Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty on the Use and Perceived Usefulness of Strategic Management Accounting: Some Empirical Evidence

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) affects the use and the perceived usefulness of strategic management accounting (SMA). The study takes the perspective that SMA can be regarded as a set of strategically oriented management accounting techniques and makes the research hypothesis that as PEU increases the use and perceived usefulness of SMA techniques also increase. To test the hypothesis, the responses of 55 CFOS to a questionnaire survey were analysed. The survey considered a cross-section of large manufacturing companies in Italy. The regression-based analysis mainly shows: (1) a positive relationship between PEU and the use of strategic pricing as SMA technique supporting product pricing decisions; (2) a positive relationship between PEU and the use of balanced scorecard; (3) a positive association between PEU and the perceived usefulness of all the SMA techniques included in the study
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Nest: Spread Them and Cut Time at Risk

In many egg-laying animals, some females spread their clutch among several nests. The fitness effects of this reproductive tactic are obscure. Using mathematical modeling and field observations, we analyze an unexplored benefit of egg spreading in brood parasitic and other breeding systems: reduced time at risk for offspring. If a clutch takes many days to lay until incubation and embryo development starts after the last egg, by spreading her eggs a parasitic female can reduce offspring time in the vulnerable nest at risk of predation or other destruction. The model suggests that she can achieve much of this benefit by spreading her eggs among a few nests, even if her total clutch is large. Field data from goldeneye ducks Bucephala clangula show that egg spreading enables a fecund female to lay a clutch that is much larger than average without increasing offspring time at risk in a nest. This advantage increases with female condition (fecundity) and can markedly raise female reproductive success. These results help explain the puzzle of nesting parasites in some precocial birds, which lay eggs in the nests of other females before laying eggs in their own nest. Risk reduction by egg spreading may also play a role in the evolution of other breeding systems and taxa—for instance, polyandry with male parental care in some birds and fishes.
A geographic perspective on banking in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe

This study presents a novel dataset covering the geographic locations of bank branches in ten Central, Eastern and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries. Based on these data, we describe the spatial provision of banking services and study whether domestically owned and foreign-owned banks show different branching behavior. We find that the provision of banking services varies substantially between and within countries. Regressions show that these differences strongly correlate with the respective countries’ GDP per capita. With regard to the question whether foreign and domestic banks show different branching behavior, we detect marked differences across countries. Thus, there is no “one-size-fits-all” explanation for the market behavior of foreign (and Austrian) banks in CESEE. In general, foreign banks in CESEE tend to branch in regions with higher population density. An exception among foreign banks are Austrian banks, which, on average across regions, also locate in areas with lower population density. When we match bank branch location data with household survey data, we find that the majority of CESEE households have a bank available within 2 km. Nevertheless, a sizeable share of CESEE households live 5 km or farther from the nearest bank branch. We provide indicators of bank branch coverage, density, concentration and ownership at Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 3 (NUTS 3) level for download on the OeNB website.
Visual-Based Image Retrieval by Block Reallocation Considering Object Region

Visual-based image retrieval based on the visual similarity over the entire image is very useful when targeting various kinds of large-volume content. This method generally divides an image into grid-shaped blocks and uses similarities based on a comparison of image features between corresponding block regions in two different images. However, the method sometimes fails in terms of object-conscious retrieval when their backgrounds are almost the same but the only object is different or object's positions and/or sizes are different. In this paper, we propose a new method featuring the reallocation of some blocks into the object region (OB-blocks) and the new similarity score with placing weight on the OB-blocks, which are derived from visual saliency map. Our proposed method could realize the "visual-based and object-conscious" image retrieval. We verified the effectiveness of this method through comparison experiments.
Multicast and Individual Service Provisioning in Mobile TV

While mobile TV in most parts of Europe is still in infancy, Italy as the first country of the European Union started to broadcast a mobile receivable TV program in June 2006. At the end of 2006 the number of subscribers reached 500,000. A classical direct revenue model was used. The acceptance of mobile TV is determined by the relation between the willingness to pay (WTP) for a service and the service fee that is charged from the customers. An advertising-based revenue model can be seen as a way to subsidize the mobile TV service fee. Additional context information (e.g. location, time and identity) and the possibility to address customers individually lead to a higher WTP from an advertiser's perspective. This article describes the conceptual realization of an indirect, advertising based revenue model for mobile TV which includes different strategies for individualization as well as questions about privacy and data protection.
Medical Decisions Made by Surrogates for Persons with Advanced Dementia Within Weeks or Months of Death

Background: Surrogates make all medical decisions for persons with advanced dementia. This study describes the types of medical decisions that surrogates faced prior to the person's death and their perceived difficulty and satisfaction with those decisions. Methods: Seventy-six surrogates of nursing home residents meeting hospice criteria for dementia were followed longitudinally and interviewed following the death of the person with dementia. Results: The most common decisions made were related to transfer to hospital, diagnostic testing, and placement of a feeding tube. Surrogates perceived decisions to not treat to be more difficult than decisions to treat. Conclusions: Surrogates frequently are faced with making medical decisions for persons with advanced dementia near the end of life. Clinicians can help surrogates by acknowledging the difficulty of making decisions to not treat.
Interventions to develop an improvement culture within nonprofit organization: The case of Saudi Arabia

It has been confirmed that organizational culture has a remarkable impact on facilitating continuous improvement. Nonetheless, little empirical research has investigated how organizational culture can facilitate continuous improvement. Therefore, this paper asks what interventions facilitate a continuous improvement culture within nonprofit organizations. Qualitative data are suggested as an appropriate method for answering the research question. The present research adopted an interpretive paradigm whereby reality, treated as a subjective and multiple entity that is “socially constructed”, can be mentally explored from the participants' perspectives. Grounded theory was the chosen approach for collecting and analysing the qualitative data; thus, the constructed theories were ‘grounded’ in the data themselves. Thirty one interviews in fifteen nonprofit organizations yielded data which, when analysed revealed a number of interventions, developed by the participants during five focus group discussions.
Absence of the Functional Myosin Heavy Chain 2b Isoform in Equine Skeletal Muscles

Abstract Nucleotide sequences which included the full coding region for three types of myosin heavy chain (MyHC) isoforms were determined from equine skeletal muscles. The deduced amino acid sequences were 1937, 1938, and 1935 residues for the MyHC-2a, -2x, and -slow, respectively. No MyHC-2b isoform was amplified from the equine muscle cDNA except for one pseudogene fragment. One nucleotide was inserted in the coding region of the equine pseudogene product, a minute amount of which was expressed in the skeletal muscle. The 596 bp sequence of the equine MyHC pseudogene was categorized into the MyHC-2b genes on the phylogenetic tree of the mammalian MyHC genes. These results suggest that an ancestral MyHC-2b gene had lost its function and changed to a pseudogene during the course of horse history. The MyHC genes in some ungulates were analyzed through the PCR amplifications using the MyHC isoform-specific primers to confirm the presence of the MyHC-2b and -2x genes. The exon coding the 3′ untranslated region of the MyHC-2x was successfully amplified from the all ungulates examined; however, that of the MyHC-2b gene was amplified only from horses, pigs and lesser mouse deer. The PCR analyses from rhinoceros, sika deer, moose, giraffes, water buffalo, bovine, Japanese serow and sheep genes implied the absence of the MyHC-2b-specific sequence in their genomes. These results suggest that the MyHC-2b gene independently lost its function in some ungulate species.
Antecedents to Studentsr Satisfaction of Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of Brunei Darussalam

With changing organizational demand for the multi-talent workforce, educational institutions have more to do than just impart knowledge. In parallel, policymakers are joining hands to address educational disparity with global initiative such as Education 2030 and United Nation Strategic Development Goals. Despite that, current research on factors predicting students learning satisfaction remains an area of limited research in Asia, particularly in Brunei Darussalam. To address this knowledge gap, the study explored factors that shape learning satisfaction of future workforce. The study analyzed data from 1048 student self-reports from 6 universities with a diverse student profile. As per current findings, students reported the level of learning satisfaction in the sequence (highest to lowest) from peer relationship, library resources, university policies, course curriculum, accommodation, administration services, lecturer teaching to lecturer guidance. Beyond uncovering dynamics of Brunei Darussalam's higher education characteristics, the study‟s findings add to current educational theory, in terms of identifying the complex schematics of factors that influence student learning satisfaction.
Optimization and Standardization of Liquid Chromatography‐Mass Spectrometry Systems for the Analysis of Drug Discovery Compounds

Abstract An approach for improving the speed and effectiveness of orthogonal, low and high pH, LC/MS‐based methods for routine applications is presented. Considering HPLC column performance as an integral part of an LC/MS system, advantages and disadvantages of three modern column technologies are thoroughly discussed as alternatives to conventional silica‐based packing materials. Instrument performance assessment strategies, using a standard mix composed of four drug‐like compounds, are discussed where parameters such as peak capacity and retention are used as key performance indicators. These procedures have been standardized and evaluated across two different sites within Lilly Research Laboratories. The value of alternating orthogonal low and high pH methods, in a high throughput mode, on a single system is demonstrated. The development of software for simulating the LC/MS open access sample queues is also presented.
Firms’ Proactiveness During the Crisis: Evidence from European Data

Abstract This paper contributes to the literature on the entrepreneurial behavior of firms during the economic crisis, by investigating the determinants of proactive behavior on a large sample of European companies during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We explore various dimensions of proactive behavior, including: investments in innovation, expanding product offer, undergoing quality certification, investing in tangible assets and avoiding layoff. Our findings show a surprising heterogeneity of determinants in the case of different proactivity measures, especially when considering the impact of public policies which support entrepreneurship. We also provide some evidence supporting the organizational learning hypothesis with regard to proactiveness, as we show that the previous crisis experience matters in the case of the adoption of proactive or reactive strategy by a firm.
Fast large-scale object retrieval with binary quantization

Abstract. The objective of large-scale object retrieval systems is to search for images that contain the target object in an image database. Where state-of-the-art approaches rely on global image representations to conduct searches, we consider many boxes per image as candidates to search locally in a picture. In this paper, a feature quantization algorithm called binary quantization is proposed. In binary quantization, a scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) feature is quantized into a descriptive and discriminative bit-vector, which allows itself to adapt to the classic inverted file structure for box indexing. The inverted file, which stores the bit-vector and box ID where the SIFT feature is located inside, is compact and can be loaded into the main memory for efficient box indexing. We evaluate our approach on available object retrieval datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is fast and achieves excellent search quality. Therefore, the proposed approach is an improvement over state-of-the-art approaches for object retrieval.
The influence of big data in the practices of strategic intelligence professionals in Brazil

— Strategic use of information is at the core of intelligence activity whose focus has been largely directed to the use of technology for data analysis. However, in practice the human factor still remains decisive for the correct and incorrect interpretation of data. In this article we present the outcome of a study on how the big data phenomenon is perceived and influences the activities of strategic intelligence (SI) professionals in Brazil. We used both the social constructionist research and the content analysis methods to analyzed in-depth interviews with strategic intelligence experts in Brazil. The results indicate that intelligence analysis is not as yet directly benefiting from the big data phenomenon. If on one side big data favours data collection, on the other it hinders the command of the subject. The study also showed that, for some interviewees big data is already integrated into the more elaborate professional practices and in the development of specific projects. However, for others, big date is not yet a reality hence the unperceived need of large volumes of data in analysis.
Neuroimaging services on the net

The present paper reports a research project aimed at developing a cluster of clinical Institutions to share data and expertise in the fields of computational neuroanatomy. In particular, our first results concern a network system to transfer magnetic resonance (MR) images, explore and use Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM)-based reports in four remote clinical settings. The cluster is composed of a central unit for the recording and processing of MR images, and peripheral federated units. The former is LENITEM -Lab of Epidemiology, Neuroimaging and TEleMedicine- Brescia, Italy; the latter are clinical units usually treating patients with neurodegenerative diseases. The cluster is meant to be grounded on a network infrastructure, providing services to the units: the first service to be designed and realised is VBM. The peripheral (client) units transfer MR images to the central one; here they are processed and analysed; a VBM-based report is made available, within a few hours, to the client unit. Neuroimaging techniques give rise to network services provided on demand.
A Market Volatility Analysis of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Program

The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect Program is a major development in China's overall financial reform effort, making its capital markets more accessible to global investment communities. The program utilizes the well-established Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) as a means to make Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) more accessible to foreign investors via the link to HKEX and in the process gives SSE more international exposure, though potentially at the expense of HKEX. We examine the impact of the Connect Program on the overall market volatility before and after two main dates: announcement date and launch date. The results show a positive market anticipation effect for both exchanges after the announcement, with their respective market risks declining significantly even before its official launch. However, the results also detect a negative effect in that both exchanges endured a significant surge in their respective volatility after program launch. Overall, the volatility risk of HKEX after launch was significantly below its pre-announcement level while SSE exhibited a completely opposite result.
An Eqilibrium Model of the International Price System∗

The currency in which international prices are set is a factor of fundamental importance in international economics: it determines the bene ts of oating versus pegged exchange rates and the spillover e ects of national monetary policy on other economies. However, the standard assumption in existing models — that all prices are set in a currency of either the producer or the consumer — is inconsistent with two basic facts: the dominant status of the dollar in global trade and the radical transformation of the price system over history. In this paper, I develop a general equilibrium multicountry framework with endogenous currency choice that is consistent with these stylized facts and show that despite small costs for exporters, the aggregate e ects of currency choice are large. First, I identify a novel source of positive U.S. monetary spillovers on foreign output that can outweigh the standard “beggar-thy-neighbor” e ect. Second, I show that an optimal monetary policy implies a partial peg to the dollar, which is consistent with the “fear of oating” and the widespread use of the dollar as an anchor currency seen in the data. ∗I am extremely grateful to Oleg Itskhoki, Mark Aguiar and Nobu Kiyotaki for continual guidance and support. I am also indebted to Martin Beraja, Markus Brunnermeier, Javier Cravino, Konstantin Egorov, Charles Engel, Gita Gopinath, Gregor Jarosch, Stephen Morris, David Nagy, Ezra Ober eld, Mikkel Plagborg-Møller, Richard Rogerson, Matt Rognlie, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, Chris Sims and Aleh Tsyvinski as well as seminar participants at Princeton for helpful comments and suggestions, Julia Soloveva for the outstanding research assistance and the International Economics Section at Princeton University for nancial support.
Diet change and food loss reduction: What is their combined impact on global water use and scarcity?

There is a pressing need to improve food security and reduce environmental impacts of agricultural production globally. Two of the proposed measures are diet change from animal‐based to plant‐based foodstuffs and reduction of food losses and waste. These two measures are linked, as diet change affects production and consumption of foodstuffs and consequently loss processes through their different water footprints and loss percentages. This paper takes this link into account for the first time and provides an assessment of the combined potential contribution of diet change and food loss reduction for reducing water footprints and water scarcity. We apply scenarios in which we change diets to follow basic dietary recommendations, limit animal‐based protein intake to 25% of total protein intake, and halve food losses to study single and combined effects of diet change and loss reduction. Dietary recommendations alone would achieve 6% and 7% reductions of blue and green water consumption, respectively, while changing diets to contain less animal products would result in savings of 11% and 18%, respectively. Halving food loss would alone achieve 12% reductions for both blue and green water. Combining the measures would reduce water consumption by 23% and 28%, respectively, lowering water scarcity in areas with a population of over 600 million. At a global scale, effects of diet change and loss reduction were synergistic with loss reductions being more effective under changed diet. This demonstrates the importance of considering the link between diet change and loss reduction in assessments of food security and resource use.
Early Thermalization and Hydrodynamic Expansion in Nuclear Collisions at RHIC

In der uns umgebenden Welt sind farbgeladene Teilchen, die Quarks und Gluonen, in farbneutrale Verbande, den Hadronen, zusammengeschlossen. Quantenchromodynamik, die Theorie der starken Wechselwirkung, gibt Hinweise, dass bei hohen Temperaturen dieser Farbeinschluss aufgehoben wird, so dass die mikroskopischen Freiheitsgrade durch die Quarks und Gluonen gegeben sind. Mit Hilfe von Schwerionenkollisionen bei ultrarelativistischen Energien versucht man experimentell solche Bedingungen zu realisieren und zu studieren. Insbesondere hofft man einen Zustand lokalen thermodynamischen Gleichgewichts zu erzeugen, um die thermodynamischen Eigenschaften eines solchen `Quark-Gluonen-Plasmas´ studieren zu konnen. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Expansionsphase des erzeugten Feuerballs im Rahmen eines hydrodynamischen Modells. Von besonderem Interesse sind dabei Phanomene, welche durch die anisotrope Geometrie in nicht-zentralen Kollisionen hervorgerufen wird. Es wird gezeigt, dass die dadurch entstehenden Anisotropien im Impulsraum (elliptischer Fluss) fruh aufgebaut werden, und somit Information aus der heisesten Phase mit sich tragen. Der Vergleich mit experimentellen Daten des relativistischen Schwerionenenbeschleunigers, RHIC aus dem Jahr 2000 (Gold-Gold Kollisionen mit Schwerpunktsenergie von 130 GeV pro Nukleon), geben starke Hinweise darauf, dass sich im Reaktionsbereich sehr rasch lokales thermodynamisches Gleichgewicht einstellt, mit Freiheitsgraden, welche durch die Quarks und Gluonen vorgegeben sind. Wahrend die Entwicklung der Dynamik in diesem Bild verstanden ist, haben neue experimentelle Resultate Fragen zur Geometrie der Ausfrierflache der gemessenen Hadronen aufgeworfen. Mogliche Ursachen fur diese Diskrepanz werden zum Schluss der Arbeit diskutiert. Auch hier kann die deformierte Geometrie nichtzentraler Stose weitere Auskunft zur Dynamik des Ausfrierprozesses geben.