Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adrift at the Margins of Urban Society

We quantify how social detachment (measured as neither working nor attending school) of low-income African-American and Latino young adults relates to their teen neighborhood conditions. Data come from retrospective surveys of Denver Housing Authority (DHA) households. Because DHA household allocation mimics quasirandom assignment to neighborhoods throughout Denver County, this program represents a natural experiment for overcoming geographic selection bias. Our multilevel, mixed-effects logistic analyses found significant relationships between neighborhood safety and population composition and odds of social detachment of low-income, minority young adults that can be interpreted as causal effects. The strength of these relationships was often contingent on gender and ethnicity, however. We draw conclusions for macroeconomic, income-support, subsidized housing and community development policy.
A pilot evaluation of saline sonohysterography for postmenopausal bleeding with thickened endometrium

Summary The aim of this study was to assess the clinical and cost implications of pilot introduction of saline sonohysterography for postmenopausal bleeding with thickened endometrium (≥5 mm), at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital. The investigation was attempted in 48 patients who were found to have a thickened endometrium (≥5 mm) on transvaginal ultrasound scanning. The attempt was successful in 45 patients (93.8%). Failures were due to (1) cervical stenosis and (2) leakage of saline from the cervix. Difficult catheterisation of the cervix causing pain was encountered in a minority of cases. Two-thirds of patients were found have focal lesions and were booked for hysteroscopic resection. These patients included 30 with polyps, which were precisely described in all of them. In view of this low complication rate and high accuracy, the technique was integrated as a standard method of investigation for postmenopausal bleeding at the hospital.
The strategic pursuit of mix flexibility through operators' involvement in decision making

Purpose – Fast‐paced, hyper‐competitive environments require organizations to use flexible resources and delegate decision making. This paper aims to examine the synergistic effects of operators' involvement in decision making (IIDM) and equipment reliability across operations on mix flexibility when speed is emphasized. A theoretical framework integrating strategic decision making and operations management theories is proposed to uncover the dynamics of such relationships.Design/methodology/approach – Both objective and subjective data were collected at the individual level from different sources in a single organization. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the framework.Findings – Results show that: an emphasis on speed and experience interact to predict IIDM; and IIDM and machine reliability have compensatory effects in predicting mix flexibility, i.e. greater operator IIDM results in a more varied output mix, but this effect wanes as machine reliability increases.Research limitations/imp.
Factors affecting the intentions of customers in Malaysia to use mobile phone credit cards

Purpose – Mobile phones have provided an opportunity for banking institutions to introduce new services to the public. The latest service, which is now available in Malaysian banking institutions, is the mobile phone credit card. The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary investigation of the factors that determine whether Malaysia's bank customers will use the new mobile phone credit card technology.Design/methodology/approach – This paper extends the applicability of the technology acceptance model (TAM) to mobile phone credit cards and includes “perceived credibility (PC)”, the “amount of information about mobile phone credit cards (AIMCs)” and “perceived expressiveness (PE)”, in addition to “perceived usefulness (PU)” and “perceived ease of use (PEOU)”. Findings – The results indicate that PU, PEOU, PC and the amount of information contained on mobile phone credit cards are important determinants to predicting the intentions of Malaysian customers to use mobile phone credit cards. However, P.
Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments

Recent social experiments have evaluated two reforms of the unemployment insurance (UI) system: reemployment bonuses and job search programs. The bonus experiments show that economic incentives affect the length of UI receipt and provide weak evidence that an earlier return to work does not decrease earnings. The experiments do not show the favorability of a permanent bonus program as they ignore its effect on the number of the claimants. The job search experiments test several more promising reforms. Nearly all of the combinations of services and increased enforcement reduce UI receipt and have favorable cost/benefit analyses. Earnings often increase, though the estimates are imprecise.
Visual Odometry using Convolutional Neural Networks

Visual odometry is the process of tracking an agent’s motion over time using a visual sensor. The visual odometry problem has only been recently solved using traditional, non-machine-learning techniques. Despite the success of neural networks at many related problems such as object recognition, feature detection, and optical flow, visual odometry still has not been solved with a deep learning technique. This paper attempts to implement several Convolutional Neural Networks to solve the visual odometry problem and compare slight variations in data preprocessing. The work presented is a step toward reaching a legitimate neural network solution.
The Consequences of Divorce for Financial Living Standards in Later Life

As the first generation that experienced high rates of divorce reaches retirement age, the number of older Australians who have experienced divorce at some point in their lives will increase dramatically in coming decades. There is very little empirical evidence in Australia on the financial consequences of divorce for older people. This report begins to fill this gap by providing some of the first estimates of the financial consequences of divorce for Australians aged 55 to 74 years. Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, it was found that, on average, having been divorced had negative consequences for income in older age for both men and women. However, the negative financial impacts of divorce were substantially reduced by remarriage. For some measures of financial circumstances, those who had remarried following divorce were very similar to the married and never-divorced. Older divorced single Australians were much more likely to experience material hardships and to report having a lower level of prosperity than the married and never-divorced. The divorced and single were more reliant on the public pension than those who had not divorced. This will have important implications for the financing of retirement incomes in Australia in coming decades and the extent to which the taxpayer will have to bear the costs of providing for retirement incomes.
Is Manufacturing an Engine of Growth in India in the Post-Nineties?

This article tests whether manufacturing has acted as an ‘engine of growth’ for the Indian states in the post-1990s.Our methodology involves regressing the state domestic product (SDP) growth rates on growth rates of manufacturing. If the coefficient of manufacturing growth is higher than the share of manufacturing in SDP, this is interpreted as supporting the engine of growth hypothesis. The results indicate that manufacturing has acted as an engine of growth in the post-nineties despite its declining share over the period. However, our study rules out the role of scale economies propelling productivity growth in the sector. Our analysis also suggests that it is primarily factor accumulation and not productivity growth that is driving output. Our characterisation of states based on output growth, TFP growth and employment growth suggests that for some states the current trend of growing without creating employment and improving TFP will not be sustainable.
A BLOC‐1 mutation screen reveals a novel BLOC1S3 mutation in Hermansky–Pudlak Syndrome type 8

Hermansky–Pudlak Syndrome (HPS) is a genetically heterogeneous disorder of lysosome‐related organelle biogenesis and is characterized by oculocutaneous albinism and a bleeding diathesis. Over the past decade, we screened 250 patients with HPS‐like symptoms for mutations in the genes responsible for HPS subtypes 1–6. We identified 38 individuals with no functional mutations, and therefore, we analyzed all eight genes encoding the biogenesis of lysosome‐related organelles complex‐1 (BLOC‐1) proteins in these individuals. Here, we describe the identification of a novel nonsense mutation in BLOC1S3 (HPS‐8) in a 6‐yr‐old Iranian boy. This mutation caused nonsense‐mediated decay of BLOC1S3 mRNA and destabilized the BLOC‐1 complex. Our patient’s melanocytes showed aberrant localization of TYRP1, with increased plasma membrane trafficking. These findings confirm a common cellular defect for HPS patients with defects in BLOC‐1 subunits. We identified only two patients with BLOC‐1 defects in our cohort, suggesting that other HPS genes remain to be identified.
Eigen-R2 for dissecting variation in high-dimensional studies

UNLABELLED We provide a new statistical algorithm and software package called 'eigen-R(2)' for dissecting the variation of a high-dimensional biological dataset with respect to other measured variables of interest. We apply eigen-R(2) to two real-life examples and compare it with simply averaging R(2) over many features. AVAILABILITY An R-package eigenR2 is available at http://www.genomine. org/eigenr2/ and will be made publicly available via Bioconductor.
Human resource issues and activities in international joint ventures

International joint ventures are an increasingly important way for organizations to expand internationally. There is no apparent reason for this trend not to continue as pressures from global competition, the need to learn quickly and the need to use valued scarce resources wisely are likely to be with us for some time. But, as organizations learn, it is one thing to enter into an IJV and quite another thing to make it succeed. And, with so many reasons for entering into an IJV, organizations want them to be as successful as possible. Examination of many IJV failures, in conjunction with the reasons for their establishment, indicates that the quality of human resource management can be critical. This paper attempts: a) to illustrate all the organizational/human resource management issues that need to be managed in the IJV process; b) to provide a framework for examining the role played in these issues by various human resource management activities; and c) to highlight the roles of the senior HR leader and the HR department in the IJV process. A four-stage model of IJVs based on the importance of learning and longer-term relationships, along with several theoretical perspectives, is used to generate several testable propositions regarding HR issues and activities in IJVs.
Tests of regimes - switching CAPM

A novel test for CAPM is presented. In contrast to the traditional models, allowance is made for the possibility that the risk measure, β, to be drawn from two different regimes, e.g. high-risk state and low-risk state. Estimation method is given, empirical results are investigated and specification tests are performed. The hypotheses of two states cannot be rejected. In addition, evidence shows that the data from low-risk state are consistent with CAPM whereas the data from high-risk state violate CAPM.
The Law of one Price in the Russian Economy

Taking the law of one price as a test for market integration, the spatial set-up of Russia's market integration over 1994-2000 is analyzed with the use of time series of the cost of a staples basket across Russian regions. The law is found to hold for about 50% to 60% of Russian regions, estimates of a threshold model suggesting rather high barriers to inter-regional trade. To reveal whether there is a movement towards market integration among non-integrated regions, dynamics of cross-sectional distribution of prices receives study. The results indicate that such a tendency does take place. An effort is made to identify forces responsible for Enter-regional price disparities.
Social Conflict, Growth and Factor Shares

Standard growth theory is based on atomistic agents with no strategic interactions among them. In contrast, we model growth as resulting from a one-off, strategic game between workers and owners of capital (capitalists) on factor shares, in an otherwise standard AK growth model. The resulting distribution of income between factors further determines the marginal revenue product of capital and the rate of growth. We analyse the properties of four equilibria: competitive, Stackelberg equilibrium, a hybrid non-cooperative regime, and cooperative (Nash) solution. We show that our model provides a potentially richer view of the growth process than comparable models, and endogenises a key aspect of the social contract.
Path Dependence, Corporate Governance and Complementarity

The concept of path dependence can be used to challenge the widespread view that the corporate governance systems of the major advanced economies are likely to converge towards the economically best system at a rapid pace. This paper argues that it is important for the discussion of path dependence and corporate governance to distinguish clearly between two arguments that can explain path dependence: one based on the role of adjustment costs, and the other using concepts borrowed from evolutionary biology. Making this distinction is important because the two concepts of path dependence have different implications for the issue of rapid convergence to the best corporate governance system. The authors introduce the concept of complementarity as a reason for path dependence and demonstrate that national corporate governance systems are usefully regarded as--possibly consistent--systems of complementary elements. The dynamic properties of systems composed of complementary elements are such that a rapid convergence towards a universally best corporate governance systems is not likely to happen. More importantly, though, there is even the possibility of a convergence towards a common system that is economically inferior. Especially in the case of European integration, "inefficient convergence" of corporate governance systems is a real possibility. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
ON THE AXISYMMETRIC EULER EQUATIONS WITH INITIAL VORTICITY IN BORDERLINE SPACES OF BESOV TYPE

Borderline spaces of Besov type consist of tempered distributions satisfying the property that the partial sums of their B ∞,1-norm diverge in a controlled way. We prove an existence and uniqueness result for the three-dimensional axisymmetric Euler equations without swirl when initial vorticity belongs to these spaces. We also prove that for this class of solutions the vanishing viscosity limit holds in the energy norm, and we give a rate of convergence.
The 14-3-3 brain protein in cerebrospinal fluid as a marker for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

BACKGROUND There is no practical and reliable premortem test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and the related transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Two proteins, designated 130 and 131, which have been detected in low concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, appear to be sensitive and specific markers for the disease. Attempts to identify these proteins, however, have been unsuccessful. We hypothesized that they may be present in the normal brain. METHODS We detected proteins 130 and 131 in normal human brain, partially sequenced their amino acids, and found that they matched the brain protein known as 14-3-3. We then developed a simple, rapid immunoassay for this protein and tested it in cerebrospinal fluid samples from 71 humans and 30 animals with spongiform encephalopathies and in control samples from 186 humans and 94 animals. RESULTS The immunoassay detected the 14-3-3 protein in cerebrospinal fluid from 68 of the 71 patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (96 percent, 95 percent confidence interval, 92 to 99 percent). Among 94 patients with other dementias, the specificity was 96 percent. If one excludes the three patients with dementia who had strokes within one month before testing, the specificity was 99 percent. The test was positive in 12 of 24 patients with viral encephalitis. In animals the sensitivity of the assay was 87 percent and the specificity was 99 percent. CONCLUSION In patients with dementia, a positive immunoassay for the 14-3-3 brain protein in cerebrospinal fluid strongly supports a diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This finding, however, does not support the use of the test in patients without clinically evident dementia.
TRANSMISIÓN VERTICAL DE PRECIOS EN EL MERCADO NACIONAL DE LOS PRODUCTOS PESQUEROS FRESCOS

In this paper we examine the price transmission of fresh megrin in the Spanish market of fresh fish products at three different levels of the marketing chain: source, wholesaler and retail, using weekly price series for the period 1993-2001. We carry out a cointegration analysis of the system formed by the three prices in logs. Our results show the existence of two cointegration relations. We also study the causality in the short and the long run, and the results reflect two strong prices; the wholesaler price and the retail price, and a weak price at source. From the cointegration study and the map of causalities, two price transmission relations are derived, a perfect one (from the wholesaler price to the price at source) and an imperfect or partial one (from the wholesaler price to the retail price). Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed with respect to the time period considered. As we consider more recent data to construct the time period analysed, we detect that the former partial transmission approaches a perfect price transmission, and the retail price becomes the only strong price.
Notch signaling promotes nephrogenesis by downregulating Six2

During nephrogenesis, multipotent mesenchymal nephron progenitors develop into distinct epithelial segments. Each nephron segment has distinct cell types and physiological function. In the current model of kidney development, Notch signaling promotes the formation of proximal tubules and represses the formation of distal tubules. Here, we present a novel role of Notch in nephrogenesis. We show in mice that differentiation of nephron progenitors requires downregulation of Six2, a transcription factor required for progenitor maintenance, and that Notch signaling is necessary and sufficient for Six2 downregulation. Furthermore, we find that nephron progenitors lacking Notch signaling fail to differentiate into any nephron segments, not just proximal tubules. Our results demonstrate how cell fates of progenitors are regulated by a transcription factor governing progenitor status and by a differentiation signal in nephrogenesis. Summary: Notch is necessary and sufficient for downregulation of Six2 during nephrogenesis, while nephron progenitors that lack Notch signaling fail to form all segments of the nephron, not just proximal tubules.
Business Confidence and Inflation in RSA: Variance Decomposition and General Impulse Response Functions Analysis

The study empirically investigates how business confidence responds to inflation shocks in South Africa using the quarterly time series data spanning the period 1993Q1 – 2013Q1. The study applied the variance decomposition and the Generalized Impulse Response Functions (GIRF) analysis. The variance decomposition revealed that although inflation accounted for about 2 percent in the initial stages, it did account for about 27 percent to shocks in business confidence at later stages. The Generalized Impulse Response Functions (GIRF) also confirmed that inflation uncertainty does cause some negative shocks on how business managers/owners perceive the future of their business prospects. These results show that there is a negative relationship between business confidence and inflation in South Africa. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014. v5n16p128
Application of neutral electrolyzed water spray for reducing dust levels in a layer breeding house

Reducing airborne dust is an essential process for improving hen housing environment. Dust reduction effects of neutral electrolyzed water (pH 8.2) spray were investigated in a commercial tunnel-ventilated layer breeding house during production in northern China. A multipoint sampler was used to measure airborne dust concentration to study the dust reduction effects and distribution in the house. Compared with the control treatment (without spray), airborne dust level was reduced 34% in the 3 hr after spraying 216 mL m−2 neutral electrolyzed water in the breeding house. The dust concentration was significantly higher during the periods of feed distribution (1.13 ± 0.13 mg m−3) and artificial insemination (0.72 ± 0.13 mg m−3) compared with after spray (0.47 ± 0.09 mg m−3) and during lights-off period (0.29 ± 0.08 mg m−3) in the three consecutive testing days (P < 0.05). The experimental cage area was divided into four zones along the length of the house, with zone 1 nearest to the evaporative cooling pad and zone 4 nearest to the fans. The air temperature, relative humidity, airflow rate, and dust concentration were measured at the sampling points of the four zones in 3 consecutive days and mortality of the birds for the duration of a month were investigated. The results showed that the air temperature, airflow rate, dust concentration, and number of dead birds increase from zone 1 to zone 4 in the tunnel-ventilated layer breeding house. Implications: It is difficult to effectively reduce hen house airborne dust levels and limited information is available on airborne dust distribution in tunnel-ventilated hen houses. This work investigates (i) the application of neutral electrolyzed water spray for reducing dust in a layer breeding houses; (ii) dust concentration variations in 24-hr house operation; as well as (iii) the effects of location on dust concentrations. It was demonstrated that neutral electrolyzed water spray can be efficiently used for dust reduction in poultry houses. Further, a better understanding of the dust concentration variations in 24-hr house operation and in different spatial zones can contribute to bird housing environment management and poultry house design so as to improve bird health.
A MODEL OF SITE‐SPECIFIC ANTECEDENTS OF ISO 14001 CERTIFICATION

ISO 14001 constitutes a major dilemma for many American firms. This new standard holds the promise of waste reduction and better process management, but the benefits and costs are very difficult to predict. This study attempts to identify and explain antecedents impacting the decision to pursue certification for some of the first plants certified in the United States. Using data from a large survey of U.S. managers and a Logit analysis, we find the factors influencing management decisions to actively pursue ISO 14001 certification to be distinctly different from those factors influencing management's decision not to pursue certification. For the latter, the decision is economically based; for the former, it is driven by other, more qualitative considerations.