Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Population age structure and real exchange rates in the OECD

Macroeconomic theory predicts that variations in population cohort sizes will lead to demographically induced real exchange rate movements. While such effects have previously been established for individual countries, this paper exploits cross-sectional time series data to test the prediction for a larger number of economies. A reduced form model with population age shares as regressors is estimated using a panel of 25 OECD countries between 1971 and 2002. The results confirm that demographic structure has significant explanatory power for the real exchange rate and the estimated relationship supports age structure effects in accordance with the life cycle hypothesis.
Teaching “merchants’ accompts” in Britain during the early modern period

British-based studies of the education of aspiring accountants have confined attention to developments following the formation of professional bodies. This paper examines educational provision during the early modern period which broadly coincides with the rapid commercial expansion that occurred in mercantilist Britain 1550-1800. We reveal institutional and pedagogic innovations designed to meet the training requirements of aspirant accountants and bookkeepers. We also show how the gendered male orientation of teaching institutions and instructional texts in accounting did not entirely exclude young women from acquiring desired knowledge of the accounting craft.
A Duopoly Location Toolkit: Consumer Densities Which Yield Unique Spatial Duopoly Equilibria

Anderson, Goeree and Ramer (1997) observe that although the Uniform consumer density is almost universally assumed in Hotelling style location games, it is more realistic to assume non-uniform distributions. Using Anderson et al.'s (1997) sufficient conditions for the existence of a unique pure strategy equilibrium, we extend the list of known distributions with characterised equilibria from two (Uniform and Triangular) to seven. Our extension includes the Normal and Logistic distributions which are commonly used in empirical research. We also analyse the effects of density choice on equilibrium outcomes. Holding the mean and dispersion of consumer tastes constant, we find that the Uniform distribution inflates differentiation effects.
Continuity and change in the southern European social model

Over the past 20 years or so, the southern European model has undergone substantial change in every way. The changes in industrial relations, wage-setting and employment protection legislation have tended to increase wage and labour flexibility and restrict labour market segmentation. Changes within the welfare state have sought to improve labour force skills, fill gaps in social protection, reduce inequalities in social security and contain social expenditure growth. Yet institutional change has not eliminated the main features of this model: pronounced labour market segmentation and familialism; however, extremely low fertility rates are indicative of the limits of familialism in the near future.
Turning on a Dime: The 75th Anniversary of America's March Against Polio

This past january, I had the privilege to give two lectures at the University of Cincinnati. On the 2nd day, an appointment with the erythrocyte physiology and molecular biology pioneer Jerry Lingrel had me walking into a smart, Frank Gehry-designed building, where I saw a display on Albert Sabin in the foyer. Sabin had spent many years at Cincinnati and is, needless to say, as revered there as he is and should be elsewhere. Later, I reflected that 2013, indeed January 3rd to be precise, was the 75th anniversary of something almost as extraordinary as the feat achieved by the good Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk.
Polymerase chain reaction for the detection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae in clinical samples.

AIMS: To evaluate the use of a cppB gene derived polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for direct detection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae in clinical samples. METHODS: A PCR assay was performed on 33 N gonorrhoeae strains and 12 other Neisseria species and other normal genital flora to evaluate the specificity of the chosen cppB primers. The assay was subsequently evaluated with 52 clinical swab samples collected from China. RESULTS: An amplified product of 390 base pairs (bp) was observed with all the N gonorrhoeae strains, each of these products on digestion with the restriction enzyme MspI produced two bands of 250 bp and 140 bp respectively. This set of primers did not produce any amplified product of the expected length with the other non-gonococcal strains tested. For the 52 clinical swabs, 34 were culture positive and PCR successfully detected all these positives. In addition the PCR was positive for two swabs which were culture negative but positive for N gonorrhoeae antigens when tested with the ELISA method (Gonozyme). CONCLUSIONS: This PCR assay is a promising diagnostic tool for detection of gonococci directly from clinical swab samples. Further evaluation is necessary.
CDK‐5‐Mediated Neurofilament Phosphorylation in SHSY5Y Human Neuroblastoma Cells

Abstract: Cyclin‐dependent kinase‐5 (CDK‐5) has been shown to play important roles in neuronal development and neurogenesis. In vitro studies indicate a role of CDK‐5 in phosphorylation of neurofilaments (NFs). In this study, we have chosen the human neuroblastoma cell line SHSY5Y as a model system to study the in vivo phosphorylation of NF proteins by CDK‐5. Upon differentiation of SHSY5Y cells with retinoic acid, we found that the phosphorylation of high molecular mass (NF‐H) and medium molecular mass (NF‐M) NFs increased, whereas the CDK‐5 protein level and kinase activity were unaffected. The role of CDK‐5 in the phosphorylation of cytoskeletal proteins was studied by using antisense oligonucleotides (ONs) to inhibit the expression of the CDK‐5 gene. We found that inhibition of CDK‐5 levels by antisense ON treatment resulted in a decrease in phosphorylation of NF‐H that correlated with a decline in neurite outgrowth. These results demonstrate that CDK‐5 is a major proline‐directed kinase phosphorylating the human NF‐H tail domain.
Are ethical investments good?

Our study considers whether ethical investments are also good investments. In contrast with previous studies, we utilize long-run event study methodology to examine abnormal returns associated with firms being included in, and dropped from, the MSCI KLD400 Social Index (MSCI KLD400). We find that there are positive and statistically significant long-run abnormal returns for firms being included in the MSCI KLD400. These abnormal returns are associated with higher shareholdings by institutional investors (who are subject to higher public scrutiny), higher analyst coverage and higher growth opportunities.
Choosing the Right Change Path

There are eight different change paths, or ways in which managers can intervene to effect change. Of these eight paths, seven have to do with reducing the forces of resistance inside the organization. Managers can choose the most appropriate path by answering a series of questions about the forces of change and resistance. A simple graphical tool called a change arena can be used to diagram these change paths.
Political Connections and Accounting Quality under High Expropriation Risk

Abstract We examine the impact of political connections and accounting quality among Venezuelan industrial firms, which face one of the highest levels of expropriation risk worldwide. Based on prior literature, we expect a negative relationship between expropriation risk and accounting quality as firms manage earnings to avoid ‘benign’ state intervention. We find that politically connected firms have higher accounting quality than non-connected firms, which is consistent with connected firms’ lower risk of expropriation due to connections with high-level government officials or ruling party members. The relationship between accounting quality and political connections appears to be strongly moderated by institutional features like expropriation risk.
INDUSTRIAL AGGLOMERATIONS: THE CASE OF THE SALMON INDUSTRY IN CHILE

Aquaculture experienced a significant global expansion at the end of the 20th century, becoming one of the fastest growing sectors of animal husbandry and production during that period. Chile's contribution to world expansion of salmon and trout production was notorious, given that in a short twenty five-year period it became one of the leading world producers. One prominent feature of salmon production in Chile is that the industry concentrated geographically in a limited area around Puerto Montt, in Region 10 of the country. Industry concentration cannot be exclusively explained in terms of natural advantages, and evidence is presented in favour of Venables's model (1996). A qualitative analysis of the evolution of the industry is presented to provide evidence of input-output linkages, economies of scale, competition and the progressive multiplication of inputs, applying two types of data sources: a review of the existing technical literature on the subject and in-depth interviews with 20 industry experts.
Informed Trading Around Merger and Acquisition Announcements: Evidence from the UK Equity and Options Market

This paper offers new evidence on informed trading around merger and acquisition announcements from the UK equity and options market. The analysis suggests that in about 25–33% of events there is abnormal option trading volume during the month that precedes the announcement. Such evidence is found in both call and put option volumes, is robust to different “estimation” and “event window” lengths, to different sub‐samples, and to liquidity considerations. These results support the argument that informed investors will transact in both the options and the stock market, and are comparable to results reported by the FSA in the cash market. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 31:703–726, 2011
The Long-Run Stock Returns Following Bond Ratings Changes

Using essentially all Moody's bond ratings changes between 1970 and 1997, we find no reliable abnormal returns following upgrades. However, we find negative abnormal returns on the magnitude of 10 to 14 percent in the first year following downgrades. Additional results reveal that this underperformance is especially pronounced for small, low-credit-quality firms. Also, downgrades underperform in nearly all years in the sample, and a large part of the abnormal returns occur at subsequent earnings announcements. Thus, the evidence suggests that the poor returns result from an underreaction to the announcement of downgrades, rather than from lower systematic risk. Copyright The American Finance Association 2001.
Dieting and the family context of eating in young adolescent children.

OBJECTIVES The potential for undernutrition and links with eating disorders make early dieting an issue of concern. The aim of this research was to examine the eating patterns, social circumstances of eating, and parental use of food in young adolescent dieters. METHODS Four hundred and two 12-year-old children (200 girls, 202 boys) completed assessments of dieting, eating patterns, food-related nurturance, and parental control of eating, together with body weight, height, and self-perception. RESULTS Current dieting (20% girls, 8% boys) was strongly associated with fasting and dietary restraint. Highly restrained children ate fewer meals and snacks and reported significantly greater parental control of their eating. However, they did not differ in the social context of eating or in food-related nurturance. Dieting status was a stronger determinant than body weight of all these differences. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that 12-year-old dieters are quite serious in their nutritional intentions. They also confirm an active role for parents in their children's dieting. Both children and their parents are in need of age and gender-specific advice concerning eating and weight.
Global HRM: aspects of a research agenda

Purpose – This paper introduces this special issue.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines some of the key themes in global human resource management.Findings – By reviewing, briefly, the existing literature in these areas, the paper outlines a limited but crucial research agenda and sets the papers in this special issue in context.Originality/value – This paper presents some new empirically‐based work on human resource development.
Multiple Mutations Modulate the Function of Dihydrofolate Reductase in Trimethoprim-ResistantStreptococcus pneumoniae

ABSTRACT Trimethoprim resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniaecan be conferred by a single amino acid substitution (I100-L) in dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), but resistant clinical isolates usually carry multiple DHFR mutations. DHFR genes from five trimethoprim-resistant isolates from the United Kingdom were compared to susceptible isolates and used to transform a susceptible control strain (CP1015). All trimethoprim-resistant isolates and transformants contained the I100-L mutation. The properties of DHFRs from transformants with different combinations of mutations were compared. In a transformant with only the I100-L mutation (R12/T2) and a D92-A mutation also found in the DHFRs of susceptible isolates, the enzyme was much more resistant to trimethoprim inhibition (50% inhibitory concentration [IC50], 4.2 μM) than was the DHFR from strain CP1015 (IC50, 0.09 μM). However,Km values indicated a lower affinity for the enzyme's natural substrates (Km for dihydrofolate [DHF], 3.1 μM for CP1015 and 27.5 μM for R12/T2) and a twofold decrease in the specificity constant. In transformants with additional mutations in the C-terminal portion of the enzyme, Kmvalues for DHF were reduced (9.2 to 15.2 μM), indicating compensation for the lower affinity generated by I100-L. Additional mutations in the N-terminal portion of the enzyme were associated with up to threefold-increased resistance to trimethoprim (IC50 of up to 13.7 μM). It is postulated that carriage of the mutation M53-I—which, like I100-L, corresponds to a trimethoprim binding site in the Escherichia coli DHFR—is responsible for this increase. This study demonstrates that although the I100-L mutation alone may give rise to trimethoprim resistance, additional mutations serve to enhance resistance and modulate the effects of existing mutations on the affinity of DHFR for its natural substrates.
A wage curve for Australia

This paper examines the wage curve in Australia. Regressions for weekly earnings are estimated on a pooled cross-section data set for 1982 to 1994/95. Using the preferred regression specification it is found that the elasticity of weekly earnings with respect to state-level rates of unemployment is -0.07 to -0.09. These findings are robust to a variety of modifications to the regression specification. A comparison of Australia, the US and UK is undertaken to examine how differences in wage-setting institutions between those countries might affect wage curve estimates.
Distribution and kinetics of SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 and CXCR6 expression on human dendritic cell subsets and CD4+ T cells

Dendritic cells (DCs) coordinate T cell responses by producing T cell‐attracting chemokines and by inducing the expression of chemokine receptors on T cells. Scavenger receptor for phosphatidylserine and oxidized lipoprotein (SR‐PSOX)/CXC chemokine ligand 16 (CXCL16) is a unique chemokine that also functions as an endocytic receptor and an adhesion molecule in its membrane‐bound form. SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 is the only known ligand of CXC chemokine receptor 6 (CXCR6) that is expressed on activated T cells and thus, may play an important role in enhancing effector functions of T cells. Here, we investigated the expression of SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 on human DC subsets and that of CXCR6 on T cell subpopulations to elucidate the dynamics of CXCL16/CXCR6 interaction in DC/T cell responses. Membrane‐bound SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 was expressed on macrophages, monocyte‐derived DCs, and blood myeloid DCs, and the expression increased after DC maturation. Myeloid antigen‐presenting cells constitutively secreted SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 for an extended period, suggesting the involvement of CXCL16 in peripheral and lymphoid tissues. Plasmacytoid DCs hardly expressed SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 on their surfaces but secreted significant amounts of SR‐PSOX/CXCL16. A subset of CD4+ effector memory T (TEM) cells constitutively expressed CXCR6, whereas central memory T cells (TCM) and naïve T cells did not. Upon stimulation with mature DCs, however, the expression of CXCR6 on TCM cells was markedly up‐regulated, whereas the expression on naïve T cells was induced only weakly. These results suggest that the interaction between SR‐PSOX/CXCL16 and CXCR6 plays an important role in enhancing TCM cell responses by mature DCs in lymphoid tissues and in augmenting TEM cell responses by macrophages in peripheral inflamed tissues.
Determinants of Corporate Dividend Policy in Jordan: An Application of the Tobit Model

This paper examines the determinants of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The study uses a firm-level panel data set of all publicly traded firms on the Amman Stock Exchange between 1989 and 2000. The study develops eight research hypotheses, which are used to represent the main theories of corporate dividends. A general-to-specific modeling approach is used to choose between the competing hypotheses. The study examines the determinants of the amount of dividends using Tobit specifications. The results suggest that the proportion of stocks held by insiders and state ownership significantly affect the amount of dividends paid. Size, age, and profitability of the firm seem to be determinant factors of corporate dividend policy in Jordan. The findings provide strong support for the agency costs hypothesis and are broadly consistent with the pecking order hypothesis. The results provide no support for the signaling hypothesis.
Sparse recovery from saturated measurements

A novel theory of sparse recovery is presented in order to bridge the standard compressive sensing framework and the one-bit compressive sensing framework. In the former setting, sparse vectors observed via few linear measurements can be reconstructed exactly. In the latter setting, the linear measurements are only available through their signs, so exact reconstruction of sparse vectors is replaced by estimation of their directions. In the hybrid setting introduced here, a linear measurement is conventionally acquired if is not too large in absolute value, but otherwise it is seen as saturated to plus-or-minus a given threshold. Intuition suggests that sparse vectors of small magnitude should be exactly recoverable, since saturation would not occur, and that sparse vectors of larger magnitude should be accessible though more than just their directions. The purpose of the article is to conﬁrm this intuition and to justify rigorously the following informal statement: measuring at random with Gaussian vectors and reconstructing via an (cid:96) 1 -minimization scheme, it is highly likely that all sparse vectors are faithfully estimated from their saturated measurements as long as the number of saturated measurements marginally exceeds the sparsity level. Faithful estimation means exact reconstruction in a small-magnitude regime and control of the relative reconstruction error in a larger-magnitude regime.
Functional Segregation of Movement-Related Rhythmic Activity in the Human Brain

Multiple synaptic interconnections in the human brain support concerted rhythmic activity of a large number of cortical neurons, typically close to 10 and 20 Hz. Our present neuromagnetic data provide evidence for distinct functional roles of these spectral components in the somatomotor cortex. The sites of suppression during movement and the subsequent rebound of the 20-Hz rhythm followed, along the motor cortex, the representation of fingers, toes, and mouth, as opposed to the stable origin of the 10-Hz rhythms close to the hand somatosensory cortex. The 20-Hz activity appears to be a signature of active immobilization following movement, whereas the reactive 10-Hz signals likely reflect lack of relevant sensory input from the important upper limbs.
Short Selling Around Restatement Announcements: When Do Bears Pounce?

This paper draws on two distinct literatures – one that investigates the impact of accounting restatements and another that investigates the trading behavior of short sellers – to further our understanding of how sophisticated investors process and respond to news about accounting corrections. We examine short-seller behavior in the days surrounding restatement announcements to determine when short sellers identify restatements and how they trade on restatement news. Our findings suggest that short sellers do not appear to anticipate restatement announcement dates, but we find that abnormal short selling is significantly higher than is typical when restatements are announced, especially for restatements announced transparently (i.e., in press releases or 8-Ks). Short sellers target small companies, whose information environments may be weaker, and companies making restatements that reduce previously reported income. In addition, we find that restating companies targeted most heavily by short sellers experience the most negative subsequent abnormal returns over horizons of up to 40 trading days following the restatement disclosure. Overall, our results suggest that short sellers respond to, but do not anticipate, restatement announcements and trade as if they understand the post-announcement stock price implications of restatement disclosures.
FORRIDGE - Principles of good practice in material flow

Abstract The post World War II Industrial Revolution has driven production away from the old 'economies of scale' to the new 'economies of scope'. Apparently Japanese led, the associated roots of present good practice on material flow can be traced back in the USA to Jay Forrester and in the UK to Jack Burbidge. Specifically, in the supply chain scenario, Forrester exposed the importance of system structure in relating and integrating information flow with material flow. Similarly Burbidge led the way in exploiting cycle time reduction, synchronization of orders throughout the chain, simplified product structures, and streamlined component flows. This paper unites their contributions to material flow engineering and shows how present day system design methodologies incorporate their ideas on best practice. These principles are particularly relevant to the product delivery process (PDP) which governs material flow in supply chains.
Science review in research ethics committees: Double jeopardy?

Research ethics committees ‘(RECs) members’ perceptions of their role in regard to the science of research proposals are discussed. Our study, which involved the interviewing of 20 participants from amongst the UK’s independent (Phase I) ethics committees, revealed that the members consider that it is the role of the REC to examine and approve the scientific adequacy of the research – and this notwithstanding the fact that a more competent body will already have done this and even when that other body has the legal responsibility for this function. The problematic nature of this situation, tantamount to double jeopardy, is considered: it can delay research and so add to costs whilst offering no countervailing benefits, or the double jeopardy may be just the cost society imposes, through its RECs, on researchers as the price for research on human subjects.