Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multivariate Exponential Smoothing for Forecasting Tourist Arrivals

In this article, we propose a new set of multivariate stochastic models that capture time-varying seasonality within the vector innovations structural time-series (VISTS) framework. These models encapsulate exponential smoothing methods in a multivariate setting. The models considered are the local level, local trend, and damped trend VISTS models with an additive multivariate seasonal component. We evaluate the forecasting accuracy of these models against the forecasting accuracy of univariate alternatives using international tourist arrivals from 11 source countries to Australia and New Zealand. In general, the newly proposed multivariate models improve on forecast accuracy over the univariate alternatives.
Changing remuneration systems: effects on activity in general practice.

OBJECTIVE--To investigate the effects on general practitioners' activities of a change in their remuneration from a capitation based system to a mixed fee per item and capitation based system. DESIGN--Follow up study with data collected from contact sheets completed by general practitioners in one period before (March 1987) a change in their remuneration system and two periods after (March 1988, November 1988), with a control group of general practitioners with a mixed fee per item and capitation based system throughout. SETTING--General practices in Copenhagen city (index group) and Copenhagen county (control group). SUBJECTS--265 General practitioners in Copenhagen city, of whom 100 were selected randomly from the 130 who agreed to participate (10 exclusions) and 326 general practitioners in Copenhagen county. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Number of consultations (face to face and by telephone) and renewals of prescriptions, diagnostic and curative services, and specialist and hospital referrals per 1000 enlisted patients in one week. RESULTS--Of the 75 general practitioners who completed all three sheets, four were excluded for incomplete data. Total contact rates per 1000 patients listed rose significantly compared with the rates before the change index in the city (100.0 before the change v 111.7 (95% confidence interval 106.4 to 117.4 after the change) and over the same time in the control group (100.0 v 106.0), but within a year these rates fell (to 104.2(99.1 to 109.6) and 104.0 respectively). There was an increase in consultations by telephone initially but not thereafter. Rates of examinations and treatments that attracted specific additional remuneration after the change rose significantly compared with those before (diagnostic services, 138.1 (118.7 to 160.5) and 159.5 (137.8 to 184.7) and curative services 194.6 (152.2 to 248.9) and 194.8(152.3 to 249.2) for second and third data collections respectively) and with the control group (diagnostic services 105.3, 107.6 and curative services 106.0, 115.0) whereas referral rates to secondary care fell (specialist referrals 90.1 (80.7 to 100.6) and 77.0 (68.6 to 86.4) and hospital referrals 87.4 (71.1 to 107.5) and 68.4 (54.7 to 85.4] in doctors in the city. CONCLUSIONS--Introducing a partial fee for service system seemed to stimulate the provision of services by general practitioners, resulting in reduced referral rates. The concept of a "target income" which doctors aim at, rather than maximising their income seemed to play a part in adjustment to changing the system of remuneration.
Modeling a Small Farm Livelihood System using Linear Programming in Bindura, Zimbabwe

A livelihood system is the full range of activities available to an individual farmer. Communal farmers are often faced with the problem of how to select the optimal cropping patterns that significantly contribute to sustainable production. In this study, a linear program that reflects these choices by selecting a combination of farm activities that is feasible given a set of fixed farm constraints and that maximizes income while achieving other goals such as food security is developed. Results obtained by using linear programming and traditional methods are compared. The results obtained by using the linear programming model are more superior. The difference in gross income is 44.65%.
Federal Defense Industrial Policy, Firm Strategy, and Regional Conversion Initiatives in Four American Aerospace Regions

This article examines divergent experiences among U.S. defense regions in the post-cold war era, highlighting the interplay between shifting federal policies, large defense firm investment and location decisions, and adjustment policies implemented by regional actors. Case studies of four defense aerospace centers reveal that economic impacts were highly uneven across major defense regions. Regional conversion and diversification efforts mitigated some adjustment costs when local actors overcame interjurisdictional conflict and vested leadership in a single agency or government department. Communities that had experienced structural downturns in previous periods were better able to draw on prior knowledge, pull actors together, and plan more strategically. While the scale of local initiatives has not been large enough to have measurable impacts on aggregate regional economic performance, conversion programs did succeed in overcoming specific market failures and improved outcomes at the level of firms and individual workers.
Product line rivalry with brand differentiation

Competition with product rivalry is examined in a model where products are differentiated by both quality and brand name. With no commitment, firms produce a full product line. When firms can commit to restrict their product offerings, firms specialize if the degree of brand-specific differentiation is small and they produce a full product line if brand-specific differentiation is large relative to intrafirm differentiation. Firms may crowd a product space when all competitors would be better-off with specialization. Brand proliferation is a credible entry-deterring strategy if the degree of brand-specific differentiation is not too large. Copyright 1993 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Why Do Entrepreneurs Switch Lead Venture Capitalists?

We examine the dynamics of the positive sorting in the venture capital industry. Our findings indicate that switching lead venture capitalists (VCs) is not uncommon during the course of entrepreneurial firms’ development. Companies with upwardly revised perceived quality are more likely to switch to more reputable VCs. Further, companies that switch lead VCs obtain larger capital infusion and higher pre–money valuation. However, companies that switch to more reputable VCs accept smaller investment size and lower pre–money valuation in follow–on rounds. In addition, it takes significantly more time for switchers with downwardly revised perceived quality to obtain subsequent financing.
A Reexamination of the Empirical Relationship between Investment and Financing Decisions

Several studies (see [7], [15], [9], and [16]) have attempted to ascertain the empirical relationships that exist between the financing and investment decisions of firms. The primary impetus for these efforts was provided by Modigliani and Miller (MM) [20], [21] when they demonstrated that under the assumption of perfect capital markets, the optimal investment decisions of a firm are separable from its financing decisions. In the presence of market imperfections, interdependencies between these decisions that violate the basic MM propositions may exist. Therefore, the studies referred to above have essentially focused upon determining whether market imperfections have been of sufficient magnitude to lead to joint determination of investment and financing decisions. Though the original MM propositions were introduced more than two decades ago, the nature of the empirical relationship between investment and financing decisions remains a controversial issue. The fact that this matter is still unresolved is not attributable to a lack of attention, for the original propositions have been examined in the presence of taxes, bankruptcy costs, and agency costs with no clear consensus emerging.
Knowledge and Innovation for New Zealand:

Policy makers in New Zealand advocate investments in training and Research and Development (R&D) as effective policy options to increase the country's level of productivity. However, uncertainty remains about the strategic prioritisation of these policy options. The article examines the impact of public investment in training and R&D on productivity, technological advancement and innovation. Based on an international survey of empirical findings, the article rejects calls for substantial government funded training programmes and highlights the limitations of public investment in business R&D. Instead, the article wishes to advance knowledge by developing a two-stage wage strategy in support of a process of ‘creative destruction’, first through initial wage growth, subsequently through wage restraint and, ultimately, in pursuit of a sustainable platform for investment in technological advancement, skills, innovation and economic growth. It concludes with an assessment of political pressures and respective reasons why this strategy, although capable of meeting multiple policy objectives, is unlikely to be favoured by policy makers and political interest groups.
The business plan as a project: an evaluation of its predictive capability for business success

Although there is extensive research aimed at identifying the main success factors for new ventures, efforts directed at evaluating the real effect of the existence and quality of a business plan on a firm's survival chances have been limited. This study attempts to fill this gap by analyzing to what extent the quality of a business plan, measured according to its economic, financial and organizational viability, constitutes a good predictor of business survival; and how other variables related to the characteristics of the entrepreneur and the business can affect the predictive capability of the model under consideration. Hypotheses are tested using data collected from 2142 service firms. The results show that none of the three variables that evaluate business plan quality (economic, financial and organizational viability) seems to have a determining influence on survival chances. Adding essential characteristics related to the entrepreneur and the business (education and training, experience, kind of motivation, number of employees and start-up capital) does little to increase the model's predictive capabilities.
The role of strategic alliances in complementing firm capabilities

Abstract Strategic alliance research emerged to explain alliance formation based upon transaction cost minimisation and opportunism reduction. Later research, and early research from Japan, emphasised the role of alliances in facilitating the transfer of knowledge between organisations. Most recently, alliance research has focussed on the development of shared, potentially idiosyncratic, resource stocks. This paper builds on this recent research, testing the proposition that alliances are important vehicles allowing firms to access or acquire external resources, hence shoring up capability gaps and building new capabilities as required during firm, product and industry life cycles. Using a sample from Australian manufacturing small-and-medium-sized enterprises, the paper reveals that alliances employed by firms can be viewed as initiatives to either fill a gap in the firm's resource stock or to exploit a perceived opportunity in its operational and strategic environment.
Caecal pneumatosis is not an absolute contraindication for endoluminal stenting in patients with acute malignant large bowel obstruction

The computed tomographic (CT) finding of caecal pneumatosis in patients with malignant large bowel obstruction has been associated with ischaemia and impending perforation. Emergency surgery is then usually performed without consideration of endoluminal stenting. The aim of our study was to correlate caecal viability to the CT finding of caecal pneumatosis in patients with acute malignant large bowel obstruction.
The Wage Premium for University Education in Great Britain During a Decade of Change

Using data drawn from the Labour Force Survey between 1997 and 2006, we find that the premium enjoyed by the stock of university graduates has remained largely stable over this period. This is true for both men and women, across all subject areas and across the ability distribution. However, there is evidence that wage returns for the most recent cohort, that is those graduating after much of the recent expansion of higher education had been completed, have moderated.
Do Applicant Patent Citations Matter?

Patent law both imposes a duty on patent applicants to submit relevant prior art to the PTO and assumes that examiners use this information to determine an application's patentability. In this paper, we examine the validity of these assumptions by studying the use made of applicant-submitted prior art by delving into the actual prosecution process in over a thousand different cases. We find that patent examiners rarely use applicant-submitted art in their rejections to narrow patents, relying almost exclusively on prior art they find themselves. Our findings have implications for a number of important legal and policy disputes, including initiatives to improve patent quality and the strong presumption of validity the law grants issued patents—a presumption that makes patents more difficult to challenge in court.
Promoting Freedom of Association in China? Putting Transnational Corporate Social Responsibility into a National Context

Using the findings of an intensive case study of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project in China, this paper argues against the view that CSR and the state's regulations are mutually exclusive. It contests that the theorization of the transnational social movement (TSM) should not ignore the development of the state regime, which in turn is shaped by the power relations in the workplace and the community, and is embedded in the national political history. The findings of this research support the Polanyi-inspired approach which sees CSR as being embedded in the changing patterns of business–government–society relations. This approach highlights that the behaviour of the state and the engagement of civil society have actively shaped the scope and the implementation of CSR. Following this line of argument, this paper provides evidence of the dynamics and paradox of workers' and grassroots NGOs' engagement in CSR in China. The specificity of China stems from the state, on the road of China's transition from a state socialist country to being a part of global capitalism. Workers' and NGOs' frustration at the denial of freedom of association (FOA) under the CSR projects at this stage reflects well the legacy of Chinese state socialism, in particular the nature of the official trade unions and the suppressive function of the local state–global capital nexus. Therefore, the state is by no means being excluded from either business or civil society, as the orthodox view of CSR presumes.
The Role of Monetary Policy in Japan: A Break in the 1990s?

This article documents time series evidence suggesting the case for a possible structural break in the role of Japan's monetary policy during the 1990s. It uses a simple vector autoregressive framework and offers some suggestive results: While a persistent effect of monetary policy on real output is detected over the full sample of 1975–1998 and the subsample that ends in 1993, such effect disappears with the recent subsample of the 1990s. The stability analysis also provides more specified evidence that there is a break in the reduced form dynamic system in 1995. Some interpretations are offered to intuitively support these findings. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 2000, 14(4), pp. 366–384. Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, Rokko, Nada, Kobe 657-8501, Japan Copyright 2000 Academic Press. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E52, E32.
Comment: The Demand for Liquid Asset Balances by U.S. Manufacturing Corporations: 1959–1970

The paper presented by Professors Marcis and Smith (M-S), analyzing the determinants of the demand for cash and short-term Treasury obligations held by U. S. manufacturing corporations, is praiseworthy. The authors have made an interesting application of a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) technique developed by Arnold Zellner [3] in estimating demand functions jointly for each of the liquid assets of corporations belonging to nine asset size categories. Nonetheless, I have some reservations about the implications of the model employed in their present study and the reliability of their results. Some of my reservations concern the theoretical foundation of their model itself, while others are related to their methodology and estimation techniques.
Leadership: the Role of the Exemplar

Attempts to define the qualities which make up leadership probably go back beyond the invention of writing: certainly, to the orally transmitted poetry of Homer and his peers. Yet satisfactory answers have been elusive. This article reports on a two-year survey which attempts to refine the grounds for debate further by benchmarking the features of leadership identified in the Exemplar Model against the competencies associated with high performing managers. The survey covered 105 senior executives and the perceptions of them by over 1,000 of their colleagues.
Comparing EU and US trade liberalisation under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture

We take bound tariffs under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA) as the starting point and attempt to measure how much liberalisation in agriculture will be achieved by the European Union (EU) and the US by the end of the implementation period of the Agreement. Using the Trade Restrictiveness Index (TRI) and the Mercantilistic Trade Restrictiveness Index (MTRI) as indicators, we assess the tariff structures chosen by the EU and the US in terms of their welfare and market access impacts. The effects of the actual UR Agreement commitments are compared with alternative tariff reduction schemes such as the 'Swiss formula' and a uniform reduction in tariffs. Copyright 2000, Oxford University Press.
Working Fathers in Europe: Earning and Caring

This article asks whether co-residential fathers who spend more time looking after their children work fewer hours and earn less than other fathers and non-fathers. The results suggest that to the contrary, fathers who spend more time with their children earn more per hour and work fewer hours per week, on average, than those who spend less time with their children. In other words, employed fathers who spend most time with their children also experience the most favourable labour market outcomes. Furthermore, prior labour market outcomes are positively correlated with a man becoming a father.
Issues of rescue and medical care following the 1988 Armenian earthquake.

On-site emergency care and rescue efforts may be critical in preventing disability and other serious consequences of disasters. In this report we compare efforts used in the rescue and emergency medical care of 189 people (case subjects) from Kumairy (Leninakan), Armenia, who were hospitalized with serious injuries following the Armenian earthquake of 7 December 1988, with efforts used in helping 68 people (controls) from Kumairy with mild injuries who were not hospitalized. We used a standardized interview questionnaire to ascertain the circumstances of entrapment, the rescue process used, the injuries the victims sustained, and the medical care they received. Case and control subjects shared similar social and demographic characteristics; however, case subjects waited longer to be rescued and to receive medical care than did control subjects. Of the people who said they were trapped, 66.2% of the case subjects and 41.2% of the control subjects said that they were trapped for > 1 hour (odds ratio [OR] = 2.79, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.52-5.13) whilst the OR for > 6 hours of entrapment was 3.88 (95% CI: 1.69-9.10). Of those requiring medical care, 28.6% of people who were hospitalized waited > 1 hour after rescue to receive medical care, compared with only 14.7% of the control subjects (OR = 2.32, 95% CI: 1.05-5.23). In addition to the case-control study, we collected data on general characteristics of the rescue and emergency medical care process. We found that most of the trapped people were rescued by untrained local inhabitants who most often used their hands or simple tools. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Relative Legibility and Confusions of Letter Acuity Targets in the Peripheral and Central Retina

Background Patients with macular disease may image optotypes at a peripheral retinal locus during visual acuity testing. In this study, we asked if the relative legibility and confusions between letters are similar in the fovea and at 10° in the peripheral retina. Methods Twenty five upper-case alphabet letters (all except “I”), constructed to the same specifications as the Sloan letters, were presented one at a time on a computer monitor at the fovea and at 10° in the temporal, superior and superior-temporal retina. Results The range of relative legibility at peripheral loci was generally larger than in the fovea, for all letters and for the subset of 10 Sloan letters. Although many confusion pairs were similar in the fovea and periphery, additional confusion pairs, preferentially involving curved letters, occurred uniquely in the periphery. Conclusion The increased range of relative legibility for letter targets in the peripheral retina underscores the importance of using letter-by-letter scoring to obtain precise measures of visual acuity in patients without central vision.
Regional development and post-communist politics in a Czech region

Abstract This article links post-communist politics with regional development through an investigation of the formulation of strategic plans at various levels. This is an important activity for compliance with procedures essential to accessing EU financial support, and beyond that, it has significance for the investigation of political relationships. The dominant conclusion is that the communist period and the post-communist transformation left distinctive features that created barriers to the emergence of the ‘standard’ EU pattern and therefore justifies continued use of the ‘post-communist’ label. In particular, this is exhibited in a disjointed structure of regional and local administration with weak cooperation between levels. EU prescriptions and involvement have in some respects accentuated the isolation of levels from each other. This article argues that the standard interpretation of the concepts of social capital and partnership needs to be clarified. Above all, it becomes clear that there needs to be recognition and acceptance of the conflicting nature of many relationships and of the bargaining and compromises lying behind a regional strategy and its implementation. The article thereby adds to the literature that has warned against some over-enthusiastic interpretations of social capital and related concepts as providing an unambiguous basis for a region's development.
Inward Foreign Direct Investment and Aggregate Imports: Time Series Evidence from Pakistan

This study investigates the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) on aggregate imports in Pakistan using the annual time series data for the period 1981 to 2007. The cointegration results suggest that there exists a unique significant positive long-run equilibrium relationship between inward FDI and aggregate imports in Pakistan. The respective parsimonious short-term dynamic error-correction model also confirms a significant positive short run relationship with high speed of adjustment. The causality result shows unidirectional causality running from inward FDI to aggregate imports in the country. The sensitivity analysis confirms that the results are robust.