Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychosocial Roots of Stigma of Homosexuality and Its Impact on the Lives of Sexual Minorities in India

The present study examined the factors related to the negative attitude of society towards sexual minorities living in India. This study also explored further the impact of such stigmatization and carrying homosexual identity on the lives of lesbian and gay individuals. To fulfill the objectives, two studies were conducted. Study 1 included 24 heterosexuals and this study scrutinized the societal perspective regarding homosexuality and attitude towards it. Results showed that homosexuality is a strong stigma in India. The results further provided factors responsible for the prevalence of negative attitudes towards homosexuality. Study 2 included 34 sexual minorities (gay & lesbian) and explored the impact of stigmatization on their lives. It also demonstrated the adverse effect of the stigma on the lives and wellbeing of the sexual minorities. The present paper provides an exhaustive theoretical and empirical underpinning of the development and existence of the stigma of homosexuality in Indian society. The results have implications for understanding and mitigating stigma in various walks of life.
Effects of Diet Particle Size and Lasalocid on Growth, Carcass Traits, and N balance in Feedlot Lambs

The objective of this research was to determine the influence of diet particle size and lasalocid on growth and feed intake, carcass characteristics, and N balance in feedlot lambs. One hundred sixty crossbred (Suffolk x Rambouillet) lambs (31.2 kg ± 0.09 kg) were stratified by weight and sex in a completely random design and allotted to one of 16 pens (n = 4). Lambs were fed a basal feedlot diet consisting of 80 percent corn and 20 percent market lamb pellet ad libitum (AF basis). Diets were whole corn with lasalocid (WCL), whole corn without lasalocid (WCNL), ground corn with lasalocid (GCL), or ground corn without lasalocid (GCNL). Lambs were harvested following the 112 d feeding trial (69.7 kg ± 0.74 kg BW) and carcass data were collected at a commercial abattoir. Final BW, DM offered, G:F, mortality, and the majority of carcass traits were not affected by diets (P ≥ 0.06). Lasalocid-fed lambs had an increase in HCW (P = 0.05). Additionally, there was an interaction of particle size and use of ionophores for ADG (P = 0.05), loin eye area (P < 0.001), and percentage of boneless closely trimmed retail cuts (%BCTRC; P = 0.004). Loin eye area was greatest (P < 0.05) for WCL and GCNL. A second study was conducted utilizing the same diets to evaluate N balance in 16 crossbred wethers (Suffolk x Rambouillet; 40 kg ± 1.7 kg BW; n = 4). Nitrogen balance was not affected by diet (P = 0.22). Our results indicate that HCW in lambs fed lasalocid was increased by 3 percent, while particle size had no major impact on growth, feed intake, carcass traits, or N digestibility.
Grasping at Laws: Speed-Accuracy Trade-Offs in Manual Prehension

Most of human performance is subject to speed–accuracy trade-offs. For spatially constrained aiming, the trade-off is often said to take the specific form of Fitts’ law, in which movement duration is predicted from a single factor combining target distance and target size. However, efforts to extend this law to the three-dimensional context of reaching to grasp (prehension) have had limited success. We suggest that there are potentially confounding influences in standard grasping, and we introduce a novel task to regularize the direction of approach and to eliminate the influences of nearby surfaces. In six participants, we examined speed–accuracy trade-offs for prehension, manipulating the depth (in the plane of the reach), height (orthogonal to the reach), and width (the grasped dimension) of the target object independently. We obtained lawful relationships that were consistent at the group and individual levels. It took longer to reach for more distant objects, and more time was allowed when placing the fingers on a contact surface smaller in either depth or height. More time was taken to grasp wider objects, but only beyond a critical width that varied between individuals. These speed–accuracy trade-offs showed substantial departures from Fitts’ law, and were well described by a two-factor model in which reach distance and object size have separate influences on movement duration. We discuss empirical and theoretical reasons for preferring a two-factor model, and we propose that this may represent the most general form of speed–accuracy trade-off, not only for grasping but also for other spatially constrained aiming tasks.
Determinants of the Corporate Decision to Disclose Social Information

The decision to disclose social information in annual reports is a voluntary one. A positive model of the factors that may influence firms′ decisions to disclose social information is proposed. It is hypothesised that the decision may be affected by (a) social performance, (b) political visibility, (c) financial variables, and (d) economic performance. It is found that the decision to disclose social information is well explained by the model and that the key explanatory variables are social performance and political visibility.
Recognition and Classification of Sign Language for Spanish

In this paper it is presented a computationalsystem for recognition and classification of letters ofthe sign language in Spanish, designed for helpingdeaf-mute people to communicate with other persons.A low-cost glove that captures the hand movements hasbeen constructed. This one contains an accelerometerfor each finger which allows detecting its position byusing an acquisition data board. Sensor informationis sent wirelessly to a computer having a softwareinterface, developed in LabVIEW, in which the symbolsdataset is generated. For the automatic recognitionof letters we have applied a statistical treatmentto the dataset obtaining accuracy greater than 96%independently of the user.
Finance – Growth Nexus in Nigeria: Fragility and Development Effects

The study investigates the effects of financial fragility and financial development on economic growth in Nigeria between 1982 and 2012. The augumented dickey fuller (ADF) unit root test and the Johanson cointegration tests were respectively used to establish the stationarity and long run properties of the variables. The results show that financial development, proxy by credit to private sector as a percentage of GDP has a positive significant effects on output, as expected. As regards the fragility effects, the result revealed that the effect of financial volatility on economic growth is negative. Financial fragility was refined in the contexts of unsound banking system and unstable financial market, which were proxy by interest rate volatility and exchange rate volatility respectively, thus have negative significant effects on output. It is thus recommended that policy maker’s efforts aimed at increasing growth should work more on developing the financial sector and dampening the volatile nature of financial series. The pairwise granger causality result also reveals that there is a unidirectional causality running from financial fragility to gross capital formation.
The effectiveness of rapidly infused intravenous fluids for inducing moderate hypothermia in neurosurgical patients.

UNLABELLED Moderate hypothermia is often used for cerebral protection during anesthesia for cerebral aneurysm clipping. No reliable, rapid, and practical noncardiopulmonary bypass methods for the induction of hypothermia to core temperatures <34 degrees C have been reported. We assessed the effects of IV administration of chilled 5% albumin (5 mL/kg at 1-6 degrees C) on core temperature after surface cooling to approximately 34 degrees C. We calculated thermal distribution volume from the change in core temperature after the chilled fluid infusions. We also compared rapid administration (5 mL/kg over 30 min) with very rapid administration (5 mL/kg over 3-5 min). Chilled albumin 5 mL/kg infused over 5 min reduced core temperature by 0.6+/-0.1 degrees C. The same volume of chilled albumin infused over 30 min reduced core temperature by 0.4+/-0.1 degrees C. The calculated thermal distribution volume was less than one third of total body volume. Because the thermal distribution volume in these hypothermic patients was much lower than total body volume, the chilled IV fluids in this study were 3 times more effective in inducing hypothermia than suggested by a simple calculation. To achieve maximal effectiveness, however, chilled fluids must be administered very rapidly (>100 mL/min) to avoid heat gains in standard IV tubing that occur even with rapid administration. IMPLICATIONS Chilled IV fluids can be much more effective for the induction of hypothermia than commonly assumed, but they must be administered very rapidly to avoid heat gains in IV tubing.
Gauging performance in the service industry

Purpose – Traditional performance measurement models and frameworks fail to take into account the intricacies and specificity of service businesses. The important characteristics of services, role of employees and partners, important of measures and concurrent production and delivery need to be incorporated into the framework. This paper seeks to address these issues.Design/methodology/approach – The research followed a case‐based methodology using semi‐structured interviews. Literature review and case‐based methodology led to the conception of initial deployment framework.Findings – Existing scorecards do not emphasize the deployment aspects of the scorecard and overlook trade‐offs and benchmarking decisions.Practical implications – The scorecard provides guidance for successful deployment. The framework incorporates the importance of service innovation and role of employees and partners into the scorecard. Relative decision trade off and benchmarking are an integral part of the deployment process.Origin.
Phex Mutation Causes the Reduction of Npt2b mRNA in Teeth

Hyp mice (murine homologue of human X-linked hypophosphatemia) have a disorder in phosphate homeostasis, and display hypomineralization in bones and teeth. We investigated whether a mutation of Phex (phosphate regulating gene homologies to endopeptidase on the X chromosome) has an effect on the expression level of type II sodium-dependent phosphate co-transporter (Npt2) in the developing teeth of the Hyp mouse. Quantitative RT-PCR analyses revealed that the amount of Npt2b mRNA, an isoform of Npt2, in Hyp mouse tooth germs was significantly lower than that in wild-type mice, in both in vivo and in vitro experiments. In addition, tooth germs from wild-type mice cultured in medium supplemented with antisense oligo-deoxynucleotide for Phex also showed a reduction of Npt2b mRNA expression. These findings suggest that the loss of Phex function is related to the defect of Npt2b expression in teeth, and Npt2b reduction is an intrinsic defect of Hyp murine teeth.
Satisfiability of Xpath on data trees

This is a survey on the satisfiability problem for XPath on data trees. Data trees are finite trees whose every node carries a label from a finite alphabet and a data value from an infinite domain. XPath is an expressive node selecting language for XML documents, which can be abstracted as data trees. Its satisfiability problem is in general undecidable. However, various fragments of XPath have decidable satisfiability problem, these are fragments defined in terms of the navigational axes which are allowed. We explore the state of the art in terms of decidability and discuss briefly some of the algorithmic techniques involved.
The Elasticity of Demand for Health Maintenance Organizations

This paper analyzes a national sample of firms where employees faced a choice between a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and a conventional insurer such as Blue Cross. A regression analysis is specified as a partial adjustment model and a logit functional form. The long-run price elasticity of demand for HMOs is estimated to be -0.6. To the extent that employers pass on increases in the total premium, the price elasticities facing insurers are higher. Furthermore, the demand for HMOs is a negative function of the copayment charged by the HMO for an office visit.
Externalities from Contract Length

An increase in the length of a firm's labor contract contributes to rigidity in the aggregate price level. This increases the variance of aggregate demand but decreases the variance of other firms' real wages. Under certain conditions, the net effect is to increase the variance of other firms' employment. This negative externality implies that the equilibrium contract length in a decentralized economy is greater than the social optimum-in other words, wages are too rigid. Copyright 1987 by American Economic Association.
An empirical investigation of mobile services' cross-category promotions

A number of mobile services providers are promoting their new product by leveraging upon customers' recognition of their existing product. However, the effectiveness of such leveraging is yet to be studied systematically, especially in an emerging mobile services context. The current study examines the factors that determine the effectiveness of cross-category promotions of mobile services. On the basis of the theory of brand extension, an adoption model which reflects customers' attitude shift from parent mobile product to the promoted new mobile product was developed and empirically tested against data collected from 545 China Mobile's mobile instant messenger users. Structural equation analysis results indicate that consumers' attitude towards parent mobile product influences their attitude towards the promoted new mobile product both directly as well as indirectly through perceived fit. Consumer trust also plays an important role in the process of customers' evaluation of cross-category promotions of new mobile services.
ESSAYS ON DEMOCRATIC INSITUTIONS AND POLICY OUTCOMES BY

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the impact of democratic institutions on policy outcomes. The first essay investigates the impact of direct democracy on redistribution, tax progressivity and income inequality in the American states from 1984 to 2005. Currently available in 24 states, the statewide initiative allows citizens to directly influence policy outcomes. Theoretically, how this political institution impacts inequality and redistribution is ambiguous. Using a pooled OLS specification, I have found that direct democracy leads to an increase in income inequality and a decrease in state tax burden, with no effect on tax progressivity and only modest effect on expenditure redistribution. However, controlling for unobserved heterogeneity using a Correlated Random Effects model, I have found that direct democracy leads to an increase in marginal and average tax rates, with no effect on state tax burden. In their entirety, the findings of this essay underscore that the way in which direct democracy impacts redistribution and inequality is quite complex. This second essay examines the extent to which fiscal spillovers exist in county governments in California. At the county level in California, many fiscal decisions are made
On the challenges in quantitative equity management

In this article, we provide an update discussion of the major findings of a 2007 study on quantitative equity portfolio management and their implications for equity portfolio managers. The study is based on conversations with asset managers, investment consultants, and fundrating agencies as well as survey responses from 31 asset managers in the United States and Europe. In total, 12 asset managers and eight consultants and fund-rating agencies were interviewed, and 31 managers with a total of $2194 trillion in equities under management participated in the survey. Half of the participating firms are based in the United States; half of the participating firms are among the largest asset managers in their countries. Survey participants included chief investment officers of equities and heads of quantitative management and/or quantitative research. Despite some recent performance issues—not limited to quantitatively managed funds—we conclude that, given the number of investable assets, in the range of thousands, the trend towards using financial modeling in equity portfolio management will continue. Models are and will remain part of the asset management decision-making process though just how they are used and their depth of use will continue to vary from firm to firm.
On The Efficiency of Matching and Related Models of Search and Unemployment

This paper describes a simple framework for evaluating the allocative performance of economies characterized by trading frictions and unemployment. This framework integrates the normative results of earlier Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides bilateral matching-bargaining models of trade coordination and price-setting, and consists of a set of general conditions for constrained Pareto efficient resource allocation that are applicable to conventional natural rate models. To illustrate, several conventional models of the labour market are reformulated as matching-bargaining problems and analyzed using this framework.
The development of an effective recovery programme after service failures: A case study of restaurants in Glasgow

The objective of this study was to examine whether the restaurants sampled utilised effective recovery strategies when facing service failures. Furthermore, a programme of a ‘road to well-managed service recovery’ is developed to make recommendations for improving successful recovery in the restaurant industry. The service incident approach was used to identify service failures and efficient recovery strategies. On the other hand, a questionnaire, entitled ‘a road to well-managed recovery from service failure’ was designed to establish a successful recovery programme from managers' responses. The outcome of the research shows that the ten restaurant managers involved in the study claimed to deeply understand the importance of service recovery after service failures. Moreover, the researcher strongly recommends that restaurants need to develop their own critical incidents and follow the standard recovery procedure to amend failure when it occurs.
Is the West’s Money Really Diversified in the East? A Closer Look at Portfolio Diversification Benefits in Asia

The financial crisis and the lackluster domestic equity markets coupled with substantially low interest rates have made the wealthy West shift its focus on emerging markets and in particular Asia. Global wealth managers are highlighting the returns in emerging markets to attract the high net worth investors in the West and providing them access to this asset class. While Western money moves to the East in the hope of high returns, it is necessary to evaluate whether these returns and the investment itself are safer in distant territories. Empirical evidence has established the fact that the U.S. exerts significant influence on developed and emerging markets on account of its dominant position in international economy and trade. Further, the individual economies of regions like Asia have started showing signs of economic integration. A direct implication of this could be that returns in Asian stock markets will get significantly affected by developments in the U.S. or Asia region itself, thereby diluting the portfolio diversification benefits. This article examines this issue by studying the extent to which individual stock markets in Asia are integrated with the U.S. and other markets in the region. The findings of the study can help in deciding optimal asset allocation strategy within the region.
Automatic Generation of Test Cases in Software Product Lines

This paper describes a method to automatically generate test cases with oracle in software product lines, where the management of variability and traceability are two indispensable requirements. These characteristics may be quite useful for the processing and automatic addition of the oracle to test cases, which is one of the main problems found, not only in the context of software product lines, but also in general testing literature. The paper describes a simple, but effective, way to deal with this problem, based on annotations to precode artifacts, metamodelling and transformation algorithms.
Maize Tapetum Xylanase Is Synthesized as a Precursor, Processed and Activated by a Serine Protease, and Deposited on the Pollen*

Pollen coat contains ingredients that interact with the stigma surface during sexual reproduction. In maize (Zea mays L.) pollen coat, the predominant protein is a 35-kDa endoxylanase, whose mRNA is located in the tapetum cells enclosing the maturing pollen in the anthers. This 2.0-kb mRNA was found to have an open reading frame of 1,635 nucleotides encoding a 60-kDa pre-xylanase. In developing anthers, the pre-xylanase protein appeared prior to the 35-kDa xylanase protein and enzyme activity and then peaked and declined, whereas the 35-kDa xylanase protein and activity continued to increase until anther maturation. An acid protease in the anther extract converted the inactive pre-xylanase to the active 35-kDa xylanase in vitro. The protease activity was inhibited by inhibitors of serine proteases but unaffected by inhibitors of cysteine, aspartic, or metallic proteases. Sequence analysis revealed that the 60-kDa pre-xylanase was converted to the 35-kDa xylanase with the removal of 198 and 48 residues from the N and C termini, respectively. During in vitro and in vivo conversions, no intermediates of 60–35 kDa were observed, and the 35-kDa xylanase was highly stable. The pre-xylanase was localized in the tapetum-containing anther wall, whereas the 35-kDa xylanase was found in the pollen coat. The significance of having a large non-active pre-xylanase and the mode of transfer of the xylanase to the pollen coat are discussed. A gene encoding the barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) tapetum xylanase was cloned; this gene and the gene encoding the seed aleurone-layer xylanase had strict tissue-specific expressions.
Non Linear Oil Price Dynamics - A Tale of Heterogeneous Speculators?

While some of the recent surge of oil prices can be attributed to robust global demand at a time of tight production capacities, commentators occasionally also blame the impact of speculators for part of the price pressure. We propose an empirical oil market model with heterogeneous speculators. Whereas trend-extrapolating chartists may tend to destabilize the market, fundamentalists exercise a stabilizing effect on the price dynamics. Using monthly data for WTI oil prices, our STR-GARCH estimates indicate that oil price cycles may indeed emerge due to the nonlinear interplay between different trader types.
An assessment of Web accessibility of UK accountancy firms

The growth of the Internet and Web offers opportunities to both organisations and individuals. Some of this opportunity is lost to both though if Web site content is not accessible. To date this fact has received little attention. However, as the market matures and legal parameters surrounding discrimination become clearer, the topic of accessibility will take on increasing significance. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to those assessments of Web content accessibility already undertaken, as well as to spread the accessibility word to a wider audience. The study looked at the accessibility of UK‐based accountancy sites utilising the evaluation software Bobby. It found that the accessibility of UK‐based accountancy firms to be relatively poor in comparison to other (mostly US and university and library) surveys.