Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Policy risk, Strategic decisions and contagion effects:Firm‐specific considerations

Research summary: In this article, we investigate the firm‐specific environment and its impact on firm strategy focusing on adverse changes in the policy environment and their effect on divestitures. We argue that experiencing a negative change in the firm‐specific policy environment causes firms to reassess their exposure to policy risk and their ability to manage their policy environment, making them more likely to divest. Operationalizing negative shifts in the firm‐specific policy environment through formal policy disputes between firms and governments, we find that following a dispute, firms are more likely to divest both in the country where the dispute occurs and in other countries in the same region. However, the impact of disputes on divestitures is firm specific, applying only to firms directly involved in a dispute. Managerial summary: What is the impact of change in the firm‐specific environment on firm strategy? We argue that when firms directly experience a negative change in their policy environment that is specific to them, they negatively reassess their exposure to policy risk and their ability to manage their policy environment, which makes them more likely to undertake a divestiture. We analyze formal disputes between firms and governments that arise from adverse changes in policy and find that, following a dispute, firms are more likely to divest in the country where the dispute occurs and in other countries in the same region. However, the impact of disputes on divestitures is firm specific as it applies only to firms directly involved in a dispute. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Automatic Facet Extraction Based on Multidimensional Semantic Index

Faceted search on web pages needs exact facets. However, it is difficult to extract facets exactly from web pages because the web pages are unstructured and lack of facet information. Therefore, facet extraction is a key to faceted search. This paper proposed a method of extracting facets automatically from unstructured web pages to improve the faceted search on web. The Multidimensional Semantic Index (MDSI) of web pages is constructed by mining all kinds of semantic relations among the words from web pages, which creates a semantic-rich index for web pages. In MDSI, the differently dimensional semantic indexes are bridged by mining the semantic mapping between them. Based on the MDSI of web pages, the facets are extracted by analyzing semantic mapping relations in MDSI. To validate the effect of the proposed method, two datasets are constructed and the experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible and comparatively precise.
The sustainability, feasibility and desirability of breeding livestock for disease resistance.

Selective breeding for disease resistance utilises proven animal breeding methods to improve animal health, welfare and productivity. Unsurprisingly, it is receiving more and more attention from livestock breeders. However, there are a number of largely theoretical arguments that have been raised as potential problems in selection for disease resistance. These can be classified under sustainability, feasibility and desirability. This review considers each of these areas in turn. Several examples show that enhanced resistance to disease is stable under natural selection and therefore deliberate selection for disease resistance should also be stable and sustainable. The feasibility of selective breeding depends in part upon the heritability of the trait or traits used to measure disease resistance, as well as the amount of variation among animals. The heritability of traits associated with resistance to many important diseases is often high and considerable variation among animals exists. Consequently, selective breeding for enhanced disease resistance is certainly feasible. The desirability of breeding for disease resistance depends upon whether there are trade-offs with other economically important traits. By and large these remain to be defined. However, even if unfavourable associations exist, breeders can create selection indices that include traits with unfavourable associations and maximise the desired responses while attempting to minimise undesirable effects. In conclusion, so long as one or more diseases exert a significant influence on livestock production, selective breeding will be a useful tool to assist in disease control.
Effect of aberrant promoter methylation of FHIT and RASSF1A genes on susceptibility to cervical cancer in a North Indian population

Abstract As current evidence suggests the involvement of epigenetic modification of tumour suppressor genes in human cancer, we investigated the aberrant promoter methylation of FHIT and RASSF1A genes in human papillomavirus (HPV)-mediated cervical cancer in Indian women. We analysed 60 cervical cancer tissue biopsies of different clinical stage and histological grading and 23 healthy control samples with normal cervical cytology. Methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) was performed to analyse the methylation status of FHIT and RASSF1A genes and confirmed by sequencing. Both patients and controls were screened for HPV infection and 98% of the HPV-infected cases showed positivity for HPV type 16. Aberrant promoter methylation of the FHIT gene was found in 28.3% (17/60) of cases and of the RASSF1A gene in 35.0% (21/60) of cases; promoter methylation of both the genes was found in 13.3% (8/60) of cervical cancer cases. Methylation was significantly (p<0.01) associated with the cervical cancer cases compared with controls. None of the 23 controls was found to be methylated in either of these genes. This is the first study indicating a correlation between the promoter methylation of FHIT and RASSF1A genes and the clinical stage and histological grading of cervical carcinoma in Indian women. Future studies are underway to examine the practical implications of these findings for use as a biomarker.
Using the Australian Business Excellence Framework to achieve sustainable business excellence

This article demonstrates how the Australian Business Excellence Framework can be used to support sustainable organizational development and success. The objective of the study is to identify the challenges and efforts required for an organization to be fully engaged in corporate social responsibility and sustainable business practices. A case study is used to suggest how the required efforts can be implemented. The case study involves a smelter company in the process of making a ‘shift’ from unsustainable to more sustainable operations, by implementing a new policy. The new policy will affect all aspects of the company—its people, the management of processes and information and, above all, top management's commitment in leading the transformation. An overview of the stages involved in transforming the company is preparation, transformation, implementation and sustainable business results. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.
Electromyographic analysis of core trunk, hip, and thigh muscles during 9 rehabilitation exercises.

STUDY DESIGN Prospective, single-group, repeated-measures design. OBJECTIVE To identify exercises that could be used for strength development and the exercises that would be more appropriate for endurance or stabilization training. BACKGROUND The exercises analyzed are often used in rehabilitation programs for the spine, hip, and knee. They are active exercises using body weight for resistance; thus a clinician is unable to determine the amount of resistance being applied to a muscle group. Electromyographic (EMG) analysis can provide a measure of muscle activation so that the clinician can have a better idea about the effect the exercise may have on the muscle for strength, endurance, or stabilization. METHODS AND MEASURES Surface EMG analysis was carried out in 19 males and 11 females while performing the following 9 exercises: active hip abduction, bridge, unilateral-bridge, side-bridge, prone-bridge on the elbows and toes, quadruped arm/lower extremity lift, lateral step-up, standing lunge, and using the Dynamic Edge. The rectus abdominis, external oblique abdominis, longissimus thoracis, lumbar multifidus, gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, vastus medialis obliquus, and hamstring muscles were studied. RESULTS In healthy subjects, the lateral step-up and the lunge exercises produced EMG levels greater than 45% maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) in the vastus medialis obliquus, which suggests that they may be beneficial for strengthening that muscle. The side-bridge exercise could be used for strengthening the gluteus medius and the external oblique abdominis muscles, and the quadruped arm/lower extremity lift exercise may help strengthen the gluteus maximus muscle. All the other exercises produced EMG levels less than 45% MVIC, so they may be more beneficial for training endurance or stabilization in healthy subjects. CONCLUSION Our results suggest these exercises could be used for a core rehabilitation or performance enhancement program. Depending on the individual needs of a patient or athlete, some of the exercises may be more beneficial than others for achieving strength.
Gene correction of human induced pluripotent stem cells repairs the cellular phenotype in pulmonary alveolar proteinosis.

RATIONALE Hereditary pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (hPAP) caused by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) receptor α-chain (CSF2RA) deficiency is a rare, life-threatening lung disease characterized by accumulation of proteins and phospholipids in the alveolar spaces. The disease is caused by a functional insufficiency of alveolar macrophages, which require GM-CSF signaling for terminal differentiation and effective degradation of alveolar proteins and phospholipids. Therapeutic options are extremely limited, and the pathophysiology underlying the defective protein degradation in hPAP alveolar macrophages remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVES To further elucidate the cellular mechanisms underlying hPAP and evaluate novel therapeutic strategies, we here investigated the potential of hPAP patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (PAP-iPSCs) derived monocytes and macrophages. METHODS Patient-specific PAP-iPSCs were generated from CD34(+) bone marrow cells of a CSF2RA-deficient patient with PAP. We assessed pluripotency, chromosomal integrity, and genetic correction of established iPSC lines. On hematopoietic differentiation, genetically corrected or noncorrected monocytes and macrophages were investigated in GM-CSF-dependent assays. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Although monocytes and macrophages differentiated from noncorrected PAP-iPSCs exhibited distinct defects in GM-CSF-dependent functions, such as perturbed CD11b activation, phagocytic activity, and STAT5 phosphorylation after GM-CSF exposure and lack of GM-CSF uptake, these defects were fully repaired on lentiviral gene transfer of a codon-optimized CSF2RA-cDNA. CONCLUSIONS These data establish PAP-iPSC-derived monocytes and macrophages as a valid in vitro disease model of CSF2RA-deficient PAP, and introduce gene-corrected iPSC-derived monocytes and macrophages as a potential autologous cell source for innovative therapeutic strategies. Transplantation of such cells to patients with hPAP could serve as a paradigmatic proof for the potential of iPSC-derived cells in clinical gene therapy.
Classifying the multiplicity of the EEG source models using sphere-shaped support vector Machines

Support vector machines (SVMs) are learning algorithms derived from statistical learning theory, and originally designed to solve binary classification problems. How to effectively extend SVMs for multiclass classification problems is still an ongoing research issue. In this paper, a sphere-shaped SVM for multiclass problems is presented. Compared with the classical plane-shaped SVMs, the number of convex quadratic programming problems and the number of variables in each programming are smaller. Such SVM classifier is applied to the electroencephalogram (EEG) source localization problem, and the multiplicity of source models is determined according to the potentials recorded on the scalp. Experimental results indicate that the sphere-shaped SVM based classifier is an effective and promising approach for this task.
Human Multidrug Resistance Protein 2 Transports the Therapeutic Bile Salt Tauroursodeoxycholate

The multidrug resistance protein 2 (MRP2/ABCC2) mediates the biliary excretion of glucuronide and glutathione conjugates of endogenous and exogenous compounds. We examined the activation of human MRP2-mediated ATP-dependent transport by the choleretic bile salt ursodeoxycholic acid (UDC) and its taurine and glycine amidates in Sf9 cell membranes expressing MRP2 using β-estradiol 17-(β-d-glucuronide) (E217G) and β-estradiol 3-(β-d-glucuronide) (E23G) as substrates. MRP2 transported E23G via classic Michaelis-Menten kinetics (Km = 122 μM; Vmax = 3.0 nmol/mg/min), whereas E217G transport showed positive cooperativity (Hill slope, 2.15; Km = 75 μM; Vmax = 3.8 nmol/mg/min). UDC, tauroursodeoxycholate, and glycoursodeoxycholate (80–100 μM) maximally stimulated E23G transport 9-, 7.9-, and 3.6-fold, respectively, whereas higher concentrations (1–2 mM) inhibited transport. At low (0.3 μM) concentrations, tauroursodeoxycholate was transported only in the presence of E217G or E23G, but not other MRP2 substrates such as methotrexate, leukotriene C4, or S-methylglutathione. Kinetic analysis of higher concentrations of tauroursodeoxycholate transport by MRP2 showed positive cooperativity (Hill slope, 1.84; Km = 127 μM; Vmax = 779 pmol/mg/min). Taurocholate (2–100 μM) was not detectably transported by MRP2 either alone or in the presence of E217G but was transported in the presence of E23G. Thus, UDC, tauroursodeoxycholate, and glycoursodeoxycholate activated MRP2 transport. Tauroursodeoxycholate was transported by MRP2 and demonstrated positive cooperativity, identifying it as the second MRP2 substrate able to stimulate its own transport. The data suggest MRP2 binding sites that can require specific complementarities between substrates and modulators of MRP2-mediated transport.
Denoising Clinical Notes for Medical Literature Retrieval with Convolutional Neural Model

The rapid increase of medical literature poses a significant challenge for physicians, who have repeatedly reported to struggle to keep up to date with developments in research. This gap is one of the main challenges in integrating recent advances in clinical research with day-to-day practice. Thus, the need for clinical decision support (CDS) search systems that can retrieve highly relevant medical literature given a clinical note describing a patient has emerged. However, clinical notes are inherently noisy, thus not being fit to be used as queries as-is. In this work, we present a convolutional neural model aimed at improving clinical notes representation, making them suitable for document retrieval. The system is designed to predict, for each clinical note term, its importance in relevant documents. The approach was evaluated on the 2016 TREC CDS dataset, where it achieved a 37% improvement in infNDCG over state-of-the-art query reduction methods and a 27% improvement over the best known method for the task.
Selecting Suppliers According to Both Quality and Price

For the same kind of product, the quality characteristics of those from different suppliers often have different distributions, which result different quality loss according to Tagauchi's quality loss theory. This paper firstly establishes three selecting models (double-side specification limits, lower specification limit and upper specification limit) for the situations of single quality characteristics. Furthermore the paper gives several selecting models for product with N quality characteristics.
Multiple SVM classification syatem based on Choquet integral with respect to composed measure of L-measure and Delta-measure

In order to overcome the situation that interactions exist between all classifiers from multiple classification system. In this study, we fuse the multiple SVM classifiers by fuzzy fusion algorithm with respect to a novel composed measure of L-measure and Delta (δ)-measure. We expect to gain a more accurate classification than single SVM and other combination method, like majority vote. From the experiment results, the fusion method based on the fuzzy fusion algorithm with respect to composed measure obtains advancement in terms of the performance of classification.
Fiduciary Duty and Sin Stocks: Is Vice Really Nice?

Several recent studies led by Hong & Kacperzcyk (2009, Journal of Financial Economics) document that companies in industries perceived as sinful - so called sin stocks (i.e. alcohol, tobacco, gambling) - deliver a significant and positive abnormal stock market performance. This potentially attractive characteristics make these sin stocks a relevant investment opportunity for pension funds. In fact, following a rather conservative interpretation of pension funds' fiduciary duty, one might argue that pension funds have to investment overproportionally in sin stocks due to their seemingly superior returns to act in the best financial interest of their beneficiaries. This best financial interest, however, is unlikely the best interest of the beneficiary from a wider wellbeing perspective as, for instance, investments in tobacco companies are unlikely supportive of public health and hence beneficiaries' life expectancy. Before one dives into this legal paradoxon it is worth considering the practicalities of investing in these so called sin stocks, as the academic studies documenting their preferential characteristics used nearly exclusively hypothetical portfolios and not actual investment funds. In fact, only one sin stock based investment fund exists to the best our of knowledge, the Vice Fund. In this chapter, we pursue the first in depth analysis of the financial attractiveness of the Vice Fund, which penalizes instead of rewards responsible corporations. Despite the financial potential of the Vice Fund’s underlying sin stocks has recently been indicated, we find the Vice Fund’s abnormal return to be statistically indistinguishable from zero. Interestingly, the Vice Fund managers possess significantly value destructing directional trading and crisis management skills. Consequently, we cannot see any practical reason why pension funds would have to invest overproportionally in sin stocks, as their actually realised investment performance is no better than ordinary. Our finding is not necessarily inconsistent with Hong and Kacperczyk (2009), as they regressed equal weighted sin stocks against a value weighted market benchmark and economy wide investment style controls, which means that their significant positive alphas could have resulted from a clever portfolio weighting instead of any sin characteristics (i.e. the overproportionally weighted small sin stocks could have outperformed the underproportionally weighted large sin stocks).
Negotiating Skills for Managers

Virtually everything in business is negotiated, and the ability to negotiate strong agreements and understandings is among today's most valuable talents. "Negotiating Skills for Managers" explains how to establish a solid pre-negotiation foundation, subtly guide the negotiation, and consistently set and achieve satisfactory targets. From transferring one's existing strengths to the negotiating table to avoiding common negotiating errors, it reveals battle-proven steps for reaching personal and organizational objectives in every negotiation.
Surveying Customer Perceptions of Road Infrastructure Comfort

This paper continues an exploration of the relationship between strategic performance setting and operational measures in infrastructure management. The overarching study considers the use of road smoothness within the New Zealand context and its relationship to the strategic objective of improving customer comfort. The paper highlights the complexity of comfort when viewed from the customer’s perspective, and the importance of customer engagement in informing technical decisions. In addition, the study has wider infrastructure management implications and highlights a broader issue with the alignment of strategic intent and the tactical reality of day-to-day infrastructure operations.
Wireless device authentication through transmitter imperfections — measurement and classification

This paper is oriented in the area of wireless device identification through the analysis of emitted signals corrupted by radio frequency transmitter impairments. These impairments (such as power amplifier nonlinearity, IQ modulator imbalance, DC offset, phase noise, carrier frequency offset, shaping filter length and its shape) represent a unique characterization of any radio wireless transmitting device. We have performed a set of measurements on a sample of nine different transmitters (three baseboards plus three different front-ends) based on USRP software defined radio family in order to verify the potential of real applications of this authentication principle. After performing measurements in ideal conditions, we further proceeded in simulating a simple classifier based on gaussian mixture models and we briefly evaluated its performance in a real situation of a radio transmitting through air to the vector signal analyzer serving as the receiver. We also analyzed the influence of number of measurements on the classifier performance.
Barclays Life customer satisfaction and loyalty tracking survey: a demonstration of customer loyalty research in practice

Outlines the development by Barclays Life of a tracking survey to collect information concerning customers’ feelings of satisfaction and loyalty. Describes research undertaken by Barclays Life into the determinants of satisfaction amongst customers and the importance of each of these elements in determining loyalty. Initial qualitative research was undertaken to allow the company to develop a frame of reference concerning the elements of service which customers considered important. These initial findings were used in later quantitative studies to establish the relative importance of the different elements, with a view to understanding what was determining customer loyalty. The research culminated in the development of a tracking survey instrument, now used by the company to monitor customer satisfaction and loyalty levels across time and customer groups. Discusses both the findings of the research undertaken, and the importance of such research for firms. Outlines the use to which the information gathered by the surveys is put, together with initiatives which have resulted from the research.