Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns and determinants of skilled workers’ mobility: evidence from a survey of Italian inventors

Skilled workers’ mobility is considered to be one of the most influential channels of knowledge transmission. This has increased the interest of researchers and policy makers because of its implications for innovation diffusion and, consequently, economic welfare. However, little is still known about the determinants of this phenomenon. This paper explores the mobility patterns for a group of Italian inventors in the pharmaceutical sector. It addresses methodological issues related to measures of inventors’ mobility through patent statistics and examines the determinants of their mobility choices. The empirical results indicate that career paths of inventors are rarely reflected in their patenting activity and that using patent statistics frequently underestimates the intensity of the mobility phenomenon. The results also show a positive association between productivity and mobility. In particular, the econometric analysis points out that inventor's personal characteristics, inventive productivity, and geographical location matter for mobility choices.
Motives for Takeovers: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract Three major motives have been suggested for takeovers: synergy, agency, and hubris. Existing empirical evidence is unable to clearly distinguish among these motives probably due to the simultaneous existence of all three in any sample of takeovers. This paper suggests a way of distinguishing among these competing hypotheses by looking at the correlation between target and total gains. It is argued that this correlation should be positive if synergy is the motive, negative if agency is the motive, and zero if hubris is the motive. The empirical results show that synergy is the primary motive in takeovers with positive total gains even though the evidence is consistent with the simultaneous existence of hubris in this sample. It is also found that agency is the primary motive in takeovers with negative total gains.
Venture Capitalist Certification of IPOs

This article analyses a set of 4606 IPOs from the 1986 to 2000 period, specifically focusing on the certification effect associated with venture capital backing. It concludes that venture capitalists, particularly those of higher quality, are associated with lower issuance costs (both direct and indirect), increased upward price adjustments, and shorter lockup periods, all of which are consistent with a valuable certification role. In addition, it is found that even lower quality venture capitalists perform a certification role; however, it is specific to a set of penny stock (i.e. high information asymmetry) IPOs.
Channel Coordination in the Presence of a Dominant Retailer

The retail trade today is increasingly dominated by large, centrally managed "power retailers. " In this paper, we develop a channel model in the presence of a dominant retailer to examine how a manufacturer can best coordinate such a channel.We show that such a channel can be coordinated to the benefit of the manufacturer through either quantity discounts or a menu of two-part tariffs. Both pricing mechanisms allow the manufacturer to charge different effective prices and extract different surpluses from the two different types of retailers, even though they both have the appearance of being "fair. " However, quantity discounts and two-part tariffs are not equally efficient from the manufacturer's perspective as a channel coordination mechanism. Therefore, the manufacturer must judiciously select its channel coordination mechanism.Our analysis also sheds light on the role of "street money" in channel coordination. We show that such a practice can arise from a manufacturer's effort to mete out minimum incentives to engage the dominant retailer in channel coordination. From this perspective, we derive testable implications with regard to the practice of street money.
Mouse β-Defensin 14 (Defb14) Promotes Tumor Growth by Inducing Angiogenesis in a CCR6-Dependent Manner

β-defensins are known for their antimicrobial activity and belong to the molecular barrier of the innate immune system against invading pathogens. In addition, it has been shown that some members of the β-defensin superfamily have the capacity to promote local innate inflammatory and systemic adaptive immune responses, mediated in part by the interaction with CCR6. We found that mouse β-defensin 14 (mBD14, Defb14), a newly identified member of the mouse β-defensin superfamily, is expressed in mouse fibrosarcoma tumor tissue. Tumor cells overexpressing mBD14 demonstrated enhanced solid tumor growth in syngeneic C57BL/6 mice concomitant with increased vascularization of these tumors. Furthermore, mBD14-overexpressing tumors demonstrated increased expression of proangiogenic MIP-2 (CXCL2) ex vivo. In contrast, vascular endothelial growth factor expression was not affected. Cellular analysis of tumor-infiltrating leukocytes revealed a significant increase of CCR6+ B220+ lymphocytes in solid tumors derived from mBD14-overexpressing tumor cells. Enhanced tumor growth of mBD14-overexpressing fibrosarcomas was abolished in CCR6-deficient mice, which was paralleled by decreased infiltration of CCR6+ B220+ lymphocytes, indicating the requirement of CCR6 expression on host cells. Previously, the interaction of activated, LTαβ+, lymphocytes with lymphotoxin β-receptor–expressing fibrosarcoma tumor cells has been identified as a new CXCL2-dependent proangiogenic pathway. Coexpression of a soluble lymphotoxin β-receptor:Ig fusion protein, an inhibitor of CXCL2-dependent angiogenesis, in mBD14-overexpressing fibrosarcoma tumor cells abolished enhanced solid tumor growth. Thus, we conclude that mBD14 expression by tumor-infiltrating host cells results in the chemoattraction of CCR6+ B220+ lymphocytes, which in turn initiates a proangiogenic pathway leading to enhanced angiogenesis and organized tumor tissue development.
The adaptive consumer: shifting attitudes, behavior change and CSA membership renewal

Abstract A qualitative study was conducted with a subset of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership base in Wisconsin, USA to examine attitude and behavior change associated with membership. Changes that were examined included: modified eating or cooking habits, increased consideration of food seasonality and associated consumer preferences for seasonal products, and an enhanced appreciation for farming. Although this study investigated ‘spillover’ attitude or behavior changes (e.g. reduced driving or increased use of environmentally friendly cleaning products), none were observed. This study indicates that attitude and behavior changes are generated by the structural elements of CSA including exposure to the farm, interactions with the farmer, and the constraints imposed by a pre-selected bundle of vegetables. There was no indication that changes occur due to the development and enforcement of social norms within the CSA membership base. Community, in the context of this CSA, is expressed primarily as a conceptual community of interest. Our results suggest that demonstrated attitude and behavior change increases the likelihood that a consumer will renew their CSA membership.
Changing Unethical Organizational Behavior

W A / hat are the implications of Hamlet's question in the context of organizational ethics? What does it mean to be ethical in an organizational context? Should one suffer the slings and arrows of unethical organizational behavior? Should one try to take arms against unethical behaviors and by opposing, end them? The consequences of addressing organizational ethics issues can be unpleasant. One can be punished or fired; one's career can suffer, or one can be disliked, considered an outsider. It may take courage to oppose unethical and lead ethical organizational behavior. How can one address organizational ethics issues? Paul Tillich, in his book The Courage to Be, recognized, as Hamlet did, that dire consequences can result from standing up to and opposing unethical behavior. Tillich identified two approaches: being as an individual and being as a part of a group. ' In an organizational context, these two approaches can be interpreted as follows: (1) Being as an individual can mean intervening to end unethical organizational behaviors by working against others and the organizations performing the unethical behaviors; and (2) being as a part can mean leading an ethical organizational change by working with others and the organization. These approaches are not mutually exclusive; rather, depending on the individual, the organization, the relationships, and the situation, one or both of these approaches may be appropriate for addressing ethical issues. Being as an Individual
Using simulation modelling for BPR: resource allocation in a police custody process

Presents an assessment of the use of simulation modelling to assist in business process reengineering projects. Considers the relevance of the simulation technique to modelling business systems and relates its use to the main stages of a reengineering project. Presents a case study of the use of the technique as part of a reengineering project at a police force in the UK. The use of simulation in reengineering is shown to be relevant in the areas of performance measurement, testing of alternative change strategies and communication of process execution.
Innovative Capability and Financing Constraints for Innovation More Money, More Innovation?

This study presents a novel empirical approach to identify financing constraints for innovation based on the concept of an ideal test as suggested by Hall (2008). Firms were offered a hypothetical payment and were asked to choose between alternatives of use. If they selected additional innovation projects, they must have had some unexploited investment opportunities that were not profitable using more costly external finance. We attribute constraints for innovation not only to lacking financing, but also to firms' innovative capability. Econometric results show that financial constraints do not depend on the availability of internal funds per se, but that they are driven by innovative capability.
The Marginal Cost of Raising Tax Revenue and Redistributing Income

We present analytic formulas for calculating marginal welfare costs when taxes are levied against the wages of a heterogeneous population of households and marginal tax revenue finances either the supply of a public good or lump‐sum transfers. The formulas are applied to explain the wide discrepancy between estimates of marginal welfare costs for redistribution previously obtained through computer simulation procedures. Our calculations reveal that these procedures introduced lump‐sum transfers that were not specified as part of the reforms to be simulated, but explain most of the differences between their estimates. We also show that welfare cost estimates are quite sensitive to the elasticity of labor supply with respect to exhaustive public spending.
Accelerated Arctic land warming and permafrost degradation during rapid sea ice loss

Coupled climate models and recent observational evidence suggest that Arctic sea ice may undergo abrupt periods of loss during the next fifty years. Here, we evaluate how rapid sea ice loss affects terrestrial Arctic climate and ground thermal state in the Community Climate System Model. We find that simulated western Arctic land warming trends during rapid sea ice loss are 3.5 times greater than secular 21st century climate‐change trends. The accelerated warming signal penetrates up to 1500 km inland and is apparent throughout most of the year, peaking in autumn. Idealized experiments using the Community Land Model, with improved permafrost dynamics, indicate that an accelerated warming period substantially increases ground heat accumulation. Enhanced heat accumulation leads to rapid degradation of warm permafrost and may increase the vulnerability of colder permafrost to degradation under continued warming. Taken together, these results imply a link between rapid sea ice loss and permafrost health.
Evaluating forecast performance in an inventory control system

This paper analyzes the impact of forecasting on inventory decisions in a large physical distribution system. Alternative forecasting models are evaluated by developing tradeoff curves between inventory investment and customer service. The results demonstrate that the choice of forecasting model is an important factor in determining the amount of investment needed to support any target level of customer service.
Comparative Advantage in Individuals

THE presence or absence of comparative advantage is important to many fields of inquiry besides international trade. Recently, comparative advantage in the performance of tasks by individuals has been shown to be a minimum requirement for the distribution of labor earnings to be different in form from the distribution of abilities (Sattinger, 1975). In particular, skewness in the earnings distribution arises from comparative advantage. While many economists would take the existence of comparative advantage in individuals for granted, much economic analysis and empirical work depends on the absence of comparative advantage. Sherwin Rosen (1977) has recently analyzed the difficulties in labor aggregation introduced by the presence of comparative advantage. Also, the efficiency units assumption requires the absence of comparative advantage in individuals. In turn, the efficiency units assumption is necessary for empirical work relating the distribution of earnings solely to individual characteristics (Sattinger, 1977), as has often been done in the human capital literature. This paper uses data from mechanical aptitude tests (Paterson and Eliot et al., 1930) to investigate comparative advantage in the performance of tasks by individuals. Using both non-parametric and parametric tests, such comparative advantage is found to exist. The paper then presents a method for obtaining a measure of difficulty given a cardinal measure of abilities, and tests for the possibility of intransitive comparative advantage. Artificial economies are then constructed to reveal the effects of comparative advantage on the distribution of earnings. II. Sources of Comparative Advantage
Intracranial saccular aneurysm enlargement determined using serial magnetic resonance angiography.

OBJECT The goal of this study was to determine the frequency of enlargement of unruptured intracranial aneurysms by using serial magnetic resonance (MR) angiography and to investigate whether aneurysm characteristics and demographic factors predict changes in aneurysm size. METHODS A retrospective review of MR angiograms obtained in 57 patients with 62 unruptured, untreated saccular aneurysms was performed. Fifty-five of the 57 patients had no history of subarachnoid hemorrhage. The means of three measurements of the maximum diameters of these lesions on MR source images defined the aneurysm size. The median follow-up period was 47 months (mean 50 months, range 17-90 months). No aneurysm ruptured during the follow-up period. Four patients (7%) harbored aneurysms that had increased in size. No aneurysms smaller than 9 mm in diameter grew larger, whereas four (44%) of the nine aneurysms with initial diameters of 9 mm or larger increased in size. Factors that predicted aneurysm growth included the size of the lesion (p < 0.001) and the presence of multiple lobes (p = 0.021). The location of the aneurysm did not predict an increased risk of enlargement. CONCLUSIONS Patients with medium-sized or large aneurysms and patients harboring aneurysms with multiple lobes may be at increased risk for aneurysm growth and should be followed up with MR imaging if the aneurysm is left untreated.
Relative cerebral blood volume maps corrected for contrast agent extravasation significantly correlate with glioma tumor grade, whereas uncorrected maps do not.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) estimates for high-grade gliomas computed with dynamic susceptibility contrast MR imaging are artificially lowered by contrast extravasation through a disrupted blood-brain barrier. We hypothesized that rCBV corrected for agent leakage would correlate significantly with histopathologic tumor grade, whereas uncorrected rCBV would not. METHODS We performed dynamic T2*-weighted perfusion MR imaging on 43 patients with a cerebral glioma after prebolus gadolinium diethylene triamine penta-acetic acid administration to diminish competing extravasation-induced T1 effects. The rCBV was computed from non-necrotic enhancing tumor regions by integrating the relaxivity-time data, with and without contrast extravasation correction by using a linear fitting algorithm, and was normalized to contralateral brain. We determined the statistical correlation between corrected and uncorrected normalized rCBV and histopathologic tumor grade with the Spearman rank correlation test. RESULTS Eleven, 9, and 23 patients had WHO grades II, III, and IV glioma, respectively. Mean uncorrected normalized rCBVs were 1.53, 2.51, and 2.14 (grade II, III, and IV). Corrected normalized rCBVs were 1.52, 2.84, and 3.96. Mean absolute discrepancies between uncorrected and corrected rCBVs were 2% (0%-15%), 16% (0%-106%), and 74% (0%-411%). The correlation between corrected rCBV and tumor grade was significant (0.60; P < .0001), whereas it was not for uncorrected rCBV (0.15; P = .35). CONCLUSION For gliomas, rCBV estimation that correlates significantly with WHO tumor grade necessitates contrast extravasation correction. Without correction, artificially lowered rCBV may be construed erroneously to reflect lower tumor grade.
Recoverability Trend of Blood Pressure and Pulse Transit Time after Treadmill Exercise

This study examines the recoverability trend of blood pressure (BP) and pulse transit time (PTT) during the 60 minutes immediately following a treadmill exercise. Experiments were conducted on 12 healthy and normotensive subjects, including 8 males and 4 females. All subjects were directed to run on a treadmill at 10 kph for 4 minutes. BP was measured at the finger by the Finometer and also at brachial arteries by a sphygmomanometer. PTT was determined as the time interval between the peak of the R wave of electrocardiogram and the foot of photoplethysmogram. Immediate post exercise PTT is significantly lower than its pre-exercise baseline level (p < 0.001). During the recovery period, PTT initially increases to the original level at 9 minutes after exercise and then increases continuously, peaks at 20 minutes after exercise, and returns to the baseline at 60 minutes. Although PTT is temporarily higher than the baseline during the recovery period, the changes are not significant (p = 0.37). Immediately after exercise, both finger BP and brachial BP are significantly different from pre-exercise baseline. There is no significant difference in brachial BP by 5 minutes after exercise and in finger BP, by 9 minutes
Measuring the Trade Effects of Emu

This paper examines the impact of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) on trade within the euro area. Using panel data for 22 industrial countries, the analysis estimates the effect of the euro`s arrival on area-wide trade compared to bilateral trade flows between other industrial countries. Controlling for other influences according to the "gravity" model of trade, the panel analysis employs cointegration techniques to obtain reliable point estimates of EMU trade effects. Cross-country differences with respect to EMU trade gains and underlying factors accounting for these differences are also further explored.
Macroeconomic Volatility In General Equilibrium

In this paper we explore the concept of excess volatility in general equilibrium. We show there is a fundamental tension between household efforts to smooth consumption and attempts by firms’ to smooth investment in the presence of convex adjustment costs in capital formation. Adjustment costs substantially diminish the ability of households to smooth consumption. As a result, consumption volatility will be significantly higher in the presence of adjustment costs than would be expected from the permanent income model alone. Moreover adjustment costs can cause consumption and asset prices to change discontinuously at the moment of implementation of a previously anticipated event, a phenomenon that does not occur in models without adjustment costs.
Methods of Large Project Assessment Given Uncertainty in Future Energy Pricing

The continuing oil crisis has created opportunities for developing sources of oil that had only been marginally economic previously. Many such projects, however, require large-scale investments that are recoverable only over very long lifetimes of operation. The profitability of such investments depends critically on the long-run pricing of oil in world markets and the interaction of the economic conditions of consuming nations. This paper develops a framework for analyzing the economics of such projects. Under the conventional assumption that appropriate levels of compensation for the required capital are needed before such large-scale projects are undertaken, the analysis focuses on the rate of return required to induce the large-scale capital expenditures. Both systematic and non-systematic risk exposure of such projects are identified and the critical linkage to world oil markets is defined through a simple market of world oil pricing. The understanding of the nature of project risks is critical to the development of government policy. The risk exposure of investors must be understood both for the development of risk reduction measures and for the establishment of suitable guidelines for capital compensation. The role of governments in energy investment has escalated and the implications for investments by the private sector require explicit recognition and study. It is shown that the traditional theory of risk pricing through the capital asset pricing model generally leads to conclusions that appear to be contradicted by observed investor behavior. Explanation and understanding of the nature of project risks incurred by the large-scale energy project must rely on more complex, disequilibrium models of risk determination. To illustrate the methodology developed, the paper considers investment in the Canadian tar-sands projects in Western Canada. A sensitivity analysis was performed on the rate of return of this project using simulation. The project was described in terms of both a world oil market and a taxation environment. For the range of conditions investigated, the rate of return was found to range between 4 and 20%, with a mean of 14.3% and a standard deviation of 3.3%.
The Jurisdiction of Internal Auditing and the Quest for Professionalization: The Danish Case

For decades, the Institute of Internal Auditors has promoted the professionalization of internal auditing. Prior research on the subject has focused mainly on the achievement of professional characteristics as an indicator of the degree of professionalism. The results seem to vary suggesting that focus should be on exploring the contextual dependency of the professionalization of internal auditing. Based on a case study of Danish internal auditing, this paper analyzes the process of professionalization through the lenses of Abbott's theory of the system of professions. From this perspective, the process of professionalization is driven by inter-professional competition with the external audit profession over the internal audit jurisdiction. The results indicate that in the Danish case external auditing has maintained an intellectual jurisdiction over internal auditing by controlling its knowledge base, thus preventing Danish internal auditing from obtaining a distinct jurisdiction of its own.