Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Well Do Parents with Young Children Combine Work and Family Life

This study examines trends in labor force involvement, household structure, and some activities that may complicate the efforts of parents with young children to balance work and family life. Next I consider whether employer policies mitigate or exacerbate these difficulties and, since the policies adopted in the United States diverge dramatically from those in many other industrialized countries, provide some international comparisons before speculating on possible sources and effects of the differences.
Exploring the Relationship Between Social Capital and Individuals' Policy Preferences for Environmental Protection: A Multinomial Logistic Regression Analysis

This paper presents an analysis of citizens' policy preferences for encouraging pro-environmental behaviour and the influence of social capital. Utilizing a multinomial logistic regression model, this paper aims to answer the following questions relating to citizen involvement in protecting the environment: (1) Do citizens prefer a policy that provides financial rewards for individuals who protect the environment to those that penalize individuals who damage the environment? (2) Do they prefer a policy that focuses on increasing environmental awareness through education to those that penalize individuals who damage the environment? (3) To what extent do individuals prefer punishment as a mechanism to control their behaviour? After controlling for individual characteristics, results showed that people with strong trust for fellow citizens and their government, prefer tax rewards and education to punishment mechanisms to promote pro-environmental behaviour. Results also showed that individuals are more likely to prefer penalty systems when compliance with social norms is motivated by perceptions of a shared burden of financial obligations on the citizenry. Furthermore, the results showed that civic participations generally did not have a statistically significant impact on citizens' policy choices. Implications of the research findings and future research directions are discussed.
V2G, G2V and active filter operation of a bidirectional battery charger for electric vehicles

This paper discusses the design and control of a bidirectional battery charger for Electric Vehicles, and its operation as an active power filter when connected to the local home electrical grid. The charger is also designed and controlled in order to operate during the charging of the battery from the grid and the injection of the power back to the grid when needed. The whole system is simulated using Matlab/Simulink, and the results are shown during the operation of each case, along with a management system of these different operation modes. The simulation results are analyzed, discussed and proven to comply with the existing power quality standards.
Do peer effects shape property values

Purpose - Both hedonics and the traditional sales comparison approach are derived from a similar paradigm with respect to how prices, hence market values, are determined. While the hedonic approach can provide reliable estimates of individual attributes' marginal contribution, it may – unlike the sales comparison approach – underestimate the prominent influence that surrounding properties exert on any given nearby housing unit and sale price. This paper seeks to develop a simple method for reconciling the two approaches within a rigorous conceptual and methodological framework. Design/methodology/approach - Peer effect models, an analytical device developed, and mainly used, by labour economists, are adapted to the hedonic price equation so as to incorporate nearby properties' influences, thereby controlling for non-observable neighbourhood effects. In addition to basic, intrinsic, building and land attributes, the ensuing model accounts for three types of effects, namely endogenous interactions effects (i.e. comparable sales influences, or peer effects), exogenous, or neighbourhood, effects and, finally, spatial autocorrelation effects. Findings - Preliminary findings suggest that integrating peer effects in the hedonic equation allows bringing out the combined impacts of endogenous, exogenous and spatially correlated effects in the house price determination process, with spatial autocorrelation of model residuals being significantly reduced, even without resorting to a spatial autoregressive procedure. Research limitations/implications - Further investigation is still needed in order to find out which submarket delineation should be used to obtain optimal model performances. Originality/value - The paper leads to the conclusion that the comparable sales approach, as used in traditional appraisal practice, is valid, although its application is typically flawed by the too small sample size generally used by appraisers. Further investigation is still needed, however, in order to find out which submarket delineation should be used to obtain optimal model performances. This raises the paramount question as to whether the peer effect variable is adequately measured and addresses the tricky issue of kernel determination in spatial statistics and related applications, such as GWR.
Determinants and consequences of large CEO pay

We investigate the association between large CEO pay and the underlying economic determinants of pay, governance variables, variables capturing director pay, and other potential variables that may explain large CEO payouts. We also examine whether firms with large CEO pay have better future performance and use more financial reporting discretion than other firms. Our study is motivated by the large payouts to CEOs over the last decade that continue to attract considerable attention from institutional investors, regulators and the popular press. Our results indicate that whether a firm has large CEO pay is only weakly related to the underlying economic determinants but strongly related to components of outside director remuneration, the dual role of CEO and board chair, asset change, whether the firm has a new CEO, and CEO equity ownership. Additionally, we find that large CEO pay firms engage in higher levels of financial reporting discretion and have weaker future performance.
Policy entrepreneurs and controversial science: governing human embryonic stem cell research

Policy entrepreneurs are political actors who seek policy changes that shift the status quo in given areas of public policy. This contribution examines the actions of policy entrepreneurs who have sought government funding and favourable regulation to advance human embryonic stem cell research. Those policy entrepreneurs have faced significant opposition owing to the morality issues at stake. Placing the actions of those policy entrepreneurs in a broader context makes two contributions. First, it explores how policy entrepreneurs pursue their goals in the face of intense morality politics. Second, it illustrates how the work of policy entrepreneurs can be both supported and inhibited by ideas, institutions and interest-group politics.
Human Cytomegalovirus UL84 Insertion Mutant Defective for Viral DNA Synthesis and Growth

ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL84 is required for oriLyt-dependent DNA replication, and evidence from transient transfection assays suggests that UL84 directly participates in DNA synthesis. In addition, because of its apparent interaction with IE2, UL84 is implicated as a possible regulatory protein. To address the role of UL84 in the context of the viral genome, we generated a recombinant HCMV bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) construct that did not express the UL84 gene product. This construct, BAC-IN84/Ep, displayed a null phenotype in that it failed to produce infectious virus after transfection into human fibroblast cells, whereas a revertant virus readily produced viral plaques and, subsequently, infectious virus. Real-time quantitative PCR showed that BAC-IN84/Ep was defective for DNA synthesis in that no increase in the accumulation of viral DNA was observed in transfected cells. We were unable to complement BAC-IN84/Ep in trans; however, oriLyt-dependent DNA replication was observed by the cotransfection of UL84 and BAC-IN84/Ep. An analysis of viral mRNA by real-time PCR indicated that, even in the absence of DNA synthesis, all representative kinetic classes of genes were expressed in cells transfected with BAC-IN84/Ep. The detection of UL44 and IE2 by immunofluorescence in BAC-IN84/Ep-transfected cells showed that these proteins failed to partition into replication compartments, indicating that UL84 expression is essential for the formation of these proteins into replication centers within the context of the viral genome. These results show that UL84 provides an essential DNA replication function and influences the subcellular localization of other viral proteins.
EEAR: Efficient Energy Aware Routing in wireless sensor networks

The energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks plays a very important role because of the limited power of the battery used within nodes. This paper presents Efficient Energy Aware Routing (EEAR) algorithm for wireless sensor networks, that makes routing decisions on the basis of node's residual energy. EEAR explores the optimized routing path by implementing a model which is function of the shortest distance and the residual energy of all nodes in a routing path. The proposed model also exploits the neighbor's information of each node in the optimized path in order to reduce the probability of packet loss and to increase throughput. Simulation and comparative analysis show that EEAR gives higher packet delivery rate, less energy consumption with the maximum network life time as compared to traditional routing algorithms for wireless sensor networks.
Actively clamped bidirectional flyback converter

An actively clamped bidirectional flyback converter is proposed. The converter's operation is examined in detail. All switches in the converter have zero-voltage-switching characteristics. A low-frequency behavior model and small-signal transfer functions are derived. It is found that the flow of current is directly under the control of the duty cycle, and that the transformer's leakage inductance has a significant effect on the control characteristic of the converter. It is expected that such bidirectional converters will find wide applications in the interconnection of multiple sources of DC power to a common bus (e.g., in a DC uninterruptible power supply). Simulation and experiment results are also presented.
A Machine Learning Approach to Evaluating Illness-Induced Religious Struggle

Religious or spiritual struggles are clinically important to health care chaplains because they are related to poorer health outcomes, involving both mental and physical health problems. Identifying persons experiencing religious struggle poses a challenge for chaplains. One potentially underappreciated means of triaging chaplaincy effort are prayers written in chapel notebooks. We show that religious struggle can be identified in these notebooks through instances of negative religious coping, such as feeling anger or abandonment toward God. We built a data set of entries in chapel notebooks and classified them as showing religious struggle, or not. We show that natural language processing techniques can be used to automatically classify the entries with respect to whether or not they reflect religious struggle with as much accuracy as humans. The work has potential applications to triaging chapel notebook entries for further attention from pastoral care staff.
Policy transfer from advanced to less-advanced institutional environments: Labour market orientations of US MNEs in Turkey

The extant research on policy transfer insufficiently addresses two issues. First, transfer to less-advanced countries. Second, micro-institutional pressures on subsidiaries, particularly the role of local partners in joint ventures (JVs). This study investigates the transfer of labour market orientations by American multinational enterprises to their Turkish subsidiaries by focusing on the influences of macro- and micro-institutional factors when the ‘transferor’ is an advanced and ‘transferee’ is a less-advanced economy, ‘dominance effects’, and the role of local JV partners. Case study findings provide evidence for ‘smooth’ transfer of the policy. This uncommon finding is discussed as a result of ‘ideal combination’ of ‘encouraging pressures’ at the macro- and micro-institutional levels, including role of local JV partners and the nature of the policy transferred.
The level of IT/IS skills in accounting programmes in British universities

Accountants and the accounting profession have always been users of information technology and the claim for enlarging levels of Information Technology/Information Systems (IT/IS) skills/knowledge in practitioners and accounting graduates is more powerful than ever. The use of Information Technology in support of business is widespread and becoming more so. Indeed, it is no longer possible to meet the expectations of users of financial and other business performance information without using Information Technology tools. Both academics and practitioners have recognised the value and importance of IT/IS in the achievement of success in the competitive business world and IT/IS skills/knowledge as being essential to longterm success for accountants. The challenges facing organisations now require the skills of a special kind of accountant, this research called the “Hybrid Accountant” (combining IT/IS competencies and mainstream accounting capabilities). A “hybrid” accountant blends different skills and knowledge of business management and information management. It is generally felt that today’s accounting education process fails to develop accountants who are able to serve in this type of demanding accountant.
A global software project: developing a tablet PC capture platform for explanograms

Explanograms provide "a sketch or diagram that students can play" [10]. They are a directly recorded multi-media resource that can be viewed dynamically. Often they are used in teaching situations to provide animated explanations of concepts or processes. Explanograms were initially based upon proprietary paper and digital pen technology. The project outlined here augments that design by using a tablet PC as a mobile, general purpose capture platform which will interoperate with the existing server based system developed in Sweden. The design of this platform is intended to achieve both learning and research outcomes, in a research linked learning model for global software development. The project has completed an initial development phase during which a prototype has been built, and a consolidation, extension and evaluation phase is now underway. The origins and goals of the research, the methodology adopted, the design of the application and the challenges that the New Zealand based team have faced are presented.
POTENTIAL OUTPUT AND THE OUTPUT GAP IN LUXEMBOURG : SOME ALTERNATIVE METHODS

The output gap is defined as the difference between the observed level of an economy's output and its trend or potential level. In the short term, an economy can produce above its potential level (a positive output gap) through unusually high levels of labour force participation, capacity utilisation, or technical progress. However, a positive output gap tends to generate inflationary pressures on the markets for factors of production. Once inflation accelerates, output will have to fall below its potential level (a negative output gap) to increase available resources and reduce the pressure on prices. Therefore, measures of the output gap are often used in macroeconomic analysis to assess current and future levels of inflationary pressures in the economy. This study reviews several of the many alternative methods of estimating output gaps and applies six of these to annual data for Luxembourg. These different measures of the output gap are then compared and evaluated in terms of their contribution to inflation forecasting. Methods based on unobserved components models tend to do better than simpler, better known methods (i.e. linear trends, the HP filter). Multivariate methods that consider the simultaneous evolution of several different economic variables tend to do better than univariate methods that limit themselves to the output series itself.
Globalization and the welfare state: a retrospective

There are basically three stories about the globalization-welfare state nexus. The first story argues that globalization is the cause of the chronic crisis of the welfare state. As national economies open to the international market, governments are forced to adapt to the imperatives of global competition, and this means cutting cost-intensive welfare programmes (globalization theory). The second story argues that, whatever the cause of the welfare state crisis, globalization is not part of it. There is neither theoretical reason nor empirical evidence to believe that national policy autonomy has decreased owing to increasing economic interdependencies (globalization sceptics). The third story holds that globalization, far from causing the welfare state's troubles, is a consequence of these troubles, and part of their solution (revisionism). The paper reviews each of these stories, and counterposes them to simple descriptive statistics on Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
Study on the satellite-based precipitation downscaling algorithm in Tianshan mountain

Accurate precipitation data with high spatial resolution is important for hydrological, meteorological, and environmental applications. Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) provides multiple precipitation products with a spatial resolution of 0.25°, and the resolution is too coarse to meet the requirements for hydrological study on local regions and watersheds scale. In this paper, geographically weighted regression (GWR) and multiple linear regression models were used for TRMM data downscaling. GWR is suitable to explore and describe the complex relationship between precipitation and other environmental variables. Global regression analysis applied uniform model parameters over space, which may provide a poor description of the local relationship and could result in important details being missed. By adopting GWR, the strength of the relationship among TRMM, NDVI, and DEM increased markedly, with a minimum of 91% of the variation in TRMM values explained by those in NDVI and DEM (R2 = 0.911). Comparing the downscaled precipitation with the observed precipitation data, the results show that GWR has an increased R2 of 0.758 and reduced RMSE of 68.4mm, comparing with the global regression method with R2 of 0.601 and RMSE of 88.4mm.
Technological convergence among US regions and states

This paper employs unit root tests that allow for two endogenously determined structural breaks to study whether or not invention activities are converging across US regions/states. Using US patent data from 1929 to 1997, we find technological β-convergence in six of the nine Census regions, in 11 of the 14 leading states and in 28 of the 34 lagging states. Stochastic convergence, on the other hand, is found in three regions, in four leading states and in 17 lagging states. Carlino and Mills (1993) point out that both β- and stochastic convergence are necessary conditions for convergence. Putting these results together, we find convergence (both β- and stochastic) in invention activities in three regions, in three leading states and in 16 lagging states.
Induction of Robust Cellular and Humoral Virus-Specific Adaptive Immune Responses in Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Humanized BLT Mice

ABSTRACT The generation of humanized BLT mice by the cotransplantation of human fetal thymus and liver tissues and CD34+ fetal liver cells into nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficiency mice allows for the long-term reconstitution of a functional human immune system, with human T cells, B cells, dendritic cells, and monocytes/macrophages repopulating mouse tissues. Here, we show that humanized BLT mice sustained high-level disseminated human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, resulting in CD4+ T-cell depletion and generalized immune activation. Following infection, HIV-specific humoral responses were present in all mice by 3 months, and HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses were detected in the majority of mice tested after 9 weeks of infection. Despite robust HIV-specific responses, however, viral loads remained elevated in infected BLT mice, raising the possibility that these responses are dysfunctional. The increased T-cell expression of the negative costimulator PD-1 recently has been postulated to contribute to T-cell dysfunction in chronic HIV infection. As seen in human infection, both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells demonstrated increased PD-1 expression in HIV-infected BLT mice, and PD-1 levels in these cells correlated positively with viral load and inversely with CD4+ cell levels. The ability of humanized BLT mice to generate both cellular and humoral immune responses to HIV will allow the further investigation of human HIV-specific immune responses in vivo and suggests that these mice are able to provide a platform to assess candidate HIV vaccines and other immunotherapeutic strategies.
A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Studying Strategy

Once Upon A Time . Planning the Future in Turbulent Environments Strategy = Understanding What's Outside the Firm Strategy = Understanding What's Inside the Firm Strategy Is Dead. Long Live Scenario Planning! Strategy = Emergence and Rational Planning Strategy Is What Strategists Do! Strategy as Practice Gaps, Rhetoric and Realities The Futures of Strategy
Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy in patients with preexisting gastroesophageal reflux disease : a national analysis.

OBJECTIVES To analyze the effect of laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) on patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and to compare the results of LSG vs gastric bypass (GB) among patients with known GERD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS We performed a retrospective review of the Bariatric Outcomes Longitudinal Database from January 1, 2007, through December 31, 2010, including inpatient and all outpatient follow-up data. We compared patients undergoing LSG with a concurrent cohort undergoing GB. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Rates of improvement or worsening of GERD symptoms, development of new-onset GERD, and weight loss and complications. RESULTS A total of 4832 patients underwent LSG and 33 867 underwent GB, with preexisting GERD present in 44.5% of the LSG cohort and 50.4% of the GB cohort. Most LSG patients (84.1%) continued to have GERD symptoms postoperatively, with only 15.9% demonstrating GERD resolution. Of LSG patients who did not demonstrate preoperative GERD, 8.6% developed GERD postoperatively. In comparison, GB resolved GERD in most patients (62.8%) within 6 months postoperatively (P < .001). Among the LSG cohort, the presence of preoperative GERD was associated with increased postoperative complications (15.1% vs 10.6%), gastrointestinal adverse events (6.9% vs 3.6%), and increased need for revisional surgery (0.6% vs 0.3%) (all P < .05). The presence of GERD had no effect on weight loss for the GB cohort but was associated with decreased weight loss in the LSG group. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy did not reliably relieve or improve GERD symptoms and induced GERD in some previously asymptomatic patients. Preoperative GERD was associated with worse outcomes and decreased weight loss with LSG and may represent a relative contraindication.