Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Urban Planning and Environmental Criminology: Towards a New Perspective for Safer Cities

Abstract At a time of ever-increasing urbanization, research consistently indicates that crime and the fear of crime are key concerns for society and that safety is a vital feature of what is considered a high-quality sustainable environment. This paper critically inspects the theories and evidence from the field of environmental criminology and interrogates some of the safety assumptions underpinning planning policy in the UK, the USA, and in Australia, particularly those policies promoted by New Urbanism. It is argued that planning professionals need to consider and understand this new perspective for safer and sustainable cities, rather than relying on assumptions that are not supported by any systematic evidence.
Comment: What Have You Done for Me Lately? Toward An Investment Theory of Voting

"A Majority Party in Disarray: Policy Polarization in the 1972 Election," by Arthur H. Miller, Warren E. Miller, Alden S. Raine and Thad A. Brown, the latest Survey Research Center/Center for Political Studies quadrennial election study offers a portrait of the American electorate which is in stark contrast with that which emerges from the American Voter, the classic product of the SRC's researches into voting behavior. In effect, the authors of the latest version now declare the original account to be—in one of the more memorable phrases of recent political discourse—inoperative. We agree strongly that the portrait presented in the American Voter is gravely flawed, but not be-
Socioeconomic Status Measurement with Discrete Proxy Variables: Is Principal Component Analysis a Reliable Answer?

The last several years have seen a growth in the number of publications in economics that use principal component analysis (PCA) in the area of welfare studies. This paper explores the ways discrete data can be incorporated into PCA. The effects of discreteness of the observed variables on the PCA are reviewed. The statistical properties of the popular Filmer and Pritchett (2001) procedure are analyzed. The concepts of polychoric and polyserial correlations are introduced with appropriate references to the existing literature demonstrating their statistical properties. A large simulation study is carried out to compare various implementations of discrete data PCA. The simulation results show that the currently used method of running PCA on a set of dummy variables as proposed by Filmer and Pritchett (2001) can be improved upon by using procedures appropriate for discrete data, such as retaining the ordinal variables without breaking them into a set of dummy variables or using polychoric correlations. An empirical example using Bangladesh 2000 Demographic and Health Survey data helps in explaining the differences between procedures.
The Cost of Being Fijian in the United Kingdom

This paper is the first within Fijian migration studies to discuss why indigenous Fijians migrate to the United Kingdom (UK) and the socio-economic challenges they face. The majority of these Fijians form a well-organised community based on similar principles as in Fiji (kinship, church, and chieftainship) and do their utmost to live ‘in the Fijian way’ (na ivakarau ni bula vakaviti), a lifestyle also known as living ‘in the manner of the land’ (i tovo vakavanua). I argue this way of life is a central aspect of being a Fijian person, which is characterised, amongst other things, by supporting kin as part of one's kinship obligations in the form of exchange and tribute. The tributes Fijian migrants make are predominantly in the form of services, goods, and especially monetary contributions towards church, communal, and ritual events to both kin in Fiji and in the UK. These monetary contributions regularly interfere with payments, such as utility bills and car insurances. As a consequence, electricity and phone lines are cut or cars are towed away. In Fiji, migrated relatives and friends are thought of as being millionaires, but this article illustrates that the reality is very different. Living costs in the UK are high and prioritising which bills to pay, how much one should contribute to church, communal, and ceremonial events, and how much money to remit to kin in Fiji can be very stressful. I discuss the pressures and motivation for these decisions in this article.
Pharmacotherapy of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia: Time for a Different Paradigm?

Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia can occur in 60–80% of patients with Alzheimer's disease or other dementing illnesses, and are important in that they are a source of significant caregiver stress and often precipitate nursing home placement. These symptoms, namely, aggression, delusions, hallucinations, apathy, anxiety, and depression, are clinically managed with a variety of psychotropic drugs such as antipsychotics, antidepressants, antiepileptic drugs, and benzodiazepines. Various advances in the neuropathophysiology and pharmacotherapy must be considered in the optimal design of regimens for patients with these symptoms.
Morbidity in Klinefelter syndrome: a Danish register study based on hospital discharge diagnoses.

BACKGROUND Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is the most prevalent sex chromosome disorder in man; it affects approximately one in 660 men and is a common cause of hypogonadism and infertility. Our current knowledge of morbidity in KS is based on observational studies and case reports and therefore is limited. DESIGN We used Danish registers to obtain dates of hospital admissions and discharge diagnoses in a cohort of all males diagnosed with KS in Denmark and a randomly selected, age-matched control group. Our cohort consisted of 832 KS subjects and 4033 control subjects, contributing with a total of approximately 100,000 person years. We used stratified Cox regression analysis on main groups of diagnoses. Where significant results were found, subsequent analyses were performed on subgroups of diagnoses. RESULTS We found a significantly increased risk of being hospitalized among the KS subjects [hazard ratio (HR), 1.69; 95% confidence interval, 1.54-1.86]. The increased admission risk was present in all but one of the main diagnosis groups, with the highest HRs for congenital malformations (HR, 10.7), psychiatric disorders (HR, 3.7), and endocrine and metabolic disorders (HR, 3.2). We compared hospitalization rates before and after the diagnosis of KS and found that the increased rate was present even before the diagnosis of KS. CONCLUSIONS Males suffering from KS experienced an increased hospitalization rate from a variety of disorders. Some are likely to be caused by hypogonadism, and some may be linked to the syndrome per se, whereas others are not readily explained. However, other factors, e.g. socioeconomic, may be involved.
Hybridisation for Genetic Improvement in the Yield of Diosgenin from Fenugreek Seed

The inheritance of diosgenin in fenugreek seed was investigated using seed from parents, F (1) and F (2) generations grown in an individually randomised field experiment. Evidence based on GLC assay results for monohydroxysapogenin yield, indicates significant genetic segregation for this character in the two crosses examined. The potential exists for the genetic improvement of this and other characters in fenugreek using the hybridisation and assay methods described.
Using the autoregressive conditional duration model to analyse the process of default contagion

Credit events are not independent, and the contagion effect is very common. The seriousness of the contagion effect depends on the change in the default contagion duration before and after credit events. This study uses the Autoregressive Conditional Duration (ACD) model to capture the durations of a series of credit events and to study the characteristics of a default duration series. The empirical samples are listed and Over-The-Counter (OTC) companies in Taiwan. The Moving Block Bootstrap (MBB) in Liu and Singh (1992) is employed to copy the sample data. The sample period is from October 1982 to December 2007. The results show that, in the entire sample and subsamples of the electronic information industry and construction industry, the default duration series demonstrates the conditional autocorrelation and cluster effect. The ACD model helps capture the contagion effect of credit events.
Recent Developments in Technology and Language Learning: A Literature Review and Meta-analysis

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential of technology for improving language education. A review of the effectiveness of past and current practices in the application of information and communication technology(ICT) in language education and the availability as well as capacities of current ICTs was conducted. The review found that existing literature on the effectiveness of technology uses in language education is very limited in four aspects: a) The number of systematic, well-designed empirical evaluative studies of the effects of technology uses in language learning is very small, b) the settings of instruction where the studies were conducted were limited to higher education and adult learners, c) the languages studied were limited to common foreign languages and English as a foreign or second language, and d) the experiments were often short-term and about one or two aspects of language learning (e.g., vocabulary or grammar). However the limited number of available studies shows a pattern of positive effects. They found technology-supported language learning is at least as effective as human teachers, if not more so.
A question of top talent? The effects of lateral hiring in two emerging economies

Abstract On the basis of a qualitative study in two emerging economies, we advance the literature on lateral hiring by developing an integrated phase model to explain how the effects of lateral hiring unfold to affect the originating firm and its employees. Our work uncovered two types of effects on the originating firm, i.e. first-order and second-order effects. Our stage model elucidates how the psychological and emotional effects are manifest to affect the existing employees. Personnel poaching appear to have triggered the quest for meaning and attempts by the existing employees to enhance their visibility, career adaptability and marketability. We discuss implications for practice, theory and research on lateral hiring.
Why Are So Many Important Events Unpredictable? Self-Organized Criticality as the ‘Engine of History’

The nonlinear dynamical process of self-organized criticality provides a new ‘theory of history’ that explains a number of unresolved anomalies: Why are the really big events in human history usually unpredictable? Why is it impossible to anticipate sudden political, economic, and social changes? Why do distributions of historical data almost always contain a few extreme events that seem to have had a different cause from all the rest? Why do so many of our ‘lessons of history’ fail to predict important future events? As people, organizations, and nations become increasingly sensitive to each other's behavior, trivial occurrences sometimes propagate into sudden changes. Such events are unpredictable because in the self-organized criticality environment that characterizes human history, the magnitude of a cause often is unrelated to the magnitude of its effect.
How the full opening of the capital account to highly liquid financial markets led Latin America to two and a half cycles of ‘mania, panic and crash’

Latin America has recently experienced three cycles of capital inflows, the first two ending in major financial crises. The first took place between 1973 and the 1982 ‘debt-crisis’. The second took place between the 1989 ‘Brady bonds’ agreement (and the beginning of the economic reforms and financial liberalisation that followed) and the Argentinian 2001/2002 crisis, and ended up with four major crises (as well as the 1997 one in East Asia) — Mexico (1994), Brazil (1999), and two in Argentina (1995 and 2001/2). Finally, the third inflow-cycle began in 2003 as soon as international financial markets felt reassured by the surprisingly neo-liberal orientation of President Lula’s government; this cycle intensified in 2004 with the beginning of a (purely speculative) commodity price-boom, and actually strengthened after a brief interlude following the 2008 global financial crash — and at the time of writing (mid-2011) this cycle is still unfolding, although already showing considerable signs of distress. The main aim of this paper is to analyse the financial crises resulting from this second cycle (both in LA and in East Asia) from the perspective of Keynesian/ Minskyian/Kindlebergian financial economics. I will attempt to show that no matter how diversely these newly financially liberalised Developing Countries tried to deal with the absorption problem created by the subsequent surges of inflow (and they did follow different routes), they invariably ended up in a major crisis. As a result (and despite the insistence of mainstream analysis), these financial crises took place mostly due to factors that were intrinsic (or inherent) to the workings of over-liquid and under-regulated financial markets — and as such, they were both fully deserved and fairly predictable. Furthermore, these crises point not just to major market failures, but to a systemic market failure: evidence suggests that these crises were the spontaneous outcome of actions by utility-maximising agents, freely operating in friendly (light-touched) regulated, over-liquid financial markets. That is, these crises are clear examples that financial markets can be driven by buyers who take little notice of underlying values — investors have incentives to interpret information in a biased fashion in a systematic way. ‘Fat tails’ also occurred because under these circumstances there is a high likelihood of self-made disastrous events. In other words, markets are not always right — indeed, in the case of financial markets they can be seriously wrong as a whole. Also, as the recent collapse of ‘MF Global’ indicates, the capacity of ‘utility-maximising’ agents operating in unregulated and over-liquid financial market to learn from previous mistakes seems rather limited.
Pricing and Congestion: Economic Principles Relevant to Pricing Roads

U.K. expenditures on roads or "road costs" average L4.34 billion per year. From the 24.6 million vehicles registered, road taxes of L12.7 billion were collected -2.9 times "road costs. " From 1978-88, the average daily traffic on each km of road rose by 34 percent with a consequent serious increase in congestion. Road space is a valuable and scarce resource, and road users should logically pay the marginal social cost if they are to make efficient transport and location decisions. The paper estimates these costs and the appropriate charges for Britain, and identifies the major policy issues. Total road charges, ignoring hard-to-quantify accident costs, should yield L13.8 billion, of which congestion charges would be L12.8 billion. Though close to road taxes in total amount, replacing current taxes by road pricing would reduce congestion, improve public transport, and avoid perverse consequences from road expansion. Copyright 1990 by Oxford University Press.
MODEL OF ACCOUNTING ENGINEERING IN VIEW OF EARNINGS MANAGEMENT IN POLAND

The article introduces the theoretical foundations of the author’s original concept of accounting engineering. We assume a theoretical premise whereby accounting engineering is understood as a system of accounting practice utilising differences in economic events resultant from the use of divergent accounting methods. Unlike, for instance, creative or praxeological accounting, accounting engineering is composed only, and under all circumstances, of lawful activities and adheres to the current regulations of the balance sheet law. The aim of the article is to construct a model of accounting engineering exploiting taking into account differences inherently present in variant accounting. These differences result in disparate financial results of identical economic events. Given the fact that regardless of which variant is used in accounting, all settlements are eventually equal to one another, a new class of differences emerges - the accounting engineering potential. It is transferred to subsequent reporting (balance sheet) periods. In the end, the profit “made” in a given period reduces the financial result of future periods. This effect is due to the “transfer” of costs from one period to another. Such actions may have sundry consequences and are especially dangerous whenever many individuals are concerned with the profit of a given company, e.g. on a stock exchange. The reverse may be observed when a company is privatised and its value is being intentionally reduced by a controlled recording of accounting provisions, depending on the degree to which they are justified. The reduction of a company’s goodwill in Balcerowicz’s model of no-tender privatisation allows to justify the low value of the purchased company. These are only some of many manifestations of variant accounting which accounting engineering employs. A theoretical model of the latter is presented in this article.
The elaboration and empirical evaluation of the De Goede learning potential structural model

As a direct result of having segregated amenities and public services during the Apartheid era where Black individuals were provided with services inferior to those of White individuals, the country is currently challenged by serious and a debilitating skills shortage across most industry sectors, high unemployment and poverty rates, and inequality in terms of income distribution as well as in terms of racial representation in the workforce. These challenges are the consequence of a larger problem that knowledge, skills and abilities are not uniformly distributed across all races. In the past, and still now, White South Africans had greater access to skills development and educational opportunities. It is this fundamental inequality that has to be addressed. It is argued that skills development – specifically affirmative action skills development should form part of the solution. A need therefore exists to identify the individuals who would gain maximum benefit from such affirmative action skills development opportunities and to create the conditions that would optimise learning performance. To achieve this, an understanding is required of the complex nomological network of latent variables that determine learning performance. De Goede (2007) proposed and tested a learning potential structural model based on the work of Taylor (1994). The primary objective of this study was to expand on De Goede’s (2007) learning potential structural model in order to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity underlying learning performance. A subset of the hypothesised expanded learning potential structural model was empirically evaluated. The first analysis of the structural model failed to produce a good fit to the data. The model was subsequently modified by both adding additional paths and by removing insignificant paths. The final revised structural model was found to fit the data well. All paths contained in the final model were empirically corroborated. The practical implications of the learning potential structural model on HR and organisations are discussed. Suggestions for future research are made by indicating how the model can be further elaborated. The limitations of the study are also discussed.
Persistent Pain After Surgery for Cutaneous Melanoma

Objectives:Chronic pain is a well-known complication after surgery, but the prevalence of persistent pain after melanoma surgery is unknown. This study examined the prevalence and predictors of persistent pain after melanoma surgery. Methods:Between September 2005 and June 2009, 448 patients underwent surgery for cutaneous melanoma at the Department of Plastic Surgery, Aalborg Hospital. A questionnaire was sent to all 402 survivors, and 350 (87.1%) responded. In addition, all patients with pain and a control group of sex-matched and age-matched patients without pain were invited to a clinical examination. Results:Thirty-four patients (9.7%) reported pain in the scar area within the last month, and 8.6% reported chronic pain. The pain was mostly mild with little impact on daily life, but 1.7% reported moderate to severe pain, and 3.4% reported at least moderate impact of pain on daily life. Sensory changes were reported by 108 patients (31.5%); 25% of these had pain compared with 3% of patients with normal sensation [P<0.001, 10.8 (4.5 to 25.8)]. Young age was a predictor for persistent pain. A small group of patients (10 with and 22 without pain in the questionnaire) were clinically examined, suggesting that the areas of sensory disturbances were larger in patients reporting persistent pain or dysesthesia. Discussion:The results support previous findings that persistent postoperative pain is a complication of almost any surgical intervention. Persistent pain was related to abnormal sensation, and neuropathic pain should be considered in these patients.
Interpreting Common Stock Returns around Proxy Statement Disclosures and Annual Shareholder Meetings

Abstract Numerous studies have analyzed the stock market reaction to information released in proxy statements. Two possible biases in proxy statement research are suggested frequently: misspecification of the return benchmark and a sample selection bias from analyzing only “clean” events. This paper presents evidence that most of the conclusions of existing studies are not affected by these potential biases. A significantly positive abnormal return was found around a random sample of shareholder meeting dates. The result indicates that interpreting event study results for announcements occurring around annual shareholder meetings must be conducted carefully. The results are consistent with the findings of Kalay and Loewenstein [14], who argue that risk and expected return can increase around predictable, information-producing events. Alternatively, the study can be viewed as being consistent with several recent studies that find anomalous results, using daily return data and large samples.
Are Joint Audits Associated with Higher Audit Fees?

Abstract In its October 2010 Green Paper on audit policy, the European Commission suggested that joint audits might be a way of improving the audit market in Europe. However, some parties consider that a joint audit system is not an efficient solution because the perceived improvements in audit quality, if any, are not commensurate with the significant increase in audit fees. We compare audit fees paid during the years 2007–2011 by listed companies in France, where joint audits are mandatory, with those paid by British and Italian companies. Theory suggests that audit fees in countries with high investor protection, such as the UK, are likely to be greater than those in countries with lower investor protection, such as France and Italy, ceteris paribus. However, we find significantly higher audit fees in France after controlling for well-documented auditor, client, and engagement attributes, which vary across countries. Furthermore, since we do not find statistically significant differences in the magnitude of abnormal accruals, the higher audit fees observed in France do not appear to be associated with higher audit quality.