Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of family control on value and risk-taking in Mexico Poletti-Hughes, Jannine; Williams, Jonathan International Review of Financial Analysis

We construct an analytical framework to incorporate agency and stewardship perspectives, and the concept of socioemotional wealth (SEW), to analyse the effect of family participation on firm value and corporate risk-taking in Mexico. We find family firms enjoy higher value and tolerate higher levels of risk than non-family concerns. This differential becomes more important in more highly valued firms and more risk tolerant firms. Whereas the differential is also positively associated with the cash ownership of controlling families, the observed value/ risk effects entrench at higher levels of family ownership (i.e. above 40%-50%). We test whether the risk-taking preference of family firms is a mixture of two types of risk, performance hazard risk, which captures the familial desire to preserve SEW; and venturing risk, which firms take in expectation of improving future performance. Family firms seem to take more performance hazard risk independently of their cash flow ownership, which suggests that family firms perceive patrimony as a means of safeguarding resources for heirs, which raises tolerance to performance hazard risk. Firm value increases when firms follow good corporate governance practices.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Differentiating Functional Cognitive Disorder from Early Neurodegeneration: A Clinic-Based Study

: Functional cognitive disorder (FCD) is a relatively common cause of cognitive symptoms, characterised by inconsistency between symptoms and observed or self-reported cognitive functioning. We aimed to improve the clinical characterisation of FCD, in particular its differentiation from early neurodegeneration. Two patient cohorts were recruited from a UK-based tertiary cognitive clinic, diagnosed following clinical assessment, investigation and expert multidisciplinary team review: FCD, ( n = 21), and neurodegenerative Mild Cognitive Impairment (nMCI, n = 17). We separately recruited a healthy control group ( n = 25). All participants completed an assessment battery including: Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R), Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B); Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2RF). In comparison to healthy controls, the FCD and nMCI groups were equally impaired on trail making, immediate recall, and recognition tasks; had equally elevated mood symptoms; showed similar aberration on a range of personality measures; and had similar difﬁculties on inbuilt performance validity tests. However, participants with FCD performed signiﬁcantly better than nMCI on HVLT-R delayed free recall and retention (regression coefﬁcient − 10.34, p = 0.01). Mood, personality and certain cognitive abilities were similarly altered across nMCI and FCD groups. However, those with FCD displayed spared delayed recall and retention, in comparison to impaired immediate recall and recognition. This pattern, which is distinct from that seen in prodromal neurodegeneration, is a marker of internal inconsistency. Differentiating FCD from nMCI is challenging, and the identiﬁcation of positive neuropsychometric features of FCD is an important contribution to this emerging area of cognitive neurology.
Reproductive biology of the Indian scad, Decapterus russelli (Ruppell, 1830) from Maharashtra waters, Northwest coast of India

The length at which 50% of females of Decapterus russelli attain maturity was estimated at 153 mm. The presence of mature, ripe and spent gonads was observed from June to October and December to April indicating prolonged spawning season. The sex-ratio varied from 1:0.43 in 140-149 mm to 1:1 in 110-119 mm length groups. Month-wise distribution of sex-ratio indicated significant predominance of male at 5% in April, May and November. The absolute fecundity ranged from 29,986 to 1,52,123 eggs. Based on the GSI studies it is inferred that the species has a prolonged spawning season probably falling between December to March and June to October. The relative condition factor value was highest in January which indicates the peak spawning month. Length-wise condition factor of males and females were maximum in the length range of 100-229 mm. In the present study size of ova diameter ranged from 0.01 to 0.97 mm. The species seems to spawn twice in a season and the period between two spawning may not be a long one.
An analysis of grass (Poaceae) pollen seasons in Lublin in 2001-2008

Grass pollen allergens are a frequent cause of pollen allergy in Poland and other European countries. The research on aeroplankton conducted in Lublin since 2001 allows characterization of the course of grass pollen seasons and estimation of the effect of maximum and minimum temperatures, relative air humidity, precipitation and maximum wind velocity on the taxon's pollen concentration. The gravimetric method was used in the study. During the eight-year research period, the pollen season usually started in the first or second decade of May and, as a rule, it lasted till the end of August, and quite exceptionally, in 2002 and 2008 till mid-August. The mean length of the pollen season was 107 days. The highest grass pollen risk was observed in the 26 th and 27 th week. The highest annual counts reaching over 3600 pollen grains × cm -2 were noted in 2008, while in the other study years they ranged from 741 to 1909. The date of the pollen season onset and its course were highly dependent on weather conditions, which was confirmed by the statistical analysis. The greatest significant influence on the pollen season was exerted by maximum temperature, relative air humidity and the maximum wind.
Use of quick diagnostic methods in milking

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of bioluminescence measurement and analysis of swabs taken from the surfaces of the equipment for determination of the hygienic state of a milking machine when biofilm is present on the surfaces. In addition the measurement of electrical conductivity of milk as a tool to detect cows with subclinical mastitis was examined. In the presence of biofilm the determination of the hygienic state of the milking machine by measuring the bioluminescence wasn't reliable. No significant relations were found between the parameters when determining the relation between electrical conductivity and the somatic cell counts in milk samples.
Monte-carlo Inversion for a Global Shear Velocity Model of the Crust and Upper Mantle

SUMMARY We describe a method to invert surface wave dispersion data for a model of shear velocities with uncertainties in the crust and uppermost mantle. The inversion is a multi-step process, constrained by a-priori information, that culminates in a Markov-chain Monte-Carlo sampling of model space to yield an ensemble of acceptable models at each spatial node. The model is radially anisotropic in the uppermost mantle to an average depth of about 200 km and is isotropic elsewhere. The method is applied on a 2 2 grid globally to a large data set of fundamental mode surface wave group and phase velocities Rayleigh group velocity, 16-200 s; Love group velocity, 16-150 s; Rayleigh and Love phase velocity, 40-150 s. The middle of the ensemble Median Model deenes the estimated model and the half-width of the corridor of models provides the uncertainty estimate. Uncertainty estimates allow the identiication of the robust features of the model which, typically, persist only to depths of 250 km. We refer to the features that appear in every member of the ensemble of acceptable models as persistent". Persistent features include sharper images of the variation of oceanic lithosphere and asthenosphere with age, continental roots, extensional tectonic features in the upper mantle, the shallow parts of subducted lithosphere, and improved resolution of radial anisotropy. In particular, we nd no compelling evidence for negative anisotropy" v sv v sh anywhere in the world's lithosphere.
PRIORITIZING MITIGATION FOR INTERSTATES USING WILDLIFE MOVEMENT INFORMATION

Many California interstates provide commuter traffic and goods movement among regions and cities through wild, protected areas. Collisions between wildlife and vehicles occur frequently, which has prompted Caltrans to seek assistance in assessing the nature, extent, and solutions to potential conflict between traffic and animals. The objectives of the study were to understand how wildlife were currently using available under-crossing structures, how wildlife in general and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in particular interact with the highway and adjacent habitat, and to develop mitigation for risk reduction. Three types of wildlife observation data along 2 interstates were used to characterize wildlife movement: wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC), images from wildlife camera traps at highway under-crossings, and deer movement patterns using GPS-collars. WVC occurrences were from Caltrans’ monitoring of carcass retrieval and disposal by Maintenance crews and opportunistic observations of carcasses by participants in the California Roadkill Observation System (http://wildlife crossing.net/california). Statistically-significant WVC hotspots were modeled using the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic, with Moran’s I being used to estimate distance bands. Beginning in July, 2011, camera traps captured still and video images at 4 street underpasses, 1 bicycle over-crossing, 5 railroad under-crossings, 6 culverts, and 10 wildlife trails adjacent to crossing structures. Species diversity and the relationship between wildlife passage and human use of structures were calculated. Twenty four female deer were tracked using GPS collars between December, 2011 and January, 2013. There was a strong negative relationship between the presence of humans hiking, driving, walking dogs, or riding bikes and the use of existing crossing structures by wildlife. In addition, there was very low species diversity observed using crossings at either interstate. Only 9 native mammal species were observed to use crossing structures at either interstate, which was not a function of camera sensitivity as they could detect movement of small lizards. Collared deer often approached and moved back and forth near the interstate. Only 5 of the 24 collared deer passed back and forth under the highway, all using the same crossing structure, a large vegetated underpass with a minor road. Mitigating WVC consists of where to act and what actions to take to reduce risk to drivers and animals. Managing conflict between vehicles and wildlife along interstates is likely to require identifying priority areas, fencing to keep deer and other animals from accessing the road surface, construction of new underpasses or enhancement of existing structures, and re-management of existing underpasses to reduce human use. Future research should focus on responses of wildlife to reduced human passage at underpasses, the different management required in developed vs. undeveloped areas, and methods to increase species diversity at crossing structures.
Inﬂuence of fault roughness on surface displacement: from numerical simulations to coseismic slip distributions

Field studies characterized early on natural faults as rough, i.e. non-planar at all scales. Fault roughness induces local stress perturbations, which dramatically affect rupture behavior, resulting in slip heterogeneity. The relation between fault roughness and produced slip remains, however, a key knowledge gap in current numerical and ﬁeld studies. In this study, we analyze numerical simulations of earthquake rupture to determine how roughness inﬂuences ﬁnal slip proﬁles. Using a rupture catalog of thousands dynamic rupture simulations on non-planar fault proﬁles with varying roughness and background shear stress levels, we demonstrate that fault roughness affects the spectral characteristics of the resulting slip distribution. In particular, slip distributions become increasingly more self-afﬁne, i.e. containing more short wavelength at smaller scale, with higher fault roughness, despite self-similar initial fault proﬁles. We also show that, at very short wave-length ( < 1km), the fractal dimension of the slip distributions dramatically changes with
in mammals

επιβεβαιώ-ABSTRACT. The recent infections of humans and other mammals with die highly padiogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus have raised questions about the safety of the consumption of poultry products. The aim of this review is to collect and present information regarding the risk of infection in humans with H5N1 virus via the oral route. The presence of virus in edible poultry products and the chances for viral entry via the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, from a pathogenetic point of view, are the main focus points. The transmission of H5N1 from poultry to humans is a rare event which has been associated with very close contact with infected animals. It is generally accepted that the most likely candidate routes for the virus entry are the oropharygeal and/or respiratory tract tissues where virus replication may occur and leading to clinical symptoms. However, the low number of human cases, compared to the high number of humans that have been exposed to H5N1 virus infected animals, shows clearly that a readily accessible portal of entry does not exist. The possibility of virus entry through the GI tract has been proposed, but, so far, no proof that the virus can replicate in the human intestines has been shown. The presence of diarrhoea in several patients and the detection of viral RNA in the intestines and rectal swabs of 3 patients do not allow one to safely conclude that the GI tract can serve as a portal of entry or a target organ. Furthermore, the occurrence of disease has not clearly or definitely been associated with the consumption of poultry meat in any human case. Feline species, on the other hand, have been naturally and experimentally infected after the consumption of infected poultry. However, also in these mammals, it was not established that the intestine is the initial portal of entry of the virus. In conclusion, the possibility that the intestinal tract serves as a portal of entry in mammals remains unlikely, since there is no convincing evidence that the GI
VARIATION IN SELECTED HEMATOLOGICAL PARAMETERS OF CAPTIVE RED-TAILED HAWKS LU

N.H. REHI)ER,B D.M. BIRD,LU P.C. LAGU1� B and C. MACKAY B Abstract: Diurnal and winter variations of four hematological parameters were exam- ined in 10 red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). The mean values obtained were: 39A% packed cell volume (PCV); 2.45 X 10� erythrocytes (RBC) per mm' of blood; 5.73 mg of calcium and 1.44 mg of magnesium per 100mb of plasma. Only the PCV and RBC count showed significant diurnal variation. When the birds were sampled at a set time of day, from November through to February, no significant changes were detected in any of the four parameters. Variation among the birds in RBC count, PCV and calcium concentration was significant on a diurnal basis but over the four month period only the PCV varied significantly.
Intraoperative Blood Loss Effect of Preoperative Particle Embolization on Spinal Metastases from Renal Cell Carcinoma:

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Surgical repair of spinal metastases from renal origin is often complicated by excessive bleeding. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of preoperative particulate embolization on intraoperative blood loss. METHODS: Twenty spinal metastases from renal origin (17 patients) treated by preoperative embolization with polyvinyl alcohol particles were analyzed retrospectively. Surgical decompression was performed within 2 days after embolization. A control group of 10 patients with 11 spinal metastases of renal origin underwent surgery without embolization. The effect of preoperative embolization, of completeness of embolization, and of particle size on the estimated intraoperative blood loss was analyzed using nonparametric statistical tests. RESULTS: Complete embolization was achieved in 10 cases and partial embolization in the other 10. The estimated blood loss of 19 embolized and 11 control cases was available from the surgical report. Median intraoperative blood loss in 19 embolized lesions was 1500 mL (range, 300–8000 mL), compared with 5000 mL (range, 1440–15000 mL) in the control group. Even after partial embolization, blood loss (median, 2000 mL) was signiﬁcantly lower than in the control group. No signiﬁcant differences in estimated blood loss were noted between the use of particles smaller than 250 (cid:109) m and those larger than 250 (cid:109) m. No embolization-related permanent neurologic deﬁcit or skin or muscle necrosis occurred. CONCLUSION: Preoperative embolization of spinal metastases of renal origin with polyvinyl alcohol particles is safe and might reduce intraoperative blood loss signiﬁcantly. Even partial embolization seems to be effective.
Scheduler activations: effective kernel support for the user-level management of parallelism

Threads are the vehicle for concurrency in many approaches to parallel programming. Threads separate the notion of a sequential execution stream from the other aspects of traditional UNIX-like processes, such as address spaces and I/O descriptors. The objective of this separation is to make the expression and control of parallelism sufficiently cheap that the programmer or compiler can exploit even fine-grained parallelism with acceptable overhead.Threads can be supported either by the operating system kernel or by user-level library code in the application address space, but neither approach has been fully satisfactory. This paper addresses this dilemma. First, we argue that the performance of kernel threads is inherently worse than that of user-level threads, rather than this being an artifact of existing implementations; we thus argue that managing parallelism at the user level is essential to high-performance parallel computing. Next, we argue that the lack of system integration exhibited by user-level threads is a consequence of the lack of kernel support for user-level threads provided by contemporary multiprocessor operating systems; we thus argue that kernel threads or processes, as currently conceived, are the wrong abstraction on which to support user-level management of parallelism. Finally, we describe the design, implementation, and performance of a new kernel interface and user-level thread package that together provide the same functionality as kernel threads without compromising the performance and flexibility advantages of user-level management of parallelism.
Social Participation and Disaster Risk Reduction Behaviours: Case Study of Tsunami-risk Areas in Southern Thailand

This paper aims to examine the relationships between social participation and disaster reduction actions. A survey of 557 households in tsunami-prone areas in Phang Nga, Thailand was conducted following the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquakes. We use a multivariate probit model to jointly estimate the likelihood of three responses to earthquake hazards, including keeping close watch of news, preparing survival kits and/or having a family evacuation plan, having an intention to migrate, and community participation. We find that those who experienced losses from the 2004 tsunami are more likely to participate in community activities and respond to earthquake hazards. Compared to men, women are more likely to prepare survival kits and/or have an emergency plan as well as have a greater intention to migrate. Individuals living in a community with a higher proportion of women with tertiary education also have a greater propensity to engage in community activities and carry out disaster reduction measures. The conditional probabilities of carrying out all three risk reduction actions for individuals who have participated in village-based activities are 5.2% higher compared to those not engaging in community activities. This implies that encouraging participation in community activities can have externalities in disaster mitigation, providing opportunities for community members to exchange information and experiences that may impact disaster responses at the individual level.
@Western Scholarship@Western

: Trophoblasts are the ﬁrst cell type to be speciﬁed during embryogenesis, and they are essential for placental morphogenesis and function. Trophoblast stem (TS) cells are the progenitor cells for all trophoblast lineages; control of TS cell di ﬀ erentiation into distinct trophoblast subtypes is not well understood. Mice lacking the transcription factor OVO-like 2 (OVOL2) fail to produce a functioning placenta, and die around embryonic day 10.5, suggesting that OVOL2 may be critical for trophoblast development. Therefore, our objective was to determine the role of OVOL2 in mouse TS cell fate. We found that OVOL2 was highly expressed in mouse placenta and di ﬀ erentiating TS cells. Placentas and TS cells lacking OVOL2 showed poor trophoblast di ﬀ erentiation potential, including increased expression of stem-state associated genes ( Eomes, Esrrb, Id2 ) and decreased levels of di ﬀ erentiation-associated transcripts ( Gcm1 , Tpbpa, Prl3b1, Syna ). Ectopic OVOL2 expression in TS cells elicited precocious di ﬀ erentiation. OVOL2 bound proximate to the gene encoding inhibitor of di ﬀ erentiation 2 (ID2), a dominant negative helix-loop-helix protein, and directly repressed its activity. Overexpression of ID2 was su ﬃ cient to reinforce the TS cell stem state. Our ﬁndings reveal a critical role of OVOL2 as a regulator of TS cell di ﬀ erentiation and placental development, in-part by coordinating repression of ID2.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Perfect Quantum Cosmological Bounce

We study quantum cosmology with conformal matter comprising a perfect radiation ﬂuid and a number of conformally coupled scalar ﬁelds. Focusing initially on the collective coordinates (minisu-perspace) associated with homogeneous, isotropic backgrounds, we are able to perform the quantum gravity path integral exactly. The evolution describes a “perfect bounce”, in which the Universe passes smoothly through the singularity. We extend the analysis to spatially ﬂat, anisotropic uni-verses, treated exactly, and to generic inhomogeneous, anisotropic perturbations treated at linear and nonlinear order. This picture provides a natural, unitary description of quantum mechanical evolution across a cosmological bounce. We provide evidence for a semiclassical description in which all ﬁelds pass “around” the cosmological singularity along complex classical paths.
Effect of distance on local magnitudes found from strong-motion records

Values of local magnitude M_L, are calculated from 56 strong-motion accelerograms recorded in the Imperial Valley earthquake of 15 October 1979 according to procedures developed earlier (Kanamori and Jennings, 1978). These data, plus similar data from the San Fernando earthquake of 9 February 1971 and additional, less numerous data from several other California earthquakes, are used to investigate the use of different measures of distance in near-field determinations of M_L: this investigation has relevance for similar uses of distances in determining seismic design criteria. In addition, the consistency of the values of M_L found from the strong-motion data is examined from the viewpoint of assessing the need for any correction in the standard attenuation curve, −log_(10)A_0(Δ). It was found that the most consistent values of M_L result when distance is measured to the closest point on the surface trace of the fault if a site lies within a circle with diameter equal to the extent of faulting and centered on the center of faulting (center of energy release). Outside this circle, the distance measured to the center of the circle is recommended. A consistent trend in the values of M_L found from strong-motion records is seen in the data. The values start, at zero distance, at essentially the far-field value and then decrease to −1/4 unit at about 20 km. Then they rise to +1/4 unit at 50 to 60 km. A smooth revision to the standard attenuation curve is presented which removes this systematic trend.