Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhancing the Effectiveness of Active Labour Market Policies: Evidence from Programme Evaluations in OECD Countries

This publication reviews the recent evidence from programme evaluations on the effectiveness of active labour market policies (ALMPs) in helping unemployed individuals return to work. ALMPs differ widely in their objectives and their impacts, both across countries and within countries over time. Programme evaluations attempt to determine the impact of various ALMPs, both for the individual and on society at large. Individual impacts are usually measured in terms of post-programme earnings and/or employment performance. Societal impacts include an estimation of deadweight, displacement and substitution effects, along with some accounting for possible externalities. Recent evaluations suggest some ALMPs can help most groups of the unemployed. Many unemployed benefit from early intervention through the provision of counselling and job-search assistance. Others benefit through targeted employment subsidies, particularly in the private sector. The picture is more mixed with respect to . Cette publication passe en revue les resultats recents sur les evaluations de dispositifs du point de vue de l'efficacite des politiques actives du marche du travail (PAMT) pour aider les individus au chomage a retrouver du travail. Les PAMT sont largement differentes, dans leurs objectifs et dans leurs impacts, a la fois selon les pays et dans le temps a l'interieur de chaque pays. Les evaluations de programmes tentent de determiner l'effet de differentes PAMT, pour l'individu ainsi que pour la societe au sens large. Les impacts individuels sont habituellement mesures en termes de salaires et/ou de situation dans l'emploi apres avoir ete dans un dispositif. Les impacts pour la societe portent sur une estimation des effets d'aubaine, de deplacement et de substitution, ainsi que sur la prise en compte d'externalites possibles. Des evaluations recentes suggerent que certaines PAMT peuvent aider la plupart des groupes de chomeurs. Un grand nombre de chomeurs gagnent a beneficier d'une .
Localization of D-beta-aspartic acid-containing proteins in human eyes.

PURPOSE Biologically uncommon D-beta-aspartic acid (D-beta-Asp) has been detected in proteins from various human tissues in elderly donors. Previous studies have identified D-beta-Asp residues at four different specific sites in alpha-crystallin from aged human lenses and an increased amount of D-beta-Asp residues with age. D-beta-Asp is formed as a result of racemization and accumulates with age; therefore, it is thought to be a potential marker of aging. To reveal the role of the D-beta-Asp formation in the aging process of eyes, immunohistochemical localization of D-beta-Asp was investigated in ocular samples of various ages. METHODS Polyclonal antibody to the D-beta-Asp-containing peptide was prepared. To confirm the specificity of the antibody, SDS-PAGE and Western blotting analyses of lens were performed. To detect the locality of the D-beta-Asp-containing protein, immunohistochemical staining using the antibody was carried out in ocular samples obtained from nine donors 18 to 88 years of age and two fetuses. RESULTS The antibody to the D-beta-Asp-containing peptide reacted with the lens peptide of the aged donors around 20 kDa that was compatible with alpha-A crystallin. In addition, the binding of the antibody to the alpha-A crystallin was almost completely blocked with the addition of the excess D-beta-Asp-containing peptide. The antibody showed a negative reaction with any of the tissues in the eye of human fetuses and in donors younger than 18 years. In contrast, relatively strong immunoreactivity to the D-beta-Asp-containing peptides was seen in the nuclei of the lens, in nonpigmented ciliary epithelial cells, in drusen, and in the sclera of elderly donors. In addition, moderate to weak immunoreactivity was seen in the cortex of the lens, in the blood vessels of the retina, in the optic nerve head, and in the lamina cribrosa of elderly donors. Furthermore, the immunoreactions were almost completely blocked with the addition of the excess D-beta-Asp-containing peptide in the reaction mixture. CONCLUSIONS The D-beta-Asp-containing proteins appeared in various ocular tissues with age. This study clearly demonstrated that the D-beta-Asp-containing proteins are more widespread in aged tissues than previously thought. The formation of D-beta-Asp in protein can cause major changes in its structure because different side chain orientations can induce an abnormal peptide backbone, and the main chain of the peptide can then become elongated by the beta linkage. Therefore, this modification can be the result of the partial unfolding of protein, leading to various age-related ocular diseases. In particular, D-beta-Asp would provide a new aspect of the molecular mechanisms of age-related macular degeneration because drusen is positive for D-beta-Asp.
The financial performance of Saudi Arabian IPOs

Purpose - The main objective of this paper is to measure Saudi Arabian initial public offerings' (IPOs) financial performance before and after going public on the Saudi Stock Exchange Market. The paper also aims to explore factors associated with the financial performance variation between pre- and post-IPO. Design/methodology/approach - A sample of 16 Saudi IPOs is investigated. A matched pairs methodology is mainly used combined with regression analysis. Findings - Saudi IPOs exhibit a significant decline in the post-IPO performance compared to the pre-IPO level as measured by the return on assets and return on sales. It was also found that the performance deterioration is associated with the IPO event. Originality/value - The paper is the first assessment of IPOs clustering occurred in Saudi Arabia.
Randomized comparison of augmented and nonaugmented language interventions for toddlers with developmental delays and their parents.

PURPOSE This study compared the language performance of young children with developmental delays who were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 parent-coached language interventions. Differences in performance on augmented and spoken word size and use, vocabulary size, and communication interaction skills were examined. METHOD Sixty-eight toddlers with fewer than 10 spoken words were randomly assigned to augmented communication input (AC-I), augmented communication output (AC-O), or spoken communication (SC) interventions; 62 children completed the intervention. This trial assessed the children's symbolic language performance using communication measures from the language transcripts of the 18th and 24th intervention sessions and coding of target vocabulary use. RESULTS All children in the AC-O and AC-I intervention groups used augmented and spoken words for the target vocabulary items, whereas children in the SC intervention produced a very small number of spoken words. Vocabulary size was substantially larger for AC-O and AC-I than for SC groups. CONCLUSIONS This study found that augmented language interventions that include parent coaching have a positive communication effect on young children with developmental delays who begin with fewer than 10 spoken words. Clinical implications suggest that augmented communication does not hinder, and actually aids, speech production abilities in young children with developmental delays.
The Green Economy Mirage?

Taiwan is attempting to implement the concept of a green economy through a Low Carbon Growth Plan (LCGP). However, the existing decision support tools for this measure have three key limitations: ignorance regarding the open economy; a lack of life cycle thinking; and limited categories of environmental impact. This study integrates environmentally extended, multi‐region input‐output analysis and hybrid life cycle assessment to quantify the potential environmental impact of the industrial activities and energy structure in Taiwan in 2020. Two novel indicators, environmental debts and loans, are also applied to identify the geographical shifting effects and tie environmental responsibility to the discussion.
Airline Consolidation and Consumer Welfare

In our model of the deregulated airline industry, consumers care not only about price but also about service convenience, measured by system coverage and connection. We find that the service-enhancing effects of employing large-scale hub-and-spoke networks have outweighed the price-increasing effects of having a smaller number of competing national airlines. Thus, a welfare gain has accrued to consumers as a result of the more consolidated market structure. We conclude that public policymakers should exercise antitrust and bankruptcy authority in a manner which does not impede welfare-enhancing consolidations in the airline industry.
Rates and risk of arrhythmias in cancer survivors with chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy compared with patients with other cardiomyopathies

Objectives There is little information about arrhythmia burden in cancer survivors with chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy (CIC). We hypothesise that the rates and risk of arrhythmias will be similar in CIC when compared with other non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy (NICMO) aetiologies. Methods We retrospectively identified nine patients with CIC and an implantable defibrillator and 18 age and sex-matched control patients (nine patients with NICMO and nine patients with ischaemic cardiomyopathy (ICMO)). Rates and odds of arrhythmias were calculated by type of cardiomyopathy, adjusting for days since implantable cardioverter defibrillator implantation, history of atrial fibrillation and length of follow-up using logistic regression analysis. Results Compared with patients with NICMO, rates and adjusted odds were similar for patients with CIC for atrial arrhythmias (44.4% vs 33.3%; adjusted OR=1.89; 95% CI0.17 to 21.03; P=0.61), non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) (44.4% vs 33.3%; OR=2.10; 95% CI 0.21 to 20.56; P=0.53), and the combined outcome of NSVT, sustained ventricular tachycardia and/or ventricular fibrillation (44.4% vs 44.4%; OR=2.70; 95% CI 0.25 to 29.48; P=0.42). Conversely, compared with patients with NICMO, patients with ICMO demonstrated higher rates and adjusted odds of the combined outcome (88.9% vs 44.4%; OR=28.60; 95% CI 1.26 to 648.2; P=0.04) and NSVT (77.8% vs 33.3%; OR=8.95; 95% CI 0.90 to 88.94; P=0.06). Conclusions While tentative based on sample size, rates of arrhythmias in patients with CIC appear to be similar to those experienced by patients with other forms of NICMO.
Growing into and Out of Social Conflict

We present a model of growth and distributional conflict that implies a non-monotonic relationship between average wealth and the likelihood of radical redistribution; while the net benefits of redistribution for members of the poor class are small at low stages of development, a shift towards egalitarianism considerably improves agents' income prospects once an intermediate level of per-capita wealth is reached. As the economy grows further, the incentive to challange the existing social order decreases again and eventually vanishes. This nonmonotonicity captures the observation that historical shifts to radically redistributive policies frequently took place after extended periods of economic growth.
Inflation Risk Premia in the US and the Euro Area

We use a joint model of macroeconomic and term structure dynamics to estimate inflation risk premia in the United States and the euro area. To sharpen our estimation, we include in the information set macro data and survey data on inflation and interest rate expectations at various future horizons, as well as term structure data from both nominal and index-linked bonds. Our results show that, in both currency areas, inflation risk premia are relatively small, positive, and increasing in maturity. The cyclical dynamics of long-term inflation risk premia are mostly associated with changes in output gaps, while their high-frequency fluctuations seem to be aligned with variations in inflation. However, the cyclicality of inflation premia differs between the US and the euro area. Long term inflation premia are countercyclical in the euro area, while they are procyclical in the US.
Probiotics drive gut microbiome triggering emotional brain signatures

ABSTRACT Experimental manipulation of the gut microbiome was found to modify emotional and cognitive behavior, neurotransmitter expression and brain function in rodents, but corresponding human data remain scarce. The present double-blind, placebo-controlled randomised study aimed at investigating the effects of 4 weeks’ probiotic administration on behavior, brain function and gut microbial composition in healthy volunteers. Forty-five healthy participants divided equally into three groups (probiotic, placebo and no intervention) underwent functional MRI (emotional decision-making and emotional recognition memory tasks). In addition, stool samples were collected to investigate the gut microbial composition. Probiotic administration for 4 weeks was associated with changes in brain activation patterns in response to emotional memory and emotional decision-making tasks, which were also accompanied by subtle shifts in gut microbiome profile. Microbiome composition mirrored self-reported behavioral measures and memory performance. This is the first study reporting a distinct influence of probiotic administration at behavioral, neural, and microbiome levels at the same time in healthy volunteers. The findings provide a basis for future investigations into the role of the gut microbiota and potential therapeutic application of probiotics.
Discount Rates for Time versus Dates: The Sensitivity of Discounting to Time-Interval Description

Six experiments examine the impact of time-interval descriptions on consumers' discount rates. Consumers exhibit more discounting (e.g., they demand more money to delay income) when delay intervals are described by extents of time than when delay intervals are described by dates. This pattern holds in various contexts, including gains and losses, and is robust to response-mode changes. Findings further indicate that this effect may arise because, compared with date descriptions, extent descriptions enhance perceptions of interval length. The author discusses other potential mechanisms and implications.
The CAP reform between targeting and equity: a structural policy analysis for Italy

A model grounded on a social accounting matrix for Italy, adapted for an analysis of agriculture, is used to assess the distributive impacts of changes to the single payment scheme after the Common Agricultural Policy Health Check. The main goal of the analysis is to bring out how and to what extent the distributive outcomes of support are affected by the structural relations existing among production activity, factor ownership and the distribution of income from farming among households. A particular manipulation, the singular value decomposition, of the matrix of income multipliers is used to highlight the major trade-offs, implicit in the structure of the economy, between the support to different farm types and the impact on incomes of different households groups. The results outline the existence of a structural trade-off between targeting and equity in supporting Italian agriculture through payments to farms and suggest flexibility in the application of reformed payments according to different distributive features of agriculture in member countries.
A Multimediation Model of Learning by Exporting: Analysis of Export-Induced Productivity Gains

This paper “opens a black box” in examining how and under what conditions do firms achieve productivity gains by exporting, conventionally known as the learning-by-exporting (LBE) effect. We extend the current theoretical paradigm by proposing that exporters utilize strategic decisions pertinent to innovativeness, production capability, and human capital so as to leverage knowledge and resources obtained from exporting in order to achieve productivity gains. We test and validate our hypotheses with panelized data of roughly 250,000 Chinese firms over a 7-year period (2001-2007). We also show that the salience of these mediation mechanisms is contingent upon ownership structure and industry characteristics: Non-state-owned enterprises and firms in industries with medium export intensity or medium and high new product development intensity effectuate more learning through these conduits than their counterparts. The multimediation mechanism LBE model offers useful implications for academia, practitioners, and policy makers.
Food Processing: An Industrial Powerhouse in Transition

Brief History of the Industries. Processing in the U.S. Food System. Industrial Structure and Business Organization. Industry Growth. Geographic Location. Input Utilization. Input Procurement Strategies. Household Demand for Food. Distribution Channels for Food. Product and Promotion Strategies. Technological Change. The Globalization of Food Processing. The Futures of Food Processing. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.
Reversible Architectures for Arbitrarily Deep Residual Neural Networks

Recently, deep residual networks have been successfully applied in many computer vision and natural language processing tasks, pushing the state-of-the-art performance with deeper and wider architectures. In this work, we interpret deep residual networks as ordinary differential equations (ODEs), which have long been studied in mathematics and physics with rich theoretical and empirical success. From this interpretation, we develop a theoretical framework on stability and reversibility of deep neural networks, and derive three reversible neural network architectures that can go arbitrarily deep in theory. The reversibility property allows a memory-efficient implementation, which does not need to store the activations for most hidden layers. Together with the stability of our architectures, this enables training deeper networks using only modest computational resources. We provide both theoretical analyses and empirical results. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of our architectures against several strong baselines on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and STL-10 with superior or on-par state-of-the-art performance. Furthermore, we show our architectures yield superior results when trained using fewer training data.
Flow cytometric visualisation of cytokine production by CD3-CD56+ NK cells and CD3+CD56+ NK-T cells in whole blood.

BACKGROUND Natural killer (NK) cells produce multiple cytokines with potential immune regulatory roles. We standardised a whole-blood flow cytometry method to visualise intracellular cytokine production by NK cells for the study of NK cell biology and for clinical monitoring. METHODS With a three-colour fluorescent labelling technique, specific cytokine production by NK or T cells was visualised directly in whole blood in the same sample after stimulation by phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and ionomycin and by electronically gating on the CD3-ve/CD56+ve NK population or on the CD3+/CD56+ NK-T-cell population. RESULTS Detectable levels of tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) but not of interleukin-2 (IL-2) or IL-4 were easily observed in NK cells. The visualisation of the cytokine production by NK cells was dependent on the addition of a Golgi transport inhibitor, Brefeldin A. Other known stimuli for NK cells (IL-2 and CD16 monoclonal antibody and incubation with K562, the NK-sensitive cell line) promoted IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha production in NK cells to a lesser extent than did PMA and ionomycin stimulation. CONCLUSIONS This whole-blood flow cytometric assay appears to be an useful and easy method to examine cytokine production by NK cells and/or by CD3+CD56+ NK-T lymphocytes in patients with relevant diseases.
Corporate Governance in China: A Step Forward

Recently, the presumed benefits of corporate governance have become one of the most contentious issues especially for emerging markets in Asia where institutional settings are quite different from other parts of the world. Using an internationally accepted benchmark (OECD's Principles of Corporate Governance, OECD, 2004), this study evaluates the progress of corporate governance practice of Chinese listed companies. A corporate governance index (CGI) is constructed to measure the quality of corporate governance practices of the 100 largest listed firms in China during 2004-2006. The results show that Chinese companies have been making progress in the corporate governance reform. The findings also show a positive relation between market valuation and overall corporate governance practices, as measured by the CGI, among these Chinese listed companies. Additional investigation reveals that the rights of shareholders are the main driver in the relationship.
Individuals' Unemployment Experiences: Heterogeneity and Business Cycle Effects

This study examines individuals’ unemployment experiences from the age of 18 up to the age of 35 using a large panel of administrative records on unemployment related benefit claims of men in the United Kingdom over the past two decades. The main focus is on the extent to which individuals’ unemployment experiences are affected by regional and skill differences, i.e. individual heterogeneity, and the business cycle. In particular this study analyses the extent to which repeated unemployment is experienced by individuals who are not able to get stable employment and individuals who hold several jobs interrupted with spells of unemployment before obtaining stable employment. The results provide new insights into the long-term benefits of a labour market program aimed at increasing the employability of the unemployed and getting them into work, such as the New Deal in the UK.
Transcription factors for sugar-inducible genes

Expression of a variety of sink-related genes for the synthesis of storage compounds are up-regulated in response to increased levels of sugars, while expression of many genes involved in photosynthesis and the breakdown of storage compounds is repressed by sugars. Despite of extensive studies on sugar signaling in plants, only few transcription factors involved in the expression of sugar-inducible genes have been identified so far. A transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana line carrying luciferase gene under the control of a short sugar-inducible promoter derived from a sweet potato sporamin gene was used to screen for loss-of-function type as well as gain-of-function type mutants. These genetic screens resulted in the identification of novel transcription factors that are involved in the expression of at least a subset of sugar-inducible genes in Arabidopsis.
Rationality and the Nature of the Market

We investigate the distribution of risk preferences and the frequency of expected utility violations along the gradient of market development. To do this, we collect experimental and survey data from a random sample of the population at four sites in Peru that differ in their level of competition and development. Similar to previous studies, we find that violations of expected utility theory are frequent. More importantly, however, violations are far less frequent the more competitive the market is. Also, our study suggests that experience in trade is not always associated with fewer behavioral anomalies. For instance, wholesale traders in an oligopolistic market with many years of experience are more likely to violate expected utility theory than entrepreneurs in an adjacent market with less experience. As hypothesized by Alchian (1950), it is in highly competitive markets where the evidence of rational behavior is found.