Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Sense of a Woman: Gender, Ambition, and the Decision to Run for Congress

Do men and women differ in their decisionmaking calculus for higher office? To answer this question, we use a survey of state legislators (SLs) in 1998 to examine the conditions under which male and female SLs seek a position in the U.S. House of Representatives. We consider three ways in which gender may influence ambition and the decision to run—indirectly, directly, and interactively—and we find evidence of all three effects. Female state legislators are less ambitious than males for a U.S. House seat, a difference that largely stems from gender disparities in child-care responsibilities. However, despite their lower ambition, female SLs are just as likely as their male counterparts to seek a congressional position. This apparent puzzle is solved by the finding that the expected benefit of office mediates the relationship between ambition and the likelihood of running. Female SLs are much more responsive to the expected benefit of office than are males, offsetting their diminished ambition level. The sense of a woman is reflected in female state legislators’ increased sensitivity to the strategic considerations surrounding a congressional candidacy. Because men and women respond differently to the intersection of ambition and opportunity, gender constitutes an important, yet often neglected, explanatory variable in the decision-to-run calculus.
Impact Assessment of Mtera and Kidatu Reservoirs on the Annual Maximum Floods at Stiegler's Gorge of the Rufiji River in Tanzania

Abstract The impoundment of any river causes changes in the downstream flow regime. The effect of a dam on flow regime depends on both the storage capacity of the reservoir relative to the volume of river flow and the way the dam is operated. The most common attribute of flow regulation is a decrease in the magnitude of the flood peaks and an increase in low flows. This paper reports the findings of a study to assess the cumulative impact of two dams on the Great Ruaha River in Tanzania (the Mtera and Kidatu Reservoir System) on flood flows. The method used was to compare the observed annual maximum flows at downstream locations after the construction of the dams with mathematically modeled estimates of the annual maximum flows at the same locations, assuming that the dams were not built (i.e. generating naturalized flows). Contrary to expectations, the study found that annual maximum peaks were supposed to be less than those actually observed. For instance, in 1989, annual maximum peak flow of 1,400 m3/s was recorded at Kidatu, but the estimated uncontrolled peak flow should have been 800 m3/s, signifying an artificially-induced flood wave. Although, there was a significant impact on the peak flows at Kidatu awing to the dams, the impact was found to be minimal on the flow peaks at Steigler's Gorge.
Equilibrium Exchange Rates in New EU Members: External Imbalances versus Real Convergence

New EU members share two very marked features which have conflicting implications for the evolution of their real exchange rates in the long run: accelerated growth and systematic current account imbalances, which would anticipate, respectively an appreciation and a depreciation of their currencies, according to different theories of exchange rate determination. Furthermore, both elements are intertwined, for current account imbalances are the other side of capital inflows which have been central in boosting potential output and productivity convergence in these economies. In this paper, we aim at achieving some insight on the role of persistent and substantial capital inflows and the consequent accumulation of net foreign liabilities in improving competitiveness and in the determination of the exchange rate for the three largest new EU members: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. We adopt a sequential approach that sheds light on the role of capital flows and their interaction with the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis. We start by noting in a bivariate cointegration analysis that the accumulation of net foreign liabilities, far from depressing the exchange rate in the long-run, has gone hand-in-hand with exchange rate appreciation. We claim that this may be due to the induced effect that capital inflows are expected to have on productivity and competitiveness. After testing that foreign direct investment is cointegrated with productivity trends, we show that a extended empirical model comprising relative productivity and net foreign assets is well-suited in general to capture this indirect, opposite effect of liabilities accumulation on the real exchange rate. Finally, the model makes it possible to estimate for the considered countries equilibrium exchange rates and misalignments and perform some simulations on their expected future path.
Is Zimbabwe ready to venture into the cultural tourism market

Zimbabwe has long relied solely on abundant wildlife resources to attract tourists. The government land reform programme has, however, resulted in the significant depletion of these resources. In this paper, cultural tourism is suggested as a complementary attraction to domestic tourists. The findings of the study, based on a questionnaire administered face-to-face, indicate that to enter this market Zimbabwe will need to build capacity in areas such as personnel, where frontline staff will need to be recruited, trained and motivated to meet customer needs. In conclusion, it is mentioned that the unstable economic and political climate prevailing in Zimbabwe militates against the development of cultural attractors.
Efficacy of Intranasal Scopolamine Gel for Motion Sickness Treatment in Aviation Candidates

Abstract : Results from preliminary studies indicate that intranasal scopolamine (INSCOP) has faster absorption, higher bioavailability and reliable therapeutic index than oral or transdermal forms. The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of INSCOP for the treatment of motion-induced sickness and to estimate the rate of absorption. After completing baseline physiolgical, biological and cognitive assessments, 16 aviation candidates were given 0.4 mg of INSCOP and a placebo and were exposed to passive Coriolis cross-coupling. After exposure to provocative motion, subjects provided iterative physiological, biological, cognitive, and subjective sleepiness assessments. Analysis indicated that INSCOP was more efficacious than placebo as a motion sickness countermeasure during provocative motion. Analyses conducted on systolic blood pressure showed no significant effects, however, analysis of diastolic blood pressure did show significant effects after administration of INSCOP. Analysis of heart rate was significantly lower among participants in the INSCOP condition when compared to placebo. In addition, there were no significant cognitive performance or self report of sleepiness effects over time between conditions. Finally, blood concentration levels of scopolamine are provided. In conclusion, INSCOP is efficacious for the treatment of motion sickness, with no significant cognitive or sedative effects, and offers an excellent alternative for use in dynamic operational environments.
Electric Utility Stranded Costs: Valuation and Disclosure Issues

type="main" xml:lang="en"> We analyze the stock market’s valuation of electric utility “stranded costs” (i.e., costs that might become unrecoverable under deregulation), and investigate whether stranded costs that have arisen as a result of voluntary firm business decisions are valued differently from those that are more directly linked to regulatory mandates. Further, we study whether investor valuations differ across jurisdictions. Finally, we examine the relation between investor valuation of stranded costs and the decision by utilities to make stranded cost-related disclosures in their financial statements voluntarily. We find that investors anticipate that, on average, approximately 10% of total stranded costs will be borne by utility shareholders. Stranded costs arising from voluntary operating or investing decisions made by utilities are valued more negatively than those associated with mandatory power purchase contracts, consistent with investors assigning a higher recovery probability to the latter. Investor valuations of stranded costs associated with utility generating investments do not differ systematically across jurisdictions. We find that stranded costs are valued less negatively for voluntary disclosers not just in the year of disclosure but also in the preceding two years, implying that it is not disclosure per se that favorably influences valuation. Voluntary disclosers operate in jurisdictions that have more clearly established stranded cost recovery mechanisms, suggesting that both stranded cost disclosure and valuation are prompted by reduction in uncertainty about recoverability.
Assessment of availability and characteristics of Greywater in Amman

Abstract: The problem of water scarcity in Jordan has resulted in enormous pressures on the already limited renewable water sources. As a result, reuse of water is becoming an essential component of the water management trends being adopted. This study aims at evaluating the potential of greywater availability and the various components constituting sources of greywater generated in Amman, at investigating the different water quality parameters of the greywater in order to assess its reuse potential, and at gauging the public acceptance of greywater reuse for different applications. A survey was designed and administered in 38 areas of Amman. The survey covered a total of 233 houses and 1,514 people. Fifteen greywater samples, distributed equally, were collected and analyzed from showers, laundries, and sinks in some of these houses to determine their water quality parameters. The study concluded that per capita water consumption in Amman ranged between 51 and 115 liters per day, with an average of 84 liters per day. The quantities of greywater generated in Amman ranged from 39 to 80 Lpcd, with an average of 59 Lpcd, which constitute 70 percent of the total water consumption. Laundry, shower, and sink effluents comprised 16, 34, and 50 percent of greywater sources, respectively. The physical, chemical, and biological analyses of the grab samples revealed that greywater contains significant levels of suspended solids, inorganic constituents, chemical and biochemical oxygen demands, total Coliforms and Fecal Coliform bacteria. The public acceptance survey revealed that 21.6 to 67.6 percent of the public accepted the reuse of greywater for vegetable growing, irrigation of fruit trees, car washing, toilet flushing, or home laundry. Additionally, 2.0 to 91.8 percent of the public opposed greywater reuse due to cost, health hazards, groundwater pollution, or environmental impacts.
Experimental investigation of the penetration of ultrasound nanobubbles in a gastric cancer xenograft

Nanobubbles as a type of ultrasound contrast agent have attracted much interest in recent years due to their many advantages, such as strong penetrating power and high stability. However, there is still insufficient morphological evidence concerning gas-filled nanobubbles in tumor tissue spaces and tumor angiogenesis. We used a gastric cancer xenograft as an example to study this question. Nanobubbles with a particle size of 435.2 ± 60.53 nm were prepared and compared with SonoVue® microbubbles in vitro and in vivo, and they exhibited a superior contrast imaging effect. After excluding the impact of the nanobubbles in blood vessels through saline flush, we used an ultrasound burst and frozen sectioning to investigate the distribution of nanobubbles in the gastric cancer xenografts and confirmed this by transmission electron microscopy. Preliminary results showed that the nanobubbles were able to pass through the gaps between the endothelial cells in the tumor vascular system to enter the tissue space. These findings could provide morphological evidence for extravascular ultrasound imaging of tumors and serve as a foundation for the application of nanobubbles in extravascular tumor-targeted ultrasonic diagnostics and therapy.
Cold War Belligerence and U.S. Public Opinion toward Defense Spending

The relationship between political events and aggregate opinion change is complicated, and the influence of actual events, as opposed to domestic political elites' responses to those events, has seldom been analyzed. This article attempts to untangle these relationships with data examining events and statements of the political leaders (belligerence) of both the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war. Considering the salience of the Soviet Union for domestic politics, there is reason to suspect that the public should have responded directly to Soviet actions and statements, while also reacting to U.S. belligerence. The analysis indicates that the public reacted only to changes in U.S., not Soviet, belligerence. The implications of this finding for public preferences on foreign and defense policy, and for opinion more generally, are discussed.
Sustainable Consumption: Opportunities for Consumer Research and Public Policy

This essay explores sustainable consumption and considers possible roles for marketing and consumer researchers and public policy makers in addressing the many sustainability challenges that pervade the planet. Future research approaches to this interdisciplinary topic must be comprehensive and systematic and would benefit from a variety of different perspectives. There are several opportunities for further research; the authors explore three areas in detail. First, they consider the inconsistency between the attitudes and behaviors of consumers with respect to sustainability. Second, they broaden the agenda to explore the role of individual citizens in society. Third, they propose a macroinstitutional approach to fostering sustainability. For each of these separate, but interrelated, opportunities, the authors examine the area in detail and consider possible research avenues and public policy initiatives.
Essays on taxation in limited tax capacity environment

I present three essays on income taxation in Pakistan. The first essay investigates how taxes influence agents’ earnings, compliance and business organization choices. Using a tax reform introduced in Pakistan in 2010, which raised tax rates on partnership earnings as compared to sole proprietorship income, as a natural policy experiment, I (i) identify a full range of behavioral responses to the tax rate changes (ii) study the determinants of tax compliance (iii) investigate if VAT causes firms to be more tax compliant. Relying on administrative tax records that comprise the universe of income tax returns filed in 2006-11 and a rich set of firm characteristics, I find that the reform induced substantial extensive and intensive margin responses including reduction in earnings, income shifting, movement into informality, and spillover effects on VAT base. I also find that the firms that have greater fraction of their tax withheld at source, are registered for VAT, or withhold taxes of other agents are more tax compliant. This highlights the importance of the notion that information trails on arm-length business transactions facilitate enforcement. Comparing short-term responses of partnership firms – which arguably identify tax evasion – on both sides of the VAT exemption threshold, I find that the evasion changes discontinuously at the cutoff suggesting that the VAT causes firms to be more compliant. In the second essay, I along with my co-authors, analyze the design of tax systems under imperfect enforcement. A common policy in developing countries is to impose minimum tax schemes whereby firms are taxed either on profits or on turnover (with a much lower tax rate on turnover), depending on which tax liability is larger. This is a production inefficient tax policy, but has been motivated by the idea that turnover taxes are harder to evade. Such schemes give rise to kink points in firms’ choice sets as the tax rate and tax base jump discontinuously at a profit rate threshold. Analyzing responses to one such scheme in Pakistan, we find large bunching of corporate firms around the minimum tax kink. We show that the combined tax rate and tax base change at the kink provides small real incentives for bunching, making the policy ideal for eliciting evasion. Based on the methodology that we develop, we estimate that turnover taxes reduce evasion by up to 60-70% of corporate income. In the third essay, I along with Henrik Kleven, develop a framework for non-parametrically identifying optimization frictions and structural elasticities using notches – discontinuities in the choice sets of agents – introduced for example by tax and transfer policies. We apply our framework to tax notches in personal income tax schedule of Pakistan to estimate structural elasticities of taxable income.
Use of ethanol in the treatment of distal tarsal joint osteoarthritis: 24 cases.

UNLABELLED REASONS FOR PERFORMING THIS STUDY: Intra-articular ethanol has been described to promote distal tarsal joint ankylosis. Its use and results in clinical cases affected by osteoarthritis (OA) have not been reported. OBJECTIVES To describe and evaluate the results of treatment of distal tarsal joint OA by facilitated ankylosis stimulated by intra-articular ethanol injection. METHODS Twenty-four horses met the inclusion criteria of tarsometatarsal and centrodistal joint OA diagnosed by a positive response to intra-articular analgesia, radiographic evaluation and recurrence of lameness ≤ 4 months after intra-articular medication with a corticosteroid. Horses were sedated and, following a radiographic contrast study of the tarsometatarsal joint, medication with 2-4 ml of either 100% pure ethanol (G100) or a 70% ethanol (G70) solution was applied. Horses were classified as improved based on a 50% reduction from initial lameness grade combined with an increase in exercise level. RESULTS Of the 24 horses included in this study, 20 had the treatment performed bilaterally and 4 unilaterally. All horses were available for initial follow-up examination and 21 for a second one 6-9 months after treatment. This represented a total of 44 treated limbs and 35 available for long-term follow-up. Of these, 21/35 (60%) were considered improved, which corresponds to 11/21 horses (52%). Of 21 horses, 4 (19%) deteriorated and 2 of these developed significant complications related to treatment. CONCLUSIONS Distal tarsal joint ankylosis with ethanol should be considered a safe and economic treatment in cases of distal tarsal joint OA that fail to show long-term improvement with intra-articular corticosteroid treatment. POTENTIAL RELEVANCE Ethanol should be considered in the treatment of certain cases of distal tarsal joint OA. The importance of performing an adequate radiographic contrast study of the tarsometatarsal joint prior to treatment is highlighted.
Micro‐ and nanostructures of iridescent wing scales in purple emperor butterflies (Lepidoptera: Apatura ilia and A. iris)

Apatura ilia (Denis and Schiffermüller, 1775) and A. iris (Linnaeus, 1758) are fascinating butterflies found in the Palaearctic ecozone (excepting the north of Africa). The wings of these insects are covered with a great number of two types of scales positioned like roof tiles. Type I scales are on the surface, while type II scales are situated below them. The structural color of the type I scales is recognized only on the dorsal side of both the fore and hind wings of the males of the aforementioned species. Both types of scales are responsible for pigment color of the wings, but iridescence is observed only in the type I scales. The brilliant structural color is due to a multilayer structure. The features of the scales, their dimensions and fine structure were obtained using scanning electron microscopy. Cross sections of the scales were then analyzed by transmission electron microscopy. The scales of the “normal” and clytie forms of A. ilia have a different nanostructure, but are of the same type. A similar type of structure, but with a different morphology, was also noticed in A. iris. The scales of the analyzed species resemble the scales of tropical Morpho butterflies. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Transnational actors and the politics of pension reform in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT Drawing on recent scholarship on transnational actors and on the role of ideas in policy change, this paper analyzes the regional context of the pension reform debate in Sub-Saharan Africa, and shows that, at least since the 1980s, there was significant attention to pension reforms in Africa by global policy actors, including the World Bank. However, unlike in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, where the World Bank proved dominant, the regional environment of pension reform in Sub-Saharan Africa was characterized by a fierce competition between the World Bank and the International Labour Organization (ILO), with each institution promoting different policy preferences. As demonstrated, in Sub-Saharan Africa pension reform, the ILO has proved more influential than the World Bank. Theoretically, the paper stresses the role of transnational actors in the global diffusion of social policy ideas. Recognizing the need to explore the interactions between national and transnational actors, as well as between transnational actors themselves, the analysis explores the dialogical and competitive nature of the global politics of ideas.
Extracellular adenosine triphosphate induces glutamate transporter‐1 expression in hippocampus

ATP can be significantly released following various brain insults and activates the extracellular signal‐regulated protein kinase (ERK) pathway in astrocytes. Glutamate transporter‐1 (GLT1) is the major forebrain astroglial glutamate transporter and its expression is stimulated also via ERK1/2 phosphorylation. We thus hypothesized that extracellular ATP could be a signal to GLT1 modulation in hippocampal slices obtained from rat. We indeed observed by western blot analysis that, after 1 mM ATP exposure, GLT1 expression, but not the glutamate–aspartate transporter, was enhanced. At the same time, high ATP induced significant rates of cell death in piramidal and granule cell layers, as shown by propidium iodide uptake, and increased glutamate uptake through GLT1 transporter. Also using confocal laser‐scanning microscopy, we observed that ATP induced a vigorous and extensive GLT1‐labeling on glial fibrillary acidic protein‐positive cells. This stimulation was abolished by purine/pyrimidine nucleotide receptor antagonists and by MEK1/2 inhibitor. The present study demonstrates a novel mechanism of GLT1 regulation by extracellular ATP, reinforcing the evidence of cross talk between glutamatergic and purinergic systems. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Infrastructure Accounting for Local Authorities: Technical Management and Political Context

Internationally, there has been mounting interest in the subject of accounting for infrastructure assets and their deterioration. In New Zealand, the adoption of full accrual accounting across the public sector from 1989 has meant that local authorities have been grappling for some time with the problem of how best to account for these assets in a manner which is relevant for both managers and elected representatives. This paper reviews methods of accounting for infrastructure in New Zealand local authorities, and explores how infrastructure assets and related expenses might be accounted for in a manner which is consistent with both the New Zealand accounting profession’s conceptual framework and the requirements of democratic decision making over the allocation of resources.