Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Welfare and Poverty Effects of Global Agricultural and Trade Policies Using the Linkage Model

This paper analyzes the economic effects of agricultural price and merchandise trade policies around the world as of 2004 on global markets, net farm incomes, and national and regional economic welfare and poverty, using the global economy wide Linkage model, new estimates of agricultural price distortions for developing countries, and poverty elasticity's approach. It addresses two questions: to what extent are policies as of 2004 still reducing rewards from farming in developing countries and thereby adding to inequality across countries in farm household incomes? Are they depressing value added more in primary agriculture than in the rest of the economy of developing countries, and earnings of unskilled workers more than of owners of other factors of production, thereby potentially contributing to inequality and poverty within developing countries (given that farm incomes are well below non-farm incomes in most developing countries and that agriculture there is intensive in the use of unskilled labor)? Results are presented for the key countries and regions of the world and for the world as a whole. They reveal that, by moving to free markets, income inequality between countries will be reduced at least slightly, all but one-sixth of the gains to developing countries will come from agricultural policy reform, unskilled workers in developing countries the majority of whom work on farms will benefit most from reform, net farm incomes in developing countries will rise by 6 percent compared with 2 percent for non-agricultural value added, and the number of people surviving on less than US$1 a day will drop 3 percent globally.
Designing effective cyber store user interface

Complementary to the increasing popularity of the Internet and WWW, electronic commerce (e‐commerce) has become a fast emerging industry and a significant global economic force. The online retail stores need to attract more visitors and convert them into the customers who actually purchase the products or services. To achieve this goal, these stores need to endeavor to enhance customers’ satisfaction to maintain positive relationships with customers. Satisfied customers have a higher chance of purchasing merchandise from the same store and remaining loyal customers. This study investigates the features that possibly influence the perceived satisfaction of online retail shopping among university students using 27 questionnaire items. The study findings imply that the online retailers may need to put emphasis on specifying how they guarantee on‐time delivery and risk‐free, hassle‐free return clearly on their Web pages. They should follow what they promise as much as possible to improve shoppers’ satisfactio.
When Does the Stock Market Listen to Economic News? New Evidence from Copulas and News Wires

We study association between macroeconomic news and stock market returns using the statistical theory of copulas, and a new comprehensive measure of news based on textual review and classification of news wires. We find the impact of economic news on equity returns to be nonlinear and asymmetric. In particular, controlling for economic conditions and surprises associated with releases of economic data, we find that the market reacts strongly and negatively to the most unfavourable macroeconomic news, but appears to largely discount the good news. Further, the most-unfavorable news creates price drift, and we document that selling stocks short in the wake of unusually-bad news yields annual abnormal gross returns greater than four percent.
Research on Efficacy of Using Social Networks in Academic Teaching Metrics, Experiments, and Results

The study integrates a customized private social network in an academic course. We propose and measure a new metric, based on gamification principles, to understand the benefits on the student learning process. We applied the idea to two academic classes of 25 and 80 students, respectively, (Master Degree in Economy and Engineering Faculties, University of Pavia). The social networks has been monitored for one semester. The paper describes the educational principle at the basis of the methodology, the developed metric, and the results. This case study shows that the introduction of innovative approaches to social networking in academic classes can be used to focus student attention, rise motivation and, as final goal, increase the level of knowledge. Keywords: Academic Education, Social Networking, gamification.
Location of proliferating cells in human epidermis.

The location of the proliferative pool of cells in normal epidermis, ichthyosis vulgaris, lamellar ichthyosis, X-linked ichthyosis, epidermolytic hyperkeratosis, and psoriasis was examined using autoradiographic and projection techniques. A significant number of thymidine-labeled cells (deoxyribonucleic acid-synthesizing cells) were found above the basal cell layer in all conditions examined. Cell proliferation in the epidermis is not limited to the basal layer but also occurs in more superficial cells.
Development of a multi criteria decision model for justification of green manufacturing systems

Rapid industrial growth in the last century has led to many economic, environmental and social problems from global warming to local waste disposal. The industry has come under increasing pressure to reduce the environmental impacts involved in the production of goods and services. In recent years green manufacturing systems (GMS) have been widely considered for implementation to reduce environmental and social impacts as well as to improve economical competitiveness. However, the implementation of such systems is expensive and relative investments tend to be irreversible, thus, necessarily requiring careful consideration before a decision can be made. However, the managers find it difficult to justify implementation of GMS to top management as traditional economic approaches do not account for the significant intangible benefits offered by GMS. In this paper, an attempt has been made to overcome the deficiencies of traditional economic justification approaches by presenting a multi criteria decision model â€“ analytic hierarchy process (AHP) â€“ for the justification of green manufacturing systems. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated through an illustrative example.
The Relation among Voice Value, Policy Outcomes, and Intensity of Support on Fairness Assessments of Tax Legislation

ABSTRACT: We conduct a quasi-experiment to determine whether the value placed on a taxpayer's opinion by an elected representative (valued or not valued) has an impact on the taxpayer's procedural and outcome fairness perceptions. We also examine how the taxpayer's intensity of support for the tax legislation interacts with both the value the elected representative placed on the taxpayer's voiced opinion and whether the taxpayer's preferred policy outcome is ultimately passed in a representative democracy. We recruited 92 participants from graduate accounting classes and assigned them to four experimental groups based on whether the elected officials valued their opinion, and whether their desired legislation was passed. As predicted, perceptions of fairness are more positively associated with receiving a desired outcome as intensity of support for an issue increases. Further, we find that taxpayers who do not have a strong intensity of support for a particular legislative position react favorably to havi.
Aspects of Price Competitiveness in the Context of Preparing for Accession to the Euro Zone. New Challenges for Entrepreneurs. Romania’s Case

In the process of preparing a state for the accession to the Euro Zone it is essential to analyze the price competitiveness of that state’s economy and the challenges that entrepreneurs will have to face in the new economic environment. In the present paper the authors want to capture some aspects of the competitiveness of the Romanian economy and implicit its entrepreneurs with emphasis on price competitiveness, whereas accession to the Euro Zone implies giving up to the independence of exchange rate policy, with a huge impact on price competitiveness. For this purpose this study will highlight a few elements on the relative importance of price competitiveness of entrepreneurs’ exports performance. The process of accessing Euro Zone creates significant changes in the existing way of conducting business and impacts significantly entire business environment – and this will become evident also for Romania.
Examining partnerships in amateur sport : the case of a Canadian National Sport Centre

This study explored the dynamics, challenges, and complexities encountered in forming, managing, and evaluating the interorganizational relationships of a nonprofit organization and its partners in the public, nonprofit, and commercial sectors. Using a partnership process model developed from various theoretical frameworks (Kouwenhoven, 1993; Oliver, 1990; Provan & Milward, 2001; Wood & Gray, 1991), this study examined three phases of partnership relationships (i.e., formation, management, and evaluation) to gain a better understanding of the interactions among partnering organizations in Canadian sport. Qualitative research methods were employed to investigate partnerships of one National Sport Centre (NSC). Data were collected from three sources: 28 interviews, 110 organizational documents, and attendance at three organizational meetings. Interviews, relevant document passages, and field notes were transcribed and analyzed using Atlas.ti, a qualitative analysis software program. Results indicated that environmental and organizational conditions facilitated the formation of partnerships. Interdependence among organizations, presence of a broker, presence of a network, and convergence of objectives were evident. Specific reasons for partnership formation included efficiency, stability, necessity, legitimacy, reciprocity, and asymmetry. Partnership management structures and processes were central to interactions between organizations. Partners struggled to find a balance between pressures to compete and pressures to collaborate. Power imbalances, political dynamics, and control issues primarily related to resource concerns existed, and in some cases weakened the bonds among partners. Some partnerships were formalized, while others were loosely structured and primarily based on mutual trust, previous history, and personal interest. Ambiguities regarding roles and responsibilities, and 'representativeness' influenced how partners interacted and contributed to challenges in managing partnerships. Allocating resources was a prime concern for the organizations. Several levels of analysis for outcome evaluation existed. At the community level, the performance of NSC athletes at international competitions' was a key measure of success. At the network level, effective coordination of programs and services contributing to improved performances of athletes was perceived as an important measure of effectiveness. Finally at the organizational level, factors including ability to attract and retain partners, ability to remain economically viable through resource acquisition, and achieving legitimacy were all viewed as criteria to evaluate partnership effectiveness.
Race, Ethnicity, and Discriminatory Zoning

Zoning policies can have marked impacts on the spatial distribution of people and land use, yet there is little systematic evidence on their origin. Investigating the causes of these regulations is complicated by the fact that land use and zoning have been co-evolving for nearly a century. We employ a novel approach to overcome this challenge, studying the factors underpinning the introduction of comprehensive zoning in Chicago. We find evidence consistent with a precursor to exclusionary zoning as well as support for the hypothesis that industrial use zoning was disproportionately allocated to neighborhoods populated by ethnic and racial minorities.
Management Gurus: What Makes Them and How to Become One

Placing management guruship in its historical context, Andrzej Huczynski identifies the essential ingredients of the few popular management ideas of the twentieth century. He argues that winning guru ideas meet enduring managerial needs, are launched at the most opportune time, and are promoted by the evangelical zeal of their developers. The author contends that company managers, business school academics and management consultants all have the possibility of attaining guru status by following the guidelines contained in this book.
Training for success in a new industrial world

The latest Bourton Group survey on trends and opinions in UK industry looks at the likely operational impact of four key areas of change: globalisation; the increasing power of the customer; social and environmental; and e‐business. Companies are gearing up uncertainly to face what are seen as irresistible and “seismic” forces for change in the short and medium term, with significant implications for training and development. Critically, in seeking greater flexibility and responsiveness organisations are moving towards flatter team‐based structures, multi‐skilling and a more diverse workforce. As a result, training is increasingly focused on the acquisition of broad competencies such as change orientation, leadership and problem solving – rather than functional skills, with a reduced dependence on top‐down prescriptive teaching as employees assume greater responsibility for their own learning.
Administrative Capacity in the New EU Member States: The Limits of Innovation?

This study considers key aspects of administrative performance in three areas related to policy, people, and systems. First, in the field of policy, the study addresses issues of performance management, strategic planning and policy coordination and formulation. Second, as regards people, the study reviews human resource management practices such as recruitment and career management, incentive systems and politico-administrative relations with the aim of assessing the extent to which public administrations in the EU8 can attract and retain high quality staff in the context of rapidly changing labor markets. Finally, in relation to systems, the study looks into one specific aspect of public service delivery, namely the extent to which states have introduced e-Governance systems and used these effectively to enhance the business environment. A benchmarking exercise was conducted in each of the key aspects studied. A specific aim of the study was to identify examples of good practice within the region which might be replicable in other EU8 countries. This study reviews the direction of administrative development in the first two years of EU membership in the EU8 and includes a review of general trends in administrative development as well as a benchmarking exercise for a sample of states on selected criteria that illustrate capacity for public management innovations. The study will draw conclusions on ways to address the identified issues and problems in the development of the public management systems of the EU8, with a focus on systems and instruments that would help address the three challenges set out above.
Conventional and Insidious Macroeconomic Balance-Sheet Crises

This paper describes the anatomy of two types of balance-sheet macroeconomic crises. Conventional balance-sheet crises are triggered by external imbalances and balance sheet vulnerabilities. They typically occur after capital inflows have led to a substantial build up of foreign currency exposure. Insidious crises are triggered by internal imbalances and balance sheet vulnerabilities. They occur in high-growth economies when an initially equilibrating shift in relative prices and resources and credit in favor of the nontraded sector overshoots equilibrium. The paper argues that policymakers are now better able to forestall conventional crises, but they are much less capable of early detection and avoidance of insidious crises.
The asymmetric volatility of house prices in the UK

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show an indication that the asymmetric volatility between house price movement may account for the defensiveness of the housing market.Design/methodology/approach – First the UK nation‐wide house price data from the last quarter (Q4) of 1955 to the last quarter of 2005 are used and then the most suitable mean and variance equations to estimate the conditional heteroscedasticity volatilities of the returns of house prices are selected. Second, a variable that examines the leverage effect of volatility is incorporated into the model. The GJR‐GARCH model is used.Findings – The results of the empirical test show that while the lagged innovations are negatively correlated with housing return, that is when there is bad news, the current volatility of housing return might decline.Research limitations/implications – The results indicate that the volatilities between house prices moving up and moving down are asymmetric.Practical implications – The results show that there .
Brooks-type results for coloring of digraphs

In the thesis, the coloring of digraphs is studied. The chromatic number of a digraph D is the smallest integer k so that the vertices of D can be partitioned into at most k sets each of which induces an acyclic subdigraph. A set of four topics on the chromatic number is presented. First, the dependence of the chromatic number of digraphs on the maximum degree is explored. An analog of Gallai’s Theorem is proved and some algorithmic questions involving list colorings are studied. Secondly, an upper bound on the chromatic number of digraphs without directed cycles of length two is obtained, strengthening the upper bound of Brooks’ Theorem by a multiplicative factor of α < 1. Thirdly, evidence is provided for the global nature of the digraph chromatic number by proving that sparse digraphs with maximum degree ∆ can have chromatic number as large as Ω(∆/ log ∆), as well as showing the existence of digraphs with arbitrarily large chromatic number where every constant fraction of the vertices is 2-colorable. Finally, a generalization of digraph coloring to acyclic homomorphisms is considered, and a result linking D-colorability and girth is presented.
Circulating microRNA in body fluid: a new potential biomarker for cancer diagnosis and prognosis

In the past several years, the importance of microRNA (miRNA) in cancer cells has been recognized. Proper control of miRNA expression is essential for maintaining a steady state of the cellular machinery. Recently, it was discovered that extracellular miRNAs circulate in the blood of both healthy and diseased patients, although ribonuclease is present in both plasma and serum. Most of the circulating miRNAs are included in lipid or lipoprotein complexes, such as apoptotic bodies, microvesicles, or exosomes, and are, therefore, highly stable. The existence of circulating miRNAs in the blood of cancer patients has raised the possibility that miRNAs may serve as a novel diagnostic marker. However, the secretory mechanism and biological function, as well as the meaning of the existence of extracellular miRNAs, remain largely unclear. In this review, we summarize the usefulness of circulating miRNA for cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics. Furthermore, we propose a mechanism for the secretion and incorporation of miRNA into the cells. (Cancer Sci 2010)
Random Telegraph Noise Effect on the Programmed Threshold-Voltage Distribution of Flash Memories

This letter presents a detailed investigation of the random telegraph noise (RTN) effects on the threshold-voltage distribution of flash memory arrays programmed by the staircase algorithm. RTN is shown to introduce an exponential tail above the program verify level when considering the cell threshold voltage that ends the program operation. In addition, when a subsequent read operation is considered, a clear exponential tail is shown to appear even below the program verify level. We present a simple analysis that is able to predict the threshold-voltage distribution width accounting for both these enlargement contributions, defining practical formulas for the programming accuracy as a function of the staircase step amplitude and the RTN distribution.
Corporate Risks and Property Insurance: Evidence From the People's Republic of China

Using panel data (1997-1999) for 235 publicly listed companies in the People's Republic of China, this study empirically tests the linkage between corporate risks and the decision to purchase property insurance and its financial extent. To achieve these objectives, we first estimate a probit insurance participation decision model and then a fixed-effects insurance volume decision model with Heckman's sample selection correction. Our results indicate that the managerial decision to purchase property insurance is positively related to company size and insolvency risks. By contrast, the amount of property insurance purchased is positively related to systematic risks but negatively related to insolvency and unsystematic risks and company size. We find that the amount of property insurance used by Chinese companies can also be affected by other factors (e.g., the cash flow constraints). In addition, the decision to purchase property insurance and the financial extent to which it is used varies among Chinese companies according to their geographical location. However, state ownership does not appear to be an important determinant of the purchase of property insurance by Chinese publicly listed companies. Copyright 2003 The Journal of Risk and Insurance.
Economic Growth and Verdoorn's Law in the Spanish Regions, 1962-91

The aim of this paper is to test for the presence of dynamic increasing returns to scale in the Spanish regions between 1962 and 1991.The framework in which this paper is based is the so-called Verdoorn's Law. Tests are carried out for the manufacturing sector, agriculture, construction, services and total value added. The results show substantial increasing returns for manufacturing, services sector and for total value added. The staticdynamic paradox found by McCombie (1982) is also discussed and tested. We find no support for the hypothesis of a Cobb-Douglas function as the underlying technical relationship of the law.
The survival of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium DT104 and total viable counts on beef surfaces at different relative humidities and temperatures

Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate changes in Salmonella and total viable count (TVC) survival on beef carcass surfaces stored for 72 h under different combinations of relative humidity (i.e. RH 75% or 96%) and temperature (5°C or 10°C).
Value-at-Risk Estimation Under Shifting Volatility

Due to the Basel III regulations, Value-at-Risk (VaR) as a risk measure has become increasingly important in Europe for financial institutions. But even though it has become an important risk measure, both internally within company reporting and externally due to legislation, there is no one single way to forecast VaR that has yet proven to be superior. The aim of this paper is to examine different models of VaR estimation on the OMXS30 and FTSE100 indices. I divided the in-sample time periods into one period of low volatility and one period of high volatility. From there, I have calculated VaR with different underlying GARCH models, both symmetrical and asymmetrical. To evaluate the different Value-at-Risk models, the Christoffersen test was used. For the two time series where the in-sample period had high volatility and the out-of-sample period has low volatility, the asymmetric GARCH models seemed to perform best at estimating Value-at-Risk. The converse relationship was found for the time series where the in-sample had low volatility. Furthermore, an assumption of t-distributed returns worked better than the normal distribution. (Less)