Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental practices in economics: A methodological challenge for psychologists?

This target article is concerned with the implications of the surprisingly different experimental practices in economics and in areas of psychology relevant to both economists and psychologists, such as behavioral decision making. We consider four features of experimentation in economics, namely, script enactment, repeated trials, performance-based monetary payments, and the proscription against deception, and compare them to experimental practices in psychology, primarily in the area of behavioral decision making. Whereas economists bring a precisely defined “script” to experiments for participants to enact, psychologists often do not provide such a script, leaving participants to infer what choices the situation affords. By often using repeated experimental trials, economists allow participants to learn about the task and the environment; psychologists typically do not. Economists generally pay participants on the basis of clearly defined performance criteria; psychologists usually pay a flat fee or grant a fixed amount of course credit. Economists virtually never deceive participants; psychologists, especially in some areas of inquiry, often do. We argue that experimental standards in economics are regulatory in that they allow for little variation between the experimental practices of individual researchers. The experimental standards in psychology, by contrast, are comparatively laissez-faire. We believe that the wider range of experimental practices in psychology reflects a lack of procedural regularity that may contribute to the variability of empirical findings in the research fields under consideration. We conclude with a call for more research on the consequences of methodological preferences, such as the use on monetary payments, and propose a “do-it-both-ways” rule regarding the enactment of scripts, repetition of trials, and performance-based monetary payments. We also argue, on pragmatic grounds, that the default practice should be not to deceive participants.
Dimensions of small business performance from the owner-manager's perspective: a re-conceptualization and empirical validation

Owner-managers make decisions and manage their firm as governed by the manner in which they conceptualize or ‘conceive’ performance for themselves and their firm, rather than being governed by researchers' and experts' conceptualizations of small business performance. On the basis of survey data obtained from 433 Canadian small businesses, this study aims at a deeper understanding of what owner-managers conceive performance to be, and to what extent this conception is determined by their objectives and social influences.
Parasuicide in an Arab industrial community: The Arabian‐American Oil Company experience, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT— The parasuicide phenomena was investigated for the first time in a retrospective and prospective way in an Arab industrial community in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia during 1985 and 1986. Though the parasuicide rate of 20.7 per 100,000 is substantially lower from the reported rates in the West, underreporting and misdiagnosing of the phenomena may explain the low rate. The results of this study confirm that the act is predominantly the activity of young females, and disordered interpersonal relationships with spouses and parents stand out as precipitating factors. Acute reaction to stress was the commonest diagnosis followed by depression. Deliberate self‐poisoning by analgesics and psychotropic drugs was the commonest method used. The findings of this study refute the hypothesis that parasuicide is rare in this part of the world, and time probably has come to amend the law in order to give the opportunity for distressed people to receive help.
The World Food Outlook

Modern day Malthusians warn that Malthus will ultimately be right: the world will be less and less able to feed itself as populations keep expanding and crop yields seem to have reached a peak. The authors of this volume believe that this pessimism is misplaced, and that there is in fact no worldwide food crisis. On the contrary, they show that the world food situation has improved dramatically over the past three decades: prices of agricultural commodities are at their lowest level in history in real terms and crop output is continuing to rise faster than population. This book provides a much needed and reasoned view on a subject that is too often treated emotionally. The important changes in the international food economy are considered in historical context and provide a basis for projections to 2010. The situation should continue to improve and food should become cheaper than it is today.
Waitlist Priority for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Beyond Milan Criteria: A Potentially Appropriate Decision Without a Structured Approach

Due to the risk of waitlist dropout from tumor progression, liver transplant candidates with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) within Milan criteria (MC) receive standardized exception points. An expansion of this process to candidates with HCC beyond MC has been proposed, though it remains controversial. This study sought to better define the utilization of exception points in candidates with HCC beyond MC and the associated outcomes. We reviewed all nonstandardized HCC applications that underwent formal regional review board evaluation between January 1, 2005 and March 2, 2011; 2184 initial HCC exception point applications were submitted. Of these, 41.9% fulfilled MC, 26.6% fulfilled University of California‐San Francisco (UCSF) criteria and 17.6% exceeded UCSF criteria. The majority of applications were accepted: 89.8% within UCSF and 71.2% beyond UCSF. There was a significantly (p < 0.001) higher risk of death on the waitlist or within 90 days of waitlist removal for candidates within UCSF (12.4%) or beyond UCSF (13.0%) criteria, compared to candidates with HCC within MC (6.0%). However, posttransplant outcomes were similar. While these results suggest increasing access to candidates with HCC beyond MC, comprehensive documentation of tumor characteristics and of successful downstaging is needed to ensure priority is restricted to those with the highest likelihood of favorable posttransplant outcome.
Interpreting Panel Data on Job Tenure

Tenure responses in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the National Longitudinal Surveys are often inconsistent with calendar time. These inconsistencies pose special problems in the PSID because job changes cannot be identified directly, so researchers must infer them from error-ridden tenure data. We use alternative rules for partitioning PSID data into jobs and then estimate several wage and mobility models to assess the sensitivity of parameter estimates to the partitioning method. We also assess the importance of replacing "raw" tenure data with imputed measures that are internally consistent.
An analysis of the retention of plutonium by the tissues of the rat.

The amount of plutonium-239 in the blood, six bones, the kidneys, and the liver of male rats was measured at 18 different intervals of time between 5 min and 1 yr after a single intravenous injection of 0.1 μCi ${}^{239}{\rm Pu}/{\rm kg}$ rat as plutonium citrate. The data collected have been used to obtain models for the retention of plutonium by an organ. The rate of transfer of plutonium from blood to bone was found to depend simply on the amount of plutonium in the blood, but the rate of transfer of plutonium from blood to the soft organs involved plutonium in three species, each species being transferred at a characteristic rate that led to a triphasic exponential equation for the retention of plutonium by blood.
W-Band High-Gain Circularly Polarized Aperture-Coupled Magneto-Electric Dipole Antenna Array With Gap Waveguide Feed Network

A 1 × 8 circularly polarized (CP) aperture-coupled magneto-electric (ME) dipole antenna array excited by low-loss gap waveguide (GWG) feed network is proposed in this study. This linear antenna array is composed of two layers, upper CP ME-dipole printed circuit board (PCB) antenna subarrays and a lower metallic GWG feed network. The proposed compact GWG feed network with wideband impedance matching is composed of a ridge gap waveguide (RGWG) transmission structure and two short-ended vertical polarized groove gap waveguide (VP-GGWG) cavities. The transmission loss of this feed network caused by transition, such as coupling and fabrication tolerance between two layers, can be reduced by combining RGWG and VP-GGWG in the same layer. In addition, this feed network is fabricated all in metal with no substrate loss. Transverse slots are etched at the right position of the upper PCB layer above VP-GGWG cavities to excite the CP ME-dipole antennas. The antenna element has stable radiation pattern and wide axial-ratio (AR) bandwidth, which is desirable for CP antenna array. The proposed 1 × 8 linear antenna array has been simulated and fabricated to validate our design. Measured results show that antenna array achieves a maximum boresight gain of 18 dBi and an AR bandwidth of 14.5% from 89 to 103 GHz for AR < 3 dB, with a boresight gain above 16.5 dBi.
In Vivo Selection of Rous Sarcoma Virus Mutants with Randomized Sequences in the Packaging Signal

ABSTRACT Retrovirus genomes contain a sequence at the 5′ end which directs their packaging into virions. In Rous sarcoma virus, previous studies have identified important segments of the packaging signal, Ψ, and support elements of a secondary-structure prediction. To further characterize this sequence, we used an in vivo selection strategy to test large collections of mutants. We generated pools of full-length viral DNA molecules with short stretches of random sequence in Ψ and transfected each pool into avian cells. Resulting infectious virus was allowed to spread by multiple passages, so that sequences could compete and the best could be selected. This method provides information on the kinds of sequences allowed, as well as those that are most fit. Several predicted stem-loop structures in Ψ were tested. A stem at the base of element O3 was highly favored; only sequences which maintained base pairing were selected. Two other stems, at the base and in the middle of element L3, were not conserved: neither base pairing nor sequence was maintained. A single mutation, G213U, was seen upstream of the randomized region in all selected L3 stem mutants; we interpret this to mean that it compensates for the defects in L3. Randomized mutations adjacent to G213 maintained the wild-type base composition but not its sequence. The kissing-loop sequence at end of L3, postulated to function in genome dimerization, was not required for infectivity but was selected for over time. Finally, a deletion of L3 was constructed and found to be poorly infectious.
Book Review: Why Poor People Stay Poor: Urban Bias in World Development

dispersal, for while many West Indians have been relocated in inferior inner-city council housing, most such estates are not located in the areas of highest minority concentration, but in other working-class areas.4 Lee's study is, in fact, generally limited by a failure to refer to work published since 1973. Perhaps, given the sometimes awesome delays involved in academic publishing, he should be forgiven this . But a book published in 1977 really should reflect a knowledge of material published in 1974 and 1975 especially as circumstances and perceptions of problems change very rapidly in this policy area . When discussing the causes of segregation outside the context of temporal change, the analysis is much stronger and shows considerable methodological sophistication. For example, while Lee's analysis attributes 50 per cent of segregation to social class factors and 50 per cent to discrimination and choice, it qualifies this claim by accepting that discrimination must influence the class status of West Indians and also feelings of community solidarity and alienation from white society . One of the most taxing problems involved in any social science analysis of urban phenomena is placing sometimes very specialised empirical findings in the broader public policy context. Lee attempts to do this by pleading that dispersal policies based on the assumption that minorities are becoming more concentrated are misguided given his finding that the opposite is happening. There are two problems here . The first the fact that his findings are not true for all minority groups in all cities has already been discussed . The second is equally problematical and is of prime concern to all social scientists whose work is inter-disciplinary in nature. In sum, can a social geographer he expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of those essentially political processes involved in the dispersal question? Lee makes constant references to `dispersal policies', but we now know that such policies hardly exist. They are virtually inconceivable in private sector housing for, inevitably, elements either of coercion or of massive positive discrimination would be involved, both of which would be politically unacceptable . Dispersal policies have received most publicity in the context of public sector housing a subject which Lee's study touches on only fleetingly. But public sector dispersal has rarely been attempted, and when it has, as in the case of Lewisham and Birmingham, unfortunate results have soon led to its abandonment . Local authority access and allocation policies as they affect racial minorities are, of course, under close scrutiny, but any reforms are likely to involve changes in the housing stock or in bureaucratic procedures, rather than the politically explosive and morally suspect alternative of dispersal . Perhaps all this is a little harsh on what must be accepted as a pioneering study. I fear that criticism is a burden that has to be borne by scholars who conduct inter-disciplinary race relations research. Trevor Lee URBAN STUDIES
Bankruptcy Costs and the New Bankruptcy Code

BANKRUPTCY COSTS are the deadweight economic costs of firms going bankrupt. They include both ex post bankruptcy costs incurred after a firm's bankruptcy filing, such as transactions costs, and ex ante bankruptcy costs incurred before the filing, such as those resulting from creditors' attempts to reduce their losses if bankruptcy occurs and/or managers' attempts to raise the expected return to equity by increasing the firm's risk.1 This paper has two purposes. First it proposes a model of bankruptcy costs which focuses on the costs of inefficient decision making before the firm's actual bankruptcy filing. The model implies upper bound expressions for total bankruptcy costs. Second, the new U.S. Bankruptcy Code2 went into effect late in 1979 and made important changes in bankruptcy reorganization procedures. The paper poses the question of whether the changes made under the new Code tend to raise or lower aggregate U.S. bankruptcy costs. We approach this question by calculating the upper bound expressions suggested by the model, using parameter values from both before and after the new Code took effect. From an economic standpoint, the most important changes instituted under the new Bankruptcy Code had the effect of making it more difficult to reorganize firms in bankruptcy. Previously, it was common for failing firms to file for bankruptcy, but for prior management to continue to operate the firm in much the same form as before. The bankruptcy filing prevented unpaid creditors from suing the firm while a reorganization plan was arranged which cut back most debts. From an economic standpoint, such a procedure was anomalous, since we learn in basic economics that competition in the long-run should cause inefficient firms to go out of business. As long as failing firms are more likely to be inefficient than firms in general, it would seem to be rewarding inefficiency and offsetting
Spontaneous adverse event reports of Stevens–Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis: detecting associations with medications

Stevens–Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are medically serious skin reactions that are often drug induced. The mainstay of therapy and future prevention is to discontinue and avoid the use of the suspected inducing drug. However, many cases of SJS/TEN occur in patients who are taking multiple medications, and it is often difficult to determine which drug to stop. This analysis was conducted to identify drugs that were most associated with SJS/TEN in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) database and to identify medications that were likely innocent bystanders.
Japanese Visual Language: The structure of manga

Over the past two decades, manga has exploded in readership beyond Japan, and its style has captured the interest of young artists all over. But, what exactly are the properties of this "style" beyond the surface of big eyes and "backward" reading? This paper explores the structural elements of the Japanese Visual Language (JVL) that comprises the "manga style" — ranging from looking at the “big eyes, small mouth” schema as a “standard” dialect, to examining the graphic emblems that form manga’s conventional visual vocabulary. Particular focus will be given to JVL grammar — the system that creates meaning via sequential images — and how it differs from the visual languages from other parts of the world. On the whole, manga provide an excellent forum for understanding the scope of the visual language paradigm.
Uganda in the regional war zone: meta-narratives, pasts and presents

Uganda’s recent and distant pasts do relate, in fairly direct if perverse ways. Many of the events and relationships characteristic of Uganda’s recent history – including politics and political violence – have been intimately bound up with Ugandans’ perception of their social and ethnic identity. Of course these perceptions are social constructions, representations rather than features, of the real world. Such representations, moreover, not only change over time but often distort and manipulate, particularly as part of a discourse of domination emanating from those in power in successive colonial and postcolonial regimes. R. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity (1994)
Managers, Owners, and The Pricing of Risky Debt: An Empirical Analysis

This article examines managerial ownership structure and return premia on corporate bonds. It is argued that, when managerial ownership is low, an increase in managerial ownership increases management's incentives to increase stockholder wealth at the expense of bondholder wealth. When ownership increases more, however, it is argued that management becomes more risk averse, with incentives more closely aligned with bondholders. This study finds a positive relation between managerial ownership and bond return premia in the low to medium (5 to 25 percent) ownership range. There is also weak evidence for a nonpositive relation in the large (over 25 percent) ownership range. Coauthors are Nikolaos T. Milonas, Anthony Saunders, and Nickolaos G. Travlos. Copyright 1994 by American Finance Association.
Parental perception, worries and needs in children with epilepsy

Despite advancement in medical care, prejudice and misunderstanding of epilepsy still exist. In this study, we investigate the problems faced by epileptic children, at home and in school, and make suggestions for improvement. Questionnaires were randomly distributed to parents of epileptic children attending normal and special classes (groups A and B, respectively). Return of questionnaires was anonymous. Ninety‐one percent responded. Of the responders, 56 children were in Group A and 30 in Group B. Chronic and intractable epilepsy was more frequently observed in Group B than in Group A patients (47% vs 14%, p < 0.05). Main family concerns were seizures, school performance and side effects of medication. Half of the parents complained that their children were more restless and short‐tempered. Only 43% of parents were aware that seizures were caused by abnormal brain discharges. Twenty percent thought swimming should be prohibited even if seizures could be controlled. Schools were informed of the disease by 84% of the families. Only 29% of parents knew the name and dose of the current medication. Information was considered adequate in 27% of patients. Drug compliance was better in epileptic children with associated handicaps than in those without handicaps. Half of the parents requested more information about epilepsy and closer communication between teachers and physicians.
3D simulation of boreal forests: structure and dynamics in complex terrain and in a changing climate

To understand how the Siberian boreal forests may respond to near-future climate change, we employed a modeling approach and examined thresholds for significant and irreversible changes in forest structure and composition that are likely to be reached by mid-21st century. We applied the new spatially-explicit gap-dynamics model SIBBORK toward the understanding of how transition zones, namely treelines, which are notoriously undersampled and difficult to model, may change in the near future. We found that a 2 °C change in annual average air temperature significantly altered the structure, composition, and productivity of boreal forests stands both in the northern and the southern treeline ecotones. Treeline migration occurs at smaller temperature changes. Based on the current (1990–2014) observed warming trends, a 2 °C increase in annual average temperature compared to historical climate (1961–1990) is likely to be experienced at the northern treeline by 2040 and at the southern treeline by 2050. With regards to the forest biome, the most significant warming to date has been predicted and observed in Siberia. A 2 °C increase in annual average temperature compared to the second half of the 19th century is smaller than the predictions of even the most conservative RCP2.6 climate change scenario (IPCC 2013), and has previously been assumed to not likely result in dramatic changes to ecosystems or biome shifts. We show that at a +2 °C change, biome shifts from forest to steppe are likely to occur across a large area in southern Siberia. These changes in land cover will inevitably result in changes in the biodiversity, carbon storage, and the ecosystem services provided by the boreal forests of southern Siberia.