Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corruption and Trade Protection: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper provides new estimates of the effects of corruption and poor institutions on trade protection. It exploits data on several measures of trade protection including import duty, international trade taxes, and the trade-GDP ratio. The paper complements the literature on the relationship between corruption and trade reform. It deviates from the previous literature in several ways. First, unobserved heterogeneity among countries have been controlled with properly specified fixed effects exploiting the time dimension present in the dataset. Secondly, instead of using tariff and non-tariff barriers, more general measures of trade protection have been used. The issue of endogeneity of corruption with respect to trade policy has been addressed using proper instruments for corruption used in previous studies. Moreover, two separate institutional measures have been used in the same regression to estimate their comparative impacts on trade policy. In general, we find that corruption and lack of contract enforcement have strong impacts to increase trade protection and negative effects on trade openness.
A Study of Division Deans' in the North Carolina Community College System Self Perceived Leadership Style Based on Bolman and Deal's Four Frame Theory

This study was designed to expand the knowledge base of academic division deans by correlating differences in leadership styles (i.e., frames) of the division deans within the North Carolina Community College System. The data was collected using the Leadership Orientation Instrument-Self (LOI-Self) developed by Bolman and Deal (1990) to measure and identify the perceived organizational frames of leadership: human resource, political, structural and symbolic. The LOI-Self survey, the focus of this study, was completed by the North Carolina Community College System division deans. The North Carolina Community College System is the third largest in the nation, composed of 58 community colleges. The first research question in this study identified the primary leadership orientation frame of the division deans. The remaining three research questions used one-way ANOVAs to test the perceived leadership orientation of North Carolina Community College System division deans in relation to educational level, prior business (non-educational) experience, and number of years of serving as dean. The research methodology used in this study is quantitative in design. The results of this study indicate that the human resource frame was found to be most prevalent among the North Carolina Community College System deans along with a paired orientation with the structural frame. Statistical analysis of the findings revealed no significance in reference to the division deans' perceived orientation leadership frames and educational level, prior business (non-educational) experience, or number of years of serving as dean as described in the research questions. Cronbach's Alpha was used to establish reliability and demonstrates a high degree of consistency among the electronic survey respondents. The results of this study correspond to Bolman and Deal's maintained population pool of total group means on the leadership orientations frames based on a collection of other studies. Implications of this study suggest programs which would facilitate the deans in their development and utilization of the lesser used leadership skills of the political and symbolic frame orientations.
Exchange Rate Volatility Response to Macroeconomic News: Evidence from the Great Recession

We examine the state-dependent volatility reaction to macroeconomic news in the euro-dollar, pound-dollar and yen-dollar markets between 2005 and 2009. Unlike the traditional event studies that define economic states based on exogenously determined thresholds, we employ the smooth transition regression model, which allows for the possibility of a gradual as well as an instantaneous regime change. Our results suggest that, on average, for about 40 percent of the major news indicators, the volatility reaction to macroeconomic news is larger in expansions compared to the recession period in the three currency markets. Non-farm payroll employment, GDP advance release, retail sales, trade deficit and CPI announcements are consistently associated with larger volatility response in expansions. New home sales and the Fed funds rate announcements, on the other hand, generate larger market reactions in the recession period. We attribute the pattern associated with new home sales and the Fed funds rate to the unique role the real estate and credit markets played in the 2008 recession. We show that different types of macroeconomic news indicators generate different shapes of transition functions. Specifically, the estimated transition function based on the housing starts data indicates a more gradual regime change compared to other indicators.
Borrowing and Nonborrowing among International Courts

Why do some international courts and judges extensively cite decisions from other courts, whereas others do not? I examine what light theories of transjudicial communication shed on this question. I then confront these theoretical expectations with an in-depth analysis of citations by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and a global analysis of broader cross-citation patterns. First, contrary to its transnationalist reputation, the ECtHR rarely cites other courts in judgments, although ECtHR judges do so regularly in separate opinions. Second, ideology matters: judges who are inclined toward an expansive interpretation of the European Convention are more likely to use external citations. Third, there are large asymmetries in the extent to which international courts rely on each other’s jurisprudence, contradicting the argument that transjudicial communication is driven by reciprocity principles. Fourth, the evidence is consistent with the notion that judges sometimes refrain from citing external sources for strategic reasons.
Toward Emerging Topic Detection for Business Intelligence: Predictive Analysis of 'Meme' Dynamics

Detecting and characterizing emerging topics of discussion and consumer trends through analysis of Internet data is of great interest to businesses. This paper considers the problem of monitoring the Web to spot emerging memes - distinctive phrases which act as "tracers" for topics - as a means of early detection of new topics and trends. We present a novel methodology for predicting which memes will propagate widely, appearing in hundreds or thousands of blog posts, and which will not, thereby enabling discovery of significant topics. We begin by identifying measurables which should be predictive of meme success. Interestingly, these metrics are not those traditionally used for such prediction but instead are subtle measures of meme dynamics. These metrics form the basis for learning a classifier which predicts, for a given meme, whether or not it will propagate widely. The utility of the prediction methodology is demonstrated through analysis of memes that emerged online during the second half of 2008.
Paradigme de pot de miel adaptatif permettant d'étudier et d'évaluer le comportement et compétences des pirates informatiques. (Self-Adaptive Honeypots Coercing and Assessing Attacker Behaviour)

Information security communities are always talking about "attackers" or "blackhats", but in reality very little is known about their skills. The idea of studying attacker behaviors was pioneered in the early nineties. In the last decade the number of attacks has increased exponentially and honeypots were introduced in order to gather information about attackers and to develop early-warning systems. Honeypots come in different flavors with respect to their interaction potential. A honeypot can be very restrictive, but this implies only a few interactions. However, if a honeypot is very tolerant, attackers can quickly achieve their goal. Choosing the best trade-off between attacker freedom and honeypot restrictions is challenging. In this dissertation, we address the issue of self-adaptive honeypots that can change their behavior and lure attackers into revealing as much information as possible about themselves. Rather than being allowed simply to carry out attacks, attackers are challenged by strategic interference from adaptive honeypots. The observation of the attackers' reactions is particularly interesting and, using derived measurable criteria, the attacker's skills and capabilities can be assessed by the honeypot operator. Attackers enter sequences of inputs on a compromised system which is generic enough to characterize most attacker behaviors. Based on these principles, we formally model the interactions of attackers with a compromised system. The key idea is to leverage game-theoretic concepts to define the configuration and reciprocal actions of high-interaction honeypots. We have also leveraged machine learning techniques for this task and have developed a honeypot that uses a variant of reinforcement learning in order to arrive at the best behavior when facing attackers. The honeypot is capable of adopting behavioral strategies that vary from blocking commands or returning erroneous messages, right up to insults that aim to irritate the intruder and serve as a reverse Turing Test distinguishing human attackers from machines. Our experimental results show that behavioral strategies are dependent on contextual parameters and can serve as advanced building blocks for intelligent honeypots. The knowledge obtained can be used either by the adaptive honeypots themselves or to reconfigure low-interaction honeypots.
Costly voting with correlated preferences

We consider a process of costly majority voting where people anticipate that others have similar preferences. This perceived consensus of opinion is the outcome of a fully rational Bayesian updating process where individuals consider their own tastes as draws from a population. We show that the correlation in preferences lowers expected turnout. In one extreme when preferences are independent, the amount of voting is excessive, while it is less than socially optimal when preferences are perfectly aligned. The intuition is that with correlation in preferences, votes have a positive externality on those who don’t participate, which reduces incentives to participate. We study the effects of the public release of information (“polls”) on participation levels. We find that polls raise expected turnout but reduce expected welfare. Finally, we discuss the merits of delegating voting authority to a committee. We show that a selfishly interested committee may improve welfare and that the optimal committee size is necessarily odd. We would like to thank Michelle Goeree, Tom Palfrey, and Martin Sefton for useful suggestions.
AR-based Video-Mediated Communication: A Social Presence Enhancing Experience

Video-mediated communication systems attempt toprovide users with a channel that could bring out the "feeling"of face-to-face communication. Among the many qualities thesesystems aim for, a high level of Social Presence isunquestionably a desirable one; however, little effort has beenmade to improve upon the user's perception of "presence". Wepropose an AR approach to enhance social presence for video mediatedsystems by allowing one user to be present in theother user's video image. We conducted a preliminary pilotstudy with 10 participants coupled in 5 pairs to evaluate oursystem and compare with the traditional video-chat setup.Results indicated that our system has higher degree of socialpresence compared to traditional video-chat systems. Thisconclusion was supported by the positive feedback from thesubjects.
Molecular basis of macrolide resistance in Campylobacter: role of efflux pumps and target mutations.

BACKGROUND Erythromycin is the drug of choice to treat human campylobacteriosis. Campylobacter isolates exhibit two different phenotypes with regard to erythromycin resistance: high-level resistant strains (HLR) and low-level resistant strains (LLR). OBJECTIVES To study the mechanisms of resistance of Campylobacter to erythromycin, its 6-O-methyl derivative clarithromycin and the ketolide telithromycin. RESULTS We observed a cross-resistance against these three molecules but in contrast, no cross-resistance to quinolones. Analyses of LLR showed no mutation on the 23S rDNA and the presence of a drug transport system, which can be inhibited by phenylalanine arginine beta-naphthylamide (PAbetaN), an efflux-pump inhibitor. In contrast, no PAbetaN-sensitive drug transport was identified in HLR but we found mutations in the rDNA, which were responsible for decreased binding of telithromycin to purified ribosomes. We further showed that the CmeB efflux pump already described in Campylobacter is not involved in the PAbetaN-sensitive transport of telithromycin. CONCLUSIONS Mutations in the ribosome confer high-level macrolide/ketolide resistance. Low-level resistance was mediated by an efflux mechanism which is sensitive to PAbetaN. This efflux pump was selective to macrolides/ketolide and was different from the previously described Campylobacter efflux pump.
Dog Owners' Interaction Styles: Their Components and Associations with Reactions of Pet Dogs to a Social Threat

The bond dogs develop with their owner received increased attention in the last years but no study aimed at characterizing the way in which owners interact with their dogs in their daily life and how this might influence dog behavior. In order to examine how dog owners interact with their dogs, we first analyzed the behavior of 220 dog owners in 8 different standardized situations involving the owner-dog dyad. We extracted 3 behavioral factors related to “Owner Warmth,” “Owner Social Support,” and “Owner Control. ” Further, we investigated whether owner personality, gender and age are associated with these three factors. Results indicated that older owners scored lower in “Owner Warmth” and in “Owner Social Support” and higher in “Owner Control” than younger owners. Furthermore, owners scoring high in “Owner Control” scored lower in the personality trait Openness and owners scoring high in “Owner Social Support” scored lower in the personality trait Conscientiousness. Finally, we also analyzed whether the dogs' reaction to an unfamiliar woman's threatening approach was associated with the owners' interaction styles. Results showed that dogs that searched for proximity of their owners during the threatening situation had owners scoring higher in “Owner Warmth,” as compared to dogs that reacted more autonomously, approaching the unfamiliar experimenter. Analogies between dog-owner interaction styles and human parenting styles are discussed considering the implications of the present findings for human social psychology as well as the practical relevance for dog welfare and human safety.
HABIT FORMATION AND PRECAUTIONARY SAVING: EVIDENCE FROM THE KOREAN HOUSEHOLD PANEL STUDIES

We examined the evidence of precautionary saving and Constantinides (1990) type habit formation model by using the Korean Household Panel Studies, which has six years of time series observations and thousands of cross section observations. Employing the dynamic panel data estimation method, we found that the estimates of parameters corresponding to the degree of habit formation and precautionary saving are statistically insignificant for food consumption, but statistically significant or at least marginally significant for nondurables and services consumption.
Citizens, Elections, Parties: Approaches to the Comparative Study of the Processes of Development

Introduction to ECPR Edition x Preface 5 I. Nation-building, citizenship and political mobilization: approaches and models. 11 1. The Comparative Study of Political Participation 13 2. Methods and Models in the Comparative Study of Nation Building 46 3. Nation-Building, Cleavage Formation and the Structuring of Mass Politics 72 II. Suffrage extensions and waves of mobilization: empirical and statistical studies. 145 4. Electoral Systems 147 5. The Comparative Study of Electoral Statistics 169 6. The Mobilization of the Periphery 181 7. Electoral Mobilization, Party Competition and National Integration 226 III. Citizen reactions in fully-fl edged party systems. 249 8. Cross-National Survey Analysis: Historical, Analytical and Substantive Contexts 251 9. Party Preferences and Opinion Patterns in Western Europe 293 10. Ideological Consistency and Party Preference: Findings of a Seven-Country Survey 334 11. Electoral Activity, Party Membership and Organizational Infl uence 352 12. Citizen Participation in Political Life: a Comparison of Data for Norway and the United States 362 13. The Voter, the Reader and the Party Press 397 14. Readers, Viewers, Voters 417 Bibliography 432 Index 464
Effective Programs for Latino Students in Elementary and Middle Schools. Report No. 11.

This report identifies programs that have proven to be effective and programs that show potential for improving academic achievement among Latino youth in the elementary and middle grades. It targets programs specifically designed for this population and programs that have worked for all children andthat have been disseminated for use with Latino children. A search of the ERIC network, a review of National Diffusion Network validated programs, and a review of programs receiving Title VII Academic Excellence awards.1! rbided informationEacat prc,-;= effectiveness. The types of programs include schoolwide reform programs, curriculum-specific programs, cooperative learning methods, and tutorial programs. Criteria for inclusion included evidence of effectiveness, replicability, and evaluation or application with Latino students. Factors that contribute to program effectiveness have been identified as: (1) clear goals that emphasize methods and materials linked to those goals and programs that assess progress toward those goals; (2) well-specified components, materials, and professional development materials; (3) extensive professional development; and (4) dissemination by organizations that focus on the quality of implementation. An appendix lists contacts for information on the 40 programs reviewed. (Contains 180 references.) (SLD) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS FOR LATINO STUDENTS E\ ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS Co U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION )I CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as eCeived from the person or organization originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Olatokunbo S. Fashola Robert E. Slavin Margarita Calderon Richard Duran Report No. 11 / March 1997 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON THE EDUCATION OF STUDENTS PLACED AT RISK Johns Hopkins University & Howard University BEST COPY AVAILABLE Up
Prediction of Business Cycle Turning Points in Germany / Prognose konjunktureller Wendepunkte in Deutschland

Summary Using a binary reference series based on the dating procedure of Artis, Kontolemis and Osborn (1997) different procedures for predicting turning points of the German business cycles were tested. Specifically, a probit model as proposed by Estrella and Mishkin (1997) as well as Markov-switching models were taken into consideration. The overall results indicate that the interest rate spread, the real effective exchange rate as well as some monetary indicators and some survey indicators can help to predict turning points of the German business cycle. The models were estimated for the in-sample period 1978 to 1997 and the reliability of the results was tested out of that sample (1998 to 2002). Zusammenfassung Unter Verwendung einer binären Referenzzeitreihe, deren Konstruktion auf dem Ansatz von Artis, Kontolemis und Osborn (1997) beruht, wurden verschiedene Verfahren zur Prognose konjunktureller Wendepunkte getestet. Im Besonderen wurde ein Probit-Modell, wie es von Estrella und Mishkin (1997) vorgeschlagen wurde, und Markov-Switching-Modelle verwendet. Die Resultate zeigen, dass die Zinsdifferenz, der reale effektive Wechselkurs, einige monetäre Indikatoren sowie einige Umfrageindikatoren bei der Prognose konjunktureller Wendepunkte helfen können. Die Modelle wurden für den Zeitraum von 1978 bis 1997 geschätzt und ihre Verläßlichkeit außerhalb des Stichprobenumfangs (1998 bis 2002) getestet.
Effect of Non-Surgical Periodontal Therapy on Superoxide Dismutase Levels in Gingival Tissues of Chronic Periodontitis Patients: A Clinical and Spectophotometric Analysis

BACKGROUND: Superoxide dismutase (SOD), an antioxidant acting against superoxide (oxygen radical, O2.-), it is released in inflammatory pathways and causes connective tissue breakdown. Increased SOD activity in inflamed gingiva may indicate increased O2. - radical generation by neutrophils and other inflammatory cells at the diseased site. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of non-surgical periodontal therapy (NSPT) on SOD levels in gingival tissues of chronic periodontitis patients. METHODS: Forty subjects: 20 periodontally healthy (Control) and 20 chronic periodontitis (Test); age range 24–55 years were recruited. Gingival tissue samples were collected by excising the inner lining of the periodontal pocket at baseline (prior to non-surgical periodontal therapy) and 2 months post therapy. In controls, tissue samples were obtained immediately after tooth extraction scheduled for orthodontic reasons. Clinical parameters included probing depth, clinical attachment level, gingival index, bleeding index, plaque index. SOD activities were assessed spectrophotometrically at baseline and 2 months post NSPT, results were analysed statistically. RESULTS: At baseline, patients with chronic periodontitis had higher mean SOD activity (2.73 ± 1.36) than the control subjects (1.12 ± 1.13) with p = 0.00003 (p < 0.05). At 2 months post NSPT median SOD level (1.00) had come close to median SOD value of control group (0.85); p = 0.99 (p > 0.05). The resolution of inflammation with successful NSPT resulted in decreased SOD levels as in control group. Clinical parameters in patients with chronic periodontitis showed a significant improvement 2 months post NSPT (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Non-surgical periodontal therapy significantly improves the clinical parameters and restores previously increased SOD levels to normal in chronic periodontitis patients.