Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Métodos de focalización en la política social en México. Un estudio comparativo

This paper tries to describe and analyze some of the tools used in social policy to target poverty reduction programs in Mexico. Targeting strategy programs center public actions to a reasonable well defined population or territory, in order to achieve a more focused efficiency in the resource allocation stage. Using data from the National Household Survey of Income and Expenditure (ENIGH) 2002, three econometric models are used to identify the target population: Discriminant Analysis, a Logit Model and a Hierarchical Logit Model.The results show that Discriminant Analysis, which is the main tool used by Sedesol to identify individuals in poverty conditions, has the lowest undercoverage error for the three measures of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty index. The result leads to conclude that this method proves to be the most efficient in identifying population in poverty conditions, given the available information.
Race, Educational Attainment, and the 1940 Census

Decreases in the racial schooling gap have been shown to account for one-third of the increase in the black-white income ratio from 1930 to 1970. But the usual measure of the gap, based on census educational attainment data, is flawed. Data on school enrollment rates and months of school attended reveal that schooling levels of blacks born in the late nineteeth century were far lower than census data indicate. With the corrections proposed, the narrowing of the racial schooling gap explains two-thirds of the rise in the black-white income ratio from 1930 to 1970.
Where the eagles dare? Enacting resistance to wind farms through hybrid collectives

How are actors enrolled and arguments crafted and mobilised in the resistance to wind farms? The discussion is based on a study of two wind farm projects in Norway, on Smøla and Høg-Jæren. By identifying strategies for making arguments of resistance effective and convincing, the ways are explored in which these strategies of representation evolve as a process of searching for arguments both adapted to local concerns and to national bodies of environment management. The resistance develops as a process where actor groups construct hybrid collectives by enrolling humans and non-humans. Adjusting the hybrid collectives to fit concerns implies employing nature objects and various concepts of nature that may work in favour or against resistance.
Security Intelligence and Human Rights: Illuminating the ‘Heart of Darkness’?

Abstract Following some democratization of intelligence in the 1990s, the prosecution of the ‘war on terror’ since 9/11 has apparently reinforced the incompatibility of secret intelligence and respect for human rights. The primary reason for this is the changed perception of security risks in the context of a ‘new’ terrorism. The roles of law, rights and ethics in intelligence are discussed with reference to some of the more controversial intelligence activities: informers, interrogation, intelligence sharing, rendition and covert action. Re-invigorated oversight is necessary to protect human rights without hindering agencies' ability to maintain pubic safety.
Accounting for the employee in the intellectual capital statement

On the basis of three examples of intellectual capital statements that make the individual its central figure, this article discusses the role of individuals in knowledge creation. After all, it is often claimed that the individual is the “container” of knowledge and therefore, what it means to account for the individual is an issue. However, analysing these individual competence statements (intellectual capital statements), it is clear that the individual is never alone. It is always related to organisational purposes and the individual competency statement makes the individual an organisational entity because individual competency is related either to organisational bonus systems, to corporate revenues or to the organisational configuration of its knowledge resources. Through the individual competency statement, the individual is made an organisational entity.
Option Pricing in the Real World: A Generalized Binomial Model with Applications to Real Options

We extend a popular binomial model to allow for option pricing using real-world rather than risk-neutral world probabilities. There are three benefits. First, our model allows direct inference about relevant real-world probabilities (e.g. of success in a real-option project, of default on a corporate bond, or of an American-style option finishing in the money). Second, practitioners using our model for corporate real-option applications completely avoid managerial anxiety that competing risk-neutral models generate when they use risk-free discount rates for risky cash flows. Third, our model simplifies option pricing when higher moments (e.g., skewness and kurtosis) appear in asset pricing models.
Assessment of psychomotor development before and after strabismus surgery for infantile esotropia.

PURPOSE To assess motor and mental development before and after strabismus surgery in children with infantile esotropia. PATIENTS AND METHODS Mental and motor development indexes of 20 children with infantile esotropia without neurologic abnormalities and 17 age-matched healthy control subjects were prospectively tested at regular intervals before and after strabismus surgery with the Dutch version of the Bayley and ordinal scales of infant development. RESULTS The mean age for surgery in the study group was 13.5 months. Before strabismus surgery, the Bayley scales of infant development showed a significant delay in both mental (P < .045) and motor (P < .008) development for children with infantile esotropia compared with the control group. Three weeks after surgery, the delay in mental development had disappeared. The delay in motor development persisted for months. Two of the 7 ordinal scales--object permanence (P < .01) and means-end (P < .036)--showed a statistically significant delay for children with infantile esotropia. Three weeks after strabismus surgery, there was no difference between the study group and the control group. CONCLUSIONS Children with infantile esotropia had delayed motor and mental development compared with healthy children. After strabismus surgery, patients recovered mentally, but their motor delays persisted for months when tested with the Bayley scales of infant development.
Distributed channel allocation scheme for wireless interference avoidance in smart grid

Herein, we propose a distributed channel allocation scheme for power distribution wireless communication systems in smart grid. By defining the priority for each user equipment(UE), the wireless channels are allocated for each interrupted UE efficiently. Since the UEs obtain their priorities based on the local information, the proposed channel allocation scheme is scalable, and therefore suitable to be deployed in large wireless networks. Furthermore, numerical simulations are conducted for performance analysis and good results are obtained using the proposed scheme.
Compensating differences in the Canadian labour market

The theory of compensating wage differentials originally developed by Adam Smith has only recently been assessed using labor-market data. This paper examines the relationship between job characteristics and earned income in Canada. The results indicate that workers in risky jobs do, ceteris paribus, receive financial compensation for the hazards they face on the job. This paper also includes a number of "value of life" estimates derived from a hedonic earnings function.
Economic Freedom of the World: An Accounting of the Literature

The Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index was first produced by Gwartney, Block, and Lawson (Economic Freedom of the World: 1975–1995; 1996) and has been updated annually since. During this period, the EFW index has been cited in hundreds of academic articles. Here, we provide an accounting and description of this literature. Of 402 articles citing the EFW index, 198 used the index as an independent variable in an empirical study. Over two‐thirds of these studies found economic freedom to correspond to a “good” outcome such as faster growth, better living standards, more happiness, etc. Less than 4% of the sample found economic freedom to be associated with a “bad” outcome such as increased income inequality. The balance of evidence is overwhelming that economic freedom corresponds with a wide variety of positive outcomes with almost no negative tradeoffs.
The Effects of business and Political Ties on Firm Performance: Evidence from China.

Abstract Despite increasing attention to the role of social ties in emerging economies, few studies have explicitly distinguished the differential roles of business versus political ties. Drawing on relational governance and institutional theories, this study offers a contingent view of business and political ties in China. The findings from a survey of 241 Chinese firms indicate that business ties have a stronger positive effect on performance than political ties, and both effects depend on institutional and market environments. Business ties are more beneficial when legal enforcement is inefficient and technology is changing rapidly, whereas political ties lead to greater performance when general government support is weak and technological turbulence is low. These findings indicate that firms operating in China should be cautious in their use of business and political ties and adapt their tie utilization to changing institutional and market environments.
Absorptive capacity, knowledge circulation and coal cleaning innovation: The Netherlands in the 1930s

Before World War II, Dutch State Mines, the national, state owned coal corporation, was confronted with major challenges, specifically that foreign coal was sold at dumping prices in the home market. At the same time, coal cleaning needed to be improved in order to offer higher quality coal against lower coal processing costs. In this paper we illustrate how State Mines relied on its innovative capacity in order to overcome the economic, technological and market changes. The coal cleaning innovations at State Mines show how absorptive capacity was of prime importance for the firm's innovative capacity. External knowledge acquisition as well as internal knowledge building proved to be relevant, although the balance changed over time. While initially acquisition and assimilation of external knowledge (potential absorptive capacity) were essential to improve the existing coal cleaning processes, internal knowledge building was needed to come to real improvements in coal cleaning. The establishment of a licensing company was essential to exploit this knowledge. An important feature was that State Mines was always well aware of its lack of capabilities and knowledge and open to search for and learn from knowledge outside its firm boundaries. Moreover, expectations determined the search for external knowledge.
The Metabolic Substrates of Bradykinesia and Tremor in Uncomplicated Parkinson's Disease

The pathophysiological mechanisms of bradykinesia and resting tremor, i.e., two major features of Parkinson's disease (PD), remain incompletely understood despite extensive studies, including functional imaging investigations. Using high-resolution positron emission tomography (PET) and [(18)F]fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (FDG) in 17 nondemented patients with uncomplicated PD on a stable therapeutic regimen, we measured the resting-state cerebral metabolic rate of glucose (CMRGlc), a validated marker of synaptic density/activity. Following formulation of distinct a priori hypotheses about potentially involved brain regions based on previous experimental and clinical literature, correlations between CMRGlc and objective scores of bradykinesia and tremor were searched in a voxel-based fashion using SPM99. Bradykinesia scores were significantly positively correlated with bilateral putamen and globus pallidum CMRGlc, while tremor scores were negatively correlated with bilateral putamen and cerebellar vermis CMRGlc. There was a large overlap of putamenal voxels significantly but inversely correlated with both extrapyramidal features. For both bradykinesia and tremor, the observed patterns of subcortical correlations largely concurred with our a priori hypotheses, and point to the major role of disruption of the striatofrontal and corticocerebellar pathways in the genesis of these extrapyramidal features. The direction of these correlations was not entirely expected, however, which may be due to the patients' being studied on medication, contrary to most studies performed to date. The observation that overlapping portions of the putamen inversely correlated with bradykinesia and tremor was a novel and striking finding which points to the complexity of the underlying pathophysiology of PD. Because it allows greater control of the neurological status, studying patients on medication may partly explain our findings. Voxel-based analysis of resting FDG-PET holds considerable potential for assessing the neural substrates of motor impairment in PD.
ENDOGENOUS INCOME DISTRIBUTION WITH PRODUCT OBSOLESCENCE

Wage inequality in U. S. and UK has increased over the past 25 years. Paradoxically, skilled labor supply has also increased in both countries. This paper develops the dynamic general equilibrium model of product innovation with product obsolescence. We develop a model to provide an explanation of inequality phenomena between skilled and unskilled labor by the channel of innovation and market structure. This paper builds on the dynamic general equilibrium model of product innovation and incorporates overhead cost of the production of intermediate goods to capture endogenous growth rate of innovation, hazard rate, product life cycle and inequality.
Stress distribution in implant-supported prostheses using different connection systems and cantilever lengths: digital photoelasticity

Abstract Photoelastic analysis was used to evaluate the biomechanical behaviour of implant-supported, double-screwed crowns with different connection systems and cantilever lengths. Three models were made in PL-2 photoelastic resin and divided into six groups, on the basis of the implant connection system (external hexagon [EH] or Morse taper [MT]), type of abutment (Mini Pilar [Neodent, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil] or “UCLA”) and number of crowns in the cantilever (one or two). The implant-prosthesis unit was placed in a circular polariscope. Occlusal surfaces of the crowns were subjected to 100-N loads in the axial and oblique (45°) directions in a universal testing machine (EMIC). Generated stresses were recorded and analysed qualitatively in a graphics program (Adobe Photoshop). Under axial loading, all of the groups had similar numbers of fringes, which were increased when the crowns were subjected to oblique loading. The highest number of fringes was found during oblique loading in the EH + Mini Pilar group. In conclusion, although the type of implant connection system did not have a direct influence on the stress distribution for axial loading, the cantilever length did have a direct influence on stress distribution. Models with two crowns in the cantilever showed more stress, with a greater concentration of force on the cervical part of the implant.
Comparison of Direct Sequencing, Real-Time PCR-High Resolution Melt (PCR-HRM) and PCR-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) Analysis for Genotyping of Common Thiopurine Intolerant Variant Alleles NUDT15 c.415C>T and TPMT c.719A>G (TPMT*3C)

Thiopurine intolerance and treatment-related toxicity, such as fatal myelosuppression, is related to non-function genetic variants encoding thiopurine S-methyltransferase (TPMT) and Nudix hydrolase 15 (NUDT15). Genetic testing of the common variants NUDT15:NM_018283. 2:c.415C>T (Arg139Cys, dbSNP rs116855232 T allele) and TPMT: NM_000367. 4:c.719A>G (TPMT*3C, dbSNP rs1142345 G allele) in East Asians including Chinese can potentially prevent treatment-related complications. Two complementary genotyping approaches, real-time PCR-high resolution melt (PCR-HRM) and PCR-restriction fragment length morphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis were evaluated using conventional PCR and Sanger sequencing genotyping as the gold standard. Sixty patient samples were tested, revealing seven patients (11.7%) heterozygous for NUDT15 c.415C>T, one patient homozygous for the variant and one patient heterozygous for the TPMT*3C non-function allele. No patient was found to harbor both variants. In total, nine out of 60 (15%) patients tested had genotypic evidence of thiopurine intolerance, which may require dosage adjustment or alternative medication should they be started on azathioprine, mercaptopurine or thioguanine. The two newly developed assays were more efficient and showed complete concordance (60/60, 100%) compared to the Sanger sequencing results. Accurate and cost-effective genotyping assays by real-time PCR-HRM and PCR-RFLP for NUDT15 c.415C>T and TPMT*3C were successfully developed. Further studies may establish their roles in genotype-informed clinical decision-making in the prevention of morbidity and mortality due to thiopurine intolerance.
Digital-based interleaving control for GaN-based MHz CRM totem-pole PFC

In this paper, the performance of different interleaving control methods for gallium-nitride (GaN) devices based MHz critical conduction mode (CRM) totem-pole power factor correction (PFC) circuit is compared. Both closed-loop interleaving and open-loop interleaving are good for low frequency CRM PFC; but for MHz very high frequency CRM PFC with microcontroller (MCU) implementation, open-loop interleaving outperforms closed-loop interleaving with small and non-amplified phase error. After software optimization, the phase error of open-loop interleaving is smaller than 3 degree at 1MHz, when the control is implemented by 60MHz low cost MCU. Significant ripple cancellation effect and differential-mode (DM) filter size reduction is achieved with good interleaving. For a 1.2kW MHz totem-pole PFC, the DM filter size is reduced to one quarter compared to the counterpart of a 100kHz PFC. Last but not least, the stability of open-loop interleaving is also analyzed indicating that the MHz CRM totem-pole PFC with voltage-mode control, open-loop interleaving, and turn-on instant synchronization can maintain critical mode operation with better stability compared to low frequency CRM PFC.
Does Quality Matter in Labour Input? The Changing Pattern of Labour Composition in New Zealand

The composition of the New Zealand workforce has changed considerably over the past two decades. Qualification levels have risen, labour force participation has trended upwards for women, immigrants have increasingly been sourced from Asia, and the large baby-boom cohort has contributed to an ageing of the workforce. The question is whether such compositional changes have affected the quality of labour. Our estimates show a large rise in labour quality since 1988 as a result of increasing qualification levels, particularly at university degree level. With age as a proxy for work experience, an ageing of the workforce also contributed to rising labour quality. The annual rise in labour quality averaged 0.6% from 1988 to 2005, which was comparable to the experience of Australia, the United States and the euro area. Although labour quality rose in every year of our sample period, the rise was not constant over time. The increase was much stronger in the first half of the period (1988 to 1997) than in the second half (1997 to 2005). By drawing a large number of lower-skilled people into work, the strength of recent employment growth may have dampened growth in labour quality. Accounting for changes in labour quality has implications for labour productivity. Almost half of labour productivity growth of 1.4% per annum since 1988 can be attributed to the rise in labour quality. Labour productivity measured as output per quality-adjusted working hour rose by 0.8% per annum on average from 1988 to 2005, with annual growth of 0.5% in the first half of the period and 1.1% in the second half.
AIS Electronic

There is a growing interest in the requirements engineering (RE) practices of open source software (OSS) projects that are starkly different from those in traditional software development contexts. OSS projects are viewed as self-organizing collaborative social networks wherein OSS RE is a socio-technical distributed cognitive activity. With OSS projects exhibiting diverse social structures, the effects of such variations on the RE quality is unknown. The current study aims to fill this gap via a qualitative comparative study of three OSS projects – RubyonRails, Django and Bootstrap. The initial analysis expose that OSS projects with a lower communication centrality produce more veracious and less vague requirements while projects with a higher ratio of core to periphery members are associated with lesser variance in requirements. A quantitative analysis of OSS projects housed in SourceForge repository is suggested as a future extension to test the resulting hypotheses proposed through this qualitative study.
Management Succession and the Stages of Small Business Development

MEGAN CLIFFORD IS CURRENTLY employed by the Bank of New Zealand in Wellington and was previously a post-graduate student at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Drs. V. Nilikant and R. T. Hamilton are staff members of the Department of Management at the University of Canterbuty. The main purpose of this paper was to confirm through replication the importance of management succession as a cause of organisation chage in family businesses and to do so within a general small business framework which assimilates what are usually and wrongly perceived as separate strands in the small business development process.
Unsupervised Learning for Temporal Search Space Reduction in Three-dimensional Scene Recovery

Methods for three-dimensional scene recovery traverse scene spaces (typically along epipolar lines) to compute two-dimensional image feature correspondences. These methods ignore potentially useful temporal information presented by previously processed frames, which can be used to decrease search space traversal. In this work, we present a general framework which models relationships between image information and recovered scene information specifically for the purpose of improving efficiency of three-dimensional scene recovery. We further present three different methods implementing this framework using either a naive Nearest Neighbour approach or a more sophisticated collection of associated Gaussians. Whilst all three methods provide a decrease in search space traversal, it is the Gaussian-based method which performs best, as the other methods are subject to the (demonstrated) unwanted behaviours of convergence and oscillation.