Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Loneliness as Experienced by Women Living With Chronic Illness in Rural Areas

Purpose: The purposes were to identify loneliness in rural women with chronic conditions and to identify the major themes represented in their descriptions of their feelings of loneliness. Design: This study was a secondary analysis of data collected during a 22-week computer-based support and health online intervention in which rural women participated in virtual forums that allowed them to share life experiences. Method: Quantitative data were gathered from participants’ self-reported loneliness via the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Qualitative data analysis consisted of seeking loneliness themes imbedded in the participants’ online exchanges. Findings: High scores on the loneliness scale indicated a high degree of expressed loneliness, with possible scores of 20 to 80. The range of scores for all participants (n = 57) was 21 to 68; for those in the upper quartile (n = 12), the range was 52 to 68. Loneliness themes identified were longing for loved ones, changing relationships, listening in the background, and impact of rural factors. Conclusions: Because loneliness has been described as a painful experience and can have long-reaching effects on an individual’s health, it is a factor to be considered in planning nursing care for individuals who may be at risk because of physical and/or emotional isolation.
Biometrics in Forensic Identification: Applications and Challenges

Accurate and efficient identification have become a vital requirement for forensic application due to diversities of criminal activities. A recent advancement in biometric technologywhich is equipped with computational intelligence techniques is replacing manual identification approaches in forensic science. Biometrics is a fundamental verification mechanism that identifies individuals on the basis of their physiological and behavioral features. These biometric expansions are easily observable in different forensic identification areas, e.g. face, fingerprint, iris, voice, handwriting, etc. The effectiveness of biometricssystem lies in different recognition processes which include feature extraction, feature robustness and feature matching. The emergence of forensic biometrics covers a wide range of applications for physical and cybercrime detection. Forensic Biometrics also overcomes the loopholes of traditional identification system that were based on personal probabilities. It is considered as a fundamental shift in the way criminals are detected. The present study describes the contribution and limitations of biometric science in the field of forensic identification.
Acute myocardial infarction occurrence: environmental links - Baku 2003-2005 data.

BACKGROUND Despite substantial progress in modern preventive and clinical cardiology, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains a central acute cardiac event. The aim of this study was to check the basic daily environmental-physical conditions accompanying the occurrence of AMIs in a specific geographic area: Baku, Azerbaijan. MATERIAL/METHODS AMIs registered in the Baku area by 21 first-aid stations (n=4919) during 2003-2005 were compared with daily geomagnetic activity (GMA) levels (I(0)-IV(0)) and cosmic ray activity (CRA), described by neutron (imp/min) and solar activity. The same comparison was made for pre-admission fatal AMIs (n=440). The cosmophysical data came from space science centers in the USA, Russia, and Finland. RESULTS AMI morbidity followed a daily distribution according to GMA, mostly on quiet (I(0)) GMA days. A monthly comparison showed inverse relationships with solar activity and GMA and correlation with CRA. The daily clinical parameters of AMI correlated with CRA. Despite the daily rise in AMI mortality on days with the highest GMA, the days with the lowest GMA and higher CRA were predominant for AMI occurrence and pre-admission mortality. One of the possible predisposing factors can be life-threatening arrhythmia. CONCLUSIONS The monthly number of AMIs was inversely related to monthly solar activity and correlated with CRA-neutron activity. Pre-admission AMI mortality was inversely linked with GMA. Daily AMI pre-admission mortality rose with concomitant GMA; low-GMA and higher-neutron-activity AMIs occurred much more frequently and were more strongly related to the number of fatal pre-admission AMIs. The clinical course of AMI was linked with CRA level.
Corporate Governance and Firm Value: The Case of Venezuela

Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: We examine the relationship between corporate governance and firm value, and evaluate the relatively understudied governance practices in Venezuela. Research Findings/Results: We construct a corporate governance index (CGI) for publicly-listed firms that is free of self-selection and self-reported bias and find that its mean value is below the emerging market average in general, and below the Latin American average in particular. This weak investor protection environment makes Venezuela a good setting to study how corporate governance practices affect firm value. We show that an increase of 1 per cent in the CGI results in an average increase of 11.3 per cent in dividend payouts, 9.9 per cent in price-to-book, and 2.7 per cent in Tobin's Q. These findings are robust after considering the potential endogeneity of our regression variables. Theoretical Implications: Results contrast to those reported in the US due to the higher interfirm variations in CGI. Our findings are consistent with the theoretical models that relate good corporate governance practices to higher investor confidence, and with the agency model of dividend payout. Furthermore, we conjecture that our results are generalizable mainly to other countries where investor protection is low. Practical Implications: Two direct insights to policy makers and practitioners follow from our analysis: first, managers in weak investor protection environments could differentiate their firms adopting corporate policies to improve their gover- nance structure; and second, our measure of governance practices gives investors a quantitative tool to better assess Venezuelan firms.
Challenging Workplace Bullying in the USA : A Communication and Activist Perspective

Introduction The goals of the multi-faceted 12-yearold campaign have been to raise awareness, and to reverse acceptance, of workplace bullying in the United States. In this chapter, we discuss the Workplace Bullying Institute’s (WBI, workplacebullying.org) efforts with three principal constituent groups and report the current state of progress as well as the barriers we continue to face in meeting those goals. The organization has a long history of assistance for bullied workers, legislative advocacy and collaboration with academics (e.g., Lutgen-Sandvik, Namie & Namie, 2009; Neuman, 2000; Yamada, 2008; Yamada, 2002). Prior to detailing the state of U.S. awareness regarding the bullying phenomenon, we outline the central ideas behind communication campaigns that focus on public health issues, such as workplace bullying, and persuasion theories relevant to the work. We then review the current state of this campaign in the United States focusing on efforts directed at three groups: the public [e.g., bullied workers (targets), witnesses, nonbelievers], lawmakers, and employers. We close with work yet to be done and future directions to continue these U.S. endeavors.
Sources of Bank Interest Rate Risk

We investigate bank stocks'sensitivity to changes in interest rates and the factors affecting this sensitivity. We focus on whether the exposure of commercial banks to interest rate risk is conditioned on certain balance sheet and income statement ratios. We find a significantly negative relation between bank stock returns and changes in interest rates over the period 1991-1996. We also find that bank characteristics measured from basic financial statement information explain bank stocks'sensitivity to interest rate changes. These results suggest that bank managers, analysts, and regulators can use this information to assess the relative risk exposure of banks. Copyright 2002 by the Eastern Finance Association.
Role of matrix metalloproteinases in skeletal muscle

Matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) are key regulatory molecules in the formation, remodeling, and degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM) components in both physiological and pathological processes in many tissues. In skeletal muscle, MMPs play an important role in the homeostasis and maintenance of myofiber functional integrity by breaking down ECM and regulating skeletal muscle cell migration, differentiation and regeneration. Skeletal muscle satellite cells, a group of quiescent stem cells located between the basement membrane and the plasmalemma of myofibers, are responsible for lifelong maintenance and repairing, which can be activated and as a result migrate underneath the basement membrane to promote regeneration at the injured site. MMPs are able to degrade ECM components, thereby facilitating satellite cell migration and differentiation. This current review will focus on the critical roles of MMPs in skeletal muscle injury and repair, which include satellite cell activation with migration and differentiation. The effect of MMPs on muscle regeneration and fibrous scar tissue formation, as well as therapeutic insights for the future will be explored.
Corporate governance and financing decisions of Ghanaian listed firms

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationship between corporate governance and the capital structure decisions of listed firms in Ghana.Design/methodology/approach – Multiple regression analysis is used in the study in estimating the relationship between the corporate governance characteristics and capital structure.Findings – The empirical results show statistically significant and positive associations between capital structure and board size, board composition, and CEO duality. The results generally indicate that Ghanaian listed firms pursue high debt policy with larger board size, higher percentage of non‐executive directors, and CEO duality. The results also show a negative (though statistically insignificant) relationship between the tenure of the CEO and capital structure, suggesting that, entrenched CEOs employ lower debt in order to reduce the performance pressures associated with high debt capital.Originality/value – The main value of this paper is the analysis of the effect of corporat.
Contract Length, Expected Surplus, and Specific Investments

This study empirically tests how expected surplus and specific investments affect the structure of National Football League player contracts. Empirical results show that both length and monetary compensations of a player’s contract increase with expected surplus and specific investments. In particular, early draftees with higher expected value of future performance signed longer and more lucrative contracts than later draftees did. This correlation is affected by a team’s expected surplus from contracting with their draftees. Comparing to the other teams, teams with more empty seats and fewer wins in the previous season invested more in early draftees, but less in later draftees. The results also indicate that players requiring more specific investments negotiated longer and more lucrative contracts than did other players, particularly quarterbacks.
Utilising Individual Placement and Support to address unemployment and low education rates among individuals with psychotic disorders

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 47(6) Unemployment is a near-universal functional disability associated with psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia. There exist a number of ways of addressing unemployment in this population. These include transitional employment, social firms and supported employment, with the latter utilising a place-(in competitive employment)and-support model (Killackey et al., 2006). While all three methods have pros and cons, and no single method is right for all people with schizophrenia, the research evidence indicates that supported employment is far and away the most successful approach to helping people with psychotic illnesses find a job in the mainstream competitive labour market (Bond et al., 2008). The most defined form of supported employment is Individual Placement and Support (IPS). This article will argue the case for the inclusion of IPS as a standard practice in any recovery-focused mental health setting. It will do this through establishing that there is a need for an employment intervention in psychotic illness, defining what IPS is, briefly surveying the evidence for IPS, and highlighting where IPS might be further augmented and developed. Finally, it will identify some barriers that have acted against its wide implementation and suggest how these may be overcome.
The Myth of Equalizing Dierences in the Labor Market

The theory of equalizing dierences has not been able to reconcile with the lack of empirical support in the labor market. This paper studies stable job matching in the labor market with heterogeneity on both the job characteristic and the worker’s productivity. It shows how the relationship between the observed wage and the job characteristic non-trivially depends on the worker’s productivity heterogeneity, the worker’s preference relation on the job characteristic and consumption, and the nature of the job characteristic in the production technology. It explains why the empirical results on equalizing dierences in the labor market are thought to be mixed, inconclusive and even counterintuitive.
Mispricing and risk of R&D investment in European firms

We study whether R&D-intensive firms earn superior stock returns compared to matched size and book-to-market portfolios across several financial markets in Europe. Mispricing can arise if investors are not able to correctly estimate the long-term benefits of R&D investment or whether R&D firms are more risky than others. The results confirm that more innovative firms can earn future excess returns. Stocks listed on continental Europe markets and operating in high-tech sectors are more prone to undervaluation. This can be caused in the first case by information asymmetries that are more severe in bank-based countries. No evidence is found for a different risk pattern of R&D-intensive stocks.
Sustainable Tourism Planning and Consultation: Evidence from the Project INTER.ECO.TUR

Expansion of territories targeted by travellers and growth of attendance rates make tourism sector of significant interest for the implementation of policies on environmental protection at the European Union (EU) level. The need to protect local natural heritage, to integrate tourism industry development policies with the ones pertaining to other sectors that characterize a given territory and to enhance the overall environmental performance are some of the priorities that may appear conflicting at times. This paper discusses a method of analysis and planning aiming to promote potential directives of local governance. This method, representing the outcome of a process coordinated and shared across territories, is oriented towards the sustainable development of the area and refers to the implementation of integrated policies, The Interreg Eco Tourism (INTER.ECO.TUR) project, co-financed by the European Commission under the EU's INTERREG IIIC, provided the research with a useful case study to analyse the dynamics of sustainable tourism development within the European Mediterranean area. The debate of its results offers evidences on the possibility to develop such a governance process effectively, providing insight into an assessment methodology enriched by a clear-cut analysis of its applied experiences.
Preparation of Cement Composites with Ordered Microstructures via Doping with Graphene Oxide Nanosheets and an Investigation of Their Strength and Durability

The main problem with cement composites is that they have structural defects, including cracks, holes, and a disordered morphology, which significantly affects their strength and durability. Therefore, the construction of cement composites with defect-free structures and high strength and long durability is an important research topic. Here, by controlling the size and chemical groups of graphene oxide nanosheets (GONs) used for doping, we were able to control the entire cement matrix to form an ordered microstructure consisting of polyhedron-like crystals and exhibit flower-like patterns. The cracks and holes in the cement matrix just about vanished. The compressive and flexural strengths as well as the parameters for the durability assessment of the corresponding cement composites obviously improved compared with the control samples. Thus, the formation mechanism of the cement matrix with the ordered microstructure is proposed, and a proper explanation is given to regulation action.
The gender wage gap and its institutional context: a comparative analysis of European graduates

This article examines whether there is a gender gap in monthly wages among recent graduates in 11 European countries, and which variables account for it. We extend previous works considering a broader range of variables including perceived skills, responsibility at work, family obligations and attitudes to family and work. Regression analyses applied to data from the ‘Research into Employment and professional FLEXibility’ (REFLEX) survey (2005) show that in all countries there is a significant ‘raw wage gap’, but with noticeable cross-country variation. Decomposition analyses show that the ‘residual wage gap’ (discrimination) is lower in Nordic countries and higher in the Czech Republic, with the United Kingdom, continental and southern European countries placed in between them. Employment characteristics and working hours are the most important factors accounting for the gender gap. Wage discrimination is lower in countries with high trade union density, centralized collective bargaining, family-friendly policies, and high level of women’s empowerment in society.
Wide-sense nonblocking Banyan-type switching systems based on directional couplers

Directional couplers are capable of switching signals with multiple wavelengths. They are the ideal technology for building light-path switches to configure wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission facilities. This technology, however, has a major constraint: crosstalk. Design of a strictly nonblocking directional coupler-based photonic switching system under a specified crosstalk constraint has previously been studied. The results indicate that a lower level of crosstalk can be achieved at a cost of some extra amount of hardware. In this paper, we show that if a simple rule is followed in setting up the connections, both the amount of hardware for nonblocking networks and the connection setup time can be greatly reduced. The resulting networks thus belong to the class of wide-sense nonblocking networks.
The adoption of children from public care: a prospective study of outcome in adolescence.

OBJECTIVE To discover the outcomes for children placed late for adoption (between 5 and 11 years old) from public care and to establish which factors predict poorer outcome. METHOD Data were collected prospectively (1993-2003) from a representative sample of domestic U.K. adoptive placements (N = 108) at the start of placement, at 1 year, and 6 years later. Most of the children entered care because of abuse and neglect. Outcome was assessed by the disruption rate, by a twofold classification of the character of continuing placements, and by an assessment of psychological well-being. RESULTS At the adolescent follow-up, 23% of placements had disrupted, 49% were continuing positively, and 28% were continuing but with substantial ongoing difficulties. Four factors contributed independently to a higher risk of disruption: older age at placement (odds ratio = 1.07), having been singled out from siblings and rejected (5.87), time in care (1.04), and a high level of behavioral problems (1.25). Two factors predicted differences in continuing placements. CONCLUSIONS Late adoption can be successful in that half the children made good progress, but the extent of disruptions and difficulties in continuing placements gives rise to concern. Knowledge of predictors will help in devising planning pre- and postplacement support services.
Negotiating Reproduction: Family Size and Fertility Regulation among Shuar People of the Ecuadorian Amazon

The focus of this dissertation is situated in the realm of the global reproductive health discourse and its interplay with national politics in Ecuador. It addresses how high fertility rates are perceived as an issue that hinders development and modernisation. Population policies and reproductive health and family planning programmes have been developed in order to help people control their fertility, based on the assumption that reducing the number of offspring will enhance the well-being and prosperity of family, community, and nation. The ethnography presented in this thesis is based on anthropological fieldwork among Shuar people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Being numerous and having large families are important to the majority of Shuar people. The study aims to explain how Shuar individuals make sense of human reproduction and how the choices they make about family size and fertility regulations relate to both their own reproductive norms and practices and to national and international ideals. Shuar people’s notions of reproduction and well-being differ significantly from the assumptions embedded in global and Ecuadorian discourses. Reproduction, and having a large family, is an intrinsic part of Shuar people’s notions of conviviality, or well-being, and of how to achieve this way of living. Having large families are linked to their ontologies, social dynamics and perceptions on power, knowledge, and the growth of children. The ways various agents of change in Ecuador interpret, communicate, and implement reproductive health policies and programmes certainly influence the experiences and decisions of Shuar people but not always as anticipated. Shuar people do not simply internalise international or religious norms and ideas. Instead, they assert their own dynamic patterns of reproductive practices according to their own perceptions, norms, experiences and systems of knowledge. This study offers critical insights into, and analyses of, the various ways in which the state may intervene in people’s reproductive life. It explores how Shuar people’s encounters with state health professionals are experienced and embodied through practices of the everyday. What we see in these encounters is that the state does not simply represent a set of rational and bureaucratic practices, strictly implementing policy discourses and development objectives, but is suffused with subjectivity. The power to define reproduction and reproductive practices and relations does not operate in one direction only. This study demonstrates how the global and national discourse on population and reproductive health is being interpreted, recreated and transformed through multifaceted negotiations at various levels. In this process, Shuar people are conscious participators in the dialogue that takes place in the encounter with state health professionals, and are never involuntarily ruled by the dominant discourse they meet.
Labour Demand, Flexible Contracts and Financial Factors: Firm-Level Evidence from Spain*

We estimate models of labour demand for a panel of 3,400 Spanish manufacturing firms over the period 1985-2001. We examine the roles of fixed-term contracts, financial factors and a policy reform in 1997 affecting permanent contracts by lowering payroll taxes and dismissal costs. Compared with permanent employment, the demand for flexible labour displays: (i) greater sensitivity to financial factors; (ii) greater cyclical sensitivity; (iii) a larger average wage elasticity; and (iv) less inertia. Our analysis of the 1997 policy reform suggests that a 5 percentage point reduction in the payroll tax is associated with an 8% increase in permanent labour demand. Copyright (c) Bank of England, 2007.