Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human resource function strategic role and trade unions: exploring their impact on human resource management practices in Uruguayan firms

Organizations worldwide are confronted with different contextual constraints. Jackson and Schuler [1995, ‘Understanding Human Resource Management in the Context of Organizations and their Environments,' Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 237–264], in their classical review, highlight the importance of the impact of the internal and external organizational context on human resource management (HRM) practices. This paper uses data collected through a survey of firms located in Uruguay, in a context where HR function and trade unions have gone through significant changes, to determine their impact on the adoption of different HRM practices. The authors find that organizations with an HR function strategically involved and with higher degree of union presence have more person-centred HRM practices, while performance-centred HRM practices were positively influenced by HR function strategic role. However, the findings do not support the moderating role of trade union presence on the relationship between the HR function strategic role and HRM practices.
Caffeine and accumbens shell dopamine

It has been reported that caffeine (1.5–30 mg/kg i.p.) as well as specific A1 (DPCPX, 8‐cyclopentyl‐1,3‐dipropylxanthine) receptor antagonists fail to increase extracellular dopamine (DA) in the shell of the nucleus accumbens (NAc). However, it has also been reported that caffeine (10 and 30 mg/kg i.p.) and the A1 antagonist 8‐cyclopentyl‐1,3‐dimethylxanthine (CPT) increases NAc shell DA. To clarify this issue rats were implanted with microdialysis probes at different sites in the NAc shell, in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFCX, infralimbic cortex), and at the border between those areas. Irrespective of probe placement within the NAc shell and of the use of different surgical anesthetics (chloral hydrate and ketamine), we failed to observe changes in dialysate DA after 10 and 30 mg/kg i.p. of caffeine. Similarly negative results were obtained with DPCPX and CPFPX, two potent and selective A1 receptor antagonists. A significant increase of DA was obtained after caffeine when probes were located at the border between the NAc shell and the PFCX (10 and 30 mg/kg) or in the PFCX (10 mg/kg). In view of this and of our previous report that caffeine increases dialysate DA in the medial PFCX, we conclude that the increase in dialysate DA by caffeine observed by others arises from the medial PFCX rather than from the NAc shell as a result of placement of microdialysis probes at the border between the NAc shell and the PFCX.
MANAGERIAL GUANXI TIES, KNOWLEDGE CREATION, AND FIRM INNOVATION: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA.

This paper proposes and examines an indirect link between managerial guanxi ties and firm innovation. Empirical results show that knowledge creation processes (knowledge exchange and knowledge combination) fully mediate the relationship between managerial guanxi ties (business ties and political ties) and firm innovation (product innovation and process innovation). While business ties and political ties exert different impacts on knowledge creation processes and firm innovation, knowledge exchange and knowledge combination vary in their effects on product innovation and process innovation.
Gender‐specific transcriptomic response to environmental exposure in flemish adults

Flanders, Belgium, is one of the most densely populated areas in Europe. The Flemish Environment and Health Survey (2002–2006) aimed at determining exposure to pollutants of neonates, adolescents, and older adults and to assess associated biological and health effects. This study investigated genome wide gene expression changes associated with a range of environmental pollutants, including cadmium, lead, PCBs, dioxin, hexachlorobenzene, p,p'‐DDE, benzene, and PAHs. Gene expression levels were measured in peripheral blood cells of 20 adults with relatively high and 20 adults with relatively low combined internal exposure levels, all non‐smokers aged 50–65. Pearson correlation was used to analyze associations between pollutants and gene expression levels, separately for both genders. Pollutant‐ and gender‐specific correlation analysis results were obtained. For organochlorine pollutants, analysis within genders revealed that genes were predominantly regulated in opposite directions in males and females. Significantly modulated pathways were found to be associated with each of the exposure biomarkers measured. Pathways and/or genes related to estrogen and STAT5 signaling were correlated to organochlorine exposures in both genders. Our work demonstrates that gene expression in peripheral blood is influenced by environmental pollutants. In particular, gender‐specific changes are associated with organochlorine pollutants, including gender‐specific modulation of endocrine related pathways and genes. These pathways and genes have previously been linked to endocrine disruption related disorders, which in turn have been associated with organochlorine exposure. Based on our results, we recommend that males and females be considered separately when analyzing gene expression changes associated with exposures that may include chemicals with endocrine disrupting properties. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 54:574‐588, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Theory of the Firm with Non-Binding Employment Contracts

The purpose of this paper is ti develop the theory of the firm to get better understanding of situations in which individual employees enjoy some bargaining power in their relations with the firm, and in which the terms of employment are determined and adjusted through individual contracting and recontracting with the firm. The main elements of the situations studied here are that the employees are not organized, that the employment contracts are nonbinding or at least not for very long, and that the firm has opportunities to replace employees. The paper develops analyzes a dynamic model in which the processes of contarcting and re-contracting between the firm and its employees are intertwined with the dynamic evolution of the firm's workforce. The analysis of the model is somewhat complicated because the employmest level is a non-degenerate state variable that evolves over time and is affected by past decisions. The main analytical results characterize certain important equilibria: the profit maximizing, profit minimizing and stationary equilibria. The unique stationary equilibrium is markedly inefficient: it exhibits inefficient over-employment and the steady state wages coincide with the workers' reservation wage. It confirms earlier results derived by Stole and Zwiebel (1996a,b) in the contextof a static model and shows that they are very robust even when the firm has nearly frictionless hiring opportunities. In contrast, the profit maximizing equilibrium captures a very different pattern. The outcome is nearly efficient and the wage exhibits a mark-up over the reservation wage. The path of the wages exhibits an interesting behavior--it declines sharply when it reaches its steady state level
Classical Time-Varying FAVAR Models - Estimation, Forecasting and Structural Analysis

We propose a classical approach to estimate factor-augmented vector autoregressive (FAVAR) models with time variation in the factor loadings, in the factor dynamics, and in the variance-covariance matrix of innovations. When the time-varying FAVAR is estimated using a large quarterly dataset of US variables from 1972 to 2007, the results indicate some changes in the factor dynamics, and more marked variation in the factors' shock volatility and their loading parameters. Forecasts from the time-varying FAVAR are more accurate than those from a constant parameter FAVAR for most variables and horizons when computed in-sample, and for some variables in pseudo real time, mostly financial and credit variables. Finally, we use the time-varying FAVAR to assess how monetary transmission to the economy has changed. We find substantial time variation in the volatility of monetary policy shocks, and we observe that the reaction of GDP, the GDP deflator, inflation expectations and long-term interest rates to a same-sized monetary policy shock has decreased since the early-1980s.
Trajectory Linearization Control for a quadrotor helicopter

The trajectory tracking problem of a quadrotor helicopters is investigated with Trajectory Linearization Control (TLC) method in this paper. Due to symmetrical structure of the quadrotor helicopters, gyroscopic effects can be neglected in its dynamical model and the model can be divided to four subsystems: position kinematics, position dynamics, attitude kinematics and attitude dynamics. TLC method is applied to design the controller for each of these subsystems such that the difficulty of finding an inverse system for complex quadrotor dynamical model can be avoided. In simulation study, the gyroscopic effects are included in quadrotor model to verify robustness of the proposed controller. Simulation results demonstrate effectiveness of the trajectory tracking controller designed based on TLC method.
Real Effects of Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization: An Analysis of Competing Theories

This paper uses a unified analytical framework to assess, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the relevance of the different hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the real effects of exchange-rate-based stabilizations. The four major hypotheses analyzed are: (1) the supply-side effects associated with an inflation decline; (2) the perception that the exchange-rate peg is temporary; (3) the fiscal adjustments that tend to accompany the peg; and (4) the existence of nominal rigidities in wages or prices.
Raising Standards for Tomorrow's Principals: Negotiating State Requirements, Faculty Interests, District Needs, and Best Practices

Many states are mandating reforms in university-sponsored principal preparation programs, but faculty and school system personnel often have concerns about the prescriptive nature of state mandates related to these reforms. Auburn University served as one of four pilot principal preparation program redesigns in Alabama, a process that took over two years. Redesign efforts involved negotiating state requirements, faculty needs and research interests, school district needs and interests, best practices, and common sense. The re-design was developed and is being implemented in partnership with seven school districts. In this article we interrogate the issues, challenges, and successes faced throughout one university's principal preparation program redesign process, offering reflections, insights, and lessons learned for others currently engaged or soon to be negotiating competing agendas for how they should prepare principals.
BRAC: Anatomy of a “poverty enterprise”

Management of the poverty alleviation process has created a new form of poverty enterprise. This enterprise provides povertyproduction-market linkages, and in the process, it combines three features: a nonprofit nongovernmental organization, a for-profit nongovernmental organization that has established an internal market, and a profit-making industrial and business concern. This article explains how BRAC (Building Resources Across Community) in Bangladesh has used poverty to transform itself from a tiny relief distribution organization into the world’s largest poverty enterprise. This enterprise is characterized by contradictions between its public claims and actual practices.
On the Private Provision of Two or More Public Goods

We extend the simple model of voluntary public good provision to allow for two or more public goods, and explore the new possibilities that arise in this setting. We show that, when there are many public goods, voluntary contribution equilibrium typically generates, not only too low a level of public good provision, but also the wrong mix of public goods. We also analyze the neutrality property in the more general setting, and extend a neutrality proposition of Bergstrom, Blume, and Varian (1986) . Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Business Acceleration and the Law of Demand: A Technical Factor in Economic Cycles

The publication of W. C. Mitchell's book, Business Cycles, has rendered obsolete all attempts to explain crises in terms of any one fact or any one narrow chain of causes and effects. The central problem, however, is as clearly defined throughout his remarkably comprehensive study of the details of the actual process as in more abstract treatments of single phases of it. It is the question why business adjustments do not stop at a point of equilibrium, but go on to a point from which a more or less violent reaction is inevitable, and so on without apparent end. And it seems probable that of all the many circumstances which at every stage of the cycle lead to the next stage, the greater part can hardly be held primarily responsible for this primary fact; certainly not all are responsible in equal measure. Disturbances originating outside the business world, so to speak, such as wars and crop fluctuations, can scarcely be held primarily responsible. Some such disturbances there are bound to be, and our system seems capable of manufacturing its crises out of any raw material that comes to hand, when the crisis is due, and of rising superior to serious provocation at other times. Some forces act to spread the effect of prosperity or adversity from one industry to another, thus insuring that a boom or sharp crisis will effect industry
An unruly coming of age: The benefits of discomfort for global mental health

Transcultural psychiatry has always had at its heart a critique, implicit or explicit, of mainstream psychiatry and other disciplines. From the early accounts of how differently mental disorder may manifest in different parts of the world, through struggles with how to define and understand so-called ‘‘culture-bound syndromes’’, the field has provided a critique of a universalizing, totalizing view of mental disorder in global context. Even struggles within the discipline, which can be caricatured as between those who take a more relativist view of mental disorder as against those who see cultural expressions of illness as different ways of expressing underlying universals, have been couched within a context of debate which sees something naı̈ve and even colonialist in the imposition of a ‘‘one size fits all’’ international diagnostic system for mental disorder. Indeed, included in the Aims and Scope for this journal, is specific mention of interest in ‘‘cultural critique of biomedical (‘Western’) psychiatric theory and practice’’. There have been many successes in the history of transcultural psychiatry. It is probably no longer possible (as it might once have been) to teach courses on psychiatry and mental health without referring to issues of cultural diversity. Not all of this success can be laid at the door of the disciplines which contribute to the field of transcultural psychiatry. Increased mobility throughout the world, hybridization of countries in the global north as a result of migration, globalization and the dramatic penetration of information and communication technologies into what were once considered remote parts of the globe have all played their part in making issues of transcultural psychiatry central to contemporary practice. Even the (often implicit but widely understood) canonical couple at the heart of much transcultural psychiatric enquiry, the white doctor and the ‘‘alien’’ black patient, is slowly being replaced, with many of the important clinicians within the field not Commentary
Checking the consistency of poverty in Poland: 1997–2003 evidence

This study investigates the relationships between various types of poverty in Poland. Monetary poverty is examined together with subjective poverty and with a concept of deprivation-based poverty conceived as lacking particular dwelling resources. The results reveal quite important discrepancies between these three types of poverty. Though income and expenditure poverty incidence generally decreased during the period investigated, the share of persons living in subjective poverty was higher in 2003 than in 1997, while deprivation substantially decreased. Moreover, quite large discrepancies at the individual level could be observed. Some conflicting results were also found between the correlates of poverty of the three types.
The Relative Importance of the European Languages

The European Union has introduced a “two foreign languages policy” with little solid knowledge of the consequences. I attempt in this paper to provide some facts for a serious discussion of language policy. In the first part of the paper, I look at the European languages on a world scale, employing the relevant measure GNP rather than the population measure usually preferred by linguists and politicians. The results are quite dramatic as English can be shown to be completely dominant. In the second part of the paper, I look at the relative importance of the European languages in Europe. In order to put the discussion on a firm footing I propose two indices from the linguistic literature, the Greenberg index of communication in a union and the Lieberson index of successful communication between countries. These indices are computed for Europe (25) using Eurobarometer data. In the third part, I look at the likely future linguistic development of Europe, and take a sceptical look at the “two foreign languages policy” as the costs of implementing such a policy for many persons in Europe would seem likely to exceed the benefits.
A NOTE ON THE ANALYTICAL SOLUTION TO THE NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODEL WITH LEISURE

In this note, we study the basic Ramsey models with labor–leisure choice. We first study the deterministic model and find that a closed-form solution exists and is represented by the Gauss hypergeometric functions. We next incorporate stochastic productivity shocks into the model. We prove that the analytical solution path still exists if the coefficient of relative risk aversion is equal to the capital share.
Consumer stakeholder view of corporate social responsibility: a comparative analysis from USA and India

Purpose - The objective of this research is to examine the perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) held by consumers in India and America in order to draw out similarities and differences in conceptualization and response. Design/methodology/approach - This paper uses a web-based questionnaire in English, given that it is most commonly used for professional communication in India. A qualitative analysis of participant responses to open-ended questions was conducted to generate results. Findings - There is a substantial portion of US consumers who are unaware of socially responsible companies compared with their Indian counterparts who failed to recognize the CSR initiatives of multinational companies. Qualitative analysis showed that, though there was some overlap in CSR domains between the two countries, each sample also identified domains that were unique. Finally, both country samples also showed a positive level of CSR responsiveness. Research limitations/implications - The paper used a web-based questionnaire that allowed the sample to comprise only consumers with internet access. Practical implications - This research informs multinational (MNC) managers about the parity in consumers' conceptualization of CSR and subsequent response. The study recommends that managers customize CSR programs in emerging markets to overlap with the target market's perception rather than assume a universal definition of the construct as defined in the literature. Originality/value - This exploratory research expands knowledge in the area of CSR where most of the investigation of consumer stakeholder response has been limited to the North American and European markets.
Capsinoids, Non-Pungent Capsaicin Analogs, Reduce Body Fat Accumulation without Weight Rebound unlike Dietary Restriction in Mice

Enhancing energy expenditure and reducing energy intake are both crucial for weight control. Capsinoids, which are non-pungent capsaicin analogs, are known to suppress body fat accumulation and reduce body weight by enhancing energy expenditure in both mice and humans. However, it is poorly understood whether the suppression of body fat accumulation by capsinoids has an advantage over dietary restriction. This study shows that the oxygen consumption was increased in mice administered with capsinoids but not in dietary-restricted mice, although there was a similar suppression of body fat accumulation in both groups. The weight rebound was more notable in the dietary-restricted mice than in the mice administered with capsinoids. These results indicate that suppressing body fat accumulation by capsinoids was more beneficial than a restricted diet for maintaining body weight.
Receptive fields of single cells and topography in mouse visual cortex

The visual cortex was studied in the mouse (C57 Black/6J strain) by recording from single units, and a topographic map of the visual field was constructed. Forty‐five percent of the neurons in striate cortex responded best to oriented line stimuli moving over their receptive fields; they were classified as simple (17%), complex (25%) and hypercomplex (3%). Of all preferred orientations horizontal was most common. Fifty‐five percent of receptive fields were cicularly symmetric: these were on‐center (25%), off‐center (7%) and homogeneous on‐off in type (23%). Optimal stimulus velocities were much higher than those reported in the cat, mostly varying between 20° and 300°/sec. The field of vision common to the two eyes projected to more than one‐third of the striate cortex. Although the contralateral eye provided the dominating influence on cells in this binocular area, more than two‐thirds of cells could also be driven through the ipsilateral eye. The topography of area 17 was similar to that found in other mammals: the upper visual field projected posteriorly, the most nasal part mapped onto the lateral border. Here the projection did not end at the vertical meridian passing through the animal's long axis, but proceeded for at least 10° into the ipsilateral hemifield of vision, so that at least 20° of visual field were represented in both hemispheres. The magnification in area 17 was rather uniform throughout the visual field. In an area latral to area 17 (18a) the fields were projected in condensed mirror image fashion with respect to the arrangement of area 17. Medial to area 17 a third visual area (area 18) was again related to 17 as a condensed mirror image.
S-Curve at the Commodity Level: Evidence from US-India Trade

The short-run response of the trade balance to changes in the terms of trade or the real exchange rate comes under the heading of the “J-Curve” or the “S-Curve. ” While the J-Curve is mostly investigated through regression analysis, the S-Curve is based on the cross-correlation function between the terms of trade and the trade balance. Previous research has shown that in a country where support for any of the two curves is weak, disaggregation of the trade data helps discover more evidence of either curve. This article adds to the literature by considering the experience of India. We demonstrate that once the trade data between India and the United States is disaggregated by commodity, there is evidence of the S-curve in most industries that trade between the two countries. Out of total of 27 industries that constitute about 70% of trade, there are 15 that support the S-Curve.