Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fertility in East Africa countries

This paper examined and identifies the important determinants of Fertility decline in East Africa countries using a panel data set from world development indicator data base (WDI) for eight selected East African countries between 1998 and 2010. Panel regression methods were used to determine the impact of socioeconomic determinants on fertility. Fertility rate reduced in a slow pace during the period 1998 and 2010 in all selected East Africa countries. The results show that among socioeconomic factors urban population growth, women secondary school enrolments, HIV prevalence rate, adolescent fertility rate and inflation rate are the dominant significant determinants of fertility rate. However, one of the most unexpected finding in this study concerns the relationship between infant mortality rate and fertility rate. Infant mortality rate negatively related to fertility. The results found in this paper confirm the interpretation that modernization has created the improvement of socioeconomic opportunities which were important for the fertility decline. However, the magnitude of socioeconomic factors effect on fertility levels seems not strong as expected, there is a need to manipulate the socioeconomic factors operate through proximate determinants in order to have further impact of socioeconomic factors on fertility. Therefore, socioeconomic intervention policies should revise and implement to achieve further reduction of fertility in East Africa countries.
The impact of purchasing and supplier involvement on strategic purchasing and its impact on firm’s performance

The focus of this paper is on purchasing and supplier involvement in the firm. Using the resource‐base view of the firm, hypotheses are developed concerning purchasing/supplier involvement, strategic purchasing and firm’s financial performance. A model of the hypothesized relationships is offered and empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The model is tested using data collected in 1999. Each factor in the model is measured by a number of scale items. Based on the results of confirmatory factor analysis, an overall fit of the model to the data is achieved. Both convergent and discriminate validity is demonstrated. The research findings reveal that the hypotheses tested in the model are supported. Purchasing/supplier involvement has a positive impact on strategic purchasing, and strategic purchasing has a positive impact on firm’s financial performance. The paper concludes with some research implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.
Beyond Balanced Growth

Balanced growth models are commonly used in macroeconomics because they are consistent with the well-known Kaldor facts regarding economic growth. These models, however, are inconsistent with one of the most striking regularities of the growth process—the massive reallocation of labour from agriculture into manufacturing and services. This paper presents a simple model consistent with both the Kaldor facts and the dynamics of sectoral labour reallocation.
Social movement networks, policy processes, and forest tenure activism in Indonesia

This thesis aims to answer the following question: How do environmental movement networks sustain collective action in order to influence forest tenure reforms in Indonesia? In doing so, it expressly relies on a relational approach to social movement studies that recognizes the interaction between the social structure and agency and the role of culture in shaping social movement networks. It relies on a mixed methods research design to study the forms and features of networks as well as the context, the meaning and the ongoing social processes that underlie environmental networks. The first paper provides a macro-level analysis of the changing political context and of the forces internal to the environmental movement that have led to reforms in forest tenure policies in the last decade in Indonesia. The second paper presents the research design of the thesis and discusses how specific theoretical approaches to social movement networks affect the choice of analytical methods and how relational approaches call for the use of mixed methods. The rest of the thesis analyzes meso-level features of inter-organizational networking among environmental movement organizations (EMOs) and between EMOs and state actors. The third paper examines the role communication networks among EMOs in coalition work and illustrates how environmental values and common discursive practices can be important coalescing forces. The fourth paper investigates the role of external institutionalization, contention and cooperation in relational forms of activism with state actors. It analyzes how the environmental movement, despite the use of moderate tactics, has avoided co-optation. The fifth paper investigates the contingency of political opportunities at the mesolevel. It suggests that at the inter-organizational level access to the state is dependent on the type of actors involved, their behavior and experiences, and the issue of contention, and it shows that EMOs can in part shape political opportunities
The Export-Growth Relationship: Estimating a Dose-Response Function

The relationship between individual firms' export behaviour and firm performance has been studied extensively in the economic literature. However, most studies from the field of economics only distinguish between exporting and nonexporting companies, using the firms' export status as a binary treatment variable and comparing the performance of exporting and nonexporting firms. This article introduces the newly developed generalized propensity score (GPS) methodology to the literature of individual firms' export behaviour. Instead of a binary treatment variable, the GPS method allows for continuous treatment, that is, different levels of the firms' export activities. Based on the GPS methodology, a dose-response function is estimated, depicting the relationship between the firms' export-sales ratio and their subsequent sales growth rate as a measure of firm performance.
Video Game Appropriation through Modifications

This article investigates an instance in convergence culture: the conflicts and compromises between modders (fans of a video game who actually make changes to the game) and their supporters, and the owners of the copyrighted works they appropriate. I suggest that current copyright ownership in cultural products interferes with the way creative industries can benefit from convergence; that modders (and fans generally) develop a specific rationale and set of norms rooted in Jenkins' concept of a `moral economy' (Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 2006) to justify their appropriations; and that mutually beneficial relationships can be teased out of the apparently contradictory positions of modders and copyright owners. This article focuses on two case studies that illustrate the ways modders reuse cultural products and incorporate them into their video game modifications to achieve a sense of creative ownership and meaning over their entertainment experience.
Psychiatric Symptoms and Their Psychosocial Consequences in Frontotemporal Dementia

Based on a retrospective study of 19 neuropathologically verified cases with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), neuropsychiatric symptoms related to behavioral disturbances and their psychosocial consequences were studied. The results indicate that frontotemporal dementia is often misdiagnosed early in the clinical course. Behavioural features with impaired social interactions, impaired personal regulation, and loss of insight were seen in all patients. The psychosocial consequences reported in this paper challenge future research in frontotemporal dementia.
Clopidogrel Diminishes Hemodialysis access Graft Thrombosis

Background The most common complication of hemodialysis access graft is thrombosis. Clopidogrel, an inhibitor of platelet aggregation, was assessed to prevent this serious complication. Methods Nineteen patients on chronic hemodialysis whose vascular accesses were grafts were divided into two groups: Group A (n=11, 58%) consisted of patients who did not receive anti-thrombotic therapy after graft placement; Group B (n=8, 42%) received clopidogrel 75 mg/day from two days after surgery onwards. Both groups were well matched with respect to age, gender, cause of renal failure, hematocrit, platelet count and Kt/V. All patients’ thrombotic episodes were followed up from the day of graft surgery until thrombosis was diagnosed. Finally, the survival difference between both groups was determined. Results Ten thrombotic episodes were diagnosed in Group A while no events were reported in Group B (p<0.001). Graft access days of patency were significantly more in Group B than in Group A (350.8±166 vs 86.8±69, p<0.001). The time elapsed from dialysis initiation to graft placement was not different (Group A: 18±12 days; Group B: 20±10 days). Days in hemodialysis were different between both groups (Group A: 195.9±96; Group B: 545.5±291, p<0.001) and all patients of Group A (n=11, 57.9%) and two patients of Group B (25%) died (p=0.001). No major bleeding events were reported. Conclusions Clopidogrel significantly decreased thrombotic graft episodes. Patients on clopidogrel had a prolonged vascular access patency, longer time on hemodialysis and longer survival.
A mathematical model of the indirect effects of rotavirus vaccination

SUMMARY Rotavirus (RV) infections progressively confer natural immunity against subsequent infection. Similarly to natural infection, vaccination with a live attenuated vaccine potentially reduces RV transmission and induces herd protection. A mathematical transmission model was developed to project the impact of a vaccination programme on the incidence of RV infection and disease for five countries in the European Union. With vaccination coverage rates of 70%, 90% and 95% the model predicted that, in addition to the direct effect of vaccination, herd protection induced a reduction in RV-related gastroenteritis (GE) incidence of 25%, 22% and 20%, respectively, for RV-GE of any severity, and of 19%, 15%, and 13%, respectively, for moderate-to-severe RV-GE, 5 years after implementation of a vaccination programme.
The influence of compressive and tensile axial strain on the critical properties of Nb/sub 3/Sn conductors

Various Nb/sub 3/Sn conductors are investigated in an axial strain experiment. The superconducting samples are soldered to a substrate that is bent to generate a compressive or tensile axial strain. Especially in the compressive strain range the critical current reduction is smaller than predicted by the well-known scaling law. The influence of the transverse strain components is investigated in a tape conductor by changing the thermal strain. It is found that the axial strain experiments can be described by an upper-critical field that depends on the deviatoric component of the strain tensor only. Finally a comparison of the critical temperature and the critical current as a function of axial strain is made. <<ETX>>
The effect of age on the changes in bone mineral density and osteoporosis detection rates in Han Chinese men over the age of 50

Abstract Objective: To examine the relationship between age and BMD at different skeletal sites and osteoporosis (OP) detection rates in Han Chinese men over 50 years and to assess the diagnostic value of the OSTA. Methods: A retrospective analysis of 1488 men over 50 was carried out and group comparisons were made. Results: BMDs at total hip and femoral neck decreased with age (p < 0.01) and were negatively correlated with age by liner correlation analysis (r = −0.36, −0.30; p all <0.05). The detection rates of OP and osteopenia were 10.08% and 43.21% respectively, which increased with age, and significantly higher among over 70 years old than under 70 individuals (47.75% versus 35.56%; 14.88% versus 1.99%; p all <0.01). The detection rate at the femoral neck was similar to the overall detection rate. Sensitivities of OSTA index at a cutoff value of −1 and −4 were 87.33% and 52.0% respectively, and the specificities were 56.20% and 87.59%. Conclusion: BMDs at femoral neck and total hip decrease with age. Detection rates of OP increase with age. Bilateral femoral neck BMD measurement can improve detection rates of OP. OSTA is a useful screening tool for OP in Han Chinese men over 50 years.
Guidelines for point‐of‐care testing: haematology

This guideline provides a framework for the arrangement of point‐of‐care testing (POCT) services, previously known as near patient testing (patient self‐testing not covered). POCT is defined as any analytical test performed outside the laboratory. Primary users are often non‐laboratory healthcare workers. The guidance applies to units within hospitals as well as general practioner surgeries, community clinics and pharmacies. The head of the haematology laboratory or a point of care coordinator must take responsibility for all aspects of the POCT service, including quality and training. Depending on the size and nature of the POCT practice, a local POCT manager may also be required. Equipment selected should have received a successful independent performance evaluation. If an independent evaluation has not been performed the purchaser should assess the device according to the protocol in this document. POCT devices should generate results that are comparable to those of the local laboratory. An accredited external quality assessment programme and internal quality control system must be established. Manufacturers promoting POCT devices designed for non‐laboratory sites, e.g. pharmacies, should undertake training and annual competency assessment, perhaps using a web‐based system. A diagram to illustrate the stages for the implementation of a POCT service is illustrated.
Spatial Resolution Improvement of EEG Source Reconstruction Using swLORETA

Electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are noninvasive neuro-imaging modalities largely used in neurology explorations. MRI is considered as a static modality and could be so important for anatomy by its high spatial resolution. EEG, on the other hand, is an important tool permitting to image temporal dynamic activities of the human brain. Fusion of these two essential modalities would be hence a so emerging research domain targeting to explore brain activities with the MRI static modality. Our present research investigates a sophisticated approach for localization of the cerebral activity that could be involved by the dynamic EEG modality and carefully illustrated within MRI static modality. Such careful cerebral activity localization would be first based on an advanced methodology yielding therefore a singular value decomposition-based lead field weighting to sLORETA method formalism, for solving in fact the inverse problem in the EEG. The conceived method for source localization, carried out on different cases of simulated dipoles experiments, showed satisfactory results. Different cases of simulated dipoles experiments and metrics were used to confirm the reliability of the proposed method. The experimental results confirm that our method presents a flexible and robust tool for EEG source imaging.
Neo-Keynesian Disequilibrium Theory in a Monetary Economy

(1. 1) Presentation Most concepts of conventional (or neo-classical) economics hold rigorously only in general equilibrium, which precludes the study of Keynesian or Marxian Economics, or a satisfactory integration with macro-economic theory since all of these are essentially concerned with disequilibrium states, where transactions take place at non-Walrasian prices. It is our purpose in this paper to present concepts and tools permitting study of the functioning and properties of a decentralized monetary economy3 at disequilibrium prices, in line with the work of Clower [9] [10] and Leijonhufvud [30] [31]. 4 The usual concept of demand is no longer valid as soon as we do not assume instantaneous adjustment of prices to their equilibrium values; if economic agents behave rationally, it must be replaced by a new concept, that of effective demand, introduced by Clower [9] taking into account quantity constraints as well as prices (the prototype of which is the consumption function). Further, interaction between individuals on the different markets gives rise not only to price adjustments (as in the standard Walrasian model), but to quantity adjustments very similar to the traditional dynamic multiplier, as described by Leijonhufvud [30] (the " income constrained process "). A number of authors have successfully used this approach to describe macro-economic phenomena within the framework of simple equilibrium models (Barro-Grossman [2] [3], Glustoff [15], Grossman [21] [22], Solow-Stiglitz [36]). However, these simplified formulations can handle no more than one or two goods in disequilibrium, and we would like here to reformulate the above concepts in the usual framework of General Equilibrium analysis.5 So in what follows we shall study a general exchange economy " A la Debreu " with money in disequilibrium (production can be incorporated in the analysis without difficulty: Benassy [4] [7]). In this framework we shall formalize the effective demand concept, define Keynesian equilibria and prove their existence. We shall also prove an important result of Keynesian analysis: at non-Walrasian prices, multiplier effects associated with the monetary structure of exchange are responsible for the " inefficiency " of many Keynesian
Low external pH induces HOG1‐dependent changes in the organization of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell wall

Low environmental pH strongly affected the organization of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell wall, resulting in rapidly induced resistance to β1,3‐glucanase. At a molecular level, we found that a considerable amount of Cwp1p became anchored through a novel type of linkage for glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)‐dependent cell wall proteins, namely an alkali‐labile linkage to β1,3‐glucan. This novel type of modification for Cwp1p did not require the presence of a GPI‐derived structure connecting the protein with β1,6‐glucan. In addition, we found high levels of Cwp1p, which was double‐anchored through both the novel alkali‐sensitive bond to β1,3‐glucan and the alkali‐resistant GPI‐derived linkage to β1,6‐glucan. Further cell wall analyses demonstrated that Pir2p/Hsp150 and possibly other Pir cell wall proteins, which were already known to be linked to the β1,3‐glucan framework by an alkali‐sensitive linkage, were also more efficiently retained in the cell wall at pH 3.5 than at pH 5.5. Consequently, the alkali‐sensitive type of linkage of cell wall proteins to β1,3‐glucan was induced by low pH. The low pH‐induced alterations in yeast cell wall architecture were demonstrated to be dependent on a functional HOG1 gene, but not on the Slt2p‐mediated MAP kinase pathway. Consistent with this observation, DNA microarray studies revealed transcriptional induction of many known high‐osmolarity glycerol (HOG) pathway‐dependent genes, including four cell wall‐related genes, namely CWP1, HOR7, SPI1 and YGP1.
Economies of Scale and Barriers to Entry

Dixit has recently presented a model in which established firms select capacity to discourage entry but cannot employ threats they would not rationally execute after entry. Entry deterrence in a slight modification of this model involves the classical limit-price output. Under linear or concave demand, however, the capital cost of a firm of minimum efficient scale is an upper bound on the present value of the monopoly profit stream that can be shielded from entry. It is argued that this suggests the general unimportance of entry barriers erected by scale economies.
Acquisitions and Bidder Stock Valuations: Empirical Evidence from the French Market

This paper analyzes the influence of industry shocks, mispricing, and managerial overconfidence on merger and acquisition activities on the Euronext Paris stock market, between 1996 and 2010. Merger and acquisition waves are led by industry shocks, where the probability that the target’s shareholders will be paid with stock increases with overpricing of the bidding firm’s shares, and tends to decrease with overconfidence of its manager. It thus appears that behavioral predictions do not necessarily contradict the economic disturbance hypothesis. Quite to the contrary, the influence of managerial overconfidence on the method of payment seems to be sensitive to industry shocks.
Implementation of IFRS for SMEs in Emerging Economies: Stakeholder Perceptions in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Turkey

This research investigates the perceptions of stakeholders involved in financial reporting in four emerging economies (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey) regarding the possible implementation of IFRS for SMEs, in terms of costs, benefits, and strategy of adoption. In‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with representatives of main stakeholders (preparers, auditors, regulators, professional bodies, and users). We find more support for IFRS for SMEs implementation in these four countries than suggested by the results of the European Commission's consultation for the European Union. Interviews reveal differences between stakeholder groups and between countries regarding the preferred implementation approach (mandatory adoption, voluntary adoption or convergence of national regulations with IFRS for SMEs). Interviews indicate the most support for the convergence approach. However, users oppose convergence and prefer the adoption of IFRS for SMEs. The convergence approach moves regulators' attention from users' needs to preparers' preferences and preparedness. This finding is relevant in the decision‐making process of national regulators, who should balance the needs of various stakeholders, but also the country's political and economic objectives.
Sentiment and Price Formation: The Impact of Non-Linearity

In this paper, two non-linear hypotheses are tested on the controversial time-series relationship between investor sentiment and market returns: i) an interaction, subject to abrupt regime shifts, and ii) a gradual sentiment effect, which alters the influences of other factors, such as the volatility premium, as a sentiment threshold is exceeded. Both hypotheses are supported by the data (vs. the corresponding linear alternatives) for the SP500 index and institutional (but not individual) sentiment over the period 1965-2003, and after controlling for various risk factors. A mutual influence, significant both in statistical and economic terms, exists between monthly returns and institutional sentiment, during a dominant market regime with occurrence probability 80%. Instead, individual sentiment exerts no significant effect on SP500 returns, although it responds positively to them. Institutional and individual investors are influenced by each others' sentiment, but they interpret these as opposite signals, contrarian and momentum respectively. Similarly, they perceive past volatility as a source of optimism/pessimism. Interestingly, aggregate idiosyncratic volatility, a proxy for total arbitrage cost, exerts a positive impact on both subsequent returns and institutional sentiment, indicating that institutions correctly predict higher returns as this cost increases (e.g. due to an anticipated correction of a mispricing) or possibly, that they partially contribute to this pattern via their own trading. A smooth-transition regression specification reveals that, in a similar way that sentiment alters, at the individual stock level, the effects of firm characteristics on returns (Baker and Wurgler, 2006), institutional sentiment alters, at the market level, the sign and magnitude of the volatility effect. This indicates a compensation for sentiment risk, as implied by De Long et al. (1990). Accounting for regime shifts seems critical for return prediction over month-ahead horizons.