Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Government Employees

Are government employees lazier than private-sector employees? Drawing from theories of work motivation and public service motivation, this article examines three public-private differences that might produce different levels of work effort in the two sectors. First, government and business may offer different extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Second, public and private workers may seek different rewards. Third, public and private workers may differ in personal characteristics that predict work effort. Using 1989 and 1998 data fromthe General Social Survey, we find that government employees reported slightly higher work effort than those in the private sector. Public- and private-sector workers differ in the value they place on extrinsic and intrinsic motivators, in the rewards their jobs offer, and in some personal characteristics. Government jobs offering interesting work and opportunities to help others, combined with the greater age of public employees, explain most of the sectoral differences in self-reported work effort.
Mortality due to blaKPC Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteraemia.

OBJECTIVES To determine the mortality rate secondary to blaKPC Klebsiella pneumoniae (KPC/Kp) bacteraemia, compared with that from ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae (ESBL/Kp) bacteraemia, and to determine associated risk factors. METHODS This was a retrospective case-control study of all 68 KPC/Kp bacteraemia patients diagnosed since 2006, matched by year of isolation, gender and age, at a ratio of 1:2, to 136 ESBL/Kp bacteraemia patients. RESULTS There were no demographic differences between the two groups, but there were minor clinical differences. Fewer KPC/Kp study patients than ESBL/Kp control patients had a systolic blood pressure <90 mmHg (32/68, 47% versus 86/136, 63%, respectively, P = 0.02) or urinary catheterization (32/68, 47% versus 90/136, 66%, respectively, P = 0.005), while the KPC/Kp bacteraemia group had a greater incidence of acute renal failure (45/68, 66% versus 67/136, 49%, respectively, P = 0.02). There was no difference between the two groups in duration of hospitalization. The mortality rate of the KPC/Kp bacteraemia group was 44/68 (65%) compared with 54/136 (40%) in the ESBL/Kp bacteraemia control group (P = 0.008), which in the multivariate analysis remained highly significant (P < 0.001). Only 11/68 (16%) of KPC/Kp patients were functionally independent at discharge compared with 43/136 (32%) ESBL/Kp patients (P = 0.012). CONCLUSIONS The selection of an ESBL/Kp control cohort with a ratio of 1:2 (study versus control group) helped resolve an as yet insufficiently settled question: bacteraemia with KPC/Kp is an independent risk factor for death, justifying the strict adherence to cohorting and isolation procedures.
EXCHANGE RATES AND EMPLOYMENT

The analysis of exchange rates and employment has received scant attention in development economics. This is surprising, since there appears to be a number of well-defined transmission channels through which exchange rates impact on employment. In South Africa this is particularly important given the rand's higher volatility relative to other emerging economies. The main focus of this paper is to give an overview of the transmission channels through which exchange rates affect employment and to discuss the standard methodological approach to conceptualising the impact of exchange rates on employment. Given the sector-specific impact of exchange rates which are conditioned by industry characteristics, such as the degree of external orientation, there will always be winners and losers in the face of a currency shock. This means the full impact of exchange rates on employment can only be dealt with in an economy-wide framework. Results from a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model are presented to demonstrate that even in a country with unreliable employment data such as South Africa, one can still analyse exchange rate and employment issues. Copyright (c) 2008 The Author. Journal compilation (c) 2008 Economic Society of South Africa.
Manufacturing Demand for Business Services in a Core and Peripheral Region: Does Flexible Production Imply Vertical Disintegration of Business Services?

O'FARRELL P. N. , MOFFAT L. A. R. And HITCHENS D. M. W. N. (1993) Manufacturing demand for business services in a core and peripheral region: does flexible production imply vertical disintegration of business services? , Reg. Studies 27, 385–400. This paper analyses the demand by manufactures in Scotland and South East England for key strategic business services during the past three years, the source of supply of the services used and the location of external suppliers for Scottish and English manufacturers. Our evidence suggests that expansion of demand is the primary cause of increasing business service output and not restructuring strategies as predicted by the flexible firm model. Both externalization and internalization of business services are occurring simultaneously; the net balance is consistent with a marginal trend towards vertical integration in manufacturing and a stronger one in business services. O'FARRELL P. N. , MOFFAT L. A. R. Et HITCHENS D. M. W. N. (1993) La demande de l'industrie pour l.
Managing business model creation process: Kirznerian entrepreneurship and the role of organisation in cases of a Japanese company

This research has explored the creation process of new business models and the role of organisation in that process, in order to enhance the knowledge about how to create a new business model effectively. The multiple case-study method was applied to this research. The samples are four new business models which have been developed at a SOGO-SHOSYA, a Japanese company in recent years. We found that the creation process of a new business model is entrepreneurial process in all the cases and that those entrepreneurial activities are conducted based on not the Schumpeterian but the Kirznerian theory. We also found that there are common management practices to encourage Kirznerian entrepreneurship, which led to the creation of the new business models. Based on those findings, we have proposed propositions on how to create a new business model effectively.
The Dynamics of Market Share's Growth and Competition in Quadratic Mappings

This paper shows that the observed output of any market, placed within the confine of a quadratic map, can characterize the state of that market. Such an approach explains the process of market share’s growth and its pitfalls, the consequences of broken symmetry of scaling, as well as the limits of firms’ competition for market shares
On the development of improved adaptive models for efficient prediction of stock indices using clonal-PSO (CPSO) and PSO techniques

The present paper introduces a new clonal particle swarm optimisation (CPSO) and PSO techniques to develop efficient adaptive forecasting models for short and long-term prediction of S&P 500 and DJIA stock indices. The basic structure of the models is an adaptive linear combiner whose weights are iteratively updated by PSO and CPSO-based learning rules. The technical indicators are computed from past stock indices and are used as input to the models. Using simulation study the prediction performances in terms of the convergence rate, the minimum mean square error (MSE), training time and the mean average percentage error (MAPE) of CPSO, PSO and GA-based models are obtained for all ranges of prediction. Comparison of these results demonstrates that the proposed CPSO and PSO-based models yield superior performance compared to the GA one. However the CPSO model provides the best performance compared to other two.
The Effect Of Interest Rate On Deposit On Household Consumption In Ghana: Ardl Cointegration Analysis

This paper presents an econometric model for household consumption in Ghana with the aim of highlighting the effect of interest rate on deposit on household consumption using time series data from 1970 to 2009. The paper also looks at other macroeconomics variables like inflation rate and GDP per Capita that have effect on household consumption. The ARDL Bound test was used to test for cointegration among these variables. The results showed that there exists a negative relationship between interest rate on deposits and household consumption both in the long run and short run. However, it was found not significant in the long run but rather in the short run.
Nausea and vomiting in HIV: a symptom review

Nausea and vomiting are two of the most common symptoms experienced by those with HIV. While the causes are most commonly attributed to medication side effects, infectious causes, gastroparesis and psychosomatic, therapy aimed at controlling symptoms has not been well studied. Since nausea and vomiting have been identified as the most common cause of discontinuation of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) therapy, and due to the extensive morbidity associated with these symptoms, we sought to review and discuss causes and management of these symptoms in HIV-infected patients and demonstrate the need for further research in this area. Such studies could include investigation into the prophylactic use of antiemetics with initiation or modification of HAART therapy to monitor patient compliance. In addition, anticipatory nausea and vomiting should be further studied, as it could prove to be quite prevalent, as in cancer patients.
Expected utility and portfolio selection: an econometric study of Pakistan's commercial banking sector

This paper attempts to explain the portfolio behaviour of Pakistani banks. Several expected utility models are developed and applied to semi-annual data for the period from 1997 to 2012. The expected utility model commonly reduced to the mean-variance model, of bank portfolio behaviour under risk stems from the works of Hicks, Tobin and Markowitz. According to this approach, the determinants of alternative portfolios can be assessed by the trade-off between their expected return and valuation risks, where the former is the mean of the probability distribution of return and the latter is usually approximated by the variance of that distribution. Different theoretical restrictions have been tested to explain the Pakistani banking portfolio including symmetry and homogeneity of the interest rate matrix. Empirical evidence suggests that, in general, changes in interest rates do explain the changes in the portfolio of these units, but the availability of funds and other policy variables were found to be more important.
Central Blood Pressure, Arterial Waveform Analysis, and Vascular Risk Factors in Glaucoma

PurposeReduced ocular perfusion pressure has been linked to glaucoma, and increased arterial stiffness is implicated in systemic cardiovascular risk. This study measured central blood pressure (BP) and arterial waveforms derived from pulse tonometry, together with data on systemic and ocular vascular factors relevant to glaucoma status. MethodsA total of 126 patients and 66 normal controls were tested, including 90 primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) patients and 36 normal tension glaucoma (NTG) patients. Glaucoma patients had been followed for at least 3 years and inclusion required several (>4) reliable visual fields such that glaucoma progression could be determined. Radial pulse tonometry and brachial BP data were collected, together with data on disc hemorrhages, spontaneous venous pulsation, peripapillary atrophy, smoking, and medications. ResultsBrachial BP or derived central aortic BP parameters generally showed no significant differences between glaucoma patients and normal individuals. The POAG group had a lower pulse pressure, which was also significant in the regression analysis (P<0.002). In the arterial waveform analysis, POAG was associated with a lower brachial form factor than NTG (P<0.001) and higher subendocardial viability ratio (P<0.008). NTG was associated with a lower body mass index, and POAG with a smoking history. There was an increased incidence of disc hemorrhages and a reduced incidence of spontaneous venous pulsations in the progressing group. ConclusionsDerived central BP does not reveal significant differences from controls or in glaucoma subgroups, but a reduced pulse pressure was identified. There may be some changes in arterial pulse waveform shape suggesting possible differences in diastolic perfusion. Disc hemorrhages and loss of spontaneous venous pulsation were associated with disease progression.
Cuts and reforms — Public services as we move into a new era

Most countries now share the prospect of an extended period of public fiscal austerity. Yet at the same time the demands for improved public services continues. This paper reviews the relationship between expenditure restraint and reform. It describes three broad strategies for achieving savings, noting that each has a different mixture of advantages and disadvantages. It then identifies four significant considerations that public service leaders will need to bear in mind as they decide their programs: timing, ethics, communications and legitimacy. The paper concludes with the observation that simultaneously tackling the needs for austerity and reform will call for extraordinary levels of public service leadership.
Automatic prediction of bug fixing effort measured by code churn size

During software maintenance, developers often receive many bug reports. Project managers often need to manage limited resources to resolve the many bugs that a project receives. To help project managers perform their job, past studies have proposed techniques that predict the amount of time that passes between a bug report being submitted and it being resolved. However, this time period might not be representative of the actual development effort, as developers might not work on the bug right away or all the time. In the open source development setting, developers are only volunteers and might not devote their full working hours to fix a bug in a particular open source project. In the industrial setting, developers might be asked to perform various tasks aside from fixing a particular bug. In this work, we estimate bug fixing effort in terms of code churn size. Code churn size is the number of lines of code that is either added, deleted, or modified to fix the bug. Lines of code has traditionally been used to estimate effort. However, no past studies have proposed techniques to automatically predict code churn size. In this work, using code churn size as estimation for bug fixing effort, we propose a classification-based approach that predicts, given a bug report, whether the bug fixing effort would be high or low. We have evaluated our approach on 1,029 bug reports from hadoop-common and struts2. The result is promising; we can achieve an Area Under the Receiver Operating Curve (AUC) of 0.612 to predict bug fixing effort in terms of lines of code churned, which is a 22.4% improvement over a baseline.
THE EFFECTS OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF KOREAN FIRMS ON THE PATENT PRODUCTION FUNCTION

In this study, we estimate the input–output relationship between R&D investment and the number of patents granted to Korean firms by the US Patent and Trademark Office and the Korean Intellectual Property Office. Using pooled panel data and time-series data, we also examine the influence of the characteristics of the firms, viz. their export-orientation, the degree of foreign ownership and Chaebol-affiliation on the input–output relationship. It was found that the elasticities of US and Korean patents for R&D investment are 1.56 and 1.38, respectively. It was also shown that, in general, export-oriented firms, firms with higher foreign ownership and non-Chaebol firms have higher patent producing capability.
Professionalism: evolution and measurement

This article opens with a review of changes to the concept of professionalism since Hall's classic 1968 study. Research into the measurement of professionalism is then evaluated and test results are reported for Hall's measure of professionalism on samples of British accountants and research chemists. Good fit indices from confirmatory factor analysis were only obtained after heavily modifying the original scale to give a 15-item, 5- factor scale. Inter-factor correlations are low, casting doubt upon the measurement of a single underlying professionalism construct. Suggestions for reconceptualising professionalism in terms of process rather than structure are given.
How national party policy positions and decision-making in the European Parliament fit together - A theoretical and empirical view on political behaviour of German parties*

Policy positions are highly relevant for national party competition. Amongst others, they signal parties’ view on policy issues. These policy positions are externally used by voters for their voting decisions. For the internal party dynamics policy positions are relevant as well: They have an inherent function for party members’ identification and are used as reference for legislative decision-making. When policy positions and legislative behaviour dramatically mismatch, parties can lose credibility. A decreasing credibility can raise fundamental problems for parties because it enhances the possibility of electoral defeat and can therefore result in a loss of parliamentary seats or government office. Additionally, the organisational strength of parties can be weakened when party members choose to exit. While that interplay of these two party functions – position taking and legislative behaviour – is known for national party competition, it is less clear for national parties within the European multilevel system. Obviously, the necessity of coherence between national party positions and voting behaviour in the European Parliament is reduced when the lack of public attention towards European legislature is taken into account. However, today’s importance of European decision-making and the resultant adherence by national parties’ policy experts give hints that coherence across these two political levels may be more important than initially assumed. The paper provides a theoretical concept of coherence between national party positions and legislative behaviour in the European Parliament. This concept includes explanations of characteristics and relevance of coherence for the two-level situation. Moreover requirements for (in)coherence between the two party functions are theoretically inferred. The concept of coherence gives new insights into the interdependence of the national party organization and legislative behaviour in the European Parliament.
Bridging the hospitality and tourism university–industry research gap in developing countries: The case of Egypt

This paper explores university–industry collaboration in developing countries through a case study of university–industry research collaboration in support of the Egyptian hospitality and tourism industry. The perceptions of four key Egyptian stakeholder groups – industry, university, government and non-governmental organisations – were identified via in-depth semi-structured one-to-one interviews. The research gap between Egyptian universities and the hospitality and tourism industry is wider than suggested in the literature on university–industry collaboration. There was consensus of the absence of a research culture in faculties of tourism and hotels where social science research was perceived as having little/no value except as a part of academic degrees or for promotional purposes, rather than for knowledge creation or to inform industry’s practices. Egyptian faculties of tourism and hotels had not undergone the first academic revolution experienced in the US and Europe in the late 19th century. There was no evidence of government interventions to drive university–industry research collaboration for the tourism and hospitality industry, despite its undoubted importance to the Egyptian economy. The study sends a message to policy-makers, particularly government, that unless serious attention is paid to hospitality and tourism education and research, the impact on economic and social development will be negative.
Spatial egalitarianism as a social ‘counter-movement’: on socio-economic reforms in Chongqing

Abstract Through a framework drawn from Karl Polanyi's substantivist theorization of economic practices, this paper evaluates the quest for equitable urbanization in Chongqing, a major city-region in south-western China. Illuminating the tensions arising from two interrelated reforms, namely the ambitious attempt to construct 40 million m2 of public rental housing between 2010 and 2012, and the large-scale drive to ensure peasant migrants enjoy equal access to social benefits as current urban residents, the paper explains how the quest for equitable urbanization magnifies two nationwide dimensions of institutionalized uneven development, namely (i) the caste-like categorization of populations according to ‘urban’ and ‘rural’; and (ii) the coastal bias in national economic development. The paper concludes that this state-driven pursuit of spatial egalitarianism in Chongqing expresses the dialecticism of economic development in China: it is a social ‘counter-movement’ against the effects of an uneven spatiality that was instituted to drive and deepen the marketization of Chinese society.
The Extent of Implicit Taxes at the Corporate Level and the Effect of TRA86

We examine the extent of implicit taxes at the corporate level and the effect on implicit taxes of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86). Using a variety of specifications, we find consistent evidence that implicit taxes eliminate virtually all of the cross-sectional differences in explicit tax preferences prior to TRA86, and then abruptly decline and eliminate only about one-third of the cross-sectional differences in tax preferences in years following TRA86. We triangulate this evidence that implicit taxes declined following TRA86 by also providing evidence (a) of a decline in the relation between changes in tax preferences and changes in pre-tax returns, (b) of an increase in the persistence of tax-related earnings changes, (c) that these dramatic economic changes are priced by investors. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that the decline in implicit taxes after TRA86 is driven at least in part by expansion of aggressive tax planning and use of tax shelters. Taken together these results indicate that TRA86 had a profound and lasting effect on implicit taxes at the corporate level.
Firm-specific Capital and Turnover

This is a model of permanent job separations when there are endogenous firm-specific human capital and intensity of on-the-job search. The result is a combination of human-capital theory with the theory of search turnover and search unemployment. An interesting technical twist is that the worker's decision problem under uncertainty is solved by means of the deterministic maximum principle.
Using Theory or Making Theory: Can there be Theories of Housing?

This paper seeks to establish legitimacy for the creation of housing theory. It begins by creating a distinction between dwelling and housing policy. I argue that the latter is the staple focus of most housing research, but that this presents only a partial picture of housing phenomena and artificially restricts the field of housing studies. By introducing the concept of dwelling the field of housing studies is widened to consider the ordinary use of housing, and this opens up a number of possibilities for theory creation. Having done this, in the second part of the paper I consider the nature of housing theory and the main arguments against theory creation. I seek to provide a coherent and substantial counterargument to these objections. In the final section of the paper I present a brief outline of how we might create housing theory using the example of the concept of accommodation.