Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CEOs, CFOs and Non-Executives: Roles, Risk-perceptions and Attitudes

CEOs, CFOs and non-executive directors respond on an individual basis to a dynamic web-based survey aimed to study risk perceptions and risk assessment. Our setup allows us to disentangle the eect of a directors’ professional role on his or her risk assessment from the eects of personal and investment-specic characteristics. We nd that CEOs are generally perceived to be more risk tolerant than CFOs and non-executives. However, when we ask all directors to assess realistic investment scenarios tailored to their personal professional experience, we nd that both CEOs and CFOs demand lower returns and perceive less risk than nonexecutives. The real divide in the boardroom appears to be between the executives and the non-executives. We contribute this eect to the professional roles played by the individuals.
Voluntary Disclosures and Financial Analysts' Behavior in France

The primary objective of this paper is to examine the relationships between voluntary earning disclosures made by French-listed firms and financial analysts' behavior. This paper focuses on voluntary earnings disclosures' contribution in explaining analysts' coverage and their earnings forecasts properties including forecast error and dispersion. We examine voluntary disclosures and analyst coverage as two decisions that could be endogenously determined. Our sample includes 154 French-listed firms from 1998 to 2001. Results using simultaneous equation model show that the disclosure decision influences and is not influenced by financial analysts' coverage, suggesting analysts choose to follow firms with high voluntary disclosure practices. Additional findings show that voluntary earnings disclosures are likely to improve analysts' forecasts accuracy and to reduce the dispersion among financial analysts' forecasts suggesting these disclosures reduce market uncertainty about forecasted earnings. These findings imply that corporate disclosure policy is helpful to financial analysts.
A STUDY ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IN CHETTINAD CEMENT CORPORATION LIMITED, PULIYUR, KARUR

Employee engagement is the important drive in an organization to achieve their premier goal. Engagement is an employees' involvement with deep interest in the organization's principles. In business context, employee engagement is refer to work with colleagues to get effective task performance which leads to productivity of the organization. To understand the levels of employee engagement and its impact is the core objectives of this paper and further to examine the various factors influencing the employee engagement. This research paper suggests the effective ways to improve the productivity by applying the better strategies of employee engagement.
AN INVESTIGATION ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF E-COMMERCE ADOPTION ON EXPORT PERFORMANCE

Current study is devoted to provide empirical evidence about the relationship between two constructs, e-commerce adoption and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) export performance. Primary question of this research is how e-commerce can help SMEs to reduce the impacts of export barriers and improve their export performance. The structured questionnaire of the study was applied to SMEs managers and export decision makers from Iranian SMEs, and 114 usable responses were gathered for data analyses. Findings from statistical analyses showed that e-commerce adoption could help SMEs from developing countries to contact with customer easily, be more competitive in foreign markets, coping with regulations of the host country, and efficiently manage the foreign exchange fluctuations as the most important challenges for SMEs in developing countries. SMEs managers should consider e-commerce as a facilitator in initial steps of going international if they want to play an active role in the global market.
Spectrum handoff scheme in cognitive radio network using multiple attribute decision making and artificial neural networks

There has been a big spike in the usage of wireless devices since the time wireless devices came into existence. This has paved way for a serious problem of spectrum scarcity. The solution to this problem comes in the form of cognitive radio networks where a secondary or an unlicensed user, opportunistically uses the spectrum when the primary or the licensed user is not using it and vacates and moves to another frequency when the primary user appears or when the primary user faces interference above a threshold level. This change from one frequency channel to another by the secondary user is called spectrum handoff. In this paper, we propose a spectrum handoff scheme which makes use of Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) and is further extended to be used with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN).
Plasma Insulin in Human Diabetes Mellitus

Thomas Addison's monograph of 1855 opens with the words: "It will hardly be disputed that at the present moment the functions of the suprarenal capsules, and the functions they exercise in the general economy, are almost or altogether unknown. " Like so much of his writing, these words are still true. We have accumulated a mass of facts, but we still can say little about the influence of adrenal hormones in the general economy of the organism. Perhaps we must await the appearance of a second Thomas Addison to unlock a new door through which fresh ideas may flow. Let us hope that he will be recognized as readily as the genius of Thomas Addison was appreciated when, in 1824, he was appointed assistant physician to Guy's Hospital and began his long and fruitful career.
The Home Depot

Questions: Call 1-800-555-4954 or visit us at www.livetheorangelife. com. If you aren’t clear about any of the underlined terms used in this form, see the Glossary. You can view the Glossary at www.livetheorangelife. com/SBC or call 1-800-555-4954 to request a copy. This is only a summary. If you want more detail about your coverage and costs, you can get the complete terms in the policy or plan document at www.livetheorangelife. com or by calling 1-800-555-4954.
Estimating the Opportunity Cost of Unpaid Farm Labor for U.S. Farm Operators

A farm operator household time-allocation model and data from the Farm Costs and Returns Survey and from other sources were used to derive off-farm wage equations for U.S. farm operators based on production region, size of farm, and farm type. These equations, in tum, were used to impute opportunity costs for farm operators' unpaid labor. Using this new method, instead of the ad hoc method of valuing labor at hired labor wage rates, should improve the structure of commodity cost and return statements, including those developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Applying the strategy‐structure‐performance paradigm to the supply chain environment

Purpose – The paper extends a central paradigm of the strategy literature to the supply chain environment to foster a better understanding of the elements characterizing strategic decisions that lead to supply chain structural development and performance.Design/methodology/approach – Strategic literature is reviewed to provide a fuller explanation of the strategy‐structure‐performance (SSP) research stream. SSP foundational principles are linked to supply chain management concepts, and synthesized into an explanatory framework. Propositions for future research are presented based upon the framework.Findings – An iterative relationship among internal firm strategy, structure, and performance measurement systems is indicated, implying that firm supply chain strategy should be complementary with that of supply chain partners.Research limitations/implications – The paper presents a content analysis of existing research and a conceptual framework emerging from it. No data were collected nor were research propo.
Dynamic Vpass Controlled Program Scheme and Optimized Erase Vth Control for High Program Inhibition in MLC NAND Flash Memories

In this paper, dynamic Vpass ISPP schemes and optimizing Vth of erase memory cells are presented for achieving high program inhibition with lower program disturbance in sub-40 nm MLC NAND flash and beyond. Simple two-step dynamic Vpass control technique is used and over 40% program failure reduction after 30 k P/E cycling is achieved in the proposed scheme, compared to conventional method. A major pattern dependency of program disturbance in MLC NAND flash is also described in this paper. In order to achieve high immunity for the data pattern dependency in program disturbance, optimizing erase Vth and its distribution using ISPP-after-erase with a precise negative Vth sensing scheme are proposed. The proposed schemes are demonstrated using 42 nm MLC NAND flash test chip and about 2 times better Vpass window margin is obtained compared to conventional scheme.
Hany Mahgoub Mining Association Rules from Unstructured Documents

This paper presents a system for discovering association rules from collections of unstructured documents called EART (Extract Association Rules from Text). The EART system treats texts only not images or figures. EART discovers association rules amongst keywords labeling the collection of textual documents. The main characteristic of EART is that the system integrates XML technology (to transform unstructured documents into structured documents) with Information Retrieval scheme (TF-IDF) and Data Mining technique for association rules extraction. EART depends on word feature to extract association rules. It consists of four phases: structure phase, index phase, text mining phase and visualization phase. Our work depends on the analysis of the keywords in the extracted association rules through the co-occurrence of the keywords in one sentence in the original text and the existing of the keywords in one sentence without co-occurrence. Experiments applied on a collection of scientific documents selected from MEDLINE that are related to the outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza virus. Keywords—Association rules, information retrieval, knowledge discovery in text, text mining.
Synthesis, characterization and in vivo biological evaluation of novel benzimidazoles as potential anticancer agents

Objective: Cancer is one of the major cause of death worldwide irrespective of the sex. The aim of the study is to design, synthesize and identification of novel anti-proliferative agents that can potently target cancer. Methodology: We are reporting the synthesis of new series of N-substituted 2-(2-butyl-4-chloro-1 H -imidazole-5-yl)-1 H -benzo[d]imidazole derivatives and evaluated for their anti-tumor activity against HeLa cell lines. We identified the lead compound in the series and tested its anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic properties against EAT bearing mice. Results: We identified 2-(2-butyl-4-chloro-1-heptyl-1H-imidazol-5yl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazole as a lead compound with the IC 50 of 25.3 µM. The lead compound is significantly decreases angiogenesis in peritoneum of EAT bearing mice. Conclusion: Our results clearly demonstrates that benzimidazoles suppresses the cell proliferation, peritoneal angiogenesis and ascites volume.
Therapeutic efficacy of microtube-embedded chondroitinase ABC in a canine clinical model of spinal cord injury

See Moon and Bradbury (doi:10.1093/brain/awy067) for a scientific commentary on this article.Many hundreds of thousands of people around the world are living with the long-term consequences of spinal cord injury and they need effective new therapies. Laboratory research in experimental animals has identified a large number of potentially translatable interventions but transition to the clinic is not straightforward. Further evidence of efficacy in more clinically-relevant lesions is required to gain sufficient confidence to commence human clinical trials. Of the many therapeutic candidates currently available, intraspinally applied chondroitinase ABC has particularly well documented efficacy in experimental animals. In this study we measured the effects of this intervention in a double-blinded randomized controlled trial in a cohort of dogs with naturally-occurring severe chronic spinal cord injuries that model the condition in humans. First, we collected baseline data on a series of outcomes: forelimb-hindlimb coordination (the prespecified primary outcome measure), skin sensitivity along the back, somatosensory evoked and transcranial magnetic motor evoked potentials and cystometry in 60 dogs with thoracolumbar lesions. Dogs were then randomized 1:1 to receive intraspinal injections of heat-stabilized, lipid microtube-embedded chondroitinase ABC or sham injections consisting of needle puncture of the skin. Outcome data were measured at 1, 3 and 6 months after intervention; skin sensitivity was also measured 24 h after injection (or sham). Forelimb-hindlimb coordination was affected by neither time nor chondroitinase treatment alone but there was a significant interaction between these variables such that coordination between forelimb and hindlimb stepping improved during the 6-month follow-up period in the chondroitinase-treated animals by a mean of 23%, but did not change in controls. Three dogs (10%) in the chondroitinase group also recovered the ability to ambulate without assistance. Sensitivity of the dorsal skin increased at 24 h after intervention in both groups but subsequently decreased to normal levels. Cystometry identified a non-significant improvement of bladder compliance at 1 month in the chondroitinase-injected dogs but this did not persist. There were no overall differences between groups in detection of sensory evoked potentials. Our results strongly support a beneficial effect of intraspinal injection of chondroitinase ABC on spinal cord function in this highly clinically-relevant model of chronic severe spinal cord injury. There was no evidence of long-term adverse effects associated with this intervention. We therefore conclude that this study provides strong evidence in support of initiation of clinical trials of chondroitinase ABC in humans with chronic spinal cord injury.
Gender Differences in The Use of Internet for Health Information Search

Demand for health related information is expanding. People seeking health information have many options today. Internet is becoming an important source of information for health related activities in recent years because of its convenience and large capacity. The use of Internet in Turkey increased dramatically from 13 percent users in 2004 to 30 percent in 2009. National survey conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute in 2007 shows that 37 percent of Turkish people used the Internet for online health related information. Once consumers enter the domain of electronic health care information, the issue becomes determining the quality of the available information. How do consumers perceive the quality of online health information? This study addresses gender differences in Turkish consumer’s perceptions regarding the quality of electronic health information on web sites. Research results showed that males and females differ by their e-health information quality perceptions. Main discriminating issues of males and females are related to helpfulness and safety of the online health information. Females are found to have higher e-health information quality perception than males.
Asthma and asthma-like symptoms in adults assessed by questionnaires. A literature review.

The first widely used questionnaire in respiratory epidemiology was the questionnaire from the Medical Research Council (MRC) of Great Britain. In the first version, from 1960, there were only a few questions about wheezing, but in later editions, more questions about asthma and asthma-like symptoms were added. The MRC questionnaire initiated the development of other questionnaires such as the European Community for Coal and Steel (ECSC) questionnaire of respiratory symptoms and the questionnaire from the American Thoracic Society and the Division of Lung Diseases (ATS-DLD-78). In Tucson, Ariz, a questionnaire was developed in the 1970s that was focused on the subject's own report of asthma. In Great Britain, a questionnaire was developed in the 1980s with the intention of finding the most valid symptom-based items for identifying asthma, "the IUATLD (1984) questionnaire. " When judging the validity of a questionnaire, it is essential to understand sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity is the fraction of the truly diseased subjects found to be diseased using the questionnaire. Specificity is the fraction of the truly healthy subjects found to be healthy using the questionnaire. Regarding questionnaires dealing with asthma, the situation is confusing because of the absence of any gold standard for asthma. The most usual mode of validation has been to test the questionnaire against the results of a clinical physiologic investigation, often a nonspecific bronchial challenge test. Another approach has been to compare the answers from the questionnaire with the clinical diagnoses of asthma. When validated in relation to bronchial challenge tests, the questions about self-reported asthma have a mean sensitivity of 36 percent (range, 7 to 80 percent) and a mean specificity of 94 percent (range, 74 to 100 percent). The questions about "physician-diagnosed asthma" have even higher specificity, 99 percent. When validated in relation to a clinical diagnosis of asthma, the mean sensitivity for the question about self-reported asthma was 68 percent in the reviewed studies (range, 48 to 100 percent). The specificity was 94 percent (range, 78 to 100 percent). One problem in using the presence of bronchial hyperreactivity (BHR) as a gold standard for asthma is that many people with BHR report no respiratory complaints. In other words, the presence of BHR is a measure with high sensitivity but low specificity for asthma. The effect of using a methacholine challenge test as a standard for the disease will thus be an underestimation of the sensitivity of the questionnaire. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
THE STABILITY OF COAGULATION FACTORS IN STORED BLOOD

The general advancesmade by medicine and surgery have resulted in a prolongation of the averagelife span. This has been acknowledgedby the increasedimportance of geriatrics. Recent advancesin medical therapeutics, particularly the use of antibiotics,havedonemuch towards increasing life expectancy. Diseasesof old age include degenerativeconditions,not the least of which are mental disorders,such as cerebral degenerativechangesand the sequelee ofcardio-vasculardisease. Psychiatry, therefore, has increased in stature as one result of these medical advances. In addition, the role of mental factors as a causeof vascularchangeshas alreadybeendescribed.
Assessment of human nter and cter BRCA1 mutations using growth and localization assays in yeast

A large number of missense mutations have been identified within the tumor suppressor gene BRCA1. Most of them, called “variants of unknown significance” (VUS), cannot be classified as pathogenic or neutral by genetic methods, which complicates their cancer risk assessment. Functional assays have been developed to circumvent this uncertainty. They aim to determine how VUS impact the BRCA1 protein structure or function, thereby giving an indication of their potential to cause cancer. So far, three relevant assays have been designed in yeast and used on large sets of variants. However, they are limited to variants mapped in restricted domains of BRCA1. One of them, the small colony phenotype (SCP) assay, monitors the BRCA1‐dependent growth of yeast colonies that increases with pathogenic but not neutral mutations positioned in the Cter region. Here, we extend this assay to the Nter part of BRCA1. We also designed a new assay, called the “yeast localization phenotype (YLP) assay,” based on the accumulation of BRCA1 in a single inclusion body in the yeast nucleus. This phenotype is altered by variants positioned both in the Nter and Cter regions. Together, these assays provide new perspectives for the functional assessment of BRCA1 mutations in yeast. 32:1470–1480, 2011. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Network characterization using constraint-based definitions of capacity, utilization, and efficiency

Capacity planning in an operational network requires continuous monitoring of network resources so that corrective actions can be taken in response to changes in traffic patterns, performance requirements, and network technology. In this article we characterize network resources in terms of capacity, utilization, and efficiency, and define these metrics as functions of the sets of constraints under which the network is operating. These constraints may include service level agreement objectives, routing policy constraints, and failure survivability requirements. Constraint-based network characterization allows a network operator to quantify the inherent capacity of a network and determine the impact of changes in operating conditions on realizable capacity. It also helps assess how well a given network design matches the set of constraints under which it is operating, how much traffic growth the network can support, and what actions need to be taken to accommodate traffic growth.
Segmenting Chinese Visitors to Macau by Information Source Variables

ABSTRACT This study examined Chinese tourists' information behaviors from multi-dimensional perspectives. The goal was to uncover outbound Chinese tourist information acquisition patterns and characteristics and thus provide meaningful implications for communication strategies for this emerging outbound market. Data were gathered in Macau through onsite personal interviews of Chinese visitors. By adopting a multidimensional approach, this research incorporated measures that take into consideration of where and when individuals access information during their vacation planning and how extensively they use each information source. The results indicated first-time Chinese tourists to Macau resorted to multiple information sources at various decision stages and that they can be classified into four segments by their information acquisition patterns: (1) minimal information seekers, (2) active seekers, (3) package travelers, and (4) independent travelers.
An Analysis of Real World TV Advertising Tests: A 15-Year Update

ABSTRACT An analysis is performed on the results of 241 real world TV advertising tests conducted by Information Resources, Inc. between 1989 and 2003 to partially update the findings of Lodish et al. [Journal of Marketing Research 32, 2 (1995): 125–39]. Two types of market test results, BehaviorScan and Matched-Market, are analyzed. Overall, the improvement of TV advertising sales effectiveness because of media weight increase is significantly larger than zero for established products, which is different from Lodish et al.'s finding. A further analysis indicates that such significance is mainly driven by more recent tests. A comparison between the new results and Lodish et al. reveals a significant increase in the average advertising effectiveness for tests completed after 1995. The new data still suggest (as did the original data) that it is of great managerial interest to identify advertising effectiveness before launching advertising campaigns.