Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Objective and Subjective Measures in Recovery from a 35% Carbon Dioxide Challenge

Objectives: Because hyperventilation, dyspnea, and a feeling of choking are often core features of a panic attack, respiration has been one of the most widely studied physiological parameters in panic disorder (PD) patients. A respiratory subgroup of PD, with distinct etiological pathways, has also been suggested. Investigation of the recovery phase following a respiratory challenge may be a reliable way to establish respiratory impairment in PD patients. The objective of the present study was to investigate the recovery phase from a 35% carbon dioxide challenge in PD patients and in healthy controls, and to test the hypothesis of a different respiratory pattern in patients, compared to control subjects. Methods: Eleven nonmedicated PD patients with or without agoraphobia, 11 medicated PD patients, and 11 control subjects took part in a 35% carbon dioxide and 65% oxygen inhalation challenge. Respiratory rate, partial pressure of carbon dioxide, heart rate, and blood pressure were recorded during the baseline phase (10 minutes) and the recovery phase (10 minutes). Visual Analogue Scale of Anxiety and Panic Symptom List scores were collected pre- and post-challenge. Results: Nonmedicated patients had increased variability in respiratory rate and partial pressure of carbon dioxide during recovery, compared with control subjects and medicated PD patients. Also, PD patients tended to have higher heart rates and to need more time to recover from the challenge than control subjects. Conclusions: Results suggest that PD patients have less effective homeostatic control after their physiological equilibrium has been disrupted by a respiratory stressor.
News Spillovers in the Sovereign Debt Market

We study the effect of a sovereign credit rating change of one country on the sovereign credit spreads of other countries from 1991 to 2000. We find evidence of spillover effects, that is, a ratings change in one country has a significant effect on sovereign credit spreads of other countries. This effect is asymmetric: positive ratings events abroad have no discernable impact on sovereign spreads, whereas negative ratings events are associated with an increase in spreads. On average, a one-notch downgrade of a sovereign bond is associated with a 12 basis point increase in spreads of sovereign bonds of other countries. Interestingly, the magnitude of the spillover effect following a negative ratings change is amplified by recent ratings changes in other countries. We distinguish between common information and differential components of spillovers. While common information spillovers imply that sovereign spreads move in tandem, differential spillovers are expected to result in opposite effects of ratings events across countries. Despite the predominance of common information spillovers, we also find evidence of differential spillovers among countries with highly negatively correlated capital flows or trade flows vis-a-vis the United States. That is, spreads in these countries generally fall in response to a downgrade of a country with highly negatively correlated capital or trade flows. Variables proxying for cultural or institutional linkages (e.g., common language, formal trade blocs, common-law legal systems), physical proximity, or rule of law traditions across countries do not seem to affect estimated spillover effects.
Political macroeconomics: A survey of recent developments

The paper surveys political macroeconomics, covering its development from Rogoff's conservative central banker to the most recent discussions of monetary policy and institutional design. Topics include the inflation-stabilization trade-off, central bank independence with escape clauses and overruling with costs, inflation targets, performance contracts for monetary authorities, and the consequences of output persistence for these issues. Further topics are the political business cycle when output is persistent, the political macroeconomics of fiscal policy, the government spending bias, and the game-theoretic interaction between fiscal and monetary policy. All work is discussed within a coherent analytical framework. Copyright 2000 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd
Agricultural wage work, seasonal migration and the widening gender gap: evidence from a semi-arid region of Andhra Pradesh

In India, there are large gender disparities in ownership of agricultural land and the state's poverty alleviation programmes mainly target landless male labourers. Given these conditions, agricultural wage work was the only avenue through which poor rural women could expect to become financially independent and combat iniquitous social norms. This development paradigm was the guiding force behind the feminization of agricultural wage work in India. This study investigates the linkages between female work and empowerment implicit to the process of feminization for the semi-arid regions of Andhra Pradesh. We find that women here are heavily involved in agricultural wage work mainly because better paying work like self-employment and seasonal migration are beyond the reach of most women. As a result women's wages, working conditions and relative power within the household remain acutely depressed. Furthermore, evidence suggests that income from seasonal migration is causing the wealth gap between men and women to widen. Policies with a clearer focus on improving women's off-farm opportunities and those that challenge patriarchal control over productive assets are required.La féminisation croissante du travail salarié agricole en Inde a mis en lumière la relation problématique entre le travail des femmes et leurs capacité à être financièrement indépendantes et donc de contester les inégalités de genre. Cet article se penche sur la question à partir de données provenant des régions semi-arides d'Andhra Pradesh. Nous constatons que les femmes y sont fortement impliquées dans le travail salarié agricole principalement parce qu'un travail mieux payé tel que le travail indépendant ou la migration saisonnière n'est pas à la portée de la plupart d'entre-elles. Les salaires des femmes, leurs conditions de travail, ainsi que leur pouvoir de décision au sein de leurs ménages demeurent en conséquence très insuffisantes. Les données présentées suggèrent aussi que le revenu de la migration saisonnière masculine est en train d'élargir l'écart financier entre les hommes et les femmes. Des politiques se focalisant spécifiquement sur l'amélioration des possibilités d'emploi non-agricole pour les femmes, et qui cherchent explicitement à contester le contrôle patriarcal des actifs productifs sont nécessaires afin de changer cette situation.
Effects of daily alcohol intake on the blood pressure differ depending on an individual's sensitivity to alcohol: oriental flushing as a sign to stop drinking for health reasons

Objective To determine whether flushing of the facial skin in response to alcohol consumption (alcohol flushing) is a warning sign of hypertension. We also sought the relationship between alcohol flushing and other risk factors that may contribute to the development of hypertension. Methods We first investigated the relationship of the aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) genotype to alcohol flushing for 53 normal volunteers. We evaluated the relationships among hypertension, alcohol consumption, and facial flushing for 1011 middle-aged Japanese men (aged 40–68 years; mean 51.6 ± 5.5 years), on the basis of their responses to questionnaires and health records. Results The first examination of 53 normal volunteers showed that there were differences in the degree of alcohol flushing between the ALDH2 genotypes (P < 0.01). Hypertension was observed in 27.4% of the study population (277 of 1011), and was correlated positively to alcohol consumption (P < 0.01). The prevalence of hypertension differed significantly among these four groups: there was a 22.4% prevalence (70 of 312) among subjects with no flushing, a 33.8% prevalence (113 of 334) among those with slight flushing, a 27% prevalence (84 of 311) among those with visible flushing, and an 18.5% prevalence (10 of 54) among subjects who were almost completely intolerant to alcohol (P < 0.05). In particular, heavy drinkers who consumed ≥ 1.5 Go (a traditional Japanese unit equivalent to 27 g ethanol) a day had a high prevalence of hypertension with slight and visible skin flushing [42% (63 of 150) and 40.7% (24 of 59), respectively]. That a family history of hypertension, greater age, heavy alcohol consumption, obesity, and symptoms of intoxication including flushing were correlated significantly to the prevalence of hypertension for all groups was demonstrated by multiple logistic regression analysis (P < 0.05). Conclusions A repeated heavy alcohol intake could increase the risk of hypertension for Japanese subjects who exhibit skin flushing in response to alcohol consumption. Chronic alcohol intake by subjects with alcohol flushing might bring about a significant increase in blood acetaldehyde levels and cause an additional rise in the blood pressure.
Humor and the good character 1 HUMOR AND STRENGTHS OF CHARACTER

Humor in the Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Strengths is conceptualized as a unipolar and unidimensional strength and is subsumed under the virtue of transcendence. Its scope is intentionally restricted to forms of humor that serve some moral good. The present study (N 1⁄4 203) investigated the relation between five dimensions of humorous conduct, sense of humor, and the VIA-Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS). Results show (1) that the VIA-humor correlated with socially warm and competent humor, and the sense of humor, all with a common basis in humanity. (2) Each humor style showed relations to strengths. Additionally, strengths related to the virtue of temperance were also related to not showing mean-spirited and earthy forms of humor. Hence, humor in the VIA-IS can be well-located in established humor taxonomies, but does not cover all of the virtue-related humorous behaviors. Further research is requested to investigate the role of virtue in humor. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2011. 592508 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-49688 Journal Article Accepted Version Originally published at: Müller, L; Ruch, Willibald (2011). Humor and strengths of character. Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(5):368-376. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2011. 592508 This manuscript was published as: Müller, L. , & Ruch, W. (2011). Humor and strengths of character. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6, 368-376. Humor and the good character 1 HUMOR AND STRENGTHS OF CHARACTER Liliane Müller and Willibald Ruch Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Department of Psychology, Swiss University of Distance Education, Brig, Switzerland Running head: HUMOR AND THE GOOD CHARACTER *Corresponding author: Willibald Ruch, Section on Personality and Assessment, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmuehlestrasse 14/7, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland. Phone: office: +41 44 635 75 20; Fax: +41 44 635 75 29 89; e-mail: w.ruch@psychologie.uzh. ch Manuscript information: abstract 146 words, main text 5689 words, 16 references, 2 tables Humor and the good character 2 Abstract Humor in the VIA-Classification of Strengths is conceptualized as a unipolar and unidimensional strength and is subsumed under the virtue of transcendence. Its scope is intentionally restricted to forms of humor that serve some moral good. The present study (N = 203) investigated the relation between five dimensions of humorous conduct, sense of humor, and the VIA-IS. Results show (1) that the VIA-humor correlated with socially warm and competent humor, and the sense of humor, all with a common basis in humanity. (2) Each humor style showed relations to strengths. Additionally, strengths related to the virtue of temperance were also related to not showing mean-spirited and earthy forms of humor. Hence, humor in the VIA-IS can be well located in established humor taxonomies, but does not cover all of the virtue related humorous behaviors. Further research is requested to investigate the role of virtue in humor.
East Asian welfare model refocus? A case study on economic support for the elderly living alone in Taiwan

This article argues that the concept of the East Asian welfare regime can be further developed by examining the changing role of the family in welfare provision. Beginning with a brief literature review of the East Asian welfare model, the family has been regarded as the main welfare provider among East Asian societies. Nevertheless, from a policy-centred perspective, the oversimplified picture of the East Asian welfare model does not reveal how families actually perform in welfare provision or how the dynamic change in the welfare mix for vulnerable groups under the welfare regime has been accommodated. This article presents a case study and shows that while most elderly people in Taiwan still live with their children, who are also their main means of support, a significant number of them are living alone and that much of the economic support they used to receive from nongovernmental organisation now comes from the state.
The Marketing of Seasoned Equity Offerings

In an accelerated seasoned equity offering (SEO), an issuer foregoes the investment bank's marketing efforts in return for a lower fee. To explain why many issuing firms choose a higher cost fully marketed offer, we posit that the marketing effort flattens the issuer's short-run demand curve. Alternatively stated, with a fully marketed offer, the issuer is paying investment bankers to create demand, making the elasticity of demand at the time of issuance an endogenous choice variable. Empirical analysis shows that both the pre-issue elasticity of the issuing firm's demand curve and the offer size are important determinants of the offer method choice. We find evidence of a large transitory increase in the elasticity of demand for issuers conducting fully marketed SEOs.
Growth and Finance

I review selectively some of the trends in research on the relationships between financial markets and economic growth. Economic theory provides many arguments as to why, given the widespread existence of moral hazard and adverse selection problems in financial transactions, more highly developed financial markets might facilitate faster economic growth. However, it is less clear that summary measures of financial development and structure, widely used in empirical research, are adequate. I review some recent empirical work in this area, and show that apparent effects of financial development on growth may be capturing regional differences, and other factors. There appears to be little empirical support for an effect of financial structure on growth. Much empirical work in this field uses data over short periods of time, of a few decades in length. Looking over longer periods, non-financial forces of increasing returns in production, increasing returns to agglomeration and falling transport costs appear more important, and the potential role of financial markets rather less. The question of whether finance plays a causal role or merely follows economic development remains an open one.
EVOLUTION OF THE STELLAR-TO-DARK MATTER RELATION: SEPARATING STAR-FORMING AND PASSIVE GALAXIES FROM z = 1 TO 0

We use measurements of the stellar mass function, galaxy clustering, and galaxy–galaxy lensing within the COSMOS survey to constrain the stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR) of star forming and quiescent galaxies over the redshift range z = [0.2, 1.0]. For massive galaxies, M* ≳ 1010.6 M☉, our results indicate that star-forming galaxies grow proportionately as fast as their dark matter halos while quiescent galaxies are outpaced by dark matter growth. At lower masses, there is minimal difference in the SHMRs, implying that the majority low-mass quiescent galaxies have only recently been quenched of their star formation. Our analysis also affords a breakdown of all COSMOS galaxies into the relative numbers of central and satellite galaxies for both populations. At z = 1, satellite galaxies dominate the red sequence below the knee in the stellar mass function. But the number of quiescent satellites exhibits minimal redshift evolution; all evolution in the red sequence is due to low-mass central galaxies being quenched of their star formation. At M* ∼ 1010 M☉, the fraction of central galaxies on the red sequence increases by a factor of 10 over our redshift baseline, while the fraction of quenched satellite galaxies at that mass is constant with redshift. We define a “migration rate” to the red sequence as the time derivative of the passive galaxy abundances. We find that the migration rate of central galaxies to the red sequence increases by nearly an order of magnitude from z = 1 to z = 0. These results imply that the efficiency of quenching star formation for centrals is increasing with cosmic time, while the mechanisms that quench the star formation of satellite galaxies in groups and clusters is losing efficiency.
ABC, BAlanced Scorecard, EVA: an empirical study on the adoption of innovative management accounting techniques

This paper reports on the findings of a survey on management accounting systems in 289 Italian organisations. The research studied the adoption of three specific techniques: ABC/ABM, Balanced Scorecard and EVAâ„¢, analysing the key success factors of companies which claimed to adopt them, their objectives and the effects on the control system's performances. The analysis indicates that innovative techniques have been increasingly adopted by many companies, which further showed a higher attention to new competitive dimensions. The study also highlighted positive benefits in using accounting techniques; new practices have a significant impact on the control system and respondents associate their use with cost reduction, make or buy decisions, attribution of specific responsibility and budgeting.
Are Copula-GoF-Tests of Any Practical Use? Empirical Evidence for Stocks, Commodities and FX Futures

Abstract In this paper, the optimality of bivariate copula-VaR models and the usefulness of several goodness-of-fit tests for copulas are analysed in a comprehensive empirical study using data for stocks, commodities and FX futures. In particular, I try to answer two questions: (1) which parametric copula is optimal for estimating the VaR and Expected Shortfall (ES) of a given portfolio consisting of linear assets? (2) How can the VaR- or ES-optimal parametric copula be identified in-sample? To answer these questions, the VaR and ES for a total of 12,000 bivariate portfolios are estimated from 435 linear assets over eight different time windows. The results show that although copula-models with GARCH-margins yield considerably better VaR-estimates than correlation-based models, the identification of the optimal parametric copula form is a serious unsolved problem. The analysis of three state-of-the-art approaches for testing a copula-model's goodness-of-fit showed that none of the tests is able to identify the optimal parametric form unequivocally. In addition to this result, for more than 80% of all portfolios considered, all five parametric copula models yielded worse ES-estimates than the correlation-based benchmark or underestimated actual portfolio risk. Moreover, the backtesting results show that the optimal parametric copula is both dependent on the risk measure and time-variant.
Uncertainty and the Bidding for Incentive Contracts

In many procurement contracts, the monetary reward for the winning bidder is a function of the bid and of theex postproduction cost. Therefore contract incentives can affect the strategic relationship between a firm’s bid and its estimates of production expenses. In the existing literature on incentive contract bidding, the effects of contract incentives on a firm’s bidding strategy are analyzed with the assumption that expectations about rival bids are exogenous. That is, these expectations are summarized by a probability distribution that is assumed to be unchanged as incentives and other structural parameters are changed. But any factor that would alter one bidder’s strategy would presumably alter rivals’ bidding strategies as well, thereby changing the observed distribution of rival bids.
Modeling Credit Spreads: An Application to the Sterling Eurobond Market

This paper can be considered as a new perspective to analyse credit spreads. We follow a time series approach revealing the forces driving credit spread changes and volatility. Specifically, we aim to identify the process that describes the dynamic evolution of credit spreads on the Sterling Eurobond Index in the period 1991-1999. The time-series properties of credit spreads provide strong evidence of nonlinearities and high levels of intertemporal dependence in the credit spreads generating process. We introduce time-varying volatility models to capture the persistence in the conditional variance of credit spreads. To our knowledge Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic models (ARCH and GARCH) have never been applied to credit spreads.
Significance of Tissue Laminin P1 Elastase and Fibronectin Levels in Transitional Cell Carcinoma of the Bladder

Objective: Elastase is a serine protease which hydrolyses connective tissue components. Laminin and fibronectin also play an important role in progression and invasion of cancer. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between tissue elastase, laminin P1 and fibronectin levels and tumor characteristics, and analyze the potential of these as prognostic factors in transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the bladder. Methods: Thirty–four patients with TCC of the bladder and 11 controls were included in this study. Elastase and fibronectin levels in tissue homogenates were determined using an enzyme immunoassay and laminin P1 by radioimmunoassay. Mean follow–up was 43 months. Results: The mean elastase level in bladder carcinoma tissue was 120±11.42 ng/homogenate protein, while normal tissue level was 12.36±2.70 (p<0.01). The carcinoma and normal tissue mean laminin P1 levels were 7.02±0.37 U and 0.65±0.10 U/mg homogenate protein, respectively (p<0.01). The mean fibronectin level was 19.97±1.45 ng/mg homogenate protein in the carcinoma tissue and 2.16±0.40 in normal tissue (p<0.01). There was no correlation between tumor stage, grade, size, multiplicity and elastase, laminin P1 and fibronectin levels. Conclusion: These results provide evidence that tissue elastase, laminin P1 and fibronectin levels increase in TCC of the human bladder. Further studies including serum and urine levels should be performed in order to analyze their value as tumor markers in a larger group of patients.
R & D-Based Models of Economic Growth

This paper argues that the "scale effects" prediction of many recent R & D-based models of growth is inconsistent with the time-series evidence from industrialized economies. A modified version of the Romer model that is consistent with this evidence is proposed, but the extended model alters a key implication usually found in endogenous growth theory. Although growth in the extended model is generated endogenously through R & D, the long-run growth rate depends only on parameters that are usually taken to be exogenous, including the rate of population growth.