Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From compliance to value-added auditing – experiences from Swedish ISO 9001:2000 certified organisations

Abstract This paper presents the results of a questionnaire survey of the auditing practices and the value of certification audits in 269 Swedish ISO 9001:2000 certified organisations. Certification audits help to improve the quality management system and increase the motivation for quality work. Certified organisations want auditors not only to issue a certificate, but also to share their own experiences and give suggestions for improvements. Audit conclusions, which imply consultancy work, are a common practice among auditors. Furthermore, there exist great differences regarding the required conditions for certification. The differences primarily depend on the auditors, but also on the certification bodies. Finally, the study also indicates that the audit procedure has improved after the ISO 9000 revision in 2000.
Lectures on Advanced Econometric Theory

Foundations of asymptotic theory simultaneous equation models (SEM) identification and the treatment of general linear restrictions estimation of single equation models 1 - OLS and GLS estimators estimation of single models 2 - the instrumental variable & 2SLS estimator the IV estimation of a set of simultaneous equations maximum likelihood estimation A - full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation B - limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) estimation testing equations for misspecification alternative significance tests methods of numerical optimization.
Pathogenic effect of an intermediate-size SCA-6 allele (CAG)19 in a homozygous patient

SCA6 is caused by CAG expansion in the α1A voltage-dependent calcium channel subunit gene. The authors studied an Italian family in which one patient carried a fully expanded SCA6 allele with 26-CAG repeats, whereas the other affected family member was homozygous for an intermediate-size allele of 19-CAG repeats. Three family members, heterozygous for the intermediate allele, were clinically unaffected. The findings demonstrate a dose-dependent pathogenic effect of an intermediate CAG expansion in the SCA6 gene.
Public–private mix in the provision of higher education in East Africa: stakeholders' perceptions

Arguments in the international literature suggest that public–private partnership (PPP) can positively transform [higher] education as it leads to increased access, competition, efficiency and quality. But there are those who disagree and question whether PPP can deliver any one or all of these. This article does two things. First, it presents a discussion on higher education in three East African countries with a common history in the establishment of higher education, mapping their emerging PPP pattern on to the global patterns of public–private differentiation. Second, it analyses perceptions by key stakeholders: university students, lecturers and administrators on East Africa's experience with public–private mix in higher education based on theories of public–private differentiation.
A FARM GROWTH MODEL FOR POLICY ANALYSIS IN AN EXTENSIVE PASTORAL PRODUCTION SYSTEM

The development of a simulation model of an extensive pastoral farming system to assist analysts in their assessment of government policy measures is described. The model was designed to simulate, over a number of years, the physical and financial operation of a sheep and beef production system typically found in the North Island hill country of New Zealand. By manipulating model parameters and data related to prices, costs, taxation and credit, a range of policies can be represented and their effects simulated. The model is used to undertake an ex post analysis of the farm-level impact of the supplementary minimum price scheme in New Zealand and to project farm performance following the abolition of the scheme. Consideration is given to the use of the model to represent sheep and beef production systems elsewhere.
Do investors avoid strong trade unions and labour regulation? Social dumping in the European automotive and chemical industries

The eastern enlargement of the European Union has prompted heated debates about social dumping related to labour standards and industrial relations. Capital mobility is seen as a crucial social dumping mechanism. The article uses time-series-cross-section data for the years 1999–2008 to analyse the determinants of capital flows (FDI) to European countries. It compares German and US FDI in the automotive and chemical industry. The article shows that FDI is influenced by labour standards (in particular protection against dismissals) and industrial relations factors and can be a social dumping mechanism. There are, however, differences according to the industries and the home countries of the investors. US companies try to avoid coordinated collective bargaining, while German companies consider government intervention in collective bargaining negative. The degree of unionization shows no effect on attractiveness for FDI.
Infrequency of purchase and double-hurdle models of Irish households' meat expenditure

This paper examines the effect of households' socio-economic characteristics, which are assumed to underpin preferences, on the pattern of consumers' meat expenditure at a disaggregated level. We estimate meat expenditure equations and calculate the associated elasticities using cross-sectional household budget survey data, using infrequency of purchase and double-hurdle models adjusted for the problems of heteroscedasticity and non-normality of the error terms. The paper provides an overview of the econometric techniques applied, based on recent literature. We find evidence of declining income elasticities in relation to meat expenditure and identify the effects of households' socio-economic characteristics on their meat expenditure. These effects suggest that the meat expenditure decisions of certain household groups are influenced by the desire for convenience. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.
Cefoxitin Resistance to Beta-Lactamase: a Major Factor for Susceptibility of Bacteroides fragilis to the Antibiotic

Toluene-treated cell suspensions of Bacteroides fragilis were used to screen clinical isolates for the production of β-lactamase. Approximately one-third of the isolates possessed considerable cephalosporinase activity. A significant correlation was found between β-lactamase production and resistance to cephalosporin antibiotics. Several isolates were resistant to cefuroxime and cefamandole and produced enzymes capable of hydrolyzing these antibiotics. However, none of the 79 strains tested could hydrolyze the cephamycin derivative, cefoxitin. A large percentage (>90%) of the strains were susceptible to cefoxitin. Therefore, resistance to lactamase hydrolysis is a major factor for the effectiveness of cefoxitin against B. fragilis. Detailed studies of four isolates suggest that two different enzymes may be produced. Both are cephalosporinases but differ with regard to cellular distribution and substrate specificity. Cefoxitin is not a substrate for either enzyme, but it is an excellent competitive inhibitor (Ki ≈ 0.1 μM).
Are Women Legislators Less Effective? Evidence from the U.S. House in the 103rd-105th Congress

We compare the ability of female and male members of the House of Representatives to turn policy preferences into law—something we label “legislative effectiveness. ” The existing literature on women in American legislatures is opaque, with some scholars suggesting women are less effective than their male colleagues and others arguing they are just as effective. Utilizing data from the 103rd-105th Congresses—specifically, data on bill and amendment sponsorship and Stein and Bickers’ data on the distribution of federal domestic spending—we argue women House members are not demonstrably less effective than their male counterparts. Legislative effectiveness is the product of seniority, preferences, and membership in important House institutions.
Discretionary Disclosures to Risk-Averse Traders: A Research Note

Verrecchia (1983) investigates a manager’s incentives for costly, discretionary disclosure of his information to risk-averse traders when the functional form of prices is exogenously specified. We extend Verrecchia (1983) by deriving the endogenously determined functional form of prices that would arise when all traders have constant risk tolerance. We show that these endogenously determined prices are inconsistent with the assumed prices in Verrecchia (1983) when the manager elects to not disclose. We derive the manager’s disclosure strategy for our setting and extend the comparative static results in Verrecchia (1990) for risk-neutral traders to a setting where traders have constant risk tolerance and prices are endogenously derived. Further, in our setting, discretionary disclosure does not affect how traders price risk of different outcomes. Also, we offer a representation of risk-averse traders’ prices using risk-adjusted distributions. Finally, these results provide implications for empirical-archival discretionary disclosure studies.
Testing for Trends in Dose-Response Microarray Experiments: A Comparison of Several Testing Procedures, Multiplicity and Resampling-Based Inference

Dose-response studies are commonly used in experiments in pharmaceutical research in order to investigate the dependence of the response on dose, i.e., a trend of the response level toxicity with respect to dose. In this paper we focus on dose-response experiments within a microarray setting in which several microarrays are available for a sequence of increasing dose levels. A gene is called differentially expressed if there is a monotonic trend (with respect to dose) in the gene expression. We review several testing procedures which can be used in order to test equality among the gene expression means against ordered alternatives with respect to dose, namely Williams' (Williams 1971 and 1972), Marcus' (Marcus 1976), global likelihood ratio test (Bartholomew 1961, Barlow et al. 1972, and Robertson et al. 1988), and M (Hu et al. 2005) statistics. Additionally we introduce a modification to the standard error of the M statistic. We compare the performance of these five test statistics. Moreover, we discuss the issue of one-sided versus two-sided testing procedures. False Discovery Rate (Benjamni and Hochberg 1995, Ge et al. 2003), and resampling-based Familywise Error Rate (Westfall and Young 1993) are used to handle the multiple testing issue. The methods above are applied to a data set with 4 doses (3 arrays per dose) and 16,998 genes. Results on the number of significant genes from each statistic are discussed. A simulation study is conducted to investigate the power of each statistic. A R library IsoGene implementing the methods is available from the first author.
Comparison of homeowner response to wildfire risk among towns with and without wildfire management

Few studies have examined the relationship between wildfire management by government agencies and homeowner wildfire risk mitigation. The goal of this paper is to compare perception of the wildfire risk, attribution of responsibility for mitigation, awareness of wildfire and mitigation, and adoption of wildfire mitigation activities among homeowners in towns where wildfire management activities have been completed by government (management group) and towns where no activities have been completed (no management group). Data were collected by mail survey of homeowners in six communities in Alberta, Canada during 2007. Results showed the people in the management group expressed higher levels of perceived risk and greater awareness of wildfire and mitigation than those in the no management group, but they did not attribute greater responsibility for mitigation to the homeowner nor complete more mitigation activities on their properties.
Cross-sectional stock return predictability in China

Cross-sectional stock return predictability has always been an intriguing issue for researchers, as it relates to a number of resilient finance puzzles. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of stock return predictability in China from January 1994 to March 2011. It implements both the portfolio and cross-sectional regression methods. We find size, price, the book-to-market ratio, the cash-flow-to-price ratio and the earnings-to-price ratio to have strong predictive power. Among the risk-related predictors, total and idiosyncratic volatility exhibit predictive powers in China. The results are valid for stocks listed on both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. Momentum fails to qualify as a useful predictor according to both the portfolio and simple regression methods. However, when used with other predictors in multiple regressions, it exhibits predictive power for all of the stocks including large stocks. Although the variables related to stock ‘cheapness’ such as the book-to-market and cash-flow-to-price ratios demonstrate reliable forecast power, the earnings-to-price ratio is relatively less powerful.
CAMA Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis Regionalization vs . Globalization CAMA Working Paper 09 / 2013 February 2013

Both global and regional economic linkages have strengthened substantially over the past quarter century. We employ a dynamic factor model to analyze the implications of these linkages for the evolution of global and regional business cycles. Our model allows us to assess the roles played by the global, regional, and country-specific factors in explaining business cycles in a large sample of countries and regions over the period 1960–2010. We find that, since the mid-1980s, the importance of regional factors has increased markedly in explaining business cycles especially in regions that experienced a sharp growth in intra-regional trade and financial flows. By contrast, the relative importance of the global factor has declined over the same period. In short, the recent era of globalization has witnessed the emergence of regional business cycles.
Making Sense of Knee Arthroplasty Kinematics: News You Can Use

Many groups are reporting results of in vivo studies of knee replacement motions. Despite this growing abundance of data, it may be difficult for the practicing orthopaedist to glean usable information from these highly technical studies. This paper summarizes key study findings related to implant design and surgical strategy. A number of important issues are explored: surgical technique, range of motion, patterns of knee motion, polyethylene wear, and functional knee strength. ⇓,⇓ Fig 1: Knee prostheses with a flat tibial insert and a femoral component with a large distal radius can exhibit posterior femoral translation with knee flexion1. However, achieving this pattern of motion appears to depend on surgical technique. Many knee replacements with the same or similar designs exhibit different patterns of motion2-9. (Reprinted, with permission, from: Nozaki H, Banks SA, Suguro T, Hodge WA. Observations of femoral rollback in cruciate-retaining knee arthroplasty. Clin Orthop. 2002;404:310.) Fig 2: Figs. 2-A and 2-B Patterns of anteroposterior translations during a stair-climbing activity in two groups of patients who were operated on by two different surgeons using the same design of knee arthroplasty1. There were no differences between groups in terms of clinical or demographic factors, preoperative disease, implant alignment, or postoperative clinical and functional outcomes. Each line represents the group mean, plus or minus one standard deviation. The open circles indicate flexion ranges at which there were significant differences between the two groups. The anterior-posterior midpoint of the tibial plateau is 0 on the vertical axis. Fig. 2-A Medial tibiofemoral contact was significantly more posterior in Group 1 throughout most of the flexion arc. Fig. 2-B Lateral tibiofemoral contact was significantly more posterior in Group 1 from 50° to 90° of flexion. (Reprinted, with permission, from: Nozaki H, Banks SA, Suguro T, Hodge WA. Observations …
Retinoic Acid Synthesis in Mouse Embryos during Gastrulation and Craniofacial Development Linked to Class IV Alcohol Dehydrogenase Gene Expression (*)

Endogenous retinoic acid (RA) has been observed in vertebrate embryos as early as gastrulation, but the mechanism controlling spatiotemporal synthesis of this important regulatory molecule remains unknown. Some members of the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) family catalyze retinol oxidation, the rate-limiting step in RA synthesis. Here we have examined mouse embryos for the presence of endogenous RA and expression of ADH genes. RA was not detected in egg cylinder stage embryos but was detected in late primitive streak stage embryos. Detection of class IV ADH mRNA, but not class I or class III, coincided with the onset of RA synthesis, being absent in egg cylinder embryos but present in the posterior mesoderm of late primitive streak embryos. During neurulation, RA and class IV ADH mRNA were colocalized in the craniofacial region, trunk, and forelimb bud. Class IV ADH mRNA was detected in cranial neural crest cells and craniofacial mesenchyme as well as trunk and forelimb bud mesenchyme. The spatiotemporal expression pattern and enzymatic properties of class IV ADH are thus consistent with a crucial function in RA synthesis during embryogenesis. In addition, the finding of endogenous RA and class IV ADH mRNA in the craniofacial region has implications for the mechanism of fetal alcohol syndrome.
German Translation of the Caregiver Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities Questionnaire: Test–Retest Reliability and Correlation with Gross Motor Function in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract We aimed to translate the Caregiver Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities (CPCHILD) questionnaire into German and to evaluate its reliability and validity by studying the association between CPCHILD scores and gross motor function as measured by the gross motor function classification system (GMFCS) in children with cerebral palsy (CP). The original CPCHILD questionnaire and manual were translated and back translated. It was administered to primary caregivers of persons with CP (GMFCS levels III–V) and was completed a second time 2 weeks after the first to measure test–retest reliability (n = 17). Primary caregivers of 68 children with CP; GMFCS level III (n = 14), level IV (n = 28), and level V (n = 26) completed the questionnaire. Mean total CPCHILD scores across GMFCS levels were 67.1 ± 14.9 for GMFCS level III, 56.6 ± 11.8 for level IV, and 44.3 ± 12.9 for level V. Good correlation (r = − 0.56) was observed between GMFCS and total scores test–retest reliability showed intraclass correlation coefficients between 0.4 and 0.9. The German CPCHILD yielded similar test–retest reliability and score distributions across the GMFCS level as the original version. The best correlations were observed for domains that are close to the functional deficits.
Economic growth and health in India: a panel cointegration assessment

Literature cites plenty of support for positive impact of spending on health on a country’s growth. However, following primarily a one-size-fit-all rather than differentiated policies to spend government grants to promote health, different Indian states report divergent results. To probe this anomaly, this paper delves deeper into any nexus between health expenditure and growth. Indian data for the 1980–2010 – one marked with India’s strategic switch to free market economy – is used. This study finds that health expenditure and growth are cointegrated, indicating the presence of long run equilibrium relationship between them. Granger causality test confirms the existence of bidirectional causality, indicating existence of feedback between these two at national level, both in the short run and long run. However, this nexus gets complicated at individual state level where we find bidirectional, unidirectional and in some cases no causality between health expenditure and growth. The study suggests that policy makers would be wiser by probing deeper into state-specific conditions. Economic growth, particularly in the more prosperous and urbanized states, may be controlled significantly by factors other than health status of their citizens.
Deforestation and Agricultural Productivity in the Côte d'Ivoire

An optimal control model is used to determine the optimal steady-state forest stock in the Cote d'Ivoire. This stock is shown to increase with increases in the forestry returns relative to those in agriculture. Technological progress in agriculture and increases in the social discount rate serve to lower the optimal steady-state forest stock. Based on an estimated aggregate yield function, the optimal forest stock is shown to be most sensitive to changes in the social rate of discount. Assuming current (1985) technology, deforestation appears socially optimal only for values of the discount rate greater than 8%.
A conscientious corporate brand model – a Taiwanese assessment

A construct of conscientious corporate brands (hereinafter called CCBs) is tested by examining the environmental and climate change issues, and the internal and external corporate codes of ethics as dimensions of CCBs. The objective is to validate research in ethical branding by testing 'the conscientious dimension' of a corporate brand. The study is based upon Taiwanese business-to-business relationships.
Michigan Youth Farm Stand Project: Facets of Participant Motivation

The purpose of the explorato ry study was to understand what youth motivations in the Michigan Youth Farm Stand Project (YFSP) offered by the C.S Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at Michigan State University. The qualitative study included interviews and observations to explore the motivations of youth participants. An opportunity to earn money and have something to do during the summer interested most students. Those with prior gardening experience were motivated by the opportunity to garden while having fun. Programs that strive to provide positive impacts on youth in low-income communities can gain insight from the findings in this study to strengthen and enhance youth knowledge and skill in local food systems initiatives.
Treatment of refractory, chronic low back pain with botulinum neurotoxin A: an open-label, pilot study.

OBJECTIVE To study the short- and long-term effects of botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT-A, Botox, Allergan Inc.) on refractory chronic low back pain. DESIGN The effect of botulinum neurotoxin A on chronic low back pain was prospectively studied in 75 patients with repeated treatments over a period of 14 months. Pain intensity (visual analog scale [VAS]), pain frequency (pain days), and perceived functional status (Oswestry scale) were assessed at baseline, 3 weeks, and at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 months. BoNT-A was injected into para-spinal muscles at 4-5 levels (between L1 and S1) unilaterally or bilaterally. The dose per site varied from 40 to 50 units. The total dose per session ranged from 200 to 500 units. Reinjections were performed at 4 months only when pain returned. RESULTS At 3 weeks, 40 patients (53%) and at 2 months, 39 patients (52%) reported significant pain relief. The change in VAS, Oswestry score, and pain days was significant compared with baseline at 2 months after each injection period (P < 0.005) and remained so over subsequent treatments. Among initial responders, 91% continued responsiveness over the length of the study. Three patients (4%), after the first treatment, had a mild flulike reaction that lasted 2-5 days. CONCLUSION Botulinum neurotoxin A may be beneficial in patients with chronic low back pain. A favorable initial response predicts subsequent responsiveness. The treatment is well tolerated, and side effects are mild and transient.