Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Performance in the European Union and Japan

Fiscal rules specify quantitative targets for key budgetary aggregates. In this paper, we review the experience with such rules in Japan and in the European Union (EU). Comparing the performance of fiscal policy in the 1980s and 1990s until 2003, we find that the fiscal rule of the 1980s exerted some but not much disciplinary influence on Japanese fiscal policy. The fiscal rule of the Maastricht Treaty had a significant impact on political budget cycles in the EU, but did little to constrain fiscal policy in the large member states. Since the start of European Monetary Union, the disciplinary effect of the fiscal rule in the EU has vanished. Next, we discuss the importance of budgetary institutions for the effectiveness of fiscal rules. In Europe, a number of countries adopted strong fiscal rules, that is, a fiscal rule combined with a design of the budget process enabling governments to commit to the rule. We find that strong fiscal rules have been effective. We conclude with some suggestions for the design of a strong fiscal rule in Japan.
Anti-CD20 IgA can protect mice against lymphoma development: evaluation of the direct impact of IgA and cytotoxic effector recruitment on CD20 target cells

Background While most antibody-based therapies use IgG because of their well-known biological properties, some functional limitations of these antibodies call for the development of derivatives with other therapeutic functions. Although less abundant than IgG in serum, IgA is the most abundantly produced Ig class in humans. Besides the specific targeting of its dimeric form to mucosal areas, IgA was shown to recruit polymorphonuclear neutrophils against certain targets more efficiently than does IgG1. Design and Methods In this study, we investigated the various pathways by which anti-tumor effects can be mediated by anti-CD20 IgA against lymphoma cells. Results We found that polymeric human IgA was significantly more effective than human IgG1 in mediating direct killing or growth inhibition of target cells in the absence of complement. We also demonstrated that this direct killing was able to indirectly induce the classical pathway of the complement cascade although to a lesser extent than direct recruitment of complement by IgG. Recruitment of the alternative complement pathway by specific IgA was also observed. In addition to activating complement for lysis of lymphoma cell lines or primary cells from patients with lymphoma, we showed that monomeric anti-CD20 IgA can effectively protect mice against tumor development in a passive immunization strategy and we demonstrated that this protective effect may be enhanced in mice expressing the human FcαRI receptor on their neutrophils. Conclusions We show that anti-CD20 IgA antibodies have original therapeutic properties against lymphoma cells, with strong direct effects, ability to recruit neutrophils for cell cytotoxicity and even recruitment of complement, although largely through an indirect way.
The Objective Structured Clinical Examination The New Gold Standard for Evaluating Postgraduate Clinical Performance

ObjectiveThe authors determine the reliability, validity, and usefulness of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in the evaluation of surgical residents. Summary Background DataInterest is increasing in using the OSCE as a measurement of clinical competence and as a certification tool. However, concerns exist about the reliability, feasibility, and cost of the OSCE. Experience with the OSCE in postgraduate training programs is limited. MethodsA comprehensive 38-station OSCE was administered to 56 surgical residents. Residents were grouped into three levels of training: interns, junior residents, and senior residents. The reliability of the examination was assessed by coefficient α; its validity, by the construct of experience. Differences between training levels and in performance on the various OSCE problems were determined by a three-way analysis of variance with two repeated measures and the Student-Newman-Keuls post hoc test. Pearson correlations were used to determine the relationship between OSCE and American Board of Surgery in-Training Examination (ABSITE) scores. ResultsThe reliability of the OSCE was very high (0.91). Performance varied significantly according to level of training (postgraduate year; p < 0.0001). Senior residents performed best, and interns performed worst. The OSCE problems differed significantly in difficulty (p < 0.0001). Overall scores were poor. Important and specific performance deficits were identified at all levels of training. The ABSTTE clinical scores, unlike the basic science scores, correlated modestly with the OSCE scores when level of training was held constant. ConclusionThe OSCE is a highly reliable and valid clinical examination that provides unique information about the performance of individual residents and the quality of postgraduate training programs.
Partnership in Europe; its Variety, Trends and Dissolution

Radical changes in living arrangements, in sexual habits and in the position of marriage in Europe have arisen, very unevenly, since the 1960s and in some regions in scarcely more than a decade. Cohabitation before marriage is normal – even universal – in many countries, with the popularity of marriage falling as its mean age rises to beyond the highest levels hitherto recorded. Divorce has been legalised and in most cases made readily accessible. However, although not as firm a demarcation as once believed, Hajnal’s line separating East and West has not yet been erased from the map of contemporary Europe. The article describes patterns and trends in partnership in Europe, including trends in marriage rates, divorce rates, the spread of cohabitation, LAT-relations and of births outside marriage, and tries to account for them.
Segmentation de maillages 3D à l'aide de méthodes basées sur la ligne de partage des eaux. (3D mesh segmentation methods based on watershed transformation)

La segmentation de maillages polygonaux est un outil necessaire a de nombreuses applications. Elle correspond au decoupage du maillage en regions a partir d'informations portant sur la surface ou la forme globale de l'objet. Ces dernieres annees, de nombreux algorithmes ont ete proposes dans cette thematique en large expansion. Les applications sont tres variees; citons la reconnaissance de forme, l'indexation, la compression, la metamorphose, la detection de collision, le plaquage de texture, la simplification, etc. Nous proposons dans un premier temps une etude assez large des methodes de segmentation de maillages polygonaux. Nous abordons les algorithmes pour les deux principales familles de methodes que sont la segmentation en carreaux surfaciques et la segmentation en parties significatives. Nous avons concentre nos travaux sur la ligne de partage des eaux (LPE) et formule des propositions originales pour la fonction de hauteur de la LPE et des strategies pour limiter la sur-segmentation que produit naturellement la LPE.
Macroeconomic Policy Coordination in Europe an Agnostic View

Coordination is a fundamental principle for economic policy in the EU. There is a consensus that soft coordination (exchange of information, general guidelines for economic policy) is useful. Whether stabilization policies should be coordinated is another matter. Against the background of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG) and the literature on macro policies it is discussed whether the conditions for such coordination are met in Europe. Commitments by policymakers are almost impossible, fiscal policies may not be effective, and negative spillovers are unlikely. Therefore, the arguments for an ex ante coordination of macro policies are weak. Nevertheless, economic policies can be successful in achieving the targets even if they are not coordinated.
Financial Liberalization and Capital Structure Dynamics in Developing Countries: Evidence from Emerging Markets of South East Asia

A careful review of previous empirical studies in developing countries reveals that these studies have focused on explaining relative use of debt, equity or internal finance using aggregate financial ratios (Mayer, 1988, 1989, and 1990; Glen and Pinto, 1994; IFC, 1991). These studies conceal rather explore considerable changes in firm's financing behaviour which has occurred because of financial reform in these countries (Green and Mutenheri, 2002) with some exceptions (Demirguc-Kunt and Maksimovic, 1996, 1997, and 1998). In addition, using standard empirical methods (Singh and Hameed, 1992; Rajan and Zingales, 1995) to reconcile determinants of leverage in developing countries and developed countries (Booth et al, 2001; Cobham and Subramaniam, 1998) studies have also missed capital market development factor in developing countries. Since 1980, firm level financing behaviour in developing countries has evolved in response to financial and economic reforms. Therefore, an essential next step in understanding corporate finance in developing countries is to examine how dynamics of capital structure have been influenced by financial reform programmes (Green and Mutenheri, 2002) and developing countries are ideal testing ground for this alternate argument of dynamic capital structure.
Protein Degradation Rate in Arabidopsis thaliana Leaf Growth and Development[OPEN]

The degradation rate of 1228 Arabidopsis proteins was measured, their variation assessed, and the data used to calculate the protein turnover energy costs in different leaves of the rosette. We applied 15N labeling approaches to leaves of the Arabidopsis thaliana rosette to characterize their protein degradation rate and understand its determinants. The progressive labeling of new peptides with 15N and measuring the decrease in the abundance of >60,000 existing peptides over time allowed us to define the degradation rate of 1228 proteins in vivo. We show that Arabidopsis protein half-lives vary from several hours to several months based on the exponential constant of the decay rate for each protein. This rate was calculated from the relative isotope abundance of each peptide and the fold change in protein abundance during growth. Protein complex membership and specific protein domains were found to be strong predictors of degradation rate, while N-end amino acid, hydrophobicity, or aggregation propensity of proteins were not. We discovered rapidly degrading subunits in a variety of protein complexes in plastids and identified the set of plant proteins whose degradation rate changed in different leaves of the rosette and correlated with leaf growth rate. From this information, we have calculated the protein turnover energy costs in different leaves and their key determinants within the proteome.
Neighbourhood green space in deprived urban communities: issues and barriers to use

This paper presents qualitative baseline data from a mixed methods evaluation of a 12-month project to promote use of a small neighbourhood park in a deprived urban community in North Staffordshire, UK. Focus groups were conducted with adults (n = 35) and young people (n = 23) to explore perceptions of local green space, implications for use and potential interventions. Thematic analysis was used to identify key themes. Despite the expressed importance of living close to green space (i.e. doorstep green space), adults reported antisocial behaviour and a lack of facilities as principal barriers to use. Some common issues emerged from discussions with local youth, in addition to tensions and ownership issues over the space. Consequently, the park did not appear to serve the whole community as a recreation space and for some, represented a source of distress and conflict, rather than a resource to promote health and community well-being.
Information, Asset Prices, and the Volume of Trade

A dynamic equilibrium model is constructed in which agents with access to different information sets participate in the capital market. Agents must use the equilibrium price of capital to make optimal forecasts of the return to holding capital. Examples show that the volume of trade, as well as the price of capital, can be highly correlated with a measure of the information content of prices. The measure of information is the difference between the unconditional entropy of the dividend and the entropy of the dividend conditional on observing the price of capital. Copyright 1992 by American Finance Association.
Dissociation of Pax-5 from KI and KII Sites During κ-Chain Gene Rearrangement Correlates with Its Association with the Underphosphorylated Form of Retinoblastoma1

The KI and KII sites play a crucial role in κ-chain gene rearrangement, which was investigated in mice deficient for these sites. Previously, we found that Pax-5 can bind to the KI and KII sites; however, the function of Pax-5 in κ-chain gene rearrangement has not been investigated. Here, we have used an in vitro culture system in which differentiation from pre-B cells to immature B cells is induced by removing IL-7. We showed that, after the induction of differentiation, Pax-5 dissociated from the KI and KII revealed by EMSA analyses, and this dissociation occurred specifically at the KI and KII sites, but not at the Pax-5 binding site, in the CD19 promoter because of a lower binding affinity of Pax-5 for the KI and KII sites. During differentiation induced by removing IL-7, the underphosphorylated form of retinoblastoma preferentially associated with Pax-5, which caused dissociation of Pax-5 from KI and KII sites. These results suggest that the dissociation of Pax-5 from the KI and KII sites is important in the induction of κ-chain gene rearrangement.
Power Control for Full-Duplex Relay-Enhanced Cellular Networks With QoS Guarantees

Full-duplex (FD) has emerged as a new communication paradigm with the potential advantage of enhancing the capacity of the wireless communication systems. In this paper, we consider an FD relay-enhanced cellular network, wherein the residual self-interference, the uplink-downlink interference, as well as the relay-access-link interference are the vital restrictions to network performance. To this end, we investigate power control design for the FD relay-enhanced cellular networks, so as to maximize the system spectral efficiency while fulfilling the quality of service (QoS) requirements of both the uplink and downlink user equipments (UEs). We characterize the properties of the optimal transmit power allocation, and propose a power control algorithm based on signomial programming to coordinate the transmit power of the uplink UE, base station, and relay stations to mitigate the interference. Meanwhile, we also derive the closed-form optimal transmit power allocation for the conventional half-duplex (HD) transmission mode. Moreover, we conduct extensive simulation experiments to study the network-level gain of the FD mode over the HD mode in the relay-enhanced cellular networks. Simulation results demonstrate that FD relaying outperforms HD relaying on improving the spectral and energy efficiency, as well as provisioning QoS guarantees for both the uplink and downlink users.
The effect of short-term calcium supplementation on biochemical markers of bone metabolism in healthy young adults

The influence of Ca supplementation of the usual diet for 14d on biochemical markers of bone turnover was investigated in healthy young adults aged 21–26 years. In a crossover study, eighteen subjects (five male and thirteen female) were randomly assigned to their self-selected diet (about 22 mmol Ca/d) or their self-selected diet with a 20 mmol/d Ca supplement (about 40 mmol Ca/d) for 14d followed by crossover to the alternative diet for a further 14d. During each dietary period fasting morning first void urine samples (last 3d) and fasting blood serum samples (morning of twelfth day) were collected. Ca supplementation reduced urinary excretion of pyridinoline (14%) and deoxypyridinoline (16%) (biochemical markers of bone resorption) but had no effect on biochemical markers of bone formation (serum osteocalcin and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase; EC 3.1.3.1). It is concluded that Ca supplementation of the usual diet in young adults suppresses bone resorption over a 2-week period. If sustained, this could result in suppression of the bone remodelling rate and an increase in bone mass over time. The findings of this short-term study with a relatively small number of young adults highlight the need for a longer-term intervention study of the effect of increased Ca intake on bone mass in this age group.
Longitudinal Effects of Impact Fees and Special Assessments on the Level of Capital Spending, Taxes, and Long-Term Debt in American Cities

This article examines whether the use of impact fees and special assessments affect the level of capital spending and two major own source revenues of local capital spending (taxes and long-term debt) by analyzing a panel of 695 American cities with populations over 20,000 during the time period of 1980—2000. Since impact fees and special assessments are heavily used in a growing community and because it covers less than half the costs of new development, the findings demonstrate that the private financing of public infrastructure (impact fees and special assessments) increases the level of local capital spending. It also leads to an increase in the level of long-term debt use. Although it provides partial tax relief, it is not a strong substitute for taxes. Thus, impact fees and special assessments are not a substitute for local capital spending. It is rather a supplemental revenue source to fund local capital infrastructure.
Incorporating with fraudulent intentions: A study of various differentiating attributes of shell companies in India

Purpose – The objective of this research paper is to identify specific attributes associated with the shell companies, so that the frauds committed by misuse of the corporate vehicle are curbed. The presence of an identified attribute increases the fraud risk the company poses to the economic system. The efficient allocation of limited investigative resources may accordingly be made by the regulator.Design/methodology/approach – The research was designed as a case study involving documentary evidence corroborated by archival records and semi‐structured interview. The paper discusses the identification of attributes associated with shell companies and suggests recommendations for corporate regulatory machinery in India.Findings – The research paper has identified a few attributes associated with the shell companies. These attributes are directly related to the fraud risk an incorporated entity may pose to the economic system. Limited resources may be efficiently deployed on the basis of the risk an entity .
Acute Ischemic Stroke Following Cardioversion in a Patient Receiving Dabigatran

Objective: To report a case of acute ischemic stroke following electrical cardioversion in a patient currently anticoagulated with dabigatran 150 mg twice daily. Case Summary: A 74-year-old man, who had been adherent with more than 6 weeks of dabigatran 150 mg twice daily therapy, presented with a dense left-sided hemiparesis 72 hours following a repeat electrical cardioversion. Both computed tomography and magnetic resonance angiogram confirmed a right middle cerebral artery infarct. A transesophageal echocardiogram performed after the cerebrovascular accident failed to demonstrate a cardiac source of embolus. The patient previously underwent cardioversion 4 weeks prior with no evidence at that time of thrombus or spontaneous echo contrast on transesophageal echocardiogram. Discussion: Dabigatran was approved in the United States in late 2010 for the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. Post hoc data from the phase III trial suggest a low risk of embolism following cardioversion. Since there are no conventional coagulation measures to reliably demonstrate the level of anticoagulation in patients on dabigatran, clinicians must rely solely on patient history when assessing the safety of cardioverting a patient on this medication. Data have suggested increased pro-inflammatory mediators and increased risk of myocardial infarction with oral direct thrombin inhibitors, which may have manifested as a cerebral or carotid artery thrombosis in situ. Conclusion: Novel oral anticoagulants are attractive options for anticoagulation required with cardioversion. Although this case report may not preclude use of dabigatran for this purpose, it illustrates that use of this drug is not without risks. Additional investigation into the pro-inflammatory nature of the oral direct thrombin inhibitors is needed.
Content Validation: Conceptual and Methodological Issues

Content validation presents several conceptual and methodological difficulties for researchers and practitioners. There is litte specificity concerning what constitutes key concepts such as "behavior domain" and "representative sample. " Thus, it is often difficult to know which aspects of a posi tion can be content validated and which cannot. Concurrently, content validation methodology suffers from uncertainty, especially the nature of the rating process that links the most critical tasks to the top rated KSA's. Some initial insights into clarifying the conceptual issues as well as a pro posed methodology are discussed.
Do People Have Insight into their Face Recognition Abilities?

Diagnosis of developmental or congenital prosopagnosia (CP) involves self-report of everyday face recognition difficulties, which are corroborated with poor performance on behavioural tests. This approach requires accurate self-evaluation. We examine the extent to which typical adults have insight into their face recognition abilities across four experiments involving nearly 300 participants. The experiments used five tests of face recognition ability: two that tap into the ability to learn and recognize previously unfamiliar faces [the Cambridge Face Memory Test, CFMT; Duchaine, B. , & Nakayama, K. (2006). The Cambridge Face Memory Test: Results for neurologically intact individuals and an investigation of its validity using inverted face stimuli and prosopagnosic participants. Neuropsychologia, 44(4), 576–585. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia. 2005.07. 001; and a newly devised test based on the CFMT but where the study phases involve watching short movies rather than viewing static faces—the CFMT-Films] and three that tap face matching [Benton Facial Recognition Test, BFRT; Benton, A. , Sivan, A. , Hamsher, K. , Varney, N. , & Spreen, O. (1983). Contribution to neuropsychological assessment. New York: Oxford University Press; and two recently devised sequential face matching tests]. Self-reported ability was measured with the 15-item Kennerknecht et al. questionnaire [Kennerknecht, I. , Ho, N. Y. , & Wong, V. C. (2008). Prevalence of hereditary prosopagnosia (HPA) in Hong Kong Chinese population. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A, 146A(22), 2863–2870. doi:10.1002/ajmg.a. 32552]; two single-item questions assessing face recognition ability; and a new 77-item meta-cognition questionnaire. Overall, we find that adults with typical face recognition abilities have only modest insight into their ability to recognize faces on behavioural tests. In a fifth experiment, we assess self-reported face recognition ability in people with CP and find that some people who expect to perform poorly on behavioural tests of face recognition do indeed perform poorly. However, it is not yet clear whether individuals within this group of poor performers have greater levels of insight (i.e., into their degree of impairment) than those with more typical levels of performance.