Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study on the Effect of Dividend Payout Ratio and Firm Profitability

The aim of the research study was to explore the effects of Dividend payout ratio on the firm profitability. This study was conducted on the non-financial firms listed in Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) 100 index. The data were collected since 2008-2012 from the annual reports and Balance sheet analysis of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). Panel data regression was used in the research paper. As per the results of fixed effect model. The dividend payout ratio has significant effects on profitability (Alternate Accepted). Leverage has insignificant effect on the profitability and firm size has also insignificant effects on the firm profitability.
Amplification and Demultiplexing in Insulin-regulated Akt Protein Kinase Pathway in Adipocytes*

Background: Akt plays a major role in insulin regulation of metabolism. Results: Akt operates at 5–22% of its dynamic range. This lacks concordance with Akt substrate phosphorylation, GLUT4 translocation, and protein synthesis. Conclusion: Akt is a demultiplexer that splits the insulin signal into discrete outputs. Significance: This study provides better understanding of the Akt pathway and has implications for the role of Akt in diseases. Akt plays a major role in insulin regulation of metabolism in muscle, fat, and liver. Here, we show that in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, Akt operates optimally over a limited dynamic range. This indicates that Akt is a highly sensitive amplification step in the pathway. With robust insulin stimulation, substantial changes in Akt phosphorylation using either pharmacologic or genetic manipulations had relatively little effect on Akt activity. By integrating these data we observed that half-maximal Akt activity was achieved at a threshold level of Akt phosphorylation corresponding to 5–22% of its full dynamic range. This behavior was also associated with lack of concordance or demultiplexing in the behavior of downstream components. Most notably, FoxO1 phosphorylation was more sensitive to insulin and did not exhibit a change in its rate of phosphorylation between 1 and 100 nm insulin compared with other substrates (AS160, TSC2, GSK3). Similar differences were observed between various insulin-regulated pathways such as GLUT4 translocation and protein synthesis. These data indicate that Akt itself is a major amplification switch in the insulin signaling pathway and that features of the pathway enable the insulin signal to be split or demultiplexed into discrete outputs. This has important implications for the role of this pathway in disease.
Channel Estimation for Massive MIMO TDD Systems Assuming Pilot Contamination and Frequency Selective Fading

Channel estimation is crucial for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems to scale up multi-user MIMO, providing significant improvement in spectral and energy efficiency. In this paper, we present a simple and practical channel estimator for multipath multi-cell massive MIMO time division duplex systems with pilot contamination, which poses significant challenges to channel estimation. The proposed estimator addresses performance under moderate to strong pilot contamination without previous knowledge of the inter-cell large-scale fading coefficients and noise power. Additionally, we derive and assess an approximate analytical mean square error (MSE) expression for the proposed channel estimator. We show through simulations that the proposed estimator performs asymptotically as well as the minimum MSE estimator with respect to the number of antennas and multipath coefficients.
Solution-Processable Nanotube/Polymer Composite for High-Performance TFTs

Thin-film field-effect transistors (TFTs) are readily fabricated using a semiconductor composite that is solution processed under ambient conditions for the conduction channel. The composite comprises single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) embedded in poly-9,9' dioctyl-fluorene-co-bithiophene. Carrier mobility values approaching 10 cm2V-1s-1 are obtained for the composite with relatively high SWCNT concentrations. When the SWCNT concentration is reduced for a large on/ off current ratio >; 106, the mobility remains decent around 0.3 cm2V-1s-1. The resultant TFTs display remarkable environmental and operational reliability. Nanotube-based composites are therefore of significance in printed electronics owing to their simplicity in device fabrication and competitiveness in device performance.
Development of microsatellite markers in Ilex kaushue (Aquifoliaceae), a medicinal plant species

Premise of the study: Microsatellite markers were developed for Ilex kaushue (Aquifoliaceae), a medicinal plant with extremely small wild populations that exists in fragmented habitats, to assess and protect its genetic diversity. Methods and Results: Using 454 GS FLX Titanium sequencing, 16 microsatellite primer sets were isolated and characterized. Fifteen of these markers were polymorphic. The number of alleles per locus ranged from one to nine across 22 individuals from both cultivated and wild populations. The observed and expected heterozygosity in these two populations ranged from 0.000 to 1.000 and from 0.000 to 0.785, respectively. Conclusions: These markers will be useful in studies on genetic diversity of I. kaushue.
ASSESSING THE DETERMINANTS OF FAST GROWTH IN ITALY

Few firms grow in a rapid way, but their contribution to employment growth is often impressive. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze both external and internal factors which can affect the probability of being a high-growth firm (HGF) in Italy. We found that HGFs are on average young firms and are present in different sectors, but the role of demand is important to understand their performance at sectoral level. Moreover, our findings show that financial constraints and profitability are not associated with the probability of being a fast-growing firm. HGFs, on average, are characterised by high productivity, but only when growth is measured in terms of sales. The most original results of this study concerns endogenous determinants of fast growth, which have not so far been adequately examined in the literature. First, we found that the concentration of ownership is important for HGFs that grow in sales. Second, the quality of human capital is a strong point for firms experiencing rapid employment growth.
Enterprises' Upgrading Path from OEM to ODM and OBM——Comparative Case Study on Two Bathroom Hardware Products Manufactures

Traditional OEM enterprises were facing pressure of upgrading because of environment changing.The paper carried out a comparative case study on two bathroom hardware products manufactures.The paper analyzed the enterprises upgrading process from OEM to ODM and OBM,to the other Chinese OEM manufacturers for reference and seeking an independent road of innovation in the process of the development of enterprises,so as to upgrade national brands in the world influence.
An improved variable temperature model for small-signal characteristic analysis of GaN based HEMTs

The elements of Ggsf and Ggdf are introduced into the conventional small-signal model to investigate their temperature characteristics for the first time. The equivalent circuit parameters as well as their temperature behaviors are analyzed and discussed. The imaginary parts of admittance parameters versus frequency under different temperature conditions are deeply studied. Good agreements between modeled and measured scattering parameters have been achieved at each temperature from 0.1GHz to 30GHz.
Comparative Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Properties of Oral and Intravenous (+)‐Sotalol in Healthy Volunteers

Abstract— The pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of (+)‐sotalol (BMY‐5763) were studied to analyse the relationship between plasma concentration and QTc prolongation in healthy male volunteers given single oral doses of 50, 100, 200 and 300 mg, repeated oral doses of 200 mg twice daily for 6·5 days, and single intravenous doses of 1·0 and 1·5 mg kg−1. The plasma concentration of (+)‐sotalol peaked about 3 h after oral administration and declined with a half‐life of 7·9–9·7 h. The Cmax and AUC showed dose‐related increases, while the urinary recovery as the unchanged form remained constant (66–68% of the dose). During repeated oral administration the plasma concentration of (+)‐sotalol reached almost a steady state on the 3rd day and there was no change in renal clearance of (+)‐sotalol measured on the 1st, 4th and 7th days. After intravenous administration, (+)‐sotalol in plasma decreased biexponentially with a terminal half‐life of 7·6–8·3 h and the urinary recovery as unchanged drug amounted to 84–88% of the dose. The increase in QT interval was significant after a single oral administration except for the lowest dose, and regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between QTc interval and concentration of (+)‐sotalol in plasma. The same correlation was evident with repeated oral doses on the 1st, 4th and 7th days. In the case of single intravenous administrations of (+)‐sotalol, a combined pharmacokinetic‐pharmacodynamic model was attempted by assuming an effect compartment. This analysis was shown to be effective to adjust the lag of effect behind a rapid change in plasma concentration which occurred in the early distributive phase because there was no evidence that the metabolite made any significant contribution to the effect of (+)‐sotalol.
The role of advertising in brand image development

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, greater emphasis is being placed on brand image development as the basis for consumer discrimination. Advertising has a central role to play in developing brand image, whether at the corporate, retail or product level. It informs consumers of the functional capabilities of the brand while simultaneously imbuing the brand with symbolic values and meanings relevant to the consumer. These two functions of advertising closely parallel the informational and transformational schools of advertising effects and theories on the central and peripheral routes to consumer persuasion. Such dichotomous approaches to explanation are unlikely to represent the reality of consumer choice in that brand image is likely to be formed by the simultaneous absorption of advertising messages based on both the functional and expressive capabilities of brands.
Firm-Specific Human Capital, Organizational Incentives, and Agency Costs: Evidence from Retail Banking

This paper explores conflicting implications of firm-specific human capital (FSHC) for firm performance. Existing theory predicts a productivity effect that can be enhanced with strong incentives. We propose an offsetting agency effect: FSHC may facilitate more sophisticated “gaming” of incentives, to the detriment of firm performance. Using a unique dataset from a multiunit retail bank, we document both effects and estimate their net impact. Managers with superior FSHC are more productive in selling loans but are also more likely to manipulate loan terms to increase incentive payouts. We find that resulting profits are two percentage points lower for high-FSHC managers. Finally, profit losses increase more rapidly for high-FSHC managers, indicating adverse learning. Our results suggest that FSHC can create agency costs that outweigh its productive benefits.
Business Model Innovation: The Role of Experimentation

This paper aims to explore how mature firms in the media industry adapt their business models when faced with disruptive external change. This is particularly challenging as it often involves questioning and renewing the mental models that have guided the management of the firm in earlier successful times. A case study approach was chosen to explore the adaptation process with a high level of richness. As focal market we have chosen the Danish newspaper market since this gives us the opportunity to observe in detail two media groups, which control 50% of the national newspaper market. By working with archival data and interviews with key employees we succeed in tracing key developments between 2000 and 2011. Our findings show that mature firms use conscious strategic planning with regards to the value creation elements of the business model, but experimentation and random managerial responses for changing value proposition and value delivery elements. Overall, our empirical investigation leads us to propose guidelines on how to promote business model innovation.
An Operational Contract Framework for Heterogeneous Systems

Modern IT systems are increasingly being built by assembling components that are pre-designed or developed concurrently in a distributed manner. In this context, contracts play a vital role for ensuring interoperability of components and adherence to specifications. For the design of e.g. embedded systems, additional complexity is found in heterogeneity of components: such systems are composed of components of very different nature, e.g. mechanical or electronic. Heterogeneity adds extra complexity to systems design, as composition of heterogeneous components is generally not well-defined, hence making design and verification difficult. So far, few approaches have attempted to address heterogeneity for embedded systems, and yet none of them has demonstrated to be really effective. Meanwhile, denotational mathematical frameworks for reasoning effectively on heterogeneous composition have recently been made available in the literature, but their operational application to a contract-based design flow is still missing. In this work, we propose a heterogeneous contract theory for embedded systems build on the tag machine formalism. We introduce heterogeneous composition, refinement, dominance, and compatibility of contracts, altogether enabling a formalized and rigorous design process for heterogeneous embedded systems.
Risk, Price Regulation, and Irreversible Investment

We show that regulators' price-setting rate base and allowed rate of return decisions are inextricably linked. Once regulators switch from traditional rate of return regulation the irreversibility of much infrastructure investment significantly alters the results of the usual approach to price-setting as exemplified by Marshall Yawitz and Greenberg (1981). In particular the practice of 'optimizing' inefficient assets out of the regulated firm's rate base as in total element long-run incremental cost (TELRIC) calculations in telecommunications exposes the firm to demand risk. The firm requires an economically-significant premium for bearing this risk and this premium is an increasing function of the unsystematic risk of demand shocks. In addition we argue that if the firm is to break even under incentive regulation then the level of the rate base will not generally equal the optimized replacement cost.
Crystal structure of a putative HTH‐type transcriptional regulator yxaF from Bacillus subtilis

The New York Structural GenomiX Research Consortium (NYSGXRC) has selected the protein coded by yxaF gene from Bacillus subtilis as a target for structure determination. The yxaF protein has 191 residues with a molecular mass of 21 kDa and had no sequence homology to any structure in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) at the time of target selection. We aimed to elucidate the three-dimensional structure for the putative protein yxaF to better understand the relationship between protein sequence, structure, and function. This protein is annotated as a putative helix-turn-helix (HTH) type transcriptional regulator. Many transcriptional regulators like TetR and QacR use a structurally well-defined DNA-binding HTH motif to recognize the target DNA sequences. DNA-HTH motif interactions have been extensively studied. As the HTH motif is structurally conserved in many regulatory proteins, these DNA-protein complexes show some similarity in DNA recognition patterns. Many such regulatory proteins have a ligand-binding domain in addition to the DNA-binding domain. Structural studies on ligand-binding regulatory proteins provide a wealth of information on ligand-, and possibly drug-, binding mechanisms. Understanding the ligand-binding mechanism may help overcome problems with drug resistance, which represent increasing challenges in medicine. The protein encoded by yxaF, hereafter called T1414, shows foldmore » similar to QacR repressor and TetR/CamR repressor and possesses putative DNA and ligand-binding domains. Here, we report the crystal structure of T1414 and compare it with structurally similar drug and DNA-binding proteins. « less
Accounting earnings and chief executive officer compensation: the joint effect of earnings' contracting and valuation roles

Accounting Earnings and Chief Executive Officer Compensation: The Joint Effect of Earnings Contracting and Valuation Roles. (August 2007) Ying Cao, B.A., Renmin University of China; M.S., University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Thomas C. Omer This paper investigates the impact of accounting earnings on Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation by examining how the valuation role and the contracting role of accounting earnings jointly determine the value of CEO total compensation. Current earnings are informative about the firms future cash flows and hence affect stock price, and the resulting price movement affects the value of CEO equity-based compensation. Thus, accounting earnings not only have a direct impact on CEO cash compensation, but also an indirect impact on CEO equity-based compensation due to earnings valuation role. To my knowledge, this paper is the first to provide empirical evidence that because of earnings valuation role, accounting earnings are an economically significant determinant of CEO total compensation. Prior accounting research testing predictions of agent theory has focused on CEO cash compensation even though total compensation is a more relevant measure. Thus, the significant result of earnings in CEO total compensation enables re-examination of agency predictions. I provide evidence that earnings (but not stock returns) are used in CEO total compensation consistent with the sensitivity vs. precision hypothesis. That
The Highly Sensitive Detection of NO Using FAMOS by a Fully-Diode-Laser-Based UV System

A spectrometer for detection of nitric oxide (NO) by Faraday Modulation spectrometry in the sub-ppb range on its overlapped Q22(10.5) and QR12(10.5) electronic transition in X2&#928;(&#965;"=0)-A2&#931;+(&#965;'=0) band has been constructed using a commercially available fully-diode-laser-based laser system producing mW powers of ultraviolet light at ~226.6 nm and its analytical performance has been evaluated. It is shown that the system is capable of detecting NO down to 0.34 ppb•m under low pressure conditions (at S/N = 3 for a signal averaging of 5 sec). Also the accuracy of the technique has been assessed at different pressure.
Phase-Transition-FET exhibiting steep switching slope of 8mV/decade and 36% enhanced ON current

Vanadium dioxide (VO2), which exhibits electrically induced abrupt insulator-to-metal phase transition (IMT), is monolithically integrated with Silicon MOSFET to demonstrate a steep-slope (sub-kT/q) Phase-Transition FET (Phase-FET). The Phase-FET exhibits switching-slope (SS) of 8mV/decade leading to 36% increase in ON current (ION) over baseline MOSFET. We analyze the electrical characteristics of several threshold-switching materials with enhanced resistivity ratios (>105) beyond VO2 and harness them to enhance the performance of 14nm node FinFETs. Our analysis shows that up to 2.9× increase in ION, and 1.86× reduction in energy at (iso-delay) for an 11 stage ring oscillator (RO) is achievable with Phase FETs using Cu-doped HfO2 threshold switches.
Topic-dependent n-gram models based on optimization of context lengths in LDA

This paper describes a method that improves accuracy of N-gram language models which can be applied to on-line applications. The precision of a long-distance language model including LDA is influenced by a context length, or a length of the history used for prediction. In the proposed method, each of multiple LDA units estimates an optimum context length separately, then those predictions are integrated and N-gram probabilities are calculated. The method directly estimates the optimum context length suitable for prediction. Results show the method improves topic-dependent N-gram probabilities, particularly of a word related to specific topics, yielding higher and more stable performance comparing to an existing method.
Pharmacokinetics and Relative Bioavailability Evaluation of Linezolid Suspension and Tablet Formulations

Abstract The oral liquid formulations poses an alternative way in providing medications to pediatric patients, geriatric patients, patients with feeding tubes, and patients who cannot swallow solid dosage forms. This study was conducted to evaluate the pharmacokinetics (PKs) and relative bioavailability of suspension (reference) and tablet (test) formulations of Linezolid (LZD). In vivo study was established according to a single-center, randomized, single-dose, laboratory-blinded, 2 Way, Cross-Over Study with a washout period of 1-week. Under fasting conditions, 28 healthy Egyptian male volunteers were randomly allocated to receive a single oral dose of either 30 ml LZD or 1 tablet (600 mg LZD) of marketed suspension and tablet formulations. Plasma samples were obtained over a 48-h interval and analyzed for LZD by reversed phase liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection. The 90% confidence intervals for the ratio of log transformed values of Cmax, AUC0-t, and AUCt-∞ of the two treatments were within the acceptable range (0.8–1.25) for bioequivalence. From PK perspectives, in this small study in healthy Egyptian adult male volunteers, a single 600 mg dose of the tablet formulation demonstrated comparable rate and extent of absorption to a single 600 mg dose of the suspension formulation based on the US FDA’s regulatory definition. No adverse events occurred or were reported after a single 600 mg LZD and both formulations were well tolerated.
Service Operations Strategy: Framework for Matching the Service Operations Task and the Service Delivery System

Service organisations must produce and deliver a service package which matches the expectations of their customers. A framework for a service operations strategy, its analysis and measurement, is provided. The service operations task is defined; the means of achieving the objectives of the task – the service production and delivery system – is detailed; and the operational factors affecting the running of a system are addressed. A case example of the applications of a service operations strategy is provided.