Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Berlin: Towards a Global City?

Since 1990, the debate on urban restructuring in the new German capital city Berlin has frequently raised the question of whether Berlin is developing towards a global city type of urban region. Many European metropoles would like to be classified as global cities in order to enhance their reputation in the framework of interurban competition. The vision of Berlin as an upcoming global city had become part of the urban government's programme of innovation and technology development by 1999. This article provides a critical assessment of the global city vision of Berlin. The paper concentrates on two important aspects of the global city's economy: supraregional economic control capacity and the concentration of high-level business services. The findings are based on an empirical analysis of Berlin's interregional capital links and of the urban economy's functional structure, comparing Berlin, Hamburg and Paris. The conclusion is that Berlin hardly has a chance of becoming a 'true' global city in terms of a strategic economic centre with internationally extending control capacities like London and Paris.
Small farms building global brands through social networks.

Small farms have the option of competing in the global market by pursuing a niche brand differentiation strategy. However, they usually face tight financial constraints when attempting to build a food brand that meets both the desires of a small segment of distant final consumers and the requirements of its international buyers. In this study, we explore how small farms can use social networks to start transacting with international buyers and to build global niche brands. Following a 'grounded theory' approach, we analyzed the evidence collected from 34 cases of small farms producing single-estate extra-virgin olive oil and other specialty food products in Italy. The analysis led to the following conclusions. First, small olive oil farmers can build brand associations and perceived brand quality, and ultimately brand equity, by developing social ties with third-party endorsers that are outside the product supply chain but have high status in the market. Second, to intentionally develop these social ties,.
Financial development and economic growth in South Korea: an application of smooth transition error correction analysis

This article investigates the influences of financial development on economic growth for South Korea. The analysis is performed using an error correction model and a nonlinear smooth transition error correction technique. Empirical results from the cointegration test reveal that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship among financial development and economic growth. We also demonstrate that the nonlinear specification is more appropriate than the linear model and confirm the presence of nonlinearity in the aggregate output. Furthermore, we find that the short-run effect of financial development on economic growth is unstable despite the positive long-term effect.
Mapping the Mind Gap: A Comparison of US and European Security Strategies

This article analyses the state of the transatlantic security relationship by comparing two recent key documents: the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the EU’s European Security Strategy (ESS). Deploying Robert Kagan’s caricature of differing strategic cultures between Europeans and Americans as an analytical foil, it assesses both documents with regard to how they define (i) realms of responsibility, (ii) threat assessments and (iii) tasks and instruments necessary to address these threats. Despite semantic overlaps and a sense of common commitment, the findings confirm divergent strategic thinking between European and US policymakers in all three areas. Although some of the differences run along well-known fault lines, the comparison reveals a mind gap that is significantly different from the one outlined by Kagan in one crucial aspect: it shows a US agenda guided by utopian thinking, and a European strategy that appears more realistic.
Gambling with Public Money: An Economic Analysis of National Sports Team Funding

Many governments across the world provide extensive funding to national sports teams and individual athletes in pursuit of success at international competitions such as the Olympic Games. One factor that motivates governments to fund national sports teams is the potential to exploit the elevation in nationalistic pride that attends international sporting success. Drawing on research in the psychology of sport, this article contends that politicians can access the ‘reflective glow’ of successful athletes for their political benefit. The statistical correlation between government funding and Olympic success is explored using the basic prisoners' dilemma to represent the decisions of two governments competing for sports success. While the analysis is simple, we argue that it sheds some light on recent examples and represents a first step in understanding this complex issue.
Substitutions in the capsids of poliovirus mutants selected in human neuroblastoma cells confer on the Mahoney type 1 strain a phenotype neurovirulent in mice

Poliovirus (PV) type 1 mutants selected in human neuroblastoma cells persistently infected (PVpi) with the wild-type Mahoney strain exhibited a mouse-neurovirulent phenotype. Four of the five substitutions present in the capsid proteins of a PVpi were demonstrated to extend the host range of the Mahoney strain to mice. These new mouse-neurovirulent determinants were located in the three-dimensional structure of the viral capsid; two of them (residues 142 of VP2 and 60 of VP3) were located in loops exposed at the surface of the protein shell, whereas the other two (residues 43 of VP1 and 62 of VP4) were located on the inside of the capsid. VP1 residue 43 and VP2 residue 142 substitutions were also selected in a PVpi derived from the attenuated Sabin strain. We suggest that the selective pressure of human neuroblastoma cell factor(s) involved in early steps of PV multiplication could be responsible for the arising of amino acid substitutions which confer adaptation to the mouse central nervous system to PV.
Alkylating Agent Melphalan Augments the Efficacy of Adoptive Immunotherapy Using Tumor-Specific CD4+ T Cells

In recent years, the immune-potentiating effects of some widely used chemotherapeutic agents have been increasingly appreciated. This provides a rationale for combining conventional chemotherapy with immunotherapy strategies to achieve durable therapeutic benefits. Previous studies have implicated the immunomodulatory effects of melphalan, an alkylating agent commonly used to treat multiple myeloma, but the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. In the present study, we investigated the impact of melphalan on endogenous immune cells as well as adoptively transferred tumor-specific CD4+ T cells in tumor-bearing mice. We showed that melphalan treatment resulted in a rapid burst of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines during the cellular recovery phase after melphalan-induced myelodepletion and leukodepletion. After melphalan treatment, tumor cells exhibited characteristics of immunogenic cell death, including membrane translocation of the endoplasmic reticulum–resident calreticulin and extracellular release of high-mobility group box 1. Additionally, there was enhanced tumor Ag uptake by dendritic cells in the tumor-draining lymph node. Consistent with these immunomodulatory effects, melphalan treatment of tumor-bearing mice led to the activation of the endogenous CD8+ T cells and, more importantly, effectively drove the clonal expansion and effector differentiation of adoptively transferred tumor-specific CD4+ T cells. Notably, the combination of melphalan and CD4+ T cell adoptive cell therapy was more efficacious than either treatment alone in prolonging the survival of mice with advanced B cell lymphomas or colorectal tumors. These findings provide mechanistic insights into melphalan’s immunostimulatory effects and demonstrate the therapeutic potential of combining melphalan with adoptive cell therapy utilizing antitumor CD4+ T cells.
Visual outcome after fireworks injuries.

BACKGROUND The epidemiology and prognosis of fireworks-related injuries treated at a tertiary eye care center in less developed nations remain unknown. METHODS We conducted a prospective observational study that enrolled all consecutive eyes with fireworks-related ocular injury visiting our trauma clinic during a 1-year period. Eyes were graded by ocular trauma classification and followed for 6 months at least. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at 6 months was considered the final visual outcome. Data were analyzed. RESULTS Twenty-five (96%) of a total of 26 patients enrolled during study period were male patients and 13 (50%) were younger than 15 years. The type of fireworks involved was a bottle rocket in 38.5%. Factors significantly associated with better final visual outcome were better BCVA at presentation (p = 0.041), absence of bottle rocket injury (p = 0.028), closed globe injury (p = 0.028), absence of relative afferent pupillary defect (p = 0.019), absence of intraocular foreign body (p = 0.026), and absence of endophthalmitis (p = 0.006). Besides poor visual outcome, bottle rocket injuries were more frequently associated with facial lacerations, intraocular foreign body, and endophthalmitis development. CONCLUSION Fireworks-related ocular injuries commonly affect young male subjects of northern India. Visual outcome is better in eyes having better initial BCVA or closed globe injury and if relative afferent pupillary defect, bottle rocket injury, intraocular foreign body, and endophthalmitis are absent.
Do Stock Prices and Volatility Jump? Reconciling Evidence from Spot and Option Prices

This paper examines the empirical performance of jump diffusion models of stock price dynamics from joint options and stock markets data. The paper introduces a model with discontinuous correlated jumps in stock prices and stock price volatility, and with state-dependent arrival intensity. We discuss how to perform likelihood-based inference based upon joint options/returns data and present estimates of risk premiums for jump and volatility risks. The paper finds that while complex jump specifications add little explanatory power in fitting options data, these models fare better in fitting options and returns data simultaneously. Copyright 2004 by The American Finance Association.
Families or Schools? Explaining the Convergence in White and Black Academic Performance

Differences in test scores of white and black students have narrowed substantially over time, falling by one‐half since 1970s. Some have speculated that this convergence is due to changes in family background or convergence in school quality. In this article we decompose the convergence in test scores into that portion due to changes in parental education, changes in school quality, and a narrowing of the within‐school gap in test scores. Only about 25% of the overall convergence is attributable to changing family and school characteristics. We find that nearly 75% of the convergence is attributable to changes within schools.
Culture as accent

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Causes of Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon

The worldwide concern with deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia is motivated not only by the irreversible loss of this natural wealth, but also by the perception that it is a destructive process in which the social and economic gains are smaller than the environmental losses. This perception also underlies the diagnosis, formulation and evaluation of public policies proposed by government and non-governmental organizations working in the region, including the World Bank. The present work suggests that a fuller understanding is necessary with regard to the motivations and identity of the agents responsible for deforestation, the evaluation of the social and economic benefits from the process and the resulting implications of public policies for the region. The objective of the report is to show that, in contrast to the 1970s and 1980s when occupation of Brazilian Amazonia was largely induced by government policies and subsidies, recent deforestation in significant parts of the region is basically caused by medium- and large-scale cattle ranching. Following a private rationale, the dynamics of the occupation process gradually became autonomous, as is suggested by the significant increase in deforestation in the 1990s despite the substantial reduction of subsidies and incentives by government. Among the causes of the transformation are technological and managerial changes and the adaptation of cattle ranching to the geo-ecological conditions of eastern Amazonia which allowed for productivity gains and cost reductions. The fact that cattle ranching is viable from the private perspective does not mean that the activity is socially desirable or environmentally sustainable. Private gain needs to be contrasted with the environmental (social) costs associated with cattle ranching and deforestation. From the social perspective, it is legitimate to argue that the private benefits from large-scale cattle ranching are largely exclusive, having contributed little to alleviate social and economic inequalities. The study notes, however, that decreases in the price of beef in national markets and increases in exports caused by the expansion of cattle ranching in Eastern Amazonia may imply social benefits that go beyond sectoral and regional boundaries.
Attitudinal and Behavioral Aspects of Loyalty in the Screen-Golf Industry

Although screen-golf ranks among the fastest-growing leisure and recreation trends in Korea over the past several decades, a clear explication about the formation of screen-golf participants’ loyalty remains lacking. Filling this gap, the present study attempted to provide an understating of the attitudinal and behavioral loyalty-development processes of screen-golfers by employing Oliver’s (1997) four-stage loyalty theory. Results from the confirmatory factor analysis verified adequateness in the measurement model. Findings from the structural equation modeling indicated that cognitive image induced affect, conative intention, and behavioral loyalty; affect was a significant direct predictor of conative intention and behavioral loyalty; behavioral loyalty was a function of conative intention; and affect and conative intention worked as mediators in the proposed theoretical framework. The results of the present study will help owners and managers of screen-golf cafés create efficient management/marketing strategies to improve their customers’ attitudinal and behavioral loyalty aspects.
Trustworthiness of digital government services: deriving a comprehensive theory through interpretive structural modelling

ABSTRACT Having its origin in public administration, trustworthiness is a significant concept in digital government research, influencing the relationships between citizens and governments. However, the interrelationships between the facets of trustworthiness are given inadequate attention. Therefore, the aim of this research was to develop a theory detailing the factors affecting citizens’ perceptions of e-government trustworthiness. A comprehensive review of public administration and information systems literature highlighted 20 pertinent variables. The interrelationships of these variables were identified and categorized according to their driving and dependence power by employing interpretive structural modelling. The proposed model was then drawn based on the level partitioning of variables and interrelationships of the variables determined using the final reachability matrix. The findings reveal that current conceptualizations of digital government trustworthiness take a too narrow view. The findings can help government policy makers with understanding the interrelated factors associated with trustworthiness in the context of digital government services and implement them in effective strategic planning.
Development of the “Highly Sensitive Dog” questionnaire to evaluate the personality dimension “Sensory Processing Sensitivity” in dogs

In humans, the personality dimension ‘sensory processing sensitivity (SPS)’, also referred to as “high sensitivity”, involves deeper processing of sensory information, which can be associated with physiological and behavioral overarousal. However, it has not been studied up to now whether this dimension also exists in other species. SPS can influence how people perceive the environment and how this affects them, thus a similar dimension in animals would be highly relevant with respect to animal welfare. We therefore explored whether SPS translates to dogs, one of the primary model species in personality research. A 32-item questionnaire to assess the “highly sensitive dog score” (HSD-s) was developed based on the “highly sensitive person” (HSP) questionnaire. A large-scale, international online survey was conducted, including the HSD questionnaire, as well as questions on fearfulness, neuroticism, “demographic” (e.g. dog sex, age, weight; age at adoption, etc.) and “human” factors (e.g. owner age, sex, profession, communication style, etc.), and the HSP questionnaire. Data were analyzed using linear mixed effect models with forward stepwise selection to test prediction of HSD-s by the above-mentioned factors, with country of residence and dog breed treated as random effects. A total of 3647 questionnaires were fully completed. HSD-, fearfulness, neuroticism and HSP-scores showed good internal consistencies, and HSD-s only moderately correlated with fearfulness and neuroticism scores, paralleling previous findings in humans. Intra- (N = 447) and inter-rater (N = 120) reliabilities were good. Demographic and human factors, including HSP score, explained only a small amount of the variance of HSD-s. A PCA analysis identified three subtraits of SPS, comparable to human findings. Overall, the measured personality dimension in dogs showed good internal consistency, partial independence from fearfulness and neuroticism, and good intra- and inter-rater reliability, indicating good construct validity of the HSD questionnaire. Human and demographic factors only marginally affected the HSD-s suggesting that, as hypothesized for human SPS, a genetic basis may underlie this dimension within the dog species.
The Effect of Private Interests on Regulated Retail and Wholesale Prices

This paper examines how regulators behave in markets when there is a tension between retail competition and cross subsidy. Using retail and wholesale prices from regional Bell operating company territories and price‐cost margins as a proxy for political influence, we find that private interests influence the structure of retail prices, especially favoring rural residential customers. Political influence also extends to wholesale access prices, although the magnitude of its effect is small. Federal high‐cost universal service payments to a state do not reduce prices in that state’s rural areas but instead lower urban business prices.
Organizational Task Environments and Performance: An Empirical Analysis

ABSTRACT Organizational theory and research suggests that organizational performance may be affected by environmental circumstances. However, the available evidence on this important issue for public organizations relies primarily on “objective” archival measures of the environment drawn from secondary data sources. Perceptual measures gauging managerial “subjective” views on the nature of the task environment are also likely to be important determinants of organizational outcomes. In this paper, a comprehensive model of the impact of “objective” and “subjective” task environments on the performance of local government service departments is formalized and tested. The results suggest that both objective and subjective environmental munificence are positively related to performance, and that objective and subjective environmental dynamism are negatively related to service achievements. In addition, objective task complexity is negatively related to performance. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Associative learning of pictures and words by low-functioning children with autism

This research investigates whether children with autism learn picture, word and object relations as associative pairs or whether they understand such relations as referential. In Experiment 1, children were taught a new word (e.g. `whisk') repeatedly paired with a novel picture. When given the picture and a previously unseen real whisk and asked to indicate a whisk, children with autism, unlike typically developing peers matched on receptive language, associated the word with the picture rather than the object. Subsequent experiments respectively confirmed that neither a bias for selecting pictures nor perseverative responding accounted for these results. Taken together, these results suggest that children with autism with cognitive difficulties are learning picture—word and picture—object relations via an associative mechanism and have difficulty understanding the symbolic nature of pictures.
An examination of the Oslo Stock Exchange options market

Market prices of stock option contracts in the Norwegian options market are subjected to empirical testing. Deviations from lower boundary conditions for the value of a call are documented. Frequent violations of the put - call parity indicate that calls tend to be relatively overpriced compared to puts. The reported profits are eliminated for a public customer after adjustment for transaction costs. Comparisons between call market prices and call prices estimated by the Black - Scholes option pricing model indicate that the model performs on average well for at- and in-the money options, but that out-of-the-money options, near maturity, are underpriced by the model.
Hidden psychiatric morbidity in a vocational programme for people with intellectual disability.

The aim of the present study was to assess the point-prevalence of psychiatric disorders according to DSM-III-R criteria and the hidden morbidity in individuals with intellectual disability working in a vocational setting. The present study was carried out in a vocational centre in Southern Spain which is considered to be a model for social integration. One hundred and thirty workers with intellectual disability were interviewed by two experienced clinicians using the Assessment and Information Rating Profile, DSM-III-R criteria, and the General Assessment of Functioning and Clinical Global Impression scales. The point-prevalence of psychiatric morbidity, hidden morbidity and treatment adequacy were estimated. Morbidity was hidden (i.e. not previously diagnosed) in 50% of psychiatric cases. Forty-two (32.3%) subjects had a psychiatric diagnosis with the following distribution: schizophrenia (17.7%), other psychotic disorders (9.23%), mood disorders (4.61%), adaptive disorders (2.31%), anxiety disorders (1.54%) and other psychiatric disorders (6.15%). Treatment was judged inadequate in 30% of subjects. The point-prevalence of psychiatric problems in a vocational setting in Spain was similar to that found in other environments. Hidden morbidity was similar to that found in primary care. The present study highlights the need for standardized instruments for psychiatric assessment in non-clinical settings as well as specific training in this area.