Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Goals and Debt Ratio Determinants: A Survey of Practice in Five Countries

Dr. Stonehill is Professor, Oregon State University and Courtesy Visiting Professor, North European Management Institute (NEMI), Oslo, Norway. Dr. Beekhuisen is Visiting Professor, INSEAD, and formerly Professor, The Netherlands School of Business, Breukelen. Dr. Wright is Associate Professor at McGill University and Visiting Professor, Institute for International Studies and Training, Japan. Dr. Remmers is Professor, INSEAD. Dr. Toy is Assistant Professor, Columbia University and Visiting Professor, NEMI. Dr. Pares is Assistant Professor, INSEAD-CEDEP. Dr. Egan is Professor of Marketing, Georgia State University. Dr. Bates is Professor and Director of the Center for World Business, California State University at San Francisco.
PAMP (Pathogen-associated Molecular Pattern)-induced Changes in Plasma Membrane Compartmentalization Reveal Novel Components of Plant Immunity*

Plasma membrane compartmentalization spatiotemporally regulates cell-autonomous immune signaling in animal cells. To elucidate immediate early protein dynamics at the plant plasma membrane in response to the bacterial pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) flagellin (flg22) we employed quantitative mass spectrometric analysis on detergent-resistant membranes (DRMs) of Arabidopsis thaliana suspension cells. This approach revealed rapid and profound changes in DRM protein composition following PAMP treatment, prominently affecting proton ATPases and receptor-like kinases, including the flagellin receptor FLS2. We employed reverse genetics to address a potential contribution of a subset of these proteins in flg22-triggered cellular responses. Mutants of three candidates (DET3, AHA1, FER) exhibited a conspicuous defect in the PAMP-triggered accumulation of reactive oxygen species. In addition, these mutants showed altered mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation, a defect in PAMP-triggered stomatal closure as well as altered bacterial infection phenotypes, which revealed three novel players in elicitor-dependent oxidative burst control and innate immunity. Our data provide evidence for dynamic elicitor-induced changes in the membrane compartmentalization of PAMP signaling components.
Scope and limitations of predictive models in the analysis of business failure

Este artículo de revisión busca analizar los principales alcances y limitaciones de los modelos de predicción en el análisis del fracaso empresarial y su posible utilidad para el caso colombiano. Para esto se parte, en primer lugar, del análisis del concepto general de fracaso empresarial usado en los estudios, identificando la heterogeneidad terminológica que finalmente determinan el alcance y validez de las investigaciones realizadas; en segundo lugar, se revisarán los principales modelos de capacidad predictiva de la situación de fracaso empresarial, centrándose en las limitaciones y alcances que surgen en el proceso metodológico, como es la selección de la muestra, la selección de variables o ratios financieros para alimentar el modelo. Finalmente, se revisará su uso en Colombia y su posibilidad de aplicación en el país.
Is construction an industry

There has been a frequent misconception in analyses of construction sectors of the national economy: the tendency to describe these activities as ‘an industry’ or a small and stable set of ‘industries’. This has led to confusion. Construction was inappropriately assimilated to various forms of manufacturing industry. Characteristics of the construction process were treated as ‘problems’, to whose solution substantial energies were unnecessarily diverted. There has been muddle about the extent to which macro-level planning is appropriate, notably on R&D strategies and innovation for improved industrial efficiency. Construction projects increasingly use unfamiliar technological bases, comparable to ‘technology fusion’ in other sectors. A more fruitful emphasis may be to regard construction as organized as agglomerations of projects - rather than as a discrete industry or a fixed constellation of firms. The idea of the ‘demand chain’ is introduced. The paper concludes that a ‘technological paradigm’ should r.
The Expertise Effect on Web Accessibility Evaluation Methods

Web accessibility means that disabled people can effectively perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the web. Web accessibility evaluation methods are needed to validate the accessibility of web pages. However, the role of subjectivity and of expertise in such methods is unknown and has not previously been studied. This article investigates the effect of expertise in web accessibility evaluation methods by conducting a Barrier Walkthrough (BW) study with 19 expert and 57 nonexpert judges. The BW method is an evaluation method that can be used to manually assess the accessibility of web pages for different user groups such as motor impaired, low vision, blind, and mobile users. Our results show that expertise matters, and even though the effect of expertise varies depending on the metric used to measure quality, the level of expertise is an important factor in the quality of accessibility evaluation of web pages. In brief, when pages are evaluated with nonexperts, we observe a drop in validity and reliability. We also observe a negative monotonic relationship between number of judges and reproducibility: more evaluators mean more diverse outputs. After five experts, reproducibility stabilizes, but this is not the case with nonexperts. The ability to detect all the problems increases with the number of judges: With 3 experts all problems can be found, but for such a level 14 nonexperts are needed. Even though our data show that experts rated pages differently, the difference is quite small. Finally, compared to nonexperts, experts spent much less time and the variability among them is smaller, they were significantly more confident, and they rated themselves as being more productive. The article discusses practical implications regarding how BW results should be interpreted, how to recruit evaluators, and what happens when more than one evaluator is hired. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Human–Computer Interaction for statistical details and additional measures for this article.
Preparation, properties, and cell attachment/growth behavior of chitosan/acellular derm matrix composite materials

Composite membranes and sponge scaffolds consisting chitosan (CS) and acellular derm matrix (ADM) in six ratios were prepared by solvent evaporation technique and freeze-drying method, respectively. The composite materials were characterized by water contact angle measurement, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), water absorption and HaCat cells compatibility. The SEM result showed that CS/ADM three-dimensional (3D) micro-porous structures were successfully produced. The water absorption value of all scaffolds was over 18 times of its initial weight, which is high enough for skin regeneration scaffold, but there were no significant differences of water absorption ratio between deionized water and PBS solution for same scaffold (P > 0.05). HaCat cells were distributed uniformly on the surfaces of membrane 4-6, and an almost confluent monolayer was formed on membrane 6 on the fifth day, whereas cells maintained round and spherical in shape on the surface of membrane 1. The results showed that the cell compatibility of pure CS membrane needed to be improved, and addition of ADM realized this purpose. The results of compatibility of HaCat cells on scaffolds showed that the cell proliferated well on the scaffolds 3 and 4. In our study, the cell’s attachment and growth on the composite membranes was mainly determined by the content of the membrane, whereas the cell’s attachment and growth in the scaffolds was determined by both the content and structure of the scaffolds.
Single target tracking in smart glass by reliable point set

This paper aims at presenting a simple and efficient single target tracking approach, which is suitable for the applications for modern smart glasses. Specifically, a novel set-to-set similarity measurement is proposed, which takes the critical appearance cues, the contextual structure of the points inside the set and the points' coordinate related to the bounding box into consideration jointly. In contrast to the conventional holistic template matching based tracking approaches, a set of reliable feature points is employed to express the target precisely, and we incorporate the feature selection and similarity measure to an uniform framework. In addition, an automatic deterministic scale selection method is also utilized. Extensive experiments validate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed method, and demonstrate the improved performance on handling occlusions, clutter, and changes of appearance.
Mortality trends and prediction of HPV-related cancers in Brazil

Estimation of the size of a cancer group, either through number of cases or extrapolation of past observed trends, is indispensable to the planning of effective assistance measures. The aim of this study was to analyze the mortality trends of human papillomavirus-related cancers in Brazil by sex, in the period 1996–2010, and make predictions until the year 2025. All deaths registered as being a result of cervical cancer (ICD-10 code: C53), as well as those caused by vulvar and vaginal (C51 and C52), anal (C21), penile (C60), and oropharyngeal (C02, C09, C10) cancers, were registered. Adjusted rate calculations for each year were used to study the trends through the regression program ‘Joinpoint’. Predictions were made using the Nordpred program, utilizing the age–period–cohort model. When analyzing separately by location, it was observed that penile and anal cancers in men presented an increasing trend for the entire period with a statistically significant annual percentage change of 4% for anal cancer and 1.4% for penile cancer. Predictions indicate a reduction in the risk of death due to oropharyngeal cancer in men and cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancers in women. It was observed that the increase in the number of deaths occurs mainly because of population changes (size and age structure). In terms of risk, an increase is predicted for anal and penile cancers in men and consequently an increase in mortality rates is observed for these types of cancers, unlike what is expected for human papillomavirus-related cancers in women.
Electing the European Parliament: How Uniform are 'Uniform' Electoral Systems?

In 2002 agreement was reached on new uniform electoral procedures for European Parliament elections. This article does two things. First, it provides a comprehensive account of the rules under which the EP was elected in 2004, revealing a high degree of continuing variability in the existing electoral systems across all 25 Member States. Second, it addresses the question: if the electoral systems vary in form, do they also differ significantly in their effects?
The Role of Abdominoperineal Resection as Surgical Therapy for Anorectal Melanoma

Objectives:1) Characterize changes in the surgical treatment of anorectal melanoma over time. 2) Determine if the extent of surgical resection is associated with outcome. 3) Identify prognostic factors correlating with survival. Summary Background Data:Although early data suggested improved survival in patients undergoing abdominoperineal resection (APR) for primary anorectal melanoma, such an aggressive approach may be unwarranted as distant relapse rates are high. We have seen a trend toward less aggressive surgical treatment of the local disease over the past 20 years. Methods:A retrospective review was performed of all patients with anorectal melanoma treated at our institution between 1984 and 2003. Extent of primary resection and pathologic factors were studied. Results:Forty-six patients underwent a curative resection with a median follow-up of 29 months, and 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS) rate of 35%. While patient and tumor characteristics remained similar, there was a dramatic shift in surgical treatment toward less radical procedures. Prior to 1997, the majority of patients (15 of 21, 71%) underwent APR. After 1997, the majority of patients (21 of 25, 84%) underwent local excision (LE) (P < 0.0001). Local recurrence was noted in 11 of 46 (24%) patients: 4 of 19 (21%) who underwent APR and 7 of 27 (26%) who underwent LE (P = not significant). Five-year DSS was similar: 34% following APR and 35% following LE. Tumor perineural invasion (PNI) was the only factor identified as an independent predictor of worse outcome (P = 0.01). Conclusion:The extent of surgical treatment is not associated with outcome in primary anorectal melanoma. Therefore, LE of the primary tumor is recommended when technically feasible. The presence of PNI is an important prognostic factor and should be considered in future clinical trials.
The Balance of Payments Offset to Monetary Policy: Monetarist, Portfolio Balance, and Keynesian Estimates for Mexico and Venezuela

Three balance-of-payments equations are specified and estimated for Mexico and Venezuela. While a large offset is found for Venezuela, there is no evidence of a significant offset for Mexico in the 1970s. However, it is shown that from 1951 to 1970, the offset was close to minus one, suggesting there was structural change in the 1970s. The estimated offset for Venezuela in the Keynesian equation is smaller than that in the monetarist equation, supporting arguments that the latter is biased toward minus one. However, the long-run offset is minus one in accord ance with both approaches. Copyright 1986 by Ohio State University Press.
Conditional heteroscedasticity and real estate in diversified portfolios: an application of the QTARCH methodology

Recent empirical and theoretical studies have shown the necessity of including real estate in diversified portfolios. In this paper we present one of the latest developed autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models (QTARCH) and, using 52 years of Swiss data, we investigate the ability of this class of models to forecast conditional means and variances of portfolios containing only stocks and bonds, and portfolios containing real estate also. The analysis is done in a Markowitz efficient frontier framework. We find that if a simple QTARCH model had been used with our data, the portfolio's risk would have been significantly reduced. It is also shown that even when the QTARCH methodology is applied, including real estate in diversified portfolios is still justified. Furthermore, three years of out-of-sample performances of the model are extremely convincing.
Depoliticising Monetary Policy: The Minimum Lending Rate Experiment in Britain in the 1970s

This article assesses the thinking behind what is perhaps the single most important attempt to depoliticise monetary policy making in postwar Britain prior to the Bank of England Act 1998 – the introduction of the minimum lending rate (MLR) in October 1972. Drawing on recently released primary sources it argues that the MLR was devised to ‘defuse’ the political implications of Bank Rate policy and thereby shield the government from the consequences of frequent upward shifts in interest rates. MLR is considered as an experiment in ‘governing through the market’ and it is argued this has implications for how postwar monetary policy is viewed and how state/market relations are analysed, empirically and theoretically, within IPE.
Epigenetic modulation of the IGF2/H19 imprinted domain in human embryonic and extra-embryonic compartments and its possible role in fetal growth restriction

Genomic imprinting, resulting in parent-of-origin-dependent gene expression, is mainly achieved by DNA methylation. IGF2 and H19, belonging to the same cluster of imprinted genes and regulated by ICR1, DMR2 and H19 promoter elements, play a major role in fetal/placental growth. Using quantitative approaches, we explored the epigenetic modulation of IGF2/H19 during human development in 60 normal and 66 idiopathic IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction) pregnancies, studying embryonic (cord blood) and extraembryonic (placenta and umbilical cord) tissues. We found ICR1 normal methylation levels (~50%) and H19 promoter/DMR2 hypomethylation in extra-embryonic tissues. In contrast, in embryonic samples the three loci displayed normal methylation values comparable to those in postnatal blood. This feature is stably maintained throughout gestation and does not vary in IUGR cases. We reported asymmetric allelic expression of H19 and IGF2 as a common feature in pre- and post-natal tissues, independent of H19 promoter and DMR2 methylation levels. In addition, we excluded in IUGR posttranscriptional IGF2 interference possibly related to miRNA 483-3p (IGF2, intron 2) expression defects. Through LINE1 methylation analysis, we observed a methylation gradient with increasing methylation from pre- to post-natal life. The involvement of UPD (Uniparental Disomy) in IUGR aetiology was excluded. Our data indicate that: i) ICR1 3 methylation status is a necessary and sufficient condition to drive the imprinting of IGF2 and H19 present in embryonic as well as in extra-embryonic tissues; ii) hypomethylation of H19 promoter and DMR2 does not influence the expression pattern of IGF2 and H19; iii) there is a gradient of global methylation, increasing from extra-embryonic to embryonic and adult tissues. Finally, because of placental hypomethylation, cautions should be exercised in diagnosis of imprinting diseases using chorionic villi.
SAP: Self-Adaptive Proposal Model for Temporal Action Detection Based on Reinforcement Learning

Existing action detection algorithms usually generate action proposals through an extensive search over the video at multiple temporal scales, which brings about huge computational overhead and deviates from the human perception procedure. We argue that the process of detecting actions should be naturally one of observation and refinement: observe the current window and refine the span of attended window to cover true action regions. In this paper, we propose a Self-Adaptive Proposal (SAP) model that learns to find actions through continuously adjusting the temporal bounds in a self-adaptive way. The whole process can be deemed as an agent, which is firstly placed at the beginning of the video and traverse the whole video by adopting a sequence of transformations on the current attended region to discover actions according to a learned policy. We utilize reinforcement learning, especially the Deep Q-learning algorithm to learn the agent’s decision policy. In addition, we use temporal pooling operation to extract more effective feature representation for the long temporal window, and design a regression network to adjust the position offsets between predicted results and the ground truth. Experiment results on THUMOS’14 validate the effectiveness of SAP, which can achieve competitive performance with current action detection algorithms via much fewer proposals.
Mismatch repair proteins: key regulators of genetic recombination

Mismatch repair (MMR) systems are central to maintaining genome stability in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. MMR proteins play a fundamental role in avoiding mutations, primarily by removing misincorporation errors that occur during DNA replication. MMR proteins also act during genetic recombination in steps that include repairing mismatches in heteroduplex DNA, modulating meiotic crossover control, removing 3′ non-homologous tails during double-strand break repair, and preventing recombination between divergent sequences. In this review we will, first, discuss roles for MMR proteins in repairing mismatches that occur during recombination, particularly during meiosis. We will also explore how studying this process has helped to refine models of double-strand break repair, and particularly to our understanding of gene conversion gradients. Second, we will examine the role of MMR proteins in repressing homeologous recombination, i.e. recombination between divergent sequences. We will also compare the requirements for MMR proteins in preventing homeologous recombination to the requirements for these proteins in mismatch repair.
Launching a Viable Joint Venture

In turbulent economic settings, joint ventures are an appealing way for companies to quickly combine distinctive strengths and opportunities. The record of success, however, for joint ventures involving more than small, routine operations is poor. This article describes a venture that was initially scorned but, with distinctive nurturing, did meet all its targets in its first year of operation. This article then presents several steps in the launching process that can improve the odds of success for many other emerging ventures.
The Effect of Biodegradable Drug Release Coatings on the Electrical Characteristics of Neural Electrodes

This study describes how drug eluting coatings affect the signal quality of implantable microelectrodes. Polyimide-Platinum neural probes were micro fabricated and coated with a biodegradable polymer loaded with drug eluting nanoparticles. Electrical impedance spectroscopy was used to study how the coating affects electrical recording and stimulation characteristics. The measurements were performed in vitro and it was found that the biodegradable film slightly modified the measured impedance phase by +3deg at 10 kHz but not the magnitude. This change in impedance is permanent but does not adversely affect the recording and stimulation characteristics of the device. This result demonstrates the compatibility of controlled release drug coatings with neural probes.
Bacterial Infection-Related Morbidity and Mortality in Cirrhosis

OBJECTIVES:Bacterial infections are acknowledged causes of morbidity and mortality in cirrhotic patients; yet, apart from spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, other infection issues have been understudied. We evaluated the existing medical data on infectious risks and related preventive and treatment data for cirrhotic patients.METHODS:Medical literature search through MEDLINE, using a variety of keywords focused on: (a) immunodeficiency parameters of cirrhosis and attempts at therapeutic reversal, (b) relative incidence of various focal infections and implications for prevention, and (c) specific pathogens posing a risk in cirrhosis and availability of preventive strategies.RESULTS:Immunodeficiency in cirrhosis is multifactorial and might not be reversed by isolated interventions. Epidemiologic data on the incidence of specific infections and risk factors are scarce, only Child-Pugh stage C being a common denominator. A variety of common, such as Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, as well as uncommon pathogens possess significant risks in cirrhosis. Certain aspects of these risks remain though unrecognized.CONCLUSIONS:To better understand the overall burden of bacterial infections on cirrhotic patients' survival, more data on preventive efficacy of pneumococcal vaccination, on the overall burden of tuberculosis, and the relative incidence of specific infections as endocarditis are warranted.