Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Youth Work as a Public Good: Older Teenagers’ Experiences of Youth Services in Dublin

In the context of consumerism, individualism and the privatisation of young people’s leisure, youth work struggles to attract young people, especially those aged 15 to 19 years. Drawing from a study exploring young people’s perspectives on participation in youth services, it is argued that youth work offers a type of public and civic engagement that is not on offer from consumption-based activities. While certain activities attract young people into youth work, what maintains their participation is the sense of belonging they experience and the opportunity to participate meaningfully in decision making. In this regard the youth work sector needs to recognise and promote the value of its own contribution to the construction and maintenance of youth participation as a public good – something the market cannot or will not provide.
A Time Varying Parameter Model to Test for Predictability and Integration in the Stock Markets of Transition Economies

This article introduces a model, based on the Kalman-filter framework, that allows for time-varying parameters, latent factors, and a general generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) structure for the residuals. With this extension of the Bekaert and Harvey model, it is possible to test if an emerging stock market becomes more efficient over time and more integrated with other already established markets in situations in which no macroeconomic conditioning variables are available. We apply this model to the Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and Russian stock markets. We use data at daily frequency running from April 7, 1994, to July 10, 1997. A latent factor captures macroeconomic expectations. Concerning predictability, measured with time-varying autocorrelations, Hungary reached efficiency before 1994. Russia shows signs of ongoing convergence toward efficiency. For Poland and the Czech Republic, we find no improvements. With regard to market integration, there is evidence that the importance of Germany has changed over time for all markets. Shocks in the United Kingdom are positively related to the Czech and Polish markets but not to the Russian or the Hungarian markets. Shocks in the United States have no impact on these markets with the exception of Russia. A strong negative correlation between Russia and the United States and Germany tends to disappear over the time span studied. We also show that these markets exhibit significant asymmetric GARCH effects where bad news generates greater volatility. In Hungary, good news, instead, generates greater volatility, which leads us to formulate a liquidity hypothesis.
What Does Increasing Severity of Food Insecurity Indicate for Food Insecure Families? Relationships Between Severity of Food Insecurity and Indicators of Material Hardship and Constrained Food Purchasing

Understanding how increasing severity of food insecurity relates to other measures of material hardship and food purchasing is important for understanding the experience and its associated consequences. Data from a study of 501 low-income families in Toronto, which included food security measured by the Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM) and questions about material hardships and food purchasing constraint, were used to examine how odds of experiencing hardships were related to severity of food insecurity. Differences between fully food secure families and marginally food insecure families were also examined. The odds of experiencing rent and bill hardships, giving up services, pawning possessions, and constrained purchasing of milk, vegetables, and fruit increased along the continuum of severity of food insecurity. In comparison to fully food secure families, marginally food insecure families had significantly higher odds of experiencing bill and rent hardships and having given up household services. The increasing burden of other hardships with greater severity highlights the increasing vulnerability of household circumstances, which has implications for understanding consequences of food insecurity and interventions aimed at ameliorating its effects. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition to view the free supplemental file: supplemental Fig. 1. ]
Does Globalization Breed Ethnic Discontent?

This article examines how different components of globalization affect the death toll from internal armed conflict. Conventional wisdom once held that the severity of internal conflict would gradually decline with the spread of globalization, but fatalities still remain high. Moreover, leading theories of civil war sharply disagree about how different aspects of globalization might affect the severity of ethnic and nonethnic armed conflicts. Using arguments from a variety of social science perspectives on globalization, civil war, and ethnic conflict to guide the analysis, this article finds that (1) economic globalization and cultural globalization significantly increase fatalities from ethnic conflicts, supporting arguments from ethnic competition and world-polity perspectives, (2) sociotechnical aspects of globalization increase deaths from ethnic conflict but decrease deaths from nonethnic conflict, and (3) regime corruption increases fatalities from nonethnic conflict, which supports explanations suggesting that the severity of civil war is greater in weak and corrupt states.
On the Estimation of Growth and Inequality Elasticities of Poverty with Grouped Data

After decades of intensive research dedicated to efficient and flexible parametric statistical distributions, the lognormal distribution still enjoys, despite its empirical weaknesses, widespread popularity in the applied literature related to poverty and inequality analysis. In the present study, we emphasize the drawbacks of this choice for the calculation of the elasticities of poverty. For this purpose, we estimate the growth and inequality elasticities of poverty using 1,132 income distributions, and 15 rival assumptions on the shape of the income distributions. Our results confirm that the lognormal distribution is not appropriate in most cases for the analysis of poverty: the magnitude of the elasticities is generally overestimated and the estimation of the relative impact of growth and redistribution on poverty alleviation is biased in favor of the growth objective.
The dormitory labour regime in China as a site for control and resistance1

The paper uses research into industrial dormitories in Southern China to examine the role performed by employer-controlled accommodation in the management of human resources. The current rapid industrialization in China has been fuelled by the over 100 million internal migrants who move around the country on an annual basis and are housed in industrial dormitories within or close to production facilities. The paper argues that having labour supply ‘on tap’ facilitates management extending the working day, responding rapidly to fluctuations in product demand and functions as a form of coercive control, whereby employers have power not only over employment but also the housing needs of employees. The paper examines the history and contemporary use of employer-controlled accommodation, and argues that in both scale and systematic application, the current Chinese case is unique in the history of human resource management. Drawing on a case study of a large factory and dormitory, ‘China Wonder Electronics’ based in the Southern city of Shenzhen, the paper outlines the ways in which by working and living together, workers are able to develop collective resources that can be mobilized against managerial prerogatives, and challenge what is structurally a weak employment relationship for labour faced with the combined forces of big business and the state. The paper concludes by discussing the strengths and limitations for workers in what we are calling a dormitory labour regime.
Ipragliflozin Improves Glycemic Control and Decreases Body Fat in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background Ipragliflozin, a sodium-glucose transporter 2 inhibitor, was administered to patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus for 24 weeks to evaluate its effect on glycemic control and body composition. Methods This was an investigator-initiated multicenter prospective intervention study in which ipragliflozin (50 mg) was administered once daily and glycemic control, blood pressure, body weight (BW), body composition (measured by a biological impedance method), the lipid profile, and adverse events were evaluated after 4, 12, and 24 weeks of treatment. Results Efficacy and safety up to 24 weeks of ipragliflozin therapy were analyzed in 367 patients and 451 patients, respectively. Hemoglobin A1c decreased significantly from 8.07% at the start of ipragliflozin therapy to 7.26% in week 24 (P < 0.001). Fasting and postprandial blood glucose levels were significantly reduced by ipragliflozin. In week 24, there were significant decreases from baseline in BW (-2.6 kg), waist circumference (-2.9 cm), and body fat mass (-1.9 kg) (P < 0.001). The body water mass and mineral mass were decreased significantly by 0.5 and by 0.1 kg, respectively (P < 0.001), whereas the protein mass did not change significantly. Intracellular water mass did not change significantly, whereas extracellular water mass showed a significant decrease of 0.5 kg (P < 0.001). Muscle mass did not change in the upper and lower limbs, but that of the trunk decreased significantly (P < 0.001). There was a significant decrease in the fasting triglyceride level and a significant increase in fasting high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level, while low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was unchanged. Adverse events occurred in 23.5% of the patients, with a high frequency of genital infections, such as vulvovaginal candidiasis (3.1%) and genital pruritus (1.8%). Adverse drug reactions were noted in 13.7% of the patients. Conclusions Administration of ipragliflozin for 24 weeks improved glycemic control and decreased BW. Reduction of body fat accounted for more than 70% of the total weight loss and reduction of extracellular water accounted for about 20%.
Managerial Values and Corporate Codes of Ethics

An analysis of 119 corporation conduct codes suggests that top executives of American corporations only weakly shared the concern for social responsibility so often voiced by business leaders in the mid-1970s, when most of the codes were written. The documents give more attention to unethical conduct likely to decrease a firm's profits than to similar conduct that might increase profits. Familiarity with changing societal values is evident, but the executives that authored the codes tended to consider themselves, not the society or even apart of it, to be the conscience of the corporation. The codes have neither relieved organizational pressures to be unethical nor convinced opinion leaders that corporations have become more socially responsible in recent years.
The long-term share price reaction to Black Economic Empowerment announcements on the JSE

ABSTRACT Black Economic Empowerment has been one of the South African government's primary mechanisms for addressing the economic imbalances of the apartheid era. Voluntary sector “charters”, and more recently legislation, have required largely white owned business enterprises to become more inclusive across key areas of economic empowerment, including the provision of minimum levels of ownership for black shareholders. This research employs event study methodology to examine the long-term impact on the share prices of listed companies after announcements are made relating to black empowerment deals which impact equity ownership. The research examines 118 announcements and finds a positive cumulative abnormal return of around 10% after the first year. The positive result is confined to smaller companies, with market capitalisation of less than R3, 5bn, whilst large companies experience a marginally negative cumulative abnormal return. The results also show that those companies which made BEE announcements prior to May 2005 (‘first-movers’) did somewhat worse than those who followed. Finally, the results were found to be consistent for companies making further BEE related announcements, although the cumulative abnormal returns were lower at around 6%.
Histological and histomorphometrical analysis of a silica matrix embedded nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite bone substitute using the subcutaneous implantation model in Wistar rats

The clinical suitability of a bone substitute material is determined by the ability to induce a tissue reaction specific to its composition. The aim of this in vivo study was to analyze the tissue reaction to a silica matrix-embedded, nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite bone substitute. The subcutaneous implantation model in Wistar rats was chosen to assess the effect of silica degradation on the vascularization of the biomaterial and its biodegradation within a time period of 6 months. Already at day 10 after implantation, histomorphometrical analysis showed that the vascularization of the implantation bed reached its peak value compared to all other time points. Both vessel density and vascularization significantly decreased until day 90 after implantation. In this time period, the bone substitute underwent a significant degradation initiated by TRAP-positive and TRAP-negative multinucleated giant cells together with macrophages and lymphocytes. Although no specific tissue reaction could be related to the described silica degradation, the biomaterial was close to being fully degraded without a severe inflammatory response. These characteristics are advantageous for bone regeneration and remodeling processes.
The behaviour of share prices in the run-up to and aftermath of stock splits: evidence for ‘share subdivisions’ in Hong Kong 2003–2005

In this short note, analysis is made of the price effects in the immediate run-up to and aftermath of voluntary ‘share subdivisions’. Evidence for stock splits conducted in Hong Kong between January 2003 and December 2005 points to a general surge in prices prior to split announcements with a much weaker, but generally positive, return picture emerging thereafter. Regression analysis also points to support for a ‘trading range’ hypothesis and helps extend earlier findings for Hong Kong reported in Wu and Chan (1997) and elsewhere (see Lakonishok and Lev, 1987 for the USA for example). Finally, consistent with the surge in prices prior to split announcement, there is some evidence to indicate that return volatilities over the 30 day return period immediately preceding announcement exceed volatility levels for each of two successive 30 day return periods.
Discussion of on the Asymmetric Recognition of Good and Bad News in France, Germany and the United Kingdom

Giner & Rees (2001) report that the asymmetry in the timeliness of earnings decreases as one moves across the U. K. , France and Germany. These results are similar to those previously predicted and reported by Ball, Kothari & Robin (2000). The authors extend this prior research by examining the robustness of the results to size, industry, and alternative deflator choices. More importantly, they contribute by examining the interaction between the traditional textbook definition of conservatism, which focuses on choices between accounting methods, and the more recent asymmetric timeliness definition, which focuses on the asymmetric recognition of unrealized gains and unrealized losses. Their other important contribution is to simultaneously examine the explanatory power of lagged earnings and current returns using the asymmetric conservatism predictions.The conference discussion focused on defining conservatism, the endogeneity of legal systems and business environments, and differences in cost of capital across industries and firm sizes. The following discussion examines different aspects of conservatism, and their interactions; the relative and incremental ability of lagged earnings and current returns to explain current earnings; several specification issues; estimation of cost of equity from earnings-return regressions; and why asymmetric conservatism appears to be increasing in Europe.
Neuropeptides and Morphological Changes in Cisplatin-Induced Dorsal Root Ganglion Neuronopathy

Dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neuronopathy was induced in rats by chronic treatment (2 mg/kg twice a week for nine injections) with the antineoplastic drug cisplatin. Morphological alterations and changes in peptide [calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), substance P, galanin (Gal), and somatostatin] concentration were studied in the DRG, the spinal cord, and the sciatic nerve. Peptide concentration was increased in DRG neurons, with CGRP and Gal showing the highest increase. Conversely, in the sciatic nerve there was a general decrease in peptide content. In DRG a reduction in the nuclear, cytoplasmic, and nucleolar areas of primary sensory neurons was evident and was accompanied by clear-cut aspects of nucleolar structural damage. In peripheral nerves only extensive morphometric determinations could evidence a reduction in nerve conduction velocities and impairment in pain detection and coordination. Some of the nerve fibers presented axonal and adaxonal accumulations, suggesting the presence of an axonopathy. These results confirm that DRG cells are the primary target of cisplatin-induced neurotoxicity. Milder alterations can be detected in peripheral nerves. The increase in peptide concentration in DRG is probably due to cisplatin-related damage to the axonal transport system rather than to an increased synthesis.
A Bayesian stochastic frontier of Italian football

This study analyses the technical efficiency of Serie A Italian football clubs during the 2004–2012 seasons with a Bayesian stochastic frontier model using unique data extracted from clubs’ annual reports. Specifically, the focus of the study is on assessing the impact effects on clubs’ efficiency whether they are big clubs, they employ several foreign player, they compete in European competitions and their involvement with football scandals in the Italian football. The empirical results reveal that efficiency varies among the clubs analysed and policy implications are derived.
Heritage/Cultural Attraction Atmospherics: Creating the Right Environment for the Heritage/Cultural Visitor

The popular press is replete with articles discussing the various remodeling efforts afoot in many of the prominent heritage attractions worldwide. Undoubtedly, museum curators have acknowledged the tremendous role external surroundings can play in the overall experience of the heritage visitor. This study investigates the effect of some basic environmental elements on visitors to heritage sites, illustrating that the heritage attraction’s physical environment plays an important role in determining both visitors’ attitude toward the heritage attraction and future repatronage intentions, as well as their willingness to recommend the experience to friends and relatives. The study findings indicate that environmental cues can be used as a differential tool to perpetuate brand meaning and uniqueness in the minds of the consumer, thereby creating a competitive advantage for the heritage attraction.
Emergence of Depression During Early Abstinence in Depressed and Non-Depressed Women Smokers

Abstract The emergence of depression early in a quit attempt and its relationship to ability to maintain abstinence were studied in 99 depressed and non-depressed women smokers. Participants rated withdrawal symptomatology during a baseline week and the first two weeks of a quit attempt, during which they used a 21-mg nicotine patch and received behavioral counseling. Depressed women experienced greater difficulty maintaining early abstinence than non-depressed women. They were significantly more likely to smoke on the first day of abstinence and smoked marginally more days during the first week. Among participants who relapsed during the first two weeks, latency to relapse was significantly shorter for depressed women. Although craving and all withdrawal symptoms except insomnia showed significant increases over baseline, only depression showed significant group differences, with trend analyses suggesting that depression asymptotes in non-depressed women after the first week but continues increasing in depressed women. Larger increases in depression on the first day of abstinence were associated with earlier lapse. Because depression is relatively infrequent as a withdrawal symptom, it may not be a “true” withdrawal symptom except in depressed people. Identification of depressed smokers and anticipation of their increased need for support during this period may help to counteract the “first-day effect” and difficulties during early abstinence.
Prevalence of the factor V Leiden mutation in hepatic and portal vein thrombosis.

BACKGROUND: The factor V Leiden (FVL) mutation has been shown to be the most frequent cause of hereditary thrombophilia. The prevalence of the mutation in patients with Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) and portal vein thrombosis (PVT) has not been fully elucidated. AIMS: To investigate the association between the FVL mutation and BCS and PVT. PATIENTS: Thirty patients with BCS, 32 patients with PVT, and a control group of 54 patients with liver disorders and no history of thrombosis. METHODS: The factor V gene was analysed for the presence of the FVL mutation by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. The presence of the mutation was confirmed by DNA sequencing. RESULTS: Seven (23%) patients with BCS, one (3%) patient with PVT, and three (6%) patients in the control group were identified as having the FVL mutation. There of the BCS patients had coexisting hypercoagulable states. The prevalence of the FVL mutation was significantly higher in patients with BCS compared with patients with PVT and controls (p < 0.04). The FVL mutation was the second most common aetiology associated with BCS. CONCLUSION: The FVL mutation is an important factor in the pathogenesis of BCS and screening for the disorder must be included in the investigation of patients presenting with this condition. In contrast, the FVL mutation is not a major predisposing factor in the pathogenesis of PVT.
Sentinel Lymph Node Detection by Blue Dye Versus Indocyanine Green Fluorescence Imaging in Colon Cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIM Nodal staging is used in colorectal cancer (CRC) to determine which patients should receive adjuvant chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of indocyanine green fluorescence imaging (ICG-FI) in sentinel lymph node (SLN) detection compared to the standard technique. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty patients with CRC admitted for elective colectomy were included (NCT01995591). Ex vivo SLN detection was performed using patent blue (PB) and free ICG injected around the tumor. RESULTS Identification rates were 95% (19/20) for both techniques. Sensitivity was 43% for PB and 57% for ICG. Correlation between the techniques was 83%. FI was more sensitive in patients with body mass index (BMI) >25 kg/m(2) Serial section analysis did not allow for up-staging of patients. CONCLUSION The use of ICG-FI is superior to the blue dye technique in patients with a BMI >25 kg/m(2) However, the sensitivity of ICG-FI in SLN detection remains low, with a high rate of false-negative results.