Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of drought conditions on the carbon dioxide dynamics in a temperate peatland

Drought is arguably the most important regulator of inter-annual variation in net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) in peatlands. This study investigates effects of drought periods on NEE and its components, gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Reco), on the basis of eddy covariance measurements of land–atmosphere exchange of CO2 in 2006–2009 in a south Swedish nutrient-poor peatland. Two drought periods had dissimilar effects on the CO2 exchange. In 2006, there was a short but severe drought period in the middle of the growing season resulting in increased Reco rates, but no detectable effect on GPP rates. In contrast, in 2008 the drought period began early in the growing season and lasted for a longer period of time, resulting in reduced GPP rates, suggesting that GPP is most sensitive to drought during leaf out and canopy development compared with the full canopy stage. Both in 2006 and in 2008 the peatland acted as an annual source of atmospheric CO2, while in 2007 and 2009, when there were no drought periods, the peatland constituted a CO2 sink. It was concluded that the timing, severity and duration of drought periods regulate the effects on peatland GPP, Reco and NEE.
Disposition Effect Among Contrarian and Momentum Investors

We provide evidence of disposition effect propensity for stock trading simulation participants employing a contrarian versus a momentum strategy. We found that even subjects playing with chips rather than real money remain vulnerable to those effects. Both tendencies were generally evident in our sample, but we also found individual differences. Subjects seemed to be contrarians both on position opening and on position closing. The main hypothesis of this paper states that contrarian investors are more prone to the disposition effect than are momentum traders. The model proposed by Dacey and Zielonka [2008] plays a crucial role in formulating this hypothesis. We consider the disposition effect not only in terms of the value function but also of the probability weighting function. In accordance with our hypothesis, we found that contrarian traders are more prone to the disposition effect.
The Determinants of Banking Crises: Evidence from Developing and Developed Countries

The paper studies the factors associated with the emergence of systemic banking crises in a large sample of developed and developing countries in 1980-94, using a multivariate logit econometric model. The results suggest that crises tend to erupt when the macroeconomic environment is weak, particularly when growth is low and inflation is high. Also, high real interest rates are clearly associated with systemic banking sector problems, and there is some evidence that vulnerability to balance of payments crises has played a role. Countries with an explicit deposit insurance scheme were particularly at risk, as were countries with weak law enforcement.
The distributive consequuences of machismo: A simulation analysis of intrahousehold allocation

Empirical evidence questions the unitary allocation model of the household that underpins the standard measurement of monetary poverty and inequality. Intra-household gender discrimination has been widely shown to shape expenditure decisions, nutrition status, and human capital accumulation of household members. However, conventional poverty and inequality analyses are conducted for the household as a whole, which might lead to different conclusions compared with studies based on individuals. Using recent developments in intrahousehold bargaining modelling, this paper constructs non-cooperative allocation rules dominated by gender discrimination among household members. Estimates for Chile show a substantial worsening of poverty and inequality under such allocation rules. This suggests that intra-household discrimination deserves some of the attention typically directed to extrahousehold discrimination in labour markets, access to public services or political participation.
Human Capital and Self-Enforcing Contracts

This essay analyzes labor contracts as a device for rearranging factor incomes over time under conditions of extreme adverse selection; in particular, the lack of verifiable public information about future compensation prevents finitely-lived workers from borrowing against their earnings. Specific human capital is used as an incentive to implement intertemporal self-enforcing contracts between workers and firms. After proposing a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of such contracts, the resulting equilibrium earnings profiles are explored along with the effects of imperfections in the credit market on the way workers choose jobs and allocate time between current production and training. Copyright 1988 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.
Effect of peptide YY on human renal function.

Peptide YY (PYY) is released from the intestine into the circulation in response to ingestion of food. As PYY/neuropeptide Y (NPY) receptors have recently been identified in the human kidney, we examined the effect of PYY on human renal function. Male subjects (6 per group) received control infusate or PYY at 0.4 or 1.2 pmol.kg-1.min-1 intravenously for 90 min with control periods before and after. Infusion of PYY at the lower dose reproduced normal postprandial plasma concentrations and caused significant decreases in glomerular filtration rate (10% reduction), plasma renin activity (30% reduction), and aldosterone levels while increasing sodium excretion by approximately 30% (all P < 0.01). Infusion of PYY at the higher dose, which reproduced plasma levels seen during a diarrheal illness, resulted in similar changes in renal function and also reduced renal plasma flow by approximately 10% (P < 0.05). Therefore, PYY may be an important mediator of the normal postprandial natriuretic response, and PYY agonists could provide a novel approach to the treatment of patients with sodium overload.
Spectrum governance regimes: efficiency properties and policy choices

Purpose – This paper proposes to describe a model and the results of a simulation exercise used to compare welfare outcomes for four governance regimes that might be employed for wireless services: two spectrum ownership regimes and two open commons regimes. Aims also to examine practical implications for policy makers.Design/methodology/approach – A formal economic model was constructed and computational techniques were employed to explore the welfare consequences of alternative applications of policy instruments.Findings – For the model examined, the market does as well as can be expected from government in setting interference tolerance for both types of regimes. However, commons regimes always generate excessive entry. While the theoretical optimum achievable by government in an ownership regime exceeds predicted welfare for a commons regime, for most model specifications the difference is not too large and an ownership regime can easily under‐perform a commons regime if imperfectly‐informed policy ma.
Do Structural Holes and Network Connectivity Really Affect Entrepreneurial Performance?

Research shows that structural holes and network connectivity are associated with entrepreneurial performance. Yet the explanatory variables will tend to be correlated, and multicollinearity may skew the results. The use of instrumental variables can nevertheless generate reliable estimates. The methodology can also identify possible reverse causal orders. Here a network of rural entrepreneurs building their own hydroelectric micro-power plants is studied. The use of instrumental variables shows that structural holes and network connectivity have strong and additive effects on performance, and with a particular focus on rural entrepreneurs in developing countries, the findings’ implications are discussed.
Vehicle Currency Use in International Trade

Although currency invoicing in international trade transactions is central to the transmission of monetary policy, the forces motivating the choice of currency have long been debated. We introduce a model wherein agents involved in international trade can invoice in the exporter's currency, the importer's currency, or a third-country vehicle currency. The model is designed to contrast the contribution of macroeconomic variability with that of industry-specific features in the selection of an invoice currency. We show that producers in industries with high demand elasticities are more likely than producers in other industries to display herding in their choice of currency. This industry-related force is more influential than local macroeconomic performance in determining producers' choices. Drawing on data on invoice currency use in exports and imports for twenty-four countries, we document that the dollar is the currency of choice for most transactions involving the United States. The dollar is also extensively used as a vehicle currency in international trade flows that do not directly involve the United States. Consistent with the results of our model, this last finding is largely attributable to international trade in reference-priced and organized-exchange traded goods. Although the magnitude of business-cycle volatility matters for invoicing of more differentiated products, it is less central for invoicing nondifferentiated goods.
The Race Gap in Student Achievement Scores: Longitudinal Evidence from a Racially Diverse School District

Black and Hispanic students often display substantial gaps in test scores when compared to White students at all levels of education. In this article, we examine when and how the Black-White and Hispanic-White test score gaps develop in the early elementary grades in a California school district with a large minority population, where more than 80% of the students are Black or Hispanic. We use multivariate analysis to predict the annual reading and math test scores of a student cohort from first through fourth grade controlling for various school and family factors. We find that in this racially diverse school district achievement gaps do develop, for both Black and Hispanic students. However, in comparison to the Black-White achievement gaps, the Hispanic-White gaps develop later, in particular in math, and they are half the size of the Black-White achievement gaps. The eventual widening of the gaps for Hispanic and Black students does not seem to be the result of minority students attending schools of less quality. Finally, in contrast to previous studies with fewer minorities, the estimated achievement gaps by the fourth grade are small.1
The intersections of work time and care time: nurses’ and builders’ family time economies

In post-industrial societies labour market de-regulation, the growth of non-standard work schedules and shifting gender patterns in the paid labour market are re-shaping family care practices and work/family balance. In this article, the work/family arrangements and practices of nurses are compared with those of builders in Melbourne, Australia. The concept of family time economies is used to explore the intersections of work time and family time. Some change in traditional gender divisions of labour was evident in the nurses’ families but in the builders’ families more traditional gender specialization was displayed. The article contends that the organization of work time shapes the temporal structures of family life. Gendered patterns of employment in sex-segregated industries intersect with gendered family care practices in complicated and sometimes contradictory ways, but gendered differences at work and at home have a significant influence on how time for paid work and care is distributed between parents.
CAPITAL CHARGING AS A VFM TOOL IN PUBLIC SERVICES

The essence of capital charging is very simple: namely, that the costs of capital facilities should be rendered explicit. Such transparency is intended to introduce new discipline to decisions about the acquisition, use and disposal of publicly financed assets. Implementation of capital charging in New Zealand and the United Kingdom in the 1990s has focused attention on practical issues, notably the valuation basis and the relationship of funding and capital charging systems. Capital charging will be extended to the UK central government sector in 2001–02, the year in which Resource (i.e. accruals) Budgeting becomes operational. This article relates experience to date to the specific circumstances of asset-intensive areas of central government and of public services beyond the central government boundary. Capital charging should be seen as a VFM tool, the use of which will be conditioned both by the size and nature of asset holdings and by the context established by other New Public Management reforms, such as purchaser/provider separation.
Extending Work Environment Research Into Home Health Settings

Organizational attributes in work environments that support nursing practice are theoretically associated with superior nurse and patient outcomes, and lower frequencies of adverse events. This study explored associations between organizational support for nursing practice in home health care agencies and (a) the frequency of nurse-reported adverse events, (b) nurse-assessed quality of care, (c) nurse job satisfaction, and (d) nurses’ intentions to leave their employing agency. Data were collected from a sample of 137 registered nurses employed as home health staff nurses in the United States and analyzed using descriptive techniques and bivariate correlation. As anticipated, organizational support for nursing was negatively associated with nurse-reported adverse patient events and intent to leave, and positively associated with nurse-assessed quality of care and job satisfaction. These findings may be helpful to nursing administrators who seek to create work environments in home health agencies that maximize patient outcomes and nurse satisfaction.
Use It or Lose It: Teaching Literacy in the Economics Principles Course

Americans know little about economics. Recent surveys document shocking gaps in understanding of markets, macroeconomic policy, and the economics of government. Both the general public and college students, including economics course-takers, do poorly on questions that check their knowledge. In a Gallup survey (William B. Walstad and Max Larsen, 1992), most knew that competitive prices are determined by supply and demand. But 65 percent of the public and 43 percent of college seniors believed that during a crisis in the Middle East ". government should prohibit oil companies from raising . prices" (p. 65). In a Harris poll (Parade magazine, 1999), only 58 percent of adults knew that people are likely to respond to a doubling in the relative price of beef by buying more poultry and less beef. Only one in three understood that those who borrow money at a fixed interest rate are most likely to benefit from inflation. In a Minneapolis Federal Reserve survey (David Fettig, 1998), only 30 percent knew that government could reduce high inflation by decreasing spending and the money supply. Taking a high-school or college economics course has little impact on economic understanding (Walstad and Ken Rebeck, 2002). In a 15-question Gallup survey of college seniors, college economics course-takers scored 9, highschool economics course-takers scored 8, and those who took no economics scored 7 (Walstad and Sam Allgood, 1999). There is hope: Test-takers do better with questions that concern their day-to-day lives (Louis Harris and Associates, 1999). And adults believe economics is important: 88 percent want politicians to have a good understanding of economics, and 96 percent think that basic economics should be taught in high school (Harris and Associates, 1999). While objections can be raised about what questions were asked and how they were worded, national surveys administered by several respected firms support the same conclusion. Americans know little about economics.
Towards a QoE-Driven Resource Control in LTE and LTE-A Networks

We propose a novel architecture for providing quality of experience (QoE) awareness to mobile operator networks. In particular, we describe a possible architecture for QoE-driven resource control for long-term evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced networks, including a selection of KPIs to be monitored in different network elements. We also provide a description and numerical results of the QoE evaluation process for different data services as well as potential use cases that would benefit from the rollout of the proposed framework.
WEALTH HOLDINGS AND POVERTY STATUS IN THE U.S.

Families below the poverty line are better off in terms of wealth than income. In 1962, the ratio of mean income between families below and above the poverty line is 0.19 and the ratio of mean wealth is 0.29. The corresponding ratios for 1983 are 0.16 and 0.19. On average, the elderly poor are better off in terms of wealth than the younger poor, particularly relative to their own income. However, the poor have become worse off in terms of wealth between 1962 and 1983, when their real income grew by 6 percent and their real wealth declined by 11 percent. The inclusion of pension and social security wealth in the household portfolio narrows the wealth gap between the poor and non‐poor, particularly for families under 65 years of age. Alternative poverty rates are also calculated based on the inclusion of annuity flows from wealth in household income. The reduction in the poverty rate between 1962 and 1983, from 21 to 15 percent on the basis of the official rate, is considerably lower with these alternative definitions.
Internal versus External Ownership Transition in Family Firms: An Embeddedness Perspective

We investigate factors that influence family business owners’ choice between passing ownership within the family or to new external owners. Taking an embeddedness perspective focusing on owner–family structure and involvement, we hypothesize that ownership dispersion, number of potential heirs, multigenerational involvement, and whether the chief executive officer is a family member influence the choice of an internal or external transition of ownership. We build a longitudinal data set from a sample of 3,829 family firms and their ownership transitions. Our theorizing and findings regarding ownership transitions complements the abundant research on management succession and therefore constitutes an important contribution to the literature.
Interest Rate Risk Rewards in Stock Returns of Financial Corporations: Evidence from Germany

The interest rate sensitivity of stock returns of financial and non-financial corporations is a well-known phenomenon. However, only little is known about the part of total stock returns that is attributable to the compensation an investor receives for being exposed to interest rate risk when investing in equity securities. We pursue here a benchmark portfolio approach, constructing benchmark portfolios having the same interest rate risk exposure as a particular stock. By studying the time series of returns of these asset-specific benchmarks, we find: i) Regardless of the industry considered, the interest rate risk benchmarks of German corporations have mostly earned a significantly positive reward. ii) Returns of interest rate risk benchmarks of financial institutions exceeded significantly those of non-financial corporations. iii) An investor willing to bear nothing but the average interest rate risk of German financial institutions would have earned a mean return of about or even exceeding 70% of the corresponding total stock returns. iv) Returns of the interest rate risk benchmarks of the German insurance sector were significantly higher than those of German banks, which seems to contradict conventional market wisdom that insurances hedge interest rate risks.
Computation of Orientational Filters for Real-time Computer Vision Problems III: Steerable System and VLSI Architecture

Abstract Orientational filters have been used frequently for computer vision problems. Despite their strength in various vision problems, their use has been limited in real-time applications since they are computationally intensive. Part I presented separable approximation as a way to implement a real-time orientational filter operation with a small amount of hardware. Part II presented an efficient computation scheme for 2D multi-resolution decomposition. This paper extends the results of the previous papers to construct a multi-resolution filter system where the orientation of each filter can be adaptively controlled. Such a system is called steerable and is useful in many image analysis/processing applications. This paper also presents a VLSI architecture for various orientational filter systems. The architecture is scalable in terms of the input image size, the filter size, the number of orientational filters, and the approximation order.
The Equity Premium: Stock and Bond Returns Since 1802

Over the period from 1802 through 1990, equity has provided returns superior to those on fixed income investments, gold or commodities. Most strikingly, the real rate of return on equity held remarkably constant over this period, while the real return on fixed income assets declined dramatically. Over the subperiods 1802-70, 1871-1925 and 1926-90, the real compound annual returns on equity were 5. 7, 6.6 and 6.4 per cent, but the real returns on shortterm government bonds dropped from 5.1 to 3.1 and, finally, 0.5 per cent.
The Distributional Impacts of Policies for the Control of Transport Externalities: An Applied General Equilibrium Model

The paper uses an applied general equilibrium model, calibrated to the situation in Belgium in 1990, to evaluate the welfare effects of small policy changes in the presence of transport externalities. The model incorporates three types of externalities: congestion, which has a feedback effect on the behaviour of the economic agents, air pollution and accidents. The model is used to perform balanced budget incidence simulations in which the marginal cost of public funds is calculated for four alternative policy instruments: a lump sum tax, the labour income tax, the fuel taxes and peak road pricing. For each of these instruments the marginal cost of public funds is calculated. The results of the model are compared with those of a model in which congestion, air pollution and accidents are assumed to remain constant at their initial level. The model contributes to the literature in two ways. First of all, it includes non-identical individuals which allows to analyse the equity effects of the policy reforms. The second contribution is related to the way in which the externalities are modelled: the feedback effect of congestion is explicitly taken into account and the value of a marginal time saving is determined endogenously in the model. The simulations show that the ranking of the instruments in terms of their marginal cost of public funds changes significantly when the effect of the reform on the externalities is taken into account. Secondly, regardless of the way in which the tax revenue is recycled, the welfare gain of peak road pricing is higher than that of the fuel tax. When the externality tax revenue is recycled through the lump sum tax the welfare gains are higher for the poorer than for the richer quintiles. On the other hand, the main beneficiary of revenue recycling through the labour income tax is the richest quintile. Consequently, when the social welfare function gives a higher weight to the welfare of individuals belonging to the poorer quintiles, the distributional impacts of the policy reforms cause the welfare gain to be higher when the revenue is recycled through an increase in the lump sum transfer rather than through a lower labour income tax rate. The link is made with the double dividend literature. A weak double dividend can be realised only when all individuals are given the same welfare weight. However, the inclusion of distributional considerations offers the possibility of realising a strong double dividend for low degrees of inequality aversion.