Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differences between Turkey and Finland based on Eight Latent Variables in PISA 2006

Article History: Received 18.02. 2013 Accepted: 23.03. 2013 Available online: 10.04. 2013 Because scrutinizing the factors that derived from international studies and have potential to make a country more successful in scientific literacy has been one major concern of researchers in science education field, we carried out a study to expose the differences between a low-performing country (Turkey) and a high-performing country (Finland) with regard to their students’ views of science and familiarity to ICT (Information Communication Technology) based on the PISA 2006 results. A principal component analysis was performed to the items selected from the student questionnaire and ICT familiarity student questionnaire in PISA 2006 to gather the related factors and factor scores. Then, discriminant function analysis was conducted on the basis of the factor scores to explore the differences between a low-performing country (Turkey) and a high-performing country (Finland). The results revealed that the two countries were significantly discriminated based on the seven composite (latent) variables that consist 60 observed variables regarding socioeconomic status, doing well in ICT tasks, self-efficacy in science , importance to given to science, frequency in ICT tasks, student-centered activities, and science activities in leisure time. Whereas the use of student-centered activities and ICT tasks were encouraged in the low-performing country (Turkey), students in the high-performing country (Finland) tended to have high socioeconomic status and high self-efficacy in science. In addition, the results revealed that, even though the students in the high-performing country used the ICT tasks better than the students in the low-performing country, students in the low-performing country (Turkey) tended to do more activities related to ICT tasks. © 2013 IOJES. All rights reserved
Augmenting Innovation Project Portfolio Management Performance: The Mediating Effect of Management Perception and Satisfaction

Firms face the challenge of efficiently and effectively investing scarce resources in innovation projects in order to sustain or develop a firm's long‐term competitive advantage and sustainable growth. Innovation project portfolio management (IPPM) describes a firm's dynamic capability to assess the challenge of evaluating, selecting, and prioritizing innovation projects. The particular impacts of method usage, criteria usage, IPPM design, information availability, and internal interactions on management perception and satisfaction as well as on IPPM performance and innovativeness are hypothesized and tested. We found that methods and criteria play a negligible role in the IPPM context. IPPM design elements, like transparency and formality, are key drivers of high IPPM performance. Information availability is a key construct in driving IPPM performance, as well as management perception and satisfaction. Relevance of IPPM is supported by revealing IPPM performance's positive impact on firm performance, innovation project performance, and firm's innovativeness.
Managing (Sales)People towards Performance: HR Strategy, Leadership & Teamwork

Managing people towards performance is one of the most critical priorities for managers in practice. This dissertation focuses on this important issue and explores how HR Strategy, Leaders, and Teams, impact performance. It addresses respectively how HR as a system of coherent attributes, multiple dimensions of transformational leadership, and team reflexivity can enhance the performance of (sales)people in organizations. Based on a series of field-studies, the present dissertation demonstrates a number of novel insights. First, it reveals that internal coherence of HR strategy has a positive effect on organizational performance. Second, it demonstrates that both a leader’s level of transformational leadership, as well as a team’s level of reflexivity can be functional, but also dysfunctional for job performance of people in organizations. These results are important for managers, as they represent evidence-based insights, some of which are counter-intuitive, on how they can effectively manage people towards performance. For researchers, the findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the HR-performance relationship.
Ownership Structure, Internal Financing and Investment Dynamics

In this paper, using a sample of 1035 Italian manufacturing firms observed in the period 1998–2003, we try to disentangle the different potential determinants underlying the observed positive elasticity between investments and internal resources by accounting for both the ownership structure of the companies and the role played by financial intermediaries as both investors and debt-holders. We found evidence of an inverted U relationship between concentration of ownership and the elasticity of investment to cash flow. Moreover, the analysis shows that the relationship between investment decisions and internal funds is significantly influenced by monitoring efforts played by institutional investors.
Managing Self-management: Successful Transitions to Portfolio Careers

Various economic and social pressures have, arguably, combined to effect a shift in both the reality and perceptions of career structures. Recent debates have centred on the extent to which traditional organizational careers have given way to self-employment for a client portfolio. This article builds on distinctions between `subjective', `objective' and `organizational' careers to analyse how individuals manage the transition from a traditional to a portfolio-based career. It focuses on freelance translators, a group of workers with a long history of working outside organizations, and draws out some of the factors involved in their successful transition from employment to self-employment. It evaluates the constraints on creating portfolio careers, particularly the role of safety nets and professional networks, and explores the `organizing principles' to which translators refer in creating coherent narratives of their working lives. The article concludes that, in the absence of an organizational structure, clear identification of such principles proves to be critical for translators in defining both successful transitions and successful careers.
Reduced opportunities for regional renewal: The role of rigid threat responses among a region's established firms

This article illustrates how opportunities for regional renewal in a peripheral region may be reduced by rigid threat responses undertaken by established firms operating within traditional regional industry. In an inductive case study of new biorefinery industry initiatives in a region where traditional pulp-and-paper and forestry industry was in decline, we used primary and secondary data to outline how a set of new industry players who created innovative ways of using existing regional infrastructures and resources sparked rigid threat responses among established firms from the struggling traditional industry. Established industry firms framed new industry initiatives as threats, and responded by (1) reducing new industry actors’ possibilities for new business development, (2) engaging in entrenched resistance, (3) creating collaborative illusions and (4) undermining the fundamentals of the new industry. Consequently, this study contributes to existing literature by proposing the potential of applying the threat-rigidity thesis on a regional level. This is achieved by illustrating that conflicting behaviours between new and established regional industry actors constrain opportunities for regional renewal in a peripheral region. As such, relevant directions for future research and policy implications are outlined.
Impact of Excess Auditor Remuneration on Cost of Equity Capital Around the World

This study examines the relation between excess auditor remuneration and the implied required rate of return (IRR hereafter) on equity capital in global markets. We conjecture that when auditor remuneration is excessively large, investors may perceive the auditor to be economically bonded to the client, leading to a lack of independence. This perceived lack of independence increases the information risk associated with the credibility of financial statements, thereby increasing IRR. Consistent with this notion, we find that IRR is increasing in excess auditor remuneration, but only in countries with stronger investor protection. Finding evidence of a relation only in stronger investor protection countries is consistent with the more prominent role of audited financial statements for investors' decisions in these countries. In settings where investors are less likely to rely on audited financial statements and instead rely on alternative sources of information (i.e., in countries with weaker investor protection), the impact of client/auditor bonding should have less of an effect on investors' decisions.
HACCP for the hospitality industry: history in the making.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the current status of HACCP across the food chain with particular reference to the hospitality industry. It is the first article in the second Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management presenting a new method of HACCP for the hospitality industry and proof of its utility.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive review of HACCP literature is presented with an in‐depth analysis of both established and innovative methodologies. It is set in the context of both international efforts to meet the needs of small and less developed businesses (SLDBs) and recent UK Government initiatives.Findings – Research confirms anecdotal evidence that whilst HACCP development is widespread in large food manufacturers its use is limited within smaller businesses, with particularly slow progress in the hospitality sector. Recent in‐depth psychological methods have led to the identification of 11 implement.
Threshold Citation Analysis of Influential Articles, Journals, Institutions and Researchers in Accounting

We use a threshold citation approach to measure the influence of articles, journals, institutions and researchers in accounting research. The Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics and Accounting Review are the 3 most influential journals in accounting research. The 3 most influential institutions in accounting research are the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, while the 3 most frequently cited authors in accounting research are Richard G. Sloan, Robert E. Verrecchia and Paul M. Healy.
Education as a Signal of Trainability: Results from a Vignette Study with Italian Employers

Drawing on queuing theory, this study explores the relationship between education and labour market entry from the perspective of employers. On the basis of vignette study, we simulated a hiring process with a sample of recruiters and human resource managers. We analysed the role of education in the screening of applicants’ resumes for job openings in the Information, Communication, and Technology sector in the Italian labour market. Findings reveal that employers attach importance to fine-grained indicators of school performance, such as grades and study duration to formulate their hiring decisions, in line with queuing theory. However, internships are disregarded as signals. Results are explained in light of the institutional arrangements that characterize the Italian school-to-work transition system: a standardized education system, poorly specific vocational tracks, weakly developed linkages between schools and firms, a remarkably high dropout rate before study completion.
Analysis of the barriers and limitations for the development of rural women’s entrepreneurship

This study, by considering the importance of entrepreneurship in rural communities, has the aim to identify and explore barriers and limitations of the development of rural women's entrepreneurship in Iran. This research has been conducted using an exploratory qualitative research methodology with two groups of respondents including both experts on entrepreneurship and rural women's entrepreneurs. Data were gathered through interviews and the Delphi technique. The data collection process was conducted to obtain complete and comprehensive data, and saturation was attained in two rounds. The results revealed that barriers and limitations of rural women entrepreneurship can be divided into nine: demographics; personality and behavioural conditions of rural women; family characteristics; knowledge and skills of rural women (education, experience and communication); cultural and social conditions (community and rural); access to facilities and services needed for rural women (in the process of setting up, managing, and developing businesses); law and legal factors, financial and economic factors; institutional and organisational factors; and geographical and environmental conditions (rural environment).
CXCL12 rs1801157 polymorphism in patients with breast cancer, hodgkin's lymphoma, and non‐hodgkin's lymphoma

Chemokines and their receptors regulate the trafficking of immune cells during their development, inflammation, and tissue repair. The single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1801157 (previously known as CXCL12‐A/ stromal cell‐derived factor‐1 (SDF1)‐3′A) in CXCL12/SDF1 gene was assessed in breast cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), and non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), since the chemokine CXCL12, previously known as SDF1, and its receptor CXCR4 regulate leukocyte trafficking and many essential biological processes, including tumor growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis of different types of tumors. Genotyping was performed by PCR‐RFLP (polymerase chain reaction followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism) using a restriction enzyme HpaII cleavage. No significant difference was observed in genotype distribution between breast cancer patients (GG: 57.3%; GA: 39.8%; AA: 2.9%) and healthy female controls (GG: 62.9%; GA: 33%; AA: 4.1%) nor between HL patients (GG: 61.1%; GA:27.8%; AA: 11.1%) and healthy controls (GG: 65.6%; GA: 28.9%; AA: 5.5%), whereas a significant difference was observed in genotype distribution between NHL patients (GG: 51.4%; GA: 47.1%; AA: 1.5%) and healthy controls (GG: 65.6%; GA: 28.9%; AA: 5.5%). Further studies will be necessary to elucidate the cancer chemokine network. However, this study suggests that CXCL12 rs1801157 polymorphism may have important implications in the pathogenesis of NHL. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 23:387–393, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Simeprevir (TMC435) with pegylated interferon/ribavirin in patients coinfected with HCV genotype 1 and HIV-1: a phase 3 study.

BACKGROUND Simeprevir is an oral, once-daily, hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3/4A protease inhibitor for the treatment of chronic HCV genotype 1 infection. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection accelerates progression of liver disease. This uncontrolled, open-label trial explored the safety and efficacy of simeprevir in patients with HCV genotype 1/HIV type 1 (HIV-1) coinfection. METHODS Patients received simeprevir (150 mg once daily) with pegylated interferon alfa-2a/ribavirin (peg-IFN/RBV) for 12 weeks. Noncirrhotic HCV treatment-naive patients and prior relapsers received response-guided therapy (RGT) with peg-IFN/RBV for 24 or 48 weeks. Prior null responders, prior partial responders, and patients with cirrhosis received peg-IFN/RBV for 48 weeks. The primary endpoint was sustained virologic response 12 weeks after the end of treatment (SVR12). RESULTS One hundred and six patients (93 on antiretroviral therapy) were enrolled and treated. SVR12 rates were 79.2% in HCV treatment-naive patients, 57.1% in prior null responders, 86.7% in prior relapsers, and 70.0% in prior partial responders. Fifty-four of 61 eligible patients (88.5%) met RGT criteria for 24 weeks of peg-IFN/RBV, of whom 87.0% (47/54) achieved SVR12. SVR12 rates were 80.0% (36/45) and 63.6% (14/22) for patients with METAVIR scores of F0-F2 and F3-F4, respectively. Common adverse event (AE) rates were consistent with peg-IFN/RBV therapy (fatigue, headache, nausea, neutropenia). Most AEs were grade 1/2; serious AEs occurred in 5.7% of patients, none of which were fatal. CONCLUSIONS Simeprevir was generally well tolerated with safety similar to that observed in HCV-monoinfected patients and high SVR12 rates in HCV treatment-naive patients, prior relapsers, prior partial responders, and prior null responders with HIV-1 coinfection. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION NCT01479868.
The Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitor Linagliptin Preserves Endothelial Function in Mesenteric Arteries from Type 1 Diabetic Rats without Decreasing Plasma Glucose

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of the DPP-4 inhibitor linagliptin on the mechanism(s) of endothelium-dependent relaxation in mesenteric arteries from STZ-induced diabetic rats. Both normal and diabetic animals received linagliptin (2 mg/kg) daily by oral gavage for a period of 4 weeks. To measure superoxide generation in mesenteric arteries, lucigenin-enhanced chemiluminescence was used. ACh-induced relaxation of mesenteric arteries was assessed using organ bath techniques and Western blotting was used to investigate protein expression. Pharmacological tools (1μM TRAM-34, 1μM apamin, 100 nM Ibtx, 100 μM L-NNA, 10 μM ODQ) were used to distinguish between NO and EDH-mediated relaxation. Linagliptin did not affect plasma glucose, but did decrease vascular superoxide levels. Diabetes reduced responses to ACh but did not affect endothelium-independent responses to SNP. Linagliptin improved endothelial function indicated by a significant increase in responses to ACh. Diabetes impaired the contribution of both nitric oxide (NO) and endothelium-dependent hyperpolarization (EDH) to endothelium-dependent relaxation and linagliptin treatment significantly enhanced the contribution of both relaxing factors. Western blotting demonstrated that diabetes also increased expression of Nox2 and decreased expression and dimerization of endothelial NO synthase, effects that were reversed by linagliptin. These findings demonstrate treatment of type 1 diabetic rats with linagliptin significantly reduced vascular superoxide levels and preserved both NO and EDH-mediated relaxation indicating that linagliptin can improve endothelial function in diabetes independently of any glucose lowering activity.
Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction as an Early Manifestation of Diabetic Cardiomyopathy

Aims/Hypothesis: Early determination of myocardial manifestations of diabetes mellitus is of major importance, since myocardial involvement considerably influences the prognosis of diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to investigate whether young patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and normal systolic left ventricular (LV) function already show a diastolic LV dysfunction and an increased risk of arrhythmias. Methods: Echocardiography was performed in 87 patients suffering from type I diabetes mellitus, without known cardiac disease and in 87 controls. Patients with a known manifest cardiac disease or a long-term diabetic syndrome were excluded. Morphological parameters were determined using M-mode echocardiography. Doppler echocardiography was used to evaluate parameters of LV diastolic function. The risk of arrhythmia was assessed by means of electrocardiography, heart rate variability, and late potential analysis. Results: The left atrial and ventricular dimensions and systolic functional parameters of all patients were normal. A diastolic dysfunction with a reduction in early diastolic filling, an increase in atrial filling, an extension of isovolumetric relaxation and deceleration time was documented in diabetic patients, as well as an increased number of supraventricular and ventricular premature beats. Conclusion: Even young patients with diabetes mellitus suffer from a diastolic dysfunction while systolic ventricular function is normal. Therefore, echocardiography with measurements of diastolic functional parameters appears to be a sensitive method for evaluating the manifestation and course of early diabetic cardiomyopathy.
Conflict and collaboration : tradition and modernizing Indo-Trinidadian elites (1917-56)

History of the competition in the Indo-'Trinidadian community between the modern-'izing elite and the traditional elite. The first aspired to adapt the Indians to the political and cultural environment of a predominantly creole/Western society. The second wanted to preserve the existing culture and religion. Since the mid-1950s the traditional elite has achieved ascendancy at the mass level of Indo-Trinidadian community organization.
Vehicle Use and Fuel Economy: How Big is the “Rebound” Effect?

By reducing the fuel costs of travel, motor vehicle efficiency improvements tend to increase the demand for travel, thereby offsetting some of the energy-saving benefit of the efficiency improvement and creating a “rebound” effect. The key factor is the elasticity of vehicle travel with respect to fuel cost per mile. Past studies offer a wide range of estimates depending on model formulation and time period, with more recent analyses indicating that travel is insensitive to fuel costs and efficiency. This paper analyzes U.S. light-duty vehicle miles travelled from 1966-89, examining a variety of statistical issues that bear on the size of the “rebound” effect, including error structure, functional form, and possible lagged effects. The results consistently confirm that the “rebound” effect has been quite small, about 5-15%, or less; and that short-run (one year) adjustments accounted for essentially all of the change in travel due to fuel price and fuel economy changes. The findings imply that the energy savings of technical fuel economy improvements to cars and light trucks will be only slightly reduced by increased vehicle travel. They also imply that gasoline taxes would need to be very large in order to stimulate significant reductions in travel.
The prevalence of restless legs syndrome among pregnant women in Japan and the relationship between restless legs syndrome and sleep problems.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To clarify the prevalence of restless legs syndrome (RLS) in pregnant women living in Japan and to analyze the relationship between sleep problems and RLS, in order to discuss ways for pregnant women to obtain comfortable sleep and to improve the health of both the mother and child. DESIGN A cross-sectional questionnaire survey. SETTING 500 clinical institutions with maternity services were randomly sampled from a list of organizations identified in a survey by the Japan Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Of these 500 institutions, 260 participated in the survey. PARTICIPANTS 16,528 pregnant women living in Japan. INTERVENTIONS N/A. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS In this survey of pregnant women, the prevalence of RLS was found to be 19.9%. An analysis was conducted on the relationship between RLS and other factors such as subjective evaluation of sleep, difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, early morning awaking, and excessive daytime sleepiness. The result of this analysis suggested that women with these sleep-related problems were more likely to have RLS than those without. In addition, RLS was more prevalent in the later stages of pregnancy. CONCLUSION In the pregnant women in our survey, the prevalence of RLS was found to be 19.9%, which is higher than the prevalence of RLS that has been found in the general public in a previous study. This suggests that RLS-related sleep problems may be an important public health issue among pregnant women in Japan. This finding may have implications for attempts to improve sleep hygiene in this group.