Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subsidies and Crowding Out: A Double‐Hurdle Model of Fertilizer Demand in Malawi

This article uses a double-hurdle model with panel data from Malawi to investigate how fertilizer subsidies affect farmer demand for commercial fertilizer. The article controls for potential endogeneity caused by the nonrandom targeting of fertilizer subsidy recipients. Results show that on average 1 additional kilogram of subsidized fertilizer crowds out 0.22 kg of commercial fertilizer, but crowding out ranges from 0.18 among the poorest farmers to 0.30 among relatively nonpoor farmers. This indicates that targeting fertilizer subsidies to the rural poor is likely to maximize the contribution of the subsidy program to total fertilizer use. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.
Non- flexural parallel piston movement across CMUT with substrate-embedded springs

In this paper, we introduce a modified fabrication method for CMUTs with substrate-embedded springs (post-CMUTs or PCMUTs) to increase the fabrication yield. This modified fabrication process includes three additional steps from the previous process: vacuum cleaning prior to the wafer bonding step, thermal oxidation of the silicon piston top plate, and preservation of the 150-nm buried oxide (BOX) layer on top of the 250 nm Si layer of the bonded SOI wafer. These modifications increased the fabrication yield from 10% to 60%. For these newly fabricated PCMUT devices, we measured the electrical input impedance with a precision impedance analyzer, the plate displacement with a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV), and the output pressure with a calibrated hydrophone. The measured electrical input impedance matches well with the FEA simulation results; the LDV measurement in air confirmed a non-flexural plate displacement; and the hydrophone measurement showed a peak-to-peak acoustic pressure of 27.6 kPa at a distance of 3.6 mm in immersion, corresponding to 1.05 MPa at the face of the transducer, for a particular test 2-D array element.
A Rexamination of the Motives and Gains in Joint Ventures

Abstract We distinguish between horizontal and vertical joint ventures, and find correspondingly different valuation effects. Horizontal joint ventures create synergistic gains that are shared by the partners. In contrast, vertical joint ventures generate gains only for suppliers. This is similar to the patter we find for simple contracts, which suggests economic similiarities between vertical joint ventures and contracts. Analysing firms' choices between these contracting options, we find that firms choose vertical joint ventures over simple contracts when potential hold-up problems are severe and when suppliers face finance constraints. The results d not support a risk-sharing motive for joint ventures.
Tour Guide Performance and Tourist Satisfaction: a Study of the Package Tours in Shanghai

This study examines tour guide performance and its relationship with tourist satisfaction in the context of package tours in Shanghai. A multilayer framework of tourist satisfaction in the package tour context is proposed. Tourist satisfaction was conceptualized to include three aspects/layers: satisfaction with guiding service, satisfaction with tour services, and satisfaction with the overall tour experience. Tour guide performance was found to have a significant direct effect on tourist satisfaction with guiding service and an indirect effect on satisfaction with tour services and with tour experience. Satisfaction with guiding service positively affected satisfaction with tour services but showed no direct effect on satisfaction with the overall tour experience. However, indirect effect of satisfaction with guiding service on satisfaction with tour experience mediated by satisfaction with tour services was significant. Implications for tour operators and government agencies are discussed.
Estimating the rate of return to education in Sudan

This paper examines the rate of return to education in Sudan. One advantage and interesting element in our analysis in this paper is that we explain three stylised facts on the rate of return to education using new primary data in Sudan: first, positive but low rate of return to education and correlations between education, experience, its square and wages for men and women defined by gender, second, positive and significant rate of return to education and correlations between education, experience, its square and wages defined by firm size and industry at the micro level across industrial firms and third, an increase in skill levels and firm size leads to improved relationship between actual education, required education, experience, its square and wages at the micro level across industrial firms. Our paper is relevant and consistent with the recent growing interest in the literature that confirms the importance of investment in education and rate of return to education. Different from the Sudanese literature that estimates the return to human capital at the macro level, we investigate the rate of return to education using new primary data at the micro level. A novel element of our analysis is that we use new primary survey data at the micro level obtained from the university survey (2009) and the firm survey (2010), we present a new contribution and fill the gap in the Sudanese literature by estimating first the rate of return to education for men and women and explaining differences defined by gender and second for industrial firms and explaining differences defined by firm size and industry, since these issues are not adequately discussed in the Sudanese literature. Our findings indicate the importance of investment in education to facilitate enhancing educational attainment and improvement of the rate of return to education in Sudan.
Real Activities Manipulation and Auditors’ Client Retention Decisions

ABSTRACT: In this study, we examine the effect of clients' real activities manipulation (RAM) on auditors' client-retention decisions. We find that, with the exception of RAM through overproduction, clients' opportunistic operating decisions are positively associated with the likelihood of auditor resignations. We also provide evidence that auditors are especially sensitive to clients' RAM to just meet or beat earnings benchmarks in their client-retention decisions. In addition, we find that clients whose auditors resign from engagements tend to hire smaller auditors and these clients engage in RAM more aggressively. Our additional analysis shows that, with the exception of RAM through overproduction, clients' abnormal operating decisions are significantly associated with litigation risk against auditors. Overall, our evidence suggests that auditors drop clients with aggressive RAM to avoid excessive risk. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.
Channels selection using independent component analysis and scalp map projection for EEG-based driver fatigue classification

This paper presents a classification of driver fatigue with electroencephalography (EEG) channels selection analysis. The system employs independent component analysis (ICA) with scalp map back projection to select the dominant of EEG channels. After channel selection, the features of the selected EEG channels were extracted based on power spectral density (PSD), and then classified using a Bayesian neural network. The results of the ICA decomposition with the back-projected scalp map and a threshold showed that the EEG channels can be reduced from 32 channels into 16 dominants channels involved in fatigue assessment as chosen channels, which included AF3, F3, FC1, FC5, T7, CP5, P3, O1, P4, P8, CP6, T8, FC2, F8, AF4, FP2. The result of fatigue vs. alert classification of the selected 16 channels yielded a sensitivity of 76.8%, specificity of 74.3% and an accuracy of 75.5%. Also, the classification results of the selected 16 channels are comparable to those using the original 32 channels. So, the selected 16 channels is preferable for ergonomics improvement of EEG-based fatigue classification system.
The impact of foreign cross‐listings on the home Dutch equities

Purpose – This paper develops the approach suggested by Howe et al. to examine the impact of cross‐listings on stock price volatility in Europe.Design/methodology/approach – A modified generalized autoregressive conditional hetero‐skedasticity (GARCH) modeling approach as suggested by Li and Engle is used taking into account different regulatory structures across the range of markets using LaPorta et al.'s stock market regulatory classification.Findings – It is found that information spillover effects are important for the Dutch market for cross‐listed equities and that a different regulatory environment may have a noteworthy impact on symmetric information spillovers.Research limitations/implications – The focus is 11 cross‐listing equities and on an event window of 12 years. This implies that the results may be biased on the data sample and the length of the period that used.Practical implications – The findings are important for the shareholders of cross‐listed companies as the various impacts of regul.
Serum interleukin‐18 in patients with chronic ordinary urticaria: association with disease activity

Summary Interleukin (IL)‐18 is a pleiotropic cytokine, which may play a role in autoimmune and allergic disorders. Serum IL‐18 levels were measured in 34 patients with chronic ordinary urticaria (COU) and 17 normal subjects. In vivo and in vitro assays for histamine‐releasing factors, an autologous serum skin test (ASST) and a basophil histamine release assay were also performed for all patients with COU. Serum IL‐18 concentration was not significantly different between patients with COU and normal subjects (mean ± standard error of the mean 246.47 ± 18.40 pg/mL vs. 213.88 ± 22.24 pg/mL), and no significant difference was found between ASST‐positive and ASST‐negative patients. However, in ASST‐positive patients, IL‐18 levels paralleled clinical severity scores and showed a tendency to correlate with in vitro histamine release. The increased IL‐18 levels in the ASST‐positive patients with most active chronic urticaria may reflect stronger immune system activation and possibly an involvement of IL‐18 as a direct histamine‐releasing factor.
Experience and the Male—Female Earnings Gap in the 1890s

In the final decades of the nineteenth century the American labor force was transformed by waves of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe and by a surge in participation rates for women. Comparisons of the labor market experiences of women and immigrants with those of native-born males have occupied historians ever since. One of the most striking comparisons is between the industries in which men and women were concentrated and the opportunities their occupations provided for training. Although some men obtained formal training via apprenticeship and a few womennotably typists and stenographers-were provided with formal instruction, most workers in manufacturing and the service sector acquired their training on the job. "Industrial training for women usually consists of a few moments' introduction to the job by another worker or perhaps the foreman . " was the way one observer put it.1 Similar descriptions characterized the experience of the vast majority of men. But while both men and women acquired their training on the job, their experiences differed in that their occupations provided very different opportunities for acquiring transferable skills. Women tended to be concentrated in occupations where training was largely taskspecific and where full proficiency could be rapidly achieved.2 Men in contrast were found in occupations where training was of more general applicability and where it might continue to generate incremental returns over a longer period. Mastery of one task might qualify a man for a related task, permitting him to advance up ajob ladder to more demanding and remunerative positions.3
LOST IN THE MAP

Organismal development and evolution are complex, multifaceted processes that depend intimately on context. They are subject to environmental influences, chance appearance and fixation of mutations, and numerous other idiosyncrasies. Genomics is detailing the molecular signature of effects of these mechanisms on phenotypes, but because numerous distinct evolutionary explanations can produce a given genomic pattern, the molecular details, rather than elucidating process, typically distract from explanatory insight and contribute little to predictive capability. While genomic research has burgeoned, direct study of evolutionary and developmental processes has lagged. We advocate for reinvigoration of direct study of process, along with refocusing of attention on questions of broad biological import, as more productive of urgently needed insights, which genomic approaches are not providing.
Factors Affecting Speed of Adjustment to Target Leverage: Malaysia Evidence

This study focuses on the dynamic aspect of capital structure which is a relatively new area in the finance literature. By employing panel data, 790 of non-financial listed firms in Malaysia are examined for the period 2000–2009. Conducted using the dynamic Partial Adjustment Model and estimated based on the Generalized Method of Moment, this study investigates the existence of target capital structure, speed of adjustment and factors affecting speed of adjustment. There are evidences of target capital structure and firms do adjust to be at their target from time to time with a considerably rapid speed of adjustment, in line with dynamic trade-off theory. Firms in Malaysia are found to be under-adjusted, being below the required adjustment to be at the target within a year. Study on factors affecting speed of adjustment is a new contribution to the literature as no work has been done regarding this issue in Malaysia. This study also analyzes firm-specific factors affecting speed of adjustment. There is strong evidence on the negative relationship between the speed of adjustment and distance from target leverage suggesting fast adjustment if not being far from target. Firm size and profitability significantly influence speed of adjustment for firms in Malaysia.
Organizing warehouse management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how warehouse management, understood as a cluster of planning and control decisions and procedures, is organized and driven by task complexity (TC) and market dynamics (MD). Design/methodology/approach – A multi‐variable conceptual model is developed based on the literature and tested among 215 warehouses using a survey.Findings – The results suggest that TC and MD are the main drivers of warehouse management, measured by planning extensiveness (PE), decision rules complexity, and control sophistication. Differences between production and distribution warehouses are found with respect to the relationship between assortment changes and PE. Furthermore, TC appears to be a main driver of the specificity of the warehouse management (information) system (WMS). Research limitations/implications – This paper is based on 215 warehouses in The Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium); future research may test the model on a different sample. More research should be con.
Metastatic neck disease beyond the limits of a neck dissection: attention to the 'para-hyoid' area in T1/2 oral tongue cancer.

OBJECTIVE We evaluated patients with small oral tongue cancer suffering from recurrence, which develops in the intervening area between the primary site and the neck. Lesions in the area around the cornu of the hyoid bone ('para-hyoid' area) often involve the hypoglossal nerve and the root of the lingual artery, resulting in treatment failure and death. METHODS A 10-year retrospective chart review was conducted of 248 oral tongue cancer patients with small primary tumors (T1/2). No patients who underwent postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) were included. RESULTS After excluding those who had local failure or developed new primary lesions, 6.3% of the patients were noted to have a para-hyoid lesion. A similar incidence was observed between the patients with and without previous neck dissection, 6.9% and 5.7%, respectively. All but one patient died due to uncontrolled neck disease. CONCLUSIONS Recurrent para-hyoid lesions could occur, irrespective of a previous neck dissection. In other words, the para-hyoid area is beyond the limits of a neck dissection. Once a para-hyoid lesion becomes clinically evident, it seems difficult to salvage. Therefore, a careful inspection of the area should be included intraoperatively in any type of neck dissection (i.e. elective or therapeutic) for patients with oral tongue cancer. This may be the key to improving the regional control rate of patients with small oral tongue cancer. We believe that some patients will benefit from more aggressive treatment of the neck, although PORT seems unnecessary for the majority of the patients with limited neck disease.
Animosity and willingness to buy foreign products: Moderating factors in decision-making of Chinese consumers

This study examines empirically how Chinese consumers evaluate and respond to foreign products made in Japan. Specifically, it examines the moderating effects of materialism and susceptibility to normative influence on the effects of country-specific animosity on willingness to buy foreign products. The results confirm that the effect of consumers' animosity is subject to both consumers' personal values (for example, materialism) and social influences (susceptibility to normative influence). In terms of willingness to buy foreign products, the negative effect of economic animosity is alleviated by consumers' materialism, whereas that of war animosity is strengthened by consumers' susceptibility to normative influence. In turn, evidence from this study suggests implications for marketing strategies in developing countries.
The Effect of SOX Section 404: Costs, Earnings Quality and Stock Prices

This paper exploits a natural quasi-experiment to isolate the effects that were uniquely due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX): U.S. firms with a public float under $75 million could delay Section 404 compliance, and foreign firms under $700 million could delay the auditor's attestation requirement. As designed, Section 404 led to conservative reported earnings, but also imposed real costs. On net, SOX compliance reduced the market value of small firms. Copyright (c) 2010 the American Finance Association.
Engagement of NOD2 has a dual effect on proIL‐1β mRNA transcription and secretion of bioactive IL‐1β

Synthesis and release of pro‐inflammatory cytokines, such as IL‐1β, play a crucial role in the intestinal inflammation that characterizes Crohn's disease. Mutations in the nucleotide oligomerization domain 2 (NOD2) gene are associated with an increased risk of Crohn's disease. Although it is known that NOD2 mediates cytokine responses to muramyl dipeptide (MDP), it is yet unclear whether NOD2 stimulation mediates only transcription of pro‐IL‐1β mRNA, or whether NOD2 is also involved in the activation of caspase‐1 and release of active IL‐1β. By investigating the response of MNC from Crohn's disease patients homozygous for the 3020insC NOD2 mutation, we were able to show that NOD2 signaling after stimulation with MDP has a dual effect by activating proIL‐1β mRNA transcription and inducing release of bioactive IL‐1β. Because NOD2 engagement amplifies TLR stimulation, we investigated whether activation of caspase‐1 by MDP is involved in the NOD2/TLR synergism. The synergy in IL‐1β production between NOD2 and TLR is mediated at post‐translational level in a caspase‐1‐dependent manner, which indirectly suggests that NOD2 also induces caspase‐1 activation. In contrast, the synergy in TNF‐α production after stimulation with MDP and LPS is induced at transcriptional level. This demonstrates that both caspase‐1‐dependent and ‐independent mechanisms are involved in the synergy between NOD2 and TLR.
Transcriptional unit of the murine Thy-1 gene: different distribution of transcription initiation sites in brain

Structural analysis of the mouse Thy-1.2 gene has shown that the major promoter of the gene is characterized by a tissue-specific DNase I-hypersensitive site and is located within a methylation-free island. The gene is regulated at the transcriptional level, and steady-state mRNA analysis reveals that the previously reported exon Ib contributes at most 5% of the total mRNA. The major promoter uses several transcription initiation sites within a region of 100 base pairs. The frequency of usage of these sites in brain is markedly different from that in other tissues.
Measuring the Width of National Borders

The paper deals with three issues that are central to the combined use of intranational and international data to estimate the economic consequences of national borders. The first issue concerns the measurement of trading distances for transactions that take place within a country or region. The second issue relates to the use of coefficients from an estimated gravity relationship to express the border effect in terms of an equivalent distance. The author proposes a technique to avoid problems that have beset earlier attempts to do this. The third issue is the need to ensure that the border and distance effects are estimated independently. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Not only the tragedy of the commons: misperceptions of feedback and policies for sustainable development

The article summarizes key insights from four laboratory experiments to study renewable resource management. The commons problem, which is widely held to be the cause of mismanagement of common renewable resources, was ruled out by the design of the experiments. Still the participants overinvested and overutilized their resources. The explanation offered is systematic misperceptions of stocks and flows and of nonlinearities. The heuristics that people apply are intendedly rational for static, flow resources, but not for dynamic, stock resources. Simplifying and reframing the management problem, by focusing on net growth rates, is suggested as a means to foster the use of more appropriate heuristics. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.