bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Validity of segmental transit studies used in routine clinical practice, to characterize defaecatory disorder in patients with functional constipation
Authors: Cowlam S. , Khan U. , Mackie A. , Varma J. S. , Yiannankou Y. 
Published: May 2008

AbstractObjective  Segmental colonic transit can be determined by performing regional counts of radio‐opaque markers on an abdominal radiograph. It has been claimed that the pattern of markers can be used to characterize the type of constipation, with a concentration of markers seen in the rectosigmoid region in patients with defaecatory disorders. The aim of our study was to examine this hypothesis in a cohort of patients with functional constipation.Method  Consecutive patients presenting to a specialist constipation clinic and satisfying inclusion criteria were studied. All patients had the following assessments: radio‐opaque marker study performed according to a standard protocol; proforma‐based symptom assessment using Likert scoring; and radioisotope defaecating proctogram. Transit study data included total transit time, rectosigmoid transit time and geometric mean of markers. Symptom scores were recorded for straining, incomplete evacuation and digitation, together with a cumulative symptom score. Evidence of outlet obstruction from the proctogram included four previously described parameters.Results  A total of 108 patients with functional constipation according to the Rome criteria with a median age of 41 years were studied. Neither rectosigmoid transit time nor the geometric centre of markers could differentiate patients with a functional defaecatory disorder (FDD). There was no correlation between the pattern of marker distribution and any of the parameters denoting outlet obstruction.Conclusion  Our data do not support the hypothesis that assessment of segmental transit, using standard methods applicable to routine clinical practice can determine the type of constipation. In particular, patients exhibiting evidence of FDD are no more likely to have recto‐sigmoid retention of markers than those without.
Managerial Ownership and Earnings Management: Theory and Empirical Evidence from Japan
Authors: Teshima Nobuyuki , Shuto Akinobu 
Published: May 2008

AbstractThis paper examines the relationship between managerial ownership and opportunistic managerial behavior relating to earnings management. Economics theory identifies two apparently conflicting effects of managerial ownership on managers' incentives: the incentive alignment effect and the management entrenchment effect. We construct a theoretical model demonstrating the two effects. This model suggests that as managerial ownership increases, earnings management decreases for both high and low levels of managerial ownership, while it increases for intermediate levels of managerial ownership if the sensitivity of the probability of managerial dismissal to the corporate performance is high enough and/or the manager's private benefit derived from managerial position is high enough. In a sample of Japanese firms, we find a significant nonmonotonic relationship between managerial ownership and discretionary accruals, consistent with our model.
Identifying Decision Useful Information with the Matrix Format Income Statement
Authors: Tarca Ann , Hancock Phil , Woodliff David , Brown Philip , Bradbury Michael , Van Zijl Tony 
Published: May 2008

AbstractWe conduct an experiment to investigate the potential benefits of an alternative format for the income statement, the matrix format, initially developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and UK Accounting Standards Board in their joint project on performance reporting. Sophisticated financial statement users (financial analysts and professional accountants) and less sophisticated financial statement users (MBA students) were asked to extract information from a set of financial statements that included an income statement either in the IAS 1 format or in the matrix format. We find that the matrix format improves the accuracy with which users extract financial information. This result is driven by greater accuracy, for all user groups, on “below‐the‐line” items. Furthermore, despite lack of familiarity with the matrix format, its use did not appear to affect the time taken, the ease of extracting financial information, or users' task completion confidence; further experience with the matrix format could lead to benefits along these lines as well. Our findings may assist the FASB and IASB in their joint project on financial statement presentation.
INCOMMENSURABILITY, RELATIVISM, SCEPTICISM: REFLECTIONS ON ACQUIRING A CONCEPT
Authors: Goldberg Nathaniel , Rellihan Matthew 
Published: May 2008

AbstractSome opponents of the incommensurability thesis, such as Davidson and Rorty, have argued that the very idea of incommensurability is incoherent and that the existence of alternative and incommensurable conceptual schemes is a conceptual impossibility. If true, this refutes Kuhnian relativism and Kantian scepticism in one fell swoop. For Kuhnian relativism depends on the possibility of alternative, humanly accessible conceptual schemes that are incommensurable with one another, and the Kantian notion of a realm of unknowable things‐in‐themselves gives rise to the possibility of humanly inaccessible schemes that are incommensurable with even our best current or future science. In what follows we argue that the possibility of incommensurability of either the Kuhnian or the Kantian variety is inescapable and that this conclusion is forced upon us by a simple consideration of what is involved in acquiring a concept. It turns out that the threats from relativism and scepticism are real, and that anyone, including Davidson himself, who has ever defended an account of concept acquisition is committed to one or the other of these two possibilities.1
LOWE'S DEFENCE OF CONSTITUTION AND THE PRINCIPLE OF WEAK EXTENSIONALITY
Authors: Hershenov David B. 
Published: May 2008

AbstractE.J. Lowe is one of the few philosophers who defend both the existence of spatially coincident entities and the Principle of Weak Extensionality that no two objects which have proper parts have exactly the same proper parts at the same time. Lowe maintains that when spatially coincident things like the statue and the lump of bronze are in a constitution relation, the constituted entity (the statue) has parts that the constituting entity (the lump) doesn't, hence the compatibility with Weak Extensionality. My contention is that his argument for why the statue has parts the lump of bronze lacks can also be used to show that the lump of bronze has parts the statue doesn't. This will mean that there is no basis for saying the statue and the lump are in a constitution relation. I argue for accepting a modified account of constitution and abandoning the Principle of Weak Extensionality.
KANTIAN VALUE REALISM
Authors: Hills Alison 
Published: May 2008

AbstractWhy should we be interested in Kant's ethical theory? One reason is that we find his views about our moral responsibilities appealing. Anyone who thinks that we should treat other people with respect, that we should not use them as a mere means in ways to which they could not possibly consent, will be attracted by a Kantian style of ethical theory.But according to recent supporters of Kant, the most distinctive and important feature of his ethical theory is not his claims about the particular ethical duties that we owe to each other, but his views about the nature of value. They argue that Kant has an account of the relationship between practical reason and value, known as “Kantian constructivism” that is far superior to the traditional “value realist” theory, and that it is because of this that we should accept his theory.1It is now standard for both supporters and critics to claim that Kant's moral theory stands or falls with Kantian constructivism.2 But this is a mistake. In this paper, I sketch a rival Kantian theory of value, which I call Kantian value realism. I argue that there is textual evidence that Kant himself accepted value realism rather than constructivism. Whilst my aim in this paper is to set out the theory clearly rather than to defend it, I will try to show that Kantian value realism is preferable to Kantian constructivism and that it is worthy of further study.
The Potential of Maps APIs for Internet GIS Applications
Authors: Chow T Edwin 
Published: May 2008

AbstractSince the launching of Maps Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in 2005, many web developers, including geographers and non‐geographers, applauded the freely adaptable tools and used them to spawn numerous Internet applications. The success of the Maps APIs is largely attributable to its no‐cost policy, the availability of global data coverage, dynamic navigation, query capability, and ease of implementation. Despite its versatility in dynamic exploration of geographic data online, the existing Maps APIs lack Geographic Information System (GIS) functionalities compared to other Internet Mapping Services. The goal of this research was to review the potential of the Maps APIs for Internet GIS applications. This research employed the Google Maps API and developed a web prototype that disseminates spatial information of urban sprawl in Mundy Township, Michigan. The results revealed that both vector and raster data could be effectively represented by using the Maps API. Moreover, the Geographic Markup Language (GML) approach illustrated great potential for developing Internet GIS solutions around open specifications. This research suggested several potential solutions to expand the spectrum of GIS operations of the Maps APIs by incorporating the XML‐related technology and extending the JavaScript library.
COMPUTATIONALLY EFFICIENT IMPLEMENTATION OF A BAYESIAN SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT PROCEDURE
Authors: Ishiguro Makio 
Published: May 2008

Abstract. A Bayesian seasonal adjustment procedure was first proposed by Akaike (1979) and implemented as a computer program, BAYSEA (BAYesian SEasonal Adjustment program), by Akaike and Ishiguro (1980a).This paper proposes an efficient algorithm to solve the least square problem which arises in the procedure.
SUR UN MODÉLE AUTORÉGRESSIF NON LINÉAIRE, ERGODICITÉ ET ERGODICITÉ GÉOMÉTRIQUE
Authors: Mokkadem Abdelkader 
Published: May 2008

Resumé. On établit des conditions suffisantes d'ergodicité et d'ergodicité géométrique pour la chaine de Markov (Xn) définie par On donne également des exemples d'application.Abstract. We obtain sufficient conditions of ergodicity and geometric ergodicity for the Markov chain (Xn) defined by We give also some applications.
SOME ASYMPTOTIC PROPERTIES OF THE SAMPLE COVARIANCES OF GAUSSIAN AUTOREGRESSIVE MOVING‐AVERAGE PROCESSES
Authors: Porat Boaz 
Published: May 2008

Abstract. The paper deals with the asymptotic variances of the sample covariances of autoregressive moving average processes. Using state‐space representations and some matrix Lyapunov equation theory, closed‐form expressions are derived for the asymptotic variances of the sample covariances and for the Cramer‐Rao bounds on the process covariances. The main results obtained from these expressions are as follows: For ARMA (p, q) processes with p≥q, the sample covariance of order n is asymptotically efficient if and only if 0 ≤n≤p – q.For ARMA (p, q) processes with p < q, none of the sample covariances is asymptotically efficient.
ON THE ESTIMATION OF THE INVERSE CORRELATION FUNCTION
Authors: Battaglia Francesco 
Published: May 2008

AbstractTwo new methods for estimating the inverse covariance and inverse correlation functions of a time series are proposed. One of them is based on an orthogonality property, the other is suggested by interpolation considerations. The two methods are shown to be asymptotically equivalent, and their asymptotic distribution is derived. The asymptotic distribution turns out to be the same as that of the autoregressive estimates of the inverse correlations. The problem of choosing an estimation method in practice is discussed.
ESTIMATION IN LONG‐MEMORY TIME SERIES MODEL
Authors: Kashyap R. L. , Eom Kie‐Bum 
Published: May 2008

AbstractThis study deals with the parameter estimation in long‐memory time series models. An unbiased and consistent estimator is proposed. The proposed estimator is based on a least‐squares method in the frequency domain, and it is computationally simple. Also, the Cramer–Rao lower bound is derived. The mean‐square error of the proposed estimator is order of O(1/N), where N is the number of samples. The accuracy of the estimates is verified using synthetic long‐memory time series data.
STRUCTURAL, DYNAMIC MODELLING IN UNOBSERVABLE SPACES OF COVARIANCE‐STATIONARY STOCHASTIC PROCESSES
Authors: Otter Pieter W. 
Published: May 2008

AbstractIn this paper a structural, stationary version of the well‐known state‐space model is used to model covariance‐stationary stochastic processes. The identifiability of the model parameters is discussed and a rank condition for local parameter identifiability is given. Ljung's results on prediction‐error estimation are used to establish strong consistency and asymptotic efficiency of the non‐linear ML‐estimates obtained from dependent observations. It turns out that the model can be identified by using simultaneously the steady‐state Kalman filter for the unobservable state vector and the prediction‐error estimation method for the model parameters.
ORDERS AND INITIAL VALUES OF NON‐STATIONARY MULTIVARIATE ARMA MODELS
Authors: Swift A. L. 
Published: May 2008

Abstract. Akaike's stepwise canonical correlations procedure identifies each autoregressive (AR) order (assuming a lesser moving‐average (MA) order) and gives initial parameter estimates of a stationary multivariate autoregressive moving‐average model. We show that a similar procedure is valid for the non‐stationary model when this can be approximated by a large‐order AR‐only model which has consistent least‐squares estimators.The procedure can also be adapted for all MA orders by fixing the overall maximum of any MA order less its corresponding AR order. We perform the canonical correlations procedure on a succession of values of this maximum and compare the results to obtain one or more prospective model structures.
GEOMETRIC ERGODICITY OF A DOUBLY STOCHASTIC TIME SERIES MODEL
Authors: Meyn Sean P. , Guo Lei 
Published: May 2008

Abstract. We demonstrate that a large class of doubly stochastic time series models are geometrically ergodic, and hence admit second‐order stationary solutions.We also establish a version of the strong law of large numbers, the law of the interated logorithm and the central limit theorem for the stochastic processes under consideration.
A COMPUTATIONAL METHOD FOR ESTIMATING DENSITIES OF NON‐GAUSSIAN NONSTATIONARY UNIVARIATE TIME SERIES
Authors: Hodges P. E. , Hale D. F. 
Published: May 2008

Abstract. Kitagawa's (1987a) numerical integration formulae used to approximate the filtering, prediction and smoothing densities of nonlinear non‐Gaussian state‐space models are modified. The method involves integration by parts which permits the integration of the conditional system density and, possibly, the observational density prior to and independently of the computation of the filtering, prediction and smoothing densities. In addition to a substantial reduction in computing time and an increase in accuracy, this approach eliminates the necessity of incorporating dynamic adjustments to the filtering, prediction and smoothing processes to accommodate difficult noise densities.Three numerical examples are presented. One example replicates Kitagawa's non‐Gaussian state‐space model; the second is a linear Gaussian model; and the third is a nonlinear non‐Gaussian model. Comparisons of speed and accuracy between alternative methods and between three computers (personal computer, minicomputer and supercomputer) are made.
STOCHASTIC MODELING AND IDENTIFICATION OF SEISMIC RECORDS BASED ON ESTABLISHED DETERMINISTIC FORMULATIONS
Authors: Dargahi‐Noubary G. R. 
Published: May 2008

Abstract. Stochastic modeling on the basis of established deterministic formulations is stressed and some examples from seismology are presented. Using well‐known deterministic models for a source time function, a single parameter stochastic difference equation (autoregressive model) is derived for seismic records of P‐waves from nuclear explosions and natural earthquakes. A model‐evaluation technique other than statistical goodness‐of‐fit is considered, and its application is illustrated using available data. The interdependency between the characteristic polynomial of the difference equation, its complementary solution (signal), its particular integral (noise) and some physical variables are explained. Variables included in the discussion are duration, intensity and the so‐called corner frequency. Utilizing these dependencies, the signal‐generated character of noise is also illustrated.To fit the model an estimation procedure is described, and its statistical properties are derived. It is shown that the proposed model fits the records of P‐waves from underground nuclear explosions and natural earthquakes as well as the records of Rayleigh waves from atmospheric explosions. Applications of the model to depth‐ and reflection‐parameter estimation and to event discrimination are discussed, and some representative numerical examples are presented.
Seniority Profiles in Unionized Workplaces: Do Unions Still have the Edge?*
Authors: Zangelidis Alexandros 
Published: May 2008

AbstractThe focus of this study is to distinguish the different paths seniority earning profiles follow depending on whether the individual is employed in a workplace where trade unions and collective bargaining are present, or not. Within this framework, two propositions are set. In the union sector seniority should be an important determinant of wages, while in the non‐union sector productivity, proxied by occupational experience, should have a key role on earning profiles. The empirical analysis verifies both propositions. Seniority earning profiles appear to be steeper in the union sector, while occupational expertise is estimated to have a more significant role in non‐union jobs.
The Productivity Effects of Internal and External R&D: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel Data Model*
Authors: Lokshin Boris , Belderbos René , Carree Martin 
Published: May 2008

AbstractWe examine the impact of internal and external R&D on labour productivity in a 6‐year panel of Dutch manufacturing firms. We apply a dynamic panel data model that allows for decreasing or increasing returns to scale in internal and external R&D and for economies of scope. We find complementarity between internal and external R&D, with a positive impact of external R&D only evident in case of sufficient internal R&D. These findings confirm the role of internal R&D in enhancing absorptive capacity. The scope economies are accompanied by decreasing returns to scale at high levels of internal and external R&D. The analysis indicates that productivity grows by increasing the share of external R&D in total R&D.
On Structuring Subjective Judgements: originality, Significance and Rigour in RAE2008
Authors: Johnston Ron 
Published: May 2008

AbstractThe 2008 United Kingdom Research Assessment Exercise will involve the evaluation of thousands of individual research outputs. The Funding Councils set three criteria for those evaluations – Originality, rigour and significance – and required each output to be placed into a fivefold categorisation of excellence, using absolute rather than relative judgements. The various panels and sub‐panels convened to undertake those evaluations were asked to provide their own interpretations of both the criteria and the categories. This paper analyses those, and finds that they are no less subjective than the generic descriptions provided by the central organisation.
Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education: Contested Territories?
Authors: Filippakou Ourania , Tapper Ted 
Published: May 2008

AbstractThis paper analyses the unfolding of the quality agenda in England from 1992 to the present. By using two disciplinary approaches, ‘political science’ and ‘social philosophy’, the article traces the recent transition from quality assurance to quality enhancement. How is this development to be explained and how significant is it? Are the concepts of quality assurance and quality enhancement contested territories? The article argues that the undermining of quality assurance was the consequence of the emergence of a different kind of higher education politics in Britain: the shift from a corporatist model to one driven by pressure‐group politics. Furthermore, although theoretically quality enhancement has the potential of a transformative discourse, it is unlikely to unsettle the relative stable structures in which quality assurance functions.
On Process, Progress, Success and Methodology or the Unfolding of the Bologna Process as it Appears to Two Reasonably Benign Observers
Authors: Neave Guy , Amaral Alberto 
Published: May 2008

AbstractThis article examines the Bologna Process from two main perspectives: as a dynamic strategy as well as the unfolding of the methodology employed. It argues that the latter was largely determined by the former. Three phases of development are identified; the first two of which shows that the methodology was largely determined by the need to bestow credibility on the strategy. The third phase, introduced with the recent Ministerial meeting in London in May 2007 suggests that the boundless confidence in the progress achieved at system level has now given way to a new sobriety when attention to progress is translated to institutional level. It concludes that there are excellent grounds for rethinking the basic strategy behind the Bologna Process.
Towards a ‘Post‐Public Era’? Shifting Frames in German and Australian Higher Education Policy
Authors: Pick David 
Published: May 2008

AbstractHigher education in Germany and Australia is being subject to pressures of market forces, internationalisation and financial constraints. This had led to both systems experiencing significant crisis and change over the past 20 years. In this paper, frame analysis is used to compare the changing policies in each nation and examine the extent to which the landscapes of each system have been transformed. It is found that higher education policy in both nations underwent significant change in the late 1980s and again in the early 2000s, impacting on system structures and institutional forms. There is now evidence of further change occurring in both nations that may mark a transition to a ‘post‐public era’ in higher education. This analysis reveals a degree of convergence in the neo‐liberal policy trajectories of both nations but differences in the rate and nature of the transitions taking place.