Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Testing for motivation to engage in improvements – a conceptual framework and an initial empirical test

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for testing the motivation to engage in improvement work. The framework is based on Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB), that we suggest can be used to facilitate the implementation of improvement programmes. By using the model and probing intentions, attitudes, norms and perceived ability related to improvement work, we believe hindrances for implementation of improvement programmes will be exposed. When operationalising the framework we developed a survey instrument based on TPB and then made an initial empirical test by distributing it to 124 employees (response rate 67%) of three manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises. Factor analysis and regression were used to analyse the survey and follow-up interviews with employees and managers were used to validate the results. This initial test of the instrument showed that it has sound measurement properties, indicated by clear factor structure and good internal consistency. Interview data also validated that the instrument was able to capture important aspects related to implementation of improvement work. Based on the result, we conclude that TPB may be useful for guiding management actions. However, since our study only draws on a limited empirical sample, future research is needed to test the contextual validity.
Comparing knowledge bases: on the geography and organization of knowledge sourcing in the regional innovation system of Scania, Sweden

This paper deals with knowledge flows and collaboration between firms in the regional innovation system of southern Sweden. The aim is to analyse how the functional and spatial organization of knowledge interdependencies among firms and other actors varies between different types of industries that draw on different types of knowledge bases. We use data from three case studies of firm clusters in the region: (1) the life science cluster represents an analytical (science-based) industry, (2) the food cluster includes mainly synthetic (engineering-based) industries, and (3) the moving media cluster is considered to be symbolic (artistic based). Knowledge sourcing and knowledge exchange in each of the cases are explored and compared using social network analysis in association with data gathered through interviews with firm representatives. Our findings reveal that knowledge exchange in geographical proximity is especially important for industries that rely on a symbolic or synthetic knowledge base, because the interpretation of the knowledge they deal with tends to differ between places. This is less the case for industries drawing on an analytical knowledge base, which rely more on scientific knowledge that is codified, abstract and universal and are therefore less sensitive to geographical distance. Thus, geographical clustering of firms in analytical industries builds on rationales other than the need for proximity for knowledge sourcing.
Vascular endothelial growth factor expression and vascular density as prognostic markers of survival in patients with low-grade astrocytoma.

UNLABELLED It has long been recognized that some patients with low-grade astrocytoma may survive for many years, whereas in others the disease follows a more malignant course resulting in a short survival time, usually due to malignant transformation into higher-grade tumors. OBJECT The aim of this study was to investigate angiogenesis in the initial biopsy specimen of tumor tissue as a biological marker to identify patients with low-grade astrocytoma who are at high risk of malignant tumor transformation or death. METHODS Tumor tissue was studied in 74 consecutively treated adult patients in whom a diagnosis of diffuse supratentorial hemispheric histologically proven fibrillary low-grade astrocytoma was made and who underwent surgery between January 1972 and January 1994. Studies were conducted using monoclonal antibodies to the antigens of the proliferation-associated Ki-67 (MIB-1), factor VIII, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), and epidermal growth factor (EGF). The overall 5-year survival rate for the entire patient population was 65%, with a median survival time of 7.5 years. The total mean follow-up period was 6.1 years. All tumors showed a low proliferative potential at the time of the initial operation, as demonstrated by an MIB-1 labeling index of less than 1.5%. Patients with more than seven microvessels in tumor tissue (29 cases) had a shorter survival time (mean 3.8 years) than those with seven or fewer microvessels (mean survival 11.2 years). This difference in survival times was significant by univariate (p = 0.001) and stepwise multivariate analyses (p < 0.001). Tumors with a larger number of microvessels also had a greater chance of undergoing malignant transformation (p = 0.001). Similarly, significant staining for VEGF was correlated with shorter survival times when using univariate (p = 0.003) and multivariate (p = 0.008) analyses and with a greater chance of malignant transformation (p = 0.002). Patients with tumors staining positive for VEGF (39 individuals) had a median survival time of 5.3 years, and those with tumors negative for VEGF (35 patients) had a median survival time of 11.2 years. No association was observed between bFGF, EGF, and survival or malignant transformation. The stepwise multivariate analysis included histological and clinical variables simultaneously. CONCLUSIONS The authors have shown that microvessel density and VEGF levels are independent prognostic markers of survival in fibrillary low-grade astrocytoma. This finding leads them to propose that fibrillary diffuse low-grade astrocytoma is not a single pathological entity but is composed of a spectrum of tumors with differing propensities to undergo malignant transformation that is at least partly based on their inherent angiogenic potential.
Chiral phases of QCD at finite density and temperature.

Chiral transitions in QCD at finite temperature and density are discussed within a composite operator formalism. For massless quarks the phase diagram in temperature and chemical potentials presents a tricritical point at the intersection of the critical line for first-order phase transitions and second-order transitions. The overall picture is not sensibly affected by small quark masses, except that the quark condensate no longer vanishes for large temperatures and/or chemical potentials, and for first-order transitions it remains discontinuous only for small quark mass values. Such effects are discussed by Clausius-Clapeyron-like relations. The Landau expansion is used around the tricritical point and for second-order transitions.
The Marginal Propensity to Earn and Consume Out of Unearned Income: Evidence Using an Unusually Large Cash Grant Reform

In this paper, we use the rapid introduction of an unconditional cash grant (child support) in South Africa to estimate the marginal propensity to consume and earn out of unearned income. We find that the marginal propensity to earn is about -0.3 and that the marginal propensity to consume is about 0.7. Nothing of the grant appears to be saved; if anything, households dissave against future grant payments. The marginal propensities estimated here are similar to those reported in comparable papers using US data. However, they stand in contrast to some results on conditional cash transfers in other developing countries.
How interbank lending amplifies overlapping portfolio contagion: A case study of the Austrian banking network

In spite of the growing theoretical literature on cascades of failures in interbank lending networks, empirical results seem to suggest that networks of direct exposures are not the major channel of financial contagion. In this paper we show that networks of interbank exposures can however significantly amplify contagion due to overlapping portfolios. To illustrate this point, we consider the case of the Austrian interbank network and perform stress tests on it according to different protocols. We consider in particular contagion due to (i) counterparty loss; (ii) roll-over risk; and (iii) overlapping portfolios. We find that the average number of bankruptcies caused by counterparty loss and roll-over risk is fairly small if these contagion mechanisms are considered in isolation. Once portfolio overlaps are also accounted for, however, we observe that the network of direct interbank exposures significantly contributes to systemic risk.
National Wage Trends and Migration in a Chinese Village Economy: A Micro Level Modeling Approach Based on a Composite Utility Function

China's economy is experiencing a regime shift away from a fully elastic supply of labor from a large pool of rural surplus labor and toward a situation of increasing labor scarcity and rising wage rates. Moreover, faster wage increases in the regions of origin of many rural-urban migrants are likely to affect the dynamics of inter-regional migration. These wage trends have implications at the local level, in particular in a setting in which migration connects rural communities to the national labor market and in which migration is of high importance for the livelihoods of rural households. Taking a village perspective, this article develops a village computable general equilibrium model to study local impacts of current wage trends in China. As a central piece of the model, the role of access to migration for household livelihoods is recognized. Access to migration is linked to household demographics and included in the model through a composite utility function that captures household preferences and disutilities associated with alternative off-farm activities. Simulation results illustrate how households' utility considerations affect migration responses to national wage changes. Statements about possible impacts on village level labor supply, land use, and agricultural production are made. When migration wages and local off-farm wages are simulated to increase, an overall increase in household and village migration and a higher supply of labor to local off-farm labor markets is accompanied by a contraction of farm production. Although land is reallocated between households with different migration responses, total agricultural output declines.
Determinants and Valuation Implications of Compulsory Stock Option Disclosures in a Weak Regulatory Setting - The Case of France

Using a sample of listed French firms in 2005, the year of mandatory IFRS adoption in the European Union (EU), we investigate the determinants of disclosure compliance of stock option expenses under IFRS 2, Share-based Payment. Stock options are a popular means of executive compensation in France relative to other EU countries. Prior to 2005, French accounting standards and corporate governance regulations did not require recognition of option expense amounts and required minimal supplementary disclosures. There was also a perception that enforcement was imperfect, in particular with respect to IFRS 2. Given this setting, we explore what factors influence the willingness of firms to follow compulsory IFRS requirements in a weak regulatory setting. We find that overall compliance with IFRS 2 disclosure requirements increases with U.S. and U.K. institutional ownership, U.S. cross-listing, provision of English language statements, and decreases with CEO and family ownership of the firm. We also investigate how stock market prices are affected by the recognition and disclosure of stock option expenses according to IFRS 2 in this regulatory setting and find that investors value option expenses positively, particularly when accompanied by high-disclosure compliance. Our findings have implications for other jurisdictions in the process of adopting or converging to IFRS.
Why Take Tunes? An Exploratory Multinational Look at Student Downloading

ABSTRACT This paper explores the importance of various factors including ethical concerns, payment avoidance, variety of downloading choices, and “beating the system” in relation to students' decisions on downloading music. A survey was administered in four nations and was comprised of factors based on previous academic and press articles, interviews, and consultation with students and experts. Avoiding payment, getting more choices, and ability to download individual tracks appeared to be rated at higher levels of importance than ethical concerns and a desire to beat the system. These data suggest that downloading decisions may be more pragmatic than some views suggest.
Rethinking Decentralization: Assessing Challenges to a Popular Public Sector Reform

Decentralization is among the most globally ubiquitous public sector reforms. In the past few decades, many countries have taken formal steps to empower local governments, typically with a mix of stated developmental and governance goals. Although decentralization receives much attention, our systematic practical knowledge about it remains limited, and it is fair to say that it often does not meet expectations. Even supporters have begun to express frustration, and references to stalled decentralization or even recentralization have emerged in both policy debates and in practice. This paper briefly recaps what decentralization was expected to achieve, broadly summarizes what we know about performance, and highlights factors that support and impede reform. It also discusses weaknesses and challenges in how decentralization has been conceived, analyzed, designed, and implemented. The core argument is that this type of reform is more diverse and complex than has conventionally been acknowledged and that more careful analysis and strategic action tailored to a specific country are needed to help to realize more effective and sustainable decentralization. The paper closes with thoughts about future directions for how we conceptualize and pragmatically approach this diverse and consequential reform. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Factors influencing motivations and expectations of field trip attendance

This paper examines students’ motivations for participating in field trips and analyses students’ expectations in an attempt to identify the influence of three variables: age, level of education, and previous work experience. Results demonstrate that students’ reasons for participation are diverse, and while the results are specific for the case analysed, they support prior research, suggesting that students develop very positive attitudes and perceptions towards field trips.
Joint Variance Ratio Tests of the Martingale Hypothesis for Exchange Rates

There is considerable interest in whether exchange rates behave like martingales. Liu and He tested the martingale hypothesis for exchange rates using the variance-ratio methodology of Lo and MacKinlay. They found that exchange rates have violated the martingale property since the inception of floating rates in 1973. Liu and He did not consider the joint implications of their tests, however. In this article, we reassess the martingale hypothesis for exchange rates using the joint tests developed by Hochberg and by Richardson and Smith. Contrary to the findings of Liu and He, the joint tests indicate that the martingale model worked quite well for exchange rates in the recent years of the floating-rate regime.
Tariffs, Market Conduct and Government Commitment - Policy Implications for Developing Countries

We analyse a simple ‘tariffs cum foreign competition’ policy targeted at enhancing the competitive position of a domestic, developing country firm that competes with its developed country counterpart on the domestic market and that carries out an innovative (or imitative) effort. We evaluate this policy with respect to social welfare, type of oligopoly conduct, information requirement, time consistency and possibility of manipulative behaviour and conclude that the most robust policy setup is one in which the domestic government is unable to pre-commit to the level of its policy. We also study how the unit cost heterogeneity of the domestic firm affects trade protection.
SenGen: Sentence Generating Neural Variational Topic Model

We present a new topic model that generates documents by sampling a topic for one whole sentence at a time, and generating the words in the sentence using an RNN decoder that is conditioned on the topic of the sentence. We argue that this novel formalism will help us not only visualize and model the topical discourse structure in a document better, but also potentially lead to more interpretable topics since we can now illustrate topics by sampling representative sentences instead of bag of words or phrases. We present a variational auto-encoder approach for learning in which we use a factorized variational encoder that independently models the posterior over topical mixture vectors of documents using a feed-forward network, and the posterior over topic assignments to sentences using an RNN. Our preliminary experiments on two different datasets indicate early promise, but also expose many challenges that remain to be addressed.
What Will Be the Impact of Programs of Study? A Preliminary Assessment Based on Similar Previous Initiatives, State Plans for Implementation, and Career Development Theory.

When Congress passed the fourth version of the Carl D. Perkins Act in 2006, it included a requirement that all recipients of funds authorized by the legislation offer at least one Program of Study (POS) that must include coherent and rigorous content aligned with challenging academic standards and relevant career and technical content. This content must be delivered in a coordinated, non-duplicative progression of courses that align secondary education with postsecondary education and lead to an industry-recognized credential or certificate at the postsecondary level or an associate or baccalaureate degree. In addition, the programs must include opportunities for secondary education students to acquire postsecondary credits through programs such as dual or concurrent enrollment.
What about behaviour in travel demand modelling? An overview of recent progress

Abstract This paper provides a discussion of recent attempts in travel demand modelling focused on increasing the behavioural realism of choice-models. More specifically, the paper focuses on discussing the merits of four modelling approaches that have recently emerged in the field of travel demand modelling, and are either inspired by or adopted from recent advances in the broader behavioural sciences: i) latent variable models, ii) random regret minimization-models, iii) prospect theory-based models and iv) social network/group decision-making models. The potential as well as the pitfalls associated with these models, and with learning from the broader behavioural sciences in general, are explicitly discussed in light of the specific needs of travel demand modellers in academia and practice.
Return-to-job during and after parental leave

Despite a rising career orientation among females and growing efforts of firms to alleviate work–family conflicts, female employees often find it difficult to combine career development with having children. Female careers appear more boundaryless than male careers, and gender differences in the sociological role model persist. Using exceptional longitudinal company data, this paper studies the return-to-job of female employees after first birth in the case of Germany with long Parental Leave coverage. Parental Leave durations often last for 3 years or longer. Our results show that more than 50% of those in Parental Leave do not return to their job afterwards. About 31% of female employees return to part-time work during Parental Leave, and among these, only 57% continue working in their job after the end of Parental Leave. And, having returned to their job after the end of Parental Leave, only 81% continue to work in their job one year after return. Furthermore, female employees have their first child, when their careers have been particularly successful. Overall, the evidence is consistent with the view that the birth of the first child and the experience of the subsequent work–life conflict can lead to a major reassessment of work preferences among female employees. Although a higher career orientation before birth is positively associated with a return-to-job, management must be aware that a sizeable share of female employees, even among the most career oriented and the most successful, may not return to their job after first birth.
Reasons for recovery after stroke: A perspective based on personal experience

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to learn more about individual beliefs and personal strategies used to support the period of recovery after stroke. It sought to identify the factors that were perceived to be enablers as well as challenges to recovery. Personal actions or experiences, which were perceived to be effective in influencing progress, would be identified. Method. Qualitative in-depth interviews were carried out with 10 participants (mean age 61.8 years). Time following stroke onset ranged between 6 weeks and 13 months. All participants had some residual activity limitation and three participants had varying degrees of aphasia. The interviews were ∼60 – 90 minutes and all data was subjected to content analysis. Results. Analyses of interview data identified two main themes which were perceived to have influenced progress after stroke. The first related to internal factors such as personal control over progress, optimism and fears of dependency and the second included more external factors, such as the influence of therapeutic interactions and success with a specified marker of independence such as dressing, washing and walking. Conclusion. An important finding of this study was that individuals all identified a number of specific factors which had supported or hindered their own recovery. There were a diversity of both internal/personal and external factors which may not be surprising, given the complexity of stroke, but all participants stressed the importance of both factors. The findings from this study are preliminary and relate only to this particular group of participants, as such they cannot be generalizable to the stroke population as a whole. However, the interaction between the two themes identified requires further exploration, especially in relation to therapy which could have both a positive and negative influence on personal control. There is a clear need to understand how professionals can, in the first place, take time to identify each individual's preferences and personal goals and secondly, make sure that these are fully addressed in a planned treatment programme. This will ensure that progress in individuals after stroke is supported by professionals with a more eclectic, individualized approach.