Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring total customer experience in museums

Against the changing perceptions of the nature of the customer experience in museums, this article seeks to explore aspects of the total customer experience in museums, initially through two simple case studies, and subsequently by identifying some of the factors that might influence the customer experience. A methodology using walk‐through audits is proposed for monitoring the total customer experience. This methodology has the following stages: building a typical customer profile, designing walk through audit frames, executing audit frames, analysing the data from frames, introducing any recommended changes to the strategic plan, and modifying frames to reflect changes. This methodology offers an important approach to the evaluation of the total customer experience, which encompasses consideration of the way in which the variety of individual service exchanges come together to provide an integrated experience.
Highly Skilled Migration: What Differentiates the ‘Brains’ Who Are Drained from Those Who Return in the Case of Greece?

The migration of highly educated population (brain drain) poses extremely significant impacts on origin countries' development, especially in cases in which, owing to their economic and social structures, these countries cannot promote the efficient allocation of their professionals. At the same time, the decision of those migrants to return home or remain abroad is affected by several factors. This paper aims to analyse this phenomenon by using primary data collected from Greece. Our findings indicate that it is not reasonable to expect that a large share of these people is likely to return, especially given the ongoing economic and social crises that further exacerbate the observed mismatch between supply and demand for a highly educated workforce in the country. These empirical results can assist the formulation of specific policy measures in order to reap the benefits of those individuals' presence abroad, which can undoubtedly enhance the developmental prospects of European countries. This study constitutes the first one on brain drain from Greece, while it is also the first study to compare highly skilled migrants who still work abroad to those who have returned. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Life course structural equation model of the effects of prenatal and postnatal growth on adult blood pressure

Background Fetal and postnatal growth have been associated with adult blood pressure (BP), but findings about the relative importance of growth at different stages of life on BP are inconsistent. Methods The study population comprised 5198 participants from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 with data on birth weight, height and weight measurements until adolescence, systolic and diastolic BP at 31 years and several covariates. Structural equation modelling was used in the analysis. Results Negative direct effects of birth weight on adult systolic BP were observed (standardised regression coefficients: −0.08 (−0.14 to −0.03) in males and −0.04 (−0.09 to 0.01) in females, equalling −1.99 (−3.32 to −0.65) and −1.01 (−2.33 to 0.32) mm Hg/kg, respectively). Immediate postnatal growth was associated with adult BP only indirectly via growth later in life. In contrast, growth from adiposity rebound onwards had large direct, indirect and total effects on adult BP. Current body mass index was the strongest growth-related predictor of adult BP (0.36 (0.30 to 0.41) in males and 0.31 (0.24, 0.37) in females, equalling 1.29 (1.09 to 1.48) and 0.81 (0.63 to 0.99) mm Hg/(kg/m2), respectively). Conclusions Our path analytical approach provides evidence for the importance of both fetal growth and postnatal growth, especially from adiposity rebound onwards, in determining adult BP, together with genetic predisposition and behavioural factors.
An examination of the comparative reliability, validity, and accuracy of performance ratings made using computerized adaptive rating scales.

This laboratory research compared the reliability, validity, and accuracy of a computerized adaptive rating scale (CARS) format and 2 relatively common and representative rating formats. The CARS is a paired-comparison rating task that uses adaptive testing principles to present pairs of scaled behavioral statements to the rater to iteratively estimate a ratee's effectiveness on 3 dimensions of contextual performance. Videotaped vignettes of 6 office workers were prepared, depicting prescripted levels of contextual performance, and 112 subjects rated these vignettes using the CARS format and one or the other competing format. Results showed 23%-37% lower standard errors of measurement for the CARS format. In addition, validity was significantly higher for the CARS format (d = .18), and Cronbach's accuracy coefficients showed significantly higher accuracy, with a median effect size of . 08. The discussion focuses on possible reasons for the results.
“Just give me a number!” Practical values for the social discount rate

A major reason the quality of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) varies widely is inconsistent use of the social discount rate (SDR). This article offers guidance about the choice of the SDR. Namely, we recommend the following procedures: If the project is intragenerational (does not have effects beyond 50 years) and there is no crowding out of private investment, then discount all flows at 3.5 percents if the project is intragenerational and there is some crowding out of investment, then weight investment flows by the shadow price of capital of 1.1 and then discount at 3.5 percents if the project is intergenerational and there is no crowding out of investment, then use a time-declining scale of discount ratess if the project is intergenerational and investment is crowded out, then convert investment flows during the first 50 years to consumption equivalents using a shadow price of 1.1, and then discount all of these flows at 3.5 percent, and discount all flows after the 50th year using time-declining rates. We then compare current discounting practices of U.S. federal agencies with our estimates. Consistent use of the recommended rates would eliminate arbitrary choices of discount rates and would lead to better public sector decision-making. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
Primary Acinic Cell Carcinoma of the Breast

Acinic cell carcinoma (ACC) of the breast is a rare tumor that is listed in the 2003 World Health Organization (WHO) classification of tumors of the breast. Pure form ACC of the breast is even rarer. To date, only 12 cases have been reported in the English-language literature. A case of primary ACC of the breast in a 38-year-old woman is presented in this report. Histologically, the neoplastic cells are characterized by widespread acinci cell-like differentiation with a eosinophilic granular or clear cytoplasm, resembling acinic cells of the parotid gland. In addition, the neoplastic cells are positive for lysozyme, EMA, S-100, CD68 and GCDFP-15 and negative for α-anti-chymotrypsin, synaptophysin, ER, PR and Her-2/neu. This primary breast tumor was confirmed by clinical, morphological, and immunohistochemical studies. Characteristic features and differential diagnosis of this tumor were discussed in the light of pertinent literature.
THE EFFECT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF CUBES ON THE NASDAQ-100 INDEX SPOT-FUTURES PRICING RELATIONSHIP

This paper examines the impact of the introduction of the Nasdaq‐100 Index Tracking Stock (referred to as Cubes) on the pricing relationship between Nasdaq‐100 futures and the underlying index. Observations obtained from tick‐by‐tick Nasdaq‐100 futures transactions and index value data support the hypothesis that the introduction of Cubes in March 1999 has led to improvements in the Nasdaq‐100 index futures pricing efficiency. Both the size and frequency of violations in futures price boundaries appear to be reduced. Furthermore, there appears to be an increase in the speed of the market response to observed violations. These results are attributed to the increased ease in establishing a spot Nasdaq‐100 index position after the introduction of the tracking stock. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22: 197–218, 2002
Cross‐cultural care encounters in paediatric care: minority ethnic parents’ experiences

BACKGROUND Because of worldwide migration, the healthcare staff in general as well as in paedi"atric care specifically is challenged increasingly by people from various ethnic backgrounds. The challenge is related to providing culturally competent care and effectively communicating with people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds who have different health beliefs, practices, values and languages. This also applies to the Swedish society and to Swedish paediatric care. AIM The purpose of this study was to describe the expectations and experiences of cross-cultural care encounters among minority ethnic parents in Swedish paediatric care. METHOD A qualitative design was used in the study. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews between October 2011 and March 2012. The sample consisted of 12 parents of minority ethnic backgrounds who had their child in a ward at a children's hospital in the Stockholm County Council. The interviews were analysed using manifest content analysis. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS The Regional Ethical Review Committee approved the study (Ref: Nr: 2011/927-31/5). RESULTS The analysis of the interviews led to three categories: fundamentals in nursing, cultural sensitivity and understanding, and influencing conditions. CONCLUSIONS Generic knowledge and skills of nurses outweighed the need for the nurses to have culture-specific knowledge of their patients or relatives in cross-cultural care encounters. Language skills and the availability of bilingual nurses in a multi-ethnic society can facilitate communication and increase parents' satisfaction in cross-cultural care encounters.
More than a Sporting Chance? Appraising the sport for development legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Abstract This article appraises the sport for development initiatives that were implemented or augmented during the 2010 fifa World Cup hosted in South Africa, and reviews the processes, institutional features and likely consequences of those initiatives for the sport for development sector in the country. It does so against the background that sport for development is a growth industry, albeit one with many conceptual and operational deficiencies, and which offers little in the way of an evidentiary base for the claim that sport has intrinsic social benefits. To date, too, there has been little cross-fertilisation between the sport for development field as a practice of development, and the growing body of scholarship that assesses the development impacts of large-scale sporting events. Given its distinctive setting and the intense international interest in its potential yields, the 2010 World Cup provoked a flurry of sport-centred development programmes implemented by a variety of international, domestic, public and private actors. This stimulated an interesting change in dynamics in the established sport for development landscape which, in time, may shape the sector and the broader sports environment in the country in both positive and negative ways. The case of the World Cup also offers some insights about the way in which sport for development practices can be mediated or altered in the context of sport mega-events.
Arbitrage violations and implied valuations: the option market

The ideas presented in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily reflect the views of the National bank of Canada. Both authors thank the National Bank of Canada and the SSHRC of Canada for their help. Thanks are also due to Professor Y. Tian for his comments, and for participating, together with students of the Financial Engineering program at York University, in the data preparation and the execution of the Matlab programs. In this paper, we propose a necessary and sufficient condition for bid and ask prices of European options to be free of arbitrage, and derive from it an efficient numerical methodology to determine its satisfaction by a given set of prices. If the bid and ask prices satisfy the no-arbitrage (NA) condition, our methodology produces a vector of NA prices that lie between the bid and ask prices. Otherwise, our methodology generates a vector of arbitrage-free prices that is as close as possible, in some sense, to the bid–ask strip. The arbitrage-free prices detected by our methodology render the commonly used practice of using mid-points and then ‘cleaning’ arbitrage from them as unnecessary. Moreover, a vector of ‘cleaned’ prices obtained from mid-point prices may be outside the bid–ask spread even in an arbitrage-free market and, hence, in this case will not be representative of the current market. A new procedure of estimating implied valuation operators is also suggested here. This procedure is rooted in the economic properties of put and call prices and is based on Phillips and Taylor's approximation of a convex function. This approach is superior to common estimation techniques in that it produces an analytical expression for the implied valuation operator and is not data intensive as some other studies. Empirical findings for the new methods are documented and their economic implications are discussed.
Solow and Growth Accounting: A Perspective from Quantitative Economic History

This paper examines the use of growth accounting by economic historians developed following Robert Solow's famous 1957 paper. Several general tendencies are identified, including a desire to account for Solow's residual and a reluctance to adopt the data-demanding methodological refinements of Dale Jorgenson, whose influence on the field was less than that of Edward Denison. Results from historical growth accounting studies are reviewed, and it is clear that the “crude residual” typically accounts for much less than the seven-eighths of labor productivity growth found by Solow and also that when TFP growth is rapid, improvements in efficiency are usually an important complement to technological progress. Nevertheless, growth accounting was important in undermining the “capital fundamentalism” of the 1950s and has been central to putting the contribution of technological progress in the Industrial Revolution into a clearer focus, free of the misleading “take-off” perspective advanced by Walt Rostow.
Substitution between U.S. and Canadian Wheat by Class

The importation of hard red winter and durum wheat from Canada has been a source of contention among U.S. wheat growers, due to the likeness between domestic and imported Canadian wheat. It has also been investigated as a source of material injury to the U.S. market. We examine the relative substitution between U.S. and Canadian wheat, by class, by treating wheat as an input in flour production. We find that while U.S. hard red spring wheat and U.S. hard red winter wheat are economic substitutes, there is limited price substitution between U.S. and Canadian durum and U.S. and Canadian hard red spring wheat. Quality differences from the millers' perspective may be the reason driving the import demand for hard red spring and durum wheat from Canada.
Central Exams Improve Educational Performance: International Evidence

International comparative studies of student performance have initiated political discussions in countries all over the world on how to improve the educational achievement of students. The empirical evidence suggests that central exams help to achieve higher student performance. Central exams direct the incentives of all educational actors towards furthering students’ knowledge. By providing the education system with performance information they improve the monitoring of students, teachers, schools, administrators, and parents. Using an international micro database of nearly half a million students, this paper finds that students in countries with central exitexam systems perform substantially better in their middle-school years in both math and science than students in countries without central exams. In quantitative terms, their advantage is 35 to 47 percent of an international standard deviation in test scores, or roughly the equivalent of one year of schooling. The beneficial effect increases as students advance through middle school. Good and bad students alike perform better in central-exam systems. In math, the gain of high-performing students is slightly larger than that of low-performing students. There is some evidence that central-exam systems equalize educational opportunities for students from different parental backgrounds. School autonomy in budgetary and salary decisions is detrimental in systems without central exams but turns around to be beneficial in systems with central exams. Thus, central exams seem to be a prerequisite for a decentralized system of autonomous schools to achieve high performance. The efforts of teachers and students are more concentrated on the goals of the education system when central exams are in place, and parental involvement becomes more informed and effective. Thus, central exams exert their effects through several different impact channels by changing the behavior of different actors in the education process. Given the shortcomings of most school- and teacherbased accountability systems and the substantially higher costs of most resource-based policies, central-exam systems seem a highly attractive policy alternative.
Medicinal Plants in Urban Districts of Tanzania: Plants, Gender Roles and Sustainable Use

SUMMARY An ethnobotanical survey was carried out to collect information on medicinal plants and gender roles in sustainable use by urban communities of Morogoro and Iringa districts, Tanzania. A total of 99 and 75 medicinal plant species distributed in various genera and vascular plant families, curing about 72 and 57 human diseases, were reported in the two districts respectively. Results showed significant gender roles difference in sustainable use of medicinal plants. Most men herbalists used roots while women preferred barks. Uprooting during plant harvesting was agreed to exist by most men herbalists in Morogoro. The majority of men and women herbalists supported the idea of conserving medicinal plants in order to ensure their sustainability in future. Since medicinal plants play an important role in the livelihoods of urban dwellers, their loss due to unsustainable exploitation will obstruct the existing health care system unless conservation measures are taken. There is a need to sensitize and train herbalists and other users on sustainable ways of harvesting medicinal plants, encourage traditional conservation methods and domestication possibilities in home gardens. Emphasis on domestication should be a priority to women considering their marginal economic status and special interest in plant resources. Government legislation regarding plants protection should be strengthened to control harvesting of medicinal plants in the wild. Studies to validate safety and efficacy, assess harvesting sustainability and wild status of medicinal plants is recommended to improve the health care system and strengthen conservation abilities in Tanzania.
Perceptions and Worry about Hazards at Work: Unions, Contract Maintenance, and Job Control in the U.S. Petrochemical Industry

Union statements and journalist accounts have tied workers' fears of accidents to the increasing use of subcontractors at U.S. petrochemical plants. In this case study of workers at a chemical facility in Louisiana, we explore who perceives and worries about chemical exposures and explosions in the workplace and why. Perceptions of chemical exposures was highest amongst union members, contract workers, and those with low job control; while perception of explosions was highest among those reporting being rushed or overworked. Contract workers appear to be more worried about hazards in the industry than direct-hire employees.
Sovereign Default, International Lending, and Trade

This paper sheds new light on the “trade costs” of sovereign default. It argues that the decline in trade in the wake of sovereign debt crises documented in earlier studies is the result of a reduction in exporters’ access to foreign credit. Using an annual panel of 28 industries in 100 countries between 1980 and 2007, it shows that default leads to a stronger contraction in the exports of sectors which are more dependent on external financing, consistent with this hypothesis. This finding is robust across different econometric specifications, and of economically significant magnitude. It suggests that any impact of sovereign default on trade, rather than a cost of default in its own right, may be a symptom of reduced access to international capital markets.
The information content of Canadian open market repurchase announcements

Purpose - This study seeks to examine the role of firm characteristics and insider private information in affecting Canadian firms’ repurchase decision and the associated announcement period stock return. Design/methodology/approach - Past studies of announcement returns employ a standard event-study methodology, which produces biased parameter estimates when the corporate event is voluntary. This study employs the conditional event study methodology, which is free of self-selection bias. The conditional model also provides a direct test of whether private information is conveyed through the announcement. Findings - It is found that firms are more likely to buy back shares if they have greater free cash flows, lower market-to-book ratios, poor prior stock performance, and their insiders have large shareholdings. It is shown that the announcement period returns are strongly and positively related to the private information possessed by company insiders. The market reacts to the reason given for the repurchase and reacts less positively to repeat repurchases. Overall, the evidence is consistent with Isagawa's model which argues that repurchases signal that the insiders are not the type to waste their free cash flow. Research limitations/implications - This methodology should also be applied to US open market repurchases. Originality/value - This is the first study to: explicitly test whether the abnormal return is attributable to private information; employ the conditional event study methodology in examining the announcement return; and study the returns to Canadian repurchase announcements.
Cliometrics and technological change: a survey

Abstract This paper considers the approach to technological change by quantitative economic historians. It suggests that there has been a continuing tension between what economics has to offer economic history by way of technical methods and what economic historians would like to find in economic models. In this area, there has been a danger that use of economic analysis would impoverish historical enquiry. Since the advent of new growth economics the situation has improved in the sense that there is now greater congruence between the hypotheses proposed by cliometricians and the resources that economics has available to them to investigate these ideas rigorously. Unfortunately, however, economists are still reluctant to learn from economic historians.