Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Book Review: Grounding Globalization: Labor in the Age of Insecurity

centers (along such variables as the strength or weaknesses of community organizations and labor allies; the ideologies of municipal governments; the degree to which central labor councils support innovative models of organizing). One hopes that future work on organizing in the city can make these links and develop our understanding of labor’s place in urban space. Despite their minor flaws, read side by side Global Unions and The New Immigrant Workforce offer contrasting but complementary analyses of union renewal. What the two volumes collectively demonstrate is that the labor movement must learn to work at, and very often across, multiple scales to organize the global workforce, be they employed in New York City’s greengroceries and swanky restaurants or the export-processing zones and banana plantations of the global South.
Illegal Immigration, Factor Substitution and Economic Growth

This paper develops a growth model with illegal immigration in which there exist two types of domestic labor, skilled and unskilled. These two types enter the production via a CES aggregator. In a similar manner, the paper also allows for the possibility of imperfect substitution between native and immigrant labor. Within such a framework it analyzes the e ects of an increase in immigration on the average capital stock, individual wages, asset holdings and the distribution of wealth. Contrary to previous results in the literature, the paper shows that illegal immigration may not necessarily make the distribution of wealth more unequal and unskilled labor worse o . This is so because the end results depend on the elasticities of substitution between di erent types of labor. Thus, assuming erroneously that immigrants and natives are perfect substitutes could lead to results that are not only over-estimated but also of the wrong sign.
Dentin-derived BMP-2 and Odontoblast Differentiation

It is known that stem cells from exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED) can be induced to differentiate into odontoblasts. However, the nature of dentin-derived morphogenic signals required for dental pulp stem cell differentiation remains unclear. The hypothesis underlying this work is that dentin-derived Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP) are necessary for the differentiation of SHED into odontoblasts. We observed that SHED express markers of odontoblastic differentiation (DSPP, DMP-1, MEPE) when seeded in human tooth slice/scaffolds and cultured in vitro, or implanted subcutaneously into immunodeficient mice. In contrast, SHED cultured in deproteinized tooth slice/scaffolds, or scaffolds without a tooth slice, do not express these markers. SHED express the BMP receptors BMPR-IA, BMPR-IB, and BMPR-II. Notably, blockade of BMP-2 signaling inhibited the expression of markers of odontoblastic differentiation by SHED cultured in tooth slice/scaffolds. Collectively, this work demonstrates that dentin-derived BMP-2 is required to induce the differentiation of SHED into odontoblasts.
Management of crisis

The recent collapse of Enron and revelations of unethical behaviour by members of the board of large corporations in the USA have reopened the debate about the credibility of the auditing profession and their usefulness in establishing confidence in the capital markets. In the case of Nigeria, the promulgation of the Companies and Allied Matters Act No. 1 in 1990 provided the opportunity for the government to register its dissatisfaction with the performance of auditors in Nigeria. The act contained provisions that challenged the credibility of the accounting profession in Nigeria and almost threatened its very existence. This paper examines events and environmental factors which led to the “crisis of confidence” and how the profession has attempted to re‐establish public confidence in its members. Other developments in the regulatory framework for accounting and auditing in Nigeria are also examined. The paper suggests that any response by the profession must be relevant and give due cognisance to the peculiarity of the Nigerian socio‐economic, political and cultural environments. It also suggests that the accounting profession in Nigeria must not rest on its oars, but must constantly remain proactive by keeping abreast of developments in the internal and the external reporting environments and respond appropriately.
Oral Health in Children and Adolescents with IDDM - A Review

Children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus have a lower salivary flow rate, pH and buffer capacity, but a higher glucose content and peroxidase, IgA, magnesium and calcium concentration, in comparison with healthy children. Nevertheless the incidence of caries is lower than normal in diabetic children with good metabolic control. Periodontal disease usually starts at puberty as mild gingivitis with bleeding and gingival recession, and it may develop into severe periodontitis, especially in children with poor control of diabetes. Microangiopathy, impaired immune response, different bacterial microflora and collagen metabolism are involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic periodontal disease. The gingival flora is mostly composed of Gram-negative, anaerobic bacteria, while collagen has a lower solubility and is atrophic and inadequate to support the occlusion forces. For these reasons, prevention of periodontitis is important in diabetic children; they should receive oral hygiene instruction and visit a dentist at least twice a year.
Determinants of Bank Profitability in a Developing Economy: Empirical Evidence from the China Banking Sector

The Chinese banking sector has undergone noteworthy financial reforms, which significantly metamorphosed the banking system. This article seeks to examine the determinants of the profitability of the Chinese banking sector. The empirical analysis is confined to the four State Owned Commercial Banks (SOCBs) and the 12 Joint Stock Commercial Banks (JSCBs) during the postreform period of 2000–2007. The empirical findings of this study suggest that size, credit risk, and capitalization are positively related to the profitability of China banks, whereas liquidity, overhead costs, and network embeddedness have negative impacts. However, the impact of liquidity is not uniform across bank types. We find that the SOCBs with higher level of liquidity tend to be relatively more profitable, which could be vindicated by the significant amount of lending to the State Owned Enterprises. The impact of economic growth and inflation are always positive whether we examine the SOCB or the JSCB.
Diffusion of Technical Change and the Decomposition of Output into Trend and Cycle

In this paper we argue that modelling the trend component in real GNP as a random walk is inconsistent with its interpretation as productivity growth. As an alternative we specify the trend as an Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) process, whose impulse response function follows an S-shaped pattern reflecting the process of diffusion of technical change. Such an ARIMA process is employed to build and estimate an Unobserved Components ARIMA (UCARIMA) model using USA post-war quarterly data. We find that our model, although more parsimonious, fits the data as well as the standard random walk plus AR(2) cycle. Moreover, the cycle has a very low variance relative to the variance of the trend in our model.
Cost of Childcare and Female Employment in the UK

Mothers of young children may be prevented from working because of the high cost of available, formal childcare. In the UK, the typical cost of a nursery place is more than the average household spends a year on either food or housing. This study examines the extent to which female labour force participation is affected by the cost of formal childcare. The results suggest that childcare price subsidies have a modest impact both on labour force participation and on the use of formal childcare.
A Welfare Analysis of Spectrum Allocation Policies

Economic analysis of spectrum policy focuses on government revenues derived via competitive bidding for licenses. Auctions generating high bids are identified as successful and those with lower receipts as fiascoes. Yet spectrum policies that create rents impose social costs. Most obviously, rules favoring monopoly predictably increase license values but reduce welfare. This article attempts to shift analytical focus to efficiency in output markets. In performance metrics derived by comparing 28 mobile telephone markets, countries allocating greater bandwidth to licensed operators and achieving more competitive market structures are estimated to realize efficiencies that generally dominate those associated with license sales. Policies intended to increase auction receipts (e.g., reserve prices and subsidies for weak bidders) should be evaluated in this light. Copyright (c) 2009, RAND.
Modification of Heat Shock Protein 90 by 4-Hydroxynonenal in a Rat Model of Chronic Alcoholic Liver Disease

Lipid peroxidation during oxidative stress leads to increased concentrations of thiol-reactive α,β-unsaturated aldehyde, including 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE) and 4-oxo-2-nonenal (4-ONE). These aldehydes have a documented ability to disrupt protein function following adduct formation with specific residues. Therefore, to identify 4-HNE-modified proteins in a model of ethanol-induced oxidative stress, a proteomic approach was applied to liver fractions prepared from rats fed a combination high-fat/ethanol diet. The results revealed that essential 90-kDa heat shock protein (Hsp90) was consistently modified by 4-HNE in the alcohol-treated animals. In vitro chaperoning experiments using firefly luciferase as a client protein were then performed to assess the functional effect of 4-HNE modification on purified recombinant human Hsp90, modified with concentrations of this aldehyde ranging from 23 to 450 μM. Modification of Hsp90 with 4-ONE also led to significant inhibition of the chaperone. Because 4-HNE and 4-ONE react selectively with Cys, a thiol-specific mechanism of inhibition was suggested by these data. Therefore, thiol sensitivity was confirmed following treatment of Hsp90 with the specific thiol modifier N-ethylmaleimide, which resulted in more than 99% inactivation of the chaperone by concentrations as low as 6 μM (1:1 M ratio). Finally, tryptic digest of 4-HNE-modified Hsp90 followed by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry peptide analysis identified Cys 572 as a site for 4-HNE modification. The results presented here thus establish that 4-HNE consistently modifies Hsp90 in a rat model of alcohol-induced oxidative stress and that the chaperoning activity of this protein is subject to dysregulation through thiol modification.
Specific Capital and Labor Turnover

Turnover characterizes a dynamic process in which job-worker matches are improved. The problem of searching for a preferred partner is formulated as a two-person game played by the worker and the employer involved in an existing match. The Nash noncooperative quit and dismissal rates exceed those associated with the joint wealth maximizing solution in the absence of a provision for compensation. The joint wealth maximizing turnover rates are independent of the wage paid, but the Nash cooperative rates are not. Recent empirical evidence is not inconsistent with the joint wealth maximizing hypothesis, although a discriminating test is needed.
Development Control in Lagos State: an Assessment of Public Compliance to Space Standards for Urban Development

Development control as a potent tool for city management ensures that the continual growth and management of a city can be such that make for orderliness, improved city image, healthy and aesthetics. It also ensures that the environmental challenges as a result of city growth can be reduced to tolerable levels. In metropolitan Lagos, development control requires special skill as a result of the daily problems the authorities are confronted with, which is attributed to the sheer size and rate of increase of these settlements and the complexities of the tasks involved. The problem ranges from uncontrolled change of use of property, non compliance with space standards and approved design, unguided and ineffective enforcement of building regulations. This paper highlights the meaning, context, relevance and problems associated with development control in Lagos metropolis with reference to space standards under the Urban and Regional Planning Development Law 2010. This submission also contains an assessment of the town planning regulation, level of compliance to building regulation and technical skills of personals monitoring compliance to space standards as specified by Urban and Regional Planning Law Decree 88 of 1992, the Lagos Planning Law of 2005 and under the Urban and Regional Planning Development Law 2010.
Pegvisomant: current and potential novel therapeutic applications

Background: Pegvisomant is a genetically engineered molecule, which exhibits specific growth hormone (GH) antagonism by directly interacting with the GH receptor. It is currently licensed for the treatment of acromegaly where surgery and medical therapy with somatostatin analogues have failed. Objective: To delineate the role of pegvisomant in the treatment of acromegaly and its novel application in other areas of clinical medicine where suppression of GH action may be of therapeutic benefit. Methods: A literature review from PubMed- and EMBASE-listed publications and the web-sites of licensing organisations for medicinal products. Conclusion: Pegvisomant is currently used as a second line therapy in the management of acromegaly. It is highly effective in suppressing the metabolic effects of elevated GH levels when used alone or in combination with somatostatin analogues. However, its long term efficacy and safety for this indication has yet to be established. Preliminary data indicate that pegvisomant may have a role in management of type 1 diabetes with beneficial effects on insulin sensitivity and in preventing the progression of microvascular complications. Additional roles as an adjunct to cancer chemotherapy regimens and for the diagnosis of GH deficiency have been proposed, but have yet to be confirmed.
Empire-Builders and Shirkers: Investment, Firm Performance, and Managerial Incentives

Do firms systematically over- or underinvest as a result of agency problems? We develop a contracting model between shareholders and managers in which managers have private benefits or private costs of investment. Managers overinvest when they have private benefits and underinvest when they have private costs. Optimal incentive contracts mitigate the over- or underinvestment problem. We derive comparative static predictions for the equilibrium relationships between incentives from compensation, investment, and firm performance for both cases. The relationship between firm performance and managerial incentives, in isolation, is insufficient to identify whether managers have private benefits or private costs of investment. In order to identify whether managers have private benefits or costs, we estimate the joint relationships between incentives and firm performance and between incentives and investment. Our empirical results show that both firm performance and investment are increasing in managerial incentives. These results are consistent with managers having private costs of investment. We find no support for overinvestment based on private benefits.
Culture in family business: a two‐country empirical investigation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically compare values and beliefs of family‐business members with those of professional managers across two countries.Design/methodology/approach – The methodological approach utilizes a survey comparing 163 family‐firm members and 168 bank managers in Ukraine and the USA, looking for differences between the culture of members of family‐owned firms and non‐family professionals; and especially the direction of any differences.Findings – The findings show significant differences between family‐firm members and non‐family professionals in both countries. Differences are in the same direction for three constructs. While this study is limited in only examining two countries, the results imply a conclusion that higher social flexibility and spirituality and lower power distance are potentially universal in terms of family‐firm culture.Originality/value – This study's value is in illuminating specific fundamental cultural traits that may be related to family‐firm co.
α-Crystallin-Type Heat Shock Proteins: Socializing Minichaperones in the Context of a Multichaperone Network

SUMMARY α-Crystallins were originally recognized as proteins contributing to the transparency of the mammalian eye lens. Subsequently, they have been found in many, but not all, members of the Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya. Most members of the diverse α-crystallin family have four common structural and functional features: (i) a small monomeric molecular mass between 12 and 43 kDa; (ii) the formation of large oligomeric complexes; (iii) the presence of a moderately conserved central region, the so-called α-crystallin domain; and (iv) molecular chaperone activity. Since α-crystallins are induced by a temperature upshift in many organisms, they are often referred to as small heat shock proteins (sHsps) or, more accurately, α-Hsps. α-Crystallins are integrated into a highly flexible and synergistic multichaperone network evolved to secure protein quality control in the cell. Their chaperone activity is limited to the binding of unfolding intermediates in order to protect them from irreversible aggregation. Productive release and refolding of captured proteins into the native state requires close cooperation with other cellular chaperones. In addition, α-Hsps seem to play an important role in membrane stabilization. The review compiles information on the abundance, sequence conservation, regulation, structure, and function of α-Hsps with an emphasis on the microbial members of this chaperone family.
Thyroid hormones and the energetics of active sodium‐potassium transport in mammalian skeletal muscles.

1. The steady‐state heat production rate (E) of soleus muscles obtained from adult mice in various thyroid states was measured in a perfused microcalorimeter. The ouabain‐suppressible fractions of E and 42K influx were compared and the energetic efficiency of active Na‐K transport assessed. 2. Hypothyroidism with plasma thyroxine concentrations below 1 microgram/100 ml. was induced by pretreatment with 131I or perchlorate. In soleus muscles isolated from treated animals, mean E values were 25.1 +/‐ 0.7 and 24.2 +/‐ 0.5 mcal.g wet wt. ‐1.min‐1 for the 131I and the perchlorate series respectively, i.e. about 30% lower than the control level (36.3 +/‐ 1.5 mcal.g wet wt.‐1.min‐1). Following triiodothyronine treatment, E was increased by about 45%. 3. In muscles from hypothyroid (131I and perchlorate series), euthyroid and hyperthyroid mice ouabain (10(‐3) M) induced a rapid decrease in E of 1.6 +/‐ 0.1 and 1.4 +/‐ 0.1, 2.5 +/‐ 0.2, and 4.3 +/‐ 0.6 mcal.g wet wt. ‐1.min‐1 respectively, i.e. between 6 and 8% of E. 4. In muscles obtained from hypothyroid, euthyroid and hyperthyroid mice, the ouabain‐suppressible component of 42K influx was 0.17 +/‐ 0.04, 0.31 +/‐ 0.02 and 0.45 +/‐ 0.02 micromole. g wet wt. ‐1.min‐1 respectively. Whereas the total number of ouabain binding sites varied appreciably with the thyroid status, the Na‐K contents of soleus or diaphragm muscles showed no significant changes. 5. Notwithstanding the parallelism between the changes in basal E and ouabain‐sensitive components of E and K influx with the thyroid status, it is concluded that active NA‐K transport cannot be considered a primary effector of thyroid thermogenesis in intact mammalian skeletal muscle. The direct contribution of active NA‐K transport to this thermogenesis was indeed small compared with the over‐all cellular energy dissipation. 6. The minimum over‐all energetic efficiency of the transport process in the intact muscles (30‐‐35%) was not dependent on the thyroid status.
Incremental Validity of Mindfulness Skills in Relation to Emotional Dysregulation among a Young Adult Community Sample

The present investigation examined the incremental predictive validity of mindfulness skills, as measured by the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS), in relation to multiple facets of emotional dysregulation, as indexed by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), above and beyond variance explained by negative affectivity, anxiety sensitivity, and distress tolerance. Participants were a nonclinical community sample of 193 young adults (106 women, 87 men; Mage = 23.91 years). The KIMS Accepting without Judgment subscale was incrementally negatively predictive of all facets of emotional dysregulation, as measured by the DERS. Furthermore, KIMS Acting with Awareness was incrementally negatively related to difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior. Additionally, both observing and describing mindfulness skills were incrementally negatively related to lack of emotional awareness, and describing skills also were incrementally negatively related to lack of emotional clarity. Findings are discussed in relation to advancing scientific understanding of emotional dysregulation from a mindfulness skills-based framework.
Conceptualizing the EU Model of Governance in World Politics

While the field of EU studies has generated a rich theoretical literature, the usefulness of analyses of the EU for broader processes of regional governance has been questioned. At the same time much recent scholarship on the EU has examined the Union’s external relations as opposed to its internal governance. At stake in both of these debates are questions about the nature of the EU, what it represents and how it should be conceptualised. By examining the conceptual literatures on EU ‘actorness’, the governance of EU external relations and policy and academic discourses of comparative regional integration, this paper argues that approaches informed by broadly constructivist insights carry significant promise and can help to answer questions about the EU’s role in world politics that perplex both the policy and the academic imaginations.
The 3' terminal sequence of the inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase gene encodes an active domain in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

The gua1 gene encoding inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), which catalyses the first step in de novo biosynthesis of guanosine monophosphate (GMP), was cloned in the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe by functional complementation of a gua1ura4-D18 mutant strain from a S. pombe DNA genomic library. Complementation analysis revealed a 1.2 kb fragment which segregation analysis confirmed did not code for a suppressor gene. Only 446 nucleotides of the gua1 gene encoding the IMPDH C-terminal residues were found within this 1.2 kb sequence (GenBank, AJ293460). The comparison of this wild-type fragment with the same fragment from the gua1ura4-D18 mutant revealed that there was a point mutation at position 1261 (guanine ® adenine) from the 5' end, corresponding to the amino acid residue 421 (glycine ® serine) of the enzyme. Dot and Northern analyses showed that the gua1 gene was expressed in transformants as well as in the wild-type and the gua1ura4-D18 mutant, but enzyme activity was only detected in wild-type and transformant cells. It seems likely that a 446 bp fragment from the 3' end of the gua1 gene abolished the point mutation in the mutant strain, suggesting that this fragment participates in the sequences encoding the active domain of IMPDH in S. pombe.