Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Investigation on the Relationship between Government Size and Unemployment Rate: Evidence from OECD Countries

It is widely accepted that size of government is an important determinant of labor market performance. Therefore, understanding the effects of government size on employment is both empirically and theoretically critical. Recent empirical studies indicate that the size of government is inversely related to labor market performance. This study examines the relationship between government size and unemployment rate for 17 OECD countries over the period of 1990-2007 using panel cointegration analysis. The empirical findings indicate a statistically significant relationship between size of government and unemployment rates.
Learning =Working: Professional Engagement in Academic Curricula

This paper will explore the importance of establishing links between the teaching and learning that takes place within the structure of a University and the realities of professional practice. It will also critically appraise the current opportunities for professional engagement offered to students and surveys possible alternatives. The paper describes and explores the development of a collaborative relationship between the staff and students of the Bachelor of Multimedia at Monash University and a commercial enterprise, mondostudios.com, as an exemplar of the reciprocal benefits offered by such a unique relationship.
[The effects of perioperative continuous administration of mivazerol on early postoperative hemodynamics and plasma catecholamines after major surgery].

OBJECTIVE During and after surgical procedures a strong activation of the sympatho-adrenergic system is common with correlation to adverse cardiac outcome. Several drugs (alpha 2-adrenoceptor-agonists, beta blockers) are discussed to prevent this reaction. The new alpha 2-adrenoceptor-agonist mivazerol with marked specificity for alpha 2-adrenergic receptors may be suitable for this indication. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of perioperative continuous administration of mivazerol on plasma catecholamines, body temperature and calculated haemodynamic parameters in the early postoperative period in cardiac risk patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery. METHODS 36 patients with known coronary heart disease or risk factors for coronary heart disease scheduled for elective abdominal or vascular surgery were included in the study. Patients received either mivazerol (n = 18) or placebo (n = 18) [initial dose 4 micrograms kg-1 for 10 minutes before induction of anaesthesia, followed by a continuous infusion of 1.5 micrograms kg-1 h-1 intraoperatively and for as long as 72 h after surgery] in a double-blinded, randomized manner. Blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature were measured every 10 minutes until 240 minutes after arrival at the ICU. During 240 minutes after arrival at the ICU measured parameters (CVP, PAP, PCWP, SaO2, SvO2, CO), calculated parameters (CI, SVR, PVR, VO2) and plasma catecholamines were measured at defined time intervalls. RESULTS The plasma concentrations of epinephrine and norepinephrine and the heart rate were significantly lower in the mivazerol group in the study period. Regarding blood pressure and body temperature there were no differences between the groups. At some measuring points preload was higher in the mivazerol group, but there were no differences between the groups for measured (SaO2, SvO2, CO) and calculated (CI, SVR, PVR, VO2) cardiorespiratory parameters. The incidence of shivering, nausea and vomiting were similar in both groups. CONCLUSION Continuous, perioperative administration of mivazerol decreased the heart rate and the plasma catecholamines in the early postoperative period, but did not affect blood pressure, body temperature and the incidence of shivering. There were also no effects of mivazerol on calculated haemodynamic parameters (CO, SVR, PVR, VO2). These findings show a selective decrease in heart rate by Mivazerol without markedly cardiorespiratory side effects.
Interaction between Monetary and Fiscal Policy and the Policy Mix, Theoretical Consideration and Japanese Experience

Interactions between monetary and fiscal policy depend on the specification of policy variables that fiscal policy uses. However, a general rule is that when monetary policy is capable of dealing with sticky price adjustment, a primary concern of fiscal authority should be to remedy the resource allocation. My regression study using cross-country data shows that in a majority of OECD countries fiscal policy relies on the automatic stabilizer. Japan is a unique case in that it relies heavily on discretionary fiscal policy. However, Japanese policymakers have recently changed their thinking regarding fiscal policy.
Evolutional agents: field oriented programming language, Flage

We propose two new concepts, evolutional agent and field. The main purpose of the work is to provide a framework for building software which adapts to changes of requirements autonomously. In open networks, the adaptability to changes of requirements or environments is essential, while there are many free applications and components to serve various requirements. Focusing on this point, we introduce concurrent objects with meta-base architecture, agents, and fields, another kind of object. In our model, adaptive agents, called evolutional agents, adapt to changes by traversing a network and acquiring components as their own functions. Fields are receptacles of software components in networks. Agents evolve into enhanced ones by traveling to fields and acquiring components from the fields. Flage is a framework for building the software architecture based on these concepts.
A Welfare Analysis of Biological Technical Change under Different Supply Shift Assumptions: The Case of Cocoa in Malaysia

Emerging modem biotechnological improvements will make possible the cultivation of crops with higher yields, while enhanced resistance to pests and diseases will facilitate a reduction in the use of pesticides. In this article, the welfare effects of a regional technical change in relation to a perennial crop are measured. Dynamic aspects of supply responses to prices as well as to changes in technology are addressed when the effects of biological lag and the variation of asset productivity are taken into consideration. The effects of the adoption of improved cultivars are assessed for both a parallel and a conservative, pivotal shift in the supply curve. The theoretical model is implemented for cocoa in Malaysia as a large producer country on the one hand and all other countries as an aggregate on the other. Relatively small price and quantity effects result from the adoption of new cultivars. Although the magnitude of the effects on producer benefits and total benefits in Malaysia depend crucially on the type of supply shift assumed, significant benefits occur for Malaysian producers. Consumersapos; gains in the ROW are approximately offset by producers' losses in the ROW, suggesting that a considerable share of the gains would benefit consumers in economically well-developed northern hemisphere countries at the expense of producers who do not immediately adopt improved cultivars. Les ameliorations biotechnologies emergentes rendent possible la culture de varietes a plus haut rendement, munies d'une resistance elevee contre les maladies et ravageurs permettant la reduction des applications de produits phytosanitaires. Dans cette article, les effets sociaux benefiques d'un progres technologique regional pour les cultures perennes sont mesures. Les aspects dynamiques de la reaction de l'offre a des changements de prix et de technologie sont etudies en consideration des effets du retardement biologique et d'une variation du capital fixe. Les effets de l'adoption de cultures ameliorees sont etudies lorsqu'un deplacement parallele et pivote de la fonction de l'offre est admis. Le modele theorique est realise pour le cacao en Malaisie, avec d'un cote la Malaisie en tant que grand pays producteur et le reste du monde de l'autre cote. Les resultats montrent que les effets de l'adoption de cultures ameliorees sur les prix et quantites sont relativement modestes. Bien que les effets sociaux benefiques totaux et notamment ceux pour les producteurs en Malaisie dependent essentiellement du type de deplacement de la fonction de l'offre, des gains importants sont realises par les producteurs en Malaisie. Les gains des consommateurs du reste du monde sont a peu pres compenses par les pertes des producteurs dans le reste du monde ce qui suggere qu'une partie considerable des gains va en faveur des consommateurs dans les pays tres developpes de l'hemisphere nord au depens des producteurs n'adoptant pas immediatement les cultures ameliorees.
Is Disability Disabling in All Workplaces? Workplace Disparities and Corporate Culture

Using nearly 30,000 employee surveys from fourteen companies, we find disability is linked to lower average pay, job security, training, and participation in decisions, and to more negative attitudes toward the job and company. Disability gaps in attitudes vary substantially, however, across companies and worksites, with no attitude gaps in worksites rated highly by all employees for fairness and responsiveness. The results indicate that corporate cultures that are responsive to the needs of all employees are especially beneficial for employees with disabilities.
Spatial Planning, Devolution, and New Planning Spaces

In this paper we put forward the case for viewing ‘spatial planning’ as a political resource, one which has been largely supportive of the rollout neoliberal approach of New Labour. Drawing on work on postpolitics, we argue that ironically the progressive credentials of spatial planning in terms of consensus building, policy integration, and the search for ‘win – win – win’ solutions may have helped script out oppositional voices. We then outline how the combination of changes to planning systems, devolution, and local government reform has not generated a ‘double dividend’ of greater planning powers devolving from new territorial administrations to local planning authorities. Instead a more complex process of creating new planning spaces has emerged after devolution. Five types of new planning spaces and spatial practices are identified, including new soft space forms of governance.
Overseas Employment and Remittances to a Dual Economy

Overseas employment has become more commonplace, and remittances have increased in similar proportions. For poor countries, remittances often substantially influence domestic expenditures and real exchange rates. We study overseas employment, remittances and domestic underemployment in a simple general equilibrium model with a non-traded good and minimum wage. The influence of population growth, rural productivity, and family altruism are examined. If remittances per migrant exceed domestic productivity then multiple equilibria may occur exhibiting high or low overseas employment. We discuss how the equilibrium with highest overseas employment conditionally Pareto dominates the other equilibria, and analyse policy co-ordination.
Review of The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice

© Copyright 2013. Clarence Joldersma assigns to Paideusis the right of first publication and educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive license to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the author. Review of The Good Life of Teaching: An ethics of professional practice by Chris Higgins, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Price: $39,95 (pb). ISBN-13: 9781444339307
Zinc-binding of endostatin is essential for its antiangiogenic activity.

Endostatin is a potent angiogenesis inhibitor in vitro and in vivo. We used the yeast Pichia pastoris to express and purify soluble endostatin. It was discovered that metal chelating agents can induce N-terminal degradation of endostatin. We theorized that a metal was removed from endostatin which changed the conformation and allowed a contaminating protease to degrade the N-terminus. Atomic absorption and amino acid analysis of endostatin purified from Pichia pastoris and mammalian cells showed a 1:1 molar ratio of Zn2+ to protein. Ding et al. have shown that histidines 1, 3, 11, and aspartic acid 76 coordinate the Zn2+ atom (1). An H1/3A double, an H11A, and a D76A single mutant of endostatin were not able to regress Lewis lung carcinoma. We conclude that the ability of endostatin to bind Zn2+ is essential for its antiangiogenic activity.
Maximum tension and force‐velocity properties of fatigued, single Xenopus muscle fibres studied by caffeine and high K+.

1. The importance of reduced maximum force‐generating capacity in the development of skeletal muscle fatigue has been studied using potassium and caffeine contractures as tools. 2. Single, intact fibres isolated from the lumbrical and iliofibularis muscles of Xenopus were fatigued by repeated tetanic stimulations until they produced close to 40% of the original tetanic tension (P0). Using this stimulation scheme three major types of fibres can be distinguished: easily fatigued (type 1), fatigue resistant (type 2), and very fatigue‐resistant (type 3) fibres (Westerblad & Lännergren, 1986). 3. When activated by 8‐15 mM‐caffeine‐Ringer solutions fatigued fibres of all three types developed tensions similar to those of controls (81.0 +/‐ 6.6 vs. 83.9 +/‐ 4.2% of P0, respectively; means +/‐ S.D.). 4. Tension output also increased markedly when fatigued fibres were depolarized by 190 mM‐K+ solution. The tension produced was in this case fibre type dependent: 71.4 +/‐ 6.6, 81.3 +/‐ 2.5 and 95.0 +/‐ 4.4% of P0 in fibre types 1, 2 and 3, respectively. 5. Force‐velocity measurements were performed during caffeine contractures in fatigued iliofibularis fibres (types 1 and 2) to obtain more information about the functional state of cross‐bridges. 6. In fatigued type 1 fibres the shortening velocity was reduced to about 25% of that in controls, while it was not significantly depressed in type 2 fibres. 7. It is concluded that cross‐bridges of fatigued fibres can produce nearly full tension, but they may work at a much slower rate in this state. 8. Fibre types 1 and 2 mostly display a long‐lasting, reversible state of severely depressed tension production during the recovery period, which has been named post‐contractile depression, PCD (Westerblad & Lännergren, 1986). Fibres tested in this state generated full caffeine‐activated tension and the shortening velocity was not significantly reduced. The tension output during K+ contractures was, however, markedly depressed (12.4 +/‐ 4.1% of P0). 9. In conclusion, cross‐bridges are able to produce close to full tension during PCD as well as in the fatigued state if they are fully activated. The form of functional impairment seems, however, not to be the same in the two cases.
Easy Money or Hard Times? Health and 401(k) Loans

Rising health care costs and declining personal savings rates are nearly synonymous with household medical debt. For some, defined contribution (DC) retirement savings plans provide a ready source of funds to meet these medical debts. We examine whether health status and health insurance coverage predict the likelihood of having a DC loan using data from the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances from 1989 to 2007. We find that poor health raises the likelihood that a household will borrow from their DC plans, even controlling for other forms of debt, access to credit, and whether households are covered by health insurance. Our estimates of the amount of the DC loan, taking selection effects into account, indicates that DC loan amounts are also influenced by health status; those with poor health borrow more from their DC plans. Apart from health status, once a household decides to borrow from their retirement funds, race and education also influence how much to borrow. We argue that public policy can improve the long-term financial retirement security of households by offering more opportunities to save for medical emergencies, while cautiously maintaining the opportunity to borrow from DC plans.
A real-time algorithm for fingerprint localization based on clustering and spatial diversity

Reliable and real-time location information is important for location-based services (LBS) of the mobile terminals. Existing location techniques have poor performance in urban environments due to severe multipath and NLOS propagation. Fingerprint localization based on wireless-LAN (WLAN) has been preferred for those types of environments. However, the most challenge in fingerprint positioning is the fluctuation of the received signal strength (RSS) and the online computational burden or latency for a metropolitan-scale radio map. To alleviate this problem, we propose a real-time algorithm including two key techniques: (1) The micro-cell-based radio map construction method exploiting spatial diversity is used to tackle the fluctuation of RSS and enhance positioning accuracy. (2) The RSS-based clustering of the radio map is presented to reduce the computational burden and improve the performance of the locating system. The practical implementation of positioning mobile terminals at different speeds in urban environments is described and conducted. Experimental results show that our algorithms can significantly improve the performance of WLAN-based positioning system.
In search of a golden blend: perspectives on the marketing of fair trade coffee

Fair trade markets for commodities have considerable potential to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals, but realizing this potential will depend upon 'scaling up' fair trade's impact. Unfortunately, from a marketing and consumer behaviour perspective, fair trade markets remain relatively under-researched and poorly understood in comparison to the mainstream. Using fair trade coffee as an example, this paper proposes an alternative to the dominant view that the key to expanding fair trade market share is a focus on greater 'commercialization'. It highlights the potential of social marketing to promote the principles of fair trade, in a way that complements the emphasis on brand-building strategies for fair trade products. An approach that blends a commercial and social marketing orientation perhaps has the greatest potential to maintain fair trade's distinctive nature, while contributing to the achievement of its social and economic goals. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Multimodal Interferometer Based on a Suspended Core Fiber for Simultaneous Measurement of Physical Parameters

In this study, a multimodal interferometer based on a suspended core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) for simultaneous strain and temperature measurements is proposed. The structure is also employed for angle measurements. The sensor comprises a 3-mm-suspended core PCF between SMFs and is based on the combination of two multimodal interferences with different frequency fringe patterns. The interferometric patterns show different sensitivity responses to strain and temperature. Through a low-pass frequency filtering of the detected spectrum, the wavelength shift of the two patterns can be measured allowing the discrimination of strain and temperature effects with resolutions of 0.45 °C and 4.02 με, respectively. The sensor is also characterized for angle measurements showing a maximum sensitivity of 9.17 pm/° in the range from 0° to 90°. It is demonstrated that with this sensing structure is possible to obtain simultaneous measurement of bend angle and temperature with resolutions of 1.69 ° and 0.92 °C, respectively.
The Analysis of Calendar Effects on the Daily Returns of the Portuguese Stock Market: the Weekend and Public Holiday Effects

The purpose of this article is to analyse, using the PSI Geral index, the presence of calendar effects on the daily returns of the Portuguese stock market. In most cases, stock exchanges are closed from Friday to Monday. If the market return-formation process is carried out continuously, returns should be expected to be threefold on Mondays compared to those recorded on the remaining days of the week. This hypothesis is known as “calendar hypothesis”. If, however, the return-formation process is based on trading days, returns should be expected to be equal on every day of the week. This is known as “trading-day hypothesis”. Contrary to the two above hypothesis, several empirical results in different stock exchanges present evidence of a close-of-business effect. According to this effect, daily returns are positive before the close of business and tend to be negative after reopening. This behaviour of returns is apparent both before and after a weekend or on days close to public holidays. (1) According to Board and Sutcliffe (1988), the effect tends to fade away, while for Arsad and Coutts (1997) this effect tends to persist over time. This article analyses some persisting effects on returns of the PSI Geral index, the Portuguese stock market index. As from the late 1980s the increase in portfolio investment together with the privatisation process has significantly changed the structure and size of the Portuguese capital market. Since 1997, the Portuguese capital market has been considered by the World Bank as a developed market. The fast change in the Portuguese market and its growing integration suggest the relevance of a study of market anomalies and an analysis of a possible persistence over time. When analysing the period from 1988 to 2001, the results of this article show no sign of a significant close-of-business effect. Nonetheless, the incipient structure characterising the Portuguese market in the late 1980s seems to coincide with the differences observed in the behaviour of PSI Geral index returns over weekdays. This effect decreases over time and does not exist at all for the 1997-2001 period. This paper also analyses the behaviour of PSI Geral index returns on days close to public holidays. The results observed are consistent with other empirical studies, such as Lakonishok and Smidt (1988). For the 1988-2001 period, on average, returns on days before public holidays seem to be significantly higher than on days after public holidays, with an average daily change of 0.184 per cent on days before public holidays and 0.008 per cent on regular days. This article is organised as follows: Section 2 presents a brief description of the behaviour of the Portuguese stock market and of the PSI Geral index, as from its creation in January 1988 to the end of 2001. Sections 3 and 4 study the effects of weekdays and public holidays on index returns. Section 5 presents the major conclusions.
Equity and Economic Restructuring in the Canadian Labour Movement

Although the feminization of labour and of the work-force are centrally implicated in the process of economic restructuring, union discussions of strategy do not take this reality fully into account and, furthermore, in developing new strategic positions, do not appear to draw actively on the successes of union women's organizing. This article contends that feminist unionism has much to contribute to the struggle around economic restructuring. With specific reference to Canada, it considers five themes: organizing the unorganized, developing an alternative economic vision, increasing grass-roots participation in unions, playing a new kind of leadership role and, finally, building national and international coalitions and alliances.