Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of job-training effects on Korean women

We analyse job-training effects on Korean women for the period January 1999 to March 2000, using a large data set of size about 52,000. We employ a number of estimation techniques: Weibull MLE and accelerated failure time approach, which are both parametric; Cox partial likelihood estimator, which is semiparametric; and two pair-matching estimators, which are in essence nonparametric. All of these methods gave the common conclusion that job training for Korean women increased their unemployment duration. The trainings were not cost-effective in the sense that they took too much time 'locking in' the trainees during the training span, compared with the time they took to place the trainees afterwards. Despite this negative finding, some sub-groups had positive effects: white-collar workers trained for finance|insurance or information|communication. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Gender vulnerability to climate variability and household food insecurity

Climate variability presents different challenges for men and for women in their efforts to ensure household food security. However, despite their central role, gender issues have received only cursory attention in adaptation studies. This article looks at causes of gender vulnerability to climate variability and household food insecurity in one sub-Saharan African country: Malawi. Data were collected through a household questionnaire survey, focus group discussions and key informants' interviews in Chikhwawa and Ntcheu districts, located in the southern and central areas of Malawi. Results revealed that exposure and sensitivity to climate risks vary between men and women; therefore, each gender responds differently to climate risks, with men having more opportunities than women. The results highlight the need for policies and interventions to empower women in the access to resources that can strengthen households' resilience to climate variability.
Compiling a national register of babies born with anophthalmia/microphthalmia in England 1988–94

AIM To describe the prevalence of anophthalmia/microphthalmia in babies born in England 1988–94, as well as their overall survival, and the incidence of associated eye and non-eye malformations; to determine the usefulness of different sources of medical and health service information for establishing a retrospective register of anophthalmia/microphthalmia. METHODS Multiple sources for initial (retrospective) case ascertainment were surveyed, followed by questionnaires to clinicians to establish severity, associated malformations, and aetiology for England, 1988–94. The population surveyed was all births in England for this time period (4 570 350 births). Cases included live births, stillbirths, or terminations after prenatal diagnosis of congenital anomaly, with anophthalmia/microphthalmia, with or without other malformations and syndromes. Trisomy 13 was subsequently excluded. RESULTS The proportion of cases notified by any one information source was not more than 26% (Office for National Statistics Register 22%, paediatricians 26%, district sources 25%). Sixty nine per cent of cases (51% of severe cases) were notified by only one source. A total of 449 cases were reported, prevalence 1.0 per 10 000 births. The prevalence was stable over time, although the proportion notified by clinicians rose in more recent years. Thirty four per cent of affected babies had mild microphthalmia. Of those with severe anophthalmia/microphthalmia, 51% were bilateral, other eye malformations were present in 72%, non-eye malformations in 65%, and a “known aetiology” was attributed in 22%. Three quarters of those severely affected survived infancy. CONCLUSIONS Despite high response rates from the sources of information contacted, the lack of duplication between sources indicates the difficulties of retrospective ascertainment and the need for multiple sources when establishing a register. Anophthalmos/microphthalmos is usually associated with other malformations. Most cases are of unknown aetiology. Key messages • One in 10 000 babies born in England has anophthalmia or microphthalmia, one third of whom are mildly affected • Most babies born with anophthalmia/microphthalmia have additional malformations • Retrospective case ascertainment for conditions like anophthalmia/microphthalmia poses particular difficulties due to incomplete or inappropriate diagnostic indexing of existing data collection systems • The ONS Congenital Malformation Scheme is very incomplete in its ascertainment of babies born with anophthalmia/microphthalmia, whether mild or severe • Multiple sources of case ascertainment are indispensable for establishing a register of a condition such as anophthalmia/microphthalmia
The influence of the situation in interparty conflict

The psychological approach to the study of interpersonal conflict has been guided by a paradigm which emphasizes characteristics of individuals as the primary source of conflict. This model assumes some degree of responseconsistency across situations and roles resulting from general dispositions toward the resolution of conflicts. Representative of this approach are conceptual analogies that have been drawn between motivationally-derived interpersonal orientations toward the resolution of interpersonal conflicts and preferred orientations for national representatives toward the resolution of international conflicts
The Long-Run U.S./U.K. Real Exchange Rate

We investigate the behavior of the long-run U.S./U.K. real exchange rate from 1885 to 1995. Our long-run real exchange rate series is derived from an unobserved components model which divides the real exchange rate into permanent and transitory components. The transitory component is modeled as having variances which switch, according to a Markov-switching process, among low, medium and high variance states. The underlying assumptions of our time-series model are based on an economic theory in which the permanent component represents real influences, while the transitory component represents primarily short-run movements due to nominal exchange rate fluctuations. Because the model is difficult to estimate by standard methods, we describe how the method of Gibbs sampling can handle this model. We find that our long-run real exchange rate series moves similarly to other measures proposed in the literature based on economic models.
Does Social Media Use Influence Entrepreneurial Opportunity? A Review of its Moderating Role

Social media platforms are an indispensable part of entrepreneurship practices. They offer entrepreneurs a platform for business growth and brand development. However, little is known about the effect of social media use on identifying entrepreneurial opportunities. Utilizing social cognition theory, this research focuses on how certain factors—prior knowledge, alertness, and social media—may impact two aspects of opportunity: the discovery and the creation of entrepreneurial opportunity. This study focuses on the investigation of the moderating role of social media use on entrepreneurial opportunities. The findings have important practical and academic implications for how social media impacts entrepreneurship and can be used to increase the ability of entrepreneurs to find new opportunities.
Indian Ocean dipole and rainfall drive a Moran effect in East Africa malaria transmission.

BACKGROUND Patterns of concerted fluctuation in populations-synchrony-can reveal impacts of climatic variability on disease dynamics. We examined whether malaria transmission has been synchronous in an area with a common rainfall regime and sensitive to the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), a global climatic phenomenon affecting weather patterns in East Africa. METHODS We studied malaria synchrony in 5 15-year long (1984-1999) monthly time series that encompass an altitudinal gradient, approximately 1000 m to 2000 m, along Lake Victoria basin. We quantified the association patterns between rainfall and malaria time series at different altitudes and across the altitudinal gradient encompassed by the study locations. RESULTS We found a positive seasonal association of rainfall with malaria, which decreased with altitude. By contrast, IOD and interannual rainfall impacts on interannual disease cycles increased with altitude. Our analysis revealed a nondecaying synchrony of similar magnitude in both malaria and rainfall, as expected under a Moran effect, supporting a role for climatic variability on malaria epidemic frequency, which might reflect rainfall-mediated changes in mosquito abundance. CONCLUSIONS Synchronous malaria epidemics call for the integration of knowledge on the forcing of malaria transmission by environmental variability to develop robust malaria control and elimination programs.
Online Social Interactions Predict Academic and Emotional Adjustment in the Transition to University

We investigated the developmental implications of online social interactions among 590 youth transitioning to university. We observed friends' posts on participants' Facebook pages, and considered attributes of friends' posts used to indicate positive and negative relationship quality in face-to-face interactions. After statistical control of beginning-of-year functioning and participants' Facebook content, Facebook friends' deviant content posts (swearing; illegal/sexualized activities) predicted participants' lower grade point average, Facebook friends' posts indicating connection to participants predicted participants' lower psychopathology, and Facebook friends' verbal aggression posts predicted participants' lower institutional attachment, by the end of the year. Negative effects of friends' posts were strongest for participants who were disliked by peers face to face. The online context may uniquely influence youth adjustment in conjunction with face-to-face relationships.
The rainforests of Cameroon : experience and evidence from a decade of reform

In 1994, the Government of Cameroon introduced an array of forest policy reforms, both regulatory and market-based, to support a more organized, transparent, and sustainable system for accessing and using forest resources. This report describes how these reforms played out in the rainforests of Cameroon. The intention is to provide a brief account of a complex process and identify what worked, what did not, and what can be improved. The barriers to placing Cameroon's forests at the service of its people, its economy, and the environment originated with the extractive policies of successive colonial administrations. The barriers were further consolidated after independence through a system of political patronage and influence in which forest resources became a coveted currency for political support. These deeply entangled commercial and political interests have only recently, and reluctantly, started to diverge. In 1994, the government introduced an array of forest policy reforms, both regulatory and market based. The reforms changed the rules determining who could gain access to forest resources, how access could be obtained, how those resources could be used, and who will benefit from their use. This report assesses the outcomes of reforms in forest-rich areas of Cameroon, where the influence of industrial and political elites has dominated since colonial times.
Assessment of management training needs and selection for training: the case of Libyan companies

Results of the empirical studies on Libyan management practice generally, and MTD in particular, indicate that the administrative functions are practised and operated without effective methods, and away from acceptable standards. Libyan public companies have difficulty in identifying the training required for their employees, which has led to a common feeling among employees that they do not have enough training to enable them to perform their job properly. Furthermore, the decisions related to MTD activity are still dependent on personal relations, family ties, tribalism, etc. rather than on an established procedure. Focuses on the assessment of MTD needs and selection for MTDPs in Libyan industrial companies by finding out how these companies select their employees for MTDPs and the main ways and techniques used by the companies to perform this activity. Reveals that the approaches and techniques used by companies for selecting their employees for MTDPs and for assessing MTD needs depend mostly on indications of performance reports and on bosses’ and supervisors’ views. At the same time, surveyed and interviewed managers did not indicate any communication with the employees who are the basic ground for MTDPs. Identifies the difficulties and problems in MTD needs assessment and, therefore, allows readers to contrast Libyan management training and development practices with their own local counterparts.
Assessment of problem‐solving ability

It is recognized that no problem solving can take place without a background knowledge. As the highest marks in PMPs are now being consistently achieved by those candidates who arrive at the correct diagnosis without accumulating excessive information and at the same time avoiding irrelevant or incorrect data the PMP may be measuring efficiency in problem solving ability. This would appear to be substantiated by the fact that reasonable correlations are obtained between each candidate's remarks in problems of widely differing system disease patterns.
Lipopolysaccharides from Distinct Pathogens Induce Different Classes of Immune Responses In Vivo1

The adaptive immune system has evolved distinct responses against different pathogens, but the mechanism(s) by which a particular response is initiated is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the type of Ag-specific CD4+ Th and CD8+ T cell responses elicited in vivo, in response to soluble OVA, coinjected with LPS from two different pathogens. We used Escherichia coli LPS, which signals through Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and LPS from the oral pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis, which does not appear to require TLR4 for signaling. Coinjections of E. coli LPS + OVA or P. gingivalis LPS + OVA induced similar clonal expansions of OVA-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, but strikingly different cytokine profiles. E. coli LPS induced a Th1-like response with abundant IFN-γ, but little or no IL-4, IL-13, and IL-5. In contrast, P. gingivalis LPS induced Th and T cell responses characterized by significant levels of IL-13, IL-5, and IL-10, but lower levels of IFN-γ. Consistent with these results, E. coli LPS induced IL-12(p70) in the CD8α+ dendritic cell (DC) subset, while P. gingivalis LPS did not. Both LPS, however, activated the two DC subsets to up-regulate costimulatory molecules and produce IL-6 and TNF-α. Interestingly, these LPS appeared to have differences in their ability to signal through TLR4; proliferation of splenocytes and cytokine secretion by splenocytes or DCs from TLR4-deficient C3H/HeJ mice were greatly impaired in response to E. coli LPS, but not P. gingivalis LPS. Therefore, LPS from different bacteria activate DC subsets to produce different cytokines, and induce distinct types of adaptive immunity in vivo.
An Empirical Study of the Effects of Service Quality, Visitor Satisfaction, and Emotions on Behavioral Intentions of Visitors to the Museums of Macau

This study aims to identify the dimensions of service quality and to examine the interrelationships among the service quality dimensions, service quality, satisfaction, emotions, and behavioral intentions as perceived by visitors to the museums of Macau using the structural equation model. The dimensions of service quality are built and a multi-dimensional and hierarchical model is used as a framework to synthesize the effect of service quality on emotions, and then the effects of emotions and service quality on visitor satisfaction, which in turn results in behavioral intentions towards the museum. The findings of this study are based on structural equation modeling analysis of a convenience sample of 433 respondents. The findings reveal that there are four primary dimensions and 12 sub-dimensions of service quality as perceived by visitors to the museums.
Effects of the size of the board of directors and board involvement in strategy on a private club's financial performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of the size of the board of directors and board involvement in strategy on financial performance in the private club industry.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected in a web‐based survey of chief operating officers (COOs) and general managers (GMs) who are members of the Club Managers Association of America (CMAA). Hierarchical regression analysis of data from 360 respondents was used to examine the proposed model.Findings – The results showed that board members' involvement in strategy and the size of the board of directors have a positive influence on a private club's financial performance.Research limitations/implications – Further research is indicated to include other board‐related influences such as group composition and the quality of relationships between board members and GMs/COOs to measure a club's financial performance.Originality/value – The paper contributes to the limited existing literature on the association between .
A closer look at reverberation Chambers - 3-D Simulation and experimental verification

This paper presents three-dimensional (3-D) full-wave simulations of the electromagnetic field inside a medium-sized reverberation chamber. A frequency-domain method-of-moments approach based on the electric field integral equation is used. A synopsis of the computational challenges particular for reverberation chambers is described and a detailed overview on the chamber modeling procedure is given. The electric field inside the chamber is computed and the influence of small geometric details and asymmetries is investigated as well as the effect of different excitations and stirrers. It is demonstrated that a statistics-based validation of reverberation chamber simulations is insufficient. To validate simulation results, therefore extensive near-field measurements inside the prototype reverberation chamber are performed. The complete 3-D reverberation chamber simulation, considering stirrers, door, and various practical excitations, accurately predicts the fields within the chamber in the important lower-to-medium frequency range and thus represents a reliable tool facilitating reverberation chamber optimization.
Chinese Exports and Productivity Gains: Panel Evidence

This paper examines the impact of imports from China on the labour productivity levels of importers, using unbalanced data from 1994 to 2006. It is hypothesised that imports from China increase importer countries' labour productivity levels. Using cross-section, fixed and random-effect models, a statistically significant, positive relationship is found between the share of a country's imports from China and labour productivity in the manufacturing sector of that country. Moreover, it is found that imports from China have a larger impact on China's main Asian-Pacific trade partners and countries with higher manufacturing shares in their total exports.
Order Book Resilience, Price Manipulation, and the Positive Portfolio Problem

The viability of a market impact model is usually considered to be equivalent to the absence of price manipulation strategies. By analyzing a model with linear instantaneous, transient, and permanent impact components, we discover a new class of irregularities, which we call transaction-triggered price manipulation strategies. We prove that price impact must decay as a convex nonincreasing function of time to exclude these market irregularities along with standard price manipulation. This result is based on a mathematical theorem on the positivity of minimizers of a quadratic form under a linear constraint, which is in turn related to the problem of excluding the existence of short sales in an optimal Markowitz portfolio.
Country Resource Environments, Firm Capabilities, and Corporate Diversification Strategies

Environmental differences among countries are often assumed away in strategy research. In particular, the unique contexts of the emerging economies have not been considered adequately in extant research. I bring country environmental contexts to the foreground and conceptualize various types of economies (developed economies, emerging economies, institution-driven high growth emerging economies, and factor-driven high growth emerging economies) as dissimilar types of country resource environments that provide firms with country resources: factors and institutions. To compete successfully, firms will find it more optimal to emphasize appropriate firm capabilities (market capabilities and non-market capabilities) and corporate diversification strategy (product and international diversification). By integrating insights from institutional economics and resource-based view, this paper offers a conceptual framework to examine the multifaceted relationships linking firm capabilities and corporate diversification across dissimilar country resource environments. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.
Incentive Compatible Mechanism Design and Firm Growth: Experiences from Telecommunications Sector Regulation

This article evaluates the impact of the introduction of incentive regulation on firm growth among the population of local exchange carriers in the US telecommunications industry between 1988 and 2001. The results show that the rate of return method and other intermediate incentive schemes have had a negative impact on firm growth. Conversely, the introduction of pure price caps schemes had a positive and significant impact on firms' growth. These results highlight the importance of proper and appropriate incentive compatible mechanism design in motivating firms to strive for superior performance. Copyright © 2010 The Author Journal compilation © CIRIEC 2010.
Solution structure and dynamics of a designed monomeric variant of the lambda Cro repressor

The solution structure of a monomeric variant of the lambda Cro repressor has been determined by multidimensional NMR. Cro K56[DGEVK] differs from wild‐type Cro by the insertion of five amino acids at the center of the dimer interface. 1H and 15N resonances for 70 of the 71 residues have been assigned. Thirty‐two structures were calculated by hybrid distance geometry/simulated annealing methods using 463 NOE‐distance restraints, 26 hydrogen‐bond, and 39 dihedral‐angle restraints. The root‐mean‐square deviation (RMSD) from the average structure for atoms in residues 3‐60 is 1.03 ± 0.44 Å for the peptide backbone and 1.6 ± 0.73 Å for all nonhydrogen atoms. The overall structure conforms very well to the original design. Although the five inserted residues form a beta hairpin as expected, this engineered turn as well as other turns in the structure are not well defined by the NMR data. Dynamics studies of backbone amides reveal T1/T2 ratios of residues in the α2‐α3, β2‐β3, and engineered turn that are reflective of chemical exchange or internal motion. The solution structure and dynamics are discussed in light of the conformational variation that has been observed in other Cro structures, and the importance of flexibility in DNA recognition.
ALTERNATIVE BETA RISK ESTIMATORS IN EMERGING MARKETS: THE CASE OF TUNISIA

In this paper, we use the sample selectivity model to estimate the systematic risk for Tunisian stocks. This approach is applied in the case of extreme thin trading where data are censored due to the presence of zero returns. The approach is a two-step procedure: a selectivity component which deals with the discreteness in the observed data and a regression component which applies to the non zero return data. In addition, this study compares the new beta estimate to the standard OLS beta and the Dimson Beta. The results reveal that on average, the selectivity model corrects for the general downward bias in OLS betas more suitably ten the Dimson correction. Our approach is more appropriate to deal with the presence of zero return observations associated with extreme thin trading situations in emerging markets.