Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of chemical communication in mate choice

Chemical signals are omnipresent in sexual communication in the vast majority of living organisms. The traditional paradigm was that their main purpose in sexual behaviour was to coordinate mate and species recognition and thus pheromones were conserved in structure and function. In recent years, this view has been challenged by theoretical analyses on the evolution of pheromones and empirical reports of mate choice based on chemical signals. The ability to measure precisely the quantity and quality of chemicals emitted by single individuals has also revealed considerable individual variation in chemical composition and release rates, and there is mounting evidence that prospecting mates respond to this variation. Here, we review the evidence for pheromones as indicators of mate quality and examine the extent of their use in individual mate assessment. We begin by briefly defining the levels of mate choice – species recognition, mate recognition and mate assessment. We then explore the degree to which pheromones satisfy the key criteria necessary for their evolution and maintenance as cues in mate assessment; that is, they should exhibit variation across individuals within a sex and species; they should honestly reflect an individual’s quality and thus be costly to produce and/or maintain; they should display relatively high levels of heritability. There is now substantial empirical evidence that pheromones can satisfy all these criteria and, while measurements of the actual metabolic cost of pheromone production remain to some degree lacking, trade‐offs between pheromone production and various fitness‐related characters such as growth rate, immunocompetence and longevity have been reported for a range of species. In the penultimate section, we outline the growing number of studies where the consequences of chemical‐based mate assessment have been investigated, specifically focussing on the reported direct and genetic benefits accrued by the receiver. Finally, we highlight potential areas for future research and in particular emphasise the need for interdisciplinary research that combines exploration of chemical, physiological and behavioural processes to further our understanding of the role of chemical cues in mate assessment.
Using public engagement and consultation to inform the development of ageing- and dementia-friendly pharmacies – Innovative practice

This study explored public perceptions about the importance of, and how to create, ageing- and dementia-friendly pharmacists and pharmacies. In September 2016, four focus groups (45 minutes each) were conducted with 16 participants who represented organisations, groups or forums working with and/or for older people and people with dementia in Greater London. Discussions were recorded via handwritten notes and thematically analysed. Participants confirmed the importance of pharmacists and pharmacies being ageing- and dementia-friendly and described variability in whether this is currently the case. Suggested strategies for improvement included targeting communication, pharmacist leadership and shop layout.
Productivity and Labour Demand Effects of Inward and Outward Foreign Direct Investment on UK Industry

We relate the technological and factor price determinants of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) to its potential productivity and labour market effects on both host and home economies. This allows us to distinguish clearly between technology-sourcing and technology-exploiting FDI, and to identify FDI that is linked to labour cost differentials. We then empirically examine the effects of different types of FDI into and out of the UK on domestic (i.e. UK) productivity and on the demand for skilled and unskilled labour at the industry level.
Estimativa do custo de capital de empresas brasileiras de capital fechado (sem comparáveis de capital aberto)

Revista de Administração, São Paulo v.37, n.4, p.38-48, outubro/dezembro 2002 A função básica de um administrador é decidir. Segundo a literatura, as decisões financeiras podem ser divididas em tipos como: Onde investir? (decisões de investimento), Como financiar tais investimentos? (decisões de financiamento) e Que parcela do lucro distribuir aos proprietários? (decisões de dividendos). A suposição fundamental é que o retorno proporcionado por um investimento deve suplantar o custo do capital que o financia, condição imprescindível para a sua implementação viável, do ponto de vista econômico. Dado, contudo, que os diversos projetos de uma empresa geram fluxos de caixa ao longo do tempo, e que não se pode comparar montantes de recursos em datas diferenciadas, algumas técnicas de análise são aplicadas para calcular a viabilidade econômica de tais projetos. Uma das mais utilizadas, a do valor presente líquido (VPL), consiste em trazer a valor presente os fluxos de caixa proporcionados pelos investimentos, descontando-os a uma taxa que esteja em concordância com os riscos do negócio em análise. Se os níveis de risco do projeto e da empresa como um todo forem os mesmos, a taxa a ser utilizada é o Custo Médio Ponderado de Capital (Weighted Average Cost of Capital  WACC):
Risk factors for the development of posterior subcapsular cataracts in patients with cystic fibrosis and allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis treated with corticosteroids

Posterior subcapsular cataracts (PSCC) occur in a high percentage of patients treated with long‐term systemic corticosteroids (Naumann Gott, Apple DJ, eds: Pathology of the Eye.New York: Springer‐Verlag, 1986). Fifteen patients with cystic fibrosis treated at Duke University Medical Center between January 1982 and October 1987 required prednisone for treatment of allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA). Two of these patients (13.3%) were noted to have PSCC during prednisone therapy. We retrospectively examined factors associated with steroid administration that may have been predictive of the development of PSCC in these patients including: 1) steroid therapy for longer than 2 years, 2) steroid dose of 10 mg/day or greater for longer than 6 months, 3) steroid dose of 40 mg/day or greater for longer than 2 months, and 4) change in linear growth pattern during steroid therapy. None of these factors predicted the risk of developing PSCC. Therefore, we recommend that all patients with cystic fibrosis who receive steroids for the treatment of a concomitant condition such as ABPA should undergo careful examination for opacities of the ocular lens at each clinic visit regardless of the duration or dose of steroids.
A QoS-Aware Load Balancing Policy in Multi-tenancy Environment

Cloud computing aims at providing services on the basis of a shared pool of underpinning resources and load balancing is of paramount importance in such an environment. At the same time, multi-tenancy is widely adopted in cloud computing to reduce the costs of service provisioning and to improve resource utilization. Multi-tenancy brings new challenges to load balancing, since it incurs resource competition and different QoS requirements of hosted applications. Therefore, servers with multiple deployed applications need a proper request scheduling policy to guarantee their quality of service, e.g., response time. However, most of the QoS-aware load balancing algorithms do not concern about the mutual intervention among applications deployed on the same server. When under heavy loads, mean response time of some applications may become too high to be acceptable. In this work, we propose a new load balancing algorithm, "Server Throughput Restriction(STR)", based on M/G/s/s+r queueing model, in order to guarantee each application's mean response time and also achieve better server throughput. In addition, we conduct several experiments to analyze the performance of STR in comparison with Round-Robin and Least-Work-Remaining.
Evaluation of referrals for genetic investigation of short stature in Hong Kong.

OBJECTIVE To establish a profile of the causes of apparently unexplained SS in genetic referral center and evaluate the current referral system. METHODS This was a retrospective database survey on patients who were referred our clinical genetic service from 1988 - 1998 primarily because of SS. We retrieved the study population from our computer database using "short stature"as a search handle and then studied the demographic, clinical and laboratory data from their medical records. RESULTS Three hundred and fifty-three subjects were referred for genetic evaluation of SS in 1988 - 1998. The mean age of referred subjects was 11.5 years and the female to male ratio was 7.6. All referrals had undergone cytogenetic studies to exclude chromosomal abnormalities, 19% of girls with apparently unexplained short stature had Turner syndrome; at least 47.9% of the study population were normal variants and 25% of the referrals had inadequate information for classification. CONCLUSIONS Genetic investigation is essential in the management of patients with SS, especially for girls suspected of having Turner syndrome, in which growth hormone treatment has shown to improve final height. We also highlight the inherited causes of short stature, which were often misdiagnosed as benign familial short stature, and discussed the drawbacks of the current referral system.
Inefficient American corporate governance under the financial crisis and China's reflections

Purpose – China has hitherto followed the US model of corporate governance, but recent crises suggest that that might not be the model to follow. This paper aims to consider that proposition.Design/methodology/approach – This is a comparative study of US and Chinese systems of corporate governance.Findings – Corporate governance is an alien concept for China. The establishment of the China company law system came later than western nations' corporate law system. Since 1992, China has made substantial progress in several areas of corporate governance. It is well known that for nearly a hundred years the American‐style corporate governance mechanism has been the model of the countries in the world. And China also follows the example of American corporate governance. Against the background of the global financial crisis, it is time to reflect upon the model of corporate governance in China.Originality/value – The paper invites reflection on existing paths towards good corporate governance in China.
An assessment of ‘international best practice’ in visitor attraction management: does Scotland really lag behind?

This paper compares and contrasts selected management practices among visitor attractions in Scotland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The catalyst for the study was the growing perception that management practices among visitor attractions in Scotland are becoming increasingly outdated and that the sector needs to learn from international best practice in this respect. A postal questionnaire was sent to all paid-admission visitor attractions in the four countries. In total, 1022 visitor attractions replied, representing an overall response rate of 41%. Chi-square analysis was then used to test various hypotheses relating to the uptake of these management practices. A key conclusion is that although management practices do vary significantly among the four countries, Scotland does not necessarily lag behind. Indeed, Scottish visitor attractions seem to lead the way in many respects. Meanwhile, the study finds no strong evidence to suggest that visitor attractions in the other three countries have indeed identified and are following a common international best practice.
The Effect of Media Coverage on Employer Reputation

A growing body of research examines the formation of employer reputation. One potential driver is media coverage. Using content analysis data for media coverage and survey data, this study examines different dimensions of media coverage, namely, social and functional news and their impacts on employer reputation. Results show that in particular negative functional and social news affect employer reputation, although the impact of negative social news is more indirect and delayed.
A quantitative evaluation of robust detecting and tracking methods under illumination changes using color stereo camera

The detecting and tracking a specific person by using the image processing with the color camera is often influenced by illumination changes. The proposed robust detecting and tracking method to illumination changes is using the HSV color space and updating the histogram. However, the quantitative evaluating is not enough in the proposed method. In this paper, the robustness to illumination changes of the proposed method is evaluated quantitatively. Moreover, the accuracy of the tracking in the proposed method is also evaluated quantitatively. The extraction rate and the tracking error are defined to evaluate quantitatively. The tracking error is also calculated by the MeanShift method based on the color information. The quantitatively experimental results show that the proposed method is the stable and robust tracking method.
Analysing some exotic options: EDS, instalments shares

New varieties of equity derivative products have increased in popularity and market share over the past few years. One of the main motivations for writing this paper has been the lack of academic papers on the topic. The products we want to investigate go under different names such as Enhanced Dividend Securities (EDS), HotEDS, Share Instalments, Darts and Property Plus, and are all of a specific type of exotic call option. The EDS, HotEDS and Property Plus instruments are issued by Investec; instalment shares are offered by ABSA, Nedbank, Standard Bank and Deutsche Bank; and all are traded on the JSE (full details are given in the web pages of the organizations: see the reference list).
Rapid Synthesis of Rhodium–Palladium Alloy Nanocatalysts

The chemistry of metastable RhPd alloys is not well understood, and well‐characterized nanoparticle (NP) examples remain rare. Well‐defined and near‐monodisperse RhPd NPs were prepared in a simple one‐pot approach by using microwave‐assisted or conventional heating in reaction times as short as 30 s. The catalytic hydrogenation activity of supported RhPd NP catalysts revealed that short synthesis times resulted in the most‐active and most‐stable hydrogenation catalysts, whereas longer synthesis times promoted partial Rh‐Pd core–shell segregation. Relative to Rh NPs, RhPd NPs resisted deactivation over longer reaction times. Density functional theory (DFT) was employed to estimate the binding energies of H and alkenes on (1 1 1) Rh, Pd, and Rh0.5Pd0. 5 surfaces. The DFT results concurred with experiment and concluded that the alkene hydrogenation activity trend was of the order Pd
Mass politics in tough times : opinions, votes, and protest in the Great Recession

About the Contributors Chapter 1: Mass Politics in Tough Times Nancy Bermeo and Larry M. Bartels Chapter 2: Crisis of Confidence? : The Dynamics of Economic Opinions during the Great Recession Christopher J. Anderson and Jason D. Hecht Chapter 3: Political Understanding of Economic Crises:: The Shape of Resentment toward Public Employees Katherine Cramer Walsh Chapter 4: Economic Crisis and Support for Redistribution in the United Kingdom Stuart Soroka and Christopher Wlezien Chapter 5: Economic Insecurity and Public Support for the Euro: Before and During the Financial Crisis Sara B. Hobolt and Patrick Leblond Chapter 6:Attitudes toward Immigration in Good Times and Bad Rafaela Dancygier and Michael Donnelly Chapter 7: Ideology and Retrospection in Electoral Responses to the Great Recession Larry M. Bartels Chapter 8: Crisis Perceptions and Economic Voting Among the Rich and the Poor: The United Kingdom and Germany Raymond M. Duch and Inaki Sagarzazu Chapter 9: The Electoral Impact of the Crisis on the French Working Class: More to the Right? Nonna Mayer Chapter 10: The Political Consequences of the Economic Crisis in Europe: Electoral Punishment and Popular Protest Hanspeter Kriesi
HOW FLUCTUATING COMPETITION AND PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY MEDIATE SPECIES DIVERGENCE

Abstract Causal evidence linking resource competition to species divergence is scarce. In this study, we coupled field observations with experiments to ask if the degree of character displacement reflects the intensity of competition between two closely related spadefoot toads (Spea bombifrons and S. multiplicata). Tadpoles of both species develop into either a small-headed omnivorous morph, which feeds mostly on detritus, or a large-headed carnivorous morph, which specializes on and whose phenotype is induced by fairy shrimp. Previously, we found that S. multiplicata are inferior competitors for fairy shrimp and are less likely to develop into carnivores in sympatry with S. bombifrons. We compared four key trophic characters in S. multiplicata across natural ponds where the frequency of S. bombifrons varied. We found that S. multiplicata became increasingly more omnivore-like as the relative abundance of S. bombifrons increased. Moreover, in controlled laboratory populations, S. multiplicata became increasingly more omnivore-like and S. bombifrons became increasingly more carnivore-like as we increased the relative abundance of the other species. Phenotypic plasticity helped mediate this divergence: S. multiplicata became increasingly less likely to eat shrimp and develop into carnivores in the presence of S. bombifrons, a superior predator on shrimp. However, divergence also reflected differences in canalized traits: When reared under common conditions, S. multiplicata tadpoles became increasingly less likely to produce carnivores as their natal pond decreased in elevation. Presumably, this pattern reflected selection against carnivores in lower-elevation ponds, because S. bombifrons became increasingly more common with decreasing elevation. Local genetic adaptation to the presence of S. bombifrons was remarkably fine grained, with differences in carnivore production detected between populations a few kilometers apart. Our results suggest that the degree of character displacement potentially reflects the intensity of competition between interacting species and that both phenotypic plasticity and fine-scale genetic differentiation can mediate this response. Moreover, these results provide causal evidence linking resource competition to species divergence.
Fractional integration in the West African Economic and Monetary Union

This paper examines the time series behaviour of three variables (GDP, price level of consumption and population) in the eight countries that belong to the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), which are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The reason for carrying out this study lies on the considerable heterogeneity that can be perceived in the data from these countries. We conduct a long memory and fractional integration modelling framework and we also identify potential breaks in the data. The aim of the study is to perceive up to which degree the eight West African countries that belong to the same monetary union follow the same stability economic patterns. Testing for mean reversion we only found strong evidence of it in the case of Senegal for the price level of consumption, and in the cases of Benin, Burkina Faso and Senegal for GDP.
How boards can improve the odds of M&A success

The four‐part framework described by the authors can help boards of directors to better focus their time and energy to provide substantial value to the MA grounded, quantified strategic benefits; an integration focus on high‐value opportunities with clear accountability for delivering them; and a common management model are the key determinants of a successful deal. This framework can help boards add value to the M&A process. Moreover, it can help top executives to be more effective in evaluating and managing deals and more efficient in interacting with their boards.
Employment Relations in Small Commercial Businesses in China

There has been a growing interest in the way patterns of employment relations are changing in China. However, there remains insufficient understanding in employment relations in small private businesses. This study of small businesses in China explores major issues in employment relations in these firms. The finding shows that there are major differences between large and small businesses in China in their employment practices and that considerable similarities exist between small firms in China and those in other countries.
Banking on Bonds: The New Links between States and Markets

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This article examines a neglected structural transformation in European finance: the growing importance of government debt as collateral for Europe's repo markets, where banks borrow cash against collateral. Seduced by the promises of repo market-driven financial integration, the EU institutions and Member States encouraged private finance to generate its own architecture for the European repo market in the early years of the euro, sidelining known problems about systemic fragilities. These fragilities materialized after Lehman Brothers' collapse and were exacerbated by the ECB's collateral policies. The European sovereign debt crisis shows that governments, just like private asset issuers, can rapidly become vulnerable to repo pro-cyclicality and collateral crises.
Glial response to dorsal root lesion in the irradiated spinal cord

Exposure of the rat lumbar spinal cord to X‐rays during the early postnatal period results in a marked reduction in the glial populations within the irradiated region. The present study was undertaken to determine what effects this reduction of glia, particularly astrocytes, has on the pattern and characteristics of the scar formation that follows root injury in the normal spinal cord. Morphological assessments 60 days following injury of the right L4 dorsal root revealed a distinct difference in the extent of the astrocyte response between the irradiated and the nonirradiated rats. In the nonirradiated animals, a thick astrocytic scar composed of multiple layers of astrocyte processes formed over the dorsal horn and adjacent portions of the dorsal surface of the cord. This astrocytic response was not confined to the surface of the spinal cord but extended also into the root, i.e., into regions normally considered as PNS. In irradiated rats, the astrocytes did not form a thick scar nor did they extend into the injured root. Instead, they formed a glia limitans and were at most only one or two layers thick over the region of cord comparable to that occupied by the thick astrocytic scar in the nonirradiated rats. Mechanisms involved in the glial response of the irradiated spinal cord to dorsal root injury are discussed, particularly with regard to the possible positive effect that this reduction in scar formation may have on regrowth of injured dorsal root axons into the spinal cord environment. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Microbial trimethylamine-N-oxide as a disease marker: something fishy?

ABSTRACT Production of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) via the gut microbiota has recently been proposed as an important pathophysiological mechanism linking ingestion of ‘unhealthy foods’, such as beef (containing carnitine) and eggs (containing choline), and the development of atherosclerosis. Hence, TMAO has gained attention as a novel biomarker for cardiovascular disease. However, fish and seafood contain considerable amounts of TMAO and are generally accepted as cardioprotective: a puzzling paradox that seems to have been neglected. We suspect that the TMAO story may be a red herring.