Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Causality relationship between energy demand and economic growth in Nigeria

This paper attempts to examine the causal relationship between electricity demand and economic growth in Nigeria using data for 1970 – 2003. The study uses the Johansen cointegration VAR approach. The ADF and Phillips – Perron test statistics were used to test for stationarity of the data. It was found that the data were not stationary at level but only after first differencing i.e. the data were I (1). The Johansen co integration technique reveals that one co integrating relationship exists between real GDP and Electricity demand in Nigeria. The result of the study reveals that there is unidirectional causality between energy consumption and economic growth i.e. energy consumption Granger causes economic growth in Nigeria based on the available data estimated. The result has useful implications on account of energy conservation and energy related pollution in Nigeria. Global Journal of Social Sciences Vol. 6 (1) 2007: pp. 43-50
Combining Federalism and Decentralization

Studies evaluating the effects of territorial state organization on the performance of democratic political systems produce ambiguous results. The authors argue that research so far has suffered from insufficiently conceptualizing federalism and decentralization as two distinct dimensions. This article makes use of the advantages of a nested design and detects micro-level causal mechanisms underlying statistically confirmed effects. The authors conduct in-depth case studies comparing policy processes in four countries (Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, and Denmark) in the area of regional development policy, an area that exhibits typical effects in a macro-quantitative analysis, to back their hypothesized and corroborated macro-level relationships by micro level causal evidence. The case studies show that federalism induces subnational actors to adopt divergent positions and push through individual interests in processes of decision making, thus increasing transaction costs and preventing substantial policy shifts. Decentralization and subnational discretion induces actors to vary service delivery in an efficiency-enhancing way.
Foetomaternal outcome in patients with or without premature rupture of membranes.

BACKGROUND Preterm premature rupture of membranes is responsible for one third of all preterm births and is associated with significant maternal, foetal and neonatal risks. The objectives were to compare the foeto-maternal outcome in patient with and without preterm premature rupture of membranes. METHOD This prospective comparative study was conducted in Gynae-C Unit of Ayub Teaching Hospital from Sep 2005 to Mar 2006. Total 170 cases were recruited in the study out of which 85 had Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes (PPROM), and 85 had preterm labour without PROM. Patients' data were recorded on a performa. Maternal outcome was measured on the basis of presence of fever and mode of delivery. Foetal outcome was measured on the basis of weight of the baby, and presence of infection (fever), APGAR score and neonatal death. Analysis was performed using SPSS-10. RESULTS The primary data arranged in groups was divided into PPROM and no-PPROM groups. The PPROM was found to be frequent in younger age group between 15-25 years while no-PPROM was common among the age group between 26-35 years (p = 0.002). Lower socioeconomic class and history of previous one or more preterm delivery was significantly associated with PPROM (p = 0.001). Maternal fever was also significant in the PPROM group (p = 0.01). Low birth weight was statistically significant in the PPROM group. Majority of the babies born to mother were either extremely low birth weight or low birth weight, i.e., between 1-25 kg (p = 0.005). Low APGAR score at the time of delivery (p = 0.01) and foetal infection (p = 0.002) between the PROM and no-PPROM group was found to be statistically significant Neo-natal deaths was also higher in the PPROM group as compared to no PPROM group (11 verses 2) (p = 0.009). CONCLUSION In our study premature rupture of membrane had increased neonatal morbidity and mortality as compared to preterm birth. Strategies should be developed for its prevention.
Bringing meaning to user involvement in mental health care planning: a qualitative exploration of service user perspectives.

BACKGROUND Service users wish to be involved in care planning but typically feel marginalized in this process. Qualitative explorations of the barriers and enablers of user involvement in mental health care planning are limited. QUESTION How is user involvement in care planning conceptualized by service users and how can meaningful involvement be instilled in the care planning process? METHODS In 2013, we conducted five focus groups (n = 27) and 23 individual interviews with current or recent adult users of secondary care mental health services (n = 27) in England. Eight users participated in both. Data were analysed using Framework Analysis. Results Ten themes emerged from the data: these themes encompassed procedural elements (connection; contribution; currency; care consolidation; and consequence), service user characteristics (capacity and confidence) and professional enablers (consultation; choice; and clarity of expression). Procedural elements were discussed most frequently in service user discourse. DISCUSSION The process of care planning, centred on the user-clinician relationship, is key to user involvement. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Users describe a common model of meaningful involvement in care planning. Their requests, summarized through a 10C framework of care planning involvement, provide clear direction for improving service users satisfaction with care planning and enhancing the culture of services.
Technology Spillovers and Land Use Change: Empirical Evidence from Global Agriculture

&NA; We estimate the effects of agricultural technological progress on cropland expansion at various geographical resolutions, from the country level to the world as a whole, while formally accounting for the international interdependence of national supply responses. Evidence for these effects has thus far been scant, contributing to polarized perceptions about the potential for improving agricultural technologies as a means to slow down deforestation. We find that, in most countries of the world, growth in total factor productivity (TFP) is either uncorrelated or is positively associated with cropland expansion. Yet worldwide TFP growth have been an important source of global land savings. The divergence between the country‐level and the global results is explained by the changes in production patterns as countries interact in international markets. Our preferred point estimate of the elasticity of global cropland to global TFP growth is ‐0.34. Moreover, we estimate that satisfying food demand from 1991 to 2010 without observed TFP growth would have necessitated an additional 173 million hectares, or close to 10% of the area covered by tropical rain forests.
The Relation Between Auditor-Provided Tax Service Fees and Audit Fees After the Sarbanes–Oxley Act

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) permits the provision of tax services by auditors and restricts other major non-audit services previously provided by auditors for their audit clients. This article examines the relation between auditor-provided tax fees and audit fees after SOX. The results, using a tax fee model and an audit fee model with a larger set of non-overlapping independent variables in both models, show a positive relationship between tax and audit fees, after controlling for factors that could drive both fees. An additional test shows that firms that employ (do not employ) their incumbent auditors also for tax service are likely to pay higher (lower) audit fees than in the case when they only (also) employ their auditors for audit service. The results of other tests are also consistent with the suggestion that auditors cross-sell their non-audit services to their audit clients.
The Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU) Model for Energy Service Delivery

Climate change, energy price spikes, and concerns about energy security have reignited interest in state and local efforts to promote end-use energy efficiency, customer-sited renewable energy, and energy conservation. Government agencies and utilities have historically designed and administered such demand-side measures, but innovative third-party administrative models present new options to finance, market, and deliver sustainable energy services to energy end-users. This study outlines the concept of a new third-party administrative model, a sustainable energy utility (SEU), with the potential to achieve deep energy efficiency savings and a high penetration of customer-sited renewable energy. An SEU is characterized by central coordination, comprehensive programs, flexible incentives, financial self-sufficiency, competitive procurement, and a focus on delivering energy services rather than commodity energy.
Benchmark and comparison of tracker-blockers: Should you trust them?

People are getting more and more conscious and worried about privacy issues that arise when browsing the Web. Ad-blockers, anti-tracking extensions, privacy and anonymity plug-ins, etc. promise to protect users and their privacy from third-party tracking systems. But how effective are they? In this paper, we present the first experimental campaign aimed at benchmarking popular plug-ins for web privacy preservation to date. We select 7 different plug-ins and setup a testbed to automatically browse regular web pages, while collecting navigation data. We analyze this data to compare each plugin, considering both privacy-protection and performance angles. Our results show that the picture is very variable, with no plugin being able to guarantee complete protection while improving performance as promised. By considering different experimental setups, we also observe that the European ePrivacy Directive is ignored by the majority of considered web sites. The directive prevents web services from installing tracking and profiling cookies before explicit consent is given by the user, but apparently this is not observed for most of services. To favor reproducibility, and repeatability, we share both the software and the data used to conduct this study with the community. Our aim is to let researchers and developers better understand the privacy threats in the Internet, possibly toward better performing privacy-preserving tools.
Changes and continuities in South Korean HRM

The operating context of South Korean human resource management (HRM) has undergone radical shifts since we wrote our first piece in 1997 for a similar collection to this. This has undoubtedly influenced the practice of HRM. Therefore, the focus of this piece is to compare the current situation with the past and delineate the amount and type of such change vis-à-vis continuity in HRM. The contextual factors and issues, political and economic background, labour market situation, the 1997 Asian financial crisis and ramifications, are analysed. Then future possible scenarios and key issues are outlined.
The Implementation and Impact of ISO 9000 among Small Manufacturing Enterprises

Quality is essential to customer satisfaction and competitive success. Unfortunately, resource constraints can place the small‐firm manufacturer at a quality disadvantage. This paper considers the benefits and barriers to International Standards Organization (ISO) 9000 certification among small‐firm manufacturers. An empirical study explores whether small manufacturers can successfully implement and benefit from a standardized and resource‐intensive program such as ISO 9000. The answer is yes if management can internalize core ISO practices. Keys to success include inculcating a quality culture, reducing behaviors that inhibit ISO adoption, performing a readiness analysis that helps tailor the ISO program to company needs, and leveraging a dynamic environment to drive quality consciousness.
Interpretive and critical research: Methodological blasphemy!

Critical and interpretive research styles are often qualitative and more subjective than statisticallybased positive techniques. As such, critical and interpretive methodologies are less highly regarded by the academic establishment and are often relegated to the footnotes of postgraduate courses. After all, is there really a need to train prospective accountants and managements in ‘softer skills’? This critical essay argues that changes in accounting and business mindsets are moving critical and interpretive research styles into an era of greater recognition. Rather than be driven by positive tradition, management-based research needs to be more aware of practical realties and post graduate students need to be trained accordingly.
A 10Gb/s Laser-Diode Driver with Active Back-Termination in 0.18μm CMOS

A laser-diode driver (LDD) requires output transmission-line back-termination that absorbs signal reflection from the imperfectly terminated load, especially when a low-cost laser diode is used to build a high-speed optical transmitter. Otherwise, it may lead to degraded waveform fidelity and reduced eye-mask margin. Conventional LDDs implement the passive back-termination with on-chip resistors due to its simplicity (H.M. Rein et al., 1994). However, the passive termination resistor inevitably becomes an additional load for the output driver, which results in significant decrease of the modulation current range.To enable low-cost and flexible CMOS solutions, this paper presents a low-voltage design topology of active back-termination by incorporating the design techniques described above.
On the Holy Grail of “Upside Participation and Downside Protection”

“Upside participation and downside protection” is a popular motto for many investors. It has taken on much more significance in recent years, in the wake of the global financial crisis. But how do we define and evaluate strategies from the perspective of “upside participation and downside protection”? In this article, the authors present an analytic framework in which they provide a quantitative definition of upside and downside participation ratio, define participation ratio difference as a goodness measure for defensive strategies, and prove a relationship between the participation ratio difference and traditional alpha. As an illustration, they apply this new analysis to the S&P 500 Index and its 10 sectors and show that defensive, low-beta sectors tend to have positive participation ratio differences, while cyclical, high-beta sectors tend to have negative participation ratio differences. This finding is consistent with the low-beta/volatility anomaly and provides another explanation for the popularity of low-beta/volatility strategies.
CHANGE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICES

This article identifies the main themes in recent changes in public sector management and shows the extent of the challenge to past organizational assumptions. While recognizing the objectives of the changes could bring benefits if realized, it argues that there are a series of issues that are unresolved. The language of consumerism, the development of government by contracts, the form of performance management and the use of quasi-markets are seen as creating problems. These are seen as deriving from an attempt to apply approaches drawn from the private sector to the public domain. It is argued that they need to be balanced by approaches that recognize the values of the public sector.
Access, Sorting, and Achievement: The Short-Run Effects of Free Primary Education in Kenya

We examine the impact of the Kenyan Free Primary Education program on student participation, sorting, and achievement on the primary school exit examination. Exploiting variation in pre-program dropout rates between districts, we find that the program increased the number of students who completed primary school, spurred private school entry, and increased access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We argue that the program was welfare enhancing as it promoted educational access without substantially reducing the test scores of students who would have been in school in the absence of the program.
The Nexus between Financial Crisis and Household Consumption: Evidence from Emerging Countries

This paper stains to test the effects of financial crisis on household consumption. More specifically, an aggregate annual data from 36 emerging countries from 1990-2012, is used to estimate a model that capture the interrelationship between financial crisis and household consumption. Our findings show that emerging countries that have experienced ﬁnancial crisis during the last three decades tend to experience a substantially greater contraction of their consumption level. Whatever the type of crisis considered, they are generally followed by a substantial contraction of their welfare. More specifically, banking crisis, in contrast to the currency ones, appears to have a more important impact on the standard living household. On the other hand, twin crisis seems to have a more pronounced impact than the two first ones.
Role of Axl in T-Lymphocyte Survival in Salt-Dependent Hypertension

Objective—Survival of immune and nonimmune cells relies on Axl, a receptor tyrosine kinase, which is implicated in hypertension. Activated T lymphocytes are involved in regulation of high blood pressure. The goal of the study was to investigate the role of Axl in T-lymphocyte functions and its contribution to salt-dependent hypertension. Approach and Results—We report increased apoptosis in peripheral blood from Axl−/− mice because of lower numbers of white blood cells mostly lymphocytes. In vitro studies showed modest reduction in interferon gamma production in Axl−/− type 1 T helper cells. Axl did not affect basic proliferation capacity or production of interleukin 4 in Axl−/− type 2 T helper cells. However, competitive repopulation of Axl−/− bone marrow or adoptive transfer of Axl−/− CD4+ T cells to Rag1−/− mice showed robust effect of Axl on T lymphocyte expansion in vivo. Adoptive transfer of Axl−/− CD4+ T cells was protective in a later phase of deoxycorticosterone-acetate and salt hypertension. Reduced numbers of CD4+ T cells in circulation and in perivascular adventitia decreased vascular remodeling and increased vascular apoptosis in the late phase of hypertension. Conclusions—These findings suggest that Axl is critical for survival of T lymphocytes, especially during vascular remodeling in hypertension.
Premarital Sex and Schooling Transitions in Four sub-Saharan African Countries

With the spread of formal schooling in sub-Saharan Africa and delays in the age at marriage a growing proportion of adolescents remain enrolled in school when they "come of age. " As a consequence more and more adolescents have to negotiate sexual maturation and sexual initiation in a context very different from that experienced by earlier generations. Using data from the 2004 National Survey of Adolescents conducted in Burkina Faso Ghana Malawi and Uganda this paper investigates the timing of two key transitions in adolescence-school exit and premarital sex-among those who remain enrolled in school at the beginning of adolescence (age 12). Discrete-time hazard models show that in general girls are more likely than boys to leave school before completing secondary school and before completing primary school and among those completing primary school are less likely to progress to secondary school although those girls who complete primary school do so at the same age as or at a younger age than their male peers. Girls appear more vulnerable to dropout once they become sexually mature and once they engage in premarital sex. While girls were found to be less likely than boys at any given age and controlling for other covariates to have had premarital sex (except in Ghana) school enrollment and the timing of school entry were not consistent factors explaining gender differences. Thus the negative consequences for schooling associated with sexual maturation and premarital sex appear to be greater for adolescents in these four countries especially for girls than the consequences of leaving school early for the likelihood of premarital sex. (authors)
Testing hypotheses without considering predictions

Dear Sir, In their recent essay, Poole and Penny defend the view that the ability to engulf bacteria and other food particles— phagocytosis—must have evolved in the eukaryotic lineage as an absolute prerequisite for the origin of mitochondria. That hypothesis, which one could call ‘‘phagotrophy first’’, is now almost 40 years old. By comparison, the scientific practice of evaluating hypotheses by the measure of how well their predictions fare is only about 70 years old. It turns out that all of the predictions that the phagotrophy first idea ever generated have failed. Now Poole and Penny argue that newcriteria, instead of predictions, should be used to evaluate the relative merits of hypotheses concerning eukaryote origin. A brief response would seem in order.
An Analytical Formula for VIX Futures and its Applications

In this study we present a closed-form, exact solution for the pricing of VIX futures in a stochastic volatility model with simultaneous jumps in both the asset price and volatility processes. The newly derived formula is then used to show that the well-known convexity correction approximations can sometimes lead to large errors. Utilizing the newly derived formula, we also conduct an empirical study, the results of which demonstrate that the Heston stochastic volatility model is a good candidate for the pricing of VIX futures. While incorporating jumps into the underlying price can further improve the pricing of VIX futures, adding jumps to the volatility process appears to contribute little improvement for pricing VIX futures.
The study of the impacts of potential coalitions on bidding strategies of GENCOs

The paper studies the impacts of potential coalitions on bidding strategies of GENCOs in a pool-based power market. The generator under consideration can form any potential coalition with other generators. Subgroups are then formed and each of these subgroups consists of some members which coordinate their bidding strategies to achieve a common goal. Noncooperative gaming applies among all the subgroups while cooperative gaming applies among the members in each subgroup. By implementation of bids sensitivities the paper presents an algorithm for the members in each coalition subgroup to obtain optimal bids, which essentially is based on interior point optimal power flow (IPOPF) model. A priority list, produced after optimal bids are found for all the potential combinations of coalition, is used by the generator under consideration to bargain with members on the list. The algorithm and model are tested by the IEEE 30-bus system and numerical results are presented.
The Role of Free Entry in an Oligopolistic Heckscher-Ohlin Model

Retaining the basic properties of the Heckscher-Ohlin trade model, namely, free entry and exit, fully integrated international commodity markets, and the same number of sectors with that of factors, the authors develop a two-country model with Cournot oligopoly. In this economy, factor price equalization and the standard Heckscher-Ohlin theorem on comparative advantage hold. Between two countries which are identical except for size, however, autarkic prices are different even though the level of trade is zero under the free-trade regime. Nevertheless, free trade reduces the oligopoly price and increases welfare. Copyright 1995 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.