Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Banking Crisis Management in the EU: An Early Assessment

"For well over a decade many observers had warned that the European Union was ill-prepared in case of a financial storm because its market integration far outpaced its policy integration. This situation was well known to policy-makers but it was hoped that financial crises would wait until policy integration occurred. The reality turned out differently, however. We assess the management of the 2007--2009 banking crisis within the EU against this backdrop. In a nutshell, we find that Europe has done better than could have been expected on the basis of existing arrangements. The two federal institutions acted swiftly, the European Central Bank by providing ample liquidity and the European Commission by enforcing competition discipline flexibly. However, there was no institutional innovation in the form of an EU-financed bail-out of transnational financial institutions or a genuine EU financial stress test. Supervisory responsibilities remained entirely with individual countries and coordination problems were managed through a combination of ad-hoc, discretionary cooperation and reliance on EU rules and procedures. It is not possible, however, to determine whether this relatively satisfactory situation is due to the fact that ad-hoc coordination was fundamentally sufficient or because no complex case of cross-border bank failure occurred. " Copyright (c) CEPR, CES, MSH, 2010.
An Investigation of the Relationship between Use of International Accounting Standards and Source of Company Finance in Germany

This study examines the relationship between use of international accounting standards and companies’ source of finance. We investigate the proposition contained in Nobes’ (1998) model which postulates outsider companies (those with a higher level of public finance) in weak equity-outsider markets (capital markets where public equity finance is not the dominant source of finance) are more likely to change their type of accounting system from one focused on information for creditors and tax authorities to one that meets the needs of external financiers. We found strong support for Nobes’ model. Using 408 German listed companies at 1999, we observed that companies with more outsider finance (the proportion of shares held by outsiders and the presence of public debt) were more likely to use international standards (US GAAP or IAS). The results indicate the importance of controlling for source of finance at the company rather than country level in cross-country studies investigating the benefits of adoption of international standards.
How Many Ryanodine Binding Sites Are Involved in Caffeine Induced Calcium Release from Sarcoplasmic Reticulum Terminal Cysternae Vesicles?

Abstract The inhibition by ryanodine of caffeine induced calcium release from actively loaded heavy sarcoplasmic vesicles has been studied in order to analyse the relation between the occupancy of the vesicular calcium release channels by ryanodine and channel function. Ryanodine binding was monitored with [3H]ryanodine under ionic conditions favouring the establishment of binding equilibrium. Binding follows 1 : 1 stoichiometry yielding dissociations constants between 7 - 12 nᴍ and 12-15 pmol ryanodine/mg vesicular protein as maximum number of ryanodine binding sites. When ryanodine labeling was monitored by measuring the decline of the amplitude of caffeine induced calcium release 50% inhibition occurred at a free ryanodine concentration of 1 nM. At this concentration less than 10% of the available ryanodine binding sites are occupied. Caffeine induced calcium release is completely abolished when 3 pmol ryanodine/mg have reacted. A corresponding divergence between ryanodine binding and its effect on caffeine induced calcium release was observed when the initial rate of ryanodine binding was measured either by labeling the vesicles with [3H]ryanodine or by following the decline with time of caffeine induced calcium release. Caffein induced calcium release declines four times faster than the fraction of unoccupied ryanodine binding sites, k = 4.3 x 104 ᴍ-1 s-1 versus 1.2 x 104 ᴍ-1 s-1. The observed interrelation between the occupation of ryanodine binding sites and its effect on caffeine induced calcium release indicates that the caffeine sensitive calcium channel functions as an assembly of at least 4 ryanodine binding sites whereby the occupation of one site suffices to abolish calcium release. The stoichiometric composition appears to be not fixed but might change according to the size of the fraction of ryanodine receptors exhibiting caffeine sensitivity. The reported data were evaluated according to the algorithm derived by H. Asai and M. F. Morales, J. Biol. Chem. 4, 830-838 (1965) for the activity of a macromolecule and the extent of an inhibiting reaction.
Rethinking the Measurement of the Middle Class: Evidence from Egypt

The degree of choice households have over their consumption expenditure is critical in deciding their economic class. Applying our measure to Egyptian household budget surveys, we estimate the population size of the middle class in Egypt and assess their well-being in the period 1995-2011. Our findings show that if economic growth is pro-poor and inclusive, more people at the lower end of income distribution will graduate into the middle class category. The increase in poverty rates and decline in the size of the middle class since 2005 indicates that the growth process in Egypt was anti-poor and anti-middle class.
Enhancing Innovation through International Joint Venture Portfolios: From the Emerging Firm Perspective

Anecdotal evidence continues to suggest that many firms in emerging economies (EEs) lack innovation. To investigate how these firms might improve their innovation, the authors integrate resource dependence theory with network theory and the resource-based view to theorize that EE firms can advance their innovation by configuring their international joint venture (IJV) portfolio characteristics at the network and focal firm levels. The results indicate that an EE firm's innovation improves when structural hole positions in its IJV portfolio increase but decreases when network centrality increases. Such relationships are further contingent on two focal firm-level IJV portfolio characteristics: IJV portfolio size and IJV portfolio resource commitment.
Market Structure and Technological Progress: The Influence of Monopoly on Product Innovation

I. Introduction and summary, 627. — II. Assumptions, 629. — III. The monopoly and purely competitive decisions, 631. — IV. The generality of the results, 633. — V. Some concluding remarks, 635. — Appendix (to Section III), 636.
Regulation of alveologenesis: clinical implications of impaired growth

&NA; During its development that begins in intrauterine life, the lung is transformed from a simple epithelial lined sac that emerges from the foregut into a complex arrangement of blood vessels, airways, and alveoli that make up the mature lung structure. This remarkable transformation that continues for several years postnatally, is achieved by the influence of several genes, transcription factors, growth factors and hormones upon the cells and proteins of the lung bud. A seminal event in this process is the formation of the air‐blood barrier within the alveolar wall, an evolutionary modification that permits independent air‐breathing existence in mammals. Molecular biological techniques have enabled elucidation of the mechanistic pathways contributing to alveologenesis and have provided probable molecular bases for examples of impaired alveologenesis encountered by the paediatric pathologist.
Contingent Employment Contracts: Are Existing Employment Theories Still Relevant?

Within most nations there has been growing evidence of a shift from ‘traditional’ or ongoing employment contracts to arrangements which are more ‘fixed-term’ or ‘contingent’ in structure. The growth of contingent employment arrangements raises questions concerning the applicability of existing theories of individual behaviour (e.g. satisfaction, motivation, etc.). Utilizing ‘employment commitment’ as an illustrative example, this article examines potential limitations in the applicability of commitment theory to different forms of contingent employment contracts. It also addresses some implications for union representation in contingent work arrangements.
Credit Expansion and NPLs: A Panel Data Analysis for Western Europe and the United States

In the present paper an empirical analysis will point out that banks are always risk averters, and this aversion increases in more recent periods. The sample covers Western Europe and The United States. Data are taken from World Bank and OECD. The elaboration of these panel data is made feasible by means of the Eviews software package.
Accruals Management to Achieve Earnings Benchmarks: A Comparison of Pre-Managed Profit and Loss Firms

This study examines whether firms with profits before accruals management are more likely than firms with losses before accruals management to meet or exceed earnings benchmarks when pre-managed earnings are below those benchmarks. We extend Brown (2001) by documenting that the differential propensity to achieve earnings benchmarks by profitable and nonprofitable firms results from differential accruals management behavior. We find that firms with profits before accruals management are more likely than firms with losses before accruals management to have pre-managed earnings below both analysts' forecasts and prior period earnings and reported earnings above these benchmarks.
Optimizing the Nation's Investment in Academic Research: A New Regulatory Framework for the 21st Century

A unique partnership between the U.S. government and research universities has existed for nearly 70 years. Research institutions, with the investment of federal funds, have helped to create an educated citizenry and made fundamental discoveries that have enhanced the lives of Americans and others around the world. This partnership is now under stress. Concerns have been raised repeatedly that federal regulations and reporting requirements, while essential to a wellfunctioning, responsible system of research, have increased over time to the point where time spent complying with regulations is taking away from time that could be spent on research. In light of these concerns, Congress asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to investigate this issue and to recommend a new framework for regulating research in the 21st century. Optimizing the Nation’s Investment in Academic Research: A New Regulatory Framework for the 21st Century concludes that the continuing expansion of federal research regulations and requirements diminishes the effectiveness of the U.S. scientific enterprise and lowers the return on the federal investment in research by directing investigators’ time away from research and toward administrative matters. The report identifies specific steps Congress, the White House, federal agencies, and research institutions should take to reduce the regulatory burden. It also suggests actions that should be taken to strengthen the nation’s government-university research partnership and calls for the creation of a public-private Research Policy Board as a mechanism that allows research institutions to: 1) participate in the development of new regulations and the harmonization of existing regulations; 2) review the effectiveness and efficiency of existing regulations; and 3) suggest modifications to existing regulations that minimize burden while maintaining and enhancing their effectiveness.
Do Mutual Funds Perform When it Matters Most to Investors? US Mutual Fund Performance and Risk in Recessions and Expansions

This paper shows that the stylized fact of average mutual fund underperformance documented in the literature stems from expansion periods when funds have statistically significant negative risk-adjusted performance and not recession periods when risk-adjusted fund performance is positive. These results imply that traditional unconditional performance measures understate the value added by active mutual fund managers in recessions, when investors' marginal utility of wealth is high. The risk-adjusted performance (or alpha) difference between recession and expansion periods is statistically and economically significant at 3% to 5% per year. Our findings are based on a novel multi-variate conditional regime-switching performance methodology used to carry out one of the most comprehensive examinations of the performance of US domestic equity mutual funds in recessions and expansions from 1962 to 2005. The findings are robust to the choice of the factor model (including bond and liquidity factor extensions), the use of NBER business cycle dates, fund load, turnover, expenses and percentage of equity holdings.
Local Normalization with Optimal Adaptive Correlation for Automatic and Robust Face Detection on Video Sequences

This paper proposes an automatic and robust method to detect human faces from video sequences that combines feature extraction and face detection based on local normalization, Gabor wavelets transform and Adaboost algorithm. The key step and the main contribution of this work is the incorporation of a normalization technique based on local histograms with optimal adaptive correlation (OAC) technique to alleviate a common problem in conventional face detection methods: inconsistent performance due to the sensitivity to illumination variations such as local shadowing, noise and occlusion. This approach uses a cascade of classifiers to adopt a coarse-to-fine strategy to achieve higher detection rate with lower false positives. The experimental results demonstrate a significant performance improvement by local normalization over method without normalizations in real video sequences with a wide range of facial variations in color, position, scale, and varying lighting conditions.
Endobronchial Ultrasound Transbronchial Needle Aspiration in Mediastinal and Hilar Lymphadenopathies

Objectives Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS)-transbronchial needle aspiration (TBNA) is a relatively noninvasive technique that allows sampling of mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes or masses under real-time and direct visualization, overcoming some of the problems associated with mediastinoscopy and blind TBNA. The goal of this study was to evaluate the yield of this technique in patients with and without malignant disease in a newly started EBUS program involving physicians not previously fully trained in interventional pulmonology. Methods Between March 2010 and July 2011, 43 patients with enlarged lymph nodes (>1 cm on short axis) on chest computed tomography who underwent EBUS-TBNA were included in the study. Nondiagnostic results were confirmed with mediastinoscopy. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the technique were assessed. Results Among the 43 patients who underwent EBUS-TBNA, a correct diagnosis was made in 39 of the 43 patients (91%). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive values were 89%, 100%, 100%, and 67%, respectively. The success rate, complication rate, and 30-day mortality were 91%, 0%, and 0%, respectively. Conclusions EBUS-TBNA is a safe and effective approach with high diagnostic yield and minimal complications for diagnosing and staging of mediastinal/hilar lymph nodes. Satisfactory results can be obtained immediately by pulmonologists experienced in conventional bronchoscopy with the provision of additional training on the technique.
Late-Onset Epileptic Spasms

To evaluate the diverse presentation and course of late-onset epileptic spasms in relation to etiology, we analyzed the clinical, electroencephalographic (EEG), and prognostic features in 34 patients. We divided the patient sample into cryptogenic or symptomatic based on etiology. An association emerged between symmetric spasms at onset and focal interictal EEG abnormalities in cryptogenic patients, and onset with focal or generalized seizures before displaying asymmetric spasms, and multifocal or diffuse EEG abnormalities, in the symptomatic group. Despite an overall poor prognosis, symptomatic patients starting with generalized seizures seem to have a relatively more favorable outcome. The high occurrence of intellectual disability, and sometimes psychomotor regression, confirmed this rare and poorly understood heterogeneous clinical condition as a severe form of epileptic encephalopathy that deserves further study.
Diagnosing infantile anorexia: the observation of mother-infant interactions.

OBJECTIVE This study has three objectives: (1) to delineate the diagnostic criteria for infantile anorexia, including the onset of persistent food refusal during the infant's transition to spoon- and self-feeding, acute and/or chronic malnutrition, parental concern about the infant's poor food intake, and mother-infant conflict, talk, and distraction during feeding; (2) to determine the interrater agreement of child psychiatrists when diagnosing infantile anorexia based on these criteria; and (3) to describe the use of the Feeding Scale as a diagnostic tool. METHOD One hundred two toddlers, ranging in age from 12 to 37 months, were assessed by two child psychiatrists and assigned the diagnosis of infantile anorexia, picky eater, or good eater. In addition, observers who were masked to the toddler's diagnosis rated mother-infant interactions with the Feeding Scale to permit objective evaluation of those interactions. RESULTS Two child psychiatrists were able to assign toddlers to infantile anorexia, picky eating, and healthy, good eating groups with a high level of agreement. The objective scale for rating mother-infant interactions showed a high level of agreement between two masked raters and a good level of agreement between masked raters and the child psychiatrists' diagnostic assessment. CONCLUSIONS Infantile anorexia can be diagnosed with high reliability by child psychiatrists. Evaluation of mother-infant interactions is a useful diagnostic tool.
Emotional distress among couples involved in first-trimester induced abortions.

OBJECTIVE To establish the prevalence of clinically significant psychological distress in women and men involved in first-trimester abortions and to identify related risk factors. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING A downtown Montreal public abortion clinic and the Montreal metropolitan area. PARTICIPANTS We recruited 197 women and 113 men involved in first-trimester abortions and compared them with control groups composed of 728 women and 630 men 15 to 35 years old who had taken part in a previous public health survey (Enquête Santé Québec 1987). One hundred twenty-seven women and 69 men completed the follow-up questionnaire. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Level of distress as measured by the Ilfeld Psychological Symptom Index. RESULTS Before the abortion, 56.9% of women and 39.6% of men were much more distressed than their respective controls. Three weeks after the abortion, 41.7% of women and 30.9% of men were still highly distressed. Predictors of distress for women were fear of negative effects on the relationship, unsatisfactory relationships, relationships of less than 1 year, ambivalence about the decision to abort, not having a previous child, and suicidal ideation (this association was weaker than in controls). Predictors for men were fear of negative effects on the relationship, relationships of less than 1 year, preoccupation with the abortion and anxiety about its accompanying pain, negative perceptions of their own health, suicidal gestures in the past, and suicidal ideation in the past year (only the association with suicidal gestures was marginally stronger than in controls). CONCLUSION Being involved in a first-trimester abortion can be highly distressing for both women and men.
Japanese Corporate Governance and Macroeconomic Problems

Japan's prolonged economic problems are due to more than faulty macro-economic policies. We do not deny the importance of bungled macro-economic policy, but argue than deeper maladies in Japanese corporate governance made that country increasingly vulnerable to such problems. We argue that Japan's main bank and financial keiretsu systems left corporate governance largely in the hands of creditors rather than shareholders. thus, Japanese governance practices did not assign effective control rights to residual claimants. This, we argue led to a widespread misallocation of capital that mired Japan in excess capacity and liquidity problems.
A preliminary study of risperidone in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder related to childhood abuse in women.

BACKGROUND This study evaluated the effectiveness of risperidone in women for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to childhood physical, sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse. METHOD Subjects were outpatient adult women, aged 18 to 64 years, with chronic PTSD related to childhood physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse. Data were collected from November 18, 2001, to June 7, 2003. Subjects met DSM-III-R criteria for PTSD and criteria for PTSD on the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, 1-month version (CAPS-1). Subjects were randomly assigned to receive risperidone (N = 12) in flexible daily dosages in the range of 0.5 to 8 mg or placebo (N = 9) for 8 weeks. The primary outcome measures were changes in score from baseline on the CAPS-1 and the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, 1-week version (CAPS-2). RESULTS Risperidone-treated patients had a significantly greater reduction in total score on the CAPS-2 (z = -2.44, p = .015). Risperidone-treated patients also had significantly greater reductions in the intrusive (z = -5.71, p < .001) and hyperarousal (z = -2.74, p = .006) subscale scores of the CAPS-2. CONCLUSION The results of the current study indicate that low-dosage risperidone is a safe and effective treatment for intrusive and hyperarousal symptoms in adult women with chronic PTSD from childhood physical, sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse.
Efficient Estimation of Hedonic Inverse Input Demand Systems

This article is concerned with efficient estimation of characteristics demand. We derive and estimate an inverse input demand system for quality characteristics by using 172,946 observations over 881 trading days in the Icelandic fish auctions. An improved estimation method based on an expanded random coefficient model is suggested as an alternative to the currently used two-stage method of Brown and Rosen. The estimates demonstrate the improved efficiency of the suggested method. A number of empirical results emerge, including a general increase in the demand for quality. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.
The Mediating Effect of Patient Satisfaction in the Patients' Perceptions of Healthcare Quality - Patient Trust Relationship

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between patient perception of healthcare quality, patient satisfaction, and patient trust and the mediating effect of patient satisfaction. Study aim also to test the significance of socio-demographic variables in determining healthcare quality, patient satisfaction, and patient trust. Patient perception of healthcare quality was measured using modified SERVQUAL model and results indicate that it appears to be a consistent and reliable scale. Finding indicate that, while patient perception of healthcare quality has a strong and positive impact on the patient satisfaction and patient trust , patient satisfaction has also significant impact on patient trust. Moreover, patient satisfaction appears to play an important mediating role in increasing the strength of the association between healthcare quality and patient trust in healthcare service provider. Results confirm the varying importance of some socio-demographic variables on patient perception of healthcare quality, patient satisfaction, and patient trust. It has also been found that private hospitals have higher overall healthcare quality than public hospitals. Study indicate that patient of private hospitals are more satisfied and feel more trust in healthcare service provider than public hospitals.