Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Perceived Brand Globalness and Perceived Brand Localness in China: Empirical Evidence on Western, Asian, and Domestic Retailers

Internationalizing retailers have shifted their attention to developing countries in which they pursue different forms of adapted-format transfer strategies to succeed locally. However, little is known about whether such retailers can use their core advantage of a global retail brand and how consumer perceptions of such global retail brands drive retail patronage. To expand knowledge on this issue, the authors use data from 1188 Chinese consumer surveys on 36 Western, Asian, and mainland Chinese retailers. They find that retailers’ perceived brand globalness and perceived brand localness enhance retail patronage only by affecting consumers’ functional and psychological values. These value creation routes to success change according to retailers’ origins. Although Western and Asian retailers draw equally strong benefits from their global perceptions, Asian retailers convince consumers predominantly through functional values, whereas Western retailers also influence consumers emotionally. Chinese retailers gain consumers by being perceived as “glocal” brands. Furthermore, perceived brand globalness enhances retail patronage most strongly for global identity consumers. Thus, retailers in emerging countries benefit from perceived brand globalness depending on retailer- and consumer-specific boundary conditions.
THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE ON THE UTILITY OF AN ENTREPRENEURIAL TOP MANAGEMENT STYLE

This study examined the influence of organization structure on the relationship between top management's entrepreneurial orientation and financial performance. Moderated regression analysis was used to analyse data collected from 80 business organizations. the findings suggest that an entrepreneurial top management style has a positive effect on the performance of organically‐structured firms and a negative effect on the performance of mechanistically‐structured firms.
Gentamicin blocks ACh‐evoked K+ current in guinea‐pig outer hair cells by impairing Ca2+ entry at the cholinergic receptor

1 Aminoglycoside antibiotics such as gentamicin are known to block the medial olivocochlear efferent system. In order to determine whether this inhibition takes place at the postsynaptic cholinergic receptors in outer hair cells (OHCs), we studied the effects of these polycationic molecules on cholinergic currents evoked in isolated guinea‐pig OHCs. 2 The cholinergic response of OHCs involves nicotinic‐like receptors (nAChRs) permeable to Ca2+ ions that activate nearby Ca2+‐sensitive K+ channels (KCa(ACh) channels). The extracellular application of gentamicin and neomycin reversibly blocked ACh‐evoked K+ current (IK(ACh)) with IC50 values of 5.5 and 3.2 μm, respectively. The results showed that the blocking mechanism of IK(ACh) was due to inhibition of Ca2+ influx via nAChRs. 3 Our study also provides interesting insights into the functional coupling between nAChRs and KCa(ACh) channels in OHCs. By directly recording the cation current flowing through nAChRs (In(ACh)) using an intracellular solution containing 10 mm BAPTA, we measured an EC50 near 110 μm for ACh‐evoked In(ACh). This EC50 for ACh is one order of magnitude higher than that measured indirectly on IK(ACh). This reveals a rather low affinity of ACh for its receptor but a very efficient coupling between nAChRs and KCa(ACh) channels. 4 We also show that a high external Ca2+ concentration reverts the gentamicin inhibition of IK(ACh) and that gentamicin directly alters the cation current flowing through the nAChRs of OHCs. We propose that gentamicin acts as a non‐competitive cholinergic blocker by displacing Ca2+ from specific binding sites at the nAChRs. This block of the nAChRs at the level of the postsynaptic membrane in OHCs could explain the inhibitory effect of gentamicin reported on the crossed medial olivocochlear efferent system in vivo.
PROFITABILITY ADJUSTMENT PATTERNS IN INTERNATIONAL FOOD AND CONSUMER PRODUCTS INDUSTRIES

The study encompasses an analysis of the variation in speeds of profitability adjustment and accounting bias by developed country and firm size for two important agribusiness industries. Evidence of speeds of profitability adjustment and accounting bias varying by firm size was found in the beverage and tobacco industry and by country in the food and consumer products industry. This suggests that the competitive pressures of integrated international markets are less of a factor in the food and consumer products industry lEconLit citations: L100, L150, L660r. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 31-43, 2004.
Effect of joint auditor pair on Conservatism: Evidence from impairment tests

Using a sample of firms from France, where the law requires use of two auditors, we examine the effect of auditor pair composition on overall measures of unconditional and conditional conservatism, as well as on a specific measure of conditional conservatism, i.e., impairment loss. We use game theory to demonstrate that pairs of Big 4 auditors facing similar incentives are likely to have lower auditor independence, leading to lower conservatism. Conversely, pairs of a Big 4 and a Small auditor increase Big 4 auditors' incentives to be conservative. We document that Big 4-Small auditor pairs are more unconditionally and conditionally conservative using market-to-book ratio and Basu's (1997) measure of conservatism, are more likely to book impairments when operating performance is low, and make more transparent impairment-related disclosures. Our results inform regulators who are considering requiring joint audit to improve audit quality.
Atrial development in the human heart: An immunohistochemical study with emphasis on the role of mesenchymal tissues

The development of the atrial chambers in the human heart was investigated immunohistochemically using a set of previously described antibodies. This set included the monoclonal antibody 249‐9G9, which enabled us to discriminate the endocardial cushion‐derived mesenchymal tissues from those derived from extracardiac splanchnic mesoderm, and a monoclonal antibody recognizing the B isoform of creatine kinase, which allowed us to distinguish the right atrial myocardium from the left. The expression patterns obtained with these antibodies, combined with additional histological information derived from the serial sections, permitted us to describe in detail the morphogenetic events involved in the development of the primary atrial septum (septum primum) and the pulmonary vein in human embryos from Carnegie stage 14 onward. The level of expression of creatine kinase B (CK‐B) was found to be consistently higher in the left atrial myocardium than in the right, with a sharp boundary between high and low expression located between the primary septum and the left venous valve indicating that the primary septum is part of the left atrial gene‐expression domain. This expression pattern of CK‐B is reminiscent of that of the homeobox gene Pitx2, which has recently been shown to be important for atrial septation in the mouse. This study also demonstrates a poorly appreciated role of the dorsal mesocardium in cardiac development. From the earliest stage investigated onward, the mesenchyme of the dorsal mesocardium protrudes into the dorsal wall of the primary atrial segment. This dorsal mesenchymal protrusion is continuous with a mesenchymal cap on the leading edge of the primary atrial septum. Neither the mesenchymal tissues of the dorsal protrusion nor the mesenchymal cap on the edge of the primary septum expressed the endocardial tissue antigen recognized by 249–9G9 at any of the stages investigated. The developing pulmonary vein uses the dorsal mesocardium as a conduit to reach the primary atrial segment. Initially, the pulmonary pit, which will becomes the portal of entry for the pulmonary vein, is located along the midline, flanked by two myocardial ridges. As development progresses, tissue remodeling results in the incorporation of the portal of entry of the pulmonary vein in left atrial myocardium, which is recognized because of its high level of creatine. Closure of the primary atrial foramen by the primary atrial septum occurs as a consequence of the fusion of these mesenchymal structures. Anat Rec 259:288–300, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Impaired Expression of Uncoupling Protein 2 Causes Defective Postischemic Angiogenesis in Mice Deficient in AMP-Activated Protein Kinase &agr; Subunits

Objective—The aim of the present study was to determine whether mitochondrial uncoupling protein (UCP) 2 is required for AMPK-dependent angiogenesis in ischemia in vivo. Methods and Results—Angiogenesis was assayed by monitoring endothelial tube formation (a surrogate for angiogenesis) in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (ECs), isolated mouse aortic endothelial cells (MAECs), and pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells or in ischemic thigh adductor muscles from wild-type (WT) mice or mice deficient in either AMPK&agr;1 or AMPK&agr;2. AMPK inhibition with pharmacological inhibitor (compound C) or genetic means (transfection of AMPK&agr;-specific small interfering RNA) significantly lowered the tube formation in human umbilical vein ECs. Consistently, compared with WT mice, tube formation in MAECs isolated from either AMPK&agr;1−/− or AMPK&agr;2−/− mice, which exhibited oxidative stress and reduced expression of UCP2, was significantly impaired. In addition, adenoviral overexpression of UCP2, but not adenoviruses encoding green fluorescent protein, normalized tube formation in MAECs from either AMPK&agr;1−/− or AMPK&agr;2−/− mice. Similarly, supplementation with sodium nitroprusside, a nitric oxide (NO) donor, restored tube formation. Furthermore, ischemia significantly increased angiogenesis, serine 1177 phosphorylation of endothelial NO synthase, and UCP2 in ischemic thigh adductor muscles from WT mice but not in those from either AMPK&agr;1−/− or AMPK&agr;2−/− mice. Conclusion—We conclude that AMPK-dependent UCP2 expression in ECs promotes angiogenesis in vivo.
Data mining of resilience indicators

In recent years, the Asia-Pacific region has experienced several financial setbacks, including speculative attacks in 1998 and the SARS outbreak in 2003. Financial stresses of this nature are unanticipated, and not all of the dangers can be predicted by the examination of market information and macroeconomic indicators. The Early Warning System (EWS) that has been adopted by the International Monetary Fund may not be able to predict future financial crises for all possible scenarios, because shocks come in many different forms. To supplement the EWS, this paper proposes a data mining framework to measure the resilience of an economy. The resilience framework does not predict a crisis, but rather assesses the current state of health of an economy and its ability to withstand a financial shock should one occur. The framework is based on a feedback system consisting of two stages. The first stage assigns a resilience score to each economy based on a fuzzy logic scoring scheme that is built on the ambiguous reasoning of experts. The second stage uses the classification tree approach to estimate thresholds for each economic indicator, and examines the quality of the fuzzy score. The result from the second stage is then passed back to the first stage as feedback. The final result is obtained when the feedback system reaches its equilibrium state. The proposed resilience framework is applied to the external-sector and the public-sector economies of several countries to illustrate its applicability.
The Low Pay Commission and the National Minimum Wage

Great Britain has had statutory regulation of minimum pay for most of this century but never previously had a national minimum wage (NMW). This paper outlines the history of minimum wage regulation culminating in 1997 with the establishment of the Low Pay Commission (LPC). The three key debates within the LPC are analyzed, namely the definition of the wage, what to do about youngsters, and the level to set the NMW. The impact of the NMW on the pay distribution, employment, family incomes, and exchequer finances is set out. The paper concludes that the LPC is a fine example of successful social partnership.
Suppression of Fgf2 by ETS2 repressor factor (ERF) is required for chorionic trophoblast differentiation

ETS2 repressor factor (ERF) is a ubiquitous transcriptional repressor regulated by Extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) phosphorylation. Homozygous deletion of Erf in mice blocks chorionic trophoblast differentiation, resulting in the failure of chorioallantoic fusion and subsequent embryo death. Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling is important for proper trophoblast stem cell (TSC) differentiation and development of the hemochorial placenta. Lack of Fgf2 promotes TSC differentiation, while FGF4 or FGF2 is required for murine TSC maintenance. Here, we show that low in vivo Fgf2 mRNA abundance occurs in patches of placental chorion cells and ex vivo in TSCs. This expression is repressed via direct interaction of ERF with the Fgf2 transcription unit is increased in the absence of ERF, and is decreased in the presence of an ERF mutant resistant to ERK phosphorylation. Thus, FGF2 inhibition by ERF appears to be necessary for proper chorionic TSC differentiation, and may account for the block of chorionic trophoblast differentiation in Erf‐knockout animals. The differentiation of ERF‐overexpressing TSC lines also suggests that ERF may have an FGF2‐independent effect during the commitment towards syncytiotrophoblasts.
Modeling and simulation study of the survivability performance of ATM-based restoration strategies for the next generation high-speed networks

The insatiable need for high bandwidth and low latency is spurring research into the next generation of high-speed networks (NGHSN). The design of these NGHSN will be typically motivated by the use of advanced networking technologies. The recent technological advancements in the field of WDM, render WDM-based networks a promising architectural candidate for the future NGHSN. Since ATM have the capacity for providing QoS guarantees, we propose a candidate architecture that combines the two technologies, i.e., ATM and WDM for the NGHSN. Furthermore, we observe that service survivability (i.e., continued service provision in the event of network facility failures) is a very important concern since service disruption at high-speeds can cause a considerable amount of loss. Hence, in this paper, we propose and analyze the performance of a restoration strategy that can tap the advantages of the two technologies to provide network robustness/service survivability.
The Nuclear Localization of γ-Tubulin Is Regulated by SadB-mediated Phosphorylation*

Background: γ-Tubulin moderates gene expression by accumulating in the nucleus during early cell division. Results: SadB-mediated phosphorylation of Ser385-γ-tubulin exposes the nuclear localization signal of γ-tubulin. Conclusion: SadB kinases regulate the cellular location of γ-tubulin and in this way control cell growth. Significance: All knowledge on tubulins can aid the design of more efficient chemotherapeutic agents. γ-Tubulin is an important cell division regulator that arranges microtubule assembly and mitotic spindle formation. Cytosolic γ-tubulin nucleates α- and β-tubulin in a growing microtubule by forming the ring-shaped protein complex γTuRC. Nuclear γ-tubulin also regulates S-phase progression by moderating the activities of E2 promoter-binding factors. The mechanism that regulates localization of γ-tubulin is currently unknown. Here, we demonstrate that the human Ser/Thr kinase SadB short localizes to chromatin and centrosomes. We found that SadB-mediated phosphorylation of γ-tubulin on Ser385 formed chromatin-associated γ-tubulin complexes that moderate gene expression. In this way, the C-terminal region of γ-tubulin regulates S-phase progression. In addition, chromatin levels of γ-tubulin were decreased by the reduction of SadB levels or expression of a non-phosphorylatable Ala385-γ-tubulin but were enhanced by expression of SadB, wild-type γ-tubulin, or a phosphomimetic Asp385-γ-tubulin mutant. Our results demonstrate that SadB kinases regulate the cellular localization of γ-tubulin and thereby control S-phase progression.
SHORT‐TERM ABNORMAL RETURNS OF THE CONTRARIAN STRATEGY IN THE JAPANESE STOCK MARKET

Based on the belief that 'what goes up must come down' and that investors overreact to information, contrarian strategies recommend buying past losers and selling past winners to earn significant abnormal returns. Depending upon the length of the time period used in identifying losers and winners and the subsequent investment holding period, either long-term and short-term contrarian profits may be considered. This distinction between two types of profits is important because the role of overreaction in explaining longand short-run profits is dissimilar. DeBondt and Thaler (1985 and 1987) report that extreme losers over a longterm period (three to five years) outperform extreme winners over a subsequent holding period ofthe same length of time. The DeBondt and Thaler results have been challenged by recent papers. Zarowin (1990), for example, demonstrates that both the small firm effect and the January effect explain the abnormal returns reported by DeBondt and Thaler. Chan (1988) and Ball and Kothari (1989) show that the estimation of long-run abnormal returns is sensitive to the model and estimation methods used due to the time-varying risk of arbitrage strategies. Jegadeesh (1990) and Lehmann (1990) document empirical evidence on the success of contrarian strategies over short-term holding periods (one week or one month). Using weekly observations, Howe (1986) finds that based on large price appreciation (depreciation) over a one-week period, the winner (loser) portfolio exhibits abnormal negative (positive) returns up to one year subsequent to portfolio formation. Zarowin (1989) reports that short-term abnormal returns over a one-month period are not subsumed by size and the January phenomena.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NAV OF EQUITY FUNDS AND MACROECONOMIC VARIABLES IN PAKISTAN

In this paper an attempt has been made to empirical ly analyze the impact of macroeconomic variable suc h as CPI, M2, KIBOR and KSE 100 (Karachi Stock Exchange) index on NAV (Net Assets Value) of equity based mutual funds. Co-integration and causality analyses have been applied to determine long and short run relationships. According to the findings, NAVs of m ajority of equity based mutual funds have long and short run relationship with macroeconomic variables and not w ith the KSE 100 index. NAVs of all mutual funds ana lyzed jointly with macroeconomic variables and KSE 100 in dex have long run relationship except one mutual fu nd. In case of bivariate causal relation relationship, the macroeconomic variables have causal relationship w ith NAVs of mutual funds and NAVs of few mutual funds have c ausal relationship with KSE 100 index.Jointly short run relationship do not exist for all mutual fund NAVs except three mutual funds.
The impact of the autonomy and interdependence of individual researchers on their production of knowledge and its impact: An empirical study of a nanotechnology institute

This article discusses how to organise and manage research to get the best performance out of researchers in terms of use of their produced knowledge. To this end we extended the strategic positioning theory developed to predict the level of the production of knowledge. The strategic positioning theory considers researchers as agents who reach their goals by collaboration, i.e. by sharing their resources. In this way researchers acknowledge being strategically interdependent with other researchers, while at the same time retaining some autonomy in taking decisions. As it turns out in a test on researchers of an institute for nanotechnology, the higher the interdependence and the better this is aligned with autonomy the higher the impact and citations of their produced knowledge. The theory explains largely the variance of the impact and citations of produced knowledge. It is concluded that researchers need to share resources to be highly performing: research management is advised to stimulate this sharing in combination with a commensurate degree of governance in directing research. Given specific domains and organisational conditions, the theory can serve as a tool in setting research programmes as it gives insight on which settings could and should be created by research managers or policy-makers. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.
An Optimized Encoding Scheme for Planning Vessel‐Encoded Pseudocontinuous Arterial Spin Labeling

Vessel‐encoded pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling allows the acquisition of vessel‐selective angiograms and vascular territory perfusion maps. The technique generates a periodic variation in inversion efficiency across space that can be manipulated to encode specific combinations of vessels. Currently, the choice of these encodings is limited to scenarios with few vessels and may not optimize the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). Here we present an automated, rapid method for calculating a minimal number of SNR optimal encodings for any number and arrangement of vessels.
The Economic Forces Driving Food Safety Quality in Meat and Poultry

This article examines the impact of regulation and market-driven private actions on food safety performance in the meat and poultry industries. We find that private actions account for about 80% and regulation about 20% of the overall reduction in the share of samples of cattle and hog carcasses, ground beef, and broilers testing positive for Salmonella if all regulation and private actions were increased by identical amounts. Copyright 2008, Oxford University Press.
A Generic Framework for Social Event Analysis

Social event is something that occurs at specific place and time associated with some specific actions, and it consists of many stories over time. With the explosion of Web 2.0 platforms, a popular social event that is happening around us and around the world can spread very fast. As a result, social event analysis becomes more and more important for users to understand the whole evolutionary trend of social event over time. However, it is very challenging to do social event analysis because social event data from different social media sites have multi-modal, multi-domain, and large-scale properties. The goal of our research is to design advanced multimedia techniques to deal with the above issues and establish an effective and robust social event analysis framework for social event representation, detection, tracking and evolution analysis. (1) For social event representation, we propose a novel cross-domain collaborative learning algorithm based on non-parametric Bayesian dictionary learning model. It can make use of the shared domain priors and modality priors to collaboratively learn the data's representations by considering the domain discrepancy and the multi-modal property. (2) For social event detection, we propose a boosted multi-modal supervised Latent Dirichlet Allocation model. It can effectively exploit multi-modality information and utilize boosting weighted sampling strategy for large-scale data processing. (3) For social event tracking, we propose a novel multi-modal event topic model, which can effectively model the correlations between textual and visual modalities, and obtain their topics over time. (4) For social event evolution analysis, we propose a novel multi-modal multi-view topic-opinion mining model to conduct fined-grained topic and opinion analysis for social events from multiple social media sites collaboratively. It can discover multi-modal topics and the corresponding opinions over time to understand the evolutionary processes of social event. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed algorithms perform favorably against state-of-the-art methods for social event analysis.