Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genes Versus Environment: The relationship between dietary fat and total and central abdominal fat

OBJECTIVE The influence of diet on body fat has not been quantified independently of genetic influences, although both are held to contribute to regulation of body fat stores. This study examined 1) the relationship between recent diet and total body and central abdominal fat inmiddle-aged female twins independent of genetic and important environmental factors and 2) evidence of interaction between diet and genetic predisposition RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Measurements in 436 healthy female twins (aged 58 ± 10 years) included dietary intake by food frequency questionnaire (validated against a 7-day food diary, n = 162), BM1, total body and central abdominal fat by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and environmental covariates (smoking habit, hormone replacement, and physical activity) by standardized questionnaire. Dietary energy underreporters were excluded. RESULTS Intake of dietary fat (total and subtype) and carbohydrates was not related to BM1 or to total or central fat, confirmed in quintile analysis. With genetic and environmental factors controlled in 90 monozygotic pairs, differences in the intake of energy, fat, or protein were not related to intrapair differences in total and central body fat. However, a minor inverse relationship between carbohydrate intake and total adiposity was confirmed (r = −0.25, P = 0.02). In paired analyses, the twin with the higher intake of total sugars had significantly lower total body and central abdominal adiposity. There was no evidence of a gene-environment interaction between intake of fat or carbohydrates contributing to greater body fat mass in subjects genetically predisposed to obesity. CONCLUSIONS Using validated dietary measures and direct measures of body fat and excluding underreporters, no relationship between dietary fat and body fat was found in middle-aged women, particularly after controlling for genetic and some environmental factors. The role of dietary factors in determining total body and central abdominal fat appears to have been overestimated in past cross-sectional studies
The value of dividends: Evidence from cum‐dividend trading in the ex‐dividend period

What is the market value of a dollar of fully franked dividends? We address this question by exploiting a new phenomenon in the Australian capital market—the trading of shares cum-dividend during the ex-dividend period. This allows a relatively clean measurement of the combined value of dividends and the associated tax effects net of transactions costs. Consistent with the theoretical model that we develop, the evidence from this sample is that one dollar of fully franked dividends, after tax effects and transaction costs, is worth significantly more than one dollar. We also show that, in contrast to our measure, the traditional measure of the ex-dividend price drop-off, based on close to close prices, has a lower average value and exhibits substantially more cross sectional variation.
Mapping Institutional Impacts of Lean Communication in Lean Agencies

Information technology’s (IT) influence on formative contexts and on requisite leadership roles is conceptualized both as an enabling force for organizational networking and a reducing force for diversity in leadership functions and cultural contexts. The contemporary “New Age” leadership literature calls for personal and ideological leadership unencumbered by issues of cultural context, communicative complexities and the need for more comprehensive and sophisticated global social analysis. At the same time, this literature punctuates a noticeable indifference to the issue of strategic IT literacy on behalf of agency elites. A preoccupation with “lean and mean”, unbridled managerial prerogatives, competitive rhetoric overstressing means at the expense of legitimate ends, business process re-engineering, downsizing, and IT-mediated globalization can be construed as an abject failure of agency elites to understand and protect distinctive competencies in governance and in organized action. Administrative theory urgently requires a renewed understanding of vulnerability and resilience in agency behavior and the need for renewed institutional and IT-literate leadership.
Public relations practitioners' use of reverse mentoring in the development of powerful professional relationships

In the quest to create powerful professional relationships, the new, non-traditional disbursement of knowledge is causing complications. While the value of reverse mentoring has been acknowledged in other disciplines, there is almost a complete absence of any scientific studies addressing mentoring or related issues in the public relations workplace. This survey of practitioners was undertaken to bridge that gap in the literature. Findings show that public relations practitioners of all experience levels, working in a variety of different workplace environments, are mostly ignorant about reverse mentoring. Among respondents who had personally participated in reverse mentoring, however, most classified it as ‘very successful’ or ‘successful’. Ideas for best practices and future directions for reverse mentoring are offered.
Effectiveness of two types of sterilizers on the contents of sharps containers.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the killing effect that a gravity steam autoclave (GSA), a high-vacuum steam sterilizer (HVA) or an unsaturated chemical vapor sterilizer (UCV) had on endospores present on strips or applied to dental needles within three sizes of sharps containers. Commercial spore strips containing 1.7 x 10(5) Bacillus stearothermophilus endospores were used, while the needles were soiled with an equal number of spores or with spores mixed with blood. Needles were tested capped and uncapped. Initial operating conditions were for the: (1) GSA were 129 kPa at 124 degrees C for 30 minutes; (2) HVA were 214 kPa at 131 degrees C for 10 minutes and (3) UCV, 172 kPa at 134 degrees C for 20 minutes. Strips and needles were placed within 3/4 filled containers. Fill materials consisted of needles, syringes, plastic sheaths and scalpel blades. Containers were processed upward or on their sides. Twenty-five strips or needles comprised a test group for each operational parameter. Processed strips and needles were aerobically cultured at 56 degrees C for 7 days. If sterilization was not accomplished after the initial period, additional exposure time was added. Results included: (1) soiled needles are more difficult than strips to sterilize; (2) capping or the presence of blood did not affect sterilization efficiency; (3) container positioning was important only for the smallest container; (4) additional exposure time was usually required when sterilizing soiled needles; (5) the HVA killed all spore challenges in a single sterilization cycle and (6) GSA and UCV were approximately equal in sterilization efficiency. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Kinetics of AMPA‐type glutamate receptor channels in rat caudate‐putamen neurones show a wide range of desensitization but distinct recovery characteristics

α‐Amino‐3‐hydroxy‐5‐methyl‐4‐isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)‐type glutamate receptor channels of rat caudate‐putamen neurones were studied by ultrafast application of agonists to outside‐out vesicles taken from medium‐sized spiny neurones in thin slices. Upon application of 10 m m glutamate for 50 ms, fast rising and desensitizing currents were activated. Ten to 90% rise time values were ≈ 0.5 ms. Dose–response studies revealed an EC50 of 0.63 m m glutamate. In double logarithmic coordinates, the curve had a maximal slope between 1.33 and 1.85 at low concentrations, indicating at least two binding sites for glutamate. Rise time increased with low agonist concentrations, whereas desensitization kinetics showed only a weak dependence on concentration. The time constant of desensitization was fitted with one exponential and ranged between 2 and 11 ms, with a mean of 6.19 ± 2.31 ms (n = 239). Following brief glutamate pulses (1 ms) currents decayed with time constants of 2.7 ± 0.23 ms (n = 12). Recovery from desensitization was investigated by double‐pulse experiments. Recovery time constants fell in two subgroups with respective mean values of 110.6 ± 14.2 ms (n = 8) and 288.6 ± 33.2 ms (n = 8). By adding low glutamate concentrations to the bath solution, predesensitization of AMPA‐type receptors without channel opening could be shown. A 50% reduction in control amplitude was achieved with 5.2 ± 2.1 μm (n = 22) glutamate in the background. We hypothesize a circular reaction scheme with at least two binding sites for glutamate to describe activation, desensitization and recovery from desensitization in rat caudate‐putamen neurones.
PETROGLYPHS IN PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK: ROLE OF ROCK COATING IN AS AGENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND AS INDICATORS OF ANTIQUITY

Rock coatings formed on petroglyphs at Petrified Forest National Park both preserve the art from erosional processes and provide tools to understand the art's chronology. Erosional processes of rock fall from fissuresol wedging, splintering of sandstone, and flaking are somewhat offset by case hardening surfaces by addition of rock coatings. 20th century graffiti can be distinguished from truly ancient petroglyphs by lead-profile dating. Microlaminations dating reveals that park engravings range in age from at least the early Holocene prior to about 8000 yr B.P. to the late Holocene in the last 2000 years. The next step in the research process is to utilize a Rock Art Stability Index to identify those panels in the greatest danger from loss through erosion, and then use available methods to record and sample petroglyphs to preserve knowledge while we can.
Is the Risk of Bankruptcy a Systematic Risk

Several studies suggest that a firm distress risk factor could be behind the size and the book-to-market effects. A natural proxy for firm distress is bankruptcy risk. If bankruptcy risk is systematic, one would expect a positive association between bankruptcy risk and subsequent realized returns. However, results demonstrate that bankruptcy risk is not rewarded by higher returns. Thus, a distress factor is unlikely to account for the size and book-to-market effects. Surprisingly, firms with high bankruptcy risk earn lower than average returns since 1980. A risk-based explanation cannot fully explain the anomalous evidence. Copyright The American Finance Association 1998.
A comparison of the age-MLU relation in normal and specifically language-impaired preschool children.

The relation between age and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU) was evaluated in a sample of 48 preschool children between 24 and 50 months of age. Twenty-four of these children were diagnosed as having a specific language impairment, and 24 were considered language normal. The groups were matched on age, race, sex, and parental education level. A majority of the children in each group were from lower-middle-class backgrounds. MLU was derived from 20-min mother-child conversations as the dyad engaged in free play. The results showed that (a) age and MLU were significantly correlated in the normal group (r = .75) and in the group of specifically language-impaired children (r = .77), (b) the predicted MLU of the language-impaired group was lower than that of the normal group across the age range, and (c) the rate of MLU change in each group was similar. The age-MLU relation observed in the lower-middle-class normal children compared favorably to that reported previously for middle- to upper-middle-class children (Miller & Chapman, 1981). The finding that MLU changed at a similar rate in the normal and language-impaired groups is evaluated in light of the observation that childhood language disability is usually associated with slower rates of language development.
Stackelberg Game Based Power Control with Outage Probability Constraints for Cognitive Radio Networks

This paper firstly investigates the problem of uplink power control in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) with multiple primary users (PUs) and multiple second users (SUs) considering channel outage constraints and interference power constraints, where PUs and SUs compete with each other to maximize their utilities. We formulate a Stackelberg game to model this hierarchical competition, where PUs and SUs are considered to be leaders and followers, respectively. We theoretically prove the existence and uniqueness of robust Stackelberg equilibrium for the noncooperative approach. Then, we apply the Lagrange dual decomposition method to solve this problem, and an efficient iterative algorithm is proposed to search the Stackelberg equilibrium. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves the performance compared with those proportionate game schemes.
The economics of managerialism and the drive for efficiency in policing

The UK has recently proposed to develop a set of criteria whereby the economic analysis of police force efficiency is to be made standard. This follows a strategy of aiming for improvement through managerialism and best value performance indicators, similar to those implemented by US police forces after the Government Performance and Results Act 1993. In this paper we attempt to put this recent development of efficiency targeting into a UK historical|evolutionary context and provide one of the first attempts to use data envelopment analysis to analyse the allocative, as well as technical efficiency, of police forces in England and Wales. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Foreign Demand Shifts and the Reallocation of Exports - Evidence from the Danish Cartoon Crisis

Do firms redirect their exports to other markets when they face a sudden negative shift in export demand? Do they change export prices with respect to markets that are not affected by a sudden shock? We use the Danish cartoon crisis in 2005/2006 as a natural experiment to address how firms behave on international markets when exposed to a sudden downward shift of demand. At that time, the publication of caricatures of Muhammad triggered a consumer boycott across the Islamic world. Using a difference-in-differences approach for a panel of Danish pork and dairy exporters, we find no evidence for contemporaneous reallocation of export sales across markets: Even though firms lower their export prices to non-Islamic markets caused by the crisis, exported quantities remain unaffected by the shock. Moreover, the consumer boycott in Islamic countries seems not to have triggered contemporaneous market entry to other markets.
GEEKS AND GLOBAL JUSTICE: ANOTHER (CYBER)WORLD IS POSSIBLE

This dissertation is an exploration of alternative visions of social organization beyond the horizon of capitalism. As such it is both a critique of the status quo in its current neoliberal capitalist configuration and a proposal for another world, a better world that has humanity—humaneness—as its central concern. The research trajectory parallels the transformation of the author from activist journalist into radical scholar, employing an open source methodology that interweaves the subject matter and infuses core of a new mode of social existence. Thus the dialectic between theory and practice comes alive for both researcher and “researched” even as the dialectical interplay between liberation and domination, as well as between society and technology, form the theoretical assumptions underlying this dissertation. A critique of post-industrial theories framing Information Society discourse as well as a consideration of the “newness” of information in the digital age provide fertile ground for a discussion of tech activism in contemporary social movements. Using the framework of critical constructivism, I analyze how tech activists consciously design technology that embodies values of equality, freedom and justice. Their creation and appropriation of free software indicates a more general argument for open knowledge production as the basis for a new mode of work, and indeed, a new set of social relations. In reconstructing the internet along a democratic model and through a democratic process, I argue, tech activists are creating a model of social organization that is radically transformative, refusing the reductive limits of the neoliberal world order, and enacting the possibility of a better world now. iii
Employee Relations in German Multinationals in an Anglo-Saxon Setting: Toward a Germanic Version of the Anglo-Saxon Approach?

This study examines whether German multinationals operating in an Anglo-Saxon setting design their employee relations primarily on the German or the Anglo-Saxon model. The authors’ cross-sectional comparison with UK-owned firms provides no evidence of a transfer of the current German approach but does point to a distinctive Germanic version of the ‘high-road’ variant of the Anglo-Saxon approach. Intra-German analysis shows that this is most pronounced among the types of subsidiaries that are particularly significant for disseminating employment relations innovations across the multinational, but that these also have the highest incidence of collective arrangements and the lowest incidence of the ‘low-road’ variant of the Anglo-Saxon approach. In the light of recent reforms in the German industrial relations system, the findings point to an emerging new flexible collective approach with a comprehensive direct employee involvement dimension.
Behavioral Economics, Economic Theory and Public Policy

The focus and contribution of behavioral economics is discussed in detail focusing on its varied contribution to economic theory, economic analysis, and public policy. Recent contributions related to the work of Kahneman and Tversky's heuristics and biases paradigm are critically assessed in the context of the much wider scope of the behavioral line of research that ultimately flows from the empirically based understanding that the realism of ones simplifying assumptions matter for the construction rigorous economic theory. Such assumptions are not only psychological in nature, but also biological, sociological, and institutional. Moreover, behavioral economics is much more than consumer behavior and behavior on financial markets, a preeminent focus of contemporary behavioral economics. It is also very much concerned with theories of production, theories of the firm, household behavior, and institutions. Findings of behavioral economists tend to refute the notion that individuals behave neoclassically, giving rise to a literature and debate as to which heuristics and sociological and institutional priors are rational, which yield optimal economic results, and which tend to improve socioeconomic welfare. Although many contemporary behavior economists argue that individuals are fundamentally irrational because they do not behave neoclassically, a forceful narrative remains which considers non-neoclassical behavior rational, yielding optimal economic results under particular conditions. A common thread running through behavioral economic is that modeling assumptions matter and that conventional theory is seriously wanting in this front with significant implication for economic analysis, theory and public policy, some which are discussed in this article.
Therapeutic Potential of Intravenous Immunoglobulin in Acute Brain Injury

Acute ischemic and traumatic injury of the central nervous system (CNS) is known to induce a cascade of inflammatory events that lead to secondary tissue damage. In particular, the sterile inflammatory response in stroke has been intensively investigated in the last decade, and numerous experimental studies demonstrated the neuroprotective potential of a targeted modulation of the immune system. Among the investigated immunomodulatory agents, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) stand out due to their beneficial therapeutic potential in experimental stroke as well as several other experimental models of acute brain injuries, which are characterized by a rapidly evolving sterile inflammatory response, e.g., trauma, subarachnoid hemorrhage. IVIg are therapeutic preparations of polyclonal immunoglobulin G, extracted from the plasma of thousands of donors. In clinical practice, IVIg are the treatment of choice for diverse autoimmune diseases and various mechanisms of action have been proposed. Only recently, several experimental studies implicated a therapeutic potential of IVIg even in models of acute CNS injury, and suggested that the immune system as well as neuronal cells can directly be targeted by IVIg. This review gives further insight into the role of secondary inflammation in acute brain injury with an emphasis on stroke and investigates the therapeutic potential of IVIg.
“My view that disability is okay sometimes clashes”: experiences of two disabled occupational therapists

Abstract Aims: While disability is the focus of much attention in occupational therapy, there has been little attention paid to disability within the profession. Disabled therapists not only bring valuable perspectives on disability, but also pose important challenges to taken-for-granted assumptions about impairment and disability within the profession. At the same time, their cultural beliefs and values may clash with core assumptions of the profession. Methods: This study analyses interview data from two disabled occupational therapists, part of a larger study with cultural minority therapists. Semi-structured interviews explored their experiences of professional practice in the context of societal belief in the superiority of non-disabled and “normal” ways of doing and being. Major findings: Some cultural values of participants clashed with the values and beliefs of their profession, particularly concerning independence. Negative attitudes of colleagues and managers were the key barriers to practice. The responsibility for bridging the disabled/non-disabled cultural divide rested with the disabled therapists, exacerbating inequity. Nonetheless, these therapists believed their disability experiences had advantages for practice. Conclusions: Disabled therapists may be required to engage in invisible work to communicate across cultural differences, and to educate others. Respectful openness to difference could enhance the practice competence of both disabled therapists and their non-disabled colleagues. This demands critical reflexive attention to ableism within the profession.
How top performers achieve customer‐focused market leadership

Purpose – The IBM Institute for Business Value recently surveyed nearly 500 customer relationship management executives – across roles, industries and management responsibilities – in 66 countries. The goal was to assess the current state of marketing, sales and service and to document how top performers achieve customer‐focused market leadership in the emerging digital age.Design/methodology/approach – Using the survey the paper seeks to identify the best practices of market leaders.Findings – Analysis of the survey responses indicates that three categories of market leaders are likely to emerge by 2012: customer insight leaders – companies that optimize data analysis, transform it into something useful and create measurable value; digital channel leaders – companies that harness new methods of creating value through customer interactions and new products, services and business models in an always‐on digital world; and new era leaders – companies that incorporate the best practices of each.Practical impl.