Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Environmental hazards and stress: evidence from the Texas City Stress and Health Study

Background: Substantial research has suggested that exposure to environmental health hazards, such as polluting industrial activity, has deleterious effects on psychological and physiological well-being. However, one gap in the existing literature is comparative analysis of objective and subjective exposure’s relative association with various measurable outcomes of exposure. Methods: These relationships were explored within a community sample of 2604 respondents living near a large petrochemical complex in Texas City, Texas, USA. Objective exposure was investigated using distance of residence from a cluster of petrochemical plants and subjective exposure using residents’ concern about potential health effects from those plants. Regression models were then used to examine how each type of exposure predicts perceived stress, physiological markers of stress and perceived health. Results: Results suggest that objective exposure was associated primarily with markers of physiological stress (interleukin-6 and viral reactivation), and subjective exposure (concern about petrochemical health risk) was associated with variables assessing perceived health. Conclusions: From the analysis, it can be inferred that, in the context of an environmental hazard of this type, subjective exposure may be at least as important a predictor of poor health outcomes as objective exposure.
Integrated HPLC-MS and 1H-NMR spectroscopic studies on acyl migration reaction kinetics of model drug ester glucuronides

Acyl glucuronides (AGs) are common, chemically reactive metabolites of acidic xenobiotics. Concerns about the potential of this class of conjugate to cause toxicity in man require efficient methods for the determination of reactivity, and this is commonly done by measuring transacylation kinetics. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were applied to the kinetic analysis of AG isomerization and hydrolysis for the 1-β-O-AGs of ibufenac, (R)- and (S)-ibuprofen, and an α,α-dimethylated ibuprofen analogue. Each AG was incubated in either aqueous buffer at pH 7.4 or human plasma at 37°C. Aliquots of these samples, taken throughout the reaction time course, were analysed by HPLC-MS and 1H-NMR spectroscopy and the results compared. For identification of the AGs incubated in pH 7.4 buffer and for analysis of kinetic rates, 1H-NMR spectroscopy generally gave the most complete set of data, but for human plasma the use of 1H-NMR spectroscopy was impractical and HPLC-MS was more suitable. HPLC-MS was more sensitive than 1H-NMR spectroscopy, but the lack of suitable stable-isotope labelled internal standards, together with differences in response between glucuronides and aglycones, made quantification problematic. Using HPLC-MS a specific 1-β-O-AG-related ion at m/z 193 (the glucuronate fragment) was noted enabling selective determination of these isomers. In buffer, transacylation reactions predominated, with relatively little hydrolysis to the free aglycone observed. In human plasma incubations the observed rates of reaction were much faster than for buffer, and hydrolysis to the free aglycone was the major route. These results illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of each analytical approach for this class of analyte.
Distinct Types of rRNA Operons Exist in the Genome of the Actinomycete Thermomonospora chromogena and Evidence for Horizontal Transfer of an Entire rRNA Operon

ABSTRACT We describe here the presence of two distinct types of rRNA operons in the genome of a thermophilic actinomycete Thermomonospora chromogena. The genome of T. chromogena contains six rRNA operons (rrn), of which four complete and two incomplete ones were cloned and sequenced. Comparative analysis revealed that the operon rrnB exhibits high levels of sequence variations to the other five nearly identical ones throughout the entire length of the operon. The coding sequences for the 16S and 23S rRNA genes differ by approximately 6 and 10%, respectively, between the two types of operons. Normal functionality ofrrnB is concluded on the basis of the nonrandom distribution of nucleotide substitutions, the presence of compensating nucleotide covariations, the preservation of secondary and tertiary rRNA structures, and the detection of correctly processed rRNAs in the cell. Comparative sequence analysis also revealed a close evolutionary relationship between rrnB operon of T. chromogena and rrnA operon of another thermophilic actinomycete Thermobispora bispora. We propose thatT. chromogena acquired rrnB operon fromT. bispora or a related organism via horizontal gene transfer.
Performance of the operational Wansbeek-Bekker estimator for dynamic panel data models

Wansbeek and Bekker considered a new estimator for simple dynamic panel data models (where there are no exogenous variables) which involved a complex weighting matrix. An operational variant of this estimator is proposed which is applicable to the more realistic case where there are exogenous variables. Also proposed is an easy-to-compute approximation to the weighting matrix. The performance of this (these) new estimator(s) is examined, revealing very desirable small sample properties in a wide range of situations that the applied researcher is likely to encounter, especially in moderate time series length panels.
Which Accounts for Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations, Deviations from the Law of One Price or Relative Price of Nontraded Goods?

The literature on real exchange rate fluctuations is precisely divided by the views regarding their source. One emphasizes the relative price of nontraded goods to traded goods by assuming nominal rigidities in the nontraded sector or in the factor prices. The other stresses the importance of the traded component or the deviations from the law of one price. In this paper, we use Betts and Kehoe (2001)'s real exchange rate decomposition to explore which component accounts for the bilateral real exchange rate fluctuations among six East Asian countries and the United States. We find that a significant fraction of the variance of real exchange rates is accounted for by the deviations from the law of one price for traded goods, while the relative price of nontraded to traded goods also plays an important role as nominal exchange rate becomes stable.
Social Group Related Entry Participation Motivations for Continuing Professional Development Activities Among Malaysian Registered Quantity Surveyors

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is aimed at continua lly updating Malaysian quantity surveying professionals' knowle dge to help them adapt to changes and challenges in the Malaysian construction industry. Proof of such participation is now a condition for the renewal of quantity surveying practice licences with the Board of Quantity Surveyors Malaysia. This article describes the findings of the qualitative research phase of a research into CPD entry participation motivations of Malaysian registered quantity surveyors. The analysis method of the interview transcripts of 31 registered quantity surveyors combined content analysis and grounded theory analysis. This anal ysis generated seven motivation themes regarding participation in CPD activities. The influence of the social group underlie five of these motivation themes, that are professional and geographical isolation, professional belonging, ''balancing'' of obligations, racial group orientations, and social participat ion in voluntary associations. It is proposed that further rese arch in group influences on entry participation motivations for CPD activities be done.
2DHOOF-2DPCA contour based optical flow algorithm for human activity recognition

A novel algorithm for human activity recognition is presented in this paper. This approach is based on a new 2D representation for the Histogram of Oriented Optical Flow (2DHOOF) describing the motion of the actor's contour, where one multi-layer 2D-histogram per video is constructed. Each histogram layer consists of 2D bins (layers) that represent different range of angles. Applying our 2DHOOF features descriptors on the actor's contour reduces the storage requirement and the computation complexity since a sparse optical flow is calculated instead of dense optical flow. In addition, it is robust to variations in the background, actor's appearance, and imperfections in actor's contour. This new 2D representation allows the usage of the Two Dimensional Principle Component Analyses (2DPCA) which maintains the spatial relation of the motion, and provides further high accuracy and low computation complexity. Experimental results applied on the Weizmann and IXMAS datasets achieved the highest reported recognition accuracy and the fastest runtime compared to recent methods.
The Impact of Social Interactions on Venture Performance: Empirical Evidence Analyzing the Relationship between Syndicates and Ventures

Research about venture capital receives increasing attention in the entrepreneurship literature. It is of no doubt that ventures backed by investors are more successful than others. However, research gaps exist in understanding the importance of investor’s post-investment support and interaction frequency. In addition, the role of syndicates and the influence of certain moderating factors on venture performance remain unclear. Based on a survey of 93 out of 293 venture capital firms in Germany, the author examines the interaction frequency among the investors in a syndicate and between the lead investor and the venture. Additionally, he introduces the lead investor’s involvement in the post-investment process as a moderating variable in our regression model. Results of the regression show that a high interaction frequency between the lead and the non-lead members of a syndicate is essential. When the lead investor provides strategic and operational support, it is important for the lead investor to focus on value-adding activities rather than having frequent interactions with the syndicate members. In contrast, when the lead investor is active in strategic and operational support, it is essential to have a high interaction frequency between the lead investor and the venture. With this empirical analysis, the author expands the current literature on stream of ownership and management and control in alliances by analyzing the relevance of interaction frequency on venture performance and by introducing relevant moderators.
Joint power allocation solutions for power consumption minimization in coordinated transmission system

The growth in energy consumption followed with global warming provides new topics and issues in communication systems known as green radio. Hence, how to reduce power consumption while meeting system throughput requirement is an urgent task. In this paper, we investigate a new cooperative power allocation scheme for a multi-user orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) system, in which two coordinated transmission points (CTP) jointly allocate their power to multiple orthogonal subchannels. In order to minimize the overall transmit power consumption while meeting the system total throughput requirement and also each CTP's power constraint, we formulate the objective task into a constrained optimization problem and derived a group of closed form power allocation solutions. The solutions turn out to take the form of traditional water-filling (WF) and also have a cooperative feature. Based on the derived solution, a novel power allocation algorithm with joint minimization power consumption (JMPC-PA) is proposed. Numerical results are presented to verify the optimality of the derived scheme. Considering the flexibility of CTP's category, e.g., base station or relay station, it is known that the derived scheme can be valid for any coordinated networks such as next-generation cellular networks or ad-hoc networks.
Comparative Study between Capital Asset Pricing Model and Arbitrage Pricing Theory in Indonesian Capital Market during Period 2008-2012

For decades, there were many models explaining the returns earned emerged in order to fulfil the curiosity had by human. Since then, various studies and empirical findings in many countries’ stock market showedthat the empirical findings of market return explanation and the return of assets meet the different results in both clarify of model and identification of significant determinant variables.Therefore, many comparative studies between models were accomplished. In this study, the author attempts to do comparative study between two models, APT and CAPM, in Indonesian Capital Market during period 2008 until 2012. Besides, the author also attempts to find how much inflation, interest rate, and exchange rate describe the returns earned in each sector existed in Indonesia Capital Market. As the result, the author find out that CAPM has bigger explanation power than APT in Indonesian Capital Market during period 2008-2012. Besides, the author also found that among macroeconomic factors, there are only two macroeconomic factors that can affect certain samples significantly. They are change in BI rate, which affect AALI, ANTM, ASII, TLKM, UNTR, and change in exchange rate, which affect INDF and TLKM significantly.
Financial Stock Market and Economic Growth in Developing Countries: The Case of Douala Stock Exchange in Cameroon

In this article Sims’ causality test based on Granger definition of causality was used to examine causality relationships between stock markets and economic growth in Cameroon based on the time series data from 2006 to 2010. Our findings suggest that the Douala Stock Exchange still doesn’t affect Cameroonian economic growth. Research has been made in this topic and found positive relationship between financial stock market development and economic growth, but in Cameroon the purpose of the government to develop economy, by creating the Douala Stock Exchange is still not reached. After running variance decomposition test of Cholesky, we found systematic evidence that the market capitalization affects positively the GDP. Our paper comes up with the opportunity given to the Cameroonian government to understand that it is time to find financial policies, to encourage companies and develop financial stock market culture, and enhance to push companies to initiate IPO instead of bank loans when money is needed to increase their investment.
The inherent politics of quality in public park management

In this paper, we highlight and illustrate the inherent politics embedded in “quality” as a concept for managing public parks. Reflecting more generic quality concepts, contemporary quality models in park management include concepts for both operational, strategic and stakeholder management as well managing the park organisation itself. However, quality concepts and their application through various management models include as well as exclude the access, values and worldviews of particular interests. In this way, any particular quality concept and model embeds its own politics by inherent allocations of ‘who gets what, when and how’. We illustrate the inherent politics by providing a case study of a widely adopted quality model for operational management that has been adopted and implemented in Denmark as part of new public management reforms. In perspective, other quality concepts and models can be called upon that offer alternative politics for managing
Reference values: from philosophy to a tool for laboratory medicine

The concept of reference values was introduced for the first time by Saris and Gräsbeck in 1969 (1). During the subsequent fifteen years, several working groups from European countries and North America contributed largely to clarifying the content and, especially, the philosophy as mentioned by Gräsbeck in this issue (2). Since then, this concept has been widely accepted by professionals in laboratory medicine, and many national and international organizations refer to this concept in official documents (EC4 Group from the FESCC, ISO 15189-2003 norm, NCCLS recommendations). The Directive 98/79/CE of the European Community obliged kit manufacturers to provide reference limits (including the description of reference population) in package inserts with reagent kits. It also recommended that clinical chemists check that this information is applicable to the working conditions of their laboratories. This is particularly true in France in the official regulation ‘‘Guide de bonne éxecution des Analyses’’ (GBEA). We can say that the reference values concept is officially and internationally applied and recognized. In this case, devoting a special issue of CCLM to a topic well-recognized by the Professional Bodies and Scientific Societies could be considered superfluous. There are, however, strong arguments in favor of such a publication.
The Effects of Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on the Material Hardship of Low-Income Families with Children

This study examines the effects of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on measures of the material hardship of low-income families with children, beyond food insecurity. Using the 1996-2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we utilize a bivariate probit approach that exploits variation in states’ SNAP eligibility policies over time as instruments to identify the treatment effects of interest. In our main models, we use changes in state recertification period lengths and use of biometric requirements as instruments. We also report on models that use state-year SNAP take-up rates as an instrument. We find a statistically significant and substantively large negative relationship between SNAP participation and both food insecurity and the ability of families to pay essential household expenses, particularly, housing expenses. We find some, although not conclusive, evidence that SNAP decreases the probability that families will fall behind in their utility costs. We thank Sheldon Danziger, Mark Nord, Jeff Smith, Alisha Colemen-Jensen, Katie Fitzpatrick, and Matthew Rutledge for comments on previous drafts. We also thank seminar participants at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty and the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration for helpful comments.
Traders Reacting to Bad News: The SEC versus Goldman Sachs

This paper examines a specific case to shed light on the issue of how people trade during times of crisis, with specific focus on the options market and various options trading strategies. On April 16 th 2010 the SEC announced charges against Goldman, Sachs & Co. for alleged fraudulent dealings, causing a significant share price decline. I examine the choices that options traders made in response to this market event, in terms of both choice of strategy (such as long call, straddle etc.) and choice of option (maturity and strike price chosen). Volume in Puts spiked immediately, and evidence suggests that such trading was highly profitable for at least 30 minutes following the announcement. Traders also implemented volatility trades in the options market, although evidence suggests that they lost money on this activity. Trading in the weeks following the SEC announcement indicates that strong positive stock returns prompted increased trading in both Calls and Puts, while spikes in implied volatility discouraged such trading. Surprisingly, volume in volatility trades was not significantly affected by changes in implied
Cross-cultural adaptation of the Spence children's anxiety scale in Malaysia.

INTRODUCTION Anxiety among children has increased in recent years. Culturally adapted questionnaires developed to measure the level of anxiety are the best screening instruments for the general population. This study describes the scientific translation and adaptation of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) into the Malay language. METHOD The process of scientific translation of this selfreport instrument followed the guidelines of the Task Force for Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). RESULTS The Malay version and its adaptation for a new cultural context are described. CONCLUSION The Malay version achieved the aims of the original version and its conceptual and operational equivalence. It may be used as the first Malay instrument to measure anxiety among children in research and in clinical and community settings.
New high‐tech venturing as process of resource accumulation

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to explore, through the lens of a resource‐based view and dynamic capability theory, how new ventures in high‐technology industries accumulate resources to survive and sustain competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approach – This study used the multiple case study approach completed for three integrated circuit (IC) design companies in Taiwan by conducting in‐depth interviews with senior executives in each case. Through the aforementioned case studies, the paper was able to summarize and verify the key elements and steps to find the customer and achieve the firm growth.Findings – It was found that three core elements, technology, networking and legitimacy are necessary. In addition, there are emerging and embedding steps adopted by each case in this study for new ventures to successfully penetrate the market and sustain the competitive advantage.Research limitations/implications – The findings are focused on one country, and three cases of a specific industry i.
Optimal Abandonment of Coal-Fired Stations in the EU

Carbon-fired power plants could face some difficulties in a carbon-constrained world. The traditional advantage of coal as a cheaper fuel may decrease in the future if CO2 allowance prices start to increase. This paper seeks to answer empirically the most drastic question that an operating coal-fired power plant may ask itself: under what conditions would it be optimal to abandon the plant and obtain its salvage value? We try to assess this question from a financial viewpoint following a real option approach at firm level so as to attract the interest of utilities and the broader investment community. We consider the specific case of a coal-fired power plant that operates under restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions in an electricity market where gas-fired plants are considered as marginal units. We also consider three sources of uncertainty or stochastic variables: the coal price, the gas price and the emission allowance price. These parameters are derived from future markets and are used in a three-dimensional binomial lattice to assess the value of the option to abandon. Our results (and sensitivity analysis) show the conditions that have to be met for the abandonment option to be exercised. This option to abandon coalfired plants is, however, hardly likely to be exercised if plants can operate as peaking plants. However, the decision may go differently in different circumstances, such as high CO2 allowance prices, very low volatility of allowance price or a decrease in the price of gas. The decision is also influenced by the remaining lifetime of the plant and its thermal efficiency. In any case the price of CO2 will work to bring forward the decision to abandon in older and less efficient coal-fired plants, which are less likely to be retrofitted in the future.