Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modifying TRANSIMS (Transportation Analysis and Simulation) to Include Dynamic Value Pricing and Departure Time Choice

Value pricing is now an accepted strategy for congestion and demand management in metropolitan areas. Along with alternate congestion management strategies, many transportation agencies have started looking at value pricing as a method to help financial shortfalls of new congestion management projects. Value pricing allows revenue collected from toll facilities to reduce operational concerns with underutilized High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) facilities and relieves environmental concerns by reducing travel demand. Recently, transportation agencies have become increasingly interested in a high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane value pricing system with time-dependent tolls or dynamic tolls that change by the congestion level. However, there is a lack of proper travel demand forecasting tools that can evaluate and determine the impacts of pricing on travelers’ decision in relation to congestion. The current methods use aggregated and zonal based approaches that lack the capability of tracing individual travelers through the supply network in order to capture his/her travel decisions as it pertains to the estimated cost for toll usage. The conventional models do not consider individual traveler socio-economic characteristics, particularly the heterogeneous value of time (VOT). TRANSIMS (Transportation Analysis Simulation System) differs from current travel demand forecasting methods in its underlying concepts and structure. These differences include a consistent and continuous representation of time, a detailed representation of persons and households, time-dependent routing, and a person-based Microsimulator. The TRANSIMS Microsimulator is the only simulation tool that maintains the identity of the traveler throughout the simulation and is capable of accessing the database of each individual (e.g., income, age, trip purpose). It traces the movement of people as well as vehicles on a second-by-second basis. Although TRANSIMS environment has significantly improved over the past few years, there are still issues that
A Moral Hazard Approach to Wage Discounts Under Informal Hiring

type="main" xml:id="sjpe12037-abs-0001"> This study discusses informal hiring in terms of a standard principal–agent model. We have developed an adverse selection model of the labour market where effort is not contractible and employers have the opportunity to use informal search channels for hiring purposes. This standard framework enables us to provide an effort-based explanation of the wage gap associated with informal hiring. Besides the wage discount, another feature of the equilibrium is that low-ability workers informally hired shirk.
Effects of Visual Familiarity on “Same” and “Different” Decision Processes

An experiment was conducted in which subjects matched upper and lower case versions of well-known abbreviations, such as BBC and etc, and meaningless controls. “Same” RT showed a familiarity effect for upper case versions of abbreviations such as BBC and GPO, but not for the lower case versions bbc and gpo. The converse did not occur for abbreviations such as etc, which were thought to occur most frequently in lower case. The “different” RT was inhibited by familiarity, with pairs such as IBM GPO being classified less rapidly than their lower case versions or controls. These effects occurred for subjects instructed to report “No” for “same” displays and “Yes” for “different” displays as well as for subjects given a conventional decision-report assignment. Some implications of these results for an account of the manner in which familiarity affects graphemic comparison processes are considered.
Marketing Fraud: An Approach for Differentiating Multilevel Marketing from Pyramid Schemes

A specific form of direct selling, multilevel marketing (MLM), experienced significant international growth during the 1990s, facilitated in part by the development of the Internet. A corresponding increase in the investigation and prosecution of illegal pyramid schemes occurred during the same period. These parallel activities led to increased uncertainty among marketing managers who used or wished to use the MLM approach. The authors examine similarities between the multilevel approach to marketing and activities associated with illegal pyramid schemes. A mathematical model is used to differentiate between the two on the basis of previous pyramid scheme cases and current U.S. law. The results of the model suggest key factors that marketers interested in MLM will need to consider when developing this type of distribution channel.
Modeling Magma Dynamics with a Mixed Fourier Collocation - Discontinuous Galerkin Method

A high-order discretization consisting of a tensor product of the Fourier collocation and discontinuous Galerkin methods is presented for numerical modeling of magma dynamics. The physical model is an advection-reaction type system consisting of two hyperbolic equations and one elliptic equation. The high-order solution basis allows for accurate and efficient representation of compaction-dissolution waves that are predicted from linear theory. The discontinuous Galerkin method provides a robust and efficient solution to the eigenvalue problem formed by linear stability analysis of the physical system. New insights into the processes of melt generation and segregation, such as melt channel bifurcation, are revealed from two-dimensional time-dependent simulations.
Environmental disclosures of Malaysian property development companies: towards legitimacy or accountability?

Purpose - The objective of the present study is to examine the extent, quality, nature and trends of environmental disclosures of Malaysian property development companies for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. Design/methodology/approach - A content analysis was undertaken of the annual reports of a sample of public listed property development companies in Malaysia for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. The content analysis examined extent, nature and quality of disclosures, utilising number of sentences for extent and the Clarkson Findings - Malaysian property development companies do not appear to respond to the increased public concern due to recent landslide incidents by increasing the extent or quality of environmental disclosures in their annual reports. Both extent and quality of environmental disclosures are very low and most companies provide mostly “soft” disclosures. They also make very few “hard” disclosures, comprising objective, verifiable data. Thus, the Malaysian Government needs to seriously consider making environmental reporting mandatory and to provide more detailed and comprehensive environmental reporting guidelines. Another major finding is that companies are not consistent in the extent, nature or quality of environmental disclosures made over time. Originality/value - The paper provides empirical evidence of the extent, quality and nature of environmental disclosures in an environmentally-sensitive sector. It is the first study in a developing country to utilise the Clarkson
Reflections of Older Adults on the Process Preceding Their Suicide Attempt: A Qualitative Approach

The study explores the reflections of older adults on the process preceding their suicide attempt. Data were gathered using in-depth interviews with eight older inpatients who had attempted suicide. Grounded theory methodology was used for data analysis. They described their life and the self as disrupted after experiencing a loss, loneliness, loss of control, and unwillingness to continue living the current life. The findings suggest that the concurrence of these constructs precedes a suicide attempt in later life.
Good Teaching Matters…A Lot

Editor's Note: In this issue, The OAH Magazine of History is pleased to introduce a new occasional feature. "Gleanings " will be a forum for thought-provoking material about history and teaching gathered from various educational publications. Our hope is to offerourreaders multiple viewpoints and to help spread the word about innovative ideas and projects. In this inaugural column, Kati Haycock of The Education Trust takes a look at recent studies measuring the impact on students of good (and bad) teaching. A more detailed version of this article originallyappeared in the Summer 1998 issue o/Thinking K-l 6 (vol. 3, no. 2). For a copy ofthe unabridged article or to learn more about The Education Trust, contact Michelle Pointer, TheEducation Trust, 1725KStreetNW, Suite200, Washington, D.C. 20006; (202)293-0665; .
Household Accounting in Australia: A Microhistorical Study

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to extend the work of Carnegie and Walker and report the results of Part 2 of their study on household accounting in Australia during the period from the 1820s to the 1960s. Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a microhistorical approach involving a detailed examination of actual accounting practices in the Australian home based on 18 sets of surviving household records identified as exemplars and supplemented by other sources which permit their contextualisation and interpretation. Findings - The findings point to considerable variety in the accounting practices pursued by individuals and families. Household accounting in Australia was undertaken by both women and men of the middle and landed classes whose surviving household accounts were generally found to comprise one element of diverse and comprehensive personal record keeping systems. The findings indicate points of convergence and divergence in relation to the contemporary prescriptive literature and practice. Originality/value - The paper reflects on the implications of the findings for the notion of the household as a unit of consumption as opposed to production, gender differences in accounting practice and financial responsibility, the relationship between changes in the life course and the commencement and cessation of household accounting, and the relationship between domestic accounting practice and social class.
Perceived Environmental Uncertainty, Entry Mode Choice and Satisfaction with EC‐MNC Performance

Previous theoretical and empirical research provides substantial support for a contingency approach toward international entry-mode selection. Similarly, additional empirical research supports the notion that different international ownership-based entry modes tend to be associated with varying performance levels. In this study we provide an initial attempt to use Werner, Brouthers and Brouthers' (1996) multiple measures of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty (PEU) to determine the entry mode choices of firms and link these risk-adjusted mode choices to managerial satisfaction with firm performance. We hypothesize and find that firms which make PEU risk-adjusted entry mode choices are significantly more satisfied with their firm's performance than firms whose entry mode choices cannot be predicted using multiple PEU risk measures.
The Grand Coalition and Pension and Health Care Reform

This article focuses on German pension and health care reform politics under the Grand Coalition. All rich democracies face functional pressures to reform these sectors but are confronted with political and sometimes also institutional obstacles. This holds in particular for the German party system, where traditionally two large centre parties compete for votes and power is shared with the Bundesrat, and often – informally – with the social partners. We hypothesise that a formal grand coalition provides a promising configuration for radical reforms as it neutralises these obstacles. This is done by analysing in some depth the major reforms of the Grand Coalition, the rise in the legal retirement age to 67 and the 2007 health care reform, and by comparing them with the main reforms of the preceding government, in particular the Red–Green coalition. We find that, although a Grand Coalition is not necessary for paradigmatic reform, it makes significant reform more likely, be it paradigmatic in the levels-of-policy-change literature or electorally costly as conceived in the welfare state literature.
Cardiac iron and cardiac disease in males and females with transfusion-dependent thalassemia major: a T2* magnetic resonance imaging study

Background It has been repeatedly reported that female patients with thalassemia major survive longer than males and that the difference is due to a lower rate of cardiac disease in females. Design and Methods We compared the cardiac iron load as measured by T2* magnetic resonance imaging in 776 patients (370 males) examined at the National Research Council as part of an Italian cooperative study. We also established normal left ventricular ejection fraction values for our population. Results The prevalence of cardiac disease was higher in males than in females (105 males versus 69 females; P<0.0001). Cardiac T2* was significantly lower in patients with heart dysfunction (P<0.0001), but no difference was observed according to sex. Twenty males and five females had a history of cardiac arrhythmias. Their cardiac T2* was not significantly lower than that of patients without arrhythmias (24 ms versus 26 ms; P=0.381), nor was there a difference between sexes. Liver T2* was significantly lower in males and females with heart dysfunction compared to those without. Ferritin levels were higher in patients of both sexes with heart dysfunction without significant differences between males and females. Conclusions Males and females are at the same risk of accumulating iron in their hearts, but females tolerate iron toxicity better, possibly as an effect of reduced sensitivity to chronic oxidative stress.
Finance, Institutions and Growth: Accounting for Model Uncertainty

This paper scrutinizes the eects of …nancial intermediation and institutions on growth performance as well as barriers to technology adaption in convergence by properly accounting for model uncertainty. It includes a variety of variables suggested by the most important growth theories. While many other growth determinants have been analyzed by means of Bayesian Model Averaging to account for theory uncertainty and open-endedness, …nancial intermediation and barriers to adaption have not yet been considered. This paper shows that contrary to other results the exogenous component of …nance is neither a deep determinant of economic growth nor does it exhibit a critical threshold that needs to be overcome in order to converge, once institutional and health factors are controlled for and model uncertainty is properly taken into account.
All-engaging Systems

A multiple product system is represented by a couple of matrices that describe the inputs and outputs of every process. Under specific assumptions on the matrices, the economy behaves like a single-product system, at least locally. It is called ‘all-engaging’ if the economy is indecomposable and ‘all-productive’ otherwise. An exhaustive study of the mathematical and economic properties is proposed. This approach is useful to formalize the notion of sector.
Seasonal employees' intention to return and do more than expected

Seasonal employment is important in the service industries. Having motivated and satisfied employees is fundamental when front-line employees play a key role for the customers' perceived service quality. Seasonal work differs from permanent employment in many aspects and if managed properly, this could be a competitive advantage and contribute to the success of an organization. This study focuses on seasonal employees' intention to return and to do more than expected at work as well as the relationships between certain motivational factors and job satisfaction. A survey was carried out at four ski resorts with 477 respondents. Correlation and regression analyses indicate that job satisfaction influences the intention to return but does not have a strong influence on organizational citizenship behaviour (i.e. doing more than expected at work). The results improve our understanding of seasonal workers' motivation and behaviour. The concluding part discusses managerial implications.
Measurement in Financial Reporting: Half a Century of Research and Practice

type="main"> The paper explores developments in the choice of measurement method in financial reporting over the half century that has elapsed since the foundation of Abacus in 1965. The discussion is confined to the specific problem of measuring individual assets and liabilities, rather than the wider problems of the choice of measurement unit (as in inflation accounting) or capital maintenance (as in income measurement). Changes in financial reporting practice and standards are considered in relation to developments in academic research. This has been a two-way process: research has been stimulated by problems of practice, and practice, particularly as embodied in standards, has been influenced by the results of research. Both have been influenced by significant events in the world economy, notably the inflation of the 1970s and the global financial crisis that started in 2007. Historical cost has retained its position as the predominant measurement technique in practice, but considerable progress has been made in the implementation and understanding of current value measurements, although the principles for choosing between alternative current values (particularly ‘entry’ values as opposed to ‘exit’ values) require further exploration by standard setters, assisted by academic research.
Bank Credit And Agricultural Output In South Africa: A Cobb-Douglas Empirical Analysis

We empirically examine the impact of bank credit on agricultural output in South Africa using the Cobb-Douglas production function. We utilize time series data of agricultural output, bank credit, capital accumulation, labour and rainfall from 1970 – 2009. With agricultural output as the dependent variable, we determine OLS estimates of the Cobb-Douglas production function. We observe that bank credit has a positive and significant impact on agricultural output in South Africa. With other factors of production kept constant, a 1% increase in credit results in 0.6% increase in agricultural output. Capital accumulation is also observed to have a positive and significant impact on agricultural output, albeit lower than that of credit, as a 1% increase in capital accumulation results in 0.4% increase in output, other factors kept constant. In terms the Cobb-Douglas elasticities, the combined effect of credit (0.6%) and capital accumulation (0.4%) gives constant returns to scale, meaning that doubling the two inputs will double agricultural output.
Leakage of Central Venous Catheter Locking Fluid by Hemodynamic Transport

Central venous catheters are often filled when not in use with an anticoagulating fluid, usually heparinized saline, known as the locking fluid. However, the use of the locking fluid is associated with known risks because of “leakage” of the lock. A new hypothesis is proposed here to explain the lock fluid leakage: that the leakage is due to advective and diffusive mass transfer by blood flow around the catheter tip in situ. On the basis of previous in vitro experiments, the leakage mechanism has been hypothesized to be fluid motion driven by buoyancy forces between the heavier blood and the lighter locking fluid. The current hypothesis is justified by a simple one-dimensional mass transfer model and more sophisticated three-dimensional computational hemodynamic simulations of an idealized catheter. The results predict an initial, fast (<10 seconds) advection-dominated phase, which may deplete up to 10% of the initial lock, followed by a slow diffusion-limited phase which predicts an additional 1–2% of leakage during a 48 hour period. The current results predict leakage rates that are more consistent with published in vivo data when compared with the buoyancy hypothesis predictions, which tend to grossly overestimate leakage rates.
University-educated Labor, R&D and Regional Export Performance

The main purpose of the study in this paper is to establish to what extent accessibility to R&D and university-educated labor can explain regional export performance. This is done by estimating knowledge production functions, with total export value and number of high-valued exports in Swedish municipalities from 1997 to 1999 as outputs. The results in the paper indicate that accessibility to university-educated labor has the greatest positive effects. The value of exported products is mainly affected by local accessibility to university-educated labor (and company R&D). The intra- and inter-regional accessibilities play a more important role when the number of high-valued export products in Swedish municipalities is the output.
Subsidiary power in multinational corporations: the subtle role of micro‐political bargaining power

Purpose – As subsidiary power has received relatively little attention in existing research, this paper aims to enhance the understanding of genuine sources of subsidiary power and how they work in headquarters‐subsidiary relationships.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a review of the relevant literature and four illustrative case studies, which are written on the basis of secondary sources. Each case was selected because it adequately represents a particular type of power. This allows for cross‐case comparisons of the strengths and sustainability of different types of power, and facilitates the exploration of the application of subsidiary power in headquarters‐subsidiary relationships.Findings – Four genuine types of subsidiary power are identified. One of these – micro‐political bargaining power – plays a subtle but crucial role, as it is important in the enactment of the three other types of power, i.e. systemic, resource‐dependency, and institutional.Practical implications – As headq.
Infusion dose requirement of rocuronium in patients on phenytoin therapy – A prospective comparative study

Background and Aims: Patients with intracranial tumour are usually on anticonvulsants. Patients on phenytoin therapy demonstrate rapid metabolism of nondepolarising muscle relaxants secondary to enzyme induction. Infusion dose requirement of rocuronium in such patients has been sparingly studied. We studied the continuous infusion dose requirement of rocuronium bromide in patients on phenytoin therapy and its correlation with serum levels of phenytoin. Methods: Seventy-five patients scheduled for supratentorial tumour surgery were included in the study. Patients not on phenytoin were taken as control. The primary outcome variable studied was the infusion dose requirement of rocuronium in patients on phenytoin. Based on pre-operative serum phenytoin levels, study group patients were divided into two groups: sub-therapeutic level group (phenytoin level <10 μg/mL) and therapeutic level group (phenytoin level >10 μg/mL). Following anaesthesia induction, rocuronium bromide 0.6 mg/kg was administered to achieve tracheal intubation. Rocuronium infusion was titrated to maintain zero response on the train-of-four response. Results: Demographic data were comparable. Patients receiving phenytoin required higher infusion dose compared to the control group (0.429 ± 0.2 mg/kg/h vs. 0.265 ± 0.15 mg/kg/h, P < 0.001). The serum phenytoin level had no correlation to infusion dose requirement of rocuronium (0.429 ± 0.205 mg/kg/h vs. 0.429 ± 0.265 mg/kg/h (P = 0.815). The recovery was faster in the phenytoin group compared to the control group. Haowever, it was not clinically significant. Conclusion: The infusion dose requirement of rocuronium bromide in patients on phenytoin is higher and the serum levels of phenytoin does not influence the dose required.