Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Competing for the Crown

What factors contribute to the victimization of civilians during civil war? Drawing on research from various disciplines, we argue that increasing competition within a civil conflict system brought on by the entrance of new factions contributes to an increase in civilian targeting by existing rebel groups. Specifically, we argue that existing groups are more likely to target civilians immediately upon the entrance of new rivals due to the perceived threat to control over resources and because the arrival of new groups diminishes the gains existing groups expect from either victory or successful conflict bargaining. We further argue that violence against civilians increases during periods in which rival factions engage in direct, violent conflict with one another. Our analysis diverges from existing studies by arguing and demonstrating that fluctuations in competition rather than the simple presence of competing groups produce spikes in civilian targeting by nonstate actors. We evaluate and find support for our argument using monthly data for African conflicts between 1989 and 2010.
Venture Capitalist Certification in Initial Public Offerings

This paper provides support for the certification role of venture capitalists in initial public offerings (IPOs). Consistent with the certification hypothesis, a comparison of venture capital backed IPOs with a control sample of nonventure capital backed IPOs from the 1983 through 1987 matched as closely as possible by industry and offering size indicates that venture capital backing results in significantly lower initial returns and gross spreads. In effect, the presence of venture capitalist in the issuing firms serves to lower the total costs of going public and to maximize the net proceeds to the offering firm. In addition, the authors document that venture capitalists retain a significant portion of their holdings in the firm after the IPOs. Copyright 1991 by American Finance Association.
Do Spanish Public Universities Use Corporate Social Responsibility as a Strategic and Differentiating Factor

Both the proliferation of strategic plans as a documental guideline for university action and the increasing need to explain these plans to different university stakeholders are symptoms of a growing concern nowadays on the part of Spanish universities to meet the expectations of their stakeholders. Hence, the objective of this study is to measure the degree of social commitment of Andalusian public universities, which represent a valid surrogate of the situation on a national level in Spain, through a detailed analysis of their strategic plans. We will not only try to specifically detect the strengths and weaknesses of these strategic plans from the aforementioned perspective, but also try to analyze whether or not CSR has been considered to be a strategic issue and a differentiating factor. The main finding of the study focuses on the low degree of social commitment showed by Andalusian public universities.
The Capitalization of Education Finance Reforms*

The education finance reforms encouraged by state court rulings over the past 25 years have led to increased state aid and educational spending in poorer school districts. This empirical study addresses whether these new resources were capitalized into the housing values and residential rents within those districts. Estimations based on district‐level census data indicate that the new educational expenditures generated by the court mandates substantially increased median housing values and residential rents. This Tiebout response implies that court‐mandated finance reforms increased the perceived quality of the poorer school districts in reform states. However, the existence and magnitude of this response also implies that these reforms had unintended distributional consequences. For example, these results indicate that for some the redistributive impact of education finance reform may have been sharply attenuated by the increased cost of residing in the districts that received new educational resources.
Rapidly Forming Apatitic Mineral in an Osteoblastic Cell Line (UMR 10601 BSP) (*)

This study evaluated a rapid biomineralization phenomenon exhibited by an osteoblastic cell line, UMR 106-01 BSP, when treated with either organic phosphates [β-glycerophosphate (β-GP), Ser-P, or Thr-P], inorganic phosphate (Pi), or calcium. In a dose-dependent manner, these agents (2-10 m M) stimulated confluent cultures to deposit mineral in the cell layer (EDof 4.6 m M for β-GP (30 ± 2 nmol Ca/μg DNA) and 3.8 m M (29 ± 2 nmol Ca/μg DNA) for Pi) with a plateau in mineral formation by 20 h (ET≈ 12-15 h). β-GP or Pitreatment yielded mineral crystals having an x-ray diffraction pattern similar to normal human bone. Alizarin red-S histology demonstrated calcium mineral deposition in the extracellular matrix and what appeared to be intracellular paranuclear staining. Electron microscopy revealed small, needle-like crystals associated with fibrillar, extracellular matrix deposits and intracellular spherical structures. Mineral formation was inhibited by levamisole (ED≈ 250 μ M), pyrophosphate (ED≈ 1-10 μ M), actinomycin C1(500 ng/ml), cycloheximide (50 μg/ml), or brefeldin A (1 μg/ml). These results indicate that UMR 106-01 BSP cells form a bio-apatitic mineralized matrix upon addition of supplemental phosphate. This process involves alkaline phosphatase activity, on-going RNA and protein synthesis, as well as Golgi-mediated processing and secretion.
Cognitive, physical and physiological responses of school boy cricketers to a 30-over batting simulation

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to assess how cognitive and physical performance are affected during a prolonged, fatigue-inducing cricket-batting simulation. Fifteen amateur batters from three Eastern Cape schools in South Africa were recruited (mean ± SD: age 17 ± 0.92 years; stature 1.75 ± 0.07 m; body mass 78.3 ± 13.2 kg). Participants completed a 6-stage, 30-over batting simulation (BATEX©). During the protocol, there were five periods of cognitive assessment (CogState brief test battery, Melbourne, Australia). The primary outcome measures from each cognitive task were speed and accuracy/error rates. Physiological (heart rate) and physical (sprint times) responses were also recorded. Sprint times deteriorated (d = 0.84; P < 0.01) while physiological responses increased (d = 0.91; P < 0.01) as batting duration increased, with longest times and highest responses occurring in the final stage. Prolonged batting had a large effect on executive task performance (d = 0.85; P = 0.03), and moderate effects on visual attention and vigilance (d = 0.56; P = 0.21) and attention and working memory (d = 0.61; P = 0.11), reducing task performance after 30 overs. Therefore, prolonged batting with repeated shuttle running fatigues amateur batters and adversely affects higher-order cognitive function. This will affect decision-making, response selection, response execution and other batting-related executive processes. We recommend that training should incorporate greater proportions of centre-wicket batting with repeated, high-intensity shuttle running. This will improve batting-related skills and information processing when fatigued, making practice more representative of competition.
Multi-Stakeholder Sustainability Alliances in Agri-Food Chains: A Framework for Multi-Disciplinary Research

This study provides a definition of Multi-Stakeholder Sustainability Alliances (MSSAs) based on describing the platforms formed and/or joined by the fifty largest food and beverage multinational corporations (MNCs). It develops an inductive framework on how MNCs use MSSAs to effectively signal to their stakeholders that they are sustainable and suggests a set of methods to test the developed framework in future research. Results provide management scholars a research agenda that can be implemented with agribusiness managers and their stakeholders.
A Small Eddy Correction Method for a 3D Navier-Stokes-Type System of Equations Related to the Primitive Equations of the Ocean

Considering the interaction between the baroclinic and barotropic flows and using the idea of the Newton iteration, a small eddy correction method is proposed for approximating and numerically solving the primitive equations of the ocean. We assume that the barotropic approximation to the solution is known. Formally applying the Newton iterative procedure to the baroclinic flow equation, we then generate approximate systems. It is shown that the first step leads to the well-known quasi-geostrophic equations. The convergence analysis is presented and the results show that the small eddy correction method can greatly improve the accuracy of the quasi-geostrophic approximate solution. More precisely, we prove that the approximate system derived from the procedure converges to the original primitive equations, and we estimate the rate of convergence as a function of the aspect ratio of the domain. Some numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the method.
Munich and Memory

Munich, notorious in recent history as the capital of the Nazi movement, is the site of Gavriel Rosenfeld's stimulating inquiry into the German collective memory of the Third Reich. Rosenfeld shows, with the aid of a wealth of photographs, how the city's urban form developed after 1945 in direct reflection of its inhabitants' evolving memory of the Second World War and the Nazi dictatorship. In the second half of the twentieth century, the German people's struggle to come to terms with the legacy of Nazism has dramatically shaped nearly all dimensions of their political, social, and cultural life. The area of urban development and the built environment, little explored until now, offers visible evidence of the struggle. By examining the ways in which the people of Munich reconstructed the ruins of their historic buildings, created new works of architecture, dealt with surviving Nazi buildings, and erected new monuments to commemorate the horrors of the recent past, Rosenfeld identifies a spectrum of competing memories of the Nazi experience. Munich's postwar development was the subject of constant controversy, pitting representatives of contending aesthetic and mnemonic positions against one another in the heated battle to shape the city's urban form. Examining the debates between traditionalists, modernists, postmodernists, and critical preservationists, Rosenfeld shows that the memory of Nazism in Munich has never been 'repressed' but has rather been defined by constant dissension and evolution. On balance, however, he concludes that Munich came to embody in its urban form a conservative view of the past that was inclined to diminish local responsibility for the Third Reich.
Financial Stress and economic activity in Germany and the Euro Area

The financial crisis 2008-2009 and the European sovereign debt crisis have shown that stress on financial markets is important for analyzing and forecasting economic activity. Since financial stress is not directly observable but is presumably reflected in many financial market variables, it is useful to derive an indicator summarizing the stress component of these variables. Therefore, I derive a financial market stress indicator (FMSI) for Germany and the Euro Area using a dynamic approximate factor model. Subsequently, applying these indicators, I analyse the effects of financial stress on economic activity in a small Bayesian VAR model. An increase in financial stress leads to a significant dampening of GDP growth and the inflation rate. Additionally, there is a substantial and persistent decline in short-term nominal interest rates. I find that about fifteen percent of variation in real GDP growth can be accounted for variations in financial stress for Germany and about 30 percent in the Euro Area. I show that the inclusion of the indicator significantly improves out-of-sample forecasting accuracy for real GDP growth in Germany compared to a model without the indicator and other forecast benchmarks.
Graduates' employment and the discourse of employability: a critical analysis

In a context of considerable changes in the labour market and higher education sector in the UK, a discourse of employability has become increasingly dominant. Universities are urged to ensure that they produce ‘employable’ graduates, and graduates themselves are exhorted to continually develop their personal skills, qualities and experiences in order to compete in the graduate labour market. Drawing on a study of ‘non‐traditional’ graduates from a post‐1992 inner‐city university in England, this paper offers a critical appraisal of the discourse of employability. In contrast to assumptions of a level playing field in which graduates’ skills and personal qualities are the key to their success in the labour market, social class, gender, ethnicity, age, disability and university attended all impact on the opportunities available. It is argued that the discourse of employability, with its emphasis on individual responsibility and neglect of social inequalities, has potentially damaging consequences for these graduates.
Does Capacity Utilization Affect the “Stickiness” of Cost?

Traditional cost models are constructed using the assumption (Noreen [ 19911) that costs change proportionately with activity levels. The implicit assumption is that the proportionality of the change in cost is independent of the magnitude and direction of change in activity levels. Considerable attention has been devoted to examining the explicit proportionality assumption (e.g., Noreen and Soderstrom [ 1994, 19971; Balakrishnan and Soderstrom [2000]). Recent research (Anderson, Banker, and Janakiraman [2003]) has begun to examine the implicit assumption of whether the direction of change in activity moderates the cost response. A differential response is expected because, as Cooper and Kaplan (1998) observe, managers seem more inclined to increase costs when activity levels increase than they are to decrease costs when activity levels decrease. Anderson et al. (2003) coin the term “sticky” cost to capture this asymmetric cost response. Their analysis of selling, general and administrative costs provides broad support for the conjectured behavior. ’ This paper extends the analysis in Anderson et al. (2003) to capture the effect of two factors that may also moderate the manager’s response to changing activity levels. First, the magnitude of the change may influence the proportionality of response. Significant transactions costs associated with changing cost levels may rationally lead to the response to a “large” change in activity being proportionately larger than the response to a “small” change in activity. ’ The response to small
International Evidence on Institutional Trading Behavior and Price Impact

This study characterizes institutional trading in international stocks from 37 countries during 1997 to 1998 and 2001. We find that the underlying market condition is a major determinant of the price impact and, more importantly, of the asymmetry between price impacts of institutional buy and sell orders. In bullish markets, institutional purchases have a bigger price impact than sells; however, in the bearish markets, sells have a higher price impact. This differs from previous findings on price impact asymmetry. Our study further suggests that price impact varies depending on order characteristics, firm-specific factors, and cross-country differences. Copyright 2004 by The American Finance Association.
Perioperative outcomes and lymph node assessment after induction therapy in patients with clinical N1 or N2 non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND Induction therapy has been shown to benefit patients with resectable stage-2 or stage-3 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We aimed to determine if induction chemotherapy (CTx) with or without radiation therapy (± RT) for NSCLC with clinical lymph node (LN) involvement (cN1 or cN2) affects LN dissection or perioperative outcomes during robotic-assisted video thoracoscopic (RAVTS) lobectomy. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed patients who underwent RAVTS lobectomy for NSCLC over 45 months. We assessed clinical LN status by CT scan, PET scan, endobronchial ultrasound, and/or mediastinoscopy. We grouped patients with cN1 or cN2 as: "no induction therapy", "induction CTx alone" (ICTx), or "induction CTx + RT" (ICTx + RT). Intraoperative estimated blood loss (EBL), operative times, tumor size, LN status, and restaging were noted. RESULTS Of 256 NSCLC patients who had lobectomy, there were 52 cN1 or cN2 patients, of whom 39 patients had "no induction", 7 had ICTx, and 6 had ICTx + RT. Higher rates of recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury, tracheal/bronchial injury, and pulmonary embolism were observed with ICTx ± RT (P=0.02, 0.04, and 0.02, respectively). Total number of complications was not significantly different, nor were perioperative outcomes, such as EBL, operative time, and in-hospital mortality. Fewer N2 LN stations were assessed after ICTx ± RT (3.7±0.2 vs. 4.2±0.2 stations; P=0.04), but total number of LNs reported were not significantly different (13.0±2.3 vs. 16.2±1.0 LNs, P=0.22). Of "no induction" patients, 15.4% were upstaged pathologically; no patients were upstaged after induction therapy. While 30.8% of ICTx ± RT patients were downstaged, 38.5% of "no induction" patients were also downstaged on final pathology. CONCLUSIONS Induction CTx ± RT for cN1 or cN2 NSCLC patients did not affect EBL, operative times, or in-house mortality after RAVTS lobectomy. Patients undergoing RAVTS lobectomy after ICTx+ RT may be at greater risk for RLN injury, tracheal/bronchial injury, and pulmonary embolism. Fewer N2 LN stations, but not numbers of LNs, are assessed after ICTx ± RT. Induction therapy does not lead to increased downstaging.
Social Work Theory and Application to Practice: The Students' Perspectives

We believe the success of applying theory in practice is largely contingent on how students define social work theory, identify the role of theory in practice, and categorize benefits and challenges in applying theory to practice. It is on this premise that this article is presented. Two datasets were used to form the students’ perspectives. The first dataset is a seven year compilation of 109 undergraduate student theory papers and the second is a pre-test/post-test online survey of graduate students in an advanced social work theory course. The work offers a context for educators in teaching and helping students to apply theory in their own practices.
Donating Money to Get Money: The Role of Corporate Philanthropy in Stakeholder Reactions to IPOs

This study examines how stakeholders' investment time horizons interact with information about corporate giving in initial public offering (IPO) firms. Specifically, we build a model that explains how corporate philanthropy affects IPO performance. We find that at the IPO-preparation stage, corporate giving is negatively related to underwriter prestige, venture capital investment, and IPO financing costs. We also find that at the IPO-issuance stage, negative media coverage of IPOs moderates the U-shaped relationship between corporate giving and market premiums. At the IPO-trading stage, we find that corporate giving only positively influences the market premiums for IPO firms that are the subject of negative media reports. Our findings contribute to the signalling theory by showing how various stakeholders interpret the same signals differently, and they have implications for understanding how the relationship between corporate philanthropy and corporate financial performance materializes in the IPO markets.
What Makes Vietnamese (Not) Attend Periodic General Health Examinations? A 2016 Cross-sectional Study

Objectives General health examinations (GHE) have become an increasingly common measure for preventive medicine in Vietnam. However, little is known about the factors among Viet-namese people who attend or miss GHE. Budget or time constraints remain to be evaluated for better-informed policy making. This study investigates factors affecting behaviors in attending periodic GHE. The main objectives are as follows: (1) to explore empirical relationships between influencing factors and periodic GHE frequencies, and (2) to predict the probabilities of attending GHE under associated conditions. Methods The study used a 2,068-observational dataset, obtained from a Vietnamese survey in 2016. The analysis was then performed using the methods of baseline-category logits for establishing relationships between predictor and response variables. Results Significant relationships were found among the expenditure and time consumption, health priority and sensitivity to health data, insurance status, and frequency of GHE, with most p-values = 0.01. Conclusion Generally, people attended the GHE when they had the resources and health priorities (72.7% probability). Expenditure and time remain key obstacles to the periodic GHE. Health priority and health data are important in improving rates for GHEs. Health insurance should play a positive role in promoting the GHE.
Risk Perceptions for Developing Type 2 Diabetes among Overweight and Obese Adolescents with and without a Family History of Type 2 Diabetes.

OBJECTIVES Examine risk perceptions among overweight and obese adolescents for developing Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) compared to their peers, in adulthood and in their lifetime. METHODS Participants (N = 319) were overweight/obese college-aged students. Multiple linear regression analyses examined the predictive relationship of the independent variables on comparative, absolute and 5-year perceived risk for developing T2D. RESULTS Female adolescents (β=0.186, p < .05), those with a T2D family history (β=0.147, p < .05) and BMI (β=0.315, p < .05), had a positive statistically significant relationship with comparative, absolute, and 5-year T2D risk perceptions. Although most respondents reported behavioral risk factors for developing T2D, behavioral causal belief had no statistically significant (p > .05) association with personal T2D risk assessment. CONCLUSIONS The at-risk participants in this investigation primarily based their T2D risk assessment on non-modifiable factors, possible undervaluing the influence of behavioral risk and protective factors. Future work should seek to improve awareness of the influence of behavioral factors and also seek to increase the perceived risk of not engaging in protective behaviors such as physical activity and weight management.
Altruism, fairness and public pensions: An investigation of survey and experimental data

It is often argued that the maintenance of pension systems is threatened by the ageing of the population. In spite of this, public pension systems still seem to enjoy broad popular support in most western countries. This thesis empirically investigates where this support comes from and it derives its determining factors. First, using survey data from a representative sample of the Dutch population, the possible impact of considerations of altruism and fairness is studied. The results suggest that social considerations affect individuals' utility. Second, several related economic experiments have been conducted to study whether and under what circumstances voluntary transfer systems can be established. It turns out that under some conditions reasonable levels of voluntary transfers can occur, which may imply a generic willingness to contribute. It is argued that in spite of the ageing process, public pension systems may survive