Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Labour market integration of unemployed youth from a life course perspective: the case of Norway

The aim of this article is to analyse the labour market integration of previously unemployed youth in a life course perspective. ‘Work, Lifestyle and Health’ is a longitudinal panel survey following a sample of nearly 2,000 individuals who are representative of the Norwegian cohorts born between 1965 and 1968. The survey was first conducted in 1985 with follow-ups in 1987, 1989, 1993 and again in 2003. Unemployment among young people does not necessarily lead to marginalisation and social exclusion. Long-term effects will be dependent upon how the youths cope with unemployment, the duration of the unemployment period, their mental health status and educational qualifications. Many young unemployed people are not entitled to unemployment benefits because they lack work experience. Consequently, they are dependent on support from their family and/or social assistance. However, there is still much to learn about the long-term consequences of youth unemployment, e.g. whether or not the youths have received social assistance and what are the long-term consequences for their future labour market career and labour market integration.
A Real Economic Activity Indicator for Turkey

This paper presents a monthly indicator of real economic activity for historical accounting and real-time monitoring of business cycles in Turkey. Business conditions, an unobserved component implied by the interaction and co-movement of various macroeconomic variables, are related to a number of observables at multiple frequencies and estimated within a dynamic factor model. We introduce a recession indicator and thereby compare the severity of turbulence/crisis periods during 1987-2011. High degree of uncertainty embodied in the end-of-sample factor estimates complicates real time detection of recessions and thus points to the need for timely information in a forward-looking policy framework.
Immediate placement and restoration of dental implants in the esthetic region: clinical case series.

AIM The objective of this study was to assess the hard and soft tissue changes following immediate placement and provisional restoration of single-tooth implants in the aesthetic zone. METHODS Thirteen patients with immediately placed and restored implants were included in this study. All participating patients underwent the same treatment strategy that involved removal of the failed tooth, flapless surgery, immediate implant placement, and connection of a screw-retained provisional restoration. Three months following implant placement, the temporary crowns were replaced by the definitive restorations. Implant survival rates, and hard and soft tissue changes were measured using periapical X-rays and photographs. The range of the observation period was between 12 and 37 months with a mean period of 23.2 ± 7.6 months. RESULTS At the time of follow-up, all implants were present with no complications. Radiographic evaluation revealed a mean mesial bone gain of 1.20 ± 1.01 mm and a mean distal bone gain of 0.80 ± 1.14 mm, which reached statistical significance. The mean mid-buccal recession was 0.20 ± 0.78 mm, whereas the mesial and distal papillae height loss was 0.50 ± 1.26 mm and 0.30 ± 0.82 mm, respectively. The changes in the soft tissues did not reach statistical significance. CONCLUSION Notwithstanding the limitation of a small sample size, this study shows that immediate implant placement and provisional restoration in the maxillary aesthetic zone can result in favorable treatment outcomes with regards to soft and hard tissues changes over a follow-up period of 23.2 ± 7.6 months. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE Most clinical trials investigating immediate implant placement and immediate restoration in the maxillary anterior zone have focused on implant survival and implant success, with particular emphasis on radiographically assessed hard tissues changes. However, this study assesses the soft tissue changes associated with this procedure, which is an important area of study given the esthetic demands of implant therapy in the maxillary anterior region.
Comparison between the mechanical behaviour of the human healthy AA and commercial prostheses under various mechanical loadings

Standard chirurgical treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) involves the placement of tubular synthetic aortic prostheses. Most of these implants are made up of polyester textiles or porous expanded polytetrafluoroethylene. Normalized tests are dedicated to their assessment (ISO7198:1998). However, such experiments are not sufficient to characterize the complete mechanical performance of these implants (Le Magnen et al., 2001) and to ensure their mechanical compatibility with the host artery. Thus, the design of mechanically compatible vascular prostheses still remains a challenge. Within this context, a full comparison of the mechanical behavior of the human healthy abdominal aorta (AA) with commercial prostheses is proposed. An original numerical database on the mechanical behavior of human AA subjected to various mechanical loadings is first built and then compared with experimental data obtained from mechanical tests performed on prostheses.
Mozambique: An Unsustainable Democracy

This debate aims to assess the possibilities of democracy succeeding in Mozambique, that is, reproducing itself within Mozambican society in a sustainable manner through processes rooted in the social formations of Mozambique. This involves two principal considerations: first, the political and economic context in which democratisation is operating; second, the processes and institutions which are evolving within Mozambique to support and sustain democratisation. It will be argued here that the political and economic context for democratisation is unfavourable, especially the antidemocratic way in which economic liberalisation (codified in structural adjustment programmes or SAPs) is carried out by the IMF and World Bank (Endnote 1). Economic liberalisation percolates through and interacts with transformations in Mozambican society, which is undergoing various changes as a result of democratisation. Of course, in a period of transition such as this, it is impossible to make hard and fast assertions, but the evidence presented here strongly suggests that the processes and institutions evolving in Mozambican society do not have the capacity to deal with the contradictions of structural adjustment either by co-opting the main tenets of SAP into a popular programme within Mozambique or setting out a counter-hegemonic alternative.
Liquidity commonality does not imply liquidity resilience commonality: a functional characterisation for ultra-high frequency cross-sectional LOB data

We present a large-scale study of commonality in liquidity and resilience across assets in an ultra high-frequency (millisecond-timestamped) Limit Order Book (LOB) data-set from a pan-European electronic equity trading facility. We first show that extant work in quantifying liquidity commonality through the degree of explanatory power of the dominant modes of variation of liquidity (extracted through Principal Component Analysis) fails to account for heavy-tailed features in the data, thus producing potentially misleading results. We employ Independent Component Analysis, which both decorrelates the liquidity measures in the asset cross section, but also reduces higher order statistical dependencies. To measure commonality in liquidity resilience, we utilise a novel characterisation proposed by Panayi et al. [Market resilience, 2014] for the time required for return to a threshold liquidity level. This reflects a dimension of liquidity that is not captured by the majority of liquidity measures and has important ramifications for understanding supply and demand pressures for market makers in electronic exchanges, as well as regulators and HFTs. When the metric is mapped out across a range of thresholds, it produces the daily Liquidity Resilience Profile for a given asset. This daily summary of liquidity resilience behaviour from the vast LOB data-set is then amenable to a functional data representation. This enables the comparison of liquidity resilience in the asset cross section via functional linear sub-space decompositions and functional regression. The functional regression results presented here suggest that market factors for liquidity resilience (as extracted through functional principal components analysis) can explain between 10 and 40% of the variation in liquidity resilience at low liquidity thresholds, but are less explanatory at more extreme levels, where individual asset factors take effect.
Comparative Advantage in Self-Employment and Paid Work

The author reports a study of self-employment/paid-work choice, based on a representative sample of white Canadian men. The main findings are as follows: relative potential earnings is the main choice determinant; potential earnings differences between groups is primarily due to unobserved factors: market values of observed characteristics are similar between groups and relative potential earnings, based only on observed characteristics, are not an explainer of choice; and paid workers have higher potential earnings in both sectors, with a greater advantage in paid work. But the apparent comparative advantage is not significant.
Regions of Yersinia pestis V antigen that contribute to protection against plague identified by passive and active immunization

V antigen of Yersinia pestis is a multifunctional protein that has been implicated as a protective antigen, a virulence factor, and a regulatory protein. A series of V-antigen truncates expressed as glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins (GST-V truncates) have been cloned and purified to support immunogenicity and functionality studies of V antigen. Immunization studies with GST-V truncates have identified two regions of V antigen that confer protection against Y. pestis 9B (a fully virulent human pneumonic plague isolate) in a mouse model for plague. A minor protective region is located from amino acids 2 to 135 (region I), and a major protective region is found between amino acids 135 and 275 (region II). In addition, analysis of IgG titers following immunization suggested that the major antigenic region of V antigen is located between amino acids 135 and 245. A panel of monoclonal antibodies raised against recombinant V antigen was characterized by Western blotting against GST-V truncates, and epitopes of most of the monoclonal antibodies were mapped to region I or II. Monoclonal antibody 7.3, which recognizes an epitope in region II, passively protected mice against challenge with 12 median lethal doses of Y. pestis GB, indicating that region II encodes a protective epitope. This is the first report of a V-antigen-specific monoclonal antibody that will protect mice against a fully virulent strain of Y. pestis. The combined approach of passive and active immunization has therefore confirmed the importance of the central region of the protein for protection and also identified a previously unknown protective region at the N terminus of V antigen.
Leader–Member Conversational Quality

The continuing development of leadership research calls for measurement instruments that can tap into the communication process between leaders and members. The purpose of this present research is to develop and validate a Leader–Member Conversational Quality (LMCQ) scale—an instrument that measures the quality of conversations between leaders and members in the workplace. A series of three studies were conducted. Study I involved item generation and content validity assessment. Study II undertook the task of scale construction and reliability assessment. Study III tested the convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the scale. These studies resulted in a nine-item instrument with sufficient psychometric properties. The ability of the instrument to assess conversational practices quantitatively will help generate greater insights into leader–member communication dynamics and their consequences.
Modulation of liver fibrosis and pathophysiological changes in mice infected with Mesocestoides corti (M. vogae) after administration of glucan and liposomized glucan in combination with vitamin C

Abstract The effects of glucan and liposomized glucan, alone or co-administered with vitamin C, and empty liposomes on hepatic fibrosis in mice infected with Mesocestoides corti (M. vogae) tetrathyridia were studied. Preparations were administered every third day from day 7 to day 31 post-infection (p.i.), nine doses in total. Activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and cholesterol levels were measured in sera collected on days 11, 15, 21, 28, 32, 42, 50 and 65 p.i. Liver fibrosis was studied on the same days by measuring hydroxyproline concentration, which is considered a marker for collagen content. Larvicidal effects of the glucan and liposome preparations were estimated on day 65 p.i. in the liver and peritoneal cavity. Glucan formulations significantly enhanced collagen content, most prominently after administration of liposomized glucan in combination with vitamin C. Activities of both enzymes and cholesterol levels were slightly modified after administration of glucan alone. Liposomized glucan with vitamin C significantly increased ALT and AST activity and cholesterol levels up to days 28–32 p.i. , after which they plateaued or declined. The most pronounced decrease was after administration of liposomized glucan and vitamin C. The same pattern of biochemical parameters in serum was observed after administration of empty liposomes, however, collagen content was not modified significantly. Larval counts in the liver and the peritoneal cavity were significantly reduced after treatment with either glucan formulation, but were unaffected following treatment with empty liposomes. In summary, intense fibrosis in the liver of mice treated with liposomized glucan and vitamin C did not result in the most extensive parenchymal cell injury but, rather in the highest efficacy of treatment. Liposomal lipids were probably utilized in the reparation of the damaged parenchymal cells, while glucan stimulated phagocytic cells.
Eigenvalue assignment for componentwise ultimate bound minimisation in LTI discrete-time systems

We address optimal eigenvalue assignment in order to obtain minimum ultimate bounds on every component of the state of a linear time-invariant (LTI) discrete-time system in the presence of non-vanishing disturbances with known constant bounds. As opposed to some continuous-time cases where ultimate bounds can be made arbitrarily small by applying feedback with sufficiently high gain so that the closed-loop eigenvalues are sufficiently fast, the ultimate bound of a discrete-time system with an additive bounded disturbance can never be made smaller than some set that depends on the disturbance bound, even if all closed-loop eigenvalues are set at zero (the fastest possible in discrete-time). In this context, our contribution is twofold: (a) we single out cases where feedback that may not assign all closed-loop eigenvalues at zero achieves the minimum possible ultimate bound for some component of the system state, and (b) by employing an existing componentwise ultimate bound computation formula, we find a class of systems for which assigning all closed-loop eigenvalues at zero indeed yields minimum ultimate bounds. An intermediate result-and our third contribution-in the derivation of (b) is the obtention of the Jordan decomposition that minimises the componentwise ultimate bound formula employed.
Serum α-Tocopherol Has a Nonlinear Inverse Association with Periodontitis among US Adults.

BACKGROUND Previous experimental models suggest that vitamin E may ameliorate periodontitis. However, epidemiologic studies show inconsistent evidence in supporting this plausible association. OBJECTIVE We investigated the association between serum α-tocopherol (αT) and γ-tocopherol (γT) and periodontitis in a large cross-sectional US population. METHODS This study included 4708 participants in the 1999-2001 NHANES. Serum tocopherols were measured by HPLC and values were adjusted by total cholesterol (TC). Periodontal status was assessed by mean clinical attachment loss (CAL) and probing pocket depth (PPD). Total periodontitis (TPD) was defined as the sum of mild, moderate, and severe periodontitis. All measurements were performed by NHANES. RESULTS Means ± SDs of serum αT:TC ratio from low to high quartiles were 4.0 ± 0.4, 4.8 ± 0.2, 5.7 ± 0.4, and 9.1 ± 2.7 μmol/mmol. In multivariate regression models, αT:TC quartiles were inversely associated with mean CAL (P-trend = 0.06), mean PPD (P-trend < 0.001), and TPD (P-trend < 0.001) overall. Adjusted mean differences (95% CIs) between the first and fourth quartile of αT:TC were 0.12 mm (0.03, 0.20; P-difference = 0.005) for mean CAL and 0.12 mm (0.06, 0.17; P-difference < 0.001) for mean PPD, whereas the corresponding OR for TPD was 1.65 (95% CI: 1.26, 2.16; P-difference = 0.001). In a dose-response analysis, a clear inverse association between αT:TC and mean CAL, mean PPD, and TPD was observed among participants with relatively low αT:TC. No differences were seen in participants with higher αT:TC ratios. Participants with γT:TC ratio in the interquartile range showed a significantly lower mean PPD than those in the highest quartile. CONCLUSIONS A nonlinear inverse association was observed between serum αT and severity of periodontitis, which was restricted to adults with normal but relatively low αT status. These findings warrant further confirmation in longitudinal or intervention studies.
Nitric Oxide Mediates Oxidant Tissue Injury Caused by Paraquat and Xanthine Oxidase

Abstract In both paraquat and X/XO models of lung injury, the injury, previously attributed to the generation of reactive oxygen species, was related to the induction of NO. synthesis, and was totally preventable by inhibition of this synthesis. The results support the view that the NO. radical itself is an essential intermediary in the pathogenesis of at least some forms of oxidant tissue damage. Another form of oxidant injury, caused by prolonged perfusion of the lung ex vivo, is not mediated by NO. however.
Reputation as an Emerging Construct in the Business and Society Field

Reputation is a powerful concept for business, government, and nonprofit organizations, just as it is for individuals. Executives, administrators, external and internal stakeholders, critics, and supporters of organizations all use the concept of reputation routinely to evaluate and communicate their perceptions about organizations. Students, too, typically pay more attention when their teachers link scholarly theories and empirical studies to an organization’s reputation. Despite this high level of interest in reputation in the so-called real world, business and society scholars have not focused much explicit attention on the concept, except for Wartick (1992). The applied fields of strategic management (e.g., Fombrun, 1996; Fombrun & Shanley, 1990), marketing (e.g., Bromley, 1993; Dowling, 2001), and communication (e.g., Argenti, 1998; Morley, 1998) have developed conceptual definitions and empirical measures to a much greater extent. We wondered whether reputation is a relevant and useful construct to integrate more explicitly into theories about business and society relationships. One of the field’s central concepts, corporate social performance (Carroll, 1979; Wartick & Cochran, 1985; Wood, 1991), is a source of a firm’s reputation, and widespread consensus within the field is that managers should consider the expectations and judgments of various external and internal stakeholders when they make decisions. Many business and society scholars also conduct empirical studies of firm performance that use various sources of data that may reflect some aspects of reputation, such as survey data published in Fortune about the “most admired” corporations and evaluative data from Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini and the Investor Responsibility Research Center. These studies, reported in Wood and Jones (1995) , Margolis and Walsh (2001), and Orlitzky and Benjamin (2001), make occasional reference to reputation but do not explicitly explore the concept. An additional problem relates to limitations in the databases currently used for gathering information about social performance and whether they are adequate and comprehensive measures of a company’s reputation (e.g., Baucus, 1995; Brown & Perry, 1994, 1995;
Measuring and Explaining Technical Efficiency in UK Potato Production

Technical efficiency in UK maincrop potato production is measured through the estimation of a stochastic frontier production function using cross section data for the 1992 crop year. Variations in the technical efficiency index across production units are explained through a number of managerial and farm characteristic variables following Battese and Coelli (1995). The technical efficiency index across production units ranges from 33 to 97 per cent. Irrigation of the potato crop and storage of potatoes after harvest are positively correlated with technical efficiency. Number of years of experience of growing potatoes, small scale farming practice and chitting of seed potatoes are all negatively correlated with technical efficiency.
Fraud risk assessments and auditors’ professional skepticism

Purpose – To examine whether planning‐stage fraud risk assessments and audit experience affect the level of professional skepticism displayed by auditors during fieldwork.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents an experiment using professional auditors.Findings – Overall, auditors predisposed to low fraud risk assessments were less skeptical than those with no knowledge of fraud risk (control group). Also, as expected, auditors in the control group were less skeptical than those predisposed to moderate/high fraud risk assessments. Staff auditors were more skeptical than seniors. Senior auditors showed no differences in skepticism between the control group and high fraud risk assessment group.Research limitations/implications – Professional skepticism in this study is measured as the auditors’ assessment of client truthfulness. There is reasonable disagreement on the exact meaning of professional skepticism and some readers’ interpretation of the term may be different from the authors' own.Practic.
Enterprise Bargaining, Union Structure and Wages

Models of simultaneous bargaining games are used to analyze the wage outcomes associated with various systems of industrial relations, including bargaining by craft, enterprise, industry, or the whole economy. Union structure is a key determinant with highest wage pressure occurring when unions are organized along craft lines at industry level. Abandonment of centralized bargaining and the splintering of both union and employer organizations into craft and industry units may well lead both to higher aggregate wage pressure and to greater wage inequality. Copyright 1993 by The Economic Society of Australia.
Does Inflation Harm Economic Growth? Evidence for the OECD

The purpose of this paper is to study the correlation among growth and inflation at the OECD level, within the framework of the so-called convergence equations, and to discuss whether this correlation withstands a number of improvements in the empirical models, which try to address the most common criticisms of this evidence. The main findings are the following: 1) the negative correlation among growth and inflation is not explained by the experience of high-inflation economies; 2) the estimated costs of inflation are still significant once country-specific effects are allowed for in the empirical model; and 3) the observed correlation cannot be dismissed on the grounds of reverse causation (from GDP to inflation).