Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic variation of the 12CO/13CO ratio as a function of star formation rate surface density

We show that the 12CO/13CO intensity ratio in nearby galaxies varies systematically as a function of the star formation rate surface density (ΣSFR) and gas surface density. The same effect is observed in different transitions, and in the 12CO/C18O ratio, while the 13CO/C18O ratio appears to remain constant as a function of ΣSFR. We discuss the cause of these variations, considering both changes in the physical state of the gas and chemical changes that lead to abundance variations. We used the observed correlations with C18O to suggest that abundance variations are unlikely to be causing the systematic trend observed with ΣSFR, and thus that the mean gas temperature and/or velocity dispersion are systematically higher in higher SFR surface density regions. We present the best-fitting relations between ΣSFR and the 12CO/13CO and 12CO/C18O ratios, and discuss how this effect can help us predict CO isotope emission from galaxies across the known Universe.
Extracorporeal shockwave myocardial revascularization improves clinical symptoms and left ventricular function in patients with refractory angina

BackgroundMedical therapy for refractory angina is limited and the prognosis is poor. Experimental data suggest that the use of extracorporeal shockwave myocardial revascularization (ESMR) can contribute to angiogenesis and improve symptoms of angina and left ventricular (LV) function. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of ESMR on clinical symptoms as well as LV function as assessed by cardiac MRI in patients with refractory angina. MethodsPatients with Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) class III–IV angina despite medical therapy and ischemia documented on thallium or echo-dobutamine were eligible for the study. ESMR therapy was applied with a commercially available cardiac shockwave generator system under echocardiographic guidance. LV function was assessed before and 6 months after therapy by cardiac MRI. ResultsTwenty patients (four women, 16 men; mean age 64 years, range 45–83) were included in the study. The CCS class after treatment improved in all patients (16 patients angina pectoris CCS from III to II and four patients from IV to III). The use of sublingual nitroglycerin was significantly reduced as well. There was a significant improvement in LV ejection fraction as assessed by blinded MRI following therapy in the overall population (51 vs. 59%, P<0.05). ConclusionThis study demonstrates the potential efficacy of ESMR for the treatment of refractory angina pectoris. The patients showed both a significant clinical response as well as improved LV ejection fraction on serial MRI imaging. Larger studies are needed to adequately define the clinical utility of this novel therapy.
Access to Market of a Manufacturing Small Business Sector in Ghana

This paper concludes presentation on two most relevant binding constraints identified by a manufacturing ‘small’ business sector in Ghana. The first constraint of limited access to technology was discussed in an earlier paper in this Journal. The second constraint of limited access to market was studied to determine the extent to which manufacturing ‘small’ businesses had access to market and to identify one or two overriding factors that constrained ability of the businesses to access market. This was achieved through a survey of 85 manufacturing small businesses in Berekum District and Sunyani Municipality of Ghana. Low demand for goods came up as the overriding factor that constrained the enterprises’ ability to access market. To tackle the problem of low demand, it is indispensable for government to spearhead creation of required co-ordination externalities and champion the course of self-discovery as a nation.
Trade-based skills versus occupational capacity: the example of bricklaying in Europe

This article shows why qualifications built on occupational capacity rather than on trade-based skills have more potential to accommodate the aims of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and changes in the labour process, going together with the development of occupational labour markets. The article challenges the distinct Anglo-Saxon notion of ‘skill’ attached to a trade-based system of vocational education and training (VET), where qualifications have weak labour market currency. This distinctiveness has implications for EQF implementation, built on common understanding of knowledge, skills and competences and intended to establish equivalence between different occupational qualifications. The article focuses on the example of bricklaying in England and Germany, an occupation archetypal of construction and skilled manual work. Clear differences are identified between bricklaying founded on developing occupational capacity through negotiation and regulation by stakeholders, recognized through qualifications, and bricklaying as a demarcated trade, defined by output and with ‘skills’ distinct from other trades.
IS THE GHOSH MODEL INTERESTING

The overall value of the Ghosh model is appraised. Its treatment of quantities and prices is scrutinized by examining the variant with data in quantities and prices, and the variant with data in value and price indexes. The methodology involves returning to the accounting equations and shows that: (i) the Ghosh model offers solutions of limited interest, being incapable of providing prices or price indexes separately from quantities; (ii) what is taken to be the equation of Ghosh's value model is actually that of Ghosh's physical model; (iii) the Ghosh model may serve for cost-push exercises, but the dual of the Leontief model performs the same task in a much simpler and more natural way; and (iv) Cronin's mixed models do not actually mix Leontief and Ghosh hypotheses.
Average and marginal price changes and the demand for electricity: an econometric study

The empirical literature on the demand for electricity has, hitherto, failed to adequately deal with increasing block pricing. While it is desirable, in principle, to include the entire price schedule in the demand function, the convention has been to include, as an argument, either an average or a marginal price. Yet use of either to the exclusion of the other one leads, inter alia, to biased estimates of own-price elasticity. With this in mind, a residential demand function is estimated employing both average and marginal price. While a number of interesting results emerge, it is significant that the coefficient on marginal price is ‘right’; that is, the expected inverse relationship between the quantity of electricity demanded and the marginal price it obtains. On the other hand, the positive sign on average price is troubling. Because average price is in this case exactly the same concept as the intra-marginal payment, a change in average price is exactly the same concept as a change in real income. T.
State-owned bank loan and stock price synchronicity

Both paternalism from governments and bank loans are sources of soft-budget constraints, which reduce information disclosure, including state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs’) perceived bankruptcy risk and operational risk, both of which may affect stock-price synchronicity. From a banking perspective, this paper investigates the effect of state-owned bank loans on stock-price synchronicity and whether such an effect is asymmetric in SOEs and non-SOEs. The results indicate that the percentage of loans from state-owned banks is positively related to stock-price synchronicity and that such a relationship is significantly weaker in non-SOEs than that in SOEs. When we further divide state-owned banks into policy banks and state-owned commercial banks and divide non-SOEs into firms with political connections and firms without political connections, the results show that the positive relation between loans from policy banks and stock-price synchronicity is higher than that of state-owned commercial banks, while the stock-price synchronicity of politically connected firms is the same as that of SOEs. Overall, these results indicate that soft-budget constraints are important factors that affect stock-price synchronicity.
Capital Gains Taxation and Stock Market Activity: Evidence from IPOs

Prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA '86), long-term capital gains were taxed at a lower rate than short-term gains, presenting investors with an opportunity to increase their after-tax return by delaying the sale of appreciated assets until after they qualified for long-term status and selling depreciated assets prior to long-term qualification. Using a sample of Initial Public Offerings, I find that stocks that appreciated prior to long-term qualification exhibit increased volume and decreased returns just after their qualification date, while stocks that depreciated prior to long-term qualification exhibit these effects just prior to their qualification date. Copyright The American Finance Association 1998.
Creating a European Demos? The Representativeness of European Umbrella Organisations

Abstract Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have been viewed by many as a means for democratising the EU and for overcoming its widely perceived democratic deficit. At the EU-level, it is mostly European umbrella organisations of CSOs that contribute to EU policy-making. These umbrella organisations ground their legitimacy partly on the claim of being representative of large constituencies. Similarly, the European Commission hopes to increase the legitimacy of its proposals through consultations with European umbrellas and has systematically contributed financially to establishing them in the first place. However, we lack information on how well these umbrellas link to their national members and who is represented through them in EU policy-making. Arguing that active involvement by their constituencies is crucial for the legitimacy of European umbrellas, this article addresses the degree to which national organisations link to their respective European umbrellas. Three types of political representation by CSOs are identified, which are exemplified respectively by organisations active in the fields of agricultural, environmental and anti-poverty policy. The analysis explores the ways CSOs contribute to political representation across different governance levels in the EU, and the various types of representation the related practices embody. Findings show that the umbrella of agricultural groups is much more representative of its constituencies than those of environmental and anti-poverty groups, casting a doubt on the latter’s capacity to forcefully contribute to the construction of a European polity.
Germany jump-starts the supergrid

New developments in high-voltage DC electronics could herald an epic shift in energy delivery. Stuttgart is one of the last places you'd expect to find in a power pinch. This south German city's massive automotive plants run 24-7 without a hiccup, efficiency measures have held industrial power consumption flat, and solar panels flash from atop its major buildings. But now all that is at risk. The country's accelerated shift from nuclear power and fossil fuels to renewable resources, such as wind and solar, has exposed a huge gap in its transmission capacity. If they are to survive, Stuttgart's factories-and power consumers across southern Germany-will need to import a lot more power from the north, and Germany's grid is already at capacity. To fill the gap, Germany is considering an aggressive plan that would push high-voltage direct current, or HVDC, from its conventional position on the periphery of AC grids to a central role. The primary reason is simple: For the first time, HVDC seems cheaper than patching up the AC grid. But Germany's transmission planners also have another motivation: They want to provide as much performance and reliability as they can to an AC grid that's already strained by excess wind power. For that, they're considering implementing power electronics that are capable of doing something that's never before been done on a commercial line: stop DC current in milliseconds flat.
Leadership on the Supreme Court of the United States: Chief Justice Burger and the Establishment Clause

TUDENTS of the Supreme Court of the United States often view it through &dquo;eras. &dquo; Some are named after Presidents whose appointments molded the identity of the Court (e.g., the &dquo;Roosevelt Court&dquo;); others are defined by dominant judicial personalities (e.g., the &dquo;Marshall Court&dquo;). These labels reflect our perception of the fulcrum of influence on the Court. When Warren Burger replaced Earl Warren, speculation arose about a pending shift in judicial eras. Yet, upon Burger’s retirement the consensus was that he left &dquo;a Supreme Court that in terms of judicial doctrine has not been notably different from the one he inherited. &dquo;
Market Share Pioneering Advantage: A Theoretical Approach

In this paper we present an industry in which a pioneer has entered, accumulated capital in the form of goodwill, and in his monopoly period has also reduced his cost of production as a result of some form of learning by doing. At some later date a newcomer enters. His production cost is higher than that of the monopolist at that date. However due to diffusion of information, the costs of the two firms equate at some future date. Once the new firm enters the market a duopolistic game begins in which the firms choose prices and investment rates. Analyzing this game we discover the conditions under which the final market shares no longer depend on the order of entry, the initial cost advantage, the length of the monopoly period, or the length of time it took the newcomer to overcome the pioneer's cost advantage. We analyze the speed and pattern of convergence to the final market shares and the capital path of the pioneer in his monopoly period, depending on his beliefs concerning the possibility of entry.
Do Investors React Differently to Range and Point Management Earnings Forecasts?

This study investigates the differential effects of range and point management earnings forecasts. I focus on investors' reactions to earnings forecasts with both favorable and unfavorable outcomes under high information uncertainty. Based on theories in judgment and decision making, I predict that investors' reactions to range forecasts depend on the perceived favorability of earnings forecasts. Experimental results are consistent with the prediction. Participants allocate the most resources to firms issuing favorable range forecasts and the least to those with unfavorable range forecasts. Interestingly, range and point forecasts do not have differential effects on participants' earnings predictions, confidence judgments, and risk judgments.
Continuous Innovation and Performance Management of SME Clusters

Continuous innovation and performance measurement methods and tools have been applied in companies as a means to develop improvement actions related to strategic objectives and to monitor results so as to give feedback for further action. However, continuous innovation and performance measurement methods and tools can also be applied to manage performance of a cluster of firms. After a brief review of continuous innovation and the concept of collective efficiency of a cluster, this paper presents a conceptual model for managing actions for improving collective efficiency and measuring performance of an SME cluster. A research case is reported, for which the conceptual model has been applied and results discussed. The paper concludes that despite some difficulties in developing and using performance indicators in SMEs, the concepts presented by the proposed model can help to foster cooperation and maturity in continuous innovation in clusters of SMEs.
Corporate Social Reporting: A Rebuttal of Legitimacy Theory

Various rationales have been advanced to explain the phenomenon of corporate social reporting. Among these has been legitimacy theory which posits that corporate disclosures are made as reactions to environmental factors and in order to legitimise corporate actions. This paper reports the results of an historical analysis of social disclosures in 100 years of annual reporting by a dominant corporation in the Australian mining/manufacturing industry. A variable but significant pattern of social reporting is identified and compared with an earlier study of social reporting by US Steel. The results of this study fail to confirm legitimacy theory as the primary explanation for social reporting in the Australian case.
On The Direction of Preference for Moments of Higher Order Than The Variance

EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL ATTACKS on the Markowitz mean-variance, portfolio theory have given impetus to the investigation of moments of higher order than the variance. Denoting w as an investor's wealth, and i his incomes (a random variable), if the investors utility function, U, is solely dependent on the sum of his wealth and income we can define his utility as U = U(i + w). The investor's rate of return on investment of w is defined as f = i/w and his utility may be given by U = U(rw + w). Letting jt = E(w + rw), representing the expected value on investment, expanding U in the familiar Taylor series, and taking the expected value of both sides gives:
The Response of Business Fixed Investment to Changes in Energy Prices: A Test of Some Hypotheses about the Transmission of Energy Price Shocks

Changes in firms' investment expenditures are considered one of the primary channels through which energy price shocks are transmitted to the economy. It is widely believed that the response of business fixed investment to energy price increases differs from its response to energy price decreases. We show that the apparent symmetry in the estimated responses of business fixed investment in equipment and structures cannot be reconciled with standard theoretical explanations of asymmetric responses. Rather this evidence is an artifact (1) of the aggregation of mining-related expenditures by the oil, natural gas, and coal mining industry and all other expenditures, and (2) of ignoring an exogenous shift in investment caused by the 1986 Tax Reform Act. After controlling for these factors, formal statistical tests are unable to reject the hypothesis of symmetric responses to energy price shocks for all components of investment in structures. For nonresidential equipment there is weak statistical evidence of classical asymmetries in some components, but not in the aggregate. Once symmetry is imposed and mining-related expenditures are excluded, the estimated response of business fixed investment in equipment and structures tends to be small and statistically insignificant. Historical decompositions show that energy price shocks have played a minor role in driving fluctuations in nonresidential fixed investment other than investment in mining.
Global Environmental Governance and North—South Dynamics: The Case of the Cites

This paper addresses a gap in our understanding of how links between states and nonstate actors intersect with North—South dynamics. It draws together the literatures on NGOs with the debates on privatised forms of global governance to provide a deeper understanding of the growing role of nonstate actors in managing transnational environmental issues. I argue that the inclusion of nonstate actors can serve to reinforce and deepen existing global inequalities. I use the example of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to shed light on the complex dynamics that surround (apparently) interstate environmental governance mechanisms. The CITES is one of the earliest examples of engagement with nonstate actors as shapers and drivers of environmental governance. As such, it provides us with important lessons about the problems associated with including a wider range of actors in global environmental governance mechanisms, especially engagement with Southern partners.
From Pragmatism to Dogmatism: European Union Governance, Policy Paradigms and Financial Meltdown

Contemporary analyses commonly attribute the global credit crisis to faulty regulation. What have been the roots of these deficient rules, particularly in Europe, where rapid spill-over from US markets took policy makers and observers by surprise? This article focuses on regulatory liberalism as the paradigm guiding European Union (EU) regulation. It has dominated regulatory thinking for decades, but it has been implemented throughout Europe only since the mid-1990s. This shift can be traced to political institutions that have filtered policy ideas. EU financial reforms have pushed policy from pragmatism, under which it was adapted to political contingencies, to dogmatism, which adapts it to the intellectual exigencies of rigid policy paradigms. Inadvertently, reforms had created an epistemic community in which ‘professional’ rule setters systematically ignored external criticisms. The institutionalised ambition to craft ‘intellectually sound’ policy–rather than policy that simply ‘works’ –generated rules that persistently ignored the financial markets' self-reflexivity and thereby aggravated the crisis.
The effects of 3D bioactive glass scaffolds and BMP-2 on bone formation in rat femoral critical size defects and adjacent bones

Reconstruction of critical size defects in the load-bearing area has long been a challenge in orthopaedics. In the past, we have demonstrated the feasibility of using a biodegradable load-sharing scaffold fabricated from poly(propylene fumarate)/tricalcium phosphate (PPF/TCP) loaded with bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) to successfully induce healing in those defects. However, there is limited osteoconduction observed with the PPF/TCP scaffold itself. For this reason, 13-93 bioactive glass scaffolds with local BMP-2 delivery were investigated in this study for inducing segmental defect repairs in a load-bearing region. Furthermore, a recent review on BMP-2 revealed greater risks in radiculitis, ectopic bone formation, osteolysis and poor global outcome in association with the use of BMP-2 for spinal fusion. We also evaluated the potential side effects of locally delivered BMP-2 on the structures of adjacent bones. Therefore, cylindrical 13-93 glass scaffolds were fabricated by indirect selective laser sintering with side holes on the cylinder filled with dicalcium phosphate dehydrate as a BMP-2 carrier. The scaffolds were implanted into critical size defects created in rat femurs with and without 10 μg of BMP-2. The x-ray and micro-CT results showed that a bridging callus was found as soon as three weeks and progressed gradually in the BMP group while minimal bone formation was observed in the control group. Degradation of the scaffolds was noted in both groups. Stiffness, peak load and energy to break of the BMP group were all higher than the control group. There was no statistical difference in bone mineral density, bone area and bone mineral content in the tibiae and contralateral femurs of the control and BMP groups. In conclusion, a 13-93 bioactive glass scaffold with local BMP-2 delivery has been demonstrated for its potential application in treating large bone defects.