Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The use of financial incentives to prevent undesirable behaviors

Behaviors that are putting people's health and well-being at risk are widespread in the developing world and some of them, like smoking and unhealthy diets, are on the rise. Some of these behaviors can be prohibited or prevented by taxation. But financial incentives such as conditional cash transfers are also increasingly proposed and tested to discourage such behaviors, in domains as varied as HIV/AIDS, drugs, alcohol, smoking, obesity, or early marriage prevention. This paper presents the theoretical justification for using such incentives, distinguishing between the price, income effects, and the nudge effects. The growing literature about the effectiveness of financial incentives to prevent undesirable behaviors is reviewed in detail for each type of harmful behavior. Finally, the paper discusses the long-term sustainability of such incentives, a key issue if they are to be scaled up beyond pilot programs and research projects. The current evidence on whether such incentives have an impact after they are discontinued is mixed. Some design features, like lotteries or commitment devices, could induce savings as well as increase effectiveness, therefore improving sustainability.
Exchanging Price Information Can Be Efficient: Per Se Offences Should Be Legislated Very Sparingly

In this paper we draw upon relevant theory of auctions to show that information exchange among firms that leads to an agreed schedule of prices may not be price fixing and may enhance welfare. A case is described in which per se illegal communication among industry players that produced such agreements enhanced welfare. In the circumstances of the case communication substituted for information exchange that would have been provided by a forward market that was too costly to establish. The results are in accord with a growing body of literature that suggests that per se illegality under competition law should be used very sparingly.
Livelihood Strategies and Income Level of People of Modi Watershed, Nepal

The analysis of livelihood strategies and income level of the people of Modi Khola watershed is the main purpose of this study. The study result is based on sampling of 360 households from 12 selected communities of the Modi Khola watershed having 676.8 km2 area and 75,000 populations. The people of Modi Khola area adopt diverse livelihood strategies such as farming including livestock raising, service in government and non-governmental agencies, business, tourism, industrial activities, migration, wage labor, fi shing, forest product collection and others. Livelihood strategies vary by household and localities as a result of spatial variation in terms of availability of assets, people's capabilities for exploiting the assets and environment. Household members adopt one or more activities to meet their household needs. Spatial variation is found in income distribution too. Households adopting diverse strategies have higher income and more secure livelihoods as compared to the households adopting single or lesser number of activities. Key words: Livelihoods, strategies, options, capabilities, combination, sustainable, environment, diversity . The Himalayan Review Vo. XXXVII, 2006 Page: 19-37
UniDoodle: A Multi-Platform Smart Device Student Response System – Evaluated in an Engineering Mathematics Classroom

Most of the existing student response systems, such as clickers, have limited input capabilities, typically only offering students a multiple-choice selection. In some instances, students can input a numerical or textual response. However, mathematical equations, diagrams, etc. are all beyond the capabilities of such systems. This paper proposes and presents a novel multi-platform smart device-based student response system, called UniDoodle, that allows for a more generic and flexible input. This system consists of a student application that allows for freeform input through sketching capabilities, a lecturer application that allows easy viewing of multiple sketch-based responses and a cloud-based service for co-ordinating between these two applications. In essence, students can now respond to a question posed by the lecturer using sketches and, hence, mathematical equations, circuit diagrams, graphs, etc. are all possible on the UniDoodle system. In addition, the lecturer can now gain a richer and more useful insight to the students’ understanding of the relevant material. This paper also evaluates the UniDoodle system in a large class of first year Engineering Mathematics students. Details of the UniDoodle system, the evaluation process and the feedback obtained are all presented within.
Analysis of the Role of Exchange Rate Volatility in Monetary Policy Conduction in OECD Countries: Empirical Evidence from Panel-VAR Models

In this study, panel vector autoregression (PVAR) models are employed to examine the relationships between industrial production growth rate, consumer price inflation, short-term interest rates, stock returns and exchange rate volatility. More specifically, I explored the consequences of the dynamics detected by the models on monetary policy implementation for 10 OECD countries. This study indicates that factors that may cause a rise in short-term interest rates with respect to the USA can lead to volatility in exchange rates and thus macroeconomic instability. It is also implied that sustaining macroeco- nomic growth and decreasing inflation can result in increased export performance, which in turn provides the amount of US dollars to curb volatility in US dollar quotations. Accordingly, this study reveals that high importance should be given to both monetary and non-monetary factors in the open-economy framework to detect the possible impacts on trade and capital flows by dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Due to their exchange rate risk of economic agents, I also suggest that the economic pol- icy makers of these countries had better create a theoretical framework including finan cial frictions, economic agents’ preferences and different shocks to smooth the variations in exchange rates and minimise the negative outcomes of Brexit.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF z-DROPOUTS IN PAN-STARRS1: THREE QUASARS AT 6.5< z< 6.7

Luminous distant quasars are unique probes of the high-redshift intergalactic medium (IGM) and of the growth of massive galaxies and black holes in the early universe. Absorption due to neutral hydrogen in the IGM makes quasars beyond a redshift of z ≃ 6.5 ? > very faint in the optical z band, thus locating quasars at higher redshifts requires large surveys that are sensitive above 1 micron. We report the discovery of three new z > 6.5 ? > quasars, corresponding to an age of the universe of < 850 ? > Myr, selected as z-band dropouts in the Pan-STARRS1 survey. This increases the number of known z > 6.5 ? > quasars from four to seven. The quasars have redshifts of z = 6.50, 6.52, and 6.66, and include the brightest z-dropout quasar reported to date, PSO J036.5078 + 03.0498 with M 1450 = − 27.4 ? > . We obtained near-infrared spectroscopy for the quasars, and from the Mg ii line, we estimate that the central black holes have masses between 5 × 108 and 4 × 109 M ⊙ ? > and are accreting close to the Eddington limit ( L Bol / L Edd = 0.13 − 1.2 ? > ). We investigate the ionized regions around the quasars and find near-zone radii of R NZ = 1.5 − 5.2 ? > proper Mpc, confirming the trend of decreasing near-zone sizes with increasing redshift found for quasars at 5.7 < z < 6.4 ? > . By combining RNZ of the PS1 quasars with those of 5.7 < z < 7.1 ? > quasars in the literature, we derive a luminosity-corrected redshift evolution of R NZ , corrected = ( 7.2 ± 0.2 ) − ( 6.1 ± 0.7 ) × ( z − 6 ) ? > Mpc. However, the large spread in RNZ in the new quasars implies a wide range in quasar ages and/or a large variation in the neutral hydrogen fraction along different lines of sight.
CEO Narcissism, Audience Engagement, and Organizational Adoption of Technological Discontinuities

We examine the responses of major pharmaceutical firms to the advent of biotechnology over the period 1980 to 2008 to explain why established firms vary in their adoption of technological discontinuities. Combining insights from upper echelons theory, personality theory, and research on organizational responses to new technologies, we posit that narcissistic chief executive officers (CEOs) of established firms will be relatively aggressive in their adoption of technological discontinuities. We propose, however, that the effect of a CEO’s narcissism on organizational outcomes will be moderated by audience engagement—the degree to which observers view a phenomenon as noteworthy and provocative—which varies over time. When audience engagement is high, narcissistic CEOs will anticipate widespread admiration for their bold actions and thus will invest especially aggressively in a discontinuous technology. Drawing from work on managerial cognition, we further hypothesize that CEOs’ narcissism will influence their top managers’ attention to a discontinuous technology, an association that will also be moderated by audience engagement. Finally, we suggest that managerial attention to the discontinuous technology will subsequently be reflected in company investments in the new technological domain. Results provide considerable support for our hypotheses and highlight the role of narcissism in the context of radical organizational change, the influence of audience engagement on executive behavior, and the effect of executive personality on managerial attention.
DISCRIMINATING THE PROGENITOR TYPE OF SUPERNOVA REMNANTS WITH IRON K-SHELL EMISSION

Supernova remnants (SNRs) retain crucial information about both their parent explosion and circumstellar material left behind by their progenitor. However, the complexity of the interaction between supernova ejecta and ambient medium often blurs this information, and it is not uncommon for the basic progenitor type (Ia or core-collapse) of well-studied remnants to remain uncertain. Here we present a powerful new observational diagnostic to discriminate between progenitor types and constrain the ambient medium density of SNRs using solely Fe K-shell X-ray emission. We analyze all extant Suzaku observations of SNRs and detect Fe Kα emission from 23 young or middle-aged remnants, including five first detections (IC 443, G292.0+1.8, G337.2–0.7, N49, and N63A). The Fe Kα centroids clearly separate progenitor types, with the Fe-rich ejecta in Type Ia remnants being significantly less ionized than in core-collapse SNRs. Within each progenitor group, the Fe Kα luminosity and centroid are well correlated, with more luminous objects having more highly ionized Fe. Our results indicate that there is a strong connection between explosion type and ambient medium density, and suggest that Type Ia supernova progenitors do not substantially modify their surroundings at radii of up to several parsecs. We also detect a K-shell radiative recombination continuum of Fe in W49B and IC 443, implying a strong circumstellar interaction in the early evolutionary phases of these core-collapse remnants.
The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Private Consumption in Israel with Emphasis on the Fiscal Expectations Approach

In this paper we assess the impact of fiscal policy on private consumption. We find that there is substitution between private and public consumption but that it is of very limited magnitude (approximately 20 percent). It was also found that, in contrast to the Ricardian approach, the method of financing of public expenditure has an effect on private consumption. Thus, an increase in the direct taxation of wages has a negative effect on consumption that is equal to the full amount of the tax increase while bond financing has a positive effect as long the increase in public debt is small. Evidence was found of the importance of the expectations mechanism with regard to future fiscal developments (the fiscal expectations approach) as manifested in the existence of a public deficit or the channel of its financing: a. The most appropriate variable for testing the degree of substitution between private and public consumption in the long run is public consumption less unilateral transfers from abroad which reduce the public’s burden of financing public expenditure. b. Evidence was found of the negative relation between public and private consumption which was partly the result of the existence of a public deficit. It was found that if an increase in the public debt is accompanied by an increase in the ratio of the public deficit to GDP, then its effect becomes negative. c. Also, in the short run, only partial substitution was found between public and private consumption. This primarily reflects large and persistent changes in fiscal variables that contain significant real time information on the possibility of future changes in taxation. d. A specific test of the change in the relationship between the trends in private and public consumption following the stabilization program in 1985 showed that the degree of substitution had declined significantly as a result of the program’s success. Finally, the testing of alternative transmission mechanisms, which may influence the degree of substitution between public and private consumption, such as inflation, the real exchange rate and the real rate of interest, showed that in general they did not have a significant influence in the short or the long run.
Dihydropyridines and the treatment of hypertension

Calcium channel blockers have been used for many years in the management of cardiovascular diseases including hypertension. There is ample evidence that verapamil, a phenylalkylamine, diltiazem, a benzothiazepine, and the dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers are capable of lowering blood pressure and all three subclasses have been used for the treatment of hypertensive patients. However, the ultimate goal of antihypertensive therapy is to prevent cardiovascular complications and to prolong life. At present, outcome trials are only available for the dihydropyridine subclass. The present paper will focus on this subclass and review the evidence for its effects on left ventricular hypertrophy, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Its mechanisms of action and side-effects are well-known and summarized in current textbooks and review papers and will not be addressed in the present manuscript.
A REVIEW OF IMPROVED FORAGE GRASSES IN ZIMBABWE (PASTOS MEJORADOS EN ZIMBABWE: UNA REVISIÓN)

SUMMARY The shortage of feed particularly during the dry season is one of the major factors limiting livestock productivity in Zimbabwe. Improved grasses show great potential to alleviate this problem. In contrast to forage legumes, improved grasses are generally bulky and high yielding crops with high residual soil fertility utilisation capacity and broad environmental adaptation. There is strong need to continuously search for high yielding, climatically and edaphically adapted grasses that respond to existing and evolving constraints as well as changing demands and opportunities to increase feed supply for livestock especially during the dry season, under different utilisation systems. This paper reviews the history of research on selection and adoption of improved grasses for improving rangeland and livestock productivity in Zimbabwe and makes suggestions about future work. In Zimbabwe, a number of key genera of grass species with broad adaptation to environmental stresses, and high feed quality have been identified. It was suggested that, the selection of improved grasses should continue, with collaborative research on multi-locations under various utilisation systems using farmer participatory methods to ensure long-term and widespread adoption of forage technologies in Zimbabwe.
Deletion Schemes for Classi(cid:12)er Systems

The issue of deletion schemes for classi(cid:12)er systems has received little attention. In a standard genetic algorithm a chromosome can be evaluated (assigned a reasonable (cid:12)t-ness) immediately. In classi(cid:12)er systems, however, a chromosome can only be fully evaluated after many interactions with the environment, since a chromosome may generalise over many environmental states. A new technique which protects poorly evaluated chromosomes outperforms both techniques from (Wilson, 1995) in two very di(cid:11)erent single step problems. Results indicate the XCS classi(cid:12)er system is able to learn single step problems for which no (or few) useful gener-alisations can be made over the input string, despite its drive towards accurate generalisation.
A new constant market share competitiveness index

Constant-market-share analysis (CMSA) is one of the most widely employed descriptive tool for measuring the export competitiveness of a country relative to other countries or regions of trade for goods and services. Typically, export growth is attributed to growth in the country’s export competitiveness and also to the growth effect of the market itself. However, CMSA measurement is prone to a number of methodological short comings which stems from the CMS identities used in the analysis. Namely, the discrete approximation of continuously changing trade patterns, the interaction effects term residual from the CMS identity decomposition and the arbitrary choice of weights attached to base periods. This paper addresses some of the short comings of the classic CMSA approach. Within a geometric framework we reexamine the CMS decomposition and propose a new net-share approach that is easier to implement and interpret. For researchers and policy makers, this methodology presents a simpler but more consistent measurement for more accurate CMS measurement and interpretations of changing trade patterns.
The role of static stretching on performance variables and induced effects of exhaustion exercises in Brazilian jiu-jitsu athletes

Background & Study Aim: Static stretching (SS) is often used before physical exercises and sports in order to improve performance and prevent injuries and delayed-onset muscle soreness, although there is no consensus in the scientific literature about these effects. In addition, a growing body of evidence has shown an acute stretch-induced strength loss in some muscles and sports but not in others. The effects of SS on handgrip strength in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) athletes remain unknown. The aim of this study was the effect of SS on dynamic and isometric strength performance, on the range of motion (ROM) and on the recovery time of these indicators in BJJ athletes. Material & Methods: Fifteen male BJJ athletes were randomly allocated to an SS group (n = 8) or a control group (CG, n = 7). The ROM, passive torque (PT), handgrip strength (HG) and isometric (ISO) and dynamic strength (DYN) were tested before, immediately after, 24 h after and 48 h after in both groups. Results: There was a significant interaction between group and time for ROM, which showed an improvement immediately after SS. There was also a decrease in the CG after 48 h compared to the before measure. There was also an SS-induced strength loss in HG immediately after, 24 h after and 48 h after SS compared to before stretching. The CG showed a significant improvement in HG after 48 h compared to immediately after. None of the other variables tested showed a significant difference. Conclusions: Stretching exercises of the wrist flexor and finger muscles should be avoided previous to practicing fighting sports for which grip strength is necessary.
The Bank as Grim Reaper: Debt Composition and Recoveries on Defaulted Debt

We oer a model and evidence that private debtholders play a key role in setting the endogenous asset value threshold below which corporations declare bankruptcy. The model, in the spirit of Black and Cox (1976), implies that the recovery rate at emergence from bankruptcy on all of the firm’s debt is related to the pre-bankruptcy share of private debt in all of the firm’s debt. Empirical evidence supports this implication. Indeed, debt composition has a more economically material empirical influence on recovery than all other variables we try taken together. This special role of private debt in the capital structure has important implications for pricing models and risk management.
Cordyceps sinensis Acts as an Adenosine A 3 Receptor Agonist on Mouse Melanoma and Lung Carcinoma Cells, and Human Fibrosarcoma and Colon Carcinoma Cells

Cordyceps sinensis, a parasitic fungus on the larva of Lapidoptera, has been used as a traditional Chinese medicine. We previously reported that the growth of B16-BL6 mouse melanoma (B16-BL6) cells and mouse Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells was inhibited by cordycepin (3’-deoxyadenosine), an ingredient of Cordyceps sinensis, and its effect was antagonized by MRS1191, a selective adenosine A3 receptor (A3-R) antagonist although adenosine (up to 100 μM) had no effect on the growth of B16-BL6 and LLC cells. In this study, we investigated whether water extracts of Cordyceps sinensis (WECS) inhibit the growth of B16-BL6 cells, LLC cells, HT1080 human fibrosarcoma (HT1080) cells and CW-2 human colon carcinoma (CW-2) cells via their A3-R. As a result, the growth of all cell lines were potently inhibited by WECS (10 μg/mL) and the inhibitory effect of WECS was significantly antagonized by MRS1191 (1 μM). Furthermore, WECS included 2.34% w/w cordycepin and 0.12% w/w adenosine as components according to the HPLC- ECD system. In conclusion, WECS inhibited the proliferation of four cancer cell lines by stimulation of A3-R and the main component in WECS with anticancer action might be cordycepin instead of adenosine.