Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Livelihoods of Ornamental Coral Fishermen in South Sulawesi/Indonesia: Implications for Management

Collection of live coral for the marine aquarium trade has increased significantly in recent years, causing concerns over the ecological implications of this activity for the source regions. The Spermonde Archipelago off Southwest Sulawesi is one of the four major ornamental coral collection sites in Indonesia, the country supplying most corals in the trade. Management of the fishery remains ineffective, and overharvesting is widespread. Conservation strategies for marine resources increasingly emphasize the socioeconomic dimensions of resource use, yet little information is available on the livelihoods of fishermen involved in the ornamental fishery. Here, a first analysis of the livelihoods of coral fishermen in the Spermonde Archipelago is presented, along with a discussion of possibilities for future management interventions. The reef fishery of the study area is characterized by a high diversity of target organisms, with none of the fishermen relying exclusively on ornamental corals for income. Moreover, fishermen are organized in a tightly knit web of patron–client relationships, leaving little scope for them to initiate changes in livelihood strategies. The patron–client system emerged as a key institution of the fishery. In order to support sustainable marine resource use, management policies should simultaneously target the fishermen and their patrons as well as the regional coral trade network, broadening the livelihood portfolio of island communities and improving the regulation of the associated trade network.
The Information Technology Revolution and the Stock Market: Evidence

Since 1968, the ratio of stock market capitalization to GDP has varied by a factor of 5. In 1972, the ratio stood at above unity, but by 1974, it had fallen to 0.45 where it stayed for the next decade. It then began a steady climb, and today it stands above 2. We argue that the IT revolution was behind this and, moreover, that the capitalization/GDP ratio is likely to decline and then rise after any major technological shift. The three assumptions that deliver the result are: 1. The IT revolution was anticipated by early 1973, 2. IT was resisted by incumbents, which led their value to fall, and 3. Takeovers are an imperfect policing device that allowed many firms to remain inefficient until the mid-1980's. We lay out some facts that the IT hypothesis explains, but that some alternative hypotheses -- oil-price shocks, increased market volatility, and bubbles -- do not.
Reinsurance Arrangements Maximizing Insurer's Survival Probability

The article concerns the problem of purchasing a reinsurance policy that maximizes the survival probability of the insurer. Explicit forms of the contracts optimal for the insurer are derived which are stop loss or truncated stop loss depending on the initial surplus, a quota to be spend on reinsurance and pricing rules of both the insurer and the reinsurer.
The Histone Chaperone Anti-Silencing Function 1 Is a Global Regulator of Transcription Independent of Passage through S Phase

ABSTRACT We investigated the function of the histone H3/H4 chaperones anti-silencing function 1 (Asf1p) and chromatin assembly factor 1 (CAF-1) in global transcriptional regulation in budding yeast. Deletion of ASF1 or CAF-1 components led to global transcriptional misregulation, both activation and repression, of genes scattered throughout the 16 yeast chromosomes. To investigate direct effects on gene regulation, we developed an approach to destabilize Asf1p that results in its rapid degradation within minutes of transcriptional repression. Upon degradation of Asf1p, rapid global changes in gene expression occur without the requirement for passage through S phase or de novo protein synthesis. In particular, we demonstrate that the previously reported influence of Asf1p on histone gene expression is not a direct effect of loss of Asf1p. These data indicate that the histone chaperones CAF-1 and Asf1p regulate the gene expression of a broad array of genes in yeast and, in the case of Asf1p, this is likely to be due to a direct role in chromatin modulation during transcriptional regulation.
Whither the Keiretsu, Japan's Business Networks? How Were They Structured? What Did They Do? Why Are They Gone?

WHITHER THE KEIRETSU, JAPAN’S BUSINESS NETWORKS? How were they structured? What did they do? Why are they gone? James R. Lincoln Walter A. Haas School of Business University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 USA (lincoln@haas.berkeley.edu) Masahiro Shimotani Faculty of Economics Fukui Prefectural University Fukui City, Japan (shimotani@fpu.ac.jp)
Why Do People Join Unions in a Period of Membership Decline

Drawing on a large survey of new members, this paper examines the reasons why people join unions and the methods of their recruitment. It shows that collective reasons remain central to union membership and that individual services are secondary in the recruitment process. While there is little variation in reasons for joining across industry, occupation and sex, there are marked differences in the methods used to recruit new members. These findings are used to examine existing explanations of membership decline and to assess the efficacy of the different recruitment policy options available to unions.
Does China’s National College Entrance Exam Effectively Evaluate Applicants?

Based on micro-level student data from one Chinese academic institution, we study the validity of the national college entrance exam from the perspective of student performance in college and employment prospects after graduation. We find that the current college entrance exam could reflect the studentsi¯ learning ability to a certain degree, providing a relatively valid evaluation. Demonstration of well-rounded development ability should be an important factor in the evaluation system. Based on our empirical results, we give some suggestions for college entrance exam reform.
Sensor fault estimation for Lipschitz nonlinear systems in finite-frequency domain

ABSTRACT In this study, the problem of sensor fault estimation observer design for Lipschitz nonlinear systems with finite-frequency specifications is investigated. First, the sensor fault is considered as an auxiliary state vector and an augmented system is established. Then, by transforming the nonlinear error dynamics into a linear parameter varying system, a sufficient condition for the observer-error system with a finite-frequency H∞ performance is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Based on the obtained condition, novel nonlinear observers are designed to simultaneously estimate the system states and the fault signals and attenuate the disturbances in the finite-frequency domain. The proposed design method can provide less restrictive LMI conditions and get a better disturbance-attenuation performance when the frequency ranges of disturbances are known beforehand. A numerical example is given to show the effectiveness and superiority of the new results.
Specialization, the Intermediate Nature of Traded Products and the Myth of Traded Products and the Myth of Import Driven Wage Inequality in the United States

Using a model that recognises the prevalent cross-country specialization in production and the intermediate nature of all traded products, I investigate the effect of observed trends in the prices of ordinary intermediate and semi-final imports on the expanding wage differential between skilled and unskilled labour in the USA. Contrary to widely accepted stylised facts, my results suggest that decreases in import prices increase both wage rates, while compressing their differential. Sources of wage dispersion are, however, found in skill-biased economy-wide dynamic processes of capital accumulation and technical change.
'Google It!' Forecasting the US Unemployment Rate with A Google Job Search Index

We suggest the use of an Internet job-search indicator (the Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample forecasting comparison analyzing many models that adopt both our preferred leading indicator (GI), the more standard initial claims or combinations of both. We find that models augmented with the GI outperform the traditional ones in predicting the monthly unemployment rate, even in most state-level forecasts and in comparison with the Survey of Professional Forecasters.
Laparoscopic lymphadenectomy for gynecologic malignancies.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to detail our 5-year experience with laparoscopic lymphadenectomy for gynecologic malignancies. METHODS From 11/5/92 to 3/9/98, we performed laparoscopic lymphadenectomies on 94 patients with various gynecologic malignancies. Pelvic, paraaortic, and combinations of both pelvic and paraaortic lymphadenectomies were performed depending on the primary site of disease and indication for lymph node dissection. Data were prospectively collected on all patients. RESULTS From 11/5/92 to 3/9/98 we performed 94 laparoscopic lymphadenectomies for gynecologic malignancies. The distribution included 64 patients with cervical cancer, 14 with ovarian cancer, 12 with endometrial cancer, 2 with fallopian tube cancer, 1 with a uterine malignant mixed mesodermal tumor, and 1 with a metastatic neuroendocrine tumor. Fifty-five patients had only pelvic lymph node dissections, 9 patients had paraaortic dissections only, and 30 had both pelvic and paraaortic dissections performed. Among 30 patients having laparoscopic lymphadenectomy only, the mean hospital stay was 3.6 days. Included in this group were 19 patients who received postoperative neoadjuvant chemotherapy for cervical cancer as inpatients prior to ambulatory radiation therapy. The mean length of stay for this group was 4.6 days versus 1.7 days for the 11 patients who did not receive postoperative chemotherapy (P = 0.0025). The mean number of pelvic nodes was 11.9 (range 0-57), with a mean of 4. 5 between 11/5/92 and 12/31/95 and a mean of 19.1 from 1/1/96 to 3/9/98. The mean number of paraaortic nodes obtained was 3.7 (range 0-14), with a mean of 3.4 from 11/5/92 to 12/31/95 and a mean of 4.1 from 1/1/96 to 3/9/98. A total of 3 patients required conversions to laparotomy. One was for a vascular injury to the vena cava, 1 for a large tumor extending to both sidewalls, and the third for removal of densely matted lymph nodes. CONCLUSIONS Laparoscopic lymphadenectomy is a technically feasible procedure for patients with gynecologic malignancies requiring lymph node dissections, with an acceptable safety profile and nodal yield. The number of nodes obtained increased in direct proportion to operator experience. In addition, patients may benefit from a decrease in hospital stay compared to conventional lymphadenectomy via laparotomy.
Price Sensitivity and Television Advertising Exposures: Some Empirical Findings

Empirical research as well as theoretical reasoning has led to contradictory findings with regard to whether increases in brand advertising activities lead to increases or decreases in consumer price sensitivity. Lack of data to measure the exposure of individual households to advertisements and to capture competitive activities has been an important limitation to date. This study, using single source data for a midwestern US market, finds that increased advertising exposures are associated with increases in a household's brand choice price sensitivity for two frequently purchased consumer products. However, under high levels of advertising exposure, it is possible for a household's brand choice price sensitivity to decrease.
Publication Records of Faculty Promoted at the Top 75 Accounting Research Programs

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of the publication records of faculty promoted from 1995 to 2003 at the top 75 accounting research programs (as ranked by Trieschmann et al. 2000). The presentation and analyses of these data are designed to be useful to faculty and evaluation committees from a benchmarking and decision‐making perspective. From a benchmarking perspective, the results will be useful in helping schools as they develop or refine relevant policies and research expectations. The results may be particularly useful in view of the fact that average accounting faculty publication records differ from the average publication records of faculty in other disciplines. We present results in different ways to help faculty and evaluation committees understand faculty publication records at the time accounting faculty are promoted to associate and full professor at various sets, or portfolios, of universities. Not surprisingly, the results indicate significant differences in publication records ac.
Foundations of EVA™ for Investment Managers

C S First Boston’s landmark 1996 “Economic Value Added Conference” may permanently alter the way investment managers assess ’ real corporate profitability. Since EVA” emphasizes the difference between the firm’s after-tax operating profit and the (total) dollar cost of capital, this financial measure may offer investment managers new insight on the joint pricing mechanism for risky bonds and stocks. In preparation for this analytical change, this study provides investment professionals with a general framework for understanding the conceptual and empirical linkages between EVA’” and corporate valuation. Money managers can then use this financial technology to create a measure of economic value-added for their investment clientele. ’
New Aspects of Ultrastructural Studies on Gill Filaments and Spiracle Development of Rana Ridibunda Tadpoles

The pattern and sequences of development of the gill apparatus and operculum, in the marsh frog Rana ridibunda via different stages have been analyzed and studied using scanning electron microscopy. The external gills (or transient gills) of the Rana ridibunda tadpole (stage 18) develops as two bulges followed by formation of upper and lower folds (stage 20). The ultrastructural organization of the gill filaments undergoes, conspicuous variations in number and shape. Otherwise, variation in the types density and orientation of epidermal ciliated cells on the gill filaments. The number of filaments is 3+1, 3+2, 5+3, 6+4 and 8+5 at stages 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 respectively. The shape is either flattened, or finger like –structure. Ciliation are of three types, ciliated cells (CC), microvillated cells (MV) and microridgid "pavement" cells (MR). The new findings in our result are elongted flattened or rounded extensions on epidermal filament surface and transverse cellular bridge connect some microridged cells (MR). Ciliation is few, intermediate, dense or very dense depending on the developmental larval stages. The orientation of the ciliated cells is at right angles or parallel to the long axis of filaments. The external gills are completely hidden from the right to the left side and have largely atrophied followed by formation of internal gills (stages 23-26). The transient gills covered by operculum shifted to the left resulting in an asymmetrical sinistral spiracle that migrated medially, covered with mucus then become empty at premetamorphic stages. Novelty: Noval strctural elements identified during gill development and regression in the marsh frog Rana ridibunda that consist of finger like- protrusions, distributed on the epidermal surface of the secondary gill filaments and located between ciliated and microridged cells. We suggest these are microfilaments rebranched from the secondary filament to increase the respiratory surface areas. Also a cellular bridge observed above the microridged cells of epidermal surface of the gill filaments (Figure 7c arrow heads). Although, Orton categorized anuran, s larvae depending on the spiracular opening of the operculum as anuran tadpoles with spiracle in a median position or in some tadpoles the spiracle in a lateral position (sinistral) others with paired spiracles as pipdae and lepidobatrachus, discoglossideae, bufonidae and microhyla orientalis ranidae and otophryne. While in Rana ridibunda tadpoles of the present study, we found the two positions, firstly a lateral position (sinistral) in early larval stages (Figure 9a-d). Then it migrated into a median spiracle in late stages (Figure 9 e-f). Tadpoles larvae of Rana ridibunda.
Farm Productivity in Burkina Faso: Effects of Animal Traction and Nonfarm Income

The purpose of this invited paper is to stimulate, at the micro, meso, and macro levels, debate on positive analytical approaches to agricultural productivity. The session focuses on Africa because it is the only developing region where crop output and yield growth is lagging seriously behind population growth. The present paper treats the micro (farmhousehold) level. Macro and meso analyses are useful for tracing productivity effects of policy and infrastructure change employing broad samples over long periods. Micro analyses tend to track smaller samples over shorter periods, but dig below the aggregate surface to discern and explain productivity differences over crops, zones, and farmer groups. Micro analysis is useful for policy and technology formulation and for infrastructure and commodity promotion strategies. Further, many aggregate studies are limited to only a few composite product categories because of lack of more detailed data on labor, land, and capital allocations over crops. To obtain finer distinctions among crops, one needs detailed farm management surveys. Since the spate of African farm management studies in the 1960s and 1970s, soils have rapidly degraded, access to land has become increasingly constrained, factor and credit markets have changed structurally, and nonfarm activity by farm households has apparently increased. These changes should affect productivity across farm types, suggesting the need to revive attention to farm-level analysis. Past farm-level productivity work in Africa, which largely used positive analysis, tended to stratify the sample exogenously based on farm characteristics, generally by farm size, use of animal traction, access to credit, use of new seed varieties, land tenure status, or income. We follow these earlier studies by stratifying the farm household data by a factor we expect to affect technical parameters, namely farm capital. In the Guinean zone of Burkina Faso in particular, we stratify according to whether the household owns animal traction equipment (foll wing Barrett et al., and Jaeger and Matlon). Besides adding to empirical evidence on the productivity effects of animal traction, we endogenously stratify the sample with a selectivity model, an approach too rarely taken (with a few recent exceptions such as Carter) in productivity research. We then estimate production functions, controlling for selectivity bias. Such an approach also allows us to test the (indirect) effect of nonfarm income on productivity through its effect on technology adoption as embodied in farm capital acquisition. Studies of nonfarm income effects on capital acquisition are not absent in the literature (e.g. Barrett et al. in eastern Burkina), but they have been somewhat neglected in farm-level work, and neglected even more in aggregate-level research because of the rarity of rural nonfarm income data.
KNPTC: Knowledge and Neural Machine Translation Powered Chinese Pinyin Typo Correction

Chinese pinyin input methods are very important for Chinese language processing. Actually, users may make typos inevitably when they input pinyin. Moreover, pinyin typo correction has become an increasingly important task with the popularity of smartphones and the mobile Internet. How to exploit the knowledge of users typing behaviors and support the typo correction for acronym pinyin remains a challenging problem. To tackle these challenges, we propose KNPTC, a novel approach based on neural machine translation (NMT). In contrast to previous work, KNPTC is able to integrate explicit knowledge into NMT for pinyin typo correction, and is able to learn to correct a variety of typos without the guidance of manually selected constraints or languagespecific features. In this approach, we first obtain the transition probabilities between adjacent letters based on large-scale real-life datasets. Then, we construct the "ground-truth" alignments of training sentence pairs by utilizing these probabilities. Furthermore, these alignments are integrated into NMT to capture sensible pinyin typo correction patterns. KNPTC is applied to correct typos in real-life datasets, which achieves 32.77% increment on average in accuracy rate of typo correction compared against the state-of-the-art system.
Evaluating the return from management development programmes: individual returns versus organizational benefits

Reviews the work published over the last ten years on the subject of the evaluation of individual and organizational learning. The emerging arguments are based on the proposition that the decision to provide training and management development is a strategic investment decision and as such is subject to an assessment of the benefits arising. These benefits are considered in terms of both “hard” benefits, such as impact on bottom‐line performance, as well as “soft” factors such as the measurement of the value of the individual learning experience. The practical application of the problem is based on the experiences of a major hotel group which has undertaken, over a period of the last two years, the development and implementation of a “virtual university” utilising a blend of delivery styles for management development courses. This project is ongoing in partnership with the International Management Centres Association.
Role of Intracellular Cyclic Adenosine 3′,5′-Monophosphate Concentration and Oocyte-Cumulus Cells Communications on the Acquisition of the Developmental Competence During In Vitro Maturation of Bovine Oocyte1

Abstract The present study was designed to address the physiological role played by cAMP on gap junction (GJ) mediated communications between oocyte and cumulus cells during in vitro maturation. Cyclic AMP was stimulated by different collection and maturation media known to induce different rates of nuclear maturation and developmental competence as well as different levels of cumulus expansion. Cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) were matured for 0, 3, 7, 12, 18, and 24 h in the absence of stimulation or in the presence of serum and gonadotropins (fetal bovine serum+human menopausal gonadotropins [FCS+hMG]) or 0.01 μg/ml of invasive adenylate cyclase (iAC). For each time point, intracellular cAMP concentration ([cAMP]i) was determined either in the whole COC or oocyte after cumulus cell removal. GJ functional status was analyzed by microinjection of Lucifer yellow fluorescent dye in cumulus-enclosed oocytes and by immunohistochemical localization of connexin 43 (Cx43). In the absence of stimulation, [cAMP]i in COC and oocyte was lower than in other groups, and communications declined after 3 h of culture. In the FCS+hMG group, [cAMP]i increased significantly in COC, with a peak between 3 and 7 h that was temporally correlated with the beginning of the cumulus expansion process, which occurred only in this group and with the termination of the communications. COC matured in the presence of iAC showed a moderate increase of [cAMP]i during all of the maturation times as well as a prolongation of oocyte-cumulus cell communications. The immunohistochemical localization of Cx43 confirmed the delay in connexons protein turnover in iAC-treated COCs. Our results show that cumulus expansion and oocyte developmental competence are induced by different levels of cAMP and that its intracellular concentration may affect cell coupling between oocyte and cumulus cells. We hypothesize that the higher developmental competence of COCs matured in the presence of iAC could be achieved through a moderate increase of intracellular cAMP, which in turn determines a prolongation of communications between the two cell types.