Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The World Market of Fragrant Rice, Main Issues and Perspectives

Worldwide rice production totaled 481 million metric tons in 2011, including 7.1% in trade. Fragrant rice is estimated to account for 15-18% of the rice trade procuring the highest prices on the world market. Some new players are interested in entering this premium segment, including the US, Vietnam, and other rice growers and traders. The fragrant rice commodity chain is deciphered through a meta-analysis of data on rice cropping and trading. We conclude on a possible split between fragrant and coarse rice markets. The upcoming challenges for fragrant rice industry are discussed with the next release of genetically modified varieties; water scarcity in rice cropping; and land use trade-offs between fragrant and coarse rice.
Exercise Training in Cardiovascular Disease : Mechanisms and Outcomes Regulation of cardiac microRNAs induced by aerobic exercise training during heart failure

Rodrigo W. A. Souza, Geysson J. Fernandez, João P. Q. Cunha, Warlen P. Piedade, Luana C. Soares, Paula A. T. Souza, Dijon H. S. de Campos, Katashi Okoshi, Antonio C. Cicogna, Maeli Dal-Pai-Silva, and Robson F. Carvalho From the Department of Morphology, São Paulo State University, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil; and Department of Internal Medicine, São Paulo State University, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil
The impact of affective conflict on firm performance

Purpose – This paper aims to develop and test an integrative model of the relationship between affective conflict and firm performance considering the control effects of four contextual variables, namely, decision motive, firm size, type of ownership and environmental hostility.Design/methodology/approach – This paper focuses on empirical data gathered from the Egyptian manufacturing sector. The measures of this study enjoy a significant degree of reliability and validity.Findings – The results suggest that affective conflict is a significant predictor of firm performance.Research limitations/implications – The most serious limitation of the study is that data on the study variables are collected from one respondent in each firm. Another important limitation is that different kinds of conflict are not examined in order to explain the different roles which they can play in strategic decision making (SDM). Originality/value – The paper contributes to knowledge in the area of SDM by developing a richer model .
Apprenticeships in the downturn

This paper describes what we know about apprenticeships and traineeships, with a view to assessing how the current economic downturn will affect them. Apprenticeships have a very long history in Australia, building on the traditions of the medieval guilds. The essence of the apprenticeship is the contract of training – a legal contract between an individual, an employer and a training provider. The defining characteristic is the combination of employment and training. Image: Terriko / Flickr
Seasoned Equity Offerings: Stock Market Liquidity and Duration of the Completion Cycle

Purpose - Short-term cash need plays a critical role in equity issuance decisions. Consequently, the ease with which a seasoned equity offer (SEO) is completed can have a direct effect on the cost of raising equity. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether liquidity is likely to affect the ease with which an offer is completed, as proxied by the length of the offer. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses multiple regression analysis to establish the link between liquidity and the duration of the SEO completion cycle. To provide support to the findings, event study methodology is employed to study the abnormal volume turnover during the pre-SEO announcement period for firms with shorter and longer registration periods. Findings - The paper finds that firms with greater liquidity come to market sooner. The results indicate a small yet significant effect of liquidity on the duration of the SEO completion cycle. There is also evidence that lower pre-announcement period volume turnover is associated with a longer registration period – which has some implications for issuance costs. The results are robust to the inclusion of industry or firm effects, use of different regression specifications, and application of alternative liquidity measures. Originality/value - This paper belongs to the growing literature that examines the link between liquidity and the firm's equity issuance costs. It adds to the literature by: examining the determinants of the time it takes to complete an offering; providing the evidence that liquidity may affect the ease with which investment bankers place new shares; and presenting the evidence using newer measures of liquidity based on low-frequency data.
Declining Effects of Oil Price Shocks

Output responses to oil-price shocks not only tend to be weaker, but also to peak earlier recently. This paper builds a model that incorporates a realistic structure of US petroleum consumption and explores three possible explanations for the changes. The first is based on deregulation in the transportation sector, which has brought more competition and improved efficiency in the industry. The second is overall improve- ments in use of energy. The third is less persistence of the oil-price shock. Under realistic parameter values, it is demonstrated that all three factors play an important role quantitatively. These three factors together could account for a 51% reduction in the peak response of output to an oil-price shock.
Future role of MR elastography in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Tissue engineering (TE) has been introduced for more than 25 years without a boom in clinical trials. More than 70 TE‐related start‐up companies spent more than $600 million/year, with only two FDA‐approved tissue‐engineered products. Given the modest performance in clinically approved organs, TE is a tenaciously promising field. The TE community is advocating the application of clinically driven methodologies in large animal models enabling clinical translation. This challenge is hindered by the scarcity of tissue biopsies and the absence of standardized evaluation tools, but can be negated through non‐invasive assessment of growth and integration, with reduced sample size and low cost. Solving this issue will speed the transition to cost‐efficient clinical studies. In this paper we: (a) introduce magnetic resonance elastography to the tissue‐engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) community; (b) review recent MRE applications in TERM; and (c) discuss future directions of MRE in TERM. We have used MRE to study engineered tissues both in vitro and in vivo, where the mechanical properties of mesenchymally derived constructs were progressively monitored before and after tissues were implanted in mouse models. This study represents a stepping stone toward the applications of MRE in directing clinical trials with low cost and likely expediting the translation to more relevantly large animal models and clinical trials. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Trust and Creativity: Understanding the Role of Trust in Creativity-Oriented Joint Developments

In this article we report on the design, prototyping and results of a research effort aimed at identifying if and how trust affects the creativity of a partnership between two economic agents. The methodology combines an experiment and two questionnaires. The purpose of the research is to increase our understanding of trust and its impact on the outcome of cooperation, and to derive some guidance for economic actors, namely RD if the level of mutual trust is below or above this threshold; their joint creativity seems to decrease.
Essays on the Economics of Child Labor and Fertility

This dissertation analyses the economic development of societies in which parents decide about not only education but also fertility. The parents' decisions are motivated by both financial and altruistic reasons. We focus on human capital formation and population growth as the determinants of economic development, and find that multiple steady-states can exist. In the first two chapters, the focus of the analysis is on the effects of fiscal interventions on both the household decisions and the dynamic of the system. In the third chapter, we examine the households' reaction to mortality shocks such as the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and their long-run economic effects when certain government interventions are financed from sources outside the system.
An Analysis of Resource Allocation in Public School Districts

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the process of resource allocation in public school districts including the determination of the demand for school inputs, the salaries of school personnel, and the level of local educational expenditures. Some of the issues investigated in the empirical analysis include (1) the price and income elasticity of the demand for teachers, (2) the effects of tenure on the demand for certain teacher quality character istics, (3) the determinants of the equilibrium salaries of teachers and public school administrators, (4) the differences between the effects of changes in community income and federal and state grants-in-aid on local school spending, (5) and the compensatory effects of grants-in-aid on school spending, the demand for school inputs, and salaries of school personnel in high and low income districts.
The Implementation of Walking and Cycling Policies in British Local Authorities - Idea(l)s into Action?

This paper looks at walking and cycling policy implementation activities in British local authorities. It presents the main findings of a questionnaire survey of all British local transport authorities on this issue. In the absence of comparable local figures on modal share and modal trends for these two modes an index was developed from the survey for distinguishing between more and less active authorities. The paper also presents a comparison of the characteristics of the top (most active) and bottom (least active) 25% of authorities as determined through this new index. Conclusions are drawn on the most important factors influencing the implementation of policies for walking and cycling by British local authorities.
Understanding new‐to‐market product development in SMEs

– This study aims to understand how small‐ to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) can build a dynamic capability for new‐to‐market product development. , – Five innovative and ambitious case firms were selected and studied longitudinally over the course of five years. , – Within this group distinct development processes are identified that enable them to satisfy the unmet needs of new customers using their current technologies. However to sustain this activity managers need to empower cross‐functional teams to evaluate new technologies with an ever‐increasing number of pioneering partners. An ideal sequence is proposed for them to achieve this by systematising learning between projects and thereby reconfiguring their development processes to meet the changing needs of the market. , – This method appears most suited to SMEs able to develop new‐to‐market products in conjunction with technologically discerning customers and suppliers. As such it may be less applicable outside the observed business‐to‐business markets. , – The five cases studied aptly illustrate the interplay of certain paths, positions and processes in terms of how they relate to new‐to‐market product development performance. The implication for researchers and managers is that consideration of all of these factors is necessary.
A case‐matched molecular comparison of extraovarian versus primary ovarian adenocarcinoma

Extraovarian müllerian adenocarcinoma (EOM) resembles primary ovarian carcinoma (POC) both histologically and clinically, yet little is known regarding the molecular genetic characteristics of this entity. The objective of this study was to compare the expression of three molecular markers of tumor behavior in EOMs and POCs.
Declining Juvenile Sex Ratios

This article examines the socio-economic reasons for the steep decline in child sex ratios, as revealed by the 2001 census. It questions existing arguments in the light of new fieldwork in several states in North India. It argues that we have to unpack ‘son preference’ in the modern context to understand why parents continue to prefer boys over girls in many parts of North and North-West India, and especially so in urban areas. Although there is some narrowing of the gender gap (as seen in education, health and work force participation indicators), girls remain undervalued when it comes to intergenerational transfers. The article argues that the changing interrelationships between education, work, marriage and family status in some senses reinforce the perceived need for sons as the source of a family's future stability and parental support. Given these expectations, insecurities around the material and social success of sons, and largely unchanging or even enhanced marriage and dowry expenditure for girls, drive parents to invest more in sons and propel family- building strategies with few or no girls.
The Stochastic Intrinsic Currency Volatility Model: A Consistent Framework for Multiple FX Rates and Their Volatilities

Abstract The SABR and the Heston stochastic volatility models are widely used for foreign exchange (FX) option pricing. Although they are able to reproduce the market's volatility smiles and skews for single FX rates, they cannot be extended to model multiple FX rates in a consistent way. This is because when two FX rates with a common currency are described by either SABR or Heston processes, the stochastic process for the third FX rate associated with the three currencies will not be a SABR or a Heston process. A consistent description of the FX market should be symmetric so that all FX rates are described by the same type of stochastic process. This article presents a way of doing that using the concept of intrinsic currency values. To model FX volatility curves, the intrinsic currency framework is extended by allowing the volatility of each intrinsic currency value to be stochastic. This makes the framework more realistic, while preserving all FX market symmetries. The result is a new SABR-style option pricing formula and a model that can simultaneously be calibrated to the volatility smiles of all possible currency pairs under consideration. Consequently, it is more powerful than modelling the volatility curves of each currency pair individually and offers a methodology for comparing the volatility curves of different currency pairs against each other. One potential application of this is in the pricing of FX options, such as vanilla options on less liquid currency pairs. Given the volatilities of less liquid currencies against, for example, USD and EUR, the model could then be used to calculate the volatility smiles of those less liquid currencies against all other currencies.
The Effects of Margin Changes on the Composition of Traders and Market Liquidity: Evidence from the Taiwan Futures Exchange

We examine the effects of margin changes on futures trading activity, the composition of traders, and market liquidity using an account‐level data set from the Taiwan Futures Exchange. We find that margin increases reduce trading activity for all trader types, which indicates that higher margins increase trading costs. Institutional trading is more sensitive to changes in margin requirements than individual traders. This, in turn, leads to increases in market price volatility and decreases in market liquidity. These results imply that margin requirements are not an effective policy tool for limiting the trading activity of noise speculators to reduce market volatility. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 35:894–915, 2015
Still not plannable? Housing supply and the changing structure of the housebuilding industry in the UK in 'austere' times

This paper presents a brief historical analysis of the housebuilding industry in the UK, focusing on the impact of the 2008-09 recession on its activity and structure. It explores the process whereby the industry has been increasingly dominated by the biggest housebuilders. The paper draws lessons from postwar housebuilding programmes in the UK, and the priority given in that period to using plannable supply mechanisms. It describes how the shape of the industry has changed since then and focuses on the impact of the most recent recession. The authors show how the market share of the largest five housebuilders has increased during this period of austerity. The article discusses recent policy initiatives over housing supply, and concludes that they will fail to deliver the number of homes the UK is estimated to need. Future policy, the authors suggest, should seek to stimulate housebuilding by local authorities and other non-profit providers, whilst also boosting an emerging community-led sector.
Do Boards Pay Attention When Institutional Investor Activists 'Just Vote No'?

We examine "just vote no" campaigns, a recent innovation in low-cost shareholder activist tools whereby activists encourage their fellow shareholders to withhold votes toward a director's election to express dissatisfaction with management performance or the firm's corporate governance structure. Grundfest [1993. Just vote no: a minimalist strategy for dealing with barbarians inside the gates. Stanford Law Review 45, 857-937] argues that a substantial withheld vote motivates directors to take immediate action to avoid further embarrassment. We find a variety of supportive evidence, including operating performance improvements and abnormal disciplinary chief executive officer (CEO) turnover, indicating that such campaigns induce boards to take actions in shareholders' interests. Furthermore, abnormal turnover is robust to controlling for concurrent events and firm- and CEO-specific controls.
Incentive and Dilution Effects of Employee Stock Bonuses and Stock Options: Evidence from Taiwan

Employee stock bonuses (ESBs) and employee stock options (ESOs) are the means for high-technology companies in Taiwan to reward their employees. This research connects the Ohlson (1995) model and Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) model to investigate these effects of ESBs and ESOs, respectively, for a sample of high-technology companies in Taiwan. I generate two empirical generalizations. (1) The incentive effects of ESBs are significantly associated with performance, thus enhancing firm value; in addition, the incentive effects of ESBs are greater than the dilution effects. (2) The incentive effects of ESOs are also significantly associated with performance, whereas the dilution effects of ESOs are insignificant. Although evidence supports the incentive effects of providing ESOs and ESBs, it is debatable whether ESOs and ESBs dilute shareholders’ equity.
The role of quantitative and qualitative research in industrial studies of tourism

Many areas of research in tourism concentrate on quantitative or qualitative studies. Some even discuss the complementarity between the two types of studies. Hardly considered are the possibilities for combining such works within an integrated framework that also considers the business environment in which tourism operates. The purpose of this paper is to return to long neglected possibilities by reinvestigating areas of methodology and epistemology concerned with the generation of a framework that embraces both quantitative and qualitative research. A hypothetical example, in terms of industrial organisation and strategic decision making, is introduced discussing the possibilities for the triangulation of methods and paradigms and the role of the business environment. The conclusion is that an improved understanding of the tourism business requires a broader research methodology than presently exists. Both types of research and the dynamic context of tourism are important and need to be combined within an integrated framework. It has been concerned with the construction of integrating frameworks that embrace an alternative logic of inference and the context of the tourism business environment. This requires refinements of existing approaches together with a broader research methodology. Only by establishing such frameworks will an improved understanding of the tourism industry be achieved. The suggested framework presented here, with particular reference to industrial organisation and strategic decision making by tourism suppliers, is not offered as a panacea. For future work, the validity and choice of framework rest squarely on how the world and ‘truth’ are viewed. However, within this, the contribution of triangulated quantitative and qualitative research should help understanding by studying phenomena in their natural setting and in terms of the meanings people have of them. This should lead to a ‘truer analysis’ of business behaviour and hence a more purposeful investigation of hotels, tour operators, travel agents and the business of tourism in general. It is in seeking to produce this ‘truer analysis’ that future research activities need to concentrate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Growth Effects of Flat-Rate Taxes

Recent estimates of the potential growth effects of tax reform vary wildly, ranging from zero to eight percentage points. Using an endogenous growth model, we assess which model features and parameter values are important for determining the quantitative impact of tax reform. We find that the critical parameters are factor shares, depreciation rates, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, and the elasticity of labor supply. The elasticities of substitution in production, on the other hand, are relatively unimportant. The quantitative estimates in several recent papers are compared with each other and with some of the evidence from U.S. experience. We find that Robert Lucas's conclusion, that tax reform would have little or no effect on the U.S. growth rate, is theoretically robust and consistent with the evidence.
Travel stimulated by international students in Australia

The international student (IS) market in Australia has been a growing export economy. Because of the traditional definition of tourism being that of ‘a leisure activity outside a usual work scope area for a period of less than a year’, tourism research on IS has been minimal. This research investigates the tourism demand stimulated by IS in Australia. Besides tourism statistics, the research involved 23 IS in focus groups who provided responses of their tourism activities while in Australia. The research illustrates that such IS are significant contributors to tourism by visiting places of interest, purchasing souvenirs, casual work in hospitality and visits by friends and relatives. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Weak value controversy

Recent controversy regarding the meaning and usefulness of weak values is reviewed. It is argued that in spite of recent statistical arguments by Ferrie and Combes, experiments with anomalous weak values provide useful amplification techniques for precision measurements of small effects in many realistic situations. The statistical nature of weak values is questioned. Although measuring weak values requires an ensemble, it is argued that the weak value, similarly to an eigenvalue, is a property of a single pre- and post-selected quantum system. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Second quantum revolution: foundational questions’.