Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Eco-innovation: Definition, Measurement and Open Research Issues

The article looks into eco-innovation as a concept that supersedes the older concept of environmental technology. The analytical basis of eco-innovation is under construction, there is no commonly agreed definition. For most people eco-innovation is another term for innovation for the environment, and includes environmental-beneficial innovations who are not environmentally motivated. The article offers a typology of eco-innovation developed in a project for the European Commission, examines indicators for measurement and offers suggestions for measurement. Push and pull mechanisms for different types of eco-innovations are discussed, before turning to a discussion on patterns in eco-innovation. The article presents data that illustrates the shift towards cleaner products and continuing importance of end-of-pipe solutions, and discusses national differences in eco-innovation use, lead market issues, and the growing attention to system innovation. A conclusion of the article is that the statistical basis is still poor and needs to be augmented, something for which the article offers recommendations.
Direct Visualization of the Outer Membrane of Mycobacteria and Corynebacteria in Their Native State

ABSTRACT The cell envelope of mycobacteria, which include the causative agents of tuberculosis and leprosy, is crucial for their success as pathogens. Despite a continued strong emphasis on identifying the multiple chemical components of this envelope, it has proven difficult to combine its components into a comprehensive structural model, primarily because the available ultrastructural data rely on conventional electron microscopy embedding and sectioning, which are known to induce artifacts. The existence of an outer membrane bilayer has long been postulated but has never been directly observed by electron microscopy of ultrathin sections. Here we have used cryo-electron microscopy of vitreous sections (CEMOVIS) to perform a detailed ultrastructural analysis of three species belonging to the Corynebacterineae suborder, namely, Mycobacterium bovis BCG, Mycobacterium smegmatis, and Corynebacterium glutamicum, in their native state. We provide new information that accurately describes the different layers of the mycobacterial cell envelope and challenges current models of the organization of its components. We show a direct visualization of an outer membrane, analogous to that found in gram-negative bacteria, in the three bacterial species examined. Furthermore, we demonstrate that mycolic acids, the hallmark of mycobacteria and related genera, are essential for the formation of this outer membrane. In addition, a granular layer and a low-density zone typifying the periplasmic space of gram-positive bacteria are apparent in CEMOVIS images of mycobacteria and corynebacteria. Based on our observations, a model of the organization of the lipids in the outer membrane is proposed. The architecture we describe should serve as a reference for future studies to relate the structure of the mycobacterial cell envelope to its function.
Generating employee engagement in a public–private partnership: management communication activities and employee experiences

Much of the existing research on employee engagement is deficient in examining organizational actors' lived experiences of organizational engagement activities. This article, deriving from qualitative research in a public–private partnership organization, contributes to the current understanding of how employee engagement is generated through management communication activities seeking to promote engagement and employees' responses thereto. Also drawing on the literatures on organizational change, communication and culture, our research demonstrates that: (1) managers use both directive and discursive means of communication to create an environment in which employees may wish to engage; and (2) employees respond positively to such communication as it makes them feel valued and involved, which enhances their propensity to engage with the organization. However, contrary to widespread assumptions in the literature, the generation of employee engagement is far from straightforward; employees have an active role to participate in the engagement activities offered by managers.
In Search of Commitment‐Oriented Human Resource Management Practices and the Conditions that Sustain Them

Drawing on data from a survey of human resource management (HRM) in Irish organizations, the paper examines the incidence of coherent bundles of commitment-oriented HRM practices and deploys loglinear modelling to test a series of hypotheses concerning external and internal factors which sustain such practices. The paper identifies the low overall incidence of cohesive commitment-oriented HRM practices in organizations in Ireland. The analysis establishes that the strategic integration of HRM into corporate strategy strongly favours the adoption of such practices, as does the avoidance of union recognition. No link can be established empirically between sectoral turbulence or dynamism and either the adoption or non-adoption of coherent sets of commitment-oriented HRM practices. Nor does the modelling identify any core set of underlying features which, when observed concurrently, greatly increases the likelihood that commitment-oriented HRM practices will be adopted.
UK Consumers' Habits

We follow Fuhrer (2000) in estimating via Maximum Likelihood a log-linear consumption function on UK data. In doing so we consider various habit formation assumptions. We show that a model of purely “external” habits as in Fuhrer (2000) fits the UK data remarkably well, and possibly in a superior way than US data where, according to our estimates, consumers’ habits look more “internal” in that they appear indexed to past average consumption of only a subset of (peer) consumers in the economy, rather than total past per capita consumption. We also find that for about one seventh of UK consumers, current consumption equals current income_a strong violation of the permanent income hypothesis. Embedded in a sticky price-sticky inflation open-economy monetary model, the model that we estimate helps mimic the hump-shaped response of the output gap to income and interest rate shocks observed in the UK. Estimates of output Euler equations for the UK using a similar method agree with our general results. The consumption and output models that we estimate forecast significantly better than unrestricted open-economy VARs.
Recent Trends in Sybil Attacks and Defense Techniques in Social Networks

Decentralized distributed systems or Peer-to-peer systems are particularly vulnerable to sybil attacks. In Sybil attack, an adversary or a malicious user gets multiple fake identities pretending of new distinct nodes in the system. Controlling large number of nodes in the system, malicious user is able to out vote the genuine users. In this paper various types of sybil attacks are explained which are based on behaviour of attacker, which also enables us to better understand the threats posed by each type of attack. This paper also surveys different types of current sybil defense protocol techniques like SybilGuard, SybilShield, SybilLimit, SybilDefender and SyMon to defend against the Sybil attack. These protocol techniques are based on the “social network” among user identities where an edge between two identities indicates a human-established trust relationship. In this paper these techniques are described and compared with each other. Keywords– Sybil attack, Sybil Guard, Sybil Limit, Sybil Shield, Sybil Defender
Urban Poverty in Bangladesh: Causes, Consequences and Coping Strategies

Abstract Bustees are places where physical, social, economic and political vulnerabilities collide, creating a multi-layered blanket of vulnerability for their residents. Although income is central to day-to-day survival in an urban environment in which cash income is needed to meet a household’s basic needs, work options are limited to low-paid and irregular work, primarily dependent on physical labour. This forces households to rely upon loans and labour mobilisation strategies to get by. Unsanitary, poorly serviced, and densely populated environments – frequently situated in environmentally hazardous areas – mean ill health is both endemic and chronic, playing a routine and devastating role in the lives of the urban poor. The repercussions of resource scarcity at the household level are compounded by the social and political exclusion of the poor from urban governance structures and processes. Amidst a lack of formal institutional support, and in the absence of formal rights and entitlements, the process of facilitating and maintaining patron–client relationships is a central coping strategy for the urban poor. It is a means of trying to manage uncertainty and improve their access to resources. For the majority, however, these strategies are limited to helping households to cope, rather than advancing their interests. Informal systems of governance at the bustee level reproduce and exacerbate existing inequalities, with access to power, information, resources, employment and other lucrative income-generating opportunities limited to a close circle of wellconnected bustee households.
Congenital syphilis in Italy: a multicentre study

Objective To study the prevalence of congenital syphilis and its risk factors in Italy. Study design Prospective study from 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007. Data on mother–child pairs were collected for every syphilis seropositive mother. Results Maternal syphilis seroprevalence at delivery was 0.17%. 207 infants were born to 203 syphilis seropositive mothers. In 25 newborns it was possible to diagnose congenital syphilis (20/100 000 live births). Maternal risk factors included age <20 years, no antenatal care and no adequate treatment. The infected babies were more often preterm or weighed <2000 g at birth. Discussion Many syphilis seropositive mothers were foreign born but the risk of an infected newborn was not higher in foreign-born than in Italian seropositive women. The significant factors were lack of antenatal screening and inadequate maternal treatment. Conclusion Syphilis is a re-emerging infection in Italy. Prevention strategies should include antenatal serological tests for all pregnant women and treatment for infected mothers.
On iterating semiproper preorders

Abstract Let T be an ω1-Souslin tree. We show the property of forcing notions; “is {ω1}-semi-proper and preserves T” is preserved by a new kind of revised countable support iteration of arbitrary length. As an application we have a forcing axiom which is compatible with the existence of an ω1 -Souslin tree for preorders as wide as possible.
WHAT WAS “IT” THAT ROBBINS WAS DEFINING?

This paper argues that Robbins’ famous definition of economics was of “economic science” which he saw as only a narrow branch of the field of economics. The field of economics included both economic science—which his definition dealt with, and political economy--which his essay did not deal with. His prescriptive message was that policy belonged in the “political economy” branch of economics. He believed that while the science of economics should avoid value judgments as much as possible, the political economy (applied policy) branch of economics should, and must, include value judgments. That prescriptive message has been lost.
Credit and Monetary Policy

PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT ROLE that banks play in orthodox credit theory is preventing or restricting unhealthy booms from which depressions grow, although they are likewise assigned to the task of easing the strains incident to panic and precipitate liquidation. Leadership in such operations as these is assigned to the central banks, which, although always closely associated with Government authority, are assumed to have sufficient freedom of action to enable them to meet their responsibilities according to their own ideas. This is the orthodox idea. Is it what has actually happened in practice? We find ourselves in a very different position today from the one we held in 1929 and '30. We find ourselves with a huge Government debt. We are riding the crest of an economic boom. We have a huge supply of money, which of course includes bank deposits-we have full employment-large bank borrowings from the Federal Reserves Banks-yet we feel that we are faced with the ultimate outlook of a downturn in the economy. We should not be unduly alarmed at the huge Federal debt that piled up during two major fighting wars and a depression, because intelligent management could turn the debt into a powerful tool for the maintenance of high employment, stable prices, and economic progress. Federal Reserve action should be directed toward maintaining high employment and stable prices, and not toward keeping interest rates artificially low, as was done during the postwar period, to lighten the Treasury's financing burden. The Federal Reserve System should be free to deal with the money market on the basis of its effects on employment and prices and not on the basis of the needs of the Treasury for securing low-cost funds. A rise in interest rates and a tightening of credit supply should be employed whenever the flow of credit is too great.
Differential Requirements for Alternative Splicing and Nuclear Export Functions of Equine Infectious Anemia Virus Rev Protein

ABSTRACT The Rev protein of equine infectious anemia virus (ERev) exports unspliced and partially spliced viral RNAs from the nucleus. Like several cellular proteins, ERev regulates its own mRNA by mediating an alternative splicing event. To determine the requirements for these functions, we have identified ERev mutants that affect RNA export or both export and alternative splicing. Mutants were further characterized for subcellular localization, nuclear-cytoplasmic shuttling, and multimerization. None of the nuclear export signal (NES) mutants are defective for alternative splicing. Furthermore, the NES of ERev is similar in composition but distinct in spacing from other leucine-rich NESs. Basic residues at the C terminus of ERev are involved in nuclear localization, and disruption of the C-terminal residues affects both functions of ERev. ERev forms multimers, and no mutation disrupts this activity. In two mutants with substitutions of charged residues in the middle of ERev, RNA export is affected. One of these mutants is also defective for ERev-mediated alternative splicing but is identical to wild-type ERev in its localization, shuttling, and multimerization. Together, these results demonstrate that the two functions of ERev both require nuclear import and at least one other common activity, but RNA export can be separated from alternative splicing based on its requirement for a functional NES.
HERC2 Targets the Iron Regulator FBXL5 for Degradation and Modulates Iron Metabolism

Background: FBXL5, the F-box protein subunit of an SCF-type ubiquitin-ligase complex, is a regulator of mammalian iron homeostasis. Results: The HECT-type E3 ligase HERC2 binds to FBXL5 and regulates its stability. Conclusion: HERC2 controls iron metabolism by promoting ubiquitin-dependent degradation of FBXL5. Significance: Our results provide new mechanistic insight into the proteolytic control of iron metabolism. FBXL5 (F-box and leucine-rich repeat protein 5) is the F-box protein subunit of, and therefore responsible for substrate recognition by, the SCFFBXL5 ubiquitin-ligase complex, which targets iron regulatory protein 2 (IRP2) for proteasomal degradation. IRP2 plays a central role in the maintenance of cellular iron homeostasis in mammals through posttranscriptional regulation of proteins that contribute to control of the intracellular iron concentration. The FBXL5-IRP2 axis is integral to control of iron metabolism in vivo, given that mice lacking FBXL5 die during early embryogenesis as a result of unrestrained IRP2 activity and oxidative stress attributable to excessive iron accumulation. Despite its pivotal role in the control of iron homeostasis, however, little is known of the upstream regulation of FBXL5 activity. We now show that FBXL5 undergoes constitutive ubiquitin-dependent degradation at the steady state. With the use of a proteomics approach to the discovery of proteins that regulate the stability of FBXL5, we identified the large HECT-type ubiquitin ligase HERC2 (HECT and RLD domain containing E3 ubiquitin protein ligase 2) as an FBXL5-associated protein. Inhibition of the HERC2-FBXL5 interaction or depletion of endogenous HERC2 by RNA interference resulted in the stabilization of FBXL5 and a consequent increase in its abundance. Such accumulation of FBXL5 in turn led to a decrease in the intracellular content of ferrous iron. Our results thus suggest that HERC2 regulates the basal turnover of FBXL5, and that this ubiquitin-dependent degradation pathway contributes to the control of mammalian iron metabolism.
Prions, prion-like prionoids, and neurodegenerative disorders

Prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are fatal neurodegenerative diseases characterized by the aggregation and deposition of the misfolded prion protein in the brain. α-synuclein (α-syn)-associated multiple system atrophy has been recently shown to be caused by a bona fide α-syn prion strain. Several other misfolded native proteins such as β-amyloid, tau and TDP-43 share some aspects of prions although none of them is shown to be transmissible in nature or in experimental animals. However, these prion-like “prionoids” are causal to a variety of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The remarkable recent discovery of at least two new α-syn prion strains and their transmissibility in transgenic mice and in vitro cell models raises a distinct question as to whether some specific strain of other prionoids could have the capability of disease transmission in a manner similar to prions. In this overview, we briefly describe human and other mammalian prion diseases and comment on certain similarities between prion and prionoid and the possibility of prion-like transmissibility of some prionoid strains.
Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire

1. Introduction: Britain and the historical geography of regulationism 2. Partial legislation and privileged places: the contagious diseases acts 3. Liverpool, localisation and the municipal regulation of prostitution in Britain 4. A private contagious diseases act: prostitution and the proctorial system in Victorian Oxbridge 5. Sexuality, sovereignty and space: colonial law and the making of prostitute subjects in Gibraltar and the British Mediterranean 6. Race and the regulation of prostitution in Hong Kong and the overseas empire 7. Conclusions: mapping the politics of regulation.
Debt and Creative Destruction: Why Could Subsidizing Corporate Debt Be Optimal?

The existing theoretical literature provides little justification for a corporate debt subsidy. We illustrate the welfare benefit of this subsidy and study how the social costs and benefits change with the duration of industry distress. In our model, two firms engage in socially wasteful competition for survival in a declining industry. Firms differ on two dimensions: exogenous productivity and endogenously chosen amount of debt financing, resulting in a two-dimensional war of attrition. Debt financing increases incentives to exit, which, although costly for the firm, is socially beneficial. These benefits decline as industry distress shortens. Our normative model sheds light on why the debt tax subsidy still persists around the world. Analogously, the model can also rationalize a seemingly ad hoc feature of the U.S. tax system, which subsidizes the conflict of interest between debt and equity regarding firm liquidation. This paper was accepted by Amit Seru, finance.
Pricing capabilities: the design, development, and validation of a scale

Purpose – The literature has paid increased attention to pricing capabilities as a set of distinctive, complex activities, routines, and processes that drive company performance. Despite this emphasis, little research has addressed the pricing-capabilities construct itself, and no accepted measure of pricing capabilities exists. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to document the design, development, and validation of a dedicated pricing-capabilities scale, PRICECAP. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative plus three quantitative surveys. Findings – The present research describes the development of a ten-item measure, PRICECAP, that can be used to assess organizational capabilities related to pricing. Research limitations/implications – The reliability and validity of the scales were assessed through three separate quantitative studies using exploratory and confirmatory analysis. The PRICECAP scale has a variety of potential applications and can serve as a framework for future empirical research in.
Outcomes for Conservative Management of Traumatic Conductive Hearing Loss

Objectives: To evaluate the natural history of traumatic conductive hearing loss. Study Design: Retrospective chart review. Methods: Otologic and audiometric evaluations of patients in the early posttraumatic phase were compared with evaluations at follow-up. Assessment included etiologies of trauma, classification of hearing loss, factors causing conductive loss, and analyses of changes in air-bone gaps, pure-tone averages and hearing loss class. Results: There were 45 patients, representing 47 ears, with sufficient initial and follow-up documentation to analyze the natural history of traumatic conductive hearing loss. Overall, 77% of ears showed an improvement in pure-tone averages without surgical intervention. Air-bone gaps closed from an average of 24.8 ± 12.1 to 13.2 ± 11.1 dB. Only 11% of ears demonstrated a decrease in pure-tone averages, and 12% showed no change in thresholds. All forms of injury contributing to the conductive hearing loss had good outcomes. Specifically, tympanic membrane perforations showed final air-bone gaps of 14.9 ± 11.2 dB; cases of hemotympanum had final air-bone gaps of 10.0 ± 8.1 dB; and suspected ossicular chain disruptions had final air-bone gaps of 13.9 ± 12.3 dB. Only 5 of 47 ears ultimately required surgical intervention for persistent pathology. Conclusion: Patients with all forms of traumatic conductive hearing loss can be initially managed conservatively. Even suspected ossicular chain disruptions have a high rate of spontaneous reparation. Surgical intervention for perforation or conductive hearing loss should be undertaken in the rare cases when these conditions persist greater than 6 months.
Ethical reasoning differences between accountants and managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether significant differences in ethical reasoning exist between Chinese accountants and managers when facing an ethical dilemma. Further tests are conducted to identify what professional contextual factors and personal value preferences can be introduced to explain the ethical reasoning differences observed.Design/methodology/approach – Three research questions are raised and related hypotheses are developed and tested by the use of a defined issue test (DIT) instrument containing four hypothetical scenarios of different dilemmatic issues, and a Rokeach values survey questionnaire adapted to suit the Chinese business culture.Findings – The findings and conclusions include: Chinese managers and accountants are not significantly differentiated in terms of ethical reasoning levels measured by the overall DIT instrument, however, the break‐down results of the DIT individual dilemmatic scenarios shows that significant differences exist between the two professio.