Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Flexibility as a Manufacturing Objective

The concept of the flexibility of manufacturing systems is topical and important for three reasons. First, the instability and unpredictability of the environment, in which manufacturing companies operate, has forced many companies to reorganise their production, if only to reduce the overall scale of their operations. Second, developments such as flexible manufacturing systems and robotics, mean that flexibility is being explicitly promoted as a desirable attribute of production equipment. Third, the relatively recent interest in the nature of production management objectives has widened the scope of production aims beyond cost and productivity issues, to include the flexibility of production systems.
Bone healing with oxytocin-loaded microporous β-TCP bone substitute in ectopic bone formation model and critical-sized osseous defect of rat.

AIM This study investigated the efficacy of the hypothalamic nonapeptide oxytocin (OT) by direct delivery to local defects using a microporous β-tricalcium phosphate (TCP) as the carrier for the future applications as a method to achieve predictable bone regeneration of large osseous defects requiring sinus bone graft and guided bone regeneration procedures for implant placement. MATERIAL AND METHODS Both the ectopic and new bone formation induced by the OT-loaded microporous β-TCP powder was histomorphometrically compared with unloaded β-TCP in a subcutaneous ectopic bone formation model and calvarial critical-sized defects (CSDs) in 45 rats. RESULTS The OT-loaded β-TCP clearly enhanced ectopic bone formation compared with the unloaded control group. A High initial OT dose (250 μg) significantly increased ectopic bone formation at an early healing time-point compared with a lower OT dose (50 μg). The OT-loaded samples displayed greater new bone formation in the rat calvarial CSDs. Extensive new bone formation was achieved in the calvarial CSDs with the higher OT dose. CONCLUSION These results suggest that local OT delivery to bone substitute promotes new bone formation via an osteoinductive mode of action.
Architectures, representations and processes of language production

We present an overview of recent research conducted in the field of language production based on papers presented at the first edition of the International Workshop on Language Production (Marseille, France, September 2004). This article comprises two main parts. In the first part, consisting of three sections, we review the articles that are included in this Special Issue. These three sections deal with three different topics of general interest for models of language production: (A) the general organisational principles of the language production system, (B) several aspects of the lexical selection process and (C) the representations and processes used during syntactic encoding. In the second part, we discuss future directions for research in the field of language production, given the considerable developments that have occurred in recent years.
Knowledge transfer between Australia and China

Purpose – This paper aims to address the mechanisms of, and barriers to, knowledge transfer between Australia and China in the tertiary sector. Design/methodology/approach – Individual focused interviews are conducted with one Chinese and ten Australian senior academics engaged in supervisory roles at all levels of knowledge transfer. Content and sociolinguistics analysis is conducted on the questions: How is knowledge transferred between key academic/research staff? What is the potential for commercialization of research findings between Australia and China? What role does information and communication technology (ICT) play in knowledge transfer? Findings – Knowledge transfer between Chinese and Australian universities consists of research partnerships, collective publications, and joint degree programs. One-way transfer of knowledge from Australia to China, rather than the desired reciprocal transfer of knowledge, appears to be most common. Barriers to bi-directional knowledge sharing include misunderstandings surround intellectual property and cultural differences, which undermine trust between China and Australia. The participants overwhelmingly hold optimistic views about the potential of commercialization of research findings between China and Australia and report that ICT enhances communications assisted in successful knowledge transfer. However, ICT is reported to be under-utilized because of unequal access to hardware and broadband in China as well as blocking and censorship of communication by China. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the discourse on international, intercultural and bi-directional knowledge transfer in the tertiary sector and has implications for enhanced academic and research excellence between China and Australia. Moreover, insight into the mechanisms of successful knowledge transfer may be applicable to improve knowledge transfer between Australia and other countries.
Baseline Meningococcal Carriage in Burkina Faso before the Introduction of a Meningococcal Serogroup A Conjugate Vaccine

ABSTRACT The serogroup A meningococcal conjugate vaccine MenAfriVac has the potential to confer herd immunity by reducing carriage prevalence of epidemic strains. To better understand this phenomenon, we initiated a meningococcal carriage study to determine the baseline carriage rate and serogroup distribution before vaccine introduction in the 1- to 29-year old population in Burkina Faso, the group chosen for the first introduction of the vaccine. A multiple cross-sectional carriage study was conducted in one urban and two rural districts in Burkina Faso in 2009. Every 3 months, oropharyngeal samples were collected from >5,000 randomly selected individuals within a 4-week period. Isolation and identification of the meningococci from 20,326 samples were performed by national laboratories in Burkina Faso. Confirmation and further strain characterization, including genogrouping, multilocus sequence typing, and porA-fetA sequencing, were performed in Norway. The overall carriage prevalence for meningococci was 3.98%; the highest prevalence was among the 15- to 19-year-olds for males and among the 10- to 14-year-olds for females. Serogroup Y dominated (2.28%), followed by serogroups X (0.44%), A (0.39%), and W135 (0.34%). Carriage prevalence was the highest in the rural districts and in the dry season, but serogroup distribution also varied by district. A total of 29 sequence types (STs) and 51 porA-fetA combinations were identified. The dominant clone was serogroup Y, ST-4375, P1.5-1,2-2/F5-8, belonging to the ST-23 complex (47%). All serogroup A isolates were ST-2859 of the ST-5 complex with P1.20,9/F3-1. This study forms a solid basis for evaluating the impact of MenAfriVac introduction on serogroup A carriage.
Clinical usefulness of polymorphonuclear elastase in predicting the severity of acute pancreatitis: Results of a multicentre study

The usefulness and clinical applicability of quantitative plasma polymorphonuclear elastase determinations in the diagnosis of the severity of acute pancreatítis was analysed in a multicentre study and was compared with the usual prognostic systems of Ranson and Osborne et al. The study comprised 182 patients, 154 with a mild episode of acute pancreatitis and 28 with a severe episode, defined by the development of major complications or a fatal outcome. In the severe cases neutrophilic elastase reached significantly higher values than in mild cases (P< 0.001) by the time the patient was admitted (2–12 h after the onset of the disease), reflecting considerable leucocyte activation. The sensitivity and specificity of this test are therefore greater than 90 per cent, with a positive severity predictive value of almost 80 per cent at the time of admission and 97 per cent after 24 h, and a negative predictive value of approximately 98 per cent. In addition to requiring 48 h for evaluation, the usual prognostic systems show a sensitivity of 77‐85 per cent, a specificity of 70–77 per cent, a positive predictive value of 40–48 per cent, and a negative predictive value of 92–95 per cent, clearly lower than those obtained with leucocyte elastase. Polymorphonuclear elastase is therefore a very early and reliable marker in the diagnosis of the severity of acute pancreatitis, in addition to being easily adaptable to the routine of any hospital laboratory.
Corporate Finance, the Theory of the Firm, and Organizations

Much of the modern research on firm boundaries, following Ronald Coase (1937), assumes that firms are run by owner-managers. This contrasts with the agency literature, following Adolph Berle and Gardiner Means (1932), that emphasizes the problems that arise when managers are not owners. In this paper, the authors argue that a richer theory of the firm should integrate Coase and Berle and Means. They illustrate this point by reexamining the oft-cited merger of General Motors and Fisher Body. The authors also show how linking these literatures can be used to understand one of the key roles of corporate headquarters, the allocation of capital.
The Curse of Being Landlocked: Institutions Rather than Trade

This article revisits the long‐term economic effects of being landlocked. The conventional wisdom, which also prevails in policy circles, is that landlockedness hurts development by reducing trade. Gravity models of bilateral trade seem to confirm this view. However, there is no evidence in cross‐country data of a systematic relationship between landlockedness and country's trade to GDP ratio. Drawing on this stylised fact, the paper explores the possibility that landlockedness might affect GDP independently from its effect on trade. Theoretical considerations suggest that institutional quality could be a relevant transmission mechanism. The estimation of a system of three equations confirms that landlockedness has a negative effect on GDP and that this negative effect is transmitted through institutions rather than trade. Moreover, after controlling for the transmission via institutions and trade, landlockedness has a further negative effect on GDP. These findings call for a review of the policy approach to the development of landlocked countries.
Economic Development as an Anti-Poverty Strategy

You know the average young person down here don’t have a job, man, they don’t have anything to do. They don’t have any alternative, you know, but to go out there and try to make a living for themselves. Like when you come down to the Tombs down there, they’re down there for robbing and breaking in. They want to know why you did it and where you live, but you have to live. You go down to the employment agency and you can’t get a job. They have you waiting all day, but you can’t get a job. They don’t have a job for you. You have to live. I’m ready to do anything anyone else is ready to dobecause I want to live-I want to live. No one wants to die.
Size and book-to-market anomalies and omitted leverage risk

Ferguson and Shockley (2003. Equilibrium ‘anomalies’. Journal of Finance 58: 2549–2580) develop a theoretical model and argue that size and book-to-market (B/M) effects in stock returns derive their cross-sectional explanatory power because they proxy for leverage and financial distress. Using UK data from 1979 to 2006, we provide evidence that the size factor of Fama and French (1993. Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds. Journal of Financial Economics 33: 3–56) is indeed proxying for distress risk, while their distress factor is capturing leverage risk. However, anomalously low returns and higher exposure of small size and value stocks to the distress factor reduces the expected returns on these stocks and results in larger pricing errors. This leads to poor performance of the Ferguson and Shockley (2003. Equilibrium ‘anomalies’. Journal of Finance 58: 2549–2580) model in the time series. Underperformance of distressed stocks casts doubt on the hypothesis that the explanatory power of size and B/M factors is due to the omitted debt claims in equity only proxy for market portfolio.
Non-linearities in Real Interest Rate Parity: Evidence from OECD and Asian Developing Economies

Abstract This paper investigates the validity real interest rate parity (RIP) for a sample of 19 OECD and Asian developing economies. The distinction of this paper is that we exploit both linearity and non-linear unit root tests as advocated by Dufrénot et al. (Applied Economics, 38, pp. 203–229, 2006) to validate the parity. The major finding are: (i) the alignments from real interest rate differentials (RIDs) are corrected in a non-linear fashion and that the adjustments is asymmetric in both size and speed; (ii) that RIP holds for the developed and developing countries; and (iii) the empirical results are invariant with respect to the US, Japan or Germany as the centre country.
Gender Differences in Carers of Dementia Sufferers

Recent research shows that the demands of the caregiving role are experienced differently by men and women. Both the subjective and the objective strain and burden appear to be greater in female carers of dementia sufferers, and factors that influence this include differences in role expectations and coping strategies. These findings have implications for the provision of services for dementia sufferers and their carers.
Fiscal Sustainability: The Unpleasant European Case

The sustainability of fiscal deficits has been receiving increasing attention. The issue is paramount for the newly formed euro area and this is one of the motivations of this paper. In order to assess the sustainability of budget deficits, co-integration tests between public expenditures and public revenues, allowing for structural breaks, are performed for the EU15 countries for the 1970-2003 period. The "unpleasant" empirical results show that with few exceptions fiscal policy may not have been sustainable. EU governments therefore could risk becoming inherently highly indebted, even if the debt-to-GDP ratios seemed to be somehow stabilising at the end of the 1990s.
Preferential regulation of rabbit cardiac L‐type Ca2+ current by glycolytic derived ATP via a direct allosteric pathway

1 The activity of Ca2+ channels is regulated by a number of mechanisms including direct allosteric modulation by intracellular ATP. Since ATP derived from glycolysis is preferentially used for membrane function, we hypothesized that glycolytic ATP also preferentially regulates cardiac L‐type Ca2+ channels. 2 To test this hypothesis, peak L‐type Ca2+ currents (ICa) were measured in voltage‐clamped rabbit cardiomyocytes during glycolytic inhibition (2‐deoxyglucose + pyruvate), oxidative inhibition (cyanide + glucose) or both (full metabolic inhibition; FMI). 3 A 10 min period of FMI resulted in a 40·0 % decrease in peak ICa at +10 mV (‐5·1 ± 0·6 versus ‐3·1 ± 0·4 pA pF−1; n= 5, P < 0·01). Similar decreases in peak ICa were observed during glycolytic inhibition using 2‐deoxyglucose (‐6·2 ± 0·2 versus ‐3·7 ± 0·2 pA pF−1; n= 5, P < 0·01) or iodoacetamide (‐6·7 ± 0·3 versus ‐3·7 ± 0·2 pA pF−1; n= 7, P < 0·01), but not following oxidative inhibition (‐6·2 ± 0·4 versus ‐6·4 ± 0·3 pA pF−1; n= 5, n.s.). The reduction in ICa following glycolytic inhibition was not mediated by phosphate sequestration by 2‐deoxyglucose or changes in intracellular pH. 4 Reductions in ICa were still observed when inorganic phosphate and creatine were included in the pipette, confirming a critical role for glycolysis in ICa regulation. 5 With 5 mM MgATP in the pipette during FMI, peak ICa decreased by only 18·4 % (‐6·8 ± 0·6 versus ‐5·5 ± 0·3 pA pF−1; n= 4, P < 0·05), while inclusion of 5 mM MgAMP‐PCP (β,γ‐methyleneadenosine 5′‐triphosphate, Mg2+ salt) completely prevented the decrease in peak ICa (‐6·9 ± 0·3 versus ‐6·5 ± 0·3 pA pF−1; n= 5, n.s.). 6 Together, these results suggest that ICa is regulated by intracellular ATP derived from glycolysis and does not require hydrolysis of ATP. This regulation is expected to be energy conserving during periods of metabolic stress and myocardial ischaemia.
Suppressed translation and ULK1 degradation as potential mechanisms of autophagy limitation under prolonged starvation

ABSTRACT Macroautophagy/autophagy is a well-organized process of intracellular degradation, which is rapidly activated under starvation conditions. Recent data demonstrate a transcriptional upregulation of several autophagy genes as a mechanism that controls autophagy in response to starvation. Here we report that despite the significant upregulation of mRNA of the essential autophagy initiation gene ULK1, its protein level is rapidly reduced under starvation. Although both autophagic and proteasomal systems contribute to the degradation of ULK1, under prolonged nitrogen deprivation, its level was still reduced in ATG7 knockout cells, and only initially stabilized in cells treated with the lysosomal or proteasomal inhibitors. We demonstrate that under starvation, protein translation is rapidly diminished and, similar to treatments with the proteosynthesis inhibitors cycloheximide or anisomycin, is associated with a significant reduction of ULK1. Furthermore, it was found that inhibition of the mitochondrial respiratory complexes or the mitochondrial ATP synthase function that could also take place in the absence of substrates, promote upregulation of ULK1 mRNA and protein expression in an AMPK-dependent manner in U1810 lung cancer cells growing in complete culture medium. These inhibitors could also drastically increase the ULK1 protein in U1810 cells with knockout of ATG13, where the ULK1 expression is significantly diminished. However, such upregulation of ULK1 protein is negligible under starvation conditions, further signifying the contribution of translation and suggesting that transcriptional upregulation of ULK1 protein will be diminished under such conditions. Thus, we propose a model where inhibition of protein translation, together with the degradation systems, limit autophagy during starvation.
Gender Differences in Land Inheritance and Schooling Investments in the Rural Philippines

This paper examines the preferences of parents with respect to the allocation of land and investments in schooling between sons and daughters in two generations of households in the rural Philippines. In the older generation, better-educated fathers prefer to invest in sons’ schooling, while land-owning mothers preferentially bestow land to daughters. While gender preference in relation to parental resources has disappeared in the child generation, sons are preferred with respect to land inheritance, while daughters are treated more favorably in schooling investments. (JEL Q24)
The Relationship between Relative Risk Aversion and the Level of Education: A Survey and Implications for the Demand for Life Insurance

The expected utility hypothesis has been widely used in the construction of economic models and numerous difficulties are encountered in attempting to take into account preferences toward risk in a real-world setting. More recently, attention has focused on comparative studies in economics and business in an international framework and problems related to the hypothesis of relative risk aversion (RRA). One ambiguous hypothesis is the relationship between the level of RRA and the level of education, which has been found either positive or negative. From a causality point of view, it may be argued that investors with a high level of education are less risk averse, but it may also be argued that less risk-averse individuals choose to pursue a higher level of education. The purpose of this paper is to survey the empirical literature on this subject. It provides evidence that risk aversion is negatively correlated with higher education and human development. The results have important implications for macroeconomic empirical studies and the demand for financial assets and more specifically on the demand for life insurance. Assuming the same degree of RRA for utility-maximizing consumers should be limited to homogeneous samples.
Manufacturing Competence and Business Performance: A Framework and Empirical Analysis

Presents a framework of manufacturing competence, and tests its theoretical validity using empirical data from a large‐scale survey. Interesting findings include: the regression analysis shows that manufacturing competence is better represented when low‐priority capabilities are not explicitly considered; the manufacturing competence index appears to have more significant statistical relationships with some performance measures (such as the return on assets and return on sales) than with others – manufacturing matters, but not equally to all the financial and market performance; the concept of manufacturing competence is found to be more influential in determining the business performance in the electronics sector than in the machinery industry. Does manufacturing competence matter equally in all industries, or does it matter more in a specific industry? If so, what makes manufacturing competence so important? Advocates further study to answer these questions and to complete the theory of manufacturing co.
Private benefits of control and dual-class share unifications

This paper examines the decision to unify dual-class shares into a single class. Using a sample of firms from seven European countries, we find that measures of lower private benefits of control available to the controlling shareholders, such as low separation between control and cash flow centers, the presence of financial investors, and cross-listings, increase the likelihood of a unification of share classes. Unifications are also more likely in firms with higher growth opportunities that need external financing. Changes in the institutional environment aimed at limiting the powers of controlling shareholders are positively related to unifications. Increases in firm valuation are found for the year following unifications. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An Annotated Bibliography of Mobile Agents in Networks

The purpose of this thesis is to present a comprehensive colligation of applications of mobile agents in networks, and provide a baseline association of these systems. This work has been motivated by the fact that mobile agent systems have been deemed proficuous alternatives in system applications. Several mobile agent systems have been developed to provide scalable and cogent solutions in network-centric applications. This thesis examines some existing mobile agent systems in core networking areas, in particular, those of network and resource management, routing, and the provision of fault tolerance and security. The inherent features of these systems are discussed with respect to their specific functionalities. The applicability and efficacy of mobile agents are further considered in the specific areas mentioned above. Although an initial foray into a collation of this nature, the goal of this annotated bibliography is to provide a generic referential view of mobile agent systems in network applications.