Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Works Councils and Unionization: Lessons from South Korea

This study analyzes the impact of effective works councils and unions in large South Korean firms. Following a brief review of economic theory on works councils and the institutional environment of Korean industrial relations, we describe the unique data set used to analyze Korean firm-level labor relations and economic performance. The results of the multivariate analysis show that both effective works councils and unions enhance employee voice on several key personnel practices. In addition, the estimates show that unionization increases wages and reduces turnover, but effective works councils are associated with higher levels of employee satisfaction and somewhat higher productivity. These estimates are consistent with theoretical models that find that carefully designed works councils can enhance employee voice and may increase productivity.
Electron relaxation times due to the deformation-potential interaction of electrons with confined acoustic phonons in a free-standing quantum well.

The confined acoustic phonons in free-standing quantum wells are considered in detail. The Hamiltonian describing interactions of the confined acoustic phonons with electrons in the approximation of the deformation potential and the corresponding electron transition probability density are derived. They are used to analyze the electron scattering times (inverse scattering rate, momentum relaxation time, and the energy relaxation time) in the test-particle approximation as well as in the kinetic approximation. It is shown that the first dilatational mode makes the main contribution to electron scattering in the lowest electron subband. The contribution of the zeroth mode and the second mode are also essential while the modes of higher order are insignificant. Our analysis is performed for both nondegenerate and degenerate electron gases. It is shown that electron scattering by confined acoustic phonons interacting through the deformation potential is substantially suppressed up to the electron energies corresponding to the energy of the first dilatational mode.
Antioxidant Effects of Protocatechuic Acid, Ferulic Acid, and Caffeic Acid in Human Neutrophils Using a Fluorescent Substance

Los neutrofilos humanos estimulados por forbol-miristato-acetato (PMA), un activador de la proteina quinasa C, producen oxigeno activo por la NADPH oxidasa en las estructuras intracelulares. Hemos anadido diacetato de 2´, 7-dihidro dicloro fluoresceina (H2DCFDA), que emite fluorescencia cuando se oxida con las especies de oxigeno activo, a neutrofilos para producir oxigeno activo, a fin de investigar el efecto antioxidante del acido protocatequico, el acido ferulico y el acido cafeico que pertenecen a polifenoles y se distribuyen ampliamente entre las plantas. Particularmente, nos enfocamos en examinar si estas sustancias capturan y eliminan el oxigeno activo dentro o fuera del citoplasma de neutrofilos y si estas sustancias inhiben la NADPH oxidasa. La microscopia de fluorescencia demostro que las estructuras intracelulares positivas a fluorescencia disminuyeron en los neutrofilos mediante la estimulacion de la PMA y exposicion a un antioxidante. La medicion cuantitativa por citometria de flujo revelo que la intensidad de fluorescencia en los neutrofilos, expuestos al acido protocatequico, el acido ferulico, o el acido cafeico, se redujo un 62,9%, 71,4% y 86,1%, respectivamente, en comparacion con las estimuladas por PMA pero no expuestas a un antioxidante. A juzgar desde la microscopia de fluorescencia y la citometria de flujo, estos antioxidantes no tuvieron efectos sobre la morfologia de los neutrofilos. Por otra parte, la intensidad de fluorescencia del oxigeno activo liberado por los neutrofilos se redujeron un 81,4%, 46,7% y 27,4%, respectivamente. El DPI (difenileno-iodonio), un inhibidor especifico de la NADPH oxidasa, inhibio a la enzima en el 92,1% en los neutrofilos estimulados por PMA. El acido protocatequico, el acido ferulico y el acido cafeico inhiben la enzima en un 36,5%, 54,6% y 27,4%, respectivamente. Estos resultados demuestran que el acido protocatequico, el acido ferulico y acido cafeico capturan y eliminan el oxigeno activo, producido por el PMA estimulado por neutrofilos, intracelular y extracelularmente. Ademas, estos antioxidantes inhiben parcialmente la actividad NADPH oxidasa.
The Impact of EU Accession on the Export Competitiveness of the Estonian Food Processing Industry

This article seeks to answer the question whether the investments made by Estonian food processing companies to meet the EU's strict hygiene and structural requirements have enhanced their competitiveness and opened up better export opportunities to the EU-15 market. Enhanced competitiveness means not only larger export volumes but also redirection of exports towards higher value added products. The current study focuses on the milk, meat and fish industries, concluding that in general, foodstuffs exports to the EU-15 have increased, but only the milk processing industry has experienced a shift towards value added consumer products. This shows that the Estonian food industry has not (yet) been able to reap the benefits of the EU market, and further investments in product development and quality, as well as in larger production volumes are necessary.
Comportements comparés des marchés boursiers (1974-1979)

This article begins by pointing out, with regard to the study of stock market behaviour, the dangers of distortion inherent in factor analysis in principal components when applied as a method of grouping. As a follow-on to a preceeding contribution dealing with the period 1959-70 this article develops and clarifies the methodological aspects (dangers of factor analysis, utility of percolation method) within the context of the period 1974-79. The advantage of constituting groups from behaviourally homogenous markets, calculated according to the monthly variations in stock exchange rates of the 13 most important markets, is then analysed. The statistical analysis of links between national stock markets requires prudence as regards the use of notions in which the world stock markets are considered as being a whole, the concept of "economic blocks", indeed the same prudence must be exercised when considering the independence or interdependence of markets and the corresponding generalisations, although the long-term tendency would seem to have been modified since 1974 in a direction favourable to the empirical validation of the concept.
Convergence to the Law of One Price Without Trade Barriers or Currency Fluctuations

Using a panel of 51 prices from 48 cities in the United States we provide an upper bound estimate of the rate of convergence to Purchasing Power Parity. We find convergence rates substantially higher than typically found in cross-country data. We investigate some potentially serious biases induced by i.i. d. measurement errors in the data, and find our estimates to be robust to these potential biases. We also present evidence that convergence occurs faster for larger price differences. Finally, we find that rates of convergence are slower for cities farther apart. However, our estimates suggest that distance alone can only account for a small portion of the much slower convergence rates across national borders.
A speech event detection and localization task for multiroom environments

Domestic environments are particularly challenging for distant speech recognition and audio processing in general. Reverberation, background noise and interfering sources, as well as the propagation of acoustic events across adjacent rooms, critically degrade the performance of standard speech processing algorithms. The DIRHA EU project addresses the development of distant-speech interaction with devices and services within the multiple rooms of typical apartments. A corpus of multichannel acoustic data has been created to represent realistic acoustic scenes, of different degrees of complexity, occurring in such an environment. It includes multichannel simulations based on measured impulse responses and real data collected in the same apartment. A basic but fundamental task of the front-end processing enabling effective ASR is the detection and localization of speech events generated by users, without constraints on their position or orientation within the various rooms. In this paper we describe the acoustic corpus and present a baseline approach to the joint task of speech detection and source localization, using speech related features such as pitch, combined with features derived from spatial coherence.
Public Policy and Emerging Sources of Technology and Technical Information Available to Industry

As technologies grow in complexity, firms often target their internal R&D resources on core competencies and utilize outside sources for supporting knowledge and technology. Where do firms turn to find such resources? This paper reports the perceptions of technology transfer managers in United States manufacturing firms toward federal and university labs and identifies the types of farms that are better positioned to utilize externally available technological resources. Based on replies from research-intensive companies within the United States, the authors find that larger firms with high research and development (R&D) budgets tend to ascribe greater significance to external sources than do smaller ones. Also, companies spending over $500 million in R&D rank universities the most significant external source of knowledge, followed by V S. -based firms, and then foreign firms.
Hippocampal synaptic plasticity is modulated by theta rhythm in the fascia dentata of adult and aged freely behaving rats

A modulatory role for the hippocampal theta rhythm in synaptic plasticity is suggested by the observations that theta occurs during exploratory behaviors, spatial learning is impaired when the theta rhythm is disrupted, and excitation of hippocampal principal cells is phase‐coupled to the theta wave. The theta phase affects the nature of the plasticity induced in urethane‐anesthetized rats and in the carbachol‐treated in vitro slice preparation, but these oscillations are phenomenologically different from natural theta, and the effects of theta phase on plasticity under natural conditions have not been reported. We therefore examined the effects of theta phase on the magnitude of long‐term potentiation (LTP) in awake rats running on a linear track for a food reward. Twelve adult and 10 aged F344 male rats were implanted with a stimulating electrode in the perforant path and a recording electrode in the hilus of the fascia dentata. Stimuli were delivered at the peak or trough of the hilar theta rhythm. In both adult and aged, memory‐impaired rats, LTP lasting at least 48 h was induced when stimuli were delivered at the positive theta peak, whereas LTP was not induced when stimuli were delivered at the negative troughs. Consistent with the finding that the threshold for LTP induction is increased at this synapse in old rats, the magnitude of LTP induced at the peak of theta rhythm was significantly lower in old animals. These data confirm that LTP can be modulated by locomotion‐induced theta, and that this modulation is at least qualitatively preserved across age. Hippocampus 2001;11:647–654. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Positioning Usa in the Chinese Outbound Travel Market

This study attempts to understand the position of the United States against its major non-Asian competitors in Mainland Chinese tourists’ minds. A multistep procedure of destination positioning analysis was designed, which involved a combination of multidimensional scaling, correspondence analysis, and logistic regression analysis. Furthermore, this study connects positioning analysis with market segmentation research, as the perceptual mapping analyses were performed at both aggregate and segment levels. Overall, it was found that the United States holds a unique position that is isolated from all other five destinations. The authors discussed the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings.
Thickness of masticatory mucosa.

BACKGROUND The aim of the present study was to assess thickness of all parts of the masticatory mucosa by using an ultrasonic measuring device. METHODS A total of 40 periodontally healthy subjects, 19 to 30 years old, took part. Thickness of masticatory mucosa was measured at a maximum of 149 sites in each proband. RESULTS Female volunteers had significantly thinner mean masticatory mucosa than males (p<0.01). Mean thickness of facial gingiva ranged between 0.7 mm at canines in the maxilla and central incisors in the mandible and 2.3 mm at 3rd molars in the mandible. In the mandible, thickness of lingual gingiva ranged between 0.9 mm at lateral incisors and 2.3 mm at 3rd molars. Interdental gingiva ranged between 1.0 mm 2.1 mm. With 3 mm or more, on average, palatal masticatory mucosa was thickest in the 3rd molar region and at 2nd premolars at more central locations. 2 regions with comparatively thin palatal mucosa of about 2 mm were identified, namely (i) at central and lateral incisors and (ii) at the prominence of the palatal roots of 1st and 2nd molars. The thickest tissue with more than 4 mm, on average, was observed in the tuberosity and retromolar regions. CONCLUSIONS Considerable intra- as well as interindividual variation of thickness of masticatory mucosa could be observed. According to differences in thickness of facial and interdental gingiva, it appears that lining is also an important function of the gingiva in reducing and smoothing the pronounced convexities of the dentoalveolar, i.e., skeletal, complex.
Gender Issues in Rural Household Economics

Summary Economists working in agricultural development have been concerned to theorise and model the behaviour of households for a wide range of diagnostic and predictive purposes. These models combine two fundamental units in microeconomic analysis: the household and the firm. This paper questions the efficacy of the household model, in explaining the full extent of consumer and producer behaviour in rural areas, pointing to the importance of intra‐household gender relations in determining economic outcomes at the household level. Resume Questions de genre dans l'economie des menages ruraux Les economistes qui travaillent dans le domaine du developpement agricole ont ete soucieux de creer, relativement au comportement des menages, des theories et modeles exploitables tant en pronostics qu'en diagnostics. Ces modeles reunissent deux elements fondamentaux de l'analyse microeconomique: le menage et le lieu de travail. La present article met en question l'aptitude du modele menager a expliquer la portee entiere des comportements des consommateurs et des producteurs dans les regions rurales, et souligne l'importance des rapports intra‐menagers des genres dans la determination du deroulement economique au niveau du menage. Resumen Genero en la Economia de la Unidad Familiar Rural Economistas trabajando en el campo de desarrollo economico‐agricola han dado una gran importancia a la formulacion de teorias sobre el comportamiento de la femilia por un numero de razones de caracter predictivo y diagnostico. Estos modelos combinan dos unidades fundamentales en analisis microeconomico: la familia y la compan ia. Este trabajo questiona la eficacia del modelo de la familia‐unidad cuando es utilizado para interpretar el comportamiento de consumidores y productores en el ambito rural, haciendo incapie en la importancia de las relaciones entre sexos, que tienen lugar dentro de la unidad familiar, en la determinacion de resultados economico al nivel de la familia.
Testing Control, Innovation and Enjoy as External Variables to the Technology Acceptance Model in a North American French Banking Environment

Nowadays banks are enhancing major objectives to challenge competition, competitiveness and growth. To comply with these new objectives they have developed new innovative channels of contacts and distribution of financial services to customers relying on the net: ‘the Internet channel’. Based on the ‘Technology Acceptance Model’ this research will evaluate the impact of external latent variables ‘Control’, ‘Innovation’ and ‘Enjoy’ on the internal TAM model latent variables ‘Ease of Use’, ‘Perceived Usefulness’, ‘Attitude towards Using’ and ‘Intention to Use’ in a North American French Banking Environment. Results show a well structured model for on-line banking financial services that complies pretty well with all major criteria of structural equation modeling norms. The ‘Control’ latent variable has a significant effect on the TAM model latent variables ‘Ease of Use and ‘Attitude towards Using’ while ‘Innovation’ has a sole impact on ‘Intention to Use’. The ‘Enjoy’ latent variable has substantial impacts on ‘Ease of Use’, ‘Attitude towards Using’ and ‘Intention to Use’.
5B-6 Chirp Pulse-Compression Imaging Using a 40-MHz Annular Array

Very-high-frequency (>30 MHz) ultrasound allows fine-resolution imaging at the expense of depth-of-field and acoustic penetration depth. Mechanically scanned annular arrays have demonstrated that they can extend depth-of-field significantly. This study investigates chirp-coded excitation to increase penetration depth. A 40-MHz, five-element annular array with a focal length of 12 mm and a total aperture of 6 mm was excited with a 4-mus linear chirp spanning 15 to 65 MHz. The chirp was optimized based on ex vivo experiments and computer simulations. The chirp was tapered in order to limit pulse- compression axial side-lobe artifacts. To form images, all 25 transmit/receive signal combinations were digitized and post- processed for compression and synthetic focusing. Compression consisted of linearly filtering the signals with the time-reversed excitation chirp modulated by a Dolph-Chebyshev window. A 12-mum wire phantom was scanned to quantify lateral and axial resolutions; results showed that the chirp did not significantly degrade resolution. Experiments with scattering phantoms showed that penetration depth was improved by 1.8 mm (i.e., 25%). Images of mouse embryos, human eye-bank eyes, and low- contrast phantoms also showed marked improvements in image- quality.
Contextual Influence on Diffusion of Market-Oriented Approaches in Post-Soviet Companies

Abstract This paper builds on earlier studies indicating a need for new management approaches in post-Soviet companies. Clearly, contextual factors have been influencing firms' adaptation to the new environment. Therefore, this paper takes a step beyond internal developments and explores how contextual aspects influence adaptation and change in local companies. Contextual influence may need time to be detected. The observations analyzed in this study cover seven years (1997 to 2003) of the transition period involving four companies from Russia and four from the Ukraine. This study's findings indicate that new management approaches need “space” for testing and adaptation in local companies. The development of “space” is linked to employees receiving clear signals from the market. It is suggested that signs of competition, customer demand, and the market's basic cash flow provide legitimacy for new work methods and approaches.
Salivary antibodies as a means of detecting human T cell lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus infection

Of 45 individuals seropositive for human T cell lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus, 45 were found to have detectable salivary antibodies to viral antigens by a radioimmunoprecipitation assay. The results also showed that a Western blot assay for salivary antibodies may be possible. The feasibility of a diagnostic test for human T cell lymphotropic virus type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus not requiring venipuncture is discussed.
Does ISO 9000 series certification matter for the financial performance of ports? Some preliminary findings from Europe

This article investigates the role of ISO 9000 certification on the financial performance of the port authorities. The financial and scale efficiency of 18 European port authorities, some certified and some not, have been reviewed and results derived using data envelopment analysis. The inputs and outputs used in the analysis were selected following the literature and after employing regression analysis on the whole data set and the results reveal that ISO certified ports are more efficient financially than their non-certified competitors. By further using the efficiency slacks from the frontier, an indicative estimation of the magnitude of this inefficiency has been also calculated. The method followed may provide the impetus for a research agenda aiming explicitly on the exact contribution of certification on the financial ‘below the line’ results of the companies.
Employment Systems in Transition? A Comparative Analysis of Britain and Australia

This paper seeks to broaden the scope of internal labour market analysis by investigating changes in the character of company employment systems in a cross-national context. Taking Britain and Australia as the point of reference, the aim is to ascertain whether there are common trends emerging in the character of internal labour markets despite national variations in employment regulation and labour market policy trajectories. Through an analysis of matched organisations in the banking and postal service industries, as well as macro labour market trends, the study finds that comparable forms of employment flexibility, such as part-time working, have developed in both Britain and Australia. At the same time, however, important divergencies have emerged in the structure of pay, largely due to the distinctive impact of national regulatory systems. It is argued that sectorally specific imperatives, such as competitive and technological pressures, and the state and regulatory frameworks, have been simultaneously influential in the restructuring of employment systems in these two countries.
The Process and Practice of Downtown Revitalization

Efforts to revitalize downtown areas have gained momentum over the past few decades. This article reviews the literature on downtown revitalization, presents a model that illustrates the process of decline and the more recent process of revitalization that has occurred in downtown areas over the past half-century, and discusses local policies that can facilitate the process. Revitalization policies and resulting projects in the cities of Jeffersonville, Indiana, and New Albany, Indiana, are used to illustrate components of the model that deal with the revitalization process. Copyright 2006 by The Policy Studies Organization.
Is the rho meson a dynamical gauge boson of hidden local symmetry?

We suggest that the $\ensuremath{\rho}$ meson is a dynamical gauge boson of a hidden local symmetry in the non-linear chiral Lagrangian. The origin of the $\ensuremath{\rho}$-meson mass is understood as the Higgs mechanism of the hidden local symmetry. The low-energy dynamics of $\ensuremath{\rho}$, $\ensuremath{\pi}$, and matter fields, including the Kawarabayashi-Suzuki-Riazuddin-Fayyazuddin relation and $\ensuremath{\rho}$-coupling universality, is consistently described in this new framework. The electromagnetic interaction can be introduced in a unique manner, which gives a successful explanation of $\ensuremath{\rho}$ dominance of the photon coupling.