Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reforming the cotton sector in Sub-Saharan Africa

Cotton production was initially promoted in Sub-Saharan-Africa (SSA) through public monopolies. But most of them have now been abolished through privatization and liberalization. Among the reforms which have been implemented, some were successful while others were not, as appears from this review of six countries at different stages of their reform agenda. In three Francophone countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, and Cote d'Ivoire), reforms were limited. There was no competition on price paid to growers, but the ginning and input sectors have been privatized to various degrees over the last ten years. Institutional reforms went much further in Benin than in Burkina Faso, but performances were no better in Benin. Since the first private ginnery was established in Benin in 1995, production increased faster in Burkina Faso than in Benin. In three Anglophone countries, the cotton sector has been liberalized since 1995 in Zimbabwe, 1994 in Tanzania, and 1985 in Ghana. Zimbabwe was the best performer; but one cotton company held 75 percent of the market since 1999 and price competition has been very limited. In Ghana and Tanzania, price competition for the purchase of seed cotton was much stronger than in Zimbabwe; liberalization gave an initial boost, but the improvement did not last. The use of fertilizers and pesticides fell; yields and production declined, and the seed multiplication system nearly collapsed. In the last seven years, production increased more rapidly in the three Francophone than in the three Anglophone countries (70 percent versus 10 percent). The share of export prices received by growers was higher in Zimbabwe than in Francophone countries in the four years following the liberalization of the cotton sector in Zimbabwe; but it was lower in the four following years.
Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation: Year-by-Year Historical Returns (1926-1974)

In 1964, Lawrence Fisher and James H. Lorie published in this Journal their classic study, "Rates of Return on Investments in Common Stocks. "' In 1968, they extended their study to include all yearly holding period returns from 1926 to 1965.2 These two articles prompted a widespread interest in the long-run behavior of stock market returns. Motivated by their example, we present in this paper year-by-year historical rates of return for five major classes of assets in the United States. In a companion paper forthcoming in this Journal,3 we show how to use the historical data in simulating future return distributions for the same five asset classes. The five asset classes included in this study are (1) common stocks, (2) long-term U.S. government bonds, (3) long-term corporate bonds, (4) U.S. Treasury bills, and (5) consumer goods (inflation). For each asset we present total rates of return which reflect dividend or interest income as well as capital gains or losses. In addition to the five basic series listed above, we present seven derived series. These derived series represent the component parts of asset returns. They include real (inflation-adjusted) returns for the first four basic series. They also include a series measuring the net return from investing in common stocks rather than bills, the net return from investing in long-term government bonds rather than bills, and the net return fromh investing in long-term corporate bonds rather than long-term government bonds.
The Arab Revolutions for Dignity

ABSTRACT Before the historic revolts transforming the Arab world today, it was an article of faith that radical Islamist revolutionaries would spearhead any challenge to the dictatorships that rule the Arab world. The millions of prodemocracy protesters braving riot squads and regime thugs have demolished such preconceptions. Although much can still go wrong, the clamor for freedom and justice that started in the small town of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia and exploded in Liberation Square in Cairo has shown that the impossible can happen. The Islamist boogeyman has neither engineered the revolutions for dignity and freedom nor dominated them. The Obama administration has so far demonstrated a new realism that realizes the failures of the old foreign policy model that saw Arab tyrants as guarantors of America's interests in the region. The temptation to contain the revolutionary fervor spreading through the region still exists within the administration, but there is also a growing realization that the time has come for redefining America's role in the Middle East.
The market valuation of initial public offerings in Hong Kong

This paper investigates the determinants for the initial market valuation of unseasoned offerings of common stock in Hong Kong over the period 1980–90. Within this investigation, signalling arguments based upon the level of equity retained by the pre-offering entrepreneurs in the offerings, the levels of planned capital expenditures in the offering firms, the levels of debt in the offering firms, the level of underpricing in the offerings and the quality (prestige) of the advising agents chosen in the offerings figure prominently. Empirical analysis reveals significant positive associations between the market valuation (V1) of the offering firms and variables for the percentage of equity retained (a) in the offerings and the percentage of underpricing (UND). However, relatively little support is indicated for the remaining signalling arguments considered. Further analysis is then undertaken for the signalling arguments considered by focusing on further measures of insider commitment and on any interaction.
Effects of concanavalin A and Fc fragments of IgG on human monocyte cAMP content: modulation of monocyte secretory function by cAMP.

Exposure of human monocytes in monolayer culture to concanavalin A (Con A) or Fc fragments of IgG results in decreased levels of lysozyme, acid phosphatase and the second component of complement (C2), but increased levels of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in the culture medium. Indomethacin blocked the effect of Con A and Fc fragments on PGE2 levels but did not alter the effects on the other secretory products. The addition of Con A to the monocyte cultures resulted in increased cAMP levels in short (<20 min) and in long term incubations (24 hr). Long term exposure to the Fc fragments of IgG also resulted in elevated levels of cAMP. In long term cultures, elevation of cAMP levels by Fc fragments and Con A may in part be mediated by stimulation of endogenous prostaglandin production, since addition of indomethacin resulted in a return of cAMP towards basal levels. The addition of D-L isoproterenol, IBMX, or exogenous PGE2, reagents that increase cAMP content, or addition of Dibutyryl 3′, 5′ adenosine monophosphate (DBcAMP) to cultures resulted in a dose-dependent inhibition of secretion of acid phosphatase, lysozyme and C2. These findings suggest that certain secretory responses of human monocytes are reduced by agents which increase cAMP levels. These changes may be related to direct effects on adenylate cyclase stimulation or indirect effects on the release of other products which effect cAMP generation. These changes in cAMP content may in part be responsible for the reduced secretory response.
Price Cycles and Asymmetric Price Transmission in the U.S. Pork Market

Economists have proposed several plausible explanations for observed price transmission asymmetries in commodity markets. Unfortunately, the econometric methods commonly used in such studies cannot empirically distinguish pricing behavior under the competing theories. We argue that the theories may be classified by firm responses to high- and low-frequency price cycles and use Engle's band spectrum regression to test the symmetry of high- and low-frequency cycles in weekly pork prices. The findings indicate that changes in wholesale prices are asymmetrically transmitted to retail prices in relatively low-frequency cycles, which does not support search costs and other high-frequency explanations. Conversely, wholesale pork prices asymmetrically adjust to changes in farm prices at all frequencies. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.
Corporate elite characteristics and firm's internationalization: CEO-level and TMT-level roles

This study attempts resolution of certain ambiguities of the corporate elite – Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Top Management Team (TMT) – effect on corporate internationalization strategy. This work hypothesized that curvilinear relationship exists between CEO position tenure, TMT size, and TMT tenure heterogeneity and a firm's internationalization, by combining previous upper echelon theory and processing international business school perspective. Our detailed empirical findings indicate that CEO and TMT characteristics show a nonlinear relationship, based on 165 samples of Taiwanese firms operating in a technologically intensive industry. An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between CEO position tenure and TMT size regarding a firm's internationalization. These associations are an inverted U-shape, when internationalization level facing TMT tenure heterogeneity is accounted for.
Relative price changes and the growth of the public sector

Policy recommendations to reduce the growth of public spending are haunted by the inevitability of two factors. First Wagner's law, the hypothesis that with economic development an increasing share of GDP is devoted to public spending, and secondly, Baumol's effect, that as economies develop, public sector prices rise faster than prices in the general economy. Neither of these hypotheses has adequately been tested, largely because consistent public sector prices are unavailable for most developing countries. This paper proposes that the unavailability of consistent public sector price deflators can be overcome by econometrically estimating these series with the help of data on public spending and the widely available GDP deflator. This paper presents an anaylsis of time series data from 71 countries. The paper finds that although data support Wagner's law in the majority of developing countries, the degree of support varies with the level of development. Similarly, the average income elasticity of public spending drops from the low income economies through to the industrial economies. In the long run, the size of the public sector tapers off as the economies develop.
Perceptions and experiences of employer engagement amongst university staff : a case study

The UK government and universities have stepped up calls for engagement with employers in response to the economic downturn and partial withdrawal of public funding. In this context, universities‘ commitment to employer engagement at a corporate policy level is clear. But how well is the concept of employer engagement understood by university staff expected to carry it out? This case study (n=96) of one post-1992 university indicates that there is a substantial level of uncertainty, self-reported ignorance, incomplete understandings and even outright resistance to the concept of employer engagement. Only a minority of respondents to a mixed methods web-based survey felt they understood the context around calls for employer engagement. On the positive side, a slim majority of respondents were able to offer a definition that accurately accounted for at least one aspect of employer engagement at some level. Also, a clear majority of respondents had some prior experience with employer engagement. This paper argues that the lack of shared understanding around this concept comprises a significant barrier to its adoption by university staff. However, it is argued that this barrier can be overcome.
Tourism agents' attitudes on internet adoption: an analysis from Greece

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to adopt a total view on the issue of usage and attitude of travel agents towards internet technology. Many aspects are being investigated, such as agents' attitudes towards internet applications, the current state of internet use, the relative maturity of the web sites, and internet marketing by Greek tourist agencies.Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was conducted. Greek Travel Pages (GTP), notified travel agents via e‐mail sent about the online questionnaire web site. Travel agents willing to participate visited a tailor made web site replied to the questionnaire and the data were recorded to a database. A total of 117 questionnaires were answered. The questionnaire used included five sections and questions were adopted from previous researches.Findings – Facilitation of global marketing and completion of online services are the most important reasons for using internet practices according to tourism agents. Travel agencies generally do not use intern.
Relative Importance of Sex, Pre-Starvation Body Mass and Structural Body Size in the Determination of Exceptional Starvation Resistance of Anchomenus dorsalis (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

In nature, almost all animals have to cope with periods of food shortage during their lifetimes. Starvation risks are especially high for carnivorous predatory species, which often experience long intervals between stochastic prey capturing events. A laboratory experiment using the common predatory carabid beetle Anchomenus dorsalis revealed an exceptional level of starvation resistance in this species: males survived up to 137 days and females up to 218 days without food at 20°C. Individual starvation resistance was strongly positively affected by pre-starvation body mass but only slightly by beetle structural body size per se. Females outperformed males even when the effect of gender was corrected for the effects of structural body size and pre-starvation body mass. The better performance of females compared to males and of beetles with higher relative pre-starvation body mass could be linked to higher fat content and lean dry mass before starvation, followed by a greater decrease in both during starvation. There was also a difference between the sexes in the extent of body mass changes both during ad libitum feeding and following starvation; the body masses of females fluctuated more compared to males. This study stresses the need to distinguish between body mass and structural body size when investigating the ecological and evolutionary consequences of body size. Investigation of the net effects of body size and sex is necessary to disentangle the causes of differences in individual performances in studies of species with significant sexual size dimorphism.
Molecular and cell biology of the sarcoglycan complex

The original sarcoglycan (SG) complex has four subunits and comprises a subcomplex of the dystrophin–dystrophin‐associated protein complex. Each SG gene has been shown to be responsible for limb‐girdle muscular dystrophy, called sarcoglycanopathy (SGP). In this review, we detail the characteristics of the SG subunits, and the mechanism of the formation of the SG complex and various molecules associated with this complex. We discuss the molecular mechanisms of SGP based on studies mostly using SGP animal models. In addition, we describe other SG molecules, ϵ‐ and ζ‐SGs, with special reference to their expression and roles in vascular smooth muscle, which are currently in dispute. We further consider the maternally imprinted nature of the ϵ‐SG gene. Finally, we stress that the SG complex cannot work by itself and works in a larger complex system, called the transverse fixation system, which forms an array of molecules responsible for various muscular dystrophies. Muscle Nerve, 2005
Exploration of variations of unrestricted blocking for description logics

Description logics are a family of logics that provide formalisms for representing and reasoning about knowledge, based on describing concepts, in a structured and formally well-understood way. They provide the logical foundation for the web ontology language (OWL), which increased awareness of them recently. The most popular techniques for decision procedures for description logics are tableau reasoning methods, which have a long tradition and are well established in automated reasoning.This thesis investigates the possibility of finding a general and optimised blocking mechanism for description logics with the finite model property. It suggests that, while the high branching factor for unrestricted blocking reduces its performance, suitable control of the application of the blocking rule can make the performance acceptable while preserving termination. This claim is supported by experiments that compare the performance of two sample controlled versions of unrestricted blocking. In order to show the generality and power of controlled versions of unrestricted blocking, it is shown how some of the mainstream and most successful standard blocking mechanisms can be approximated as restricted forms of unrestricted blocking. These approximations have the advantage of always being sound compared to their standard versions, which are known to be sound only for some logics.Here, a variation of unrestricted blocking which can ensure strong termination is also introduced. This is done through introducing a new rule that uses the inequality expressions introduced by the blocking rule. The weak termination property of unrestricted blocking is one of its weak points which by this variant of blocking can be addressed.The work presented in this thesis should be of value to people who are working on generalising different aspects of reasoning methods. As blocking plays a critical role in termination of tableau provers, exploration of different variations of unrestricted blocking introduced here may be also of interest for the artificial intelligence researcher.
Physico-Chemical and Bacteriological Investigation on the River Cauvery of Kollegal Stretch in Karnataka

Cauvery River is the major river system of south India was studied for 19 prime physicochemical and 2 bacteriological parameters at six locations of the Kollegal stretch, for a period of Two years (2006–2008) at monthly intervals. Over the years of time, river has been subjected to human interference regularly and water quality was to be getting deteriorated profoundly. Major anthropogenic activities practiced in and around the stretch: agriculture, abstraction of water for irrigation and drinking, washing cloths and utensils, discharging of sewage waste, sand dredging, boating, fishing, open defecation and religious ritual activities along the stretch were generating serious threat to the biota of the river by altering the physicochemical and biological concentration of the river system. The seasonal and yearly trends were discussed to comprehend anthropogenic interferences on the river stretch. Correlation analysis was also been tried in between physico-chemical parameters. The pH, Conductance, Alkalinity and Hardness levels indicate the moderate quality of water. The values of DO, BOD and COD levels indicate the absence of major organic pollution sources. Seasonal and yearly averages of plant nutrients like phosphate, nitrates, potassium and also sulphates at drain out falls and mixing zones, were not showing any significant variation in their concentration indicate no sign of problems like eutrophication, which is generally raise due to agricultural and sewage wastes. The other possibility is that since there are no major industries in the project area, the major source of organic pollutants is only the domestic source. Population density spread over sparsely located villages like Dasanapura and Harle certainly contributes towards total and fecal coliforms as excreta of the villagers due to lack of toilets in their houses. Thus present study concludes that river water was not polluted; all results are within permissible limit when compared with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and National River water quality standards. DOI: 10.3126/kuset.v6i1. 3310 Kathmandu University Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Vol.6(1) 2010, pp50-59
Artery‐to‐artery embolism causing stroke in the posterior circulation

The features of strokes caused by embolism from the vertebral artery (VA) to the posterior cerebral artery (PCA) are reported in 12 patients (“local” or “artery-to-artery embolism”). Occipital infarction occurred with prominent, fluctuating brainstem ischemic symptoms in six; with minor, transient brainstem symptoms in five; and with basilar artery occlusion in one. Visual field abnormalities were found on initial examination in eight and several days after the onset of brainstem symptoms in four. Radiographic studies in 11 identified extracranial (5 patients) or intracranial (3 patients) VA disease, or occlusion of both segments (3 patients) as sources of emboli to the PCA. Mural thrombus in the VA or embolic occlusion of distal branches of the PCA was visualized in five.
Issue Ownership and Presidential Campaigning, 1952–2000

The problems facing the country and the issues of concern to the voters shape the competitive environment of an election. Democrats "own" some issues; Republicans "own" others. Democrats have an electoral advantage when problems and issues associated with social welfare and intergroup relationships are salient. Republicans have an advantage when issues related to taxes, spending, and the size of government are high on the public agenda. Performance issues, such as the conduct of government officials, the state of the economy, or the country's status and security among other nations, are not automatically owned by a single party, but can provide an advantage to a candidate when events, official behavior, and policy successes and failures allow the candidate to claim credit for good times or blame the opposition for bad times. Thus, candidates campaign on issues that confer an advantage in order to prime their salience in the decisional calculus of the voters. '
Rational Choice and Turnout

Turning out to vote is the most common and important act of political participation in any democracy. Voting is also less well understood and explained empirically than other political acts engaged in regularly by citizens. Turnout, however, presents a special problem for rational choice theories of politics, for it is taken to be the paradigmatic example of the problem of collective action, in which, although all may benefit from voting, it is rarely in the individual's self-interest to vote. This paper begins by examining the problem of explaining turnout. A basic form of rational choice models of turnout is developed-basic in the sense that it is common to all such models. This basic model is shown to be incomplete, and the two most important models, the calculus of voting and the minimax regret model, are illustrated as alternative ways to complete this basic model, along with mention of game-theoretic models. Their strengths and weaknesses are then assessed. The remainder of the paper argues that rational choice accounts of turnout are possible. The first step is to argue that turnout is not an especially problematic version of the collective action problem because it is, for many, a low cost, low (expected) benefit decision. A "strategic politicians" account of turnout and campaigns is examined next. A reinterpretation of the intrinsic benefits of voting is then considered and is used to examine the most important substantive problem in the turnout literature, its decline. These steps, I argue, make theories of ordinary political decisions at once both more political and more integrated into the politics of the larger system.
World Population Policies: Their Origin, Evolution, and Impact

General Introduction. - Chapter 1: World Population Trends and Issues. - Chapter 2: Population Policies Framework. - Chapter 3: First Public Health and Population Program. - Chapter 4: Internationalization of Population Issues. - Chapter 5: Population Policies in Developing Countries. - Chapter 6: Population Policies in Developed Countries. - Chapter 7: Effectiveness of Population Policies. - Chapter 8: Future Prospects for Population Policies. - General Conclusion. - Glossary. - References. - Index.