Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Inclusion and the `Get Heard' Process

Since 1997, there has arguably been a 'rediscovery' of those most at risk of poverty and social exclusion by New Labour. Within this context, it is important to consider the European, national and sub-national policy frameworks within which interventions are being developed. The European Union's 'Open Method of Co-ordination' is of relevance given its emphasis on making a decisive impact on poverty and social exclusion by 2010 through stimulating domestic policy processes in the form of National Action Plans on Inclusion (NAPSI). It also attempts to provide a coordinating framework for member states to exchange policy ideas and practices. As part of the development of the 2006-8 UK NAPSI, a Social Policy Task Force worked jointly with the Department of Work and Pensions to take forward the 'Get Heard' process — a mechanism to ensure that the views of those at the 'grassroots' could be fed into the process of developing the plan. This article presents key findings from one case study area (Merseyside). There is a subsequent consideration of the degree to which either informal or more formalized arrangements are conducive to securing enhanced horizontal and vertical integration in governance frameworks, policy making and service delivery for those most marginalized.
United Arab Emirates: Communities and Community Genetics

The UAE society is cosmopolitan, but the indigenous inhabitants are traditional with puritanical values despite their exposure to other vastly different cultures and habits. Marriages between consanguineous couples are still the norm rather than the exception. As a result, there is a high frequency of genetic disorders, particularly autosomal recessive types. Despite the high frequency of genetic disorders like haemoglobinopathies and others characteristically found in this population, genetic services are inadequate. Screening for certain disorders like thalassaemia are not applied on a wide scale. Abortion is illegal, and therefore, prenatal diagnosis or preconception tests are not done. With the absence of a good national database, deficiency of genetic services and absence of preventative alternatives for carrier couples, genetic counsellors find it difficult to advice pragmatic solutions to issues relating to genetic diseases. This paper reviews common genetic problems in the UAE with special emphasis on available genetic services and support to families with children with inherited disorders. Existing barriers to the improvement of clinical services by prenatal counselling are also discussed.
Understanding and Measuring Entrepreneurial Leadership Style

Although entrepreneurial leadership is embraced in the popular press and in classrooms, academic knowledge remains underdeveloped. We develop the construct of entrepreneurial leadership and argue that it involves influencing and directing the performance of group members toward achieving those organizational goals that involve recognizing and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. We discuss environmental, organizational, and follower‐specific contingencies that may influence the success of entrepreneurial leadership, and we test the reliability and validity of an empirical measure for this construct (the scale). Using this novel measurement tool, we find that entrepreneurial leadership is more prevalent among founder‐leaders than nonfounder leaders, which indicates construct validity.
Evidence of a value-growth phenomenon on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Extracted from text . Number 53 - Part 1 M Graham and E Uliana* Evidence of a value-growth phenomenon on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange *Department of Accounting, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7701, Republic of South Africa. The financial support of the Department of Accounting at the University of Cape Town is gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful for the suggestions made by Prof Geoff Everingham and the anonymous referees. Email: mgraham@commerce.uct. ac.za 1. Introduction 1.1 Background Early empirical evidence (see for example; Black, Jensen and Scholes, 1972; Fama, 1970; Fama and Macbeth, 1973) provided support for the bases of finance theory, the .
Dynamics of Slow-Moving Landslides from Permanent Scatterer Analysis

High-resolution interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) permanent scatterer data allow us to resolve the rates and variations in the rates of slow-moving landslides. Satellite-to-ground distances (range changes) on landslides increase at rates of 5 to 7 millimeters per year, indicating average downslope sliding velocities from 27 to 38 millimeters per year. Time-series analysis shows that displacement occurs mainly during the high-precipitation season; during the 1997–1998 El Niño event, rates of range change increased to as much as 11 millimeters per year. The observed nonlinear relationship of creep and precipitation rates suggests that increased pore fluid pressures within the shallow subsurface may initiate and accelerate these features. Changes in the slope of a hill resulting from increases in the pore pressure and lithostatic stress gradients may then lead to landslides.
Multiple sclerosis: prevalence and factors impacting bladder and bowel function in an Australian community cohort

Purpose. To describe the prevalence and impact of bladder and bowel dysfunction on quality of life (QoL) in persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) in an Australian community cohort and to explore the relationships between commonly used continence measures. Methods. Patients (N = 73) recruited from a tertiary hospital database, interviewed using standardised measures, based on the framework of International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. Results. Of 73 participants (mean age 50 yrs, 73% female, 56% progressive MS), two thirds were bothered by urinary frequency whereas half reported urinary incontinence, and 14% bowel incontinence. Urinary problems impacted emotional health (31%), ability to perform household chores (22%) and physical recreation (28%), with detrimental impact on QoL. There was a significant relationship between symptoms, level of urogenital distress (rho = 0.74, p < 0.001) and impact of incontinence (rho = 0.68, p < 0.001). The single item of Urological Association Symptom Index assessing impact of bladder symptoms on QoL correlated significantly with all other bladder scales (rho = 0.60–0.74), making it a potential ‘screening tool’ to identify patients for further assessment. Conclusion. Continence issues cause significant disability in pwMS. Improved awareness of currently available treatment options and clinically robust trials are needed to assess outcomes of continence intervention.
Risk, Ambiguity, and the Exercise of Employee Stock Options

We investigate the importance of ambiguity, or Knightian uncertainty, in executives' decisions about when to exercise stock options. We develop an empirical estimate of ambiguity and include it in regression models alongside the more traditional measure of risk, equity volatility. We show that each variable has a statistically significant effect on the timing of option exercises, with volatility causing executives to hold their options longer in order to preserve remaining option value, and ambiguity increasing the tendency for executives to exercise early in response to risk aversion. Regression estimates for the volatility and ambiguity variables imply similar magnitudes of economic impact upon the exercise decision, with the volatility variable being about 2.5 times stronger.
LARGE SCALE SOFTWARE TEST DATA GENERATION BASED ON COLLECTIVE CONSTRAINT AND WEIGHTED COMBINATION METHOD

Original scientific paper Software reliability test is to test software with the purpose of verifying whether the software achieves reliability requirements and evaluating software reliability level. Statistical-based software reliability testing generally includes three parts: building usage model, test data generation and testing. The construction of software usage model should reflect user's real use as far as possible. A huge number of test cases are required to satisfy the probability distribution of the actual usage situation; otherwise, the reliability test will lose its original meaning. In this paper, we first propose a new method of structuring software usage model based on modules and constraint-based heuristic method. Then we propose a method for the testing data generation in consideration of the combination and weight of the input data, which reduces a large number of possible combinations of input variables to a few representative ones and improves the practicability of the testing method. To verify the effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper, four groups of experiments are organized. The goodness of fit index (GFI) shows that the proposed method is closer to the actual software use; we also found that the method proposed in this paper has a better coverage by using Java Pathfinder to analyse the four sets of internal code coverage.
Forecasting Inflation in Mexico Using Factor Models: Do Disaggregated CPI Data Improve Forecast Accuracy?

In this paper we apply a dynamic factor model to generate out of sample forecasts for the inflation rate in Mexico. We evaluate the role of using a wide range of macroeconomic variables with particular interest on the importance of using CPI disaggregated data to forecast inflation. Our data set contains 54 macroeconomic series and 243 CPI subcomponents from 1988 to 2008. Our results indicate that: i) Factor models outperform the benchmark autoregressive model at horizons of one, two, four and six quarters, ii) Using disaggregated price data improves forecasting performance, and iii) The factors are related to key variables in the economy such as output growth and inflation.
Youth's perception of tourism impact: policy implications for Folgaria (Italy)

This study aims to investigate the perceptions of tourism impacts and policies of the young residents (between 18 and 35) of the mature Alpine destination of Folgaria (Italy). The data, collected by a mail survey, suggested that youth displays overall positive views of the repercussions of tourism, except for environmental impacts and community involvement in decision making. A Probit model was also implemented to analyse the determinants of individuals' political support for current tourism development. More favourable views of the tourism policy system were observed with increasing level of knowledge about the different initiatives considered. Finally, a principal component analysis outlined the political priorities for the future of the destination.
Finite-time Parameter Estimation in Adaptive Control of Nonlinear Systems

In most adaptive control algorithms, parameter estimate errors are not guaranteed to converge to zero. This lack of convergence adversely affects the global performance of the algorithms. The effect is more pronounced in control problems where the desired reference set-point or trajectory depends on the system's unknown parameters. In this paper, we present a parameter estimation routine that allows exact reconstruction of the unknown parameters in finite time provided a given excitation condition is satisfied. The algorithm is independent of the control and identifier structure employed. The true parameter value is obtained without requiring the measurement or computation of the velocity state vector. The technique provides a direct solution to the problem of removing auxiliary perturbation signals when parameter convergence is achieved. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated with simulation examples.
Attitude and consciousness of Japanese men and women towards career commitment and continuity: the role of expected change in HRM policies

A survey was conducted on 302 working men and women in Japanese private firms and local government organization anrl 51 non-working Japanese women to examine the attitude and consciousness towards career commitment and continuity if organizations adopt some policy formulations in more relaxed ways to accommodate, particularly, Japanese women in the workplace. Many studies have well documented that women’s passive attitude towards career commitment and continuity, as compared to that of men, is the outcome of discriminatory HRM policies and practices in the internal labour market. The ANOVA results show that the attitude on the policy relating to work–home harmonization differs significantly between men and women. As compared to working women, non-working women would have a more positive attitude to career commitment and continuity if a work-home harmonization policy wcre adopted. The ANOVA results also reveal that men and women have shown an almost similar attitude to pay structure and, thus, the integrat.
Down's syndrome and the pattern of congenital heart disease in a community with high parental consanguinity.

BACKGROUND It is speculated that parents' consanguinity status effects the pattern of congenital heart defects (CHDs). In this study the CHD pattern in children with Down's syndrome (DS) was determined in a Saudi population with a high consanguineous marriage rate and compared with historical cohorts from populations with low prevalence of parental consanguinity. MATERIAL/METHODS The prospective study was conducted in an open-access pediatric echocardiography clinic in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The subjects were all children with DS proven by clinical and cytogenetic study and referred to the pediatric cardiology service from 2001-2004. Parents' consanguinity was documented and 2D echocardiography and Doppler studies were performed after physical examination, ECG, and chest X-ray for each patient. RESULTS CHDs were detected in 54/110 (49%) children. These included ventricular septal defect (VSD: 23/54), patent ductus arteriosus (PDA: 4/54), secundum atrial septal defect (ASD: 14/54), atrioventricular septal defect (AVSD: 8/54), tetralogy of Fallot (2/54), bicuspid aortic valve (1/54), supra-pulmonary stenosis (1/54), and double outlet right ventricle (1/54). Consanguinity was found in 25% of all parents. Aortic stenosis, coarctation of the aorta, transposition of great arteries, and complex heart diseases were not detected. CONCLUSIONS A slightly higher frequency of CHD was documented in DS children from this population with a high consanguineous marriage rate. The frequencies of specific lesions were similar to those reported locally and internationally; VSD was the most frequently detected in this study. Interesting was the predominance of left-right shunt lesions and the relative rarity of cyanotic and complex CHD in this DS population.
Re-Thinking Reputation

Economic models of reputation make strong assumptions about the information available to players. In particular, it is assumed that they know the entire history of the game to date. Such models can seldom reproduce the cycling of reputations we observe in the real world. We build a model of reputation with more realistic assumptions about the partial knowledge of the history that would be available and how it might be used. This new approach can explain cycles in reputations.
Modelling the Extensive Margin of World Trade: New Evidence on GATT and WTO Membership

Recent literature has argued that, contrary to the results of a seminal paper by Rose (2004), General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO) membership does promote bilateral trade, at least for developed economies and if membership includes non-formal compliance. We review the literature to identify open issues. We then develop a simple extension of the gravity model that gives rise to an extensive country margin of trade separating positive trade from zero trade country pairs. The model is used to identify WTO membership effects at both the intensive and the extensive margins. Empirical estimation of this model, based on Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood methods with exporter and importer fixed effects, allows us to readdress the empirical issue of whether GATT/WTO membership does or does not promote trade. We find that GATT membership was successful on the extensive margin of world trade but not on the intensive margin. For the recent WTO episode (1995-2008), we find consistent and robust evidence for a substantial trade-creating role of membership which is driven primarily by the intensive margin. WTO membership results in higher bilateral trade of about 40 per cent.
Growth and Equity Tradeoff in Decentralization Policy: China's Experience

The paper uses China's recent experience to investigate the potential tradeoff between economic growth and regional equity in the design of fiscal decentralization policy. Although present in other countries, this policy tradeoff has been particularly relevant to China over the last two decades. We build a theoretical model of fiscal decentralization, where overall national economic growth and equity in the regional distribution of fiscal resources are the two objectives pursued by a benevolent policy maker. Solutions that emphasize regional equity tend to have larger central government expenditures and higher contribution to the central budget by the richer jurisdictions. The reverse is true for solutions emphasizing growth. The model is tested using panel data for 1985-98. We find that fiscal decentralization in China led to economic growth, but this relationship was non-linear. Decentralization also led to significant increases in regional inequality. Overall, the historical record shows that pushing for a more equitable distribution of fiscal resources across provinces in China is likely to lead to lower national economic growth. The tradeoff between economic growth and regional equity is the most important and difficult decision in intergovernmental fiscal reform currently facing the Chinese authorities.
Investigating Ghana’s Revealed Comparative Advantage in Agro-Processed Products

Export diversification through agro-processing has been a policy objective of successive governments. In the most recent policy document the processing of horticultural products including fruits has been emphasised. Using four indices of revealed comparative advantage, nine agroprocessed product groups have been identified in which Ghana has a comparative advantage. However, the share of agro-processed products in which Ghana has a comparative advantage declined over the period 2004 to 2011. We recommend that policies should be designed to encourage expansion of exports in the nine identified product groups as well as to reverse the decline in the share of agro-processed products in which Ghana has a comparative advantage.
Foreign aid, domestic investment and welfare

This paper examines the welfare implications of temporary foreign aid in a simple two-period, two-country model of trade. Domestic investment is endogenous, providing an important link between aid in period one and the terms of trade in periods one and two. Transfer-induced changes in the terms of trade redistribute present and future income between the donor and the recipient. In the presence of barriers to international borrowing and lending, such redistribution gives rise to the possibility of temporary aid being both potentially and strictly Pareto improving.
Silibinin from Silybum marianum Stimulates Embryonic Stem Cell Vascular Differentiation via the STAT3/PI3-K/AKT Axis and Nitric Oxide

Abstract Silibinin, the bioactive compound of milk thistle (Silybum marianum), exerts tissue protective and regenerative effects that may include stem cell differentiation toward vascular cells. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether silibinin stimulates blood vessel formation from mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and to unravel the underlying signaling cascade. Vascular branching points were assessed by confocal laser scanning microscopy and computer-assisted image analysis of CD31-positive cell structures. Protein expression of vascular markers and activation of protein kinases were determined by western blot. Nitric oxide (NO) generation was investigated by use of the fluorescent dye 4-amino-5-methylamino-2′,7′-difluorofluorescein diacetate. Silibinin dose-dependently increased CD31-positive vascular branching points in embryoid bodies cultivated from ES cells. This was paralleled by increase of protein expression levels for the endothelial-specific markers vascular endothelial cadherin (VE-cadherin), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2, and hypoxia-inducible factor-1α. Moreover, silibinin increased activation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), which boosted generation of NO in embryoid bodies and enhanced phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) as well as phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3-K) and AKT. Vasculogenesis, VE-cadherin expression, STAT3 and AKT phosphorylation, NO generation, and eNOS phosphorylation were inhibited by the small molecule STAT3 inhibitor Stattic, AKT inhibitor VIII, the PI3-K inhibitor LY294002, or the NOS inhibitor Nω-Nitro-L-arginine methyl ester hydrochloride. In conclusion, our findings indicate that silibinin induces vasculogenesis of ES cells via activation of STAT3, PI3-K, and AKT, which regulate NO generation by eNOS.
Impact of Free Trade Agreements on Trade in East Asia

The number of bilateral and plurilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia has increased rapidly after the 2000s behind the world trend of RTAs. Many studies tackled the challenge of figuring out the impact of FTAs in this region by applying various methodologies. The first half of this paper reviews empirical studies of ex-post evaluation of FTAs in East Asia. A look at earlier studies on the impact of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (hereafter AFTA), the first regional FTA in this region revealed that few studies found robust trade creation effects of AFTA in the 1990s. However, since the 2000s, several studies using detailed trade and tariff data on products or sectors indicate that tariff elimination under AFTA promoted regional trade among ASEAN countries. Recent studies also show tariff elimination is not necessarily the most important measure to promote trade in goods in the case of AFTA. Liberalisation measures--such as reduction of non-tariff measures, trade facilitation and coordination of rules of origin, and improvement of FTA usability--are more important measures to facilitate trade between members other than tariff elimination. Likewise, with regard to bilateral FTAs in East Asia, some ex-post evaluation studies show that these FTAs positively impact trade at some extent. These studies show that the positive impacts are brought not only by tariff elimination under the FTAs but also by other liberalisation measures. The latter half of this paper discusses a basic empirical analysis on the impact of five ASEAN+1 FTAs which have not yet been sufficiently investigated because of shortage of data. We found that trade creation effects of ASEAN-China FTA (ACFTA) and ASEAN-Korea FTA (AKFTA) appear in industrial supplies and capital goods between members. Also, trade in consumption goods is facilitated under ACFTA. On the other hand, the impact of ASEAN-Japan FTA (AJCEP) is not revealed in many cases. These results suggest that these regional FTAs potentiate the positive impact on trade when production and sales networks among members have already been developed. At the same time, the newer FTAs whose members are the same as precedent FTAs should set tariff elimination and other liberalisation measures at more liberalised level than precedent FTAs. From the perspective of effectiveness, the newer regional FTA in this region, such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, needs to have a higher level of liberalisation and more inexpensive procedures for members to utilize said FTA than the existing ASEAN+1 FTAs in this region.