categories potentially personality-relevant (De Raad, 2000), this paper describes the development of the Croatian taxonomy of social and reputational descriptors of personality. In the first step of the first study, a master list of social and reputational terms in the Croatian lexicon was constructed. In the second step, the personality-descriptive adjectives that were not captured by the earlier Croatian taxonomy (Mlacic & Ostendorf, 2005) were categorized by seven judges into 13 different types of descriptors, based on the classification system developed by Angleitner, Ostendorf, and John (1990). In the second study, the 532 adjectives that the majority of judges classified as prototypical for the three subcategories of interest of Social and Reputational aspects (social roles and relationships, social effects, and attitudes and worldviews) were used for self-ratings by a large sample of (N=524) University of Zagreb students and for peer-ratings by (N=502) those students’ best acquaintances. Results from factor analyses are presented, as well as the relations of the underlying dimensions of Social and Reputational aspects of personality with two different measures of social attitudes and with the Big-Five factors of personality.