Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differentiation in pay for performance within organizations: an occupational perspective

PurposeThis study aims to address the question of why organizations do not uniformly apply pay for performance (PFP) throughout the organization, focusing on the wider occupational structure in which they and the jobs they create are embedded. The authors propose a model of “occupational differentiation” whereby the probability of a job within a given organization having PFP increases with the levels of monitoring difficulty and requisite human asset specificity characterizing the occupation to which a job belongs, being highest in occupations characterized by high levels of both (generally managerial and professional occupations). Design/methodology/approachUsing the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (a nationally representative matched employer–employee dataset for Britain), this paper investigates this question for all 350 occupations delineated by the UK's Office for National Statistics using regression methods that adjust for other confounding factors such as demographic factors and workplace fixed effects.FindingsThe authors find organizations “occupationally differentiate” the use of PFP in ways consistent with the model, i.e. PFP is most likely to be found in occupations characterized by both high monitoring difficulty and high requisite human asset specificity (mainly managerial and professional occupations) and least likely in occupations scoring low in both. The finding holds across PFP types (individual, group, organizational), whether organizations are large or small, and hold across most industrial sectors.Research limitations/implicationsThe main implication of this study is that organizations appear to be taking into consideration whether the wider profession to which a job belongs when implementing PFP, irrespective of their own human resource management strategies and organizational context. There are a few limitations to this study, with the main one being that this model is mainly confined to empirical support is only found in the private sector. The public sector appears to be beyond the reach of the model, where PFP implementation is generally rarer. A second limitation is that the dataset is from 2011 and only covers a single country.Practical implicationsGiven organizations appear to be implementing PFP based on occupation, this may lead to equity concerns, as different groups are being treated differently within organizations based upon their occupational group.Social implicationsAs PFP jobs tend to pay more than non-PFP jobs and PFP prevalence has been growing, by being more likely to implement it for generally high-paid groups (generally higher managerial and professional occupations), PFP may contribute to wider pay differentials within and between organizations.Originality/valueBy introducing the occupational-level of analysis and the differential nature of tasks across occupational groups, the model offers a new midrange, sociological perspective to understanding intra-organizational dynamics in PFP use and potentially human resource practices more broadly.
Unequal Unemployment Effects of COVID-19 and Monetary Policy across U.S. States

This paper shows that daily Google trends can be used as an alternative to conventional U.S. data (with alternative frequencies) on unemployment, interest rates, inflation and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This information is used to investigate the effects of COVID-19 and the corresponding monetary policy on the U.S. unemployment, both nationally and across U.S. states, by using a structural vector autoregression model. Historical decomposition analyses show that the U.S. unemployment is mostly explained by COVID-19, whereas the contribution of monetary policy is almost none. An investigation based on the U.S. states further suggests that COVID-19 and the corresponding monetary policy conducted based on nationwide economic developments have resulted in unequal changes in state-level unemployment rates, suggesting evidence for distributive effects of national monetary policy.
Identification of COVID-19 samples from chest X-Ray images using deep learning: A comparison of transfer learning approaches

BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) constitutes a public health emergency globally. The number of infected people and deaths are proliferating every day, which is putting tremendous pressure on our social and healthcare system. Rapid detection of COVID-19 cases is a significant step to fight against this virus as well as release pressure off the healthcare system. OBJECTIVE: One of the critical factors behind the rapid spread of COVID-19 pandemic is a lengthy clinical testing time. The imaging tool, such as Chest X-ray (CXR), can speed up the identification process. Therefore, our objective is to develop an automated CAD system for the detection of COVID-19 samples from healthy and pneumonia cases using CXR images. METHODS: Due to the scarcity of the COVID-19 benchmark dataset, we have employed deep transfer learning techniques, where we examined 15 different pre-trained CNN models to find the most suitable one for this task. RESULTS: A total of 860 images (260 COVID-19 cases, 300 healthy and 300 pneumonia cases) have been employed to investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm, where 70% images of each class are accepted for training, 15% is used for validation, and rest is for testing. It is observed that the VGG19 obtains the highest classification accuracy of 89.3% with an average precision, recall, and F1 score of 0.90, 0.89, 0.90, respectively. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates the effectiveness of deep transfer learning techniques for the identification of COVID-19 cases using CXR images.
Prognostic significance of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio with distal cholangiocarcinoma patients

Abstract Background: The present study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in distal cholangiocarcinoma (DCC) following radical surgery. Methods: The clinicopathological data of 59 patients with DCC were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were treated by radical surgery and diagnosed by postoperative pathology at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University (Yunnan, China), between July 2015 and December 2017. The optimal cut-off value for the NLR was determined by generating receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards models were used to determine the risk factors and independent risk factors influencing the prognosis of patients with DCC. Results: According to the ROC curve, the optimal cut-off value for the NLR was 2.933. The results of Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and the Cox proportional hazards model showed that carbohydrate antigen 125, NLR, perineural, vascular and fat invasion, regional lymph node metastasis, and the American Joint Committee on Cancer stage were risk factors for DCC; the only independent risk factor to affect the prognosis of DCC patients was the NLR. Conclusions: The preoperative NLR plays an important guiding role in evaluating the prognosis of patients with DCC, and an increase in the NLR is associated with poor patient prognosis.
Strategic Borrowing from Passive Investors: Implications for Security Lending and Price Efficiency

We examine the effects of passive investing on security lending outcomes and price efficiency for the 2007-2017 period. These effects cannot be fully explained by the standard lending supply channel. While all institutional investors contribute to lending supply, only passive ownership improves price efficiency. Additionally, increased passive ownership correlates with higher lending fees and higher short interest. We propose a complementary, demand-based strategic borrowing channel wherein short-sellers prefer to borrow from passive investors to reduce dynamic short-selling risks. Consistent with our hypotheses, increased passive ownership is associated with lower fee, recall, and information leakage risks, and longer loan duration.
Bank Loan Contracting and International Tax Planning at Multinational Firms

Unlike purely domestic firms, globalized firms have unique opportunities to engage in international tax planning activities. This study examines whether banks consider international tax planning, and in particular potential earnings repatriation taxes, when setting loan contracts for multinational firms. We find that U.S. multinationals with high levels of potential earnings repatriation taxes face higher loan spreads, and we find that this effect is more pronounced for firms that have low profitability or that are financially constrained. We also document that banks are more likely to require collateral and include more financial covenants in the contracts of these borrowers. Our study contributes to the literature by investigating the effect of international tax issues on bank lending.
Design and Pricing of Discretionary Service Lines

For discretionary services, longer service duration implies higher service quality. We study the optimal design and pricing of discretionary service lines, a range of services that are vertically differentiated through their duration (quality), offered to a market with customers who are heterogeneous in terms of their sensitivity to service duration. In a resource-constrained environment with stochastic arrival of demand, longer service duration also implies longer wait, which all customers dislike. Hence, service line design takes into consideration both customer heterogeneity in quality sensitivity and customer disutility in waiting. We first study the case when the firm serves customers in the order they arrive (first in first out (FIFO)). Then we investigate a processing-time-based sequencing rule with two priority classes (two classes shortest processing time (2-SPT)) as a practical operational improvement of FIFO. We identify service variety reduction as an instrument to mitigate congestion, in addition to service time reduction and throughput control used for discretionary service design. Although FIFO results in a range of closely related service durations and an increasing price schedule, we show that 2-SPT gives rise to a clustered service line with a gap between the ranges of service durations offered for different priority classes, along with a decrease of demand volume and a possible price drop from the lower-quality to the higher-quality cluster. Finally, even without customer heterogeneity, it is still optimal for the firm to offer a variety of services under 2-SPT, driven by operational efficiency improvement, whereas under FIFO the service line collapses to a single service. This paper was accepted by Terry Taylor, operations management.
E-procurement, supplier integration and supply chain performance in small and medium enterprises in South Africa

Purpose: With rapid changes in technology and the globalisation of markets, firms, especially small to medium enterprises (SMEs), require support to adapt to technology and make use of e-procurement functions to develop competitive advantages. Information systems such as e-procurement have become increasingly linked with other business activities such as supply chain integration to initiate the growth of SMEs. This study investigated the relationship between e-procurement, supplier integration and supply chain performance in retail SMEs in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative research approach was followed in which a sample of 283 owners and managers of SMEs in Gauteng Province, South Africa, were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. The study considered five e-procurement components, namely e-sourcing, e-negotiation, e-informing, e-design and e-evaluation. The collected data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Findings/results: The results of the study showed that two e-procurement components, namely e-design and e-negotiation, exerted a significant positive influence on supply chain integration. The other three e-procurement components, namely e-sourcing, e-evaluation and e-informing, were statistically insignificant in influencing supply chain integration. The study further revealed that supplier integration exerts a positive and significant linear relationship with both the tangible and intangible dimensions of supply chain performance (SCP). Practical implications: Retail SMEs may refer to this study for information regarding which components of e-procurement deserve primary attention when implementing such systems and how these may be harnessed for the improvement of SCP. Originality/value: The study represents a pioneering attempt to model the nexus between e-procurement, supplier integration and the performance of retail supply chains within South African SMEs. It provides the foundation for future research studies on the implementation of e-procurement and other digitalised supply chain practices in various sectors of the South African economy.
Effects of single high dose topical tranexamic acid administration on bleeding and complicatıons after total knee arthroplasty surgery:A retrospective clinical study

Amac: Literaturde ortopedik cerrahide Traneksamik asit (TA) kullaniminin optimal yontemi konusunda fikir birligi yoktur. Bu calismanin amaci, total diz artroplastisi (TDA) cerrahisinde tek yuksek doz (3g) topikal TA uygulamasinin postoperatif kanama ve komplikasyonlar uzerine etkilerini degerlendirmektir. Gerec ve Yontemler: Ocak 2016 - Haziran 2018 tarihleri arasinda klinigimizde TDA uygulanan hastalar retrospektif olarak degerlendirildi. Hastalar TA uygulamasina gore iki gruba ayrildi: Grup 1 (topikal TA, n = 105/242) ve Grup 2 (TA olmayan, n = 137/242). Demografik parametreler, komorbiditeler, yuksek risk faktorleri, preoperatif hemoglobin (Hb) duzeyi, postoperatif en dusuk Hb duzeyi, Hb'deki toplam degisiklik, toplam dren cikisi, transfuzyon varligi veya yoklugu, transfuzyon yapilan kan miktari, hastanede kalis suresi ve komplikasyonlar degerlendirildi. Bulgular: Grup 1'de postoperatif birinci ve ikinci gun Hb seviyeleri grup 2'ye gore anlamli olarak yuksekti. Grup 1'de ameliyat gunu kan kaybi, ameliyat sonrasi ilk gun kan kaybi ve toplam dren kan kaybi anlamli olarak daha dusuktu. Grup 2'deki hastalarin anlamli olarak daha fazla kan transfuzyonuna ihtiyac duyduklari ve hastanede kalis surelerinin daha uzun oldugu belirlendi. Iki grup arasindaki komplikasyonlarda istatistiksel olarak anlamli fark saptanmadi. Sonuc: Bu calismada, TA'nin yara kapatildiktan sonra diz eklemine topikal uygulamasi; primer TDA yapilan hastalarda tromboembolik riskte bir artis yaratmadan, postoperatif Hb kaybini ve kan kaybini onemli olcude azaltmistir. Bu durum hastanede kalis suresini de azaltmaktadir.
A global model–measurement evaluation of particle light scattering coefficients at elevated relative humidity

Abstract. The uptake of water by atmospheric aerosols has a pronounced effect on particle light scattering properties, which in turn are strongly dependent on the ambient relative humidity (RH). Earth system models need to account for the aerosol water uptake and its influence on light scattering in order to properly capture the overall radiative effects of aerosols. Here we present a comprehensive model–measurement evaluation of the particle light scattering enhancement factor f (RH), defined as the particle light scattering coefficient at elevated RH (here set to 85 %) divided by its dry value. The comparison uses simulations from 10 Earth system models and a global dataset of surface-based in situ measurements. In general, we find a large diversity in the magnitude of predicted f (RH) amongst the different models, which can not be explained by the site types. Based on our evaluation of sea salt scattering enhancement and simulated organic mass fraction, there is a strong indication that differences in the model parameterizations of hygroscopicity and model chemistry are driving at least some of the observed diversity in simulated f (RH). Additionally, a key point is that defining dry conditions is difficult from an observational point of view and, depending on the aerosol, may influence the measured f (RH). The definition of dry also impacts our model evaluation, because several models exhibit significant water uptake between RH = 0 % and 40 %. The multisite average ratio between model outputs and measurements is 1.64 when RH = 0 % is assumed as the model dry RH and 1.16 when RH = 40 % is the model dry RH value. The overestimation by the models is believed to originate from the hygroscopicity parameterizations at the lower RH range which may not implement all phenomena taking place (i.e., not fully dried particles and hysteresis effects). This will be particularly relevant when a location is dominated by a deliquescent aerosol such as sea salt. Our results emphasize the need to consider the measurement conditions in such comparisons and recognize that measurements referred to as dry may not be dry in model terms. Recommendations for future model–measurement evaluation and model improvements are provided.
Unraveling the ultrastructural details of αT-catenin-deficient cell-cell contacts between heart muscle cells by the use of FIB-SEM.

The intercalated disc is an important structure in cardiomyocytes, as it is essential to maintain correct contraction and proper functioning of the heart. Adhesion and communication between cardiomyocytes are mediated by three main types of intercellular junctions, all residing in the intercalated disc: gap junctions, desmosomes and the areae compositae. Mutations in genes that encode junctional proteins, including αT-catenin (encoded by CTNNA3), have been linked to arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and sudden cardiac death. In mice, the loss of αT-catenin in cardiomyocytes leads to impaired heart function, fibrosis, changed expression of desmosomal proteins and increased risk for arrhythmias following ischemia-reperfusion. Currently, it is unclear how the intercalated disc and the intercellular junctions are organized in 3D in the hearts of this αT-catenin knockout (KO) mouse model. In order to scrutinize this, ventricular cardiac tissue of αT-catenin KO mice was used for volume electron microscopy (VEM), making use of Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM), allowing a careful 3D reconstruction of the intercalated disc, including gap junctions and desmosomes. Although αT-catenin KO and control mice display a comparable organization of the sarcomere and the different intercalated disc regions, the folds of the plicae region of the intercalated disc are longer and more narrow in the KO heart, and the pale region between the sarcomere and the intercalated disc is larger. In addition, αT-catenin KO intercalated discs appear to have smaller gap junctions and desmosomes in the plicae region, while gap junctions are larger in the interplicae region of the intercalated disc. Although the reason for this remodeling of the ultrastructure after αT-catenin deletion remains unclear, the excellent resolution of the FIB-SEM technology allows us to reconstruct details that were not reported before. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Quantifying On‐Farm Nitrous Oxide Emission Reductions in Food Supply Chains

Reducing nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from agriculture is critical to limiting future global warming. In response, a growing number of food retailers and manufacturers have committed to reducing N2O emissions from their vast networks of farmer suppliers by providing technical assistance and financial incentives. A key challenge for such companies is demonstrating that their efforts are leading to meaningful progress toward their climate mitigation commitments. We show that a simplified version of soil surface nitrogen (N) balance—or partial N balance—the difference between N inputs to and outputs from a farm field (fertilizer N minus crop N), is a robust indicator of direct N2O emissions from fields with maize and other major rainfed temperate‐region crops. Furthermore, we present a generalized environmental model that will allow food‐supply‐chain companies to translate aggregated and anonymized changes in average N balance across their supplying farms into aggregated changes in N2O emissions. This research is an important first step, based on currently available science, in helping companies demonstrate the impact of their sustainability efforts.
Simulations for CMIP6 With the AWI Climate Model AWI‐CM‐1‐1

The Alfred Wegener Institute Climate Model (AWI‐CM) participates for the first time in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), CMIP6. The sea ice‐ocean component, FESOM, runs on an unstructured mesh with horizontal resolutions ranging from 8 to 80 km. FESOM is coupled to the Max Planck Institute atmospheric model ECHAM 6.3 at a horizontal resolution of about 100 km. Using objective performance indices, it is shown that AWI‐CM performs better than the average of CMIP5 models. AWI‐CM shows an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3.2°C, which is similar to the CMIP5 average, and a transient climate response of 2.1°C which is slightly higher than the CMIP5 average. The negative trend of Arctic sea‐ice extent in September over the past 30 years is 20–30% weaker in our simulations compared to observations. With the strongest emission scenario, the AMOC decreases by 25% until the end of the century which is less than the CMIP5 average of 40%. Patterns and even magnitude of simulated temperature and precipitation changes at the end of this century compared to present‐day climate under the strong emission scenario SSP585 are similar to the multi‐model CMIP5 mean. The simulations show a 11°C warming north of the Barents Sea and around 2°C to 3°C over most parts of the ocean as well as a wetting of the Arctic, subpolar, tropical, and Southern Ocean. Furthermore, in the northern middle latitudes in boreal summer and autumn as well as in the southern middle latitudes, a more zonal atmospheric flow is projected throughout the year.
Creep Burst Coincident With Faulting in Marble Observed in 4‐D Synchrotron X‐Ray Imaging Triaxial Compression Experiments

Faults in carbonate rocks show both seismic and aseismic deformation processes, leading to a wide range of slip velocities. We deformed two centimeter‐scale cores of Carrara marble at 25°C and imaged the nucleation and growth of faults using dynamic synchrotron X‐ray microtomography. The first sample experienced a constant confinement of 30 MPa and no pore fluid. The second sample experienced confinement in the range 35–23 MPa and water as a pore fluid at 10 MPa pore pressure. We increased the axial stress by steps until creep deformation occurred and imaged deformation in 4‐D. The samples deformed with a quasi‐constant or increasing strain rate when the differential stress was constant, a process called creep. However, for both samples, we also observed transient events that include the acceleration of creep, that is, creep bursts, phenomena similar to slow slip events that occur in continental active faults. During these transient creep events, strain rates increase and correlate in time with strain localization and the slow development of system‐spanning fault networks. In both samples, the acceleration of opening and shearing of microfractures accommodated creep bursts. High‐resolution time‐lapse X‐ray microtomography imaging and digital image correlation during triaxial deformation quantify creep in laboratory faults at subgrain spatial resolution. This work demonstrates that transient creep events, that is, creep bursts or slow slip events, correlate with the nucleation and slow growth of faults and not only with slip on preexisting faults.