Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effective services to support children in special circumstances.

BACKGROUND Children living in special circumstances, defined as those who are at risk of achieving poorer outcomes than their peers, have a particular need of good quality, accessible services to promote their health and well-being, yet may be least likely to receive them. AIMS This review considers the evidence for effective services to support children living in five kinds of special circumstances: (1) those at risk of offending; (2) teenage parents; (3) children whose parents have drug, alcohol or mental health problems; (4) children living with domestic violence; and (5) children who have been abused or neglected. In practice, there is often considerable overlap between these groups, and many children face multiple disadvantage. The review also aims to identify effective strategies for making support services more accessible to hard-to-reach groups. METHODS Relevant literature was identified through searches of databases and websites, and consultation with experts. Given the broad scope of the topic, the aim was to provide an overview of best evidence rather than to undertake a systematic review. RESULTS Similar themes underpin the most promising approaches to supporting children in special circumstances. These include: (1) a holistic, multi-agency approach addressing the needs of the whole child rather than compartmentalising children's social, educational, health and care needs; (2) the importance of links between adults' and children's services so that children who are in need because of their parents' circumstances can be identified and supported; and (3) the value of providing children in special circumstances with intensive, targeted support within a framework of universal provision. CONCLUSIONS Overall, there is a lack of well-designed evaluations of the effectiveness of UK services and programmes for children in special circumstances. The existing evidence base would be strengthened by the development of better outcome measures, by exploring the characteristics of effective services from the perspective of different stakeholders (including children and young people themselves) and by extending the current problem-oriented approach to consider the factors that promote resilience and coping.
Roles for the Drs2p–Cdc50p Complex in Protein Transport and Phosphatidylserine Asymmetry of the Yeast Plasma Membrane

Drs2p, a P‐type adenosine triphosphatase required for a phosphatidylserine (PS) flippase activity in the yeast trans Golgi network (TGN), was first implicated in protein trafficking by a screen for mutations synthetically lethal with arf1 (swa). Here, we show that SWA4 is allelic to CDC50, encoding a membrane protein previously shown to chaperone Drs2p from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi complex. We find that cdc50Δ exhibits the same clathrin‐deficient phenotypes as drs2Δ, including delayed transport of carboxypeptidase Y to the vacuole, mislocalization of resident TGN enzymes and the accumulation of aberrant membrane structures. These trafficking defects precede appearance of cell polarity defects in cdc50Δ, suggesting that the latter are a secondary consequence of disrupting Golgi function. Involvement of Drs2p–Cdc50p in PS translocation suggests a role in restricting PS to the cytosolic leaflet of the Golgi and plasma membrane. Annexin V binding and papuamide B hypersensitivity indicate that drs2Δ or cdc50Δ causes a loss of plasma membrane PS asymmetry. However, clathrin and other endocytosis null mutants also exhibit a comparable loss of PS asymmetry, and studies with drs2‐ts and clathrin (chc1‐ts) conditional mutants suggest that loss of plasma membrane asymmetry is a secondary consequence of disrupting protein trafficking.
The Future of Development Assistance: Common Pools and International Public Goods

This essay focuses on the future of multilateral development assistance, in light of the lessons of aid effectiveness in the last 50 years and bearing in mind emerging development issues. It examines the rationale for multilateral forms of assistance, going back to the Bretton Woods conference, and argues that the multilateral approach has been successful in some areas, such as pooling of lending risks, but not in others, such as controlling free-rider problems through common conditionality. For emerging development issues, particularly those of international public goods, multilateralism seems to be the logical venue for co-ordination. However, the free-rider problems of the past will be present even more strongly in this arena and these need to be taken into account in designing institutions of the future. The essay concludes by suggesting reform of the multilateral assistance system to make it a more effective global instrument for dealing with the development problems of the next century.
International property consultants and the transformation of local markets

The paper presents the findings of a case-study research on the role of British property consultants in consolidating a transnational market for property in Europe. It examines comparatively the incorporation of Madrid and Milan into networks of transnational property investment and development and seeks to clarify the relationship between the expansion strategies of British firms and changes in property market structures in both cities. The focus is on the dynamic of the relationship between the consultancy firms and the different legal, institutional and cultural contexts of those property markets. The paper looks at the implications of that relationship for the firms and the markets, and at the role of the firms' strategies in bringing about market structures, practices and cultures compatible with the types of interest they mediate. The paper suggests that the structures and dynamics of the two markets have set a number of reasonably well-defined routes of entry for the consultancy firms, shaped by the different response of the institutional, cultural, economic environments of each city to similar pressures towards market internationalization. These alternative possibilities of insertion into the evolving relations of provision of commercial property have conditioned how firms have developed in the markets and how they have related to processes of market change.
Why There Was No ‘Marshall Plan’ for Eastern Europe and Why This Still Matters

Starting with an overview of the design and impact of the original Marshall Plan, this article explores the question of why the EC/EU failed to set in motion a similar project for Eastern Europe—purposefully targeted massive foreign aid conditioned upon cooperation among the recipient countries that could have encouraged productive investment and regional integration. Three elements of the Marshall Plan played a crucial role in the making of post-war economic miracle in Western Europe—regional integration that laid the basis for self-sustaining growth, a developmental state, and a balance between free market policies and social cohesion. It was the absence of these three elements from the Western strategy for Eastern Europe that made the latter relapse to its peripheral status. Indeed, precisely the opposite pattern was transplanted onto this region—economic fragmentation, the progressive withdrawal of the state from various redistributive and social functions thus effectively limiting its role to that of a guardian of the free market, and an organization of social forces that favoured economic liberalism at the expense of social cohesion. Salient features of the contemporary Eastern European capitalism are high share of foreign ownership of industrial and financial assets, large and growing dependence on capital imports, and trade dependence.
Setting up a free school: successful proposers’ experiences

The 2010 Academies Act was significant in introducing Free Schools to the English education system. Opening up funding to new, non-profit entrants on the basis of demand, the policy has aroused support and controversy on political, philosophical and practical educational grounds with implications for social justice in terms of equity and freedom. Given the ostensible quality and empowerment goals of the enacted new (limited) freedoms, the extent of activity towards them is evaluated alongside the Department for Education application procedure’s fitness for purpose. Opinions and experiences of free school proposers were gathered through four in-depth interviews and a wider questionnaire yielding data from 19 of 55 successful proposers opening schools in September 2012. Wider policy issues are considered, notably concerning concepts of social justice. While successful applicants appeared to meet the policy’s demand and educational quality prerequisites, procedural uncertainties and inefficiencies hampered their progress. Furthermore, political and philosophical opposition and practical limits to time, expertise and resources have constrained the policy’s systemic impact. Regarding social justice, whether Free Schools enhance choice or reduce equity remains largely a moot point given the obstacles to system-wide change.
Human capital, technological progress and the demographic transition

We emphasize the importance to consider components of population growth — fertility and mortality ‐ separately, when modeling the mutual interaction between population and economic growth. Our model implies that two countries with the same population growth will not converge towards the same level of per capita income. The country with the lower level of birth and death rates will be better off in the long run. Introducing a spill over effect of average human capital on total productivity our model implies multiple equilibria as illustrated in Becker el al. (1990) and Strulik (1999). Besides the existence of a low and high level equilibrium ‐ as characterized by low and high levels of per capita output respectively ‐ we show the existence of multiple low level (Malthusian) equilibria. Initial conditions and parameters of technological progress and human capital investment determine whether an economy is capable to escape the low level equilibrium trap and to enjoy sustained economic growth.
Towards understanding the links between health literacy and physical health.

OBJECTIVE Low health literacy predicts poor health, but the underpinnings of the associations are yet to be understood. This study tested the associations between health literacy and three objective health outcomes in older people and investigated the extent to which general (not health-related) cognition and earlier life-course factors such as childhood cognitive ability, educational level and occupational class accounted for these associations. METHOD Participants were 730 community-dwelling older people (350 women; mean age 72.50 years, SD = 0.71). Physical fitness (defined by walk time, lung function, and grip strength), body mass index, and count of natural teeth were used as health outcomes. Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM), Shortened Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (S-TOFHLA), and Newest Vital Sign (NVS) were used to measure health literacy. Age 11 and concurrent general cognitive ability, educational level, and occupational social class were used as covariates. RESULTS Lower REALM, S-TOFHLA and NVS scores were associated with worse scores on all health outcomes (β = .09 to .17). However, cognitive ability in old age and childhood and educational and occupational levels accounted for the majority of these associations: After adjusting for these covariates, only physical fitness was significantly associated with REALM and S-TOFHLA (β = .06 and .11). CONCLUSIONS Low health literacy was associated with poorer health largely because it reflected general cognitive ability, educational and/or occupational levels. These variables plays some role in health beyond their association with the reading and numeracy skills captured by common health literacy measures.
Exercise and sleep.

This paper reviews the literature on the association between exercise and sleep. The epidemiological and experimental evidence for whether or not acute and chronic exercise promote sleep is discussed, as well as moderating factors and agendas for future directions of study. The expectation that exercise will benefit sleep can partly be attributed to traditional hypotheses that sleep serves energy conservation, body restoration or thermoregulatory functions, all of which have guided much of the research in this field. Exercise is a complex activity that can be beneficial to general well-being but may also stress the body. Differences in the exercise protocols studied (e.g. aerobic or anaerobic, intensity, duration) and interactions between individual characteristics (e.g. fitness, age and gender) cloud the current experimental evidence supporting a sleep-enhancing effect of exercise. In addition, the tendency to study changes in small groups of good sleepers may also underestimate the efficacy of exercise for promoting sleep. Athough only moderate effect sizes have been noted, meta-analytical techniques have shown that exercise increased total sleep time and delayed REM sleep onset (10 min), increased slow-wave sleep (SWS) and reduced REM sleep (2-5 min). The sleep-promoting efficacy of exercise in normal and clinical populations has yet to be established empirically.
Addressing prediabetes in childhood obesity treatment programs: support from research and current practice.

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and prediabetes have increased in prevalence among overweight and obese children, with significant implications for long-term health. There is little published evidence on the best approaches to care of prediabetes among overweight youth or the current practices used across pediatric weight management programs. METHODS This article reviews the literature and summarizes current practices for screening, diagnosis, and treatment of prediabetes at childhood obesity treatment centers. Findings regarding current practice were based on responses to an online survey from 28 pediatric weight management programs at 25 children's hospitals in 2012. Based on the literature reviewed, and empiric data, consensus support statements on prediabetes care and T2DM prevention were developed among representatives of these 25 children's hospitals' obesity clinics. RESULTS The evidence reviewed demonstrates that current T2DM and prediabetes diagnostic parameters are derived from adult-based studies with little understanding of clinical outcomes among youth. Very limited evidence exists on preventing progression of prediabetes. Some evidence suggests that a significant proportion of obese youth with prediabetes will revert to normoglycemia without pharmacological management. Evidence supports lifestyle modification for children with prediabetes, but further study of specific lifestyle changes and pharmacological treatments is needed. CONCLUSION Evidence to guide management of prediabetes in children is limited. Current practice patterns of pediatric weight management programs show areas of variability in practice, reflecting the limited evidence base. More research is needed to guide clinical care for overweight youth with prediabetes.
FinFET technology for analog and RF circuits

FinFET technology presents a competitive alternative to planar CMOS as it features a better control of the short channel effects. This results in improved digital and analog performances. The radio-frequency (RF) behavior is however affected by a large level of parasitics. In this paper, we explain how technological options and device design affect the FinFET performance. In addition, the challenges and opportunities for both wideband modeling and the design of analog and RF circuits are identified and discussed.
Drinking age laws and highway mortality rates: cause and effect

This paper presents estimates of the effects of the drinking age and beer taxes on youth motor vehicle mortality. A simultaneous equation model is used and the resu lts show that the drinking age is a function of mortality rates. The results also show that for eighteen to twenty year-old drivers, an in crease in the drinking age to twenty-one, which is approximately 8 pe rcent, would reduce mortality by approximately 18 percent. Also a 100 percent increase in the real beer tax, which is approximately $1.50 per case, would reduce highway mortality by about 27 percent. Copyright 1987 by Oxford University Press.
DiVE into Alcohol: A Biochemical Immersive Experience

We present DiVE into Alcohol, a virtual reality (VR) program that can be used in chemistry education at the high school and college level, both as an immersive experience, or as a web-based program. The program is presented in the context of an engaging topic--the oxidation of alcohol based on genetic differences in metabolism within the liver cell. The user follows alcohol molecules through the body to the liver and into the enzyme active site where the alcohol is oxidized. A gaming format allows the user to choose molecules and orient them in 3D space to enable the oxidation reaction. Interactivity also includes choices of different forms of the enzyme based on the genetically-coded structure and rates of oxidation that lead to intoxication vs sickness. DiVE into Alcohol was constructed with the use of a variety of software that provide enzyme structure (¿ pdb¿ files, MolProbity, 3D Kinemage), modeling (Autodesk Maya¿), and VR technology (3DVIA VirTools¿) .
In Search of Conclusive Evidence: How to Test for Adjustment to Target Capital Structure

Simulation experiments show that both partial-adjustment and debt-equity choice models can generate spuriously significant estimates that are consistent with the hypothesis that firms have target debt ratios to which they periodically adjust. Regressions relying on full-sample fixed effects models of target leverage, in particular, produce results severely biased in favor of the target-adjustment hypothesis. Various target proxies and modifications to the standard methodologies are examined to identify partial-adjustment and debt-equity choice models that have power to reject the target-adjustment hypothesis. The resulting estimates of the speed of adjustment are in the range of five-eight percent per year.
Moving object tracking for aerial video coding using linear motion prediction and block matching

Region of Interest (ROI) coding is a common method for data reduction in scenarios where bandwidth is crucial like in aerial video surveillance from Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In order to save bits, non-ROI areas are typically reduced in quality or not transmitted at all and thus, an accurate ROI classification is mandatory. Moving objects (MOs) are often considered as ROIs and consequently have to be accurately detected onboard. However, common detection approaches either rely on computationally demanding processing which is not available at small UAVs with only limited energy, are model based or cannot provide a sufficient detection precision. While not detected MOs lead to a degraded representation at the decoder, erroneously detected MOs lead to an unnecessary high bit rate. We tackle all these issues utilizing an efficient object proposal computation. Based on a dual-threshold strategy applied to image differences, we propose a linear prediction-supported block matcher. Compared to a simple thresholding approach, it shows superior performance and is robust to threshold tuning. By integrating superpixels into the framework, we further recover the complete shape of the MOs. Finally, an efficient tracking-by-detection system is employed to produce accurate detections from the proposals, thereby recovering missed MOs and denying wrong proposals, making the coding more efficient. We achieve an improved detection precision of up to 76 % compared to a simple difference image-based approach. By using a general ROI coding framework we reduce the bit rate of our test set by 70 % compared to common HEVC.
The role of spillovers in R&D network formation

The aim of this paper is to analyze the formation of R&D networks in a setting where spillovers between partners may be imperfect, due to knowledge tacitness, and partner-specific, depending on firms’ technological specializations. We find that firms have strong incentives to use the network to gain a competitive advantage and create (ex post) asymmetries. In the three firms case, in which one firm has unique technological capabilities, this firm gains a prominent position in the network, by forming an exclusive alliance and forcing into a weak position the firm outside the network. From a normative point of view, we find that the spillover rates do matter in determining the network that is optimal from the social point of view, and this network structure can be denser than the stable networks. In this case, the optimal policy would consist in active support to R&D cooperation.
The Market for External Audit Services in the Public Sector: An Empirical Analysis of NHS Trusts

This study investigates the market for audit services in the UK National Health Service (NHS). The market has a number of interesting features, including the presence of the Audit Commission as a regulator, appointer and provider of audit services. Following a theoretical overview of audit pricing in the NHS, evidence is provided on the behaviour of private sector auditors in an environment where audit risk characteristics differ from the private sector. The research also investigates, for the first time in the public sector, the relationship between audit fees and non-audit (consultancy) fees. Comparisons are also drawn between audit fees in the public and private sectors in an analysis of audit fees by industry. Despite some key similarities, the study shows that a number of differences exist between private and public sector audit fee models. In particular, we find no evidence of Big 6 (or mid-tier) auditor premiums, but we do find a significant negative relationship between audit and consultancy fees providing support for the 'knowledge spill-over' hypothesis. In addition, the fees charged to trusts appear significantly lower than their private sector counterparts, despite trust auditors having additional duties to perform. Possible explanations for this finding are offered in the paper. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.
Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?

This report surveys the research in OECD countries on intergenerational mobility – i.e. the extent to which key characteristics and life experiences of individuals differ from those of their parents. A number of findings emerge: Intergenerational earnings mobility varies significantly across countries; Education is a major contributor to intergenerational income mobility and educational differences tend to persist across generations; Evidence of intergenerational immobility extends to other outcomes; Early and sustained investment in children and families can help. Ce rapport examine la recherche consacree a la mobilite entre generations dans des pays de l'OCDE – autrement dit, la mesure dans laquelle les caracteristiques cles et les experiences principales de la vie des individus different de celles de leurs parents. Un certain nombre de resultats emergent : la mobilite entre generations en termes de revenus varie de maniere significative d’un pays a l’autre; l'education est un composant essentiel de la mobilite intergenerationnelle en termes de revenus et les differences educatives tendent a persister a travers les generations; l'immobilite entre generations s'etend a d'autres domaines; des investissements soutenus qui interviennent tot dans la vie des enfants et de leurs familles peuvent aider a combattre l'immobilite intergenerationnelle.