Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Successful Few: Healthy Downtowns of Small Metropolitan Regions

Abstract In the face of increasing suburbanization during the past half century, most downtowns have experienced decline, particularly those of small metropolitan regions. A survey of planners (both practitioners and academics) and other urban professionals has sought to identify small metropolitan regions considered to have successful downtowns and the factors associated with this success. Only a small number of such North American metropolitan regions were perceived as possessing a very successful or successful downtown. Factors that characterize such success are described. We conclude that revitalization policies should concentrate on niche markets that show little interest in homogenized suburban activities. More specifically, planners should focus on the retention and enhancement of the distinct physical characteristics that clearly distinguish downtowns from suburban environments. More and more U.S. cities and towns are coming to realize the benefits of greater street connectivity: reduced traffic on arterial streets, more continuous and direct routes, better emergency vehicle access, and improved utility connections. Here is an excellent overview of recent efforts by communities across the U.S. to increase street connectivity. The authors look at the motivation behind such efforts, the wide variety of issues raised, and the different approaches taken to resolve them. Planners, decision makers, and neighborhood residents will gain a better understanding of the concept of connectivity and how it applies in their own communities. Ideally, the jobs available in a community should match the labor force skills, and housing should be J. available at prices, sizes, and locations suited to the workers who wish to live in the area. Some argue that the market is the mechanism that will achieve a balance between jobs and housing. Jerry Weitz researched several types of jobs-housing imbalance and concluded that, in fact, the market failed to achieve such balance in three out of four scenarios. Weitz explains the details of jobs-housing balance– a planning tool that local governments can use to achieve a roughly equal number of jobs and housing units or households, resulting in overall community improvements.
Characterization of Divergence in Impaired Speech of ALS Patients

Approximately 80% to 95% of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) eventually develop speech impairments, such as defective articulation, slow laborious speech and hypernasality. The relationship between impaired speech and asymptomatic speech may be seen as a divergence from a baseline. This relationship can be characterized in terms of measurable combinations of phonological characteristics that are indicative of the degree to which the two diverge. We demonstrate that divergence measurements based on phonological characteristics of speech correlate with physiological assessments of ALS. Speech-based assessments offer benefits over commonly-used physiological assessments in that they are inexpensive, non-intrusive, and do not require trained clinical personnel for administering and interpreting the results.
Platelet Anti-Aggregating Activity and Tolerance of Clopidogrel in Atherosclerotic Patients

Summary The anti-aggregating activity of five rising doses of clopidogrel has been compared to that of ticlopidine in atherosclerotic patients. The aim of this study was to determine the dose of clopidogrel which should be tested in a large scale clinical trial of secondary prevention of ischemic events in patients suffering from vascular manifestations of atherosclerosis [CAPRIE (Clopidogrel vs Aspirin in Patients at Risk of Ischemic Events) trial]. A multicenter study involving 9 haematological laboratories and 29 clinical centers was set up. One hundred and fifty ambulatory patients were randomized into one of the seven following groups: clopidogrel at doses of 10, 25, 50,75 or 100 mg OD, ticlopidine 250 mg BID or placebo. ADP and collagen-induced platelet aggregation tests were performed before starting treatment and after 7 and 28 days. Bleeding time was performed on days 0 and 28. Patients were seen on days 0, 7 and 28 to check the clinical and biological tolerability of the treatment. Clopidogrel exerted a dose-related inhibition of ADP-induced platelet aggregation and bleeding time prolongation. In the presence of ADP (5 \lM) this inhibition ranged between 29% and 44% in comparison to pretreatment values. The bleeding times were prolonged by 1.5 to 1.7 times. These effects were non significantly different from those produced by ticlopidine. The clinical tolerability was good or fair in 97.5% of the patients. No haematological adverse events were recorded. These results allowed the selection of 75 mg once a day to evaluate and compare the antithrombotic activity of clopidogrel to that of aspirin in the CAPRIE trial.
Housing hardship and energy insecurity among native-born and immigrant low-income families with children in the United States

ABSTRACT The costs for rent and utilities account for the largest share of living expenses, yet these two critical dimensions of material hardship have seldom been examined concurrently in population-based studies. This paper employs multivariate statistical analysis using American Community Survey data to demonstrate the relative risk ratio of low-income renter-occupied households with children experiencing ‘rent burden', ‘energy insecurity', or a ‘double burden’ as opposed to no burden. Findings suggest that low-income households are more likely to experience these economic hardships in general but that specific groups are disproportionately burdened in different ways. For instance, whereas immigrants are more likely to experience rental burden, they are less likely to experience energy insecurity and are also spared from the double burden. In contrast, native-born African Americans are more likely than all other groups to experience the double burden. These results may be driven by the housing stock available to certain groups due to racial residential segregation, decisions regarding the quality of housing low-income householders are able to afford, as well as home-country values, such as modest living and energy conservation practices, among immigrant families. This paper also points to important policy gaps in safety net benefits related to housing and energy targeting low-income households.
The Effect of Utilization Management on the Treatment of Schizophrenic Inpatients

‡ To whom requests for reprints should be addressed at Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Dealy Hall, 441 E. Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458-5198. The impetus behind managed health care is cost containment without a loss of quality. Health care costs have far outpaced the growth of the overall economy and now exceed 14% of the gross national product (1). Mental health services, including treatment for chemical dependency, have seen cost increases of as much as 20-30% per year and make up the fastest growing segment of health care expenditures (2-4). Utilization management is designed to control health care costs by influencing treatment decision making on a case-bycase basis (5, 6) through coordination of care, flexible allocation of treatment and financial resources, and encouragement of less restrictive treatment settings (7). Although managed mental health care may reduce utilization and decrease costs (8), the &dquo;appropriateness, adequacy, or effectiveness of the care patients receive&dquo; has not been analyzed (6). Concerns regarding adequacy and effectiveness of managed care are most relevant for the severely and chronically mentally ill patients, who account for the majority of mental health expenditures and whose treatment will become intensively monitored and perhaps most negatively impacted by these efforts (6, 9, 10). For example, arbitrary limits
Attitudes to Work of Generation Y Students in Hospitality Management: A Comparative Analysis of Students in the United States and the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT Students currently in college are predominantly from “Generation Y” (GEN Y), born between 1975 and 1995. As GEN Y members enter the work force in large numbers, it is imperative that employers gain deeper insights into their mindset, particularly their attitudes towards work. This study addresses the issue by studying the attitudes to work of college students in hospitality management in two countries, the United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK). Work attitude is recognized as a multidimensional construct. The study found GEN Y students in both the USA and the UK to be largely positive in their attitudes to work and to exhibit relatively low levels of cynicism about work and promotion. Furthermore, the study found that with increasing age and work experience, students' positive work attitude was enhanced, while their negative attitudes were ameliorated.
Predicting market instability: New dynamics between volume and volatility

Econophysics and econometrics agree that there is a correlation between volume and volatility in a time series. Using empirical data and their distributions, we further investigate this correlation and discover new ways that volatility and volume interact, particularly when the levels of both are high. We find that the distribution of the volume-conditional volatility is well fit by a power-law function with an exponential cutoff. We find that the volume-conditional volatility distribution scales with volume, and collapses these distributions to a single curve. We exploit the characteristics of the volume-volatility scatter plot to find a strong correlation between logarithmic volume and a quantity we define as local maximum volatility (LMV), which indicates the largest volatility observed in a given range of trading volumes. This finding supports our empirical analysis showing that volume is an excellent predictor of the maximum value of volatility for both same-day and near-future time periods. We also use a joint conditional probability that includes both volatility and volume to demonstrate that invoking both allows us to better predict the largest next-day volatility than invoking either one alone.
Barking up the Wrong Tree? Measuring Gender Gaps in Firm’s Access to Finance

Abstract The literature on gender-based discrimination in credit markets is recently expanding, but the results are not yet definitive and have not been generally agreed upon. This paper exploits a new dataset on Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, which provides detailed information about female ownership and management in firms for investigating the existence of a gender gap in access to finance. The evidence presented herein suggests that more precise measures of the gender composition of the firm show that women-led businesses are more likely to be financially constrained than other comparable firms.
Dissociation between delayed-type hypersensitivity and resistance to pathogenic mycobacteria demonstrated by T-cell clones

One Lyt-2+ clone and fourteen T-helper clones (Lyt-1+ L3T4+ Lyt-2-) were isolated from Mycobacterium lepraemurium-infected BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. All the clones were tested for their ability to transfer delayed-type hypersensitivity adoptively, and six clones were tested for their ability to transfer resistance. It was found that four L3T4+ clones that transferred delayed-type hypersensitivity responses locally and one L3T4+ clone that did not had no effect on resistance. The Lyt-2+ clone transferred increased resistance locally (77% reduction in the numbers of organisms recovered from the infection site) but did not transfer delayed footpad responses.
Demand Control: The Case for Demarketing as a Visitor and Environmental Management Tool

Little has been written in tourism on what happens once sustainable limits have been set and met. This paper introduces 'demarketing' as a policy option and management tool, outlining the literature in this field. First coined by Kotler in the early 1970s, it was presented as an aspect of the marketing mix. Demarketing has been applied successfully (if somewhat controversially) in the health sector as a means for reducing smoking and inappropriate health careconsumption. However, the strategy itself can be taken beyond health and marketing and applied to tourist management and planning. The implications for the tourism industry are enormous, providing fresh ways to consider the management of mass tourism and the environment and culture on which it relies. While aspects of demarketing have been used unconsciously in tourism operations such as man-made attractions and national park management systems, this paper looks at demarketing's potential as a conscious policy tool within the built and natural environmental management spheres, specifically in relation to visitor management and tourism. Studies of the planning and management of selected tourism environments in Australia and North America demonstrate the potential of demarketing as a management tool.
Adoption of agricultural land management technologies by smallholder farmers in the Jos Plateau, Nigeria

Against a background of growing concern about the adverse effects of agricultural land degradation due to accelerated soil erosion, nutrient depletion and high population pressure, farmers in the Jos Plateau, Nigeria have adopted biological and structural land management practices, though the degree of adoption of such practices varies from one farm household to another. This study, based on a survey of 150 farm households, employed a stepwise multiple linear regression model to analyse the factors significantly influencing the adoption of land management technologies. The results of the analysis revealed four variables, namely, extension service, agricultural labour force, accelerated soil erosion and out-migration, explaining nearly 90% of the variation in the range of land management technologies adopted. The first three of these variables have positive influences on adoption. Extension service appeared to be the strongest, impacting on skills in the agricultural labour force. Policy recommendations are made in line with the findings of the analysis.
International Productivity Comparisons Built from the Firm Level

International productivity comparisons can be built up with micro and macro data. Studies of firms or groups of firms producing similar outputs reveal the deeper causes of differences in productivity across countries. The studies find that such differences often depend on patterns of organization within firms, the motivations of managers and the like. The intensity of domestic and international competition can have a large impact on productivity. The case of retailing illustrates the importance of industry evolution. High productivity retailing formats drive out traditional retailers, unless restrained by land-use restrictions or regulations.
A strategy for communicating about uncertainty

Executive Overview Executives can communicate about anything, but they cannot communicate about everything. Consequently, either explicitly or implicitly, they make communicative choices, which, in turn, become the organization's communication strategy. These choices are all the more important in times of great organizational uncertainty wrought by increased global competition, quicker cycle times, and the ever-changing marketplace. What are the communication strategies available to executives? How should they be made? Which ones increase organizational effectiveness? These are the core questions discussed in this article. We conclude with a case study demonstrating the benefits of systematically developing a communication strategy to address organizational uncertainty.
Why are some corporate earnings restatements more damaging?

If an earnings restatement is simply an accounting adjustment to old information that is no longer being used for valuation purposes, it will not necessarily cause a change in a firm's value. However, the restatement may contain information that is used to reassess the future cash flows and credibility of the firm. It is found that the earnings restatements elicit a strong negative market response. Moreover, the market response is conditioned on the content of the earnings restatements. The market-imposed penalty is more severe when the restatement is attributed to an adjustment in revenue, when it is forced by the auditor or the SEC, and when the revised earnings level is lower than two proxies used to measure expected earnings.
The DJIA Crossed 652,230

The DJIA, like most indexes, is a capital index. It excludes dividends. The DJIA was initiated in 1896 at 40.94 and reached 9,181.43 by the end of 1998. The authors show that a wealth DJIA, an index that accounts for reinvestment of dividends, would have reached 652,230.87 by the end of 1998. Adjusted for inflation, the wealth DJIA would have reached 31,469.30.
Multinationality, R&D Intensity, and Firm Performance: Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing Firms

We examine whether firms’ multinationality leads to better performance and what the role of R&D investment is in the multinationality performance linkage. Unlike the previous studies, we employ both accounting‐ and market‐based measures of firm performance for a large sample of U.S. manufacturing firms. Our results show that the empirical relation between multinationality and performance is not monotonic but varies with the phase of a firm’s multinationality, starting with a negative relation initially, followed by a positive one, and then again a negative one. This horizontal S‐shaped curvilinear relation of multinationality is more pronounced for the market‐based performance measure and is supportive of the three‐stage theory of internationalization. We also find that a firm’s multinationality is related to greater firm performance when the firm possesses R&D investment, and that the effect of R&D increases with the extent of a firm’s multinationality. These results lend strong support for the Internalization theory and the resource‐based view of firms’ international expansion. Our results are robust to different model specifications with an alternative measure of multinationality.
With the ballot and the brick

South Africa's March 2006 local government elections in many ways assumed the character of a de facto referendum on service delivery. Leading into this election were two years of grass-roots protests against both the quality of service delivery and public representation of the grass-roots' service delivery needs. Contrary to public expectations that the protests were signals of a systematic revolt against the ruling African National Congress (ANC), surveys in the run-up to the election indicated that protest and voting were rated equally as mechanisms to attain improved levels of service delivery. The analysis explores these survey findings and the local government election results. The election results confirmed the initial survey indications, showing that turnout was maintained and support for the ANC increased. The grass roots were involved in a multifaceted series of direct engagements with their party to simultaneously keep it in power but also pressure it for advances in service delivery.
Fast Edge-Preserved Postprocessing for Compressed Images

Images are often coded using block-based discrete cosine transform (DCT), where blocking and ringing artifacts are the most common visual distortion. In this letter, a fast algorithm is proposed to alleviate the said artifacts in the DCT domain. The new concept is to decompose a row or column image vector to a gradually changed signal and a fast variational signal, which correspond to low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) DCT subbands, respectively. Blocking artifacts between adjacent LF blocks are suppressed by smoothing LF components and discarding invalid HF ones, and ringing artifacts inside HF vectors are reduced by a simplified bilateral filter. With such a process, edges are preserved while blockiness and ringing are alleviated. Analytic and experimental results confirm the robustness and computational efficiency of the proposed method
[Profile of patients with anophthalmic cavity: study at Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu - UNESP].

PURPOSE To evaluate the profile of anophthalmic cavity carriers and patients' evolution with the employed treatments. METHODS Retrospective study carried out at Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, to evaluate the profile and the evolution of patients with anophthalmic cavity treated in our service. Data were evaluated according to the frequency of occurrence and analysis of association. RESULTS Anophthalmic cavity was more frequently observed in young males, workers in activities carried on with their hands. Trauma and phthisis bulbi were the most frequent causes, with differences according to age and gender. The complications were high (57.1% of cases), the majority occurred belatedly. CONCLUSIONS Trauma is still an important cause of loss of the eye. The complications during the follow-up of the patient are frequent, occurring in general, very late, which reinforces the need for periodic and prolonged monitoring of patients with anophthalmic cavity.
International orientation, marketing mix, and the performance of international German ‘mittelstand’ companies

This article presents an empirical study of the impact of international orientation and marketing mix on the performance of the German 'mittelstand' that operate internationally. The article discusses and compares three different concepts of international orientation. As international orientation has an important influence on contacts with customers, the study examines the relationship between international orientation and marketing, and its effects on performance. The study tests this relationship for 259 internationally operating small and medium-sized businesses based in Germany. The results show that the companies in the study are predominantly geocentrically-oriented, and that a company's coordination of its international orientation and marketing mix has a substantial impact on company performance.
Response of retinal vessels and retrobulbar hemodynamics to intravitreal anti-VEGF treatment in eyes with branch retinal vein occlusion.

PURPOSE To investigate whether intravitreal ranibizumab (0.05 mL) treatment affects retinal vessel diameters and retrobulbar blood velocities in patients with acute branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO). METHODS Thirty patients with clinically significant macular edema secondary to BRVO were included. The duration of the study was three months. Patients were studied before and one week, one month, two months, and three months after the first ranibizumab injection. Depending on the clinical requirements, up to three ranibizumab injections were administered. Retinal vessel diameters were measured using a retinal vessel analyzer. Flow velocities in the retrobulbar central retinal artery were measured using color doppler imaging. Best-corrected visual acuity was assessed using ETDRS charts. Measurements were done in the affected as well as in the contralateral eye. RESULTS Three patients were lost for follow up. In the remaining 27 patients, significant vasoconstriction was observed in retinal veins (P < 0.001 versus baseline) and in retinal arteries (P = 0.001 versus baseline) of the affected eyes. In addition, a significant reduction in flow velocities was observed in the BRVO eyes over time (peak systolic velocity: P = 0.003, end diastolic velocity: P = 0.003). The reduction in retinal vessel diameters and flow velocities did not correlate with changes in visual acuity or number of re-treatments. In the contralateral eyes no change in retinal blood flow parameters was seen. CONCLUSIONS BRVO is an ischemic retinal disease. Given that ranibizumab treatment reduces retinal perfusion in these eyes the potential long-term effects of this vasoconstriction need to be considered.