Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protected by the family? How closely held family firms protect minority shareholders

Most companies in the world are owned by families, and a majority of them are registered in countries where the legal protection of minority shareholders is weak. Is family control the consequence of the lack of investor protection? It is known that agency problems among owners actually increase in family-ownership situations, so family control by itself may not be an efficient substitute for the legal protection of minority investors. In this article we analyze successful strategies used by Canadian and Latin American business groups and firms to increase the satisfaction of their minority shareholders and to limit the incentives of the controlling shareholders to abuse them, and predict the outcomes of that protection. From these experiences we are able to suggest some conditions that are required in order for family control to be an effective response to the lack of legal investor protection.
What does participation mean? An insider perspective from people with disabilities

Purpose. Although participation is an important construct and valued goal, how it is conceptualized, defined and measured varies widely. This qualitative, multi-site study sought to gain an insider perspective from people with disabilities in grounding what participation means, how to characterize it, and the barriers and supports to participation. Method. Sixty-three people self-identifying with diverse disabilities participated in qualitative focus groups across sites. Results. Participants conceptualized participation as a cluster of values that included active and meaningful engagement/being a part of, choice and control, access and opportunity/enfranchisement, personal and societal responsibilities, having an impact and supporting others, and social connection, inclusion and membership. Conclusions. No gold standard for ideal or optimal participation emerged; no one defined set or frequency of activities accounted for ‘full’ participation. Participants described needing to be free to define and pursue participation on their own terms rather than meeting predetermined societal norms. Participation was viewed as both a right and a responsibility, influenced by and ascribed to the person and to the society. Participation does not occur in a vacuum; the environment dynamically influences participation. Implications of this conceptual framing for assessment, research and systems level change to support participation of people with disabilities are discussed.
Consumer thresholds for establishing the value of beef tenderness.

In the present study, a national consumer evaluation was conducted for beef tenderness on USDA Select strip loin steaks of known Warner-Bratzler shear (WBS) force values, ranging from tough (> 5.7 kg) to tender (< 3.0 kg), and to assess the monetary value that consumers place on tenderness by determining the average price a consumer would pay for a steak in three tenderness categories. Three supermarkets in each of five metropolitan areas (Baltimore, MD/Washington D.C.; Chicago, IL; Dallas/Fort Worth, TX; Los Angeles, CA; and Lubbock, TX) were selected to represent a wide range of income, education, and ethnicity at each city. Five trained research teams traveled to the cities to collect data during the same 10-d period. Consumers (n = 734; minimum of 15 consumers/panel, three panels/store, three stores/city, five cities) were asked to evaluate samples from each tenderness classification (tender, intermediate, or tough) for overall and tenderness acceptability, overall quality, beef flavor, juiciness, tenderness, how much they would pay for the steak ($17.14, 14.28, or 10.98/kg), if they would pay more than current market price if guaranteed tender, and to estimate the number of meals in a 2-wk period that included beef. The consumers were 52% light beef users, consuming 0 to 8 meals containing beef in 2 wk, 41% heavy beef users (greater than 12 meals/2 wk), and 6% moderate beef users (9 to 12 meals/2 wk). Consumer tenderness acceptability increased as WBS values decreased (P < 0.05). The transition in consumer perception from tender to tough beef occurred between 4.3 and 4.9 kg of WBS based on > or = 86% consumer acceptability. Consumer acceptability for tenderness decreased from 86% at 4.3 kg for a "slightly tender" rating to 59% at 4.9 kg for a "slightly tough" rating. Data from the present study suggested that consumer WBS tenderness values of < 3.0, 3.4, 4.0, 4.3, and > 4.9 kg would result in 100, 99, 94, 86, and 25% customer satisfaction for beef tenderness, respectively. Seventy-eight percent of the consumers would purchase steaks if the retailer guaranteed them to be tender. The retail steak value differences found in this study would result in the opportunity for a premium to be paid for a guaranteed tender (< 3.0 kg WBS value) carcass of $76.26 vs the toughest (> 5.7 kg) classification. A premium of $66.96 could be paid to the tender classification carcasses vs the tough (> 4.9 kg) classification carcasses, and a premium of $36.58 could be paid for the tender classification carcasses vs the intermediate (> 3.0 to < 4.6 kg) classification carcasses. Results from the present study show that consumers can segregate differences in beef tenderness and that consumers are willing to pay more for more-tender beef.
An improved interim therapeutic restoration technique for management of anterior early childhood caries: report of two cases.

Early childhood caries presents unique treatment challenges that often require advanced behavior management techniques, such as general anesthesia or procedural sedation. In some cases, use of these pharmacologic adjuncts is undesirable or not possible. The interim therapeutic restoration is a treatment method that, while sometimes employed in such cases, can often produce unsatisfactory results in primary anterior teeth. This is often due to insufficient bulk of material and lack of retention. The purpose of this report was to describe a simple alternative technique (resin modified glass ionomer strip crowns) that may be employed to deliver esthetic anterior restorations to marginally cooperative children in the dental clinic setting and to report on two cases in which it was successfully used. \\\Department of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash. , USA. tmnelson@uw.edu
Improving classification through ensemble neural networks

We consider using neural networks as an ensemble technique to improve classification accuracy. Neural networks are among the best techniques used for classification. In this work, we make use of ensemble approach to combine individual neural networks' outputs by another neural network. Furthermore, we propose to include original data as additional inputs for the ensemble neural network. The effectiveness of our proposed approach is demonstrated through a series of experiments on real and synthetic datasets.
Owner as Manager, Extended Horizons and the Family Firm

Previous work on firm ownership structure suggests that organizations in which ownership and control are combined may be undervalued relative to the market investment rule because decision makers have an incentive to forgo investment projects that managers in firms with specialized ownership find profitable. However, the specialization of ownership and decision-making functions may result in substantial agency costs. This paper shows that these tradeoffs may not exist in family firms. The extended horizons characteristic of family businesses may provide the necessary incentives for decision makers to invest according to the market rule while limiting agency costs that arise when ownership and control are separated. Family ties, loyalty, insurance, and stability are expected to be effective in lengthening the horizons of managers and in providing the incentives for family managers to make efficient investments in the family business.
Student Evaluations: Synchronous Tripod of Learning Portfolio Assessment—Self-Assessment, Peer-Assessment, Instructor-Assessment

Background: Learning portfolios are increasingly being introduced in higher education including undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. Due to their highly personalized nature, creation of an assessment tool that accurately reflects the value for the learner of the ‘work’ created is challenging, and has prevented a more widespread use of this valuable tool. Innovation & Evaluation: Forty-one physical therapy students were asked to create a learning portfolio as a component of their pathology course. This collection of evidence of learning was evaluated at the midterm and final examination by a synchronous tripod of assessors-the ‘self’, a peer, and the instructor- to provide a formative and summative evaluation. Results: Grades awarded by the three assessors were more similar at the end of the semester when compared with those at the midterm. A quantitative and qualitative satisfaction questionnaire was additionally given to students to determine the usefulness of this educational activity. Though the majority of students responded favourably, with notable self-reported improvements in communication, team-work, and professional growth, primary challenges included negative perceptions related to increased time commitment, student and teacher-related stress, and uncertainty regarding the value and the immediate and long-term relevance of this creative learning activity. Conclusion: Reflection on our study authenticates that the combination of formative and summative evaluations from such tripod assessments of learning portfolios is particularly suited for explicit inclusion in higher educational programs including medicine and allied health professionals. We recommend learning portfolios as a creative learning tool and assessment tool in higher education.
Public Pension Benefits Claiming Behaviour: New Evidence from the Japanese Study on Ageing and Retirement

This paper explores the public pension claiming behavior of the Japanese. First, we perform financial simulations and estimate the expected utility, depicting the typical patterns of pension benefits over a life cycle. We show that the optimal retirement age depends on the beneficiaries’ mortality risk, discount rate, initial wealth, and risk attitude. Second, we use individual-level data from the Japanese Study on Aging and Retirement to examine empirically the determinants of the take-up timing. We find supportive evidence that most of the factors examined in the simulation are indeed significantly associated with early claiming of pension benefits for wage earners.
A Diverse Society, A Representative Military? The Complexity of Managing Diversity in the South African Armed Forces

After providing a brief background as to why issues of diversity management within armed forces have become important internationally, this article outlines the diversity challenges facing the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). The first part of the article describes how the racial, language/ethnic and gender profile of the SANDF has changed since 1994 and the tensions this has evoked. The second part provides a brief conceptual framework against which diversity management in the SANDF can be interpreted, whereafter the various diversity management programmes instituted over the years to cultivate a respect for diversity are outlined. It is argued that the predominant emphasis on ‘workplace diversity’ at the cost of ‘valuing diversity’ has meant that existing stereotypes and tensions within the ranks have remained, with dire consequences not only for the cohesiveness and effectiveness of the SANDF, but also for civil-military relations.
The Tag Navigation recommendation with adaptive learning method

Social Tags are widely used in web 2.0, and they bring the new chance and challenge to the recommender system, which is used to help users deal with information overload and provide personalized services. There are three respects of work done in this paper: firstly, the n-gram based Tag Navigation is presented to provide the assistant support for tag retrieval; secondly, the Average Mutual Information based tag similarity measure is detailed, furthermore this kind of semantic relation is applied to the retrieval intention expansion; thirdly, an approach of ranking based recommendation is presented, and the adaptive learning mechanism is explored. The experiments verify above methods, and result shows the complex features adopted in the recommendation bring improvement by 13.39%.
Wnt6 expression in epidermis and epithelial tissues during Xenopus organogenesis

Here, we report the localization within embryonic tissues of xWnt6 protein; together with the temporal and spatial expression of Xenopus laevis Wnt6 mRNA. Wnt6 expression in Xenopus embryos is low until later stages of neurulation, when it is predominantly found in the surface ectoderm. Wnt6 expression increases during early organogenesis in the epidermis overlaying several developing organs, including the eye, heart, and pronephros. At later stages of development, Wnt6 mRNA and protein generally localize in epithelial tissues and specifically within the epithelial tissues of these developing organs. Wnt6 localization correlates closely with sites of both epithelial to mesenchymal transformations and mesenchymal to epithelial transformations. Xenopus Wnt6 sequence and its expression pattern are highly conserved with other vertebrates. Xenopus embryos, therefore, provide an excellent model system for investigating the function of vertebrate Wnt6 in organ development and regulation of tissue architecture. Developmental Dynamics 237:768–779, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Are Happy Investors Likely to Be Overconfident?

This study investigates the relationship of investors' happy sentiment and overconfidence effect. Sunshine, temperature, former returns, and margin loan change rate are used as proxies for happy sentiment. Using data from Taiwan Stock Exchange and principal component analysis, the happy sentiment index is divided into two categories: "natural environment happiness" and "investment atmosphere happiness. " The results suggest that when natural environment happiness is stronger, investors are less likely to have overconfidence. On the contrary, when investment atmosphere happiness is stronger, investors are more likely to have overconfidence.
Multiple imputation method for estimating incidence of HIV infection. The Multicenter Prospective HIV Study.

BACKGROUND CD4+ T-lymphocyte (CD4) and platelet counts are good predictors of the 'maturity' of HIV infection and can be used to impute the date of infection/seroconversion in individuals for whom this date is unknown. METHODS Data from the Italian Seroconversion Study were used to develop a Weibull regression model for time since seroconversion as a function of the haematologic markers. The model was used to impute time since HIV infection/seroconversion in individuals from a prevalent cohort, recruited through the Lazio regional HIV surveillance system. RESULTS The range of the imputed calendar times of infection/seroconversion in 2599 HIV prevalent individuals was 1972-1992; the earliest seroconversions occurred among injecting drug users (IDU). The peak of incidence was reached in 1986 with 340 seroconversions. Among males, the estimated median time from seroconversion to HIV diagnosis was shorter in IDU (30 months) as compared to non-IDU (36 months). This difference was smaller for females (26.6 versus 28.4 in IDU and non-IDU, respectively). CONCLUSIONS This method permits the estimation of population-based curves of HIV incidence, using data from surveillance. The results support the hypotheses of an early spread of the epidemic among IDU in the Lazio region, and of shorter lead times in this population.
Human resources managers as custodians of the king III code

The objective of this research was to perform an exploratory study on the knowledge and understanding of the King III code among Human Resources (HR) managers in South African companies. The King III code is a comprehensive international corporate governance regime which addresses the financial, social, ethical and environmental practices of organisations. HR management plays a role in managing corporate governance by using the King III code as a guideline. The main research questions were: Does HR management know, understand, apply, and have the ability to use the King III code in terms of ethical decision-making? What role does HR management play in corporate governance? A random sample of available HR managers, senior HR consultants and HR directors was taken and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results indicated that the respondents had no in-depth knowledge of the King III code. They did not fully understand the King III code and its implications nor did they use it to ensure ethical management. The themes most emphasised by the participants were: culture, reward and remuneration, policies and procedures and performance management. The participants emphasised the importance of these items and HR’s role in managing them. Normal 0 false false false EN-ZA X-NONE X-NONE
Ownership effects of fractional reserve banking: an Islamic perspective

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to show that fractional reserve banking (FRB) has implications for the ownership structure of assets in the economy that violates the Islamic principles of ownership. Design/methodology/approach - This is a theoretical paper that looks into the works of Islamic scholars on the issue of ownership that are based on Qur'an principles and the traditions of the Prophet, and evaluates the FRB from that perspective. Findings - The conclusion of the paper is that money creation through FRB is creation of purchasing power out of nothing which brings about unjust ownership transfers of assets, from the economy to the bank effectively paid for by the whole economy through inflation. This transfer of ownership is not based on human effort by taking on legitimate risks and neither with the knowledge nor the consent of the initial owners. This violates the ownership principles in Islam and is tantamount to theft. It also has the elements of riba. Islamic governments should therefore not create fiat money since this is equivalent to taking assets of the people, rich and poor alike, forcefully without compensation. Research limitations/implications - Empirical investigations into how bank loans along the years have changed the asset ownership structure in economies may shed further light. Practical implications - It is, therefore, important that Originality/value - The paper shows how the operations of Islamic banking and finance within the fiat money, FRB system are invalid from the Islamic perspective.
Unfolding of Petri nets with semilinear reachability set

Petri net is an effective model for concurrent systems. The state space of a general Petri net is infinite. Even if it is finite, its size grows exponentially as the size of the net does. This problem, called state space explosion, makes Petri net analysis hard. Unfolding is suggested to give a compact description of the state space of a bounded Petri net. This is extended to an unbounded net using symbol /spl omega/ used in the coverability tree generating algorithm. However, using /spl omega/ causes lack of information. On the other hand, if the unbounded Petri net has a semilinear state space, it can be expressed without lack of information with an extended coverability tree. This paper suggests an extension of unfolding of Petri net with semilinear state space without lack of information.
Organization Culture as an Explanation for Employee Discipline Practices

Most supervisors dread employee discipline and often employ strategies not officially sanctioned by the organization. Poorly designed discipline systems cause this variation in discipline practices. Inconsistent discipline can cause losses in productivity and reduce employee morale. Extant literature offers little in the form of guidance for improving this important human resource activity. This article explore where normative literature on organizational culture may have explanatory value for understanding variation in discipline practices. The article suggests two groups of factors that have causal effects on discipline practices. The tangible factors are those describing the formal practices the organization wishes its employees to follow. The intangible factors provide cues for explaining why informal strategies emerge as successful practices for getting things done. Using this conception of organization culture, the article proposes hypotheses for future testing to validate the suspected influence of culture on decisions regarding employee discipline.
A synthesis of empirical internal audit effectiveness literature pointing to new research opportunities

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to provide a synopsis of what academic literature says about internal audit (IA) effectiveness ten years after Bailey Design/methodology/approach - – Empirical studies based on internal auditors’ self-assessments (“inside-out”) and empirical studies based on other stakeholders’ perspectives (“outside-in”) are reviewed through an “effectiveness lens”. The “outside-in” perspective is regarded as particularly valuable. Findings - – First, common themes in the empirical literature are identified. Second, the main threads into a model comprising macro and micro factors that influence IA effectiveness are synthesized. Third, promising future research paths that may enhance IA's value proposition were derived. Practical implications - – The “outside-in” perspective indicates a disposition to stakeholders’ disappointment in IA: IA is either running a risk of marginalization (IIA, 2013; PWC, 2013) or has to embrace the challenge to emerge as a recognized and stronger profession. The suggested research agenda identifies empirical research threads that can help IA practitioners to make a difference for their organization, be recognized, respected and trusted and help the IA profession in its pursuit of creating a unique identity. This paper wishes to motivate researchers to explore innovative research strategies and probe new theories, as well as benefit from cross-fertilization with other research streams. Originality/value - – This paper summarizes the state of research on IA effectiveness and proposes a guide for future IA research. It provides pointed questions that may further advance the understanding of what constitutes IA and how IA can enhance its value proposition.