Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Much of Observed Economic Mobility is Measurement Error? IV Methods to Reduce Measurement Error Bias, with an Application to Vietnam

Research on economic growth and inequality inevitably raises issues concerning economic mobility because the relationship between long-run inequality and short-run inequality is mediated by income mobility; for a given level of short-run inequality, greater mobility implies lower long-run inequality. But empirical measures of both inequality and mobility tend to be biased upward due to measurement error in income and expenditure data collected from household surveys. This paper examines how to reduce or remove this bias using instrumental variable methods, and provides conditions that instrumental variables must satisfy to provide consistent estimates. This approach is applied to panel data from Vietnam. The results imply that at least 15 percent, and perhaps as much as 42 percent, of measured mobility is upward bias due to measurement error. The results also suggest that measurement error accounts for at least 12 percent of measured inequality. Copyright 2012, Oxford University Press.
Talent development as a university mission: the quadruple helix

In this paper, the authors discuss the rationale behind making talent development at the PhD, post-doctoral and early career levels an equal fourth pillar of the university’s mission, alongside the more traditional pillars of the triple helix. Using Denmark and Aarhus University as a case study, the paper describes how increased institutional autonomy, and the critical mass that resulted from mergers, permitted organisational restructuring that supports the development of this talent strategy and its implementation. The “quadruple helix” model at Aarhus University is intended to support strategies that involve multiple disciplines and cut across the four key missions of the university: research, education, knowledge exchange and talent development. Most importantly, the organisational model increases the university’s ability to address the challenges and opportunities of the global knowledge society while maintaining quality and expanding supply.
Invasion science, ecology and economics: seeking roads not taken

1 Department of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5DD 2 Institute of Botany, Department of Invasion Ecology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Průhonice, CZ 252 43, Czech Republic 3 University of Rhode Island, Department of Natural Resources Science, Kingston, RI 02881 4 UFZ, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Dept. Community Ecology, Theodor-Lieser-Str. 4, 06120 Halle, Germany
Atypical Hemolytic–Uremic Syndrome: A Clinical Review

Atypical hemolytic–uremic syndrome (HUS) is a rare life-threatening disorder characterized by microangiopathic hemolytic anemia, thrombocytopenia, and ischemic injury to organs, especially the kidneys. Microvascular injury and thrombosis are the dominant histologic findings. Complement activation through the alternative pathway plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of atypical HUS. Genetic abnormalities involving complement regulatory proteins and complement components form the molecular basis for complement activation. Endothelial cell dysfunction, probably because of the effects of complement activation, is an intermediate stage in the pathophysiologic cascade. Atypical HUS has a grave prognosis. Although mortality approaches 25% during the acute phase, end-stage renal disease develops in nearly half of patients within a year. Atypical HUS has a high recurrence rate after renal transplantation, and recurrent disease often leads to graft loss. Plasma therapy in the form of plasma exchange or infusion has remained the standard treatment for atypical HUS. However, many patients do not respond to plasma therapy and some require prolonged treatment. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the treatment of atypical HUS, eculizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody that blocks cleavage of complement C5 into biologically active mediators of inflammation and cytolysis. Although case reports have shown the efficacy of eculizumab, randomized clinical trials are lacking. Therapeutic strategies targeting endothelial cells have demonstrated promising results in experimental settings. Therefore, inhibitors of angiotensin-converting enzyme, HMG-CoA reductase, and xanthine oxidase as well as antioxidants, such as ascorbic acid, may have salutary effects in patients with atypical HUS.
Impact of cytochrome P450 3A5 polymorphism in graft livers on the frequency of acute cellular rejection in living-donor liver transplantation

Objective We investigated whether the cytochrome P450 3A5*3 (CYP3A5*3) genotype affects tacrolimus pharmacokinetics and the risk of acute cellular rejection in living-donor liver transplant patients in Japan. Materials and methods Between July 2004 and June 2011, we enrolled 410 living-donor liver transplant patients receiving tacrolimus. Biopsy specimens of intestinal mucosa and graft liver at surgery were obtained to examine the mRNA expression of CYP3A subfamilies as well as the genotyping of CYP3A5*3 polymorphism. Results The CYP3A5 genotype in the native intestine had no significant effect on the occurrence of acute cellular rejection between postoperative days 14 and 23 in cases with identical or compatible ABO blood types (11.5% for the CYP3A5*1 allele vs. 7.4% for CYP3A5*3/*3; P=0.2643), although the concentration/dose ratio of tacrolimus was significantly higher in patients with the intestinal CYP3A5*3/*3 genotype than in those with the CYP3A5*1 allele for 5 post-transplant weeks. However, patients who received a graft liver with the CYP3A5*1 allele showed a higher rate of acute cellular rejection than those who received a graft liver with the CYP3A5*3/*3 genotype (14.5 vs. 5.7%; P=0.0134). The relative risk for acute cellular rejection associated with the CYP3A5*1 liver allele was 2.629 (P=0.018, Cox regression model). Consequently, graft liver CYP3A5*1 genotype might increase the risk for acute cellular rejection after living-donor liver transplantation, possibly by associating with the local hepatic tacrolimus concentration. Conclusions The target level of tacrolimus may be affected by the CYP3A5*3 genotype of the liver, rather than by that of the small intestine, after postoperative day 14.
Mobile augmented reality for providing perception of materials

In this paper, we propose an AR system using a mobile display that allows the user to manipulate a virtual object using the user's own hand to provide the user with perception of materials. To realize more natural interaction with a virtual object, our proposed system provides visual information that is consistent with the user's somatic sensation by displaying user-perspective images on the mobile display. The system allows the user to manipulate the virtual object with six degrees of freedom (three degrees of freedom for translation and three degrees of freedom for rotation) by mapping the hand pose to the object's translation and rotation. Material appearance of objects is presented by rendering the virtual object using Unity 3D. We showed the effectiveness of our proposed system by showing how the user manipulates the virtual object and obtains the gloss and burnish of the object using the proposed system.
The Effect of Rating Scales on Decision Quality and User Attitudes in Online Innovation Communities

Given the rise of the Internet, consumers increasingly engage in co-creating products and services. Whereas most co-creation research deals with various aspects of generating user-generated content, this study addresses designing ratings scales for evaluating such content. In detail, we analyze functional and perceptional aspects of two frequently used rating scales in online innovation communities. Using a multimethod approach, our experiments show that a multicriteria scale leads to higher decision quality of users than a single-criterion scale, that idea elaboration (i.e., idea length) negatively moderates this effect such that the single-criterion rating scale outperforms the multicriteria scale for long ideas, and finally that the multicriteria scale leads to more favorable user attitudes toward the Web site. To ensure robustness of our results, we applied a bootstrap-based Monte Carlo simulation based on our experimental data. We found that around 20 user ratings per idea are sufficient for creating stable idea rankings and that a combination of both rating scales leads to a 63 percent performance improvement over the single-criterion rating scale and 16 percent over the multicriteria rating scale. Our work contributes to co-creation research by offering insights as to how the interaction of the technology being used (i.e., rating scale) and the attributes of the rating object affects two central outcome measures: the effectiveness of the rating in terms of decision quality of its users and the perception of the scale by its users as a predictor of future use.
Frictions in Forest Pedagogies: Common Worlds in Settler Colonial Spaces

Bringing frictions to children's visits to a forest in British Columbia (BC) as possibilities for ‘common worlds pedagogies’, this article proceeds by troubling forest colonialisms, untangling forest histories and trajectories, attending to more-than-human elements of the forest, and inhabiting the forest with children. The article engages with the kinds of questions, wonderings, uncertainties, and possibilities that emerge when forest pedagogies become part of common worlds – in other words, when forests are understood as entangled natureculture spaces in which children, early childhood educators, and the forests themselves shape each other.
An investigation into why Turkish business groups resist the adoption of M-form in post-liberalization

The aim of the present study is to investigate why Turkish business groups resist the adoption of the M-form despite Chandler’s well-established premise on the evolution of multi-activity firms toward the M-form in post-liberalization. This paper is based on the economic and institutional theory. An analysis of the findings reveals that the holding companies (H-form) resist the M-form despite the strategystructure misfit. On the other hand, inward-oriented internalization strategy which is pursued in the liberalization period affects structural choices of the business groups through adaptation of the M-form. Our results also provide support for the institutional account of the M-form adaptation through normative pressure. This paper tends to support the new institutional economics that expects to see such groups in contexts where they provide some type of economic advantage because holdings have maintained their unrelated business portfolios, thereby experiencing significant strategy-structure misfit.
Enhancement of night movies using fuzzy representation of images

A cheap personal camera is a perfect device that allows us to test algorithms for video enhancement. In this paper we present a cascade of filters based on a fuzzy representation of images. This representation tries to capture the uncertainty underlying in the intensity of a pixel by means of a fuzzy set. The cascade of filters is compared with the corresponding standard filters: blurring, sharpening and image averaging. Besides, experimentally we show that our approach provides similar results with a significant reduction of the computational time.
Loan Sales and the Cost of Corporate Borrowing

When a loan is sold, it goes to a lower-cost financing source than its originator. Yet, lending markets are less than perfectly competitive. Despite the lower funding cost, therefore, the loan price is not necessarily more favorable to the borrower. However, corporate borrowers are averse to the participation of their loans to other lenders because of the complexity of dealing with multiple banks and the potential information costs of the sale announcement. Consequently, I conjecture that the borrower extracts a price concession in exchange for allowing the bank to sell participations in the loan. Using a hand-matched dataset of loans, borrowers, and lenders, I find that the average yield spread on loans originated by active loan sellers is about 20 basis points lower than the average spread on loans originated by moderate loan sellers. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.
Country capabilities and the strategic state: How national political institutions affect multinational Corporations' Strategies

This article presents a framework for the analysis of how MNCS' strategies interact with stateS' industrial strategies. It first shows how national institutional arrangements can systematically contribute to state strategic capabilities that form a basis of competitive advantage. It then examines conditions under which these arrangements and capabilities affect, or fail to affect, the international strategies and organization structures of home firms, incoming foreign direct investors, and home firmS' international customers, collaborators and competitors.
Human resource management in the Canadian manufacturing sector

Using a sample of 356 Canadian manufacturing organizations, this study examines the pattern of implementation of a wide range of HRM practices including external recruitment procedures, internal job posting systems, performance appraisal methods, job evaluation methods and pay-for-performance systems. A comparison of the adopted HRM practices between large and small firms and between union and non-union firms is also made. The results show that the main difference between large and small firms lies in the recruitment procedure and the job evaluation process. The difference between the union and non-union firms is associated with the greater emphasis placed on performance by the latter. This study also presents some evidence regarding the perceived importance of twenty HRM activities. The evidence suggests that the three most important activities include health and safety compliance, employee/labour relations and disciplinary issues. On the other hand, the three least important ones are conducting attitudi.
An audit of the insulin-tolerance test in 255 patients with pituitary disease.

OBJECTIVE The insulin-tolerance test (ITT) is currently considered to be the gold standard for evaluating adults suspected of GH deficiency (GHD). The aim of this study was to determine factors that may influence nadir blood glucose (BG) when using a mean insulin dose of 0.1 IU/kg body weight. Furthermore, we wanted to evaluate the safety and GH-related aspects of the ITT. DESIGN ITT was performed in 277 patients, of whom 255 (129 females) were eligible for evaluation. RESULTS Multiple regression analysis, including the whole population, showed that the major determining factors for nadir BG were basal BG and body mass index (BMI) (P<0.02). No serious adverse event was recorded. Sixty-three percent of all patients tested had severe GHD with peak GH response to hypoglycaemia below 7.8 mIU/l. The positive predictive value for IGF-I was 0.82 and the negative predictive value was 0.47, using a cut-off value corresponding to -2 s.d. GH peak response to hypoglycaemia decreased with increasing numbers of other pituitary hormone deficiencies. CONCLUSIONS When determining the dose of insulin based on weight, factors like pre-test BG and BMI should also be considered. We propose an algorithm stating that the dose of insulin should be 0.1 IU insulin/kg body weight minus 2 IU if pre-test BG is <4.0 mmol/l and minus 2 IU if BMI is <20 kg/m(2) in order to take these factors into account. Our findings furthermore support the concept that the low-dose ITT is a safe test in adults, when performed in experienced hands. It was confirmed that IGF-I is not sufficient when diagnosing GHD in adults, and reliable stimulation tests like ITT are required in the diagnosis.
Microfoundations of fiscal policy effectiveness: monopolistic competition and fiscal policy multipliers

This paper focuses on the role of imperfect competition as a microfoundation for fiscal policy effectiveness. The seminal papers in this area conclude that the higher the degree of monopoly power the higher the value of fiscal policy multipliers. However, this result has been criticised because it depends on the assumptions of the model. We pay special attention to the assumptions on consumer behaviour, comparing a model with no income effect for the labour supply with a model where leisure is a normal good. Concerning fiscal policy effectiveness we show that the values of the multipliers are positive in any case and that the degree of effectiveness depends heavily on the approach taken. These results highlight the relevance of microfoundations to obtain economic policy conclusions. Regarding the relation between the degree of monopoly power and the value of the multipliers, we conclude that stable relations cannot be established.
Migration, Self-Selection and Income Inequality: An International Analysis

In the context of an emerging focus on highly skilled migration throughout the OECD area, the question under which circumstances migrants can be expected to be relatively skilled is of particular importance. Borjas has analysed the relation between the income distribution and the skills of migrants. His self-selection model predicts that immigrants from countries with a higher income inequality tend to be negatively selected (i.e., less skilled than the average worker in both host and source countries). According to other models based on the human capital theory of migration, however, migrants can be expected to be relatively skilled. Empirical tests of Borjas' much-disputed negative self-selection hypothesis generally rely on immigration data, particularly to the US, and may therefore be biased due to host-country specifics such as network migration and the impact of migration policy. This paper analyses the relationship between country-specific emigration propensities and each country's score on various indices of income inequality with a rich international microdata set. The main result is that highly-skilled persons are more inclined to migrate, though a higher income inequality attenuates the positive selectivity. Copyright WWZ and Helbing & Lichtenhahn Verlag AG 2004.
Estimating demand elasticities for intra-regional tourist arrivals to Hong Kong – the ‘bounds’ testing approach

The aim of this study is to develop econometric models for estimating tourism demand elasticities using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration analysis, and to explain the effects of economic determinants on inbound tourist flows to Hong Kong from four major short-haul markets. The cointegration test used is the ‘bounds’ test of Pesaran et al. (2001) that is based on the estimation of an Unrestricted Error-Correction Model (UECM). This article addresses one of the major problems of how to use a relatively small sample to estimate tourism demand elasticities using cointegration approaches, which is faced by many researchers in modelling tourism demand. The results show that permanent income is the most important explanatory variable for all origin countries, but there are substantial variations between countries with the long-run elasticity ranging between 1.74 for China and 3.05 for Australia. Price elasticity is the next most important variable with the long-run elasticities ranging from 0.35 (Australia) to 0.98 (Taiwan). The findings are consistent with economic theory and have implications for government policies and strategies on investment, marketing and promotion and pricing.
External and Internal Factors Motivating Outsourcing of Business Services by Meeting-Industry Companies: A Case Study in Krakow, Poland

The aim of this article is to evaluate the external and internal factors motivating the selection of business services to be outsourced by key meeting-industry (business tourism) players, with a particular focus on knowledge-intensive business services. The case-study method was adopted in the article to analyze the motivation behind outsourcing of knowledge-intensive business services by meeting venues and event companies in Krakow (Poland). The results confirm that event companies tend to subcontract out core services connected with the organization, promotion and/or management of events, event services, and technical support for events.
Model-Based Hand Tracking by Chamfer Distance and Adaptive Color Learning Using Particle Filter

We propose a new model-based hand tracking method for recovering of three-dimensional hand motion from an image sequence. We first build a three-dimensional hand model using truncated quadrics. The degrees of freedom (DOF) for each joint correspond to the DOF of a real hand. This feature extraction is performed by using the Chamfer Distance function for the edge likelihood. The silhouette likelihood is performed by using a Bayesian classifier and the online adaptation of skin color probabilities. Therefore, it is to effectively deal with any illumination changes. Particle filtering is used to track the hand by predicting the next state of three-dimensional hand model. By using these techniques, this method adds the useful ability of automatic recovery from tracking failures. This method can also be used to track the guitarist's hand.
Effect of Resistance Training on Microvascular Density and eNOS Content in Skeletal Muscle of Sedentary Men

The effects of RT on muscle mass, strength, and insulin sensitivity are well established, but the underlying mechanisms are only partially understood. The main aim of this study was to investigate whether RT induces changes in endothelial enzymes of the muscle microvasculature, which would increase NO bioavailability and could contribute to improved insulin sensitivity.
Nonparametric Estimation of State‐Price Densities Implicit in Financial Asset Prices

Implicit in the prices of traded financial assets are Arrow-Debreu prices or, with continuous states, the state-price density (SPD). We construct a nonparametric estimator for the SPD implicit in option prices and we derive its asymptotic sampling theory. This estimator provides an arbitrage-free method of pricing new, complex, or illiquid securities while capturing those features of the data that are most relevant from an asset-pricing perspective, for example, negative skewness and excess kurtosis for asset returns, and volatility "smiles" for option prices. We perform Monte Carlo experiments and extract the SPD from actual S&P 500 option prices. Copyright The American Finance Association 1998.
A força dos "partidos fracos" - um estudo sobre a organização dos partidos brasileiros e seu impacto na coordenação eleitoral

The present research aims to bridge a gap in the studies of the Brazilian electoral arena. The current literature has neglected the study of party organizations and, for that reason, has neglected fundamental questions to understand how the electoral process works. In the present study we will try to answer to three questions: How do Brazilian parties work? What explains the number of parties in our party system? How does party organization impact on the decision of parties to enter or not the electoral contests? We will show that parties have more “life” than is supposed by much of the studies about our political system. This party life helps us to better understand the electoral coordination, responsible for the actual number of parties in a given election.