Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of remittances and equivalence scales on poverty in Tajikistan

The aim of this paper is to study the impact of remittances from labour migrants on welfare, as well as the impact of the use of equivalence scales on poverty, in Tajikistan. The magnitude of remittances sent back is fairly well known from official statistics (e.g. the amount of remittances is regularly monitored by the balance of payment at the Central Bank). In 2009 a change in the flow of money from abroad occurred, and volumes dropped, but it was unknown to what extent; its impact on poverty is still officially unknown. This paper describes a project aimed at conducting a survey to investigate this impact. It would not be possible to do this kind of analysis with a traditional sample survey, since it would generate only a small selection of migrant households. Instead, the new Migration, Remittances and Poverty Survey was used, which was conducted by the Tajik State Statistical Office in August 2010 using an adaptive sampling design from a set of enumeration areas selected mainly from the 2009 Integrated Household Budget Survey (IHBS) and showing households with remittances. To evaluate the impact of equivalence scales on poverty measures, new scales have been estimated on the basis of consumption expenditure from the 2009 IHBS.
Novel mutations and defective protein kinase C activation of T‐lymphocytes in ataxia telangiectasia

Three ataxia telangiectasia (AT) patients have been characterized immunologically and molecularly. Patient 1 presents two nondescribed splicing mutations which affect exons 15 and 21 of the ATM gene. The maternal defect consists of a G > A transition in the first nucleotide of the intron 21 donor splicing site which results in a complete deletion of exon 21. The paternal mutation consists of an A > C transversion in the intron 14 acceptor splicing site which produces a partial skipping of exon 15. Two abnormal alternative transcripts were found, respectively, 17 and 41 nucleotides shorter. Patient 2 presents a homozygous genomic deletion of 28 nucleotides in the last exon of the gene. This deletion changes the normal reading frame after residue 3003 of the protein and introduces a premature stop codon at residue 3008 that could originate a truncated ATM protein. Patient 3, a compound heterozygote, presents a defect which consists of a G > A transition in the first nucleotide of intron 62 donor splicing site which results in a complete deletion of exon 62. The results obtained during a three year period in the proliferation assays show an impaired PMA (phorbol myristate acetate) activation in specific T lymphocyte activation pathways (CD69, CD26, CD28, CD3, PHA, PWM and Con A mediated) but not in others (CD2, ionomycin, and Ig surface receptor). The possible link among specific ATM mutations and abnormal immune responses is unknown.
Do interpersonal relationships still matter for turnover intention? A comparison of South Korea and China

This study investigated the effects of supervisor and co-worker relationships on the turnover intentions of workers in Korea and China. A U-shaped relationship between supervisor relationships (i.e. leader–member exchange) and turnover intention reported in the studies using western samples has not been replicated in the Asian samples of this study. Instead, each of supervisor and co-worker relationship had a negative and linear association with turnover intentions in China. On the other hand, co-worker relationships had a negative linear relationship with turnover intentions while supervisor relationship did not relate to worker's turnover intention in Korea. The comparison between Korea and China showed that the supervisor and co-worker relationships had stronger influence on turnover intentions in China than in Korea. Discussions and implications concerning the Korean HRM in the global context are offered.
Chronic Kidney Disease and Diabetes Mellitus Predict Resistance to Vitamin D Replacement Therapy

Background:25-Hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] is a marker of nutritional status; however, chronic kidney disease (CKD) results in alterations in vitamin D metabolism, including the loss of vitamin D-binding proteins and alterations in CYP27B1 and CYP24 enzymes that metabolize 25(OH)D. This study was designed to determine the predictors of responsiveness to correction of vitamin D deficiency with oral vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) in adults. Methods:A retrospective study of 183 veterans with 25(OH)D level <30 ng/mL, who were treated with 50,000 IU per week of vitamin D2, was performed. Logistic regression models were developed to determine the factors predicting the response to treatment, defined as either the change in serum 25(OH)D level/1000 IU of vitamin D2 or the number of vitamin D2 doses (50,000 IU per dose) administered. Results:The mean age of the patients was 63 ± 12 years. About 87% were men and 51% diabetic, and 29% had an estimated glomerular filtration rate of <60 mL/min/1.73 m2. The average number of vitamin D2 doses was 10.91 ± 5.95; the average increase in 25(OH)D level was 18 ± 10.80 ng/mL. 25(OH)D levels remained <30 ng/mL in 61 patients after treatment. A low estimated glomerular filtration rate and the presence of diabetes mellitus were significant independent predictors for inadequate response to vitamin D2 treatment in logistic regression models. Patients with CKD required greater amounts of vitamin D2 to achieve similar increases in 25(OH)D levels, versus non-CKD patients. Conclusions:The presence of CKD and diabetes mellitus is associated with resistance to correction of 25(OH)D deficiency with vitamin D2 therapy. The underlying mechanism needs to be evaluated in prospective studies.
Learning Graph-Structured Sum-Product Networks for Probabilistic Semantic Maps

We introduce Graph-Structured Sum-Product Networks (GraphSPNs), a probabilistic approach to structured prediction for problems where dependencies between latent variables are expressed in terms of arbitrary, dynamic graphs. While many approaches to structured prediction place strict constraints on the interactions between inferred variables, many real-world problems can be only characterized using complex graph structures of varying size, often contaminated with noise when obtained from real data. Here, we focus on one such problem in the domain of robotics. We demonstrate how GraphSPNs can be used to bolster inference about semantic, conceptual place descriptions using noisy topological relations discovered by a robot exploring large-scale office spaces. Through experiments, we show that GraphSPNs consistently outperform the traditional approach based on undirected graphical models, successfully disambiguating information in global semantic maps built from uncertain, noisy local evidence. We further exploit the probabilistic nature of the model to infer marginal distributions over semantic descriptions of as yet unexplored places and detect spatial environment configurations that are novel and incongruent with the known evidence.
Counting The Poor in Indonesia

A confusing aspect of the now rather large literature on trends in poverty in Indonesia in the New Order period is that virtually every study has used a different poverty line concept; indeed, even the World Bank appears to have used different poverty lines in different published studies and unpublished reports Unlike the government of Malaysia, for example, the Indonesian government has not chosen to promulgate a poverty line in its official planning documents, and successive Five Year Development Plans have had very little to say about poverty trends. However, the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) has in recent years put forward its own poverty line concept which has been used to estimate numbers in poverty in urban and rural areas, and these estimates have been published for some years in the annual Indikator Kesejahteraan Rakyat [Welfare Indicators]. Although the BPS estimates are now widely quoted in Indonesia, they have not won universal acceptance, and other authors continue to use other poverty l.
“Human Survival at Older Ages and the Implications for Longevity Bond Pricing,” Leslie Mayhew and David Smith, June, 2011

MICHAEL J. COWELL The authors present an informative introduction to longevity bond pricing for readers unfamiliar with the subject. For those who have spent most of a working lifetime analyzing mortality trends, their paper offers new insights and raises not a few questions. This discussion addresses their findings on longevity at older ages, specifically trends in survival beyond age 65. It examines the authors’ observations on longevity drift, biological limits to the length of human life, and variability of life expectancy within developed countries. It concludes with implications for the authors’ challenge if longevity turns out more favorably than projected or less so. This discussion employs the terms life span to refer to an upper limiting age to human life and life expectancy as the standard actuarial convention for complete expectation of life at age x, ex tpx dt. It also refers to U.S. population o mortality, the U.S. Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Period Life Tables published in 10year increments from 1900 through 2100 (U.S. SSA 2005). The discussant acknowledges variations in population mortality between the United Kingdom and the United States, but suggests that for purposes of this analysis general trends across most of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have been sufficiently similar.
From a Theory to a Paradigm: Examining the Eclectic Paradigm as a Framework in International Economics

Over the course of a quarter of a century, the eclectic paradigm has derived its strength from being a general framework of analysis that explains the level and pattern of foreign value-added activities of firms, and/or of countries, and allows for the co-existence of complementary and alternative theories in the discipline of international economics in a logically consistent manner without being inextricably wedded to any one particular approach. The current study aims to support such broad theoretical appeal of the paradigm by refining its theoretical interpretations of the concepts of ownership advantages and internalisation. To support its view that asset ownership advantages are both competitive advantages and monopolistic advantages, the theoretical interpretation of asset ownership advantages in the paradigm needs to be broadened from a narrow emphasis on Bain-type monopolistic advantages which enable firms to erect barriers to entry to new competition and exercise monopoly power in final product markets. It must also accommodate the theoretical perception of asset ownership advantages as part of the rivalrous behaviour or competitive process between firms consistent with the approach of Cantillon and the classical economists starting with Adam Smith, the Austrian economists such as Schumpeter and Hayek, as well as Penrose. The eclectic paradigm must also effectively address the important distinction between 'internalisation of ownership advantages or intermediate products' and the 'internalisation of the markets for ownership advantages or intermediate products' within the context of endogenous structural market imperfections in final products and exogenous transactional market imperfections in intermediate products. In clearly distinguishing between the alternative interpretations of the concepts of ownership advantages and internalisation, the paradigm could more effectively synthesise alternative theories of the firm and the multinational corporation in one cogent framework of economic analysis.
Wickerhamomyces sylviae f.a., sp. nov., an ascomycetous yeast species isolated from migratory birds.

In the present work, we investigated the phylogenetic position and phenotypic characteristics of eight yeast isolates collected from migratory birds on the island of Ustica, Italy. A phylogenetic analysis based on the D1/D2 region of the large-subunit rRNA gene showed that all isolates clustered as a single separate lineage within the Wickerhamomyces clade. They exhibited distinct morphological and physiological characteristics and were clearly separated from their closest relatives, Wickerhamomyces lynferdii, Wickerhamomyces anomalus and Wickerhamomyces subpelliculosus, in blastn searches. On the basis of the isolation source, physiological features and molecular strain typing carried out with randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR and minisatellite-primed (MSP)-PCR analysis, the isolates were identified as strains of the same species. The name Wickerhamomyces sylviae f.a. , sp. nov. is proposed to accommodate these novel strains; the type strain is U88A2(T) ( = PYCC 6345(T) = CBS 12888(T)). The MycoBank number is MB 804762.
Pareto Efficient Tax Structures

Most analyses of optimal income taxation make restrictive technical assumptions on preferences (such as single-crossing) and only derive properties of welfare-maximizing tax schedules. Here, for an economy with any finite numbers of groups and commodities, Pareto efficient tax structures are described assuming only continuity and monotonicity of preferences. Most results follow directly from a property of self-selection: at an optimum, one group will never envy the bundle of another group which pays a larger total tax. The bundle of a group paying the largest total tax is undistorted. Assuming normality, undistorted outcomes for a group form a connected segment on the constrained utility possibility frontier. The tax structure at distorted outcomes is also described.
Tax Morale in Transition Countries

This article tries to reduce the lack of tax compliance research analysing tax morale in transition countries. The empirical analysis using tax morale as a dependent variable working with World Values Survey data indicates that there is a significantly higher tax morale in Central and Eastern European than in former Soviet Union countries. This difference has increased during the transition process. Furthermore, the article shows that factors such as trust in the legal system and the government have a significant positive effect on tax morale in transition economies.
Valuing Real Capital Investments Using The Least-Squares Monte Carlo Method

The recently developed least-squares Monte Carlo (LSM) method provides a simple and efficient technique for valuing American-type options. The proposed method is applicable to the cases of compound real options, like the other numerical techniques such as finite difference and lattice methods, with the additional advantage to handle easily the cases of multiple uncertain state variables with different and complex stochastic processes. With this advantage, the LSM method is not only efficient for valuing multi-factor American options, but it can also be extended for valuing complex real investments having many embedded real options and involving multiple uncertain state variables. This article examines the applicability of the LSM method in valuing real capital investments. Two valuation examples have been provided to test the efficiency of the proposed method in both the valuation and the decision-making processes.
Avoidance, screening and optimum enforcement

I examine a model of optimum enforcement in which offenders can engage in activities that reduce the probability of being caught and fined. The costs associated with these avoidance activities imply that it is not necessarily optimal to set fines for offenses as high as possible. These avoidance costs also provide an incentive to screen individuals in settings where it is not optimal to deter all offenses.
Compliance with IMF Program Indicators and Growth in Transition Economies

This paper makes use of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Database for Monitoring Fund Arrangements (MONA) to investigate whether transition countries that more successfully implement the conditionality of IMF programs in the early transition years show a better performance in recovery and growth. The results indicate that the level of compliance with structural benchmarks in IMF programs does not explain growth in program countries. However, the paper finds a definite, positive relationship between the index of compliance with quantitative performance criteria and growth, even after controlling for the extent of initial stabilization in transition countries.
Market and Institutional Determinants of Wage Differentiation in Russia

Using a range of official and survey data, the author evaluates the relative success of two approaches—competitive labor market theory and industrial relations theory/institutional economics—in explaining wage determination in Russia. Following a review of the analysis of wage determination by an influential team of World Bank economists, the author shows that increased wage inequality in Russia is dominated by inequality within occupational categories within local labor markets. Such inequality, he suggests, is primarily associated with inter-firm differences in wage levels, rather than barriers to labor mobility or differences in “human capital. ” Such a pattern of differentiation entirely accords with the analyses of those institutional economists and industrial relations theorists who stress the role of the wage in regulating and motivating the labor force above its role in securing labor market equilibrium. The paper concludes by outlining the institutional framework of wage determination that underlies the observed results.
Experimental characterisation of the thermal lesion induced by microwave ablation

Abstract Purpose: This work focuses on the characterisation of the ablated area induced by a microwave thermal ablation (MTA) procedure. An experimental methodology for establishing a straightforward correlation between the temperature gradient and the changes in the dielectric properties of the tissue is presented and discussed. Materials and methods: Temperature measurements were performed during an ablation procedure in ex vivo bovine liver, at different distances from the antenna, whereas measurements of complex permittivity were conducted in sagittal sections of the ablated samples. The measured temperatures and dielectric properties were then correlated to obtain the dependence of the dielectric properties’ spatial variation on the temperature gradient. The obtained correlation has been validated through comparison with previously obtained experimental data. A weighted cubic polynomial function and a weighted sigmoid function have been tested for best-fit interpolation of the measured data. Results: Temperatures in the range 23–105 °C were measured during the MTA procedure, while, after the end of the MTA trials, relative permittivities in the range 7–43 and electric conductivities in the range 0.3–1.8 S/m were measured according to the distance from the antenna’s axis. The polynomial function showed better regression coefficients than the sigmoid one for both the relative permittivity (R2 = 0.9947 versus R2 = 0.9912, respectively) and the conductivity (R2 = 0.9919 versus R2 = 0.9866, respectively). However, the weighted cubic function showed an unrealistic behaviour for the relative permittivity at temperatures lower than 40 °C. Conclusions: According to the results obtained, information on the changes in the dielectric properties of the tissue under MTA treatment could be inferred from measured temperature data. Once validated by in vivo studies, the proposed methodology could be exploited to develop predictive tools for treatment planning.
An Information-Based Framework for Asset Pricing: X-Factor Theory and its Applications

A new framework for asset pricing based on modelling the information available to market participants is presented. Each asset is characterised by the cash flows it generates. Each cash flow is expressed as a function of one or more independent random variables called market factors or "X-factors". Each X-factor is associated with a "market information process", the values of which become available to market participants. In addition to true information about the X-factor, the information process contains an independent "noise" term modelled here by a Brownian bridge. The information process thus gives partial information about the X-factor, and the value of the market factor is only revealed at the termination of the process. The market filtration is assumed to be generated by the information processes associated with the X-factors. The price of an asset is given by the risk-neutral expectation of the sum of the discounted cash flows, conditional on the information available from the filtration. The theory is developed in some detail, with a variety of applications to credit risk management, share prices, interest rates, and inflation. A number of new exactly solvable models are obtained for the price processes of various types of assets and derivative securities; and a novel mechanism is proposed to account for the dynamics of stochastic volatility and dynamic correlation. A discrete-time version of the information-based framework is also developed, and is used to construct a new class of models for the real and nominal interest rate term structures, and the dynamics of the associated price index.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Intraoperative Tibial Nerve Somatosensory-Evoked Potentials

To reveal the intrinsic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of single-trial somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEP). SEP was recorded from 13 scoliosis patients during surgery. The power of SEP was estimated with least-square fitting to obtain the most accurate value and then to estimate the SNR of every trial of SEP. The SNR of cortical SEP from 13 cases presented individual difference among each other. According to the mean and standard deviation, the coefficients of variation of cortical and subcortical SEP were 4.2% and 23%, respectively. The SNR of SEP was estimated to be −24 ± 1 dB in cortical SEP and −22 ± 5 dB in subcortical SEP. The lowest SNR of individual case was found to be −30 dB in cortical SEP and −53 dB in subcortical SEP. The results showed that SNR of intraoperative SEP recordings varies from person to person and presents a higher variability in subcortical than that in cortical, with a broad range from −53 to −5 dB. The results from this study can be used to understand the nature of SEP signals, which could guide researchers and designers on SEP denoising method selection, extraction, and measurement, as well as equipment development.
Toward a Better Comprehension of Lean Metrics for Research and Product Development Management

This paper presents a compilation and empirical survey‐based evaluation of the metrics most commonly used by program managers during product development management. This work is part of a bigger project of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Project Management Institute (PMI) and International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE). Three methodological procedures were applied: systematic literature review, focus‐group discussions, and survey. The survey results indicate the metrics considered to be the most and least useful for managing lean engineering programs, and reveals a shift of interest towards qualitative metrics, especially the ones that address the achievement of stakeholder values, and the absence of useful metrics regarding the lean principles People and Pull.