Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential infant and child mortality in Costa Rica: 1968–1973

Abstract In this paper the authors attempt to analyse the correlates of differences in infant and child mortality in Costa Rica for the period 1968–73. One approach uses small geographical units (cantons) as the unit for multivariate analysis, employing both single and simultaneous equation models. A second multivariate approach uses individual level statistics along with a specially constructed dependent variable. Costa Rica is studied because of an interest in differential child mortality during rapid fertility decline. The period is related to the use of the Census of 1973 as a primary source of data. Among the major findings are a strong favourable effect of provision of medical services on child mortality for small geographical areas and a strong effect of ambient infant mortality (influenced by medical and public health factors) on childhood mortality in the micro-analysis. Education of women remains important at both levels of analysis. Sanitation and level of socio-economic well-being have a weake.
The Hotelling Principle: Autobahn or Cul de Sac?

The economics of relations between prices and resource stocks has been dominated by the Hotelling Principle. But seemingly little attention has been given to the Principle by the oil and gas industry itself. In this paper the Principle is appraised, some new empirical results based on the value of oil and gas reserves sales are introduced, models which relax more of the Hotelling assumptions are reviewed, and the industry milieu in the context of a Hotelling style framework is discussed. The Principle is seen as affording fundamental theoretical insights, but is not found to cope well with industry realities.
Gender Discrimination in Higher Education in Pakistan: A Survey of University Faculty

Problem statement: Gender disparity is a worldwide phenomenon. This disparity is not only with respect to opportunities and resources but also in rewards, and exists in all regions and classes. Gender disparity exists in the field of education as well. Females experience overt and subtle gender discrimination to some extent nearly at every stage of their career. Males represent the majority of the faculty of higher education institutes across the globe. Managerial positions are usually held by males, who not only have more decision making power but also have more opportunities of social networking. Women have to achieve a successful career at the cost of their family life. Purpose of the study: The present study aimed at exploring the current situation regarding gender discrimination in the higher education institutes of Pakistan. Method: Gender equality has been investigated by a questionnaire survey of 180 faculty members on the five aspects of the working environment, namely Decision Making, Professional Development, Utilization of Resources, Academic Affairs and Job Satisfaction. Results and findings: Two-way analysis of variance shows that post-level is the strongest significant contributor to the differences in the five scores from the equality questionnaire. Gender contributes only in Decision Making, where females tend to be excluded. Conclusions and recommendation: There are significant differences in perceptions of gender equality that are attributable to the respondent's post-level. Those at the higher levels see less inequality. Those at lower levels, especially lecturers, see more. With a high proportion of females at the lecturer level, this can appear as a straight forward gender polarization of views, as happens with Professional Development, Academic Affairs and Job Satisfaction. The fact that the concurrent introduction of post-level into the analyses removes the significance of the gender variable points to the impact of the relatively few promoted females, who do not see inequalities in Professional Development and Academic Affairs. These promoted females will have high Job Satisfaction scores because of their achievement in acquiring their positions. This suggests real movement in Pakistani higher education in the direction intended by the adoption of national equality policies.
Income Distribution and Economic Crises

This paper analyzes the relationship between income distribution and the severity of economic crises, where the severity is measured by the length and the depth of the recessions. Using an extensive panel dataset on income distribution and employing an event study framework, we find significant evidence that there is a negative association between the prevailing degree of income inequality and the severity of the recessions. In the case of high income countries that have bad income distribution, however, recessions are observed to be longer than the average. This observation is likely to result from the combination of the strong status-quo bias of the financially powerful income groups and the available means to redistribute towards the poor so as to help mitigate the pressures for reforms to improve income distribution via creative destruction. The longer period of recessions observed in developed countries than in less developed countries in the aftermath of the Great Recession is in support of this argument. The findings also reveal that recessions tend to be longer during the decade of the 1990s than the rest of the period studied. The evidence regarding the corrective effect on the recessions of accommodative fiscal or monetary policy stance, measured by the size of the government and the inflation rate, is observed to be only barely significant on average. With regard to the impact of recessions on income distribution, the evidence in the paper indicates that the post-crises income distribution worsens significantly with the length but improves with the depth of the preceding recession. We also note that, in addition to the persistence effect, the lack of monetary discipline worsens income distribution in the postcrises period significantly.
Bureaucratic Systems’ Facilitating and Hindering Influence on Social Capital

This study demonstrates how banks’ bureaucratic systems (i.e., formalization, management continuity, customer orientation) are associated with social capital's relational and cognitive dimensions. We collected survey data from a matched sample of 884 small– and medium–sized enterprises (SME) executives and 217 bank managers across 22 banks to test hypothesized relationships. Our results showed that formalization is negatively associated with both dimensions of social capital, while management continuity and customer orientation are positively associated with them. These results are a first step in answering calls in the literature to study bureaucratic systems’ influence on social capital. Theoretical and future research implications are discussed.
Effects of Remifentanil on N-methyl-d-aspartate Receptor: An Electrophysiologic Study in Rat Spinal Cord

Background:Remifentanil hydrochloride contained in Ultiva® (GlaxoSmithKline, Genval, Belgium) has been incriminated in difficult postoperative pain management, promotion of hyperalgesia, and direct N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor activation, but the involved mechanisms have remained unclear. In the current study, the authors investigated the effects of remifentanil hydrochloride, with and without its vehicle, glycine, on the activation of NMDA receptors and the modulation of NMDA-induced current on neurons inside the lamina II from the dorsal horn of rat spinal cord. Methods:To test these effects, whole cell patch clamp recordings were conducted on acute rat lumbar spinal cord slices. Considering that both components of Ultiva® (remifentanil hydrochloride and glycine) could be involved in NMDA receptor activation, experiments were performed first with remifentanil hydrochloride, second with glycine, and third with the two components within Ultiva®. Results:Remifentanil hydrochloride does not induce any current, whereas 3 mm glycine induced a current that was abolished by the specific NMDA glutamate site antagonist d-2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate. Ultiva® (remifentanil hydrochloride with its vehicle, glycine) also evoked an inward current that was abolished by d-2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate and not significantly different from the glycine-induced current. Application of remifentanil hydrochloride potentiated the NMDA-induced inward current, and this potentiation was abolished by the &mgr;-opioid receptor antagonist naloxone. Conclusion:These results show that remifentanil hydrochloride does not directly activate NMDA receptors. The NMDA current recorded after application of Ultiva® is related to the presence of glycine. Induced NMDA current is potentiated by application of remifentanil hydrochloride through a pathway involving the &mgr;-opioid receptor.
Exploring lack of trust in care providers and the government as a barrier to health service use.

OBJECTIVES We examined associations between trust of health care providers and the government and health service use and outcomes. METHODS Interviews with a sample of 611 HIV-positive individuals included an attitudinal assessment measuring beliefs concerning the creation of AIDS, information being withheld about the disease, and trust of care providers. RESULTS Trust in care providers was associated with increased HIV-related out-patient clinic visits, fewer emergency room visits, increased use of antiretroviral medications, and improved reported physical and mental health. Trusting the government was associated with fewer emergency room visits and better mental and physical health. More than one quarter of the respondents believed that the government created AIDS to kill minorities, and more than half believed that a significant amount of information about AIDS is withheld from the public. Ten percent did not trust their provider to give them the best care possible. CONCLUSIONS Distrust may be a barrier to service use and therefore to optimal health. Distrust is not isolated in minority communities but also exists among members of nonminority communities and equally interferes with their use of services and health outcomes.
The effect of extrinsic rewards on public and private sector employees' psychological empowerment: a comparative approach

This paper examines the impact of five extrinsic rewards (financial incentives, promotion opportunities, organisational prestige, relations with supervisor and relations with peers) on employees' psychological empowerment. Further, the present study compares these effects and the level of psychological empowerment between public and private employees. The results demonstrated that extrinsic rewards differentially affected both samples. Financial incentives, promotion opportunities and organisational prestige had a stronger effect on private employees' psychological empowerment, whereas relations with supervisor and peers were significant predictors of public employees' psychological empowerment. The results also indicated that private employees experience greater psychological empowerment, meaning and impact than public counterparts.
Does awareness of being video recorded affect doctors' consultation behaviour?

Four general practitioners, two of whom had no previous experience of video recording in the consultation, took part in a study to assess the effect of awareness of video recording on their consultation behaviour. A video camera was sited unobtrusively in each consulting room for a month during which five randomly selected surgeries were recorded with the doctors being informed at the time, and five without their being informed. The video recorded consultations were analysed using TIMER, a tool designed to measure objectively behaviour in terms of physical, verbal and secondary activities in consultations. The proportions of time spent on the 27 consultation parameters were compared when doctors were aware and unaware of the recording, using analysis of variance. This demonstrated only one significant difference, in the low frequency parameter of the doctor's exploration of the patients' concepts (P less than 0.05). In a secondary analysis of the first four consultations in each surgery, where any effect of the presence of the video camera would be expected to be most marked, there was again only one significant difference in the 27 parameters (in patient preparation; P = 0.01). No significant difference owing to awareness of video recording was found in consultation length, the number of problems dealt with, or previous inexperience of video recording. When surgeries at the start of the month were compared with those at the end, four significant differences (P less than 0.05) out of 108 areas were demonstrated both when the doctor was aware and unaware of video recording, and there was no consistency in the direction of the differences. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Export Flexibility and Currency Hedging

This article studies the behavior of an export-flexible firm under exchange rate uncertainty. We show that the separation theorem holds if selling exclusively in the domestic market is suboptimal even under the most unfavorable spot exchange rate. Otherwise, the firm's optimal output depends on its preferences and on the underlying uncertainty. We further show that the full-hedging theorem holds only when the firm always finds it optimal to sell its entire output in the foreign market. Otherwise, export flexibility introduces a convexity into the firm's foreign exchange risk exposure, which calls for the use of currency options for hedging purposes. Copyright 2003 by the Economics Department Of The University Of Pennsylvania And Osaka University Institute Of Social And Economic Research Association.
Neoliberalism, Mobility and Cook Islands Men in Transit

From the 1990s, neoliberalism has been vigorously promoted by aid agencies operating in the Cook Islands. The solution to the country's economic problems has been sought in the privatisation of government assets and services and the development of free-market principles. Social Impact Assessment reports of these reforms have included information on their effect on women and children under the heading of ‘gender’; men, however, are notably absent as a category of analysis. Building on recent work about men, masculinities and development, this paper begins to address this imbalance by examining how Cook Islands men have been effected by, and how they react to, neoliberalism in a series of gender specific ways. In particular, it explores the relationship between masculinity, class, status, and migration.
Using the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Market Model to Predict Security Returns

This paper examines the validity of two widely used methods for forming conditional predicted portfolio returns. The first method relies on a one-period, mean-variance theory of equilibrium expected return, sometimes referred to as the “capital asset pricing model” (CAPM). The second method is based upon a proposal by Markowitz [14] and is called the [market model] (MM).
Mispricing and Trading Profits in Exchange-Traded Notes

This article investigates whether a simple long–short weekly trading strategy based on mispricing among exchange-traded notes (ETNs) generates profits in excess of the S&P 500 Index over the sample period of June 6, 2006 to January 30, 2012. Ignoring transaction costs, liquidity, and short-selling constraints, the authors find the following: 1) Mispricing is prevalent among ETNs. They enter into 90 trades over our 295-week period using a mispricing threshold of 5% and requiring a minimum average daily volume of 20,000 shares. 2) Total returns to the authors’ strategy are significantly higher than the S&P 500, which had a total return of 3.70% over the same period. The strategy generated total returns ranging from 9% to 110% over a mispricing threshold range of 8% to 14%, depending on the study’s minimum daily trading volume requirements. 3) Nearly all the trades and all the profits from this strategy come from the short side of the portfolio. This is consistent with previous empirical work demonstrating that ETNs are more likely to be overpriced than under priced.
Institutional Change of Accounting Systems: The Adoption of a Regime of Adapted International Financial Reporting Standards

Abstract This study combines Dillard et al.’s [(2004). The making and remaking of organization context: Duality and the institutionalization process. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 17(4), 506–542] institutional change model with institutional entrepreneurship theory. The aim is to enhance understanding of institutional change processes when a country adopts international accounting standards. For empirical support, we focus on the changes in social structures and accounting practices that arose in 2010 when Portugal replaced its national accounting system for unlisted companies, with a new system of accounting based on International Financial Reporting Standards. We reveal how an evolving socio-economic and political context, and the embedding of central actors in multiple fields, facilitated entrepreneurial action by actors who took political opportunity, mobilised important allies, and accommodated the interests of major protagonists. We draw attention to the possibility of an earlier inversion of the cascading institutionalisation process than is envisaged by Dillard et al. (2004). At the organisational field level, we highlight how national professional accounting associations and business associations can shape criteria established at the political and economic level, thereby counteracting the institutionalisation process. At the organisational level, we focus on the accounting standard for small and medium-sized entities. We provide insights to why some accountants maintained structures of meaning associated with the previous accounting system.
Impact of Doping Concentration on Electronic Properties of Transition Metal-Doped Monolayer Molybdenum Disulfide

Doping engineering has been an emerging topic in monolayer molybdenum disulfide (mMoS2). However, the dopants used for an n- or p-type device and the effect of doping level are of great interests toward next-generation electronic devices. In this paper, we theoretically reveal the work function tunability of mMoS2 doped by 3d transition metals. We found that the titanium dopant forms a deep-level trap in the midgap of mMoS2 but turning into n-type donor levels in high doping concentration due to the stronger covalent bond and the stable surface morphology, which renders it the widest work function tunability among 3d transition metals. Overall, the n-type behavior is expected by doping with chromium, copper, scandium, and titanium, whereas nickel and zinc dopants lead to the p-type property. The findings feature the selection of dopants for the revolutionary device and highlight the impact of doping levels from the atomistic viewpoint.
Economic and conservation implications of a variable effort penalty system in effort-controlled fisheries

Bycatch of threatened, endangered or protected species by commercial fishers is a universal problem. Technical solutions are often applied that may impose inefficiencies across the fleet, even in periods or areas when the risk of bycatch is low. These may include gear specifically designed to avoid the bycatch which may also reduce the targeted catch, or designation of marine protected areas that exclude fishing from whole areas. In this article, we examine the effectiveness of a variable penalty system that can provide incentives for fishers to redirect their effort away from problem areas. The system is examined using a case study of fishery, which is currently subjected to gear and closure controls to limit bycatch of turtles and seabirds. An alternative incentive-based management policy using a series of differential hook penalties has been proposed as a flexible tool to discourage vessels operating in certain areas. The effects of various hook penalties and closures in key areas on fishing effort in those areas and elsewhere as well as vessel economic performance are assessed using a location choice model. The results suggest that incentive-based approaches may result in lower costs to industry than closures provided some level of residual bycatch is acceptable.
Sec Scrutiny and the Evolution of Non-Gaap Reporting

We empirically examine the effects of intensified scrutiny over non‐GAAP reporting on the quality of non‐GAAP earnings exclusions. We find that, on average, exclusions are of higher quality (i.e., more transitory) following intervention by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into non‐GAAP reporting. We further find that firms that stopped releasing non‐GAAP earnings numbers after the SEC intervention had lower quality exclusions in the pre‐intervention period. These results are consistent with the SEC's objectives of improving the quality of non‐GAAP earnings figures. However, when we decompose total exclusions into special items and other exclusions, we find evidence that the quality of special items has decreased in the post‐intervention period, which suggests that managers adapted to the new disclosure environment by shifting more recurring expenses into special items. This suggests that there may be unintended consequences arising from the heightened scrutiny over non‐GAAP reporting.
The Influence of Line Managers and HR Department on Employees’ Affective Commitment

Based on social exchange theory, we investigate the impact of HRM investments made by two important HR actors, line managers and HR department, on employees' affective commitment. More specifically, we examine the independent and joint impact of line managers' enactment of HR practices, their relations-oriented leadership behaviour and the HR department's service quality. Accordingly, we consider the largely neglected HRM role of line managers. In addition, we focus on perceived HRM, which is seen as a determining factor in employees' attitudinal and behavioural reactions. Data for this study were collected from 1363 employees, working in three service organizations. The results indicate that line managers can enhance employees' affective commitment by both the effective enactment of HR practices and the effective relations-oriented leadership behaviour. High service quality by the HR department also has a positive effect on employees' affective commitment. Implications for research and practice are discu.
A PCR-RFLP based diagnostic technique to rapidly identify Seiridium species causing cypress canker

Seiridium cardinale, S. cupressi and S. unicorne represent three distinct species of fungi that cause cankers on Cupressus species and the disease collectively known as cypress canker. These fungi cannot be distinguished reliably from each other using morphological characters or ribosomal DNA sequence data. Here we describe a RFLP assay based on digesting β-tubulin amplicons with a single endonuclease, HaeIII, which easily can be used to distinguish among these three species. This RFLP assay provides an inexpensive and simple means of identifying Seiridium species, which include some of the most serious threats to trees in Cupressaceae.
Synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles by hydrothermal method

Stable, OH free zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were synthesized by hydrothermal method by varying the growth temperature and concentration of the precursors. The formation of ZnO nanoparticles were confirmed by x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) studies. The average particle size have been found to be about 7-24 nm and the compositional analysis is done with inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) results shows that the band gap of ZnO nanoparticles is blue shifted with decrease in particle size. Photoluminescence properties of ZnO nanoparticles at room temperature were studied and the green photoluminescent emission from ZnO nanoparticles can originate from the oxygen vacancy or ZnO interstitial related defects.