Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Discretionary Accrual Estimation Models in Earnings Management Research

The main goal of this research is to verify the theoretical and empirical validity of operational models to measure discretionary accruals, which are used in the detection of accounting earnings management. Initially, a theoretical-critical analysis is presented about the specification of the operational models present in literature for discretionary accrual estimation. Based on observations about the construction of analytic-empirical models and empirical evidence from earlier studies, a new model was proposed to analyze accruals behavior and estimate discretionary accruals. This empirical-analytical study also uses bibliographic and descriptive research. The sample in this study is constituted by the group of publicly-traded companies in the North-American and Latin-American capital markets, covering the period between 1996 and 2005. The models’ specification and predictive power is analyzed through different statistical procedures. All operational discretionary accrual measurement models used to detect accounting earnings management are estimated through the pooling of independent cross sections approach for all economic environments. The model with the best predictive power is chosen by the adjusted R2 analysis, Akaike and Schwarz criteria and Voung’s Test. The results of this research suggest that the operational discretionary accrual estimation models present in current literature do not present adequate theoretical foundations and that some of these models are weakly specified, have low predictive power and are significantly affected by the economic environment. Moreover, the results prove that the operational model proposed in this study to estimate discretionary accruals for earnings management has greater power to explain accrual behavior in all economic environments under analysis.
BPM을 기반으로 한 ISO 9001 품질경영시스템 구축

오늘날 대부분의 조직들은 프로세스 중심의 업무 관리를 위해 노력하고 있고, 이를 위한 Business Process Management(BPM)의 개념은 점차 확산되어 가고 있는 추세이다. ISO 9001:2000 품질경영시스템이 Business Process Re-engineering(BPR)의 영향을 받았고, 프로세스 중심적인 경영시스템이기 때문에, BPM은 ISO 9001:2000 품질경영시스템과 다르지 않다고 본다. 한국과학기술정보연구원(KISTI)은 2003년 11월 11일에 ISO 9001:2000 인증은 받았고, BPM 기반의 품질정보시스템을 구축하였다. KISTI의 품질정보시스템은 BPM을 기반으로 하여 프로세스 경영을 잘 지원할 것이며, BPM과 품질경영을 접목한 새로운 사례가 될 것이다.
The replacement number

In this module1 we introduce the important notion of the replacement number, which generalizes the basic reproductive number R0. We investigate how this number behaves near the start of an outbreak in two types of models: The first type is based on the uniform mixing assumption and the second type assumes a contact network that is a random kregular graph with small k. We also illustrate a method for estimating the value of R0 from epidemiological data.
China’s Ascent in Global Trade Governance: From Rule Taker to Rule Shaker, and Maybe Rule Maker?

As China enters its tenth year of WTO Membership, has the dragon brought a ‘reign of fire’ to the multilateral trading system and rocked its institutional foundations? This paper will answer this question by reviewing China’s participation in two key activities of the WTO, i.e., trade negotiations and dispute settlement, as well as another important component of global trade governance: regional trade agreements (RTAs). I will argue that, overall, China has evolved from a passive ‘taker’ of the existing rules to a country that will ‘shake’ the rules for its own interests or even ‘make’ new rules. At the same time, the pace of China’s ascent has been uneven in different areas; the most aggressive strategy has been apparent in RTA negotiations, where China has been on a frantic shopping spree since its accession to the WTO. Similarly, while China was initially reluctant to use the multilateral dispute settlement system, it has become a major player since 2007. In terms of multilateral trade negotiations, China has been sending mixed signals: while it has made many submissions on negotiating issues in the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, China has so far successfully resisted calls from the US and EU for it to play a leading role in the long-stalled trade talks. After exploring the reasons for varying behavioral patterns in a range of areas, the chapter concludes by exploring China’s future role in the WTO, as well as the potential ramifications of China’s ascent in global trade governance.
Logistics opportunity costs: A mining case study

This study highlighted the importance of determining the impact that an ineffective mode of transport has on a firm’s transportation model and costs. The main focus of this study was to determine the logistics opportunity costs of using road transport within a mining firm. A case study approach was followed, as the investigation aimed to analyse a complex problem experienced by one company and present it in an easily understandable format. From the results of this study, it was apparent that the logistics opportunity costs associated with the mode of transport was substantial. This highlighted the need for firms to revise their choice of transport mode on a regular basis, as it has a major impact not only on their transportation costs, but also on their inventory holding and carbon emissions. The results also have implications for South Africa’s only freight railway, Transnet Freight Rail, which should not only focus on expanding its existing capacity, but also on improving its customer service delivery whilst containing tariff increases.
DETECTION OF SEA, SEB, SEC, SEQ GENES IN STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS ISOLATED FROM NASAL CARRIERS IN TEHRAN PROVINCE, IRAN, BY MULTIPLEX PCR

Staphylococcus(S.) aureus produces different extra-cellular protein toxins and virulence factors. One of the most important extra-cellular proteins is an enterotoxin which causes staphylococcal food poisoning (SFP) due to their enterotoxins. Different methods have been used to detect this toxin, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. DNA amplification methods, however, can show the presence of enterotoxigenic strains of S. aureus before the expression of enterotoxins on the basis of specific gene sequences. In this study, 150 S. aureus strains isolated from nasal carriers were confirmed by biochemical testing. PCR was used to amplify the staphylococcal enterotoxin A, B, C and Q genes, as well as the staphylococcal nuclease gene. Among the 150 healthy human isolates from the nasal carrier, 95 were confirmed as S. aureus. Only 58.9% of the isolates were diagnosed as sea, b, c, q positive. There were 24 (25.3%) isolates associated with the sea gene, 15.8% isolates associated with the seb gene, 9.5% of the isolates were associated with the sec gene, and 8.4% of the isolates associated with the seq gene. Of these isolates, 41% might be possessing additional se genes but they were not see (178 bp) and sed (319 bp) genes. The nuc gene, which encodes thermo nuclease, was used as a target DNA to identify S. aureus. Additionally, one of these enterotoxigenic isolates carried more than one toxin gene.
Entertainment Marketing and Experiential Consumption

The placement of brand references within mainstream entertainment (called here ‘entertainment marketing’) is a rapidly evolving marketing communications field in its scale and sophistication. Much previous research in the field has conceptualized entertainment marketing as promotion and focused on measuring consumer attitudes, purchase intentions and brand recall in response to brand exposure. This conceptual paper suggests that there is also a need for understanding the quality of consumer engagement with brands in the context of mediated entertainment. The paper draws on phenomenological/existential research traditions in order to begin to theorize the role that entertainment marketing techniques may play in facilitating consumer self‐concepts and identity formation through brand exposure within dramatic portrayals of characters and lifestyles. The authors presented an earlier version of this paper at the European Marketing Academy Annual Conference at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy in 2005.
Pattern Recognition and Image Processing

Extensive research and development has taken place over the last 20 years in the areas of pattern recognition and image processing. Areas to which these disciplines have been applied include business (e. g., character recognition), medicine (diagnosis, abnormality detection), automation (robot vision), military intelligence, communications (data compression, speech recognition), and many others. This paper presents a very brief survey of recent developments in basic pattern recognition and image processing techniques.
Biology of Bordetella bronchiseptica

INTRODUCTION . 722 CLASSIFICATION . 723 DESCRIPTION OF B. BRONCHISEPI7CA . 724 Morphology . 724 Toxins.726 Antigenic Factors . 727 Antibacterial Susceptibilities . 727 Isolation and Cultivation 728 DISEASES . 7.728 Swine Atrophic Rhinitis and Pneumonia . 728 Canine and Feline Bordetefosis . 729 Respiratory Infections of Laboratory Animals 730 Human Infections . 730 IMMUNIT'Y . 730 ECONOMIC EFFECTS . 732 CONCLUSIONS . 732 LITERATURE CITED . 733
Broadband Demand, Competition, and Relevant Policy in Taiwan

Abstract Taiwan has been making great efforts to promote the fulfillment of its National Information Infrastructure, with broadband network technology and its application having rapidly developed in recent years. In relation to the two major forms of broadband network technology, i.e. cable modem and ADSL, two MSOs, namely, Eastern Multimedia Company and Hoshin GigaMedia Center, Inc., provide broadband network via cable modem, and HiNet and Seednet are the major ADSL service providers. Three new fixed networks have offered ADSL services as well since they began their operations. There are 3.51 million households (HH), or 54.4% of the household population in Taiwan, using the Internet, and 2.5 million households, or 38.9% of the HH population, using broadband (TWNIC 2003). This paper analyzes the demand for broadband, the competition among providers of broadband, and relevant policies in Taiwan. The research methods adopted include a literature review, in-depth interviews, and a follow-up analysis of previous surveys conducted via the World Wide Web and by telephone.
Re-Embedding Governance: Global Apparel Value Chains and Decent Work

Abstract Much of the global economy is now dominated by global production networks that span countries and continents and connect producers and buyers in global supply chains. This complex and dynamic structure of economic activity has rapidly brought the productive capacity of developing countries on-line, shifting production from the advanced industrialized world to locations in the South, most notably to the newly industrializing countries of China, India and Brazil. It is clear that economic globalization has created a great deal of wealth, but despite rapid economic growth, there is persistent evidence of exploitation of workers at the margins of the new global economy and pressure on labour in more traditional centres of production. Our concern in this paper is with the role of governance institutions in promoting decent work in apparel global value chains and production networks. By governance we refer to those institutions that constrain or enable market actor behaviour, both public in the form of governmental policies, rules, and regulations and private in the form of social norms, codes of conduct adopted by businesses, consumer demand for social responsibility, or other non-governmental institutions and social movements.
Precedence constrained pickup and delivery with split loads

A split load is a load having size no greater than the capacity of a single vehicle that is delivered using more than a single vehicle. The use of split loads can reduce the total transportation cost and the number of vehicles serving a set of loads. Several studies have shown the benefit of split loads as applied to the split delivery vehicle routing problem (SDVRP) and the pickup and delivery problem with split loads (PDPSL). While most research on the application of split loads to vehicle routing has revolved around heuristic methods, in this paper an exact solution method is used on a constrained version of the PDPSL. All origins to be visited must be served before any destination that is to be visited on each route, which we refer to as the precedence constrained-PDPSL (PC-PDPSL). Through this constraint, several structural characteristics that result from the SDVRP are shown to also hold for the PC-PDPSL. In particular, we develop a dynamic programming formulation of the PC-PDPSL and show that the state and action spaces of this problem are finite. We use the well-known A* ‘best-first’ search algorithm from artificial intelligence to find an exact solution to a wide range of data sets. Computational experiments support findings developed using heuristic methods for the PDPSL, showing that splitting loads can reduce costs and that there is a relationship between average load size and cost savings.
Impact of Financial Crisis on Lithuanian Households‘ Ability to Manage Budgets

Households are important integral part of economic system of every country, therefore the processes related to households‘ budgets and their control are permanently in focus of numerous researchers. Majority of publications are based mainly on fundamental approach to personal finance management and do not specifically target decision making mechanisms in a specific household affected by current, permanently changing conditions on global financial markets or macroeconomic processes in a specific country. The paper presents results from two surveys on Lithuanian households conducted in two different phases of recent 2008–10 crisis in order to study the transformations of financial behaviour, first of all the ability and habits to control the household budgets. Both surveys were carried out using the same sociological tools and technology and specially drafted questionnaires. The results indicate that crisis had certain negative effect on households‘ income, but at the same time had positively influenced the ability of households to manage budget related issues and promoted less spontaneous according to Maslow‘s definition and much more rational behaviour. This result comes from both improved personal finance management skills and psychological factors whoes character was very much affected by crisis.
Reactive Oxygen Species Metabolism in Plants: Production, Detoxification and Signaling in the Stress Response

The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide radical (O2 •- ), hydroxyl radical (OH • ) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), in plants is a common event in metabolic and physiological processes. ROS are normally formed in photosynthesis and respiration by the chloroplast and mitochondrial electron transfer chains, respectively, and in metabolic reactions taking place in the peroxisomes. As these active oxygen species are destructive to cellular components such as lipids, nucleic acid and proteins, plant cells are equipped with non-enzymatic and enzymatic antioxidant defense systems comprising ascorbate, glutathione, phenols, catalases, superoxide dismutases and peroxidases. Biotic and abiotic stress, such as salinity stress, excess of heavy metals, mechanical shock, UV light, exposure to ozone, water deficiency and pathogen attack, also increase ROS production. In the latter case the release of ROS, referred to as the “oxidative burst”, is one of the earliest responses activated following pathogen recognition and has been suggested to play a pivotal role in the integration and the coordination of the plant defense responses. In this review we summarize the current knowledge about ROS production and oxidative defense in plants. The role of ROS will be discussed in the frame of stress responses, with emphasis on the plant-pathogen interaction.
Effect of adenosine triphosphate and some derivatives on cerebral blood flow and metabolism.

1. Responses of cerebral blood vessels to peri‐ and intravascular doses of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and some derivatives were studied in cat and baboon. 2. Perivascular application of ATP to cat pial arterioles gave a threshold dilatory effect at a concentration of 10(‐11) M. This figure is comparable to the amount of ATP calculated to be released from electrically stimulated brain slices. 3. It is concluded that adenine nucleotides have a major role to play in the local control of cerebral blood flow. 4. Intracarotid injection of ATP showed a calculated threshold effect at 4 x 10(8) M in the cat and 4 x 10(‐9) M in the baboon. 5. The threshold response of the vasculature to intracarotid adenosine lay between 4 x 10(‐7) M and 4 x 10(‐6) M in the baboon. Little effect was produced with AMP, pyrophosphate and inorganic phosphate. 6. Intracarotid ATP increased the oxygen consumption of the baboon brain parenchyma. This effect was attributed in part to an elevation of the cellular cyclic AMP levels. 7. Osmotic disruption of the blood‐brain barrier in baboon did not affect the vasodilatory or metabolic effect of intracarotid ATP. 8. It is postulated that circulating purine compounds mediate a form of metabolic communication inthe body. Also, release of purine compounds from active local nerves might influence cerebral blood flow.
Adoption of voluntary environmental tools for sustainable tourism: analysing the experience of Spanish hotels

Since the early 1990s, tourism companies, mostly hotel facilities, have undertaken different voluntary initiatives to show their commitment to sustainable tourism. Among the voluntary tools applied by the hotel industry, the most common are codes of conduct, best environmental practices, eco-labels, environmental management systems (EMSs) and environmental performance indicators. This article presents the findings of empirical research conducted with Spanish hotels that have adopted one or more of the existing environmental tools. Based on a qualitative exploration of perceptions and experiences of hotel managers applying these instruments, the general understanding of the concept of sustainable tourism is examined, and the practical application of different voluntary environmental instruments is analysed. In an attempt to interpret the facilitators and barriers reported by hotel companies, three interpretative approaches are combined to explain the selective adoption of environmental tools: the perspective of competitive advantages, the perspective of stakeholders’ influence and the perspective of the human cognitive process. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Pharmacologic basis for high-dose oral acyclovir prophylaxis of cytomegalovirus disease in renal allograft recipients

The incidence of cytomegalovirus disease, the most important infectious complication of renal transplantation, was reduced in renal allograft recipients by a regimen of prophylactic high-dose oral acyclovir. To analyze the pharmacologic aspects of our prophylactic approach, we evaluated safety, pharmacodynamics, and in vitro susceptibility data. One hundred four recipients of cadaveric renal allografts received either oral acyclovir (n = 53) in doses of up to 3,200 mg/day or a placebo (n = 51) for 12 weeks posttransplant. Leukocyte count and serum creatinine were selected as markers of laboratory safety and were evaluated pretransplant, at study midpoint (creatinine only), and at study completion. Concentrations of acyclovir in plasma were determined to verify the ability of the dosing strategy to achieve predicted values. Viral resistance was assessed by calculation of in vitro 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50s) of acyclovir for the cytomegalovirus strains collected from the subjects. Our results showed no difference in leukocyte count or serum creatinine between the acyclovir and placebo recipients. Plasma acyclovir concentrations were maintained within the expected limits and did not differ between patients who developed cytomegalovirus disease and those who did not. The mean acyclovir IC50s for cytomegalovirus isolates were 42.6 mumol/liter in the acyclovir recipients and 48 mumol/liter in the placebo recipients. We conclude that the clinical benefit of high-dose oral acyclovir therapy occurred despite plasma drug concentrations below the mean IC50 for the patient viral isolates. Furthermore, the use of the regimen did not produce leukopenia, adversely affect renal function, or alter the susceptibility of cytomegalovirus strains to acyclovir. This approach and dose adjustment scheme may be appropriate for other immunocompromised patients at risk for cytomegalovirus infection and disease.
Information Asymmetry of Fair Value Accounting and Loan Loss Provisions During the Global Financial Crisis

This paper investigates whether U.S. banks’ assets and liabilities, reported using Fair Value Accounting (FVA) under SFAS 157 Fair Value Measurement, are associated with information asymmetry among equity investors during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Using bid-ask spread as a proxy for information asymmetry, and controlling for bank size, profitability, default risk and capital adequacy, we find that bid-ask spread is positively and significantly associated with total fair value net assets and net assets measured using inputs of fair value Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3, as specified in SFAS 157. We also examine whether banks’ loan loss provisions are associated with information asymmetry, since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (2008) has alleged that large loan loss provisions, determined based on managerial internal information and discretion, played a significant role in bank failures in the Global Financial Crisis. We find that loan loss provisions are also positively and significantly associated with bid-ask spread. In summary, our findings show that both FVA and loan loss provisions are associated with information asymmetry among equity investors during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, with loan loss provisions being the stronger of the two effects.
Noise Analysis of Switched Capacitor Networks in Direct Sampling Mixers

In order to improve the noise figure (NF) of the direct sampling mixer (DSM), thermal noise corresponding to on-resistance of the MOS switch, one of the noise sources in the DSM, is analyzed, and the noise transfer function is derived. As a result, at the output terminal of the DSM, its influence on the desired signal is sufficiently small as compared with the influence which tranceconductance amplifier (TA) in the first stage of the DSM causes. In the DSM, internal noise from switched capacitor filter (SCF) section can be neglected.
A study of service model among interactive marketing, service value, customer satisfaction and behavior intention: A case of I-Lan area leisure farm in Taiwan

In the current service literature, most researches focus on either physical facility or service personnel. There is little attention to the factor of service process. Therefore, in this paper, the service process into the dimension of interactive marketing was added. This paper tried to link three factors of interactive marketing: service value, customer satisfaction and behavior intention to develop a new service model and to discuss the influential effect and relationship among these factors. By doing these, the leisure business manager could control the key factors and make a success for developing leisure farm business. The results revealed that certain relationships between the structures did appear to respond to each other. These were: (1) interactive marketing (service personnel, physical facility and service process) had a significant positive direct effect on customer satisfaction; (2) physical facility and service process also had a significant positive direct effect on service value, but service personnel did not; (3) interactive marketing through service value or/and customer satisfaction, had a positive indirect effect on behavior intention; (4) service value and customer satisfaction had a significant positive direct effect on behavior intention.