Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weight Concerns, Weight Control Behaviors, and Smoking Initiation

Objective. To examine the cross-sectional relationships between weight concerns, weight control behaviors, and initiation of tobacco use among youths. Study Design. Smoking status, weight concerns, and weight control behaviors were assessed in a cross-sectional sample of 16 862 children, 9 to 14 years of age, in 1996. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between weight concerns, weight control behaviors, and early stages of smoking initiation (precontemplation, contemplation, and experimentation). All analyses were adjusted for age, body mass index, and known predictors of initiation. Results. Approximately 9% of participants had experimented with cigarettes, and 6% were contemplating cigarette smoking. Contemplation of tobacco use was associated with misperception of being overweight (boys: odds ratio [OR], 1.65; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10–2.48), unhappiness with appearance (girls: OR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.48–2.84; boys: OR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.05–2.42), and a tendency to change eating patterns around peers (girls: OR, 2.87; 95% CI, 2.28–3.62; boys: OR, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.25–2.66). Experimentation with cigarettes was associated with daily exercise to control weight among boys (OR, 1.92; 95% CI, 1.07–3.43) and with monthly purging (OR, 2.54; 95% CI, 1.27–5.07) and daily dieting among girls (OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.09–2.96). Conclusions. Our findings suggest that, among both girls and boys, contemplation of smoking is positively related to weight concerns. Experimentation seems to be positively related to weight control behaviors. It is important for both pediatricians and comprehensive school health programs to address healthy methods of weight maintenance and to dispel the notion of tobacco use as a method of weight control.
Performance Results and Characteristics of Adopters of Genetically Engineered Soybeans in Delaware

Genetically engineered (GE) soybeans first became available to farmers in 1996. Despite the common questions regarding any new crop technology, the new seeds were rapidly adopted. This study examines the characteristics of adopters, as well as yield and weed control cost changes, using survey results from Delaware farmers at the start of the 2000 season. Duration analysis reveals that earlier-adopting farmers had larger farms and tended to use computers for financial management, while regression analysis shows significantly lower weed control costs and, to a lesser extent, higher yields for GE soybeans.
Similar efficacy of low and standard doses of transdermal estradiol in controlling bone turnover in postmenopausal women

Objectives. To investigate the effects of a low transdermal estradiol dose on bone metabolism and to compare it with both the standard dose and absence of treatment. Methods. In this study performed in a third-level academic center, 66 healthy postmenopausal women underwent hormone therapy (HT) with patches containing estradiol at standard (0.050 mg/day, HT50, 33 women) or low dosage (0.025 mg/day, HT25, 33 women) and 70 women were without treatment (NT). The values (mean of three samples) of several bone biochemical parameters were compared between groups after adjusting for confounding factors. Bone mineral density (BMD) was assessed (by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) in the spine and hip in all cases, and a second densitometry scan was performed in 44 women. Results. Bone turnover markers tended to show lower values in the treated groups, but significance was restricted to total alkaline phosphatase (NT vs. HT25, p < 0.05) and cross-linked N-telopeptides of type I collagen (NTX) (NT vs. HT25, p < 10−6; NT vs. HT50, p < 10−5). The loss of BMD observed in NT women, as assessed by the annual percentage change, was blocked in both the HT25 and HT50 women. No significant differences were detected between both HT groups. Conclusions. Low and standard dosages of transdermal estradiol were equally effective in controlling bone metabolism, as assessed by turnover markers. Additionally, NTX was confirmed as the most sensitive marker for detecting changes in bone resorption.
Global warming presents new challenges for maize pest management

It has been conjectured that global warming will increase the prevalence of insect pests in many agro-ecosystems. In this paper, we quantitatively assess four of the key pests of maize, one of the most important systems in North American grain production. Using empirically generated estimates of pest overwintering thresholds and degree-day requirements, along with climate change projections from a high-resolution climate model, we project potential future ranges for each of these pests in the United States. Our analysis suggests the possibility of increased winter survival and greater degree-day accumulations for each of the pests surveyed. We find that relaxed cold limitation could expand the range of all four pest taxa, including a substantial range expansion in the case of corn earworm (H. zea), a migratory, cold-intolerant pest. Because the corn earworm is a cosmopolitan pest that has shown resistance to insecticides, our results suggest that this expansion could also threaten other crops, including those in high-value areas of the western United States. Because managing significant additional pressure from this suite of established pests would require additional pest management inputs, the projected decreases in cold limitation and increases in heat accumulation have the potential to significantly alter the pest management landscape for North American maize production. Further, these range expansions could have substantial economic impacts through increased seed and insecticide costs, decreased yields, and the downstream effects of changes in crop yield variability.
Determinants of Technical Efficiency in Post-Collective Chinese Agriculture: Evidence from Farm-Level Data☆

Abstract The agrarian system of China in the post-collective period is characterized by peasant subsistence and small-scale mixed family farms. Agricultural modernization requires rapid and sustained improvements in levels of output and productivity. Farm-level data of 7927 households sampled from two representative Chinese provinces allow us to formulate and estimate a stochastic frontier production function model that explains a considerable proportion of interfarm efficiency differences and quantifies the efficiency effects of farm size, access to credit, nutrition intake, education attainment, and farming experience. J. Comp. Econom. , September 2000, 28(3), pp. 545–564. London Guildhall University, and Asian Development Bank and London School of Economics.
Rethinking total quality management

Since the 1980s, total quality management (TQM) has become one of the most commonly used management acronyms. As a change management tool, TQM has been well-accepted by managers as it is seen as providing a ''unified set of principles which can guide them through numerous choices or might even make choosing unnecessary'' (Huczynski, 1993, Management Gurus: What Makes Them and How to Become One (London, Routledge), p. 289). Although the management of quality has often been identified as a key to business success in the highly competitive climate of the 1990s, this is not to say that TQM is without its critics.
An Open-End Winding Four-Level Five-Phase Drive

A four-level five-phase open-end winding (OeW) drive topology is introduced in this paper. The drive comprises a five-phase induction machine with open-end stator windings, supplied using two two-level voltage-source inverters with isolated and unequal dc-link voltages, in the ratio 2 : 1. The topology offers the advantages of a modular structure with fewer semiconductor components and has a greater potential for fault tolerance, as compared with an equivalent single-sided four-level drive. Due to the large number of switching states, development of a suitable space vector pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) method can be challenging. Hence, this paper examines the implementation of two-level-shifted carrier-based PWM methods. The effect of dead time on the drive performance is discussed, and it is shown that simultaneous PWM switching of both inverters can lead to degraded output phase voltage waveforms. Detailed analysis of this phenomenon is presented, a solution is proposed, and the modified modulation techniques are incorporated in an experimental setup, at first in conjunction with $V/f$ control. Once the proof of concept has been provided, full field-oriented control is implemented in this OeW drive topology for the first time; detailed experimental testing is conducted, and results are reported.
Nonparametric Methods

In clinical research, "samples" are studied in order to get ideas about the characteristics of the larger populations from which the samples are taken. Population characteristics are called parameters (the population mean and standard deviation are examples). Parametric statistical methods are those that require estimates of parameters and assumptions about the source populations. Familiar examples of parametric methods are the t test, analysis of variance, and Pearson's correlation coefficient. Nonparametric (NP) methods do not require estimates of population parameters. These methods are sometimes called "distribution-free" because the samples of interest can be evaluated without concern for the shape (distribution) of the values in the populations providing the samples. NP methods also are called "ranking" or "ordering" tests, because the relative size or order of the observations may be evaluated, rather than requiring actual measurements. More than 30% of the research reports that appeared between July 1982 and June 1983, in four pediatric journals, employed at least one nonparametric method. The commonly used tests were chi-square, the Fisher exact test, and various "ranking" methods. An alphabetical list of common nonparametric tests is presented, with brief comments about each. Tables are presented, arranged by types of observations, so that the nature of the data guides the user to the method that might be used.
Comparison of statistics for candidate-gene association studies using cases and parents.

Studies of association between candidate genes and disease can be designed to use cases with disease, and in place of nonrelated controls, their parents. The advantage of this design is the elimination of spurious differences due to ethnic differences between cases and nonrelated controls. However, several statistical methods of analysis have been proposed in the literature, and the choice of analysis is not always clear. We review some of the statistical methods currently developed and present two new statistical methods aimed at specific genetic hypotheses of dominance and recessivity of the candidate gene. These new methods can be more powerful than other current methods, as demonstrated by simulations. The basis of these new statistical methods is a likelihood approach. The advantage of the likelihood framework is that regression models can be developed to assess genotype-environment interactions, as well as the relative contribution that alleles at the candidate-gene locus make to the relative risk (RR) of disease. This latter development allows testing of (1) whether interactions between alleles exist, on the scale of log RR, and (2) whether alleles originating from the mother or father of a case impart different risks, i.e., genomic imprinting.
Knowledge Brokering: Spanning Technological and Network Boundaries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the spanning of inter‐organizational weak ties and technological boundaries influences knowledge brokering.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on original fieldwork and employs a case study research design, investigating a Danish HTSF's inter‐organizational activities.Findings – The findings show how an inter‐organizational search that crosses technological boundaries and is based on a network structure of weak ties can imply a reduced risk of unwanted knowledge spill‐over.Research limitations/implications – By not engaging in strong tie collaborations a knowledge brokering organization can reduce the risk of unwanted knowledge spill‐over. The risks and opportunities of knowledge spill‐over furthermore rely on the nature of the technology involved and to what extent technological boundaries are crossed.Practical implications – An organization that can span both technological boundaries and weak ties is in a unique knowledge brokering posit.
Parental Divorce and Narcissism among College Students

342 women and 225 men, undergraduate students, participated in a study to assess whether experiencing the divorce of one's parents affected narcissistic development. In a larger study on the long-term effects of divorce, these students completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. The analyses indicated that the scores for children from divorced families did not differ from the scores of children from intact families on any of the seven subscales.
An Efficient Dynamic TESLA based Authentication Scheme for Secure Network Coding

Network coding based applications are notoriously susceptible to malicious pollution attacks. Packets authentication schemes have been well-recognized as the most effective approach to address this security threat. However, existing packets authentication scheme i. e. the Times keys scheme consumes extra bandwidth for transmission of times keys. Also the Time keys can be captured and replay attack can be launched by the attacker. This motivates to design a new solution to avoid the problems in Time keys scheme. The solution is based on the concept that the source and the destination must agree on the keys along with the network coding process. This scheme of agreeing on the keys is known as adaptive TESLA scheme. Using this proposed scheme the effect of pollution attack and collusion attack is measured in terms of real packets corrupted and dropped. The proposed adaptive TESLA scheme for network coding is also compared with times keys in terms of bandwidth usages. Keywords: network coding, pollution attack, collusion attack, adaptive TESLA.
Screen/Play: Derrida and Film Theory

Peter Brunette and David Wills extend the work of Jacques Derrida into a new realm--with rewarding consequences. Although Derrida has never addressed film theory directly in his writings, Brunette and Wills argue that the ideas he has developed in his critique of the logocentric foundations of Western thought, especially his notion of "Writing," can be usefully applied to film theory and analysis. They maintain that such an application might even begin to shift film from its traditional position within the visual arts to a new place in the media and information sciences. This book also supplies a fascinating introduction to Derrida for the general reader. The authors begin by explaining, in political terms, why film theorists have neglected Derrida's work. Next they offer a Derridean critique of the assumptions of contemporary film studies. Then, drawing on his recently translated The Truth in Painting as well as on other, relatively unknown texts such as Droit de regards, they discuss his ideas in relation to the cinema and present two film analyses--of Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black and of Lynch's Blue Velvet--that attempt to demonstrate the notion of an "anagrammatical," radical reading practice. Finally, they focus on Derrida's neglected book, The Post Card, and situate cinema in terms of a new definition of the technological.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Earnings Cosmetics and Auditor Gender: Evidence from Finnish Private Firms

This paper investigates whether there are differences in cosmetic earnings management between firms audited by male vs. female auditors in a sample of private Finnish firms. We find that earnings cosmetics is more likely to appear in firms audited by male auditors. Our results also indicate that private firms, too, do engage in cosmetic earnings management. Our results imply that gender diversity in the auditing profession may improve the quality of financial statements overall. This suggests that when selecting auditors, management and other stakeholders should pay attention also to the gender of the auditors that they engage or the gender distribution of the audit team. While this is the first study to combine earnings cosmetics and auditor gender, it is also the first one to document that earnings cosmetics takes place in private firms.
Institutions and Politics in a Lewis-Type Growth Model

The paper examines the impact of politics and institutions on growth in the light of Lewis's writings. The basic approach adopted is that the accumulation of 'capitalist surplus' can be threatened for political reasons. If the oppressed are likely to rebel against poor living standards associated with economic development with unlimited supplies of labour, it is sensible for governments to invest in political and institutional devices which will prevent the threat of such disturbances. We call such investments a 'social efficiency wage premium' and find that growth, across a sample of 58 countries for the period between 1980 and 2001, is significantly associated with the measures a country takes to reduce its political vulnerability. The paper concludes that investments of a country's surplus in measures to reduce political vulnerability are well warranted. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd and The Victoria University of Manchester, 2004.
Fast dynamic reconstruction algorithm with joint bilateral filtering for perfusion C-arm CT

Tissue perfusion measurement using C-arm angiography systems is a novel technique with potential high benefit for catheter-guided treatment of stroke in the interventional suite. However, perfusion C-arm CT (PCCT) is challenging: the slow C-arm rotation speed only allows measuring samples of contrast time attenuation curves (TACs) every 5 - 6 s if reconstruction algorithms for static data are used. Furthermore, the peaks of the tissue TACs typically lie in a range of 5 - 30 HU, thus perfusion imaging is very sensitive to noise. We present a dynamic, iterative reconstruction (DIR) approach to reconstruct TACs described by a weighted sum of linear spline functions. The optimization problem is solved using an appropriate initialization and a Landweber-based optimization strategy with a modified backprojection step. To reduce noise a novel regularization technique based on joint bilateral filtering (JBF) is introduced. The algorithm is evaluated using simulation data created with a dynamic cylindrical phantom, a realistic digital brain phantom and real measured data from an animal study with a canine stroke model. Results indicate that the DIR algorithm qualitatively and quantitatively improves reconstructed TACs and perfusion maps compared to classical Feldkamp (FDK) reconstruction. For the brain phantom study the Pearson correlation (PC) of the reconstructed cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps to the ground truth increased from 0.82 (FDK) to 0.87 (DIR). For the canine study the PC of the CBF maps to coregistered perfusion CT maps increased from 0.61 (FDK) to 0.73 (DIR).
Demand for Nutrients: The Household Production Approach

This study uses the household production theory to study the demand for nutrients, i.e., households purchase a combination of food items from the market and produce the needed nutrients from these food items. By following the traditional household production approach, shadow prices for nutrients in food consumption are calculated. The cost function that generates the shadow prices appears plausible in terms of its elasticities of substitution and factor demand. After obtaining the calculated shadow prices of nutrients, the nutrient demand functions are estimated. Results show that the own-price elasticity of demand for nutrient is inelastic, whereas the expenditure elasticities indicate that nutrients are normal goods. Crossprice elasticities show that there appears to be complementarity in the demand for nutrients. This seems a logical result.
Signaling Credit-Worthiness: Land Titles, Banking Practices and Access to Formal Credit in Indonesia

Many land titling programs have produced lackluster results in terms of achieving access to credit for the poor. This may re ect insucient empha- sis on local banking practices. Bankers commonly use sophisticated methods other than collateral to ensure repayment. Some methods rely on ex-ante in- formation ows and formal land titles can improve these ows by signaling to the bank important characteristics about borrowers. Using a household survey from Indonesia, we provide evidence that formal land titles do have a positive and significant e ect on access to credit and at least part of this effect is best interpreted as an improvement in ex-ante information ows. This result stands in contrast to the prevailing notion that land titles only function as collateral. Analysts who neglect local banking practices may misinterpret the observed effect of systematic land titling programs on credit access because these programs tend to dampen the signaling value of formal land titles.
Designing Conjoint Choice Experiments Using Managers' Prior Beliefs

The authors provide more efficient designs for conjoint choice experiments based on prior information elicited from managers about the parameters and their associated uncertainty. The authors use a Bayesian design procedure that assumes a prior distribution of likely parameter values and optimizes the design over that distribution. The authors propose a way to elicit prior information from managers and show in Monte Carlo studies that the procedure provides more efficient designs than the current procedures. The authors provide an empirical application, in which they elicit prior information on the parameter values and the associated uncertainty from managers. Here, the Bayesian design provides 30%-50% lower standard errors of the estimates and an expected predictive validity that is approximately 20% higher.
British Unions: Dissolution or Resurgence Revisited

Union membership rose by 100,000 in 1999 ending two decades of sustained membership losses u the longest, deepest decline in British labour history yielding a cumulative fall of over 5 million members. This paper analyses that haemorrhage in membership and asks whether or not the recent increase augurs a resurgence in unions'' fortunes. Membership data and voice arrangements are described first. Then the decline in membership in the 1980s and 1990s is analysed, emphasising both the failure of unions to achieve recognition in newly established workplaces and plummeting density where unions remain recognised. The health of unions turns, in part, on their appeal to potential members, so their ''''sword of justice'''' impact is set out next showing how unions have an egalitarian effect on the distribution of pay, cut accidents and promote both family friendly and equal opportunity policies in the workplace. It is unlikely that employment will grow disproportionately in unionised sectors of the economy. So any revival of unions depends on organising activity among both individuals and firms. The pivotal importance of new recognitions is discussed by analysing three forms of marriage between capital and labour u true love, convenience and shotgun. The paper concludes that a twin track organising strategy would help unions partially reverse their membership losses u signing up new employers but also focusing on the 3 million plus free riders who are covered by collective agreements but not members.