Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Political, Institutional, and Economic Factors Underlying Deficit Volatility

It is well known that fiscal policy can counter‐cyclically smooth out the effect of unexpected shocks and public deficit volatility may reflect the (optimal) policy response to them. However, the welfare losses associated to fiscal instability are also an important challenge for many countries, as it typically implies an inefficient allocation of resources, higher sovereign risk premium and an inadequate provision of public services. In this paper, we empirically analyze the political, institutional, and economic sources of public deficit volatility. Using the system‐generalized method‐of‐moments (GMM) estimator for linear dynamic panel data models and a sample of 125 countries analyzed from 1980 to 2006, we show that higher public deficit volatility is typically associated with higher levels of political instability and less democracy. In addition, public deficit volatility tends to be magnified for small countries, in the outcome of hyper‐inflation episodes and for countries with a high degree of openness.
Antibody Specificities and Effect of Meningococcal Carriage in Icelandic Teenagers Receiving the Norwegian Serogroup B Outer Membrane Vesicle Vaccine

ABSTRACT Antibody specificities of pre- and postvaccination serum samples from 40 (53%) teenagers who received three doses of the Norwegian Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B vaccine (B:15:P1.7,16) during a previous trial in Iceland (Perkins et al., J. Infect. Dis. 177:683-691, 1998) were analyzed with serum bactericidal activity (SBA) and immunoblotting assays with reference and isogenic meningococcal H44/76 vaccine strains. The H44/76 variants demonstrated significant vaccine-induced SBA to P1.7,16 PorA and Opc but not to PorB, Opa5.5, and a heterologous PorA protein. On blots, immunoglobulin G levels to all these proteins increased significantly after vaccination. Measurement of SBA to the two main variable regions (P1.7 and P1.16) on the P1.7,16 PorA with PorA deletion mutants revealed significantly higher activity to the P1.7,− and P1. −,16 mutants compared to the P1.7,16 strain, indicating exposure of new accessible epitopes. Only 12 (30%) serum samples showed distinct decreases with these or the P1. −,− mutant, with most samples containing SBA to the P1.7 and P1.16 combination. In contrast, P1.16-specific antibodies were mainly found on blots. Thirteen of the vaccinees (32.5%) were carriers of meningococci at the time of the third dose, of whom four (30.8%) harbored strains of the ET-5 complex. Carriage of P1.15 strains was generally reflected in ≥4-fold increases in SBA and distinct immunoglobulin G binding to the P1.19,15 PorA on blots. Although vaccination did not elicit bactericidal activity to the serotype 15 PorB, most carriers of serotype 15 strains showed ≥4-fold increases in SBA to this antigen.
Are Friendly Acquisitions Too Bad for Shareholders and Managers? Long-Term Value Creation and Top Management Turnover in Hostile and Friendly Acquirers

The well-documented failure of the majority of acquisitions to create value is often identified in popular discussion with hostile acquisitions, whereas friendly acquirers seem to get a friendly press. The relative performance of friendly and hostile acquirers therefore warrants a rigorous empirical investigation. Clear evidence of superior value creation in hostile over friendly acquisitions allows us to judge the efficacy of the market for corporate control. In this article we examine the long-term shareholder wealth performance of four types of acquirers -friendly bidder, hostile bidder, white knight and hostile bidder facing a white knight or another hostile bidder. For a sample of 519 acquisitions of UK target firms during 1983-1995, we estimated the three-year post-acquisition gains to acquirer shareholders and found that hostile acquirers deliver significantly higher shareholder value than friendly acquirers. We found that friendly acquirers with high stock-market ratings destroyed more value than hostile acquirers with a similar rating. Friendly acquirer top managers suffered greater job losses than those of hostile acquirers, perhaps paying the price for their inferior value-creation performance. Our study provides evidence of the superior value-creation performance of hostile acquirers and makes the case against takeover regulatory rules that may impede hostile takeovers.
Sexuality, Menopausal Symptoms, and Quality of Life in Premenopausal Women in the First Year Following Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To describe sexuality, menopausal symptoms, and quality of life (QOL) in premenopausal women in the first year following hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) . DESIGN One-year prospective longitudinal study. SETTING Stanford University Medical Center in California. SAMPLE 63 premenopausal female recipients of HCT with a mean age of 34.5 years. METHODS Three instruments were used. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Sexuality, menopausal symptoms, and QOL . FINDINGS At one year post-HCT, women reported absent to low desire and arousal, adequate lubrication less than half of the time, absent or rare orgasm, pain during vaginal penetration more than half the time, and dissatisfaction with overall sex life. Women also reported moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, and sweating. Twenty-one women were avoiding sexual activity, and 25 women were not sexually active. Mean QOL scores significantly increased (p = 0.028) in the first year, signifying an improvement in QOL. Variables predictive of improved QOL at one year post-HCT include decreased psychosocial and physical symptoms, sexual satisfaction, and pre-HCT QOL score . CONCLUSIONS One year post-HCT, women reported sexual dysfunction, sexual dissatisfaction, and menopausal symptoms, which negatively affect QOL. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Nurses and other healthcare providers working with recipients of HCT can provide anticipatory guidance on potential changes in sexuality and menopausal symptoms to facilitate adaptation by reducing discordance between expectations and new realities .
The effect of students' ethics learning experiences to develop ethical reasoning abilities: a comparative study between Japanese and Chinese students

This study measures the ethical reasoning ability among undergraduate business students from Japan and China for the purpose of assisting the international convergence of accounting ethics education. This study also examined the effect that students' learning experiences had on their overall ethical reasoning abilities. The sample was collected via a questionnaire-based survey administered at four Japanese universities and two Chinese universities in October 2007. A total of 174 undergraduate business students participated from Japan and 174 from China. Rest's defining issues test (DIT) was applied to compute students' ethical reasoning abilities. The results indicate that the average ethical reasoning ability of Chinese students was higher than that of their Japanese counterparts. It was also discovered that ethics learning experiences obtained in secondary schools were useful for both groups of students. It was found that in these two countries, an understanding of the ethical reasoning abilities of undergraduate students is required before a successful international convergence of accounting ethics education programmes can take place.
Closing gaps between open software and public data in a hackathon setting: User-centered software prototyping

In genomics, bioinformatics and other areas of data science, gaps exist between extant public datasets and the open-source software tools built by the community to analyze similar data types. The purpose of biological data science hackathons is to assemble groups of genomics or bioinformatics professionals and software developers to rapidly prototype software to address these gaps. The only two rules for the NCBI-assisted hackathons run so far are that 1) data either must be housed in public data repositories or be deposited to such repositories shortly after the hackathon’s conclusion, and 2) all software comprising the final pipeline must be open-source or open-use. Proposed topics, as well as suggested tools and approaches, are distributed to participants at the beginning of each hackathon and refined during the event. Software, scripts, and pipelines are developed and published on GitHub, a web service providing publicly available, free-usage tiers for collaborative software development. The code resulting from each hackathon is published at https://github.com/NCBI-Hackathons/ with separate directories or repositories for each team.
Evaluation of Genetic Variations in the Androgen and Estrogen Metabolic Pathways as Risk Factors for Sporadic and Familial Prostate Cancer

Previous studies suggest that enzymes involved in the androgen metabolic pathway are susceptibility factors for prostate cancer. Estrogen metabolites functioning as genotoxins have also been proposed as risk factors. In this study, we systematically tested the hypothesis that common genetic variations for those enzymes involved in the androgen and estrogen metabolic pathways increase risk for sporadic and familial prostate cancer. From these two pathways, 46 polymorphisms (34 single nucleotide polymorphisms, 10 short tandem repeat polymorphisms, and 2 null alleles) in 25 genes were tested for possible associations. Those genes tested included PRL, LHB, CYP11A1, HSD3B1, HSD3B2, HSD17B2, CYP17, SRD5A2, AKR1C3, UGT2B15, AR, SHBG, and KLK3 from the androgen pathway and CYP19, HSD17B1, CYP1A1, CYP1A2, CYP1B1, COMT, GSTP1, GSTT1, GSTM1, NQO1, ESR1, and ESR2 from the estrogen pathway. A case-control study design was used with two sets of cases: familial cases with a strong prostate cancer family history (n = 438 from 178 families) and sporadic cases with a negative prostate cancer family history (n = 499). The controls (n = 493) were derived from a population-based collection. Our results provide suggestive findings for an association with either familial or sporadic prostate cancer with polymorphisms in four genes: AKR1C3, HSD17B1, NQO1, and GSTT1. Additional suggestive findings for an association with clinical variables (disease stage, grade, and/or node status) were observed for single nucleotide polymorphisms in eight genes: HSD3B2, SRD5A2, SHBG, ESR1, CYP1A1, CYP1B1, GSTT1, and NQO1. However, none of the findings were statistically significant after appropriate corrections for multiple comparisons. Given that the point estimates for the odds ratio for each of these polymorphisms are <2.0, much larger sample sizes will be required for confirmation. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(5):969–78)
How Commodity Price Curves and Inventories React to a Short-Run Scarcity Shock

How does a commodity market adjust to a temporary scarcity shock which causes a shift in the slope of the futures price curve? We find long-run relationships between spot and futures prices, inventories and interest rates, which means that such shocks lead to an adjustment back towards a stable equilibrium. We find evidence that the adjustment is somewhat consistent with well-known theoretical models, such as Pindyck (2001); in other words, spot prices rise and then fall, while inventories are used to absorb the shock. Importantly, the pace and nature of the adjustment depends upon whether inventories were initially high or low, which introduces significant nonlinearities into the adjustment process.
Plasma and Brain Amino Acids in Fulminant Hepatic Failure and their Relationship to Hepatic Encephalopathy

Amino acid concentrations were determined in plasma, whole blood, cerebrospinal fluid and brain tissue of 45 patients with grade 3 or 4 coma due to fulminant hepatic failure. The concentration of 15 of the 19 amino acids determined were significantly increased in blood and the, increases were greatest for the amino acids concerned with neurotransmitter metabolism. There was no correlation, however, between the plasma concentration of these amino acids and changes in the grade of hepatic coma. The plasma concentrations of the branched chain amino acids were normal except in those patients who subsequently recovered in whom levels were slightly decreased.
Distinguishing Between Rationales for Short-Horizon Predictability of Stock Returns

In this paper, we shed light on short-horizon return reversals. We show theoretically that a risk-based rationale for reversals implies a relation between returns and past order flow, whereas a reversion in beliefs of biased agents does not do so. The empirical results indicate that returns are more strongly related to own-return lags than to lagged order imbalances. Thus, the evidence suggests that monthly reversals are not completely captured by inventory effects and may be driven, in part, by belief reversion. We do find that returns are cross-sectionally related to lagged imbalance innovations at horizons longer than a month.
Measuring equity market contagion in multiple financial events

This paper expands the current body of literature on the empirical evidence of stock market contagion by measuring the occurrence of contagion across 42 countries during nine financial events. The selected list of events includes those that have been commonly tested as well as those that are more recent, originate from smaller markets and are less tested. Results indicate that there are 44 incidences of contagion in total during these nine events, with the recent Argentine Crisis of 2001 causing the most incidents of contagion.
Studying Well-being and its Environmental Impacts: A Case Study of Minimum Income Receivers in Finland

Current well-being research often overlooks human dependency on natural resources and undervalues the way environmental impacts affect human activities. This article argues that the capability approach provides an applicable framework for inquiring into ecologically sustainable well-being. Therefore, this pilot study aims to develop a research method for integrating the measurement of natural resource use with capability-based well-being research. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 18 Finnish minimum income receivers and their natural resource use (material footprints) was measured in five central functionings by using the Material Input Per Unit of Service (MIPS) method. The connections between capabilities, functionings and material footprints are interpreted from a person-centered perspective in order to explain the individual variety in material footprints. The results show that the material footprints of minimum income receivers are smaller than with an average Finn but they still exceed what is estimated to be an ecologically sustainable level of natural resource use.
Food Safety in Fast Food Restaurants

ABSTRACT Given that health department inspections of fast-food restaurants may not be sufficient to ensure compliance with food safety regulations, managers must be vigilant in ensuring conformity with practices that safeguard public health. This case study of one fast-food employee's experience at three different fast-food restaurants suggests that employees' training and supervision require more attention to safety procedures. Greater manager accountability for employee noncompliance and an increased emphasis on employee education could help fast-food restaurants minimize threats to public health and strengthen the fast-food industry.
Pilot study for periodontal treatment and pregnancy outcome: a clinical prospective study.

OBJECTIVE Maternal periodontitis has been suggested as an important risk factor for preterm low birth weight. The aim of the present observational study was to assess whether full-mouth therapy of periodontitis in pregnant women reduces the risk of preterm low birth weight. METHOD AND MATERIALS From April 2006 to April 2007, 302 pregnant women who were at less than 22 weeks of gestation were invited to attend a periodontal examination. Consent for periodontal screening was given by 62 mothers; 54 of them met criteria. Consent for periodontal treatment was provided by 12 patients (group 1), whereas 14 patients declined therapy (group 2). No periodontal therapy was indicated in 28 patients (group 3). Nonsurgical treatment was performed in group 1 as full-mouth disinfection between 22 and 30 weeks of gestation. Periodontal reevaluation was performed 4 to 6 weeks later. As primary outcome, the gestational age at the end of pregnancy was assessed in all groups. Secondary outcomes were birth weight and growth restriction. RESULTS Periodontitis treatment improved periodontal measures (P <or= .001) in this rather small collective. However, there were no statistically significant differences between treatment group 1 and group 2 in the gestational age, birth weight, or growth restrictions. There were also no statistically significant differences compared to group 3. CONCLUSIONS In consideration to the limited number of patients, full-mouth therapy in pregnant women can improve periodontitis but does not significantly alter the gestational age at birth or birth weight. Therefore, new studies are needed in this field especially with respect to the genetic disposition of mothers to chronic or aggressive periodontal inflammation response.
Retention Tactics for Seasonal Employers: An Exploratory Study of U.S.-Based Restaurants

Research and current practice in many organizational settings suggest that high retention ratios result from positive work environments. For the majority of organizations with seasonal business, however, the employee retention issue is more complex. This exploratory study qualitatively examines various practices as identified by interviews with U.S.-based restaurant general managers that require a substantial number of seasonal employees. The objective was to formulate an organizing framework of approaches and to compare the various attributes with potential outcomes. The results allow us to identify several commonly used practices. These approaches can be categorized as follows: recruiting, orientation and training, separation management, and relationship maintenance and enhancement. Cost and application potential vary by category, and efficacy appears dependent on segment and situational variables.
Dietary methionine requirement of Jing Brown layer hens from 9 to 17 weeks of age

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary methionine (Met) supplementation in growth performance and reproductive performance of Jing Brown layer hens. A total of 375 9-week-old Jing Brown layer hens were allocated equally to five treatments consisting of 5 replicates with 15 hens. Hens were fed with a diet of corn and soya bean meal supplemented with 0.23%, 0.27%, 0.31%, 0.35% and 0.39% Met respectively. Different Met levels did not significantly affect average daily feed intake (ADFI), average daily gain (ADG) and feed/gain ratio (F/G) (p > 0.05), whereas flock uniformity (FU) and jejunum index were significantly different (p < 0.05), and the largest FU was observed in 0.31% Met. Dietary supplementation of Met significantly affected reproductive system development (p < 0.05), and 0.27-0.31% Met obtained optimal reproductive system development. Different Met levels significantly affected serum uric acid and alkaline phosphatase. Moreover, the relatively higher reproductive hormones in serum were observed in 0.27% Met. Analysis of quadratic curve estimation of flock uniformity, the total number of follicles, the primary follicles and the secondary follicles showed that the optimal Met levels were 0.293%, 0.286%, 0.286% and 0.288%, which could be averaged to 0.288%. These results suggested that the optimal Met requirement for Jing Brown layer hens from 9 to 17 weeks old is 0.29%.
External Limits and Internal Determinants of State Public Policy

choose among local jurisdictions in a Tiebout-like process. As a truly seminal work, Peterson's book has generated extensive commentary, rebuttal, and reexamination by leading scholars of local politics (e.g., Stone and Sanders 1987). Almost entirely overlooked is the book's potential significance for the study of state politics. ' Surely the logic of Peterson's thesis extends to any set of subnational units in competition with one another. Indeed, much of Peterson's empirical analysis relies upon state or state-local data rather than city data. Thus, it would seem that Peterson himself recognized the theory's applicability to states. Utilization of Peterson's developmental-allocational-redistributive schema at the state level might provide a way to reinterpret existing analyses of state policy outputs. Peterson's typology, after all, focuses upon some of the standard policy categories so often analyzed in the policy determinants literature (e.g., education, welfare, and highways). Thus, an empirical analysis embedded in Peterson's framework might shed new light on old debates, for example the relative power of economic and political factors in determining state policy. In the following sections we undertake such an analysis, explicitly structured so as to provide comparison with the Dye (1966), Sharkansky (1968), and Jennings (1979) tradition. At the same time, there have been significant methodological advances in the decade since the policy determinants literature flourished. In our analysis we will utilize different kinds of significance
Worker Turnover, Industry Localization, and Producer Size

Empirically, large employers have been shown to devote greater resources to filling vacancies than small employers. Following this evidence, this paper offers a theory of producer size based on labor market search, whereby a key factor in the determination of producer's total employment is the ease with which workers can be found to fill jobs that are, periodically, vacated. Since the geographic localization of industry has long been conjectured to facilitate the search process, the model provides an explanation for the observed positive association between average producer size and the magnitude of an industry's presence within local labor markets.
Profitable Predictability in the Cross Section of Stock Returns

Haugen and Baker (1996) report that a long-short stock selection strategy based on more than 50 measures of accounting information and past return behavior would have generated excess returns of approximately 3% per month. We find that the Haugen and Baker strategies do not provide attractive returns after transaction costs if an investor already has access to strategy portfolios based on book-to-market and momentum. We also provide an extensive analysis of transaction costs over a long sample and we report results of independent interest to researchers in market microstructure.