Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emerging contaminants in surface waters and their relevance for the production of drinking water in Europe

An increasing part of drinking water in Europe is prepared from surface water. At the same time, a growing number of emerging contaminants is being discovered in surface water. This review provides an overview of classes of emerging contaminants nowadays detected in the aquatic environment that are of relevance for drinking water production. These comprise e.g. endocrine disrupting compounds, such as hormones and compounds with hormone-like properties, pharmaceuticals, illicit and non-controlled drugs, sweeteners, personal care products, complexing agents, nanoparticles, perfluorinated compounds, flame retardants, pesticides, and fuel additives. The individual compounds are observed in concentrations that are generally considered too low to cause acute effects. Nevertheless, health effects due to long-term exposure to a mixture of low concentrations of all kinds of emerging contaminants cannot be excluded with current knowledge. Moreover, contamination of drinking water with man-made substances is considered unwanted in principle. The precautionary principle is used to motivate that prevention of emission of emerging contaminants into the environment is the preferred approach to safeguard sustainable drinking water production. In the mean time, extensive monitoring of the sources and development and application of advanced treatment techniques are used to prepare safe drinking water.
Mutual Fund Incentive Fees: Determinants and Effects

"We investigate the how and why of performance fee provisions in a free contracting environment such as the Italian mutual fund market until 2006. We find weak support for the hypothesis that these provisions emerge as an economically efficient solution in a rational asset management industry plagued by asymmetric information. They appear to emerge mainly as the product of strategic pricing by asset managers wishing to ease market competition, leverage on investors' sentiment, and hedge their cost structure. Alternatively, fears that managers may opportunistically alter funds' investment policies to maximize the option value embedded in the incentive provisions appear unjustified. " Copyright (c) 2010 Financial Management Association International.
Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers' Rights at Wal-Mart

On television, Wal-Mart employees are smiling women delighted with their jobs. But reality is another story. In 2000, Betty Dukes, a fifty-two-year-old black woman in Pittsburg, California, became the lead plaintiff in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, a class action, representing 1. 6 million women. In her explosive investigation of this historic lawsuit, journalist Liza Featherstone reveals how Wal-Mart, a self-styled "family-oriented," Christian company: Deprives women (but not men) of the training they need to advance. Relegates women to lower-paying jobs like selling baby clothes, reserving the more lucrative positions for men. Inflicts punitive demotions on employees who object to discrimination. Exploits Asian women in its sweatshops in Saipan, a U. S. commonwealth. Featherstone goes on to reveal the creative solutions that Wal-Mart workers around the country have found, like fighting for unions, living-wage ordinances, and childcare options. Selling Women Short combines the personal stories of these employees with superb investigative journalism to show why women who work these low-wage jobs are getting a raw deal, and what they are doing about it. A new preface to the paperback edition will reflect on Wal-Mart's response to this lawsuit and its critics-including this one.
Engaging Employees in Sustainable Development – a Case Study of Environmental Education and Awareness Training in Hong Kong

Environmental education and awareness training can help to develop and encourage a transition to a greener corporate culture. A series of environmental education and awareness training programmes of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) (Hong Kong) was used as a case study to assess how learning transfers through nature‐based environmental education and awareness training and to investigate the possible outcomes of providing nature‐based training to employees. Evaluation of the training outcomes, in terms of changes in employees’ environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, was surveyed by using retrospective post‐ and then‐test questionnaires. Results showed that employees who joined these programmes gained knowledge and changed their values and behaviour towards the environment significantly. The study also indicated the establishment of trust in and satisfaction with the organization among employees through the training, which in turn promoted employees’ organizational commitment towards corporate sustainability. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
The rapid growth of young firms during various stages of entrepreneurship

Purpose – This paper aims to examine factors influencing the high growth of new firms in metal‐based manufacturing and business service firms in Finland. It seeks to compare the factors of how new firms achieve a high rate of growth during the first four years and years five to eight.Design/methodology/approach – The study reported here is part of a longitudinal research project that has followed the development of 200 SMEs in Finnish metal‐based manufacturing and business services since their start‐up in 1990. At the seven‐year follow‐up the present study concentrates on the 86 surviving firms. Logistic regression analysis was used as statistical technique in locating differences between high‐growth and other firms and their owner‐managers in the selected attributes. This paper focuses on Storey's key elements. In search of potential differences in these characteristics between high‐growth firms and other firms, this study compares Finnish firms in relation to founders' motives in starting up on their ow.
Tradable Services: Understanding the Scope and Impact of Services Outsourcing

We develop a new empirical approach to identify tradable service activities. Contrary to conventional views of service activities as nontradable, we find a significant number of service industries and occupations that appear tradable and substantial employment in these tradable activities. Workers employed in tradable service activities differ from those employed in tradable manufacturing and nontradable services. Workers in tradable service activities have higher skill levels and are paid higher wages than manufacturing workers or workers in nontradable service activities. In general, we find little evidence that tradable service activities have lower employment growth than other service activities. However, evidence suggests lower employment growth at the lowest end of the skill distribution. There is also evidence of higher worker displacement rates in tradable services. Workers displaced from tradable service activities are different from displaced manufacturing workers: Displaced tradable service workers have higher skills and higher predisplacement earnings than displaced manufacturing workers.
Comparison of tissue transglutaminase-specific antibody assays with established antibody measurements for coeliac disease.

Tissue transglutaminase C has recently been identified as one of the auto-antigens of endomysial antibodies found in coeliac disease. In this study we have cloned the human autoantigen and developed immunoassays measuring antibodies to transglutaminase in order to compare their diagnostic performance to that of established markers of the disease. A radiobinding assay using in vitro transcribed and translated 35S-methionine-labelled transglutaminase detected IgG antibodies in 110 and IgA antibodies in 109 of 112 patients at diagnosis of coeliac disease and in three and four of 92 control subjects, respectively. A radiobinding assay measuring both IgG and IgA transglutaminase antibodies identified 111 (99.1%) of the patients and 4 (4.3%) control subjects. Concordance of this assay with the IgA endomysial antibody test was found in 108 patients and 89 control subjects: two patients who had IgA deficiency and a third patient without IgA deficiency were only detected in the radiobinding assay; one patient had weak IgA endomysial antibodies only, and three of the control subjects with weak transglutaminase antibodies by radiobinding assay were undetectable in the IgA endomysial antibody assay. IgA and IgG ELISA using guinea pig transglutaminase and commercial ELISA measuring anti-gliadin antibodies had lower sensitivity and specificity than the radiobinding assays or the IgA endomysial antibody assay. This study confirms tissue transglutaminase C as a major autoantigen in coeliac disease and describes novel radiobinding assays for large scale testing to identify cases of coeliac disease.
Design and compliance of HBV vaccination trial on newborns to prevent hepatocellular carcinoma and 5-year results of its pilot study.

A large-scale, controlled study of universal immunization of newborns against HBV infection has been conducted in the high incidence area of hepatocellular carcinoma, Qidong County of China. This area has a stable population, standardized cancer registration system, and an epidemiological base for measurements of liver cancer prevention by vaccine. Randomization was done on the community level. The vaccination and the control group each will consist of 38,000 children by the end of 1990. It is anticipated that the design will provide high statistical power to detect 50% reduction in the prevalence rate of chronic hepatitis among the vaccinees vs. the controls at 6 to 10 years of age, and 50% reduction in the incidence rate of hepatocellular carcinoma at 35 to 40 years of age. The vaccine used is Hep-B Vax, donated by Merck and Co. through WHO. The vaccine was administered at 0, 1, and 6 months after birth, the dosage of 5 or 2.5 micrograms in the pilot study as used before 1985 and of 5 micrograms dose level during the main study starting from January 1, 1985. About 85% of the cohorts have now entered the protocol. The vaccination coverage during 1984 to 1989 was 98.0% (35,064/35,789). Follow-up of the vaccinees and the age-matched controls at 5 years has exceeded 97%. The cumulative mortality in the vaccinated group up to 1988 was 1.29% (354/27,450). No single death nor serious adverse reaction was found that was associated with vaccination. The use of HBV vaccine at a reduced dose was especially important for the developing countries at the present time in order to achieve widespread immunization. Five-year results of the pilot study of this vaccination project showed that significant protection against HBV infection was achieved with the 5 or 2.5 micrograms per dose regimen plus a booster of 5 micrograms given at 3.5 to 4 years of age. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Entrepreneurial orientation, social capital, and the internationalization of SMES: Evidence from China

This article combines arguments from entrepreneurship literature and social capital theory to examine the antecedents to the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from China. Our quantitative study of 117 Chinese SMEs demonstrates the overall importance of entrepreneurial orientation and social capital of entrepreneurs in facilitating their internationalization efforts, and also reveals that different dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation and different types of social capital exert different levels of independent influence on Chinese SMEs' internationalization. Complementary data from multiple case studies explains the variation between our quantitative findings and the findings of previous research. By highlighting the value of the entrepreneurial attributes of Chinese SMEs and the social capital embedded in their networks in the pursuit of their internationalization, the article adds to the scant literature on the internationalization behavior of the rapidly emerging Chinese SMEs. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Do New Major League Ballparks Pay for Themselves

In recent decades local governments have allocated billions of dollars to subsidizing construction of facilities for major league baseball. We use panel data that cover all major league baseball teams from 1989–2001 to estimate the impact of ballpark construction on team revenue. Our estimates imply that a typical new ballpark generates additional revenue sufficient to cover most or all of its capital cost. It follows that any external benefits of ballpark construction are likely to be inframarginal and that continuance of large public subsidies cannot be justified on economic grounds.
Intersectoral Labor Mobility and the Growth of the Service Sector

One of the most striking changes in the U.S. economy over the past 50 years has been the growth in the service sector. In 1950, 57 percent of workers were employed in the service sector, by 1970 that figure had risen to 63 percent and by 2000 to 75 percent. While service sector employment grew by 2.2 percent per year faster than employment in the goods sector between 1968 and 2000, the real hourly wage in the service sector grew only by 0.23 percent more per year over the same period. In this paper, we assess whether or not the essential constancy of the relative wage implies that individuals face small costs of switching sectors and quantify the relative importance of labor supply and demand factors in the growth of the service sector. We specify and estimate a two-sector growth model with idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks that allows us to address these empirical issues in a unified coherent framework. Our estimates imply that there are large mobility costs; output in both sectors would have been double their current levels if these mobility costs had been zero. In addition, we find that demand side factors, that is, technical change and movements in product and capital prices, were responsible for the growth of the service sector.
A Capital Asset Pricing Model with Time-Varying Covariances

The capital asset pricing model provides a theoretical structure for the pricing of assets with uncertain returns. The premium to induce risk-averse investors to bear risk is proportional to the nondiversifiable risk, which is measured by the covariance of the asset return with the market portfolio return. In this paper a multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic process is estimated for returns to bills, bonds, and stock where the expected return is proportional to the conditional convariance of each return with that of a fully diversified or market portfolio. It is found that the conditional covariances are quite variable over time and are a significant determinant of time-varying risk premia. The implied betas are also time-varying and forecastable. However, there is evidence that other variables including innovations in consumption should also be considered in the investor's information set when estimating the conditional distribution of returns.
The use of strategies in managing technological innovation

The objective of this paper is to understand innovators' pursuit of strategies in securing the benefits from an innovation. The study develops a methodological framework of platform for analysing three case study innovations – Windows‐operating system for PC, plain paper copier and video cassette recorder. This paper examines the process of innovators creating platform advantage (the capability to engender an increasing future and continuing success of new innovations or businesses) in order to understand why innovators pursue collaborative or competitive strategies in managing technological innovations. It is argued that collaboration is motivated by risk considerations as much as by a search for profit. The results indicate that the use of strategies (whether collaborative or competitive strategy) depends on how innovators see the benefits from using particular strategies to exploit the innovation.
Chromatin condensation modulates access and binding of nuclear proteins

The condensation level of chromatin is controlled by epigenetic modifications and associated regulatory factors and changes throughout differentiation and cell cycle progression. To test whether changes of chromatin condensation levels per se affect access and binding of proteins, we used a hypertonic cell treatment. This shift to hyperosmolar medium increased nuclear calcium concentrations and induced a reversible chromatin condensation comparable to the levels in mitosis. However, this condensation was independent of mitotic histone H3 serine 10 phosphorylation. Photobleaching and photoactivation experiments with chromatin proteins—histone H2B‐GFP and GFP‐HP1α—before and after induced chromatin condensation demonstrated that hypercondensation reduced their dissociation rate and stabilized their chromatin binding. Finally, measuring the distribution of nucleoplasmic proteins in the size range from 30 to 230 kDa, we found that even relatively small proteins like GFP were excluded from highly condensed chromatin in living cells. These results suggest that structural changes in condensed chromatin by themselves affect chromatin access and binding of chromatin proteins independent of regulatory histone modifications. —Martin, R. M. , Cardoso, M. C. Chromatin condensation modulates access and binding of nuclear proteins. FASEB J. 24, 1066–1072 (2010). www.fasebj. org
Trading Volume and Price Variability: Evidence on Lead-Lag Relations from Granger-Causality Tests

We test for Granger-causality between trading volume and price volatility. We modify the standard regression procedure in several ways. We take the first difference of the logarithmic transformation of each series to account for potential nonstationarity in the data. We isolate the time series structure of each series and test for causality using pre-whitened residuals to eliminate problems associated with autocorrelation in the data. Finally we test for causality in both mean and variance to account for the presence of time varying variance (ARCH) in both series. Our results provide strong evidence that price changes lead (cause) volume in the Granger-causality sense. There is no evidence that volume causes volatility.
Exchange Rate Pass-Through into Export and Import Prices: A Bounds Testing Analysis on the Case of Korea

This study empirically examines the nature of the exchange rate-pass through (ERPT) into export and import prices in the case of a small open economy of Korea by using a bounds testing approach. The estimation results obtained from the unrestricted error correction model (UECM) using data on Korea and its major trading partners, Japan and the U.S., provide new evidences showing that statistical significances in the degree of pass-through vary with respect to industries. The study also reveals that there is heterogeneity across sectors in their reaction to exchange rate as well as its asymmetry and persistence. The evidence indicate that the raw materials sector has a difference in the ERPT between the short and the long run effects, suggesting that the incomplete exchange rate pass-through seems to be persistent within the sector. In particular, the evidence for agriculture does support the hypothesis of asymmetric response to the ERPT in the long run. This result supports that of previous findings, but also provides more insight for the exchange rate theory and trade policy.
Serum thyrotropin levels and blood pressure response to exercise in a population-based study.

BACKGROUND Studies on the relation between thyroid function and exercise blood pressure (EBP) are rare and not population-based, and have yielded inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to investigate whether serum thyrotropin (TSH) levels are related to increased EBP. METHODS Cross-sectional data from 1438 subjects (711 women) aged 25-83 years without histories of cardiovascular diseases from the 5-year follow-up of the population-based Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP-1) were analyzed. Blood pressure was measured at the 100 W stage of a symptom-limited bicycle ergometry test. Increased EBP was defined as a value above the sex- and age-specific 80th percentile of participants with serum TSH levels within the reference range (0.25-2.12 mIU/L). RESULTS There was no association between serum TSH levels and EBP after adjusting for sex, age, waist circumference, diabetes mellitus, smoking status, and antihypertensive medication. The odds for increased systolic EBP (odds ratio 1.24, 95% confidence interval 0.88; 1.76) and diastolic EBP (odds ratios 0.98, 95% confidence interval 0.70; 1.39) as well as for exercise-induced increase of systolic and diastolic blood pressure were not significantly different between subjects with high and low serum TSH levels within the reference range. Similar findings were found for both subjects with TSH levels below and above the reference range, respectively. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that serum TSH levels are not associated with exercise-related blood pressure response.
Strategic Promotion and Release Decisions for Cultural Goods

We study how producers of cultural goods can strategically increase their promotion budgets to secure the most profitable release dates for their goods. In a game-theoretic setting, where two producers choose their budget before simultaneously setting the release date of their good, we prove that two equilibria are possible: releases are either simultaneous (at the demand peak) or staggered (one producer delays). In the latter equilibrium, the first-mover secures its position by investing more in promotion. We test this prediction on a dataset of more than 1500 American movies released in ten countries over 13 years. Our empirical analysis confirms that higher budgets allow movie studios to move release dates closer to demand peaks.
Intra Household Allocation of Consumption: a Model and some Evidence from French Data

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we reproduce upon French data previous tests of the so-called "income pooling" hypothesis, a consequence of traditional models of household behaviour according to which only total income -- and not income distribution across members -- should matter. We find that income pooling is rejected: for a given level of total income, the share of husband's and wife's own income significantly affects the structure of consumption. Our second purpose is more innovative. We construct a theoretical model of collective decision making, based upon the efficiency assumption of collective decision making. Both our setting and the traditional, household preference model can be nested within a family of functional forms. The collective model generates specific restrictions upon the parameters that can the tested. Those restrictions turn out not to be rejected by the data.