Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why the Move to Free Trade? Democracy and Trade Policy in the Developing Countries

Rising international trade flows are a primary component of globalization. The liberalization of trade policy in many developing countries has helped foster the growth of these flows. Preceding and concurrent with this move to free trade, there has been a global movement toward democracy. We argue that these two trends are related: democratization of the political system reduces the ability of governments to use trade barriers as a strategy for building political support. Political leaders in labor-rich countries may prefer lower trade barriers as democracy increases. Empirical evidence supports our claim about the developing countries from 1970–99. Regime change toward democracy is associated with trade liberalization, controlling for many factors. Conventional explanations of economic reform, such as economic crises and external pressures, seem less salient. Democratization may have fostered globalization in this period.We wish to thank the editors at International Organization, David Baldwin, Jim Fearon, Geoffrey Garrett, Barbara Geddes, Tim Groseclose, Robert Kaufmann, Robert Keohane, David Laitin, Jean Leca, Edward Mansfield, Jim Morrow, Ronald Rogowski, B. Peter Rosendorff, Alex Segura, Mike Tomz, Robert Trager, Romain Wacziarg, and Greg Wawro, for their very helpful comments on versions of this article. We also received helpful comments from seminar participants at the University of Michigan, Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Yale University, and the University of California at Berkeley. Ben Judkins, Robert Trager, Megumi Naoi, and Tom Kenyon provided invaluable research assistance. An earlier version was presented at the 2001 APSA meeting in San Francisco.
Risk Factors Associated with Campylobacter jejuni Infections in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles

ABSTRACT A steady increase in the incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) with a seasonal preponderance, almost exclusively related to Campylobacter jejuni, and a rise in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed Campylobacter enteritis have been reported from Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles. We therefore investigated possible risk factors associated with diarrhea due to epidemic C. jejuni. Typing by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis identified four epidemic clones which accounted for almost 60% of the infections. One hundred six cases were included in a case-control study. Infections with epidemic clones were more frequently observed in specific districts in Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao. One of these clones caused infections during the rainy season only and was associated with the presence of a deep well around the house. Two out of three GBS-related C. jejuni isolates belonged to an epidemic clone. The observations presented point toward water as a possible source of Campylobacter infections.
Systems Approach to a Theory of Rural‐Urban Migration

Few of the theoretical models provided thus far have considered migrations especially rural urban migration as a spatial process whose dynamics and spatial impact must form part of any comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. It is the main contention of this discussion that this can best be realized within the framework of general systems theory. This approach requires that a particular complex of variables be recognized as a system possessing certain properties which are common to many other systems. It has the fundamental advantage of providing a conceptual framework within which a whole range of questions relevant to an understanding of the structure and operation of other systems can be asked of the particular phenomenon under study. Emphasis is on a verbal analysis of the ways in which the system operates. A systems approach to rural urban migration is concerned with why people migrate and with all the implications and ramifications of the process. The approach is designed to answer such questions as: why and how does an essentially rural person become a permanent city resident; what changes does he/she undergo in the process; and what effects have these changes both on the rural area from which he/she comes and on the city to which the individual moves. The basic elements in the system of migration are shown in a figure which identifies first the potential migrant who is being encouraged to migrate by stimuli from the environment. Within the systems framework attention is focused not only on the migrant but also on the various institutions (subsystems) and the social economic and other relationships (adjustment mechanisms) which are an integral part of the process of the migrants transformation. The 2 most important subsystems are the rural and urban control subsystems. A system comprises not only matter (the migrant the institutions the various organizations) but also energy. In the physical sense energy is simply the capacity of a given body to do work. 2 forms of energy are relevant here: potential energy and kinetic energy. In a theory of rural urban migration potential energy can be likened to the stimuli acting on the rural individual to move. Once a person has been successfully dislodged from the rural area it can be assumed that he/she is translating potential energy into its kinetic form. The major issues concern not only the act of moving but also the cost distance and the direction of the movement. Rural urban migration is an open system involving not only an exchange of energy but also of matter (in this case persons) with the environment. 1 of the concomitants of the continued interaction between the system and its environment will be the phenomenon of growth in the system.
Behavioral Neuroscience

research has provided evidence for the role of executive functions, i.e. " higher " cogni-tive functions traditionally ascribed to the prefrontal cortex, in the We were thus especially interested in electrophysiological correlates of prefrontal control in the course of an aggressive encounter. A reliable method to induce aggressive behavior in a laboratory setting is the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP; Taylor, 1967), which is disguised as a reaction time competition and seeks to elicit aggression through provocation. Participants are instructed that they will be playing successive competitive reaction time trials against opponents sitting in an adjoining room. Whoever wins the trial is entitled to punish the loser with an electric shock. Aggressive behavior is quantifi ed as the intensity of the punishment set for the opponents. The paradigm is well established in social psychological research and there is good evidence for its convergent and discriminant validity (Bernstein et al., 1987; Giancola and Zeichner, 1995; Anderson et al., 1999a). As each trial comprises a decision phase during which participants select the prospective punishment for the opponent and an outcome phase during which the actual punishment is applied or received, the paradigm has been proven
Age‐stratified 5‐year risks of cervical precancer among women with enrollment and newly detected HPV infection

It is unclear whether a woman's age influences her risk of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3 or worse (CIN3+) upon detection of HPV. A large change in risk as women age would influence vaccination and screening policies. Among 972,029 women age 30–64 undergoing screening with Pap and HPV testing (Hybrid Capture 2, Qiagen, Germantown, MD) at Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), we calculated age‐specific 5‐year CIN3+ risks among women with HPV infections detected at enrollment, and among women with “newly detected” HPV infections at their second screening visit. Women (57,899, 6.0%) had an enrollment HPV infection. Among the women testing HPV negative at enrollment with a second screening visit, 16,724 (3.3%) had a newly detected HPV infection at their second visit. Both enrollment and newly detected HPV rates declined with age (p < 0.001). Women with enrollment versus newly detected HPV infection had higher 5‐year CIN3+ risks: 8.5% versus 3.9%, (p < 0.0001). Risks did not increase with age but declined slightly from 30–34 years to 60–64 years: 9.4% versus 7.4% (p = 0.017) for enrollment HPV and 5.1% versus 3.5% (p = 0.014) for newly detected HPV. Among women age 30–64 in an established screening program, women with newly detected HPV infections were at lower risk than women with enrollment infections, suggesting reduced benefit vaccinating women at older ages. Although the rates of HPV infection declined dramatically with age, the subsequent CIN3+ risks associated with HPV infection declined only slightly. The CIN3+ risks among older women are sufficiently elevated to warrant continued screening through age 65.
The Effects of Supervisor Work-Family Support on Indigenous Employees: A Study of Job and Health Outcomes

Support from work and non-work sources is highly important for employee well-being and job outcomes. However, few studies have explored social support from both domains. Furthermore, workplace studies on indigenous employees are severely under researched. Based on survey data from 260 Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) employees, we conducted analysis using structural equation modeling, to test supervisor work-family support (SWFS) and whānau (extended family) support towards well-being and job outcomes. Overall, findings show that SWFS and whānau support both predict job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion, while SWFS also directly predicts turnover intentions. In turn, job satisfaction significantly predicts all outcomes: our study shows that it mediates the influence of support on outcomes. Findings indicate that support from both work and home (extended family) is likely to be highly beneficial towards the broad range of job outcomes investigated for Māori employees, especially through enhancing job satisfaction.
Whole-Genome Pyrosequencing of an Epidemic Multidrug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Strain Belonging to the European Clone II Group

ABSTRACT The whole-genome sequence of an epidemic, multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii strain (strain ACICU) belonging to the European clone II group and carrying the plasmid-mediated blaOXA-58 carbapenem resistance gene was determined. The A. baumannii ACICU genome was compared with the genomes of A. baumannii ATCC 17978 and Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1, with the aim of identifying novel genes related to virulence and drug resistance. A. baumannii ACICU has a single chromosome of 3,904,116 bp (which is predicted to contain 3,758 genes) and two plasmids, pACICU1 and pACICU2, of 28,279 and 64,366 bp, respectively. Genome comparison showed 86.4% synteny with A. baumannii ATCC 17978 and 14.8% synteny with A. baylyi ADP1. A conspicuous number of transporters belonging to different superfamilies was predicted for A. baumannii ACICU. The relative number of transporters was much higher in ACICU than in ATCC 17978 and ADP1 (76.2, 57.2, and 62.5 transporters per Mb of genome, respectively). An antibiotic resistance island, AbaR2, was identified in ACICU and had plausibly evolved by reductive evolution from the AbaR1 island previously described in multiresistant strain A. baumannii AYE. Moreover, 36 putative alien islands (pAs) were detected in the ACICU genome; 24 of these had previously been described in the ATCC 17978 genome, 4 are proposed here for the first time and are present in both ATCC 17978 and ACICU, and 8 are unique to the ACICU genome. Fifteen of the pAs in the ACICU genome encode genes related to drug resistance, including membrane transporters and ex novo acquired resistance genes. These findings provide novel insight into the genetic basis of A. baumannii resistance.
A Constraint Programming Approach for Solving a Queueing Design and Control Problem

A facility with frontroom and backroom operations has the option of hiring specialized or cross-trained workers. Cross-trained workers can be switched between the two rooms depending on demand but are more expensive than specialized ones. Assuming stochastic customer arrival and service times, we seek a smallest-cost combination of cross-trained and specialized workers, together with a policy for switching the cross-trained workers between the rooms, which satisfies constraints on the expected customer waiting time and expected number of workers in the back room. A constraint programming approach using logic-based Benders' decomposition is presented. Experimental results demonstrate the strong performance of this approach across a wide variety of problem parameters. This paper provides one of the first links between queueing optimization problems and constraint programming.
Essays: On Entrepreneurs, Innovations, Business Cycles and the Evolution of Capitalism

Ordinarily, the word "essays "is invoked at great risk by authors and publishers alike. But in the case of this special collection by Joseph A. Schumpeter, the great Austrian economist who finally settled at Harvard, the scholarly world knows this particular volume as his "Essays. "For a less pious younger generation, a subtitle has been added describing what these essays are about. In addition to the major themes of Schumpeter's life: the place of the entrepreneur in economic development, the risks and rewards of innovation, business cycles and why they occur, and the evolution of capitalism in Europe and America, the "Essays "contain statements on how Schumpeter viewed his own development; they discuss how he looked at Marxism, and how he feared that economics was in danger of becoming too ideological. Several of the "Essays "are classics. This is the case for "The Creative Response in Economic History" in which Schumpeter makes a plea for the close cooperation between economic theory and economic history. Another is "Science and Ideology," which constitutes Schumpeter's presidential address before the American Economic Association. Finally, there is the intriguing preface to the Japanese translation of "Theory of Economic Development, "in which Schumpeter names Walras and Marx as his two great predecessors. Even those who treasure the original publication were irritated by the remarkably poor quality of much of the book, which reproduced everything from typewriter script to nearly unreadable, reduced double columns. These lapses have been corrected in this new edition. Here Schumpeter's "Essays "can finally be read with the enjoyment, no lesS than enlightenment, they deserve. The volume is alive to the basic issues of our time. The reader can look forward to intellectual insight and stimuli of the highest order.
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF BICARBONATE SECRETION BY PANCREATIC DUCT EPITHELIUM

ABSTRACT HCO3–-rich fluid in the pancreatic juice (2~3 L/day) is secreted by epithelial cells lining the pancreatic duct tree, while digestive enzymes are secreted by acinar cells with a small amount of Cl–-rich fluid. Ductal HCO3– secretion is not only regulated by gastrointestinal hormones and cholinergic nerves but is also influenced by luminal factors: intraductal pressure, Ca2+ concentration, pathological activation of protease and bile reflux. The maximum HCO3– concentration of the juice under secretin stimulation reaches 140–150 mM. Thus pancreatic duct cells secrete HCO3– against a ~7-fold concentration gradient. HCO3– secretion critically depends on the activity of CFTR, a cAMP-dependent anion channel localized in the apical membrane of various epithelia. In the proximal part of pancreatic ducts close to acinar cells HCO3– secretion across the apical membrane is largely mediated by SLC26A6 Cl–-HCO3– exchanger. In distal ducts where the luminal HCO3– concentration is already high, most of the HCO3– secretion is mediated by HCO3– conductance of CFTR. CFTR is the causative gene for cystic fibrosis. Loss of function due to severe mutations in both alleles causes typical cystic fibrosis characterized by dehydrated, thick, and viscous luminal fluid/mucus in the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract, pancreatic duct, and vas deferens. A compound heterozygote of mutations/polymorphisms (causing a mild dysfunction of CFTR) involves a risk of developing CFTR-related diseases such as chronic pancreatitis. In cystic fibrosis and certain cases of chronic pancreatitis, the pancreatic duct epithelium secretes a small amount of fluid with neutral~acidic pH, which causes an obstruction of the duct lumen by a protein plug or viscous mucus.
Localization of early syntactic processes in frontal and temporal cortical areas: A magnetoencephalographic study

Previous electrophysiological studies had found an early anterior negativity often with a maximum over the left hemisphere to correlate with the early detection of an error in the syntactic structure of a sentence. In this paper, the cortical structures involved in such early syntactic parsing processes were localized using MEG. Subjects were presented with acoustic sentences and asked to judge their syntactic correctness. The subjects' brain responses to syntactic violations were recorded with a 148‐channel whole‐head magnetometer. Dipole source localization was performed using a realistically shaped standard volume conductor model with fMRI constraints. The results show that the early syntactic parsing processes are supported by temporal regions, possibly the planum polare, as well as by fronto‐lateral regions. As indicated by the resultant dipole strengths, these regions are activated bilaterally with a dominance in the left hemisphere for four out of the five subjects. The contribution of the left temporal regions to the early syntactic processes seems to be larger than that of the left fronto‐lateral regions. Hum. Brain Mapping 11:1–11, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Skewness of Fuzzy Numbers and Its Applications in Portfolio Selection

A fuzzy number is a normal and convex fuzzy subset of the real line. In this paper, based on membership function, we redefine the concepts of mean and variance for fuzzy numbers. Furthermore, we propose the concept of skewness and prove some desirable properties. A fuzzy mean-variance-skewness portfolio selection model is formulated and two variations are given, which are transformed to nonlinear optimization models with polynomial objective and constraint functions such that they can be solved analytically. Finally, we present some numerical examples to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed models.
Influence of the Number and Location of Recording Contacts on the Selectivity of a Nerve Cuff Electrode

A 56-contact matrix nerve cuff electrode (seven rings with eight contacts each) was used to obtain recordings from the rat sciatic nerve, which were then discriminated as originating from one of three fascicles (tibial, peroneal, and sural branches). The influence of the number and location of the recording contacts on the classification accuracy was studied. The performance of a classifier was shown to be superior when data was available from all 56 contacts, compared to when only the eight contacts of the middle ring were used (as in previously proposed multicontact tripolar cuff designs). By examining the performance variations as contacts were included one at a time (in order of decreasing positive impact on performance), it was further shown that the matrix configuration could outperform the single-ring configuration with only a small number of contacts. We can therefore conclude that the performance improvement is not due to the sheer number of contacts, but rather to the possibility of selecting the most informative locations around the nerve. The results could have important implications for the design and use of multicontact nerve cuff electrodes.
Putting risk‐risk tradeoffs in perspective: a response to Graham and Wiener

Graham and Wiener’s commentary falls short in responding to our argument that concerns about risk tradeoffs are not a sufficient rationale for arguing against application of the precautionary principle (PP). In fact, we were disappointed by both the tone and subtle misrepresentations of our arguments present in their article. We therefore thank the Editor for a chance to respond. Many of Graham and Wiener’s arguments misrepresent facts, run counter to each other, or are based on either a misreading of the scientific literature or poor scientific data. We present many examples of these flaws in our response but it is instructive to highlight two critical ones from the outset. In one sentence, Graham and Wiener state that our ‘methodology’ is biased (we clearly highlighted the limits of our analysis); that ‘it is not necessarily representative of the larger universe of risk-risk tradeoffs’; that our results are of no import for generalizing about that universe. Yet, they conclude that ‘Meanwhile, if HKT’s method were generalizable, and if they find that even 9 out of 33 cases posed countervailing risks ‘‘equally or more problematic than the original risk’’, that would still be a highly significant fraction – implying that some 27% of all regulatory policies induce a net increase in risk’. There are two fundamental errors here: (1) to attempt to apply percentages to instructive and varying cases to make their point; and (2) to make such broad unsubstantiated generalizations about regulatory policies when many of the cases we examined did not involve regulatory policies. We noted in our analysis that there will always be debate over particular cases, as do Graham and Wiener. The cases were meant to engage scientific and policy dialog about the broad issue of risk tradeoffs and how more cautious decisions can be made while paying attention to this area of concern. Still, Graham and Wiener use much of their commentary to argue over specific cases, claiming that we have misinterpreted the scientific evidence, while using such ‘scientific’ citations such as the New York Times and various court cases. Our analysis was based on reviewing the primary scientific literature and other secondary sources on each case, not news or court accounts of the science. While our goal was not to debate the individual details of each case but rather develop general lessons from the whole of them (much like the European Environment Agency’s ‘Late Lessons from Early Warnings’ report has done (Harremoës et al. 2001)), we would expect the same level of scientific assessment from Graham and Wiener if they wish to debate the scientific rationale behind our analyses.
Non-responders to treatment with antagonists of vascular endothelial growth factor in age-related macular degeneration

Purpose Most of the publications on modern therapy of neovascular age-related macular degeneration focus on the effect of the treatment. The purpose of this study is to determine the frequency of non-responders to anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) treatment and find possible reasons for their failure to respond. Methods The records of patients treated until the end of 2008 the first time with either bevacizumab or ranibizumab were reviewed. Based on the availability of measurable results and according to prior publications showing the effect of the therapy, loss of three lines of distance acuity, increase of retinal thickness or lesion size were identified as indicators of non-responders. Two of these three signs had to be present. Results 334 eyes of 283 patients were included; 74.55% received bevacizumab and 25.45% received ranibizumab. Overall 14.37% of the eyes were identified as non-responders (14.06% in the bevacizumab group and 15.29% in the ranibizumab group). Baseline distance acuity and vitreo-retinal adhesions were significantly correlated with non-responders. Correlations with age, gender, lesion type, other morphologic features, and the kind of anti-VEGF agent failed to be significant. 10.4% of the non-responders showed a delayed but good response to anti-VEGF treatment. Conclusions About 15% did not sufficiently respond to anti-VEGF treatment. Vitreo-retinal adherences were the only ophthalmologic factor which could be identified to be significantly correlated with insufficient response.