Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Remittances and Other Financial Flows to Developing Countries

Official estimates of migrants’ remittances are around US$100 billion annually, with some 60 per cent going to developing countries. Any policy making use of migrants as a development resource must understand the size and allocation of remittances, and the roles played by migrants and their communities in the remittance process. This paper examines the flows of remittances in relation to other financial flows to developing countries. The examination is based on data available from official statistics. As discussed in the paper, remittances by unofficial channels are significant by all accounts so the remittance amounts reported here are quite conservative. The paper shows that annual remittances to developing countries have more than doubled between 1988 and 1999. Viewed over the last decade, remittances have been a much larger source of income for developing countries than official development assistance (ODA). The gap is increasing, since ODA has been falling while remittances have increased. Furthermore, remittances appear to be a much more stable source of income than private flows, both direct and portfolio, which tend to be more volatile and flow into a limited set of countries. Remittances to developing countries go first and foremost to lower middleincome and low–income countries. Lower middle–income countries receive the largest amounts, but remittances constitute a much higher share of total international flows to low–income countries. Of the ten countries receiving most remittances, two are low–income (India and Pakistan); six are lower middle–income (Philippines, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Thailand, and Jordan); and two are upper middle–income (Mexico and Brazil). Sub–Saharan Africa received some 8 per cent of remittances in 1980, but only some 4 per cent in 1999. South Asia’s share also declined from what was already a relatively high 34 to 24 per cent. Those who gained most were Eastern Europe and Central Asia, South and Central America, and the Caribbean, which increased their share of global remittances.
Time-varying price discovery in fragmented markets

This article examines temporal aspects of the price discover process in the (fragmented) Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 market. This is achieved by augmenting the coefficients in the model upon which the price discovery measures are based, by a set of time-varying (theoretically-implied) scaling factors. The factors considered can be characterized as those that measure market liquidity and those that measure the degree of information asymmetry that exists at a particular time. Regarding the latter measures, this feature of financial markets is assessed by considering, inter alia, price discovery around the release of key macroeconomic information. Using high-frequency data from five constituent S&P 500 index markets, the results provide two main insights into price discovery in this fragmented market. First, the majority of price discovery appears to occur in the market for the individual stocks making up the index and in the (electronically traded) E-mini futures market. And second, the E-mini futures market becomes the dominant price discovery market only during periods of extreme information asymmetry and when this market is liquid – a finding that supports theoretical arguments proposed in the related literature.
Use of analytics in Indian enterprises: an exploratory study

Purpose – In 2007, India accounted for one‐third of the total $17‐billion global market for analytics. However, the rate of adoption of analytics for decision making and enhancing the customer experience has been slow on the uptake. While the term “analytics” has found universal usage in almost all business platforms, what it refers to and the specific contexts in which it ought to be used is still ambiguous among senior managers in the Indian corporate milieu. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the analytics in the business context across organizations in India.Design/methodology/approach – To uncover the antecedents of these observations, at least in part, the authors conducted a survey among 84 senior managers across domains, company profiles and regions across the country.Findings – It was found that an effective understanding of analytics as a decision‐craft tool grows with time and experience for most individuals, and the prevalence of more heuristic‐based decision making is stil.
Power: not only a matter of numbers, but also of design.

In this issue, Hommels et al. reported a study on a possible relationship between the AspGly polymorphism in the Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) gene and advanced aortic atherosclerosis. They did not find a significant relationship in their study, although others have reported a protective effect. The authors comment that the conclusion of their study should be taken with caution because of the small number of subjects. The study raises the question whether small studies are useful to study the relationship between common polymorphisms and disease.
Culturally-Based Beliefs and Labour Market Institutions

This paper has two main goals. The first is to provide empirical evidence that differences in labour market institutions across countries and, specifically, in how they provide protection to workers, can be attributed to underlying differences in culturally-based prior beliefs: in particular, people’s fatalism and trust in others. The second goal is to single out the socio-economic factors associated with these beliefs and the role of education in this regard.
Comparative evaluation of the effects of tetracycline, rolitetracycline and doxycycline on some blood parameters related to liver function.

A comparative study was made on the effects of tetracycline (TC), rolitetracycline (RTC), and doxycycline (DC) at doses of 10-100 micrograms/g i.v. on serum GOT, GPT, bilirubin and urea levels of male and female mice. All tetracyclines at doses of 50-100 micrograms/g caused an increase of serum GOT and GPT activities in females after 2-8 h. This effect was less pronounced in males. The serum urea levels were markedly raised by TC and DC (50-100 micrograms/g) and RTC (10-100 micrograms/g). This effect was produced only in females. It was long-lasting (up to 8 h) after TC and RTC and more transient after DC. Likewise the tetracyclines affected the serum bilirubin only in females but not in males. All tetracyclines (25-100 micrograms/g) increased the amount of unconjugated and total bilirubin. This effect was most pronounced after TC, which also reduced the level of conjugated bilirubin.
Does EVA beat earnings and cash flow in Japan?

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of Economic Value Added (EVA), a metric that is increasingly used in Japan as a measure of corporate value. EVA is compared with several other valuation measures including cash flow, operating income, and profit after tax from the viewpoint of both levels and changes. Also two different forms of EVA are examined by using the Weighted Cost of Capital (WACC) from the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and the WACC from the Fama–French (1993) model. The results reveal that corporate market values in both levels and changes have stronger linkages with cash flow and other earnings measures than either form of EVA.
What Determines Bilateral Aid Allocations? Evidence from Time Series Data

This paper models the allocation of bilateral foreign development aid to developing countries. A simple theoretical framework is developed, in which aid is treated as a private good of a donor country bureaucratic group responsible for bilateral aid allocation. This model is applied to time series data for ten principal recipients of bilateral official development assistance. Features of this application are that it caters for the joint determination of aid allocations and for donor allocation behavior to differ among individual recipient countries. Results indicate that both recipient need and donor interest variables determine the amount of foreign aid to developing countries, and that donor allocation behavior often differs markedly among recipients.
Internal auditors and a value‐added approach: the new business regime

The role of internal auditors is changing from a traditional audit approach to a more proactive value‐added approach where internal auditors are taking up partnerships with management. The debate of internal auditors needing to expand their repertoire has been around for many decades, though now, the evidence of more internal auditors changing their practices has began to emerge and examples are visible. Internal auditors are seen to be accepting change to keep up with the demands of the market place and are doing so in order to provide a service of value to the organisation that employs them. Southcorp, Qantas and KMPG Consulting are a few providing their internal auditors with opportunities to undertake assurance based services and are finding this new branch of practice to be most valuable in assisting their managers to execute the objectives of the organisation
Kalman Predictor-Based Proactive Dynamic Thermal Management for 3-D NoC Systems With Noisy Thermal Sensors

Thermal sensor noise has a great impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of a dynamic thermal management (DTM) strategy. To address the problem of forecasting temperature based on noisy thermal sensors, we first propose a Kalman-based runtime thermal prediction scheme. To obtain accurate temperature predictions, a multivariate linear power model and a physically-based state space thermal model for 3-D network-on-chip are also proposed. Simulation results show that it reduces the standard deviations of the prediction error by 46%–53% compared with the auto-regressive based one under sensor noise with ${\sigma =2}$ . Conventional reactive DTM techniques suffer from significant performance degradation due to their pessimistic reaction, thus, based on the proposed prediction scheme, we further propose a proactive DTM strategy that primarily consists of a thermal-aware routing algorithm and a proactive throttling scheme: 1) to take into account both thermal and congestion issues, we propose a proactive congestion and thermal aware routing algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that it can achieve better throughput as well as approach better thermal balance. Specifically, under uniform traffic, the proposed scheme reduces the maximum chip temperature by about 3.9 °C and achieves 78.3% higher throughput compared with the competing thermal optimization approach based on dynamic programming network and 2) when the temperature exceeds the threshold, existing coarse-grained reactive throttling schemes cool down the overheated nodes at the penalty of significant performance loss. In this paper, a proactive quota-based throttling scheme is proposed. Simulation results show that it improves the throughput up to 11.1% compared with the reactive throttling schemes.
Empirical growth models with spatial effects

Abstract. Recent contributions to the regional science literature have considered spatial effects in empirical growth specifications. In the case of spatial dependence, following theoretical arguments from new economic geography, and endogenous growth models, this phenomenon has been associated with the existence of externalities that cross regional borders. However, despite the general consensus that interactions or externalities are likely to be the major source of spatial dependence, they have been modelled in a rather ad hoc manner in most existing empirical studies. In contrast, we advocate basing the analysis on structural growth models which include externalities across economies, applying the appropriate spatial econometrics tools to test for their presence and estimate the magnitude of these externalities in the real world.
Effect of enalapril or the thromboxane receptor antagonist, daltroban, in rats with subtotal renal ablation.

There is evidence to suggest that thromboxane synthesis inhibition will attenuate the hypertension and proteinuria associated with subtotal renal ablation. In the present study, the thromboxane receptor antagonist, daltroban, (30 mg/kg/day i.p.) or vehicle was administered to rats for 3 weeks starting 2 weeks after partial renal ablation (right uninephrectomy and ligation of approximately two-thirds of the blood supply to the left kidney). Renal ablation was associated with proteinuria and increased systolic blood pressure. Neither the proteinuria nor the hypertension was affected by daltroban administration. Histological examination of the remaining kidney demonstrated no beneficial effect of daltroban. In a second study, it was determined that, 2 weeks after renal ablation, urinary thromboxane excretion was significantly increased, and subsequent administration of daltroban for 2 weeks resulted in significant blockade of the effects of the thromboxane mimetic, U46619. In a third study, enalapril (50 mg/l in the drinking water) resulted in a significant attenuation of the proteinuria, hypertension and glomerular lesions associated with partial renal ablation. The data indicate that enalapril, but not daltroban, protects against the development of renal disease associated with reduced renal mass.
Quality assessment of family planning services in urban health centers of Shahid Beheshti Medical Science University, 2004.

PURPOSE Quality of family planning services is now considered as a global concern and importance. The purpose of the present study is to assess quality of family planning services in the urbanhealth centers of Shahid Beheshti Medical Science University. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH This was a descriptive study to assess structure, process and outcome of the family planning care services. A total of 15 health centers of Shahid Beheshti Medical Science University were randomized and the quality of provided care by 65 family planning care providers of these health centers were observed and assessed using checklists. A total of 75 family planning clients were interviewed to assess their knowledge about their selected family planning method all of whom completed the related forms of satisfaction with the services. The tools for data collection were two observational checklists, and two questionnaires with subsequent data analyzed using SPSS 11.5. In total 75 clients with an average age 24 (7 +/- 4) (mean +/- SD) participated in the study. The provision of family planning services by 65 providers was assessed by observation at three intervals. Of the providers, 60 (92.3 per cent) were midwives. FINDINGS Mean satisfaction score of clients was 83.3 +/- 9.05 percent meaning clients were highly satisfied with the services. Mean knowledge score of clients about their family planning method of use was 59.1 +/- 18 percent, which shows their moderate knowledge about their method of use. ORIGINALITY/VALUE A more advanced tool to assess quality of care of family planning services with more focus on special care for the contraceptives was developed. Quality of care in family planning services of Shahid Beheshti Medical Science University health centers showed adequate facilities and equipment and to have trained personnel however their client's knowledge about the selected method was moderate. Therefore, interventional programs are needed to improve counseling and the educational process of clients, which should be considered in future research and planning of the programs.
Exercising corporate governance at the annual general meeting

Purpose – Annual general meetings (AGMs) are an essential aspect of corporate governance in the UK, although there is little attempt to monitor the process of accountability evident on the part of the directors. This paper aims to provide an analysis of AGMs and suggest ways of making the event more effective from a stakeholder viewpoint.Design/methodology/approach – By referring to the original principles of corporate governance laid down by the Cadbury Report onwards, past observation and evaluation have been used to pick out the best and worst practices of over 40 AGMs attended in order to build up a picture of a successful AGM for shareholders and directors alike. Companies are assessed for aspects of best practice relating to their AGMs and the essential elements are discussed.Findings – A successful AGM should include: a well balanced and independent range of skills and backgrounds on the board, accompanied by fair remuneration and reward schemes for the directors; awareness of long‐term social, com.
C5L2 Is a Functional Receptor for Acylation-stimulating Protein*

C5L2 binds acylation-stimulating protein (ASP) with high affinity and is expressed in ASP-responsive cells. Functionality of C5L2 has not yet been demonstrated. Here we show that C5L2 is expressed in human subcutaneous and omental adipose tissue in both preadipocytes and adipocytes. In mice, C5L2 is expressed in all adipose tissues, at levels comparable with other tissues. Stable transfection of human C5L2 cDNA into HEK293 cells results in ASP stimulation of triglyceride synthesis (TGS) (193 ± 33%, 5 μm ASP, p < 0.001, where basal = 100%) and glucose transport (168 ± 21%, 10 μm ASP, p < 0.001). C3a similarly stimulates TGS (163 ± 12%, p < 0.001), but C5a and C5a des-Arg have no effect. The ASP mechanism is to increase Vmax of glucose transport (149%) and triglyceride (TG) synthesis activity (165%) through increased diacylglycerolacyltransferase activity (200%). Antisense oligonucleotide down-regulation of C5L2 in human skin fibroblasts decreases cell surface C5L2 (down to 54 ± 4% of control, p < 0.001, comparable with nonimmune background). ASP response is coordinately lost (basal TGS = 14.6 ± 1.6, with ASP = 21.0 ± 1.4 (144%), with ASP + oligonucleotides = 11.0 ± 0.8 pmol of TG/mg of cell protein, p < 0.001). In mouse 3T3-L1 preadipocytes, antisense oligonucleotides decrease C5L2 expression to 69.5 ± 0.5% of control, p < 0.001 (comparable with nonimmune) with a loss of ASP stimulation (basal TGS = 22.4 ± 2.9, with ASP = 39.6 ± 8.8 (177%), with ASP + oligonucleotides = 25.3 ± 3.0 pmol of TG/mg of cell protein, p < 0.001). C5L2 down-regulation and decreased ASP response correlate (r = 0.761, p < 0.0001 for HSF and r = 0.451, p < 0.05 for 3T3-L1). In HEK-hC5L2 expressing fluorescently tagged β-arrestin, ASP induced β-arrestin translocation to the plasma membrane and formation of endocytic complexes concurrently with increased phosphorylation of C5L2. This is the first demonstration that C5L2 is a functional receptor, mediating ASP triglyceride stimulation.
Type A behavior pattern and blood glucose control in diabetic children.

&NA; We studied the relationship between presence of Type A behavior pattern and glycemic response to stress in children with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Twelve male (six Type A and six Type B) and nine female (four Type A and five Type B) insulin‐dependent diabetic patients between the ages of 8 and 16 years received a standard meal and blood glucose values were assessed two hours later. All subjects then played a competitive videogame for 10 minutes following which blood glucose was assessed again. Preprandial and postprandial blood glucose values did not differ between the groups. However, only Type A subjects showed a hyperglycemic response to the videogame stress. Type A subjects also demonstrated significantly higher glycohemoglobin values. In order to assure that this effect was due to a differential response to stress and not simply a difference in metabolic response to a meal, a second study was conducted in which blood glucose values were assessed at one, two and three hours following a standard meal. No significant differences in postprandial blood glucose values were observed between Type A and Type B subjects. These data support previous research which has suggested that some but not all patients with IDDM show a hyperglycemic response to stress.
The urban injustices of New Labour’s ‘new urban renewal’: the case of the Aylesbury Estate in London

This paper discusses the urban injustices of New Labour's “new urban renewal”, that is the state-led gentrification of British council estates, undertaken through the guise of mixed communities policy, on the Aylesbury estate in Southwark, London, one of the largest council estates in Europe. In this particular case of post-political planning I show how the tenant support for the regeneration programme was manipulated and misrepresented and how choices were closed down for them, leaving them ultimately with a “false choice” between a regeneration they did not want or the further decline of their estate. I look at what the estate residents thought/think about the whole process and how they have resisted, and are resisting, the gentrification of their estate. I show revanchist and post-political practices, but ultimately I refuse to succumb to these dystopian narratives, very attractive as they are, for conflict/dissent has not been completely smothered and resistance to gentrification in and around the Aylesbury is alive and well. I argue that we urgently need to re-establish the city as the driver of democratic politics with an emancipatory agenda, rather than one that ratifies the status quo or gets mired in a dystopic post-justice city.
Let the Evidence Speak:

[Opinion] Money matters in the workplace, no matter what kind of work people do. Money motivates us, and companies would be much more effective if money were accepted as the powerful motivator it is. While several studies demonstrate that financial incentives generate better employee performance, financial incentives can be misused and should not be seen as a panacea. Financial incentives should be used thoughtfully, with careful planning and attention to the potential abuses inherent in these systems.
Investor Recognition, Liquidity, and Exchange Listings in the Reformed Markets

We examine multiple facets of firms' descisions to list on the NYSE. Although the average Nasdaq spreads are now comparable to the average NYSE spreads, we find that firms continue to switch from Nasdaq to the NYSE, and that they experience positive cumulative abnormal returns on listing. Using a simultaneous ststem of equations approach, we establish that enhanced investor recognition mainly explains this phenomenon. A logistic regression suggesrts that corporate listing choice is consistent with these findings, since eligible unlisted firms already have high volumes and recognition and might not benefit as much as do firms that actually switch. Copyright (c) 2006 Financial Management Association International.