Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using social exchange theory to predict the effects of hrm practice on employee outcomes

This article empirically tests the effects of exchange relationships between managers and public sector employees working in seven local government departments. Social exchange theory is used as a framework for predicting three outcomes of Human Resource Management (HRM) practice: employee commitment, employee motivation and desire to remain with the organization. The statistical models were found to predict 58 percent of the variation in employee commitment, 53 percent variation in motivation and 41 percent of the variance in respondents' desire to remain with the organization. Consistent with social exchange theory, the results highlight the importance of trust in management, which was found to predict positively all three outcomes. Team-working was found to predict employee commitment and motivation, with employee involvement, empowerment, the offer of fair rewards and job security having significant effects on worker motivation. The implications of these findings for management practice and theory are discussed.
Legal Insider Trading and Market Efficiency

Does legal insider trading contribute to market efficiency? Using refinements proposed in the recent microstructure literature, we analyzed the information content of legal insider trading. We used data on 2110 companies subject to 59,244 aggregated daily insider trades between January 1995 and the end of September 1999. Our main finding is that, even though financial markets do not respond strongly in terms of abnormal returns to insider trading activities, the significant change in price sensitivity to relative order imbalance due to abnormal insider trades reveals that price discovery is hastened on insider trading days.
The minor house dust mite allergen Der p 13 is a fatty acid‐binding protein and an activator of a TLR2‐mediated innate immune response

The house dust mite (HDM) allergen Der p 13 could be a lipid‐binding protein able to activate key innate signaling pathways in the initiation of the allergic response. We investigated the IgE reactivity of recombinant Der p 13 (rDer p 13), its lipid‐binding activities, and its capacity to stimulate airway epithelium cells.
Investment, GNP, and real exchange rates

The value of the U.S. dollar varied widely over the 19631986 time period. Those same years witnessed several cyclical expansions and contractions and even wider swings in aggregate fixed investment rates. One explanation for some of the investment rate swings is the dramatic movements in exchange rates over this period. In this article, I use newly constructed capital stock and investment series for 270 U.S. manufacturing industries to examine investment responsiveness to changes in real exchange rates for 1963-1986. My research shows that investment rates are sensitive to real exchange rate movements and that appreciation of the U.S. dollar is associated with a decrease in industry investment rates—particularly in durable goods industries. Analysis of industries for which imports-sales data are available further suggests that investment is more responsive in industries with greater exposure to foreign competition. Finally, I document the existence of substantial interindustry variation in the influence of real exchange rates on investment. My results are broadly consistent with international trade models in which changes in real exchange rates drive changes in the relative competitiveness of domestic and foreign industries. Changes in real exchange rates are often thought to reflect changes in the international competitiveness of domestic and foreign industries. For example, the depreciation of the dollar is said to be correlated with improved competitiveness of U.S. firms, because U.S. and foreign consumers find it relatively cheap to buy U.S. goods. In the long run, being competitive in international markets requires investing in capital equipment that will be used to satisfy current and future market demand. This suggests that real exchange rate movements are correlated with changes in international competitiveness now and will continue to be in the future. By analyzing the extent to which investment spending of U.S. manufacturing industries has historically varied with changes in the value of the dollar, I indirectly examine how internationally competitive the U.S. manufacturing sector will be in the future. The article is organized as follows. The next section outlines the expected effects of changes in the value of the dollar on output and input demands of U.S. manufacturing industries. The third section describes the data used in the article, and the fourth reports the results. Conclusions are in the final section.
Time‐Varying World and Regional Integration in Emerging European Equity Markets

This study investigates time‐varying world and regional integration in emerging European markets. Categorising global and regional effects into return and volatility spillovers, we also examine the impact of time variation in these spillover effects based on the conditions of economic growth. Our results show that growth and currency depreciation can predict the degree of integration and spillover effects for these markets. The impact of growth on the level of regional integration is greater in countries with floating exchange rate regimes than in those with exchange controls. The world effect on European returns is stronger when the developed European region is in a recession. However, regional effects on the volatility of emerging European markets are greater during faster growth or weaker than expected economic growth.
On the Impact of Antenna Disturbances by Urban Furniture on Deterministic Propagation Simulations

In this work, we study the impact of antenna radiation patterns disturbed by urban furniture on propagation characteristics. The propagation in urban scenario is modeled with a ray-based deterministic tool. Different base station scenarios are discussed: antenna in proximity of a wall; antenna mounted on a lamp post; and antenna on a bus stop shelter. The statistical influence of the support is evaluated comparing the results in terms of pathloss with the ones obtained when the isolated antenna radiation patterns are considered.
REVASCULARIZATION OF SYMPTOMATIC SUBACUTE CEREBROVASCULAR OCCLUSIONS WITH A SELF‐EXPANDING INTRACRANIAL STENT SYSTEM

OBJECTIVEIn some patients, collateral circulation may preserve the viability of brain parenchyma distal to an intracranial arterial occlusion for hours or days after the presenting event. These patients may be good candidates for revascularization, even when they present outside of the accepted 6-hour time window for stroke intervention. METHODSThree patients were revascularized with the Wingspan stent system (Boston Scientific/Target, Fremont, CA) after presenting with subacute occlusions of intracranial arteries and progressive ischemic symptoms despite maximal medical therapy. All pre- and postprocedural imaging data and clinical records were reviewed. RESULTSThree patients (mean age, 64 years; 2 women, 1 man) presented with symptomatic intracranial occlusions of the internal carotid artery (n = 2) and vertebrobasilar system (n = 1). All 3 patients presented more than 6 hours after symptom onset, and no intravenous or intra-arterial thrombolysis had been instituted. In all cases, despite supportive medical therapy (anticoagulation and antiplatelet therapy and induced hypertension), the patients continued to demonstrate progressive ischemia, both clinically and on diffusion magnetic resonance imaging. All patients were successfully revascularized without periprocedural complications and improved clinically after revascularization. CONCLUSIONIn selected patients, symptomatic subacute occlusions of intracranial arteries may be revascularized using the Wingspan stent system.
Do stable strategic time periods exist? Towards new methodological and theoretical insights

This paper investigates a fundamental issue in the current research on strategic groups: the existence or non-existence of the so-called 'stable strategic time periods' (SSTPs). Our study provides new evidence by adding new methodological and theoretical insights. The research setting is the Spanish banking industry over a 15-year period, 1983-1997. Unlike all prior longitudinal research that found SSTPs, the multi-method procedure that we used in this study (i.e. equality of variance and covariance matrix and mean vector of strategic variables and a subsequent grouping analysis performed through the MCLUST) has led us to reject the existence of SSTPs in the industry under study. Based on these original findings, we conclude by suggesting a proposition which should be corroborated in future empirical studies on strategic groups. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bioenergy from Biofuel Residues and Wastes

This review includes works published in the general scientific literature during 2014 on the production of bioenergy and biofuel from waste residues generated during bioethanol and biodiesel production with a brief overview of current and emerging feedstocks. Anothersection of this review summarizes literature on culturing algae for biofuels including bioreactors and open pond cultivation systems with the utilization of inorganic and organic sources of nutrients. New methods applicable to the mass culture of algae are highlighted. Algal cell harvesting and oil extraction techniques tested and developed for algae are also discussed.
Vertical Product Differentiation and the Import Demand Function: Theory and Evidence

In this paper we use a model of vertical product differentiation to cast doubt on the general validity of the import demand function as specified in macroeconomic models. The empirical importance of our theoretical concerns is then established. According to our first hypothesis, the share of a good's imports in total imports is non-increasing in domestic wages if the country has comparative advantage in high-quality varieties of this good. The second hypothesis states that the share of a good's imports is increasing in non-wage domestic income if the country has comparative advantage in high-quality varieties of this good.
The Determinants of Execution Costs in Short-Term Money Markets

Prior research attributes the observed negative relation between execution costs and trade size in opaque markets to two factors - information asymmetry and broker‐client relationships. We provide evidence that a trader's ex ante transaction price information and the relationship traders have with their brokers are both significant determinants of a trader's execution costs in an opaque market; however, traders who establish strong relationships with their brokers will achieve a greater reduction in execution costs than traders with ex ante transaction price information. We also find evidence that trade size has little explanatory power after controlling for a trader's ex ante transaction price information and broker‐client relationships.
Polyproteins related to the major core protein of mouse mammary tumor virus

The mouse mammary tumor virus (MuMTV) contains several low-molecular-weight proteins which, together with the genomic RNA, constitute the core structure of the virion. The most abundant protein in the core is the 27,000-dalton protein (p27), and, by analogy to the type C viruses, this protein probably forms the core shell. In mouse mammary tumor cell lines (GR and Mm5MT) producing MuMTV the major p57 antigenic specificity resides in a large protein, which migrates in polyacrylamide gels as a doublet of 77,000 and 75,000 daltons (p 77/75). A series of lower-molecular-weight proteins, p61, p48, p38, and p34, is also present in small amounts and is probably derived by proteolytic cleavage of the p 77/75. These proteins have been identified by immunoprecipitation with monospecific antiserum, and their sequence relatedness to p27 has been determined by an analysis of the peptides after trypsin digestion. After a 15-min pulse with [35S]-methionine, all of the p27-related proteins in these cell lines were labelled and, during a subsequent chase, progressively disappeared. The p27 was labeled poorly during the pulse, but the amount of label in this protein increased during the chase. A quantitation of these experiments suggested that the majority of the p27-related proteins were quite rapidly turned over in these cell lines. Hence, if p27 is derived by a progressive proteolytic cleavage mechanism, then the process is inefficient in the GR cells and only moderately efficient in the Mm5MT cells. When MuMTV was isolated from the culture medium of these cells harvested at 5-min intervals, the major p27-related protein was p34. The p27 accounted for only 29% of the anti-p27 serum immunoprecipitable proteins compared to 95% in virus isolated from an 18-h harvest. Incubation of the rapid-harvest virus at 37 degrees C for 2 h resulted in some conversion of p34 to p27. These results suggest that some of the p27 in MuMTV is formed in the virions by proteolytic cleavage of p34.
Validity of self-assessment in a quality improvement collaborative in Ecuador.

OBJECTIVE Health care quality improvement (QI) efforts commonly use self-assessment to measure compliance with quality standards. This study investigates the validity of self-assessment of quality indicators. DESIGN Cross sectional. SETTING A maternal and newborn care improvement collaborative intervention conducted in health facilities in Ecuador in 2005. PARTICIPANTS Four external evaluators were trained in abstracting medical records to calculate six indicators reflecting compliance with treatment standards. INTERVENTIONS About 30 medical records per month were examined at 12 participating health facilities for a total of 1875 records. The same records had already been reviewed by QI teams at these facilities (self-assessment). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Overall compliance, agreement (using the Kappa statistic), sensitivity and specificity were analyzed. We also examined patterns of disagreement and the effect of facility characteristics on levels of agreement. RESULTS External evaluators reported compliance of 69-90%, while self-assessors reported 71-92%, with raw agreement of 71-95% and Kappa statistics ranging from fair to almost perfect agreement. Considering external evaluators as the gold standard, sensitivity of self-assessment ranged from 90 to 99% and specificity from 48 to 86%. Simpler indicators had fewer disagreements. When disagreements occurred between self-assessment and external valuators, the former tended to report more positive findings in five of six indicators, but this tendency was not of a magnitude to change program actions. Team leadership, understanding of the tools and facility size had no overall impact on the level of agreement. CONCLUSIONS When compared with external evaluation (gold standard), self-assessment was found to be sufficiently valid for tracking QI team performance. Sensitivity was generally higher than specificity. Simplifying indicators may improve validity.
Is the Greek budget deficit sustainable after all? Empirical evidence accounting for regime shifts

This article re-examines the sustainability of the Greek budget deficit by using a formal framework based on the government’s intertemporal budget constraint. The empirical analysis uses annual data from 1960 to 2011 and employs traditional as well as more recent unit root and cointegration techniques that account for linear and nonlinear effects in fiscal policy actions. Unlike previous studies, the evidence suggests that, allowing for structural breaks, the Greek budget deficit is unsustainable. The parameter after the second detected break reflects the structural deficiencies of the Greek economy.
Capital Structure and the 2003 Tax Cuts

The main purpose of this study is to determine if the 2003 tax cuts caused firms to change their capital structures. I find considerable evidence that a capital structure shift did occur. The median market debt ratio of the sample firms decreased from . 078 in 2002 to . 046 in 2006. After adjusting for known capital structure determinants like firm size and profitability, the data indicates that beginning shortly after the tax cuts were enacted firms began to shift their capital structures and by the end of 2003 they had, on average, about 4% more equity in their capital structures than expected. This increased to about 6% more equity than predicted in 2004 and remained at about the same level through 2006. The results indicate that no capital structure shift occurred immediately prior to the 2003 tax cuts as firms had, on average, the predicted amount of equity capital in their capital structures in 2002. It was also found that firms that did not pay dividends shifted their capital structures more than dividend payers and that the capital structure changes were facilitated by an increase in internally generated equity funds and by issuing equity and retiring debt.
Transport anomaly at the ordering transition for adatoms on graphene

We analyze a manifestation of the partial ordering transition of adatoms on graphene in resistivity measurements. We find that the Kekule mosaic ordering of adatoms increases the sheet resistance of graphene due to a gap opening in its spectrum and that critical fluctuations of the order parameter lead to a nonmonotonic temperature dependence of resistivity with a cusp-like minimum at T = T-c
Is There a Real Treatment for Stroke ? Clinical and Statistical Comparison of Different Treatments in 300 Patients

Enhancement of the brain substance for CT evaluation using inhaled Xenon is confirmed. This technique was applied to the study of the normal and the embolized adolescent baboon. Healthy cerebral tissue enhances symmetrically, while abnormal areas show significantly diminished enhancement. At maximal enhancement, an indication of gross comparative cerebral perfusion is obtained. By obtaining serial CT scans over a 10 minute time interval, the clearance rate of Xenon (cerebral blood flow) may be evaluated. Xenon-enhanced CT enables a visual and numerical analysis of both brain morphology and physiology.
Long Persistence of Methicillin-susceptible strains of Staphylococcus aureus ( MSSA ) causing sepsis in a neonatal unit Running title : Molecular epidemiology of S . aureus bacteremia in neonates

Molecular epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia in neonates during 2002-2005 revealed seven clones, with four MSSA clones responsible for 80% of the cases. Some clones persisted or reappeared throughout the study. Three bacteremic clones were found colonizing healthcare workers (HCWs), particularly clone C, harbored by at least 15% of HCWs.
Preclinical evaluation of Laromustine for use in combination with radiation therapy in the treatment of solid tumors

Purpose: These studies explored questions related to the potential use of Laromustine in the treatment of solid tumors and in combination with radiotherapy. Materials and methods: The studies used mouse EMT6 cells (both parental and transfected with genes for O6-alkylguanine-DNA transferase [AGT]), repair-deficient human Fanconi Anemia C and Chinese hamster VC8 (BRCA2-/-) cells and corresponding control cells, and EMT6 tumors in mice assayed using cell survival and tumor growth assays. Results: Hypoxia during Laromustine treatment did not protect EMT6 cells or human fibroblasts from this agent. Rapidly proliferating EMT6 cells were more sensitive than quiescent cultures. EMT6 cells expressing mouse or human AGT, which removes O6-alkyl groups from DNA guanine, thereby protecting against G-C crosslink formation, increased resistance to Laromustine. Crosslink-repair-deficient Fanconi Anemia C and VC8 cells were hypersensitive to Laromustine, confirming the importance of crosslinks as lethal lesions. In vitro, Laromustine and radiation produced additive toxicities to EMT6 cells. Studies using tumor cell survival and tumor growth assays showed effects of regimens combining Laromustine and radiation that were compatible with additive or subadditive interactions. Conclusions: The effects of Laromustine on solid tumors and with radiation are complex and are influenced by microenvironmental and proliferative heterogeneity within these malignancies.
Compressive sensing for elliptic localization in MIMO radars

In this paper, a sparsity-aware target localization method in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radars by utilizing time difference of arrival (TDOA) measurements is proposed. This method provides a maximum likelihood (ML) estimator for target position by employing compressive sensing techniques. Also, for fast convergence and mitigating the mismatch problem due to grid discretization, we address a block-based search coupled with an adaptive dictionary learning technique. The Cramer-Rao lower bound for this model is derived as a benchmark. Simulations results are included to verify the localization performance.
Cognitive Factors Affecting Homeowners' Reactions to Defensible Space in the Oregon Coast Range

This study used constructs from the theory of planned behavior and protection motivation theory, along with past experience, to predict wildland-interface homeowners' willingness to implement defensible space and their interest in a consultation program aimed at reducing their risk from wildfire. Self-administered surveys (n = 112) from four small Oregon Coast Range communities revealed neutral attitudes about defensible space as a whole. Regression analysis revealed that interest in the consultation program was a function of the perceived effectiveness of defensible space, past experience with fire, and perception of wildfire risk. Willingness to implement defensible space was predicted by the perceived effectiveness of and attitude toward defensible space. However, these two models left much of the variation in behavioral intention unexplained. Results demonstrate the value of integrating different cognitive constructs to predict behavioral intentions. They also highlight potential avenues for communication campaigns to increase homeowners' involvement in protecting themselves from wildfire.
An improved experimental system for determining small folding entropy changes resulting from proline to alanine substitutions

Changes in protein stability can be achieved by making substitutions that increase or decrease the available conformations of the unfolded protein without altering the conformational freedom of the folded protein. Matthews and coworkers ( 1987 ) proposed that proline to alanine (P → A) substitution would achieve this type of entropic destabilization. By comparing the Ramachandran area associated with alanine and proline residues, Matthews et al. estimated the unfolding entropy change resulting from P → A substitution to be 4.8 cal mol−1 K−1. Although such an entropy difference would produce a substantial free energy change, accurately resolving such free energy changes into entropic and enthalpic components has been difficult. Here, we attempt to quantify the unfolding entropy change produced by P → A substitution by amplifying the effect through multiple substitutions, and by decreasing the uncertainty in determining the unfolding entropy. Variants of a repeat protein, the Drosophila Notch ankyrin domain, were constructed with a varying number of P → A substitutions at structurally conserved positions. Unfolding entropy values of the variants were determined from free energy measurements taken over a common temperature range using chemical denaturation. Our findings confirm the prediction that increasing the number of proline residues present in similar local environments increases the unfolding entropy. The average value of this increase in unfolding entropy is 7.7 ± 4.2 cal mol−1 K−1, which is within error of the value estimated by Matthews et al. ( 1987 ).