Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Organizational Form and Corporate Payout Policy

We examine how organizational form affects corporate payouts. Conglomerates pay out more than pure plays in both cash dividends and total payouts (cash dividends plus share repurchases). Furthermore, their payouts are more sensitive to cash flows compared to pure-play firms. The sensitivity of payouts to cash flow increases as the cross-segment correlation in a conglomerate decreases. Corporate payouts increase after mergers and acquisitions (M&As), especially among M&As in which acquirers and targets are less correlated. These results suggest that the coinsurance among different divisions of a conglomerate allows them to pay out more cash flow to their shareholders than pure-play firms.
DNA methylation reprogramming in the germ line

In mammals, methylation occurs almost exclusively on the CpG dinucleotide in DNA and shows no preference for sequence context surrounding this target. CpGs are found on many different sequence classes and methylation of this dinucleotide is associated with repression of transcription. Reprogramming methylation in the primordial germ cells establishes monoallelic expression of imprinted genes which exhibit monoallelic expression throughout the lifetime of an organism, maintains retrotransposons in an inactive state and inactivates one of the two X chromosomes. In addition to direct transcriptional silencing, DNA methylation is important for suppression of recombination, and resetting this information is therefore necessary for maintenance of genomic stability. In this chapter, we will review the recent progress in our understanding of the time course and extent of DNA methylation reprogramming of many different sequence classes. We focus on the mouse germline, since this has been the model system from which we have gained the most knowledge of the process. In addition we will examine some of the evidence suggesting a link between repeat methylation and methylation of epigenetically controlled single‑copy genes. To do this, we will look at the temporal sequence of methylation events from the time the germ cells become recognizable as a discrete population until the mature male and female gametes fuse and form the early embryo.
The Politics of Public Housing Reform: Local Government Stock Transfer in England

ABSTRACT Drawing on theories of political competition, we explore the extent to which local public housing reform reflects the ideology of local ruling parties and local political preferences. Based on the citizen candidate and median voter perspectives, we hypothesize that left-wing party rule and pro-state preferences are associated with higher levels of government-owned housing. We test these hypotheses by analyzing the levels of housing stock held by English local governments during the period 2001–14. Our findings suggest that pro-state preferences matter more than left-wing party rule for the overall extent of public housing provision. By contrast, right-wing party rule is associated with the likelihood that a local government’s housing stock will be transferred out of the public sector, but pro-market preferences do not influence this decision. The implications of the findings are discussed in the conclusion.
Semantic Network Analysis Reveals Opposing Online Representations of the Search Term “GMO”

Making sound food and agriculture decisions is important for global society and the environment. Experts tend to view crop genetic engineering, a technology that can improve yields and minimize impacts on the environment, more favorably than the public. Because there is a causal relationship between public opinion and public policy, it is important to understand how opinions about genetically engineered (GE) crops are influenced. The public increasingly seeks science information on the Internet. Here, semantic network analysis is performed to characterize the presentation of the term “GMO (genetically modified organism),” a proxy for food developed from GE crops, on the web. Texts from three sources are analyzed: U.S. federal websites, top pages from a Google search, and online news titles. We found that the framing and sentiment (positive, neutral, or negative attitudes) of “GMO” varies across these sources. It is described how differences in the portrayal of GE food by each source might affect public opinion. A current understanding of the types of information individuals may encounter online can provide insight into public opinion toward GE food. In turn, this knowledge can guide teaching and communication efforts by the scientific community to promote informed decision‐making about agricultural biotechnologies.
CAMAR Mashup: Empowering End-user Participation in U-VR Environment

In this paper, we propose a concept of Context Aware Mobile AR (CAMAR) mashup as an enriched form of participatory user interaction in U-VR environment. We define CAMAR mashup and discuss how its characteristics are different and distinguishable from previous mashup activities in various additional aspects such as context-awareness, mobility and presentation. To elaborate the proposed concept, an exemplar scenario is presented and foreseeable technical challenges are discussed.
Community development approaches and methods: Implications for community development practice and research

ABSTRACT This study highlights an analysis of the evolution and development of various community development approaches and methods. This includes a contextual review and qualitative meta-analysis of empirical studies dealing with approaches and methods in community development spanning five decades of Philippine research studies and cases. A total of 217 studies in community development conducted by students in Philippine universities were reviewed for this study. Overall, our review documents an increase in the number of community development research and studies in the Philippines. It is noteworthy that through the five decades of Philippine community development experience, there was a steady and persistent use of community-based and participatory approaches to development work. Community education and community organizing remained the popular strategies for successful development intervention. The study recommends an integrated model of community development practice in the Philippines useful for both researchers and practitioners.
GTP analogues interact with the tubulin exchangeable site during assembly and upon binding.

The question of whether nonhydrolyzable nucleotide analogues and other nucleoside triphosphates support tubulin assembly was addressed. Tubulin which contained residual GTP at the exchangeable site polymerized in the absence of added GTP in the presence of DMSO or glycerol. After maximum absorbance was reached, disassembly occurred at a slow rate. When 0.5 mM GMPPCP, GMPPNP, or ATP was included in the assembly reaction, disassembly did not occur, and about 0.1 mol of these nucleotides per mole of tubulin was incorporated into the protein. When 5 mM nucleotide was used or alkaline phosphatase was included in the case of the nonhydrolyzable analogues, a greater amount of assembly occurred and about 0.7-0.8 mol of analogue was incorporated. The products of the assembly reaction were cold-labile microtubules and protofilament ribbons. After cold-depolymerization of the microtubules and ribbons, a second cycle of assembly produced some microtubules, but cold-stable amorphous polymers were the major product. In addition, when GTP at the exchangeable site was first removed by a cycle of assembly, followed by depolymerization, assembly in the presence of GMPPCP, GMPPNP, or ATP produced a mixture of microtubules and cold-stable polymers, both of which contained bound analogue. Incorporation of GMPPCP, GMPPNP, or ATP into polymerized tubulin always occurred at the expense of GDP at the exchangeable site, the content of which decreased correspondingly. Incubation of tubulin with 5 mM GMPPCP, GMPPNP, or ATP under nonassembly conditions also displaced GDP. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Silent myocardial ischemia is associated with altered plasma phospholipids

Timely and accurate confirmation of the occurrence of silent myocardial ischemia (SMI) is critical both for prevention and therapy management. Metabolomics assay may offer an alternative for SMI differentiation and altered biomolecule discovery in addition to traditional measures. In this study, plasma samples were obtained from 14 diagnosed SMI subjects and 25 healthy controls and analyzed by liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole‐time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry in view of metabolomics. Obtained data were subjected to orthogonal signal correction partialleast‐squares discriminate analysis. Multi‐variate statistic analysis indicated a clear separation between the two studied groups. Plasma concentration fluctuation of four kinds of phospholipids showed tight relationship with the occurrence of SMI, among which 1‐linoleoylglycerophosphocholine (C18:2) was decreased statistically in SMI population (P=0.01). The plasma phospholipids' changes were before enzymatic alteration in SMI, which might be a useful complementary reference to facilitate SMI diagnosis. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 23:45–50, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Removal of the organic content from a bleached kraft pulp mill effluent by a treatment with silica-alginate-fungi biocomposites

This study attempts a treatment strategy of a bleached kraft pulp mill effluent with Rhizopus oryzae or Pleurotus sajor caju encapsulated on silica-alginate (biocomposite of silica-alginate-fungi, with the purpose of reducing its potential impact in the environment. Active (alive) or inactive (death by sterilization) Rhizopus oryzae or Pleurotus sajor caju was encapsulated in alginate beads. Five beads containing active and inactive fungus were placed in a mold and filled with silica hydrogel (biocomposites). The biocomposites were added to batch reactors containing the bleached kraft pulp mill effluent. The treatment of bleached kraft pulp mill effluent by active and inactive biocomposites was performed throughout 29 days at 28°C. The efficiency of treatment was evaluated by measuring the removal of organic compounds, chemical oxygen demand and the relative absorbance ratio over time. Both fungi species showed potential for removal of organic compounds, colour and chemical oxygen demand. Maximum values of reduction in terms of colour (56%), chemical oxygen demand (65%) and organic compounds (72–79%) were attained after 29 days of treatment of bleached kraft pulp mill effluent by active Rhizopus oryzae biocomposites. The immobilization of fungi, the need for low fungal biomass, and the possibility of reutlization of the biocomposites clearly demonstrate the industrial and environmental interest in bleached kraft pulp mill effluent treatment by silica-alginate-fungi biocomposites.
Glomerular filtration rate as measured by serum cystatin C is an important determinant of plasma homocysteine and serum methylmalonic acid in the elderly

Objectives. To explore the dependence of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) on plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) and serum methylmalonic acid (MMA), as well as the consequences for the diagnosis of cobalamin and/or folic acid deficiency in an elderly community‐dwelling population.
Fast rerouting for IP multicast in managed IPTV networks

Recent deployment of IP based multimedia distribution, especially broadcast TV distribution has increased the importance of simple and fast restoration during IP network failures for service providers. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a simple but efficient method for fast rerouting of IP multicast traffic during link failures in managed IPTV networks. More specifically, we devise an algorithm for tuning IP link weights so that the multicast routing path and the unicast routing path between any two routers are failure disjoint, allowing us to use unicast IP encapsulation for undelivered multicast packets during link failures. We demonstrate that, our method can be realized with minor modification to the current multicast routing protocol (PIM-SM). We run our prototype implementation in Emulab which shows our method yields to good performance.
Lyral® is an important sensitizer in patients sensitive to fragrances

Contact allergy to fragrances is a common problem world‐wide. The currently used fragrance mix (FM) for patch testing has only eight constituents and does not identify all fragrance‐allergic patients. As perfumes may contain 100 or more substances, the search for markers for allergy continues. The synthetic fragrance 4‐(4‐hydroxy‐4‐methylpentyl)‐3‐cyclohexene carboxaldehyde (Lyral®) was tested together with the FM and 11 other fragrance substances on consecutive patients in six European departments of dermatology. All patients were carefully questioned regarding a history of reactions to scented products in the past and were grouped into four categories: ‘certain’, ‘probable’, ‘questionable’ and ‘none’. Lyral® (5% in petrolatum) gave a positive reaction in 2·7% of 1855 patients (range 1·2–17%) and ranked next to 11·3% with FM allergy. Twenty‐four patients reacted to both Lyral® and FM, but 21 (1·1%) reacted positively only to Lyral®. Of 124 patients with a ‘certain’ history, 53·2% reacted to the FM and a further 7·2% to Lyral® only. If any kind of history of fragrance intolerance was given, 80% (40 of 50) of Lyral® positive patients had a ‘positive’ history while only 58·6% (123 of 210) of FM positive patients had such a history; this difference was significant at P < 0·01. Lyral® was identified by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry in some products which had caused an allergic contact dermatitis in four typical patients who showed a patch test positive to Lyral® and negative or doubtful to FM. In conclusion, we recommend the testing of 5% Lyral® (in petrolatum) in patients suspected of contact dermatitis.
Towards MOOC for technical courses: A blended learning empirical analysis

Massive Open Online Learning (MOOC) is one of the rapidly growing and the most trending online learning platform throughout the world. As reported by Class Central up until December 2015, there are more than a total of 4200 courses, which enrolled more than 35 million students and adopted by more than 500 universities all over the world. Thus, the objective of this study is to identify the students' readiness towards MOOC technical courses based on blended learning approach. This study adapted quantitative based approach to analyze the data gathered. Factor analysis is used to empirically analyze a total of 39 items on student attitude towards blended learning. This study successfully in developing six dimensions of student attitude towards the implementation of MOOC learning. The attributes namely are attitude towards learning flexibility, online learning, study management, technology, online interaction, and classroom learning. The findings summarized that, when students had a positive attitude towards learning flexibility, online learning, study management, technology, and online interaction, the students were more likely to adapt to blended learning and highly ready towards MOOC learning. On the other hand, when students had a positive attitude towards classroom learning, they were less likely ready towards MOOC learning, as they would prefer to meet their lecturers and friends in a physical lecture class compared to on the web-based. Understanding of student's readiness towards MOOC learning based on blended learning approach is one of the critical success factors for implementing successful MOOC by higher learning institutions.
Mineral adaptations following kidney transplantation

Klotho is predominantly expressed in the kidney and reported to have antioxidant and antifibrotic properties. Soluble Klotho (sKl), the circulating protein cleaved from membrane‐bound Klotho, is reduced significantly with kidney disease and inversely associated with mortality. sKl has not been thoroughly evaluated prospectively after kidney transplantation. Incident kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) were prospectively evaluated pretransplantation, 1, 12 and 52 weeks post‐transplantation. Basic biochemistry, sKl and intact FGF23 were measured. Within‐subject comparisons were evaluated using repeat‐measure anova or Friedman's analysis. Effects of immunosuppression and biochemical parameters on sKl and FGF‐23 over time were analysed using mixed‐effects modelling. Median serum creatinine (sCr) at 1 week was 116 (92–142) μmol/l, and at 52 weeks, all 29 KTRs had a functioning graft with median sCr of 111 (97–131) μmol/l. Compared with baseline, sKl was increased at 52 weeks following an initial decline at 1 week (P < 0.005 and P < 0.01, respectively), while FGF23 was considerably reduced at 52 weeks (P < 0.001). In a mixed‐effects model, an increased sKl was not associated with reduction in immunosuppression or evaluated biochemical parameters. Modest increase in sKl is observed one‐year postkidney transplantation with excellent early graft function suggesting factors beyond renal capacity may influence circulating sKl. FGF23 normalization was observed. Longer term evaluation in transplantation, specifically addressing the effects of immunosuppression, is required to understand the pathophysiology of the sKl/FGF23 axis and potential for modification.
An extract from wild green oat improves rat behaviour

An extract of wild green oat (Avena sativa L.), was tested in vivo in rats for its behavioural effects after chronic oral administration via extract‐admixed food. Thirty six male Sprague‐Dawley rats received (A) standard diet (controls), (B) 10 g/kg extract‐admixed food or (C) 100 g/kg extract‐admixed food. The following behavioural tests were performed: elevated plus maze, forced swimming, conditioned avoidance response and tetradic encounter. Body weight, food and fluid consumption were measured and apparent physical appearance was determined twice a week. Apart from a slightly decreased food and fluid intake in the high dose group there were no side effects observed during the treatment. The low dose led to an improvement of active stress response, an enhancement of shock avoidance learning and an increased synchrony in social behaviour. It may be concluded that the wild green oat extract is suitable to improve behavioural initiative in different situations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Pre-Service Arts Teachers' Perceptions of Inclusive Education Practice in Western Australia.

The creation and maintenance of inclusive learning environments is a key responsibility of all teachers working in Australian schools. Most Australian universities embed inclusion education training for pre-service teachers (PSTs) in coursework. There is an implicit assumption in these arrangements that the study of inclusion and of special needs education completed at university will translate into practice when PSTs are working in schools. This phenomenological mixed methods research design investigated how effectively inclusion education translated into practice. The results revealed that while PSTs were aware and supportive of inclusion, no clear links were made between theory and practice.
Gaming Literacy: Game Design as a Model for Literacy in the Twenty-First Century

Gaming Literacy is an essay that argues for the relevance and importance of games in our culture. Games are both cause and effect of the times in which we live: on the one hand, the rise of games as a cultural and economic force is a reflection of the fact that our society is becoming more systemic and digital. On the other hand, games can be a tool for engendering the kinds of literacy that our emerging Ludic Century requires. Lastly, never forget that games do not need to be justified because they are useful. In other words, play is beautiful and understanding games as an aesthetic form is one of the challenges of our time.
Main peak interleaved sampling (MPIS) strategy: Effect of stimulation rate variations on speech perception in adult cochlear implant recipients using the Digisonic SP cochlear implant

Conclusion: Data obtained from a cohort of 10 post-lingually deaf adult patients indicated that use of a higher stimulation rate, in the setting of the main peak interleaved sampling (MPIS) strategy coupled with the Neurelec-MXM Digisonic SP cochlear implant system, gives a significant advantage in terms of speech perception if compared with a lower rate, especially in a noisy environment. Objectives: To evaluate speech recognition performances in post-lingually deaf adult cochlear implant recipients using two different stimulation rates (260 pps/e and 600 pps/e) in the setting of the MPIS strategy combined with the MXM-Neurelec Digisonic SP cochlear implant system. Patients and methods: Ten post-lingually deaf adults who consecutively received a Neurelec-MXM Digisonic SP device at the CI Center of the University of Parma participated in the study. The study was conducted prospectively as a within-subject repeated measures (ABA protocol) between January 2007 and January 2008. Each subject was exposed to and sequentially tested with two different rates of stimulation (260 pps/e and 600 pps/e), in quiet and in a noisy environment. Statistical analysis was performed on the data obtained. Results: Subjects using the MPIS strategy with a stimulation rate of 600 pps/e performed significantly better in words and phrases recognition tests in both a noisy and a quiet environment.
Tax Administrative Burdens in the Tourism Sector in Zanzibar: Stakeholders’ Perspectives

The shortage of literature regarding the tax administration burden, particularly in the hospitality and tourism sector in the context of least developed countries, still exists. This study, therefore, investigates the tax administration burden in the tourism sector in the Zanzibar Islands. It specifically examines the structure of tourism taxes and the fiscal regime, measures the uncertainty and complexity of tax laws, and assesses the role played by business associations in facilitating collective action to reform the business environment of the tourism sector in this Archipelago. The study involved a survey of stakeholders (N = 135), including tourism investors, business associations, and relevant government agencies. The findings showed that uncertainty concerning the value added tax laws centered on calculation of the input tax, the input tax refund from mainland Tanzania, and the registration procedure. The confusion was also pronounced regarding the specific laws affecting tour operators, restaurants, and the hotel levy. Similarly, there is still uncertainty concerning the infrastructure tax and the imposition of a tax of US$1 per day per guest staying in a hotel. Moreover, uncertainty and complexity regarding the income tax laws is centered on calculating the income tax liability of businesses, investments, and employment. However, the role of business associations in reforming the business environment for tourism has been encouraging, as a good number of public–private dialogues and initiatives have been geared at negotiating the various forms of taxes and levies imposed on tourism and hospitality services in the Archipelago. The study concludes with managerial, policy, and research recommendations.