Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Composition of Government Expenditure: Economic Conditions and Preferences

This paper examines the question of why the composition of government expenditure differs among democratic countries and to what extent it may be explained by differences in economic conditions or preferences. A simple overlapping generations model, which allows for a range of relevant factors, is constructed to examine the division of expenditure on public goods and a transfer payment under majority voting. The model yields a closed-form solution for the majority choice of the expenditure ratio. An empirical examination suggests that income inequalities play a minor role while different preferences for public goods reflecting cultural differences across countries may play an important role in accounting for the substantial variations in expenditure patterns.
EFFECT OF VACCINATIONS WITH RECOMBINANT FUSION PROTEINS ON ANCYLOSTOMA CANINUM HABITAT SELECTION IN THE CANINE INTESTINE

Laboratory dogs were vaccinated subcutaneously with 3 different recombinant fusion proteins, each precipitated with alum or calcium phosphate. The vaccinated dogs were then challenged orally with 400 third-stage infective larvae (L3) of the canine hookworm, Ancylostoma caninum. The 3 A. caninum antigens selected were Ac-TMP, an adult-specific secreted tissue inhibitor of metalloproteases; Ac-AP, an adult-specific secreted factor Xa serine protease inhibitor anticoagulant; and Ac-ARR-1, a cathepsin D–like aspartic protease. Each of the 3 groups comprised 6 male beagles (8 ± 1 wk of age). A fourth group comprised control dogs injected with alum. All of the dogs vaccinated with Ac-TMP or Ac-APR-1 exhibited a vigorous antigen-specific antibody response, whereas only a single dog vaccinated with Ac-AP developed an antibody response. Dogs with circulating antibody responses exhibited 4.5–18% reduction in the numbers of adult hookworms recovered from the small intestines at necropsy, relative to alum-injected dogs. In contrast, there was a concomitant increase in the number of adult hookworms recovered from the colon. The increase in colonic hookworms was as high as 500%, relative to alum-injected dogs. Female adult hookworms were more likely to migrate into the colon than were males. Anti-enzyme and anti-enzyme inhibitor antibodies correlated with an alteration in adult hookworm habitat selection in the canine gastrointestinal tract.
The View from the Top: Senior Executives' Perceptions of Changing Management Practices in UK Companies1

There is a growing literature which suggests that the 1980s witnessed significant, even unprecedented changes in the management of organizations. This paper contributes to that literature by providing questionnaire and interview-based evidence of senior managers' perceptions of recent changes in management practice in large and medium-sized firms in the UK. The findings cover three main areas: the changing context of management practice; change initiatives in the areas of human resource management (HRM) and management levels; and the degree of success in managing change. Our findings suggest that senior managers perceive rapid and continuous change within the UK corporate sector. We conclude by suggesting that the changes reported appear to be of degree rather than a radical break with past management practices and that inconsistent means of facilitating change are seemingly being deployed.
Exploration of the Socialization Process of Female Leaders in Counselor Education

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Dividend Taxes and Implied Cost of Capital

We estimate firms' implied cost of capital and examine the effects of dividend taxes on this ex ante measure. The results support the dividend tax capitalization hypothesis. We find a positive relation between implied cost of equity capital and dividend yield that is decreasing in aggregate institutional ownership. We further explore the effect of institutional ownership on the dividend tax premium by partitioning institutional owners into groups of homogeneous investors. We find evidence that ownership by certain groups of tax-favored institutions, including insurance companies, endowments, and pensions, decreases the dividend tax premium and that ownership by mutual funds, non-tax-favored institutions, does not significantly affect the dividend tax premium. Although banks do not face the dividend tax penalty that individual investors face, we do not find that the dividend tax premium is decreasing in ownership by banks, contrary to our predictions. We believe that this exploration paves the way for future research that can identify stronger settings within which to examine the effects of institutional owners' tax attributes on the dividend tax premium.
Advances in Crystallographic Image Processing for Scanning Probe Microscopy

This book chapter reviews progress in crystallographic image processing (CIP) for scanning probe microscopy (SPM) that has occurred since our description of the technique was first put into open access in this book series in the year 2010. The signal to noise ratio in all kinds of experimental images of more or less regular 2D periodic arrays is significantly enhanced by CIP and the technique is independent of the type of recording device. In the SPM imaging context, CIP can be understood as an a posteriori “sharpening of the effective experimental scanning probe tip” by computational means. It is now possible to remove multiple scanning probe mini-tip effects in images from 2D periodic arrays of physical objects that either self-assembled or were created artificially. Accepted within the scientific community is by now also the fact that SPM tips can change their shape and fine structure during the operation of a microscope and, thereby, obfuscate the recorded images in systematic ways. CIP restores much of the smeared out information in such images. The adaptation of a geometric Akaike Information Criterion from the robotics and computer vision community to the unambiguous detection of 2D translation symmetries enabled much of our recent progress. In the main body of this book chapter, we discuss this adaptation and briefly illustrate its utility on an example.
Alcohol Consumption and Human Capital: A Retrospective Study of the Literature

Grossman proposed an individual's health can be viewed as one aspect of their human capital. Following this line of thought a number of recent papers have reported a positive impact of alcohol consumption on earnings. The rationale for the existence of such a relationship is the positive impact of alcohol on physical and mental health. We conduct a meta-analysis to determine whether such factors as: the estimation technique, the presence of ex-drinkers in the sample, possible sample selection bias and publication bias may all contribute to these findings. An additional suggestion for the positive relationship between alcohol and wages is the presence of a common set of personality traits that determines drinking behaviour and also leads to higher earnings. We examine this relationship by reviewing the literature that investigates if the personality influencing aspects of alcohol consumption influences measures of human capital. We also survey the significant body of research that has examined how alcohol consumption has been found to influence educational outcomes and the work force participation of problem drinkers.
Prefrontal Contribution to Decision-Making under Free-Choice Conditions

Executive function is thought to be the coordinated operation of multiple neural processes and allows to accomplish a current goal flexibly. The most important function of the prefrontal cortex is the executive function. Among a variety of executive functions in which the prefrontal cortex participates, decision-making is one of the most important. Although the prefrontal contribution to decision-making has been examined using a variety of behavioral tasks, recent studies using fMRI have shown that the prefrontal cortex participates in decision-making under free-choice conditions. Since decision-making under free-choice conditions represents the very first stage for any kind of decision-making process, it is important that we understand its neural mechanism. Although few studies have examined this issue while a monkey performed a free-choice task, those studies showed that, when the monkey made a decision to subsequently choose one particular option, prefrontal neurons showing selectivity to that option exhibited transient activation just before presentation of the imperative cue. Further studies have suggested that this transient increase is caused by the irregular fluctuation of spontaneous firing just before cue presentation, which enhances the response to the cue and biases the strength of the neuron's selectivity to the option. In addition, this biasing effect was observed only in neurons that exhibited sustained delay-period activity, indicating that this biasing effect not only influences the animal's decision for an upcoming choice, but also is linked to working memory mechanisms in the prefrontal cortex.
An effectiveness trial of a selected dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program for female high school students: Long-term effects.

OBJECTIVE Efficacy trials found that a dissonance-based eating disorder prevention program in which female high school and college students with body image concerns critique the thin ideal reduced eating disorder risk factors, eating disorder symptoms, and future eating disorder onset. The present effectiveness trial tested whether this program produces effects through long-term follow-up when high school clinicians recruit students and deliver the intervention under real-world conditions. METHOD Female high school students with body image concerns (N = 306; M age = 15.7 years, SD = 1.1) were randomized to the dissonance intervention or an educational brochure control condition and completed assessments through 3-year follow-up. RESULTS Dissonance participants showed significantly greater decreases in body dissatisfaction at 2-year follow-up and eating disorder symptoms at 3-year follow-up than controls; effects on other risk factors, risk for eating disorder onset, and other outcomes (e.g., body mass) were marginal or nonsignificant. CONCLUSIONS Although it was encouraging that some key effects persisted over long-term follow-up, effects were on average smaller in this effectiveness trial than previous efficacy trials, which could be due to (a) facilitator selection, training, and supervision; (b) the lower risk status of participants; or (c) the use of a control condition that produces some effects.
Modulation of Protein S-Nitrosylation by Isoprene Emission in Poplar1

Isoprene emission modulates stress-induced NO production and S-nitrosylation pattern in poplar. Researchers have been examining the biological function(s) of isoprene in isoprene-emitting (IE) species for two decades. There is overwhelming evidence that leaf-internal isoprene increases the thermotolerance of plants and protects them against oxidative stress, thus mitigating a wide range of abiotic stresses. However, the mechanisms of abiotic stress mitigation by isoprene are still under debate. Here, we assessed the impact of isoprene on the emission of nitric oxide (NO) and the S-nitroso-proteome of IE and non-isoprene-emitting (NE) gray poplar (Populus × canescens) after acute ozone fumigation. The short-term oxidative stress induced a rapid and strong emission of NO in NE compared with IE genotypes. Whereas IE and NE plants exhibited under nonstressful conditions only slight differences in their S-nitrosylation pattern, the in vivo S-nitroso-proteome of the NE genotype was more susceptible to ozone-induced changes compared with the IE plants. The results suggest that the nitrosative pressure (NO burst) is higher in NE plants, underlining the proposed molecular dialogue between isoprene and the free radical NO. Proteins belonging to the photosynthetic light and dark reactions, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, protein metabolism, and redox regulation exhibited increased S-nitrosylation in NE samples compared with IE plants upon oxidative stress. Because the posttranslational modification of proteins via S-nitrosylation often impacts enzymatic activities, our data suggest that isoprene indirectly regulates the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) via the control of the S-nitrosylation level of ROS-metabolizing enzymes, thus modulating the extent and velocity at which the ROS and NO signaling molecules are generated within a plant cell.
The coach-athlete relationship and expectations.

This study explores coaches’ and athletes’ subjective views about what they think are expected fromcoaches in sport. A Q-sample of 36 different opinions about different expectations about coaches’ behaviors, and how these expectations affect their athletes’ motivation, performance, focus and emotions, was presented to 23 coaches and 59 athletes at a Norwegian high school specialized for sports. The coaches and athletescame from different sports such as cross country skiing, biathlon, track and field, football, volleyball, and handball, and they were asked to consider and rank-order the statements (Q-sample) through a Q-sorting procedure. The findings from the Qfactor analysis showed three different factors: (A) A democratic coach, (B) An autocratic coach and (C) A personal coach. Furthermore, the authors will discuss their analysis and how the coaches and athletes believe the different coach behaviors affects motivation, focus, emotions and performance.
Bargaining and Distribution of Power in the Eu's Conciliation Committee

The European Union (EU) has moved towards bicameralism, making the codecision procedure its most important mechanism for decision making. To gauge if European Parliament (EP) and Council of Ministers (CM) are equally powerful ‘codecision makers’, understanding of the final stage of the procedure – bargaining in the Conciliation Committee – is crucial. Here, EP and CM are assumed to have spatial preferences determined by their respective internal decision mechanisms. Applying bargaining theory to predict inter-institutional agreements in the Conciliation Committee, it turns out that although institutionally the Council and the Parliament are seemingly in a symmetric position, CM has significantly greater influence on EU legislation.
Anatomical landmarks for the localization of the greater palatine foramen – a study of 1200 head CTs, 150 dry skulls, systematic review of literature and meta‐analysis

Accurate knowledge of greater palatine foramen (GPF) anatomy is necessary when performing a variety of anaesthesiological, dental or surgical procedures. The first aim of this study was to localize the GPF in relation to multiple anatomical landmarks. The second aim was to perform a systematic review of literature, and to conduct a meta‐analysis on the subject of GPF position to aid clinicians in their practice. One‐hundred and fifty dry, adult, human skulls and 1200 archived head computed tomography scans were assessed and measured in terms of GPF relation to other anatomical reference points. A systematic literature search was performed using the PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases, and a meta‐analysis on the subject of GPF relation to the maxillary molars was conducted. On average, in the Polish population, the GPF was positioned 15.9 ± 1.5 mm from the midline maxillary suture (MMS), 3.0 ± 1.2 mm from the alveolar ridge (AR) and 17.0 ± 1.5 mm from the posterior nasal spine (PNS); 74.7% of GPF were positioned opposite the third maxillary molar (M3). Twenty‐seven studies were included in the systematic review and 23 in the meta‐analysis (n = 6927 GPF). The pooled prevalence of the GPF being positioned opposite the M3 was 63.9% (95% confidence interval = 56.6–70.9%). Concluding, the GPF is most often located opposite the M3 in the majority of the world's populations. The maxillary molars are the best landmarks for locating the GPF. In edentulous patients the most useful points for approximating the position of the GPF are the AR, MMS and PNS. This study introduces an easy and repeatable classification to reference the GPF to the maxillary molars.
Ultrafine and Fine Particulate Matter Inside and Outside of Mechanically Ventilated Buildings

The objectives of this study were to measure levels of particulate matter (PM) in mechanically ventilated buildings and to improve understanding of filtration requirements to reduce exposure. With the use of an Ultra High Sensitivity Aerosol Spectrometer and an Aerodyne Mass Spectrometer, ultrafine (0.055–0.1 μm) and fine (0.1–0.7 μm) indoor and outdoor PM was measured as a function of time in an office, a university building, and two elementary schools. Indoor particle levels were highly correlated with outdoor levels. Indoor and outdoor number concentrations in Denver were higher than those in Boulder, with the highest number concentrations occurring during summer and fall. The ratio of indoor-to-outdoor (I/O) PM was weakly but positively correlated with the amount of ventilation provided to the indoor environment, did not vary much with particle size (ranged between 0.48 and 0.63 for the entire size range), and was similar for each period of the week (weekend vs. weekday, night vs. day). Regression analyses showed that ultrafine indoor PM baseline concentrations were higher at night from nighttime infiltration. A lag time was observed between outdoor and indoor measurements. Weekday days had the shortest lag time of 11 min, and weekend nighttime lags when the HVAC was not in use were 50 to 148 min. Indoor-outdoor PM concentration plots showed ultrafine PM was more correlated compared to fine, and especially when the HVAC system was on. Finally, AMS data showed that most of the PM was organic, with occasional nitrate events occurring outdoors. During nitrate events, there were less indoor particles detected, indicating a loss of particulate phase nitrate. The results from this study show that improved filtration is warranted in mechanically ventilated buildings, particularly for ultrafine particles, and that nighttime infiltration is significant depending on the building design.
Electronics as material: littleBits

Electronics are everywhere. We produce, consume and throw out more electronic gadgets than ever before. Yet, creativity with electronics starts when they can be thought of as sketching materials like paper, screws, and cardboard. This Studio will allow participants to create prototypes of interactive gadgets using a diverse library of materials: littleBits (an open-source kit of pre-assembled electronics that snap together with tiny magnets), combined with traditional design materials (foam, fabric, paper, cardboard, etc). The Studio structure is in several phases. The participants start by conceptualizing an interactive object or small-scale installation, break down the interaction, and build it using familiar and unfamiliar materials. Participants will then present their creation and discuss the process of expanding their materials library to include light, sound, sensing, motion and logic. Finally, the participants will come up with ideas for new littleBits modules to suggest or contribute to the open source kit and community.
Does tenure affect earnings

This paper investigates the relationship between tenure and earnings using two different approaches utilising a matched employer‐employee sample. In the first approach a two step procedure is adopted where the tenure status is modelled as endogenous and subject to choice decision. In the second approach the effect of tenure on earnings is estimated by a system of simultaneous equations using three stage least squares. The results suggest the tenure is a significant determinant of earnings.
Ownership Structure and Divestiture Decisions: Evidence from Australian Firms

Divestitures create shareholder value by helping firms to optimize their portfolio of assets. However, firms may forego value enhancing divestitures because of agency problems. More specifically, large controlling shareholders may prefer to retain the assets in order to extract private benefits of control at the expense of minority shareholders. In this paper, we explore the role that other blockholders play in constraining the largest shareholder's influence. The results indicate that divestiture activity decreases with the ownership of the largest shareholder. The presence of another significant blockholder appears to curb this negative bias towards divestitures. Our findings provide an economic rationale for the higher performance of firms characterized by more balanced ownership structures. Involvement of family owners also appears to provide similar benefits.
Laparoscopic versus Open Appendectomy: Outcomes Analysis

The advantages of laparoscopic appendectomy (LA) over open appendectomy (OA) are unclear. This study compares the outcomes of LA versus OA. A retrospective study from 1998 to 2008 of patients (18 years or older) with appendicitis was performed from 12 medical centers. Study outcomes included 30-day postoperative morbidity and length of hospitalization (LOH). Overall, 16,512 patients were included in this study (LA = 10,075, OA = 6437). Male patients (LA = 52.9% vs OA = 57.3%, P < 0.0001) and patients with perforated appendicitis (LA = 19.3% vs OA = 32.8%, P < 0.0001) were more likely to undergo OA. LA for nonperforated appendicitis was associated with a lower wound infection rate (LA = 1.9% vs OA = 3.1%, P < 0.0001) and shorter LOH (LA = 1.4 ± 1.2 vs OA = 1.7 ± 1.2 days, P < 0.0001). Similar results were seen with LA for perforated appendicitis (wound infection: LA = 5.0% vs OA = 9.1%, P < 0.0001; LOH: LA = 3.8 ± 2.7 vs OA = 5.2 ± 3.0, P < 0.0001). Postoperative abscess drainage and readmission rates were similar between LA and OA for both nonperforated and perforated appendicitis. Multivariable analysis demonstrated that LA was associated with lower wound infection (odds ratio [OR], 0.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.5 to 0.7), higher abscess drainage (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1 to 1.6), and shorter LOH. In conclusion, LA continues to be the preferred operation for appendicitis in adults.