Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality Management through Electronic Markets Intermediaries

If goods or services in a market vary in quality and the consumer has due to information asymmetry no means to differentiate providers of high quality from providers of low quality, the market can become a ‘lemon market’. This term was introduced by Akerlof to characterise markets where providers of bad quality drive out providers of good quality, creating cost of dishonesty and market failures. In electronic markets this problem can worsen. The reasons are mainly the separation of product and information flow, limited means of presentation and low entry barriers for providers. Intermediaries have the potential to address this problem by institutionalising quality management functions. Quality management can avoid market failures, ensure efficient allocation and extend the scope of electronic markets to more complex business scenarios as observable in today’s commodity markets. On the basis of two case studies, eBay and AUCNET, this paper structures and discusses quality management functions that intermediaries and other agents can provide. The object of quality management can be the product itself or trading information about the product. Quality management comprises the setting of quality goals, monitoring quality and depending on the object of quality management and the performing agent, improving quality (TQM) or reducing quality uncertainty (with brand building, guarantees etc.). In the future, advances in the area of electronic product presentation as well as support for electronic negotiating and contracting could further extend the possibilities to reduce quality uncertainty issues in electronic markets thus eliminating the risk of lemon markets and creating the trust necessary for complex electronic commerce scenarios.
Dynamic Pricing with Demand Learning under Competition

In this thesis, we focus on oligopolistic markets for a single perishable product, where firms compete by setting prices (Bertrand competition) or by allocating quantities (Cournot competition) dynamically over a finite selling horizon. The price-demand relationship is modeled as a parametric function, whose parameters are unknown, but learned through a data driven approach. The market can be either in disequilibrium or in equilibrium. In disequilibrium, we consider simultaneously two forms of learning for the firm: (i) learning of its optimal pricing (resp. allocation) strategy, given its belief regarding its competitors’ strategy; (ii) learning the parameters in the price-demand relationship. In equilibrium, each firm seeks to learn the parameters in the price-demand relationship for itself and its competitors, given that prices (resp. quantities) are in equilibrium. In this thesis, we first study the dynamic pricing (resp. allocation) problem when the parameters in the price-demand relationship are known. We then address the dynamic pricing (resp. allocation) problem with learning of the parameters in the price-demand relationship. We show that the problem can be formulated as a bilevel program in disequilibrium and as a Mathematical Program with Equilibrium Constraints (MPECs) in equilibrium. Using results from variational inequalities, bilevel programming and MPECs, we prove that learning the optimal strategies as well as the parameters, is achieved. Furthermore, we design a solution method for efficiently solving the problem. We prove convergence of this method analytically and discuss various insights through a computational study. Finally, we consider closed-loop strategies in a duopoly market when demand is stochastic. Unlike open-loop policies (such policies are computed once and for all at the beginning of the time horizon), closed loop policies are computed at each time period, so that the firm can take advantage of having observed the past random disturbances in the market. In a closed-loop setting, subgame perfect equilibrium is the relevant notion of equilibrium. We investigate the existence and uniqueness of a subgame perfect equilibrium strategy, as well as approximations of the problem in order to be able to compute such policies more efficiently.
Protective Effect of Minocycline Against Ketamine-Induced Injury in Neural Stem Cell: Involvement of PI3K/Akt and Gsk-3 Beta Pathway

It has been suggested that ketamine cause injury during developing brain. Minocycline (MC) could prevent neuronal cell death through the activation of cell survival signals and the inhibition of apoptotic signals in models of neurodegenerative diseases. Here we investigated the protective effect of MC against ketamine-induced injury in neural stem cells (NSCs) from neonatal rat. Ketamine (100 μM/L) significantly inhibited NSC proliferation, promoted their differentiation into astrocytes and suppressed neuronal differentiation of NSCs. Moreover, the apoptotic level was increased following ketamine exposure. MC pretreatment greatly enhanced cell viability, decreased caspase-3-like activity, even reversed the differentiation changes caused by ketamine. To elucidate a possible mechanism of MC’ neuroprotective effect, we investigated the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway using LY294002, a specific PI3K inhibitor. Immunoblotting revealed that MC enhanced the phosphorylation/activation of Akt and phosphorylation/inactivation of glycogen synthase kinase-3beta (Gsk-3β). Our results suggest that PI3K/Akt and Gsk-3β pathway are involved in the neuroprotective effect of MC.
Two-Party Political Competition : A Geometric Study of the Nash Equilibrium in a Weighted Case

This paper investigates an abstract game of political competition between two parties. All political positions are represented by points in a plane, and the parties choose positions that are as close as possible to the greatest number of voters, that are divided into a finite number of types. To adapt the problem to various political landscapes (different countries, for example), one simply assumes that the distribution of voters is not uniform. This complexity can be represented by simply assigning an appropriate weight to each position in the policy plane. The existence of Nash equilibria in the game is studied by a geometric argument. This approach, in addition to representing the voting population as a finite distribution of weights, represents the innovation of the present work. An algorithm has been developed in order to search for the equilibrium position of a given population. Mathematics Subject Classification: 91B02, 91B012, 91B50, 90, 52 2716 M. D. López, J. Rodrigo and I. Lillo
Catastrophic Health Expenditure and Rural Household Impoverishment in China: What Role Does the New Cooperative Health Insurance Scheme Play?

Objective To determine whether the New Cooperative Medical Insurance Scheme (NCMS) is associated with decreased levels of catastrophic health expenditure and reduced impoverishment due to medical expenses in rural households of China. Methods An analysis of a national representative sample of 38,945 rural households (129,635 people) from the 2008 National Health Service Survey was performed. Logistic regression models used binary indicator of catastrophic health expenditure as dependent variable, with household consumption, demographic characteristics, health insurance schemes, and chronic illness as independent variables. Results Higher percentage of households experiencing catastrophic health expenditure and medical impoverishment correlates to increased health care need. While the higher socio-economic status households had similar levels of catastrophic health expenditure as compared with the lowest. Households covered by the NCMS had similar levels of catastrophic health expenditure and medical impoverishment as those without health insurance. Conclusion Despite over 95% of coverage, the NCMS has failed to prevent catastrophic health expenditure and medical impoverishment. An upgrade of benefit packages is needed, and effective cost control mechanisms on the provider side needs to be considered.
Longitudinal patterns of semantic and episodic memory in frontotemporal lobar degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract The longitudinal assessment of episodic and semantic memory was obtained from 236 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD, n = 128) and with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD, n = 108), including patients with a social comportment/dysexecutive (SOC/EXEC) disorder, progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), semantic dementia (SemD), and corticobasal syndrome (CBS). At the initial assessment, AD patients obtained a lower score on the delayed free recall test than other patients. Longitudinal analyses for delayed free recall found converging performance, with all patients reaching the same level of impairment as AD patients. On the initial evaluation for delayed recognition, AD patients also obtained lower scores than other groups. Longitudinal analyses for delayed recognition test performance found that AD patients consistently produced lower scores than other groups and no convergence between AD and other dementia groups was seen. For semantic memory, there were no initial between-group differences. However, longitudinal analyses for semantic memory revealed group differences over illness duration, with worse performance for SemD versus AD, PNFA, SOC/EXEC, and CBS patients. These data suggest the presence of specific longitudinal patterns of impairment for episodic and semantic memory in AD and FTLD patients suggesting that all forms of dementia do not necessarily converge into a single phenotype. (JINS, 2010, 16, 278–286.)
Coherence based histograms for shape retrieval

Histograms have been used for Shape Representation and Retrieval. The drawback of the histograms method is that histograms can be same for dissimilar shapes, which renders the method less effective for retrieval of shapes. In this paper, we describe the concept of coherence. We show how coherence can be used with distance and angular histograms. We perform experiments to test the effectiveness of the proposed method. It is found that coherence improves accuracy of retrieval significantly.
MIGRATION AND THE WELL-BEING OF THE ‘LEFT BEHIND’ IN ASIA

This paper serves as an introduction to the three substantive papers in this themed section on the impact of migration on the well-being of the ‘left behind’ in Asia. In the light of recent migration trends such as the ‘feminization’ of migration and ‘brain-drain’ of health workers in the region, the paper provides a brief review of the existing scholarly literature on the vulnerability of different groups of the 'left behind’, particularly women, children and the elderly. It argues that a multi-dimensional approach is needed, taking into consideration not only the economic impact of remittances but also factors such as social networks and gender effects.
Hedging sudden stops & precautionary recessions : a quantitative framework

Even well managed emerging market economies are exposed to significant external risk. The bulk of this risk is financial. At a moment’s notice, these economies may be required to reverse the capital inflows that have supported the preceding boom. Even if such reversal does not take place, its anticipation often leads to costly precautionary measures and recessions. In this paper we characterize the business cycle of an economy that needs to borrow on average but faces stochastic financial constraints. We focus on the optimal financial policy of such an economy under different imperfections in its hedging opportunities. The model is simple enough to be analytically tractable but flexible and realistic enough to provide quantitative guidance. ∗We thank the macro lunch participants at MIT for their commnets and Andrei Levchenko for excellent research assistance. Caballero thanks the NSF for financial support.
Evaluation of Subjective Probability Distributions in the Hrs

In the Health and Retirement Survey respondents were asked about the chances they would live to 75 or to 85, and the chances they would work after age 62 or 65. We analyze the responses to determine if they behave like probabilities, if their averages are close to average probabilities in the population, and if they have correlations with other variables that are similar to correlations with actual outcomes. We find that generally they do behave like probabilities and they do aggregate. Most remarkable, however, is that they covary with other variables in the same way actual outcomes vary with the variables. For example, smokers give lower probabilities of living to 75 than nonsmokers. We conclude that these measures of subjective probabilities have great potential use in models of intertemporal decision making under uncertainty.
How and Why Do Firms Adjust Their Cash Holdings Toward Targets: Evidence from China

We examine the dynamic adjustment of cash holdings of publicly traded Chinese firms over the period 1998-2006. The empirical evidences are supportive of the dynamic trade-off theory of cash holdings. Importantly, there is strong evidence to support asymmetric adjustments. That is, the adjustments from above the target are significantly faster than adjustments from below. In addition, adjustment speeds are heterogeneous for firms facing differential adjustment costs. In particular, adjustment speed is negatively related to firm size, but positively related to the deviation from the target. Furthermore, in terms of adjustment method, Chinese listed firms make adjustments to their targets primarily through internal financing, while debt financing and dividend payment play a minimal role. Finally, we find that the precautionary motive arising from financial constraints explains the cash holdings adjustment behaviors of Chinese Listed firms well.
Insulin Resistance and Body Fat Distribution in South Asian Men Compared to Caucasian Men

Objective South Asians are susceptible to insulin resistance even without obesity. We examined the characteristics of body fat content, distribution and function in South Asian men and their relationships to insulin resistance compared to Caucasians. Research Design and Methods Twenty-nine South Asian and 18 Caucasian non-diabetic men (age 27±3 and 27±3 years, respectively) underwent euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp for insulin sensitivity, underwater weighing for total body fat, MRI of entire abdomen for intraperitoneal (IP) and subcutaneous abdominal (SA) fat and biopsy of SA fat for adipocyte size. Results Compared to Caucasians, in spite of similar BMI, South Asians had higher total body fat (22±6 and 15±4% of body weight; p-value<0.0001), higher SA fat (3.5±1.9 and 2.2±1.3 kg, respectively; p-value = 0.004), but no differences in IP fat (1.0±0.5 and 1.0±0.7 kg, respectively; p-value = 0.4). SA adipocyte cell size was significantly higher in South Asians (3491±1393 and 1648±864 µm2; p-value = 0.0001) and was inversely correlated with both glucose disposal rate (r-value = −0.57; p-value = 0.0008) and plasma adiponectin concentrations (r-value = −0.71; p-value<0.0001). Adipocyte size differences persisted even when SA was matched between South Asians and Caucasians. Conclusions Insulin resistance in young South Asian men can be observed even without increase in IP fat mass and is related to large SA adipocytes size. Hence ethnic excess in insulin resistance in South Asians appears to be related more to excess truncal fat and dysfunctional adipose tissue than to excess visceral fat.
Treating the Symptom Not the Condition: Crisis Definition, Deficit Reduction and the Search for a New British Growth Model

It has taken quite a while for a consolidated crisis discourse to emerge in Britain in response to the seismic events of 2007–09. But one is now clearly evident, widely accepted and deeply implicated in government economic policy. It is a ‘crisis of debt’ discourse to which the response is austerity and deficit reduction; it is paradigm-reinforcing rather than paradigm-threatening. In this article I consider the appropriateness of such a crisis discourse, arguing that an alternative ‘crisis of growth’ discourse is rather more compelling and would point in very different policy directions while generating very different expectations about the effects of deficit reduction. Such a discourse can just about be detected in the growing criticism of the government's austerity programme, but it is yet to lead to the positing of a new growth model. I explore the implications of both crisis discourses for responses to the crisis, concluding with an assessment of the prospects for the return to growth under a new growth model in the years ahead.
Fault Detection and Isolation Filter for the Boeing 747-100 / 200

Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) methods have been devel oped over the past thirty years but only in the last several years they have been applied to complex real applica tions. This paper presents a synthesis of H∞ FDI filters for the longitudinal motion of the Boeing 747-100/200 aircr aft. The filters are synthesized to detect and isolate faults in the elevator actuator and pitch rate sensor while attenua ting disturbances and noise on the fault signals. They are synthesized for open-loop LTI models of the aircraft. Close d-loop simulations with a high-fidelity nonlinear model in the presence of gust and noise are performed to validate th e disturbance rejection and robust properties of the H∞ LTI FDI filters.
Prove with GDPLL-WD : A Complete Proof Procedure for Recursive Data Structures

In this paper we present a terminating, sound and complete algorithm for the verification of recursively defined data structures. To mention some, nat, list and tree data types and also record are commonly used examples of such structures. Recursively defined data structures are of value for use in software verification. Many programming languages support recursive data structures. The best known example on this kind is the LISP programming language, which uses list. Our algorithm, GDPLL, which is an extension of the Davis, Putnam, Logemann and Loveland (DPLL) procedure solves satisfiability problem of recursive data types through providing witness assignments.
Good corporate practices in poor corporate governance systems

Purpose – Attempts to benchmark corporate governance practices have focused primarily on developed capital markets, whereas cross‐country comparisons remain difficult for emerging markets. Given the growing importance of emerging markets as an asset class, this paper attempts to shed some light on the quality of governance practices in a large sample of countries and the extent to which that quality may offset perceived weaknesses in the institutional framework in which companies operate.Design/methodology/approach – In the absence of comparable data for many emerging markets, the paper employs new survey evidence from the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report.Findings – The analysis suggests the following: first, legal institutions play a key role for corporate governance, but other factors, such as politics and cultural and historical roots, matter too. While corporate governance practices in emerging markets tend to be weaker than in developed capital markets, several emerging markets ha.
Determinantes das Exportações Agrícolas em Cenário de Macroeconomia Aberta: Abordagem por Modelos de Séries de Tempo

The objective of this work is to obtain a model econometric that consider the simultaneity of the domestic variables in relationship the variables of international economy and, in that way, they present important impacts on the paths of the agricultural exports and of GDP 1980 up to 1990 and of 1990 up to 2001 and, to compare them. To investigate the effects of the exchange rate and of the interest rate about the exports of agricultural products, for being this section considered as of comparative advantage in the international trade. The theoretical approach is of macroeconomics open to leaving of the model of MundellFleming, whose motivation is the analysis of the variables of market of assets on the economical politics in alternative of exchange regimes. The empiric strategy left of a method of time series for the estimate of a model econometrics of Vector Autoregressions (VAR) with contemporary causality. It is worth to detach the expressive change of the power of explanation of the exchange rate about the exports starting from 1990. Word-keys: Agricultural, Exports, Open macroeconomics, Time Series, VAR.
‘Moderation in All Things’: International Comparisons of Governance Quality

Comparative measures of aspects of government in different countries are a rapidly growing industry. This paper offers a broad‐ranging critique of the state of the art. The two central questions are (a) How do currently available international measures of governance gain attention from non‐expert audiences, and (b), How understandable are they likely to be to these audiences? ’ Findings from a range of relevant literature are brought to bear on three prominent sets of international measures, and conclusions are drawn.
The Signalling Properties of the Shape of the Credit Default Swap Term Structure

This paper studies the predictive power of the time-varying shape of the credit default swap (CDS) term structure to explain changes in future implied and excess implied volatility (implied volatility of the company over and above the market volatility) and therefore provide a leading sign of potential financial distress in a company. The shape of the CDS curve is captured by fitting the Nelson-Siegel model to the term structure and creating a new binary indicator (shape indicator) to distinguish between "good" and "bad" CDS curves. Applying the methodology to twenty US-traded companies from the financial and non-financial sectors, we find that the credit market is generally a leading indicator for movements in the volatility market during the subprime crisis. After confirming the strong link between CDSs and implied volatility markets (the average R2 per sector between 36% and 63% is obtained using the Nelson-Siegel parameter and shape indicator), a partial F -test is executed to see if additional information is contained within the CDS markets over and above the volatility markets. For the period studied, this is the case for the majority of names, and it is particularly significant for Lehman Brothers.
Transsynaptic degeneration of lateral geniculate bodies in blind children: in vivo MR demonstration.

PURPOSE To investigate signal alterations in the thalamic lateral geniculate bodies of blind patients compatible with transsynaptic degeneration of these nuclei caused by pregeniculate or postgeniculate interruption of the visual pathway. METHODS Six patients were selected from a group of blind children in our care. Four had cerebral palsy caused by periventricular leukomalacia, one had infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy, and one had Chiari I malformation and hydrocephalus, which was worsened by bilateral ischemic lesions of the occipital lobes. MR examinations (obtained at 0.5 T) were reviewed retrospectively by two neuroradiologists, with particular attention to the visual pathway. RESULTS Symmetric, focal areas of T2 prolongation were found at the precise site of the lateral geniculate bodies. CONCLUSION Anterograde (pregeniculate) and retrograde (postgeniculate) transsynaptic degeneration of the second neurons of the visual pathway produce alterations in MR signal.
Spillovers from FDI and Skill Structures of Host-Country Firms

This paper uses panel data across UK manufacturing from 1983 to 1992, to test whether inward flows of FDI have contributed to increasing trends in the employment of relatively higher skilled individuals. Moreover, the paper isolates the effect on domestic firms, and shows that this effect is a function of the size of the foreign productivity advantage. The results show, that even after controlling for the factors most commonly used to explain relative employment shifts – namely technological change and import intensity, that FDI has a role to play in influencing employment trends.