Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential income taxation and household asset allocation

This article empirically investigates the effects of differential income taxation on households’ portfolio choice and asset allocation, applying a two-stage budgeting model of asset demand to German survey data. The model is structured into the discrete and the continuous asset choice. Cross-sectional variation in marginal tax rates, appropriately instrumented, as well as over-time variation from a major tax reform are used to identify the tax effects. Households with higher tax rates are found to have relatively greater demand for tax-privileged assets, such as nonowner-occupied housing, mortgage repayments, building society deposits, stocks, insurances and consumer credits, than households with lower tax rates. Demand at higher tax rates is lower for owner-occupied housing, bank deposits and bonds.
Development of materials for the clinical assessment of speech recognition: the speech sound pattern discrimination test.

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the validity and reliability of materials designed for an assessment procedure capable of making meaningful distinctions in speech recognition ability among individuals having mild-to-moderate hearing losses. Sets of phonetic contrasts were presented within sentence contexts to 53 listeners (22 normal hearing, 31 hearing impaired) in 4 listening conditions (quiet and with background competition at signal-to-noise ratios of +5, 0, and -5 dB). The listeners were asked to discriminate pairs of sentences (e.g., "The man hid the dog" and "The man hit the dog") using same-different judgments. Their performances were analyzed in a manner enabling comparisons among items in terms of the classification of phonetic contrasts. Listener performance was also compared to performance on a set of independent variables, including the W-22 and QuickSIN speech tests, high-frequency hearing loss, speech reception threshold, listener age, and others. Results indicated that the new materials distinguished the normal-hearing from the hearing-impaired group and that listener performance (a) declined about 17% for each 5 dB decrement in SNR and (b) was influenced by the phonetic content of items in a manner similar to that reported by G. A. Miller and P. E. Nicely (1955). The performances of the hearing-impaired listeners were much more strongly related to high-frequency hearing loss, listener age, and other variables than were their performances on either the W-22 or QuickSIN tests. These findings are discussed with specific reference to the use of a mathematical model (i.e., the Rasch model for person measurement) for scaling items along a continuum of difficulty. The mathematical model and associated item difficulty values will serve as the basis for construction of a clinically useful computerized, adaptive test of speech recognition ability known as the Speech Sound Pattern Discrimination Test (Bochner, J., Garrison, W., Palmer, L., MacKenzie, D., & Braveman, A., 1997).
Barter trading : an empirical investigation of management practices

Barter trade is on the increase worldwide in both developed and developing countries. This study is aimed at investigating the management practices used by firms involved in barter trading in order to ensure that they take optimal advantage of benefits of barter trade and minimise its potential problems. Data was collected from 61 barter trade practitioners from the South African media industry. The findings show that most of the firms realise the need to have dedicated personnel responsible for barter trade in their firms. Having dedicated personnel responsible for barter trade helps ensure accountability. The findings also show that most of the firms actively search for barter opportunities, have top management support in their barter trading activities, make use of in-house specialists to negotiate barter deals and have in place clearly defined policies on managing barter trade. Nearly all the policies prescribe products that can be bartered, maximum value of deals acceptable, evaluation criteria for barter deals, accounting and tax treatment of barter deals as well as barter trade authorisation procedures. The findings of the study have practical significance to firms considering using barter trade in their organisations. These have been highlighted in the paper. Key words: Barter trade, barter practitioners, media industry, management practices, South Africa.
Competitive intelligence and bottom‐line performance

Nearly two years ago, the SCIP Board approved the funding of what we hoped would be a landmark empirical study on the role of CI in corporate strategy and performance. Following on open competition of proposals, a committee of SCIP members granted Arizona University's Bernard Jaworski and Liang Chee Wee $10,000 to examine the CI-strategy performance linkage. The researchers had the following objectives: 1 Summarize the published literature on the strategic role of CI and report the empirical evidence of CI benefits. 2 Conduct primary research to acquire empirical evidence on how firms are using CI to achieve strategic objectives, its contribution to the corporate functions and strategic planning process. 3 Identify firms that have successfully integrated CI into the strategic planning efforts of their firms, including their integration methods, barriers to integration, and the benefits of integration. 4 Provide evidence of the relationship (if any) between CI and business performance.
Fiscal Impacts of an Innovative Highway Financing Alternative on State Highway Expenditures

The National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-59) authorized the U.S. Department of Transportation to establish the State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) Pilot Programs. The bank allows the states to leverage state-matching funds and federal assistance funds by recycling the capitalization equity funds through various loan programs and borrowing directly from the credit market using the federal funds as collateral. This article analyzes the fiscal impacts of the federal assistance funds in the SIB programs, which are a new form of federal transportation grants to states, on state highway expenditures. Empirical findings, using the 32 SIB state data, show that $1 federal assistance fund deposited into the bank as of 1997 stretches limited state highway resources by as much as $7.55 for 3 years (1998-2000), for which data are available, mainly due to the leveraging effect. This study further suggests future research and policy directions.
Beating the career blues

Executive Overview Employees at all levels are susceptible to the career blues, which occur when their work is rated good enough, but they devote neither all their time at work nor talents to their work. Their energy for work and efforts toward it are low, they do not have a positive attitude about work, and their aspirations lie elsewhere. This article presents a TEA2 diagnosis tool for determining the existence of the career blues. The framework consists of six attributes: time, talent, energy, effort, attitude, and aspiration. The concept of resonance is discussed at length as a novel approach to preempting the career blues, and to elevating one's work experience. Identifying resonance in one's life and recreating it at work is a powerful means for enjoying work more and being better at it. As a manager, conversations with employees about the blues and about resonance can be very beneficial in creating engaged employees where good enough is not enough.
Public Health Expenditure and Health Outcomes in Nigeria

One of the numerous responsibilities of the government of any country is to invest in the various sectors of the economy. This should however be channeled to the appropriate sectors, such as the health sector, that will lead to a continual growth of the country. It is in the light of this, that this study looks at government spending on health and its effect on health outcomes in Nigeria. Health is central to the wellbeing of the citizens. This study made an attempt to provide empirical evidence of the impact of public health spending on health outcomes in Nigeria between 1979 and 2012. This study made use of the Johansen Co-integration and the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) econometric technique to determine the long-run relationship between public spending on health and health outcomes in Nigeria. The study found out that public spending on health has a significant relationship with health outcomes in Nigeria. It was also discovered that environmental factors such as carbon dioxide emissions which was used in this study affects individualsâ€™ health. Therefore, based on the findings of this study, it recommends that the government should introduce programmes that will cause awareness concerning the effect of carbon dioxide emissions on individualâ€™s health and should advice people and industries on how to deal with it. It should also separate residential and industrial areas to avoid any hazard caused from carbon dioxide emissions. Also, the government should increase and restructure the public expenditure allocation to the health sector.
Global management of technology: A study of 16 multinationals in the USA Europe and Japan

With technology having become a key factor in national survival, top managers in the USA, Europe and Japan overwhelmingly rank ‘leveraging of technology for competitive advantage’ the primary challange their companies face. Technology is one of the key competitive tools at the command of the winners—and the losers—in today's market-place. Ultimately, however, the most important competitive weapon may prove to be the skilful management and deployment of technology resources rather than the resources themselves. The management oj technology on a global scale has therefore become an issue of great importamce to leading technology forms. This article presents an approach to formulating an R&D deployment strategy for a global technology network, based on a study of 16 multinationlas in the USA, Europe and Japan.
Influence of Imputation and EM Methods on Factor Analysis when Item Nonresponse in Questionnaire Data is Nonignorable

This study deals with the influence of each of twelve imputation methods and two methods using the EM algorithm on the results of maximum likelihood factor analysis as compared with results obtained from the complete data factor analysis (no missing scores). Complete questionnaire rating scale data were simulated and, next, missing item scores were created under both ignorable and nonignorable nonresponse mechanisms. Next, imputation methods were used to fill the gaps and factor analysis was applied to both the original complete data and to the data sets including imputed scores. Each imputation method was implemented once with residual error and once without residual error. Also, one EM method estimated the factor loadings directly and the other estimated the complete data covariance matrix, which subsequently was factor analyzed. A design was analyzed with design factors Latent Trait Structure (technically called Mixing Configuration), Correlation Between Latent Traits, Nonresponse Mechanism, Percentage of Missingness, Sample Size, and Imputation Method. We found that, in general, methods that impute a score based on a respondent's mean score obtained from his/her observed item scores best recovered the factor loadings structure from the complete data. Moreover, for unidimensional data person mean methods with a residual error gave better results than the other imputation methods, either with or without a residual error component. For the EM methods a smaller design was analyzed. The conclusion was that both EM methods better recovered the complete data factor loadings than the imputation methods.
Subtle gene–environment interactions driving paranoia in daily life

It has been suggested that genes impact on the degree to which minor daily stressors cause variation in the intensity of subtle paranoid experiences. The objective of the present study was to test the hypothesis that catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met and brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met in part mediate genetic effects on paranoid reactivity to minor stressors. In a general population sample of 579 young adult female twins, on the one hand, appraisals of (1) event‐related stress and (2) social stress and, on the other hand, feelings of paranoia in the flow of daily life were assessed using momentary assessment technology for five consecutive days. Multilevel regression analyses were used to examine moderation of daily life stress‐induced paranoia by COMT Val158Met and BDNF Val66Met genotypes. Catechol‐O‐methyltransferase Val carriers displayed more feelings of paranoia in response to event stress compared with Met carriers. Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor Met carriers showed more social‐stress‐induced paranoia than individuals with the Val/Val genotype. Thus, paranoia in the flow of daily life may be the result of gene–environment interactions that can be traced to different types of stress being moderated by different types of genetic variation.
Multiple displacement amplification to create a long‐lasting source of DNA for genetic studies

In many situations there may not be sufficient DNA collected from patient or population cohorts to meet the requirements of genome‐wide analysis of SNPs, genomic copy number polymorphisms, or acquired copy number alternations. When the amount of available DNA for genotype analysis is limited, high performance whole‐genome amplification (WGA) represents a new development in genetic analysis. It is especially useful for analysis of DNA extracted from stored histology slides, tissue samples, buccal swabs, or blood stains collected on filter paper. The multiple displacement amplification (MDA) method, which relies on isothermal amplification using the DNA polymerase of the bacteriophage Φ29, is a recently developed technique for high performance WGA. This review addresses new trends in the technical performance of MDA and its applications to genetic analyses. The main challenge of WGA methods is to obtain balanced and faithful replication of all chromosomal regions without the loss of or preferential amplification of any genomic loci or allele. In multiple comparisons to other WGA methods, MDA appears to be most reliable for genotyping, with the most favorable call rates, best genomic coverage, and lowest amplification bias. Hum Mutat 27(7), 603–614, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Modulatory effects of plant phenols on human multidrug‐resistance proteins 1, 4 and 5 (ABCC1, 4 and 5)

Plant flavonoids are polyphenolic compounds, commonly found in vegetables, fruits and many food sources that form a significant portion of our diet. These compounds have been shown to interact with several ATP‐binding cassette transporters that are linked with anticancer and antiviral drug resistance and, as such, may be beneficial in modulating drug resistance. This study investigates the interactions of six common polyphenols; quercetin, silymarin, resveratrol, naringenin, daidzein and hesperetin with the multidrug‐resistance‐associated proteins, MRP1, MRP4 and MRP5. At nontoxic concentrations, several of the polyphenols were able to modulate MRP1‐, MRP4‐ and MRP5‐mediated drug resistance, though to varying extents. The polyphenols also reversed resistance to NSC251820, a compound that appears to be a good substrate for MRP4, as predicted by data‐mining studies. Furthermore, most of the polyphenols showed direct inhibition of MRP1‐mediated [3H]dinitrophenyl S‐glutathione and MRP4‐mediated [3H]cGMP transport in inside‐out vesicles prepared from human erythrocytes. Also, both quercetin and silymarin were found to inhibit MRP1‐, MRP4‐ and MRP5‐mediated transport from intact cells with high affinity. They also had significant effects on the ATPase activity of MRP1 and MRP4 without having any effect on [32P]8‐azidoATP[αP] binding to these proteins. This suggests that these flavonoids most likely interact at the transporter's substrate‐binding sites. Collectively, these results suggest that dietary flavonoids such as quercetin and silymarin can modulate transport activities of MRP1, ‐4 and ‐5. Such interactions could influence bioavailability of anticancer and antiviral drugs in vivo and thus, should be considered for increasing efficacy in drug therapies.
Real-World Power Supply Design and Simulation

This paper attempts to address the practical design and simulation of power supplies. Formal circuit analysis provides a set of equations which is usually insufficient for solving all unknowns or calculating the values of all the components in the circuit being designed. Additional relationships or domain knowledge (industry-specific knowledge) is required to make up for the necessary equations to find all the unknown design values; otherwise the solution would need to resort to iterative approaches. In practice, design specifications that give extra relations, considerations based on domain knowledge, iterative methods, and simulation are integrated with circuit analysis to formulate effective power supply design strategies.
A New Technique for Leakage Reduction in 65 nm Footerless Domino Circuits

A new circuit technique for 65 nm technology is proposed in this paper for reducing the subthreshold and gate oxide leakage currents in idle and non idle mode of operation for footerless domino circuits. In this technique a p-type and an n-type leakage controlled transistors (LCTs) are introduced between the pull-up and pull-down network and the gate of one is controlled by the source of the other. For any combination of input, one of the LCT will operate near its cut off region and will increase the resistance between supply voltage and ground resulting in reduced leakage current. Furthermore, the leakage current is suppressed at the output inverter circuit by inserting a transistor below the n-type transistor of the inverter offering more resistive path between supply voltage and ground. The proposed technique is applied on benchmark circuits reduction of active power consumption is observed from 10.9% to 44.76% at different temperature variations. For same benchmark circuits, operating at two clock modes and giving low and high inputs at 25℃ and 110℃ temperatures the maximum leakage power saving of 98.9% is achieved when compared to standard footerless domino logic circuits.
Strategy of Endoscopic Pancreatic Duct Drainage for Recurrent Chronic

Background: Methods of pancreatic duct (PD) drainage for recurrent chronic pancreatitis (CP) include endoscopic drainage combined with ESWL and surgical drainage. Although the endoscopic drainage has become widespread as this method is minimally invasive, there are cases in which stent removal is difficult. We retrospectively examined the current status of endoscopic drainage for recurrent CP at our hospital. Methods: This study included 66 patients with recurrent CP (57 men and 9 women with a mean age of 59 ± 14 years, including 58 patients with alcoholic CP) who underwent endoscopic drainage between April 2006 and April 2012. Based on the initial images of PD, the patients were classified into the following types to compare their backgrounds and treatment processes: pancreatolithiasis (Stone) type (7 patients), PD stenosis (Stenosis) type (18), and Stone+Stenosis type (41). Moreover, patients with PD stent were divided into the following groups to compare their backgrounds and treatment processes: stent-removed groupand stent-maintained group in which the stent could not be removed. Results: The procedure was successful in 61 patients (92%). Complete pain relief without analgesics was achieved in 60 patients (91%). The early complications were post-ERCP pancreatitis in 11 patients (2.7%, all mild in severity), and hemorrhage, basket impaction, and rupture of the pancreatic duct in 1 patient (0.5%) each. The late complications were pancreatic ductitis (0.7%), stent displacement (0.5%), stent migration (1.5%), and tear during removal of stent (1%). In Stone type patients, the mean number of procedural sessions and the number of patients who required at least 1 year of treatment were significantly smaller thanin those withPD stenosis (Stenosis type or Stone+Stenosis type) (P=0.0133 and P=0.0043, respectively). Patients with Stenosis type had a significantly smaller mean number of procedural sessions (P=0.0423) and a significantly lower incidence of complications (P=0.0366) than those with Stone+Stenosis type. Comparison between the stent-removed and stent-maintained groups revealed no significant differences in the mean number of procedural sessions, the number of patients with implantation of a stent with a diameter (thicker than 8.5-Fr), or the incidence of complications. In the stent-removed group, the number of patients who required at least 1 year of treatment was significantly smaller (P=0.0285). Conclusions: In the short term, endoscopic stenting combined with ESWL was effective for pain relief, was associated with a low incidence of complications, and could be performed safely and effectively. For Stonetype recurrent CP, endoscopic therapy is highly effective and useful. On the other hand, from the long-term perspective, there are cases, especially among those with the Stone+Stenosis type, in which stent removal is difficult. Thus, surgical drainage should also be considered.
Risk Value of Emerging Technology Products and Their Diffusion through Use of a CASWN-CE and Real Options Approach

ABSTRACT The rapid development of emerging technology products (ETPs) in China's market makes it important to evaluate and forecast ETPs diffusion. Due to the high uncertainty of ETP marketing and inadequate marketing data of China ETPs markets, the traditional forecasting methods cannot be applied to effectively measure it. We use cellular automata embedded small world network (CASWN) and cross-entropy (CE) divergence to measure the differences of the ETP adopters’ spatial distribution. The empirical analysis indicates the success probabilities of ETPs can be predicted effectively though CASWN and CE divergence, which can make a precise judgment for the market prospect of an ETP in the shortest time after an ETP launch. Based on this, we can calculate the expected cash flow accurately and the option value of an ETP project for sound decision-making. In the meantime, the CE threshold value of success of ETPs in China market is obtained only by the spatial data of early-stage after an ETP launch, not rely on time series data. So a new tool is provided for the prediction and venture capital policy of an ETP launch in this article.
Black Hole Mass Estimation in Type 1 AGN: Hβ vs. Mg II Lines and the Role of Balmer Continuum

Here we investigate the Hβ and Mg II spectral line parameters used for the black hole mass (MBH) estimation for a sample of Type 1 Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) spectra selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database. We have analyzed and compared the virialization of the Hβ and Mg II emission lines, and found that the Hβ line is more confident virial estimator than Mg II. We have investigated the influence of the Balmer continuum emission to the MBH estimation from the UV parameters, and found that the Balmer continuum emission can contribute to the overestimation of the MBH on average for ~ 5% (up to 10%).
Determinants of Participation Behavior of Limited Resource Farmers in Conservation Reserve Program in Alabama

This study investigated factors that affect participation behavior of limited resource farmers (LRF) in Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in Alabama. A binary logit model was employed to analyze data obtained from 611 respondents. Results indicated that males, part-time occupation, total acres, participation in non-conservation related programs, direct method of receiving CRP information, and respondents' interest in receiving CRP information, were strong predictors of participation in the CRP. Key words: Limited resource, CRP, minorities, participation behavior