Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The psychological impact of alopecia

Alopecia is a chronic dermatological disorder in which people lose some or all of the hair on their head and sometimes on their body as well. It is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the hair follicles. It is neither life threatening nor painful, though there can be irritation of the skin, as well as physical problems resulting from the loss of eyelashes and eyebrows. The aetiology and subsequent development of alopecia is not fully understood, but it is an autoimmune disorder that arises from a combination of genetic and environmental influences.1 We have included alopecia secondary to chemotherapy in the current review as, although there are fundamental aetiological differences, they may share similarities—for example, anxiety arising from the alopecia and the psychological impact relating to identity. Alopecia has few physically harmful effects, but may lead to psychological consequences, including high levels of anxiety and depression. Medical treatment for the disorder has limited effectiveness, and the failure to find a cure can leave patients very distressed. This article reviews the research into the psychological impact of alopecia. We conducted the searches for this clinical review in September 2005 through Ovid, focusing particularly on Medline, PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, the Cochrane Library, and the Web of Science. Searches went as far back as 1980. The main terms used were: alopecia, stress, psychology, treatment, anxiety, depression, and trauma. We also examined the reference lists of articles found. We included all studies that focused on the psychological consequences of alopecia, irrespective of method used. Studies were excluded if they focused on androgenetic alopecia. We included studies relating to hair loss from chemotherapy, as some of the evidence shows that such hair loss can be psychologically damaging beyond the impact of the chemotherapy. We included a total of 34 studies in the analysis (table). …
Environmental and genetic determinants of aflatoxin–albumin adducts in The Gambia

Aflatoxins together with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection contribute to the high incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma in developing countries. An understanding of the mechanism of interaction between these factors would provide a strong rationale for developing effective prevention strategies. In this study in The Gambia we examined the effect of environmental (place of residence and timing of sample collection) and host factors (age, sex, HBV status and interindividual variations in carcinogen metabolising enzymes) in determining blood aflatoxin–albumin adduct levels in 357 individuals of whom 181 were chronic HBV carriers. Samples were analysed for aflatoxin‐albumin adducts, HBV status and genotypes of glutathione S‐transferase (GST) M1, GSTT1, GSTP1 and epoxide hydrolase (EPXH). Urine samples were analysed for 6β‐hydroxycortisol:cortisol ratio as a marker of cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4 activity. Adduct levels were significantly higher in subjects resident in rural [geometric mean adduct level 34.9 pg aflatoxin B1‐lysine equivalent (28.5–42.8; 95%CI)/mg albumin] than in periurban areas [22.2 pg (14.9–33.4)/mg] and were approximately twice as high in the dry season [mid‐February to March; 83.2 pg (53.3–130.8)/mg] than the wet [July to August; 34.9 pg (28.5‐42.8)/mg]. In contrast, HBV status, CYP3A4 phenotype, GSTT1, GSTP1 and EPXH genotypes were not associated with aflatoxin‐albumin adduct level. However, mean adduct levels were significantly higher in non‐HBV infected subjects with GSTM1 null genotype. The main factors which affect aflatoxin‐albumin adduct levels in this population are environmental, notably place of residence and timing of sample collection. This study further emphasises the priority to reduce aflatoxin exposure in these communities by primary prevention measures. Int. J. Cancer 86:1–7, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Strategic Trading When Agents Forecast the Forecasts of Others

We analyze a multi-period model of trading with differentially informed traders, liquidity traders, and a market maker. Each informed trader's initial information is a noisy estimate of the long-term value of the asset, and the different signals received by informed traders can have a variety of correlation structures. With this setup, informed traders not only compete with each other for trading profits, they also learn about other traders' signals from the observed order flow. Our work suggests that the initial correlation among the informed traders' signals has a significant effect on the informed traders' profits and the informativeness of prices.
Budget Deficits and Inflation: The Roles of Central Bank Independence and Financial Market Development

This article investigates the relationship between budget deficits and inflation with the view that the nature of this relationship depends on the characteristics of monetary and financial institutions. The main hypothesis is that budget deficits are especially inflationary when both the central bank is not independent and the financial market is not developed enough to contain inflationary expectations. The empirical analysis using a panel data that comprises 54 developed and less developed countries, with one to two decades of observations for each, supports this hypothesis. The findings are also robust to subsets of the sample. (JEL "E58", "H62") Copyright 2003 Western Economic Association International.
Procedural models of European Union politics: Contributions and suggestions for improvement

This article analyzes the literature on procedural models of European Union politics. We present an overview of the main models of the legislative procedures, with a focus on their relevance to European Union politics and the literature today. We discuss early controversies in the literature and examine the empirical research that tested the models. Furthermore, we consider models of other aspects of policy-making in the European Union. Finally, we discuss the literature’s main contributions and principal shortcomings and formulate suggestions for improvement. We argue that the models contribute greatly to our understanding of European Union politics, offer clear predictions regarding policies, institutions’ powers, and the extent of gridlock and have sparked extensive empirical research. The models of consultation and codecision can serve as standard models of unicameral legislatures with an agenda setter and bicameral legislatures with bargaining between the two chambers, respectively. Moreover, they contribute to the study of the implications of institutional reform.
Prices, Liquidity, and the Information Content of Trades

We investigate the effect of asymmetric information on prices and liquidity by analyzing trades, quotes, spreads, and depths. Information content should increase with trade size and the information asymmetry of the trading period. Results show that price and liquidity effects are significantly associated with information content as measured by both trade size and timing relative to information events. Results are stronger for purchases than sales. Quoted prices are better measures of information effects than transaction prices, because they control for bid-ask bounce. Finally, trades that a priori contain no information have no impact on prices and liquidity, despite their large size. Article published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies in its journal, The Review of Financial Studies.
The Determinants of Firm Profitability Differences in EU Food Processing

type="main" xml:id="jage12061-abs-0001"> This paper decomposes the variance in EU food industry return-on-assets into year, country, industry and firm effects using a hierarchical linear model (HLM). The HLM approach accounts for some of the methodological drawbacks of conventional approaches of variance decomposition such as anova and components of variance and additionally allows the estimation of the impact of covariates within each effect level. The results for selected EU countries show that firm effects are far more important than industry structure in determining food industry profitability. In particular, firm size and industry concentration are drivers of profitability while firm risk and age as well as industry growth have a negative influence.
EXPLORING THE STRATEGY‐TECHNOLOGY CONNECTION IN SMALL MANUFACTURING FIRMS

Small manufacturing firms make a significant contribution to the economy. Yet, partly because of the greater availability of data on larger firms, strategic management and manufacturing strategy research have tended to neglect small business. Using a survey of small manufacturers, we examine the applicability of Porter's typology of generic strategies to this context and investigate the links between generic strategies and one important dimension of manufacturing strategy‐technology management. The analysis of generic strategies shows consistency with previous work on larger firms and tends to support the use of the typology in this setting. Moreover, the internal and external influences on the technology adoption decision process vary significantly with generic strategies, implying that the role played by individuals and networks constitutes a dominant factor. Surprisingly, no distinction was found between firm groupings with respect to decision criteria, which suggests that the decision process of small firms remains rather inexplicit, informal, and, to a large extent, intuitive. We also found that technologically more sophisticated firms tend to hold stronger competitive positions and that technological strength appears to be related to both cost advantage and differentiation.
Labour Supply and Taxes Labour Supply and Taxation Labour Supply and Taxes *

Executive Summary This paper provides an overview of the voluminous literature relating tax and and the supply of effort that has developed since the Meade report on the UK tax system 30 years ago, with a focus on presenting the empirical consensus on how taxes and benefits affect incentives. Our starting point is the traditional labour supply model, where hours of work and participation in work are the key measures of effort supplied by individuals. We discuss the way labour supply is modelled. We begin with a basic continuous hours model, where individuals have completely free choice over their hours of work. We then add important real-world features of the labour supply choice including fixed costs of labour-force participation, the complications introduced by the benefits system, dynamic aspects of labour supply and place the analysis in the context of the family. We discuss how what such models tell us about the effects of tax reform on work behaviour. We then discuss the " new Tax Responsiveness " literature which takes a more general view of effort and does not assume that it can be perfectly measured by hours of work supplied. Here the focus is on the response of taxable income to the marginal tax rate as a summary statistic of the behavioural response to taxation. Underlying this approach is the unsatisfactory nature of using hours as a proxy for labour effort for those with high levels of autonomy on the job and who already work long hours, such as the self employed or senior executives. The literature typically uses a difference-indifferences approach, comparing the taxable income of treatment and control groups, before and after a reform. This leads to several problems because of the confounding impact of temporary income shocks, secular trends in the income distribution and general equilibrium wage effects, and the direction of the bias is unknown. Efforts to control for these factors are important, but because the specifics of each tax reform are different, it is difficult to generalise from one reform, as can be seen by applying a consistent methodology across the full range of tax reforms in the 20 th century. Finally, we discuss the impact that taxes and benefits can have on longer run outcomes, which affect standards of living, such as education and training choices. Taking these effects into account should be a central consideration of any tax and benefit system. After …
The predictive value of behavioural characteristics on the success of strategic alliances

An increasing number of companies are setting up strategic alliances with suppliers and customers. However, the majority of these alliances do not succeed. Our aim is to understand how different behavioural characteristics are associated with alliance success. We hypothesise that alliance attributes, communication behaviour, and alliance management are predictors of cost benefits and service benefits. Furthermore, we found that while alliance attributes are related with both cost and service benefits, communication behaviour and alliance management are only associated with service and cost benefits, respectively. We also see that alliance attributes explain most of the variance of supply chain success and are thus better predictors of alliance success than other behavioural characteristics. Furthermore, we provide insight into the way managers can build up supply chain performance by setting up strategic alliances.
Foreign Direct Investment: A Journey To Economic Growth In Ghana - Empirical Evidence

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been viewed as a major stimulus to economic growth in developing countries. Its ability to deal with two major obstacles; namely, shortages of financial resources and technology and skills, has made it the center of attention for policymakers in low-income countries in particular. In spite of the significance generated by FDI flows, the flow to developing countries and the world, in general, has witnessed persistent decline over the years. The implication for the drop means that competition to attract FDI has increased as developing countries continue to create the enabling environment to attract foreign investors. Ghana, in particular, has, over the last decade, pursued various forms of economic reforms and liberalization of trade regimes in order to become more competitive in the international financial market. A handful of papers has recently dealt with FDI flows in Ghana. However, most of these studies are concerned with strategic FDI policy to attract FDI flows. The purpose of this study is to empirically determine the factors that influence FDI flows in Ghana, using time series data from 1988 to 2011. Regression analysis was carried out using relevant econometric techniques. The results of the study capture trade openness, exchange rate, natural resources, and infrastructure as the drivers of FDI in Ghana. Macroeconomic variables, such as inflation and per capita gross domestic products, were also registered to impact the determinants of FDI flows in Ghana. The contribution of this paper is that economic liberalization was found to be significant, indicating that policymakers' efforts in liberalizing the economic activities may necessarily translate into significant FDI inflows into the country.
Syracuse University From the SelectedWorks of Lihong Liang 2008 The Determinants of Analyst-Firm Pairings

This paper explores the determinants of observed analyst-firm pairings. We adopt an analyst/brokerage house perspective that allows us to examine not only firm-level characteristics as in prior research, but also attributes of the analyst and the analyst’s brokerage house that may drive these pairings. Our empirical analyses provide two primary insights. First, analyst characteristics such as industry expertise and relative experience, and brokerage house characteristics such as continuity of coverage, are associated with the decision to follow a firm. Second, there is substantial variation in the association between firm, analyst, and brokerage house characteristics and the decision to follow a firm; this occurs across individual analysts as well as across different types of brokerage houses. Overall, our results provide further insights into the factors leading to observed analyst-firm pairings, and indicate that these factors vary across analysts and their brokerage houses – suggesting richer associations than the average firm-level relationships documented by prior research.
Has Transport Infrastructure Promoted Regional Economic Growth?— With an Analysis of the Spatial Spillover Effects of Transport Infrastructure

在综合考虑多维要素对中国区域经济增长的协同作用的基础上, 构建交通基础 设施对区域经济增长的空间溢出模型, 利用1993-2009年的中国省级面板数据和空间 计量经济学的研究方法, 实证分析得出以下主要结论。 (1) 中国交通基础设施对区 域经济增长的产出弹性值合计约0.05-0.07, 表明其对中国区域经济增长具有重要的作 用。 (2) 中国交通基础设施对区域经济增长的空间溢出效应非常显著, 若不考虑空间 溢出效应, 会高估交通基础设施对区域经济增长的作用。 (3) 外地交通基础设施对本 地经济增长表现为以正的空间溢出效应为主, 但是也有空间负溢出的证据。 (4) 在影 响区域经济增长的多维要素中, 劳动力与其他公共部门资本存量对中国区域经济弹性 的贡献仍然较大, 新经济增长因素与新经济地理因素的作用也不容忽视。 关键词: 交通基础设施 空间溢出 区域经济增长 空间计量模型 Taking full account of the synergistic effects of multidimensional factors on regional economic growth in China, this paper constructs a model of the spatial spillover effects of transport infrastructure on regional economic growth. Using provincial panel data from 1993 to 2009 and employing spatial econometric techniques, our empirical analysis comes to the following conclusions. (1) The total output elasticity of transport infrastructure for regional economic growth varies between 0.05 and 0.07, indicating its important role in such growth. (2) Transport infrastructure has very clear spatial spillover effects on regional economic growth; its role in regional economic growth will be overestimated if these are neglected. (3) For a specific region, transport infrastructure in other regions has mainly positive spillover effects on economic growth, but there is also evidence of negative spillover effects. (4) Among multidimensional factors contributing to regional economic growth, labor plus capital stock from other parts of the public sector make the greatest contribution to regional economic growth in China, followed by the new economic growth factors and new economic geography.
Mediated Cross-Cultural Learning through Exchange in Higher Agricultural Education

Abstract This article reports on the long-term impact of an intensive European Union–Australia student exchange programme that took place in 2004 and 2005. The programme, Learning through Exchange about Agriculture, Food Systems and Environment (LEAFSE), was designed to facilitate exchange of post-graduate students on a pilot scale between four institutions in EU countries and four in Australia. Under this programme master's level students in the fields of agriculture, food systems and environment had the opportunity to study abroad. Students from EU studied for a semester at a partner university in Australia, and students from Australia studied for a semester at a partner university in EU. The research shows that LEAFSE appears to have been successful in creating a community of learners and a learning environment that combined resulted in a significant life experience that positively contributed to students' personal and professional development. An important component of both seems to be their enhanced cross-cultural competence in that they are better able to understand and appreciate differences.
A Democratic Dilemma: System Effectiveness versus Citizen Participation

The unexpected rise in opposition to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 reflected in part an abrupt heightening of awareness about possible trade-offs that the designers and supporters of the treaty had largely ignored. The treaty was intended to create in due time a common currency among the twelve members of the European Union (EU), common policies on defense and foreign affairs, and greater authority for the EU over many of the policies social, economic, and environmental of the member states. (Before Maastricht the EU had been called the European Community.) Increasing references to the democratic deficit in the political arrangements of the EU revealed a concern that whatever other benefits might result from the treaty, they could come at the cost of submerging a national democratic government into a larger and less democratic transnational system. Maastricht presented citizens and leaders (in a country like Denmark, for example) with a fundamental democratic dilemma: They could choose to preserve the authority of a smaller democratic political unit (Denmark) within which they could act more effectively to influence the conduct of their government, even though some important matters
The Stochastic Volatility in Mean Model With Time-Varying Parameters: An Application to Inflation Modeling

This article generalizes the popular stochastic volatility in mean model to allow for time-varying parameters in the conditional mean. The estimation of this extension is nontrival since the volatility appears in both the conditional mean and the conditional variance, and its coefficient in the former is time-varying. We develop an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm based on band and sparse matrix algorithms instead of the Kalman filter to estimate this more general variant. The methodology is illustrated with an application that involves U.S., U.K., and Germany inflation. The estimation results show substantial time-variation in the coefficient associated with the volatility, highlighting the empirical relevance of the proposed extension. Moreover, in a pseudo out-of-sample forecasting exercise, the proposed variant also forecasts better than various standard benchmarks.
Testing PPP for Asian economies during the recent floating period

The validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) is examined between seven Asian countries and the US during the flexible exchange rate period, in the framework of the Johansen cointegration approach with and without restrictions of the PPP parameters. It is found that a long-run comovement exists between the nominal exchange rate and the prices, but the PPP vector does not exist in the cointegration space and the nominal exchange rate and domestic and foreign prices do not move one by one as implied by the theoretical PPP.
Hot water, UV-C and superatmospheric oxygen packaging as hurdle techniques for maintaining overall quality of fresh-cut pomegranate arils.

BACKGROUND In recent years there has been increasing consumer pressure to avoid the use of agrochemicals such as chlorine on fresh plant products for extending their shelf life. The combined use of eco-sustainable techniques may be an alternative. The effect of hot water (HW), ultraviolet-C (UV-C) light and high oxygen packaging (HO) on the overall quality of fresh-cut pomegranate arils stored under modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) for up to 14 days at 5 °C was studied. RESULTS Arils extracted manually, washed with chlorine (100 µL L⁻¹ NaClO, pH 6.5, 5 °C water), rinsed and drained were exposed to single or combined (double and triple) hurdle techniques. The HW treatment consisted of a 30 s immersion in water at 55 °C followed by air surface drying. A 4.54 kJ m⁻² dose was used for the UV-C treatment before packaging. Active MAP with initial 90 kPa O₂ was used in the HO treatment. The respiration rate remained relatively constant throughout shelf life, with no differences among treatments. CO₂ accumulation was higher within HO packages. HW induced a slight reduction in total soluble solids, while no changes in titratable acidity were found. HO-treated arils had the highest phenolic content, while the lowest was found in HW-treated arils. The lowest antioxidant activity was found in HW + UV-C + HO and the highest in UV-C + HO and HO treatments. HW alone or in combination with UV-C and HO inhibited mesophile, mould and yeast growth, while UV-C + HO was most effective for controlling yeast and mould growth. CONCLUSION UV-C and HO either alone or in combination are promising techniques to preserve the quality of pomegranate arils for up to 14 days at 5 °C.