Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Statistical Analysis of Trends in Education-Related Litigation Since 1960

In the past decade, educators have become increasingly aware of the effect of litigation on educational policy, budgeting, and staffing. This study analyzed rates of change in education-related litigation from 1960 to 1986. It found that litigation climbed steeply until 1977 (compared with the growth in number of educators, however, the growth in litigation was modest), but decreased in the last decade. The study also compared litigation growth rates in law, medicine, and civil service with those in education.
The Effects of Self-Talk on Dominant and Nondominant Arm Performance on a Handball Task in Primary Physical Education Students

The present study examined the effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on handball performance using a novel task (nondominant arm) and a learned task (dominant arm) in primary school students. Participants were randomly assigned into two experimental groups (instructional and motivational) and one control group. The results revealed that for both tasks instructional and motivational self-talk groups improved their performance significantly in comparison with the control group and that for the nondominant arm instructional self-talk had a larger effect compared with motivational self-talk. The results suggest that instructional self-talk in the form of external focused cues may be more beneficial in the early stages of learning.
Human resource management practices and the HRM-performance link in public and private sector organizations in three Western societal clusters

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to explore HRM practices and HRM-performance (HRM-P) link in public and private sector organizations across three societal clusters: the Anglo, the Germanic, and the Nordic European. Design/methodology/approach – The article is based on international Cranet HRM survey data collected from large private and public organizations. Findings – According to results, HRM is more advanced in private companies than in public sector organizations, even across three societal clusters. Instead, the analyses related to HRM-P link in private and public organizations refer to interesting similarities but also differences between organizational sectors (public versus private) and societal clusters. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation is retaining in those performance indicators that are applicable in both private and public organizations: subjective measures of productivity and service quality, only. Performance measures relevant especially in the public sector (e.
The Power of Online Customer Reviews in Fashion E-Commerce - an Empirical Analysis across Categories and Brands

Online Customer Reviews (OCRs) have become a powerful marketing tool for e-commerce companies and an important information source for customers in online shopping. We study the influence of OCRs on sales and conversion rates of experience goods along different levels of product involvement and brand equity. We make use of a unique dataset with about 2.8 billion product detail page (PDP) views, 85.3 million sold items along 40 product categories and . 9 million OCRs from a leading European online fashion company. We find that the rating valence (i.e., the average rating), has a positive influence on sales and conversion in general. Further, we identify the positive influence of OCRs on sales and conversion to be stronger for products with a high level of product involvement. Finally, this study shows that brand equity has a negative influence on the relationship between rating valence, sales, and conversion. From a managerial perspective, this study helps to use OCR as a marketing tool in the most efficient and effective way as companies should implement category and brandspecific OCR strategies.
From Xenobiotic to Antibiotic, Formation of Protoanemonin from 4-Chlorocatechol by Enzymes of the 3-Oxoadipate Pathway (*)

Chloroaromatics, a major class of industrial pollutants, may be oxidatively metabolized to chlorocatechols by soil and water microorganisms that have evolved catabolic activities toward these xenobiotics. We show here that 4-chlorocatechol can be further transformed by enzymes of the ubiquitous 3-oxoadipate pathway. However, whereas chloromuconate cycloisomerases catalyze the dechlorination of 3-chloro-cis,cis-muconate to form cis-dienelactone, muconate cycloisomerases catalyze a novel reaction, i.e. the dechlorination and concomitant decarboxylation to form 4-methylenebut-2-en-4-olide (protoanemonin), an ordinarily plant-derived antibiotic that is toxic to microorganisms.
Modelling impact of monetary policy on stock market liquidity: a dynamic copula approach

This article investigates the dependence structure between monetary policy and stock market liquidity in China. The dynamic ‘symmetrized JC’ copula copula is applied to capture evolving asymmetric behaviours and tail dependence. The empirical evidence shows that less liquid stock markets are influenced by contractionary monetary policy, and highly liquid stock markets are dependent on expansionary monetary policy. The asymmetric effect of monetary shocks on stock market liquidity is also found. The empirical results also indicate that the strength of lower-tail dependence between monetary liquidity and stock liquidity rises significantly for the post-crisis period.
Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Kaposin B Induces Unique Monophosphorylation of STAT3 at Serine 727 and MK2-Mediated Inactivation of the STAT3 Transcriptional Repressor TRIM28

ABSTRACT Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the etiologic agent of primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), multicentric Castleman's disease (MCD), and the inflammation-driven neoplasm Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). A triad of processes, including abnormal proliferation of endothelial cells, aberrant angiogenesis, and chronic inflammation, characterize KS lesions. STAT3 is a key transcription factor governing these processes, and deregulation of STAT3 activity is linked to a wide range of cancers, including PEL and KS. Using primary human endothelial cells (ECs), I demonstrate that KSHV infection modulated STAT3 activation in two ways: (i) KSHV induced uncoupling of canonical tyrosine (Y) and serine (S) phosphorylation events while (ii) concomitantly inducing the phosphorylation and inactivation of TRIM28 (also known as KAP-1 or TIF-1β), a newly identified negative regulator of STAT3 activity. KSHV infection of primary ECs induced chronic STAT3 activation characterized by a shift from the canonical dual P-STAT3 Y705 S727 form to a mono P-STAT3 S727 form. Expression of the latent protein kaposin B promoted the unique phosphorylation of STAT3 at S727, in the absence of Y705, activated the host kinase mitogen-activated protein kinase-activated protein (MAPKAP) kinase 2 (MK2), and stimulated increased expression of STAT3-dependent genes, including CCL5, in ECs. TRIM28-mediated repression of STAT3 is relieved by phosphorylation of S473, and in vitro kinase assays identified TRIM28 S473 as a bona fide target of MK2. Together, these data suggest that kaposin B significantly contributes to the chronic inflammatory environment that is a hallmark of KS by unique activation of the proto-oncogene STAT3, coupled with MK2-mediated inactivation of the STAT3 transcriptional repressor TRIM28.
Money and State Legislative Elections: The Conditional Impact of Political Context

This study builds on existing literature demonstrating the conditional effects of contextual and conversion factors on the relationship between money and votes in state legislative elections. A conditional theory of the impact of spending in state legislative campaigns is developed, emphasizing that the effectiveness of expenditures should vary according to the number of “up for grabs” voters in a district, candidate quality, and strategic decisions about when to enter a race. Using an original data set of elections to state legislatures in nine states, the analysis provides evidence that the political and institutional context of a race has a significant impact on the effectiveness of campaign spending. Specifically, the percentage of registered independents in a district, the presence or absence of term limits on legislators, and the level of professionalism of a legislature each significantly condition the impact of money.
Employment and Support Allowance, the ‘summer budget’ and less eligible disabled people

In the first UK budget by a Conservative Government for 18 years, £13 billion per annum savings in social security spending by 2020/21 were announced. Of these, 4.9% (£640 million per annum, and up to £900 million in the years after 2020) is to come from the withdrawal from April 2017 of the work-related component of the Employment and Support Allowance. This means that new claimants will be worse off by £29.05 per week (2015/16 figures) than would have been the case had the measure not been introduced. This brief commentary critically analyses this development as the extension of an ideological assault upon the out-of-work benefits for disabled people which has been gathering momentum for about a decade in the hope of forcing such people into competing for wage work in the open market.
Separating Winners from Losers within Extreme Value and Growth Portfolios 1

We partition value and growth stocks using 10 different metrics known to predict spreads in the cross-section of stock returns (“quality metrics”). We employ these metrics to proxy for ex-ante investor expectational errors and use them to separate winners and losers within the value and growth portfolios using these measures. The evidence suggests that the returns to value stocks are likely due to unobservable risk factors and not mispricing, while anomalous growth returns are explained by mispricing effects. Last, we investigate the mispricing within the growth portfolios and find that these returns are driven by stocks that are hardest to value. JEL Classification: G10, G12, G14
A semiparametric hedonic model for valuing wetlands

A semiparametric hedonic price function is estimated to examine the effects of proximity to wetlands on property values using extensive wetland inventory and housing market data from Portland-Oregon, USA. The semiparametric method used in this study allows for estimation of the hedonic price function with flexible functional form and is computationally easier than most non-parametric models. Four general categories of wetlands – open water, emergent vegetation, forested and scrub shrub wetlands – are differentiated. The results indicate that proximity to open water wetlands has a positive association with property values, while the other types of wetlands have either a negative or insignificant relationship.
Structural Change, Infrastructure and Convergence in the Regions of the European Union

This paper tries to give a better understanding of the convergence process among the regions of the EU. It focuses on the role of structural change and infrastructures in this process. First we analyse the convergence of production, labour and productivity among the European Union (EU) regions for the period 1980-96. We then study the impact of structural change in this process. The second part of this article deals with infrastructure, which - since the beginning of the application of EU regional policy - has been one of the main instruments for generating cohesion among EU countries and regions, and was one of the determinants of regional growth and convergence for three periods, namely: 1970-80, 1980-86 and 1988-94. The main findings are: first, that convergence seems to be a complex process, in which structural change is a relevant force; and, second, that infrastructure could be one of the factors that fosters regional growth and convergence.
The Political Economy of New Deal Spending Revisited, Again: With and without Nevada

Abstract During the New Deal the federal government initiated a policy of massive grants to states for support of social welfare and other programs. Since that time scholars have debated whether the allocation of these grants between the states during the New Deal was motivated primarily by political or social and economic objectives. This paper shows that, during the 1930s, both political and economic effects were important determinants of grant allocation. The importance of all the political variables is dramatically affected by the inclusion or exclusion of Nevada. The “Nevada” effect seems to be the result of the state's very small population. An alternative specification of the grant process produces new results that overturn some of the results in the existing literature.
Insurance Fraud and Optimal Claims Settlement Strategies*

We examine the optimal claims settlement strategy for a liability insurer when claimants can permanently misrepresent their losses by engaging in costly claims falsification. In this environment, claims auditing is not a possible deterrent to fraud, and the settlement strategy consists of an indemnification profile that relates the insurance payment to the claimed amount of loss. The optimal indemnification profile is shown to involve systematic underpayment of claims at the margin as a means to deter loss exaggeration, with the extent of underpayment limited by expected litigation costs and potential bad‐faith claims. The key testable implication of the theory is that the extent of underpayment should be greater for classes of claims for which loss exaggeration is easier. Empirical analysis of insurance settlements for bodily injury liability in automobile accidents confirms this prediction. This suggests that liability insurers optimally choose claims payment strategies to lessen a claimant's incentive to exaggerate losses.
Adaptation studies suggest interactive feedback shapes responses in occipitotemporal regions

Abstract Downing and Peelen portray the EBA and FBA as a largely impenetrable system, passing on visual signals to other cortical areas where high-level information is extracted. They suggest that the influence of other regions on EBA and FBA is primarily limited to changes in attentional modulation. In the following commentary, this proposal is evaluated within the context of a predictive coding framework. Recent evidence is discussed indicating that fMRI-adaptation effects in occipitotemporal cortex, including EBA and FBA, are consistent with the influence of higher-level modulation, suggesting that responses in these regions are shaped through the interactive feedback of a hierarchical network.
Performance Modeling for Spark Using SVM

At present, Spark is widely used in a number of enterprises. Although Spark is much faster than Hadoop for some applications, its configuration parameters can have a great impact on its performance due to the large number of the parameters, interaction between them, and various characteristics of applications as well. Unfortunately, there is not yet any research conducted to predict the performance of Spark based on its configuration sets.In this paper, we employ a machine learning method-Support Vector Machine(SVM) to build performance models for Spark. The input of configuration sets is collected by running Spark application previously with randomly modified and combined parameter values. In this way, we also determine the range of each property and gain a deeper understanding about how these properties work in Spark. We also use Artificial Neural Network to model the performance of Spark and find that the error rate of ANN is on average 1.98 times that of SVM for three workloads from HiBench.
Private capital flows to developing countries: the role of the domestic financial sector

The relationship between private capital flows and growth has been examined extensively in the literature, yet numerous controversies remain. This study examines the relationships among private capital flows (foreign direct investment and portfolio investment), financial development and economic performance in a panel of developing countries over the period 1983–2006, by employing generalized method of moments (GMM) panel data analysis. We find that these private capital flows have a positive impact on growth with a well-developed financial sector but have a negative effect in the presence of poor financial sector development. Moreover, foreign direct investment promotes economic growth via efficiency effect, while portfolio investment stimulates economic growth via investment effect. Hence, well-developed financial sectors are ones that are crucial for economic growth.
Surfing for Back Pain Patients: The Nature and Quality of Back Pain Information on the Internet

Study Design. A prospective, systematic review of web sites related to back pain. Objective. To assess the nature and quality of back pain-related information on the World Wide Web during a 2-year period. Summary of Background Data. The Internet has become a rich source of medical information. Limited knowledge is available, however, about the quality of online resources. Although previous systematic reviews on medical-related web sites found problems in varying degrees with the credibility of information, no such review was conducted to assess the back pain-related sites. Methods. A search of web sites was conducted in November 1996 using five search engines (AltaVista, Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo, and Magellan) and two key terms (“back pain” and “back problems”). A sample of sites was evaluated by two independent reviewers. Each site was described by the type and nature of the sponsor, target audience, and content. Overall quality was assessed in terms of evidence-based information available. Results. Seventy-four web sites were reviewed in 1996, and nine of them (12.2%) were identified as high-quality sites. Advertising was the focus of 80.8% of the sites. Eleven sites (14.9%) were found to be discontinued 1 year later, and 20 (27.0%) were not accessible by the reviewers at the 2-year follow-up evaluation. Of the remaining 54 sites, 44.4% were produced by for-profit companies, and most sites targeted people with back pain (63.0%). Only seven out of the nine high-quality sites held their ratings at the 2-year follow-up evaluation. Conclusion. Most back pain-related web sites can be classified as advertising. The quality varied considerably, resulting in difficulties for patients to find useful information in this field. The increasing number of people seeking medical information on the Web creates a need for more high quality sites. Further, systematic review of web sites should be encouraged to monitor the accuracy of Internet publication.
‘Lunch is for wimps’: what drives parents to work long hours in ‘successful’ British and US cities?

This paper reflects on the impact of long working hours on home-work-family reconcili ation from a household perspective. It focuses on discrete interactions between long working hours for households with two parents engaged in paid employment, raising awareness of the integrated nature of work-life balance. Attention is paid to the 'strong economy paradox' confronting dual earning households in 'successful' cities. Evidence is presented to suggest limited resistance to long hours as well as diverse ways one partner adapts their mode of employment to fit the constraints of the other.
Smoking-related thoughts and microbehaviours, and their predictive power for quitting

Background Negative attitudes to smoking are well-established predictors of intentions to quit and quit behaviours, but less attention has been given to whether quitting is influenced by smoking-related thoughts and microbehaviours that reflect a concern about smoking. Objectives This paper aimed to describe the occurrence of smoking-related thoughts and microbehaviours among Chinese smokers, and to examine their predictive power for making quit attempts and sustained abstinence. Methods The data came from the first three waves of the International Tobacco Control China Survey. Four measures of recent thoughts about smoking and two microbehaviour measures (collectively referred to as microindicators) were examined. Results Most smokers (around three-quarters) reported thinking about harms of smoking to themselves or to others at least occasionally, and an increasing minority reported the two microbehaviours of prematurely butting out cigarettes and forgoing them. All microindicators were positively related to subsequent quit attempts in individual predictor analyses, but only serious thoughts about quitting and butting out cigarettes had independent relationships. Overall, there was no clear relationship between these microindicators and sustained abstinence. Conclusions There was a moderately high level of occurrence of recent smoking-related thoughts and microbehaviours among the Chinese adult smokers in the six cities studied. Like in the West, microindicators of concern about smoking were positively associated with subsequent quit attempts, but unlike in the West, they were largely unrelated to sustained abstinence.
The relationship between purposes of budget use and budgetary slack

This chapter examines the relationship between purposes of budget use and budgetary slack, and the extent to which this relationship is mediated by two (potentially) slack-reducing mechanisms, budget participation and budget emphasis. In a sample of survey responses from 44 Dutch listed firms, intensity of budget use is negatively related to budgetary slack, and this relationship is partially mediated by both budget participation and budget emphasis. Furthermore, three purposes of budget use are identified: budget usage for (a) planning and communication purposes, (b) coordination and allocation purposes, and (c) evaluation and rewarding purposes. The direct effect of purposes of budget use on budgetary slack seems especially due to budget usage for planning and communication purposes, which is also the case for the mediating effect via budget emphasis, whereas the mediating effect via budget participation seems especially due to budget usage for coordination and allocation purposes. Exploratory analyses do not show similar relationships with purposeful slack, that is, with slack that was purposefully allowed in the business units’ budgets by the firms’ top management.
Single base pair change in the long‐range Sonic hedgehog limb‐specific enhancer is a genetic basis for preaxial polydactyly

In most instances of preaxial polydactyly (PPD), Sonic Hedgehog (Shh), an essential limb patterning signal, is ectopically expressed in an anterior region of the developing limb in addition to the normal posterior domain. It is thought that this anterior Shh expression leads directly to the development of the extra digits. Recent reports have identified a conserved limb‐specific Shh enhancer ∼1 megabase upstream of the Shh transcription initiation site, and individual base pair changes within this region are associated with PPD. We report here that a single base pair change within this enhancer is sufficient to drive β‐galactosidase expression in both anterior and posterior limb domains, similar to Shh expression in animal PPD models, whereas a wild‐type construct is expressed only in the posterior limb, similar to Shh expression in normal embryos. These findings provide the first direct evidence that a single base pair change within the limb‐specific Shh enhancer acts as a genetic basis for PPD. Developmental Dynamics 232:345–348, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.