Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Models of military expenditure

A brief review of the extensive empirical literature devoted to explaining levels of military expenditure indicates a wide variety of unreconciled results. However, comparing the alternative models is not straightforward. This paper uses British post-war military expenditures to illustrate some of the methodological issues involved in model comparison, evaluation and selection. Starting from two published models for the U.K., a systematic specification search leads to a new model, which dominates alternative specifications, passes a wide range of misspecification tests, and also fits well to French data. Copyright 1989 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Comparing the True Cost of Living Indices of Demographically Different Households

The comparison of true cost of living indices between demographically different households (relative equivalence scale) is argued to be sensitive to the way demographic characteristics enter demand analysis. In particular, parameters reflecting the cost of demographic characteristics at base prices, though themselves do not have welfare (equivalence scale) interpretation, can alter the benchmark from which demographically varying inflation effects are measured. The empirical analysis, based on a rank-3 demand system applied to UK individual household data, shows that the inflation adjustment of child benefits can vary with the way demographic costs at base period prices are specified.
An assessment of dose accuracy and injection force of a novel prefilled insulin pen: comparison with a widely used prefilled insulin pen

Objective: FlexTouch (FT) (Novo Nordisk A/S, Bagsværd, Denmark) is a new prefilled insulin pen with a novel injection mechanism encompassing no push-button extension at any dose-setting. This study assessed the dose accuracy and injection force of FT compared with the established Next Generation FlexPen (NGFP) (Novo Nordisk A/S Bagsværd, Denmark). Research design and methods: Dose accuracy was measured at the minimum, medium and maximum doses (FT, 1, 40 and 80 international units (IU) and NGFP, 1, 30 and 60 IU). Injection force was measured during the injection of the maximum dose (FT, 80 IU; NGFP, 60 IU). Main outcomes: FT and NGFP delivered insulin accurately and consistently at all doses (mean ± s.d., FT at 1 IU, 0.98 ± 0.07; 40 IU, 39.86 ± 0.33; 80 IU, 79.76 ± 0.64; NGFP at 1 IU, 1.02 ± 0.08; 30 IU, 29.69 ± 0.30; 60 IU, 59.50 ± 0.51). FT had a significantly (p < 0.0001) lower injection force than NGFP. Conclusions: The study demonstrated that FT and NGFP deliver insulin accurately and consistently at low, medium and high doses. The novel torque spring injection mechanism of FT results in a significantly lower injection force than NGFP and a pen requiring less thumb-pressure to inject insulin may be welcomed by many people with diabetes.
An Early Warning System of Financial Distress Using Multinomial Logit Models and a Bootstrapping Approach

This study adopts multinomial logit models to separately measure the extent to which financial ratios and corporate governance signal the likelihood of "slight distress events" and "reorganization and bankruptcy. " The results show that corporate governance variables are closely related to the occurrence of "slight distress events. " The estimated misclassification costs of the 1,000 resamples generated through bootstrapping procedures are statistically lower for a model that makes use of corporate governance (CG model) than one without corporate governance (non-CG model) at all cutoff points in 2009, and cutoff points from 0.11 to 0.27 in 2008. Since corporate governance is incrementally useful in predicting financial distress, the CG model's predictive ability improves as two corporate governance factors are considered: ownership ratio of insiders and pledge-ownership ratio of insiders.
Attitudes towards plagiarism among undergraduate accounting students: Malaysian evidence

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine undergraduate accounting students' perceptions of factors contributing to plagiarism activities. Design/methodology/approach - Survey methods were used to investigate the prominence of different factors, and any differences associated with student characteristics. Findings - The results suggested that factors contributing to plagiarism include lack of awareness, lack of understanding, lack of competence, and personal attitudes. No evidence was found to support the suggestion that either pressure or the availability of internet facilities had increased the incidence of plagiarism. The study provided evidence that a significant proportion of Malaysian undergraduate accounting students in the study had engaged in plagiarism activities to a limited degree; the observed profile was consistent with the incidence of plagiarism activities being associated with academically weaker, male students with a negative attitude to their studies. Originality/value - The findings have significant implications for educators if they are to improve the detection and punishment of plagiarism activity, and educate potential perpetrators.
Rate of subscription and after-market volatility in Hong Kong IPOs

The majority of the empirical literature on initial public offerings (IPOs) concentrates on the impact of newly listed companies’ characteristics on the initial return. It is implicitly assumed that investors act only in accordance with the information they have collected before the application deadline and that the market reaction towards the public listing of a new offering will only be known on the first day of trading. Using data from a large sample of IPOs in Hong Kong, the study shows that an offering's rate of subscription contains important information of its own. Namely, it is demonstrated that the well-known relationship between initial returns and the ex-post volatility of returns actually is spurious, volatility being associated with the unpredicted component of the subscription rate.
Quality of life (QOL) of older adult community choral singers in Finland

ABSTRACT Background: Enhancing quality of life (QOL) of older adults is an international area of focus. Identifying factors and experiences that contribute to QOL of older adults helps promote optimal levels of functioning. This study examines the relationship between perceived benefits associated with choral singing and QOL among community-dwelling older adults. Methods: One hundred seventeen older adults who sing in community choirs in Jyväskylä, Finland, completed self-report measures of QOL (WHOQOL-Bref), depressive symptoms, and a questionnaire about the benefits of singing in choir. Correlational analyses and linear regression models were used to examine the association between the benefits of singing in choir and QOL. Results: Both correlation and regression analyses found significant relationships between the benefits of choral singing and three QOL domains: psychological, social relationships, and environment. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age and depressive symptoms. As hypothesized, older choral singers who reported greater benefits of choir singing had higher QOL in multiple domains. The older choral singers in the study also reported few symptoms of depression and high overall QOL and satisfaction with health. Conclusion: Results suggest that singing in a community choir as an older adult may positively influence several aspects of QOL. These results suggest that community choral singing may be one potential avenue for promoting QOL in older adults.
Foreign Competition with Licensing

We show the effects of entry of a foreign firm on domestic welfare in the presence of licensing. If the entrant is technologically inferior to the incumbent, foreign entry increases domestic welfare for intermediate (sufficiently large) technological differences between the firms under licensing with fixed fee (output royalty). If the entrant is technologically superior to the incumbent, foreign entry increases domestic welfare for sufficiently large technological differences between the firms under both fixed-fee licensing and royalty licensing.
Testing mean reversion in target-zone exchange rates

The aim of the paper is to assess to what extent European Monetary System (EMS) target zone exchange rates have been characterized by mean reverting behaviour. To this purpose, a new class of mean reversion tests is introduced. With respect to standard approaches, the proposed tests – which are based on the sample excursion of the exchange rate within the band – have a better ability to detect target-zone mean reverting dynamics. The empirical analysis of the exchange rates among the main EMS currencies shows that the degree of mean reversion is much higher than what has been reported in the literature, both before and after the target zone widening of 1993. Finally, the proposed tests have a wider range of applications since they originate a new approach to unit root testing.
The role of financial reporting in debt contracting and in stewardship

In this paper, I review the role that financial accounting plays in contracts aimed at mitigating agency problems between shareholders and managers and between shareholders and debtholders. The paper discusses the reasons why and how financial accounting numbers are used in debt and stewardship contracting. It further considers the effects of conservatism and fair-value accounting on the relevance of financial reports for contracting. The paper provides some key takeaways from academic literature for accounting practice and regulation.
Body mass index and early kidney function decline in young adults: a longitudinal analysis of the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study.

BACKGROUND Identifying potentially modifiable risk factors is critically important for reducing the burden of chronic kidney disease. We sought to examine the association of body mass index (BMI) with kidney function decline in a cohort of young adults with preserved glomerular filtration at baseline. STUDY DESIGN Longitudinal cohort. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS 2,839 black and white young adults with cystatin C-based estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFRcys)>90mL/min/1.73m(2) taking part in the year-10 examination (in 1995-1996) of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. PREDICTOR BMI, categorized as 18.5-24.9 (reference), 25.0-29.9, 30.0-39.9, and ≥40.0kg/m(2). OUTCOMES Trajectory of kidney function decline, rapid decline (>3% per year), and incident eGFRcys <60mL/min/1.73m(2) over 10 years of follow-up. MEASUREMENTS GFRcys estimated from the CKD-EPI (Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration) equation for calibrated cystatin C at CARDIA years 10, 15, and 20. RESULTS At year 10, participants had a mean age of 35.1 years, median eGFRcys of 114mL/min/1.73m(2), and 24.5% had BMI≥30.0kg/m(2). After age 30 years, average eGFRcys was progressively lower with each increment in BMI after adjustment for baseline age, race, sex, hyperlipidemia, smoking status, and physical activity. Higher BMI category was associated with successively higher odds of rapid decline (for 25.0-29.9, 30.0-39.9, and ≥40.0kg/m(2), adjusted ORs were 1.50 [95% CI, 1.21-1.87], 2.01 [95% CI, 1.57-2.87], and 2.57 [95% CI, 1.67-3.94], respectively). 18 participants (0.6%) had incident eGFRcys<60mL/min/1.73m(2). In unadjusted analysis, higher BMI category was associated with incident eGFRcys<60mL/min/1.73m(2) (for 25.0-29.9, 30.0-39.9, and ≥40.0kg/m(2), ORs were 5.17 [95% CI, 1.10-25.38], 7.44 [95% CI, 1.54-35.95], and 5.55 [95% CI, 0.50-61.81], respectively); adjusted associations were no longer significant. LIMITATIONS Inability to describe kidney function before differences by BMI category were already evident. Absence of data for measured GFR or GFR estimated from serum creatinine level. CONCLUSIONS Higher BMI categories are associated with greater declines in kidney function in a cohort of young adults with preserved GFR at baseline. Clinicians should vigilantly monitor overweight and obese patients for evidence of early kidney function decline.
Selective HARQ Transceiver Design for OFDM System

We present a novel selective Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) based transceiver design for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. The proposed method is bandwidth efficient and has lower complexity as compared to conventional HARQ method adopted by communication standards such as long-term evolution (LTE). Our transceiver design introduces an additional retransmission layer at OFDM modulation level, which is independent of conventional HARQ methods. Instead of calculating computationally expensive soft information and applying forward error correction (FEC) on the soft information, receiver requests retransmission of information symbols corresponding to the subcarriers that have signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) below a set threshold at modulation level. We also provide criteria for selective retransmission and throughput analysis with new selective retransmission approach. We demonstrate that with limited feedback at modulation layer level, the proposed method enhances throughput of the system in all SNR regimes. The proposed selective HARQ method provides great flexibility for an application to optimize throughput based on its bit error rate (BER) requirement.
Influence of a proximal margin elevation technique on marginal adaptation of ceramic inlays.

PURPOSE Evaluating the effect of a proximal margin elevation technique on marginal adaptation of ceramic inlays. METHODS Class II MOD-cavities were prepared in 40 human molars and randomly distributed to four groups (n = 10). In group EN (positive control) proximal margins were located in enamel, 1 mm above the cementoenamel junction, while 2 mm below in groups DE-1In, DE-2In and DE. The groups DE-1In, DE-2In and DE simulated subgingival location of the cervical margin. In group DE-1In one 3 mm and in group DE-2In two 1.5 mm composite layers (Tetric) were placed for margin elevation of the proximal cavities using Syntac classic as an adhesive. The proximal cavities of group DE remained untreated and served as a negative control. In all groups, ceramic inlays (Cerec 3D) were adhesively inserted. Replicas were taken before and after thermomechanical loading (1.200.000 cycles, 50/5°C, max. load 49 N). Marginal integrity (tooth-composite, composite-inlay) was evaluated with scanning electron microscopy (200×). Percentage of continuous margin (% of total proximal margin length) was compared between groups before and after cycling using ANOVA and Scheffé post-hoc test. RESULTS After thermomechanical loading, no significant differences were observed between the different groups with respect to the interface composite-inlay and tooth-composite with margins in dentin. The interface tooth-composite in enamel of group EN was significantly better compared to group DE-2In, which was not different to the negative control group DE and DE-1In. CONCLUSION Margin elevation technique by placement of a composite filling in the proximal box before insertion of a ceramic inlay results in marginal integrities not different from margins of ceramic inlays placed in dentin.
Employer characteristics and employee training outcomes in UK SMEs: a multivariate analysis

Workforce development is becoming a higher priority for government, both as a means of addressing social exclusion and raising competitiveness. However there is limited evidence of the contribution of training to the success of individual firms and even less evidence of the impact of such training activity on small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) employees. This paper draws on a survey of 1,000 employees to investigate the impact of a training intervention on employees in SME workplaces. It explores issues associated with the equity of provision of training in the workplace and the impact of training on the employability of SME employees in the labour market. The results suggest that training interventions lead to positive outcomes for the majority of SME employees, particularly those working in organisations with relatively formalised training practices. It concludes by suggesting that there should be a greater focus on the employee dimension in research and policy regarding training in SMEs.
Cross-sectional differences in the profits, returns and risk of firms initiating dividends

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-sectional differences in the profits, returns and risk of high- and low-market-to-book ratios (M/B) stocks before and after the initiation of regular cash dividend payments. Design/methodology/approach– This study uses parametric and non-parametric statistics and ordinary least squares regression to test for differences in the profits, returns and risk of high- and low-M/B stocks before and after dividend initiation. Findings– Low-M/B stocks display the most positive price reaction to dividend initiation announcements. High-M/B firms have larger profits, cash levels and capital expenditure before and at the time of dividend initiation, but more closely resemble the low-M/B firms in terms of these characteristics within three years following dividend initiation. Excess returns earned by low-M/B firms are related to decreases in systematic risk, while the returns of high-M/B firms are related to their higher profitability. Research limitations/implications– Averaging results from 1965-2000 does not account for possible changes in the information content of dividend initiations over time (as evidenced by steadily declining dividend yields over this period). Practical implications– The findings are consistent with the idea that firms begin paying dividends as they are maturing into a slower growth period, and do not support the idea that dividend initiation signals faster future earnings growth. Originality/value– The analysis adds to the body of knowledge by explicitly conditioning the expectations from various dividend theories based upon individual firms’ growth phase as reflected in their M/B ratios, and suggests that signaling, agency and risk explanations for dividends must be considered jointly with a firm's growth prospects when studying dividend events.
The Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Evidence from a Prespecified Research Design

This article presents evidence on the employment effects of recent minimum wage increases from a prespecified research design that entailed committing to a detailed set of statistical analyses prior to “going to” the data. The limited data to which the prespecified research design can be applied may preclude finding many significant effects. Nonetheless, the evidence is most consistent with disemployment effects of minimum wages for younger, less-skilled workers.
In vivo and ex vivo comparative transcriptional profiling of invasive and non‐invasive Candida albicans isolates identifies genes associated with tissue invasion

The human pathogenic fungus Candida albicans can cause a wide range of infections and invade multiple organs. To identify C. albicans genes that are expressed during invasion of the liver, we used genome‐wide transcriptional profiling in vivo and ex vivo. By analysing the different phases of intraperitoneal infection from attachment to tissue penetration in a time‐course experiment and by comparing the profiles of an invasive with those of a non‐invasive strain, we identified genes and transcriptional pattern which are associated with the invasion process. This includes genes involved in metabolism, stress, and nutrient uptake, as well as transcriptional programmes regulating morphology and environmental sensing. One of the genes identified as associated with liver invasion was DFG16, a gene crucial for pH‐dependent hyphal formation, correct pH sensing, invasion at physiological pH and systemic infection.
CCRex: A coding-aware cooperative retransmission for wireless networks

In the cooperative wireless networks, the source node transmits its packets to the destination in one hop with the cooperation from the helper nodes. We design a TDMA-based cooperative MAC which can determine the cooperative cooperation opportunity, to maximize the expected reward, taking into consideration the gain of cooperative communication and network coding that are received from all of its potential relaying nodes. This design is a more general version of cooperative retransmission to optimize the selection of the relay and packet transmission/retransmission, including a probability-based fractional compensation mechanism. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme performs better in terms of reward and fairness.
Remittances and the Real Exchange Rate

Existing empirical evidence indicates that remittances have a positive impact on a good number of development indicators of recipient countries. Yet when flows are too large relative to the size of the recipient economies, as those observed in a number of Latin American countries, they may also bring a number of undesired problems. Among those probably the most feared in this context is the Dutch Disease. This paper explores the empirical evidence regarding the impact of remittances on the real exchange rate. The findings suggest that remittances indeed appear to lead to a significant real exchange rate appreciation. The paper also explores policy options that may somewhat offset the observed effect.
Outcome after traumatic brain injury: pathway analysis of contributions from premorbid, injury severity, and recovery variables.

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship of premorbid variables, injury severity, and cognitive and functional status to outcome 1 year after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to assess the feasibility of multivariate path analysis as a way to discover those relationships. DESIGN Prospective, longitudinal. SETTINGS Level I trauma center, acute inpatient rehabilitation hospital. PATIENTS One hundred seven subjects (87 men, 20 women; mean age, 33.91 +/- 14.2 yr) who had experienced severe TBI, typically from motor vehicle crashes. INTERVENTIONS Acute medical and rehabilitation care. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Disability Rating Scale, Community Integration Questionnaire, and return to employment. Evaluated in acute rehabilitation, and at 6 and 12 months' postinjury. RESULTS Path analyses revealed that premorbid factors had significant relationships with injury severity, functional skills, cognitive status, and outcome; injury severity affected cognitive and functional skills; and cognitive status influenced outcome. No significant relationships were found between injury severity and emotional status, injury severity and outcome, emotional status and outcome, and functional skills and outcome. CONCLUSIONS Multivariate analysis is important to understanding outcome after TBI. Injury severity, as measured in this study, is less important to 12-month outcome than the premorbid status of the person and the difficulties (particularly cognitive deficits) exhibited at follow-up 6 months after the trauma.