Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real Exchange Rates and the International Mobility of Capital

This paper demonstrates that the terms of trade are determined by the equalization of profit rates across international regulating capitals, for socially determined national real wages. This provides a classical/Marxian basis for the explanation of real exchange rates, based on the same principle of absolute cost advantage which rules national prices. Large international flows of direct investment are not necessary for this result, since the international mobility of financial capital is sufficient. Such a determination of the terms of trade implies that international trade will generally give rise to persistent structural trade imbalances covered by endogenously generated capital flows which will fill any existing gaps in the overall balance of payments. It also implies that devaluations will not have a lasting effect on trade balances, unless they are also attended by fundamental changes in national real wages or productivities. Finally, it implies that neither the absolute nor relative version of the Purchasing Power Parity hypothesis (PPP) will generally hold, with the exception that the relative version of PPP will appear to hold when a country experiences a relatively high inflation rate. Such patterns are well documented, and in contrast to comparative advantage or PPP theory, the present approach implies that the existing historical record is perfectly coherent. Empirical tests of the propositions advanced in this paper have been conducted elsewhere, with good results.
Promoter and operator determinants for fur-mediated iron regulation in the bidirectional fepA-fes control region of the Escherichia coli enterobactin gene system

The fepA-entD and fes-entF operons in the enterobactin synthesis and transport system are divergently transcribed from overlapping promoters, and both are inhibited by the Fur repressor protein under iron-replete conditions. A plasmid harboring divergent fepA'-phoA and fes-entF'-'lacZ fusions, both under the control of this bidirectional regulatory region, was constructed for the purpose of monitoring changes in expression of the two operons simultaneously. Deletion analysis, site-directed mutagenesis, and primer extension were employed to define both a single promoter governing the expression of fes-entF and two tandemly arranged promoters giving rise to the opposing fepA-entD transcript. A single Fur-binding site that coordinately regulates the expression of all transcripts emanating from this control region was identified by in vitro protection from DNase I nicking. The substitution of one base pair in the Fur recognition sequence relieved Fur repression but did not change the in vitro affinity of Fur for its binding site. Additional mutations in a limited region outside of the promoter determinants for either transcript inhibited expression of both fes and fepA. These observations suggest a mechanism of Fur-mediated regulation in this compact control region that may involve other regulatory components.
Extracranial and intracranial complications of otitis media: 22-year clinical experience and analysis

Abstract Conclusion: The morbidity of the complications has had a decreased tendency in recent decades, but the category of the complications was rather diverse. There are still many serious complications that require our attention. Surgery is still the most important treatment option. Objective: To investigate otogenic extracranial and intracranial complications in patients with acute and chronic otitis media. Methods: A retrospective study investigated 285 patients with extracranial and intracranial complications among the 2346 inpatients with acute or chronic otitis media with or without cholesteatoma admitted to the Department of Otolaryngology, AnHui Medical University Hospital between 1987 and 2008. Results: In the 285 patients with cranial complications, 253 had a single complication, 29 had two complications, and 3 had more than two complications. Intracranial complications included meningitis (16 cases), brain abscess (42 cases), sigmoid sinus involvement (29 cases), extradural abscess (8 cases), subdural abscess (1 case), and hydrocephalus (2 cases). Extracranial complications included labyrinthitis (90 cases), mastoid abscess (79 cases), facial paralysis (47 cases), Bezold abscess (5 cases), and apicitis pyramidalis (1 case). In all, 267 patients were cured or improved without recurrence. Five patients died from complications, of whom four died of cerebral hernia and one died of multiple abscesses.
On Legal Cooperation and the Dynamics of Legal Convergence

In this paper, we study the dynamics of legal convergence and the comparison between the different instruments of legal convergence based on cooperative strategies (i.e., harmonization and unification) or not. To study these questions we use a model with two nation-states which is inspired in part by that used in Carbonara and Parisi (2008) where preferences of each nation-state are such that it is costly to change the law, but it is also costly to have a different legal system from the other nation-state. We show that legal unification could be achieved in the long-run through small step by step changes despite the existence of huge harmonization costs in the short run. We also show that legal cooperation is not always necessary to achieve legal convergence.
Knowledge, attitude and willingness of Nigerian physiotherapists to provide care for patients living with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Adequate knowledge, positive attitude, and willingness to provide services are important factors in rendering competent and compassionate care to patients living with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Inadequate knowledge and poor attitude could exclude the application of the principles of logic and scientific methods to the practice of physiotherapy, and could result in fragmented care, with a potentially negative impact on treatment outcome and patient satisfaction. The purpose of this study was (1) to investigate the Nigerian physiotherapists' global knowledge, attitude and willingness to provide care for patients living with AIDS (PLWA), and to (2) determine the relationship between socio-demographic variables and previous encounter with PLWA, and physiotherapists' knowledge, attitude and willingness to care for AIDS survivors. METHODS Using a 90-item two-part questionnaire that elicited sociodemographic and previous AIDS encounter information, and also assessed knowledge, attitude and willingness to provide care to PLWA, physiotherapists (N = 131) practicing in Nigeria were surveyed. RESULTS Overall, the physiotherapists showed unsatisfactory knowledge about AIDS, harbored negative attitude towards PLWA, and some were unwilling to provide care for PLWA. Previous experience caring for PLWA influenced their attitude, and modest but positive relationships were found between knowledge and attitude and between attitude and willingness. CONCLUSION The study underscores the need to address Nigerian physiotherapists' working knowledge deficits and negative attitudes to PLWA. A comprehensive AIDS education that would assist clinicians in exploring their attitude, stereotype and bias against PLWA is warranted.
Intravenous etomidate for procedural sedation in emergency department patients.

OBJECTIVE To determine the safety and effectiveness of intravenous (IV) etomidate for the sedation of patients undergoing painful procedures in the emergency department (ED). METHODS A two-part feasibility study for ED patients receiving IV etomidate for painful ED procedures was undertaken. In the initial phase, a retrospective series of patients receiving etomidate for ED procedural sedation was considered. This phase served as the basis for a descriptive, prospective feasibility study of consecutive ED patients. During the second phase, patients were evaluated for complications related to IV etomidate sedation or the procedure performed. Immediately following the procedure, the physician was asked to complete a data collection sheet documenting the patient's etomidate dose, the number of doses required to complete the procedure, the analgesic used, the complications of the procedure, and the patient's procedural recall. RESULTS Intravenous etomidate was administered to nine patients during the initial study phase and 51 during the prospective, descriptive phase. Indications for sedation included dislocation reduction (25), cardioversion (7), fracture reduction (20), abscess incision and drainage (4), foreign body removal (3), and chest thoracostomy (1). Physicians used 0.1-mg/kg IV bolus etomidate. A mean of 1.6 doses of etomidate was used to complete procedures (range 1-3 doses). Of the 60 patients in both study groups, 59 (98%) achieved adequate sedation by physician's assessment. Procedural success was documented for 56 patients (93%). There were 12 complications reported: oxygen desaturation below 90% (5), myoclonus (4), vomiting (1), pain with injection (1), and a brief bradycardic episode (1). No patient required assistance with ventilation or endotracheal intubation. CONCLUSIONS Intravenous etomidate can be administered safely and effectively to provide appropriate conscious sedation for short, painful ED procedures.
Resolving the Puzzling Intertemporal Relation between the Market Risk Premium and Conditional Market Variance: A Two‐Factor Approach

The existing empirical literature fails to agree on the nature of the intertemporal relation between risk and return. This paper attempts to resolve the issue by estimating a conditional two-factor model motivated by Merton's intertemporal capital asset pricing model. When long-term government bond returns are included as a second factor, the "partial" relation between the market risk premium and conditional market variance is found to be positive and significant. The paper also helps explain the convoluted empirical relation between the market risk premium, conditional market variance, and the nominal risk-free rate previously reported in the literature. Copyright The American Finance Association 1998.
Object-based image similarity computation using inductive learning of contour-segment relations

This paper describes an efficient and effective image similarity calculation method for object-based image comparison at the level of object classes. It uses probabilistic-prediction voting based on the predicted class distribution of each segment of the contour of an object in an image to determine the class of the object. The C4.5 inductive learning algorithm is used to predict the class distribution of object-contour segments. This method is invariant to rotation, scaling and translation of objects. Experimental results show that the method is effective and efficient. It can be used for object-based image retrieval.
Rural wage employment in Africa: methodological issues and emerging evidence

This article explores the evidence on rural labour markets and wage employment in sub-Saharan Africa. The article argues that much of the official statistical evidence on rural wage employment is either scarce or unreliable, and discusses a number of hypotheses and reasons for this. A number of alternatives are discussed to overcome the most serious weaknesses of conventional data collection methods and to illustrate their usefulness with selected findings and emerging themes from field research that has attempted to overcome the shortcomings of standard household surveys in rural Africa, in order to capture the nature and dynamics of rural wage employment. [L'emploi salarié dans les zones rurales en Afrique : questions méthodologiques et nouvelles données. ] Cet article examine les données sur les marchés du travail et le travail salarié dans les zones rurales en Afrique subsaharienne. L'article soutient que la plupart des données statistiques officielles sur l'emploi salarié rural est soit rare, soit non fiable, et discute d'un certain nombre d'hypothèses et raisons pour ce résultat. Un certain nombre d'alternatives sont discutées pour pallier aux faiblesses les plus sérieuses des méthodes conventionnelles de collecte de données ainsi que pour illustrer leur utilité quant aux résultats sélectionnés et aux thèmes de recherche émergents ayant tenté de pallier aux lacunes des enquêtes standards auprès des ménages dans les zones rurales africaines, afin de saisir la nature et les dynamiques de l'emploi salarié rural. Mots-clés : marchés du travail en zone rurale; emploi salarié agricole; méthodologie d'enquête; Afrique; pauvreté
The relationship between ISO 14001 and continuous source reduction programs

The ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard has been designed to help organizations in the creation of structured mechanisms for continuous improvement in environmental performance. This paper evaluates how ISO 14001 EMS and EMS‐like standards aid organizations in operating continuous source reduction programs by exploring some critical elements for program success. The ISO 14001 standard helps organizations define important EMS elements for continuous source reduction. However, adopting these elements may necessitate cultural changes, the core elements of which are embodied by TQM principles. The cultural changes support complex operational activities aimed at source reduction. Three case study firms are used to evaluate these critical EMS elements. Each firm showed substantially idiosyncratic situations attributable to each organization’s size, history, corporate culture, and technology. Despite the differences, however, the cases highlighted one critical point: employee empowerment, their willingness to make suggestions for improvement, and management’s effort to create employee participation in decision making are critical elements in managing continuous source reduction programs. These initial empirical observations provide some insight into how this cultural change may occur.
District nurses’ experiences of caring for leg ulcers in accordance with clinical guidelines: a grounded theory study

ABSTRACT This qualitative study used the grounded theory method to investigate district nurses’ experiences of caring for leg ulcers in accordance with clinical guidelines at seven primary health care centres in Stockholm, Sweden. Group interviews were conducted with 30 nurses. The results describe how district nurses strive to stay on track in order to follow clinical guidelines and remain motivated despite prolonged wound treatment and feelings of hopelessness. Three main obstacles to following the guidelines were found. District nurses used compensating strategies so the obstacles would not lead to negative consequences. If the compensating strategies were insufficient, perceived prolonged wound treatment and feelings of hopelessness could result. District nurses then used motivating strategies to overcome these feelings of hopelessness. Sometimes, despite the motivating strategies, treatment in accordance with guidelines could not be achieved. With some patients, district nurses had to compromise and follow the guidelines as far as possible.
Single depth image super resolution via a dual sparsity model

Depth images play an important role and are popularly used in many computer vision tasks recently. However, the limited resolution of the depth image has been hindering its further applications. To address this problem, we propose a novel dual sparsity model based single depth image super resolution algorithm, with a single low-resolution depth image as input. We formulate this problem by combining the recently developed analysis model and synthesis model exploiting the sparsity of analyzed vectors and the sparse coefficients respectively. The analysis operator and dictionaries are trained over extensive samples separately. We show that our model clearly outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the widely used Middlebury 2007 datasets both quantitatively and visually.
Disentangling the Climate-conflict Nexus: Empirical and Theoretical Assessment of Vulnerabilities and Pathways

Recent research has provided new insights into the relationship between climate change and violent conflict. In this review we compare the results, methodologies, and data applied in the peer-reviewed literature to recap the current state of the debate. While long-term historical studies suggest a coincidence between climate variability and armed conflict, empirical findings are less conclusive for recent periods. Disentangling the climate-conflict nexus, we discuss causal pathways such as precipitation changes, freshwater scarcity, food insecurity, weather extremes, and environmental migration. A geographic differentiation indicates that countries with low human development are particularly vulnerable to the double exposure of natural disasters and armed conflict. Thus, effective institutional frameworks and governance mechanisms are important to prevent climate-induced conflicts and to strengthen cooperation. Applying an integrative framework connecting climate change, natural resources, human security, and societal stability, we pinpoint future research needs.
CNVrd, a Read-Depth Algorithm for Assigning Copy-Number at the FCGR Locus: Population-Specific Tagging of Copy Number Variation at FCGR3B

The extent of contribution from common gene copy number (CN) variants in human disease is currently unresolved. Part of the reason for this is the technical difficulty in directly measuring CN variation (CNV) using molecular methods, and the lack of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that can tag complex CNV that has arisen multiple times on different SNP haplotypes. One CNV locus implicated in human disease is FCGR. Here we aimed to use next-generation sequencing (NGS) data from the 1000 Genomes Project to assign CN at FCGR3A and FCGR3B and to comprehensively assess the ability of SNPs to tag specific CN variants. A read-depth algorithm was developed (CNVrd) and validated on a subset of HapMap samples using CN assignments that had previously been determined using molecular and microarray methods. At 7 out of 9 other complex loci there was >90% concordance with microarray data. However, given that some prior knowledge of CN is required, the generalizability of CNVrd is limited and should be applied to other complex CNV loci with caution. Subsequently, CN was assigned et FCGR3B using CNVrd in a total of 952 samples from the 1000 Genomes Project, using three classes and SNPs that correlated with duplication were identified. The best tag SNP was observed in the Mexican-American sample set for duplication at FCGR3B. This SNP (rs117435514, r2 = 0.79) also tagged similar duplication in Chinese and Japanese (r2 = 0.35–0.60), but not in Caucasian or African. No tag SNP for duplication at FCGR3A or deletion at FCGR3B was identified in any population. We conclude that it is possible to tag CNV at the FCGR locus, but CN and SNPs have to be characterized and correlated on a population-specific basis.
Entrepreneurial Well-Being : The Payoff Structure of Business Creation

Given the importance of entrepreneurship to individuals and to society, and given that the individual has come to be seen as not only an important function of social and economic processes but also as an important end of these processes, the link between entrepreneurship and well-being requires further investigation. To that end, this thesis provides a solid framework for understanding and measuring well-being in entrepreneurship, and a comprehensive theoretical and empirical examination of the intimate relationship between these two phenomena.Some new and very interesting results were produced:• Active engagement in the creation of new business activities leads to greater well-being by granting the freedom to self-organize work and working relationships, which satisfies individual’s needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. • Entrepreneurial engagement is detrimental to mental health during its early inception in planning and deliberation, which may explain why many fail to transition from thought to action in entrepreneurship. • The presence of a discrepancy between extrinsic life goals and motives is just as strong a predictor of well-being in entrepreneurship as the presence of strong intrinsic life goals and motives. • Entrepreneurial Well-Being, a context-specific state of mental wellness derived from engagement in entrepreneurship, uniquely contributes to entrepreneurs’ overall well-being and is associated with a range of cognitive and motivational processes crucial to entrepreneurship.The reasons for these findings, and the mechanisms involved, are explained at length.My hope is that this work will usher on the adoption of a more integrated approach to assessing and optimizing entrepreneurial performance in terms of both business outcomes and mental health outcomes, as well as offer insights relevant to well-being and its promotion on a more general level.
Silica-induced activation of c-Jun-NH2-terminal amino kinases, protracted expression of the activator protein-1 proto-oncogene, fra-1, and S-phase alterations are mediated via oxidative stress.

Crystalline silica has been classified as a group 1 human carcinogen in the lung. However, its mechanisms of action on pulmonary epithelial cells which give rise to lung cancers are unclear. Using a nontransformed alveolar type II epithelial cell line (C10), we show that alpha-quartz silica causes persistent dose-related increases in phosphorylation of c-Jun-NH2-terminal amino kinases (JNKs) that are inhibited by antioxidants (P < or = 0.05). Increases in activator protein-1 (AP-1) binding to DNA and transactivation of AP-1-dependent gene expression by silica were accompanied by increases in steady-state mRNA levels of the AP-1 family members, c-jun, junB, fra-1, and c-fos at 8 h and elevated mRNA levels of fra-1 at 24 h (P < or = 0.05). Addition of tetramethylthiourea inhibited silica-associated increases infra-1 and proportions of cells in S-phase (P < or = .05). Our findings indicate that silica induces JNK activity, AP-1-dependent gene expression, ie. , fra-1, and DNA synthesis via oxidative stress. Moreover, they suggest that silica may act mechanistically as a mitogen or tumor promoter, rather than a genotoxic carcinogen, in the development of lung cancers.
Collegiate Intramural Sports Participation: Identified Social Outcomes

Collegiate recreational sports provide many avenues for student development resulting in various benefits that have been supported through theoretical and empirical research. This study examined social outcomes of participation in intramural sports. The data revealed differences in social outcomes related to gender, age, year in school, ethnicity, residence, and division of competition. Differences were found between groups in the degree of social outcomes experienced. The data contribute to a body of empirical research which shows that intramural sport participation serves as a vehicle for social development among college students, which not only improves overall well-being but can also help serve as a potential reason for why students persist at universities. Specific areas of development include social interaction, time management, ability to work within a team, overall happiness, sense of belonging, and feelings of self-worth. The results of this study will assist university recreational sport professionals and administrators in further understanding the role and importance of intramural sports as a vehicle for social development while also providing evidence of differences between groups.