Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accounting for technological differences in modelling the performance of airports: a Bayesian approach

This article uses the innovative Bayesian random coefficient frontier model to account for technological differences in the efficiency measurement of UK airports. In separating cost efficiency from technological differences, the model provides more accurate efficiency measures for airports’ policy makers. The input/output data used in testing the model reflect on recent figures from the UK airport industry, and as a result link the efficiency measures with the current industry trends such as the increase in oil price, airport capital investments and market expansion. Results from the model estimation showed that the model fits the data well with all coefficients correctly signed and in line with the theoretical requirements. The average cost efficiency for 2007 was around 73.73%, indicating that UK airports are not operating close to a full efficiency level. This article attributed the sources of inefficiencies to the current industry trends and discussed the importance of heterogeneity in future policy formulations at UK airports.
The relationship between premedical coursework in gross anatomy and histology and medical school performance in gross anatomy and histology

Many premedical students enroll in courses whose content will be encountered again during their medical education. Presumably, students believe this practice will lead to improved academic performance in corresponding medical school courses. Therefore, this study was undertaken to determine whether a premedical gross anatomy and/or histology course resulted in increased performance in corresponding medical school courses. A second aim of the study was to examine whether the type of premedical gross anatomy and/or histology course differentially affected medical school performance. A survey that assessed premedical gross anatomy and histology coursework was administered to 440 first‐year medical students. The results from this survey showed that students with premedical gross anatomy (n = 236) and/or histology (n = 109) earned significantly more points in the corresponding medical school course than students without the premedical coursework (P < 0.05). Analysis of premedical course types revealed that students who took a gross anatomy course with prosected specimens (n = 35) earned significantly more points that those students without premedical gross anatomy coursework (P < 0.05). The results from this study suggest: 1) premedical gross anatomy and/or histology coursework improves academic performance in corresponding medical school courses, and 2) a premedical gross anatomy course with prosected specimens, a specific type of undergraduate course, significantly improves academic performance in medical gross anatomy. Clin. Anat. 15:160–164, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Outsourcing and organizational change : an employee perspective

Outsourcing seems to have become the new trend in organizational strategy. In outsourcing, part of the organizationâ€™s production or service process is discontinued and transferred to another party, along with personnel and other resources. Although the potential economic benefits of outsourcing are thought to be considerable, a growing number of evaluation studies show disappointing outcomes. Cost savings tend to be less than expected and quality sometimes declines. A reason for these outcomes may be that - just like with downsizing and mergers-acquisitions in earlier days - managers tend to focus almost exclusively on economic aspects, ignoring the human and social impacts. Morespecifically, one might explain unsatisfactory economic results from a failure to consider the change implications of outsourcing. This paper analyzes the nature of the organizational change implied in outsourcing, comparing it to mergersacquisitions and downsizing. Next, it identifies some critical aspects of the transition management process which, when dealt with effectively, may enhance the success of outsourcing. The theoretical analysis is contrasted with findings from an empirical study on outsourcing in the Netherlands. In interviews with 11 experts and 10 workers on three phases of outsourcing, 70 aspects of(un)successful transition management were identified. Next, 36 employees involved in outsourcing rated the importance of these aspects and indicated their presence during the outsourcing process. Discrepancy ratings, showing which aspects of transition management received insufficient attention, confirm the results of the theoretical analysis. This underlines the importance of organizational change when implementing outsourcing.
Aid on Demand: African Leaders and the Geography of China's Foreign Assistance

This article investigates whether China's foreign aid is particularly prone to political capture by political leaders of aid-receiving countries. Specifically, we examine whether more Chinese aid is allocated to the political leaders' birth regions and regions populated by the ethnic group to which the leader belongs, controlling for indicators of need and various fixed effects. We have collected data on 117 African leaders' birthplaces and ethnic groups and geocoded 1,650 Chinese development finance projects across 3,097 physical locations committed to Africa over the 2000-2012 period. Our econometric results show that current political leaders' birth regions receive substantially larger financial flows from China than other regions. On the contrary, when we replicate the analysis for the World Bank, our regressions with region-fixed effects show no evidence of such favoritism. For Chinese and World Bank aid alike, we also find no evidence that African leaders direct more aid to areas populated by groups who share their ethnicity, when controlling for region-fixed effects.
Comparative Genotypic and Phenotypic Analysis of Cronobacter Species Cultured from Four Powdered Infant Formula Production Facilities: Indication of Pathoadaptation along the Food Chain

ABSTRACT Cronobacter species are opportunistic pathogens commonly found in the environment. Among the seven Cronobacter species, Cronobacter sakazakii sequence type 4 (ST-4) is predominantly associated with recorded cases of infantile meningitis. This study reports on a 26-month powdered infant formula (PIF) surveillance program in four production facilities located in distinct geographic regions. The objective was to identify the ST(s) in PIF production environments and to investigate the phenotypic features that support their survival. Of all 168 Cronobacter isolates, 133 were recovered from a PIF production environment, 31 were of clinical origin, and 4 were laboratory type strains. Sequence type 1 (n = 84 isolates; 63.9%) was the dominant type in PIF production environments. The majority of these isolates clustered with an indistinguishable pulsotype and persisted for at least an 18-month period. Moreover, DNA microarray results identified two phylogenetic lineages among ST-4 strains tested. Thereafter, the ST-1 and -4 isolates were phenotypically compared. Differences were noted based on the phenotypes expressed by these isolates. The ST-1 PIF isolates produced stronger biofilms at both 28°C and 37°C, while the ST-4 clinical isolates exhibited greater swimming activity and increased binding to Congo red dye. Given the fact that PIF is a low-moisture environment and that the clinical environment provides for an interaction between the pathogen and its host, these differences may be consistent with a form of pathoadaptation. These findings help to extend our current understanding of the epidemiology and ecology of Cronobacter species in PIF production environments.
Revenue Enhancement through Increased Motor Fuel Tax Enforcement

The development of the FHWA fuel tax compliance program is described, and estimates of additional motor fuel tax revenues generated by enforcement programs are presented. Substantial revenue losses caused by motor fuel tax evasion schemes were discovered in the mid-1980s. Since 1986, the Internal Revenue Service and FHWA have worked cooperatively to reduce fuel tax evasion by supporting changes in tax collection procedures and additional enforcement resources. Since fiscal year 1990, FHWA has provided funding to supplement state and IRS fuel tax enforcement resources under the auspices of the Joint Federal/State Motor Fuel Tax Compliance Project (joint project). The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 provided $5 million annually through 1997 for the joint project. Enforcement activities directly contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and state transportation funds, a yield estimated at $10 to $18 per dollar spent on these programs. Furthermore, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 moved the incidence of the federal excise tax on diesel fuel to the point of removal from bulk storage at the terminal and required tax-exempt diesel fuel to be dyed. The HTF revenue from the diesel fuel tax has increased more than $1 billion in the year since these changes went into effect on January 1, 1994, net of the tax rate increases also enacted in 1993. Some $600 million to $700 million of this increase has been estimated to be the result of improved compliance.
Procedural Contexts, Party Strategy, and Conditional Party Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1971-2000

In this article, we provide a critical review of the evidence and arguments about party polarization in the House of Representatives during the late 20th century. We show that inferences about party polarization are significantly affected by voting reform in the early 1970s. We observe that a decomposed roll-call record alters our view of the timing of changes in party polarization and therefore requires that we reconsider explanations of the trend. We revisit explanations of party polarization and establish a strong case for placing substantial emphasis on party strategies in explanations of party polarization in floor behavior during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Impact of the Real Exchange Rate Volatility on Non-oil Exports: The Case of Iran

Up to now, the impact of real exchange rate on the non-oil exports of Iran has been mainly on focus. However, the more important aspect of the fluctuations in exchange rate is its degree of volatility which can have profound effect on the nonoil exports. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to investigate the linkage between non-oil exports and the real exchange rate volatility for Iran over the period of 1971-2007. For this purpose, a proxy for the real exchange rate volatility has been estimated by using GARCH model. Then, a conventional exports function has been estimated by Johansen’s multivariate co-integration approach. The empirical findings reveal that among the explanatory variables, the real exchange rate and its volatility have positive and negative impact on the non-oil exports of Iran respectively.
Lao Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: Community-Based Tourism and the Private Sector

Tourism as a tool for development was first mooted in the 1970s. Recently, focus has been on the role of ecotourism, pro-poor tourism and community-based tourism (CBT). This has been so in Lao People's Democratic Republic, where international tourism is a vital source of foreign exchange and employment and an important feature of the government's poverty-alleviation strategy. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) finances many infrastructural projects facilitating tourist movement in the Lower Mekong Basin, and with the Lao Government and the Netherlands Development Agency (SNV) is a key player in donor-assisted, community-based tourism (DACBT). The development of DACBT in Lao PDR is discussed in some detail, especially the Nam Ha Ecotourism Project, and is compared briefly with the role of the private sector in tourism development in Southern Lao PDR. It is concluded that while DACBT projects can indeed alleviate poverty and develop financial and cultural capital, private sector tourism enterprises also have an important role in poverty alleviation, and it should not be assumed that DACBT is the only – or necessarily the most efficient – form of pro-poor tourism.
Changing Structure and Competition in THE Kretek Cigarette Industry

Kretekproduction has developed from a traditional industry into an important manufacturing sector in terms of value added, employment and government revenue. Kretek firms have outcompeted the large foreign “white” cigarette companies. Originating in the late 19th century, the industrygrew only after World War II. Production rose from 20 billion cigarettes in 1961 to 140 billion in 1993, and employment from 65,500 workers in 1929 to 137,600 in 1993 This success was confined mainly to the four largest firms, the number of kretek firms has shrunk from 1,200 in the 1950s to 141 in 1993 The industry is highly concentrated in Central and East Java, but consumption is widespread throughout the archipelago. Government intervention is high, in employment, taxation, pricing and investment policy, in promotion of small-scale firms and through the clove marketing monopoly Promotion of small-scale enterprises has been unsuccessful in this industry
Computers and the Demand for Skilled Labour: Industry‐ and Establishment‐Level Panel Evidence for the UK

The authors use two U.K. panel data sets to investigate skill-upgrading in the United Kingdom and how it has been affected by computerization. Census data reveals that most aggregate skill-upgrading is explained by within-establishment rises in skill composition. Such upgrading is significantly related to computerization, a relation that is robust to different worker and computer types, endogeneity, human capital upgrading, and other technology measures.
Ethnic Differences in Women's Employment

This paper uses the 1 per cent household file from the Samples of Anonymised Records (SARs) for the 1991 Census and the ONS Longitudinal Study (LS) to explore variations in patterns of employment and occupational attainment among women from different ethnic groups. The analysis of the SARs focuses on the impact of lifecycle events on women's employment status and economic activity. The presence of a partner is identified as having the greatest impact on Pakinstani and Bangladeshi women's employment, while the presence of a pre-school child is most significant for White women's economic activity. White women also have a higher rate of part-time worlding than all other ethnic groups. These patterns are for malised in two models, one for economic activity and a second for full-time/part-time work. The LS is used to investigate the impact of these employment patterns on women's occupational attainment over a ten-year period. The analysis demonstrates that, while minority ethnic women in nonmanual occupations have similar longitudinal occupational profiles to White women, those in manual occupations fare worse than their White counterparts, despite the fact that a larger propotion of minority ethnic women are in fill-time employment.
Centenary Rural Development Bank, Uganda: a flagship of rural bank reform in Africa

Centenary RDB is a commercial bank that provides deposit, credit and money transfer services indiscriminately to men and women of lower income. By insisting on loan recovery and cost coverage, it has reached more men and women in rural areas than any other institution in Uganda. With minimum deposits of $6 and minimum loans of $30, access barriers are low. 11 of its 16 branches, 73% of its deposits and 82% of its loans are in rural areas. Established by the Catholic Church of Uganda as a trust fund in 1983, it developed a strength in savings mobilization but performed poorly as a financial intermediary. In 1990, the political will to reform the fund evolved in the board, resulting in the fund's transformation into a commercial bank in 1993. With support from various donors including the German Savings Banks Foundation, the bank evolved into the most successful financial intermediary in Uganda. This has made the bank the African flagship of rural and agricultural banking, combining sustainability with outreach to the rural poor and demonstrating the feasibility of agricultural lending. With equity capital of $6.8m and total assets of $49.85m as of December 2001, it has mobilized $39.9m from 280,00 depositors, provided $14m in loans outstanding to 22,000 small borrowers, earned returns of 4% on average assets and 28% on equity, and, since 1999, finances its expansion from its profits. Centenary RDB has several stories to tell: - one about the feasibility and impact of rural and agricultural bank reform - addressed to the community of agricultural development banks (AgDBs) in Africa and those who decide on their fate; - another one about the compatibility of institutional sustainability and outreach to both men and women in rural areas - addressed to the community of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and their donors; - a third one about the feasibility of agricultural lending to men and women - best told by the staff and clients at Mbale branch and addressed to financial institutions weary of risky agricultural lending.
Implicit contrast in adjectives vs. nouns: implications for word-learning in preschoolers

ABSTRACT On some views of language, when one uses a term to describe or label an object, a contrast is always implied. However, there is an important difference between nouns and adjectives in their contrastive use: adjectives imply a contrast between members of a single noun category, whereas nouns do not imply a contrast between members of a single adjective category. For example, describing a car as new suggests a contrast with other cars. However, labelling it as a car does not as clearly imply a contrast with other new objects. There is no logical necessity for this distinction – it is not captured by the literal meanings of words. Yet it is a conceptual distinction implicit in the use of these terms. In two studies, we tested preschool children's appreciation for this conceptual distinction, using both familiar and unfamiliar words. In Study I, 4-year-olds (but not 3-year-olds) were able to disambiguate the meanings of simple nouns and adjectives by assuming that the adjectives, unlike the nouns, implied a contrast between category members. In Study II, children selected pictures to match totally novel adjectives and nouns (e.g. the fep one, the skub). Relying on part of speech alone, they interpreted these unfamiliar nouns and adjectives differently. Implications for children's use of referential language and word-learning strategies are discussed.
A Theoretical Model of the Distribution of Teacher Attention under Benchmark Testing

This paper provides a simple theoretical model designed to capture the targeting incentives d by benchmark testing. Under high-stakes benchmark testing, schools and teachers are judged on the fraction of students that meet some given level of educational attainment. The incentive for teachers is then to allocate their resources towards students who are on the margin of the pass/fail level of educational attainment. This behavior has some empirical support and the aim of the model is to provide a formal means of developing hypotheses for future research.
The Relevance of “Women’s Work”

In the ongoing debates about the role of immaterial labor in digital media economics, the work of feminist researchers into affective labor performed in the home—“women’s work”—has barely featured. This article is an attempt to address this gap in the dominant framework for discussing consumer labor in digital contexts. It draws on feminist frameworks, particularly the work of Fortunati, in arguing that affective, immaterial labor has a variable and often indirect relationship to capitalist exchange. This indirect relationship allows the products of such work to retain their use-values while nevertheless remaining implicated in systems of exchange. This in turn draws attention to the immaterial product of reproductive labor, which is the social order itself, and the importance of the disciplining function of reproductive labor.
Finance for small enterprise growth and poverty reduction in developing countries

This paper examines the ways in which financial sector development policy might contribute to poverty reduction, particularly by supporting the growth of micro and small enterprises (MSEs). Specifically, the paper draws on case studies and empirical work on the changing role of MSEs in the development process and the access of MSEs to informal and formal finance, including the role of microfinance. A number of research priorities relating to the links among financial policy, small enterprise development and poverty reduction are identified for the immediate attention of researchers engaged in contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving global poverty by 2015. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Postal Service Reforms in Solomon Islands of the South Pacific: Evaluating Consequences for Public Service Delivery and Customer Satisfaction

The changing environment of the postal sector over the last decade has increased the urgency for governments worldwide to re-examine regulations governing how their public postal administrations operate. The need to increase service efficiency and quality is a critical strategic focus, given the increasing technological competition, rising operational costs, and changing customers' needs and expectations. There are many success stories, particularly from developed countries, highlighting improved service quality following corporatization of their public postal administration. This particular study revealed that reforms of the Solomon Islands postal service have had some positive influence on the level of customer satisfaction.
Football and the Risk-Return Relationship for a Stock Market: Borsa Istanbul

We hypothesize that results of football (soccer) teams affect the risk perception of people. People choose riskier investments after a win and less risky investments after a loss; this leads to higher (lower) returns in the stock market. These hypotheses are tested for the international matches of Turkey's three most popular teams (Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe, and Galatasaray). The empirical findings suggests that the teams' wins led to higher asset returns and lower risk aversion on the following business day of the Borsa Istanbul and lower returns and higher risk aversion after a loss or a tie.