Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Evaluation of the Pearsonian Type I Curve of Fertility for Aboriginal Populations in Canada, 1996 to 2001

In 2005, Statistics Canada published new projections of the Aboriginal populations (North American Indians, Metis, and Inuit) in Canada, the provinces and territories from 2001 to 2017. To derive the number of births in these projections, the age-specific fertility rates were simulated by fitting the Pearsonian Type I curve using the projected fertility parameters: total fertility rates, mean ages of fertility, and modal ages of fertility. For the base period 1996 to 2001, the parameters were estimated from the age-specific fertility rates derived from the 2001 Census, using the “own-children method. ” This paper evaluates the goodness of fit between the age-specific fertility rates developed by the Type I curve and the estimated age-specific fertility rates for Aboriginal identity groups for the period 1996 to 2001 for Canada and for high and low fertility regions. Tests of validity of the Type I curve indicate that this method is appropriate for estimating/projecting the number of births for the Aboriginal populations.
Gallium-Incorporated TiN Metal Gate With Band-Edge Work Function and Excellent Thermal Stability for PMOS Device Applications

A cost-effective method for modulating the effective work function (EWF) of a metal gate while simultaneously decreasing the equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) of a high-k dielectric is proposed for the first time. By incorporating gallium (Ga) into the TiN/HfLaON/interfacial layer (IL) SiO2 PMOS gate stack, a band-edge EWF of 5.18 eV and an EOT of 0.57 nm can be obtained. Excellent thermal stability was maintained even after the post metal anneal (PMA) at 1000°C. The impacts of TiN thickness, Ga implant doses, and PMA conditions on the properties of the Ga-incorporated TiN/HLaON/IL SiO2 gate stack are investigated, and the corresponding possible mechanisms are discussed. This technique has been successfully applied to the gate-first process flow to fabricate PMOSFETs with a minimum gate length of 28 nm.
A model of speculative behaviour with a strange attractor

An asset pricing model for a speculative financial market with fundamentalists and chartists is analysed. The model explains bursts of volatility in financial markets, which are not well explained by the traditional finance paradigms. Speculative bubbles arise as a complex non-linear dynamic phenomenon brought about naturally by the dynamic interaction of heterogeneous market participants. Depending on the time lag in the formation of chartists' expectations, the system evolves through several dynamic regimes, finishing in a strange attractor. Chaos provides a self-sustained motion around the rationally expected equilibrium that corresponds to a speculative bubble. In order to explain the role of Chartism, chaotic motion is a very interesting theoretical feature for a speculative financial market model. It provides a complex non-linear dynamic behaviour around the Walrasian equilibrium price produced by deterministic interactions between fundamentalists and chartists. This model could be a link between two opposite views over the behaviour of financial markets: the theorist's literature view that claims the random motion of asset prices, and the chartist's position extensively adopted by market professionals.
Cell signal control of the G protein‐gated potassium channel and its subcellular localization

G protein‐gated inward rectifier K+ (KG) channels are directly activated by the βγ subunits released from pertussis toxin‐sensitive G proteins, and contribute to neurotransmitter‐induced deceleration of heart beat, formation of slow inhibitory postsynaptic potentials in neurones and inhibition of hormone release in endocrine cells. The physiological roles of KG channels are critically determined by mechanisms which regulate their activity and their subcellular localization. KG channels are tetramers of inward rectifier K+ (Kir) channel subunits, Kir3.x. The combination of Kir3.x subunits in each KG channel varies among tissues and cell types. Each subunit of the channel possesses one Gβγ binding site. The binding of Gβγ increases the number of functional KG channels via a mechanism that can be described by the Monod–Wyman–Changeux allosteric model. During voltage pulses KG channel current alters time dependently. The KG current exhibits inward rectification due to blockade of outward‐going current by intracellular Mg2+ and polyamines. Upon repolarization, this blockade is relieved practically instantaneously and then the current slowly increases further. This slow current alteration is called ‘relaxation’. Relaxation is caused by the voltage‐dependent behaviour of regulators of G protein signalling (RGS proteins), which accelerate intrinsic GTP hydrolysis mediated by the Gα subunit. Thus, the relaxation behaviour of KG channels reflects the time course with which the G protein cycle is altered by RGS protein activity at each membrane potential. Subcellular localization of KG channels is controlled by several distinct mechanisms, some of which have been recently clarified. The neuronal KG channel, which contains Kir3.2c, is localized in the postsynaptic density (PSD) of various neurones including dopaminergic neurones in substantia nigra. Its localization at PSD may be controlled by PDZ domain‐containing anchoring proteins. The KG channel in thyrotrophs is localized exclusively on secretary vesicles, which upon stimulation are rapidly inserted into the plasma membrane and causes hyperpolarization of the cell. This mechanism indicates a novel negative feedback regulation of exocytosis. In conclusion, KG channels are under the control of a variety of signalling molecules which regulate channel activity, subcellular localization and thus their physiological roles in myocytes, neurones and endocrine cells.
Comunidades virtuais no IRC : o caso do #Pelotas - um estudo sobre a comunicação mediada por computador e a estruturação de comunidades virtuais

This work is about a Virtual Community on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), specifically, the channel #Pelotas. Based upon the approach of the Grounded Theory, we try to build basic cathegories about several aspects we found in this community, such as identity, gender and even social relationships and conventions. At the same time, we try to build a concept of Virtual Community that can explain our understanding and the results we found during this research. With this approach, we believe it’s possible to analyse a virtual community and the way it’s built over Computer Mediated Communication. RECUERO, Raquel da C. Virtual Communities on IRC: The #Pelotas’s Case – A study abou Computer Mediated Communication and the structure of Virtual Communities.
Challenges and Achievements in Gauging Investment Risk

The purpose of the authors in this article is to highlight the challenges of portfolio allocation related to proper evaluation of the risk of an investment portfolio. Since the break-out of the subprime crisis in 2007, there is no doubt that this topic has huge practical relevance. The authors intend to illustrate that the recent achievements in risk measurement theory provide a useful and tractable approach in gauging investment risk.
Development of 14 English grammatical morphemes in Spanish–English preschoolers

Previous research in the USA studying Spanish–English bilingual children's language development has largely focused on children's developing abilities in Spanish. However, relatively little research has been conducted on children's English grammatical development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the English grammatical development of bilingual (Spanish–English) Head Start children during the preschool years. The goals were to determine (a) whether there are differences in children's productions of English grammatical morphemes based on timing of English exposure and (b) which morphological structures met mastery, emerging and early emerging levels of production by bilingual children. These aims were accomplished through in-depth analyses of spontaneous language samples collected over a two-year period in Head Start. Comparisons were made between Spanish-speaking children who were exposed to English at home from birth (home English communication (HEC)) and Spanish-speaking children who were not expected to communicate in English until their entry into Head Start (school English communication (SEC)). Results indicated that children in the HEC group mastered more morphemes earlier than the children in the SEC group; however, by the end of children's second year in Head Start both groups had mastered a similar number of morphemes. Additionally, the children in both groups differed in which morphemes were mastered at the end of Head Start when compared to monolingual English-speaking children. The results of this investigation provide information to clinicians about typical English grammatical development of Spanish–English preschool children.
A Comparative Perspective on Urban Spatial Housing Market Structure: Some More Evidence of Local Sub-markets Based on a Neural Network Classification of Amsterdam

When analysing the spatial housing market structure of urban areas, a frequently arising question concerns the relevant criteria for housing market segmentation: is it the transaction price or related to other, socioeconomic, demographic and physical features of the location? In this study, two neural network techniques (SOM, LVQ, Kohonen) are used for identifying sub-markets within Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Because of the inductive nature of the modelling, any theory has to be understood in an open sense: generalising the principles of classification to another context to enable elaboration of institutionally sensitive housing market theory. These findings are therefore compared with earlier findings from another urban housing market-namely, Helsinki, Finland. The comparison shows that, while the price alone is an insufficient criterion for both markets, Amsterdam is more fragmented than Helsinki.
Crossing the Lines: The Conditional Relation between Exchange Rate Exposure and Stock Returns in Emerging and Developed Markets

This paper examines the importance of exchange rate exposure in the return generating process for a large sample of non-financial firms from 37 countries. We argue that the effect of exchange rate exposure on stock returns is conditional and show evidence of a significant return impact to firm-level currency exposures when conditioning on the exchange rate change. We further show that the realized return to exposure is directly related to the size and sign of the exchange rate change, suggesting fluctuations in exchange rates as a source of time-variation in currency return premia. For the entire sample the return impact ranges from 1.2 to 3.3% per unit of currency exposure, and it is larger for firms in emerging markets compared to developed markets. Overall, the results indicate that foreign exchange rate exposure estimates are economically meaningful, despite the fact that individual time-series results are noisy and many exposures are not statistically significant, and that exchange rate exposure plays an important role in generating cross-sectional return variation. Moreover, we show that the relation between exchange rate exposure and stock returns is more consistent with a cash flow effect than a discount rate effect.
The effect of environmental CSR issues on corporate/brand reputation and corporate profitability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) (climate responsibility and natural resource utilization) on corporate/brand reputation and corporate profitability. Design/methodology/approach – Building on extensive literature, a conceptual model of environmental CSR-corporation that includes three factors of consumer behavior is proposed. Findings – The study highlights that environmental CSR has a positive effect on corporate/brand reputation and corporate profitability. Practical implications – The findings of this study highlight the importance of managing environmental CSR for corporations that intend to gain reputation and profitability. Originality/value – This paper is one of the first to highlight the effect of environmental CSR on corporate/brand reputation and corporate profitability.
Multiple Alpha Sources and Active Management

Active portfolio managers often see themselves as assemblers of efficient portfolios that maximize information ratios through the value-added of their proprietary investment insights (alphas), but approaches to reconciling often-contradicting investment insights differ widely. A linear combination of different investment insights can be used to support an analytical framework that maximizes the information from one single source. Simulations based on this framework reveal the impact of varying two key variables the cross-sectional correlation of alpha signals and the time series correlations of the information coefficients related to alpha signals. The latter plays a more important role, providing diversification benefit to strategy risk over time. This analytical foundation has applications in sensitivity analysis and improving active performance.
Expression profiling of the mouse early embryo: Reflections and perspectives

The laboratory mouse model plays important roles in our understanding of early mammalian development and provides an invaluable model for human early embryos, which are difficult to study for ethical and technical reasons. A comprehensive collection of cDNA clones, their sequences, and complete genome sequence information, which have been accumulated over the past two decades, reveal even further the value of the mouse models. Here, the progress in global gene expression profiling in early mouse embryos and, to some extent, stem cells is reviewed and future directions and challenges are discussed. The discussions include the restatement of global gene expression profiles as a snapshot of cellular status, and subsequent distinction between the differentiation state and physiological state of the cells. The discussions then extend to the biological problems that can be addressed only through global expression profiling, including a bird's‐eye view of global gene expression changes, molecular index for developmental potency, cell lineage trajectory, microarray‐guided cell manipulation, and the possibility of delineating gene regulatory cascades and networks. Developmental Dynamics 235:2437–2448, 2006. Published 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Institutional Evolution within Local Democracy - Local Self-Governance Meets Local Government

markdownabstract__Abstract__ In the Netherlands, citizens have the formal opportunity to put issues – under certain conditions – on the political agenda. This has been possible since May 2006 at the national level and at the local level since March 2002. In addition, people increasingly engage in an informal way, on their own initiative, to draw from their expertise, experience and knowledge to formulate ideas for policy that they may offer to government. Such ‘citizens’ initiatives’ can be seen, in addition to interactive policy making, as a form of citizens’ participation (Edelenbos et al. 2008). Citizen participation is often initiated by government; it is a bottom-up development started by citizens themselves (Edelenbos et al. 2008). In this chapter, we elaborate on the institutional implications of the ‘citizens’ initiatives’ within local democracy. These initiatives could be described as forms of selfgovernance, leading to the emergence of ‘proto-institutions’ (Lawrence et al. 2002). These proto-institutions interact with established institutions of representative democracy. This interaction is a co-evolving process in which both types of institutions react to each other in certain ways. In this contribution, we describe this institutional evolution and try to find determining factors in this process. We want to provide explanatory factors of processes of institutional co-evolution. We argue that these factors are of major importance with regard to processes of citizen participation and co-operating mechanisms between proto-institutions developed by citizens’ initiatives and established institutions of representative democracy.
Beyond the divide: rethinking relationships between alternative and conventional food networks in Europe

In this paper, we develop the burgeoning research agenda on alternative food networks in Europe. Through the concept of 'embeddedness', we argue for a much more nuanced and complex understanding of the relationships between conventional and alternative food chains--and, by extension, of their implications for rural development. Rather than viewing alternative and conventional food networks as separate spheres, we see them as highly competitive and as relational to one another and argue for the need to examine the links more critically. In particular, we highlight the need to explore the competitive relationships that alternative food networks have with the conventional sector to expose power imbalances and the effect these may have on wider rural development processes. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.
Goodbye Washington Consensus, hello Washington confusion?: A review of the World Bank's 'Economic growth in the 1990s: Learning from a decade of reform'

Proponents and critics alike agree that the policies spawned by the Washington Consensus have not produced the desired results. The debate now is not over whether the Washington Consensus is dead or alive, but over what will replace it. An important marker in this intellectual terrain is the World Banks Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform (2005). With its emphasis on humility, policy diversity, selective and modest reforms, and experimentation, this is a rather extraordinary document demonstrating the extent to which the thinking of the development policy community has been transformed over the years. But there are other competing perspectives as well. One (trumpeted elsewhere in Washington) puts faith on extensive institutional reform, and another (exemplified by the U.N. Millennium Report) puts faith on foreign aid. Sorting intelligently among these diverse perspectives requires an explicitly diagnostic approach that recognizes that the binding constraints on growth differ from setting to setting.
Postpartum Women's Evaluations of an Audio/Video Computer-Assisted Perinatal Violence Screen

For universal screening to become a reality, research must first validate the effectiveness and acceptability of violence screening. This study describes postpartum women's perceptions of an anonymous computer-assisted self-interview for perinatal violence screening. A sample of 519 postpartum women completed interviews that included audio and video enhancements. Post-response evaluations were positive with most women, indicating that they preferred computer interviews to face-to-face or written abuse screening. In addition, participants indicated that the computer format and associated anonymity positively influenced their willingness to answer the violence questions truthfully. Computer interviews offer an alternative approach to violence screening that may help women who are hesitant to disclose abuse directly to their healthcare providers.
A Hybrid Mesh Free Local RBF- Cartesian FD Scheme for Incompressible Flow around Solid Bodies

A method for simulating flow around the solid bodies has been presented using hybrid meshfree and mesh-based schemes. The presented scheme optimizes the computational efficiency by combining the advantages of both meshfree and mesh-based methods. In this approach, a cloud of meshfree nodes has been used in the domain around the solid body. These meshfree nodes have the ability to efficiently adapt to complex geometrical shapes. In the rest of the domain, conventional Cartesian grid has been used beyond the meshfree cloud. Complex geometrical shapes can therefore be dealt efficiently by using meshfree nodal cloud and computational efficiency is maintained through the use of conventional mesh-based scheme on Cartesian grid in the larger part of the domain. Spatial discretization of meshfree nodes has been achieved through local radial basis functions in finite difference mode (RBF-FD). Conventional finite difference scheme has been used in the Cartesian ‘meshed’ domain. Accuracy tests of the hybrid scheme have been conducted to establish the order of accuracy. Numerical tests have been performed by simulating two dimensional steady and unsteady incompressible flows around cylindrical object. Steady flow cases have been run at Reynolds numbers of 10, 20 and 40 and unsteady flow problems have been studied at Reynolds numbers of 100 and 200. Flow Parameters including lift, drag, vortex shedding, and vorticity contours are calculated. Numerical results have been found to be in good agreement with computational and experimental results available in the literature.
A Role for the Homeobox Protein Distal-less 3 in the Activation of the Glycoprotein Hormone α Subunit Gene in Choriocarcinoma Cells*

Synthesis and secretion of chorionic gonadotropin in trophoblast cells of the placenta is required for establishment of early pregnancy in primates. Chorionic gonadotropin is a heterodimeric glycoprotein hormone consisting of α and β subunits. Regulation of the α subunit gene within the placenta requires an array of cis elements within the 5′-flanking region of the promoter. Within this array of elements, the junctional regulatory element (JRE) putatively binds a placental-specific transcription factor. The aim of our studies was to determine the identity and role of the transcriptional regulator that binds to the JRE in choriocarcinoma cells (JEG3 cells). Mutations within the JRE resulted in reduction in basal expression of an α subunit reporter gene, suggesting that the JRE binding factor was necessary for full basal activity. Using electrophoretic mobility shift assays, we determined that the JRE was capable of serving as a homeobox factor-binding site. The homeobox factor, Distal-less 3 (Dlx 3) was found to be expressed in JEG3 cells and in the trophoblast layer of human chorionic villus but not in a gonadotrope cell line that also expresses the α subunit gene. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays revealed that recombinant Dlx 3 could bind specifically to the JRE and endogenous Dlx 3 was present in JRE/JEG3 nuclear protein complexes. Overexpression of Dlx 3 resulted in activation of an α subunit reporter gene. A JRE mutation resulted in attenuated activation of the α subunit reporter via an adjacent cis element, suggesting that JRE/Dlx 3 interactions may facilitate regulation of the α subunit gene at sites immediately upstream of the JRE. Our studies support the conclusion that Dlx 3 is a placental-specific transcriptional regulator that binds to the JRE and contributes to expression of the α subunit gene in cells of trophoblast origin.
Why Do Municipalities Cooperate to Provide Local Public Services? An Empirical Analysis

Intermunicipal cooperation is being increasingly adopted in various countries as a part of local service delivery reforms. This article draws on survey data from Spain's municipalities to examine the reasons underpinning the decisions of local governments to engage in intermunicipal cooperation and privatisation. Our empirical analysis indicates that small municipalities prefer to rely on cooperation for reducing costs, while their larger counterparts prefer to privatise the delivery of services. By cooperating, scale economies can be achieved with lower transaction costs and fewer concerns for competition than is the case via private production.