Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparing Incomes When Needs Differ: Equivalization for the Extra Costs of Disability in the U.K.

Equivalization of incomes for household composition is accepted practice when measuring poverty but other variations in needs are rarely acknowledged. This paper uses data from two U.K. household surveys to quantify the extra costs of living associated with disability. The extra costs of disability are derived by comparing the “standard of living” of households with and without disabled members at a given income, having controlled for other sources of variation. Logit and ordered logit regressions are used to estimate the relationship between a range of standard of living indicators, income, and disability. The extra costs of disability derived are substantial and rise with severity of disability. Unadjusted incomes significantly understate the problem of low income amongst disabled people, and thereby in the population as a whole.
Discrepancies in solutions between traditional and net present value formulations of finite horizon, discrete-time economic lot size problems

Studies that compare the Economic Order Quantity formula and similar models against their more correct net preset value (NPV) counterpart formulations have shown that the difference in discounted cost is relatively small, even in extreme cases. In this paper, we perform a similar comparison between traditional and NPV formulations of finite horizon, discrete-time economic lot sizing problems. Surprisingly, and in sharp contrast to earlier studies, we find that the traditional and NPV models can yield substantially different discounted costs and inventory policies. The results are extended to the currently emerging, similar models with pricing decisions.
Interest Groups and Governmental Institutions

In attempting to explain state support of public higher education, this study develops a theory-driven, comprehensive conceptualization of the state political system within a larger theoretical framework that consists of state economic and demographic factors and higher education system attributes. Furthermore, although the higher education policy and finance literature has largely ignored the impact of interest groups on state policy and state support of higher education, they play a central role in the model presented here. The inclusion of politics in the explanatory model results in a more robust and pragmatically useful model.
Cluster genesis : technology-based industrial development

This book examines the origins and emergence of technology-based industrial clusters - regional concentrations of related firms and organizations - in order to understand the forces that promoted economic development. Many places attempt to emulate the world’s most famous industrial cluster Silicon Valley, with its rich institutional landscape of engaged and leveraged research universities, high-flying local venture capitalists, world class supporting business and legal consultants, and rich collaborative networks. While mature clusters may look similar, what really matters is the process by which clusters come into existence. But there is little understanding of such processes, and little guidance provided on the role of policies in promoting cluster emergence. The book attempts to bridge this gap in the literature by focusing on the early origins of high-technology cluster in Europe, the United States, and China, and the ensuing policy implications. The book is organized around three main themes: Creation Myths Revisited, Considering the Development Cluster Context, and Crafting Cluster and Economic Development Policy. The empirical analyses suggest that clusters that grow rapidly as compared to the less successful ones are distinguished by vigorous entrepreneurial activity and the active building of institutions aided by the forces of agglomeration economies.
Added Value of Multiplanar Reformations to Axial Multi-Detector Row Computed Tomographic Images for the Differentiation of Macrocystic Pancreas Neoplasms: Receiver Operating Characteristic Analysis

Purpose: To retrospectively assess the added value of multiplanar reformations (MPR) to axial multi-detector row computed tomographic (MDCT) images in differentiating macrocystic pancreas neoplasms. Materials and Methods: Approval from the institutional review board was obtained. Two radiologists retrospectively reviewed axial CT images of 48 pathologically proven pancreas macrocystic neoplasms with and without MPRs. They were asked to determine the presence of pancreatic duct (PD) communication with the lesions and whether the lesion is an intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) or not on a 5-point confidence scale and to record the specific diagnoses and their confidence. Radiologists' performances for determining PD communication and lesion differentiation using axial CT with and without MPRs were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic analysis. To determine the accuracy of the specific diagnoses, Fisher exact and Mann-Whitney U tests were used. Interobserver agreement was also analyzed. Results: With the addition of MPRs, receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed a tendency toward improved determination of PD communication and better differentiation between IPMN and non-IPMN. However, a significant difference was found only in reviewer 2 for the determination of PD communication (P = 0.009). Diagnostic accuracy of specific diagnoses was also improved; however, the differences were not significant. Specific diagnoses were more confidently made with the addition of MPRs than with axial images alone, and a significant difference was seen for reviewer 2 (P < 0.001). Furthermore, substantial interobserver agreement was achieved with the addition of MPRs, whereas fair or substantial agreement was noted with axial images alone. Conclusions: The addition of MPRs to axial CT images may improve diagnostic performance and decrease interobserver variability of MDCT for the determination of PD communication with macrocystic pancreatic neoplasms and differentiation between IPMN and non-IPMN.
Reconceptualizing Curriculum for the PDS: University Faculty Negotiate Tensions in Collaborative Design of Methods Courses

Abstract Sharing the stories of four university faculty members, this article explores the experience of co-constructing teacher education methods curriculum with university- and school-based partners. This article's primary focus is the experience of the university faculty members as they negotiate the new territory of collaborative planning and delivery of teacher education curriculum with their school-based partners. They are reconceptualizing traditional methods course curriculum to match the needs of their specific PDS context. Individual portraits of the university faculty are described, and four themes are highlighted as integral to their collective story: Learning how to create a participative culture, Risk-taking and vulnerability, The threads that unite, and Tensions between theory and practice.
Influence of sex on the use of cardiac procedures in patients presenting to the emergency department. A prospective multicenter study.

BACKGROUND Reports about the use of cardiac procedures have produced conflicting results as to whether there is a sex bias in the use of thrombolytic therapy, cardiac catheterization, or revascularization procedures. The present study was undertaken with the hope of resolving some of these different findings by examining the use of these therapies in women and men who presented to the emergency department with symptoms suggestive of acute cardiac ischemia. METHODS AND RESULTS During 7 consecutive months in 1993, 10673 individuals > or = 30 years old who presented with chest pain or other symptoms suggestive of acute cardiac ischemia were enrolled in the Acute Cardiac Ischemia Time-Insensitive Predictive Instrument Clinical Trial at 10 hospitals in the East and Midwest. This study included 2542 patients (24% of all patients) who had confirmed acute myocardial infarction or angina pectoris. There were significant sex differences with respect to demographic and clinical characteristics and the use of cardiac procedures. Among patients with acute myocardial infarction, the use of thrombolytic therapy, cardiac catheterization, and revascularization procedures was similar in women and men after multivariate adjustment. However, in the group with angina pectoris, women were considerably less likely to undergo these procedures, even after adjustment for significant baseline covariates. CONCLUSIONS Women with angina pectoris were less likely to undergo cardiac catheterization or revascularization procedures, although unmeasured factors could in part explain the observed differences.
Factors influencing governance choice and human resource management within services franchising networks

Abstract This research provides a better understanding of the factors driving the choice of governance structures and human resource management (HRM) practices within services franchising arrangements. A qualitative multiple case study approach was favoured so as to obtain a clearer picture of the main issues and parameters. Nineteen franchisors using predominantly pure franchising, predominantly pure company-owned, plural, and predominantly multiple unit growth strategies were interviewed. Major contrasts have been identified, suggesting that system size, industry maturity and the nature of market demand impacts upon the choice of system governance structure. Generally, less mature and smaller networks rely upon predominantly single unit franchising strategies and less sophisticated HRM practices to foster local market innovation, build brand value and support rapid unit growth, while predominantly company owned strategies are favoured in environments of low competition and minimal demand uncertainty. In comparison, more mature systems use hybridised franchising forms and sophisticated HRM strategies to accommodate the competing demands of local market innovation, systemwide adaptation and system uniformity.
Taiwanese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada and Transnational Social Space

This article explores the migration of Taiwanese immigrant entrepreneurs to Canada and their transnationalism. Their presence in Canada is documented and described with statistical data on their demographic characteristics, human capital, and economic capital. An assessment of their transnationalism is provided by primary qualitative data gathered through in-depth interviews. Overall, the review of the literature on Taiwanese migration to various countries, and their transnationalism, indicates that research has primarily been conducted in Australia and the United States, while it remained understudied in Canada. The article makes a case for contextualizing Taiwanese entrepreneurial migration in terms of a global immigration marketplace and the specific business migration programmes in Australia, United States, and Canada. Further, the article argues for the appropriateness of conceptualizing these Taiwanese entrepreneurs as operating within the theoretical framework of transnational social space. The findings on transnational social space include the importance of transnational familial networks, transnational business circuits, and transmigration. Transnational familial networks constitute a form of “capital” as the dispersal is a “resource”. The transnational business circuits include three types: (1) Asian production-North American distribution; (2) retail chains; and (3) import-export, all spatially distributed with their multiple national sites. In selected areas of the presentation and discussion of the data the policy implications of the findings are explored. These include discussion of the implications of this transnationalism on Canadian policies such as immigration, multiculturalism, business development, international trade, economic development, and citizenship. There is clearly a lack of harmonization among migration policy and other social and economic policies in Canada. While Canadian multiculturalism policy facilitates transnationalism, Canadian citizenship policy is shown to conflict with and discourage transnational practices.
The Effects of Consumption of Bread Fortified With Soy Bean Flour on Metabolic Profile in Type 2 Diabetic Women: A Cross-over Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Background: Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world and has become a major threat for global health. Recent studies reported that the soy has beneficial effects in diabetic mellitus patients. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of soybean flour fortified bread consumption on metabolic profile in type 2 diabetic women. Methods: This randomized, cross-over, controlled clinical trial was carried out in 30 type 2 diabetic women. At first, a 2-week run-in period was applied. Then, participants were randomly assigned to either intervention or control groups. Participants in the intervention group were asked to replace 120 g of soybean flour fortified bread with the same amount of their usual bread intake or other cereal products for 6 weeks. After a 4 weeks washout period, participants were crossed over for another 6 weeks. Results: Mean (±standard deviation) age and body mass index of subjects was 45.7 ± 3.8 years and 29.5 ± 3.9 kg/m2, respectively. The results of our study showed no significant effects of soybean flour fortified bread on metabolic profile. We found a reduction in serum triglycerides (change difference: −3.7, P = 0.82), serum low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (change difference: −11.2, P = 0.50), insulin (change difference: −3.6, P = 0.7), and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (change differences: −0.57, P = 0.45) after 6 weeks but these changes were not statistically significant. No significant effects of soybean flour fortified bread on serum concentrations of fasting blood sugar, glycated hemoglobin, high-density lipoproteins and total cholesterol levels were found. Conclusions: Six weeks consumption of soybean flour fortified bread among diabetic patients had no significant effects on metabolic profile.
Serial and Free Recall in Children Can Be Improved by Training

Children were assigned to three groups given training on unfamiliar words—phoneme-awareness training, rhyme training, and vocabulary training—and an untrained control group. Before and after training, we assessed the children’s performance on serial- and free-recall tasks with these words, as well as their ability to define the words, manipulate phonemes in them, and generate rhymes for them. We found that phoneme-awareness training improved serial recall substantially and improved free recall to a lesser extent. In contrast, vocabulary training produced a substantial increase in free recall and a lesser increase in serial recall. These effects on recall were specific and did not generalize to untrained words. Rhyme training produced increases in rhyming skills but no increase in either serial or free recall. We argue that serial and free recall depend on common memory mechanisms, but serial recall relies more on phonological codes and free recall relies more on semantic codes.
Selective Targeting in Environmentally Sensitive Areas: Implications for Farmers and the Environment

This paper examines socio-economic and environmental implications of targeting strategies adopted in one of the UK's Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs): Cambrian Mountains ESA, northern part. Larger farms with larger remnant habitats have benefited disproportionately from scheme participation and payments. This has created a two-tier system of farmers inside and outside the scheme within the designated ESA. Smaller wildlife habitats on farms at the margins of the ESA have been neglected by this selective targeting, which has placed greater emphasis on the conservation of large contiguous habitats in the centre of the area. Farmers of marginal ESA eligibility are disillusioned, as they are excluded both from ESA payments and potential participation in schemes outside the ESA area. Two alternative scenarios are suggested. First, ESA scheme prescriptions could be changed to allow farmers with only small or dispersed habitats to enter the scheme (e.g. very high payments for the first few hectares of a habitat entered). Second, the boundaries of the ESA could be redrawn to exclude the clusters of small non-participants. This would enable these farms to make full use of other schemes currently not available for farmers within ESAs (e.g. Tir Cymen or Countryside Stewardship Scheme).
Asparagine formation in soybean nodules.

(15)NH(4) (+) and [(15)N](amide)-glutamine externally supplied to detached nodules from soybean plants (cv. Tamanishiki) were incorporated within nodule tissues by vacuum infiltration and metabolized to various nitrogen compounds during 60 minutes of incubation time. In the case of (15)NH(4) (+) - feeding, the (15)N abundance ratio was highest in the amide nitrogen of glutamine, followed by glutamate and the amide nitrogen of asparagine. In (15)N content (micrograms excess (15)N), the amide nitrogen of asparagine was most highly enriched after 60 minutes. (15)NH(4) (+) was also appreciably assimilated into alanine.When [(15)N](amide)-glutamine was fed to detached nodules, (15)N was almost entirely in the amide nitrogen of asparagine. The result indicates the presence of active glutamine-linked asparagine synthesizing systems in soybean root nodules.
Financial Literacy, Risk Aversion and Choice of Mortgage Type by Households

This paper analyzes how financial literacy and reported willingness to take financial risk impact a household’s choice of mortgage type. The results show that households reporting higher financial literacy and lower risk aversion are 55 to 97 % more likely to opt for interest-only mortgages. The results are robust to alternative explanations such as the involvement of financial advisors, the effect of peers, experience with prior home-ownership, and house price expectations. In general, alternative mortgage products, as opposed to traditional mortgages, are chosen by wealthier, older, and/or more sophisticated households that are more likely to have a greater understanding of the risks and benefits associated with these products.
New Tech High Schools: Results of the National Survey of Project Based Learning and High School Reform conducted by the Buck Institute for Education.

In the fall of 2007, the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) conducted a national survey of high school reform and project based learning (PBL). The study included teachers from several major high school reform networks that emphasize PBL as an instructional approach: New Tech High, High Tech High, Edvision Schools, and Envision Schools. It also included a variety of other small high school reform sites and comprehensive high schools that were not formally associated with a particular reform model. These were sites where BIE conducted professional development workshops or that purchased copies of BIE’s PBL Handbook.
Competitive Balance in the Aftermath of the 1994 Players’ Strike

A new interseasonal measure of competitive balance in a sports league is presented. It is based on a Markov model of a team’s probability of qualifying for postseason play given the performance of the team in the previous season. Transitional probabilities are estimated for Major League Baseball teams before and after the 1994 players’ strike. The results indicate that there has been a significant deterioration in competitive balance for the seasons following the strike. Probability density functions for the prestrike and poststrike eras are also presented.
Cysteine-rich 61, a member of the CCN family, as a factor involved in the pathogenesis of proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

PURPOSE Cysteine-rich 61 (Cyr61/CCN1) is reported to mediate angiogenesis. In this study, its role in ocular angiogenesis and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) was investigated. METHODS The effects of Cyr61 were evaluated by determining proliferation and chemotaxis and in an assay of capillary tube formation in synthetic matrix by chorioretinal endothelial cells (RF/6A). In the same cells, Cyr61 expression under hypoxic conditions was then investigated. Interactions between Cyr61 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were examined using endothelial cell chemotaxis, tube-formation assay, and cross-stimulation assay. A mouse model of oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) and a rat model of streptozocin-induced diabetes were used to evaluate Cyr61 expression in the retina. Cyr61 levels were also measured and chemotactic effects were evaluated in vitreous samples from patients with PDR. RESULTS Cyr61 significantly induced proliferation, migration, and synthetic matrix tube formation of RF/6A cells. Hypoxia significantly induced Cyr61 mRNA and protein expression. Cyr61 induced expression of VEGF and vice versa. Anti-Cyr61 or anti-VEGF could inhibit the effects of both Cyr61 and VEGF. Intravitreal injection of anti-Cyr61 antibody significantly inhibited retinal neovascularization in the mouse OIR model. Cyr61 mRNA and protein were significantly expressed in the retina of streptozocin-induced diabetic rats. Vitreous levels of Cyr61 were elevated in patients with PDR when compared with nondiabetic patients. CONCLUSIONS Cyr61 acts as an angiogenic mediator of ocular neovascularization in vitro and in vivo. It may interact with VEGF in a synergetic manner. Vitreous levels of Cyr61 are elevated in PDR, and it may play an important role in the disease's pathogenesis.
CORPORATE FORECASTS OF EARNINGS PER SHARE AND STOCK-PRICE BEHAVIOR - EMPIRICAL TESTS

The disclosure of corporate forecasts of projected annual earnings was a topic of intensive debate within the investment community during the years 1970-75. Questions of accuracy, objectivity, independent certification, and investment utility were examined from a number of theoretic and pragmatic viewpoints. ' Most of these inquiries appear to assume that an investor's beliefs and/or actions may be affected by the disclosure of a management forecast, and several explore the possible rewards and sanctions that a firm may experience as a result of forecast accuracy. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesized information content of management forecasts through the examination of the common stock price behavior which accompanied the voluntary disclosure of 336 forecasts of annual earnings per share during the years 1963-67. The results reported here indicate that these forecast disclosures were accompanied by significant price adjustments, from which the inference may be drawn that either the data presented in a management forecast, the act of voluntary disclosure, or both, convey information to investors.
Surgical Outcomes of Pulmonary Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma: A Review of 23 Cases

Abstract Background The aim of the present study was to evaluate the oncologic characteristics of pulmonary mucoepidermoid carcinoma (PMEC) and the efficacy of surgical resections. Materials and Methods The surgery for PMEC was performed in 23 patients at Asan Medical Center from January 2000 to December 2010. They accounted for 0.8% of all surgically resected pulmonary neoplasm in the center. The medical records of these patients were reviewed retrospectively. Results This study group was composed of 13 males (56.5%) and 10 females (43.5%). Median age was 41 years (range, 10 to 75 years). Complete resection with systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection was performed in all patients. There were three postoperative complications: atelectasis in one patient and chylothorax in two patients. There was no postoperative mortality. The median follow-up duration was 68 months (range, 13 to 115 months). In one patient, recurrent disease was found 73 months after surgery. All patients were followed without mortality until the end of this study. The 5- and 8-year disease-free survival rates were 100 and 90.9%, respectively. Conclusion Complete surgical resection with systematic lymph node dissection is an effective treatment for patients with PMEC and provides favorable prognosis.