Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relation between Strategy, CEO Selection, and Firm Performance

We examine whether a firm's strategic priorities influence its selection of a new CEO and what conditions enable such an appointment to add value to the firm. More specifically, this study investigates the value‐adding effect when prospector firms (i.e., those pursuing a prospector‐type strategy) select a CEO with high social capital. We argue that uncertainty, driven by a firm's strategy, will determine the decision to select a CEO with high social capital; such CEOs can use their networks to mitigate the uncertainty and thus can be valuable to the firm. However, prior research indicates that CEOs with high social capital can engage in behavior detrimental to firm value. To mitigate the potential for this to occur, we assess whether corporate governance can play a role in prospector firms who appoint CEOs with high social capital. Drawing on archival data of CEO successions over a 14‐year period, we find that prospector firms have greater incentives to appoint CEOs with high social capital. We also find that prospector firms who appoint a CEO with high social capital improve their performance. Furthermore, the value‐adding effect of this selection choice is stronger in prospector firms with good corporate governance. Relation entre strategie, selection du chef de la direction et performance de l'entreprise Les auteurs se demandent si les priorites strategiques d'une entreprise influent sur le choix d'un nouveau chef de la direction et quelles conditions font en sorte que cette nomination puisse accroitre la valeur de l'entreprise. Ils s'interessent plus precisement a l'effet de creation de valeur de la selection par une entreprise prospectrice (c'est‐a‐dire dont la strategie s'apparente a la prospection) d'un chef de la direction ayant un capital societal eleve. Selon eux, l'incertitude, engendree par la strategie de l'entreprise, appelle la decision de selectionner un chef de la direction ayant un capital societal eleve ; les chefs de la direction presentant cette caracteristique sont en mesure de se servir de leurs reseaux pour reduire cette incertitude et peuvent donc etre precieux pour l'entreprise. Les etudes anterieures indiquent toutefois que les chefs de la direction ayant un capital societal eleve risquent d'adopter des comportements prejudiciables a la valeur de l'entreprise. Les auteurs se demandent si la gouvernance d'entreprise peut contribuer a attenuer ce risque dans les entreprises prospectrices qui nomment des chefs de la direction ayant un capital societal eleve. En puisant dans les donnees d'archives relatives a la succession des chefs de la direction sur une periode de 14 ans, ils constatent que les entreprises prospectrices sont davantage enclines a nommer des chefs de la direction possedant un capital societal eleve. Ils notent egalement que les entreprises prospectrices qui nomment de tels chefs de la direction ameliorent leur performance. Il apparait en outre que l'effet de creation de valeur de ce choix est plus marque chez les entreprises prospectrices dotees d'une gouvernance d'entreprise efficace.
Remote Computer-Aided Breast Cancer Detection and Diagnosis System Based on Cytological Images

The purpose of this study is to develop an intelligent remote detection and diagnosis system for breast cancer based on cytological images. First, this paper presents a fully automated method for cell nuclei detection and segmentation in breast cytological images. The locations of the cell nuclei in the image were detected with circular Hough transform. The elimination of false-positive (FP) findings (noisy circles and blood cells) was achieved using Otsu's thresholding method and fuzzy c-means clustering technique. The segmentation of the nuclei boundaries was accomplished with the application of the marker-controlled watershed transform. Next, an intelligent breast cancer classification system was developed. Twelve features were presented to several neural network architectures to investigate the most suitable network model for classifying the tumor effectively. Four classification models were used, namely, multilayer perceptron using back-propagation algorithm, probabilistic neural network (PNN), learning vector quantization, and support vector machine (SVM). The classification results were obtained using tenfold cross validation. The performance of the networks was compared based on resulted error rate, correct rate, sensitivity, and specificity. Finally, we have merged the proposed computer-aided detection and diagnosis system with the telemedicine platform. This is to provide an intelligent, remote detection, and diagnosis system for breast cancer patients based on the Web service. The proposed system was evaluated using 92 breast cytological images containing 11502 cell nuclei. Experimental evidence shows that the proposed method has very effective results even in the case of images with high degree of blood cells and noisy circles. In addition, two benchmark data sets were evaluated for comparison. The results showed that the predictive ability of PNN and SVM is stronger than the others in all evaluated data sets.
Preliminary study of total flavonoids from Litsea coreana Levl. on experimental adjuvant-induced arthritis in rats.

Litsea coreana Levl. , a traditional Chinese medicine, has long been used for its diverse benefits such as detoxification and detumescence. Total flavonoids from Litsea coreana Levl. (TFLC) are the effective fraction of L. coreana. This study was designed to investigate the anti-inflammatory effects and mechanisms of TFLC against Feund's complete adjuvant (FCA)-induced arthritis in rats. Arthritis was evaluated by secondary paw swelling, polyarthritis index, body weight and histopathologic analysis. Con A- or LPS-stimulated splenocyte proliferation and cytokine (IL-1 and IL-2) production were assessed by MTT assay and activated mouse cell proliferation assay, respectively. The results indicate that therapeutic administration of TFLC (50, 100, 200 mg/kg, ig x 12 days) could significantly suppress secondary arthritis in rats with adjuvant-induced arthritis (AA). In vivo, TFLC (50, 100, 200 mg/kg, ig x 12 days) augmented splenocyte proliferation and increased IL-2 production in splenocytes, while reduced IL-1 activity in peritoneal macrophages (PM(Phi)) of AA rats. In vitro, TFLC at concentrations from 0.005 to 50 microg/ml exerted the same immunoregulatory effects on AA rats as those in vivo. In addition, an attractive feature of TFLC lies in its apparent lack of toxicity. These results suggest that TFLC without toxicity has a significant anti-arthritic effect on AA rats which could be associated with its anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties.
SPAC: A Synergistic Prefetcher Aggressiveness Controller for Multi-Core Systems

In multi-core systems, prefetch requests of one core interfere with the demand and prefetch requests of other cores at the shared resources, which causes prefetcher-caused interference. Prefetcher aggressiveness controllers play an important role in minimizing the prefetcher-caused interference. State-of-the-art controllers such as hierarchical prefetcher aggressiveness control (HPAC) select appropriate throttling levels that can lead to improvement in system performance. However, HPAC does not consider the interactions between the throttling decisions of multiple prefetchers, and loses opportunity to improve system performance further. For multi-core systems, state-of-the-art prefetcher aggressiveness controllers controls the aggressiveness based on prefetch metrics such as accuracy, bandwidth consumption and cache pollution. We propose a synergistic prefetcher aggressiveness controller (SPAC), which explores the interactions between the throttling decisions of prefetchers, and throttles the prefetchers based on the improvement in fair-speedup of multi-core systems.
Vegetation patterns in a calcareous sloping fen of southwestern Massachusetts, USA

Calcareous sloping fens are minerotrophic wetland systems that are well known for their high species richness, but little is known about the local processes that govern the spatial patterns of species distribution within these communities. This study was undertaken to document vegetative patterns and to quantify community differences within one such calcareous wetland. A 250-m transect was established along a topographic/hydrologic gradient that intersected several visually distinctive, predominantly herbaceous, wetland plant communities. Vegetation composition was surveyed in July and August 1997 using a non-random, centralized sampling approach. Three 15-m2 sampling plots were established for each of four stations along the transect. Vegetation within each 15-m2 sampling plot was surveyed using fifteen contiguous 1-m2 quadrat frames with visual estimates of cover determined for each species. One hundred thirty taxa were indentified within the 180 m2 area sampled. Average species richness values ranged from 61 to 76 species per 15-m2 sampling plot, with high spatial turn-over of species among plots. Indicator Species Analysis identified taxa with concentrated abundance and fidelity within particular sampling stations. Data for the 15-m2 plots were analyzed using non-metric multidimensional scaling that produced ordinations suggesting strong environmental gradients across the site. General community composition was similar to the Carex interior-C. leptalea-C. flava association described by Motzkin and consisten with other calcareous sloping fen communities described in the literature for the southern New England region.
Looking for evidence of the middle-income trap. The case of Polish trade in high-tech goods with Germany

Abstract Research on the transition of post-communist economies has long been aimed at the identification of obstacles to growth. The idea behind this article relates to the paradigm of the middle-income trap and its characteristics. We adopt this conceptual framework because the economic position of Poland is determined by the nature of global value chains, its geographical proximity to Germany and the inflow of foreign direct investments which sustain cost and efficiency advantages and foster technological dependence. We embark on an analysis of trade in high-tech goods with a particular emphasis placed on Polish–German relations in the most significant sectors: machinery, electrical and electronic equipment. The results show tendencies typical for the middle-income trap, which has particular implications for the development of the semi-peripheral Polish economy.
The Changing Images of Japan’s Social Stratification: The Other Side of the ‘Quiet Transformation’

The purpose of this study is to investigate longitudinal changes in the association between people’s images of social stratification (ISS) and their social status in Japan. ISS are defined as people’s perceptions of how social stratification is distributed. Existing studies on ISS have discussed how ISS are influenced by people’s reference groups and the socioeconomic situation of their society. Meanwhile, the latest study on the ‘quiet transformation of status identification’ suggested that Japanese people came to have a more realistic view of their own social status and social structure from the 1980s to the 2010s, and that this change was the key mechanism of the transformation. Combining these arguments, I expect to find that the influence of reference groups on ISS weakened from the 1980s to the 2010s. Analyzing representative national survey datasets from 1985 and 2015, I indeed find that the influence of status identification (a proxy of reference groups) on ISS decreased in 2015. This suggests that the mechanism of the ‘quiet transformation’ could be applied in explaining how ISS change over time.
Induced Natural Transformation of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus in Soil Microcosms

Factors affecting natural transformation of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus BD413 with homologous chromosomal DNA in a silt loam soil microcosm were investigated. Inducible transformation of declining populations of noncompetent A. calcoaceticus cells was detectable for up to 6 days when a simple carbon source, salts, and freshly added DNA were used. In two different experimental setups, the residence time in soil of induced cells could be increased to either 11 or 24 h before DNA addition without reduced transformation frequency; 200-to 1,000-fold fewer transformants were observed following the addition of water. These observations suggest that A. calcoaceticus remains transformable for several hours after its activation by nutrients in soil. Increasing the levels of phosphate salts significantly enhanced the numbers of transformants without increasing the recipient counts correspondingly. Variable levels of ammonium or divalent cations (Mg(sup2+) and Ca(sup2+)) did not have a similar major influence. Soil moisture content significantly affected the transformation frequency of A. calcoaceticus cells, with a general tendency of higher frequencies in drier soil. A minimal frequency was observed at around 35% soil moisture. The data indicate that A. calcoaceticus cells in soil which cannot be detectably transformed are easily induced by nutrients to undergo natural transformation with chromosomal DNA. Access to nutrients seems to be critical for the development and maintenance of competence in soil, which is also affected by abiotic factors like moisture level and phosphate salt concentration.
Sparsity-Based Optimization of the Sensors Positions in Radar Networks with Separated Transmit and Receive Nodes

A sparsity-based approach for the joint optimization of the transmit and the receive nodes positions in the radar network with widely distributed antennas is proposed in this paper. The optimization problem is formulated as minimization of the number of radars that meet fixed target localization requirements over the surveillance area. We demonstrated that this type of the problem is different from the problem of the monostatic radar network topology optimization and implies the bilinear matrix inequality (BMI) problem. To tackle it, we propose to use the relaxation technique, which allows for joint selection of the positions for transmit and receive radar nodes. Provided numerical analysis shows that, in order to satisfy the same requirements to the target localization accuracy, the radar network with bistatic radars requires less number of the nodes than the one with monostatic radars.
Allee effect promotes diversity in traveling waves of colonization

Most mathematical studies on expanding populations have focused on the rate of range expansion of a population. However, the genetic consequences of population expansion remain an understudied body of theory. Describing an expanding population as a traveling wave solution derived from a classical reaction-diffusion model, we analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of its genetic structure. We show that the presence of an Allee effect (i.e., a lower per capita growth rate at low densities) drastically modifies genetic diversity, both in the colonization front and behind it. With an Allee effect (i.e., pushed colonization waves), all of the genetic diversity of a population is conserved in the colonization front. In the absence of an Allee effect (i.e., pulled waves), only the furthest forward members of the initial population persist in the colonization front, indicating a strong erosion of the diversity in this population. These results counteract commonly held notions that the Allee effect generally has adverse consequences. Our study contributes new knowledge to the surfing phenomenon in continuous models without random genetic drift. It also provides insight into the dynamics of traveling wave solutions and leads to a new interpretation of the mathematical notions of pulled and pushed waves.
Critical realism and psychiatric nursing: a philosophical inquiry.

BACKGROUND There is a tension within contemporary psychiatric nursing between those who would embrace the knowledge and methods of psychiatry and psychology, and those who instead argue for the development of an autonomous nursing profession. This tension cannot be resolved by way of the underpinning philosophies of these positions, namely empiricism and idealism. Instead, critical realism, positioned between these philosophies offers a methodology through which to seek a new paradigm. AIM This paper aims to determine whether psychiatric nursing has the potential to exist as an independent and autonomous profession, concerned with providing a helping response to those in mental distress. METHOD The paper asks critical realism's transcendental question in order to identify the a priori requirements of an autonomous psychiatric nursing, independent of both psychiatry and psychology. Consideration of these a priori requirements includes selected information from contemporary texts in order to identify potentially helpful nursing responses to mental distress, as opposed to the theorising that surrounds these helping responses. FINDINGS The theories of psychiatry and psychology are neither necessary nor sufficient in providing a foundation for an autonomous psychiatric nursing. While medications have an intrinsic helpfulness for some people, for some of their problems, for some of the time, this does not illuminate the causes of mental distress. There is an intrinsic helping response in human interpersonal communication, yet this is not specific to 'psychotherapy' and does not 'belong' solely to psychotherapists. CONCLUSION Support is found for an autonomous and independent profession of psychiatric nursing, able to provide a helping response to those in mental distress independent of psychiatry and psychology.
Price transmission and local market power: empirical evidence from the Austrian gasoline market

ABSTRACT We analyse the impact of local market power on price margins and different dimensions of price adjustment dynamics (speed and asymmetry of price transmission) using data for a large number of individual gasoline stations in Austria. Specific attention is paid to threshold effects in price adjustment. Our results clearly suggest that the speed of price transmission between the Brent crude oil index and retail diesel prices is higher in a more competitive environment. While evidence on the relationship between local market power and asymmetries in the speed of price adjustment is mixed, our findings regarding asymmetries in price thresholds are clear: in regions where competition from neighbouring rivals is weak and/or consumers’ price elasticity of demand is low (stations located on the highway), positive thresholds significantly exceed negative ones, which corresponds to the ‘rockets and feathers phenomenon’. As expected, we observe that prices are lower in more competitive local markets.
Relationship between Parenting Styles and Gender Role Identity in College Students

The relationship between perceived parenting styles and gender role identity was examined in college students. 230 undergraduate students (48 men, 182 women; 18–23 years old) responded to the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI). The hypothesis was that parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive for both fathers and mothers) would be significantly associated with gender role identity (undifferentiated, feminine, masculine, and androgynous) of college students, specifically whether authoritative parenting styles associated with androgyny. To account for differences in sex on gender role identity or parenting styles, sex was included as a factor. The pattern of the difference in identity groups was similar for males and females. There were significant differences in parenting styles between gender role groups. Maternal and paternal authoritativeness correlated with participants' femininity, and for both parents, the relationship was observed to be stronger in males than females; paternal authoritativeness was significantly associated with androgyny. Future research based on these results should investigate how the findings relate to children's psychological well-being and behavioral outcomes.
Adaptive filter for event-related bioelectric signals using an impulse correlated reference input: comparison with signal averaging techniques

An adaptive impulse correlated filter (AICF) for event-related signals that are time-locked to a stimulus is presented. This filter estimates the deterministic component of the signal and removes the noise uncorrelated with the stimulus, even if this noise is colored, as in the case of evoked potentials. The filter needs two inputs: the signal (primary input) and an impulse correlated with the deterministic component (reference input). The LMS algorithm is used to adjust the weights in the adaptive process. It is shown that the AICF is equivalent to exponentially weighted averaging (FWA) when using the LMS algorithm. A quantitative analysis of the signal-to-noise ratio improvement, convergence, and misadjustment error is presented. A comparison of the AICF with ensemble averaging (EA) and moving window averaging (MWA) techniques is also presented. The adaptive filter is applied to real high-resolution ECG signals and time-varying somatosensory evoked potentials. <<ETX>>
Molecular PET and PET/CT imaging of tumour cell proliferation using F-18 fluoro-L-thymidine: a comprehensive evaluation

Positron emission tomography (PET) using F-18 fluoro-3′-deoxy-3-L-fluorothymidine (FLT) offers noninvasive assessment of cell proliferation in vivo. The most important application refers to the evaluation of tumour proliferative activity, representing a key feature of malignancy. Most data to date suggest that FLT is not a suitable biomarker for staging of cancers. This is because of the rather low fraction of tumour cells that undergo replication at a given time with subsequently relatively low tumour FLT uptake. In addition, generally, the high FLT uptake in liver and bone marrow limits the diagnostic use. We describe the current status on preclinical and clinical applications of FLT-PET including our own experience in brain tumours. The future of FLT-PET probably lies in the evaluation of tumour response to therapy and more importantly, in the prediction of early response in the course of treatment. The level of FLT accumulation in tumours depends on thymidine kinase 1 activity and on the therapy-induced activation of the salvage pathway and expression of nucleoside transporters. Therefore, cytostatic agents that cause arrest of the cell cycle in the S-phase may initially increase FLT uptake rather than reducing the tumour cell accumulation. In addition, agents that block the endogenous thymidine pathway may lead to overactivity of the salvage pathway and increase tumour FLT uptake. In contrast, many therapeutic agents inhibit both pathways and subsequently reduce tumour FLT uptake. Further studies comparing FLT with F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-PET will be important to determine the complementary advantage of FLT-PET in early cancer therapy response assessment. Further research should be facilitated by simplified synthesis of FLT with improved yields and an increasing commercial availability.
Cross‐reactivity between an HLA‐B27‐derived peptide and a retinal autoantigen peptide: a clue to major histocompatibility complex association with autoimmune disease

Statistical correlations between the expression of various HLA antigens and certain autoimmune diseases have been observed for both HLA class I and II antigens. Autoimmune diseases like spondyloarthropathies and anterior uveitis are associated with HLA‐B27, but uveitis in Behçet's disease with HLA‐B51. We describe a peptide from disease‐associated HLA class I antigens sharing sequence homologies with a highly uveitogenic epitope from the retinal autoantigen S‐antigen. S‐antigen induces autoimmune uveitis in the animal model and is a major autoantigen in human disease. The HLA peptide induced uveitis in the Lewis rat and, moreover, suppressed S‐antigen‐induced disease when administered orally. Patients' PBL cross‐reacted with the HLA‐ and corresponding retinal peptide, explaining the organ specificity of the disease.