Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Community College Student Affairs Administrators' Perceptions Regarding Intercollegiate Athletics and Attractiveness of Institution

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine community college student affairs administrators' perceptions of intercollegiate athletics in the community college setting. Participants were student affairs administrators selected from community colleges within the southeastern region of the United States. Using a quantitative cross-sectional survey research design, data regarding community college student affairs administrators' perceptions of intercollegiate athletics were investigated using a web-based survey. Results from the descriptive analysis showed that the majority of community college student affairs administrators' had positive perceptions related to the attractiveness of intercollegiate athletics at community colleges.
Contents of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine in the cerebrum of the ‘staggerer’, ‘weaver’ and ‘nervous’ neurologically mutant mice

SEVERAL strains of mutant mice with abnormal cerebella have been observed and characterized according to the neurological symptoms which they exhibit (SIDMAN et al., 1962, 1965; SIDMAN, 1968; SIDMAN & GREEN, 1970). The ‘weaver’ and ‘staggerer’ mutants show a loss of granule cells and the ‘nervous’ mutant shows a loss of Purkinje cells in the cerebellar cortex (SIDMAN, 1968; SIDMAN & GREEN, 1970). Primary attention has been directed at changes in the levels of putative neurotransmitters which occur in the cerebellum of the mutants. Thus, MCBRIDE et al. (1976) were able to observe in the cerebellum a decrease in the content of glutamate and increases in aspartate, GABA and glycine in the ‘weaver’ mutant; a decrease in the content of glutamate and an increase in glycine in the ‘staggerer’ mutant; and an increase. in glycine in the ‘staggerer’ mutant; and an increase in the content of glycine in the ‘nervous’ mutant. Recently BLACK (1967a,b) observed a disruption of the catecholamine synthesizing enzymes associated with the locus coeruleus of the ‘weaver’ mutant. MCBRIDE et al. (1976) also observed a significant increase in the content of glycine in the cerebrum of the ‘nervous’ mutant. In preliminary experiments, the level of dopamine was measured in the cerebrum from two ‘weaver’ mutants and was found to be low. These experiments were repeated with larger numbers of all three types of mutant mice (‘weaver’, ‘staggerer’ and ‘nervous’). In addition, the content of serotonin and norepinephrine were also measured in the cerebrum of these mutant mice.
Projected Residual Vector Quantization for ANN Search

In this research, we propose Projected Residual Vector Quantization (PRVQ) to deal with the problem of large-scale approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search in a high-dimensional space. A lot of quantization-based ANN search algorithms have been proposed in the past few years. However, most of the existing methods discard the projection errors generated in the dimension reduction process, which inevitably decreases the search accuracy. In view of that, the authors propose a method of projected residual vector quantization for ANN search that considers the projection errors in the quantization process. They also design three simple and effective optimization strategies to improve the performance of the PRVQ algorithm. The authors have integrated the proposed PRVQ algorithm into a mobile landmark recognition system to prove its effectiveness.
The Differences in Corporate Environmental Disclosures on Websites and in Annual Reports: A Case Study of Companies Listed in Thailand

This study investigates the corporate environmental disclosure practices of companies on the Stock Exchange of Thailand in annual reports and websites. Content analysis by word count is used to determine the amount of disclosures on 50 sampled websites and annual reports. Statistical analysis (descriptive, paired samples T-tests, and independent samples T-tests), is employed to analyse the differences between environmental disclosures measured by word count in annual reports and on websites. Initial findings indicated that 96 percent of the sampled Thai listed companies provided environmental disclosures in their annual reports and 88 percent on websites. Companies providing the most words of environmental information were in the resources business group in both media; the smallest word counts were in the services business group on websites, but in the technology business group in annual reports. Commonly environmental disclosures were found in the corporate social responsibility section of the websites but in the corporate governance section of the annual reports. The three most common themes were environmental spending and activity, waste management, and environmental policy in both annual reports and websites. Statistically significant differences were found between high and low profile companies as well as government and private companies. However, this study could not find different amount of environmental disclosures made in annual report and on websites. The study has implications in enhancing the understanding the differences between disclosures in annual reports and on websites particularly in developing countries. The usual limitations associated with sampling, and content analysis apply. Disclosure quality was not considered.
Predicting Likability of Speakers with Gaussian Processes

In this paper, we study the problem of predicting likability of speakers based on their voices. We use the data provided by the Likability Sub-Challenge of InterSpeech 2012 Speaker Trait Challenge. We explore Gaussian Processes (GP) based learning techniques for classification and regression. In particular, we propose a novel algorithm that greedily finds a sparse yet informative subset of features. We also show how the covariance functions learned for GP models can be used to derive new features for prediction. The best system that we have developed integrates those techniques and achieves 60.1% unweighted accuracy on the Likability Sub-Challenge (1.86% relative improvement over the provided baseline). The proposed approach also works well on the Pathology Sub-Challenge, achieving an accuracy of 73.7% ( 6.92% relative improvement).
Stock return predictability: A factor-augmented predictive regression system with shrinkage method

ABSTRACT To predict stock market behaviors, we use a factor-augmented predictive regression with shrinkage to incorporate the information available across literally thousands of financial and economic variables. The system is constructed in terms of both expected returns and the tails of the return distribution. We develop the variable selection consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimator. To select the regularization parameter, we employ the prediction error, with the aim of predicting the behavior of the stock market. Through analysis of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, we find that a large number of variables provide useful information for predicting stock market behaviors.
Crowdfunding in Europe : state of the art in theory and practice

Crowdfunding is becoming an increasingly popular method to finance projects of every kind and scale. This contributed volume is one of the earliest books presenting scientific and research-based perspectives of crowdfunding, its development, and future. The European Crowdfunding Network (ECN) and its scientific work group, together with FGF e.V. , invited both researchers and practitioners to contribute to this first state-of-the-art edited volume on crowdfunding in Europe. This book contributes to a better comprehension of crowdfunding, encourages further fundamental research and contributes to a systematization of this new field of research. The book also features expert contributions by practitioners to enhance and complement the scientific perspective. This book can be used as a guideline and shall advance classification in an emerging research field
Cyclosporin‐A treatment attenuates delayed cytoskeletal alterations and secondary axotomy following mild axonal stretch injury

Following central nervous system trauma, diffuse axonal injury and secondary axotomy result from a cascade of cellular alterations including cytoskeletal and mitochondrial disruption. We have examined the link between intracellular changes following mild/moderate axonal stretch injury and secondary axotomy in rat cortical neurons cultured to relative maturity (21 days in vitro). Axon bundles were transiently stretched to a strain level between 103% and 106% using controlled pressurized fluid. Double‐immunohistochemical analysis of neurofilaments, neuronal spectrin, α‐internexin, cytochrome‐c, and ubiquitin was conducted at 24‐, 48‐, 72‐, and 96‐h postinjury. Stretch injury resulted in delayed cytoskeletal damage, maximal at 48‐h postinjury. Accumulation of cytochrome‐c and ubiquitin was also evident at 48 h following injury and colocalized to axonal regions of cytoskeletal disruption. Pretreatment of cultures with cyclosporin‐A, an inhibitor of calcineurin and the mitochondrial membrane transitional pore, reduced the degree of cytoskeletal damage in stretch‐injured axonal bundles. At 48‐h postinjury, 20% of untreated cultures demonstrated secondary axotomy, whereas cyclosporin A‐treated axon bundles remained intact. By 72‐h postinjury, 50% of control preparations and 7% of cyclosporin A‐treated axonal bundles had progressed to secondary axotomy, respectively. Statistical analyses demonstrated a significant (p < 0.05) reduction in secondary axotomy between treated and untreated cultures. In summary, these results suggest that cyclosporin‐A reduces progressive cytoskeletal damage and secondary axotomy following transient axonal stretch injury in vitro. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2007
Detecting Potential Safety Issues in Large Clinical or Observational Trials by Bayesian Screening When Event Counts Arise from Poisson Distributions

Patients in large clinical trials and in studies employing large observational databases report many different adverse events, most of which will not have been anticipated at the outset. Conventional hypothesis testing of between group differences for each adverse event can be problematic: Lack of significance does not mean lack of risk, the tests usually are not adjusted for multiplicity, and the data determine which hypotheses are tested. This article describes a Bayesian screening approach that does not test hypotheses, is self-adjusting for multiplicity, provides a direct assessment of the likelihood of no material drug–event association, and quantifies the strength of the observed association. The criteria for assessing drug-event associations can be determined by clinical or regulatory considerations. In contrast to conventional approaches, the diagnostic properties of this new approach can be evaluated analytically. Application of the method to findings from a vaccine trial yields results similar to those found by methods using a false discovery rate argument or a hierarchical Bayes approach. [Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics for the following free supplemental resource: Appendix R: Code for calculations. ]
The impact of organizational culture on the successful implementation of total quality management

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to determine the impact of cultural values on the success of TQM implementation in Isfahan University Hospitals (IUHs), Iran, 2004.Design/methodology/approach – In this paper survey questionnaires were used to elicit responses from hospital managers and employees. Data collected included the characteristics of organizational culture in IUHs and the degree of TQM success and its implementation problems in these hospitals.Findings – The paper finds that TQM success in IUHs was medium. Implementation of TQM was very low, low, medium and highly successful respectively in 16.7, 16.7, 58.3 and 8.3 percent of hospitals. TQM had the most effect on process management, focus on customers and leadership and management and less effect on focus on suppliers, performance results, strategic planning and focus on material resources. Human resource problems, performance appraisal and strategic problems were the most important obstacles to TQM success respectively. A total of 75 and 25.
Professional Ethics in Interdisciplinary Collaboratives: Zeal, Paternalism and Mandated Reporting

In this Article, the authors, two clinical law teachers and a social worker teaching in the clinic, wrestle with some persistent questions that arise in cross-professional, interdisciplinary law practice. In the past decade much writing has praised the benefits of interdisciplinary legal practice, but many sympathetic skeptics have worried about the ethical implications of lawyers working with nonlawyers, such as social workers and mental health professionals. Those worries include the difference in advocacy stances between lawyers and other helping professionals, and the mandated reporting requirements that apply to helping professionals but usually not to lawyers. This Article addresses those concerns in a direct way, using the example of social work as an exemplar for many kinds of interdisciplinary practices. Part I of the Article explores the commitments of zeal and autonomy in interdisciplinary work involving lawyers and social workers. It acknowledges that social workers and lawyers receive differing training about advocacy stances, attention to the needs of the larger society, and concern for the best interests of clients, and therefore are apt to confront client interactions with dissimilar orientations. But the authors conclude that those differences in orientation in fact offer critical opportunities, when the professionals collaborate, for more effective lawyering, rather than posing a risk to a lawyer's or a social worker's ethical commitments. A lawyer and social worker team are likely to offer clients a richer brand of legal representation when working together than a lawyer working without the collaboration would provide. While some pointed ethical conflicts might arise, the authors contend that those conflicts are not unlike those faced by any reflective lawyer practicing without the benefit of collaboration. Part II of the Article addresses the mandated reporter issue. When lawyers and social workers (or other helping professionals) collaborate, lawyers tend to be prohibited from reporting suspected child abuse and neglect if learned during a client's representation, while social workers tend to be mandated by state law to make a report. The authors contend that when a social worker serves within a law firm or legal clinic as a consultant to the legal team, the social worker ought not be covered by the state mandated reporting laws if the lawyers are not so covered. If the social worker, by contrast, provides social work services to the law firm's client, though, the state reporting laws will apply, and the collaboration must account for the resulting conflict in confidentiality duties.
Expression of Preproinsulin-2 Gene Shapes the Immune Response to Preproinsulin in Normal Mice1

Deciphering mechanisms involved in failure of self tolerance to preproinsulin-2 is a key issue in type 1 diabetes. We used nonautoimmune 129SV/Pas mice lacking preproinsulin-2 to study the immune response to preproinsulin-2. In these mice, a T cell response was detected after immunization with several preproinsulin-2 peptides and confirmed by generating hybridomas. Activation of some of these hybridomas by wild-type (wt) islet cells or recombinant murine proinsulin-2 demonstrated that two epitopes can be generated from the naturally expressed protein. Although T cells from wt mice responded to preproinsulin-2 peptides, we could not detect a response to the naturally processed epitopes in these mice. Moreover, after immunization with recombinant whole proinsulin-2, a T cell response was detected in preproinsulin-2-deficient but not in wt mice. This suggests that islet preproinsulin-2-autoreactive T cells are functionally eliminated in wt mice. We used a transplantation model to evaluate the relevance of reactivity to preproinsulin-2 in vivo. Wild-type preproinsulin-2-expressing islets transplanted in preproinsulin-2-deficient mice elicited a mononuclear cell infiltration and insulin Abs. Graft infiltration was further increased by immunization with preproinsulin-2 peptides. Preproinsulin-2 expression thus shapes the immune response and prevents self reactivity to the islet. Moreover, islet preproinsulin-2 primes an immune response to preproinsulin-2 in deficient mice.
Interhemispheric coupling improves the brain's ability to perform low cognitive demand tasks in Alzheimer's disease and high cognitive demand tasks in normal aging.

OBJECTIVE Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects the corpus callosum (CC), which plays a key role in interhemispheric coupling in high-demand conditions. Using 3D callosal measurements and a letter-matching paradigm, this 2-part study investigated the neural substrate of interhemispheric coupling in individuals with AD or amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) and age-matched healthy individuals (HC). METHOD Thirty-three right-handed participants were MRI scanned to measure the volume of the CC in 5 sections. In Study 1, AD, a-MCI, and HC individuals performed a low-demand perceptual letter shape-matching task (e.g., A-A); in Study 2, a-MCI and HC individuals performed a "case-sensitive" letter-matching task (Study 2A) and a "load-sensitive" letter-matching task (Study 2B). RESULTS The results showed a positive correlation between Response Times and the midbody of the CC at the lowest cognitive demand level (Study 1) in participants with AD, and the total CC, midbody, caudal body, and isthmus of the CC at high cognitive demand levels (Study 2A) in normal aging. The volume of the anterior part of the CC was significantly negatively correlated with the interhemispheric behavioral indices for the a-MCI group (Study 1 and Study 2B). CONCLUSION This study provides evidence that interhemispheric coupling may constitute a flexible mechanism that can improve the brain's ability to meet processing demands for low cognitive demand in AD and for high cognitive demand in normal aging.
THE IMPACT OF FINANCIAL LEVERAGE ON RETURN AND RISK

Financing with debt and preferred stock to increase the potential return to the residual common shareholders’ equity is referred to as financial leverage. A firm’s return on equity (ROE) is a key determinant of the growth rate of its earnings. Return on equity is affected profoundly by the firm’s degree of financial leverage. Increased debt will make a positive contribution to a firm’s ROE only if the firm’s return on assets (ROA) exceeds the interest rate on the debt. In spite of the fact that financial leverage increases the rate of return on common stock equity, the grater the proportion of debt in the capital structure, however, the greater the risk the common shareholders bear. Introduction of financial leverage increases the average profitability of the firm as well as its risk. In good economic years, the impact of financial leverage will most likely be positive; however, the leverage effect may be negative in relatively bad years. Traditionally, studies treated short-term debt and long-term debt as perfect substitutes for each other. There is, however, risk-sharing by long-term debtholders which makes short-term debt financing riskier to shareholders than long-term debt financing. The significant affect associated with the total debt usage is largely attributable to short-term debt financing, since the impact of short-term debt financing on the expected returns is shown to be greater than that of long-term debt financing.
Great Recession and Fiscal Squeeze at U.S. Subnational Government Level

The paper discusses the fiscal impact of the Great Recession of 2007-08 on state and local governments in the United States. It documents the sharp decline in tax revenue and discusses how states responded to close the budget gaps in order to obey the balanced budget provisions. It highligts the procyclical nature of this policy response, provides a brief comparison with subnational policy stances in other advanced economies, and discusses some options for making subnational fiscal policy less procyclical within the framework of current rules.
The forgotten employees? The experiences of expatriate staff returning to the UK

This article reports on the experiences of a group of expatriate UK managers and professionals who have recently returned to the UK from foreign assignments. A brief review of the literature in this field is presented and the findings of a questionnaire survey of 124 ‘returnees’. The data show that many expatriates face difficulties upon their return in terms of their career prospects, psychological well-being and general adaptation to life back home. The paper goes on to suggest ways in which these transitions can be managed more effectively by organizations and individual employees. It concludes by proposing directions for future research.
The natural history of autoimmune hepatitis presenting with jaundice

Background Forty percent of patients with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) present with acute jaundice/hepatitis. Such patients, when treated promptly, are thought to have a good prognosis. Objectives The objective of this study was to describe the natural history of AIH in patients presenting with jaundice/hepatitis and to determine whether the diagnosis could have been made earlier, before presentation. Methods This study is a retrospective review of 2249 consecutive patients who presented with jaundice to the Jaundice Hotline clinic, Truro, Cornwall, UK, over 15 years (1998–2013) and includes a review of the laboratory data over a 23-year period (1990–2013). Results Of the 955 patients with hepatocellular jaundice, 47 (5%) had criterion-referenced AIH: 35 female and 12 male, the median age was 65 years (range 15–91 years); the bilirubin concentration was 139 &mgr;mol/l (range 23–634 &mgr;mol/l) and the alanine transaminase level was 687 IU/l (range 22–2519 IU/l). Among the patients, 23/46 (50%) were cirrhotic on biopsy; 11/47 (23%) died: median time from diagnosis to death, 5 months (range 1–59); median age, 72 years (range 59–91 years). All 8/11 patients who died of liver-related causes were cirrhotic. Weight loss (P=0.04) and presence of cirrhosis (P=0.004) and varices (P=0.015) were more common among those who died. Among patients who died from liver-related causes, 6/8 (75%) died less than 6 months from diagnosis. Cirrhosis at presentation and oesophageal varices were associated with early liver-related deaths (P=0.011, 0.002 respectively). Liver function test results were available in 33/47 (70%) patients before presentation. Among these patients, 16 (49%) had abnormal alanine transaminase levels previously, and eight (50%) were cirrhotic at presentation. Conclusion AIH presenting as jaundice/hepatitis was mainly observed in older women: 50% of the patients were cirrhotic, and liver-related mortality was high. Some of these deaths were potentially preventable by earlier diagnosis, as the patients had abnormal liver function test results previously, which had not been investigated.