Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MEETING THE CHALLENGE: ACCOUNTING FOR CHANGE

This paper examines the challenge mounted against long established management accounting practices by Kaplan (1983) and Johnson and Kaplan (1987) from a public sector perspective. It seeks to determine the extent to which this challenge to the private sector - of a lack of innovation in management accounting practice in the face of a rapidly changing environment - holds true for public sector organisations. Furthermore, by drawing on substantive studies of management change in both the private sector and the public sector, this paper assesses (a) the tsunsfeubilitv of ideas and practices from the private to the: public sector (b) the need to study process of change and (c) the potential role of strategic management accounting as an innovative practice in addressing the agenda for change which confronts the public sector.
Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers

Many school choice proposals would enable parents to choose among public school districts in their area, though not among private schools. Theory predicts three reactions to easier choice among public schools: increased sorting of students and parents among schools; easier choice will encourage competition among schools, forcing them into higher productivity (better student performance per input); easier choice among public schools will give parents less incentive to send their children to private schools. I examine easing choice among public schools using exogenous variation in the concentration of public school districts in metropolitan areas measured by a Herfindahl index on enrollment shares. The exogenous variation is generated by topography: I derive instruments for concentration from natural boundaries (rivers) that partially determine district size. I find evidence that easier choice leads to greater productivity. Areas with greater opportunities for choice among public schools have lower per-pupil spending, lower teacher salaries, and larger classes. The same areas have better average student performance, as measured by students' educational attainment, wages, and test scores. Performance improvements are concentrated among white non-Hispanics, males, and students who have a parent with at least a high school degree. However, student performance is not worse among Hispanics,African-Americans, females, or students who do not have a parent with a high school degree.Also, student performance improves at both ends of the educational attainment distribution and test score distribution.
Long-Term Multi-Gas Scenarios to Stabilise Radiative Forcing – Exploring Costs and Benefits Within an Integrated Assessment Framework

This paper presents a set of multi-gas mitigation scenarios that aim for stabilisation of greenhouse gas radiative forcing in 2150 at levels from 3.7 to 5.3 W/m 2 . At the moment, non-CO 2 gasses (methane, nitrous oxide, PFCs, HFCs and SF 6 ) contribute to about a quarter of the global emissions. The analysis shows that including these non-CO 2 gases in mitigation analysis is crucial in formulating a cost-effective response. For stabilisation at 4.5 W/m 2 , a multi-gas approach leads to 40% lower costs than an approach that would focus at CO 2 only. Within the assumptions used in this study, the non-CO 2 gasses contribution to total reduction is very large under less stringent targets (up to 60%), but declines under stringent targets. While stabilising at 3.7 W/m 2 obviously leads to larger environmental benefits than the 4.5 W/m 2 case (temperature increase in 2100 are 1.9 and 2.3 o C, respectively), the costs of the lower target are higher (0.80% and 0.34% of GDP in 2100, respectively). Improving knowledge on how future reduction potential for non-CO 2 gasses could develop is shown to be a crucial research question.
Efficient signature-encryption scheme for mobile computation

Mobile communication technologies have been widely utilized in daily lives, many low-computing-power and weakly-structured-storage devices have emerged, such as PDA, cell phones and smart cards, etc. How to solve the security problems in such devices has become a key problem in secure mobile communication. In this paper, we would like to propose an efficient signature-encryption scheme. The security of the signature part is not loosely related to Discrete Logarithm Problem (DLP) assumption as most of the traditional schemes but tightly related to the trapdoor permutation (large integer factoring problem (LIFP)) in the Random Oracle Models. Different from the existing solutions, our scheme introduces a trusted agent of the receiver who can filter the rubbish messages beforehand. Thus, with high efficiency in computation and storage, it is particularly suitable for the above mobile devices with severely constrained resources and can satisfy the security requirements of mobile computations.
Evolution of Developmental Control Mechanisms Smads and insect hemimetabolan metamorphosis

In contrast with Drosophila melanogaster, practically nothing is known about the involvement of the TGFβ signaling pathway in the metamorphosis of hemimetabolan insects. To partially fill this gap, we have studied the role of Smad factors in the metamorphosis of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica. In D. melanogaster, Mad is the canonical R-Smad of the BMP branch of the TGF-β signaling pathway, Smox is the canonical R-Smad of the TGF-β/Activin branch and Medea participates in both branches. In insects, metamorphosis is regulated by the MEKRE93 pathway, which starts with juvenile hormone (JH), whose signal is transduced by Methoprene-tolerant (Met), which stimulates the expression of Krüppel homolog 1 (Kr-h1) that acts to repress E93, the metamorphosis trigger. In B. germanica, metamorphosis is determined at the beginning of the sixth (final) nymphal instar (N6), when JH production ceases, the expression of Kr-h1 declines, and the transcription of E93 begins to increase. The RNAi of Mad, Smox and Medea in N6 of B. germanica reveals that the BMP branch of the TGF-β signaling pathway regulates adult ecdysis and wing extension, mainly through regulating the expression of bursicon, whereas the TGF-β/ Activin branch contributes to increasing E93 and decreasing Kr-h1 at the beginning of N6, crucial for triggering adult morphogenesis, as well as to regulating the imaginal molt timing. & 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Alcohol and cognitive function: assessment in everyday life and laboratory settings using mobile phones.

BACKGROUND Mobile phone (cellphone) technology makes it practicable to assess cognitive function in a natural setting. We assessed this method and compared impairment of performance due to alcohol in everyday life with measurements made in the laboratory. METHODS Thirty-eight volunteers (20 male, aged 18-54 years) took part in the everyday study, completing assessments twice a day for 14 days following requests sent by text messages to the mobile phone. Twenty-six of them (12 male, aged 19-54) took part in a subsequent two-period crossover lab study comparing alcohol with no alcohol (placebo). RESULTS Everyday entries with 5 or more units of alcohol consumed in the past 6 hours (inferred mean blood alcohol concentration 95 ml/100 ml) showed higher scores for errors in tests of attention and working memory compared with entries with no alcohol consumed that day. Response times were impaired for only 1 test, sustained attention to response. The laboratory comparison of alcohol (mean blood alcohol concentration 124 mg/100 ml) with placebo showed impairment to both reaction time and error scores for all tests. A similar degree of subjective drunkenness was reported in both settings. CONCLUSIONS We found that mobile phones allowed practical research on cognitive performance in an everyday life setting. Alcohol impaired function in both laboratory and everyday life settings at relevant doses of alcohol.
Health Utility Ratings for a Spectrum of Alcohol-Related Health States

Background:Preference-based utility ratings for health conditions are important components of cost–utility analyses and population burden of disease estimates. However, utility ratings for alcohol problems have not been determined. Objectives:The objectives of this study were to directly measure utility ratings for a spectrum of alcohol-related health states and to compare different methods of utility measurement. Design, Setting, and Subjects:The authors conducted a cross-sectional interview of 200 adults from a clinic and community sample. Methods:Subjects completed computerized visual analog scale (VAS), time tradeoff (TTO), and standard gamble (SG) utility measurement exercises for their current health, a blindness scenario, and for 6 alcohol-related health state scenarios presented in random order. The main outcome measures were the utility ratings, scaled from 0 to 1, and anchored by death (0) and perfect health (1). Results:The 200 subjects were middle-aged (mean, 41 ± 14 years), 61% women, and racially diverse (48% black, 43% white). Utility ratings decreased as the severity of the alcohol-related health state increased, but differed significantly among the VAS, TTO, and SG methods within each health state. Adjusted mean (95% confidence interval) utility ratings for alcohol dependence (VAS, 0.38 [0.34–0.41]; TTO, 0.54 [0.48–0.60]; SG, 0.68 [0.63–0.73]) and alcohol abuse (VAS, 0.53 [0.49–0.56]; TTO, 0.71 [0.65–77]; SG, 0.76 [0.71–0.81]) were significantly lower than utility ratings for nondrinking, moderate drinking, at-risk drinking, current health, and blindness. Conclusions:Utility ratings for alcohol-related health states decrease as the severity of alcohol use increases. The low utility ratings for alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence are similar to those reported for other severe chronic medical conditions.
Strategic Motives for Alliance Formation in the Travel Sector of Tourism

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the strategic motives for alliance formation among tourism businesses. Based on past work on motivation for strategic alliance formation, this article identifies a set of motives and analyzes their implication for tourism businesses. The article further examines the role played by company characteristics in examining these motives. These motives are discussed in the context of the Australian tourism industry. A survey of Australian travel sector businesses was carried out and the results indicate that ‘internal drivers’ are perceived as more important than ‘external drivers’ as reasons for alliance formation. Company characteristics (sub-sector, number of employees, turnover, category, and ownership status) were found to be influential in top managers' assessment of alliance motives. The findings of this study imply that managers should conduct environmental analysis with a view to understanding how internal and external factors affect tourism businesses before any form of strategic alliances can be formed.
On the Speed of Economic Reform – A Tale of the Tortoise and the Hare: Evidence from Transition Countries

Abstract We analyse how the choice of reform speed, foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth affect one another. New reforms affect economic growth negatively, whereas the level of past reform leads to higher growth and attracts FDI. We simulate the impact of big bang and gradualist strategies on economic growth. This is only meaningful in the presence of reform reversals, which requires aggregate uncertainty about the appropriate reform. We find that even relatively small ex ante reversal probabilities suffice to tilt the balance in favour of gradualism. The case for gradualism gains strength if policymakers are short‐sighted, but weakens if voters are myopic.
Experimental study on nerve regeneration through the basement membrane tubes of the nerve, muscle, and artery

We evaluated neurotization after transplantation with lyophilized nerves, muscles, and arteries, and examined the possibility of practical application of long bridging grafts. Grafts of 10 mm and 25 mm of lyophilized nerves, muscles, and arteries harvested from Fisher rats were transplanted to the sciatic nerves of recipient Lewis rats. The histological changes undergone by short grafts were observed at weekly intervals. The sham‐operated and isograft groups were used to compare the results of long grafts. In both the nerve and muscle‐graft group, regenerated axons grew out through the residual basement membrane tube. But in the muscle graft group, phagocytosis of myofibril debris took longer than that of degenerated axons. No statistical differences were found between results of TSI, induced EMG, and quantitative analysis of myelinated axons in the nerve and muscle graft groups. No neurotization was noted in the long artery graft. In long grafts, laminin found on the basement membrane may not be sufficient to accelerate neurotization, and arteries should not be used for tubulization. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. MICROSURGERY 17:525–534 1996
Assembly factors of F1Fo‐ATP synthase across genomes

Work with respiration‐deficient strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has provided evidence that assembly of the mitochondrial ATP synthase is dependent on proteins that serve substrate‐specific, chaperone‐type functions: Atp10p, Atp11p, Atp12p, Atp22p, and Fmc1p. Atp11p and Atp12p mediate the formation of the F1 moiety via interaction with subunits F1‐β and F1‐α, respectively. The role of Fmc1p is less clear. Atp10p and Atp22p are essential for the formation of the FO part, during which Atp10p assists in the incorporation of the FO‐a subunit. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of ATP synthase assembly factors from all available genomes. The mechanism of the F1 assembly is preserved in all eukaryotic lineages that are capable of ATP synthesis via oxidative phosphorylation and requires Atp11p and Atp12p. Conversely, composition of the FO part as well as its assembly is more versatile. We found two distinct subtypes of the FO‐a subunit, one of which seems to be dependent on the action of Atp10p while the other does not. Restricted occurrence of Fmc1p and Atp22p suggests the existence of lineage‐specific assembly factors. Our phylogenetic data served as a source for comparative sequence analysis, which identified evolutionarily conserved residues, putative functional domains and their basic structural features for Atp10p, Atp11p, and Atp12p orthologs. These results provide the basis for detailed molecular analysis of the ATP synthase‐specific chaperones. Proteins 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Dependence Structure and Risk Measure

Understanding the relationships among multivariate assets would help one greatly about how best to position one’s investments and enhance one’s financial risk protection. We present a new method to model parametrically the dependence structure of stock index returns through a continuous distribution function, which links an n‐dimensional density to its one‐dimensional margins. The resulting multivariate model could be used in a wide range of financial applications. Focusing on risk management, we show that a misspecification of the dependence structure introduces, on average, an error in Value‐at‐Risk estimates.
Design of versatile eIRA codes for parallel decoders

In this paper we propose a semi-random technique for the generation of a class of eIRA codes (a popular class of irregular LDPC codes that can be encoded in linear time) suited to partially parallel decoder implementations. The suggested technique tries to avoid both low-weight codewords and nearcodewords, which limit the performance of the belief propagation decoder. Its effectiveness is verified by comparison with literature results. The obtained codes are versatile, in terms of code-rate and block length, and they are characterized by a low error floor.
Environmental health and Hispanic children.

There are numerous indicators that Hispanics face a disproportionate risk of exposure to environmental hazards. Ambient air pollution, worker exposure to chemicals, indoor air pollution, and drinking water quality are among the top four threats to human health and are all areas in which indicators point to elevated risk for Hispanic populations. These data, juxtaposed with data on the health status of Hispanics, tell us that the environmental health status of Hispanics and their children is poor. At the same time, significant inadequacies in the collection of data on Hispanics make it difficult to make improving Hispanic environmental health status a priority. These inadequacies include the failure to use Hispanic identifiers in data collection and failure to collect sample sizes large enough to allow for breakouts of data by Hispanic subgroup. In addressing environmental justice issues, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) should prioritize improving the quantifiability of environmental exposures and risk based on race or ethnicity. However, improving data should not be the prerequisite to significant, affirmative steps by DHHS and U.S. EPA to address environmental and environmental health problems facing Hispanic communities. In particular, a health-based approach to environmental justice should be the priority.
Financial Capacity and Output Fluctuations in an Economy with Multi-Period Financial Relationships

This paper motivates a financial propagation mechanism in the context of an intertemporal production economy with asymmetric information, and with borrowers and lenders who enter multi-period financial relationships. A key feature is that aggregate output and borrowers' "financial capacity" —the maximum overhang of past debt they may feasibly carry—are determined jointly, much in the spirit of Gurley and Shaw (1955). Expectations of future economic conditions govern financial capacity which in turn may constrain current production, especially in bad times. A small but persistent shift in aggregate conditions may have a large impact on financial capacity, making the framework capable of motivating large endogenous fluctuations in financial constraints.
Efficient Bit Rate Transcoding for High Efficiency Video Coding

High efficiency video coding (HEVC) shows a significant advance in compression efficiency and is considered to be the successor of H.264/AVC. To incorporate the HEVC standard into real-life network applications and a diversity of other applications, efficient bit rate adaptation (transrating) algorithms are required. A current problem of transrating for HEVC is the high computational complexity associated with the encoder part of such a cascaded pixel domain transcoder. This paper focuses on deriving an optimal strategy for reducing the transcoding complexity with a complexity-scalable scheme. We propose different transcoding techniques which are able to reduce the transcoding complexity in both CU and PU optimization levels. At the CU level, CUs can be evaluated in top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top flows, in which the coding information of the input video stream is utilized to reduce the number of evaluations or to early terminate certain evaluations. At the PU level, the PU candidates are adaptively selected based on the probability of PU sizes and the co-located input PU partitioning. Moreover, with the use of different proposed methods, a complexity-scalable transrating scheme can be achieved. Furthermore, the transcoding complexity can be effectively controlled by the machine learning based approach. Simulations show that the proposed techniques provide a superior transcoding performance compared to the state-of-the-art related works. Additionally, the proposed methods can achieve a range of trade-offs between transrating complexity and coding performance. From the proposed schemes, the fastest approach is able to reduce the complexity by 82% while keeping the bitrate loss below 3%.
Statistical decision making method for cognitive radio

This work is about developing a decision making method, based on statistical modeling, for a cognitive radio receiver. By characterizing statistically the radio metrics, the intelligent equipment will be capable of making decisions on actions of reconfigurations, in order to adapt to the state of the environment. Through the adaptability of the radio receiver to the environment, we try also to reduce energy consumption by treating one scenario of reconfigurability which consists of switching off the equalizer when it is not necessary. Since this component is complex, the operation of turning it off should reduce the computational complexity of the receiver chain.
UTILIZAÇÃO DE MODELOS ARIMA PARA PREVISÃO DA ARRECADAÇÃO DE ICMS DO ESTADO DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL

The objective of this study was to forecast the number of collection of Tax on Goods and Services (ICMS) of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, in the period from January 1997 to March 2014. Therefore, we applied the methodology Box-Jenkins estimating models for time series using models known as autoregressive and integrated moving average (ARIMA). To obtain the most appropriate model was based on the analysis of residues and tests of significance of parameters. After examining several competing models, the fitted model was a SARIMA (0,1,1) (0,0,1 . Highlights the importance of analyzing variables through time series models of Box and Jenkins, aiming to understand the behavior and design values, basing future decision making.
Genetic analysis of the capsular polysaccharide synthesis locus in 15 Streptococcus suis serotypes.

The capsular polysaccharide (CPS) synthesis locus of 13 Streptococcus suis serotypes (serotype 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 19, 23, 25 and 1/2) was sequenced and compared with that of serotype 2 and 16. The CPS synthesis locus of these 15 serotypes falls into two genetic groups. The locus is located on the chromosome between orfZ and aroA. All the translated proteins in the CPS synthesis locus were clustered into 127 homology groups using the tribemcl algorithm. The general organization of the locus suggested that the CPS of S. suis could be synthesized by the Wzy-dependent pathway. The capsule of serotypes 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 19 and 23 was predicted to be amino-polysaccharide. Sialic acid was predicted to be present in the capsule of serotypes 1, 2, 14, 16 and 1/2. The characteristics of the CPS synthesis locus suggest that some genes may have been imported into S. suis (or their ancestors) on multiple occasions from different and unknown sources.