Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Organization and Productivity in Backward Economies

As a contributing cause of low productivity in backward economies, "organization" has received far less analytical attention than the other factors of production. This note scrutinizes some fragmentary evidence provided by the work of the International Labour Office Productivity Demonstration Missions and two case studies by the author undertaken in Nigeria. The proposition under consideration is that relative to existing levels of technique and capital accumulation the ratio of resource input to volume of product is very high in underdeveloped economies.1 The causes for this high input cost can be grouped under two headings: factors working within the individual producing unit and external impediments such as high-cost sources of supply, inadequate transportation facilities, narrow markets, et cetera. The second group of exogenous factors are, by definition, organic features of an underdeveloped economy. Internal factors, while they are ultimately related to the cultural environment, may be treated in the first approximation as independent variables. Addressed -to the latter category, the data presented below are intended to suggest the nature and extent of organizational inefficiency within the firm. The results achieved by the ILO Productivity Demonstration Missions illustrate the magnitude of productivity increase available by virtue of simple alterations in the physical organization of a plant's productive process. Table I is derived from tabular and narrative statements of labor productivity increases given in Mission reports.2 * The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of his employer, the Agency for International Development. Portions of this note were contained in a paper read to the Seventh Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research. The author is indebted to J. Bernstein W. S. Cassels, B. Gould, R. H. Grreen, C. Grey and to his wife for their constructive comments. 1. The difficult problem of comparing the efficiency of factor combination in backward economies relative to that in advanced societies is avoided. The
The entrepreneur's perception in the entrepreneur–VCF relationship: the impact of conflict types on investor value

The role of conflict has been the subject of extensive research in the area of psychology and sociology and – more recently – in the context of the entrepreneur–investor relationship. This study examines the effect of perceived task conflict and relationship conflict on the perceived value that an entrepreneur ascribes to her venture capital firm (VCF). We analyzed survey data of 152 German ventures and find relationship conflict to be detrimental for perceived investor value, whereas task conflict significantly increases an entrepreneur's perception of investor value. This effect is even stronger in the absence of relationship conflict. In addition, we tested a set of interaction effects on this relationship. We build on Sapienza's (1992) seminal work, who studied a predecessor of task conflict – divergence of perspective – and extend research by linking the most important conflict types to investor value in the context of young ventures. We contribute to the literature on conflict between entrepreneurs and VCFs and reveal clear patterns regarding the effects and interactions of task conflict and relationship conflict.
An RNA polymerase II promoter containing sequences upstream and downstream from the RNA startpoint that direct initiation of transcription from the same site.

The gfa gene encodes glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an intermediate-filament protein expressed primarily in glial cells. We have used in vitro transcription studies to show that the basal level of transcription of the human gene encoding GFAP is controlled by two distinct initiators--i.e., promoter elements that direct transcription from a specific start site. One initiator is located about 25 base pairs upstream from the transcription start site, contains a TATA box, and apparently acts together with a sequence found around the transcription start site. The other initiator is located between +11 and +50 bp downstream from the transcription start site. Most of this second region overlaps with the protein-encoding sequence, which starts at bp +17. The sensitivity of transcription to alpha-amanitin indicates that both initiators are used by RNA polymerase II.
Discounting under Uncertainty

Suppose asset pricing is governed by the CAPM or the ICAPM, and the expected one-period simple returns on the net cash flows of investment projects are constant through time. Then the net cash flows are priced by discounting their expected values with their expected one-period simple returns. But when net cash flows are priced by discounting their expected values with constant CAPM or ICAPM expected one-period simple returns, distributions of net cash flows more than one period ahead are likely to be skewed right. Expected payoffs are then larger than median pay-offs, and expected pay-offs are progressively more unusual outcomes for longer investment horizons. Copyright 1996 by University of Chicago Press.
Potential anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of Sambucus australis

Abstract Context: Sambucus australis Cham. & Schltdl. (Adoxaceae) is used in Brazilian folk medicine to treat inflammatory disorders. Objective: To evaluate the in vitro anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of S. australis. Materials and methods: The anti-inﬂammatory activity of ethanol extracts of the leaf and bark of S. australis (1–100 μg/mL) were studied in lipopolysaccharide/interferon γ stimulated murine macrophages RAW 264.7 cells (24 h incubation) by investigating the release of nitric oxide (NO) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and in the TNF-α-induced nuclear factor kappa (NF-κB) assay. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined by the microdilution test (24 h incubation). Antioxidant activity was determined by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and the NO scavenging assays. Chemical composition was assessed by LC-MS/MS. Results: Antioxidant activities in the DPPH (IC50 43.5 and 66.2 μg/mL), FRAP (IC50 312.6 and 568.3 μg/mL) and NO radical scavenging assays (IC50 285.0 and 972.6 μg/mL) were observed in the leaf and bark ethanol extracts, respectively. Solely the leaf extract showed significant inhibition of NO and TNF-α production in RAW264.7 cells at concentrations of 2 and 100 μg/mL, respectively, and suppression of TNF-α inhibition of NF-κB by 12.8 and 20.4% at concentrations of 50 and 100 μg/mL, respectively. The extract also exhibited antibacterial activity against Salmonella typhimurium (MIC 250 μg/mL) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (MIC 250 μg/mL). LC-MS/MS revealed the presence of chlorogenic acid and rutin as major compounds. Discussion and conclusion: The results indicate that the ethanol leaf extract of S. australis exhibit prominent anti-inﬂammatory effects.
Horizontal Transfer of the High-Pathogenicity Island of Yersinia pseudotuberculosis

ABSTRACT The horizontal transfer of genetic elements plays a major role in bacterial evolution. The high-pathogenicity island (HPI), which codes for an iron uptake system, is present and highly conserved in various Enterobacteriaceae, suggesting its recent acquisition by lateral gene transfer. The aim of this work was to determine whether the HPI has kept its ability to be transmitted horizontally. We demonstrate here that the HPI is indeed transferable from a donor to a recipient Yersinia pseudotuberculosis strain. This transfer was observable only when the donor and recipient bacteria were cocultured at low temperatures in a liquid medium. When optimized conditions were used (bacteria actively growing in an iron-deprived medium at 4°C), the frequency of HPI transfer reached ∼10−8. The island was transferable to various serotype I strains of Y. pseudotuberculosis and to Yersinia pestis, but not to Y. pseudotuberculosis strains of serotypes II and IV or to Yersinia enterocolitica. Upon transfer, the HPI was inserted almost systematically into the asn3 tRNA locus. Acquisition of the HPI resulted in the loss of the resident island, suggesting an incompatibility between two copies of the HPI within the same strain. Transfer of the island did not require a functional HPI-borne insertion-excision machinery and was RecA dependent in the recipient but not the donor strain, suggesting that integration of the island into the recipient chromosome occurs via a mechanism of homologous recombination. This lateral transfer also involved the HPI-adjacent sequences, leading to the mobilization of a chromosomal region at least 46 kb in size.
Pawns, Porters, and Petty Traders: Women in the Transition to Cash Crop Agriculture in Colonial Ghana

-T HE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN'S unpaid labor in agriculture has been central to the process of capitalist accumulation in colonial and postcolonial Africa. In areas of southern and eastern Africa, where colonial penetration took the form of European capital in agriculture, mining, and industry, rural women's subsistence production helped subsidize the low wages paid to male migrant laborers. In western Africa, where colonial penetration took the form of peasant export crop production, women's continued production of subsistence crops and their labor contributions to the export agricultural sector were crucial factors lowering the costs of production of coffee, cocoa, palm oil, and peanuts. Though colonial officials subsumed women's labor under the general category of "family labor," they were keenly aware of the benefits capital derived from the preservation of certain exploitative aspects of precapitalist gender relations. Upon these relations depended capital's ability "to obtain unskilled labour at a rate less than ordinarily paid in industry," implied a South African government report in 1944.1 With unpaid "family labor" and with access to "tribal" land, the Gold Coast (Ghana) director of agriculture wrote in 1918, African farmers produced cocoa more cheaply than farmers in any other country with which he was acquainted.2 In those colonies where Africans retained control over the land, the
AMINO ACIDS AS NEUROTRANSMITTERS OF CORTICOFUGAL NEURONES IN THE RAT: A COMPARISON OF GLUTAMATE AND ASPARTATE

1 The relative sensitivities to aspartate and glutamate of neurones receiving a corticofugal innervation were examined by microiontophoresis, and compared with the relative sensitivities of neurones not appearing to receive such an input. 2 On all the cells tested, glutamate appeared to be a more potent excitant than aspartate in terms of neuronal response size or effective dose. 3 dl‐α‐Aminoadipate (αAA) reduced the excitatory amino acid responses on all the neurones tested. On many of these cells a control excitation could be produced, by acetylcholine or hydrogen ions, which was in most cases unaffected by doses of αAA producing antagonism of amino acid excitation. 4 On 70% of the cells, aminoadipate showed no selectivity for aspartate compared with glutamate but a differential action, involving blockade of aspartate but not glutamate, was apparent on the other 30%. 5 Doses of αAA which selectively reduced responses to aspartate had no effect on short latency evoked spikes, but doses which also reduced responses to glutamate reduced the short‐latency synaptic excitation induced by electrical stimulation of either the surface of the cerebral cortex, or of the pyramidal tracts in the medulla. 6 These findings suggest that corticofugal neurones having an excitatory action on cells in various parts of the brain may use an amino acid, probably glutamate, as a common neurotransmitter. 7 As no significant difference could be demonstrated in the potency ratios of glutamate aspartate on monosynaptically activated cells compared with other cells, doubt is cast on the validity of drawing conclusions about transmitter identity from potency ratios alone, without the support of antagonist studies.
Efficacy and Safety of Lamotrigine in Pediatric Patients

Accumulating data suggest that lamotrigine, which has been available for adult use in epilepsy for more than a decade in clinical practice, also confers effective, well-tolerated control of a range of childhood epilepsies. Lamotrigine is currently approved for the treatment of epilepsy by regulatory authorities in 93 countries, more than 70 of which have approved its use in pediatric patients on the basis of data from well-controlled clinical trials. The controlled clinical trials data have been supplemented over the years by clinical practice data, primarily from uncontrolled studies, confirming or demonstrating additional efficacy of lamotrigine for a range of seizure types. This article reviews the data from well-controlled clinical trials and studies conducted in clinical practice to present an updated perspective on the efficacy and safety of lamotrigine in pediatric patients. (J Child Neurol 2002;17:2S34—2S42).
Direct Elicitation of Risk-Controlled Time Preferences

Empirical studies of intertemporal choice often nd individuals are surprisingly impatient. However, almost all previous research has confounded risk and time preferences by assuming risk neutrality - often implicitly. This is in stark contrast with signicant evidence showing that individuals are in fact risk averse even at low stakes. The assumption of risk neutrality in the presence of risk aversion will yield upwardly biased discount rates, and this in turn may be the primary reason for high discount rate estimates in past studies. One solution to the problem is to jointly estimate risk and time preference. We propose a new method for eliciting discount rates in which we do not need to elicit individual risk attitudes and make fewer assumptions about the form of the utility function. We test this new method by conducting a controlled experiment with real payments, and nd signicantly lower discount rate estimates in comparison to standard techniques. We report the distribution of risk and time preferences for our sample and perform statistical analysis of the individual-level data. Also, we compare an estimate from the risk-controlled discount rate elicitation task to one obtained using the joint estimation technique of Andersen et al. (2008). We nd consistency between our risk-controlled discount rate estimate and that obtained from the joint-estimation procedure.
Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance

Bitcoin is an online communication protocol that facilitates the use of a virtual currency, including electronic payments. Bitcoin's rules were designed by engineers with no apparent influence from lawyers or regulators. Bitcoin is built on a transaction log that is distributed across a network of participating computers. It includes mechanisms to reward honest participation, to bootstrap acceptance by early adopters, and to guard against concentrations of power. Bitcoin's design allows for irreversible transactions, a prescribed path of money creation over time, and a public transaction history. Anyone can create a Bitcoin account, without charge and without any centralized vetting procedure—or even a requirement to provide a real name. Collectively, these rules yield a system that is understood to be more flexible, more private, and less amenable to regulatory oversight than other forms of payment—though as we discuss, all these benefits face important limits. Bitcoin is of interest to economists as a virtual currency with potential to disrupt existing payment systems and perhaps even monetary systems. This article presents the platform's design principles and properties for a nontechnical audience; reviews its past, present, and future uses; and points out risks and regulatory issues as Bitcoin interacts with the conventional financial system and the real economy.
Celebrating group and place identity: A case study of a new regional festival

The role of festivals in challenging the perception of local identity can be very important and, in the case of small festivals, is often the most important outcome. This paper discusses the Rollin' Down the River Festival , held in the autumn of 1997 in communities along the Kansas River in this context. While multiple research strategies were employed to evaluate the festival, questionnaires completed by festival committee organizers were the most useful, and this paper was based largely upon them. There were five main categories of festival attractions (Kansas River programmes, rural homecomings, programmes by or about Native Americans, natural environment activities and the celebration of local agriculture). Attendance figures were highest at the opening and closing ceremonies, at programmes directed towards school children and at rural homecomings. Programmes in larger towns failed to attract as much attention, so attendance was inversely related to population size. The popularity of programmes based on the frontier/early settlement period of the mid- to late nineteenth century was noticeable. Despite being characterized as an example of tourist commodification, such events did lead to a positive self-identification for the local community.
The Market Quality of Dealer versus Hybrid Markets: The Case of Moderately Liquid Securities

Over the last decade, electronic limit-order trading systems have been sweeping securities exchanges around the world. This paper studies a transitional case, namely, the commencement of trading of a group of moderately liquid stocks on SETS of the London Stock Exchange. The evidence reveals that the liquidity of those stocks dropped substantially after the introduction of the limit order book and the removal of the market makers' obligations. This transition provides an example that a hybrid market with a limit order book and voluntary dealers may not perform as well as a dealership market with obligatory market makers. Copyright 2007 The Author Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Lack of effect of citalopram on magnetic resonance spectroscopy measures of glutamate and glutamine in frontal cortex of healthy volunteers

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a non-invasive imaging technique that can provide localised measures of brain chemistry in vivo. We previously found that healthy volunteers receiving the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, citalopram, daily for 1 week showed higher levels of a combined measure of glutamate and glutamine (Glx) in occipital cortex than those receiving placebo. The aim of this study was to assess if a similar effect could be detected in the frontal brain region. Twenty-three healthy volunteers randomised to receive either citalopram 20 mg or a placebo capsule daily for 7—10 days were studied and scanned using a 3T Varian INOVA system before and at the end of treatment. Standard short-TE (echo time) PRESS (Point-resolved spectroscopy) (TE = 26 ms) and PRESS-J spectra were acquired from a single 8-cm3 voxel in a frontal region incorporating anterior cingulate cortex. Glutamate and total Glx levels were quantified both relative to creatine and as absolute levels. Relative to placebo, citalopram produced no change in Glx or glutamate alone at the end of the study. Similarly, no effect was seen on other MRS measures studied: myo-inositol, choline, N-acetylaspartate and creatine. These data suggest that the effects of serotonin reuptake to modify cortical glutamatergic MRS measures may be regionally specific. This supports the potential for MRS in assessing neuroanatomically specific serotonin-glutamate interactions in the human brain.
THE ABILITY TO INTEGRATE DIFFERENT TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE AND ITS EFFECT ON INNOVATION PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of a firm's ability to integrate knowledge on their innovation performance, in order to help firm's prioritise their resources, used for knowledge integration, more effectively. Data were collected from a survey mailed to R&D managers in firms with between 100–1,000 employees in a cross-section of industries. Five hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analysis with and without interaction terms. The results indicate that a categorisation of knowledge is useful for understanding knowledge integration. The study also shows that the ability to integrate domain-specific knowledge is significantly related to innovation performance. Furthermore, the results indicate that technology turbulence in the industry has a positive moderating effect on the above relation. Managerial implications suggest how managers can focus their efforts in order to effectively integrate knowledge in product development projects.
Arcticibacter pallidicorallinus sp. nov. isolated from glacier ice.

A Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped bacterium (strain Hh36(T)) was isolated from the No. 1 glacier in Xinjiang, north-west China. Colonies of strain Hh36(T) were pink, convex and round on PYG medium plates. Strain Hh36(T) was able to grow at 4-30 °C and pH 6.0-8.0. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain Hh36(T) was related to members of the genus Arcticibacter. The major cellular fatty acids of the novel strain were iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c and/or C16 : 1ω7c) and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 44.0 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics and phylogenetic analysis, strain Hh36(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Arcticibacter, for which the name Arcticibacter pallidicorallinus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Hh36(T) ( = CGMCC 1.9313(T) = KCTC 32542(T)).
Thiadiazoles: molecules of diverse applications - a review.

A review. Thiadiazoles are an important class of heterocyclic compds. that exhibit diverse applications in org. synthesis, pharmaceutical and biol. applications. They also known to useful as oxidn. inhibitors, cyanine dyes, metal chelating agents, anti-corrosion agents. Attracted by their broad spectrum of applications; researchers across the globe are working on this moiety and consequently have been instrumental in the advancement of thiadiazole chem. This review article provides up to date information about developments, exploration of new methods, synthetic strategies, techniques adopted for the synthesis of thiadiazoles and their diverse pharmaceutical activities, structure-activity relationship of the most potent compds. and phys. properties. This article can act as an important tool for org. and medicinal chemists to develop newer compds. possessing thiadiazole moiety that could be better agents in terms of efficacy and safety. [on SciFinder(R)]
High-density interconnections in mobile phones using ACF

Mobile phone is developing towards an information and entertainment device. In addition, it serves as mobile office for the business users offering access to all needed files and services to conduct daily business. To achieve this, mobile phone needs very high performance and high functionality combined with small size and low energy consumption, keeping the total system cost as low as possible. Increasing functionality requires aggressive integration on integrated circuit and printed wiring board level. Modularity offers freedom for the designers, but interconnections between various modules may become a challenge when number of connections increases and high performance with low interference is required. An interesting option for this interconnection dilemma is to replace board-to-board connectors with Anisotropic Conductive Adhesives (ACA) joining the modules directly to each other. Successful execution of board-to-board (flexible or rigid) interconnection using ACA needs careful consideration of design issues, materials selection, and process development. Rigorous reliability testing ensures that the end user can enjoy the mobile phone without hardware problems. This paper compares process and reliability issues with ACF and ACP.