Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Governing at the frontier of the European commission: The case of seconded national officials

Studies of executive institutions have largely dealt separately with national and international executive institutions (IEIs). This study unpacks and repacks four conflicting decision-making dynamics that unfold at the frontier of IEIs – that is, at the institutional rim where national and international executive institutions meet, interact and collide. The empirical laboratory utilised is seconded national experts in the European Commission. The survey and interview data presented demonstrate that the decision-making behaviour of seconded national experts in the Commission includes a mix of departmental (portfolio), epistemic (expert) and supranational behaviour. The suspicion early voiced by Coombes (1970) that seconded national experts to the European Commission are highly conscious of their national background and that they represent domestic Trojan horses in the European Commission is thus challenged by this study. Arguably, the decision-making behaviour evoked by seconded national officials in the Commission is strongly affected by organisational characteristics of the Commission itself and less by the member-state administrations from which the secondees originate.
PRECAUTIONARY LEARNING AND INFLATIONARY BIASES

In a canonical monetary policy model in which the central bank learns about underlying fundamentals by estimating the parameters of a Phillips curve, we show that the bank’s loss function is asymmetric such that parameter overestimates may be more or less costly than underestimates, creating a precautionary motive in estimation. This motive suggests the use of a more efficient variance-adjusted least-squares estimator for learning about fundamentals. Informed by this “precautionary learning” the central bank sets low inflation targets, and the economy can settle near a Ramsey equilibrium.
The Inconsistency of Small-Firm and Value Stock Premiums

Value stocks exhibit returns that are higher than those for growth stocks during the 1963–95 period. The sign of the return premium is shown to be consistent across the decades, although its magnitude is much higher when U.S. Federal Reserve monetary policy is expansive than when it is restrictive. Similarly, the authors report that the small-firm premium is positive mainly during periods of expansive monetary policy.
Canonical TGF-β Signaling Pathway Represses Human NK Cell Metabolism

Cytokines stimulate rapid metabolic changes in human NK cells, including increases in both glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation pathways. However, how these are subsequently regulated is not known. In this study, we demonstrate that TGF-β can inhibit many of these metabolic changes, including oxidative phosphorylation, glycolytic capacity, and respiratory capacity. TGF-β also inhibited cytokine-induced expression of the transferrin nutrient receptor CD71. In contrast to a recent report on murine NK cells, TGF-β–mediated suppression of these metabolic responses did not involve the inhibition of the metabolic regulator mTORC1. Inhibition of the canonical TGF-β signaling pathway was able to restore almost all metabolic and functional responses that were inhibited by TGF-β. These data suggest that pharmacological inhibition of TGF-β could provide a metabolic advantage to NK cells that is likely to result in improved functional responses. This has important implications for NK cell–based cancer immunotherapies.
THE VALUE RELEVANCE OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND THEIR IMPACT ON STOCK PRICES: EVIDENCE FROM GREECE

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to examine the relevance of financial reporting. In order to achieve this, a model that includes specific ratios is developed, which have proved to be indicators of falsified financial statements in the Greek capital market, and by estimating accruals quality, measured both by discretionary and non-discretionary accruals. Design/methodology/approach - The data were collected from a sample of 101 non-financial firms listed at the Athens stock exchange. The time frame spans from 1995 to 2004 and the methodology used was OLS regression models. Findings - The results indicate that the ratios of working capital to total assets and net profit to sales have a negative impact on stock returns, while the ratios of net profit to total assets and sales to total assets affect returns positively. Additionally, both types of accruals have incremental importance – with the non-discretionary appearing to be more important compared to the discretionary one – in explaining stock return movements. Thus, it is concluded that the Greek stock market depicts prices accruals. Originality/value - The present study adds to the existing literature by examining the issue of financial reporting relevance within the context of an emerging capital market such as Greece. This is believed to be the first study which considers the aforementioned issues in the Greek accounting setting.
Book Reviews: American Politics

is not a hint of a research design that would seriously compare recent times with the past. We are not told what evidence would be needed for such an effort or how it should be used. Instead, the discussion centers on classes of events during the last two decades, asserts them to be exceptional, and gives only cursory attention to what came before. As a result, the null hypothesis—that is, no displacement effect—does not have a chance. My guess is that it would win if given a fair shot; but that has to remain an open question. Take away the title and chapter 1, which dwell on the displacement idea, and the book is a highly readable work that has its own kind of integrity. What it presents is a series of deftly told accounts of recent political developments. Chapter 2, for example, discusses changing Democratic and Republican electoral coalitions since the 1960s. Chapter 3 tells of increasing liberal Democratic entrenchment in Congress and the social welfare and regulatory bureaucracies; it is particularly good on the local constituency base for that entrenchment. Chapter 4 discusses the Reaganite offensive as a matter of institution building (and destroying), as well as policy and coalition. Chapter 5 has nice material on the Reaganite fiscal regime and national security apparatus, as well as the liberals' inventive resort to the courts. Chapter 6 introduces the pathologies of support shopping, burden shifting, and weapon forging and provides an interesting discussion of mobilizing, as opposed to demobilizing, solutions to government ineffectiveness. In short, there is a lot of good accessible material and intelligent discussion. Sometimes a certain political economy intrudes. Economic interests lurk. Defense policy boils down largely to who gets the contracts. Industrial policy can be seen as a "compact" between organized labor and "middle-class liberal activists (who would gain influence over the allocation of capital)" (pp. 57-58). But this is a minor feature. If severed from the displacement idea, several chapters of the work seem to me to be good bets for classroom use.
The profitability of banks in Japan

This article investigates the profitability of Japanese banks following the major financial crisis that affected the country's economy in the mid-1990s. Further, it examines the determinants of bank profitability for a sample of banks with different ownership structures (City, Trust, Regional, Second Association Regional, Shinkin and Other Credit Cooperatives). We find evidence that well capitalized, efficient banks, with lower credit risks tend to outperform less capitalized, less efficient counterparts with higher credit risks. Second Association Regional banks and Shinkin banks (but not other ownership types) appear to benefit from diversification advantages which feed through to profitability. Furthermore, we find that industry concentration, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and the extent of stock market development play an important role in determining the profitability of Japanese banks.
A Human DNA Methylation Site Predictor Based on SVM

During gene expression, transcription factors are unable to bind to a transcription binding site (TFBS) involved in regulation if DNA methylation has occurred at the TFBS. Methyl-CpG-binding proteins may also occupy the TFBS and prevent the functioning of a transcription factor. Thus, the methylation status of CpG sites is an important issue when trying to understand gene regulation and shows strong correlation with the TFBS involved. In addition, CpG islands would seem to undergo cell-specific and tissue-specific me-thylation. Such differential methylation is presented at numerous genetic loci that are essential for development. Current DNA methylation site prediction tools need to be improved so that they include TFBS features and have greater accuracy in terms of the DNA region that is involved in methylation. We developed models that compare the differences across these regions and tissues. The TFBSs, DNA properties and DNA distribution were used as features for this classification. From the results, we found some TFBSs that were able to discriminate whether a sequence was methylated or not. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy estimated using 10-fold cross validation were 90.8%, 80.54%, and 86.07%, respectively. Thus, for these four regions and twelve tissues, the performance levels (ACC) were all greater than 80%. We propose that the differential features or methylations vary between the different regions because the features common to each DNA region made up only 50% of the top 70 features. An online predictor based on EpiMeP is available at http://140.115. 51.41/EpiMeP/. Supplementary file is available at http://140.115. 51.41/EpiMeP/supplementary.doc.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, drug abuse and migraine: New findings from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R)

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been shown to be associated with migraine and drug abuse. Methods: This was an analysis of data from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) to evaluate the association of PTSD in those with episodic migraine (EM) and chronic daily headache (CDH). Results: Our sample consisted of 5,692 participants. Lifetime and 12-month prevalence rates of PTSD were increased in those with EM and CDH. After adjustments, the lifetime odds ratio (OR) of PTSD was greater in those with EM (OR 3.07 confidence interval [CI]: 2.12, 4.46) compared to those without headache; was greater in men than women with EM (men: OR 6.86; CI: 3.11, 15.11; women: OR 2.77; CI: 1.83, 4.21); and was comparable or greater than the association between migraine with depression or anxiety. The lifetime OR of PTSD was also increased in CDH sufferers. The OR of illicit drug abuse was not increased in those with EM or CDH unless co-occurring with PTSD or depression. Conclusion: The lifetime and 12-month OR of PTSD is increased in those with migraine or CDH, and is greater in men than women with migraine. The lifetime and 12-month OR of illicit drug abuse is not increased in those with migraine or CDH unless co-occurring with PTSD or depression.
End-to-End United Video Dehazing and Detection

The recent development of CNN-based image dehazing has revealed the effectiveness of end-to-end modeling. However, extending the idea to end-to-end video dehazing has not been explored yet. In this paper, we propose an End-to-End Video Dehazing Network (EVD-Net), to exploit the temporal consistency between consecutive video frames. A thorough study has been conducted over a number of structure options, to identify the best temporal fusion strategy. Furthermore, we build an End-to-End United Video Dehazing and Detection Network (EVDD-Net), which concatenates and jointly trains EVD-Net with a video object detection model. The resulting augmented end-to-end pipeline has demonstrated much more stable and accurate detection results in hazy video.
An Evaluation Of State Enterprise Zone Policies

Our analysis looks at the impact of state enterprise zones in six states (California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) on housing values, occupancy rates, and economic well-being of zone residents. Zones did not lead to increased housing prices or occupancy rates, nor did they positively impact income and employment. Copyright 2000 by The Policy Studies Organization.
Energy Price, Environmental Policy, and Technological Bias

This paper investigates input biasing characteristics of technology, environmental compliance, and changing energy prices. In particular we wish to investigate whether input biases of technology and environmental compliance are induced by changes in relative fuel prices, or whether there are price induced technology and environmental compliance biases. Using a two-stage optimization, we estimate a truncated third-order translog model by its associated (second order) cost share equations. The model uses two-digit SIC data panel for the period 1974 -1991. We find evidence of significant fuel-saving technological bias, while environmental compliance has been significantly fossilfuel using. The results indicate that technology and environmental compliance biases are, in part, induced by changes in relative fuel prices and such induced biases are mainly fuel saving. Finally, our demand elasticity estimates indicate that industrial demand for most fossil fuels and purchased electricity is significantly price inelastic. Policy implications of these results are also briefly discussed.
Regression Analysis in Accounting Disclosure Studies

A problem that sometimes occurs in undertaking empirical research in accounting and finance is that the theoretically correct form of the relation between the dependent and independent variables is not known, although often thought or assumed to be monotonic. In addition, transformations of disclosure measures and independent variables are proxies for underlying constructs and hence, while theory may specify a functional form for the underlying theoretical construct, it is unlikely to hold for empirical proxies. In order to cope with this problem a number of accounting disclosure studies have transformed variables so that the statistical analysis is more meaningful. One approach that has been advocated in such circumstances is to rank the data and then apply regression techniques, a method that has been used recently in a number of accounting disclosure studies. This paper reviews a number of transformations including the Rank Regression procedure. Because of the inherent properties of ranks and their use in regression analysis, an extension is proposed that provides an alternative mapping that replaces the data with their normal scores. The normal scores approach retains the advantages of using ranks but has other beneficial characteristics, particularly in hypothesis testing. Regressions based on untransformed data, on the log odds ratio of the dependent variable, on ranks and regression using normal scores, are applied to data on the disclosure of information in the annual reports of companies in Japan and Saudi Arabia. It is found that regression using normal scores has some advantages over ranks that, in part, depend on the structure of the data. However, the case studies demonstrate that no one procedure is best but that multiple approaches are helpful to ensure the results are robust across methods.
Incentive Compatibility in Signaling Games with a Continuum of Types

This paper provides two results that are useful in proving the exist ence of and characterizing separating equilibria in signaling games. A key element in the analysis of separating equilibria is the examina tion of the implied incentive compatibility constraints. It is shown that these constraints imply differentiability of strategies. In addi tion, a monotonicity condition (which is similar to the single crossi ng condition) is analyzed that is necessary and sufficient for there to be a strategy satisfying the incentive compatibility constraints. As a direct consequence of these two results, the analysis of Paul Milgrom and John Roberts (1982) is considerably strengthened. Copyright 1987 by The Econometric Society.
Thrombin induces apoptosis in human tumor cells

Thrombin is a serine protease that is produced during the coagulation process and plays an essential role for hemostasis, thrombosis and wound healing. It is a potent activator of platelets, induces proliferation of a wide variety of normal and malignant human cells, and enhances their invasiveness and metastatic potential. We studied the effect of thrombin on the proliferation of a wide variety of human tumor cells and report here that, at low concentrations, thrombin induces proliferation of these cells. However, at higher concentrations, thrombin inhibited their proliferation. We show that this inhibition of cell proliferation was due to apoptosis of the tumor cells. The thrombin‐mediated apoptosis was inhibited significantly by its specific inhibitor, hirudin. Furthermore, no consistent pattern of induction and/or modulation of p53, p21 and bcl‐2 was observed in the thrombin‐mediated apoptosis. To our knowledge, this is the first report to describe the pro‐apoptotic effects of thrombin on human tumor cells and may have implications for chemotherapy in cancer patients and for the pathogenesis of AIDS as well. Int. J. Cancer 87:707–715, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Recasting Intractable Policy Issues: The Wider Implications of The Netherlands Civil Aviation Controversy

The explosive growth of civil aviation is among the most difficult issues in transportation policy, and nowhere are the fundamental economic and environmental challenges it poses more apparent than in airport expansion. Conventional policy analyses have ineffectively handled these problems, characterized by uncertainty, complexity, and polarization. Increasingly, policy analysts and public managers depend on stakeholder involvement to recast intractable issues into a more tractable format. This article describes a method that supports this recasting process through analysis of stakeholders' policy arguments; and in so doing contributes to the increasing literature on recasting intractable policy issues and to the recent discussion of Q-methodology in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management . The method is applied in a policy analysis of the controversy over the expansion of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The analysis, which was under-taken on behalf of the Dutch government and which has wider implications, leads to a new agenda for transportation policy by uncovering and addressing a fuller range of alternatives that move beyond the current polarization and allow the problem to be redefined more tractably. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
A Study of the Demand for Housing by Low Versus High Income Households

”Poor people cause poor housing. ” This statement is the basis for one of the major policy proposals to eradicate poor housing and neighborhoods that plague some of our urban areas. If the motto is correct, then poor housing and poor neighborhoods can be eliminated by providing direct support for the demand for housing by low-income households. The role of government, under such a policy, is to funnel its resources to households in the form of demand subsidies. Examples of such demand-side programs are housing allowances and the Section 8 existing housing program.
Neighborhood Racial Characteristics, Credit History, and Bankcard Credit in Indian Country

We draw on a large-scale dataset of individual-level credit bureau records to study bankcard credit limits in Indian Country. Utilizing approaches that aim to isolate supply from demand considerations, we find that residing in a predominantly American Indian neighborhood is ceteris paribus associated with lower awarded bankcard credit limits than residing in a neighborhood where the share of American Indian residents is low. Consumer’s credit history is a robust and quantitatively more important predictor of awarded credit limits than racial composition of the consumer’s neighborhood. Bankcard credit limits do not depend on the consumer’s location vis-à-vis a reservation.
Immigrants’ social rights in comparative perspective: welfare regimes, forms in immigration and immigration policy regimes

In analysing the social rights of immigrants, this paper draws on insights from comparative welfare state research and international migration studies. On the premise that the type of welfare regime has an impact on immigrants’ social rights, it utilizes Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology as a point of departure. However, this typology must be complemented by two analytical constructs borrowed from the international migration literature: the immigration policy regime and entry categories associated with the form of immigration. The paper examines the social rights of immigrants in three countries generally regarded as exemplars of the welfare regime types: the United States, representing the liberal regime; germany, the conservative corporatist regime; and Sweden, the social democratic regime. It maps out immigrants’ formal incorporation into the welfare systems of the three countries and pays special attention to legislation from 1990 onwards in order to understand the interplay between welfare regimes, the forms of immigration, and the immigration policy regimes in shaping immigrants’ social rights.
Fast near-duplicate detection from image streams on online social media during disaster events

User-generated content on online social media (OSM) has several data mining applications, such as extracting useful information during disaster events. Since popular / important content is often re-posted by multiple people on OSM, identifying duplicate content is an important first step in many data mining applications. In this work, we develop a methodology to identify near-duplicate images posted on Twitter. The principal challenge in this task is to efficiently handle a continuous incoming stream of thousands of images, for which prior duplication detection methods are unsuitable. Experiments on real Twitter data collected during two recent disaster events demonstrate that the proposed methodology identifies duplicate images accurately as well as rapidly.
Does the Compact-City Paradigm Foster Sustainability? An Empirical Study in Taiwan

The compact-city paradigm has received increased attention worldwide for its ability to achieve sustainable development. However, the claim that the compact-city paradigm contributes to sustainability has not been sufficiently verified. In this study we evaluate how major concepts in the compact-city paradigm affect urban sustainability. Correspondingly, the complementary strategies for facilitating compact-city progress are recommended. Structural equation modeling was applied to ninety-two samples of medium-sized or small-sized cities in Taiwan. Latent variables and observed variables were analyzed in the model's structure. According to the results a high-density pattern and intensification negatively affect the environmental and social sustainability, but positively affect economic sustainability. Furthermore, mixture of land use is beneficial to economic sustainability, and does not significantly affect environmental or social sustainability. On the basis of the empirical results, strategies that guide the compact-city paradigm toward the goals of sustainability are also proposed.