Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Migration, Remittances and Public Transfers on Technology Adoption: The Case of Cereal Producers in Rural Kenya

Risk and liquidity constraints are major obstacles to the adoption of modern technologies in many rural African countries. Migration and remittances can help rural households overcome these constraints and increase the adoption of modern technologies. We analyse the impact of migration, remittances and government transfers on the adoption of improved seeds in rural Kenya. Using data from the World Bank, two stage least‐squares estimates show that both migration and remittances positively affect the adoption of improved seeds. However, three stage least‐squares estimates reveal that the adoption of new technologies is more related to migration than remittances.
The Effect of Implicit Market Barriers on Stock Trading and Liquidity

We compare the performance of Islamic and conventional stock returns in Saudi Arabia in order to determine whether the Saudi market exhibits characteristics that are consistent with segmented markets and investor recognition effects. We sample the daily stock returns of all Saudi firms from September 2002 to 2015 and calculate important measures, including idiosyncratic volatility (Ang et al, 2006), market integration (Pukthuanthong and Roll, 2009), systematic turnover (Loughran and Schultz, 2005), and stock turnover and liquidity (Amihud, 2002). Integration tests report that Islamic stocks are more sensitive to changes in global and local macroeconomic variables than conventional stocks, supporting the hypothesis that the Islamic and conventional stock markets are segmented in Saudi Arabia. In addition, our results show that Islamic stocks have a broader investor base, lower idiosyncratic risk, higher systematic turnover, and are more liquid than conventional stocks, which support the investor recognition hypothesis. Our results provide new evidence on asset pricing in emerging markets, the evolving Islamic financial markets, and the potential impact of other implicit market barriers on global financial markets.
Regulating the regulators. An empirical study of the influences on the research governance practices in Victorian public healthcare agencies

This thesis investigated how the National Mutual Acceptance (NMA) model of single ethical review has currently impacted, and how it is likely to impact the future, on the research governance practices of public healthcare agencies participating in multi-site clinical trials. This study sought to describe the variables associated with the impact of the NMA through the theory of Institutional Isomorphism proposed by DiMaggio and Powell , which proposes that comparable organisations develop similarities in order to appear legitimate to their stakeholders. Consolidation is influenced by: coercive isomorphism, which involves pressures from other entities on which they are dependent; mimetic isomorphism, which refers to the tendency of an organisation to imitate a more successful organisation; and normative isomorphism, which is driven by professional pressures. Data was collected in two phases. Phase One focused on the collection of quantitative data relating to perceptions of the importance of research and the impact of the NMA. Phase Two involved collection of qualitative data to explore the reasons behind current irregularities in the NMA and expectations of the future. Although participants agreed that the NMA could provide isomorphic pressures, there were concerns regarding bureaucratic inconsistency that created uncertainty in the processes. The strongest isomorphic influence provided by the NMA was coercive pressure, which was also identified as a possible future mechanism. In contrast to findings in other literature, neither mimetic nor normative pressures were perceived as influential because emphasis on the practices of individual agencies prevented a coherent system from developing. The study made three contributions to Institutional Isomorphism theory. It identified the importance of robust coercive forces to allowing mimetic and normative forces to emerge. It also highlighted the need for agencies to recognise implications of research governance beyond their own organisational boundaries and the need to quantify the responsibilities of governance personnel to strengthen coercive impact. Recommendation included the need to address: organisational leadership of the NMA, to strengthen the knowledge base through education and training, the development of a stakeholder engagement framework and opportunities to expand the NMA. This research provides new insight into understanding research governance in the context of the Australian public healthcare sector and provides a model though which further exploration may be undertaken.
New developments in research methods

Author(s): Ledgerwood, AM | Abstract: Recent events have placed psychological science at the forefront of a broad movement across scientific disciplines to improve research methods and practices. Many of the methodological tools emerging from this context have focused on two core aims: (1) maximizing what researchers can learn from each individual study that they conduct, and (2) maximizing what researchers can learn from synthesizing across multiple studies on a given topic. This chapter provides readers with the concrete tools they need to pursue each of these aims in their own research, with a focus on discussing when, why, and how to implement each tool. Readers will learn how to think about and distinguish between exploratory research questions versus confirmatory hypotheses and between exploratory versus confirmatory analyses, how to plan for unexpected results, how to boost statistical power, and the importance of conducting different kinds of replications. Readers will also learn about cutting-edge methods for conducting within-paper meta-analyses and adjusting for publication bias in meta-analysis.
Estrogens, the immune response and autoimmunity.

Estrogens appear to play a central role in the immune response and immune-mediated diseases. Recent studies have shown the presence of estrogen receptors on the cells involved in the immune response, namely thymocytes, macrophages and endothelial cells. Particular attention has been focused on the dose-dependent influence of estrogen on the immune response, which appears to be related to the clinical symptoms of autoimmunity (i.e. the effects of pregnancy or oral contraceptive pills). The influence of estrogens on cytokine production by target cells, through interference with their transcriptional activity, has also been the focus of various studies. The effect of estrogens on the expression of the protooncogenes and oncosuppressor genes involved in programmed cell death (apoptosis) might also be relevant to human autoimmunity, in particular the uncontrolled synovial lining cell hyperplasia associated with rheumatoid arthritis and the prolonged T-cell survival in systemic lupus erythematosus. Estrogen-induced immunomodulation is a subject of growing interest and stimulating research.
Influence of helix 12 of Ultraspiracle on Drosophila melanogaster ecdysone receptor function

Although it has no ligand, helix 12 in the ligand binding domain of Ultraspiracle (USP) is locked in an antagonistic position. To investigate whether this position is of functional importance, we enhanced the flexibility of helix 12 by mutating two amino acids (259, located in L1–3 and F491 in helix 12). Mutated USP reduces the stability of USP and all isoforms of the ecdysone receptor (EcR) and impairs nuclear localization and DNA binding of EcR/USPL259A/F491/A, resulting in lower levels of basal transcriptional activity. Although the affinity of the ligand ponasterone A to EcR/USPL259/F491 is moderately diminished, hormone‐induced stimulation of transcriptional activity is normal. Potentiation of the ecdysone response by juvenile hormone (JH) is selectively increased in mutated heterodimers with EcR‐B1, demonstrating that the antagonistic position impairs functional interaction of the EcR complex with JHIII.
A human herpesvirus miRNA attenuates interferon signaling and contributes to maintenance of viral latency by targeting IKK ε

Correspondence: Ke Lan Tel: +86 21 63851321; Fax: +86 21 63843571 E-mail: lanke@sibs.ac. cn Received 20 July 2010; revised 21 September 2010; accepted October 2010; published online 11 January 2011 Type I interferon (IFN) signaling is the principal response mediating antiviral innate immunity. IFN transcription is dependent upon the activation of transcription factors IRF3/IRF7 and NF-κB. Many viral proteins have been shown as being capable of interfering with IFN signaling to facilitate evasion from the host innate immune response. Here, we report that a viral miRNA, miR-K12-11, encoded by Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is critical for the modulation of IFN signaling and acts through targeting I-kappa-B kinase epsilon (IKKε). Ectopic expression of miR-K12-11 resulted in decreased IKKε expression, while inhibition of miR-K12-11 was found to restore IKKε expression in KSHV-infected cells. Importantly, expression of miR-K12-11 attenuated IFN signaling by decreasing IKKε-mediated IRF3/IRF7 phosphorylation and by inhibiting the activation of IKKε-dependent IFN stimulating genes (ISGs), allowing miR-K12-11 suppression of antiviral immunity. Our data suggest that IKKε targeting by miR-K12-11 is an important strategy utilized by KSHV to modulate IFN signaling during the KSHV lifecycle, especially in latency. We also demonstrated that IKKε was able to enhance KSHV reactivation synergistically with the treatment of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate. Moreover, inhibition of miR-K12-11 enhanced KSHV reactivation induced by vesicular stomatitis virus infection. Taken together, our findings also suggest that miR-K12-11 can contribute to maintenance of KSHV latency by targeting IKKε.
Deinstitutionalization and Increased Arrest Rates among the Mentally Disordered

Policies of deinstitutionalization, together with a general tightening of civil commitment laws and inadequate funding for community-based programs, have resulted in an increase of mentally ill people on the streets. Growing numbers of former mental patients and individuals whose bizarre behavior might have landed them in a state hospital bed a few years ago are now being arrested and ending up in jail. Four key areas––deinstitutionalization, police decision making, decline of mental health programs, and criminal histories of mental patients—are examined with respect to the shifting of mentally disordered persons from the mental health system to the criminal justice system.
St John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum)--a herbal antidepressant.

A number of clinical studies conducted over the past few years have indicated that whole extract of St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) has antidepressant effects. The herbal antidepressant St John's wort offers promising results in the treatment of patients with mild and moderate depression (response rate of 60-70% estimated by analysis of pooled data). St John's wort preparations are well tolerated. Their use rarely leads to adverse drug reactions which, when they do occur, are mainly subjective symptoms (e.g. gastrointestinal, dizziness). The generally good tolerability of St John's wort preparations and the resulting high patient compliance in taking the prescribed medication, in conjunction with their efficacy in mild and moderate depression, make these preparations particularly suitable for use in outpatient practice. Tolerability is also very good in elderly patients. If a sufficiently high-dose course of treatment with St John's wort preparations (900 mg daily) does not lead to a clear improvement in depression after four to six weeks, therapy should be continued with an established ('classical') antidepressant.
Setting the Scene for a Healthier Indoor Living Environment: Citizens’ Knowledge, Awareness, and Habits Related to Residential Radon Exposure in Romania

The present research is based on the premise that people perceive radiation risks in different ways, depending on their cultural background, information exposure, economic level, and educational status, which are specific to each country. The main objective was to assess and report, for the first time, the Romanians’ attitude (perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors) related to residential radon, in order to contribute to the creation of a healthier living environment. A convenience sample of 229 people from different parts of Romania, including radon prone areas, was used. Results profiled a population vulnerable to radon threats from the perspective of their awareness and perceptions. Thus, study results showed that most participants did not perceive the risk generated by radon exposure as significant to their health; only 13.1% of interviewed people considered the danger to their health as “high” or “very high”. Additionally, it was found that awareness of radon itself was low: 62.4% of the sample did not know what radon was. From a practical perspective, the study shows that in Romania, increasing awareness, through the provision of valid information, should be a major objective of strategies that aim to reduce radon exposure. The present study takes a bottom-up perspective by assessing Romanian citizens’ attitudes toward radon. Therefore, it compensates for a gap in the behavioral studies literature by providing practical support for radon risk mitigation and creating the premises for a healthier living environment.
The use of opioids at the end-of-life and the survival of Egyptian palliative care patients with advanced cancer.

BACKGROUND AND AIM One of the barriers to cancer pain control and palliative care (PC) development is the misconception that the use of opioids may hasten death. This concern is exaggerated when higher doses of opioids are used at the end-of-life. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between survival and the dose of opioids used at the end-of-life of patients with advanced cancer in an Egyptian PC setting. METHODS Retrospective review of the medical records of 123 patients with advanced cancer managed in an Egyptian cancer center-based palliative medicine unit (PMU). Patients were classified according to the last prescribed regular opioid dose expressed in milligrams of oral morphine equivalent (OME) per day (mg OME/24 h) into three groups: no opioid or low-dose group (<120 mg OME/24 h), intermediate-dose group (120-<300 mg OME/24 h) and high-dose group (≥300 mg OME/24 h). Survival was calculated from the date of first referral to the PMU to death. RESULTS The median age of patients was 53 years, breast cancer was the most common diagnosis (18%) and the majority (68%) died at home. Opioids were prescribed for pain control in 94% of patients and were prescribed on regular basis in 89%. The mean last prescribed opioid dose for the whole group of patients was 167 (±170) mg OME/24 h and it was highest among patients with pleural mesothelioma [245 (±258) mg OME/24 h]. The last prescription included no opioids or low-dose opioids in 57 (46%) patients, intermediate-dose in 42 (34%) and high-dose in 24 (20%). The estimated median survival was 45 days for the no opioid/low-dose group, 75 days for the intermediate-dose group and 153 days for the high-dose group (P=0.031). CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that the dose of opioids has no detrimental impact on the survival of patients with advanced cancer in an Egyptian PC setting. Further research is needed to overcome barriers to cancer pain control especially in settings with inadequate cancer pain control.
Longitudinal relationship between psychological distress and multiple substance use: results from a three-year multisite natural-history study of rural stimulant users.

OBJECTIVE Substance use is associated with poor mental health, but little is known regarding how use of multiple substances is associated with mental health, particularly longitudinally, in community studies. This article examines this issue in a large (N = 710), natural-history study of rural stimulant (cocaine and/or methamphetamine) users in three states. METHOD Respondent-driven sampling recruited recent (past-30-day) stimulant users in three counties each in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Ohio. Participants were interviewed every 6 months for 3 years. Mental health was measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory, and prior 6 months' substance use was measured for 17 possible substances. Data analysis used generalized estimating equations for longitudinal data with the Global Severity Index of the Brief Symptom Inventory as the dependent variable at each interview and substance use as predictor variables measured by number of substances used in the past 6 months and, separately, the 17 individual substances, adjusting for use of substance-use treatment, demographics, and recruitment site. RESULTS On average, both Global Severity Index score and use of many substances declined over the course of study. Global Severity Index score was significantly associated with (a) greater number of substances used in the past 6 months (p < .0001) and (b) use of crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and nonprescription use of prescription painkillers and tranquilizers. CONCLUSIONS Multiple and specific substances appear to incrementally increase psychological distress. Users of cocaine and methamphetamine are present in rural areas; these associations with poor psychological health raise concerns regarding availability of local treatment services for individuals with mental-health problems, as well as substance abuse.
Nurses' Perceived Barriers to Assessment and Managementof Pain in a University Hospital

A self-report questionnaire was answered by 114 nurses working at the internal medicine, oncology, and surgery clinics. The most commonly perceived barriers to pain management were system-related barriers. Lack of psychosocial support services and patient-to-nurse ratio received the highest ratings. Institutional and governmental attempts are needed to increase the number of nurses in the clinics and to establish support services. Nurse-related barriers were less perceived as an obstacle when compared with the other barriers. A small percentage of the nurses agreed that nurses' inadequate knowledge of pain management (10%) and nurses' indifference (8%) were barriers to pain management. Inadequate time for health teaching with patients was agreed on by 65% of the nurses. Most commonly rated physician-related barriers were inadequate assessment of pain and pain relief by doctors (63%) and physicians' indifference (47%). Patients' difficulty with completing pain scales (56%) and consumers not demanding results (53%) were the most commonly reported patient-related barriers. A significant percentage of the participating nurses indicated that they have no idea about patient-related barriers. Regular and continuous pain education programs may help to establish a supportive team spirit between doctors and nurses.
Experiments on dynamic behaviors of small DC current vacuum arc

Generally, an arc voltage of a vacuum discharge is relatively low, but it grows very rapidly just after the contact separation. Such a rapid increase of the voltage might cause some kinds of transient phenomena in a closed loop circuit with capacitances and inductances. An oscillating current caused by these transient phenomena can create a current zero at the vacuum arc. If the amplitude of the oscillations is larger than the current there, the arc will be quenched. The authors investigated these phenomena, and presented at the previous ISDEIV meeting. Probability of the current interruption by these transient phenomena is limited, and the arc interruption phenomena were observed, where levels were 20 to 40A. After several tens or hundreds milliseconds, however, the current are suddenly interrupted by spontaneous current oscillation. These oscillations are considered to be related to arc instability. We try to clarify these current interruptions caused by arc instability at larger current levels.
Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and breast cancer. A pooled analysis of the World Health Organization and New Zealand studies.

BACKGROUND Although depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) (Depo-Provera) has now been approved for marketing as a contraceptive in the United States, there are still unresolved issues about the relation between DMPA and risk of breast cancer. The two substantial case-control studies of this association yielded similar but inconclusive results. Because their designs were compatible, these studies were pooled to obtain more adequate data for analysis. DESIGN Pooled results from two case-control studies. SETTING New Zealand (entire country), Thailand (three centers), Mexico (one center), and Kenya (one center). PARTICIPANTS A total of 1768 women with breast cancer and 13,905 controls, most of whom were younger than 55 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Relative risk (RR) of breast cancer in women who had used DMPA. RESULTS The RR of breast cancer for women who had ever used DMPA was 1.1 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.97 to 1.4). There was no increase in risk with increasing duration of use of DMPA, but RR estimates were higher in certain subgroups of women. Further analyses suggested that recent (or current) use was the key factor, with women who had started using DMPA within the previous 5 years estimated to have an RR of 2.0 (95% CI, 1.5 to 2.8). CONCLUSIONS The increased risk of breast cancer observed in recent (or current) users could be due to enhanced detection of breast tumors in women using DMPA or to acceleration of the growth of preexisting tumors. Women who had used DMPA more than 5 years previously had no increase in risk of breast cancer, regardless of their duration of use.
Does the Co‐Creation of Service Recovery Create Value for Customers? The Underlying Mechanism of Motivation and the Role of Operant Resources

This study focuses on the underlying mechanism that leads to co‐recovery behaviour and favourable co‐created value as response to a service failure. It argues that consumers' ability to integrate their operant resources (e.g., knowledge and skills) to co‐recover from a service failure motivates them to express higher value co‐recovery in‐role behaviour and hence enjoy higher hedonic and utilitarian values. To test this claim, our study investigates the impact of consumers' ability to co‐recover on value co‐recovery in‐role behaviour by taking into account extrinsic and intrinsic motivation as mediators. The results reveal that extrinsic motivation only partially mediates the relationship between ability to co‐recover and value co‐recovery in‐role behaviour. Furthermore, the outcomes demonstrate that value co‐recovery in‐role behaviour increases utilitarian value but decreases hedonic value
An Anatomy of the Market Return

This paper introduces a model free decomposition of S&P 500 forward market index returns in terms of realized and implied dispersion, downside, and tail risk using option portfolios. The decomposition lends itself by construction to learn about the different sources of risk in the market return and subsequently to visual and formal diagnosing of asset pricing models. It utilizes a novel conditional frequency analysis on the basis of available options rather than the times series of the S&P 500. Empirically, downside risk accounts for most of the forward market return, while symmetric tail risk is not prominently featured. The predictable, persistent part of the realized return is small. Nevertheless, signals revealed by this risk anatomy provide predictive out of sample power for realized returns, in particular for longer maturities. Furthermore, it indicates that models with identically and independently distributed state variables are generally misspecified in this market, and that care must be taken when calibrating disaster risk models. A formal test based on the risk anatomy rejects a model with time-varying disaster intensity.