Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Naturally Occurring Preferences and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A Case Study of Risk Aversion

Does individual behavior in a laboratory setting provide a reliable indicator of behavior in a naturally occurring setting? We consider this general methodological question in the context of eliciting risk attitudes. The controls that are typically employed in laboratory settings, such as the use of abstract lotteries, could lead subjects to employ behavioral rules that differ from the ones they employ in the field. Because it is field behavior that we are interested in understanding, those controls might be a confound in themselves if they result in differences in behavior. We find that the use of artificial monetary prizes provides a reliable measure of risk attitudes when the natural counterpart outcome has minimal uncertainty, but that it can provide an unreliable measure when the natural counterpart outcome has background risk. Behavior tended to be moderately risk averse when artificial monetary prizes were used or when there was minimal uncertainty in the natural nonmonetary outcome, but subjects drawn from the same population were much more risk averse when their attitudes were elicited using the natural nonmonetary outcome that had some background risk. These results are consistent with conventional expected utility theory for the effects of background risk on attitudes to risk.
Naïve T-Cell Depletion Related to Infection by X4 Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in Poor Immunological Responders to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

ABSTRACT The reasons for poor CD4+ T-cell recovery in some human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected subjects despite effective highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) remain unclear. We recently reported that CXCR4-using (X4) HIV-1 could be gradually selected in cellular reservoirs during sustained HAART. Because of the differential expression of HIV-1 coreceptors CCR5 and CXCR4 on distinct T-cell subsets, the residual replication of R5 and X4 viruses could have different impacts on T-cell homeostasis during immune reconstitution on HAART. We examined this hypothesis and the mechanisms of CD4+ T-cell restoration by comparing the virological and immunological features of 15 poor and 15 good immunological responders to HAART. We found a high frequency of X4 viruses in the poor immunological responders. But the levels of intrathymic proliferation of the two groups were similar regardless of whether they were infected by R5 or X4 virus. The frequency of recent thymic emigrants in the poor immunological responders was also similar to that found in the good immunological responders, despite their reduced numbers of naïve CD4+ T cells. Our data, rather, suggest that the naïve T-cell compartment is drained by a high rate of mature naïve cell loss in the periphery due to bystander apoptosis or activation-induced differentiation. X4 viruses could play a role in the depletion of naïve T cells in poor immunological responders to HAART by triggering persistent T-cell activation and bystander apoptosis via gp120-CXCR4 interactions.
The influence of financial participation and participation in decision-making on employee job attitudes

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of financial participation (FP) and participation in decision-making (PDM) on employee job attitudes. The central premise is that both financial participation and participation in decision-making have effects on job attitudes, such as integration, involvement and commitment, perceived pay equity, performance-reward contingencies, satisfaction and motivation. After reviewing the theoretical and empirical literature and testing two theoretical frameworks, developed by Long (1978a) and Florkowski (1989), a new model was constructed to consider a combined effects of both FP and PDM, herein referred to as employee participation (EP). The underpinning of the model is based on the assumption that both (a) the combination of financial participation and participation in decision-making (‘employee participation’), and (b) participation in decision-making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes. The test of the new model showed that employee participation does not produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes, than does participation in decision-making on its own. The data were gathered from a questionnaire study administered in a large British retail organization that operates two types of ownership schemes – profit-sharing and SAYE schemes.
Political Capital: Corporate Connections and Stock Investments in the U.S. Congress, 2004-2008

Recent research suggests that, public perceptions notwithstanding, members of Congress are rather mediocre investors. Why do the consummate political insiders fail to profit as investors? We consider various explanations that pertain to members' political relationships to public firms. We show that members of Congress invest disproportionately in local firms and campaign contributors, which suggests that overall underperformance cannot be explained by the absence of political considerations inmembers' portfolio decisions. These connected investments (and particularly local investments) generally outperform members' other investments, which suggests that poor performance is not explained by an excessive political skew in members' portfolios. It appears that members of Congress earn poor investing returns primarily because their non-connected investments perform poorly, perhaps due to the usual failings of individual investors; a combination of political and financial considerations may explain why they do not make more extensive use of their political advantages as investors.
Auditor-Provided Nonaudit Services and Audit Effectiveness and Efficiency: Evidence from Pre- and Post-SOX Audit Report Lags

SUMMARY: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) effectively bars an auditor from providing nonaudit services to an audit client based on the belief that the resulting economic bonding undermines the auditor's independence and quality of the audit (U.S. House of Representatives 2002). The accounting profession has strongly debated this view and counter-argues that auditor-provided nonaudit services benefit the client. We contribute to this debate by examining the effect of auditor-provided nonaudit services on the effectiveness and efficiency of the audit. We find that higher nonaudit service fees are associated with shorter audit report lags—a potential indicator of audit efficiency—prior to the passage of SOX, but such effects dissipate after SOX. We find that discretionary accruals and financial restatements—potential indicators of audit effectiveness—do not increase when shorter audit lags occur in conjunction with high nonaudit service fees. We also find that the firms with the highest levels of nonaud.
Latent Origins of Liberalism-Conservatism and Party Identification: A Research Note

The accepted explanation for the origin of political party identification is that it derives from socialization in the childhood home and from socio-economic-status position in society. Campbell et. al. show, for example, that approximately 75% of the national electorate have the same party identification as their parents (when both parents identified with the same party). The identification was stronger and the correlation was higher in homes where one or both parents were politically active than in homes where neither parent was active. ' The tendency for low SES persons in the United States to lean Democratic and for high SES persons to lean Republican is too well known to need documentation here. The same SRC data also show that about 25% of the electorate grew up in homes where the parents displayed no consistent partisanship. Yet, nearly 70%o of these persons had also developed a party identification, although the identification generally was weaker and there were more independents in this group than among those growing up in homes where parental identification was clear cut.2 How do children growing up in homes where they do not get consistent socialization toward one party develop a party identification of their own? Conformity pressures within a status role may account for some of these cases. Rational ideological thinking may bring a few others into identification with a party.3 But, do these factors account for all of the variance in party identification? The writer happened upon some evidence suggesting that at least one additional factor might be included in an explanation for the origins of party identification.
The Continued Impact of Black Consciousness in South Africa

The idea of Black Consciousness heralded an era of alternative political awareness in the late 1960s. A self-empowering, vibrant, reconstructionist world-view emphasised the potential rôle of black initiatives and responsibility in articulating the power of the powerless. Between 1968–76, the Black Consciousness Movement (B.C.M.), as it became known, was one of the most important developments in South Africa, not only as the result of the self-confident protest and rebellion that it unleashed, but also ‘because of the questions it posed about the nature of oppositional politics in South Africa and its relation to the nature of South African society’. 1
Exploring the governance of Polish public higher education: balancing restored historical legacies with Europeanization and market pressures

This article places developments in Polish public higher education (HE) in the broader context of the literature on HE governance and, in particular, marketization. The Polish case stands out due to the parallel existence of prestigious large universities with long histories of scientific advancement and the largest number of private HE institutions in Europe. Since 1989 Poland has undergone a process of extreme massification, with student numbers having exponentially multiplied. The analysis aims to offer theoretical explanations based on historical institutionalism and organizational isomorphism for the differential development of Polish public and private HE. The author argues that Polish public HE has been characterized by fragmentary state-driven attempts to inject more competition into the system and altogether relative policy inertia – despite an internal and external environment which is highly conducive to policy change and in particular marketization. The author presents a series of empirical indicators to assess the degree of marketization and/or attachment to the historical governance model, which was reinstated in 1990.
CONSUMING THE CAMPESINO: Fair trade marketing between recognition and romantic commodification

This paper aims to reconstruct the everyday moral plausibility of fair trade consumerism by linking it back to an analysis of the moral grammar of capitalist consumer culture and understanding it as both an actualization and development of this moral grammar. Fair trade movements re-moralize global markets by insisting on a just price for Third-World produce. The paradigm for fair exchange is the equitability implied in ordinary practices of commodity exchange while such equitability is constantly negated by the fact of capitalist accumulation. Fair trade is also an attempt to tap into the recognition function of market exchange in order to move away from charity and its paternalistic implications. As this proves not entirely possible on a voluntary basis, the price gap between conventionally traded and fair trade products needs to be justified by non-altruistic motives such as increased material and symbolic use values. These include romanticized images of commodified agricultural and artisanal producers.
E-BUSINESS ADOPTION RESEARCH: STATE OF THE ART

Adoption has been identified as a critical, growing, distinct topic in e-business research. Hundreds of articles on the topic of e-business adoption have been published annually since 2000. What are the primary and new messages that they convey? Going forward, an answer to this question is necessary and valuable to facilitate systematic advances in e-business adoption research. Several review studies of the e-business field have appeared since 2000, but they tend to examine the e-business field as a whole, or only certain slices of the e-business-adoption space. This study undertakes a full examination of the e-business-adoption area, focusing on 618 journal articles that deal with e-business adoption. These are coded and analyzed along multiple dimensions, including journal distribution, units of analysis, data source regions (geographic focus and economic focus), research method, and research theme. Additionally, by comparing our results with those of prior studies, new trends in e-business-adoption research are detected; by linking the five dimensions, practical implications for e-business adoption researchers are also provided. Overall, the paper contributes to a state-of-the-art appreciation of e-business adoption research, from which both practitioners and researchers can benefit.
Some Plasma Pharmacokinetic Parameters of Isoniazid in the Presence of a Fluoroquinolone Antibacterial Agent

The effects of ciprofloxacin (CP), a fluoroquinolone antibacterial agent, on the extent of absorption of isoniazid (INH) and on some of its pharmacokinetic parameters were investigated in six healthy female volunteers between the ages of 23 and 32 years. The presence of CP led to increase in the amount of INH and to a slight reduction in its peak plasma concentration (C max ). There was a 1-hour increase in the time to attain C max (t max ) of INH, indicating absorption interaction between the two drugs. This absorption interaction was related to inhibition of cholinergic neurotransmission caused by CP, which is capable of inhibiting gastric motility, leading to a delay in gastric emptying. The rate of elimination (K) and plasma half-life (t 1/2 ) of INH were not significantly affected (P = 0.05). The extent of absorption interaction that may have occurred (based on values of 24-hour values for area under the concentration curve, C max, T max, K, and t 1/2 ) was considered to be of no therapeutic consequence, and the coadministration of the two drugs may be recommended in clinical practice.
University Efficiency: A Comparison and Consolidation of Results from Stochastic and Non‐stochastic Methods

Abstract Efficiency scores are determined for Canadian universities using both data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier methods for selected specifications. The outcomes are compared. There is considerable divergence in the efficiency scores and their rankings among methods and specifications. An analysis of rankings, however, reveals that the relative positions of individual universities across sets of several efficiency rankings (e.g., all the data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier outcomes) demonstrate an underlying consistency. High‐efficiency and low‐efficiency groups are evidenced but the rank for most universities is not significantly different from that of many others. The results emphasize the need for caution when employing efficiency scores for management and policy purposes, and they recommend looking for confirmation across viable alternatives.
Why Do Large Firms' Prices Anticipate Earnings Earlier than Small Firms' Prices?

This paper presents evidence that the positive association between firm size and price leads of earnings is not solely a function of private search incentives for firm-specific information. Specifically, we find that small-firm prices also lag large-firm prices with respect to industry-wide information. Our empirical analysis extends Collins, Kothari, and Rayburn (1987) and Freeman (1987), who document that security-price leads of earnings are positively associated with market capitalization. In particular, we examine the association between firm size and the timing of security returns for two components of annual earnings changes: the average change for a firm? s industry and the firm? s idiosyncratic change. We find that large firms? prices have a longer lead than small firms? prices with respect to both components. Large firms? early lead on industry-wide earnings suggests that returns of large firms predict returns of same-industry small firms. To test this implication, we construct a portfolio of long (short) positions in small firms when the prior month? s returns of large firms in their industry are above (below) average for large firms in other industries. This zero investment portfolio earns 4.5 percent over 12 months.
Labour Supply after Childbirth: Do Employers' Policies Make a Difference?

Data from a national survey of new mothers are linked to data from a survey of their pre-birth employers in order to investigate the importance of employer characteristics and policies, relative to women's individual characteristics and circumstances, in determining labour supply outcomes after childbirth. Three labour supply outcomes are examined: returning to work after childbirth, hours of work after returning to work, and choice of employer after the birth. Over the period of time between the birth and whether the mother returned to work (8-9 months), it appeared that women's own characteristics, and the local rate of female unemployment, exerted a stronger influence on drawing women back into employment than did employers' policies. However, employers' retention policies appeared to give women the choice of remaining out of the labour market for longer periods, without risking the penalties usually associated with changing jobs after childbirth. The study finds no evidence to support a suggestion derived from labour market segmentation theory that there will be a distinct patterning in terms of industry or size of the relationship between employers' policies and women's labour supply decisions after childbirth. However, further support is given to the importance of employers' policies in relation to the segmentation of the labour supply.4
Worldwide trends in the surgical treatment of primary hyperparathyroidism in the era of minimally invasive parathyroidectomy.

HYPOTHESIS Minimally invasive surgery for primary hyperparathyroidism has become an accepted part of endocrine surgical practice worldwide. DESIGN Survey of members of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons. SETTING Clinical practice of endocrine surgeons worldwide. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Numbers of parathyroid procedures performed, types of minimally invasive procedures undertaken, and techniques used to ensure completeness of removal of hyperfunctioning parathyroid tissue as reported by the survey respondents. RESULTS Of 160 surveys completed, 95 (59%) indicate that the surgeons currently perform minimally invasive parathyroidectomy and use this technique on average for 44% of patients with primary hyperparathyroidism. The most common approach is the focused technique with a small incision, either central or lateral (92% [87 respondents]), followed by a video-assisted technique (22% [21 respondents]), and a true endoscopic technique with gas insufflation (12% [11 respondents]). Techniques used to ensure completeness of resection include the quick intraoperative intact parathyroid hormone assay (68% [65 respondents]), a same-day intact parathyroid hormone assay (17% [16 respondents]), and the nuclear probe (14% [13 respondents]). The number of parathyroidectomies performed worldwide increased from 1727 in 1980 to 6977 in 2000 with the average number per surgeon increasing from 23 in 1980 to 45 in 2000. Geographically, 20 (59%) of 34 surveys from the Americas report the use of minimally invasive parathyroidectomy, 23 (56%) of 41 from the Australasian region, and 34 (49%) of 69 from Europe or the Middle East. CONCLUSIONS The number of parathyroidectomies performed for primary hyperparathyroidism has increased worldwide over the past 20 years. More than half of the surgeons responding to the survey perform minimally invasive parathyroidectomy, with the most using the focused small-incision technique.
Cognitive avoidance of threat cues: association with Eating Disorder Inventory scores among a non-eating-disordered population.

OBJECTIVE This two-part study investigated the cognitive processing of food- and threat-related information in a non-eating-disordered population, particularly exploring the mechanisms that might explain the process of cognitive avoidance among women with bulimic attitudes. METHOD In the first study, 30 female students solved anagrams of neutral, food, and threat words. In the second study, 50 male and female students solved anagrams of words reflecting physical threat, self-directed ego threat, and ego threat directed from others. RESULTS In this task, there was no association between slower processing of threats and eating characteristics, but there were associations with Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI) scales that reflect "ego development. " DISCUSSION The most reliable evidence of cognitive avoidance was among those participants who show the ego development characteristics that have been identified as important in the development and etiology of eating psychopathology. The implications for models of eating psychopathology and their treatment are discussed.
Macroeconomic Forecasting Performance under Alternative Specifications of Time-Varying Volatility

Summary This paper compares alternative models of time-varying volatility on the basis of the accuracy of real-time point and density forecasts of key macroeconomic time series for the USA. We consider Bayesian autoregressive and vector autoregressive models that incorporate some form of time-varying volatility, precisely random walk stochastic volatility, stochastic volatility following a stationary AR process, stochastic volatility coupled with fat tails, GARCH and mixture of innovation models. The results show that the AR and VAR specifications with conventional stochastic volatility dominate other volatility specifications, in terms of point forecasting to some degree and density forecasting to a greater degree. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Multivariate test of Sharpe–Lintner CAPM with time-varying beta

This study considers two important features of most time series analysis, i.e. nonlinearity and time-varying risk, to test the validity of Sharpe–Lintner Capital asset pricing model (CAPM). By using data on BM- and size-sorted quintile portfolios, this study resolves the problem of error-in-variables by estimating the firm-specific betas, of which the Kalman filter and the betas obtained from based-sectional analysis are used. From pooled data, this study finds time variance in the systematic risk for certain portfolios. Additionally, the proposed model rejects the Shape–Lintner CAPM. Firm BM(size) appears to be the reason for the rejection of CAPM and firm earnings in excess of predicted CAPM appear to increase(decrease) with bigger(smaller) BM(size).
All Politics are Still Local: The Iraq War and the 2006 Midterm Elections

Both scholars and pundits alike have attributed the Democrats' success in gaining control of the House and Senate in 2006 to their “nationalization” of the election and their success in connecting Republican candidates to both the war in Iraq and the highly unpopular George W. Bush presidency. The “election has been nationalized around two standards that could not be more unfavorable to the GOP: an unpopular war and an unpopular president” (Novak 2006). Many have gone so far as to say that the election results provide evidence that former House Speaker Tip O'Neil's famous aphorism, “all politics are local,” has been “swept aside” (Lambro 2006) and does not apply during wartime. “If one trend emerged this year when 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats were at stake, it was this: All politics are not local” (Israel 2006). We would like to thank Francisco I. Pedraza for his research assistance.