Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Production Efficiency, II: Tax Rules

Theories of optimal production in a planned economy have usually assumed that the tax system can allow the government to achieve any desired redistribution of property. ' On the other hand, some recent discussions of public investment criteria have tended to ignore taxation as a complementary method of controlling the economy.2 Although lump sum transfers of the kind required for full optimality3 are not feasible today, commodity and income taxes can certainly be used to increase welfare.4 We shall therefore examine the maximization of social welfare using both taxes and public production as control variables. In doing so, we intend to bring together the theories of taxation, public investment, and welfare economics. There are two main results of the study: the demonstration of the desirability of aggregate production efficiency in a wide variety of circumstances provided that taxes are set at the optimal level; and an examination of that optimal tax structure. It is widely known that aggregate production efficiency is desired as one part of achieving a Pareto optimum. It is also widely known that when the desired Pareto optimum cannot be achieved, aggregate production efficiency may not be desirable. Our conclusion differs from these results in that production efficiency is desirable although a full Pareto optimum is not achieved. In the optimum position, the presence of commodity taxes implies that marginal rates of substitution are not equal to marginal rates of transformation. Furthermore, the absence of lump sum taxes implies that the income distribution is not the best that can be conceived. Yet, the presence of optimal commodity taxes will be shown to imply the desirability of aggregate production efficiency. This result is similar to that derived by Marcel Boiteux, although he considered an economy where lump sum redistributions of income were possible. Boiteux also examined the optimal tax structure that was necessary for this result. The optimal tax structure for the case of a single consumer (or equivalently with lump sum redistribution) has also been examined by Frank * The authors are at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nuffield College, Oxford, respectively. During some of the work, Diamond was at Churchill College, Cambridge and Nuffield College, Oxford and Mirrlees was at M.I. T. Earlier versions of this paper were given at Econometric Society winter meetings at Washington and Blaricum, 1967, at the University Social Science Council Conference, Kampala, Uganda, December 1968, and to the Game Theory and Mathematical Economics Seminar, Hebrew University, Jerusalem'i. The authors wish to thank M.A.H. Dempster, D. K. Foley, P. A. Samuelson, K. Shell, and participants in these seminars for helpful discussions on this subject, and referees for valuable comments. Diamond was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant GS 1585. The authors bear sole responsibility for opinions and errors. 1 For a discussion of this literature, see Abram Bergson.
Unmet Needs in the Treatment of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a highly prevalent gastrointestinal disorder. Proton pump inhibitors have profoundly revolutionized the treatment of GERD. However, several areas of unmet need persist despite marked improvements in the therapeutic management of GERD. These include the advanced grades of erosive esophagitis, nonerosive reflux disease, maintenance treatment of erosive esophagitis, refractory GERD, postprandial heartburn, atypical and extraesophageal manifestations of GERD, Barrett’s esophagus, chronic protein pump inhibitor treatment, and post-bariatric surgery GERD. Consequently, any future development of novel therapeutic modalities for GERD (medical, endoscopic, or surgical), would likely focus on the aforementioned areas of unmet need.
NURSES INFECTION PREVENTION PRACTICES IN HANDLING INJECTIONS: A CASE OF RIFT VALLEY PROVINCIAL HOSPITAL IN KENYA.

OBJECTIVE To analyse the infection prevention practices in handling of injections by nurses in Rift Valley Provincial Hospital in Kenya. DESIGN A cross-sectional observational study. SETTING Rift Valley Provincial hospital which is a level five health facility situated in Nakuru County, Kenya. SUBJECTS A sample of 386 injection procedures attributed to the nurses in Rift Valley Provincial Hospital was considered for this study. RESULTS The study established that among all the injections administered in this study, 43.7% (386) adhered to aseptic techniques. Over seventy five percent (76.9%, n = 386) of the observed injections procedures did not involve the hand-washing, 53.4% (n = 206) did not involve swabbing of a vial rubber cap with alcohol swabs and 95.1%(n = 263) involved using of multidose drug in more than one designated patient. Over ninety five percent (95.6%, n = 364) of the observed procedures involved use of sterile the syringe bit of the devices only while the rest used either clean or contaminated syringes. Around forty percent (42.2%, n = 316) of the injections preparation was done elsewhere (not at the patient bedside) before administration. Slightly over thirty five percent (36.6%, n = 386) of the injections were administered immediately upon reconstitution(at the right time). The study also established the use of aseptic techniques to reconstitute and administer was significantly related to the number of nurses to patients ratio per shift (X2(1) = 3.5: p = 0.04). CONCLUSION The findings of this study indicate that patient safety in public hospital is still relatively low. The adherence to basic infection prevention procedures/aseptic techniques in handling of injections by health workers is still a concern. The adherence to aseptic techniques in handling injections is significantly associated with the nurses to patients ratios. Therefore, it is imperative to improve nurse to patient ratio in public health facilities in Kenya.
A usability framework for the design and evaluation of an exploratory geovisualization environment

The exploration of large geospatial data for finding patterns and understanding underlying processes is one of the challenges in geovisualization research. New methods are needed for effective extraction of patterns and appropriate visualization tools are necessary to support knowledge construction throughout the exploration process. Based on an approach to combine visual and computational methods, a visualization environment has been developed to support visual data mining and knowledge discovery tasks. This environment integrates non-geographic information spaces with maps and other graphics that allow users to explore patterns and attribute relationships. The development of the tool intends to facilitate knowledge construction using a number of steps that underline data mining and knowledge discovery methodology. In order to investigate the effectiveness of the design concept, an empirical usability testing is planed to assess the tool's ability to meet user performance and satisfaction. In this test, different options of map-based and interactive visualizations of the output of a self-organizing map (SOM) are used to explore a socio-demographic dataset. The study emphasizes the knowledge discovery process based on exploratory tasks and visualization operations. This paper describes the usability framework used to guide the design, and examines key aspects of the evaluation of such visual-computational environment.
Occupational science: updating the United Kingdom journey of discovery

The metaphor of a journey is used to describe the incremental influence of occupational science in the UK. A historical perspective is taken to identify and discuss key concepts and issues. Subjective bias and methodological flaws are acknowledged. Discussion for future directions is contained within contextual orientation. Ongoing debate is invited and encouraged. Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd.
Hayfever in the United Kingdom

In the U.K. allergy to grass pollen is the single most important cause of seasonal allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (hayfever). The prevalence of the disease appears to be increasing, although the precise reasons for this are at present unknown. The introduction of non-sedating H1-selective antihistamine drugs and local corticosteroids has been an important therapeutic advance. Immunotherapy (desensitization) has a part to play in the treatment of hayfever unresponsive to anti-allergic medication but because of the danger of systemic reactions its use is limited to specialized centres.
On Exploiting Spatial and Temporal Correlation in Wireless Sensor Networks

In densely deployed wireless sensor networks (WSN), sensor observations are highly correlated in the space domain. Furthermore, the nature of the physical phenomenon constitutes the temporal correlation between each consecutive observation of a sensor node. These spatial and temporal correlations along with the collaborative nature of the WSN bring significant potential advantages for the development of efficient communication protocols well-suited for the WSN paradigm. In this paper, a theoretical framework is developed to model the spatial and temporal correlations in sensor networks. The objective of this framework is to enable the development of efficient communication protocols which exploit these advantageous intrinsic features of the WSN paradigm. Based on this framework, possible approaches are explored to exploit spatial and temporal correlation for efficient medium access and reliable event transport in WSN, respectively.
Christian Fundamentalists and Public Opinion Toward the Middle East: Israel's New Best Friends?*

Although Christian fundamentalist elites have become increasingly vocal in their support for Israel in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, it is not clear that this rhetoric has produced differing attitudes about U.S. foreign policy in public opinion. This article examines whether such differences exist, and whether they are rooted in aspects of fundamentalist eschatology. Copyright (c) 2004 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.
A COMPARISON OF RUSSIAN AND U.S. PAY ALLOCATION DECISIONS, DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE JUDGMENTS, AND PRODUCTIVITY UNDER DIFFERENT PAYMENT CONDITIONS

This article reports the results of two studies of pay-related attitudes and behaviors of Russian and U.S. managers and students. In a pay allocation role play, managers in both countries place primary emphasis on individual performance (equity) and secondary emphasis on coworker relations and equality. In addition, Russian managerial subjects utilized need in their pay allocations. In a series of experiments, both Russian and U.S. students preferred the equity rule, although there were no productivity effects across different allocation rules. Procedural justice effects were also observed. Implications for pay practices are examined.
Inhibition of the Acetyltransferases p300 and CBP Reveals a Targetable Function for p300 in the Survival and Invasion Pathways of Prostate Cancer Cell Lines

Inhibitors of histone deacetylases have been approved for clinical application in cancer treatment. On the other hand, histone acetyltransferase (HAT) inhibitors have been less extensively investigated for their potential use in cancer therapy. In prostate cancer, the HATs and coactivators p300 and CBP are upregulated and may induce transcription of androgen receptor (AR)-responsive genes, even in the absence or presence of low levels of AR. To discover a potential anticancer effect of p300/CBP inhibition, we used two different approaches: (i) downregulation of p300 and CBP by specific short interfering RNA (siRNA) and (ii) chemical inhibition of the acetyltransferase activity by a newly developed small molecule, C646. Knockdown of p300 by specific siRNA, but surprisingly not of CBP, led to an increase of caspase-dependent apoptosis involving both extrinsic and intrinsic cell death pathways in androgen-dependent and castration-resistant prostate cancer cells. Induction of apoptosis was mediated by several pathways including inhibition of AR function and decrease of the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) subunit p65. Furthermore, cell invasion was decreased upon p300, but not CBP, depletion and was accompanied by lower matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 and MMP-9 transcriptions. Thus, p300 and CBP have differential roles in the processes of survival and invasion of prostate cancer cells. Induction of apoptosis in prostate cancer cells was confirmed by the use of C646. This was substantiated by a decrease of AR function and downregulation of p65 impairing several NF-κB target genes. Taken together, these results suggest that p300 inhibition may be a promising approach for the development of new anticancer therapies. Mol Cancer Ther; 10(9); 1644–55. ©2011 AACR.
Whole program path-based dynamic impact analysis

Impact analysis, determining when a change in one part of a program affects other parts of the program, is time-consuming and problematic. Impact analysis is rarely used to predict the effects of a change, leaving maintainers to deal with consequences rather than working to a plan. Previous approaches to impact analysis involving analysis of call graphs, and static and dynamic slicing, exhibit several tradeoffs involving computational expense, precision, and safety, require access to source code, and require a relatively large amount of effort to re-apply as software evolves. This paper presents a new technique for impact analysis based on whole path profiling, that provides a different set of cost-benefits tradeoffs - a set which can potentially be beneficial for an important class of predictive impact analysis tasks. The paper presents the results of experiments that show that the technique can predict impact sets that are more accurate than those computed by call graph analysis, and more precise (relative to the behavior expressed in a program's profile) than those computed by static slicing.
Digitally enabled disaster response: the emergence of social media as boundary objects in a flooding disaster

In recent times, social media has been increasingly playing a critical role in response actions following natural catastrophes. From facilitating the recruitment of volunteers during an earthquake to supporting emotional recovery after a hurricane, social media has demonstrated its power in serving as an effective disaster response platform. Based on a case study of Thailand flooding in 2011 – one of the worst flooding disasters in more than 50 years that left the country severely impaired – this paper provides an in‐depth understanding on the emergent roles of social media in disaster response. Employing the perspective of boundary object, we shed light on how different boundary spanning competences of social media emerged in practice to facilitate cross‐boundary response actions during a disaster, with an aim to promote further research in this area. We conclude this paper with guidelines for response agencies and impacted communities to deploy social media for future disaster response.
Same Land Cover, Same Land Use at the Large Scale, Different Landscapes at the Small Scale: Landscape Change in Olive Plantations on Lesvos Island, Greece

Abstract In this paper, agricultural landscape change at the small scale (for example, at the farm and field level) is studied to conceptualize the processes that change these landscapes (such as features, forms and functions) according to the decisions that farmers make. The case study is olive plantations on the island of Lesvos, Greece. The five-year differences in land cover, land use and landscape at the small scale of a number of olive fields in the same area are studied in three dimensions: symbolic, productive and ecological, with data that come from the observation of practices and vegetation measurements. A conceptual framework is constructed that links the changes of six different landscapes at the individual olive field level with specific management choices of farmers. Findings demonstrate that although olive plantations are of the same land cover and land use class as at the large scale, diverging practices create different landscapes at the small scale along a continuous line with many intermediate cases. The findings also demonstrate that the whole system is dynamic, with the different small-scale landscapes changing into each other continuously due to different practices. Understanding this dynamic diversity requires studying human interventions at the right scale, the one that corresponds to the scale of the changes at the farm.
A Structured View on Weighted Counting with Relations to Quantum Computation and Applications

Weighted counting problems are a natural generalization of counting problems where a weight is associated with every computational path and the goal is to compute the sum of the weights of all paths (instead of computing the number of accepting paths). We present a structured view on weighted counting by defining several classes that depend on the range of the function that assigns weights to paths and by showing the relationships between these different classes. These classes constitute strict generalizations of the usual counting problems. Weighted counting allows us to easily cast a number of famous complexity theoretic results in its terms, especially for quantum computation. Moreover, these classes are flexible enough and capture the complexity of various problems in fields such as probabilistic networks and stochastic combinatorial optimization. Using the weighted counting terminology and our results, we are able to greatly simplify and answer some long-standing open questions in those fields.
Th e Men tal Health of Visible Ethnic Minorities in Canada

Canada's humanitarian response to the world refugee crisis and to the immigration of people from non-western countries has gathered momentum in the last two decades. Canada has become pluralistic in every sense: linguistic, religious, cultural, and racial. Given current population trends, this diversity will continue to be a salient feature of Canadian society. New demands have arisen regarding the well-being of visible ethnic minority Canadians, the prevention of emotional disorders, and the guarantee that people of all cultural origins needing help have access to it. Data reflecting changes in Canadian immigration policy toward immigrants/ refugees from non-western countries since the 1950s are highlighted. The protection of minority rights in the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the 1988 Multiculturalism Act are identified. The 1986-88 mandate and findings of a Federal Government Task Force studying the mental health of immigrants/refugees, are outlined. Selected data focusing on visible ethnic minorities deriving from this study, and a pertinent literature review are presented as follows: cultural factors in mental health, changing public racial attitudes, and employment related stress. Attention is given to the problems of high risk visible minority women, particularly women of South Asian origins. The paper closes on the optimistic note of the potential rich resource of ethnic visible minorities to their newly adopted Canadian home.
Smoking and mortality among women with type 2 diabetes: The Nurses' Health Study cohort.

OBJECTIVE To assess the relationship between cigarette smoking and mortality among women with type 2 diabetes in the Nurses' Health Study cohort. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The Nurses' Health Study, a prospective cohort of U.S. female registered nurses, included 7,401 women with type 2 diabetes diagnosed at baseline or during follow-up from 1976 to 1996. Total and cause-specific mortality of these diabetic women were the outcomes of interest. RESULTS We documented 724 deaths during 20 years of follow-up (67,420 person-years) among women with type 2 diabetes. In multivariate analyses, adjusting for age, history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and other cardiovascular risk factors, compared with never smokers, the RRs of mortality were 1.31 (95% CI 1.11-1.55) for past smokers, 1.43 (0.96-2.14) for current smokers of 1-14 cigarettes/day, 1.64 (1.24-2.17) for current smokers of 15-34 cigarettes/day, and 2.19 (1.32-3.65) for current smokers of > or =35 cigarettes/day (P for trend = 0.0002). Women with type 2 diabetes who had stopped smoking for > or =10 years had a mortality RR of 1.11 (0.92-1.35) compared with diabetic women who were never smokers. CONCLUSIONS Cigarette smoking is associated in a dose-response manner with an increased mortality among women with type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, quitting smoking appears to decrease this excess risk substantially. Diabetes patients should be strongly advised against smoking.
Measures of Attitude Strength as Predictors of Willingness to Speak to the Media

The “spiral of silence” literature has concerned itself more with explaining why people do not speak out than with why some individuals choose to express their political views. This paper analyzes the effects of attitude strength on willingness to speak out in public, using data from four preelection surveys. Those with greater interest in politics, those who have extreme political views, and those who have paid attention to the election are more willing to be interviewed by a news reporter after a pre-election survey. Attitude strength plays a significant role in predicting willingness to express political views in all four surveys.
Psychiatry, Post-Apartheid Integration and the Neglected Role of Language in South African Institutional Contexts

This study examined the use of interpreters with patients who are speakers of African languages at a recently integrated psychiatric institution in post-apartheid South Africa. The research process itself reflected important aspects of the institutional dynamics around the issues of language and ethnicity. The impact of inadequate language resources on service provision was profound. Interpreters have a role in alleviating the difficulties described, but routine organizational strategies for managing speakers of African languages are powerful obstacles to change. Complex institutional and societal discourses to do with race, identity, community, alienation and the practice of public psychiatry constellate around the language issue. Without sufficient recognition of the centrality of language in service provision, integration and institutional transformation will be impeded.
VEGF165b, an Inhibitory Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Splice Variant

Growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis), required for all tumor growth, is stimulated by the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). VEGF is up-regulated in all known solid tumors but also in atherosclerosis, diabetic retinopathy, arthritis, and many other conditions. Conventional VEGF isoforms have been universally described as proangiogenic cytokines. Here, we show that an endogenous splice variant, VEGF165b, is expressed as protein in normal cells and tissues and is circulating in human plasma. We also present evidence for a sister family of presumably inhibitory splice variants. Moreover, these isoforms are down-regulated in prostate cancer. We also show that VEGF165b binds VEGF receptor 2 with the same affinity as VEGF165 but does not activate it or stimulate downstream signaling pathways. Moreover, it prevents VEGF165-mediated VEGF receptor 2 phosphorylation and signaling in cultured cells. Furthermore, we show, with two different in vivo angiogenesis models, that VEGF165b is not angiogenic and that it inhibits VEGF165-mediated angiogenesis in rabbit cornea and rat mesentery. Finally, we show that VEGF165b expressing tumors grow significantly more slowly than VEGF165-expressing tumors, indicating that a switch in splicing from VEGF165 to VEGF165b can inhibit tumor growth. These results suggest that regulation of VEGF splicing may be a critical switch from an antiangiogenic to a proangiogenic phenotype.