Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Labor Market Issues in the Caribbean: Scope to Mobilize Employment Growth

The paper examines the determinants of employment growth, drawing on data available across a sample of Caribbean countries. To that end, the paper analyzes estimates of the employment-output elasticity and the response of employment growth to major sources of labor market determinants, in the long and short run. The main determinants of employment include government investment and private sector credit, while the major determinants of external performance are real effective exchange rate, the price of major exporting commodities, the number of tourists, and growth in major trading partners. The paper concludes with a menu of policy recommendations and structural reforms towards sustaining high employment growth and higher living standards in the Caribbean.
What are the Effects of Tax Changes in the United Kingdom? New Evidence from a Narrative Evaluation

This paper estimates the effects of tax changes on the U.K. economy. Identification is achieved by isolating the ‘exogenous’ tax policy shocks in the post-war U.K. economy using a narrative strategy as in Romer and Romer (2010). The resulting tax changes are shown to be unforecastable on the basis of past macroeconomic data. I find that a 1 per cent cut in taxes stimulates GDP by 0.6 per cent on impact and by 2.5 per cent over three years. These findings are remarkably similar to the corresponding estimates for the United States. The results reinforce the view that tax changes do indeed have powerful, persistent and significant effects on the economy. Finally, ‘exogenous’ tax changes are shown to have contributed to major episodes in the U.K. business cycle.
Monetary policy in a heterogeneous monetary union: the Australian experience

Australia is a monetary union with strong regional specialization. Manufacturing and service industries are located in the population centres on the south-eastern seaboard, and mining and pastoral activities take place in the interior and north of the continent. Monetary policy affects the interior and north more strongly than the south-eastern seaboard because Australian primary goods are mostly exported and the exchange rate provides the main transmission channel for monetary policy. The Reserve Bank of Australia must consider the economic interests of the interior and north and the south-eastern seaboard. Since monetary policy cannot differentiate between regions, there is a need for interregional macroeconomic risk-sharing.
Reduction of amyloid load and cerebral damage in transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease by treatment with a β‐sheet breaker peptide

Genetic, neuropathological, and biochemical studies have provided strong evidence for a central role of amyloid in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We have proposed previously that peptides designed as β‐sheet breakers may be useful in preventing the formation of amyloid plaques. In this study, we describe a modified β‐sheet breaker peptide with improved pharmacological properties, a high rate of penetration across the blood‐brain barrier, and the ability to induce a dramatic reduction in amyloid deposition in two different transgenic AD models. In addition, we report for the first time a significant increase in neuronal survival and a decrease in brain inflammation associated with the reduction of amyloid plaques. These results demonstrate that the process of amyloid deposition is one of the causes of neurodegeneration in AD. Moreover, our findings indicate that β‐sheet breaker peptides provide a valuable tool for evaluating further the importance of amyloid in the etiology of AD and suggest that these peptides or some of their derivatives might be good candidates for AD treatment.
Why Capital Hires Labor: A Bargaining Perspective

Organizational forms often serve as vehicles for the appropriation of quasi-rent. Capitalist firms typically emerge when production requires noncontractible investments in specific physical assets because worker control would divert quasi-rents away from ass et owners ex post. Conversely, labor-managed firms tend to emerge in niches requiring specialized human capital but general-purpose physi cal assets. A key result is that capitalist firms can persist in competitive markets even when labor-managed firms would yield a larg er total surplus. Copyright 1993 by American Economic Association.
Does Aggregating Forecasts by CPI Component Improve Inflation Forecast Accuracy in South Africa?

Inflation is a far from homogeneous phenomenon, a fact often neglected in modelling consumer price inflation. This study, the first of its kind for an emerging market country, investigates gains to inflation forecast accuracy by aggregating weighted forecasts of the sub-component price indices, versus forecasting the aggregate consumer price index itself. Rich multivariate equilibrium correction models employ general and sectoral information for ten sub-components, taking account of structural breaks and institutional changes. Model selection is over 1979-2003, with pseudo out-of-sample forecasts, four-quarters-ahead, generated to 2007. Aggregating the weighted forecasts of the sub-components does outperform the aggregate CPI forecasts, and also offers substantial gains over forecasting using benchmark naive models. The analysis also contributes an improved understanding of sectoral inflationary pressures. This forecasting method should be more robust to the regular reweighting of the CPI index.
The Role of Organizational Learning in the Opportunity–Recognition Process

Firms engage in entrepreneurship to increase performance through both strategic renewal and the creation of new venture opportunities. Organizational learning (OL) has become an effective avenue for strategic renewal. But what of creating venture opportunities—can OL enhance the process of recognizing and pursuing new ventures? This article argues that OL can strengthen a firm's ability to recognize opportunities and help equip them to effectively pursue new ventures. First, we identify three approaches to OL—behavioral, cognitive, and action. Then, we introduce a creativity–based model of opportunity recognition (OpR) that includes two phases—discovery and formation. Next, we show how each of the three types of learning is linked to the two phases of OpR. We suggest propositions that support our claim that OL enhances OpR and offer examples of firms that have used these organizational–learning approaches to more effectively recognize and pursue venture opportunities. These insights have important implications for entrepreneurial firms seeking to advance the venture–creation process.
The decomposition of disturbances to national output of China–the evidence of sectoral and regional shocks

The Chinese government has established policies to promote its industrial sectors and to develop coastal provinces since the late 1978. To investigate the extent and reason the output growth in China has been influenced by these policies, an error-component model is employed to decompose the importance of sectoral and regional shocks to variations in national output. The results show that both sectoral specific shocks common across regions and regional specific shocks common across sectors are important in explaining the disturbance of national output in China. Specifically, sectoral specific shocks consistently explain relatively more disturbance of Chinese output than regional specific shocks do. Our empirical results are somewhat different from Stockman (1988) and Costello (1993), since they show almost equal explanatory power of sectoral and national shocks in accounting for national outputs in OECD countries.
A Note on the Theory of Vertical Integration

Until quite recently it was generally accepted by economists concerned with antitrust that a monopolist producing an intermediate product and selling it to a competitive industry would have no profit incentive to integrate forward into his customer industry, much less to seek a monopoly there, unless vertical integration led directly to cost savings. ' Vernon and Graham (1971) have, however, shown this proposition to be false except in the special case when production in the customer industry is characterized by fixed coefficients. They indicate graphically and verbally that attempting to capture monopoly profits by pricing an intermediate good above cost leads to substitution away from it and thus to inefficient production at the next stage. A monopolist can avoid this inefficiency and thus increase his profit by integrating forward. In this note a somewhat more general situation is examined, and the theory of the duality of cost and production is applied. We consider a monopolist who produces an intermediate good and who cannot acquire all the firms in his competitive customer industry. We assume, until the final section of the paper, that the monopolist is prevented by the antitrust authorities from pricing his output of the final product below the price charged by the independent producers. In this setting, we consider whether the monopolist generally has an incentive to expand his share of the output of the final good. Further, we investigate the implications of vertical integration for costs, prices, and welfare.
ON THE CYCLICALITY OF SOUTH AFRICAN FISCAL POLICY

This paper examines the cyclicality of government revenue, spending and the key fiscal balances in South Africa during 1972-2001. The results suggest that while government revenues were largely acyclical, government spending appears to have been predominantly counter-cyclical, in line with the recommendations of neoclassical analysis. In addition, countercyclical government spending appears to have translated into a countercyclical policy stance overall. This finding contrasts markedly with the results from other empirical studies of South Africa and other emerging market and developing economies, which typically indicate procyclical fiscal policy. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author; Journal compilation (c) Economic Society of South Africa 2007.
Leading Indicator Variables, Performance Measurement and Long-Term Versus Short-Term Contracts

This paper develops a multiperiod agency model to study the use of leading indicator variables in managerial performance measures. In addition to the familiar moral hazard problem, the principal faces the task of motivating a manager to undertake "soft" investments. These investments are not directly contractible, but the principal can instead rely on leading indicator variables which provide a noisy forecast of the investment returns to be received in future periods. Our analysis relates the role of leading indicator variables to the duration of the manager's incentive contract. With short-term contracts, leading indicator variables are essential in mitigating a "holdup" problem resulting from the fact that investments are sunk at the end of the first period. With long-term contracts, leading indicator variables will be valuable if the manager's compensation schemes are not stationary over time. The leading indicator variables then become an instrument for matching the future investment return with the current investment expenditure. We identify conditions under which the optimal long-term contract induces larger investments and less reliance on the leading indicator variables in comparison to short-term contracts. Under certain conditions, though, the principal does better with a sequence of one-period contracts than with a long-term contract.
Reading With Robots: Towards a Human-Robot Book Discussion System for Elderly Adults

As people age, it is critical that they maintain not only their physical health, but also their cognitive health―for instance, by engaging in cognitive exercise. Recent advancements in AI have uncovered novel ways through which to facilitate such exercise. In this thesis, I propose the first human-robot dialogue system designed specifically to promote cognitive exercise in elderly adults, through discussions about interesting metaphors in books. I describe my work to date, including the development of a new, large corpus and an approach for automatically scoring metaphor novelty. Finally, I outline my plans for incorporating this work into the proposed system.
First detection of gas-phase ammonia in a planet-forming disk

Nitrogen chemistry in protoplanetary disks and the freeze-out on dust particles is key to understand the formation of nitrogen bearing species in early solar system analogs. So far, ammonia has not been detected beyond the snowline in protoplanetary disks. We aim to find gas-phase ammonia in a protoplanetary disk and characterize its abundance with respect to water vapor. Using HIFI on the Herschel Space Observatory we detect, for the first time, the ground-state rotational emission of ortho-NH$_3$ in a protoplanetary disk, around TW Hya. We use detailed models of the disk's physical structure and the chemistry of ammonia and water to infer the amounts of gas-phase molecules of these species. We explore two radial distributions ( confined to $<$60 au like the millimeter-sized grains) and two vertical distributions (near the midplane where water is expected to photodesorb off icy grains) to describe the (unknown) location of the molecules. These distributions capture the effects of radial drift and vertical settling of ice-covered grains. We use physical-chemical models to reproduce the fluxes with assuming that water and ammonia are co-spatial. We infer ammonia gas-phase masses of 0.7-11.0 $\times$10$^{21}$ g. For water, we infer gas-phase masses of 0.2-16.0 $\times$10$^{22}$ g. This corresponds to NH$_3$/H$_2$O abundance ratios of 7\%-84\%, assuming that water and ammonia are co-located. Only in the most compact and settled adopted configuration is the inferred NH$_3$/H$_2$O consistent with interstellar ices and solar system bodies of $\sim$ 5\%-10\%. Volatile release in the midplane may occur via collisions between icy bodies if the available surface for subsequent freeze-out is significantly reduced, e.g., through growth of small grains into pebbles or larger.
Roads or Schools? Political Budget Cycles with different types of voters

Using a new Colombian data set (1830-2000), we analyze how changes in the electoral legislation with regard to the characteristics of voters (in terms of education and income levels) has affected fiscal policy in electoral times. In line with economic theory, we show that after the law was reformed in 1936 the composition of the expenditure shifted towards social spending (like education, health, and welfare benefits) but there was decreased spending on infrastructure and investment projects (like roads). Consistent with the literature, we also find: 1.The timing and the size of the political budget cycles changed after 1936 and 2.After 1936 there was a shift in the funding mechanisms from indirect tax revenues to more debt.
Welfare Policy in German Big Business after the First World War: Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG, 1926–33

According to A.D. Chandler, Jr, the rise of organisational capabilities in German enterprises was decisive for the international economic success of the German Reich before 1914. This article deals with the changes in the organisational structures of enterprises through concentration and diversification and their consequences for welfare policy in German industry. The central question is to what extent the changing organisational structures affected the quality and quantity of welfare provided by companies. The interactions between welfare policy and organisation can be illustrated by the Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG (VSt), the world's second largest iron and steel combine, next to US Steel, in the first half of the twentieth century. After a survey of the traditions of business welfare in Germany since the early nineteenth century, important aspects of industrial welfare policy, such as health insurance, company stores and housing, are analysed in the context of the VSt's organisational development between 1926 and 1933.
Assessment of tumor microcirculation: A new role of dynamic contrast MR imaging

With the advances in MR techniques, information related to tumor microcirculation now can be obtained in the clinical setting. This information can be valuable in the assessment of tumor blood supply/oxygenation status and tumor response to therapy. In this article, we review the tracer‐kinetic modeling for tumor microcirculatory parameters derived from dynamic contrast MR imaging and report several preliminary results from both an animal model and early experience with human tumors. Despite the application of different MR protocols and tracer‐kinetic models, the initial results of these pioneer studies consistently support the role of MR‐derived microcirculatory tumor parameters, in providing prognostic information to assess and predict the response of cancers to cytotoxic therapy.
Vehicle speed estimation using extracted SURF features from stereo images

In this paper, we present a novel technique to estimate vehicle speed on highway using stereo images. First, traffic images are captured using calibrated and synchronized stereo cameras, then we detect moving vehicles on the left image by subtracting the background image. On each detected vehicle, we extract and match Speed Up Robust Features (SURF) in order to compute sparse depth maps. Finally, we get vehicle speed from vehicle depth variation using some geometric derivations. The experiments shows that the proposed algorithm has a satisfactory estimation of vehicle speed comparing to GPS ground truth with a speed error of 2 Km/h in the Moroccan environment.
Government Institutional Effects on the Value of Seasonal Climate Forecasts

The impact of government institutions on the value of improved climate forecasts is examined. Results suggest that crop insurance and earned income tax credit have little effect on the expected change in after-tax cash flows. Federal tax law has only a modest influence. As expected, the disaster program decreases the value of improved climate forecasts. With no price changes, the farm program lowers the value of the forecasts because of the acreage reduction provisions. With at least some price decreases, the farm program increases the value of climate forecasts. Here, the price supports override the acreage reduction provisions. Copyright 1996, Oxford University Press.
Groupwise Maximin Fair Allocation of Indivisible Goods

We study the problem of allocating indivisible goods among n agents in a fair manner. For this problem, maximin share (MMS) is a well-studied solution concept which provides a fairness threshold. Specifically, maximin share is defined as the minimum utility that an agent can guarantee for herself when asked to partition the set of goods into n bundles such that the remaining (n-1) agents pick their bundles adversarially. An allocation is deemed to be fair if every agent gets a bundle whose valuation is at least her maximin share. Even though maximin shares provide a natural benchmark for fairness, it has its own drawbacks and, in particular, it is not sufficient to rule out unsatisfactory allocations. Motivated by these considerations, in this work we define a stronger notion of fairness, called groupwise maximin share guarantee (GMMS). In GMMS, we require that the maximin share guarantee is achieved not just with respect to the grand bundle, but also among all the subgroups of agents. Hence, this solution concept strengthens MMS and provides an ex-post fairness guarantee. We show that in specific settings, GMMS allocations always exist. We also establish the existence of approximate GMMS allocations under additive valuations, and develop a polynomial-time algorithm to find such allocations. Moreover, we establish a scale of fairness wherein we show that GMMS implies approximate envy freeness. Finally, we empirically demonstrate the existence of GMMS allocations in a large set of randomly generated instances. For the same set of instances, we additionally show that our algorithm achieves an approximation factor better than the established, worst-case bound.
Ionic mechanisms of phototransduction in photoreceptor cells from the epistellar body of the octopus eledone cirrhosa

Intracellular recordings were made from extraocular photoreceptor cells within isolated epistellar bodies of the lesser or northern octopus Eledone cirrhosa. The cells had resting potentials around -41+/-5 mV (mean +/- s.d., N=60) and showed light-flash-induced membrane depolarisation. The evoked response to a brief light flash consisted of a transient peak depolarisation, followed by a plateau component. The magnitude of the light-induced peak depolarisation response was decreased by bathing the epistellar body in artificial sea water (ASW) low in Na+, where choline+ replaced Na+, or by passing steady depolarising current. Replacement of external Na+ by Li+ had no effect on the light-stimulated response. The external application of the Na+ channel blocker tetrodotoxin (3 micromol l-1) increased the light-evoked response, but this was accompanied by a loss of action potential activity. The amplitude and duration of the response to a light flash was increased by bathing the epistellar body in ASW low in Ca2+, or in ASW containing 10 mmol l-1 Co2+, and after intracellular microinjection of the Ca2+ buffer EGTA. Intracellular microinjection of Ca2+ or inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate, or external application of the phospholipase C inhibitor U-73122, had no apparent effect on the light-evoked response. These results are consistent with the interpretation that (1) the majority of the light-induced inward current is carried by Na+, probably via a non-selective cation channel, and (2) an increase in the intracellular free Ca2+ concentration, mediated by the phototransduction process, is involved in regulating the light-induced inward photocurrent and thus, in effect, determines the amplitude, time course and sensitivity of the receptor potential.
Determination of Ursolic Acid a Biomarker in Different Swertia Species through High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography

A simple highly precise method has been established for the determination of ursolic acid in three species of Swertia viz. S. angustifolia, S. paniculata, and S. alata. The assay combines identification and quantification of the analyte on silica gel 60GF254 HPTLC plates with visualization under UV light and scanning at 510 nm.