Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of business: a portfolio model of corporate social responsibility

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain people's divergent perceptions of companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities in order to help organizations strategically manage their global responsibilities.Design/methodology/approach – Combining institutional theory and role‐theory, the authors examine how people's expectations for the role of business (RoB) in society define the standard by which corporate activities are judged. Where conformity to institutional models confers “legitimacy” and compliance to social scripts constitutes “appropriate” behavior, the authors contend that congruence with RoB expectations is what defines corporate responsibility. This research utilized a quasi‐experimental method to explore the effects of stakeholder status and individuals' RoB expectations on their assessments of CSR activities.Findings – Significant differences were found between stakeholder groups on all but one of the CSR activities scales. Of substantially more impact, subjects' RoB expe.
Tumor necrosis factor-alpha modulates human in vivo lipolysis.

CONTEXT Low-grade systemic inflammation is a feature of most lifestyle-related chronic diseases. Enhanced TNF-alpha concentrations have been implicated in the development of hyperlipidemia. OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that an acute elevation of TNF-alpha in plasma would cause an increase in lipolysis, increasing circulatory free fatty acid (FFA) levels. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Using a randomized controlled, crossover design, healthy young male individuals (n = 10) received recombinant human (rh) TNF-alpha (700 ng/m(-2). h(-1)) for 4 h, and energy metabolism was evaluated using a combination of tracer dilution methodology and arterial-venous differences over the leg. RESULTS Plasma TNF-alpha levels increased from 0.7 +/- 0.04 to 16.7 +/- 1.8 pg/ml, and plasma IL-6 increased from 1.0 +/- 0.2 to 9.2 +/- 1.0 pg/ml (P < 0.05) after 4-h rhTNF-alpha infusion. Here, we demonstrate that 4-h rhTNF-alpha infusion increases whole body lipolysis by 40% (P < 0.05) with a concomitant increase in FFA clearance, with no changes in skeletal muscle FFA uptake, release, or oxidation. Of note, systemic glucose turnover and lactate and catecholamine levels were unaffected by rhTNF-alpha infusion. CONCLUSION This study demonstrates that a relatively low dose of rhTNF-alpha induces systemic lipolysis and that the skeletal muscle fat metabolism is unaffected.
Evaluation of Various Approaches to Value at Risk

In the light of the current financial crisis, risk management and prediction of market losses seem to play a crucial role in finance. This thesis compares one day out-of-sample predictive performance of standard methods and conditional autoregressive VaR (CAViaR) by Engle & Manganelli (2004) for VaR (Value-at-risk) prediction of market losses. Comparison is made on US, Hong Kong, and Russian indices under tranquil period and current crisis using more than 10 years of daily returns. Performance is evaluated in terms of empirical coverage probability and predictive quantile loss on adequate models pointed out by Christoffersen test. The findings show that traditional methods such as historical simulation, normal VaR and t-VaR behave quite well in tranquil period if accounted for the return volatility dynamics by using GARCH volatility estimates. When unfiltered, these models fail to produce reliable results. In crisis period symmetric and asymmetric specifications of CAViaR showed good results, generally better and more stable than traditional approaches. Overall, CAViaR was found to work better on 5% than on 1% level. However, this model class is in most cases outperformed by conventional filtered models in the tranquil period. Little evidence was found that the market type has impact on the choice of ideal VaR model.
Extreme clonal diversity and divergence in populations of a selfing hermaphroditic fish.

Recombination is unknown in natural populations of Rivulus marmoratus, a selfing hermaphrodite, and genetic variation is likely due to mutation alone. DNA fingerprinting with an array of microsatellite [e.g., (CT)9] and minisatellite (e.g., the 33.15 core sequence) probes reveals very high clonal diversity within samples of seven Floridian populations, of which five contain about as many clones as there are individuals. There are 42 clones among 58 individuals surveyed (mean, 1.4 individuals per clone), a level of genetic diversity unprecedented among clonal animals. Moreover, all of the probes recognize the same clones even though, at high hybridization stringencies, there is little overlap in the fingerprint patterns they generate. This suggests that most sympatric clones differ by multiple and independent mutational steps. In one population studied in detail, the average number of mutational steps separating two clones is estimated at 9 or 10 and may be substantially higher. The mutational discontinuities among sympatric clones make it unlikely that they evolved by accumulation of neutral mutations in populations that are otherwise genetically uniform. The data argue that the mixing of unrelated individuals from different local populations occurs to an extent previously unappreciated and/or that divergence of clones is mediated by natural selection. If confirmed, the latter would be a serious challenge to current ideas on the predominant role of recombination in promoting the evolution of biological novelty.
Patents and R&D expenditure effects on equity returns in pharmaceutical industry

ABSTRACT As costs of pharmaceutical R&D soar and productivity falls, the role of research pipelines in firm valuations is changing. To date, surprisingly little work has been published on the effects of R&D pipeline performance on equity returns, while controlling for coincident factors, such as legacy patents and presence of blockbuster drugs in production. Using 1996–2013 data for nine largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, this article assesses the role of the above factors on returns to pharmaceutical companies equity. We show significant positive link between changes in the number of blockbusters on patent six months prior and returns in excess of pharmaceutical equity index. The number of patents granted by United States Patent and Trademark Office in a quarter is also a significant factor. On the other hand, we find that increases in R&D expenditure in large-cap pharmaceutical companies are viewed negatively by investors in the short term.
I want my virtual friends to be life size!: adapting Second Life to multi-screen projected environments

Second Life (SL) is a popular 3D online virtual world designed for human interaction (also known as a MUVE, or multi-user virtual environment). It typically supports 60--70 thousand concurrent users. The assets and physical environments within SL are easy to create and use, and the environments themselves are very much part of the human interaction experience. However, the typical means of accessing SL is through a single computer screen, which lessens the immersion that is inherent in such a rich 3D world. Because of this, the SL virtual world is a good candidate for adaptation to large scale immersive displays such as a CAVE#8482; or other multi projector systems.
Reducing Uncertainty in the Emerging Market Entry Process: On the Relationship among International Experiential Knowledge, Institutional Distance, and Uncertainty

In three institutional environments, this study examines the uncertainty-reducing effects of experiential knowledge of varying specificity in the market entry process. The goal of the study is to answer the research question: What is the uncertainty-reducing effect of experiential knowledge of varying specificity in markets with different institutional distances from a firm's home base? The authors develop a theoretical model using the most recent developments in internationalization process theory. They test the model with a data set collected on-site at 203 small and medium-sized enterprises with entry experience into the new Eastern European Union member-states, Russia and China. The analysis shows no support for the claim that internationalization knowledge reduces uncertainty in the market entry process. Rather, the analysis reveals that societal knowledge of the entering firm has an uncertainty-reducing effect in markets that are relatively less distant from its home market. The analysis also shows that international experiential knowledge of high specificity, an important type of marketing knowledge, provides the greatest uncertainty-reducing effect.
Evidence on the Impact of Tariff Reductions on Employment in Developing Countries: A Systematic Review

This paper analyses the evidence on the impact of tariff reductions on employment in developing countries. We carry out a systematic review of the existing empirical literature, and include both, ex post econometric evidence and ex ante Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) simulation studies. The synthesis of results suggests that the effects of tariff reductions on employment are country and trade policy specific. When looking across higher quality econometric studies that control for the endogeneity of tariffs, only a couple of studies have statistically significant results, and these suggest that employment is likely to decrease slightly in the short run following trade liberalization. This is consistent with the notion that there are winners and losers from trade policy reform. These results are in contrast with the CGE findings, which by design incorporate projections of the medium-run economy-wide knock-on effects suggested by economic theory. The synthesis of CGE studies suggests non-negative effects of trade liberalization on aggregate employment and moderate inter-sectoral labour reallocation effects.
Performance Optimizations and Bounds for Sparse Matrix Kernels

Building high-performance implementations of sparse matrix-vector multiply (SpM×V), an important and ubiquitous computational kernel, is fundamentally limited by a variety of factors: the increasing performance gap between processors and memory, the storage and instruction overhead of manipulating sparse data structures, and the irregular memory access due to sparse storage. Moreover, the complexity of modeling execution of modern microprocessors makes selecting the best data structure and SpM×V implementation for a given sparse matrix a difficult task. In this paper, we consider a range of performance bounds and models for SpM×V, both practical and hypothetical, which quantify these limits. The models vary both in cost and by what information is assumed— from the purely static to those that assume perfect knowledge of run-time information available via processor hardware counters. We evaluate these models and bounds on a variety of hardware platforms and matrices, and show that the task of selecting the best implementation and data structure for a particular matrix will require a combination of modeling and runtime searching. Furthermore, we use our performance bounds to show that our previously developed optimization technique, register blocking, which improves register-level reuse by exploiting naturally occurring dense subblocks, is unlikely to be improved upon significantly by additional low-level instruction scheduling efforts. Instead, we examine our recent efforts to overcome the fundamental limits through the use other kernels: multiplication with symmetric matrices, by multiple vectors, and higher-level kernels like multiplication of a vector by AA. ∗CS Division and Department of Mathematics
Phase synchronization of oxygenation waves in the frontal areas of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder detected by optical diffusion spectroscopy correlates with medication

Abstract. The beneficial effects of pharmacotherapy on children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are well documented. We use near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) methodology to determine reorganization of brain neurovascular properties following the medication treatment. Twenty-six children with ADHD (ages six through 12) participated in a modified laboratory school protocol to monitor treatment response with lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (LDX; Vyvanse®, Shire US Inc.). All children refrained from taking medication for at least two weeks (washout period). To detect neurovascular reorganization, we measured changes in synchronization of oxy (HbO2) and deoxy (HHb) hemoglobin waves between the two frontal lobes. Participants without medication displayed average baseline HbO2 phase difference at about −7-deg. and HHb differences at about 240-deg. This phase synchronization index changed after pharmacological intervention. Medication induced an average phase changes of HbO2 after first medication to 280-deg. and after medication optimization to 242-deg. Instead first medication changed of the average HHb phase difference at 186-deg. and then after medication optimization to 120-deg. In agreement with findings of White et al., and Varela et al., we associated the phase synchronization differences of brain hemodynamics in children with ADHD with lobe specific hemodynamic reorganization of HbO2- and HHB oscillations following medication status.
Complexity and multifractality of neuronal noise in mouse and human hippocampal epileptiform dynamics

Fractal methods offer an invaluable means of investigating turbulent nonlinearity in non-stationary biomedical recordings from the brain. Here, we investigate properties of complexity (i.e. the correlation dimension, maximum Lyapunov exponent, 1/fγ noise and approximate entropy) and multifractality in background neuronal noise-like activity underlying epileptiform transitions recorded at the intracellular and local network scales from two in vitro models: the whole-intact mouse hippocampus and lesional human hippocampal slices. Our results show evidence for reduced dynamical complexity and multifractal signal features following transition to the ictal epileptiform state. These findings suggest that pathological breakdown in multifractal complexity coincides with loss of signal variability or heterogeneity, consistent with an unhealthy ictal state that is far from the equilibrium of turbulent yet healthy fractal dynamics in the brain. Thus, it appears that background noise-like activity successfully captures complex and multifractal signal features that may, at least in part, be used to classify and identify brain state transitions in the healthy and epileptic brain, offering potential promise for therapeutic neuromodulatory strategies for afflicted patients suffering from epilepsy and other related neurological disorders.
Function and expression of melatonin receptors on human pancreatic islets

Abstract: Melatonin is known to inhibit insulin secretion from rodent β‐cells through interactions with cell‐surface MT1 and/or MT2 receptors, but the function of this hormone in human islets of Langerhans is not known. In the current study, melatonin receptor expression by human islets was examined by reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and the effects of exogenous melatonin on intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) levels and islet hormone secretion were determined by single cell microfluorimetry and radioimmunoassay, respectively. RT‐PCR amplifications indicated that human islets express mRNAs coding for MT1 and MT2 melatonin receptors, although MT2 mRNA expression was very low. Analysis of MT1 receptor mRNA expression at the single cell level indicated that it was expressed by human islet α‐cells, but not by β‐cells. Exogenous melatonin stimulated increases in intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) in dissociated human islet cells, and stimulated glucagon secretion from perifused human islets. It also stimulated insulin secretion and this was most probably a consequence of glucagon acting in a paracrine fashion to stimulate β‐cells as the MT1 receptor was absent in β‐cells. Melatonin did not decrease 3′, 5′‐cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cyclic AMP) levels in human islets, but it inhibited cyclic AMP in the mouse insulinoma (MIN6) β‐cell line and it also inhibited glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion from MIN6 cells. These data suggest that melatonin has direct stimulatory effects at human islet α‐cells and that it stimulates insulin secretion as a consequence of elevated glucagon release. This study also indicates that the effects of melatonin are species‐specific with primarily an inhibitory role in rodent β‐cells and a stimulatory effect in human islets.
On-Wafer Capacitance Measurement of Nb-Based SIS Junctions With a 4-K Probe Station

This paper presents a method for measuring the capacitance of superconductor–insulator–superconductor (SIS) junctions with a 4-K probe station. The probe station can be used to perform on-wafer characterization of sample lots at frequencies ranging from dc to microwave. In our study, we evaluated SIS junctions that had a variety of areas, and estimated the capacitance after subtracting the parasitic elements of the probe contact pad. The results show that the <italic>R</italic><sub>N</sub><italic>C</italic> products for the evaluated junctions were uniform within +/−5% across the wafer.
An outbreak of surgical-wound infections due to group A streptococcus carried on the scalp.

GROUP A β-hemolytic streptococcus is an uncommon but serious cause of postoperative wound infection. Group A streptococcus is isolated from less than 1 percent of all surgical-wound infections and causes less than 1 incisional-wound infection per 10,000 operations (National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System, Centers for Disease Control: unpublished data). Clusters of group A streptococcal postoperative wound infections can usually he associated with a carrier who has direct patient-care responsibilities in the operating room. A carrier was identified in 10 of the 12 outbreaks reported since 1965.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Eight carriers were operating-room personnel with group A streptococcus in their rectums or vaginas.
Hemorrhagic Transformation of Ischemic Brain Tissue: Asymptomatic or Symptomatic?

Background and Purpose— The term symptomatic hemorrhage secondary to ischemic stroke implies a clear causal relationship between clinical deterioration and hemorrhagic transformation (HT) regardless of the type of HT. The aim of this study was to assess which type of HT independently affects clinical outcome. Methods— We used the data set of the European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study (ECASS) II for a post hoc analysis. All patients had a control CT scan after 24 to 96 hours or earlier in case of rapid and severe clinical deterioration. HT was categorized according to radiological criteria: hemorrhagic infarction type 1 and type 2 and parenchymal hematoma type 1 and type 2. The clinical course was prospectively documented with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale and the modified Rankin Scale. The independent risk of each type of HT was calculated for clinical deterioration at 24 hours and disability and death at 3 months after stroke onset and adjusted for possible confounding factors such as age, severity of stroke syndrome at baseline, and extent of the ischemic lesion on the initial CT. Results— Compared with absence of HT, only parenchymal hematoma type 2 was associated with an increased risk for deterioration at 24 hours after stroke onset (adjusted odds ratio, 18; 95% CI, 6 to 56) and for death at 3 months (adjusted odds ratio, 11; 95% CI, 3.7 to 36). All other types of HT did not independently increase the risk of late deterioration. Conclusions— Only parenchymal hematoma type 2 independently causes clinical deterioration and impairs prognosis. It has a distinct radiological feature: it is a dense homogeneous hematoma >30% of the ischemic lesion volume with significant space-occupying effect.
Fungal peritonitis in continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis: The impact of antifungal prophylaxis on patient and technique outcomes

Fungal peritonitis (FP) is a rare, but serious complication of peritoneal dialysis. We analyzed the incidence of FP, associated risk factors and outcome of patients with FP and evaluated the role of prophylactic antifungal agent in reducing its incidence. We studied all patients with FP from January 2005 to January 2012. Study period was divided into two parts, period I (January 2005 to January 2010), when prophylactic antifungal was not used and period II (January 2010 to January 2012), when prophylactic antifungal (fluconazole) was used. A total of 142 episodes of peritonitis were documented during this period of which 20 (14%) were FP. During the study period I, 18 of 102 episodes of peritonitis (17.6%) and in the study period II (with antifungal prophylaxis), only 2 of 40 episodes of peritonitis (5%) were due to fungal infection (P = 0.04). Nine out of 20 patients (45%) had prior exposure to antibiotics. Fungal isolates were Candida albicans in 65%, non-albicans Candida in 25%, Rhizopus species in 5% and Alternaria in 5% of the patients. While 12 out of 20 patients (60%) recovered completely and were re-initiated on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD), 4 of them expired (20%) and 4 others (20%) were shifted to hemodialysis. Use of prophylactic antifungal agent significantly reduced the incidence of FP (P = 0.04). We conclude that - fluconazole when used as a prophylactic agent in the setting of bacterial peritonitis significantly reduces the incidence of subsequent FP in CAPD patients.
Extension in Tough Times—Addressing Failures in Public and Private Extension, Lessons from the Tasmanian Wool Industry, Australia

Abstract This paper reports research on the impact of introducing a range of extension approaches into the wool-growing regions of Tasmania Australia to meet an emerging knowledge and skills gap in the sector. The wool-growing industry of the state has experienced minimal government extension support for over 15 years. There is a failure in both private and public-sector extension services in meeting the current collective needs of the industry. A new industry funded initiative funded by the grower body Australian Wool Innovation Ltd and hosted with the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research (TIAR), an arm of the University of Tasmania, is filling this void. The approaches included the establishment of grower groups, workshops, demonstrations and newsletters in a coordinated extension programme. The research interest lay in learning of the value of these different approaches in developing and maintaining sustainable sheep and wool production systems in the state. The research methodology involved evaluating change according to Bennett's hierarchy. Techniques used included surveys of participants from respective industry segments and analysis of relevant secondary information and data. Findings indicate that the programme has affected substantial on-ground changes in stock and property management by businesses involved. There was evidence of group members taking a more strategic view of their businesses from involvement in the programme. Group members (65%), industry active (53%) and service sector (65%) survey respondents indicated that the biggest outcomes of their involvement were improved technical or management skills. Members of groups and service-sector respondents saw even more impact (70%) on improved information seeking skills. The interactive and passive extension methodologies employed in this initiative have positioned the programme as a catalyst for change amongst producers, and have served as a mechanism to fill a serious information vacuum in the industry. They also appear to have realised positive social capital outcomes within the grower community during the difficult circumstances of sustained drought. Finally, the segmentation of the extension target audience appears to be paying dividends in terms of programme delivery and resource allocation.