Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CAPITALIZING R&D EXPENDITURES

The next international version of the System of National Accounts will recommend that R&D (Research and Development) expenditures be capitalized instead of being immediately expensed as in the present System of National Accounts 1993. An R&D project creates a new technology, which in principle does not depreciate like a reproducible asset. A new technology is, however, subject to obsolescence, which acts in a manner that is somewhat similar to depreciation. The paper looks at the net benefits of an R&D project in the context of a very simple intertemporal general equilibrium model and suggests that R&D expenditures be amortized using the matching principle that has been developed in the accounting literature to match the fixed costs of a project to a stream of future benefits. Of particular interest is the evaluation of the net benefits of a publicly funded project where the results are made freely available to the public.
Consistency of Book-Tax Differences and the Information Content of Earnings

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the effect of tax planning and earnings management on the informativeness of book income and taxable income. We conduct two sets of tests documenting (1) the incremental effect of tax planning and earnings management on the informativeness of book and taxable income, and (2) the relation between the consistency of the book-tax difference and the informativeness of book and taxable income. The consistency of the book-tax difference depends on firm decisions regarding incremental earnings management and tax planning. Consistency of the book-tax difference is measured as the standard deviation of the discretionary component of the difference between book income and taxable income. Our results show that consistency of the book-tax difference, as a measure of the joint effect of earnings management and tax planning, is related to persistence of both book and tax income and has an incremental effect on information content of both book income and taxable income. JEL Classifications:.
Consumer values, the theory of planned behaviour and online grocery shopping

Taking a hierarchical value-attitude-behaviour approach, this study empirically tests relations of consumer personal values, attitude, social norm, perceived behavioural control (PBC) and willingness to buy groceries online. The study distinguishes three groups of consumers: consumers who have not yet bought anything on the Internet; consumers who have bought something on the Internet – but not groceries; and consumers who have bought something on the Internet – including groceries. Data were collected from an online survey of Swedish consumers (n = 1058) using self-administered questionnaires. The findings suggest that consumers may link personal values to attitude towards online grocery buying – but also that this relation may be moderated by whether the consumer previously has carried out an online purchase or an online grocery purchase.
Fiscal and Social Impact of a Nominal Exchange Rate Devaluation in Djibouti

Limited fiscal space limits Djibouti's ability to meet the Millennium Development Goals and improve the living conditions of its population. Djibouti's fiscal structure is unique in that almost 70 percent of government revenue is denominated in foreign currency (import taxes, foreign aid grants, and military revenue) while over 50 percent of government expenditure is denominated in local currency (wages, salaries, and social transfers). Djibouti's economic structure is also unusual in that merchandise exports of local origin are insignificant, and the country relies heavily on imported goods (food, medicines, consumer and capital goods). A currency devaluation, by reducing real wages, could potentially generate additional fiscal space that would help meet Djibouti's fundamental development goals. Using macroeconomic and household level data, the authors quantify the impact of a devaluation of the nominal exchange rate on fiscal savings, real public sector wages, real income, and poverty under various hypothetical scenarios of exchange-rate pass-through and magnitude of devaluation. They find that a currency devaluation could generate fiscal savings in the short-term, but it would have an adverse effect on poverty and income distribution. A 30 percent nominal exchange rate devaluation could generate fiscal savings amounting between 3 and 7 percent of GDP. At the same time, a 30 percent nominal devaluation could cause nearly a fifth of the poorest households to fall below the extreme poverty line and pull the same fraction of upper middle-income households below the national poverty line. The authors also find that currency devaluation could generate net fiscal savings even after accounting for the additional social transfers needed to compensate the poor for their real income loss. However, the absence of formal social safety nets limits the government's readiness to provide well-targeted and timely social transfers to the poor.
Platelet transfusion for patients with cancer.

BACKGROUND Platelet transfusion is a critical and often necessary aspect of managing cancer. Low platelet counts frequently lead to bleeding complications; however, the drugs used to combat malignancy commonly lead to decreased production and destruction of the very cell whose function is essential to stop bleeding. The transfusion of allogeneic platelet products helps to promote hemostasis, but alloimmunization may make it difficult to manage other complications associated with cancer. METHODS The literature relating to platelet transfusion in patients with cancer was reviewed. RESULTS Platelet storage, dosing, transfusion indications, and transfusion response are essential topics for health care professionals to understand because many patients with cancer will require platelet transfusions during the course of treatment. The workup and differentiation of non-immune-mediated compared with immune-mediated platelet refractoriness are vital because platelet management is different between types of refractoriness. CONCLUSIONS A combination of appropriate utilization of platelet inventory and laboratory testing coupled with communication between those caring for patients with cancer and those providing blood products is essential for effective patient care.
Capital and Knowledge: Integrating Arrow’s Learning-by-Doing, the Walrasian Equilibrium Theory and Neoclassical Growth Theory

This article proposes a neoclassical growth model with endogenous capital accumulation and knowledge creation. The model integrates Arrow’s learning by doing, Uzawa’s two-sector growth model and Walrasian general equilibrium theory. We use a utility function, which determines leisure time, saving and consumption with utility optimization without leading to a higher dimensional dynamic system like the Ramsey approach. The dynamics of J-household economy is described by a ( J + 1)-dimensional differential equations system. We simulate the motion of the model and demonstrate transitional and long-term effects of changes in the propensity to save, the propensity to use leisure time, the population, the learning-by-doing efficiency and knowledge utilization efficiency. The comparative dynamic analysis provides some insights into issues related to inequality and growth. JEL Classification: D51, D31, O41, E13
Signaling Events of the Rim101 Pathway Occur at the Plasma Membrane in a Ubiquitination-Dependent Manner

ABSTRACT In yeast, external alkalization and alteration in plasma membrane lipid asymmetry are sensed by the Rim101 pathway. It is currently under debate whether the signal elicited by external alkalization is transduced to downstream molecules at the plasma membrane or via endocytosis of the Rim21 sensor protein at the late endosome. We found that the downstream molecules, including arrestin-related protein Rim8, calpain-like protein Rim13, and scaffold protein Rim20, accumulated at the plasma membrane upon external alkalization and that the accumulation was dependent on Rim21. Snf7, an endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) III subunit also essential for the Rim101 pathway, localized to the plasma membrane, in addition to the late endosome, under alkaline conditions. Snf7 at the plasma membrane but not at the late endosome was shown to be involved in Rim101 signaling. In addition, the Rim101 pathway was normally activated, even when endocytosis was severely impaired. Considering this information as a whole, we propose that Rim101 signaling proceeds at the plasma membrane. We also found that activity of the Rsp5 ubiquitin ligase was required for recruiting the downstream molecules to the plasma membrane, suggesting that ubiquitination mediates Rim101 signaling at the plasma membrane.
Clopidogrel and modified-release dipyridamole for the prevention of occlusive vascular events (NICE technology appraisal guidance 90)

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has recently published an update of technology appraisal guidance 90, first published in 2005, which evaluated the use of clopidogrel and modified-release dipyridamole for the prevention of occlusive vascular events. This article considers the update in detail and discusses the implications for clinical practice.
Carboxylated and undercarboxylated osteocalcin in metabolic complications of human obesity and prediabetes

Carboxylated osteocalcin (Gla‐OC) participates in bone remodeling, whereas the undercarboxylated form (Glu‐OC) takes part in energy metabolism. This study was undertaken to compare the blood levels of Glu‐OC and Gla‐OC in nonobese, healthy obese, and prediabetic volunteers and correlate it with the metabolic markers of insulin resistance and early markers of inflammation.
Capital Formation and Economic Growth in Western China

Employing the Douglas production function, the effect of capital formation on economic growth is investigated empirically in western China and compared with the eastern and central regions. Regional inequality is viewed to be closely related to capital formation, such as local-fiscal expenditure, central-government investment, loans, equity financing, foreign direct investment (FDI), and private investment. The west is generally weaker in capital formation than the eastern and central regions. Findings indicate that local-fiscal capital expenditure and central-government investment have a significant positive effect on growth in the central and western regions. Loans have no significant effect on growth in any of the regions. Effects of equity financing are significant for growth in the eastern and central regions, but not in the west. The link between FDI and growth is stronger in the west than in central China, but weaker than in the east.
ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF HERBS AGAINST YERSINIA ENTEROCOLITICA AND MIXED MICROFLORA

The present study aimed at developing herbal medicine against food borne pathogens, therefore the antimicrobial activity of four herbs viz. Arjuna (bark), Ashwagandha (roots), Puthkanda (leaves) and Shalampanja (roots) was checked. Aqueous, ethanolic and petroleum ether extracts of each herb were extracted and their antimicrobial activity against mixed microflora and against Yersinia enterocolitica was determined. Tetracycline and gentamicin were used as reference antibiotics. Arjuna extracts showed the highest antimicrobial potential against mixed population and Yersinia enterocolitica in comparison to Ashwagandha, Puthkanda and Shalampanja extracts. The antimicrobial activity of Arjuna aqueous extract was lower compared to gentamicin, but comparable to tetracycline. The minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration of aqueous extract of Arjuna showed the lowest values indicating that it is more effective in lower concentration of use. The antimicrobial activity of herbs showed the following trend Arjuna > Puthkanda > Shalampanja > Ashwagandha.
Distributed Space-Frequency Coding for Cooperative Diversity Over Broadband Relay Channels With DF Relaying

Multipath fading is one of the main challenges in transmission over wireless broadband relay channels due to frequency selectivity, which may deteriorate the received signal. Exploiting the extra source of multipath diversity, aside from cooperative (user) diversity, is important when coping with these wireless channel limitations. In this correspondence, we propose a new distributed space-frequency code (SFC) for broadband fading relay channels that can exploit both the spatial and multipath diversities in a distributed fashion. An upper bound for pairwise error probability (PEP) is derived, and from this PEP bound, we show that the proposed code achieves a diversity of order NL, where N is the number of relay nodes, and L is the channel memory length. The decode-and-forward (DF) protocol and erroneous decoding at the relay nodes are considered. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed code structure achieves the maximum coding gain among the linearly coded systems over channels with uniform power delay profiles.
Towards a Large Corpus of Richly Annotated Web Tables for Knowledge Base Population

Web Table Understanding in the context of Knowledge Base Population and the Semantic Web is the task of i) linking the content of tables retrieved from the Web to an RDF knowledge base, ii) of building hypotheses about the tables' structures and contents, iii) of extracting novel information from these tables, and iv) of adding this new information to a knowledge base. Knowledge Base Population has gained more and more interest in the last years due to the increased demand in large knowledge graphs which became relevant for Artificial Intelligence applications such as Question Answering and Semantic Search. In this paper we describe a set of basic tasks which are relevant for Web Table Understanding in the mentioned context. These tasks incrementally enrich a table with hypotheses about the table's content. In doing so, in the case of multiple interpretations, selecting one interpretation and thus deciding against other interpretations is avoided as much as possible. By postponing these decision, we enable table understanding approaches to decide by themselves, thus increasing the usability of the annotated table data. We present statistics from analyzing and annotating 1.000. 000 tables from the Web Table Corpus 2015 and make this dataset as well as our code available online.
Mainstreaming local people's knowledge and implications for higher education in the South

The essence of education is the enhancement of behavioural change through the acquisition of new knowledge, skills and attitudes by the learner, which invariably translates to individual and national progress. This article, therefore, sheds light on the development and utilisation of local people's knowledge systems/technologies with possible adaptation for teaching in Colleges and Universities in the South for the realisation of sustainable development. It specifically addresses contextual issues and processes involved in knowledge produdion through indigenous experimentation and innovation; emphasizes both in situ and ex situ preservation of knowledge; identifies social odors in (indigenous) knowledge produdion; proposes a model for incorporating IKS in the formal education system; and suggests that the knowledge generated by grassroots people should be documented, preserved and made available in international centres for accessibility by all stakeholders for possible adaptation. The article poses a challenge to the twenty first century knowledge producers and policy-makers on the importance of mainstreaming indigenous knowledge systems for the purpose of teaching in higher institutions to enhance sustainable human development.
Urbanization as a Global Historical Process: Theory and Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

Urbanization has traditionally been understood as a byproduct of economic development, but this explanatory framework fails to account for the phenomenon of “urbanization without growth” observed in sub-Saharan Africa throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In light of this apparent anomaly, I argue that urbanization is better understood as a global historical process driven by population dynamics associated with technological and institutional innovations that have substantially improved disease control and food security in urban settlements across the globe. These innovations first emerged in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were subsequently diffused through colonialism, trade, and international development assistance. A range of qualitative and quantitative evidence is presented to demonstrate that this historically grounded theory of urbanization offers a more convincing explanation for the stylized facts of Africa's urban transition—and hence the process of world urbanization more broadly—than the traditional economic account.
Business Strategy, Participative Human Resource Management and Organizational Performance: The Case of South Korea

Empirical research on strategic human resource management is in infancy. Little is known about the approaches companies use to link their strategic choices with human resource practices to achieve superior financial perform ance. Moreover, the studies conducted to date have used data from US com panies, raising a question about the generalizability of these findings to other countries. In contrast, the current study empirically tests typology of compet itive strategy, dimensions of participative human resource management and their impact on firm performance by using a data set from South Korean manufacturing firms. While competitive strategy types showed differential firm performance effect, the performance effect of participative human resource management types and their interactions with strategy were limited. Also, per formance effects of sixteen different competitive strategy/participative human resource management matches have been explored.
Exchange rate regimes and economic convergence in the European Union

Tests for long‐run macroeconomic convergence among European Union (EU) countries according to the various exchange rate regimes that have prevailed over the last 40 years. Applying a recently developed test to the monthly index of industrial production data, output convergence is confirmed or rejected depending on whether or not the first largest principal component based on benchmark deviations with respect to Germany is stationary or not. It is argued that this methodology has key advantages over existing cointegrating and common trends procedures. For most EU countries, there is evidence of increased macroeconomic convergence during the 1990s, where evidence is particularly strong for Belgium, France and The Netherlands. The evidence also indicates that the Snake era of the 1970s was more conducive towards convergence than the initial exchange rate mechanism period of 1979‐1992. Firm evidence of convergence is lacking for Austria, Finland and Sweden, who joined the EU in 1995, and for a sample of non‐EU countries.
Effects of Climate Change on Alpine Skiing in Sweden

Climate change has already affected and will continue to affect physical and biological systems in many parts of the world. For example, annual snow cover extent in the northern hemisphere has decreased by about 10% since 1966, and in Sweden, the last decade was wetter and warmer than the preceding 30-year period. These changes will affect many aspects of utilisation patterns that are dependent on the physical environment, such as alpine winter tourism. In this paper, we discuss the future development of the downhill skiing industry in Sweden. We first review trends in alpine winter tourism in relation to climate change together with regional projections of climate change. Secondly, we examine trends in climate parameters relevant to alpine winter tourism in Sweden during the last 30 years. Thirdly, we take these parameters, together with regional projections of climate change, and predict effects on the number of skiing days in order to estimate the monetary loss for the skiing industry in Sweden. The analyses show predicted losses that are larger than current ski-ticket sales. Adaptation strategies such as the development of year-round tourist activities should be developed as soon as possible.
Efficient Stochastic Decoding of Non-Binary LDPC Codes with Degree-Two Variable Nodes

In this letter, we present an optimized version of the relaxed half-stochastic (RHS) algorithm targeted at non-binary LDPC codes with a variable node degree equal to two. The new algorithm has significantly fewer multiplications while maintaining an error-correction performance and a decoding iteration count identical to those of the original.
Optimal real-time pricing under load uncertainty based on utility maximization for smart grid

Implementation of real-time communication systems enables real-time pricing for smart grid operation. Recently, [1] proposed a utility framework and a distributed algorithm for real-time pricing. We extend this work to include the effect from load uncertainty. We derive the optimal prices under different types of load uncertainty and show how it influences power consumption and generating capacity. Simulation results indicate power consumption back-offs when there is load uncertainty and provide comparisons among the load uncertainty models.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ELITE OPEN‐WATER SWIMMERS

Open-water swimming (5, 10, and 25 km) has many unique challenges that separate it from other endurance sports, like marathon running and cycling. The characteristics of a successful open-water swimmer are unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine the physical and metabolic characteristics of a group of elite-level open-water swimmers. The open-water swimmers were participating in a 1-week training camp. Anthropometric, metabolic, and blood chemistry assessments were performed on the athletes. The swimmers had a Vo2peak of 5.51 ± 0.96 and 5.06 ± 0.57 ml·kg-1min-1 for males and females, respectively. Their lactate threshold (LT) occurred at a pace equal to 88.75% of peak pace for males and 93.75% for females. These elite open-water swimmers were smaller and lighter than competitive pool swimmers. They possess aerobic metabolic alterations that resulted in enhanced performance in distance swimming. Trainers and coaches should develop dry-land programs that will improve the athlete's muscular endurance. Furthermore, programs should be designed to increase the LT velocity as a percentage of peak swimming velocity.
The Emergence of Fiduciary Capitalism

The twentieth century has seen a sea change in the concentration of ownership of U.S. corporations. Early in the century Berle and Means identified the divorce of ownership from control as the central corporate governance problem, but since the 1970s ownership has been re-concentrating into the hands of fiduciary institutions -- most notably pension funds and mutual funds. By the 1990s fiduciaries collectively owned over 50% of the outstanding equity of the 1,000 largest corporations. This new pattern of ownership, fiduciary capitalism, has begun to raise important policy questions including: How can agents (fiduciaries) effectively monitor other agents (boards of directors)? What are the social implications of universal ownership where fiduciaries own substantial stakes in virtually all of the corporations in a country, and, finally, What does it mean to maximize shareholder wealth when fiduciaries are universal owners?
Profiling the Senior Traveler: An Australian Perspective

Recently, the behavior of senior travelers has become an important area of interest because of its market size and potential for growth. This study describes a study profiling senior travelers according to their demographic and psychographic characteristics. Six market segments were used to highlight the differences that exist in terms of holiday attractions, travel motivations, and information sources used among senior travelers when planning and choosing a holiday. Seniors are shown not to be a uniform conservative market, which has implications for marketing and product development.