Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Directors Learn From Forced CEO Turnover Experience?

We study the dynamic relation between experience and monitoring. We find independent directors become more diligent monitors after experiencing a forced CEO turnover event in another firm. Specifically, their subsequent forced CEO turnover decisions are more sensitive to firm performance and are based upon more private information. The results hold when we only use experience acquired from other firms after the director joined the current firm and when we include director and firm fixed effects. Hence, our results are not driven by firm-director matching or innate director traits. We also find that such experience has important director labor market implications. JEL classification: G30, G34
ISLAMIC BANKS’ PROFITABILITY IN AN INTEREST RATE CYCLE

Islamic finance relies on the cardinal principle of profit and loss sharing (PLS) between stakeholders taking part in a risky economic activity. Such a rule is also applicable to Islamic banks’ depositors, who either choose not to be remunerated at all, or place their savings in “investment accounts”, bringing variable returns, dependent on the bank’s profitability. At the end of the period, an Islamic bank has to share its “profits” with the depositors who accepted the investment risk. In fact, such an Islamic bank does not share its “profits”, defined as the wealth transferred to shareholders, but shares an amount of wealth one can call an “income before cost of funding” (IBCF). How Islamic banks manage to smooth their profitability, measured by their ROE, is the purpose of this article, which comes to three main conclusions:
Mapping Media and Meaning: Autoethnography as an Approach to Designing Personal Heritage Soundscapes

The paper presents reflections on understanding the issues of designing of locative sonic memory-scapes. As physical space and digital media become ever more intertwined, together forming and augmenting meaning and experience, we need methods to further explore possible ways in which physical places and intangible personal content can be used to develop meaningful experiences. The paper explores the use of autoethnography as a method for soundscape design in the fields of personal heritage and locative media. Specifically, we explore possible connections between digital media, space and 'meaning making', suggesting how autoethnographies might help discover design opportunities for merging digital media and places. These are methods that are more personally relevant than those typically associated with a more system-based design approaches that we often find are less sensitive to the way that emotion, relationships, memory and meaning come together. As a way to expand upon these relationships we also reflect on relations between personal and community-based responses.
Changes in plasma somatomedin-C in response to ingestion of diets with variable protein and energy content.

We have attempted to determine the relative importance of dietary intake of protein and energy in restoring plasma immunoreactive somatomedin-C (Sm-C) concentrations after fasting. Ten healthy human volunteers were fasted for 5 days, then divided into two refeeding groups. One group (variable energy) was refed 1.0 g protein/kg ideal body weight, and in 9-day sequences, 11, 18 and 25 kcal of energy/kg. The other group (variable protein) was given 35 kcal energy/kg, and in 9-day sequences, 0.2, 0.4, and 1.0 g protein/kg. When subjects were refed the variable energy diets there was no significant increase in Sm-C at 11 kcal/kg (0.47 +/- 0.13 to 0.45 +/- 0.12 U/ml), suggesting that there is a threshold energy requirement below which optimal protein intake is not sufficient to raise the Sm-C. When subjects were refed 18 and 25 kcal/kg, it became apparent that the more energy added to the diet, the greater the absolute concentration of Sm-C attained (0.66 U/ml on 18 kcal/kg and 0.97 U/ml on 25 kcal/kg). Sm-C correlated with nitrogen balance (r = 0.58) during refeeding with the variable energy diets and was a good indicator of acute directional change in nitrogen balance. However, Sm-C was not a reliable indicator of nitrogen repletion, since it rose almost to control levels on the 25 kcal/kg diet while nitrogen balance remained slightly negative. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Patterns of dignity-related distress at the end of life: A cross-sectional study of patients with advanced cancer and care home residents

Background: To provide effective palliative care in different settings, it is important to understand and identify the sources of dignity-related distress experienced by people nearing the end of life. Aim: To describe and compare the sources of dignity-related distress reported by cancer patients and care home residents. Design: Secondary analysis of merged data. Participants completed the Patient Dignity Inventory (assessing 25 sources of dignity-related distress) and measures of quality of life and depression. Setting/participants: A total of 45 adult patients with advanced cancer referred to hospital-based palliative care teams in London, United Kingdom, and 60 residents living in one of 15 care homes in London. Results: Care home residents were older and had poorer functioning. Both groups reported a wide range of dignity-related problems. Although the number or problems reported on the Patient Dignity Inventory was similar for the two groups (mean (standard deviation): 5.9 (5.5) for cancer patients and 4.1 (4.3) for care home residents, p = 0.07), there was a tendency for more cancer patients to report some existential problems. Experiencing physically distressing symptoms and functional limitations were prevalent problems for both groups. Patient Dignity Inventory problems were associated with poorer performance status and functioning for residents, with age and cognitive impairment for cancer patients and with poorer quality of life and depression for both groups. Conclusion: Although characteristics of the samples differed, similarities in the dignity-related problems reported by cancer patients and care home residents support research suggesting a common pathway towards death for malignant and non-malignant disease. A wider understanding of the sources of dignity-related distress would help clinicians provide more effective end-of-life care.
[Detecting Epstein-Barr virus in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissue using in situ polymerase chain reaction].

OBJECTIVE To develop a sensitive non-isotopic method for in situ detection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in paraffin-embedded section of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) tissue. METHODS The EBV BamHI-W fragment labeled with digoxigenin as probe was used to perform in situ hybridization and PCR in situ hybridization (in situ PCR). RESULTS The method of in situ PCR for the detection of EBV in NPC tissue was proved to be much more sensitive than in situ hybridization. CONCLUSION Hybridization in situ of PCR product is useful to detect EBV in NPC tissues.
The Impact of Financial Risks on the Firms’ Performance

Firms are exposed to a variety of risks including credit risk, liquidity risk, foreign exchange risk, market risk and interest rate risk. An efficient risk management system is needed in time in order to control these risks. Managing risk is one of the basic tasks to be done, once it has been identified and known. The risk and return are directly related to each other, which means that increasing one will subsequently increase the other and vice versa. Financial risks have a great impact on firm’s performance. The study also assessed the current risk management practices of the firms and linked them with the firms’ financial performance. The findings confirm whether financial risks can be contained or managed in order for firms to achieve profit maximization for its shareholders. Keywords: Financial Risk; Firm’s Performance; Interest rate parity; Liquidity gap; Liquidity risk; Risk Management.
Rat Long Chain Acyl-CoA Synthetase 5, but Not 1, 2, 3, or 4, Complements Escherichia coli fadD*

Long chain fatty acids are converted to acyl-CoAs by acyl-CoA synthetase (fatty acid CoA ligase: AMP forming, E.C. 6.2.1.3; ACS). Escherichia coli has a single ACS, FadD, that is essential for growth when fatty acids are the sole carbon and energy source. Rodents have five ACS isoforms that differ in substrate specificity, tissue expression, and subcellular localization and are believed to channel fatty acids toward distinct metabolic pathways. We expressed rat ACS isoforms 1–5 in an E. coli strain that lacked FadD. All rat ACS isoforms were expressed in E. coli fadD or fadDfadR and had ACS specific activities that were 1.6–20-fold higher than the wild type control strain expressing FadD. In the fadD background, the rat ACS isoforms 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 oxidized [14C]oleate at 5 to 25% of the wild type levels, but only ACS5 restored growth on oleate as the sole carbon source. To ensure that enzymes of β-oxidation were not limiting, assays of ACS activity, β-oxidation, fatty acid transport, and phospholipid synthesis were also examined in a fadD fadR strain, thereby eliminating FadR repression of the transporter FadL and the enzymes of β-oxidation. In this strain, fatty acid transport levels were low but detectable for ACS1, 2, 3, and 4 and were nearly 50% of wild type levels for ACS5. Despite increases in β-oxidation, only ACS5 transformants were able to grow on oleate. These studies show that although ACS isoforms 1–4 variably supported moderate transport activity, β-oxidation, and phospholipid synthesis and although their in vitro specific activities were greater than that of chromosomally encoded FadD, they were unable to substitute functionally for FadD regarding growth. Thus, membrane composition and protein-protein interactions may be critical in reconstituting bacterial ACS function.
Why do firms go public

textabstractAmbitious chief executives considering the possibility of floating their company on a major stock exchange should be careful what they wish for. They need to be sure that they are making the decision for the right reasons, at the right time, and that the initial public offering (IPO) is made in the right location.
Dynamic Capabilities for Managing Emerging Technologies

__Abstract__ The advancement of information and communication technologies has brought a digital age, where massive computing power, high speed and ubiquitous access to internet and more recently Cloud Computing Technology are expected to transform a wide range of organizations, industries, and societies. The complexities and uncertainties associated with such a transformation process generate numerous puzzling questions for practitioners and academic researchers. How can organizations overcome rigidities in their resources and routines and adapt in line with the requirements of such technological change? What are the distinct characteristics of the established firms that are more successful in maintaining their competiveness during and after the transformation process? This dissertation combines multiple data sources concerning organizational adoption of Cloud Computing. It includes data from a 4-year intensive filed study, multiple comparative case studies, and a survey among Dutch companies, to provide a basis for better understanding of the micro-foundations of organizational capabilities for managing emerging technologies. Drawing on the literature on dynamic capabilities, this dissertation provides a more complete picture of the drivers of effective response to a technological change through investigation of the interplay between structures, routines, and managerial cognition. In this dissertation, first an investigation on the processes of organizational adaptation in response to the technological change is provided. I discuss what type of managerial initiatives are needed for fostering effective adoption of emerging technologies and what are the key determinants and managerial roles for realizing those initiatives. Second, I investigate the relationship between structure, strategic intent, and technology driven business model innovation and argue that, rather than any particular structural form, structural alteration may be crucial for enabling transition to a new business model. Third, I discuss the important role of involvement and close interaction with the customers in giving rise to managerial attention and initiatives that will in turn support exploratory behavior in emerging technology fields. Lastly, the interplay between formalization, centralization, and managerial attention in enabling early sensing and seizing of emerging technologies has been investigated. The findings illustrate how different organizational characteristics may influence the degree of dependence to managerial attention for responding to technological change. The dissertation as whole provides new insights on the origins and outcomes of dynamic capabilities for managing emerging technologies.
A Nuclear 3′-5′ Exonuclease Involved in mRNA Degradation Interacts with Poly(A) Polymerase and the hnRNA Protein Npl3p

ABSTRACT Inactivation of poly(A) polymerase (encoded by PAP1) inSaccharomyces cerevisiae cells carrying the temperature-sensitive, lethal pap1-1 mutation results in reduced levels of poly(A)+ mRNAs. Genetic selection for suppressors of pap1-1 yielded two recessive, cold-sensitive alleles of the gene RRP6. These suppressors,rrp6-1 and rrp6-2, as well as a deletion ofRRP6, allow growth of pap1-1 strains at high temperature and partially restore the levels of poly(A)+mRNA in a manner distinct from the cytoplasmic mRNA turnover pathway and without slowing a rate-limiting step in mRNA decay. Subcellular localization of an Rrp6p-green fluorescent protein fusion shows that the enzyme residues in the nucleus. Phylogenetic analysis and the nature of the rrp6-1 mutation suggest the existence of a highly conserved 3′-5′ exonuclease core domain within Rrp6p. As predicted, recombinant Rrp6p catalyzes the hydrolysis of a synthetic radiolabeled RNA in a manner consistent with a 3′-5′ exonucleolytic mechanism. Genetic and biochemical experiments indicate that Rrp6p interacts with poly(A) polymerase and with Npl3p, a poly(A)+ mRNA binding protein implicated in pre-mRNA processing and mRNA nuclear export. These findings suggest that Rrp6p may interact with the mRNA polyadenylation system and thereby play a role in a nuclear pathway for the degradation of aberrantly processed precursor mRNAs.
Excessive Sympathetic Nervous System Activity Decreases Myocardial Contractility

Abstract The objective of this study was to determine whether myocardial contractility is depressed by intense activation of the sympathetic nervous system. A massive sympathetic discharge was produced by injecting veratrine or sodium citrate into the cisterna magna of anesthetized rabbits (n = 10). Two and one-half hr later, the hearts were isolated and their left ventricular (LV) performance evaluated and compared with the LV performance of hearts isolated from control animals (n = 10). LV performance was evaluated from steady-state peak isovolumic systolic and end-diastolic pressures that were generated at various end-diastolic volumes (LV function curves). The relationship between peak LV systolic pressure (or the average peak developed LV wall stress) and LV end-diastolic volume was rotated downward (P < 0.01) in the hearts removed from rabbits treated with veratrine or citrate. The LV end-diastolic pressure or LV end-diastolic wall stress of these hearts was not different from control at any end-diastolic volume. The diminished ability of the experimental hearts to develop systolic pressure or wall stress suggests that intense sympathetic activation depressed contractility. Severely damaged myofibers, located largely in the subendocardium, were found in these hearts. Furthermore, the depressed contractility was not related to pulmonary edema since only 2 of 10 rabbits developed edema.
Spontaneously immortalized mouse mesothelial cells display characteristics of malignant transformation

Abstract. Objectives: Mesotheliomas occur in occult serous cavities after chronic exposure of mesothelial cells to asbestos fibres. Molecular events that contribute to the development of this cancer are therefore not readily accessible for study. We have used in vitro culture systems to study and compare induced and spontaneous transformation events in primary mouse mesothelial cells. Materials and methods: Mouse mesothelial cells were cultivated until small populations of proliferating cells emerged from senescing cultures. Spontaneously transformed cultures of cells were characterized and compared to malignantly transformed cells. Results: Human mesothelial cells had a finite lifespan of 10–15 population doublings when cultured in vitro; mouse mesothelial cells typically exhibit this same pattern. Here, we show that mouse mesothelial cells can be cultured for extended periods and that these cells can transform spontaneously. Lines of spontaneously transformed cells generated in this study are immortal and growth factor‐independent. They display the salient characteristic features of transformation, including increased proliferation rate, lack of contact inhibition, aneuploidy and ability to grow in anchorage‐independent conditions. A subset of these cell lines developed into tumours in syngeneic mice. Comparative gene expression analysis demonstrated that spontaneously transformed cell lines were more closely related to neoplastic cells than to primary cells. Conclusion: These findings have implications for interpretation of in vitro transformation studies, demonstrating broad similarity between spontaneous and induced genetic changes.
Foundations for provenance-aware systems

Digital provenance is metadata that describes the ancestry or history of a digital object. Provenance enhances the value of the data it describes as it provides answers to questions such as: How was this object created? On what other objects does this object depend? How do the ancestries of these two objects differ? In many digital systems, provenance collection is either entirely missing, thus losing valuable information, or is recorded as an after thought, risking inconsistency between data and provenance. This dissertation demonstrates that storage systems are well-suited for automatically inferring and managing provenance. Accordingly, we introduce the Provenance-Aware Storage System (PASS), a storage system that automatically collects and maintains the provenance of files. We describe the challenges in building a PASS and present an architecture for collecting provenance in local file systems. The provenance that PASS collects is useful for scientific documentation, debugging, security, search, and information lifecycle management. PASS imposes reasonable overheads, with maximum 23% observed elapsed time overhead. We then extend PASS to the more semantically rich domains of applications. Ultimately, we provide the disclosed provenance API, an interface that supports and encourages the integration of multiple provenance collection substrates, each operating at a particular abstraction layer. By integrating the provenance collected by PASS, a workflow engine, a web browser, and a runtime Python provenance tracking wrapper, we demonstrate that this cross-layer integration provides powerful new functionality unavailable by other means. While cross-layer provenance integration demonstrates how the PASS architecture can be extended up the application stack, we demonstrate versatility of the architecture by extending it to network attached stores (NAS) and cloud stores. To demonstrate the functionality of the architecture in a NAS, we augmented the NFS protocol with additional operations. Our augmented NFS protocol has reasonable overheads, with maximum 16.8% observed elapsed time overhead. To demonstrate the functionality of the architecture in a cloud, we designed protocols that store provenance with data on the cloud. Our cloud protocol overheads are minimal with overheads less than 10% in most cases.
Nitrate and silicic acid in the world ocean: patterns and processes

Two world ocean data sets, GEOSECS and NODC, were analyzed for patterns in the nitrate versus silicic acid regression relation. Significant regional nitrate or silicic acid excesses (i.e. amount of one of these plant nutrients remaining in the water after the other is no longer measurable) tend to occur in some areas of upwelling, shallow sills, deep convection or high rainfall/river outflow. The Southern Ocean is unique in the intensity and complexity of projected (regression intercepts on the nitrate [y] or silicic acid [X] axis) excesses. These global nutrient depletion patterns pertain to regional comparisons of phytoplankton succession and thus to the overall character of plankton community structure. Intercept patterns in different areas are affected by the processes that determine absolute nutrient concentrations at the beginning, and their relative decline during, the growth season. The region south of the southern Polar Front is unlque because winter nutrient concentrations are unusually high around Antarctica due to water mass characteristics and because nutrients generally remain unusually abundant over the growth season partly in response to the cycle of incident solar radiation. The patterns in the regression intercepts in this region largely result from variations in the regression slopes which respond to different weightings of the chemical and biological pathways that determine nitrate and silicic acid concentrations in the upper water column. The nitrate and silicic acid profiles in the Southern Ocean contain information on the temporal average of primary production and of nitrogen recycling up to the tlme of sample collection within the growth season. The interpretation of this information depends on the detail to which the processes that determine the water column concentrations of nitrate and silicic acid are known.
Maintaining the Personal Touch in a Growing Program: Strategies for Establishing Social Presence in Online Classes

A review of the literature supports the importance of considering strategies for establishing social presence in online classes, as social presence is linked to student satisfaction and learning. This paper describes several strategies, both low and high tech, which instructors may consider as they engage in online instruction. Examples provided will assist in establishing a repertoire of strategies and technologies to provide online instructors with multiple avenues for retaining their own teaching styles while enabling students to explore the social and engaging opportunities provided by an online community of inquiry.