Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Family Control and Corporate Governance Practices on Earnings Quality of Listed Companies: A Study of the Italian Case

The study investigates the relation between family governance and firms transparency in the Italian context where family firms are very spread. The literature about the impact of family ownership on earnings quality (EQ) highlights a twofold effect. On the one hand, there is the view that family firms are less efficient because controlling shareholders have incentives to exploit private benefits at the expenses of minority shareholders (Fama and Jensen 1983; Morck et al. 1998, Shleifer and Vishny 1997, Bebchuk, 1999), so that they have incentives to bad quality reporting (Francis et al., 2005, Fan and Wong, 2002). This can be considered an 'entrenchment effect'. On the other hand, ownership concentration generates more effective monitoring by controlling owners (Demsetz and Lehn 1985, Shleifer and Vishny 1986) and families have incentives to high EQ to preserve family's name. This is called 'alignment effect' (Wang, 2005). Our explanation is that the effects of family ownership on EQ depend on the attitude of the family towards corporate governance practices, because these show the family's incentives to good reputation. The purpose of this paper is providing an evidence about the impact of family ownership and governance practices on the earnings quality of Italian companies. The period of the analysis is 2001-2006. A regression analysis statistically examines this correlation. Our dependent variable is an earnings quality metric based on the Dechow-Dichev's model (Dechow-Dichev, 2002). Governance practices are considered in terms of board composition, board independence, CEO characteristics and powers. Control variables are mainly size, profitability, indebtness.
Leveraging Software to Enhance Business Value

Looking back in time, there’s a tendency seen of Information Technology (IT) used as support for the Business or as an accessorie in order for the Business to conduct their tasks. This role has been present in companies for a wide time, shaping the image of how people in the Management of companies perceive IT. It was then thought that by doing it so, companies were using IT’s maximum capacities. As time goes by, the role of Information Technology starts to be questioned by high Managers, and its value and importance analysed. While making this analysis, the Business understands that IT has to get closer to the Business, to a more strategic role and step from being a supporter to become an enhancer for the business, an important piece of the engine that makes the engine’s goals possible to succeed. Nowadays we see that almost every organisation has its IT Team, and recognises that IT can bring Competitive Intelligence [BG05], as well as Competitive Advantage [VVGC99]. One thing worthy of notice, which will be discussed further, is that the Business seem to get the mentioned advantage not from the IT Applications available, but from the IT Capabilities. This means that contrary to what happens most of the times, a clear emphasis on all the possibilities or applications that IT can offer, might be worthless to the Business. This Project focuses on the theme of Information Systems Management, more specifically on how to leverage Software, by focusing on the connections of IT with the Business. The goal of this Project is to contribute with the Academic world, to a clear understanding of the importance that Information Technology can have for the Business, and how to leverage that importance achieving a greater Business value. First, a discussion will be presented on the linkage between Information Technology and Business, providing a view of the strengths and weaknesses most occurrent on such relation, as well as ways to enhance such relationship. Furthermore, it will be presented a set of suggestions that can help leveraging the value of IT. Such suggestions include having a clear phase structure, a clear distinction from IT value/cababilities and IT application/arquitecture, as well as how to "sell" Software to the Business and understand the whole process of delivering Software. The Project was developed in an internship with the Multinational of consumer goods, Procter & Gamble , in order to improve and bring an understanding of how to take more advantage of the deliver of Software inside the company. The findings of the internship were shaped in order to fit in an Academic environment, as well as sensitive material was carefully changed/removed, in order not to expose any confidential material from the company.
The Influence of Top Managers’ Values and Power on Corporate Social Performance: A Meta-analysis

Although research has accumulated regarding top managers’ influence on corporate social performance (SCP), theoretical arguments and empirical findings have been mixed and even conflicting. Through meta-analytic techniques of 35 independent samples reported in 34 studies, we find robust evidence that top managers’ values play a leading role in explaining their influence on CSP. The results show that top managers’ demographic characteristics, except experience diversity, do not have a significant impact on CSP. Contrary to our theoretical argument, the results provide weak support for a negative relationship between top managers’ power and CSP. Finally, meta-analytic evidence does not support the differential effects of top managers’ power on different types of CSP (i.e., strategic vs. social CSP and negative vs. positive CSP).
E‐procurement: is the ugly duckling actually a swan down under?

Much of the hype associated with the impact of electronic business is associated with the business to business (B2B) model. Analysts believe that enormous cost savings and efficiencies can be achieved through the utilisation of e‐procurement, a component of the B2B model. The role of procurement and the emerging use of large information systems to conduct e‐procurement is analysed and presented with the results of a survey of 38 major Australian organisations. The current direct and indirect procurement practices of the sample organisations will be analysed together with an analysis of the eprocurement drivers and barriers. The main results show that direct procurement is heavily dependant upon traditional practices whilst indirect procurement is more likely to use “e” practices. Small‐medium organisations are more nimble at adopting e‐procurement practices. Technical issues dominate e‐procurement barriers, with cost factors dominating e‐procurement drivers.
Pulling the Plug to Stop the New Product Drain

Although an important aspect of managing new product introductions is to recognize and quickly take action when a product launch has failed (i.e., “pull the plug”), senior managers in a new product launch setting tend to remain committed to a losing course of action. The authors investigate this issue with controlled experiments, using senior level executives as subjects. Their results suggest a strong bias toward continued commitment to failing new products. Consequently, the authors devise and test the effectiveness of five decision aids aimed at reducing this bias. Improving the quality of the information environment does not greatly reduce bias, nor does precommitment (at time of launch) to self-specified decisions rules. The most effective methods of reducing commitment to a losing course of action appear to be either precommitment to a predetermined decision rule or introduction of a new decision maker at the time of the stop/no stop decision. Of these two methods, the latter produces marginally less commitment to a losing course of action. However, none of the tested decision procedures completely reduces commitment to a losing course of action relative to the control condition.
Reputation of Low-Quality Big 4 and Non-Big 4 Auditors: Evidence from Auditor Switches of Former ChuoAoyama Clients

We examine how an auditor’s reputation for audit quality affects the selection of new auditors in a unique setting. Specifically, we investigate forced auditor switches after the collapse of ChuoAoyama and its successor, Misuzu, in a low litigation country, Japan, where the insurance value of auditing is minimal. We find that former ChuoAoyama clients with greater reputation concerns tended to switch away from Misuzu, a low-quality Big 4 audit firm. Our results also indicate that auditors’ sensitivity to reputation decreased after the collapse of Misuzu, perhaps because of intensified capacity constraints and decreased differences in perceived audit quality between Big 4 and Non-Big 4 auditors after the audit scandal and the introduction of the J-SOX.
What Factors Affect Consumer Acceptance Of In-Game Advertisements?

ABSTRACT In-game advertising (IGA) may offer an attractive opportunity for advertisers to reach an elusive consumer segment if messaging is managed effectively. In this study, the authors applied media uses and gratification theory to investigate factors related to gamers' acceptance of advertisements in online games across various platforms. They also investigated the influence of the acceptance of IGA on gamers' word-of-mouth behavior and attitudes toward brands and products featured in online IGA. Using structural equation modeling as a basis for its hypotheses, the study reveals that “informativeness,” entertainment, self-brand congruity, privacy concerns, and invasiveness are associated with online gamer attitudes toward IGA. In turn, attitudes toward IGA are related to word-of-mouth intentions.
Developing a Practice-based Body of Real Estate Knowledge: A Delphi Study

We explore the activities that constitute the body of knowledge of real estate practitioners in order to represent practice better so that practice can be improved and real estate education can be aligned with industry requirements. We developed a new action-based model of practice into which activities were placed. The model emphasizes the application of skills in practice. Data were collected using a modified Delphi technique with a panel of real estate experts practicing in the United Kingdom. Fifty activities were identified of which 33 were established as core to practice. Some differences between practitioner views and academic views were identified. We conclude that more practice-based knowledge should be identified and used for professional accreditation, real estate education, and practitioner development. The model structures the developing body of knowledge thus connecting the parts that constitute the real estate profession and demonstrate the true worth of real estate practice.
An Ideal Approach for Detection of Phishing Attacks using Naïve Bayes Classifier

— Phishing attack is an aberrant trick to peculate user’s private information by duping them to assail via a spurious website planned to mimic and resembles as an authentic website. The user’s confidential information such as username, password, and PIN number will be grabbed by the attacker and creates a fraudulent transactions. The information holder’s credentials as well as money will be seized. The phishing and legitimate website will have high intelligible resemblances by which the attacker will seize the credentials of the user. Inorder to detect the phishing attacks there exists various techniques such as blacklisting, whitelisting, heuristics and machine learning. Nowadays machine learning is used and found to be more effective. The proposed system extracts the source code features, URL features and image features from the phishing website. The features that are extracted are given to the ant colony optimization algorithm to acquire the reduced features. The reduced features are again given to the Naïve Bayes classifier inorder to classify the webpage as genuine or phished.
A novel mechanism of microtubule length-dependent force to pull centrosomes toward the cell center

The centrosome is a major microtubule-organizing center in animal cells, and its intracellular positioning is critical for defining intracellular architecture. The centrosome positions itself at the cell center. Centrosome centration depends on the microtubule cytoskeleton. To accomplish robust centration regardless of the cell size or cell shape, it has been assumed that the force mediated by the microtubules depends on microtubule length. However, a concrete mechanism to generate forces to pull the centrosome in a microtubule length-dependent manner has been elusive. Recently, we successfully demonstrated that centrosome-directed movement of intracellular organelles along microtubules drives centrosome centration in the Caenorhabditis elegans early embryo. Based on this observation, we proposed the centrosome-organelle mutual pulling model in which the reaction forces of organelle transport generated along microtubules act as a driving force that pulls the centrosomes toward the cell center. This is the first experiment-based model that accounts for the microtubule length-dependent pulling force generated in the cytoplasm contributing to centrosome centration. Intriguingly, this model is consistent with a recent estimation that the pulling force is proportional to the cubic length of microtubules.
O2‐sensitive K+ channels: role of the Kv1.2 α‐subunit in mediating the hypoxic response

1 One of the early events in O2 chemoreception is inhibition of O2‐sensitive K+ (KO2) channels. Characterization of the molecular composition of the native KO2 channels in chemosensitive cells is important to understand the mechanism(s) that couple O2 to the KO2 channels. 2 The rat phaeochromocytoma PC12 clonal cell line expresses an O2‐sensitive voltage‐dependent K+ channel similar to that recorded in other chemosensitive cells. Here we examine the possibility that the Kv1.2 α‐subunit comprises the KO2 channel in PC12 cells. 3 Whole‐cell voltage‐clamp experiments showed that the KO2 current in PC12 cells is inhibited by charybdotoxin, a blocker of Kv1.2 channels. 4 PC12 cells express the Kv1.2 α‐subunit of K+ channels: Western blot analysis with affinity‐purified anti‐Kv1.2 antibody revealed a band at ≈80 kDa. Specificity of this antibody was established in Western blot and immunohystochemical studies. Anti‐Kv1.2 antibody selectively blocked Kv1.2 current expressed in the Xenopus oocyte, but had no effect on Kv2.1 current. 5 Anti‐Kv1.2 antibody dialysed through the patch pipette completely blocked the KO2 current, while the anti‐Kv2.1 and irrelevant antibodies had no effect. 6 The O2 sensitivity of recombinant Kv1.2 and Kv2.1 channels was studied in Xenopus oocytes. Hypoxia inhibited the Kv1.2 current only. 7 These findings show that the KO2 channel in PC12 cells belongs to the Kv1 subfamily of K+ channels and that the Kv1.2 α‐subunit is important in conferring O2 sensitivity to this channel.
Does service failure influence customer loyalty

There is a general consensus that customer loyalty to service providers is not solely dependent upon their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. However, the identified antecedents of loyalty remain, at best, highly speculative. The aim of this extensive literature review is to give some understanding of the nature of customer loyalty and the antecedent effects of service dissatisfaction. The research reviewed suggests that customer loyalty is an attitudinal state, reflecting value, trust and commitment within supplier–customer relationships. Satisfaction is one of several antecedents of loyalty. A key influence on loyalty is the offer of unique value-delivering advantages not provided by competitors. Thus firms need to develop positive value-based exit barriers to achieve loyalty. When service failures occur, the recovery process is likely to have a greater impact on loyalty than the original service failure. The key to successful recoveries was found to be the customer's perception of ‘fairness’. Recovery programmes must get it right first time. Customers who remain dissatisfied after a complaint has been handled are more dissatisfied than if no recovery attempt had been made. Dissatisfaction and customer satiation are major causes of a customer's exit. The solution to customer satiation is dynamic value creation. Collection and monitoring of customer data is needed for success and two-way communication is vital. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.
Outlier-Robust Tensor PCA

Low-rank tensor analysis is important for various real applications in computer vision. However, existing methods focus on recovering a low-rank tensor contaminated by Gaussian or gross sparse noise and hence cannot effectively handle outliers that are common in practical tensor data. To solve this issue, we propose an outlier-robust tensor principle component analysis (OR-TPCA) method for simultaneous low-rank tensor recovery and outlier detection. For intrinsically low-rank tensor observations with arbitrary outlier corruption, OR-TPCA is the first method that has provable performance guarantee for exactly recovering the tensor subspace and detecting outliers under mild conditions. Since tensor data are naturally high-dimensional and multi-way, we further develop a fast randomized algorithm that requires small sampling size yet can substantially accelerate OR-TPCA without performance drop. Experimental results on four tasks: outlier detection, clustering, semi-supervised and supervised learning, clearly demonstrate the advantages of our method.
A microstrip-fed quasi-spiral circularly polarized ultra-wideband antenna

A circularly polarized (CP) quasi-spiral antenna for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications is proposed in this paper. By carefully choosing the offset feeding point and adopting an impedance transformer, the developed quasi-spiral antenna can be directly fed by a microstrip tapered line. The measured 10-dB return loss bandwidth and 3-dB axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth are 72.4% (5.15 to 11 GHz) and 44.3% (6.37 to 10 GHz), respectively. The measured antenna gain is about 3 dBi. Moreover, it can realize almost omni-directional radiation covering the upper UWB frequency range (7 – 10 GHz).
Design III with marker loci.

Design III is an experimental design originally proposed by R.E. COMSTOCK and H.F. ROBINSON for estimating genetic variances and the average degree of dominance for quantitative trait loci (QTL) and has recently been extended for mapping QTL. In this paper, we first extend COMSTOCK and ROBINSON's analysis of variance to include linkage, two-locus epistasis and the use of F3 parents. Then we develop the theory and statistical analysis of orthogonal contrasts and contrast x environment interaction for a single marker locus to characterize the effects of QTL. The methods are applied to the maize data of C.W. STUBER. The analyses strongly suggest that there are multiple linked QTL in many chromosomes for several traits examined. QTL effects are largely environment-independent for grain yield, ear height, plant height and ear leaf area and largely environment dependent for days to tassel, grain moisture and ear number. There is significant QTL epistasis. The results are generally in favor of the hypothesis of dominance of favorable genes to explain the observed heterosis in grain yield and other traits, although epistasis could also play an important role and overdominance at individual QTL level can not be ruled out.
A Brief Study of In-Domain Transfer and Learning from Fewer Samples using A Few Simple Priors

Domain knowledge can often be encoded in the structure of a network, such as convolutional layers for vision, which has been shown to increase generalization and decrease sample complexity, or the number of samples required for successful learning. In this study, we ask whether sample complexity can be reduced for systems where the structure of the domain is unknown beforehand, and the structure and parameters must both be learned from the data. We show that sample complexity reduction through learning structure is possible for at least two simple cases. In studying these cases, we also gain insight into how this might be done for more complex domains.
Discovering and Visualizing Interdisciplinary Content Classes in Scientific Publications

Text visualization is a rather important task related to scientific corpora, since it provides a way of representing these corpora in terms of content, leading to reinforcement of human cognition compared to abstract and unstructured text. In this paper, we focus on visualizing funding-specific scientific corpora in a supervised context and discovering interclass similarities which indicate the existence of inter-disciplinary research. This is achieved through training a supervised classification � visualization model based on the arXiv classification system. In addition, a funding mining submodule is used which identifies documents of particular funding schemes. This is conducted, in order to generate corpora of scientific publications that share a common funding scheme (e.g. FP7-ICT). These categorized sets of documents are fed as input to the visualization model in order to generate content representations and to discover highly correlated content classes. This procedure can provide a high level monitoring which is important for research funders and governments in order to be able to quickly respond to new developments and trends.
Long-Run Convergence of Ethnic Skill Differentials: The Children and Grandchildren of the Great Migration

This paper investigates whether the ethnic skill differentials introduced into the United States by the inflow of very dissimilar immigrant groups during the Great Migration of 1880–1910 have disappeared during the past century. An analysis of the 1910, 1940, and 1980 Censuses and the General Social Surveys reveals that those ethnic differentials have indeed narrowed, but that it might take four generations, or roughly 100 years, for them to disappear. The analysis also indicates that the economic mobility experienced by American-born blacks, especially since World War Two, resembles that of the white ethnic groups that made up the Great Migration.
The antioxidant effect of Î²-cyclodextrin nano-sized inclusion compound (clathrate) with benzoic acid in vitro

This study provides the information on the synthesis of a novel inclusion complex (clathrate) of β-cyclodextrin with pentaerythritoltetrabenzoate and its antioxidant activity in vitro. On the models of ascorbate-dependent and NADPH lipid peroxidation in rat liver microsomes substrate the antioxidant and antiradical activities of this clathrate were shown. Considering both the obtained data and the structural specificity of the clathrate, it prognostically appears the argument for the application of this complex compound in vivo with minimizing potential side effects, particularly in view of kidney apparatus.