bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
CREATING VALUE IN THE OIL INDUSTRY
Authors: Antill Nick , Arnott Robert 
Published: April 2005

In contrast with current thinking that conglomerates are inefficient, this article begins by presenting arguments in favor of the size and structure of the large integrated oil companies, also known as “the supermajors.” Among the advantages are tax efficiency, information flow, political and technological know‐how, broad supplier and customer relationships, scale economies, cross‐business economies of scope, brand power, and the ability to coordinate strategic initiatives across businesses. These advantages all translate into a lower cost of capital.One problem, however, is that this lower cost of capital does not seem to be reflected in the target returns on capital currently set by the supermajors. Observing that the financial goal of a corporation is to maximize not its return on capital but rather the net present value of expected future cash flows and earnings, the authors argue that the majors need to make two major changes to current practice. First, their investment hurdle rates should be reduced from their current level of 14–15% to the weighted average cost of capital, which is estimated to run about 8–9%. Second, the actual returns on capital reported in published accounts are largely meaningless; and when evaluating new investments and existing operations alike, the companies must find an annual performance measure that better reflects the economic realities of the business. This paper recommends use of a performance measurement framework based on economic profit that should serve two critical purposes: it will encourage managers to undertake all value‐increasing projects (not just those that will maintain or increase reported return on capital), and it will help the companies communicate their strategy and results to the investment community.
FUTURE VALUE: THE $7 TRILLION CHALLENGE
Authors: Ballow John J. , Thomas Robert J. , Roos Göran 
Published: April 2005

As of May 2003, $7.6 trillion (or 58%) of the aggregate value of the U.S. stock market represented “future value”–that portion of value that does not depend on current operating performance but rather on anticipated growth. This concept of future growth value is especially important in newer industry sectors and among companies whose value is based heavily on intangible assets, such as brand and proprietary knowledge. But traditional accounting remains focused on tangible assets. And because most executives rely on accounting‐ based financial data to run their businesses, they end up focusing on current operating results when they should be investing in strategies that optimize future growth. In short, many of the assets that are most responsible for creating value in today's economy are not managed as well as they could be.As part of its high‐performance business initiative, Accenture has developed a comprehensive research database and a set of tools for examining the components and drivers of future value, along with a methodology for applying this research on a companyspecific basis. Accenture's futurevalue analytics can determine the portion of a company's market value that is attributable to future growth, and can help identify the drivers of that future growth value. The development of a viable operational framework will enable executives to translate corporate intangibles into manageable market value.
CREATING VALUE AT A CONGLOMERATE: THE CASE OF THE GODREJ GROUP
Authors: Godrej Adi 
Published: April 2005

This discussion with the chairman of the Godrej Group, a well‐known India‐based conglomerate, begins by exploring the issue of diversification versus a single‐industry focus, particularly in developing countries. Mr. Godrej observes that the capital and managerial talent provided by a corporate parent can be invaluable resources in a developing economy, where such commodities are likely to be in relatively short supply. On the other hand, he notes, a conglomerate must have some underlying strategic rationale in order to create value, and a diversified company will work only “when each of its businesses is run with clear and focused accountability.”To that end, the Godrej Group recently instituted the EVA performance management framework in six of its key businesses. In particular, the management teams running those businesses are rewarded according to the terms of an EVA‐based incentive plan. Each business has since seen significant improvements in capital efficiency, market share, and overall performance. The stock price of the Godrej Group's publicly held entity has more than doubled (in a flat market), and the vast majority of the employees believe that the EVA implementation has been the company's most important recent initiative. Management teams are said now to look much more carefully at options for outsourcing, contract manufacturing, eliminating bottlenecks, and even reusing old equipment at new facilities.Perhaps the most significant change, however, is that the “improved rigor and discipline of our EVA‐based capital allocation system” has permitted Godrej family members to move from operationsoriented, owner‐manager functions to a broader leadership role. The EVA system has allowed them to feel more comfortable in decentralizing day‐to‐day decision‐making because they are confident that managers and employees are all working in the shareholders' interests.
What is the News? Criticism, Debate and Community in Indonesia's Local Press
Authors: Morrell Elizabeth 
Published: April 2005

AbstractCommunity newspapers are recognized as a potentially effective means of improving participation and equity. In this article, I discuss one local newspaper that has been established since the introduction of media reforms in post-Suharto Indonesia. This newspaper is published in the Luwu region of South Sulawesi, which has undergone significant subdivision within Indonesia's radical decentralization programme. Many of the problems occurring in the country's transition to democracy are evident here. New local government bodies are being established at a number of different levels, and issues including armed conflict, unreliable policing, unemployment, and poverty must also be addressed. Yet, whereas grassroots strengthening is imperative for overcoming all those issues, the local press focuses on the bureaucracy, and does not act sufficiently to develop an informed critical awareness, or the widespread confidence that equitable change can be achieved.
Power from Below: Deconstructing the Dominant Paradigm of Power
Authors: Adeney-Risakotta Bernard 
Published: April 2005

AbstractIn 1998, Indonesia was shaken to the bone by a political, economic, social and cultural crisis that has lasted at least six years. As the 32-year-old regime of President Soeharto collapsed under massive protests, the country began a process of democratization that unleashed conflicts and power struggles all over the country. The ending of an authoritarian regime, the de-legitimization of the military and the euphoria of Reformasi (Reformation) did not usher in a golden age of freedom and prosperity but rather, a period of serious conflicts between races, tribes, religions, political groups, regions and naked economic interests that seem impossible to quench. The long drawn-out crisis in Indonesia may be viewed as a period of power struggles that are an inevitable result of the power vacuum that followed the fall of Soeharto. Conflicts that had been repressed for decades under a militaristic regime roared into life under the banner of "democracy".
Beyond Power: Alternative Conceptions of Being and the (Asian) Reconstitution of Social Theory
Authors: Clammer John 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThe preoccupation with power in mainstream Western social theory can be challenged from a number of perspectives. In this paper, I consider some alternative ways of conceptualizing ways-of-being in society that are implicit in a number of Asian traditions of thought and, in particular, in Buddhism and Gandhian ideas. In this paper, I challenge the necessity for a power-based approach to social relations. I suggest both that the models of society emerging from Foucault and other major Western theorists are examples of culturally bound local knowledge that have significant negative influences on the conception of alternative social possibilities, and that the resources for such alternatives lie not only in Western forms of utopian thinking but in existing Asian traditions — the full sociological implications of which have not yet been explored or worked out in detail.
Thinking Inside and Outside of the Circle of Kings: Reflections on the Comparative and Performative Practice of Southeast Asian Studies
Authors: Salman Michael 
Published: April 2005

AbstractEvaluations of the success, viability, and future of Southeast Asian studies in the United States have long been characterized by pessimism, and also by a set of deeply rooted assumptions about what an area studies programme is supposed to be and what it requires to be successful. These assumptions concern not just institutional issues, but conceptions of what makes a region a proper unit for scholarly analysis, conceptions that invariably hinge on explicit or implicit comparisons to other regions. In this essay, I reverse the gaze of such evaluations by turning some of O.W. Wolter's classic notions about Southeast Asian cultures back upon the practice of Southeast Asianists, and by reversing some of the comparisons that are often used to demarcate Southeast Asia as both as distinctive region and a distinctively weak subject for successful area studies. Rather than accept such abstract and a priori notions about what Southeast Asian studies must be and what must be wrong with it, I propose instead a much more expansive, inclusive, and flexible definition of the field based upon the way it is practised in particular places and times. Such a performative model of Southeast Asian studies can take students, pedagogy, diaspora, and diverse transnational flows into account, while emphasizing all the more the importance of Southeast Asia as a field of scholarly and institutional collaboration.
A new frog of the genus Alsodes (Leptodactylidae) from the Tolhuaca National Park, Andes Range, southern Chile
Authors: Cuevas César , Formas J. Ramón 
Published: April 2005

AbstractA new species, Alsodes igneus, from the temperate Nothofagus forest, western slopes of the Andes Range, southern Chile, is described. This species is characterized by the combination of the following characters: snout short slightly truncated in dorsal view, a black ribbon extending below the canthus rostralis, unbarred legs and arms, heel not reaching the posterior border of the eye when hind leg is bent forward, toes scarcely fringed, webbing absent, dorsal surface granular. Its karyotype has 26 bi-armed chromosomes and it is characterized by presenting the secondary constriction and nucleolus organizer regions in the short arm of pair seven.
The relationship between size-free body shape and choice of retreat for Western Australian Ctenophorus (Agamidae) dragon lizards
Authors: Thompson Graham , Withers Philip 
Published: April 2005

AbstractWe examined the relationship between body shape and choice of retreat for males of 17 species of Western Australian Ctenophorus dragon lizards, accounting for body size by using Somers' (1986, 1989) size-free principal component analysis. Ctenophorus species group strongly in size-free morphometric space (shape) based on the nature of their natural retreat (i.e. burrows, no burrows and rocks). Those species that dig their own burrow as a retreat have short tails and hind limbs, whereas that those do not generally retreat to a burrow have longer lower hind limbs and hind feet. Three of the four species that retreat to crevices or under rocks have a dorso-ventrally flattened head and body, and relatively long upper fore-limbs. The fourth rock-retreat species (C. caudicinctus) does not have a dorso-ventrally flattened head and body; its body shape is intermediate between those species in the three ecological groups.
Size-free shape differences between male and female Western Australian dragon lizards (Agamidae)
Authors: Withers Philip , Thompson Graham 
Published: April 2005

AbstractExamination of size-free body shape for males and females of 41 species of Western Australian dragon lizards (Agamidae) indicate that males generally have a proportionally longer head, and females a proportionally longer abdomen. Principal component and cluster analyses show that size-free body shape differences between males and females are neither uniform nor consistent within the Agamidae, or the genus Ctenophorus. This inconsistency is problematic when linking morphological characteristics with performance traits, use of space, or preferred habitat for species. We recommend that male and female dragons are treated separately in morphological analyses, but acknowledge that this increases the complexity of analyse and interpretations.
Probabilistic Forecasting of (Severe) Thunderstorms in the Netherlands Using Model Output Statistics
Authors: Schmeits Maurice J. , Kok Kees J. , Vogelezang Daan H. P. 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThe derivation and verification of logistic regression equations for the (conditional) probability of (severe) thunderstorms in the warm half-year (from mid-April to mid-October) in the Netherlands is described. For 12 regions of about 90 km × 80 km each, and for projections out to 48 h in advance (with 6-h periods), these equations have been derived using model output statistics (MOS). As a source for the predictands, lightning data from the Surveillance et d’Alerte Foudre par Interférométrie Radioélectrique (SAFIR) network have been used. The potential predictor dataset mainly consisted of the combined (postprocessed) output from two numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. It contained 15 traditional thunderstorm indices, computed from the High-Resolution Limited-Area Model (HIRLAM), and (postprocessed) output from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model. The most important predictor in the thunderstorm forecast system is the square root of the ECMWF 6-h convective precipitation sum, and the most important predictor in the severe thunderstorm forecast system is the HIRLAM Boyden index. The success of the square root of the ECMWF 6-h convective precipitation sum as a thunderstorm predictor indicates that there is a strong relation between the forecast convective precipitation by the ECMWF model and the occurrence of thunderstorms, at least in the Netherlands up to 3 days in advance. The overall verification results for the 0000, 0600, 1200, and 1800 UTC runs of the MOS (severe) thunderstorm forecast system are good, and, therefore, the system was made operational at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) in April 2004.
A Unique Satellite Perspective of the 13–14 January 2004 Record Cold Outbreak in the Northeast
Authors: Ackerman S. A. , Bachmeier A. S. , Strabala K. , Gunshor M. 
Published: April 2005

Abstract
A cold, dry arctic air mass occupied southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States on 13–14 January 2004. This air mass was quite dry—total column precipitable water values at Pickle Lake, Ontario, Canada, and The Pas, Manitoba, Canada, were as low as 0.02 in. (0.5 mm)—allowing significant amounts of radiation originating from the surface to be detected using Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) 6.5-μm “water vapor channel” imagery. On this day the strong thermal gradient between the very cold snow-covered land surface in southern Canada and the warmer, unfrozen, cloud-free water along the northern portion of the Great Lakes was quite evident in GOES-12 imager water vapor channel data. Several hours later, as the cold dry air mass moved eastward, the coast of Maine, Cape Cod, and the Saint Lawrence River were also apparent in the water vapor channel imagery.
Local Adjustment of the Background Error Correlation for Surface Analyses over Complex Terrain
Authors: Myrick David T. , Horel John D. , Lazarus Steven M. 
Published: April 2005

Abstract
The terrain between grid points is used to modify locally the background error correlation matrix in an objective analysis system. This modification helps to reduce the influence across mountain barriers of corrections to the background field that are derived from surface observations. This change to the background error correlation matrix is tested using an analytic case of surface temperature that encapsulates the significant features of nocturnal radiation inversions in mountain basins, which can be difficult to analyze because of locally sharp gradients in temperature. Bratseth successive corrections, optimal interpolation, and three-dimensional variational approaches are shown to yield exactly the same surface temperature analysis. Adding the intervening terrain term to the Bratseth approach led to solutions that match more closely the specified analytic solution. In addition, the convergence of the Bratseth solutions to the best linear unbiased estimation of the analytic solution is faster.
The intervening terrain term was evaluated in objective analyses over the western United States derived from a modified version of the Advanced Regional Prediction System Data Assimilation System. Local adjustment of the background error correlation matrix led to improved surface temperature analyses by limiting the influence of observations in mountain valleys that may differ from the weather conditions present in adjacent valleys.
TLR3-induced activation of mast cells modulates CD8+ T-cell recruitment
Authors: Orinska Zane , Bulanova Elena , Budagian Vadim , Metz Martin , Maurer Marcus , Bulfone-Paus Silvia 
Published: April 2005

AbstractMast cells play an important role in host defense against various pathogens, but their role in viral infection has not been clarified in detail. dsRNA, synthesized by various types of viruses and mimicked by polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly(I:C)) is recognized by Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3). In this study, we demonstrate that poly(I:C) injection in vivo potently stimulates peritoneal mast cells to up-regulate a number of different costimulatory molecules. Therefore, we examined the expression and the functional significance of TLR3 activation in mast cells. Mast cells express TLR3 on the cell surface and intracellularly. After stimulation of mast cells with poly(I:C) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV), TLR3 is phosphorylated and the expression of key antiviral response cytokines (interferon β, ISG15) and chemokines (IP10, RANTES) is upregulated. Interestingly, mast cells activated via TLR3-poly(I:C) potently stimulate CD8+ T-cell recruitment. Indeed, mast-cell–deficient mice (KitW/KitW-v) given an intraperitoneal injection of poly(I:C) show a decreased CD8+ T-cell recruitment, whereas granulocytes normally migrate to the peritoneal cavity. Mast-cell reconstitution of KitW/KitW-v mice normalizes the CD8+ T-cell influx. Thus, mast cells stimulated through engagement of TLR3 are potent regulators of CD8+ T-cell activities in vitro and in vivo.
HFE cross-talks with the MHC class I antigen presentation pathway
Authors: de Almeida Sérgio F. , Carvalho Isabel F. , Cardoso Carla S. , Cordeiro João V. , Azevedo Jorge E. , Neefjes Jacques , de Sousa Maria 
Published: April 2005

AbstractHFE is a protein known to be involved in iron metabolism; yet, other than its homology with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules, it has not been described as having an immunologic function. Here we report that peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) carrying the C282Y mutation in HFE have reduced cell-surface expression of MHC class I due to an enhanced endocytosis rate of MHC class I molecules caused by premature peptide and β2-microglobulin dissociation. This faster turnover also leads to increased expression levels of cell-surface free class I heavy chains in mutant PBMCs. Biochemical analysis indicates an earlier peptide loading and endoplasmic reticulum maturation of MHC class I molecules in C282Y mutant cells. Thermostability assays further showed that in HFE mutants the MHC class I peptide loading gives rise to low-stability heterotrimers that dissociate prematurely during its intracellular traffic. The present results suggest the existence of an intriguing cross-talk between a particular HFE mutation and the classical MHC class I route. These findings constitute the first description of peptide presentation pathway abnormalities linked to HFE and provide additional evidence for the occurrence of immunologic defects in patients with HH.
Immunoglobulin gene analysis reveals 2 distinct cells of origin for EBV-positive and EBV-negative Burkitt lymphomas
Authors: Bellan Cristiana , Lazzi Stefano , Hummel Michael , Palummo Nazzareno , de Santi Margherita , Amato Teresa , Nyagol Joshua , Sabattini Elena , Lazure Thierry , Pileri Stefano A. , Raphael Martine , Stein Harald , Tosi Piero , Leoncini Lorenzo 
Published: April 2005

AbstractThe normal counterpart of the neoplastic B cells in Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is still unclear. Based on immunoglobulin gene rearrangement studies, some authors suggest an origin from germinal center cells and others from memory B cells. However, most of these studies rely on cell lines or on a small series of cases. To help clarify the cell of origin of BL, semi-nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to amplify the VDJ rearrangements of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (VH) genes, and the resultant amplificates were sequenced for comparison with known germline VH segments. The results of this approach revealed that all cases (15 endemic BL [eBL], 10 sporadic BL [sBL], and 6 AIDS-related BL) harbor mutated VH genes, with different mutation ranges among the 3 types of BL. The eBL and AIDS-related forms showed considerably higher mutation rates than the sBL form (5.1%, 5.4%, and 1.5%, respectively). The mutations in eBL and AIDS-related BL also showed signs of antigen selection, whereas no signs of antigen selection were found in sBL. Finally, after subcloning the amplificates, sequence analysis revealed no signs of ongoing mutations in any of the cases analyzed. Given that one of the main differences between eBL and AIDS-related BL on the one hand and sBL on the other hand is the association with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), we compared EBV-positive and EBV-negative BLs independently of their geographic origin and HIV status. The differences in the number of somatic mutations and antigen selection were even more evident when this approach was used. According to our molecular results, it appears that EBV-positive and EBV-negative BL may originate from 2 distinct subsets of B cells, pointing to a particular role for the germinal-center reaction in the pathogenesis of these tumors. The different types of C-MYC translocation reported in BL may also be related to the different stages of B-cell maturation.