Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the microdynamics of informal evaluation - the case of management consulting projects

This paper addresses the question of how management consulting services are evaluated in client organizations. By building on an interview study with organization members in two client organizations and drawing on discourse theory, the current paper shows that clients seldom perform formal evaluations of consulting projects. Instead, the projects are evaluated informally. The findings from the empirical analysis indicate that this informal evaluation takes place through different types of talk, in which the projects and involved actors are given a discursively constructed worth. The paper contributes to the informal evaluation literature by shedding light on how the informal evaluation is carried out and how the worth of management consulting projects are discursively constructed by clients using frame-talk and mythopoetic-talk. It also highlights the importance of regarding the informal evaluation not only as an individual activity, but rather as shared among groups and socially, politically and contextually influenced. The paper also contributes to the management consulting literature by nuancing the hitherto homogenous picture of clients, and giving insights into the mechanisms behind why some projects are perceived by clients as more successful than others.
Special Issue on Design and Development: Product Differentiation and Commonality in Design: Balancing Revenue and Cost Drivers

Product design decisions substantially affect the cost and revenue drivers. A design configuration with commonality can lower manufacturing cost. However, such a design may hinder the ability to extract price premiums through product differentiation. We explicitly investigate the marketing-manufacturing trade-off and derive analytical implications for three possible design configurations: unique, premium-common, and basic-common. Our model considers two distinct segments of consumers. Some of the implications of our analysis are not readily apparent. For example, when the high-quality component is made common, the average quality of the products offered to the two segments increases. One may infer that with higher average quality, higher prices or higher total revenues might ensue. However, this may not be the case, as detailed in the paper. Finally, our analysis provides a useful framework to develop an index that can rank order components in terms of their attractiveness for commonality.
Personal Investing: Advice, Theory, and Evidence from a Survey of Tiaa-Cref Participants

This paper examines individual asset-allocation behavior using data from a unique survey containing information on the composition of the respondents' total asset holdings both inside and outside of their retirement accounts. We find that individual asset allocations are consistent with the recommendations of expert practitioners and with the prescriptions of economic theory. The survey respondents maintain in cash and near-cash investments a proportion of their wealth that declines as wealth increases. They hold these safe assets outside of their retirement accounts. The proportion of total assets that they hold in equities declines with age and rises with wealth. However, respondents do not appear to manage their assets across retirement and non-retirement accounts to maximize tax efficiency.
Price Momentum in the New Zealand Stock Market: A Proper Accounting for Transactions Costs and Risk

We test for recently reported momentum profits in New Zealand using a practitioner technique that we have not yet seen in the academic literature. This technique simultaneously weighs returns, risk and transactions costs at each portfolio rebalance, rather than blindly chasing returns and then accounting for risk and transactions costs after the fact. We reverse the findings of the earlier literature because our gross profits are more than fully consumed once transactions costs are properly accounted for. Although we focus on momentum trading in New Zealand, our practitioner technique is broadly applicable to investigations of trading anomalies.
Is there any difference between ‘hourly wage rate’ vs. ‘piece wage rate’

This paper addresses a crucial question as to whether there is any difference between 'hourly-wage' rate and 'piece-wage' rate. In this paper, this issue is subjected to empirical test by looking at evidence from the Fiji garment industry. The data and analysis shows that there is no difference and in fact, 'hourly-wage' rate is a disguised form of 'piece-wage' rate. The empirical evidence from the Fiji garment industry debunks the myth that there is a major difference between 'hourly wage' rate and 'piece-wage' rate. A 'bloody Taylorist' punitive labour regime exists in all the three garment supply chains in Fiji. A domestic punitive labour regime existed in the Fiji garment industry before the arrival of foreign Australian, New Zealand, and Chinese garment firms. When the Australian and New Zealand garment firms relocated to Fiji they adopted and continued the 'going' local punitive labour regime in their firms. They had no choice but were forced by competition to go along with this punitive labour regime. The foreign Chinese garment firms made the labour regime even worse as they brought with them the punitive Chinese labour regime from mainland Chinese and implemented the punitive Chinese labour regime in Fiji.
Regret Theory: A Bold Alternative to the Alternatives

In their famous 1982 paper in this Journal, Loomes and Sugden introduced regret theory. Now, more than 30 years later, the case for the historical importance of this contribution can be made. Loomes, G. and Sugden, R. (1982). ‘Regret theory: an alternative theory of rational choice under uncertainty’, Economic Journal, vol. 92(368), pp. 805–24.
Informational Constraints and the Overlapping Generations Model: Folk and Anti-Folk Theorems

This paper analyses the sustainability of inter-generational transfers in Samuelson's consumption-loan model when agents are imperfectly informed about past events. We find that with mild informational constraints, transfers cannot be supported by pure-strategy equilibria. Mixed strategies allow transfers to be sustained even if agents have little information, so that a version of the Folk theorem holds. However, these equilibria are not robust. If each agent's utility function is subjected to a small random perturbation as in Harsanyi (1973), these mixed strategy equilibria unravel, and only the zero-transfer allocation survives as the unique rationalizable outcome. This result is an example of mixed strategy equilibrium of an extensive form game which cannot be purified.
The Economic Theory of a Legal Minimum Wage

The fixing of a Minimum Wage by law? making it a penal offense to hire labor at a lower rate than that fixed by the law? is now an accomplished fact, of which the world has had half a generation of experience. In this matter of the Legal Minimum Wage the sixteen years' actual trial by Victoria is full of instruc? tion. Victoria, which is a highly developed industrial State, of great and growing prosperity, had long had Factory Laws, much after the English fashion. In 1896, largely out of humanitarian feeling for five specially "sweated" trades, provision was made for the enforcement in those trades of a Legal Minimum Wage. Natu? rally this was opposed by all the arguments with which we are familiar? that it was " against the laws of Political Economy," that it would cause the most hardly pressed businesses to shut down, that it would restrict employment, that it would drive away Capital, that it would be cruel to the aged worker and the poor widow, that it could not be carried out in practice, and so on and so forth. Naturally, too, all sorts of criticisms have since been leveled at the administration and working of the law; and over and over again eager opponents, both in England and on the spot, have hastened to report that it had broken down. But what had been the result ? In the five sweated trades to which the law was first applied sixteen years ago, wages have gone up from 12 to 35 per cent, the hours of labor have invariably been reduced, and the actual number of persons employed, far from falling, has in all cases, relatively to
Lack of oncogenicity with immunosuppressive therapy

The effect of immunosuppressive therapy on the incidence of malignancy was examined in BALB/c mice. In a short (31‐week) protocol study, malignancy was induced by inoculating animals with 102.1 ID50 of lymphatic leukemia virus. Antilymphocyte antiserum and azathioprine increased the mortality and shortened the latency period of leukemia. Combining these two agents had a synergistic effect. The concept of immunological surveillance was investigated in a long‐term protocol using the identical animal and immunosuppressive systems. Mice did not receive leukemia virus and were observed for development of spontaneous malignancy. Significant immunodepression was demonstrated after 348 days of immunosuppressive therapy. After two years, all surviving animals were killed and examined for neoplasia. There was no evidence that immunodepression increased the incidence of spontaneous malignancy. Immunosuppression adversely influenced exogenously administered, virus‐induced murine leukemia. However, immunosuppressive therapy was not innately oncogenic and the concept of immunological surveillance was not confirmed.
THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL FEES ON THE INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF EDUCATION

In this paper, we simultaneously analyze patterns of intergenerational mobility in education distinguishing the effects of parental education as an indicator of investment on children at the household level and the abolition of school fees as an indicator of investment in children at higher economic levels. Using a large data set of about 1 million children from 67 developing countries, we find that both intergenerational transmissions of education as well as access to free primary education significantly increase the educational outcomes of children. Our results also indicate a significant gradient in mothers’ education in the benefits of lifting school fees. This suggests that so initiatives that have made primary education free have not only raised the stock of total education in the economy, they have also improved the distribution since the gains have been largest for the least educated mothers whose children had the greatest starting disadvantage.
An Unbiased Estimator of the N-Period Relative

Define Rt as the ratio of the value of an asset at the end of the tthperiod to its value at the end of the previous period. Rt is then a one-period relative equal to unity plus the interest rate. Assume that Rt is an independent, normally distributed random variable with mean μ and nonzero variance σ2. Rt is then observed as where the disturbance term ∈t t is independently and normally distributed with mean zero and variance σ2. To assess the long-term expected rate of return of the asset, it is desirable to estimate its expected increment in value of the one-period relative raised to the Nth power, i.e., μN.
Fertility in midlife women

ABSTRACT Reduced maternal fertility is the consequence of depletion of follicles with maternal aging. In a 35-year-old woman, approximately 9.1% of the residual follicle pool disappears annually without entering into the growing stage, whereas, in a 45-year-old woman, this number triples. After the age of 35 years, the frequency of aneuploidies in oocytes increases sharply. Roughly 50–70% of mature oocytes from a 40-year-old woman have chromosomal abnormalities. The clinical pregnancy and implantation rates are lower in midlife women. Various controlled ovarian stimulation interventions have been suggested for the management of women in advanced age, most of whom are likely to be poor-responder patients. Currently, systematic reviews and meta-analyses suggest that there is insufficient evidence to recommend most of the treatments proposed to improve pregnancy rates in these poor responders. Minimal stimulation or natural cycle in vitro fertilization may be offered, without compromising the already existing pregnancy results.
Altered States: Taxes and the Location of Foreign Direct Investment in America

This paper examines the effect of taxation on foreign investment and on business location within the United States. The idea is to compare the inter-state distribution of investments from certain foreign countries (those with foreign tax credit systems) with the distribution of investments from other countries. Investors from countries with foreign tax credit systems receive home-country tax credits for income taxes paid to US states, so they are less likely than are other investors to avoid investing in high-tax states. The results indicate that 1% differences in state corporate tax rates are associated with 7-9% differences between the investment shares of foreign tax credit investors and the investment shares of all others, suggesting that state taxes significantly influence the pattern of foreign direct investment in the US.
A neural network modelling on human resource talent selection

Due to the rapid improvement of information technologies (ITs), they have been applied in the area of human resources management (HRM), which is called a human resources information system (HRIS). An effective HRIS should be able to handle complicated personnel data to assist the implementation of new policies and managerial strategies in an organisation. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to apply an artificial neural network (ANN), which is capable of learning and recalling and has been widely used in the areas of engineering, for top managers to select potential employees for the position of manager. The case study results show that the proposed system is well able to learn the data collected from the top managers and the test results are very promising. Also, the proposed system has been implemented in the Web in order to fit the requirements of the electronic era.
Influence of the Constitutive Model for Shotcrete on the Predicted Structural Behavior of the Shotcrete Shell of a Deep Tunnel

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the influence of the constitutive model for shotcrete on the predicted displacements and stresses in shotcrete shells of deep tunnels. Previously proposed shotcrete models as well as a new extended damage plasticity model for shotcrete are evaluated in the context of 2D finite element simulations of the excavation of a stretch of a deep tunnel by means of the New Austrian Tunneling Method. Thereby, the behavior of the surrounding rock mass is described by the commonly used Hoek–Brown model. Differences in predicted evolutions of displacements and stresses in the shotcrete shell, resulting from the different shotcrete models, are discussed and simulation results are compared to available in situ measurement data.
Modeling Stakeholder Perceptions of Collaborative Initiative Effectiveness

Collaborative planning and stewardship has emerged on the natural resource landscape as both an ideology and prescriptive tool to build agreement and manage conflict across diverse settings and resource issues. This article reports on a research study examining stakeholder perceptions of the performance of 30 collaborative initiatives from around the United States where the USDA Forest Service was identified as a partner in the initiative. Results from a mailed survey to active participants found the typical collaborative initiative to be fairly large and quite diverse, with an average of 16.8 organizational members. Respondents generally felt initiatives were effective in achieving their purpose. In a regression analysis, leadership, willingness to compromise, and a broad representation of stakeholders emerged as significant predictors of outcome achievement. Findings from this study support recent evidence that collaborative initiatives are achieving important economic, quality of life, and bio/physical.
Empirical test of structural model under time-varying volatility

In trying to explain the “Credit Spread Puzzle”, we empirically examine two competing structural models: the Leland (1994b) constant volatility model and the Perrakis and Zhong (2013) Constant Elasticity of Variance (CEV) model. We use the Leland model as our benchmark and hypothesize that the CEV model under state-dependent volatility will outperform it. For our estimation, we incorporate firm level time series data from different markets. Our sample covers the period from 2001 to 2011. We apply the General Method of Moment (GMM) for our estimation of the parameters of the diffusion process for the Leland and CEV models respectively. In our results, we document on average a significantly negative beta, the elasticity parameter in the Perrakis and Zhong CEV model. More importantly, we find that the CEV model can fit the historical data much better than the constant volatility Leland (1994b) model across all maturities, suggesting that the state-dependent volatility can explain the “Credit Spread Puzzle” to some extent.
Linear stochastic MPC under finitely supported multiplicative uncertainty

Stochastic predictive control in the presence of uncertainty and constraints is an active area of research, but most results available to date concern the case of additive uncertainty or apply constraints in expected value only. In addition, the conventional assumption that model uncertainty is normally distributed prevents the development of suitable guarantees of feasibility and therefore closed loop stability. Some recent work considered the case of multiplicative uncertainty with bounded support and used multilayer tubes in conjunction with Markov chain model to provide feasibility results, but prohibitive computation implied the need to restrict the number of layers with the consequence of that the derived results were conservative. This is overcome in the current paper through the combined use of sampling and mixed integer programming. The novel contribution concerns the construction of terminal sets, the relaxation of constraints through the use of error feedback, the definition of the predicted cost as a quadratic function of the degrees of freedom, and the handling of constraints through sampling and mixed integer programming. The results of the paper are illustrated by means of a numerical example.
Piezoresistive effect in top-down fabricated silicon nanowires

We have designed and fabricated silicon test chips to investigate the piezoresistive properties of both crystalline and polycrystalline nanowires using a top-down approach, in order to comply with conventional fabrication techniques. The test chip consists of 5 silicon nanowires and a reference resistor, each with integrated contacts for electrical 4-point measurements. We show an increase in the piezoresistive effect of 633% compared to bulk silicon. Preliminary temperature measurements indicate a larger temperature dependence of silicon nanowires, compared to bulk silicon. An increase of up to 34% compared to bulk polysilicon is observed in polysilicon nanowires with decreasing dimensions.
The World's Scavengers by Martin Medina

At the risk of oversimplification, the industrial ecology community can be roughly divided into two philosophical groups. One sees the field as bringing new perspectives, methods, and practices to already established engineering, policy, and management arenas. This group is focused on environmental consequences of industrial activity and tends to speak about sustainable development. The other sees the field as building a case for a paradigm shift in thinking, speaks about sustainability, and argues that conventional practices will not produce the kind of world that corresponds to the particular vision of sustainability evoked by the ecosystem metaphor (Ehrenfeld 2007). For the second community, this book about social learning for sustainability offers many ideas about how to break out of conventional patterns of thinking and behavior. It is a “big” book in both scope and ambition. According to the publisher’s blurb,
The radical right in public office: Agenda‐setting and policy effects

International comparisons of new radical right‐wing parties usually focus on differences in electoral fortunes, party organisations and leadership. This article uses a different angle by focusing on public policy impact and the role these parties play in the parliamentary and executive arenas. The research is driven by the hypothesis that under the conditions of stable democracy, holding office produces a net result in a ‘taming effect’ on radical right‐wing actors rather than a sharp ‘right turn’. Evidence f rom four countries (Germany, France, Italy and Austria) shows that parliamentary presence alone does not result in policy effects. When the radical right holds executive office, a ‘right turn’ occurs primarily in cultural policies. Overall, real effects of radical right‐wing politics occur largely as a result of the interaction between the radical right and established actors ‐regardless of the radical right's assuming power.
Bone Marrow Monocyte Lineage Cells Adhere on Injured Endothelium in a Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein-1–Dependent Manner and Accelerate Reendothelialization as Endothelial Progenitor Cells

Abstract— Peripheral blood (PB)-derived CD14+ monocytes were shown to transdifferentiate into endothelial cell (EC) lineage cells and contribute to neovascularization. We investigated whether bone marrow (BM)- or PB-derived CD34−/CD14+ cells are involved in reendothelialization after carotid balloon injury. Although neither hematopoietic nor mesenchymal stem cells were included in human BM-derived CD34−/CD14+ monocyte lineage cells (BM-MLCs), they expressed EC-specific markers (Tie2, CD31, VE-cadherin, and endoglin) to an extent identical to mature ECs. When BM-MLCs were cultured with vascular endothelial growth factors, hematopoietic markers were drastically decreased and new EC-specific markers (Flk and CD34) were induced. BM-MLCs were intra-arterially transplanted into balloon-injured arteries of athymic nude rats. When BM-MLCs were activated by monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) in vivo or in vitro, they adhered onto injured endothelium, differentiated into EC-like cells by losing hematopoietic markers, and inhibited neointimal hyperplasia. Ability to prevent neointimal hyperplasia was more efficient than that of BM-derived CD34+ cells. MCP-dependent adhesion was not observed in PB-derived CD34−/CD14+ monocytes. Regenerated endothelium exhibited a cobblestone appearance, blocked extravasation of dye, and induced NO-dependent vasorelaxation. Basal adhesive activities on HUVECs under laminar flow and &bgr;1-integrin expression (basal and active forms) were significantly increased in BM-MLCs compared with PB-derived monocytes. MCP-1 markedly enhanced adhesive activity of BM-MLCs (2.8-fold) on HUVECs by activating &bgr;1-integrin conformation. Thus, BM-MLCs can function as EC progenitors that are more potent than CD34+ cells and acquire the ability to adhere on injured endothelium in a MCP-1–dependent manner, leading to reendothelialization associated with inhibition of intimal hyperplasia. This will open a novel window to MCP-1–mediated biological actions and vascular regeneration strategies by cell therapy.