Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strategic Innovation Decisions: What You Foresee Is Not What You Get

This research attempts to (1) identify the factors that influence strategic decision making (i.e., a choice made among various strategic options), and (2) establish their relative importance in the context of new product development. Hence, this study's research question is formulated as follows: from a descriptive perspective what factors prevail in managers' strategic decision making on new product development, and from a normative perspective is this behavior optimal? An exploratory case research study generated a four-dimensional framework of strategic decision making. In 17 companies, the decision-making processes and subsequent implementation of 22 business innovation projects were studied. Managers' choices are determined by the assessment of (1) the business opportunity, (2) the feasibility, (3) the competitiveness, and (4) the leverage opportunities provided by the strategic option. The research question was then further addressed in a field site survey of 144 managers of ChemCorp, a global, multidivisional chemicals company. The ex ante conjoint study shows that feasibility and business opportunity prevail over competitiveness and leverage at the decision-making moment. Using PLS-Graph revealed that a manager's idiosyncrasies and the current and the future context of the division to which they belonged barely affected the relative weight of the decision-making criteria: only the division's customer power and the threat of new entrants significantly influence positively the support for business opportunity assessments. This raised an important question: if feasibility and business opportunity appear as being, overall, the two most important strategic decision-making criteria ex ante, are they key differentiators between success and failure ex post? An ex post critical incident study was conducted on 75 successful innovations and 69 failed innovations reported by the ChemCorp respondents. Using PLS-Graph, this study shows that the competitiveness of a strategic option is a very important predictor of new project success. While the findings await replication in other industries (e.g., industries of a less capital-intensive nature), they are intriguing: strategic innovation decision making may be off track when reality is accounted for.
Anthracycline-induced chronic cardiotoxicity and heart failure

Anthracyclines are effective drugs used in a wide range of malignant diseases. The drugs have frequent, serious adverse effects including cardiotoxicity and resulting heart failure. Systematic reviews, meta-analyses and other relevant studies were identified using the Cochrane and the Medline databases. Chronic cardiotoxicity and heart failure may complicate anthracycline treatment often months to years after treatment has ended. Risk factors including diverse cardiac diseases increase the risk of chronic cardiotoxicity. Screening for impairment of left ventricular function with echocardiography or radionuclide ventriculography is recommended. Search for new sensitive methods has been prompted to predict development of heart failure at an early stage enabling to modify the chemotherapeutic regimen, to include cardiac protectants or to initiate treatment.
Exploring the Determinants of Organizational Performance in a Digital World – A Cluster Analysis of U.S. Firms

In this paper, the authors investigate empirically what factors differentiate successful from notso-successful companies when it comes to achieving Organizational Performance in a digital world. Based on a number of research streams, several internal and external factors are conceptualized and developed, including Web-Based Electronic Commerce Use, Trading Partner Trust, Trading Partner Power, E-Infrastructure, Strategic Flexibility, and Supply Chain Integration. In order to find the determinants of organizational performance, data was collected and analyzed from 180 companies in the US. Overall, the results demonstrate the importance of these factors on Organizational Performance.
Ethidium Bromide-induced Inhibition of Mitochondrial Gene Transcription Suppresses Glucose-stimulated Insulin Release in the Mouse Pancreatic β-Cell Line βHC9*

Recently, a mitochondrial mutation was found to be associated with maternally inherited diabetes mellitus (Kadowaki, T., Kadowaki, H., Mori, Y., Tobe, K., Sakuta, R., Suzuki, Y., Tanabe, Y, Sakura, H., Awata, T., Goto, Y., Hayakawa, T., Matsuoka, K., Kawamori, R., Kamada, T., Horai, S., Nonaka, I., Hagura, R., Akanuma, Y., and Yazaki, Y. (1994) N. Engl. J. Med. 330, 962–968). In order to elucidate its etiology, we have investigated the involvement of mitochondrial function in insulin secretion. Culture of the pancreatic β-cell line, βHC9, with low dose ethidium bromide (EB) (0.4 μg/ml) for 2–6 days resulted in a substantial decrease in the transcription level of mitochondrial DNA (to 10–20% of the control cells) without changing its copy number, whereas the transcription of nuclear genes was grossly unaffected. Electron microscopic analysis revealed that treatment by EB caused morphological changes only in mitochondria and not in other organelles such as nuclei, endoplasmic reticula, Golgi bodies, or secretory granules. When the cells were treated with EB for 6 days, glucose (20 mm) could no longer stimulate insulin secretion, while glibenclamide (1 μm) still did. When EB was removed after 3- or 6-day treatment, mitochondrial gene transcription recovered within 2 days, and the profiles of insulin secretion returned to normal within 7 days. Studies with fura-2 indicated that in EB-treated cells, glucose (20 mm) failed to increase intracellular Ca2+, while the effect of glibenclamide (1 μm) was maintained. Our system provides a unique way to investigate the relationship between mitochondrial function and insulin secretion.
Knowledge Discovery using Domain-Concept Mining Approach for the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Data

The publicly available Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data is the largest telephone survey data set in the world. Often times, the data set is under-utilized due to its size and the difficulties to comprehend and explore the relationships among variables. With a traditional data mining approach, such as association rule (AR) mining, it is still not possible to discover valuable information under the existing computational power. To promote the usefulness of this rich data set efficiently, we propose a novel data mining approach called Domain-Concept Mining (DCM) that partitions data into groups of relevant domain-concept, then extracts associations among variables from each partition. The findings from the DCM show that it can efficiently discover relevant information from the BRFSS with respect to the previously published literature.
End User Satisfaction and Individual Performance Assessments in e-Procurement Systems

—End-user satisfaction and individual performance have been identified by many researchers as critical determinants of the success of information systems. As an escalating number of organizations now utilize e-procurement systems, there is a desire to understand their effect on individual end-user’s performance. Therefore, this research attempts to empirically examine a framework identifying the relationships between end-user satisfaction, and individual end-user performance, in addition to assessing the impact of three proposed antecedents of end-user satisfaction: processing, content and usability. Data gathered from 432 end-users of ePerolehan system in the Malaysian government agencies were utilized to examine the relationships proposed in the framework using the Partial least square (PLS) approach. The findings provide strong support for our model. Our results indicate three factors processing, content and usability significantly affect end-user satisfaction, while the higher levels of end-user satisfaction leads to improved individual performance.
The Impact of Electronic Message Board Takeover Rumours on the US Equity Market

We provide the first empirical investigation into the impact of Internet Stock Message Board takeover rumours on the United States equity market. Our investigation involves using a five-stage filtering process, that employs computational linguistics methods, to derive a final sample of 431 Message Board takeover rumours disseminated during the period January 2003 to December 2006, inclusive. Our analysis, utilising intraday Trade and Quote (TAQ) data, reveals that Message Board takeover rumours generate significant positive abnormal returns and trading volumes. However, relative bid-ask spreads (a proxy for risk) are not significantly affected. Finally, while we verify the robustness of these results to the influence of sample selection bias and an alternative matched control firm abnormal returns metric, we identify that Message Board takeover rumours do not represent an economically exploitable opportunity for investors. Overall, we provide strong empirical evidence that Message Board takeover rumours substantially impact the US equity market, highlighting the need for due consideration by financial market participants, corporations and regulators when assessing and/or protecting the integrity and efficacy of equity markets.
Does Advertising Moderate Mutual Fund Investor Post-Purchase Decisions?

This paper investigates how advertising influences the patterns of fund investor’s post-purchase behavior as related to fund performance. The evidence shows that fund consumer behavior is influenced by mutual fund advertising in ways similar to goods markets. We find that fund investors are willing to sell winning and are reluctant to sell losing funds. This asymmetric redemption-performance relation is in line with the disposition effect. This study also shows that consumers are less willing to sell winning funds with high fund family advertising than those with low fund family advertising, and are more reluctant to redeem losing mutual funds with high fund family advertising than those with low fund family advertising. A possible explanation for our findings is that advertising may reduce the level of cognitive dissonance, create consumer loyalty, and enhance investors’ risk tolerance, thus giving consumers more incentive to hold both losing and winning funds with high levels of advertising.
Modeling Purchase-Timing and Brand-Switching Behavior Incorporating Explanatory Variables and Unobserved Heterogeneity

The authors use a continuous-time semi-Markov approach to analyze in a single framework the purchase-timing and brand-switching decisions of households for a frequently purchased product. The analysis provides more insights into the dynamics of household purchase behavior than could be obtained from conventional discrete choice models such as logit or probit. The authors find that the probability distribution of interpurchase times is not the same for various switching between brands, revealing extra information about the purchase-timing decisions. Further, they find that though the marketing mix and household demographic variables explain a large part of the variation in the brand-switching rates, they account for only a small part of the variation in the repeat purchase rates. Another finding from the analysis is that the rates of switching between brands due to promotional activities such as special displays and price reductions are in reverse order to the share of purchases of the various brands.
An indoor radio propagation model considering angles for WLAN infrastructures

Wireless local area network fingerprint-based indoor location system is a hot topic these years because it needs no extra hardware and is very easy to deploy. However, it demands a database containing the distribution of received signal strength RSS of the area of interest,called radio map. Conventionally, we need to grid the area densely and manually measure RSS values on intersections, which will consume a lot of time and human resources. What is worse, change of the environment may render this database totally useless. Our consideration is to measure RSS on a small amount of these intersections and use them to build a radio propagation model. Then, this model can be deployed to predict RSS values of other intersections and reconstruct the radio map. In other words, we only need to collect a very small part the radio map and utilize the radio propagation model to recover the whole one. So far, many models have been proposed, among which the one suggested by Seidel, named floor attenuation factor propagation model, achieves great balance between computational request and accuracy. But it is not compatible with environments in some scenarios. So as to compensate for this deficiency, we take into account the angles formed by signal and surfaces of obstacles, and the results show better compatibility. The proposed model has four parameters that are related to the environments, and our second contribution in this paper is to propose a method to determine them. In fact, after collecting a small part of the radio map, we can estimate these parameters with least square method. Then, these parameters can be used to predict the signal strength at any other points in the same environment, and the whole radio map is rebuilt. According to practical experiments, performance of the radio map built by the proposed model is not as good as the manually collected one, but 80% of collecting labor is saved. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dynamics of the alpha-biological diversity of aquatic organisms of the activated sludge

The aim of this study was to analyze the dynamics of alpha-aquatic biodiversity in the activated sludge process of biological wastewater treatment. Aspects of the dynamics of alpha-diversity community aeration Elabuga District treatment facilities (northeast of Republic of Tatarstan, Russia) were considered. The high species richness of aquatic organisms of activated sludge in the continuing long-term dynamics and falling within the optimal values under the influence of industrial waste water demonstrates the effectiveness of biological treatment of sewage treatment plants
LEVERAGE PROCYCLICAL OF TURKISH DEPOSIT BANKS

The studies after 2008 financial crisis emphasized that the concept of leverage procyclicality is among the major reasons of this crisis. BASEL II utilized during this crisis period has failed to foresee the risk. This procyclicality in financial expansion and contraction periods has wider impacts for developing economies such as Turkey. The current study has looked into the procyclicality of leverage ratios for deposit banks in Turkey. This research has focused on the association between change in total assets and leverage ratios for top ten deposit banks in Turkey by using the least square method. Data span is between December 2002 and December 2014, which has been assessed in quarterly periods. The study concluded that leverage ratios in Turkish banking industry is procyclical and leverage procyclicality can be implemented as a market control mechanism for Turkey.
Control and support in an international franchise network

A major gap in the international marketing literature is the nature of the international franchise relationship and, in particular, the mechanisms used to control and co‐ordinate the international franchise network. Discusses the findings arising from an ethnographic study of the internationalisation activity of one franchise company. Explores how the company in question attempted to control and direct its international franchise network. Illustrates the importance of non‐coercive sources of power, or the support function, in controlling international franchisee behaviour. Furthermore, it describes the development of the support function within the company over a longitudinal time period and highlights the impact of various organisational factors on the company’s ability to provide effective support to its international franchisees.
A New Design Approach for Circular Polarize Antenna with DGS Under The Unbalanced Feed-Lines

A novel design approach is offered to attain circular polarization of the microstrip antenna feeds by unbalanced vertical feed-lines. Usually, diagonally balanced-line feeds with hybrid coupler are used to attain circular polarization. Here, Defected-ground structures (DGS) have been implemented under the unbalanced feed-lines to achieve circular polarization. Adopting DGS makes easy to tune antenna for circular polarization by varying the impedance of the feed-lines
Spatial regulation of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) in postnatal articular and growth plate cartilage

Articular and growth plate cartilage both arise from condensations of mesenchymal cells, but ultimately develop important histological and functional differences. Each is composed of three layers—the superficial, mid and deep zones of articular cartilage and the resting, proliferative and hypertrophic zones of growth plate cartilage. The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) system plays an important role in cartilage development. A gradient in expression of BMP-related genes has been observed across growth plate cartilage, likely playing a role in zonal differentiation. To investigate the presence of a similar expression gradient in articular cartilage, we used laser capture microdissection (LCM) to separate murine growth plate and articular cartilage from the proximal tibia into their six constituent zones, and used a solution hybridization assay with color-coded probes (nCounter) to quantify mRNAs for 30 different BMP-related genes in each zone. In situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry were then used to confirm spatial expression patterns. Expression gradients for Bmp2 and 6 were observed across growth plate cartilage with highest expression in hypertrophic zone. However, intracellular BMP signaling, assessed by phospho-Smad1/5/8 immunohistochemical staining, appeared to be higher in the proliferative zone and prehypertrophic area than in hypertrophic zone, possibly due to high expression of Smad7, an inhibitory Smad, in the hypertrophic zone. We also found BMP expression gradients across the articular cartilage with BMP agonists primarily expressed in the superficial zone and BMP functional antagonists primarily expressed in the deep zone. Phospho-Smad1/5/8 immunohistochemical staining showed a similar gradient. In combination with previous evidence that BMPs regulate chondrocyte proliferation and differentiation, the current findings suggest that BMP signaling gradients exist across both growth plate and articular cartilage and that these gradients may contribute to the spatial differentiation of chondrocytes in the postnatal endochondral skeleton.
Strategic Decision Making by Small Firms in Turbulent Environments: Case Studies from the Singapore Motor Vehicle Industry

This study investigates the process of strategic and operational decisionmaking amongst small firms within turbulent environments. It examines the choices made by owner-managers in the allocation of limited resources to strategic and operational activities targeting growth and survival. Of particular interest is how these owner-managers make trade-off decisions to find a balance between strategic and operational level planning. The paper is the first stage of a larger study exploring the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and risk perception amongst the ownermanagers of small firms.
Recurrent metastatic fallopian tube carcinoma in pregnancy.

BACKGROUND Fallopian tube cancer is the rarest of all gynecologic cancers. An extensive literature search on Medline reveals no previous case reports of fallopian tube carcinoma in association with a term pregnancy. CASE A woman with surgical stage IIB fallopian tube carcinoma was treated with limited staging laparotomy, as per the patient's fertility wishes, followed by adjuvant cis-platinum and paclitaxel (Taxol). One year following chemotherapy, she conceived. She was noted to have an asymptomatic intraabdominal recurrence at 16 weeks. The patient completed 37 weeks of pregnancy without further therapy according to her wishes. She subsequently underwent a cesarean section with optimal tumor reduction surgery. Carboplatin and paclitaxel were reinstituted, achieving partial response. She is presently alive with stable disease status 6 months after completing her salvage chemotherapy. CONCLUSION This is the first case report of recurrent fallopian tube cancer in pregnancy.
Metrics for Making Marketing Matter

Abstract In January 2002, Donald R. Lehmann, Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute, submitted a proposal for a JM Special Section, “Linking Marketing to Financial Performance and Firm Value. ” The proposal included activities to promote interactions among marketing academics and practitioners, designed to advance research on this topic. I was excited about the opportunity to stimulate and publish new research, and after extensive discussions, the American Marketing Association and the Marketing Science Institute formally agreed to cosponsor the Special Section. Authors submitted their manuscripts through a paper competition as well as directly through JM. Donald R. Lehmann, the Consulting Editor, and a panel of distinguished scholars reviewed every submission. The panel included Tim Ambler, Gregory S. Carpenter, Robert Jacobson, V. Kumar, Roland T. Rust, and Rajendra K. Srivastava. All submissions underwent JM’s standard double-blind review process under my editorship, and members of JM’s E.
Hong Kong's Telecommunication Deregulation since 1995 in Light of International Experiences

Long hailed as a pioneer in telecommunications deregulation, this paper examines Hong Kong's market liberalization experience since 1995. To understand Hong Kong's deregulation effort, we proceed by evaluating the liberalization exercise in light of experiences derived from other countries. Three countries, including the United States, Canada and New Zealand, are chosen for comparative study. These countries are not randomly selected but rather because they reflect three different deregulation approaches. Different deregulation approaches were a result of the diverse ways these countries adopted in dealing with problems that had surfaced during the deregulation process. Our study indicates that market solutions to such problems seem to be a better way forward than letting the government micromanage the process of deregulation.
Environmental Impediments in the Adoption of Balanced Scorecard in Pakistan

The status of adoption of balanced scorecard (BSC) in Pakistan is still blurry and keeping different adoption, diffusion and strategic theories in mind, a theoretical framework and four hypotheses were proposed. The target population was organisations of all types and 268 organisations listed in the Karachi Stock Exchange were selected randomly. All constructs were measured through a questionnaire. The results suggest that environmental complexity, competition and consultancy institutions were serving as barriers in the adoption of BSC. However, the factor network personality, a part of the environmental factors, was not significant and was not a barrier. The managers of consultancy institutions can view this study as a benchmark because by reviewing the result they can decide whether it is time to launch a campaign to exert the pressure for adoption of BSC or not to propagate the significance of the BSC tool by stopping further allocation of resources.