Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Online self and peer assessment of team work in accounting education

Purpose - – The purpose of this study is to describe and evaluate the implementation of an online self and peer assessment model (SPARKPLUS) to assess team work skills of accounting students. Design/methodology/approach - – This study describes the background and implementation of SPARKPLUS and employs a survey questionnaire administered to students enrolled in an undergraduate company accounting subject before and after the implementation of the model. The survey results and selected qualitative data are used to evaluate students' attitudes to group work and the impact of SPARKPLUS. Findings - – The study suggests that students understand the benefits of group work activities in developing their technical knowledge in company accounting. However, students do not appreciate the value of group work activities in developing generic skills or how SPARKPLUS supports group work activities. Practical implications - – Professional and accreditation bodies require evidence of teaching and learning activities and assessment of team work skills during the students' undergraduate accounting degree. This study demonstrates that students require significant teaching and learning activities in relation to team work skills and the assessment model for successful implementation. Originality/value - – This study makes an original contribution to the accounting education literature pertaining to assessment of team work skills in two respects. First, the study outlines the design, implementation and preliminary evaluation of an online self and peer assessment model in an undergraduate company accounting course. Second, preliminary evidence concerning the impact of this model on group work activities and team work skills is provided.
On the Consequences of Sudden Stops

Our analysis shows a number of interesting empirical regularities. First, when we apply a simple definition of sudden stops, we find that they have been a fairly common occurrence at least since the late 1970s. Second, economic performance after a sudden stop can differ dramatically across countries, depending on certain country characteristics. We show that open economies and those that choose a floating exchange rate regime after a crisis recover fairly quickly from the output contraction that usually comes with the sudden stop, whereas countries with liability dollarization recover more slowly. These characteristics relate to how the economies adjust exports and imports during the aftermath of a sudden stop. Open economies that do not show much liability dollarization tend to show higher export growth and less import contraction than highly dollarized economies. The paper is organized as follows. The next section discusses our definition of sudden stops. We then examine the stylized facts associated with sudden stops, including their regional coverage and evolution over time. A subsequent section proceeds to identify the key factors that explain the nature of the aftermath of a sudden stop in capital flows. If sudden stops remain a recurrent feature of emerging market economies in years to come, the issue of how to ensure a quick return of growth in the aftermath of a crisis will require attention. Policy recommendations focused on improving such ex post performance should go hand in hand with traditional prevention measures designed to avoid the crises. We elaborate on these conclusions in the final section.
Producing a Modern Agricultural Frontier: Firms and Cooperatives in Eastern Mato Grosso, Brazil

Abstract In economic geography, explanations of emerging agricultural frontier regions are dominated by two theoretical perspectives: land-rent theory and political economy. This article advances current research by applying concepts from new institutional economics to reconcile these models. Drawing from a case of frontier expansion in eastern Mato Grosso state, I focus the debate on an institutional perspective. Two organizations, a colonization firm and an agricultural cooperative, are examined. The combined activities of cooperatives and firms reduced the overall costs of production in regions that are defined by high transactions costs (for example, land-tenure insecurity, poor links to the market, and imperfect information) and risk. Each organization linked individual farmers to necessary resources for commercial farming (for instance, land, capital, technology, and markets) and provided an organizational context for farmers to respond to land-tenure conflict and land degradation. The consequence was an increase in the marginal productivity of land, which translated into an expanded commercial agricultural frontier.
Properties of RNA Polymerase II Elongation Complexes Before and After the P-TEFb-mediated Transition into Productive Elongation*

The positive transcription elongation factor, P-TEFb, controls the fraction of initiated RNA polymerase II molecules that enter into the productive mode of elongation necessary to generate mRNAs. To better understand the mechanism of this transition into productive elongation we optimized a defined in vitro transcription system and compared results obtained with it to those obtained with a crude system. We found that controlling the function of TFIIF is a key aspect of RNA polymerase II elongation control. Before P-TEFb function, early elongation complexes under the control of negative factors are completely unresponsive to the robust elongation stimulatory activity of TFIIF. P-TEFb-mediated phosphorylation events, targeting the elongation complex containing DSIF and NELF, reverse the negative effect of DSIF and NELF and simultaneously facilitate the action of TFIIF. We also found that productive elongation complexes are completely resistant to negative elongation factors. Our data suggest that an additional factor(s) is involved in establishing the unique resistance activities of the elongation complexes before and after P-TEFb function. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the existence of another positive activity required for efficient function of P-TEFb. A model of the mechanism of P-TEFb-mediated elongation control is proposed in which P-TEFb induces the transition into productive elongation by changing the accessibility of elongation factors to elongation complexes. Our results have uncovered important properties of elongation complexes that allow a more complete understanding of how P-TEFb controls the elongation phases of transcription by RNA polymerase II.
When knowledge meets practice: learning communities and the EU’s common security and defence policy

This thesis explores the role of learning communities in the evolution of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). It engages the academic debate on institutional learning and the "practice turn" in IR to shed light on the factors leading the EU to learn by policy failure, as well as by ten years of practice in crisis management. Specifically, the work investigates the role of the knowledge and practice-based communities that shaped the consensus towards the comprehensive approach, with a strong emphasis on civilian means. Ideational factors, as opposed to material ones, are critical in understanding why the EU has developed a "soft" provider of security, in spite of the St Malo commitment to develop hard security capabilities. In the absence of a direct threat, EU member states’ preferences towards CSDP were driven by a set of new ideas, which in turn resulted from an emerging international agenda advocating the development of non-military crisis management approaches and tools. Through a critical appraisal of the "practice turn" and its application to the study of EU security and defence, the thesis sheds additional light on the overlap between knowledge and practice, which bears relevance for the research agenda on learning communities and norm diffusion. The empirical analysis makes an evidence-based reconstruction of the rise and evolution of civilian crisis management (CCM) and security sector reform (SSR). The comparison between the two case studies assesses the extent to which, at critical junctures, ideational factors influenced security policies. CCM and SSR, in fact, shared a similar learning process, yet the former had a much deeper impact on the shape and activities of the CSDP than the latter. To account for such variation in outcomes, it is argued that the emergence of "learning by doing" shaped CCM evolution. On the contrary, the introduction of SSR by knowledge-based communities failed to produce a common practice. Therefore, when policy innovation is supported by the re-elaboration of practices, the ideas diffused by learning communities are more persuasive and impactful on policy-making.
Are Extreme Returns Priced in the Stock Market? European Evidence

This paper revisits some recently found evidence in the literature on the cross-section of stock returns for a carefully constructed dataset of euro area stocks. First, we confirm recent results for US data and find evidence of a negative cross-sectional relation between extreme positive returns and average returns after controlling for characteristics such as momentum, book-to-market, size, liquidity and short term return reversal. We argue that this is the case because these stocks have lottery-like characteristics, which is attractive to certain investors. Also, these stocks tend to be very volatile so that arbitrageurs are discouraged from correcting potential mispricing. As a consequence, these stocks are often overpriced and hence face lower expected returns. Second, when we control for extreme returns, the recently found negative relationship between idiosyncratic risk and future returns is less robust. In our models, after adding maximum returns, the relationship is insignificant and sometimes even positive. We also find that idiosyncratic skewness and coskewness play an important role for asset pricing, as predicted by several theoretical models.
Growth, Human Development and Economic Policies in Japan: 1955-1993

The Japanese society is known around the world for accomplishing astounding economic growth in the post-war era and at the same time realizing a commendable degree of equality in the distribution of income. Sustaining low rates of unemployment in the presence of business cycles poses a real wonder for macroeconomists. Overall achievement in human development measures reported in the existing issues of the Human Development Report is also very high. Yet there seem to be many problems that remain to be resolved. Clearly there is a need for a well-balanced evaluation of the achievements of the four decades.
More Bad News for Smokers? The Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Wages

Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, the authors examine the effect of smoking on wages. Their analysis controls for differences in individual charaeteristics that may be correlated with both smoking and wages, including unobservable person-specific characteristics that are constant over time, and unobservable characteristics that are constant within a family. Estimates from alternative specifications indicate that smoking reduced wages by roughly 4–8%. Empirical tests of three potential explanations for this finding yield no conclusive results.
Distinguishing characteristics of degrees of success and failure in economic sanctions episodes

This paper uses 104 episodes from the Hufbauer et al. (1985, 1990) dataset to examine the correlates of classes of outcomes of economic sanctions. The parsimonious equations presented identify the characteristics of sanctions episodes conducive to success rather than marginal success, and the characteristics productive of failure rather than marginal failure. Failure is most likely if there is significant third party assistance to the target, and if the pre-existing trade linkage between sender and target is small. Success is most easily achieved when the objective is not classified as 'modest', and when pre-sanction relations between sender and target are cordial or neutral. The equations presented overcome data and methodological flaws of earlier studies, exhibit reasonable predictive accuracy, and satisfy a battery of tests of statistical significance, hypothesized coefficient sign, goodness of fit, high likelihood and informational efficiency.
Using Films in Teaching Intercultural Concepts: An Action Research Project at Two Universities in India and the United States

Films are used as a tool for teaching cross–cultural and intercultural concepts in higher education and in corporate settings. However, the processes and outcomes of using films in intercultural training and education have not been systematically researched. This paper discusses the results of a collaborative project involving faculty and students from two universities, a large public university in the Midwestern United States and a private university in India. The goal of this action research project was to further develop a methodological approach to using a feature film, Outsourced, in teaching cross–cultural concepts to graduate students, and to understand how different cultural contexts affect the effectiveness of the use of films. The project involved development and implementation of the new approach and research on the factors affecting the effectiveness of using films in cross–cultural training.
Fuzzy c-means technique with histogram based centroid initialization for brain tissue segmentation in MRI of head scans

Segmentation plays an important role in biomedical image processing. It is often the starting point for other processes like analysis, visualization and quantization. In brain diagnostic system, segmentation is essential to study many brain disorders. Several popular clustering techniques for segmentation are available. Fuzzy c-means (FCM) is one such soft segmentation technique applicable for MRI brain tissue segmentation. The performance of this method to obtain an optimal solution depends on the initial positions of the centroids of the clusters. In the existing FCM, the centroids are initialized randomly. This leads to increase in time to reach the optimal solution. In order to accelerate the segmentation process an application specific knowledge is used to initialize the centers of required clusters. To segment brain portion, we use the knowledge about the MRI intensity characteristics of brain regions to initialize the centroids. The performance of existing FCM and the proposed approach with centroid initialization is evaluated by applying the methods on several datasets. The comparison is done in terms of processing time and the values obtained as final centroids. The proposed approach produced the optimal results within 14–18 iterations in 2.5–11 sec/slices while the existing FCM took 3.5–15 sec/slice. The results indicate that the knowledge about the datasets to be clustered can be used effectively to initialize the centroids for FCM algorithm. The results reveal that the proposed method with 14 iterations is sufficient to segment the normal brain volumes.
Xanthomonas perforans Colonization Influences Salmonella enterica in the Tomato Phyllosphere

ABSTRACT Salmonella enterica rarely grows on healthy, undamaged plants, but its persistence is influenced by bacterial plant pathogens. The interactions between S. enterica, Xanthomonas perforans (a tomato bacterial spot pathogen), and tomato were characterized. We observed that virulent X. perforans, which establishes disease by suppressing pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-triggered immunity that leads to effector-triggered susceptibility, created a conducive environment for persistence of S. enterica in the tomato phyllosphere, while activation of effector-triggered immunity by avirulent X. perforans resulted in a dramatic reduction in S. enterica populations. S. enterica populations persisted at ∼10 times higher levels in leaves coinoculated with virulent X. perforans than in those where S. enterica was applied alone. In contrast, S. enterica populations were ∼5 times smaller in leaves coinoculated with avirulent X. perforans than in leaves inoculated with S. enterica alone. Coinoculation with virulent X. perforans increased S. enterica aggregate formation; however, S. enterica was not found in mixed aggregates with X. perforans. Increased aggregate formation by S. enterica may serve as the mechanism of persistence on leaves cocolonized by virulent X. perforans. S. enterica association with stomata was altered by X. perforans; however, it did not result in appreciable populations of S. enterica in the apoplast even in the presence of large virulent X. perforans populations. Gene-for-gene resistance against X. perforans successively restricted S. enterica populations. Given the effect of this interaction, breeding for disease-resistant cultivars may be an effective strategy to limit both plant disease and S. enterica populations and, consequently, human illness.
The association between the duration of postoperative acute kidney injury and in-hospital mortality in critically ill patients after non-cardiac surgery: an observational cohort study

Abstract Objectives: The severity of acute kidney injury (AKI) has been a well-known predictor for in-hospital mortality. Whether AKI duration could predict in-hospital mortality is not clear. This study determines the association between the in-hospital mortality and AKI duration in patients after non-cardiac surgery. Materials and methods: Surgical patients who were admitted to the ICU were enrolled. AKI cases were defined using KDIGO guidelines and categorized according to the tertiles of AKI duration (1st tertile: 2 days, 2nd tertile: 3–6 days and 3rd tertile: 7 days). The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for in-hospital mortality are compared to those without AKI. The predictability of mortality is accessed by calculating the area under the curve (AUC) for the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: From a total of 318 postoperative patients, 98 developed AKI (1st tertile: 34 cases, 2nd tertile: 30 cases and 3rd tertile: 34 cases) and 220 had no AKI. The in-hospital mortality rates are 6.8% (non-AKI), 50% (1st tertile), 46.7% (2nd tertile) and 47% (3rd tertile). The HR’s for in-hospital mortality are 7.92, 6.68 and 1.68, compared to the non-AKI group (p = 0.006, 0.021 and 0.476). Cumulative in-hospital survival rates are significantly different for the non-AKI group and the AKI groups (p < 0.001). The AUC for AKI duration and stage together (0.804) is higher than that for AKI stage and AKI duration alone (0.803 and 0.777) (both ps < 0.001). Conclusion: In addition to severity, the duration of AKI may be a predictor of in-hospital mortality in patients, after non-cardiac surgery.
Aripiprazole for the prevention of relapse in stabilized patients with chronic schizophrenia: a placebo-controlled 26-week study.

BACKGROUND Aripiprazole is a novel antipsychotic for the management of schizophrenia. This study investigated the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of aripiprazole in preventing relapse in adult chronic schizophrenia patients experiencing ongoing stable symptomatology. METHOD In this 26-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, multi-center study, 310 patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia (mean Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale [PANSS] total score = 82) were randomly assigned to receive a once-daily fixed dose of aripiprazole, 15 mg, or placebo. The primary outcome measure was time to relapse following randomization. Secondary objectives were to assess the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of aripiprazole, 15 mg, compared with placebo, in the study population. The study was conducted between Dec. 21, 2000, and Aug. 20, 2001. RESULTS The time to relapse following randomization was significantly (p < .001) longer for aripiprazole compared with placebo. More patients relapsed with placebo (N = 85; 57%) than aripiprazole (N = 50; 34%); the relative risk of relapse for the aripiprazole group was 0.59 (p < .001). Aripiprazole was significantly superior to placebo from baseline to endpoint in PANSS total, PANSS positive, PANSS-derived Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, and Clinical Global Impressions-Severity of Illness scale (CGI-S) scores and demonstrated significantly better mean Clinical Global Impressions-Global Improvement scale scores (p < or = .01 for all comparisons except CGI-S: .01 < p < or = .05). Aripiprazole was well tolerated, with no evidence of marked sedation and no evidence of hyperprolactinemia or prolonged heart rate-corrected QT interval (QTc). Extrapyramidal symptoms were comparable in the aripiprazole and placebo groups. Modest mean weight loss at endpoint was evident in both groups. CONCLUSION Aripiprazole, 15 mg once daily, is an effective, well-tolerated treatment for prevention of relapse in patients with chronic, stable schizophrenia.
The GABAergic network in the suprachiasmatic nucleus as a key regulator of the biological clock: does it change during senescence?

GABA is the main neurotransmitter of the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and plays a key role in the function of this master circadian pacemaker. Despite the evidence that disturbances of biological rhythms are common during aging, little is known about the GABAergic network in the SCN of the aging brain. We here provide a brief overview of the GABAergic structures and the role of GABA in the SCN. We also review some age‐related changes of the GABAergic system occurring in the brain outside the SCN. Finally, we present preliminary data on the GABAergic system within the SCN comparing young and aging mice. In particular, our study on age‐related changes in the SCN focused on the daily expression of the α3 subunit of the GABAA receptor and on the density of GABAergic axon terminals. Interestingly, our preliminary findings point to alterations of the GABAergic network in the biological clock during senescence.
Triptolide Suppresses Glomerular Mesangial Cell Proliferation in Diabetic Nephropathy Is Associated with Inhibition of PDK1/Akt/mTOR Pathway

Mesangial cell proliferation has been identified as a mainly contributing factor to glomerulosclerosis, which is typical of diabetic nephropathy. However, the specific mechanisms and therapies remain unclear. PDK1 is a critical regulator of cell proliferation, but the specific role of PDK1 in diabetic nephropathy has not been fully illuminated. In the current study, we demonstrated that triptolide (TP) ameliorated albuminuria in the high fat diet/STZ-induced diabetic rats. TP also suppressed the increased proliferating cell markers Ki-67 and PCNA in the kidney tissues. Our results of MTT and cell cycle analysis further confirmed that TP significantly inhibited mesangial cell proliferation, and the inhibition of PDK1/Akt/mTOR pathway might be the underlying mechanisms. In addition, we also found that the PDK1 activator (PS48) could reverse the cell proliferation inhibition role of TP. These data suggest that TP may be useful in prevention of diabetic glomerulosclerosis and that PDK1/Akt/mTOR pathway might be the underlying mechanism.
An Organizational Echelon Analysis of the Determinants of Red Tape in Public Organizations

This article adopts an organizational echelon approach to the study of red tape in public organizations and argues that the nature and extent of red tape will vary at different levels of the organizational hierarchy. These propositions are tested with a multiple-informant survey using a lagged model. The empirical results across the three organizational echelons sampled indicate modest variations in the levels of perceived red tape and major variations in its determinants. Results from the more senior managers uphold prior research findings and hypotheses on the determinants of red tape. This is not surprising because earlier studies typically sampled senior executives. Yet the lower down the organizational hierarchy one travels, the more red tape officials perceive and the more multifaceted the findings on determinants become. The authors conclude that prior empirical work is likely to have underestimated the extent of red tape in public organizations, and oversimplified its determinants. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.