Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comprehensive Model for Estimating the Financial Impact of Teacher Turnover

The purpose of this study was to develop a model that may be used to estimate the financial costs of teacher turnover in urban school districts. It is estimated that 50% of the beginning teachers leave the profession within the first five years on the job (Murname, Singer, Wilett, Kemple, and Olsen 1991; Colbert and Wolff 1992; Ingersoll 2003; Schlechty and Vance 1981). When teachers depart, they take with them their knowledge of instructional techniques, students’ learning styles, and professional development training (Chuong 2008). Teacher turnover creates many problems. The annual recruitment and placement of teachers is not only time-consuming and labor intensive, it is a costly burden on public school administrators (Boe, Bobbitt, Cook, Whitener, and Weber 1997) and the general tax-paying public. Furthermore, teachers hired to replace the teachers who have left often do not have the teaching experience and qualifications of the teachers they are replacing (Rollefson 1993), and the induction of replacement teachers disrupts instructional programs until the new teachers are assimilated to the culture, curriculum, and school community (Boe, Bobbitt, and Cook 1997). In the past ten years, educational researchers have been trying to put a price on teacher turnover using various business and education models—from Benner’s $2.1 billion annual costs in Texas to Alliance for Excellent Education’s $4.9 billion to National Commission of Teaching and America’s Future $7.3 billion price tag. This study presents a 4-component Teacher Turnover Cost Model (TTCM) that accounts for separation costs of a departing teacher, hiring and training costs of a new teacher, and the development of performance productivity in a new teacher.
The incidence of Parkinson's disease in the North-East of England.

BACKGROUND Parkinson's disease is a common disorder among older people. Accurate epidemiological information is essential to identify possible aetiological factors, plan health services and set priorities for medical research. OBJECTIVE to determine the incidence of idiopathic Parkinson's disease in a defined geographical area in the North-East of England. METHODS using a prospective, longitudinal design, we sought to identify every new case of Parkinson's disease arising in the Newcastle and Gateshead area in the North-East of England. The base population comprised 488 576 individuals and multiple sources of case ascertainment were employed. All the patients with newly diagnosed idiopathic Parkinson's disease or parkinsonism between 1 June 2009 and 31 May 2011 were invited to participate. Patients were examined by a specialist and followed longitudinally to permit diagnostic review. RESULTS we identified 257 potential cases, of whom 181 had suspected idiopathic Parkinson's disease. After a follow-up period of 18 months, 155 patients retained a clinical diagnosis of probable Parkinson's disease. The mean age at diagnosis was 72.4 ± 10 years. The crude incidence of PD in Newcastle and Gateshead was 15.9 per 100 000 persons per year (95% CI: 13.4-18.4). Age-standardised to the European population the incidence of Parkinson's disease was 12.0 per 100 000 (95% CI: 10.1-14.0). We found a higher crude incidence among men 17.7 per 100 000 (95% CI: 14.0-21.4) than women 14.0 per 100 000 (95% CI: 10.7-17.4). CONCLUSION in this prospective longitudinal study, the incidence rate of Parkinson's disease in North-East England is similar to that of other modern European and American studies.
Platelet-Activating Factor Regulates Chloride Transport in Colonic Epithelial Cell Monolayers

Platelet-activating factor (PAF) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal diseases such as necrotizing enterocolitis, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis. However, neither the physiologic role of PAF in the intestine, nor the mechanisms by which PAF participates in the pathogenesis of disease are well understood. The aim of the present study was to determine the direct effect of PAF on intestinal epithelial cell ion transport, and to delineate the mechanisms of regulation. Ion transport was evaluated by measuring short circuit current (Isc) in HT29-CL19A cell monolayers using Ussing chambers. PAF receptor polarity was assessed using domain-selective biotinylation followed by immunoprecipitation and streptavidin blotting of intact epithelial monolayers. PAF (1–200 μM) stimulated Isc that followed the direction of a Cl− gradient and was specifically inhibited by the Cl− channel blockers glybenclamide, 2,2′ iminodibenzoic acid and 4,4′ diisothiocyanostilbene-2, 2′ disulfonic acid, but was unaffected by the inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis with indomethacin. Stimulated Isc was only detected after apical addition of PAF, correlating with the results of biotinylation experiments indicating an exclusive apical polarity of the PAF receptor. PAF receptor antagonists CV6209 and octylonium bromide abolished PAF-stimulated Isc. Thus, mucosal acting PAF directly and specifically stimulates ion transport via activation of an apical Cl− channel in intestinal epithelial cell monolayers independent of prostaglandin biosynthesis.
Correct Timing of Proliferation and Differentiation is Necessary for Normal Inner Ear Development and Auditory Hair Cell Viability

Background: Hearing restoration through hair cell regeneration will require revealing the dynamic interactions between proliferation and differentiation during development to avoid the limited viability of regenerated hair cells. Pax2‐Cre N‐Myc conditional knockout (CKO) mice highlighted the need of N‐Myc for proper neurosensory development and possible redundancy with L‐Myc. The late‐onset hair cell death in the absence of early N‐Myc expression could be due to mis‐regulation of genes necessary for neurosensory formation and maintenance, such as Neurod1, Atoh1, Pou4f3, and Barhl1. Results: Pax2‐Cre N‐Myc L‐Myc double CKO mice show that proliferation and differentiation are linked together through Myc and in the absence of both Mycs, altered proliferation and differentiation result in morphologically abnormal ears. In particular, the organ of Corti apex is re‐patterned into a vestibular‐like organization and the base is truncated and fused with the saccule. Conclusions: These data indicate that therapeutic approaches to restore hair cells must take into account a dynamic interaction of proliferation and differentiation regulation of basic Helix‐Loop‐Helix transcription factors in attempts to stably replace lost cochlear hair cells. In addition, our data indicate that Myc is an integral component of the evolutionary transformation process that resulted in the organ of Corti development. Developmental Dynamics 242:132–147, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Mass Production Conquers the Pool: Firm Organization and the Nature of Competition in the Nineteenth Century

This article uses the records of the Dow Chemical Company to analyze the role of distributors in facilitating collusion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It compares collusion in three closely related markets: salt, bromine, and bleach. Where national distributors with well-established reputations had facilitated the entry of small producers into integrated markets, distributors could also facilitate collusion. Mass-producing entrants, like Dow, joined collusive distribution arrangements while improving their innovative production processes. In the longer run, they integrated forward to escape the output restrictions and arms-length relationship with customers imposed by collusive agreements.
Chemokine receptor antagonists: a novel therapeutic approach in allergic diseases

The aim of this review is to give an overview of the role of chemokines, particularly ligands of the CC chemokine receptor CCR3, in allergic diseases and to show the new concept in the treatment of allergies using chemokine receptor antagonists. Allergic diseases such as allergic asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis are characterized by a complex interaction of different cell types and mediators. Among this, Th2 cells, mast cells, basophils and eosinophils are found in the inflamed tissue due to the attraction of chemokines. Of all the known chemokine receptors, the chemokine receptor CCR3 seems to play the major role in allergic diseases which is supported by the detection of this receptor on the cell types mentioned above. Therefore, academic and industrial research focus on compounds to block this receptor. To date, certain chemokine receptor antagonists derived from peptides and small molecules exist to block the chemokine receptor CCR3. However, the in vivo data about these compounds and the mechanisms of receptor interaction are poorly understood, as yet. For the development of additional chemokine receptor antagonists, more details about the interaction between the ligands and their receptors are required. Therefore, additional studies will lead to the identification of novel CCR3 chemokine receptor antagonists, which can be therapeutically used in allergic asthma, allergic rhinitis, and atopic dermatitis.
Genesis of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus in the rhesus monkey: Site and time of origin, kinetics of proliferation, routes of migration and pattern of distribution of neurons

Autoradiograms of the dorsal lateral geniculate body (LGd) in 2‐ to 3‐ month‐old rhesus monkeys, each of which had been exposed to a pulse of H3‐thymidine (H3‐TdR) on a specified embryonic (E) or early postnatal (P) day displayed heavily labeled neurons only in animals injected at E36, E38, E40 and E43. In animals exposed to H3‐TdR during the last four months of gestation or after birth, the LGd contained only an occasional labeled glial cell. In the monkey, therefore, all neurons destined for the LGd are generated during 8 to 9 days at the end of the first quarter of the 165‐day gestational period.
Organisational knowledge and the effects of 'billable' hours

This paper examines organisational knowledge in terms of how people in workplaces understand and define it. Organisational knowledge has developed to a point where the nature of research and knowledge can no longer be tied to the confines of scientific knowledge. Instead, knowledge is increasingly classified in terms of its contribution to organisational effectiveness. Where alternative (non-scientific) means can better achieve organisational effectiveness, hard science may not be necessary. Knowledge, in this sense, has worth in its use value such as 'billable hours', 'measurable return' and its ability to achieve something outside of itself. In questioning the authority through which knowledge is legitimated in such firms, we revisit Lyotard's (1984, p.9) pertinent question: 'Who decides what knowledge is, and who knows what needs to be decided? ' We draw onhis theory of performativity to examine the ways new organisational knowledge can be constructed.
Economies of Scale, Technical Progress, and the Nonhomothetic Leontief Production Function: An Application to the Japanese Petrochemical Processing Industry

A system of derived input demand functions with the property of zero elasticity of substitution between any pair of inputs is investigated. It is shown that such a system can be derived from cost minimization subject to a production function constraint. The underlying production function is explicitly derived and is named the "nonhomothetic Leontief production function," it being the most general production function with zero elasticities of substitution between all pairs of inputs. This production function allows differential returns to scale to inputs. It is applied to a sample of Japanese petrochemical plants. The results indicate that homotheticity must be rejected; that there are substantial though different economies of scale with respect to capital and labor, but that energy and raw materials are used in constant proportions to output, even over time; that technical progress, to the extent that it is present, is embodied in scale.
Extensive sequence divergence and phylogenetic relationships between the fusogenic and nonfusogenic orthoreoviruses: a species proposal.

The orthoreoviruses can be divided into subgroups based on either their restricted host range or the unusual ability of certain members of this group of nonenveloped viruses to induce cell-cell fusion from within. Phylogenetic relationships cannot be inferred based on these biological properties because fusogenic reoviruses are present in both the avian and mammalian subgroups. To address this issue, the complete nucleotide sequences of the three S-class genome segments encoding the major sigma-class core, outer capsid, and nonstructural proteins of four fusogenic reoviruses were determined and used to establish the phylogeny of the orthoreoviruses. The viruses analysed included two strains of avian reovirus and the only known fusogenic mammalian reoviruses, Nelson Bay virus and baboon reovirus. Comparative sequence analysis of these fusogenic reoviruses and the prototypical nonfusogenic mammalian reoviruses indicated a highly diverged genus with both conserved and unique sequence-predicted structural motifs in the major sigma-class proteins. Phylogenetic analysis provided the basis for the first taxonomic subdivision of the orthoreoviruses into species classes based on inferred evolutionary relationships. It is proposed that the orthoreoviruses consist of at least four species that separate into three clades. The nonfusogenic mammalian reovirus species represent a single clade, and the fusogenic reoviruses separate into two distinct clades. The first clade of fusogenic reoviruses contains the avian reovirus- and Nelson Bay virus-type species, with the second clade being occupied by the single baboon reovirus isolate that represents a fourth orthoreovirus species.
Involvement of transport in Rhodobacter sphaeroides chemotaxis

The chemotactic response to a range of chemicals was investigated in the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides, an organism known to lack conventional methyl-accepting sensory transduction proteins. Strong attractants included monocarboxylic acids and monovalent cations. Results suggest that the chemotactic response required the uptake of the chemoeffector, but not its metabolism. If a chemoeffector could block the uptake of another attractant, it also inhibited chemotaxis to that attractant. Sodium benzoate was not an attractant but was a competitive inhibitor of the propionate uptake system. Binding in an active uptake system was therefore insufficient to cause a chemotactic response. At different concentrations, benzoate either blocked propionate chemotaxis or reduced the sensitivity of propionate chemotaxis, an effect consistent with its role as a competitive inhibitor of uptake. Bacteria only showed chemotaxis to ammonium when grown under ammonia-limited conditions, which derepressed the ammonium transport system. Both chemotaxis and uptake were sensitive to the proton ionophore carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone, suggesting an involvement of the proton motive force in chemotaxis, at least at the level of transport. There was no evidence for internal pH as a sensory signal. These results suggest a requirement for the uptake of attractants in chemotactic sensing in R. sphaeroides.
To Manage Is Not To Control: Or the Folly of Type II Errors

W begin with a vision: If a domain of tasks can be mapped to a formal logic, and if that logic orders the behavior of a large and complex organization, then that organization becomes a decision machine whose operations are entirely unambiguous and whose output occasions no surprise. To create such an organization is a monumental feat, requiring an intelligence of the order of Laplace's demon; or, as Madison might have put it, "So perfect a system is not for men. " But in the world of administration, the vision persists and is most prominently revealed in the contemporary pursuit of a curious device-the management control system. This idea, this concept, fortified by our increased capacity to apply formal sciences (mathematics and logic) to social situations, has so pervaded the discipline of applied management science as to have become its central preoccupation. In its literature, now vast in proportion, the term itself (MCS) has been used to cover and to commend a variety of formulas-PPB, PERT, CPM, MBO, Command and Control, and all manner of information systems. That these have not as a group produced striking successes, that many of them show a sustained record of failure, has not served to diminish either the expected utility or the normative appeal of the concept. Enthusiasm remains high, efforts to secure foolproof management control systems continue unabated, promising to perpetuate what must now appear as an unending cycle of vaunted introduction and veiled discard.
Transition from closed system to Internet of Things: A study in standardizing building lighting systems

Internet of Things (IoT) is triggering changes in lighting industry from the traditional closed and propriety systems to flexible, interoperable and service oriented systems. To address the challenges of this transition and catering the specific requirements of lighting networks, an Open Architecture for Intelligent Solid State Lighting Systems has been proposed. The architecture is open and extensible to future technologies with security and interoperability as its integral features. A side effect of this transition is the impact on stakeholders and changes in the lighting value chain and building sector. This paper provides an overview of the architecture and zooms into the challenges in one important area, namely installation and commissioning. It proposes potential solutions to prominent issues raised by the lighting industry.
Balancing Public Relations with Socioeconomic and Political Environments in Transition: Comparative, Contextualized Research in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela

This comparative, contextualized research conducted between 2003 and 2004 summarizes and discusses the impact of the socioeconomic and political environments on the practice of public relations in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. Sixty-one in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with top-level professionals in the capital and main commercial cities in these three countries where the profession thrives but is also challenged. The main conclusion is that public relations professionals have a role to play in the transformation of countries toward globalized economies and more ethical participative, political systems in which everyone has a public platform to voice their interests and achieve full social development.
[Clinical value of protoparaxotril saporlirs combined with aspirin in the secondary prevention of cerebral infarction].

OBJECTIVE To observe the clinical value of protoparaxotril saporlirs (PTS) combined with aspirin in the secondary prevention of cerebral infarction. METHODS The 140 patients with cerebral infarction were collected, among them the 120 patients during recovery stage were equally assigned to three groups by randomized, single blinded and open controlled principle, and they were treated respectively by PTS (A), aspirin (B), and PTS plus aspirin (C) for 6 months. The other 20, who couldn't or were unwilling to use aspirin, were arranged in group D for control. The platelet aggregation rate, incidence of stroke recurrence, gastrointestinal adverse reaction and the NIHSS scores of patients were observed during the six-month period of treatment. RESULTS As compared with group D, the lowering amplitude of platelet aggregation rate after treatment in the three treatment groups were significantly higher (P < 0.01). Comparison of platelet aggregation rate between group A and B showed significant difference after 3-month treatment (P < 0.05), but the difference became insignificant after 6-month treatment (P > 0.05). The incidence of stroke recurrence in the group A, B and C was 18.9%, 13.2% and 10.8% respectively, which showed no significant difference among them, but all were significantly lower than that in the group D (44.4%, P < 0.05). NIHSS scores in group A and C were significantly lower than in group B (P < 0.01); and the occurrence of gastrointestinal reaction was significantly lower in group A (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION Long-term application of PTS has the effects for preventing stroke recurrence, lowering gastrointestinal adverse reaction and improving patients' neural function in patients with stroke. As used in combination with aspirin, it shows potential practical importance in the clinical secondary prevention of stroke.
Financial Development and Economic Growth: An Overview

In recent years there has been substantial theoretical and empirical work on the role that financial markets play in fostering economic growth and development. This paper provides a selective review of the literature, as well as new empirical evidence on the relationship between financial development and economic growth for a large cross-section sample of countries. While the results indicate that the effect of financial development on growth is positive, the size of the effect varies with different indicators of financial development, estimation method, data frequency, and the functional form of the relationship.
On the Efficiency of Internet Markets for Consumer Goods

The authors examine the consumer welfare implications of changes in the structure of e-commerce markets employing comprehensive data collected from BizRate.com in November 2000 and November 2001. They find that price dispersion decreased substantially between these two periods and that measured differences in e-tailer services bear little relation to e-tailer prices.
Mesh-to-Mesh Collision Detection by Ray Tracing for Medical Simulation with Deformable Bodies

We propose a robust mesh-to-mesh collision detection algorithm using a ray tracing method. The algorithm checks all vertices of a geometrical object based on the proposed criteria, and then the colliding vertices are detected. In order to realize a real-time calculation, acceleration by spatial subdivision is performed. Since the proposed ray-traced collision detection method can directly calculate the reacting forces between the colliding objects, this method is apt for a real-time medical simulation dealing with deformable organs. Our method addresses the limitation of the previous ray-traced approach as it can detect collisions between all arbitrarily shaped objects, including non-convex or sharp objects. Moreover, deeply penetrated collisions can be detected effectively.
Fees for Reefs: Economic Instruments to Protect Mexico’s Marine Natural Areas

Stated preference methods can be used to estimate the demand function where no price variation has been observed before. This is the situation of the Mexican coral reef natural protected areas, where after the 2002 approval of a $20 pesos fee (US$1.80) the Ministry of the Environment is now considering increasing the amount of the fee, not only to raise more revenue for the park, but also to curb the number of visitors in the cases where there is excess demand. There are concerns that the very success of the reefs is bringing associated environmental damage that threatens its sustainable use. To estimate the reaction of visitors to different fee levels, we carried out a contingent valuation survey, and constructed with its results an aggregate demand for each park. This demand was then divided by seasons and nationalities, to explore the benefits and costs of differentiating fees, looking at both the revenue maximising and the welfare maximising fees. Finally we discuss how these fees would change when environmental damage functions are taken into account. The recommendation is that increasing fees up to the point where they cover both private and environmental costs would bring the highest amount of economic benefit compatible with the sustainable use of these complex and wondrous marine ecosystems.