Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effet irréversibilité et information endogène. Application à la dissémination d'organismes génétiquement modifiés.

Résumé L'effet irréversibilité est traditionnellement mis en évidence en univers incer­tain où, quelle que soit l'attitude du décideur, l'information sur la profitabilité du projet irréversible augmente au cours du temps. Dans cet article, il est supposé, au contraire, que l'engagement irréversible est un passage obligé pour disposer dans le futur d'une information supplémentaire. On montre alors dans un tel con­texte que l'effet irréversibilité peut ne pas exister pour certaines valeurs de l'échelle de l'engagement irréversible. Nous illustrons ensuite ce point avec un exemple ayant trait à la dissémination volontaire d'organismes génétiquement modifiés.
Combinations of hydrostatic pressure and shear stress influence morphology and adhesion molecules in cultured endothelial cells

Endothelial cells are exposed to mechanical stimuli from blood flow and blood pressure. However, it is not yet fully understood how their simultaneous exposure affects endothelial function. Firstly, in this study we investigated the effect of combined stress on morphology of cultured human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs). In the results, HAECs exposed to steady flow (a pressure of 100 mmHg, and a shear stress of 1.5 Pa) were more elongated than those exposed to a hydrostatic pressure of 100 mmHg and HAECs exposed to pulsatile flow (a pressure of 80/120 mmHg, and a shear stress of 1.2/1.8 Pa) were more elongated than those exposed to steady flow. Similarly, HAECs exposed to pulsatile flow were most oriented to the flow direction among these three stresses. Secondly, we investigated the effect of combined stress on gene expression of cell adhesion molecules in HAECs. After stress exposure to HAECs the mRNA of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) and E-selectin were measured by real time RT-PCR. In the results, the exposure of steady flow increased the mRNA levels of ICAM-1 compared to the exposure of hydrostatic pressure; however, the exposure of pulsatile flow decreased the mRNA level of ICAM-1 compared to the exposure of steady flow. These findings suggest that gene expression of cell adhesion molecules induced by combined stress were different to the superposition of individual stress and that not only difference in the components of combined stress but also difference in the magnitude of the components of combined stress are important.
Fostering Organizational Change Through a Community-Based Initiative

Program funders and managers are increasingly interested in fostering changes in the policies, practices, and procedures of organizations participating in community-based initiatives. But little is known about what factors contribute to the institutionalization of change. In this study, the authors assess whether the organizational members of the Bronx Health REACH Coalition have begun to change their functioning and role with regard to their clients and their staff and in the broader community, apart from their implementation of the funded programs for which they are responsible. The study identifies factors that seemed to contribute to or hinder such institutional change and suggests several strategies for coalitions and funders that are seeking to promote and sustain organizational change.
The Protein Components and Mechanism of Eukaryotic Okazaki Fragment Maturation

ABSTRACT An initiator RNA (iRNA) is required to prime cellular DNA synthesis. The structure of double-stranded DNA allows the synthesis of one strand to be continuous but the other must be generated discontinuously. Frequent priming of the discontinuous strand results in the formation of many small segments, designated Okazaki fragments. These short pieces need to be processed and joined to form an intact DNA strand. Our knowledge of the mechanism of iRNA removal is still evolving. Early reconstituted systems suggesting that the removal of iRNA requires sequential action of RNase H and flap endonuclease 1 (FEN1) led to the RNase H/FEN1 model. However, genetic analyses implied that Dna2p, an essential helicase/nuclease, is required. Subsequent biochemical studies suggested sequential action of RPA, Dna2p, and FEN1 for iRNA removal, leading to the second model, the Dna2p/RPA/FEN1 model. Studies of strand-displacement synthesis by polymerase δ indicated that in a reconstituted system, FEN1 could act as soon as short flaps are created, giving rise to a third model, the FEN1-only model. Each of the three pathways is supported by different genetic and biochemical results. Properties of the major protein components in this process will be discussed, and the validity of each model as a true representation of Okazaki fragment processing will be critically evaluated in this review.
Towards a two-party system? The Swedish parliamentary election of September 2006

The Swedish Social Democrats are one of the most successful political parties in the democratic world. Between 1932 and 2006 they were out of government for just over nine years, and had not needed a coalition partner since the 1950s. The result of Sweden’s election of 17 September 2006, then, must count as something of an electoral earthquake (see Table 1). The Social Democrats suffered their worst score in a parliamentary election since 1920 – that is, since the advent of fully democratic politics. Göran Persson, prime minister since 1996, immediately announced his resignation as party leader – the first time in the Social Democrats’ long history that a leader had resigned after electoral defeat. By contrast, the result was a spectacular success for an unprecedented alliance of four opposition, right-of-centre parties, led by the new prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt. His Moderate Party achieved its best result since 1928 and the biggest jump in support between elections enjoyed by any party in Swedish history. The four allied parties duly formed a coalition government three weeks later – the first Swedish administration formally based on a parliamentary majority since 1981. The election outcome had one ostensibly puzzling feature. The conventional wisdom is that booming economies favour incumbent parties, while stagnant ones favour the opposition. In a post-election article, Persson (2006) pointed out that, among other shining economic indicators, inflation in Sweden was negligible; the public finances would probably enjoy a surplus that year of 3 per cent; and the economy had grown in the second quarter of 2006 by a remarkable 5.1 per cent. Why, then, when the Swedish economy was apparently performing so impressively, did the governing party nevertheless suffer such a profound defeat? In this article, we describe and explain the election result. In the following section, we outline the background to the campaign, with a review of events
The Importance of Strategic Fit between Host–Home Country Similarity and Exploration Exploitation Strategies on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ Performance: A Contingency Perspective

The impact of host–home country similarity on firm performance has long been debated in the international marketing literature with inconclusive, if not contradictory, findings. Taking a contingency perspective, this study proposes that a small or medium-sized enterprise's (SME's) global market performance depends on the strategic fit between its exploration and exploitation strategies and its host country choice. The results of a survey of chief executive officers and senior international marketing managers of SMEs in the United States show that the impact of host–home country similarity on SMEs’ international performance is moderated by their choice of exploration and exploitation strategies. Specifically, host–home country similarity has a positive impact on an SME's international performance when the firm adopts an exploitation strategy. Conversely, host–home country similarity has a negative impact on an SME's international performance when it adopts an exploration strategy. Directly addressing the long-standing host–home country similarity debate in the international marketing literature, this study sheds additional light on the drivers for SMEs’ internationalization success.
Optimal Ordering Policies for Stochastic Inventory Problems with Observed Information Delays

Information delays exist in an inventory system when it takes time to collect, process, validate, and transmit inventory/demand data. A general framework is developed in this paper to describe information flows in an inventory system with information delays. We characterize the sufficient statistics for making optimal decisions. When the ordering cost is linear, the optimality of a state‐dependent base‐stock policy is established even when information flows are allowed to cross over time. Additional insights into the problem are obtained via a comparison between our models and the models with stochastic order lead times. We also show that inventory can substitute for information and vice versa.
Equality of Educational Opportunity and Attitudes Toward Income Inequality: Evidence from China

A substantial literature in comparative politics and political economy emphasizes the importance of income inequality in redistributive policies and regime transition. I argue that individual perceptions of equal opportunity affect the degree of resentment toward income inequality. Governments can influence perceptions of equal opportunity through the distribution of public goods and services, such as educational opportunity. Employing various empirical strategies, I systematically estimate both the subjective and objective effects of unequal educational opportunity on attitudes toward income inequality. The first set of evidence is based on two survey experiments conducted in China in 2009 and 2012, respectively; the second set on a 2004 China national survey using a quasi-regression discontinuity design as well as propensity score matching analysis. These complementary analyses offer consistent evidence that inequality of educational opportunity increases resentment toward income inequality.
Impact of cooking, cooling, and subsequent refrigeration on the growth or survival of Clostridium perfringens in cooked meat and poultry products.

In January 1999, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) finalized performance standards for the cooking and chilling of meat and poultry products in federally inspected establishments. More restrictive chilling (stabilization) requirements were adopted despite the lack of strong evidence of a public health risk posed by industry practices employing the original May 1988 guidelines (U.S. Department of Agriculture FSIS Directive 7110.3). Baseline data led the FSIS to estimate a "worst case" of 10(4) Clostridium perfringens cells per g in raw meat products. The rationale for the FSIS performance standards was based on this estimate and the assumption that the numbers detected in the baseline study were spores that could survive cooking. The assumptions underlying the regulation stimulated work in our laboratory to help address why there have been so few documented outbreaks of C. perfringens illness associated with the consumption of commercially processed cooked meat and poultry products. Our research took into account the numbers of C. perfringens spores in both raw and cooked products. One hundred ninety-seven raw comminuted meat samples were cooked to 73.9 degrees C and analyzed for C. perfringens levels. All but two samples had undetectable levels (<3 spores per g). Two ground pork samples contained 3.3 and 66 spores per g. Research was also conducted to determine the effect of chilling on the outgrowth of C. perfringens spores in cured and uncured turkey. Raw meat blends inoculated with C. perfringens spores, cooked to 73.9 degrees C, and chilled according to current guidelines or under abuse conditions yielded increases of 2.25 and 2.44 log10 CFU/g for uncured turkey chilled for 6 h and an increase of 3.07 log10 CFU/g for cured turkey chilled for 24 h. No growth occurred in cured turkey during a 6-h cooling period. Furthermore, the fate of C. perfringens in cooked cured and uncured turkey held at refrigeration temperatures was investigated. C. perfringens levels decreased by 2.52, 2.54, and 2.75 log10 CFU/g in cured turkey held at 0.6, 4.4, and 10 degrees C, respectively, for 7 days. Finally, 48 production lots of ready-to-eat meat products that had deviated from FSIS guidelines were analyzed for C. perfringens levels. To date, 456 samples have been tested, and all but 25 (ranging from 100 to 710 CFU/g) of the samples contained C. perfringens at levels of <100 CFU/g. These results further support historical food safety data that suggest a very low public health risk associated with C. perfringens in commercially processed ready-to-eat meat and poultry products.
Inflation, agricultural prices and economic convergence in Greece

The relationship between agricultural prices and the general price level in Greece is estimated using econometric methods for non-stationary variables, preceded by cointegration and unit root tests which deal with the complications arising from the impact of the 1973 oil shock on the price series. It is found that agricultural prices overshoot in the short-run, while the adjustment speed to the long-run inflation neutrality is slow. The results contradict previous findings for Greece while the methods used by various researchers in the past are criticised. The existence of overshooting partly explains the evolution of agricultural prices in Greece during the past two decades, while the lower inflation rates envisaged by the economic convergence programme to meet the Maastricht criteria, will cause a 15 per cent decline in real agricultural prices during the period 1994 to 1998. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.
Responses of persons with dementia to challenges in daily activities: a synthesis of findings from empirical studies.

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of strategies initiated and used in response to problems in performing daily occupations by persons with dementia in a mild to moderate stage. METHODS The results from seven in-depth, qualitative studies conducted by the author and coworkers, describing such response strategies were analyzed and synthesized using aggregated analysis. Synthesized categories describing different types of response behavior were identified and the variations within them investigated. RESULTS In general, the strategies used by persons with mild to moderate dementia were intuitively employed and characterized as "common sense behavior. " The main goal of the strategies was understood as retaining a sense of control and mastery over everyday life matters. It is argued that the users implicitly or explicitly experienced a need to adapt; further exploration of how awareness of ability and disability in daily life occupation may be experienced and expressed in persons with dementia seems important. CONCLUSION Findings suggest that therapists and caregivers be open to detecting and supporting the response strategies used by persons with dementia as long as they appear to be useful from the perspective of the individual rather than strictly from an efficacy point of view.
Give Me Shelter: Reexamining Military Intervention and the Monadic Democratic Peace

Increasing empirical evidence points to the existence of a monadic democratic peace. However, the quantitative literature on international conflict has yet to produce any compelling evidence that such a peace holds for one of the most prominent types of interstate force in use today, foreign military intervention. This study tests the hypotheses that democracies are less prone to intervene militarily and less likely to be the targets of such incursions. In doing so, it compares six overlapping theoretical perspectives on the monadic democratic peace. No empirical support is lent to the hypothesis that democracies intervene less often than nondemocracies, but considerable evidence indicates that democracies are rarely the targets of foreign military intervention. The latter result remains consistent across six different intervention populations from 1975 to 1996. Of the six theoretical perspectives analyzed, the institutional approach recently advanced by Bueno de Mesquita and his associates fares best. Its predictions match the empirical outcomes exactly. None of the other theoretical frameworks is even half right. In sum, it seems that democratic governance provides a barrier against foreign military intervention, but it does not limit intervention abroad.
Offering vs. Choice by 401(k) Plan Participants: Equity Exposure and Number of Funds 1

Records of more than half a million participants in more than six hundred 401(k) pension plans indicate that participants tend to use a small number of funds: The number of participants using a given number of funds peaks at three funds and declines after more than three funds. Participants tend to allocate their contributions evenly across the funds they use, with the tendency weakening with the number of funds used. The median number of funds used is between three and four, and is not sensitive to the number of funds offered by the plans, which ranges from 4 to 59. A participant’s propensity to allocate contributions to equity funds is hardly sensitive to the fraction of equity funds among those offered by his plan. The paper also comments on limitations on inference available from experiments and from aggregate-level data analysis.
Short startup, batteryless, self-starting thermal energy harvesting chip working in full clock cycle

The Internet of Things paradigm considers the deployment in the environment of a profusion of heterogeneous sensor nodes, connected in a complex network, and autonomously powered. Energy harvesting is the common proposed solution to supply such sensors, and many different sources such as light, mechanical vibrations, temperature differences can be considered individually or in combination. Specifically, a thermoelectric generator (TEG), taking advantage of the Seebeck effect, is able to harvest electrical power from a temperature gradient of a few degrees. This study presents a chip fabricated in 130 nm CMOS technology, designed to convert a typical 50 mV output from a TEG into 1 V. The batteryless design utilises both halves of a 50% duty cycle clock. Measurements have been performed by using a TEG, and an equivalent TEG model, i.e. voltage source (50 mV-200 mV) with a series resistance of 5 Ω. The result shows that the proposed prototype can extract 60% (at 50 mV) to 65% (at 200 mV) of the total available power. The energy harvester can self-start at 50 mV with a 2.8 ms startup time, which is a significant improvement over the past work.
The political economy of growth : a critical survey of the recent literature

This article reviews the recent literature on the political economy of growth, focusing on the research that has developed at the intersection of the endogenous growth literature and the new political economy. It explores the relationship among four key variables: economic growth and capital accumulation, political instability, political freedom and democratic institutions, and income inequality.
An investigation into the stock market reaction to press notices issued by the Financial Reporting Review Panel

The Financial Reporting Review Panel (‘the Panel’) was set up in 1991 as part of the new regime under the Financial Reporting Council, with the objective of improving the quality of financial reporting in the UK. Arguably, the Panel was the most radical innovation since it was concerned with the previously not addressed issue of the enforcement of financial reporting regulations. However, it has no direct powers of enforcement and is funded at a level at which it can only react to complaints about company accounts rather than seek out problems. While the Panel has been granted powers to take companies to court with a view to compelling them to revise their accounts, these powers have not been exercised. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that its existence encourages companies to be more scrupulous about compliance with accounting standards and relevant company law before publishing their annual reports. Explanations for compliance include the possibility that adverse findings by the Panel result in economic damage or loss of reputation to the company or its management. This paper investigates a key aspect of possible economic damage: that press notices issued by the Panel about individual cases have an adverse effect on the share price of the company concerned. A share price event study was carried out on 33 companies that, since the inception of the Panel, had been the subject of press notices. We have found no evidence of an adverse share price reactions following the publication of press notices. Improvements in compliance may be attributable to other reasons, one possibility being the belief by management that an adverse finding will affect the share price.
Prevalence and risk of violence and the mental, physical and sexual health problems associated with human trafficking: an updated systematic review

Background. To update and expand on a 2012 systematic review of the prevalence and risk of violence and the prevalence and risk of physical, mental and sexual health problems among trafficked people. Method. Systematic review and meta-analysis. Searches of 15 electronic databases of peer-reviewed articles and doctoral theses were supplemented by reference screening, citation tracking of included articles and expert recommendations. Studies were included if they reported on the prevalence or risk of violence while trafficked, or the prevalence or risk of physical, mental or sexual health outcomes among people who have been trafficked. Two reviewers independently screened papers for eligibility and appraised the quality of included studies. Results. Thirty-seven papers reporting on 31 studies were identified. The majority of studies were conducted in low and middle-income countries with women and girls trafficked into the sex industry. There is limited but emerging evidence on the health of trafficked men and the health consequences of trafficking into different forms of exploitation. Studies indicate that trafficked women, men and children experience high levels of violence and report significant levels of physical health symptoms, including headaches, stomach pain and back pain. Most commonly reported mental health problems include depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although serological data on sexually transmitted infections are limited, women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation self-report symptoms suggestive of a high prevalence of infections. Limitations of the review include methodological weaknesses of primary studies and some differences in definition and operationalisation of trafficking, which hinder comparability and generalisability of the results. Conclusions. There is increasing evidence human trafficking is associated with high prevalence and increased risk of violence and a range of physical and mental health problems. Although more studies have emerged in recent years reporting on the health of trafficked men and people trafficked for forms of exploitation other than in the sex industry, further research is needed in this area. Appropriate interventions and support services to address the multiple and serious medical needs, especially mental health, of trafficked people are urgently needed.
The Momentum Effect in Latin American Emerging Markets

We find that momentum strategies yield profits in Latin American emerging markets. Both stock type and country play a major role in explaining the momentum effect in these markets, but stock type is much more important. For risk-averse investors, winner portfolios stochastically dominate loser portfolios in these markets, implying that there are no asset-pricing models consistent with risk-averse investors that can rationalize the momentum effect. The results obtained via the bootstrap procedure without replacement also uphold this conclusion.