Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Low Wages Stimulate Investment? An analysis of the relationship between distribution and investment in Turkish private manufacturing industry

This study analyses the relative impact of profitability and demand on accumulation in Turkish private manufacturing industry on the basis of the theoretical framework outlined by Marglin & Bhaduri (1990). The main motivation behind this analysis is to shed light on the demand aspects of the slowdown in accumulation in the manufacturing industry despite the increase in profitability during the structural adjustment episode. For this purpose, the ratio of investment to value-added is estimated as a function of the profit share and an accelerator term, namely the growth rate of value-added, using panel data for the 26 industries of the private manufacturing sector. The results show that investment is not responsive to the profit share, whereas growth has a consistent positive impact. This result is significant in explaining the inability of pro-capital income policies to stimulate manufacturing investments throughout the export-promotion era. The export boom maintained by the use of the existing capacity rather than by new investments shows the limits of export demand to compensate for the fall in domestic consumption out of wages. The results make a strong case against the argument that profitability enhances accumulation. Evidence shows that it is not possible to enhance accumulation and long-term potential for growth simply based on promoting profitability, without paying attention to the demand aspects.
Role of nitric oxide synthesis in the regulation of coronary vascular tone in the isolated perfused rabbit heart.

OBJECTIVE The aim was to study the effects on coronary vascular tone of three inhibitors of nitric oxide (NO) synthesis. METHODS Studies were performed on isolated perfused hearts of 74 male New Zealand White rabbits fed normal laboratory diet. Resting coronary perfusion pressure was increased to 40-60 mm Hg with the thromboxane mimetic 9,11-dideoxy-9 alpha,11 alpha-methanoepoxy prostaglandin F2 alpha (U46619). The effects of NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA), N-iminoethyl-L-ornithine (L-NIO), and NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) (0.3-300 microM) on resting coronary perfusion pressure were determined. The effects of these compounds, at concentrations that increased the resting perfusion pressure to a similar extent, on the fall in perfusion pressure induced by acetylcholine (0.1 microM) and glyceryl trinitrate (1 microM) were also investigated. In these studies the resting perfusion pressure was maintained at 40-60 mm Hg by reducing the concentration of U46619. RESULTS L-NMMA, L-NIO, and L-NAME induced concentration dependent increases in resting coronary perfusion pressure (n = 3-9, p < 0.05). L-NAME had the greatest potency and efficacy, increasing the resting pressure by 48.0(SEM 9.6) mm Hg at 30 microM. L-NIO and L-NMMA increased perfusion pressure by 27.3(3.0) and 19.5(5.8) mm Hg respectively at the maximum concentration studied (300 microM). However, at concentrations that were equieffective on resting perfusion pressure (15 mm Hg increase), L-NMMA (100 microM), but not L-NIO (25 microM) or L-NAME (4 microM), significantly inhibited the fall in pressure induced by acetylcholine by 57.2(5.0)%, n = 6, p < 0.05. This effect of L-NMMA++ was attributed to a shorter duration of fall and was reversed by L-arginine (300 microM). L-NMMA (100 microM) and L-NIO (25 microM) potentiated the effect of glyceryl trinitrate by increasing the peak fall in perfusion pressure by 75.6(11.0)% and 68.8(24.1)% respectively (n = 6 for each, p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The differential effects of the three inhibitors on resting coronary perfusion pressure and the acetylcholine induced fall in coronary perfusion pressure suggest that basal and stimulated NO synthesis may be differentially regulated. Reduction in the synthesis of endogenous NO by these compounds potentiates the glyceryl trinitrate induced fall in perfusion pressure, which may have important clinical implications.
Detecting Climate Change due to Increasing Carbon Dioxide

The observed interannual variability of temperature at 60�N has been investigated. The results indicate that the surface warming due to increased carbon dioxide which is predicted by three-dimensional climate models should be detectable now. It is not, possibly because the predicted warming is being delayed more than a decade by ocean thermal inertia, or because there is a compensating cooling due to other factors. Further consideration of the uncertainties in model predictions and of the likely delays introduced by ocean thermal inertia extends the range of time for the detection of warming, if it occurs, to the year 2000. The effects of increasing carbon dioxide should be looked for in several variables simultaneously in order to minimize the ambiguities that could result from unrecognized compensating cooling.
Lest We Forget, a Short History of Housing in the United States

Many changes in historical housing practices and demographics may be surprising to people looking at the current housing situation and may help us understand the sort of changes that have occurred and the speed at which significant change is possible. Beginning in 1940, the decennial census survey started asking questions about the housing stock in the United States. By examining the questions and answers, we can see how housing has changed in the past 60 years. The art and practice of indoor plumbing took nearly a century to develop, starting in about the 1840s. In 1940 nearly half of houses lacked hot piped water, a bathtub or shower, or a flush toilet. Over a third of houses didn’t have a flush toilet. As late as 1960, over 25% of the houses in 16 states didn’t have complete plumbing facilities. Half of all households heated with coal in 1940, and another quarter heated with wood. By 2000 the fraction of houses that heated with wood or coal was below 5%. By 1960, fuel oil and natural gas were the primary heating fuels. The number of houses that used fuel oil peaked that year and has declined in national importance ever since. The use of electricity as a heating fuel has climbed while fuel oil has declined. These changes in choice of main heating fuel coincide with an expansion of the population in the West and South, helped by the advent of airconditioning. Another significant change has been the number of people per household and the size of housing units. The average number of people per household has declined while at the same time new houses are getting bigger and have more rooms. In 1900 the average household was over 4.5 people, in 1940 it was about 3.5, and by 1990 it had declined to less than 2.5. In 1940, the percent of households consisting of people living alone was less than 10%, since 1990 over a quarter of households have been single-person. At the same time new houses have been getting larger. Over the past 15 years the median floor area of new homes has increased 25%. A quarter of new homes now have 4 bedrooms, up from just over 10% 25 years ago. Now 80% of new homes have 2 or more bathrooms, compared to half of new homes with only one bathroom in 1975. During the past quarter century, when the housing stock was changing so much, surveys of the overall happiness of the American population show no increase and possibly even a decline. Looking at these long-term, large scale changes can remind us that the housing stock is dynamic and may help us better understand what influences it.
The Myth of Democratic Recession

A near consensus has emerged that the world has fallen into a “democratic recession. ” Leading observers and democracy advocates characterize the last decade as a period of democratic “rollback,” “erosion,” or “decline,”1 in which new democracies have fallen victim to a “powerful authoritarian undertow. ”2 In an article entitled “The Great Democracy Meltdown,” for example, Joshua Kurlantzick claims that global freedom has “plummeted. ”3 Another observer suggests that “we might in fact be seeing the beginning of the end for democracy. ”4 The gloomy mood is made manifest in Freedom House’s yearly reports in the Journal of Democracy. Summarizing Freedom House’s annual survey of freedom, Arch Puddington warned in 2006 of a growing “pushback against democracy,”5 characterized 2007 and 2008 as years of democratic “decline,”6 claimed that the democratic erosion had “accelerated” in 2009,7 and described global democracy as “under duress” in 2010.8 Following a brief moment of optimism during the Arab Spring, Freedom House warned of a democratic “retreat” in 2012 and an “authoritarian resurgence” in 2013.9 This is a gloomy picture indeed. It is not, however, an accurate one. There is little evidence that the democratic sky is falling or (depending on your choice of fable) that the wolf of authoritarian resurgence has arrived.10 The state of global democracy has remained stable over the last decade, and it has improved markedly relative to the 1990s. Perceptions of a democratic recession, we argue, are rooted in a flawed understanding of the events of the early 1990s. The excessive optimism and voluntarism that pervaded analyses of early post–Cold War transitions generated unrealistic expectations that, when not realized, gave
Molecular Mechanism Underlying RAG1/RAG2 Synaptic Complex Formation*

Two lymphoid cell-specific proteins, RAG1 and RAG2 (RAG), initiate V(D)J recombination by assembling a synaptic complex with recombination signal sequences (RSSs) abutting two different antigen receptor gene coding segments, and then introducing a DNA double strand break at the end of each RSS. Despite the biological importance of this system, the structure of the synaptic complex, and the RAG protein stoichiometry and arrangement of DNA within the synaptosome, remains poorly understood. Here we applied atomic force microscopy to directly visualize and characterize RAG synaptic complexes. We report that the pre-cleavage RAG synaptic complex contains about twice the protein content as a RAG complex bound to a single RSS, with a calculated mass consistent with a pair of RAG heterotetramers. In the synaptic complex, the RSSs are predominantly oriented in a side-by-side configuration with no DNA strand crossover. The mass of the synaptic complex, and the conditions under which it is formed in vitro, favors an association model of assembly in which isolated RAG-RSS complexes undergo synapsis mediated by RAG protein-protein interactions. The replacement of Mg2+ cations with Ca2+ leads to a dramatic change in protein stoichiometry for all RAG-RSS complexes, suggesting that the cation composition profoundly influences the type of complex assembled.
Analysis of Corporate Disclosures on Relative Performance Evaluation

The relative performance evaluation (RPE) hypothesis states that firms benefit from comparing their own performance to that of a peer group when evaluating the CEO's performance. Although in theory firms should be employing relative performance to evaluate the CEO, indirect empirical tests in the 1980s and 1990s generally fail to support the RPE hypothesis. This paper examines RPE‐related disclosures found in the compensation committee reports provided in proxy statements to determine whether firms actually employ RPE, and to offer insight into why indirect tests generally fail to support the RPE hypothesis. We find that firms do use RPE in determining executive compensation, thus supporting the RPE hypothesis, although RPE usage is not widespread. We also find that several key assumptions underlying prior indirect tests are misspecified for many firms, helping to explain the difficulty in detecting RPE in random samples of firms and suggesting improvements to methodologies employing indirect tests for RP.
A new flexible digital research platform based on a standard ultrasound scanner: results and applicative perspectives

The scope of the subject work is to describe the major modifications which have been carried out on a standard unit for medical ultrasound imaging (Technos MPX by Esaote SpA), in order to obtain a digital flexible research platform. The most important challenge was to achieve all the flexibility needed for research purposes on an already existing hardware platform. The main characteristics of the upgraded platform, as well as some preliminary application results, are presented.
GANY: A genetic spectral-based clustering algorithm for Large Data Analysis

Recently, Data analysis is one of the most growing fields. The big amounts of data are making their analysis a really challenging area. The most relevant techniques are mainly divided in two sub-domains: Classification and Clustering. Even though Classification is currently growing and evolving, one of the promising techniques to deal with the Large Data Analysis is Clustering, because Classification needs human supervision, which makes the analysis more expensive. Clustering is a blind process used to group data by similarity. Currently, the most relevant methods are those based on manifold identification. The main idea behind these techniques is to group data using the form they define in the space. In order to achieve this goal, there are several techniques based on Spectral Analysis which deal with this problem. However, these techniques are not suitable for Large Data, due to they require a lot of memory to determine the groups. Besides, there are some problems of local minima convergence in these techniques which are common in statistical methodologies. This work is focused on combining Genetic Algorithms with spectral-based methodologies to deal with the Large Data Analysis problem. Here, we will combine the Nyström method with the Spectrum to generate an approximation of the problem to an accurate summary of the search space. Also a genetic algorithm is used to reduce the local minimum convergence problem in the new search space. The performance of this methodology has been evaluated using the accuracy with both, synthetic and real-world datasets extracted from the literature.
The Pulse of Public Opinion: Using Twitter Data to Analyze Public Perception of Reform in El Salvador

This study uses Twitter data to provide a more nuanced understanding of the public reaction to the 2011 reform to the propane gas subsidy in El Salvador. By soliciting a small sample of manually tagged tweets, the study identifies the subject matter and sentiment of all tweets during six one-month periods over three years that concern the subsidy reform. The paper shows that such an analysis using Twitter data can provide a useful complement to existing household survey data and even potentially replace survey data if none were available. The finding show that when people tweet about the subsidy, they almost always do so in a negative manner; and there is a decline in discussion of topics about the reform subsidy, which coincides with increase in support for the subsidy as reported elsewhere. Therefore, the study concludes that decreasing discussion of the subsidy reform indicates an increase in support for the reform. In addition, the gas distributor strikes of May 2011 may have contributed to public perception of the reform more than previously acknowledged. This study is used as an opportunity to provide methodological guidance for researchers who wish to undertake similar studies, documenting the steps in the analysis pipeline with detail and noting the challenges inherent in obtaining data, classification, and inference.
Estimation of total-body skeletal muscle mass in children and adolescents.

PURPOSE The estimation of total-body skeletal muscle mass (SMM) has been predicted in healthy adults using anthropometric measurements and urine creatinine excretion. SMM measurement is compulsory to evaluate exercise performance and the influence of physical training on muscle mass. However, there is a lack of information on children and adolescents when quantifying appendicular skeletal muscle mass. METHODS Thirty-nine Caucasian children and adolescents (male and female, 7-16 yr old) and 20 adults (men and women, 20-24 yr old) were tested for total-body SMM using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry measurement (DEXA), anthropometric measurements (ANTHR), and urine creatinine (UCrn) determination. Skinfold thickness and circumference were measured at mid-arm (CAG), mid-thigh (CTG), and mid-calf (CCG) and the skin-corrected circumferences (cm), together with height (Ht; m), age (yr), and sex (0 for female, 1 for male). The UCrn excretion (g.24 h(-1)) was also determined in all subjects. The ANTHR and UCrn measurements were then compared with DEXA as reference value. RESULTS The multiple linear regression from anthropometric measurements gave the following equation to evaluate the total-body skeletal muscle mass (SMM) in children and adolescents: SMM (kg) = Ht x [(0.0064 x CAG) + (0.0032 x CTG) + (0.0015 x CCG)(2)] + (2.56 x sex) + (0.136 x age). The prediction of SMM from a 24-h urine collection was obtained with the following equation: SMM (kg) = (10.62 x Crn) + 6.63. The correlation coefficient (r(2)) was 0.966 and 0.710 for the anthropometric and creatinine methods, respectively (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Besides DEXA technique, the determination of total-body skeletal muscle mass in children and adolescents can be highly validated with satisfactory confidence by simple anthropometric measurements or 24-h urine creatinine excretion.
STRATEGIC CAPABILITIES FOR THE GROWTH OF MANUFACTURING SMEs: A CONFIGURATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

In a now global knowledge-based economy, the strategic intent of manufacturing SMEs is manifested by the development of strategic capabilities not only for product and market development, but also for the development of their network, technological and human resources. This paper presents the results of a survey study of the strategic capabilities of 292 manufacturing firms, that is, 213 Canadian and 79 French SMEs. Taking the firms' entrepreneurial and organizational context into account, three distinct configurations of strategic capabilities are identified, namely 57 entrepreneurial SMEs, 93 engineering SMEs and 142 administrative SMEs, the first configuration being the "ideal" one in terms of growth.
Long-acting risperidone and oral antipsychotics in unstable schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND Long-acting injectable risperidone, a second-generation antipsychotic agent, may improve adherence to treatment and outcomes in schizophrenia, but it has not been tested in a long-term randomized trial involving patients with unstable disease. METHODS We randomly assigned patients in the Veterans Affairs (VA) system who had schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and who had been hospitalized within the previous 2 years or were at imminent risk for hospitalization to 25 to 50 mg of long-acting injectable risperidone every two weeks or to a psychiatrist's choice of an oral antipsychotic. All patients were followed for up to 2 years. The primary end point was hospitalization in a VA or non-VA psychiatric hospital. Symptoms, quality of life, and functioning were assessed in blinded videoconference interviews. RESULTS Of 369 participants, 40% were hospitalized at randomization, 55% were hospitalized within the previous 2 years, and 5% were at risk for hospitalization. The rate of hospitalization after randomization was not significantly lower among patients who received long-acting injectable risperidone than among those who received oral antipsychotics (39% after 10.8 months vs. 45% after 11.3 months; hazard ratio, 0.87; 95% confidence interval, 0.63 to 1.20). Psychiatric symptoms, quality of life, scores on the Personal and Social Performance scale of global functioning, and neurologic side effects were not significantly improved with long-acting injectable risperidone as compared with control treatments. Patients who received long-acting injectable risperidone reported more adverse events at the injection site and more extrapyramidal symptoms. CONCLUSIONS Long-acting injectable risperidone was not superior to a psychiatrist's choice of oral treatment in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder who were hospitalized or at high risk for hospitalization, and it was associated with more local injection-site and extrapyramidal adverse effects. (Supported by the VA Cooperative Studies Program and Ortho-McNeil Janssen Scientific Affairs; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00132314.).
Effect of the 1BL.1RS translocation on the wheat endosperm, as revealed by proteomic analysis

The introduction of the 1RS chromosome of rye into wheat made wheat more resistant to several pathogens. Today, this resistance has been overcome but the 1BL.1RS translocation remains interesting because of the improved yield and despite the lower rheological properties it produces. Nothing has been reported yet on the impact of rye chromatin introgression on the grain proteome of wheat. The comparison of the 2‐DE profiles of 16 doubled haploid lines, with or without the 1BL.1RS translocation, revealed quantitative and qualitative proteic variations in prolamins and other endosperm proteins. Eight spots were found specifically in lines having the 1BL.1RS translocation; 16 other spots disappeared from the same lines. Twelve spots, present in both genotypes, met the criteria for up‐ or down‐regulated spots. In translocated genotypes, a highly overexpressed spot, identified as a γ‐gliadin with nine cysteine residues, suggests that the lack of LMW‐GS induced by 1BL.1RS is counterbalanced by an overexpression of a relatively similar prolamin. Moreover, a spot that was absent from 1BL.1RS genotypes was identified as a dimeric alpha‐amylase inhibitor. It was considered to be a valuable candidate to explain the sticky dough associated with translocated cultivars.
Using the repository explorer to achieve OAI protocol compliance

INTRODUCTION The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) is dedicated to solving problems of digital library interoperability by defining simple protocols, most recently the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting [2], which was unveiled in January 2001. To support the adoption of this new interoperability technology, we have developed the Repository Explorer [1], a web-based tool to enforce compliance to the same interpretation of the protocol by the various different server implementations. This demonstration will show how the Repository Explorer can be used to perform either user-driven browsing or automatic testing of an implementation of the protocol.
Wafer-Level Vacuum Packaging of Micromachined Thermoelectric IR Sensors

In the trend towards low-cost, high-performance, and miniaturization, a wafer-level vacuum package is developed for micromachined thermoelectric infrared (IR) sensor. An IR sensor wafer and a cap wafer are bonded together in a vacuum chamber using Au-Au thermocompression bonding, where the cap wafer not only protects the floating thermopile structure but also selects IR light for the sensor. The device fabrication and Au-Au thermocompression hermetic bonding process as well as the packaged IR sensor characterization is presented in this paper. Experimental results show that the wafer-level vacuum packaged IR sensor has a four times higher responsivity and detectivity than the IR sensor with atmosphere pressure package, which confirms the IR performance improvement due to vacuum packaging. IR microscope image of the packaged device proved that the Au-Au thermocompression bonding process is compatible to the handling of fragile micromachined thermopile structure. Average leak rate and shear strength are, respectively, 3.9 × 10-9 atm cc/s and 16.709 Kgf, which shows that the Au-Au thermocompression hermetic bonding is suitable for the wafer-level vacuum packaging of micromachined thermoelectric IR sensor.