Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Globalisation and Inflation in the OECD Economies

Over the past 25 years inflation has moderated considerably in all OECD economies. At the same time, the production of many goods and services has become increasingly internationalised and the level of trade between the OECD and non-OECD economies has risen markedly. This paper investigates the extent to which the observed changes in the inflation process can be attributed to the increasing integration of non-OECD economies into the global economy. The results of the analysis show that i) import prices have become a more important driver of domestic consumer prices since the mid-1990s; ii) the sensitivity of inflation to domestic economic conditions has declined whereas the sensitivity to foreign economic conditions has risen, working through import prices; and iii) the strong GDP growth in the non-OECD economies over the past five years has contributed to the growth of real oil and metals prices. A scenario analysis shows that globalisation has put upward pressure on inflation via higher commodity prices and downward pressure via lower non-commodity import prices with the latter effect having dominated in most OECD economies. Mondialisation et inflation dans les economies de l'OCDE Au cours des 25 dernieres annees, l’inflation a considerablement diminue dans toutes les economies de l'OCDE. Pendant ce temps, la production de nombreux biens et services est devenue de plus en plus internationalisee et le niveau du commerce entre les pays de l'OCDE et les pays non membres a sensiblement augmente. Ce papier etudie dans quelle mesure les changements observes dans le mecanisme d'inflation peuvent etre attribues a l'integration croissante des pays non membres de l'OCDE dans l'economie mondiale. Les resultats de l'analyse montrent que i) les prix d'importation jouent un role plus important dans la determination des prix de consommation domestiques depuis le milieu des annees 1990 ; ii) la sensibilite de l'inflation aux conditions economiques domestiques a diminue alors que la sensibilite aux conditions economiques exterieures a augmente, en jouant a travers les prix d'importation ; et iii) la croissance forte du PIB dans les pays non membres au cours des cinq dernieres annees a contribue a l'augmentation des prix reels du petrole et des metaux. Les simulations montrent que la globalisation a entraine des pressions inflationnistes via des prix des matieres premieres plus eleves et des pressions desinflationnistes via des prix des importations des produits hors matieres premieres plus faibles. Le dernier effet semble avoir domine dans la plupart des pays de l'OCDE.
Serologic Evidence that Ascaris and Toxoplasma Infections Impact Inflammatory Responses to Helicobacter pylori in Colombians

Background: Helicobacter pylori‐infected children from coastal Tumaco, Colombia, have more parasitism, and adults have lower gastric cancer risk compared with high‐altitude Pasto/Tuquerres residents. Because helminth and Toxoplasma gondii infections alter helicobacter gastritis in rodent models, we determined whether seropositivity to Ascaris lumbricoides or T. gondii was associated with Th2‐IgG1 or Th1‐IgG2 responses to H. pylori.
Strategic Silence: Withholding Certification Status as a Hypocrisy Avoidance Tactic

We examine why organizations that obtain prominent certifications may at times elect not to publicize them. Drawing on the impression management literature, we argue and show that concerns about being perceived as hypocritical may cause organizations to strategically withhold their certification status. Using a longitudinal panel of corporations that were members of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, a prominent environmental certification, we show that in the face of reputational threats, organizations are less likely to publicize their certification status when the threat appears to directly contradict the claims implied by the certification. Our findings suggest that the threat of hypocrisy is amplified for firms with stronger reputations in the same domain as the certification and when audience members better understand and value the certification. Our findings delineate new boundary conditions under which firms will make prosocial claims and inspire reconsideration of long-held assumptions about the process of decoupling the implementation and communication of socially valued practices. This study also provides insights for scholars of nonmarket strategy on how corporations strategically communicate with external constituents about their sustainability initiatives.
Autonomic Conditions in Tinnitus and Implications for Korean Medicine

Tinnitus patients suffer from not only auditory sensations but also physical, mental, and social difficulties. Even though tinnitus is believed to be associated with the autonomic nervous system, changes in autonomic conditions in tinnitus patients are not receiving much research attention. The aims of this study were to investigate the autonomic condition of tinnitus patients and to consider Korean medicine in the treatment of tinnitus with an evidence-based approach. We performed a retrospective chart review and compared the heart rate variability (HRV) parameters of 40 tinnitus patients (19 acute and 21 chronic) and 40 healthy controls. In tinnitus patients, the power of the high frequency component and total power of the HRV significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and the low frequency to high frequency ratio significantly increased (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the acute and chronic patients. When comparing each group with the controls, there was a tendency that the longer the duration of tinnitus was, the larger the observed HRV change was. In conclusion, tinnitus patients have vagal withdrawal and sympathetic overactivity, and chronic tinnitus more strongly affects autonomic conditions than acute tinnitus. This study provides evidence for Korean medical treatments of tinnitus, such as acupuncture and Qi-training, that cause modulation of cardiac autonomic function.
Multi-level index for global and partial content-based image retrieval

This article presents a quadtree-based data structure for effective indexing of images. An image is represented by a multi-level feature vector, computed by a recursive decomposition of the image into four quadrants and stored as a full fixed-depth balanced quadtree. A node of the quadtree stores a feature vector of the corresponding image quadrant. A more general quadtree-based structure called QUIP-tree (QUadtree-based Index for image retrieval and Pattern search) is used to index the multi-level feature vectors of the images and their quadrants. A QUIP-tree node is an entry to a set of clusters that groups similar quadrants according to some pre-defined distances. The QUIP-tree allows a multi-level filtering in content-based image retrieval as well as partial queries on images.
Open Access Research

Research Transcriptional responses in the adaptation to ischaemia-reperfusion injury: a study of the effect of ischaemic preconditioning in total knee arthroplasty patients Abstract Background: Ischaemic preconditioning (IPC) has emerged as a method of reducing ischaemia-reperfusion injury. However, the complex mechanism through which IPC elicits this protection is not fully understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the genomic response induced by IPC in muscle biopsies taken from the operative leg of total knee arthroplasty patients in order to gain insight into the IPC mechanism. Methods: Twenty patients, undergoing primary total knee arthroplasty, were randomly assigned to IPC (n = 10) and control (n = 10) groups. Patients in the IPC group received ischaemic preconditioning immediately prior to surgery. IPC was induced by three five-minute cycles of tourniquet insufflation interrupted by five-minute cycles of reperfusion. A muscle biopsy was taken from the operative knee of control and IPC-treated patients at the onset of surgery and, again, at one hour into surgery. The gene expression profile of muscle biopsies was determined using the Affymetrix Human U113 2.0 microarray system and validated using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Measurements of C-reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation (ESR), white cell count (WCC), cytokines and haemoglobin were also made pre-and post-operatively. Results: Microarray analysis revealed a significant increase in the expression of important oxidative stress defence genes, immediate early response genes and mitochondrial genes. Upregulation of pro-survival genes was also observed and correlated with a downregulation of pro-apoptotic gene expression. CRP, ESR, WCC, cytokine and haemoglobin levels were not significantly different between control and IPC patients. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that IPC of the lower limb in total knee arthroplasty patients induces a protective genomic response, which results in increased expression of immediate early response genes, oxidative stress defence genes and pro-survival genes. These findings indicate that ischaemic preconditioning may be of potential benefit in knee arthroplasty and other musculoskeletal conditions. Background Ischaemic preconditioning has emerged as an extremely powerful method of protecting tissue against ischaemia-reperfusion injury [1]. It is an innate protective mechanism that increases a tissue's tolerance to prolonged
A Service-Learning Curriculum for Faculty

The development of service-learning courses is contingent upon faculty. Institutions of higher education which are interested in service-learning can engage in faculty development activities in order to (a) develop a common understanding on campus concerning the nature of service-learning, (b) establish and maintain the academic integrity of service-learning, (c) increase the confidence of faculty as they implement a new pedagogy, and (d) increase the likelihood that service-learning is institutionalized in higher education. This article describes a curriculum for a series of faculty workshops: Introduction to Service-Learning, Reflection, Building Community Partnerships, Student Supervision and Assessment, and Course Assessment and Research. Each module provides a synopsis of topics and suggested readings for participants. Institutions of higher education are exploring ways of incorporating service to extend their mission, enhance student achievement and per­ sistence, and engage students in their communi­ ties as part of their academic curriculum (e.g., Boyer, 1994; Ehrlich, 1995). As institutions search for ways in which to do this, they often recognize service- learning as an important strat­ egy. We consider service-learning to be a course­ based, credit-bearing educational experience in which students (a) participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and (b) reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic re­ sponsibility. This is in contrast to co- curricular and extracurricular service, from which learning may occur, but for which there is no formal evaluation and documentation of academic learn­ mg. Implementing service-learning in the academic curriculum of colleges and universities is strength­ ened by strategically planned change. Bringle and Hatcher (in press) have described a Compre­ hensive Action Plan for Service Learning (CAPSL) that identifies four important constitu­ encies that need to be considered for effective implementation of service-learning programs: institution, faculty, students, and community. For each of these constituencies, CAPSL identi­ fies the following sequence of activities to guide the implementation of service-learning: plan
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNING CAPABILITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: THE BANKING SECTOR IN GREECE

This study, examines the concept of the Learning Organizations in the Greek banking sector based on ‘learning capability’, organization factors (size and formalization) and performance measures. From the analysis of the results it is shown, that the five managerial practices, necessary for organizational learning, are used on the Greek banking sector at satisfactory levels. Concerning the relationship of the learning capability with performance, the results of this study show that ‘learning capability’ definitely affects positively the firm’s performance, especially the non-financial measure of job satisfaction but also ROA. As far as the two organizational factors are concerned, size and formalisation, both have a negative direct impact on learning capability and a negative indirect impact on the relationship between learning capability and firm’s performance. JEL Classification: L19.
Non-negative partial least squares for meta-analytic parcellation : A functional atlas for the human brain

Algorithms can automatically analyze human brain mapping studies represented in a neuroinformatics database. We describe one such metaanalytic method that relies on a combination of text mining, functional volumes modeling, partial least squares and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF): NMF decomposes the product between a bag-of-words matrix, constructed from abstract words, and a voxelization matrix constructed by kernel density modeling of the stereotaxic coordinates in the scientific papers contained in a database. The components found allows us to construct a functional atlas where voxels and words get loaded on components interpretable as brain functions. When applied on the Brede Database with 186 papers we find components such as memory, emotion, pain and audition. Furthermore, we present a cluster validation procedure based on permutation and cluster matching that quantifies the variability of the functional atlas.
"Follow the Sun" Workflow in Global Software Development

Follow the sun (FTS) has interesting appeal—hand off work at the end of every day from one site to the next, many time zones away, in order to speed up product development. Although the potential effect on "time to market" can be profound, at least conceptually, FTS has enjoyed few documented industry successes because it is acknowledged to be extremely difficult to implement. In order to address this "FTS challenge," we provide here a conceptual foundation and formal definition of FTS. We then analyze the conditions under which FTS can be successful in reducing duration in software development. We show that handoff efficiency is paramount to successful FTS practices and that duration can be reduced only when lower within-site coordination and improved personal productivity outweigh the corresponding increase in crosssite coordination. We also develop 12 research propositions based on fundamental issues surrounding FTS, such as calendar efficiency, development method, product architecture and handoff efficiency, within-site coordination, cross-site coordination, and personal productivity. We combine the conceptual analysis with a description of our FTS exploratory comparative field studies and draw out their key findings and learning. The main implication of this paper is that understanding calendar efficiency, handoff efficiency, within-site coordination, and cross-site coordination is necessary to evaluation—if FTS is to be successful in reducing software development duration.
A general solution to non-linear particle acceleration at non-relativistic shock waves

Diffusive acceleration at collisionless shock waves remains one of the most promising acceleration mechanisms for the description of the origin of cosmic rays at all energies. A crucial ingredient to be taken into account is the reaction of accelerated particles on the shock, which in turn determines the efficiency of the process. Here we propose a semi-analytical kinetic method that allows us to calculate the shock modification induced by accelerated particles together with the efficiency for particle acceleration and the spectra of accelerated particles. The shock modification is calculated for arbitrary environment parameters (Mach number, maximum momentum, density) and for arbitrary diffusion properties of the medium. Several dependences of the diffusion coefficient on particle momentum and location are considered to assess the accuracy of the method.
Designing an efficient persistent in-memory file system

As the emerging technologies of persistent memory, such as MRAM, PCM, etc., provide opportunities for connecting persistent memory to main memory bus directly, file system structure needs re-studying and re-designing. This paper presents a new design of persistent, in-memory file system for computers systems employing persistent memory. We introduce a novel design framework based on the concept that each file has its own “File Virtual Address Space”. Following this idea, address mapping of file data access can be efficiently handled by address translation hardware. The new design pushes the boundary of persistent, in-memory file system to such an extent that software layers in I/O stack are bypassed. File data can be read continuously without interrupt or traversing metadata structure. The proposed file system, called Sustainable In-Memory File System (SIMFS), is implemented in Linux. Extensive experiments have been conducted, showing that the throughput of SIMFS approaches the memory bus bandwidth in best cases. Comparing with other in-memory file systems, SIMFS reaches 50-80 times, 5 times, and 1.1-1.6 times faster than PRAMFS, EXT4 on Ramdisk, and PMFS, respectively. To the authors' knowledge, SIMFS gives the best known results in literature.
1 An Observational Test of the Critical Earthquake Concept

We test the concept that seismicity prior to a large earthquake can be understood in terms of the statistical physics of a critical phase transition. In this model, the cumulative seismic strain release increases as a power-law time-tofailure before the final event. Furthermore, the region of correlated seismicity predicted by this model is much greater than would be predicted from simple elasto-dynamic interactions. We present a systematic procedure to test for the accelerating seismicity predicted by the critical point model and to identify the region approaching criticality, based on a comparison between the observed cumulative energy (Benioff strain) release and the power-law behavior predicted by theory. This method is used to find the critical region before all earthquakes along the San Andreas system since 1950 with M ≥ 6.5. The statistical significance of our results is assessed by performing the same procedure on a large number of randomly generated synthetic catalogs. The null hypothesis, that the observed acceleration in all these earthquakes could result from spurious patterns generated by our procedure in purely random catalogs, is rejected with 99.5% confidence. An empirical relation between the logarithm of the critical region radius (R) and the magnitude of the final event (M) is found, such that log R ∝ 0.5 M, suggesting that the largest probable event in a given region scales with the size of the regional fault network.
Natural history and manifestations of the hypermobility type Ehlers–Danlos syndrome: A pilot study on 21 patients

Hypermobility type Ehlers–Danlos syndrome (HT‐EDS) is a relatively frequent, although commonly misdiagnosed variant of Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, mainly characterized by marked joint instability and mild cutaneous involvement. Chronic pain, asthenia, and gastrointestinal and pelvic dysfunction are characteristic additional manifestations. We report on 21 HT‐EDS patients selected from a group of 40 subjects with suspected mild hereditary connective tissue disorder. General, mucocutaneous, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, neurologic, gastrointestinal, urogynecological, and ear–nose–throat abnormalities are investigated systematically and tabulated. Six distinct clinical presentations of HT‐EDS are outlined, whose tabulation is a mnemonic for the practicing clinical geneticist in an attempt to diagnose this condition accurately. With detailed clinical records and phenotype comparison among patients of different ages, the natural history of the disorder is defined. Three phases (namely, hypermobility, pain, and stiffness) are delineated based on distinguishing manifestations. A constellation of additional, apparently uncommon abnormalities is also identified, including dolichocolon, dysphonia, and Arnold–Chiari type I malformation. Their further investigation may contribute to an understanding of the pathogenesis of the protean manifestations of HT‐EDS, and a more effective approach to the evaluation and management of affected individuals. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The impact of a learning organization on performance: Focusing on knowledge performance and financial performance

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among a learning organization, knowledge and financial performance using the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire and its abbreviated version. Design/methodology/approach This study used a secondary data set and performed second-order factor analysis and structural equation modeling for testing the proposed relationships. Findings The study found that a learning organization has a positive effect on knowledge performance; knowledge performance has a positive effect on financial performance; and knowledge performance fully mediates the relationship between a learning organization and financial performance. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to validating the current dimensionality of the theoretical framework of a learning organization proposed by Watkins and Marsick (1993, 1996) and offers a valid conceptual framework of the relationship among the learning culture and organizational performance dimensions. Practical implications This study re-stresses the significance of the learning and knowledge generated by the human resources of an organization and developed by human resource development practitioners. Originality/value This study is valuable to human resource development scholars and practitioners interested in improving and measuring organizational performance.
Change and status quo in decisions with defaults: The effect of incidental emotions depends on the type of default

Affective states can change how people react to measures aimed at influencing their decisions such as providing a default option. Previous research has shown that when defaults maintain the status quo positive mood increases reliance on the default and negative mood decreases it. Similarly, it has been demonstrated that positive mood enhances the preference for inaction. We extend this research by investigating how mood states influence reliance on the default if the default leads to a change, thus pitting preference for status quo against a preference for inaction. Specifically, we tested in an online study how happiness and sadness influenced reliance on two types of default (1) a default maintaining status quo and (2) a default inducing change. Our results suggest that the effect of emotions depends on the type of default: people in a happy mood were more likely than sad people to follow a default when it maintained status quo but less likely to follow a default when it introduced change. These results are in line with mood maintenance theory.