Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Inside Debt Compensation and the Value of Equity and Debt

We use firm and chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics motivated by optimal contracting theory to estimate optimal CEO relative debt-equity incentive ratios. Equity values rise as firms adjust CEO incentive ratios toward their predicted optimums, whether that increases or decreases the relative incentive ratio. Debt values rise as firms adjust ratios upward and do not fall as they adjust them downward. Our predicted optimums explain changes in equity and debt values better than a model in which firms simply match CEO inside debt-equity ratios to firm debt-equity ratios. The results suggest important cross-sectional differences in firms’ optimal inside debt policies.
A 30-MHz, 90-ppm/°C fully-integrated clock reference generator with frequency-locked loop

A temperature- and supply-independent clock generator has been developed using 0.35-µm CMOS technology. This generator is based on a simple frequency-locked loop technique and can be implemented monolithically without using LC resonant circuits, quartz resonators, and MEMS oscillators. A sample device that is tunable over a wide frequency range of 2–100 MHz was designed and fabricated. It showed a temperature coefficient of 90 ppm/°C, a line regulation of 4%/V, and a power dissipation of 180 µW, at a frequency of 30 MHz. The process sensitivity (σ/μ) was 2.7%. This clock generator can be used as an on-chip reference clock circuit.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SPEECH PERCEPTION AND SPEECH PRODUCTION IN NORMAL HEARING AND HEARING-IMPAIRED SUBJECTS

The purpose of this paper is to consider the factors that make deaf speech so unintelligible to listeners. Twenty years of research have generated a long list of aspects of deaf production that are characteristic of the group, which become increasingly deviant with standard measures of hearing loss, and which are correlated wi th overall intelligibility. However, while all of these aspects may make the deaf individual identifiable, they may not contribute equally to the listener's ability to understand him or her.
CEO turnover and corporate performance relationship in pre- and post- IFRS period: evidence from Turkey

This study investigates CEO turnover and corporate performance relationship as a measure of the effectiveness of a corporate governance system. The impact of different financial accounting regimes on the turnover/performance relationship is also analyzed. If systems replace poorly performing managers, they are considered as not ineffective. The results provide evidence that corporate governance systems with poor governance characteristics may not be ineffective, due to the existence of alternative governance mechanisms. The disciplinary CEO turnover is found to be more strongly associated with corporate performance compared to voluntary CEO turnover, whereas in the IFRS subsample the relationship is stronger with contemporaneous performance measures.
The Markup for Lemons: Quality and Uncertainty in American and British Used-Car Markets, c. 1953-1973

Automobile depreciation rates and dealer markups in the United States and Britain during the 1950s and 1960s provide evidence on the effect of asymmetric information on market structures. Initial depreciation was not exceptional, and trade was not disabled. ‘Lemon’ effects were evident in some periods but not others. Depreciation and markups increased with mechanical and styling uncertainty. Adverse selection kicked in as cars aged: high selling costs caused dealers to withdraw from trading older cars. Despite their lower quality, British makes depreciated less, probably due to different novelty signals and longer styling cycles.
New Zealand shareholder attitudes towards corporate environmental disclosure

Purpose – The natural environment has become an increasingly important business issue over the last ten years while shareholder views on the importance of corporate environmental disclosure have not been extensively investigated. The purpose of this paper is to report the requirements of individual shareholders for the disclosure and regulation of environmental information and their intended use of the information.Design/methodology/approach – Respondents were questioned using an online survey whether they want specific types of environmental information from companies and if so, where they want it disclosed, why they want it disclosed and if they feel strongly enough about it to want it made compulsory and be subject to an audit. The authors regard New Zealand as an ideal experimental setting for the investigation of shareholder views and focus on the members of an active shareholders' association in New Zealand and obtain a very high response rate.Findings – The paper finds that most shareholders are ve.
Interindividual variability of canalicular ATP‐binding‐cassette (ABC)–transporter expression in human liver

Interindividual variability in hepatic canalicular transporter expression might predispose to the development of hepatic disorders such as acquired forms of intrahepatic cholestasis. We therefore investigated expression patterns of bile salt export pump (BSEP, ABCB11), multidrug resistance protein 3 (MDR3, ABCB4), multidrug resistance associated protein 2 (MRP2, ABCC2) and multidrug resistance protein 1 (MDR1, ABCB1) in healthy liver tissue of a white population. Protein expression levels were correlated with specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the corresponding transporter genes. Hepatic protein expression levels from 110 individuals undergoing liver resection were assessed by Western blot analysis of liver plasma membranes enriched in canalicular marker enzymes. Each individual was genotyped for the following synonymous (s) and nonsynonymous (ns) SNPs: ABCB11: (ns:1457T>C and 2155A>G), ABCB4: (ns:3826A>G) and ABCC2 (ns:1286G>A,3600T>A and 4581G>A) and ABCB1 (ns:2677G>T/A and s:3435C>T). Transporter expression followed unimodal distribution. However, of all tested individuals 30% exhibited a high expression and 32% a low or very low expression phenotype for at least one of the four investigated transport proteins. Transporter expression levels did not correlate with age, sex, underlying liver disease, or presurgery medication. However, low BSEP expression was associated with the 1457C‐allele in ABCB11 (P = .167) and high MRP2 expression was significantly correlated with the 3600A and 4581A ABCC2 variants (P = .006). In conclusion, the results demonstrate a considerable interindividual variability of canalicular transporter expression in normal liver. Furthermore, data suggest a polymorphic transporter expression pattern, which might constitute a risk factor for the development of acquired forms of cholestatic liver diseases. (HEPATOLOGY 2006;44:62–74.)
Antibodies to Neuronal Targets in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases

Abstract: The role of antibodies to specific neuronal and muscle ion channels in the etiology of neuromuscular transmission disorders is now well accepted. In addition, maternal antibodies can cross the placenta and cause neonatal disease or even alter the development of the infant, raising the possibility that some neurodevelopmental conditions could be caused by maternal antibodies. Voltage‐gated ion channels are expressed in the brain as well as at the neuromuscular junction, and in recent years it has become clear that antibodies to some central nervous system (CNS) channels can be associated with CNS disease. This review highlights features of these conditions, preliminary investigations into neurodevelopmental disorders, and areas for further study.
A novel channel indexing-based channel selection algorithm for cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is an emerging Next-generation technology, which is introduced to improve the utilization of the license spectrum. For efficient spectrum utilization, Secondary user's (SUs) first detect the spectrum holes in license spectrum and then adjusts their transmission parameters accordingly. Primary user's (PUs) are paying for their use therefore, they have exclusive rights over license spectrum and they can access license bands anytime they desire. In Non-collaborative channel sharing, PUs and SUs do not exchange control information. Such spectrum sharing causes severe interference to PUs which leads to data collisions and frequent channel switching that ultimately reduces the overall system throughput. In this paper, we propose a novel PU activity-aware channel indexing scheme and based on that indexing scheme we proposed a rank-based channel selection algorithm (RCSA) for efficient license bands exploitation. We compare the performance of our propose RCSA algorithm with well know Listen-Before-Talk channel access scheme. Simulation results prove the significance of our proposed algorithm in term of collisions, channel switching and throughput.
An Explanation of the Greek Crisis: The Insiders - Outsiders Society

In this paper we present stylized facts of the Greek economy that characterize the causes and the consequences of its ongoing crisis. Then, we offer an explanation that can account for those causes and consequences. This explanation is based on the view of Greek society as consisting of two groups with conflicting goals:'insiders' and 'outsiders'. Insiders are enjoying rightful and unrighteous benefits and the system is protecting them from their own potentially unlawful behavior, competition and meritocracy. Outsiders are the rest of society. The economic consequence of the 'insiders - outsiders society' is the accumulation of public and foreign debts as well as relatively low overall growth - features that characterize the Greek economy, for some time. Finally, following the insiders- outsiders explanation, we offer policy recommendations for an exit from the crisis and the resumption of growth.
Multi-year assessment of Unilever's progress towards agricultural sustainability II: outcomes for peas (UK), spinach (Germany, Italy), tomatoes (Australia, Brazil, Greece, USA), tea (Kenya, Tanzania, India) and oil palm (Ghana)

The foods, home and personal care company, Unilever, is a large user of raw materials from agriculture, and a major buyer of goods on world markets. The continued supply of these materials is seen as an important component in the business's long-term success. The company has a long history of seeking to farm responsibly on company farms and for directly contracted raw materials, but it became clear that an approach based solely on suppliers' good agricultural practice would not safeguard supplies where increasing social and environmental pressures on agriculture were growing, or where increasing consumer concerns about the food chain could undermine markets and brands. Both threats suggested the need for a more radical approach. This resulted in the development of a mission statement, the agreement of four principles for sustainable agriculture, the identification of ten sustainable agriculture indicators (later 11), and the selection of five key crops the sustainable supply of which was significant to the company. This paper summarizes progress towards the sustainable supply of these crops by reporting on selected sustainability indicators for the crops (peas, spinach, tomatoes, tea and oil palm) in 11 countries. Some of the businesses using these products have been subsequently sold, but these are reported here because the aim is to explore how responsive are different indicators of sustainability to management action in different crops in widely differing locations. This paper focuses on a selection of findings for each of the 10 indicators, in order to illustrate the extent of changes that have been observed over time. These also indicate some of the difficulties faced in making improvements on the ground. The gathering of data on sustainability indicators is closely tied to the development of alternative practices that should quickly deliver improvements in a variety of outcomes. An assessment is also made of the key changes that have occurred for each of the main five crops as a result of adopting the sustainability indicator system and associated new management practices. Multi-year assessments were conceived as the way to understand and demonstrate progress towards more sustainable agriculture. The important developments were of systems that combined ensuring that agricultural suppliers performed to an acceptable set of criteria, and then had the capacity and willingness to identify the most critical areas where further progress was required. The challenge for the company is now to encourage others to adopt their approach to making supply chains more sustainable, both for their customers and the consumers of their branded goods.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging of human brain activation during cue-induced cocaine craving.

OBJECTIVE Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to test whether brain activation was detectable in regions previously associated with cocaine cue-induced craving. METHOD Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional activation was measured during presentation of audiovisual stimuli containing alternating intervals of drug-related and neutral scenes to six male subjects with a history of crack cocaine use and six male comparison subjects. RESULTS Significant activation was detected in the anterior cingulate and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the cocaine-using group. In addition, a correlation between self-reported levels of craving and activation in these regions was found. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that functional MRI may be a useful tool to study the neurobiological basis of cue-induced craving.
Intact INI1 gene region with paradoxical loss of protein expression in AT/RT: implications for a possible novel mechanism associated with absence of INI1 protein immunoreactivity.

To the Editor: In a recent article Tsai et al1 described genetic analyses in atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors (AT/RTs) of 4 Taiwanese patients. These and other AT/RTs had been previously examined with gene expression microarrays by the same group, and retained INI1 (SMARCB1) mRNA expression had been found in a subgroup of tumors despite immunohistochemical loss of INI1 protein.2 On the basis of this finding Tsai and colleagues evaluated INI1 at the genome level in this subgroup using direct sequencing and a commercially available pangenomic aCGH platform. With this approach they found in only 1 of the 4 analyzed tumors a single point mutation, and aCGH did not reveal in any of the tumors a deletion around the INI1 region at 22q11.2. Thus, the authors concluded that a novel, yet unidentified, posttranscriptional regulatory mechanism exists in these AT/ RTs. To corroborate this hypothesis the authors cite a 10-year-old paper reporting no aberrations of INI1 in about 10% of the analyzed AT/ RTs.3 However, a recent paper by the same group using high-density single nucleotide polymorphism–based oligonucleotide arrays and multiplex ligation–dependent probe amplification to examine genomic aberrations in a large series of RTs has been ignored.4 In this recent study inactivating events in the INI1 gene including homozygous deletions, copy neutral loss of heterozygosity (LOH), and duplications could be identified in 98% of all examined tumors. Especially small exonic deletions and copy neutral LOH of INI1 might have been missed by Tsai and colleagues, as the resolution of the aCGH platform they used is not high enough to detect such aberrations (indeed there are only probe sets adjacent to INI1, but INI1 itself is not covered by this array), and it is not possible to detect copy neutral LOH by aCGH. Furthermore, the authors show in Figure 1A an AT/RT that obviously contains a lot of vascular proliferation, which clearly displays INI1 nucleopositivity. This “contamination” of normal tissue could be a reason why INI1 mRNA is detectable in this tumor. In addition, mutations could be identified by sequencing cDNA after RNA isolation and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction,3 indicating that INI1 mRNA is present in some tumors and probably ultimately degraded by nonsense-mediated decay. Thus, it would be important that Tsai and colleagues confirm their hypothesis by further analyzing their tumors with techniques such as multiplex ligation–dependent probe amplification and high-resolution single nucleotide polymorphism array to exclude aberrations of the INI1 gene and also ensure that the amount of INI1 nucleopositive tissue is not too high to blur such aberrations.
Remnant-like particle cholesterol and triglyceride levels of hypertriglyceridemic patients in the fed and fasted state.

Potentially atherogenic triglyceride-rich lipoprotein (TRL) remnants can be isolated and quantitated as remnant-like particles (RLP), using an immunoaffinity gel containing specific anti-human apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) and apoB-100 monoclonal antibodies. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between postprandial changes in RLP levels and changes in total serum triglyceride (TG) in patients with different forms of hypertriglyceridemia (HTG). Three groups of patients were selected, having similarly elevated serum TG levels: a) HTG with TRL remnant accumulation (i.e., type III patients, n = 15, TG: 3.8 +/- 0.2 mm), b) HTG with increased LDL (i.e., type IIb patients, n = 15, TG: 3.7 +/- 0.2 mm), and c) HTG without evidence of remnant or LDL accumulation (i.e., type IV patients, n = 15, TG: 3.9 +/- 0.3 mm). Ingestion of a 45-g fat meal caused a significant increase in serum TG (30;-50%) in all patients. Mean serum TG levels of the three groups were not significantly different at 4 or 6 h after the meal. RLP cholesterol (C) and TG levels increased after the meal in all patients, but these postprandial increases were also not significantly different among groups. Type III patients had significantly higher (P < 0.01) levels of RLP-C and RLP-apoE in the fasted and fed state, and also had significantly higher RLP-C-to-serum TG ratios (P < 0.001) compared with the other groups. These results indicate that 1) RLP-C and RLP-TG levels are significantly increased in the fed versus fasted state in patients with elevated fasting TG levels; 2) patients with different forms of HTG, but similar TG levels, have similar postprandial increases in RLP-C and RLP-TG; and 3) type III patients have significantly elevated levels of RLP-C and RLP-apoE in both the fed and fasted state.
Untangling the Complexity of the Association between Contracting and Local Fiscal Performance and Income Inequality in Terms of Competing Values

Public contracting is designed to reduce costs and to enhance service quality. However, few prior studies have clarified the multiple performance dimensions of public service delivery influenced by contracting. This study empirically tests how different contracting elements are associated with local fiscal performance and income inequality in terms of competing values. For the test, the different contracting elements (scope, competition, stability, specification and monitoring) are respectively measured through a nationwide public service delivery survey. Multiple performance values of public service delivery (efficiency, effectiveness and equity) are measured through local fiscal data and the Gini index. Overall, competitive market is associated only with efficiency, while stability is related only to equity.
Involvement of Glutamate Receptors, Protein Kinases, and Protein Synthesis in Memory for Visual Discrimination in the Young Chick

Two-day-old chicks were trained to discriminate between edible chick crumbs and arrays of colored beads glued to the floor of their cage. Normal chicks learned this task within a few minutes and retained it for at least 24 h. The role of several biochemical systems known to be required for other forms of early learning in the chick was explored in this task. Antagonists and inhibitors of these systems were used in the doses known to produce amnesia in a related passive avoidance learning model. Drugs were injected intracerebrally just before training, and retention was tested at various times subsequently. The protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin (240 nmol/chick) was without effect on retention at 30 min posttraining, but chicks were amnestic at 3 and 24 h. The protein kinases inhibitors melittin (1.2 nmol/chick) and 1-(5-isoquinolinylsulfonyl)-2-methylpiperazine hydrochloride (100 nmol/chick) were without effect on retention at 30 min posttraining but were amnestic by 3 h. While these effects are similar to those found for one-trial passive avoidance training, neither the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists (+)-5-methyl-10, 11-dihydro-5H-dibenzo[a, d]cyclohepten-5,10-imine maleate (up to 15 nmol/chick) or DL-2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate (1.3 nmol/chick), both of which are amnestic for passive avoidance, nor the non-NMDA-glutamate receptor antagonist 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2, 3,-dione (4 nmol/chick) were amnestic for the visual discrimination task. By contrast, the metabotropic glutamate receptor blocker (RS)- alpha-methyl-4-carboxyphenylglycine (300 nmol/chick) injected 5 min pretraining resulted in amnesia at 3 h posttraining. The implications of these findings for the putative "memory consolidation cascade" are discussed.
Regulation of Functionally Active P2Y12 ADP Receptors by Thrombin in Human Smooth Muscle Cells and the Presence of P2Y12 in Carotid Artery Lesions*

Objective—The platelet P2Y12 ADP receptor is a well-known target of thienopyridine-type antiplatelet drugs. This study is the first to describe increased transcriptional expression of a functionally active P2Y12 in response to thrombin in human vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC). Methods and Results—On exposure to thrombin, P2Y12 mRNA was transiently increased, whereas total protein and cell surface expression of P2Y12 were markedly increased within 6 hours and remained elevated over 24 hours. This effect was mediated by activation of nuclear factor &kgr;B. Preincubation with thrombin significantly enhanced the efficacy of the P2Y receptor agonist 2-methylthio-ADP to induce interleukin 6 expression and SMC mitogenesis. Effects induced by 2-methylthio-ADP were prevented by RNA interference-mediated knockdown of P2Y12 and a selective P2Y12-antagonist R-138727, the active metabolite of prasugrel. In addition, positive P2Y12 immunostaining was shown in SMC of human carotid artery plaques and was found to colocalize with tissue factor, the rate-limiting factor of thrombin formation in vivo. Conclusion—These data suggest that the P2Y12 receptor not only is central to ADP-induced platelet activation but also may mediate platelet-independent responses, specifically under conditions of enhanced thrombin formation, such as local vessel injury and atherosclerotic plaque rupture.
Ethics and sexual health: Exploration of the ethical code of conduct for physiotherapists concerning sexual health in clinical practice

ABSTRACT Physiotherapists have an important role in sexual health, but there are specific ethical considerations regarding sexuality and the practice of physiotherapy which require serious consideration. This article aims to illustrate how the professional ethical code of physiotherapy can serve as a tool for ethical clinical reasoning regarding sexual health in clinical physiotherapy practice. We analyse the ethical codes for physical therapy, in relation to a definition of sexual health and the declaration of sexual rights. The analysis outlines several ethical considerations crucial in dealing with sexual health, while also acknowledging the critical role of cultural context in any ethical analysis. We conclude that physiotherapists need to practise ethical reasoning and that the ethical code of physiotherapy can act as a point of departure for reflection on thought-provoking ethical dilemmas to improve the practice of physiotherapy and support clients’ overall health.