Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asymmetric Technological Change in the Melitz Model: Are Foreign Technological Improvements Harmful?

Foreign technological advance unambiguously reduces home welfare in a popular variant of the Melitz (2003) model that assumes the presence of a costlessly traded homogeneous good (Demidova, 2008). The present paper shows that this result is sensitive to the presence of such a good and is reversed in its absence. Indeed, in a generalized version of the Melitz model that adds a nontraded good and nests the original version as a special case, we show that foreign technological advance always improves home welfare. We derive relations that require information on only a few parameters to calibrate the model to data. These relations are used to calibrate an international trade model for the United States for quantitative analysis of the welfare effects. US is found to gain much less from foreign technological improvements than its trading partners from US improvements.
The Wealth Effects of Takeover Announcement for Firms in the Financial Services Sector in India

Using the parametric and non-parametric tests, this study aims to understand the wealth effects of shareholders of bidder, target and combined firms on the announcement of takeovers. The sample for the study consists of targets from financial sector which are listed in Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and listed (in BSE) corporate bidders of the aforesaid targets. The period covered by the study begins with the new millennium from January 2001 and extends to December 2007. The findings suggest that the shareholders of target firms earn significantly positive abnormal returns on takeover announcements, but further analysis reveals that the positive returns was the contribution of only 19 firms, while, for the remaining 48 firms, there was no market reaction on takeover announcements. Apparently, there was some evidence that bidders experienced post-event positive wealth effects on takeover announcements. But this was not true for the majority as the significant findings were the outcome of the reaction of only two firms. On analysis of the combined returns, positive results were observed, but this was again largely because of two pairs of companies generating significantly positive results. Overall, these results seem to suggest that except for a few cases, which show positive returns, takeovers in the financial services sector in general do not evoke market reaction.
The German Party System: Continuity and Change

This article assesses continuity and change in the German party system since unification in 1990. From a methodological point of view, this presents a challenge, because there are at least three kinds of trends which are difficult to disentangle: (1) the direct effects of unification, (2) general longer-term trends independent of, but coinciding with, unification and, (3) indirect effects of unification (that is, for example, general trends accelerated or delayed by unification). In the absence of suitable statistical controls, it is not possible to determine the ‘net contribution’ of these different effects. Nevertheless, party and party system change in Germany since unification must be assessed against the backdrop of developments in comparable political systems in Western Europe in order to avoid conclusions based on spurious covariation.
Combination of Classifiers on the Decision Level for Face Recognition

This report is divided into two parts. In the rst part we present an overview of sensor fusion. We analyze the single steps in a fusion process and describe in a systematic way several methods for combining pattern classi ers. The second part describes some practical experiments with classi er combination in the eld of face recognition. We investigate the impact of decision combination on the recognition rate. Several combination strategies and their results are compared. The face classi ers used for the practical experiments are shortly presented, too. We used two full face classi ers (HMMs, eigenfaces) and a pro le classi er (shape comparison). Thus, the combination is based on two completely di erent information sources. CR
An empirical assessment and application of SERVQUAL in a Mainland Chinese department store

More and more retailers in Mainland China are trying to differentiate their services through quality improvement. In this paper, we report upon the application of SERVQUAL in service quality improvement at a department store in Tianjin, a city in Northern China. We shall also assess the reliability and validity of the SERVQUAL instrument using data collected from this department store. The improvement effort included comparisons of service quality as perceived by both external customers and internal employees, identification of areas for improvements through focus group discussion of the survey results, and development of a plan for improvements. Statistical analyses of the survey response from this company were also performed to test the validity of the SERVQUAL instrument and the applicability of the five dimensions of service quality in the Chinese retail industry. The results indicate that the gap scores did not merge into five dimensions of service quality; rather, the perception scores roughly merged into six dimensions. The findings from this study indicate that the SERVQUAL instrument and the five dimensions of service quality may not be applicable to the retail sector of Mainland China and further research is necessary to understand service quality in Mainland China.
Decline in Immature Transitional B Cells After Hepatitis B Vaccination in Hepatitis B Positive Newborns

Humoral immune responses are protective against hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. We characterized B-cell phenotypic changes in infants of hepatitis B surface antigen positive mothers compared with normal and hepatitis B surface antigen negative infants at birth and 1 year after HBV immunization. Hepatitis B surface antigen positive infants had higher immature transitional B cells at birth, which normalized a year after immunization. Immature B-cell response to neonatal HBV exposure is associated with maternal–child transmission of HBV.
Impact of nutrition on ageing and disease

Purpose of reviewThe globe is suffering a tsunami of chronic diseases, affecting especially the elderly and those with a dysfunctioning immune system. The fundamental principles of optimal health and optimal ageing are abstaining from smoking, modest alcohol consumption, regular physical exercise and a diet rich in fish and plants and low in condensed calories, sugar and dairy products. Recent findingsDietary supply and production of advanced glycation end products leads to the accumulation of these products in the tissues and is strongly associated with ageing of the vascular endothelium, nervous system, eyes and other vital organs. Telomeres, which are not involved in DNA repair, remain unrepaired and loose with time. A decline in innate and acquired immunity is seen with increasing age and maintenance of low basal immune activity (degree of inflammation) seems important for health and longevity: ‘people who are predisposed to weak inflammatory activity may live longer’. SummarySupplementation with vitamins has little effect on ageing/prevention of chronic diseases, but antiinflammatory molecules like polyphenols are more effective, especially when combined with reduced intake of calorie-condensed foods. The effect of probiotics on ageing needs further exploration. The effects of caloric restriction, proven effective in other species to control aging and prolong lifespan, have not been fully explored in humans.
Proposal for Serbian tourism destinations marketing campaign

Serbia is geographically located in Europe, which is why it faces stiff competition from other European destinations, but also from other destinations worldwide. In order to understand contemporary competitive environment, major trends have been identified at the global, regional and local level. The data from the analysis of Serbian summer season tourism market were used to create tourist profiles for 4 supply side regions (Domestic-Serbia; Western Balkans-Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia; Central-Eastern Europe-Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania; Western Europe and the rest of the world), for 5 major Serbian destinations (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis, Zlatibor, Kopaonik) and for 7 types of tourists according to their core motivation for travelling (pleasure, fun & entertainment, nature, culture, sport & adventure, health, and business). Based on the given tourist profiles, separate marketing campaign scenarios were created for each of the market segments.
Differences in horizontal and vertical mismatches across countries and fields of study

We investigate to what extent differences in educational mismatches across countries and fields of study are explained by differences in labour institutions, educational institutions, and labour market imbalances. We rely on early career data for graduates in Europe and Japan and distinguish between full mismatch (FMM: field-of-study mismatch and overeducation combined), mere horizontal mismatch (HMM) and mere vertical mismatch (VMM). Mere HMM is found to be lower in countries with higher employment protection, higher unemployment benefits and more selective educational programs. For mere VMM, particularly differences in imbalances explain cross-country differences. Most country-level variables affecting mere HMM or VMM also affect FMM. In addition, FMM is positively related to collective bargaining coverage. Conclusions regarding field-of-study differences in mismatches are analogous, with both educational program characteristics and imbalances being explanatory factors.
God Save This Honorable Court

If Supreme Court behavior is structured largely by the policy preferences of the justices, political scientists ought to consider the source of those preferences. Religion is one force that can strongly shape a judge’s worldview and therefore her or his votes. In this article, the author examines the effect of religion on U.S. Supreme Court votes in eleven issue areas plausibly connected to religious values. Catholic justices vote in ways that more closely adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church than do non-Catholic justices even after controlling for ideology. These results may indicate that Catholic theology is different from Protestant or Jewish theology. It is also possible that on some issues there is not much of a theological difference, but religious values play a more prominent role in public life for Catholic justices.
Analogical reuse of requirements frameworks

Reusing similar requirements fragments is one of the most promising ways to reduce the elaboration time and increase the requirements' quality. This paper investigates the application of analogical reasoning techniques to complete partial requirement specifications. A case base is assumed to be available; it contains requirements frameworks involving goals, constraints, objects, actions and agents from systems which have already been specified. We show how a rich requirements meta-model, coupled with an expressive formal assertion language, may increase the effectiveness of analogical reuse. An acquisition problem is first specified by a requirements engineer as a query formulated in the vocabulary of the specification fragments built so far. Source cases and partial mappings are found by query generalization followed by a search through the case base. Once analogies have been confirmed, mappings are completed by the use of relevance rules that distinguish, in the formal assertions, what is relevant to the analogy from what is irrelevant. The best analogies are then selected and extended in such a way that the logical properties of the answers to the query may be verified, thus increasing confidence in the analogy. The approach is illustrated by analogical acquisition of specifications of a meeting scheduler in the KAOS goal-oriented specification language.
Two genes required for cell fusion during yeast conjugation: evidence for a pheromone-induced surface protein

We characterized two genes, FUS1 and FUS2, which are required for fusion of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells during conjugation. Mutations in these genes lead to an interruption of the mating process at a point just before cytoplasmic fusion; the partition dividing the mating pair remains undissolved several hours after the cells have initially formed a stable "prezygote. " Fusion is only moderately impaired when the two parents together harbor one or two mutant fus genes, and it is severely compromised only when three or all four fus genes are inactivated. Cloning of FUS1 and FUS2 revealed that they share some functional homology; FUS1 on a high-copy number plasmid can partially suppress a fus2 mutant, and vice versa. FUS1 remains essentially unexpressed in vegetative cells, but is strongly induced by incubation of haploid cells with the appropriate mating pheromone. Immunofluorescence microscopy of alpha factor-induced a cells harboring a fus1-LACZ fusion showed the fusion protein to be localized at the cell surface, concentrated at one end of the cell (the shmoo tip). FUS1 maps near HIS4, and the intervening region (including BIK1, a gene required for nuclear fusion) was sequenced along with FUS1. The sequence of FUS1 revealed the presence of three copies of a hexamer (TGAAAC) conserved in the 5' noncoding regions of other pheromone-inducible genes. The deduced FUS1 protein sequence exhibits a striking concentration of serines and threonines at the amino terminus (46%; 33 of 71), followed by a 25-amino acid hydrophobic stretch and a predominantly hydrophilic carboxy terminus, which contains several potential N-glycosylation sites (Asn-X-Ser/Thr). This sequence suggests that FUS1 encodes a membrane-anchored glycoprotein with both N- and O-linked sugars.
Cancer incidence and mortality in Iran.

BACKGROUND Cancer is the third main cause of death in Iran. This report was provided for explaining cancer incidence and mortality. PATIENTS AND METHODS The National Cancer Registry reports from 2003 to 2006, population-based cancer registry reports from five provinces in 2006 and National Death Registry reports from 1999 to 2004 have been applied in this report. RESULTS The age-standardized incidence rate of cancers was 98 and 110 per 100,000 among females and males. The male to female standard ratio was 1.12. The most common cancer among women and men was breast cancer (24) and stomach cancer (15), respectively. The estimated mortality rate for cancer was 41.1 and 65 per 100,000 for females and males in 2004. CONCLUSION The current low cancer incidence rates in Iran might be due to lack of national cancer screening programs for prostate, colorectal or breast cancer, a consequence of incomplete registration as well as incomplete diagnosis of cancer patients; it is expected that it will rise dramatically in the future because of anticipated increase in life expectancy and westernized lifestyle. The first priorities for health policy makers should be developing, establishing and implementing national cancer control; or else, the health system could not respond to the demands regarding to diagnosis, treatment and palliation for these patients in the future.
High-Dose Adrenaline in Adult In-Hospital Asystolic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: A Double-Blind Randomised Trial

Forty intensive care unit patients requiring cardiopulmonary resuscitation were randomised to receive either the standard dose of adrenaline (1 mg every five minutes) or high-dose adrenaline (10 mg every five minutes). In the majority of patients, overwhelming sepsis was the major contributing factor leading to cardiac arrest. In this group of patients no difference could be detected in response to high-dose adrenaline compared with the standard dose. Although no side-effects were noted with this high dose of adrenaline, more investigation is required prior to its routine use in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Comparison between effects of caffeine and ryanodine on electromechanical coupling in myocardium of hibernating chipmunks: role of internal Ca stores

1 To clarify the cause of uncoupling of Ca influx through Ca channels and the contractility of the myocardium in hibernating chipmunks, the electromechanical effects of two different internal Ca store inhibitors, caffeine and ryanodine, and a cardiotonic agent, isoprenaline, were investigated in papillary muscles of hibernating animals. 2 Ryanodine (10−6 m), an inhibitor of internal Ca release, abolished the contraction with a marked inhibition of the action potential plateau (APp). In such preparations, an increase in Ca influx induced by isoprenaline (5 × 10−8 m) failed to augment the contraction, indicating uncoupling of Ca influx and contraction. 3 In ryanodine pretreated preparations, 10mM caffeine produced an early phase of APp, but did not affect the contraction abolished by ryanodine, while a higher concentration of caffeine (25 mm) markedly increased the contraction with an augmentation of the electrical response. 4 In the absence of ryanodine, caffeine (5mm) almost abolished the contraction with a greater inhibition of APp. In such preparations, isoprenaline greatly increased the contraction with an augmentation of the early phase of APp. 5 These effects were not significantly affected by additional application of ryanodine, but were inhibited by nifedipine, a Ca channel blocker. 6 These observations suggest that in cardiac muscles of hibernating animals, lack of the positive inotropic effect of isoprenaline may be attributed to a rapid and effective sequestration of increased cytoplasmic Ca through Ca influx by internal stores, probably by enhancement of their ability to take up Ca.
Galloping Elephants: Developing Elements of a Theory of Effective Government Organizations

Much of the theory and discourse on public bureaucracies treats them negatively, as if they incline inevitably toward weak performance. This orientation prevails in spite of considerable evidence that many government organizations perform very well, and in spite of many examples of their excellent performance. This article draws on the literature and research on effective government organizations to select and develop conceptual elements of a theory to explain their effectiveness. The available research suggests that such a theory should include the following components. supportive behaviors from external stakeholders such as political authorities; agency autonomy in refining and implementing its mission; high "mission valence" (an attractive mission); a strong, mission-oriented culture, and certain leadership behaviors. The discussion further posits that these factors enhance several forms of motivation of people in the agency-task motivation, mission motivation, and public service motivationthat can be differentiated but that must be linked together in effective government agencies. A corollary of this fact is the falsity of an equally common claim. that public and nonprofit organizations cannot, and on average do not, operate as efficiently as private businesses. (Simon 1998, 1 1) The elephant serves as a virtually archetypical symbol of a large, cumbersome, lumbering being. Yet an elephant can run very fast. Pachyderm means thick-skinned, yet elephants display sensitivity in acts of altruism and nurturance beyond those that 1/Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory For valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I am grateful to Bob Durant, Jameson Doig, Ken Meier, Patrick Wolf, and many of the participants in the theory panel at the 1998 Midwest Political Science Association meeting. I could not take all their comments and critiques into account in my revisions, so they bear no responsibility for limitations
Building or bodging? Attitudes to sustainability in UK public sector housing construction development

The UK government has established an agenda for 'greening' government activity and, as it accounts for approximately 40% of all UK construction procurement, is actively encouraging sustainability initiatives in this particular sector. However, there have been criticisms of its approach. The UK government anticipates investing approximately £3 billion in the social housing sector over the next three years and, as a prelude to this, has asked the Housing Corporation to promote a raft of sustainable development initiatives. This paper draws on two tranches of data in order to examine the impact of the UK government's sustainability policy on the way the public sector procures housing construction. The first of these is the sustainability improvement targets from 143 public sector housing associations. The evidence from this first tranche of data suggests that sustainability is currently seen as a low priority and that government initiatives have yet to make a significant impact. The second tranche of data uses comments from housing association development managers to examine the reasons for this apparent lack of impact. This focuses on their views and opinions of sustainability as an issue in social housing development and enables inferences to be made about their attitudes to this issue. There has been criticism about the lack of progress so far seen and the results in this paper suggest that this criticism is justified. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Intermittent work activity and earnings

Patterns of intermittent work activity appear to be more common in the modern labour market, at least for younger workers. This study extends earlier models of the relationship between labour market intermittency and earnings to include both part time work and nonparticipation, to differentiate between past work experience and current job tenure, to allow for nonlinear experience effects, and to account for selection bias arising from the exclusion of nonworkers. The results suggest that the effects of part time work and nonparticipation on earnings are similar. Moreover, some common patterns emerge: the effects are larger for women, greater for young workers, and greater when intermittency replaces current job tenure.
An Analysis of the Lehman Brothers Code of Ethics and the Role It Played in the Firm

Effective corporate ethical codes must be communicated in organizations and assimilated into their cultures. When they exist as separate entities outside the culture or are communicated ineffectively, they can fail to function as key strategic documents. The ethical code from Lehman Brothers investment bank was analyzed using two different methodologies. Results showed the code was clear in communicating facts and information, but was not strong in transformational and visionary aspects that might assist company during a crisis. The study revealed that the culture at Lehman was not tied to the code and it did not play a significant role in the organization.