Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Leveraging Human Resource Capital with its Competitive Distinctiveness Enhances the Performance of Commercial and Public Organizations

Although scholars agree that complex relationships between organizations' actual human resources (i.e., human capital stock) and means of leveraging these resources may influence performance, little empirical work has tested such propositions directly. We collected two primary data sets from private and public-sector organizations in Israel. The multiplicative interaction between perceived human resources capital and distinctive value derived from that HR capital was significantly related to various measures of perceivedand objective rganizational performance. Having higher levels of human resources capital was strongly associated with performance only when top managers perceived that these resources provided distinctive value in terms of being highly valuable, inimitable, rare, and nonsubstitutable. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on strategic human resource management and the resource-based view of competitive advantage, as well as for practical efforts to develop firm-specific human resource capital that is inherently distinctive.
A novel minimal-invasive model of chronic myocardial infarction in swine

BackgroundMost animal studies on myocardial infarction (MI) have used open-chest models with direct surgical coronary artery ligation, which imply local as well as generalized side effects of major surgery. Some closed-chest models of MI have been established, mainly using catheterization techniques with coronary artery embolization, balloon occlusion, and intracoronary injection of thrombogenic agents. The aim of this study was to develop a closed-chest technique of chronic coronary artery occlusion at a selected location with subsequent thrombus formation without use of balloon inflation or thrombotic chemical agents. Methods and resultsA coronary angiography via the carotid artery was performed using a 7 F guiding catheter in 21 pigs. After insertion of a percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) guide wire into the distal coronary artery, a vessel-size adapted flexible foreign body comprising an open-cell sponge was advanced into the coronary artery via the guide wire by a non-inflated PTCA balloon. Five min after removal of the guide wire and the balloon catheter, total coronary artery occlusion was documented by angiography. Retrograde thrombosis of the coronary artery occurred in three animals. After one week, total vessel occlusion at the previously selected location was visualized by coronary angiography in animals that had survived. Macroscopic analysis demonstrated the foreign body with subsequent thrombus formation in the coronary artery and distal MI. Post-mortem histological analysis revealed myocardial necrosis and granulocyte infiltration at the margin of the infarction, without damage to remote myocardium. ConclusionsThis new easy-to-perform closed-chest technique provides reproducible chronic coronary artery occlusion at a selected location with subsequent MI. It avoids major surgery and thoracotomy and does not require balloon inflation or intracoronary injection of thrombotic or chemical agents.
Do Lenders Still Monitor When They Can Securitize Loans

We examine how securitization markets affect the role of banks as monitors in corporate lending. We find that banks active in securitization impose looser covenants on borrowers at origination. After origination, these borrowers take on substantially more risk than do borrowers of non-securitization-active banks. We use borrowers' geographic locations to instrument for borrower-lender matching to distinguish the effect of securitization on the banks' ex post monitoring from its effect on ex ante screening. We further investigate direct evidence of banks' monitoring role by examining their actions following covenant violations and find that securitization-active lenders are more likely to grant waivers without changing loan terms. Our results suggest that banks exert less effort on ex post monitoring when they can securitize loans.
The M&M Propositions 40 years later

Some months ago I was being deposed as an ‘expert economic witness’ in a law suit where our side was advancing, among other things, the view that a firm, not actually run by known thieves ready to abscond, could always raise additional equity capital. The firm might not want to raise more equity capital, but, in principle, it could. That’s basically just a straightforward, implication of the M&M perfect capital market assumption, I noted. As I was trying to explain that point in the course of my deposition, the attorney for the other side suddenly cut in and asked: ‘Professor. Do you or do you not believe the M&M Propositions are true? ’ Fortunately, you cannot really be held to simple yes or no answers in a deposition. And I hope my inevitably longer answer to the opposing attorney can serve at least as a useful takeoff for my remarks today on the M&M Propositions and where they appear to stand. Let us first be clear what the M&M Propositions are that we are talking about. I will mean essentially the three capital structure propositions in the original 1958 article. Though I am sure no one here needs to be reminded, Proposition I, which is really the key to all the others, is the invariance proposition that the value of a firm, in the sense of the total value of its securities, depends only on the earning power and risk of its operating assets and not at all on the debt/equity composition of the liabilities. Otherwise, the capital markets would be out of equilibrium and arbitrage opportunities would exist. Proposition II goes on to show that if Proposition I holds, the expected return on levered shares will be a linear increasing function of leverage. And Proposition III— which is the one that figures most directly in the law suit—says, in effect, that the cost of capital, in the sense of the minimum expected rate of return required for a project to be just worth doing from the perspective of the current stockholders, is a property of the project and its risk, and not of the particular securities that happen to be used to finance it. I call these the capital structure propositions to distinguish them from the M&M dividend propositions though, as I pointed out in my 1988 survey article, even the dividend propositions are really subsumed under the capital structure
Profit-Maximizing vs. Labor-Managed Firms: A Comparison of Market Structure and Firm Behavior

Recently workers' participation in decision-making and income sharing has received growing attention in academic as well as business and union circles, and has become a major political issue in several European countries (notably Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain and Sweden). Part of this interest arises out of the concern with rising concentration of economic power within a small number of large enterprises. In this paper we attempt therefore to give some partial answers to the question if and how worker participation may influence firm behavior and market conduct. Our results can be considered as extensions of the seminal work by Vanek [3]. To simplify we compare two polar cases: a profit-maximizing firm (C) and a fully labor-managed firm (LM) where all members of the firms participate in some form in the decision-making process of the firm and in sharing of its net revenue. In section II we describe the two models of firm behavior in more detail and summarize some first results. In section III we then analyze the question whether different firm behavior implies definite differences with respect to sales promotion and advertising expenditures (ASP). Vanek showed that an LM-firm can be expected to spend less on ASP than a similar C-firm. But, as Meade [2] has pointed out, since an LM-firm tends to be smaller than a comparable C-firm, this result is not surprising. The more interesting question, to which we suggest an answer, is whether an LM-firm spends less on ASP per dollar of output. In section IV we then turn to a comparison of the efficiency of antitrust policy in the two types of economies. Finally, in section V, we extend the argument to an uncertain and risky environment before we summarize our main conclusions.
Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre: Toward a Redistributive Democracy

The hegemonic processes of globalization are bringing about the intensification of social exclusion and marginalization of large bodies of population all over the world. Such processes are being met with resistances, grassroots initiatives, community innovations, and popular movements that try to counteract social exclusion, opening up spaces for democratic participation, for community building, for alternatives to dominant forms of development and knowledge—in sum, for social exclusion. They are, in general, very little known because they do not speak the language of hegemonic globalization and often times present themselves as promoting the case against globalization. They are of very different kinds or else their diversity has become more apparent after the collapse of the
The Energy and Economic Impacts of Expanding International Emissions Trading

The authors are grateful for the support provided by the National Key Technology R&D Program from Ministry of Science and Technology of Grant NO. 2012BAC20B07. We acknowledge the support of the National Key Technology R&D Program and the Institute for Energy, Environment, and Economy at Tsinghua University, which is supporting Tianyu Qi’s doctoral research as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We acknowledge the support of ENI, ICF and Shell, initial Founding sponsors of the China Energy and Climate Project. This consortium of sponsors has provided support for researchers in the MIT Joint Program to engage in a five-year program of research focused on China. None of the sponsoring organizations played a role in the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data used for this study, nor did they influence our decisions to submit the article for publication, and all errors are our own.
Alpha Generating Momentum Strategies

This thesis investigates price momentum of U.S. stocks in a large-cap dominated dataset from December 1985 to August 2006. It is shown that return continuation can be found among large-caps. The evaluated momentum strategies generate arbitrage profits in the overall sample period. In the CAPM and the Fama-French framework these momentum profits can not be explained – a statistically significant positive alpha remains. Even after transaction costs are taken into account, the arbitrage profits are still substantial. However, in the subperiod from September 2000 to August 2006 price momentum is not present. There is weak evidence that this is due to the general market environment during this subperiod.
Financial markets, ageing and social welfare

This paper considers some of the economic impacts that demographic change may have in developed economies over the next fifty years. I focus on the role that financial markets might play in economies where the pressure on government-run unfunded pension systems is likely to rise. The role of unfunded schemes is considered in a world where financial markets are incomplete and important types of risk cannot easily be offset by trading. How demographic shifts might affect labour productivity, asset prices and aggregate output is investigated using a simulation model of an economy where population structure is changing.
Fighting the fire: improvisational behavior during the production launch of new products

Purpose – Short-term problem solving during production launch may result in extended lead times and increased overall costs of new product development, thereby reducing the overall profitability of a new product. While the previous literature suggests formalized procedures and systematic problem solving approaches, empirical analyses indicate improvised, non-systematic, and ad hoc responses actually being used in firms’ real world problem solving processes. The purpose of this paper is to explain the role of such non-systematic approaches for the efficiency and effectiveness of problem solving processes during production launch. Design/methodology/approach – The paper empirically explores the impact of improvisational problem-solving behavior on a firm's production launch efficiency and on the success of new products. Moreover, the paper investigates the moderating role of technology familiarity, project complexity, and the number of occurring problems during production launch. Findings – The paper finds .
Segment-Dependent Activation of Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor-Mediated [35S]Guanosine-5′-O-(γ-Thiotriphosphate) Binding in Airway Tissue Membranes

Muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR)-mediated guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory protein (G protein) activation and the functional interaction between receptors and the respective G proteins were investigated using an agonist-induced [35S]guanosine-5′-O-(γ-thiotriphosphate) ([35S]GTPγS)-binding approach in membranes of 3 native equine airway segments (trachea, bronchus and lung), which differ tremendously in mAChR density and subtype distribution; especially subtypes that couple negatively to adenylyl cyclase through Gi/0 proteins, i.e. M2 receptors. The assay was initially optimized by determining the influence of incubation time, guanosine 5′-diphosphate (GDP), MgCl2 and NaCl on basal and agonist-stimulated [35S]GTPγS binding. In standard assays, the presence of 10 μmol/l GDP, 10 mmol/l MgCl2 and 200 mmol/l NaCl increased carbachol-induced specific [35S]GTPγS binding in a segment- and receptor-density-dependent manner. Hereby, mAChR agonists stimulated [35S]GTPγS binding with a rank order of potency (oxotremorine M > carbachol > acetylcholine), and in a specific segment- and receptor-density-dependent manner (trachea > bronchus > lung). The increase in the specific [35S]GTPγS binding was potently inhibited by the mAChR antagonist atropine. Pertussis toxin and N-ethylmaleimide as Gi/0 protein ADP-ribosylating and alkylating agents reduced basal and agonist-stimulated [35S]GTPγS binding. The mAChR-stimulated [35S]GTPγS binding serves as a useful method for investigating the functional interaction between mAChRs and their respective G proteins in native airway tissue membranes of equines.
Women, Power and Trade Union Government in the UK

This paper addresses the under-explored relationship between women's structures and union democracy and argues that women's structural progress is mediated by an enduring gendered oligarchy and an associated struggle to access power resources. It provides, first, an analysis over time of women's structures in UK unions, and second, a case-study analysis of the Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) trade union. The analysis over time demonstrates women's progress in achieving positional power, but conceals the complexity of the way different resources are used to constrain and enable women trade unionists. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2000.
“Applause sign” helps to discriminate PSP from FTD and PD

The “applause sign” is a simple test of motor control that helps to differentiate PSP from frontal or striatofrontal degenerative diseases. It was found in 0/39 controls, 0 of 24 patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), 0 of 17 patients with Parkinson disease (PD), and 30/42 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). It discriminated PSP from FTD (p < 0.001) and PD (p < 0.00). The “three clap test” correctly identified 81.8% of the patients in the comparison PSP and FTD and 75% of the patients in the comparison of PSP and PD.
Ferromagnetic Multipods Fabricated by Solution Phase Synthesis and Hydrogen Reduction

A simple approach combining pyrolysis and hydrogen reduction is formulated for making ferromagnetic-branched nanostructures called Co multipods. The CoO multipods (branched nanostructures) were produced through the pyrolysis of cobalt-oleate in octadecane at 280degC with the presence of oleic acid under the protection of pure nitrogen. The angles between the nearest arms are 90deg. After the reduction of the branched CoO nanostructures in flowing hydrogen gas in a tubular oven at 290degC, the CoO is reduced to pure cobalt with hexagonal crystal structure and the branched shapes are retained. Anisotropic magnetic properties were found for cobalt multipods on silicon substrates
A Method for Seasonally Adjusting Time Series With Variation in the Seasonal Amplitude

The official seasonally adjusted figures of the unemployment series in the Netherlands proved to be unsatisfactory in the years 1976 until 1980 because of the occurrence of a residual seasonal pattern in the adjusted series. There is indication that this failure is due to the presence of variations in the seasonal amplitude of the unemployment series. To improve this unsatisfactory state of affairs further research on methods of seasonal adjustment was undertaken at the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics. The outcome, method CPBX11, combines features of two methods that have been used officially, CENSUS X-11 and CPB-1. Since December 1980 the Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics has used CPBX11 to compute seasonally adjusted labor market series. In this article we review in short the literature on seasonal adjustment and compare the performance of the three procedures referred to above in adjusting the series Unemployment in Construction and Live Births (per 1,000 of the mean population) for the.
A dynamic reconfiguration run-time system

The feasibility of run-time reconfiguration of FPGAs has been established by a large number of case studies. However, these systems have typically involved an ad hoc combination of hardware and software. The software that manages the dynamic reconfiguration is typically specialised to one application and one hardware configuration. We present three different applications of dynamic reconfiguration, based on research activities at Glasgow University, and extract a set of common requirements. We present the design of an extensible run-time system for managing the dynamic reconfiguration of FPGAs, motivated by these requirements. The system is called RAGE, and incorporates operating-system style services that permit sophisticated and high level operations on circuits.
ANALYSIS OF THE DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC SPENDING IN SPAIN

This paper studies the decentralization process of public spending in Spain, which has been one of the main landmarks in recent years, and not only in Spain but also in many different countries. The classical assumption to speak about this kind of processes is the theory of fiscal federalism. However, nowadays this theory is considered more as a set of general "guidelines" than a practical rule of application. To undertake this study the article proposes a new method to describe the outcomes of the decentralization process through the functional classification of spending. The analysis of the data in each level of government -central, regional and local- is made in order to justify the process. So far, mainly political motives have justified the transference of competencies from the central to the regional and local governments in Spain. The fiscal federalism theory can enlighten our analysis from a theoretical point of view
Applying multi-agent Q-learning scheme in cognitive wireless mesh networks for green communications

Cognitive wireless mesh networks have great potential to green communication. One of the critical challenges for realizing such networks is how to adaptively match transmit powers and allocate frequency resources among secondary users of the licensed frequency bands whilst maintaining the quality-of-service (QoS) requirement of the primary users, even in mutually entangled interferences environment. In this paper, we discuss the power assignment matching problem in cognitive wireless mesh networks formed by a number of clusters with the consideration of the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) requirement of each secondary user (SU), the mean-squared error (MSE) constraint by the primary users, and the energy efficiency. Due to the secondary users' selfish and spontaneous features, the problem is modeled as a stochastic non-cooperative game. We extend the conventional single-agent Q-learning to a non-cooperative multi-agent learning context, using the framework of stochastic non-cooperative games. Within the multi-agent Q-learning processes, a learning SU maintains Q-functions over joint actions set, and performs updating based on the conjecture about the other SUs' behaviors over the current Q-values. Numerical experiments on a hybrid CogMesh consisting two SUs and one specific PU suggest validity and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Acute phase protein levels in dogs with mast cell tumours and sarcomas

The acute phase proteins (APP) form part of a non-specific host response to inflammation. They may be induced by a range of different causes, including infection, inflammation, cancer and trauma. As they form part of the earliest response to such insults, they have potential for early identification of disease. In people, APP levels have been shown to correlate both with the extent of disease and also the prognosis in several forms of neoplasia, including prostate, oesophageal and colorectal cancer. As such, they can be used as prognostic and monitoring tools. To date, similar studies in veterinary patients have been limited, largely retrospective in nature and many are non-specific for tumour type. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a panel of four APPs in dogs with naturally occurring mast cell tumours (MCTs) and sarcomas to identify in the first instance whether increased levels of individual APPs, or identifiable combinations of APPs, was linked with the presence of disease. In the patients with MCTs, C-reactive protein (CRP) and α-1 acid glycoprotein levels increased, with a concurrent drop in serum amyloid A levels. In the sarcoma patients, CRP, α-1 acid glycoprotein and haptoglobin were increased. These findings suggest that specific solid tumour types in dogs may be associated with specific changes in APP profiles.
Cleaner production: organizational learning or business as usual? An example from the domestic appliance industry

It is frequently argued that approaches to minimizing the environmental, health and safety impact of industry (i.e. cleaner production) require that firms engage in a process of participative learning involving all levels of the organizational hierarchy. This paper examines the key concept of organizational learning, particularly in terms of the associated concepts of participation and empowerment, drawing on a study of a large, environmentally pro-active firm and recent critical literature on the experience of work. It is suggested that, although contemporary management philosophy pays lip service to increased workforce participation and empowerment, there are formidable structural and cultural barriers to such change. Initiatives within firms to stimulate learning and continuous improvement around cleaner production can be understood in terms of firstly the relative power of individuals and groups within organizations to define and activate learning agendas and secondly the emphasis given to low cost, low skill and low trust as a route to competitiveness, particularly in a UK business context. Finally, attention is drawn to the weakness of external mechanisms for supporting genuine participation and empowerment within enterprises around health, safety and environmental issues.