Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Participation in Inquiry Science Workshops and Follow-up Activities on Middle School Science Teachers' Content Knowledge, Teacher-Held Misconceptions, and Classroom Practices

cycles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning (formulation of a hypothesis in a form that could be falsified by testing observable data). Lawson (2000c) maintained that many, if not all scientific discoveries are hypothetico-deductive in nature. Hypothetico-deductive thought is basically is a simple three-step process by which scientists investigate nature: 1) observe something in nature, 2) speculate about its explanation, and 3) test those speculations. It is this testing of hypotheses process and proposing alternative hypotheses that requires the formal operational level of reasoning (Lawson, 2005).
Productive externalities and business cycles

This paper begins with the observation that the volatility of factor input growth is insufficient to explain the volatility in the growth rate of output, and explores the empirical plausibility of the hypothesis that this fact is due to the presence of productive externalities and increasing returns to scale. We construct a quantitative equilibrium macroeconomic model which incorporates these features, and allows for demand shocks operating at the level of the consumer. We employ the method of Hall (1986) and Parkin (1988) to measure these demand shocks, and use these measured disturbances to conduct stochastic simulations of the model. We find that the model with increasing returns, when driven by measured demand shocks, generates time series which replicate the basic stylized facts of U.S. business cycles, although with lower amplitude. However, in the absence of increasing returns the measured demand shocks do not produce a characteristic business cycle response. When preference shocks are combined with productivity shocks, we find that both the increasing returns and the constant returns models correctly predict a weak correlation between hours and wages, while the predictions of the increasing returns model provide the better overall match with the data.
Is there a “business case” for board diversity?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between board diversity, as represented by the percentage of female, minority or female and minority directors on the boards of directors, and firm financial performance, and to explore the potential determinants of board diversity, using data from the Australian corporate sector.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the top 500 Australian companies as the initial data‐set. Firm performance measures include return on assets, return on equity and shareholder return. Several control variables are introduced in the regression analysis.Findings – The results indicate that gender and racial diversity do not have significant influence on performance. It is reported that larger firms tend to have relatively more female members, and smaller firms or firms with larger boards may have more minority directors.Research limitations/implications – The findings should not be extrapolated to all firms as the sample is restricted to listed compa.
Mortality and length-of-stay outcomes, 1993–2003, in the binational Australian and New Zealand intensive care adult patient database*

Objective:Intensive care unit (ICU) outcomes have been the subject of controversy. The objective was to model hospital mortality and ICU length-of-stay time-change of patients recorded in the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society adult patient database. Design:Retrospective, cohort study of prospectively collected data on index patient admissions. Setting:Australian and New Zealand ICUs, 1993–2003. Patients:The Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society adult patient database, which contains data for 223,129 patients. Interventions:None. Measurements and Main Results:Hospital mortality and ICU length of stay were modeled using logistic and linear regression, respectively, with determination (80%) and validation (20%) data sets. Model adequacy was assessed by discrimination (receiver operating characteristic curve area, AZ) and calibration (Hosmer-Lemeshow Ĉ) for mortality and R2 for length of stay. Predictor variables included patient demographics, severity score, surgical and ventilation status, ICU categories, and geographical locality. The data set comprised 223,129 patients: Their mean (sd) age was 59.2 (18.9) yrs, 41.7% were female, their mean (sd) Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) III score was 53 (31), they had 16.1% overall mortality rate, and 45.7% were mechanically ventilated. ICU length of stay was 3.6 (5.6) days. AZ, Ĉ statistic, and R2 for developmental and validation model data sets were 0.88, 17.64 (p = .02), and 0.18; and 0.88, 12.32 (p = .26), and 0.18, respectively. Variables with mortality impact (p ≤ .001) were age (odds ratio [OR] 1.023), gender (OR 1.16; males vs. females), APACHE III score (OR 1.06), mechanical ventilation (OR 1.66), and surgical status (elective, OR 0.17; emergency, OR 0.47; compared with nonsurgical). ICU level and locality had significant mortality-time effects. Similar variables were found to predict length of stay. Risk-adjusted mortality declined, during 1993–2003, from 0.19 (95% confidence interval 0.17–0.21) to 0.15 (0.13–0.16) and similarly for ventilated patients: 0.26 (0.24–0.29) to 0.23 (0.21–0.25). Predicted mean ICU length of stay (days) demonstrated minimal overall time-change: 3.4 (2.2) in 1993 to 3.5 (2.7) in 2003, peaking at 3.7 (2.4) in 2000. Conclusions:Overall hospital mortality rate in patients admitted to Australian and New Zealand ICUs decreased 4% over 11 yrs. A similar trend occurred for mechanically ventilated patients. Length of stay changed minimally over this period.
PRACTICAL EVALUATION OF MOLECULAR SUBTYPING AND PHAGE TYPING IN OUTBREAKS OF INFECTION DUE TO SALMONELLA ENTERICA SEROTYPE TYPHIMURIUM

Summary Identification and control of food‐poisoning outbreaks due to salmonellosis depend on prompt microbiological diagnosis and subtyping to identify the causative strain. In Australia, Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serotype typhimurium (S. typhimurium ) is responsible for 40‐70% of cases of human salmonellosis. Phage typing is the usual method of subtyping S. typhimurium, but on its own, has limitations. We compared it with three molecular subtyping methods using 100 isolates of S. typhimurium, representing four different phage types (PT 1, 9, 126 and 135) and comprising 74 isolates from three presumed outbreaks, 25 isolates from sporadic cases of salmonellosis and S. typhimurium ATCC 10428 (phage type 126). The isolates were divided into 11 subtypes by IS200 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) typing, four each by ribotyping and pulsed‐field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and 17 distinct strains using a combination of phage and molecular typing. Isolates from two presumed outbreaks were resolved into multiple strains, possibly explaining the failure to identify a common source for either during the original investigations. IS200 RFLP analysis was the most discriminatory and reproducible typing method. Several strains were identifiable within and shared between phage types 1, 9 and 126. Phage and IS200 RFLP typing together, would provide improved definition of S. typhimurium outbreaks.
The Value of Contingent Commissions in the Property–Casualty Insurance Industry: Evidence from Stock Market Returns

Insurance producer compensation has incorporated contingent commissions for decades. In 2004, the New York State Attorney General sued insurers and brokers, alleging compensation abuses and calling for elimination of some forms of contingent commissions. Daily stock price return data reveal negative announcement‐period portfolio returns for property–casualty carriers, suggesting expected negative cash flow effects. Firm‐level losses were related to intensity of contingent commission use, suggesting that the effects of such regulatory changes would be felt most by firms that relied on contingent commissions. Investors believed contingent commissions were valuable not only for producers but also for carriers.
Associations between trematode infections in cattle and freshwater snails in highland and lowland areas of Iringa Rural District, Tanzania

SUMMARY The epidemiology of trematode infections in cattle was investigated within highland and lowland areas of Iringa Rural District, in southern Tanzania. Fecal samples were collected from 450 cattle in 15 villages at altitudes ranging from 696 to 1800 m above the sea level. Freshwater snails were collected from selected water bodies and screened for emergence of cercariae. The infection rates in cattle were Fasciola gigantica 28·2%, paramphistomes 62·8% and Schistosoma bovis 4·8%. Notably, prevalence of trematode infections in cattle was much higher in highland (altitude > 1500 m) as compared with lowland (altitude < 1500 m) areas and was statistically significant (P-value = 0·000) for F. gigantica and paramphistomes but not for S. bovis. The snails collected included Lymnaea natalensis, Bulinus africanus, Bulinus tropicus, Bulinus forskali, Biomphalaria pfeifferi, Melanoides tuberculata and Bellamya constricta with a greater proportion of highland (75%) than lowland (36%) water bodies harbouring snails. Altitude is a major factor shaping the epidemiology of F. gigantica and paramphistomes infections in cattle in Iringa Rural District with greater emphasis upon control needed in highland areas.
The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in China

Over the last two decades, globalisation has led to the rapidly increasing growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) all over the world. China, one of the largest net importers of FDI in the world, represents a country with a substantial share of foreign ownership whose FDI experience has been largely overlooked in terms of a comprehensive economic analysis. Although China’s FDI stock was worth US$ 21034.42 billion in 2008, the second largest in the world , empirical work on FDI and its determinants is limited. After adopting the open door policy, China experienced a boom of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) by multinational corporations since 1980s. From an almost isolated economy, China turned to be the largest recipient of FDI in the developing world. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the determinants of FDI inflow to China, explains how FDI contributes to the growth in GDP, taxes, exchange rates, infrastructure and income inequality. The paper employs twenty-nine-years of annual data from 1980 to 2009 made available by the International Monetary Fund.
Aggregation of Heterogeneous Beliefs and Asset Pricing Theory: A Mean-Variance Analysis

Within the standard mean-variance framework, this paper provides a procedure to aggregate the heterogeneous beliefs in not only risk preferences and expected payoffs but also variances/covariances into a market consensus belief. Consequently, an asset equilibrium price under heterogeneous beliefs is derived. We show that the market aggregate behavior is in principle a weighted average of heterogeneous individual behaviors. The CAPM-like equilibrium price and return relationships under heterogeneous beliefs are obtained. The impact of diversity of heterogeneous beliefs on the market aggregate risk preference, asset volatility, equilibrium price and optimal demands of investors is examined. As a special case, our result provides a simple explanation for the empirical relation between cross-sectional volatility and expected returns.
Do Private Company Targets that Hire Big 4 Auditors Receive Higher Proceeds?

This study documents a substantial impact of Big 4 auditor choice on the sale proceeds of controlling interests of U.S. private firms. A representative private stock-purchase company with median enterprise value ranging from $14 to $18 million experiences a dollar value decrease in enterprise value due to not hiring a Big 4 auditor ranging from $2.0 to $5.2 million. We obtain a similar magnitude of "deal value reduction" for private company sales structured as asset purchases. Our results provide a partial explanation for the private company discount (PCD), one related to the information quality facing the buyer rather than the standard reduced-liquidity argument. The estimates are robust to controlling for auditor self-selection characteristics and non-linear effects, and our descriptive evidence is inconsistent with the presence of a Big 4 auditor merely standing in for firm risk as captured by innate accrual quality characteristics. There is modest evidence that Big 4 auditors constrain income-increasing accruals, consistent with the notion that hiring Big 4 audit firms leads to higher quality accruals. In addition, we note that our PCD estimates derived from a multivariate approach are higher than that in the extant literature, which uses a match-pair method.
The Emergence of Centrality in a Transition Economy: Comparing Land Market Dynamics Measured Under Monocentric and Semiparametric Models

This paper focuses on the emergence of Krakow's historic core as the city's economic center after Poland's economic reforms of 1989-reforms that introduced market forces into land markets. Using a semiparametric approach to identify pricing centers, an evolving and polycentric price surface is revealed. While the traditional city center emerges as the dominant node, the evolution of the price surface is far more complex than that found using alternative approaches. Accordingly, it yields superior explanatory power compared to simpler monocentric models and should caution against their use in metropolitan areas in transition or those that are polycentric. Copyright Blackwell Publishing, Inc. 2006
Conditional Cash Transfers and Their Impact on Child Work and Schooling: Evidence from the PROGRESA Program in Mexico

In this paper we investigate whether a conditional cash transfer program such as the Programa Nacional de Educacion, Salud y Alimentacion (PROGRESA) can simultaneously combat the problems of low school attendance and child work. PROGRESA is a new program of the Mexican government aimed at alleviating extreme poverty in rural areas. It combats the different causes of poverty by providing cash benefits that are targeted directly to households on the condition of children attending school and visiting health clinics on a regular basis. Some of the questions addressed are as follows: Does the program reduce child labor? Does it increase participation in school activities? Does the latter occur at the expense of children's leisure time? And how do the effects of the program vary by age group and gender? Our empirical analysis relies on data from a quasi-experimental design used to evaluate the impact of the program involving a sample of communities that receive PROGRESA benefits (treatment) and comparable communities that receive benefits at a later time (control). We estimate the effect of treatment on the treated" using both double-difference and cross sectional difference estimators. Our estimates show significant increases in the school attendance of boys and girls that are accompanied by significant reductions in the participation of boys and girls in work activities. We also find that the program has a lower impact on the incidence of work for girls relative to boys. "
Guanxi Practice and Quality: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Managers’ Business-to-Business and Business-to-Government Ties

ABSTRACT This study provides new insight into guanxi practice and quality differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) ties in China. The results, based on data obtained through structured interviews with 108 Chinese managers across eight cities in China, reveal stark differences between the practices used in developing B2B ties and those used in developing B2G ties. More specifically, these two tie types differ in a variety of guanxi initiation, building, and utilization practices. This study also builds upon the process model of guanxi development by highlighting the dissimilar role of gift giving practices in B2B and B2G ties. Furthermore, this study measures guanxi quality as a separate concept from guanxi process and demonstrates that guanxi quality is a multidimensional concept that is composed of affective attachment and felt obligation, both of which vary across B2B and B2G ties. Implications of these results for theory development and managerial practice in China are also discussed.
The Elderly Ex-Mental Patient

HIS study was designed to explore the comparative importance of social and T psychiatric factors in the screening ward and state hospital disposition of the elderly mental patient, and the relationship between the subjective experience of hospitalization and measurable changes in functioning during the period between admission and an average of approximately one year after discharge. The underlying hypotheses were (a) that social factors would play a significant role both in the initial disposition from the psychiatric screening wards and in the eventual discharge of those committed to state institutions; and (b) that mental hospitalization for the first time at an advanced age constitutes such a crippling blow to the decreasingly resilient ego defences that little improvement in levels of functioning could be expected.
Sirolimus for progressive neurofibromatosis type 1-associated plexiform neurofibromas: a neurofibromatosis Clinical Trials Consortium phase II study.

BACKGROUND Plexiform neurofibromas (PNs) are benign peripheral nerve sheath tumors that arise in one-third of individuals with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). They may cause significant disfigurement, compression of vital structures, neurologic dysfunction, and/or pain. Currently, the only effective management strategy is surgical resection. Converging evidence has demonstrated that the NF1 tumor suppressor protein, neurofibromin, negatively regulates activity in the mammalian Target of Rapamycin pathway. METHODS We employed a 2-strata clinical trial design. Stratum 1 included subjects with inoperable, NF1-associated progressive PN and sought to determine whether sirolimus safely and tolerably increases time to progression (TTP). Volumetric MRI analysis conducted at regular intervals was used to determine TTP relative to baseline imaging. RESULTS The estimated median TTP of subjects receiving sirolimus was 15.4 months (95% CI: 14.3-23.7 mo), which was significantly longer than 11.9 months (P < .001), the median TTP of the placebo arm of a previous PN clinical trial with similar eligibility criteria. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that sirolimus prolongs TTP by almost 4 months in patients with NF1-associated progressive PN. Although the improvement in TTP is modest, given the lack of significant or frequent toxicity and the availability of few other treatment options, the use of sirolimus to slow the growth of progressive PN could be considered in select patients.
Predictors of positive blood culture and death among neonates with suspectedneonatal sepsis in Gondar University Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Neonatal sepsis is a common cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality in developing countries. It is a serious bacterial infection of blood with a clinical syndrome characterized by systemic signs of infection and bacteremia in the first month of life. Factors associated with positive blood culture and perinatal deaths among neonates are rarely described in developing countries. This study aimed to identify the predictors of positive blood culture due to neonatal sepsis and to identify predictors of death among neonates suspected to have sepsis at Gondar University Hospital neonatal unit, Gondar, northwest Ethiopia. A prospective cross sectional study was conducted among neonates admitted at Gondar University Hospital neonatal unit between July 2011 and June 2012. Standard data collection form was used to collect all socio-demographic data and clinical characteristics of neonates. Three milliliter of venous blood sample was collected aseptically and inoculated in to Trypton soya blood culture medium for 2-14 days aerobically. Turbidity or growth was checked every 3 days. Bacterial isolates were identified following standard procedures and anti bacterial susceptibility test was done following agar disc diffusion method. The neonates were followed for their outcome until their discharge from the hospital. A total of 181 neonates (99 male and 82 female) admitted to neonatal unit with clinical features of sepsis were studied during the study period. One hundred twenty two (67.4%) of them were of early onset and 59 (32.6%) with late onset neonatal sepsis based on clinical parameters. Out of the clinically suspected cases there were 39 (32%) and 19 (32.2%) culture proven early and late onset neonatal sepsis cases respectively. Predictors of positive blood culture in both early and late onset neonatal sepsis were failure to suck, fast breathing, lethargy, seizure, respiratory distress, meconium stained liquor, premature rupture of the membrane and low birth weight. Forty four percent of gram negatives were resistant to third generation cephalosporins while 41.2% of the isolated Staphylococcus aureus were found to be methicilin resistant (MRSA). Factors that predicted deaths were positive blood culture (p = 0.002), infection with methicilin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (p = 0.008) and gram negative sepsis (p = 0.004). Our finding suggests that failure to suck, meconium stained liquor, premature rupture of membrane, lethargy, seizure and fast breathing are significantly associated with positive blood culture in both early and late onset neonatal sepsis. Mortality rate in our setting was much more significantly associated with positive blood culture and multidrug resistant gram negative bacteria.