Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Cost of Innovation: R&D and High Cash Holdings in U.S. Firms

We show that R&D investment explains a significant portion of the increase in the average cash-to-assets ratio of U.S. firms, which more than doubled between 1980 and 2012. In 1980, an average firm held $0.04 in cash for $1.00 of R&D spending, but this had increased to $0.60 by 2012. The increasing sensitivity of cash holdings to R&D investment and the increase in R&D spending of the typical firm explain over 20% of the increase in aggregate cash holdings. Intensified domestic and global competition appears to be an important explanation for the increased propensity of R&D-intensive firms to hoard cash.
Management by values as a core tool of HRD during the economic transition: an example of Russian enterprises

The article analyses the role and the significance of management by values in the conditions of transition from one socio-economic system to another. The theoretical aspects of the problem and the results of empirical research conducted in a number of Russian companies are examined. An assumption is made about organizational values influencing the formation of personal priorities and guiding principles of the employees, which leads to the increase of the degree of social responsibility of a given business.
Toxicity Studies of Blockal, a Dietary Supplement Containing Phase 2 Starch Neutralizer (Phase 2), a Standardized Extract of the Common White Kidney Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

The number of available dietary supplements containing “starch blockers” intended for weight loss has risen dramatically in recent years. These supplements are believed to reduce carbohydrate-derived calories by interfering with α-amylase, the digestive enzyme responsible for conversion of complex carbohydrates to simple absorbable sugars. The present paper reports the findings of single- and multiple-dose (4-week) oral toxicity studies in rats of the marketed dietary supplement Blockal. Blockal contains as its main ingredient Phase 2 Starch Neutralizer (Phase 2 or Phaseolamin 2250), a standardized extract derived from the common white kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) that has been shown to have α-amylase-inhibiting activity. The Blockal acute oral LD50 exceeded the highest dose tested (3 g/kg body weight [bw]), which provided a single dose of 1668 mg/kg bw of Phase 2 white kidney bean extract. The no-observed-effect level (NOEL) seen in the 4-week study was equivalent to the highest Blockal dose tested (2 g/kg bw/day), which provided 1112 mg/kg/day of Phase 2 white kidney bean extract. The results of these studies support and are consistent with the safety of the marketed dietary supplement Blockal, and indirectly, the safety of its main ingredient, Phase 2 Starch Neutralizer (Phase 2 or Phaseolamin 2250), a standardized extract derived from the common white kidney bean.
Growth pattern of an employee-owned business: a narrative inquiry concerning the new venture creation experience of Wowprime in Taiwan

The current private- and shareholder-ownership pattern has found its limits. The aim of this research is to explore a growth pattern of employee-owned business adopting the narrative inquiry approach. The findings show that there are four growth stages: the ‘family-owned’, the ‘family- and manager-owned’, the ‘family-, manager-, and staff-owned’ and the ‘family-, manager-, staff- and franchisee-owned’ stages. This study explains why the pattern is becoming an important part of the business environment around the world and why mutual ownership can better grasp opportunities and turn environmental threats into new opportunities. This study contributes to advancing the understanding of the ownership pattern from private (family), to shareholder (manager) to employee.
Agricultural Extension: A Step beyond the Next Step

Governments often lack a clear strategy for extension. It is now recognized that in most cases, a single extension system may not be the only option. Rather, there is a need for flexibility and the adoption of multiple approaches to extension. This is increasingly being considered within the Bank, recommended to Borrowers and tested in the field. Another key point made in the paper is that extension must evolve rapidly if it is to survive. Extension services continue to be provided in most countries by the public sector while farmers play a rather passive uncommitted role. Given the high recurrent costs involved, this situation cannot be sustained for long. Sooner or later, countries will have to divest themselves from extension services and the supply of agricultural inputs. When this happens, most responsibilities for extension should gradually and to the extent possible, be handed over to the private sector. Meanwhile, the public sector is likely to retain a certain role in agricultural extension, a role that needs to be redefined.
Investing Volatile Resource Revenues in Capital‐Scarce Economies

Natural resource revenues are an important financing source for public investment in many developing economies. Investing volatile resource revenues, however, may subject an economy to macroeconomic instability. This paper studies fiscal approaches to investing resource revenues, using Angola as an example. With spend‐as‐you‐go, resource revenues are spent as received, resulting in little external saving; public investment can be interrupted, driving up the capital depreciation rate and undermining stability. Gradual scaling‐up, instead, allows countries to build up external saving to shield investment from revenue volatility. The framework adopted here can be used as a planning tool to define a medium‐term fiscal strategy.
Community Connections: a programme to enhance domestic and international students' educational experience

It has been widely acknowledged that an important indicator of a successful sojourn for international students is social integration into the host community. Despite seemingly regular opportunities to integrate, many international students report that their interactions with local residents remain superficial. The Community Connections programme at The University of Newcastle in Australia has aimed to address this issue over the past 13 years by engaging a broad range of volunteers from the host community to welcome, befriend, and support international students. In 2009, the opportunity arose to conduct a small pilot project within Community Connections, the aim of which was to focus specifically on facilitating relationships between international and domestic students. Thirty domestic students and a similar number of international students volunteered to participate in this pilot project. This paper describes the steps involved to develop this project, outlines the evaluation process, and discusses the impact of participation in the programme on student experience.
Mechanical Behavior of the Lisfranc and Dorsal Cuneometatarsal Ligaments: In Vitro Biomechanical Study

Objectives To define the anatomy and mechanical properties of two ligaments stabilizing the medial tarsometatarsal joints: the Lisfranc ligament and the dorsal cuneometatarsal ligament. Design Cadaveric study in normal feet. Setting Biomechanics laboratory. Patients or Participants Twelve fresh-frozen cadaveric feet were studied. Intervention The Lisfranc and dorsal cuneometatarsal ligaments were dissected, dimensions measured, and material properties determined with a servohydraulic MTS machine on bone–ligament–bone preparations. Main Outcome Measurements Stiffness, strain, stress, modulus, failure load, ligament length, width, thickness, and cross-sectional area were determined. Results Dorsal ligament stiffness was 66.3 ± 18.3 newtons per millimeter and the Lisfranc ligament stiffness was 189.7 ± 57.2 newtons per millimeter. The failure load of the dorsal ligament averaged 150.7 ± 33.1 newtons and for the Lisfranc ligament, 368.8 ± 126.8 newtons. Conclusions The stiffness and load to failure of the dorsal cuneometatarsal ligament were much higher than anticipated, which indicates that it contributes significantly to stabilizing the second metatarsal to the first cuneiform.
Economic integration, environmental harmonization and firm relocation

As different regions of the world integrate, many questions arise regarding the effect on the location of firms. A firm's decision to relocate operations when its home country integrates with another region is in general influenced by the relative marginal cost of production between the regions, the cost of relocation, the cost of exporting its good across borders, as well as the relative size of the two regions. Except for market size, these variables crucially depend upon the degree of economic integration, ranging from simple bilateral trade agreements, to agreements that make foreign direct investment easier and cheaper, to full economic integration that harmonizes policies across the regions. We develop a model in which we explore the possible forms of integration in the context of two illustrative applications: US–Mexico under NAFTA and Central and Eastern European countries and the European Union.
Empirical studies in the economics of education

This thesis consists of four studies in the economics of education. All chapters use applied microeconometric techniques to answer questions on education. Chapter two studies determinants of school choice in Amsterdam. Contrasting to a popular argument on school choice, quality indicators are not consistent predictors of school choice. Instead, students prefer schools close to their home, and appear to prefer schools that many of their former classmates choose. Chapter three investigates the impact of losing a school admission lottery on achievement. It turns out that lottery-losing students are educated in schools with less advantaged peers. Yet, losing an admission lottery does not harm students' academic achievement after four years of secondary education. Chapter four studies the causal effects of Montessori education by using school admission lotteries. On both academic and socio-emotional outcomes, the results show that Montessori education provides an alternative route towards similar student outcomes. Chapter five investigates whether the presence of students with special needs in regular education classrooms affects the academic achievement of their classmates. Three empirical strategies yield consistent results: in a context with substantial additional funding, inclusive education does not help or harm the academic achievement of regular students.
Applicability of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index in Index-Based Crop Insurance Design

Index-insurance is becoming increasingly popular because of its ability to provide low-cost, relatively easy to implement agricultural insurance for vegetation types whose productivity has been notoriously difficult to measure and to farmers in less-developed nations where traditional crop insurance schemes are not reasonable to implement. This study examines if the remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can be an effective basis for index-based crop insurance over a diverse set of locations. To do this we compare AVHRR-NDVI values to cumulative precipitation, extreme heat, and crop yields for sixty locations across the United States for the years 1982-2003. We use simple OLS quadratic equations to explore these relationships. Our findings suggest that the relationship between NDVI, precipitation, extreme heat, and crop yields is highly variable and dependent on location-specific characteristics. Without site-specific calibration, NDVI should not be widely applied to index-based insurance product design. However, NDVI may still be a useful tool in insurance design under certain circumstances. Further research is needed to better characterize the factors affecting NDVI values and their relationships to crop yield.
Theory-Driven Facts and the Growth in Earnings Inequality

It is widely accepted that the rise in U.S. wage inequality can be explained by skill-biased technological change: workplace computerization produced demand shifts that worked with a simply supply and demand "vision" of the labor market than with direct statistical evidence, which is remarkably limited. Indeed, the dominance of this elementary textbook vision has led, I argue, to a conflation between statistical facts and "theory-driven" facts-those statements about reality that are selected, interpreted, or simply created to confirm a vision of the way things work. The paper concludes by outlining an alternative explanation of the growth in wage inequality based on a sharply different, Gordonian, vision of the labor market.
Putin and the Oligarchs

During the election campaign and in his State of the Nation address of 8 July 2000, President Vladimir Putin talked of the need to break the cosy relationship between big business and government. In early 2000 Putin had talked, in language reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s plan in 1929 to ‘liquidate the kulaks as a class’, of his aspiration to ‘liquidate the oligarchs as a class’, stressing the need to create a level playing field. His central idea was that special interests, above all the oligarchs, should be kept ‘equidistant’ from the government. No longer were a select group of ‘oligarchs’ to have privileged access to the corridors of power or to hold the state hostage whenever the regime needed financial or other support. Putin’s approach is neatly summed up in his interview with the Spanish media in early 2006:
Sex differences in neuroanatomical and clinical correlations in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate sex differences in relationships between brain and behavior in schizophrenia. METHOD Frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and whole brain volumes were obtained from magnetic resonance images of 91 patients with schizophrenia (54 men and 37 women) and 114 healthy comparison subjects (62 men and 52 women). Four independent symptom scales, based on the following symptom clusters, were derived from clinical data: negative, disorganization, Schneiderian hallucinations-delusions, and suspicion-hostility. Regression analyses incorporating the four clinical scales and neuroanatomical volumes were performed to investigate possible interactions between brain region and sex. RESULTS Significant interactive effects of sex and frontal lobe volume were found in regression analyses of the disorganization and suspicion-hostility symptom scales. In men, higher frontal lobe volume was associated with milder severity of disorganization but was not correlated with severity of suspicion-hostility. In women, higher frontal lobe volume was associated with more severe disorganization as well as more severe suspicion-hostility. No associations were found between brain volume and severity of negative or Schneiderian symptoms. CONCLUSIONS Differences between male and female patients were observed in the relationships between frontal lobe volume and two of the four clinical dimensions examined. These findings suggest that aspects of the neuropathological basis for some symptoms of schizophrenia may be sexually dimorphic.
Should I Stay or Should I Go? Combining Work and Care for an Older Parent in Italy

Given the growth of care needs, the emphasis on informal care and the increasing labour force participation of women and senior workers, balancing employment and elderly care responsibilities is a crucial challenge. This qualitative study explores how and with what implications Italian senior workers combine work with care for older people. The results indicate that the impact of care responsibilities on work is limited and that employment has a buffer effect on overwhelming care responsibilities. By contrast the implications for private and family life are considerable. The conditions and mechanisms that support these results are discussed.
The perceived risks of local climate change in Queenstown, New Zealand

Place-embedded, resource-dependent industries are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The scientific framing of these risks can be understood through modelling; however, risks are perceived by non-scientific communities in more culturally relevant and localised frames. This empirical study utilised qualitative, semi-structured interviews with four stakeholder groups connected to the ski industry in Queenstown, New Zealand. The objectives of this research were to identify current scientific knowledge on climate change risks to Queenstown's ski industry and to critically address how the risk of climate change is perceived. This paper reports three main findings: (1) scientific reporting and expert interviews expect climate change to manifest as inter-annual variability up to the 2050s, (2) current climatic variability is perceived to be the greatest risk to the ski industry at present and (3) climate change is perceived to be distant and a greater threat to other people and other places giving rise to ‘optimistic bias’.
Shari'ah corporate governance: the need for a special governance code

Purpose – With the advent of Islamic banking, a new species was added to the banking system which was then, only dominated by the conventional banking. Islamic banking expanded in the world within the last decade and as a result, Islamic finance emerged as an alternative to the conventional finance. This created Islamic companies and Islamic financial institutions which operate based on the principles of Shari'ah or Islamic Law. These Islamic corporate bodies, like the conventional corporate bodies do need good governance rules. In other words, they also need a good, sophisticated “Shari'ah Governance Code” which would be based on the principle of Islamic Law. This is mainly because the objective of the conventional and the Islamic Corporate governance is different as conventional corporate governance structure is more focused on the protection of the rights of the stakeholders; while Islamic corporate governance focus on retaining the Islamicity of whole corporation. The objective of this research is, as.
Body Mass Index and Blount Disease

Abstract: As the increasing prevalence of overweight and obese children is approaching epidemic proportions in North America, this study was designed to investigate whether Body Mass Index (BMI) and age- and gender-specific percentile Body Mass Index (BMI %) are associated with the likelihood of being listed for surgery for Blount disease after initial presentation to a tertiary referral centre. In a restrospective consecutive sample of 102 children with an average age of 5.9 ± 4.3 years, it was determined that there was a significant association between BMI and BMI% and being listed for surgery, after adjusting for the effects of the child's age and gender, with mean odds ratios of 1.30 (95% confidence interval 1.02-1.60) and 1.05 (95% confidence interval 1.01-1.09) respectively. When the sample was subgrouped into infantile (less than 3 years of age) and late-onset (greater than 3 years of age), BMI and BMI% were still significantly associated with the children being listed for surgery in the late-onset group with mean odds ratios 2.75 (95% confidence interval 1.03-7.33) and 1.09 (95% confidence interval 1.01-1.18) respectively. However, of the two measures only the BMI was significant in the infantile group with an odds ratio of 1.27 (95% confidence interval 1.01-1.60). Should these associations be real then measures aimed at decreasing weight in children may have some effect on the number of children undergoing surgery for the treatment of Blount disease.
Participatory Apps for Urban Planning—Space for Improvement

Participatory urban planning is considered an important aspect of developing local democracy. Recently, the use of mobile technologies to engage with citizens has gained interest among researchers, policy-makers, and activists. The purpose of this article is to introduce a typology that identifies types of mobile applications (apps) supporting citizen participation in urban planning. The presented typology is developed based on theories of participation and has three dimensions: type of data collected, information flow, and empowerment of citizens. Overall, the typology identifies eight types of participatory apps. Participatory apps in use around the world are then plotted into the typology and their contribution is analyzed with reference to the dimensions of the typology. Apps evolve from sharing information on the surrounding environment towards a dialogue aimed to accommodate citizen knowledge into the planning process. The article concludes that the impact of planning apps has yet been modest, but is expected to increase, and discusses ways in which planning apps can leverage citizens' knowledge in the future.
Semiparametric econometrics: A survey

SUMMARY Semiparametric econometric models contain both parametric and nonparametric components, reflecting in some fashion what has been learned from economic theory and previous empirical experience, and what remains unknown. They raise such questions as how well the parametric component can be estimated, and how to construct rules of inference with good statistical properties. The paper attempts to survey the econometric and most relevant statistical literature on semiparametric inference, and includes a partial bibliography.
Daily parathyroid hormone administration enhances bone turnover and preserves bone structure after severe immobilization‐induced bone loss

Immobilization, as a result of motor‐complete spinal cord injury (SCI), is associated with severe osteoporosis. Whether parathyroid hormone (PTH) administration would reduce bone loss after SCI remains unclear. Thus, female mice underwent sham or surgery to produce complete spinal cord transection. PTH (80 μg/kg) or vehicle was injected subcutaneously (SC) daily starting on the day of surgery and continued for 35 days. Isolated tibias and femurs were examined by microcomputed tomography scanning (micro‐CT) and histology and serum markers of bone turnover were measured. Micro‐CT analysis of tibial metaphysis revealed that the SCI‐vehicle animals exhibited 49% reduction in fractional trabecular bone volume and 18% in trabecular thickness compared to sham‐vehicle controls. SCI‐vehicle animals also had 15% lower femoral cortical thickness and 16% higher cortical porosity than sham‐vehicle counterparts. Interestingly, PTH administration to SCI animals restored 78% of bone volume, increased connectivity to 366%, and lowered structure model index by 10% compared to sham‐vehicle animals. PTH further favorably attenuated femoral cortical bone loss to 5% and prevented the SCI‐associated cortical porosity. Histomorphometry evaluation of femurs of SCI‐vehicle animals demonstrated a marked 49% and 38% decline in osteoblast and osteoclast number, respectively, and 35% reduction in bone formation rate. In contrast, SCI‐PTH animals showed preserved osteoblast and osteoclast numbers and enhanced bone formation rate. Furthermore, SCI‐PTH animals had higher levels of bone formation and resorption markers than either SCI‐ or sham‐vehicle groups. Collectively, these findings suggest that intermittent PTH receptor activation is an effective therapeutic strategy to preserve bone integrity after severe immobilization.
Oral Interventions versus Actual Interventions in FX Markets - An Event-Study Approach

The article assesses whether exchange rate communication - or oral intervention - has been an effective policy tool for monetary authorities to influence exchange rates. It employs an event-study methodology that identifies intervention clusters or events. For the euro-dollar and the dollar-yen exchange rates, the article finds that both oral intervention events and actual intervention events have been highly successful over the short to medium-run. The article shows that the success of intervention events is related to market conditions and to the coordination among policy makers. It also finds that the success of communication and actual interventions is largely unrelated to monetary policy, thus suggesting that interventions primarily function through a coordination channel. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2008.