Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationships between high school sports participation, high school completion, and college enrollment for African-American males

Title of Document: THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS PARTICIPATION, HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION, AND COLLEGE ENROLLMENT FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES Paul Harris Doctor of Philosophy 2009 Directed by: Courtland Lee, Ph.D. Counseling and Personnel Services The purpose of this study is to explore the direct, indirect, and total effects of high school sports participation on high school completion and college enrollment for African American males using a large, nationally representative, longitudinal datab ase (ELS:2002). The lens through which this phenomenon is viewed in this study is the sports-impedes-mobility hypothesis (Braddock, 1981). A path analysis procedure f or determining underlying causal relationships between variables was present ed for six different sports participation models. The only sports participation variable to have a significant effect on either hi gh school completion or college attendance was that of junior varsity sports partic ipation significantly influencing (totally) high school completion and (indirectly) c ollege attendance for African-American males. The effect was positive. While the implications of the results of this study are relevant for all who work with this population, school counselors are specifically highlighted. THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS PARTICIPATI ON, HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION, AND COLLEGE ENROLLMENT FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES
Modeling and Mining Domain Shared Knowledge for Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment classification aims to automatically predict sentiment polarity (e.g., positive or negative) of user generated sentiment data (e.g., reviews, blogs). In real applications, these user-generated sentiment data can span so many different domains that it is difficult to label the training data for all of them. Therefore, we study the problem of sentiment classification adaptation task in this article. That is, a system is trained to label reviews from one source domain but is meant to be used on the target domain. One of the biggest challenges for sentiment classification adaptation task is how to deal with the problem when two data distributions between the source domain and target domain are significantly different from one another. However, our observation is that there might exist some domain shared knowledge among certain input dimensions of different domains. In this article, we present a novel method for modeling and mining the domain shared knowledge from different sentiment review domains via a joint non-negative matrix factorization–based framework. In this proposed framework, we attempt to learn the domain shared knowledge and the domain-specific information from different sentiment review domains with several various regularization constraints. The advantage of the proposed method can promote the correspondence under the topic space between the source domain and the target domain, which can significantly reduce the data distribution gap across two domains. We conduct extensive experiments on two real-world balanced data sets from Amazon product reviews for sentence-level and document-level binary sentiment classification. Experimental results show that our proposed approach significantly outperforms several strong baselines and achieves an accuracy that is competitive with the most well-known methods for sentiment classification adaptation.
Prediction of Corporate Financial Distress: Evidence from Malaysian Listed Firms During the Asian Financial Crisis

The aims of this study are twofold: (1) to formulate a model that predicts corporate financial distress and (2), to apply the model to trace the potential failure of Malaysian financially distressed firms due to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. The model successfully predicts firm's health at the rate of 88%. The predictive accuracy of the model reveals that it was significantly better than chance.
Cryosurgical monitoring using bioimpedance measurements-a feasibility study for electrical impedance tomography

The effectiveness of cryosurgery in treating tumors is highly dependent on knowledge of freezing extent, and therefore relies heavily on real-time imaging techniques for monitoring. Electrical impedance tomography (EIT), which utilizes tissue impedance variation to construct an image, is very well suited to cryosurgery since frozen tissue impedance is much higher than that of unfrozen tissue. In this study, the authors explore cryosurgical monitoring as a previously uninvestigated application for EIT. The feasibility of bio-impedance measurements to detect ice front propagation is demonstrated by freezing planar tissue samples one-dimensionally while measuring impedance along a linear array. The experimental results compare favorably to a simple finite element model designed to provide an electrical field visualization tool.
Getting the numbers straight in pediatric MDS: Distribution of subtypes after exclusion of down syndrome

To the Editor: Pediatric myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is adiversegroup of myeloid disorders. In published series contributionof morphological and cytogenetic subgroups varies greatlydepending on inclusion criteria. Population-based studies estimatethe frequency of MDS among childhood hematopoietic neoplasiabetween 6 and 9% [1,2]. These studies generally include Downsyndrome (DS) and estimate that about 15–25% of childhood MDScases are noted in DS children.With the recent discoveryof GATA1mutations in bothMDS andAMLinDSitbecameevidentthatMDSandAMLinyoungchildrenwithDSareinfactoneentitynowreferredtoasmyeloidleukemiainDS. To evaluate the previous contribution of DS to cohorts of MDSin childhood, we prospectively studied 99 consecutive patients withprimary MDS under the age of 18 years (n¼77) and myeloidleukemia of DS with less than 30% blasts in bone marrow orperipheral blood (n¼22) diagnosed in Germany and the CzechRepublic between 1st July 1998 and 30th June 2001. Patients withMDS secondary to chemo- or radiation therapy, acquired aplasticanemia, congenital bone marrowfailure disorder or familial diseasehad been excluded from the MDS cohort. All patients had beenenrolled in studies EWOG-MDS 98 or AML-BFM 98. Distributionof cases was analyzed according to the pediatric modiﬁcation of theWHO classiﬁcation [3] (Table I). DS accounted for 22% of allpatients with MDS which is in concordance with previousexperience [1,2,4,5]. In advanced MDS, 28 and 61% of all casescategorized as RAEB and RAEB-T occurred in DS patients,respectively.Results of standard cytogenetics were available in 83 of the 99studypatients(84%). ForcaseswithRAEBandRAEB-T,karyotypewas known for 21 of 25 and 21 of 23 patients, respectively. Trisomy8asonlyabnormalitywasobservedin44%ofchildrenwithmyeloidleukemiainDSwithlessthan30%blasts.Thisisinaccordancewithothers reporting trisomy 8 in about 13–35% of DS cases [4,6,7]. Incontrast, in primary MDS, sole trisomy 8 was noted only in 8% ofpatientswithrefractorycytopenia(RC)and4%ofthosewithRAEBorRAEB-T(P<0.01). Hasleetal.foundtrisomy8in5%ofpatientswithprimaryMDS(DSincluded)[8],andasimilarprevalence(6%)was observed in a large retrospective study of a single institutionenrolling also cases with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia butexcluding DS [9]. In summary, the exclusion of MDS in DS from patient series ofprimary MDS decreases the number of cases diagnosed as RAEB-Tby approximately half, and substantially reduces the proportion ofpatients with trisomy 8 as sole abnormality. Considering that thegreat majority of children with myeloid leukemia in DS are under5yearsofage,exclusionofMDSinDSfrompediatricMDScohortswill result in an evengreater reduction of advanced MDS in this agegroup. Reporting incidence ﬁgures in rare heterogeneous entitieswill require careful description of inclusion criteria.
Implications of Oil Price Shocks for Monetary Policy in Ghana: A Vector Error Correction Model

We estimate a Vector Error Correction Model to explore the long run and short run linkages between the world crude oil price and economic activity in Ghana for the period 1970:1 to 2006:4. The results point out that there is a long run relationship between the variables under consideration. We find that an unexpected oil price increase is followed by an increase in price level and a decline in output in Ghana. We argue that monetary policy has in the past been with the intention of lessening negative growth consequences of oil price shocks, at the cost of higher inflation.
Well-being beyond utility : contextualising the effect of unemployment on life-satisfaction using social capital

This thesis analyses how the effect of unemployment on life-satisfaction varies in different contexts using data from two large-scale surveys (the World Values Survey and the European Values Study). Over 40 Western-European and Anglo Saxon countries are included in the investigation. Through multilevel modelling, relevant national-level factors are identified that moderate the impact of unemployment upon life-satisfaction relationship. The study shows that in particular sociodemographic and cultural country-level variables affect how individuals experience unemployment and how it is insufficient to rely on economic indicators only. In order to situate individuals in not only their national context, but also in their personal one, social capital constructs are integrated into the project reflecting the networks individuals are part of. More accurate estimates of the unemployment effect are calculated using structural equation modelling to control for endogeneity effects. The results show that the role of unemployment for life-satisfaction appears to be highly contextualised. After taking into account selection biases from socioeconomic characteristics of an individual as well as their social capital resources, the negative effect of unemployment upon life satisfaction that is consistently found cannot be verified as robust and independent. Instead, different domains of social capital largely determine what effect unemployment has on life-satisfaction for different individuals. Furthermore, significant variation in the effect of unemployment between countries, found in the simpler multilevel models, largely disappears when personal context is taken into account. This implies that future investigations should reconsider how to contextualise individual-level processes regarding subjective well-being. The findings from this project suggest that instead of contextualising the direct effects of predictors on life-satisfaction with countrylevel factors, it may be more appropriate to contextualise the personal context people live in and investigate the effects at the individual level thereafter. The results are discussed in a framework contrasting utility-based micro-economic approaches to understanding human behaviour with approaches that address subjective well-being emphasising the variety of human motivations, beyond profit maximisation.
A comparative assessment of videoconference and face-to-face employment interviews

Purpose – Based on theories of media richness and procedural justice, the authors aim to examine the influence of videoconferencing (VC) technology on applicant reactions and interviewer judgments in the employment interview, the most commonly used employee selection device. Design/methodology/approach – MBA students participated in simulated VC and face-to-face (FTF) interviews. Applicant perceptions of procedural justice and interviewer characteristics were collected. Interviewers provided ratings of affect toward the applicant, perceived applicant competence, overall interview performance, as well as an overall hiring recommendation. Findings – Applicants perceived VC interviews as offering less of a chance to perform and as yielding less selection information. They also viewed VC interviews as less job-related than FTF interviews and had significantly less favorable evaluations of their interviewer (on personableness, trustworthiness, competence, and physical appearance) in VC interviews. Finally, app.
Essays on political dynasties: evidence from empirical investigations

This thesis consists of four papers, each of which helps to understand certain dynamics surrounding political dynasties. The first paper focuses on the role of ‘dynastic identity’ in influencing the behaviour of legislators from the political class of Bangladesh. In particular, it analyses whether dynastic legislators behave differently in comparison to non-dynastic legislators by examining their parliamentary attendance level and the likelihood of them having a criminal profile. The findings from the analysis suggest that ‘dynastic identity’ may influence a legislator’s behaviour. The second paper investigates if there is a systematic relationship between dynasty-politics and corruption in a cross-country empirical analysis. In doing so, the paper produces multiple dynasty indices that try to capture the variation in dynasty- politics across countries. The key findings from this scrutiny are indicative that countries with greater prevalence of dynasty-politics are associated with higher levels of corruption. In the third paper, I study the role of political assassination in facilitating the rise of political dynasties in Bangladesh. More specifically, I construct a data set of political leaders from Bangladesh who faced at least one assassination attempt to exploit the randomness in the success or failure of assassination attempts to identify assassination’s effect on the probability that a leader will start a political dynasty. The results point out that successful assassination increases the likelihood that a political leader will have a posterior relative in office. Lastly, the fourth paper examines if political assassinations have facilitated the rise of political dynasties across countries. To this end, the paper builds on the data used in Jones and Olken (2009), which has information on leaders with at least one assassination attempt. Thus, by comparing national leaders who barely survived an assassination attempt with those who died, the effects of political assassinations on dynasty formation are studied.
The Impact of Post-PATCO Labor Relations on U.S. Union Wages

An augmented Phillips curve model is employed to evaluate the hypothesis that the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike of 1981 marked the beginning of a structural change in U.S. labor relations, which increased the relative bargaining power of management. After controlling for other factors which influence union wages, the resulting estimates indicate that union wage growth rates, average wages, and total union wage payments were significantly retarded by a structural shift which originated concurrently with the 1981 replacement of striking PATCO members by the federal government.
ISO 9000 impact on product quality in a defense procurement environment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the relationship between ISO 9001 conformance of suppliers and the quality of products they provide, within a procurement system of a manufacturer operating under contracts with the US Department of Defense.Design/methodology/approach – Chi‐square tests of independence were performed to compare the receipt acceptance rate of material provided by ISO 9001‐conforming suppliers to that of non‐ISO 9001‐conforming suppliers, for more than 46,000 receipts representing 21 material commodity groups provided by almost 800 suppliers. Acceptance of receipts required conformance to both hardware and paperwork requirements. Tests were also performed on data subsets, to determine the impact of ISO 9001 conformance on product quality for each of the 21 material commodity groups, for manufacturers versus distributors, and for two material control levels.Findings – For the overall data set, and for the majority of data subsets analyzed, the product quality of.
Utility and Profit Maximization by an Owner-Manager: Towards a General Analysis

THE traditional and still widely accepted theory of the firm is based on the assumption of profit maximization. This assumption has, however, been extensively criticized. In particular, it is argued that the businessman will maximize his utility but not his profits. This criticism may have some plausibility in the case of big corporations where ownership is separated from control. For the case of an owner-managed firm, I wish to show that utility maximization leads to profit maximization, provided 'profit' is appropriately defined. By the appropriate definition of profit, I mean, in particular, that 'profit' is not only net of the outlays on hired or purchased inputs (including interest on capital), but also net of the imputed wages to the owner-manager qua manager. It is obvious that the maximization of profit gross of this imputed wages makes no sense as it implies that, as long as the marginal return is positive, the owner-manager will work 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. The definition of profit as being net of the owner-manager's imputed wages was in fact used by Scitovsky (I943) when he attempted to show that a utility-maximizing owner-manager would maximize profit only if he has a peculiar indifference map between income and leisure. I (Ng, I969) have already shown that profit maximization does not imply this peculiar indifference map. However, both Scitovsky and I did not take account of the possibility of hiring or selling managerial services by the owner-manager. In this paper, I wish to generalize my argument to include such possibilities and also to supplement the argument by a general mathematical treatment. '
Technical assessment and public perception of environmental issues: the case of the Municipality of Pisa

The different approach of specialists and general public to environmental topics has often led to contrasting positions. After decades of strong debate, however, there seems to be a growing agreement on the need for overcoming a mere contraposition in favour of an integration of opinions. This paper aims to contribute to the topic by shifting the setting into the urban environment, through the case of Pisa Municipality, Italy. It compares the scenarios described by the latest State of the Environment Report – expression of the technical evaluation – with the perception of citizens measured by a direct survey. Results were first used to investigate any disagreements about quality of environmental matrices, entity of pressures exerted on them and characteristics of determinants. They were then used to identify the range where the integration of the two positions might be pursued and finally collect, in view of future policies, indications on locally adoptable key factors and strategies.
Microsatellite structures in the context of human evolution

Six microsatellite — or short tandem repeat (STR) — systems with uniform repetitive sequences (HumTH01, HumCD4, HumFES/FPS, HumF13B, HumTPO, HumLPL) and three compound repeat systems (HumVWA, HumFIBRA, D21S11) were used, including data from the literature, to determine genetic distances among eight populations worldwide. The TH01‐ and VWA homologous loci in nonhuman primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, rhesus monkeys, ring‐tailed lemurs) were compared and found to be shorter than in humans. Microsatellites of lower complexity were most efficient for the separation of major ethnic groups. The loci of higher complexity showed a leveling of the diversity differences among populations, which could be attributed to higher mutation rates.
Volatility increases Subsequent to NYSE and AMEX Stock Splits

The post-split increase in daily returns volatility is less for AMEX stocks than for NYSE stocks. The exchange trading location is a significant factor in explaining the volatility shift even after stock price and firm size are considered. Furthermore, when measured on a weekly basis, there is no increase in AMEX stocks' returns volatility. These results suggest that measurement errors created by bid-ask spreads and the 1/8 effect, and also one or more of the elements that make the NYSE different from the AMEX, explain why the estimated volatility of daily stock returns increases after the ex split date. Copyright 1991 by American Finance Association.
Near-infrared polarimetric adaptive optics observations of NGC 1068: a torus created by a hydromagnetic outflow wind

We present J? and K? imaging linear polarimetric adaptive optics observations of NGC 1068 using MMT-Pol on the 6.5-m MMT. These observations allow us to study the torus from a magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) framework. In a 0.5 arcsec (30 pc) aperture at K? , we find that polarization arising from the passage of radiation from the inner edge of the torus through magnetically aligned dust grains in the clumps is the dominant polarization mechanism, with an intrinsic polarization of 7.0 ± 2.2? per? cent. This result yields a torus magnetic field strength in the range of 4–82 mG through paramagnetic alignment, and 139+11? 20 mG through the Chandrasekhar–Fermi method. The measured position angle (P.A.) of polarization at K? is found to be similar to the P.A. of the obscuring dusty component at few parsec scales using infrared interferometric techniques. We show that the constant component of the magnetic field is responsible for the alignment of the dust grains, and aligned with the torus axis on to the plane of the sky. Adopting this magnetic field configuration and the physical conditions of the clumps in the MHD outflow wind model, we estimate a mass outflow rate ? 0.17 M? yr? 1 at 0.4 pc from the central engine for those clumps showing near-infrared dichroism. The models used were able to create the torus in a time-scale of ? 105? yr with a rotational velocity of ? 1228 km s? 1 at 0.4 pc. We conclude that the evolution, morphology and kinematics of the torus in NGC 1068 can be explained within a MHD framework.
The use of global strategies by British construction firms

A two‐stage qualitative case study, and Yip's conceptual framework, are used to examine the extent to which British construction firms have adopted ‘global’ strategies. In the first stage industry experts provided evidence on the forces driving global strategy. In the second stage executives from eight internationally active firms described how they have responded to those forces. Results indicate that the forces driving globalisation, at least for traditional contracting activities, are not strong. Evidence shows that most firms operating internationally organise ‘multi‐locally’ and make little use of globally integrated strategies. However, firms that have moved into ‘higher value‐added’ construction activities have a greater propensity to integrate some aspects of their strategy on a global basis.
Risk Matters: The Real Effects of Volatility Shocks: Comment

We show that the risk-shock business cycle model of Fernandez-Villaverde et al. (2011) must be recalibrated because it underpredicts the targeted business cycle moments by a factor of three once a time aggregation error is corrected. Recalibrating the corrected model for the benchmark case of Argentina, the peak response and the contribution of interest rate risk shocks to business cycle volatility increase. However, the recalibrated model does worse in capturing the business cycle properties of net exports once an additional error in the computation of net exports is corrected.