Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Sutton's Predictions Robust?: Empirical Insights into Advertising, R&D, and Concentration

John Sutton's (1991) widely acclaimed book on sunk costs and market structure contains several robust predictions. The authors' empirical results across exogenous and endogenous sunk cost markets support most of Sutton's robust predictions. Exogenous sunk cost markets have lower minimum values of concentration than endogenous sunk cost markets. Increasing market size reduces concentration's lower bound faster in exogenous sunk cost markets. These results indicate that the competitive escalation of endogenous sunk cost spending, from advertising or R&D, makes market entry more difficult. Other results indicate that, in relatively large markets, the competitive escalation of endogenous sunk cost spending blockades market entry. Copyright 1996 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Prime-Age Adult Morbidity and Mortality in Rural Rwanda: Effects on Household Income, Agricultural Production, and Food Security Strategies

The primary objective of this study is to understand specific effects felt by the households when a member is ill or dies, and the strategies that the households develop to deal with the shocks and stress, particularly for their agricultural production. The present report will present basic descriptive information and tabular analysis conducted. A follow up report will focus on more complex analysis of the basic information, as well as more complete integration of all the data available on the sample households.
The Many Ways to Be Marginal in a Group

Previous theory and research primarily address marginal group members on the path to achieve core membership status. The authors argue that these only represent one form of marginality and that there are many other ways to be marginal within the group. The authors develop a dynamic model in which marginality is conceptualized as resulting from group and individual negotiation about inclusion (the Marginality as Resulting From Group and Individual Negotiation About Inclusion [MARGINI] model), and where individual and group inclusion goals can converge (resulting in relatively stable forms of marginality) or diverge (resulting in less stable forms of marginality). When the marginal position is unstable, individuals can either be motivated to move toward or move further away from the group, and such changing inclusion goals are associated with different emotions and behaviors. The authors argue that one needs to understand the interplay between individual and group inclusion goals to predict and explain the full complexity and diversity of the behavior of marginal group members.
Punishing Poverty: The Scaled Approach and Youth Justice Practice

The scaled approach, which provides the framework for determining levels of intervention for children in conflict with the law in England and Wales, might be seen as a logical culmination of the penetration of youth justice by a risk-averse policy and practice. This article questions the extent to which the model is compliant with children's human rights and argues that constructing intervention through the lens of risk is likely to be incompatible with the effective engagement of children in trouble.
Quality-Aware Streaming in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

In this paper, dynamic resource management is investigated for serving on-demand video streaming users in heterogeneous wireless networks (HWNs) with time varying channel conditions. The HWN is equipped with multi-homing capability, simultaneously connecting to different wireless interfaces. In order to take advantage of the time varying nature of wireless channels, we utilize the joint quality selection associated with quality adjustment at application layer and resource allocation associated with power allocation, subcarrier assignment, and time fraction determination at physical layer to perform the dynamic resource management. By using Lyapunov optimization technique, we develop a quality-aware streaming (QAS) algorithm to maximize the network utility, which is the difference of time-averaged users’ perceived video quality and time-averaged HWN’s transmit power. Simulation results exhibit that the proposed QAS algorithm can significantly improve network utility compared with the state-of-art baselines, which are not specific for on-demand video streaming.
The Response of Small and Medium-Size Business Customers to Time-of-Use (TOU) Electricity Rates in Israel

This paper reports on the methodology, data, and results of the Israeli Time-of-Use (TOU) electricity pricing experiment in the industrial/commercial sector. We concentrate on the estimation of the demand functions for electricity under TOU, and the net welfare gains which result from applying TOU rates to small and medium-size business customers in Israel. This experiment, which was preceded by a 15-month load research study to allow an optimal sample design, was concluded in June 1992. The analysis yielded four major conclusions: (1) The estimated gains of small and medium-size customers in Israel from TOU rates are sufficient to justify investment in TOU metering technology. (2) There have been small, but noticeable, shifts of electricity from the peak to the mid-peak (if relevant) and to the off-peak periods during all seasons of the year, and particularly during the winter. (3) The structure and number of labour shifts during the day, and weather, are important factors in determining the response of business customers to the TOU rates. (4) Price elasticities vary substantially over the seasons and across SIC groups; they do not vary with customer size.
Framing lobbying messages: defining and communicating political issues persuasively

The concept of product positioning is well established in the commercial communication sphere, as are the notions of issue definition and agenda setting in the field of political science. Less thoroughly researched, though, is an area which intersects these two fields—the way in which lobbyists use language in order to frame policy issues so as to position their organization and its policy preferences to greatest effect. Lobbyists consciously frame and define issues in an effort to encourage policy makers both to share the lobbyist's perspective on a given policy problem, and to suggest to those policy makers what policy solution ought to be adopted. In doing so, they explicitly draw upon ideas and practices more commonly associated with other forms of commercial communication such as advertising and marketing. This paper suggests that the use of language by lobbyists is a potentially fruitful field for both academics and practitioners interested in political communication broadly defined—indeed, lobbying is essentially a form of persuasive communication in the political arena. It is well understood that how political issues are presented is an important factor in the extent to which an issue will be supported; this paper focuses on how lobbyists make use of this understanding in their efforts to achieve a desired policy outcome. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Are risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome different at night?

Aims: To determine whether the risk factors for SIDS occurring at night were different from those occurring during the day. Methods: Large, nationwide case-control study, with data for 369 cases and 1558 controls in New Zealand. Results: Two thirds of SIDS deaths occurred at night (between 10 pm and 7 30 am). The odds ratio (95% CI) for prone sleep position was 3.86 (2.67 to 5.59) for deaths occurring at night and 7.25 (4.52 to 11.63) for deaths occurring during the day; the difference was significant. The odds ratio for maternal smoking for deaths occurring at night was 2.28 (1.52 to 3.42) and that for the day 1.27 (0.79 to 2.03); that for the mother being single was 2.69 (1.29 to 3.99) for a night time death and 1.25 (0.76 to 2.04) for a daytime death. Both interactions were significant. The interactions between time of death and bed sharing, not sleeping in a cot or bassinet, Maori ethnicity, late timing of antenatal care, binge drinking, cannabis use, and illness in the baby were also significant, or almost so. All were more strongly associated with SIDS occurring at night. Conclusions: Prone sleep position was more strongly associated with SIDS occurring during the day, whereas night time deaths were more strongly associated with maternal smoking and measures of social deprivation.
Ultrafast Delamination of Graphite into High-Quality Graphene Using Alternating Currents.

To bridge the gap between laboratory-scale studies and commercial applications, mass production of high quality graphene is essential. A scalable exfoliation strategy towards the production of graphene sheets is presented that has excellent yield (ca. 75 %, 1-3 layers), low defect density (a C/O ratio of 21.2), great solution-processability, and outstanding electronic properties (a hole mobility of 430 cm2 V-1 s-1 ). By applying alternating currents, dual exfoliation at both graphite electrodes enables a high production rate exceeding 20 g h-1 in laboratory tests. As a cathode material for lithium storage, graphene-wrapped LiFePO4 particles deliver a high capacity of 167 mAh g-1 at 1 C rate after 500 cycles.
A membrane‐embedded glutamate is required for ligand binding to the multidrug transporter EmrE

EmrE is an Escherichia coli multidrug transporter that confers resistance to a variety of toxins by removing them in exchange for hydrogen ions. The detergent‐solubilized protein binds tetraphenylphosphonium (TPP+) with a KD of 10 nM. One mole of ligand is bound per ∼3 mol of EmrE, suggesting that there is one binding site per trimer. The steep pH dependence of binding suggests that one or more residues, with an apparent pK of ∼7.5, release protons prior to ligand binding. A conservative Asp replacement (E14D) at position 14 of the only membrane‐embedded charged residue shows little transport activity, but binds TPP+ at levels similar to those of the wild‐type protein. The apparent pK of the Asp shifts to <5.0. The data are consistent with a mechanism requiring Glu14 for both substrate and proton recognition. We propose a model in which two of the three Glu14s in the postulated trimeric EmrE homooligomer deprotonate upon ligand binding. The ligand is released on the other face of the membrane after binding of protons to Glu14.
Application of the Input-Output Decomposition Technique to China's Regional Economies

Structural decomposition techniques based on input-output table have become a widely used tool for analyzing long term economic growth. However, due to limitations of data, such techniques have never been applied to China's regional economies. Fortunately, in 2003, China's Interregional Input-Output Table for 1987 and Multi-regional Input-Output Table for 1997 were published, making decomposition analysis of China's regional economies possible. This paper first estimates the interregional input-output table in constant price by using an alternative approach: the Grid-Search method, and then applies the standard input-output decomposition technique to China's regional economies for 1987-97. Based on the decomposition results, the contributions to output growth of different factors are summarized at the regional and industrial level. Furthermore, interdependence between China's regional economies is measured and explained by aggregating the decomposition factors into the intraregional multiplier-related effect, the feedback-related effect, and the spillover-related effect. Finally, the performance of China's industrial and regional development policies implemented in the 1990s is briefly discussed based on the analytical results of the paper.
Seat belts are more effective than airbags in reducing thoracic aortic injury in frontal motor vehicle crashes.

BACKGROUND Airbags reduce the probability of death in frontal collisions, but the effect is small compared with seat belts. Little is known about the influence of seat belts and airbags on the incidence of thoracic aortic injury (TAI). METHODS The National Automotive Sampling System database was queried for the years 1993 to 1998 to determine the impact of seat belts and airbags on the incidence of TAI in survivors of frontal motor vehicle crashes. Proportions were compared using the two-sample Z test. RESULTS Seat belts prevent TAI regardless of airbag deployment. The effect of airbags is limited to those wearing seat belts. In frontal collisions without seat belt use, airbag deployment does not alter TAI incidence. CONCLUSION Seat belts are considerably more effective in preventing TAI than airbags after frontal motor vehicle crashes. Prevention efforts should continue to emphasize the use of active restraints. Restraint use should be considered a risk factor in evaluating patients for potential TAI.
Diabetes in pregnancy: a review of current evidence

Purpose of review There is controversy about the best approach to screening and management for gestational diabetes. In the recent Confidential Enquiry in Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) the outcome of women with diabetes compared with women without diabetes. The results were exceptionally poor, suggesting the need for a new management approach. The aim of this review is to address these findings and our suggested care pathways. Recent findings The CEMACH report showed the congenital malformation rate was four to 10-fold higher, the perinatal mortality rate was four to seven-fold higher, stillbirth was five times more common, and babies were three times more likely to die in the first 3 months of life. Only 39% of women with established diabetes took folic acid and only 37% had some documentation of glycaemic control before pregnancy. Overall, less than a fifth of NHS trusts in the UK had any kind of multidisciplinary preconception services. The results for women with type 2 diabetes were as bad as those for type 1. Caesarean delivery rates were very high (67%). Summary Prepregnancy counselling and multidisciplinary team management is the key in achieving good pregnancy outcomes. There is emerging evidence about the safety and efficacy of oral hypoglycaemics like metformin in pregnancy.
Comparing Drools and ontology reasoning approaches for telecardiology decision support

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators can generate numerous alerts. Automatically classifying these alerts according to their severity hinges on the CHA2DS2VASc score. It requires some reasoning capabilities for interpreting the patient's data. We compared two approaches for implementing the reasoning module. One is based on the Drools engine, and the other is based on semantic web formalisms. Both were valid approaches with correct performances. For a broader domain, their limitations are the number and complexity of Drools rules and the performances of ontology-based reasoning, which suggests using the ontology for automatically generating a part of the Drools rules.
Increased risk of hip fracture among patients with end-stage renal disease.

BACKGROUND Although patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are at increased risk for bone loss, the risk of hip fracture in this population is not known. We compared the risk of hip fracture among dialysis patients with the general population. METHODS We used data from the United States Renal Data System (USRDS) to identify all new Caucasian dialysis patients who began dialysis between January 1, 1989, and December 31, 1996. All hip fractures occurring during this time period were ascertained. The observed number of hip fractures was compared with the expected number based on the experience of residents of Olmstead County (MN, USA). Standardized incidence ratios were calculated as the ratio between observed and expected. The risk attributable to ESRD was calculated as the difference between the observed and expected rate of hip fracture per 1000 person-years. RESULTS The number of dialysis patients was 326,464 (55.9% male and 44.1% female). There were 6542 hip fractures observed during the follow-up period of 643, 831 patient years. The overall incidence of hip fracture was 7.45 per 1000 person years for males and 13.63 per 1000 person years for females. The overall relative risk for hip fracture was 4.44 (95% CI, 4.16 to 4.75) for male dialysis patients and 4.40 (95% CI, 4.17 to 4.64) for female dialysis patients compared with people of the same sex in the general population. While the age-specific relative risk of hip fracture was highest in the youngest age groups, the added risks of fracture associated with dialysis rose steadily with increasing age. The relative risk of hip fracture increased as time since first dialysis increased. CONCLUSIONS The overall risk of hip fracture among Caucasian patients with ESRD is considerably higher than in the general population, independent of age and gender.
Are For-Profit Nursing Homes More Efficient? Data Envelopment Analysis with a Case-Mix Constraint

Public alarm over the rapid increase in overall health expenditures is widespread, yet certain categories of health care spending have increased even more rapidly than the total. National health care expenditures in the U.S. increased more than eight-fold from 1970 to 1990. During the same period, expenditures on nursing home services increased nearly eleven-fold, from $4.9 to $53.1 billion. A variety of factors have contributed to the growth in nursing home expenditures, including increases in the absolute and relative size of the population aged 65 and above, input price increases, and expanded public funding of long-term care, primarily through Medicaid. Prior to the introduction of Medicaid in the mid-1960s, government funding of long-term care was minimal. Governments at all levels now pay more than half of the national bill for nursing home services, up from about 34 percent in 1970. Federal and state officials worry about the rising cost of nursing home care. At the state level, this concern has led to direct attempts to regulate nursing home prices and capacity. Policymakers at all levels have questioned whether nursing homes are efficient and public funds are well spent. Some states, such as Connecticut, even have incorporated efficiency incentives in the formula for Medicaid payments to individual nursing homes. Efficiency comparisons needed to implement such plans typically involve some measure of average cost, but cost differences across nursing homes may reflect input price variations as well as efficiency differences. Consequently, development of an efficiency measure that is independent of input prices is important for Medicaid reimbursement policy, as well as for informing particular homes about how to improve efficiency. One measure, technical efficiency, focuses only on the conversion of inputs to outputs and requires no price information, but conventional econometric estimates of technical efficiency have some limitations.
Intraoperative Chemical Hemostasis in Neurosurgery

&NA; Of the various electrical, mechanical, and chemical methods used in neurosurgical hemostasis, the chemical methods are the least well understood. In this review, data concerning seven modern chemical hemostatic agents are presented and special emphasis is placed on their neurosurgical applications. Overall, the general lack of fundamental knowledge concerning these agents at both the scientific and the clinical level was revealed by a relatively small number of publications over the past 4 decades. Several conclusions have been formulated to assist the neurosurgeon in the proper selection and use of these chemical agents. It is our belief that the use of chemical hemostatics in neurosurgery should be based on a thorough knowledge of their mechanism of action and should be supported by continuing laboratory and clinical research. (Neurosurgery 18:223‐233, 1986)
Imperfect competition and macroeconomics : Theory and quantitative implications

[fre] Ce papier evalue les implications de la concurrence imparfaite en macroeconomie. Il s'articule autour de trois types de chocs : technologique, depenses gouvernementales, et monnaie. Pour chacun de ces chocs, il resume les theories existantes et fait etat de preuves quantitatives quant aux effets de la concurrence imparfaite. [eng] This paper evaluates the implications of imperfect competition for macroeconomics. The paper is organized around three sources of shocks : technology, government spending and money. For each, we summarize existing theories and present quantitative evidence on the effects of imperfect competition.
Fully Scalable Methods for Distributed Tensor Factorization

Given a high-order large-scale tensor, how can we decompose it into latent factors? Can we process it on commodity computers with limited memory? These questions are closely related to recommender systems, which have modeled rating data not as a matrix but as a tensor to utilize contextual information such as time and location. This increase in the order requires tensor-factorization methods scalable with both the order and size of a tensor. In this paper, we propose two distributed tensor factorization methods, CDTF and SALS. Both methods are scalable with all aspects of data and show a trade-off between convergence speed and memory requirements. CDTF, based on coordinate descent, updates one parameter at a time, while SALS generalizes on the number of parameters updated at a time. In our experiments, only our methods factorized a five-order tensor with 1 billion observable entries, 10 M mode length, and 1 K rank, while all other state-of-the-art methods failed. Moreover, our methods required several orders of magnitude less memory than their competitors. We implemented our methods on MAPREDUCE with two widely-applicable optimization techniques: local disk caching and greedy row assignment. They speeded up our methods up to 98.2× and also the competitors up to 5.9×.
Customary Dispute Resolution in Somalia

This article examines the nature of the Somali customary dispute resolutions. The study identifies three forms of Somali Xeer dispute resolution systems (i.e., negotiation, mediation, arbitration) but focuses on arbitration because, of the three customary dispute resolution mechanisms in Somalia, arbitration is the most commonly used but also the least researched in the studies of the Xeer system. The study puts forward three arguments. First, Xeer is an alternative dispute resolution system that facilitates reconciliation and promotes restorative justice. Second, Xeer arbitration is relatively simple, familiar, transparent and accessible to those who wish to use it. Third, Xeer arbitration has emerged as the best way to resolve disputes in contemporary Somalia. However, the success of Xeer arbitration and customary dispute resolutions in general is contingent on the participation of the victims, perpetrators, and community.
Lost jobs and health insurance: an analysis of the impact of employment volatility on firm-provided health insurance

It is an established fact that there are high levels of employment volatility in the US. Despite the importance of employer-provided benefits in the US health insurance system the impact of prior job instability on one's future ability to obtain insurance coverage is not well understood. This article finds a negative relationship between the volatility of a worker's employment and her likelihood of receiving firm-provided health insurance. Previous employment volatility reduces each of the four factors necessary to receive such insurance: a worker's subsequent chances of getting a job, her chances of getting a job in a firm that offers coverage, her chances of staying with the firm long enough to become eligible for coverage and her ability to take up insurance if offered. The most important impact is on the last: her ability to take up insurance if offered. Lack of employment is not the only, and not even the largest, barrier to individual coverage under this system. This finding has important policy implications, particularly given the recent tendency of employers to shift the cost of insurance premiums onto their employees.