Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
If you are not paying for it, you are the product: how much do advertisers pay to reach you?

Online advertising is progressively moving towards a programmatic model in which ads are matched to actual interests of individuals collected as they browse the web. Letting the huge debate around privacy aside, a very important question in this area, for which little is known, is: How much do advertisers pay to reach an individual? In this study, we develop a first of its kind methodology for computing exactly that - the price paid for a web user by the ad ecosystem - and we do that in real time. Our approach is based on tapping on the Real Time Bidding (RTB) protocol to collect cleartext and encrypted prices for winning bids paid by advertisers in order to place targeted ads. Our main technical contribution is a method for tallying winning bids even when they are encrypted. We achieve this by training a model using as ground truth prices obtained by running our own "probe" ad-campaigns. We design our methodology through a browser extension and a back-end server that provides it with fresh models for encrypted bids. We validate our methodology using a one year long trace of 1600 mobile users and demonstrate that it can estimate a user's advertising worth with more than 82% accuracy.
Office assessment of coronary candidates and risk factor insights from the Framingham study

Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, particularly coronary heart disease. Risk increases with the severity of hypertension, irrespective of age or sex. However, the absolute risk is greatest in the elderly, for whom isolated systolic hypertension is particularly important. Hypertension is often accompanied by other risk factors. For example, the levels of cholesterol and high- and low-density lipoproteins are important. Diabetes increases the risk of cardiovascular disease at any level of blood pressure. Smoking increases the risk from hypertension and stopping smoking can dramatically reduce risk. A raised heart rate increases the risk of coronary events in both hypertensive and normotensive patients. However, heart rates tend to be higher in hypertensive patients. Left ventricular hypertrophy combined with hypertension increases the risk of coronary heart disease. An elevated level of fibrinogen increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in both hypertensive and normotensive patients, though the risk is greater at higher blood pressures. Cardiovascular risk profiles have been constructed to identify patients at high risk.
The incentive for rural to urban migration: a re-examination of the Harris-Todaro model

An attempt is made to provide a more accurate measure of the incentive for rural to urban migration in developing countries. The study uses data from Kenya to estimate the urban to rural wage gap and then decomposes the gap into the portion due to differences in explained characteristics of rural non-migrant workers and migrant urban workers, and the portion due to returns to observed attributes. The results suggest that the returns to observable attributes constitute the largest portion of the wage gap, and may offer a more accurate measure of the incentive for rural to urban migration.
Deforestation, economic growth and corruption: a nonparametric analysis on the case of Amazon forest

This article aims to analyse the relationship between deforestation, corruption and economic growth. We focused our analysis on the Brazilian municipalities situated in the Amazon region. We used the cross-sectional data from 538 municipalities in the Legal Amazon area for the year 2004. We constructed the municipal corruption index based on the objective data delivered by the reports from Controladoria-Geral da União (CGU). We performed a nonparametric analysis, that is, we applied the Generalized Additive Model (GAM). We found statistically significant effects of the economic growth rate on the level of deforestation. However, the corruption seems to have no significant impact. Given the first results, we divided our data and analysed just the data from 25 municipalities from the states Pará and Matogrosso. In the second approach, corruption was statistically significant.
A Retrospective Cohort Study of the Association of Anesthesia and Hernia Repair Surgery With Behavioral and Developmental Disorders in Young Children

Recent animal studies have shown that commonly used anesthetic agents may have serious neurotoxic effects on the developing brain. The purpose of this study was to assess the association between surgery for hernia repair and the risk of behavioral and developmental disorders in young children. We performed a retrospective cohort analysis of children who were enrollees of the New York State Medicaid program. Our analysis involved following a birth cohort of 383 children who underwent inguinal hernia repair during the first 3 years of life, and a sample of 5050 children frequency-matched on age with no history of hernia-repair before age 3. After controlling for age, sex, and complicating birth-related conditions such as low birth weight, children who underwent hernia repair under 3 years of age were more than twice as likely as children in the comparison group to be subsequently diagnosed with a developmental or behavioral disorder (adjusted hazard ratio 2.3, 95% confidence interval 1.3, 4.1). Our findings add to recent evidence of the potential association of surgery and its concurrent exposure to anesthetic agents with neurotoxicity and underscore the need for more rigorous clinical research on the long-term effects of surgery and anesthesia in children.
Immunohistochemical staining of normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic adrenal cortex with a monoclonal antibody against alpha inhibin.

AIMS: To investigate the immunohisto-chemical staining of normal, hyperplastic, and neoplastic adrenal cortex with a monoclonal antibody against alpha inhibin. Also, to determine whether immunostaining with this antibody is useful in differentiating between adrenal cortical neoplasms and other tumours involving the adrenal gland that might mimic them. METHODS: Normal adrenal tissue (n = 20) and specimens from cases of adrenal hyperplasia (n = 13), adrenal cortical adenoma (n = 15), adrenal cortical carcinoma (n = 4), phaeochromocytoma (n = 8), and adrenal metastatic tumour (n = 7) were stained with a monoclonal antibody against the alpha subunit of human inhibin. RESULTS: Positive staining with the anti-alpha inhibin monoclonal antibody was seen in all normal adrenal glands. Immunoreactivity was largely confined to the inner cell layers of the adrenal cortex, with no staining of the adrenal medulla. All hyperplastic adrenal glands and adrenal cortical adenomas and carcinomas were also immunoreactive. The other tumours studied were negative. CONCLUSIONS: There is consistent immunoreactivity with the anti-alpha inhibin monoclonal antibody in normal adrenal cortex and in hyperplastic and neoplastic adrenal cortical lesions. In the normal adrenal cortex, positive staining is mainly confined to the zona reticularis. Other neoplasms involving the adrenal gland are negative. Immunohistochemical staining with anti-alpha inhibin monoclonal antibody, performed as part of a panel, may prove to be of value in the distinction between adrenal cortical carcinoma and phaeochromocytoma or metastatic tumour.
Electoral information in developed stock market: testing conditional heteroscedasticity in the market model

This investigates the influence of major electoral information on abnormal returns around the announcement date in the developed stock market and examines whether these explanatory variables are associated with observed cumulative abnormal returns using a regression analysis. The analytical results demonstrate that average abnormal returns are significantly negative before the date of the announcement of the results of a general election, on days −6 and −3, and after that announcement date, on days +4, +6 and +10. This phenomenon can be attributed to hedging activity of the investors to reduce risk.
Mission, purpose, and ambition: redefining the mission statement

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to redefine a mission statement, to develop a clearer definition and show its advantages and limitations.Design/methodology/approach – The paper shows the literature's lack of agreement on the definition of the mission statement and whether it should be defined as a stand‐alone statement or as a broader model. It then demonstrates the discrepancy between these definitions and the actual mission statements of exemplary organizations. This is followed by proposing a new definition of a mission, demonstrating how it is rooted in good practice, and presenting its benefits and limitations.Findings – There are found to be widely varied definitions and models of the mission statement. These are typically complex (composed of many parts) and are not reflected in the mission statements of many exemplary organizations. The need is clear for a more focused definition.Research limitations/implications – The basic argument is mainly built on conceptual discu.
Earnings management and auditor conservatism: effects of SEC enforcement actions

Outlines previous research into the factors influencing managers’ choice of accounting procedures and auditors’ acceptance of them, including regulatory action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Studies data from 1980‐1996 SEC enforcement actions against big five accounting firms or their staff to investigate the levels of discretionary accruals made by the relevant clients during the period of investigation. Explains how the discretionary accruals are estimated over various time frames and shows that clients have more income decreasing accruals as the investigation takes place. Considers possible reasons for this and concludes that it is due to the auditors becoming more conservative.
An integrated model of customer loyalty: an empirical examination in retailing practice

Over the recent decade, practitioners have engaged in creating and maintaining long-term connections with customers and regard customer loyalty as their ultimate goal in developing business strategies because of the increasing market competition. In order to explore the effectiveness of activities designed to enhance customer loyalty, this research presents an integrated model that investigates the two-dimensional structure of the construct of customer loyalty, as well as the antecedents and the consequences of such loyalty. Using the retailing industry as the sample for data collection, the results of an empirical study show that customers’ perceptions of outcome and environmental quality affect attitudinal loyalty, which in turn leads to greater behavioural loyalty. Furthermore, the distribution frequency of print advertisements is positively related to behavioural loyalty, which in turn leads to greater customer expenditure. However, surprisingly, sales promotion is not found to have an effect on behavioural loyalty. The implications of this study are discussed based on the empirical findings.
The epidemiology of prescribing errors: the potential impact of computerized prescriber order entry.

BACKGROUND Adverse drug events (ADEs) are the most common cause of injury to hospitalized patients and are often preventable. Medication errors resulting in preventable ADEs most commonly occur at the prescribing stage. OBJECTIVES To describe the epidemiology of medication prescribing errors averted by pharmacists and to assess the likelihood that these errors would be prevented by implementing computerized prescriber order entry (CPOE). METHODS At a 700-bed academic medical center in Chicago, Ill, clinical staff pharmacists saved all orders that contained a prescribing error for a week in early 2002. Pharmacist investigators subsequently classified drug class, error type, proximal cause, phase of hospitalization, and potential for patient harm and rated the likelihood that CPOE would have prevented the prescribing error. RESULTS A total of 1111 prescribing errors were identified (62.4 errors per 1000 medication orders), most occurring on admission (64%). Of these, 30.8% were rated clinically significant and were most frequently related to anti-infective medication orders, incorrect dose, and medication knowledge deficiency. Of all verified prescribing errors, 64.4% were rated as likely to be prevented with CPOE (including 43% of the potentially harmful errors), 13.2% unlikely to be prevented with CPOE, and 22.4% possibly prevented with CPOE depending on specific CPOE system characteristics. CONCLUSIONS Prescribing errors are common in the hospital setting. While CPOE systems could improve practitioner prescribing, design and implementation of a CPOE system should focus on errors with the greatest potential for patient harm. Pharmacist involvement, in addition to a CPOE system with advanced clinical decision support, is vital for achieving maximum medication safety.
Child Support Enforcement and Child Poverty: A Long-Term Perspective Based on Findings from the United States

Abstract This article seeks to broaden the discussion of the efficacy of the Child Support Enforcement program in the United Kingdom. Many are skeptical of the program, claiming that the UK's system is meant only to recuperate public expenditures on low-income children in lieu of combating child poverty. We argue that, in addition to any assessment of the program's ability to reduce child poverty directly, any child-centric evaluation must also consider the counterfactual: How many poor people would there have been in the absence of the program? Research findings from the United States Child Support Enforcement program, a program that is similar to that found in the UK, suggest that conclusions from evaluations that incorporate the counterfactual may be different from those that critics of the UK Child Support Enforcement program reach.
Banking efficiency in transition economies

An increasing share of the banking sector is controlled by foreign capital in the majority of transition countries. To analyse the effects of this trend on the performance of the banking sector in these countries, this study conducts a comparative analysis of the performance of foreign-owned and domestic-owned banks operating in the Czech Republic and Poland. We use the stochastic frontier approach to compute cost efficiency scores. Following Mester (1996), financial capital is included in the cost frontier model to control for risk preferences. Our finding is that on average foreign-owned banks are more efficient than domestic-owned banks. We conclude, however, that this advantage does not result from differences in the scale of operations or the structure of activities.
Performance of avalanche photodetectors at cryogenic temperatures: Operations of MPPCs at temperatures below 77 K

We are investigating the possibility of using Silicon Avalanche Photo Detectors (both in proportional and in Geiger mode) to readout inorganic scintillators operated at cryogenic temperatures. Such detectors, that need to operate close to LHe temperatures and in a magnetic field of a few Tesla, was proposed by our group as a way to built an active polarized target to be used for neutrino physics, for the searches of axions and CP violation, as suggested by some theoretical papers. In the present work we have investigated in some details the performance of Hamamatsu MPPCs down to LHe temperature, to verify the temperature range of usability of these devices. Measurement of the most important parameters will be presented: quantum efficiency, dark current, dark rate, gain. These results will be compared to what we measured on Large Area Silicon APDs operating in the same temperature range.
Saquinavir Inhibits Early Events Associated with Establishment of HIV-1 Infection: Potential Role for Protease Inhibitors in Prevention

ABSTRACT The maturation of newly formed human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) virions is a critical step for the establishment of productive infection. We investigated the potential of saquinavir (SQV), a protease inhibitor (PI) used in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), as a candidate microbicide. SQV inhibited replication of clade B and clade C isolates in a dose-dependent manner in all cellular models tested: PM-1 CD4 T cells, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs), and immature monocyte-derived dendritic cells (iMDDCs). SQV also inhibited production of infectious virus in cervical, penile, and colorectal explants cocultured with T cells. Moreover, SQV demonstrated inhibitory potency against trans infection of T cells by in vitro-derived dendritic cells and by primary dendritic cells that emigrate from penile and cervical tissue explants. No cellular or tissue toxicity was detected in the presence of SQV, suggesting that this drug could be considered for development as a component of an effective microbicide, capable of blocking viral maturation and transmission of HIV-1 at mucosal surfaces.
The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in the Business Services Industry

Abstract This report aims to identify the determinant factors of FDI in the business services industry by examining 20 variables and their impacts on attracting foreign investment in 33 sample countries plus Hong Kong. The results of this study indicate that system-related factor conditions and demand conditions have a strong correlation to FDI. Among the variables under system-related factor conditions, four (bribery and corruption, transparency, intellectual property rights (IPR), and ease of doing business) greatly influence the amount of FDI in the business services industry. Among the variables under demand conditions, three (the cost of living index, office rent, and GDP) are key. At the same time, this paper concludes that the aforementioned factors influence not only the business services sector, but the manufacturing industry's FDI as well. Another main finding of this paper is that the FDI in the business services industry is more frequently found in more developed economies. For the market seeking and efficiency-seeking FDI, the quality of system-related factor conditions and the size of GDP are of particular importance for FDI in the business services industry.
Testing some of Benjamin Graham’s Stock Selection Criteria: A Case of the FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Index from Year 2000 to 2009

Benjamin Graham, also known as the “father of value investing” proposed that investment in the stock exchange can be a safe endeavor while receiving gains that outperform the market if the investor makes carefully thought out purchases. This study aims to determine if the use of some of Benjamin Graham’s stock selection criteria is able to generate returns that are significantly greater than the returns in the stock exchange of Malaysia, particularly, the comprehensive FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Index. This study collected secondary data regarding fundamentals of companies listed in the FTSE Bursa Malaysia EMAS Index from the year 2000 to 2009. Five criteria were set up in this research based on one or a combination of price-to-earnings ratio, price-to-book value, current ratio and dividend yield. The listed companies were screened using those criteria. An equally weighted portfolio was created using the screened companies and their one-year and two-year returns calculated. The returns were compared to the market return. Hypotheses of this research were tested using t-test statistic to determine the significance of the data. This research found that most of the screening criteria used generated returns that were higher than the market return in almost every year they were tested in. Benjamin Graham’s stock selection criteria although have been conceived over 80 years ago is still applicable today in the Malaysian market. Further research can be conducted with different criteria with varying holding periods and in different markets.
Family Strategies: Fluidities of Gender, Community and Mobility in Rural West China*

Abstract This article queries the current mobility of China's rural population by inverting the usual urban perspective and looking at this mobility through exploring the lives of those who do not move. It departs from a micro-analysis of who remains in the countryside in three west China agricultural communities between 2003 and 2005 and links this with an exploration of emergent structural features of rural communities as they are remade in the early 21st century in the wake of the abolition of agricultural taxes and levies. The ethnographic approach adopted highlights the agency, choices and practices of local people in charting their courses in a rural social world being drained of people. It proposes the utility for analysis of family strategies, identifying a repertoire of resourceful and diverse practices through which people strive to recreate and repopulate their social worlds. The argument links the study of historical directions in polity and economy with local and gendered practices in everyday life.
Leave policy in the Nordic welfare states: a ‘recipe’ for high employment/high fertility?

Predicted population decline and labour shortages in European welfare states are directing attention to policy strategies that might increase women's employment and fertility rates. In this context, the Nordic welfare states’ blend of high female employment rates and relatively high fertility levels stands out from others. These patterns are accompanied by comprehensive work–family policies indicating that policy reform is a main explanation. A core element in Nordic work–family policies is generous leave of absence arrangements for parents. In scrutinising leave policy in a Nordic context, the analysis in this paper emphasises that the current situation is a result of processes that have taken a long time to unfold, and that leave policy reforms interact with labour market developments and cultural institutions of family formation in shaping women's social practices.
Blood pressure variables and prevalent electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy in sub‐Saharan African individuals with type 2 diabetes

Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether brachial blood pressure (BP) variables (systolic BP [SBP], diastolic BP [DBP], pulse [PP] and mean arterial pressure [MAP]) are similar determinants of prevalent electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in sub‐Saharan Africans with type 2 diabetes (T2D).
Relative Risk Aversion Revisited

THROUGH cross-sectional analysis of the asset holdings of individual households, this study adds to the evidence available on relative risk aversion. It utilizes the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS)1 which have advantages over the data bases used in previous studies. Assumptions about relative risk aversion are made in a number of theoretical economic and financial models.2 An empirical study by Cohn, Lewellen, Lease, and Schlarbaum (CLLS, 1975) concluded that relative risk aversion declined as wealth increased across households, while a second empirical study by Friend and Blume (F&B 1975) concluded from mixed evidence that relative risk aversion remained relatively constant as wealth increased. The present study finds that by restricting the sample to higher wealth households and by defining wealth narrowly, patterns consistent with decreasing or constant relative risk aversion emerge and these are compatible with the earlier studies. However, the use of a broader based sample and a more comprehensive measurement of wealth alters the conclusions and a pattern indicative of increasing relative risk aversion emerges. Thus, the paper cautions that constant or decreasing relative risk aversion assumptions in theoretic models may not be realistic descriptions of the risk attitudes of typical U.S. households. First, the literature on relative risk aversion will be reviewed. Second, the model used to estimate the coefficient of relative risk aversion will be discussed. The third section will present empirical results and contrast them with those of earlier studies. Finally, the material will be summarized and the conclusions indicated.