Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research in Corporate Political Action

This article reviews the literature on corporate political action (CPA), integrating the perspectives of nine basic social science theories. Theoretical and empirical research grounded in these nine theories have described the characteristics of firms that engage in CPA (who), their rationale (why), and their methods (how). To a much lesser extent, the literature has also addressed how CPA changes over time (when) and the settings in which CPA is done (where). Reexamining the CPA literature this way directs us toward fundamental research questions that have not yet been addressed.
Total quality management and theory: An exploratory study of contribution

This paper explores the position of total quality management (TQM) with respect to theory. Amongst the findings of this exploratory examination is that: TQM is still in the early stage of theory development; TQM tends to be viewed as part of operations management rather than an academic subject in its own right, but this is changing and TQM is becoming established as an independent discipline; and that the works of international quality management experts such as Crosby, Deming, Feigenbaum and Juran have provided the baseline for the advancement of TQM theory through areas such as management by fact, customer focus, process orientation and teamwork. It is also pointed out that to extend the scope of TQM theory it is necessary to incorporate appropriate management theories into its development and that much remains to be done for TQM to reach the stage of 'refine/extend' in the theory building process. The paper also argues that TQM has made a contribution to management theory and some of the developments in this area are pointed out.
The Objectives of Canadian Monetary Policy, 1949-61: Empirical "Trade-Offs" and the Reaction Function of the Authorities

IN RECENT years a great deal of attention has been given to the objectives of economic policy and to the possibility of conflicts among them, especially in the context of the performance of the monetary authorities. Interest in this question has been strengthened by the large-scale inquiries into monetary policy conducted by the Radcliffe Committee in the United Kingdom and the Commission on Money and Credit in the United States. Empirical research on the problem has been stimulated by Professor A. W. Phillips' famous article, which introduced the concept of an empirical relationship between the percentage of unemployment and the rate of increase of wages and prices. ' Much has been done in refining Phillips' concepts and estimation procedures and applying them to other countries in order to determine the "trade-offs" between policy objectives.2 But no comparable work has been done on two equally important aspects of the problem of conflicting objectives-the preference function of the policy-making authorities according to which conflicts between objectives are in practice resolved, and the economic values of the various objectives or the costs to society of failure to attain them. Economists writing on these matters have generally been content with criticizing the outcome of the authorities' decisions in the light of their own value judgments, backed up by rough judgments of or assertions about the relative costs of non-attainment of objectives. This paper presents the results of re-
The Role of Natural Killer Cells in Human Solid Organ and Tissue Transplantation

During the last decade, considerable progress was made in the understanding of the natural killer (NK) cell mechanisms of action, especially in the processes of target cell recognition and lysis. These breakthroughs have aroused large interest in the role of NK cells in the pathogenesis of a variety of diseases. In hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, NK cells have been shown to play a significant role in the graft-versus-leukemic effect leading to protocols of cell therapy using amplified NK cells after transplantation. In human solid organ transplantation (SOT), the role of NK cells was controversial due to conflicting clinical and animal model data. NK cells have been shown to exacerbate T-cell responses during rejection, but also to promote tolerance induction under immunosuppression. The role of NK cells is of special interest in SOT because in contrast to T cells, the effect of immunosuppressive drugs on NK cells is modest, at least in vivo. Recent publications demonstrated the importance of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor/human leukocyte antigen genotypes to predict the risk of rejection and to prevent cytomegalovirus infection/reactivation. NK cell subpopulations could have different alloreactivity or immunomodulatory potentials. Finally, an understanding of the role of NK cells in the field of embryonic stem cells and their progenitor transplantation is developing. Currently, NK cells are considered a key player in the alloimmune and anti-infectious responses after SOT and transplanted tissues.
The Influence of Franchisees beyond Their Local Domain

THOMAS DANDRIDGE IS DIRECTOR OF THE Small Business Institute at the University of Albany, State University of New York. He and Dr. Cecilia M. Falbe have conducted extensive research into the franchising relationship. Franchising is an evolving organisational form with broad implications for the ways decisions are made and implemented within a large enterprise. The pervasiveness and the important roles of advisory councils are emerging participative features of management in franchised systems. This paper describes some of their impacts and looks in detail at the characteristics, functions, and importance of franchise advisory councils. It describes the results of a study of 114 franchisors who provided information on the characteristics and objectives of their advisory councils. The results provide support for the use by franchisors of the advisory council as a mechanism for channelling entrepreneurial activity directly to the franchise system.
The longitudinal impact of partner coping in couples following 5 years of unsuccessful fertility treatments.

BACKGROUND Because there is a lack of longitudinal research examining the impact of partner coping in couples experiencing infertility, we know very little about the long-term nature of coping with infertility and how partner coping strategies impact personal, marital and social distress. METHODS Participants were Danish men and women about to start a cycle of assisted reproduction treatment who were followed for a 5 year period of unsuccessful treatments. Multilevel modeling using the actor-partner interdependence model was used to examine the couple as the unit of analysis. RESULTS Active and passive avoidance coping strategies were significantly related to increased personal, marital and social distress at the individual and partner level. Meaning-based coping strategies were related to decreases in a woman's individual distress and her partner's marital distress. CONCLUSIONS Partner coping strategies have a significant impact on the other member of the couple over time in men and women undergoing infertility treatments over a 5 year period. Physicians and mental health professionals can educate men and women regarding the ineffectiveness of avoidance coping strategies as well as the beneficial nature of finding new meaning and life goals while experiencing the stress of infertility.
How Immigration May Affect U.S. Native Entrepreneurship: Theoretical Building Blocks and Preliminary Results

This paper describes the theoretical underpinnings and provides empirical evidence for a model that predicts a positive impact of immigration on entrepreneurial activity. Immigrants, we hypothesize, facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship by being willing and able to invest in new skills. At the heart of this theoretical prediction is the observation that human capital not immediately valued in the U.S. labor market is useful for learning new skills. Because immigrants face a lower opportunity cost of investing in new skills or methods, this "transfer" of source-specific skills to the U.S. may lead immigrants to be more flexible in their human capital investments than observationally equivalent natives. Areas with large numbers of immigrants (even if they are not self-employed) may prove to be areas in which entrepreneurship and innovation are easier to accomplish. Our theory offers a unique perspective on the contributions of immigrants to economic development beyond traditional perspectives that focus on low-cost immigrant labor or immigrant entrepreneurship.
Diminished prostaglandin E2 contributes to the apoptosis paradox in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

RATIONALE Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a progressive disease with a dismal prognosis, exhibit an unexplained disparity of increased alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) apoptosis but reduced fibroblast apoptosis. OBJECTIVES To examine whether the failure of patients with IPF to up-regulate cyclooxygenase (COX)-2, and thus the antifibrotic mediator prostaglandin (PG)E(2), accounts for this imbalance. METHODS Fibroblasts and primary type II AECs were isolated from control and fibrotic human lung tissue. The effects of COX-2 inhibition and exogenous PGE(2) on fibroblast and AEC sensitivity to Fas ligand (FasL)-induced apoptosis were assessed. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS IPF lung fibroblasts are resistant to FasL-induced apoptosis compared with control lung fibroblasts. Inhibition of COX-2 in control lung fibroblasts resulted in an apoptosis-resistant phenotype. Administration of PGE(2) almost doubled the rate of FasL-induced apoptosis in fibrotic lung fibroblasts compared with FasL alone. Conversely, in primary fibrotic lung type II AECs, PGE(2) protected against FasL-induced apoptosis. In human control and, to a greater extent, fibrotic lung fibroblasts, PGE(2) inhibits the phosphorylation of Akt, suggesting that regulation of this prosurvival protein kinase is an important mechanism by which PGE(2) modulates cellular apoptotic responses. CONCLUSIONS The observation that PGE(2) deficiency results in increased AEC but reduced fibroblast sensitivity to apoptosis provides a novel pathogenic insight into the mechanisms driving persistent fibroproliferation in IPF.
Effects of Time of Posttest after Two Durations of Exercise on Speed and Accuracy of Addition and Subtraction by Fit and Less-Fit Women

18 adult female volunteers, ages 27 to 49 years, were divided into two groups based on their cardiorespiratory fitness to investigate speed and accuracy of addition and subtraction immediately, 5 min., and 15 min. postexercise. A 2 (fitness level) × 3 (exercise duration) × 3 (postexercise performance trials) repeated-measures analysis of variance indicated that, for the fit group, speed of problem solving was significantly faster after both 20-min. and 40-min. exercise sessions across all performance trials; for the less-fit group, speed of addition/subtraction was significantly faster only after the 20-min. exercise session across performance trials. No significant postexercise difference in accuracy was found for either fit or less-fit groups.
A Cache Hierarchy Aware Thread Mapping Methodology for GPGPUs

The recently proposed GPGPU architecture has added a multi-level hierarchy of shared cache to better exploit the data locality of general purpose applications. The GPGPU design philosophy allocates most of the chip area to processing cores, and thus results in a relatively small cache shared by a large number of cores when compared with conventional multi-core CPUs. Applying a proper thread mapping scheme is crucial for gaining from constructive cache sharing and avoiding resource contention among thousands of threads. However, due to the significant differences on architectures and programming models, the existing thread mapping approaches for multi-core CPUs do not perform as effective on GPGPUs. This paper proposes a formal model to capture both the characteristics of threads as well as the cache sharing behavior of multi-level shared cache. With appropriate proofs, the model forms a solid theoretical foundation beneath the proposed cache hierarchy aware thread mapping methodology for multi-level shared cache GPGPUs. The experiments reveal that the three-staged thread mapping methodology can successfully improve the data reuse on each cache level of GPGPUs and achieve an average of 2.3× to 4.3× runtime enhancement when compared with existing approaches.
Interactive Learning Online at Public Universities: Evidence from a Six-Campus Randomized Trial.

Online instruction is quickly gaining in importance in U.S. higher education, but little rigorous evidence exists as to its effect on student learning. We measure the effect on learning outcomes of a prototypical interactive learning online statistics course by randomly assigning students on six public university campuses to take the course in a hybrid format (with machine-guided instruction accompanied by one hour of face-to-face instruction each week) or a traditional format (as it is usually offered by their campus, typically with about three hours of face-to-face instruction each week). We find that learning outcomes are essentially the same—that students in the hybrid format are not harmed by this mode of instruction in terms of pass rates, final exam scores, and performance on a standardized assessment of statistical literacy. We also conduct speculative cost simulations and find that adopting hybrid models of instruction in large introductory courses has the potential to significantly reduce instructor compensation costs in the long run.
Solving The « Selective Intervention » Puzzle Some Thoughts About The Theory of The Firm

This year, the Nobel committee decided to award Oliver E. Williamson for his contribution to the understanding of the boundaries of the ﬁrm. What is a ﬁrm? What activities should be internalized? Which ones should be externalized? Which ones should be mixed (i.e. internalized and externalized)? What is the speciﬁc coordination device that is available in a ﬁrm and not on a market? In my opinion, these questions are old and still unresolved and the article written by Jacques Cremer (in the pre.
Converging European communications regulation: From structural regulation to behavioural competition law

This paper examines the regulation of consumer services in pay-TV (subscription television delivered via cable and satellite networks). Engineering and market convergence creates pressures for convergence of European regulatory approaches in pay-TV networks. I identify a new paradigm of competition in communications services and describe three regulatory approaches: (i) Historically, European member-state governments structurally regulated communications, allocating scarce resources to "national champions". (ii) Behavioural regulation through generic competition law is emerging, primarily in the policies of the Commission and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. This analysis is developed with comparative examination of US behavioural competition jurisprudence, which has a far longer history of federal intervention to ensure access to dominant networks and premium programming. (iii) A hybrid approach, asymmetrical regulation, polices third-party access to the networks of dominant actors. This interim solution is based on essential facilities doctrine. I examine case studies of technical and programming bottlenecks in the US and the European Union, in the period 1994-8. Dominant actors and their government supporters have resisted divestment and attempt to create new concentrations in converging markets. Structural divestment of dominant telcos' cable networks, and behavioural regulation of the separated businesses, would allow network competition to develop. I conclude that since European governments demonstrate continuing bias towards incumbent "national champions", the new competitive paradigm will be implemented in Europe at variable speeds and with greater delay than in the US, Europe's major competitor.
Ideas of monarchical reform: Fénelon, Jacobitism, and the political works of the Chevalier Ramsay

This book examines the political works of Andrew Michael Ramsay (1683-1743) within the context of early eighteenth-century British and French political thought. In the first monograph on Ramsay in English for over sixty years, the author uses Ramsay to engage in a broader evaluation of the political theory in the two countries and the exchange between them. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Britain and France were on divergent political paths. Yet in the first three decades of that century, the growing impetus of mixed government in Britain influenced the political theory of its long-standing enemy. Shaped by experiences and ideologies of the seventeenth century, thinkers in both states exhibited a desire to produce great change by integrating past wisdom with modern knowledge. A Scottish Jacobite emigre living in Paris, Ramsay employed a synthesis of British and French principles to promote a Stuart restoration to the British throne that would place Britain at the centre of a co-operative Europe. Mansfield reveals that Ramsay was an important intellectual conduit for the two countries, whose contribution to the history of political thought has been greatly under appreciated. Including extensive analysis of the period between the 1660s and 1730s in Britain and France, this book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in political, religious, intellectual, and cultural history, as well as the early Enlightenment.
Pathways from school to work.

This Report is brought to you by the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) at ACEReSearch. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSAY Briefing Reports by an authorized administrator of ACEReSearch. For more information, please contact repository@acer.edu. au. Recommended Citation McKenzie, Phillip; Hillman, Kylie; and Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), "Pathways from school to work. " (2001). LSAY Briefing Reports. (LSAY Briefing; n.4)
Lobbying effectively in Brussels and Washington – Getting the right result

Lobbying of politicians by business and other organisations has spread across the Atlantic and is now working strongly in Brussels. With the recent expansion of the European Union (EU) to 25 member states, the number of lobbyists in Brussels will soon equal those in Washington. The expansion of lobbying has mirrored the increase of the powers of central governments. Key components of effective lobbying are universal: intelligence, strategy and implementation. Implementation of lobbying strategies can now be as intensely developed as marketing or advertising campaigns. Lobbying has developed beyond the pursuit of individual and defined objectives to the development of corporate reputations. Attitude research in the sector suggests that lobbyists have become an intrinsic part of the political process. The debate over the influence of lobbyists on policy continues on both sides of the Atlantic.
Measuring the Creative Class: Do We Know It When We See It?

ABSTRACT: Looking across the growing creative class literature, several methodologies for measurement have been employed: analysis of census data and other economic, business, and quality of life indicators; case studies and other descriptive efforts; and surveys of business leaders and other experts. These methods have provided little overall sense of relative validity. This research examines the nature of the creative class using a variety of measures: occupational and demographic profiles, talent and diversity, an expert survey of successful downtowns, creative class accoutrements, and case studies. Specific research questions include the following: Are rankings on different indicators correlated? Do the same municipalities come up high on all indicators of the creative class? How do the different measurement systems relate to overall economic health and growth? Which measurement or combination of measurement systems appears most reliable?
Asthma Bronchiale and Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction

Exercising regularly has a wide range of beneficial health effects; in particular, it has been well documented to help in the management of chronic illnesses including asthma. However, in some individuals, exertion can also trigger an exacerbation of asthmatic episodes and subsequent acute attacks of breathlessness, coughing, tightness of the chest and wheezing. This physiological process is called exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) whereby post-exercise forced expiratory volume in 1 s is reduced by 10-15% from baseline. While EIB is highly prevalent in asthmatics and presents with similar respiratory symptoms, asthma and EIB are not mutually exclusive. The aim of this review is to present a broad overview of both conditions in order to enhance the understanding of the similarities and differences distinguishing them as two separate entities. The pathophysiology and mechanisms underlying asthma are well described with research now focussing on defining phenotypes for targeted management strategies. Conversely, the mechanistic understanding of EIB remains largely under-described. Diagnostic pathways for both are established and similar, as are pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments and management approaches, which have enhanced success with early detection. Given the potential for exacerbation of asthma, exercise avoidance is common but counterproductive as current evidence indicates that it is well tolerated and improves quality of life. Literature supporting the benefit of exercise for EIB sufferers is at present favourable, yet extremely limited; therefore, future research should be directed in this area as well as towards further developing the understanding of the pathophysiology and mechanisms underpinning both EIB and asthma.
Envelope detector with denoising to improve the detection probability

This paper proposes the use of soft-thresholding denoising to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in a simple envelope detector followed by a decision threshold block. Simulation results for a received useful signal perturbed by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) using the denoising systems, indicate that the probability of detection increases at the same probability of false alarm.