Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Informativeness Principle Under Limited Liability

This paper shows that the informativeness principle does not automatically extend to settings with limited liability. Even if a signal is informative about effort, it may have no value for contracting. An agent with limited liability is paid zero for certain output realizations. Thus, even if these output realizations are accompanied by an unfavorable signal, the payment cannot fall further and so the principal cannot make use of the signal. Similarly, a principal with limited liability may be unable to increase payments after a favorable signal. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for signals to have positive value. Under bilateral limited liability and a monotone likelihood ratio, the value of information is non-monotonic in output, and the principal is willing to pay more for information at intermediate output levels.
Down‐staging of hepatocellular carcinoma via external‐beam radiotherapy with subsequent liver transplantation: A case report

Despite the widespread use of locoregional therapies [radiofrequency ablation and transarterial chemoembolization (TACE)], there is currently a lack of high‐quality evidence supporting their use for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients on the liver transplantation (LT) waiting list or requiring down‐staging. Radiotherapy has rarely been used in this setting and has usually been in the form of more complex and less accessible techniques such as proton‐beam and stereotactic body radiation therapy. Only 1 report describes the use of conventional 3‐dimensional conformal external‐beam radiotherapy (cEBRT) techniques as neoadjuvant or down‐staging therapy for patients who are LT candidates. This report describes the use of cEBRT in a 52‐year‐old hepatitis C–positive man with cirrhosis. A 40‐mm right lobe HCC was treated initially with TACE while he was on the waiting list. The lesion progressed beyond transplant criteria (76 mm). Conventional external‐beam radiotherapy (EBRT) was used (54 Gy in 27 fractions) to down‐stage the lesion. EBRT was well tolerated and resulted in a complete radiological response with no arterial enhancement of the lesion for a total of 16 months. Subsequent LT and a review of the explant demonstrated complete histological necrosis of the lesion. This report provides the first description of complete histological necrosis of HCC through the use of cEBRT techniques as down‐staging/neoadjuvant therapy before LT. Because of its potential efficacy, accessibility, tolerability, noninvasive and outpatient nature, and ability to treat lesions adjacent to vessels and biliary structures, further trials examining the efficacy of cEBRT versus other neoadjuvant techniques are urgently required. Liver Transpl 19:1119–1124, 2013. © 2013 AASLD.
Information Technology, Marketing Practice, and Consumer Privacy: Ethical Issues

Marketers’ use of the new information technologies has provided the opportunity for improved market segmentation and target marketing. However, the profession faces ethical conflicts because application of these technologies commonly invades consumer privacy. The authors examine the ethical dimensions of marketing practice in relation to consumer privacy. The meaning of privacy in a marketing context is explored and specific marketing threats to consumer privacy are described. After examining current and potential mechanisms to safeguard consumer privacy, the authors conclude that marketers must make an active commitment to ethical behavior in this area if restrictive legislation is to be avoided.
Local expression of lipopolysaccharide-binding protein in human gingival tissues.

BACKGROUND Lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP) functions as a crucial molecule in innate host defense responses to bacterial challenge through neutralization of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and activation of cellular responses. OBJECTIVES This study was to investigate the expression profile and levels of LBP in gingival tissues and their associations with periodontal health and disease. METHODS Gingival biopsies were collected from 44 chronic periodontitis patients, including periodontal pocket tissues (PoTs) and the adjacent healthy gingival tissues (HT-Ps), as well as from 15 periodontally healthy subjects as controls (HT-Cs). The peptide and mRNA of LBP were detected by semi-quantitative immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), respectively. RESULTS LBP peptide was detected in 90.9% of PoTs (20/22), 84.6% of HT-Ps (11/13) and all HT-Cs (7/7). The expression of LBP was mainly confined to the cytoplasm of granular and keratinized layers of gingival epithelium, spreading from the oral sulcular epithelium to oral epithelium with the expression density decreasing gradually from coronal to apical portion. LBP peptide was also found on endothelial surfaces and/or inside the lumens of blood vessels in connective tissues. The mean LBP expression levels in HT-Cs were significantly higher than those in HT-Ps and PoTs. LBP mRNA was detected in 55% of PoTs (11/20), 55% of HT-Ps (11/20) and 75% of HT-Cs (6/8). CONCLUSIONS We for the first time found the expression of LBP peptide and mRNA in human gingival tissues. Local expression of LBP in gingival tissues might contribute to periodontal homeostasis.
Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring: is it necessary for the routine assessment of hypertension in people with diabetes?

Aims The British Hypertension Society (BHS) has recommended that, for people with diabetes, the target ‘clinic’ blood pressure should be < 140/80 mmHg. Ambulatory monitoring of blood pressure (ABPM) is used widely in the assessment of hypertension and the BHS has recommended that the target ‘awake’ ambulatory blood pressure for people with diabetes should be < 130/75 mmHg. The purpose of the present study was to determine the utility of ABPM in the assessment of hypertension in patients with diabetes, over and above a careful ‘clinic’ measurement of blood pressure.
Mucoid and nonmucoid Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria in cystic fibrosis infections.

RATIONALE infection with Burkholderia cepacia complex (BCC) bacteria in cystic fibrosis (CF) is associated with an unpredictable rate of pulmonary decline. Some BCC, but not others, elaborate copious mucoid exopolysaccharide, endowing them with a gross mucoid phenotype, the clinical significance of which has not been described. OBJECTIVES to determine whether there was a correlation between bacterial mucoid phenotype, as assessed in a semiquantitative manner from plate culture, and severity of disease as assessed by the rate of decline in lung function. METHODS we performed a retrospective clinical review of 100 patients with CF attending the Vancouver clinics between 1981 and 2007 and analyzed the rate of lung function decline (% predicted FEV(1)). MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS patients infected exclusively with nonmucoid BCC had a more rapid decline in lung function (annual FEV(1) change, -8.51 ± 2.41%) than those infected with mucoid bacteria (-3.01 ± 1.09%; P < 0.05). Linear mixed-effects data modeling revealed a statistically significant inverse association between semiquantitative mucoid exopolysaccharide production and rate of decline of lung function. In vitro incubation of BCC with ceftazidime and ciprofloxacin but not meropenem caused conversion of BCC from mucoid to nonmucoid. CONCLUSIONS our data suggest an inverse correlation between the quantity of mucoid exopolysaccharide production by BCC bacteria and rate of decline in CF lung function. Certain antibiotics may induce a change in bacterial morphology that enhances their virulence. A simple in vitro test of bacterial mucoidy may be useful in predicting the rate of decline of respiratory function in CF.
Minimizing Plagiarism Incidence in Research Writing in One State University in the Philippines

Plagiarism has been an issue in higher education institutions all throughout the globe. The prevalence of this issue has been reported by numerous studies and literatures. However, only few are reported to conduct a study on the prevention of this case. Hence, this study was conducted aiming to minimize the occurrence of plagiarism among teacher education students to increase academic integrity and honesty by utilizing plagiarism detector software (Turnitin). Sixty one (61) teacher education students were selected at the average effect size of 0.5 and subjected into two weeks treatment. One sample pre-test post-test design of quasi-experiment was utilized. Data were gathered using the plagiarism software (Turnitin) on the submitted research manuscripts of the students and compared the similarity indices of the papers before and after the utilization of Turnitin using Paired T-Test statistical treatment at 5% alpha level of significance. Results showed a significant decrease on the similarity index of the submitted manuscripts of the teacher education students before and after the utilization of Turnitin. Through triangulation, several factors were identified influencing students to commit plagiarism such as self-resourcefulness, academic culture, and weak plagiarism detection scheme. Finally, the paper gives set of recommendations to further minimize the incidence of plagiarism.
Effect of long-acting nifedipine on mortality and cardiovascular morbidity in patients with symptomatic stable angina and hypertension: the ACTION trial

Objective To examine the effects of nifedipine GITS on clinical outcome in patients with concurrent stable angina and hypertension. Methods Data from the double-blind placebo-controlled ACTION trial was stratified for hypertension (blood pressure ≥ 140/90 mmHg), at baseline. Results A total of 52% of 7665 ACTION patients were hypertensive. Some 80% were on a β blocker; hypertensives were more often treated with other blood pressure-lowering drugs. Mean baseline blood pressure was 122/74 mmHg among normotensives and 151/85 mmHg among hypertensives. Follow-up blood pressures were reduced by nifedipine (P < 0.001) on the average by 3.9/2.4 and 6.6/3.5 mmHg among normotensives and hypertensives, respectively. Nifedipine GITS significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the combined incidence of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, refractory angina, heart failure, stroke and peripheral revascularization by 13% in hypertensives only. Nifedipine significantly reduced the incidence of any stroke or transient ischemic attack by almost 30% in both subgroups and the need for coronary angiography by 21% in normotensives and 16% in hypertensives. Among hypertensives, the incidence of new overt heart failure was significantly reduced by 38% and of debilitating stroke by 33%. Among normotensives, the need for coronary bypass grafting was significantly reduced by 32%. Nifedipine did not affect all-cause death, cardiovascular death and myocardial infarction in either normo- or hypertensives, but increased the need for peripheral revascularization. Conclusion The salutary effects of the addition of nifedipine GITS to the basic regimen of patients with concurrent stable symptomatic coronary artery disease and hypertension emphasize the need for blood pressure control.
Genetic and environmental underpinnings of educational achievement at the end of compulsory education and beyond

Educational achievement is of major societal interest and is crucial to students themselves, as academic achievement during compulsory education propels young individuals to different life-long trajectories. Research has shown that individual differences in educational achievement are to a substantial extent (around 60%) explained by inherited differences in children’s DNA sequence. However, most of the research to date has focused on reading and mathematics achievement during primary school education. Much less is known about the genetic and environmental underpinnings of educational achievement in secondary school across the various subjects children study. Furthermore, even less is known about educational achievement after compulsory education. It is imperative to understand why individuals differ so widely in educational achievement, to understand the causes and correlates of scholastic achievement and to inform evidence-based educational policy. The current project seeks to increase understanding of the aetiology of individual differences in educational achievement at the end of compulsory schooling and beyond. This thesis explores the genetic and environmental underpinnings of educational achievement in the UK, focusing on achievement at the end of compulsory education, and educational attainment in Estonia. I use data from the UK representative Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), and the Estonia representative adult sample from the Estonian Genome Centre University of Tartu (EGCUT), to investigate the following: the aetiology of educational attainment during the Soviet occupation and post Soviet era in Estonia (Chapter 2); the relationship between first and second language achievement, and general cognitive ability (Chapter 3); the proportion of heritability of educational achievement that can be explained by cognitive and non-cognitive factors at age 16 (Chapter 4); the prediction of exam results from personality (Chapter 5); and the aetiology of subject choice after compulsory education, and achievement in these chosen subjects at age 18 (Chapter 6). The thesis provides evidence that i) genetic factors explain a larger proportion of educational attainment in a more meritocratic society, where selection to educational and occupational positions is based more on merit and ability than environmentally-driven privilege; ii) educational achievement in second language learning is highly heritable and this high heritability is only partly explained by first language achievement and intelligence; iii) the high heritability of academic achievement is explained by non-cognitive as well as cognitive factors; iv) the popular concept of Grit (perseverance and passion for long-term goals) adds little to the prediction of exam performance beyond the ‘Big Five’ personality factors; v) genetics affects both aptitude (cognitive ability) and appetite (subject choice) for learning. I conclude the thesis with a discussion about implications of the work and suggestions for future directions (Chapter 7).
The stochastic volatility Markov-functional model

In this thesis we study low-dimensional stochastic volatility interest rate models for pricing and hedging exotic derivatives. In particular we develop a stochastic volatility Markov-functional model. In order to implement the model numerically, we further propose a general algorithm by working with basis functions and conditional moments of the driving Markov process. Motivated by a data driven study, we choose a SABR type model as a driving process. With this choice we specify a pre-model and develop an approximation to evaluate conditional moments of the SABR driver which serve as building blocks for the practical algorithm. Having discussed how to set up a stochastic volatility Markov-functional model next we study the calibration of a LIBOR based version of the model with the SABR type driving process. We consider a link between separable SABR LIBOR market models and stochastic volatility LIBOR Markov-functional models. Based on the link we propose a calibration routine to feed in SABR marginals by calibrating to the market vanilla options. Moreover we choose the parameters of the SABR driver by fitting to the market correlation structure. We compare the stochastic volatility Markov-functional model developed in the thesis with one-dimensional (non-stochastic-volatility) swap Markov-functional models in terms of pricing and hedging Bermudan type products. By doing so we investigate effects of correlation structure, implied volatility smiles and the introduction of stochastic volatility on Bermudan type products. Finally we compare Quasi-Gaussian models with Markov-functional models in terms of specification and calibration. In particular we study Quasi-Gaussian models formulated in the Markov-functional model framework to make clear the relationship between the two models.
The clinical spectrum of cerebral amyloid angiopathy

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy is a common cause of spontaneous lobar hemorrhage in elderly patients. We discuss seven patients with amyloid angiopathy presenting without major lobar hemorrhage. The patients' presentations fell into two groups: recurrent transient neurologic symptoms and rapidly progressive dementia. The cases with transient episodes had a spread of symptoms to contiguous body areas during episodes. Each had evidence of small hemorrhage or subsequent large hemorrhage in the cortical location corresponding to the symptoms, suggesting petechial hemorrhage with focal seizure as the cause of the transient spells. Three cases of dementia developed with relatively rapid time courses, progressing from intact baseline to profound dementia in spans of a few days to 2 years. Pathologic abnormalities, in addition to amyloid angiopathy, included patchy white matter demyelination and tissue loss, petechial cortical hemorrhages, cortical infarctions, and a variable degree of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The clinical spectrum of cerebral amyloid angiopathy includes these two neurologic syndromes.
Characterization of the pathogenicity of members of the newly established H9N2 influenza virus lineages in Asia.

The reported transmission of avian H9N2 influenza viruses to humans and the isolation of these viruses from Hong Kong poultry markets lend urgency to studies of their ecology and pathogenicity. We found that H9N2 viruses from North America differ from those of Asia. The North American viruses, which infect primarily domestic turkeys, replicated poorly in inoculated chickens. Phylogenetic analysis of the hemagglutinin and nucleoprotein genes indicated that the Asian H9N2 influenza viruses could be divided into three sublineages. Initial biological characterization of at least one virus from each lineage was done in animals. Early isolates of one lineage (A/Chicken/Beijing/1/94, H9N2) caused as high as 80% mortality rates in inoculated chickens, whereas all other strains were nonpathogenic. Sequence analysis showed that some isolates, including the pathogenic isolate, had one additional basic amino acid (A-R/K-S-S-R-) at the hemagglutinin cleavage site. Later isolates of the same lineage (A/Chicken/Hong Kong/G9/97, H9N2) that contains the PB1 and PB2 genes similar to Hong Kong/97 H5N1 viruses replicated in chickens, ducks, mice, and pigs but were pathogenic only in mice. A/Quail/Hong Kong/G1/97 (H9N2), from a second lineage that possesses the replicative complex similar to Hong Kong/97 H5N1 virus, replicated in chickens and ducks without producing disease signs, was pathogenic in mice, and spread to the brain without adaptation. Examples of the third Asian H9N2 sublineage (A/Chicken/Korea/323/96, Duck/Hong Kong/Y439/97) replicated in chickens, ducks, and mice without producing disease signs. The available evidence supports the notion of differences in pathogenicity of H9N2 viruses in the different lineages and suggests that viruses possessing genome segments similar to 1997 H5N1-like viruses are potentially pathogenic in mammals.
Different Ways to Access Knowledge for Sustainability-Oriented Innovation. The Effect of Foreign Direct Investment

Sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI), which displays an intention to develop a product or service that contributes to economic, environmental, and social sustainability, has drawn growing institutional and academic attention, due to the general consideration that innovation is an essential part of achieving sustainability. For developments of this nature, it is considered that foreign direct investment (FDI) helps companies to meet the requirements demanded by SOI, however, they show different cooperation patterns, and so it is not known what path they must take to achieve it. In this context, this paper uses comparative analysis to try to shed light on the possible differences in the paths taken to achieve SOI by companies with and without FDI, taking into account their different form of knowledge management. To achieve this objective, it has been necessary to build new sustainability indicators (economic, environmental, and social) that allow the evaluation of the sustainability of these processes, considering the sustainability objectives that guided companies towards innovation. Using a logit model for 5897 Spanish companies during the period 2009–2014, this paper contributes both theoretically and empirically to emerging research into the opening of sustainable innovation. It provides a better understanding of the different channels for accessing knowledge for SOI, and examining these channels through absorptive capacity and cooperation, according to its age and size.
IMPLIKASI PUTUSAN MAHKAMAH KONSTITUSI TERHADAP PAJAK DAERAH

The change in political government of Indonesian, that had taken place in the "big bang decentralization" era, create the decentralization of power. In the fiscal decentralization, the local governments has the power to manage theirs’ finances, including tax collection. But, actually local governments can levy taxes only if there are any assignment from the legislators or conducted by the constitution. The extention of the local tax object produces several problems,particularly double taxation between federal and local taxes. Constitutional Court's decision for the golf tax implied the questions about the legitimacy of local taxes. Meanwhile, the construction of tax law encountered any problems, such as the legislators’ mind of state, tend to be undemocratic, tortuous and any potential overlap of double taxation in Indonesia. Perubahan politik pemerintahan Indonesia, yang terjadi pada era “big bang decentralization”, mendesak adanya desentralisasi kekuasaan. Dalam hal desentralisasi fiskal, pemerintah daerah dapat mengelola keuangannya sendiri, termasuk pemungutan pajak. Pemerintah daerah hanya dapat memungut pajak jika ada pendelegasian dari legislator nasional atau diamanatkan oleh konstitusi. Ekstensifikasi objek pajak daerah menimbulkan beberapa permasalahan, terutama ketika terjadi pajak ganda, yaitu objek pajak daerah sekaligus objek pajak pusat. Putusan MK atas pajak golf dapat berimplikasi terhadap legitimasi pajak daerah lainnya. Sementara itu, penyusunan hukum pajak menemui beberapa kendala, misalnya adanya kerancuan berpikir, cenderung tidak demokratis, berliku-liku dan terkesan tumpang tindih yang berpotensi adanya praktik pajak ganda di Indonesia.