Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THE SPILLOVER EFFECTS OF THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS ON ECONOMIC ACTIVITY IN EMERGING ECONOMIES - INVESTIGATING THE EGYPTIAN CASE USING THE FINANCIAL STRESS INDEX

The global financial crisis of 2007 raised concerns about spillover effects to economic activity in emerging market economies. Economic theory suggests that there are a number of channels through which spillovers of a crisis are transmitted from one economy to another, most importantly the trade channel, the investment channel and the banking sector. This paper quantifies the magnitude of spillover effects of the global financial crisis to economic activity in Egypt through calculating Egypt’s financial stress index (FSI), then fitting it in the VAR analysis to investigate spillovers of financial stress and economic activity of trade partners to economic activity in Egypt. Findings are consistent with economic theory as well as empirical literature in the sense that increased financial stress, lower economic activity in Egypt’s main trade partners along with elevated oil and commodity prices during the global financial crisis imposed adverse spillovers on Egypt’s real GDP growth figures and projections. However, the impact of the slowdown in Egypt’s main trade partners’ economic activity accounted for the largest magnitude and the longest durability of the adverse financial crisis spillovers to the Egyptian economy. The paper, thus, concludes with relevant policy implications.
An Explorative Study of Korean Consumer Participation in Virtual Brand Communities in Social Network Sites

ABSTRACT The importance of virtual brand communities in social network sites has received increasing attention from both academia and industry. In surveying a sample of 333 virtual brand community members in Korean social network sites, the current study provides a baseline understanding of the antecedents and consequences of virtual brand communities. The findings here suggest that members of brand communities have six primary social and psychological motives for engaging in virtual community activities: interpersonal utility, brand loyalty, entertainment seeking, information seeking, incentive seeking, and convenience seeking. Our findings also indicate that members of consumer versus marketer-generated brand communities show both similarities and differences in terms of the extent of community participation and the levels of community commitment, satisfaction, and future intention. Our findings provide useful managerial implications for marketers who want to tap into the huge communication potential of this new marketing communication tool and medium, as they offer insight into the proactive role of consumers in today's marketplace.
Tax Deductibility of Interest On Consumer Debt

In theoretical and practical discussion of the income tax treatment of personal expenditures, interest cost on consumer debt has been a persistent subject of misunderstanding. This article shows the source of the misunderstanding to be twofold: an erroneous theoretical conclusion that deduction of consumer interest cost is inconsistent with an ideal definition of income, and a confusion about the "second best" treatment of interest cost incurred to purchase durable goods when the tax law already lapses from the ideal by not inputing rental values. The article suggests that even for durable goods purchases the continuance of deductibility is probably best.
Management Accountability: The Signals sent by Auditing and Evaluation

ABSTRACT Auditing and Evaluation are two strategies which governments may use to ascertain if existing policies and programs are being administered as they ought. They provide critical information by which to determine the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of government action and are the basis for holding accountable those responsible for the government policies and programs. The analysis compares the strengths and weaknesses of auditing and evaluation as means of monitoring accountability. Three types of accountability are discussed. Auditing makes its strongest contributing to managerial accountability through a focus on fiscal or regulatory issues.
140-GHz SIW LTCC antenna array using a large via-fenced and slotted dielectric loading

A 140-GHz substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) fed slot antenna array using a large and simplified dielectric loading in low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) is presented. To reduce the fabrication complexity, cost, and tolerance requirements as well as to ease LTCC fabrication limits, the dielectric loading of the array is simplified by using a large via-fenced structure and large slots but maintain acceptable performance. The proposed antenna array with a transition achieves a measured boresight gain of 16.2 dBi at 140 GHz and above 14.1 dBi over the band of 130-152 GHz.
An empirical study on quality management practices in Shanghai manufacturing industries

This paper reports the main findings based on the survey study of 71 Shanghai manufacturers conducted in 1998. The survey aims to investigate the current quality management practices in Shanghai manufacturing industries. In this study, we focused on several relationships, such as the relationship between total quality management (TQM) practices and business results, between ISO 9000 standards and TQM, and between employee involvement and TQM results, etc. The result of this study is surely useful for further improvement of Shanghai quality management practice and interesting for the people who are concerned with the current situation of quality management in Shanghai manufacturing industry.
The Australian government's performance framework

There has long been a keen interest from countries around the world in Australia's experience in creating an evaluation system to support evidence-based decision making and performance-based budgeting. Australia's evaluation system lasted from 1987 to 1997, and during that time it was used to systematically evaluate all government programs every three to five years; these evaluation findings were used heavily by officials, ministers and the cabinet in the annual budget process. The uses of these findings included the policy advice prepared by departments including the preparation of ministers' new policy proposals and departments' savings options submitted to the cabinet for its consideration. More importantly, these findings were highly influential on the cabinet's ultimate policy decisions. Finally, evaluation findings were also used widely within line departments in support of their ongoing management. This paper updates two previous World Bank papers that reviewed the Australian experience with monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and other performance-related initiatives. These papers (Mackay 1998, 2004) focused on the first two time periods addressed in this paper.
Identity, Instrumental Self-Interest and Institutional Evaluations

This paper addresses public opinion on common European policies in foreign affairs and defence. It proposes three models of support for common policies in these fields. Drawing on Eurobarometer data, the analysis shows that instrumental self-interest and territorial identities contribute considerably to explaining support for common foreign affairs and defence policies. Moreover, support for common policies is strongly driven by domain-specific evaluations of the European Union's performance. These findings suggest that popular support for common European policies in foreign affairs and defence has an experiential base. Thus, elites have an incentive to respond to public opinion when making policy decisions, so this analysis supports the liberal view in international relations rather than the realist account.
Aberrant Epigenetic Regulation in the Pathogenesis of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Its Implication in Precision Medicine

Great progress has been made in the last decades in understanding the complex immune dysregulation in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), yet the efforts to pursue an effective treatment of SLE proved to be futile. The pathoetiology of SLE involves extremely complicated and multifactorial interaction among various genetic and epigenetic factors. Multiple gene loci predispose to disease susceptibility, and the interaction with epigenetic modifications mediated through sex, hormones, and the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis complicates susceptibility and manifestations of this disease. Finally, certain environmental and psychological factors probably trigger the disease via epigenetic mechanisms. In this review, we summarize and discuss recent epigenetic studies of SLE and suggest a personalized approach to the dissection of disease onset and therapy or precision medicine. We speculate that in the future, precision medicine based on epigenetic and genetic information could help guide more effective targeted therapeutic intervention.
The kilE locus of promiscuous IncP alpha plasmid RK2 is required for stable maintenance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Eight coordinately regulated operons constitute the kor regulon of the IncP alpha plasmid RK2. Three operons specify functions required for replication initiation, conjugative transfer, and control of gene expression. The functions of the other operons, including those of the four coregulated operons that compose the kilA, kilC, and kilE loci, have not been determined. Here, we present the first evidence that a kil determinant is involved in IncP plasmid maintenance. Elevation of KorC levels specifically to reduce the expression of the KorC-regulated kilC and kilE operons severely affected the maintenance of both the IncP alpha plasmid RK2lac and the IncP beta plasmid R751 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa but had little effect on plasmid maintenance in Escherichia coli. Precise deletion of the two kilE operons from RK2lac was achieved with the VEX mutagenesis system for large genomes. The resulting plasmid showed significant loss of stability in P. aeruginosa only. The defect could be complemented by reintroduction of kilE at a different position on the plasmid. The instability of the RK2lac delta kilE mutant did not result from a reduction in average plasmid copy number, reduced expression of kilC, decreased conjugative transfer, or loss of the korE regulator. We found that both the par and kilE loci are required for full stability of RK2lac in P. aeruginosa and that the par and kilE functions act independently. These results demonstrate a critical role for the kilE locus in the stable inheritance of RK2 in P. aeruginosa.
Playing fiction: The use of semiotic resources in role play

By taking two different kinds of role playing as examples, this article explores how semiotic resources are utilised within a certain context. Regarding these role-playing activities as examples of participative narratives, we discuss how the playing and fiction interaction works as semiotic remediation practices for teenagers and young adults. While actively becoming part of the story and ‘making’ themselves in interaction with fiction, they use semiotic resources not usually included in literacy competencies such as the body and various artifacts. This kind of participation in narrative indicates that we have a need for play not only as a first step in our socialisation to become a reader, but also as a tool for reading development throughout life.
The computing memory another distributed computer architecture

The issue of alternative computer architectures has been topical since computer architecture exist. In particular, the question of what is new in a new architecturenever ceased to be germane. The last examples of this interest in CAN are the letter /1/ by P.J.Denning and the reply /2/ by K.Reed, I want to call the attention of the readers to still another new architecture which hopefully deserves this name. This architecture has been developed at the Technical Uni~ versity Braunschweig, FRG, in 1980 and it is called the "Computing Memory"~
Structured Recommendation

Current recommender systems largely focus on static, unstructured content. In many scenarios, we would like to recommend content that has structure, such as a trajectory of points-of-interests in a city, or a playlist of songs. Dubbed Structured Recommendation, this problem differs from the typical structured prediction problem in that there are multiple correct answers for a given input. Motivated by trajectory recommendation, we focus on sequential structures but in contrast to classical Viterbi decoding we require that valid predictions are sequences with no repeated elements. We propose an approach to sequence recommendation based on the structured support vector machine. For prediction, we modify the inference procedure to avoid predicting loops in the sequence. For training, we modify the objective function to account for the existence of multiple ground truths for a given input. We also modify the loss-augmented inference procedure to exclude the known ground truths. Experiments on real-world trajectory recommendation datasets show the benefits of our approach over existing, non-structured recommendation approaches.
Can benign prostatic hyperplasia be identified in the primary care setting using only simple tests? Results of the Diagnosis IMprovement in PrimAry Care Trial

Aims: Diagnosis IMprovement in PrimAry Care Trial (D‐IMPACT) was a prospective, multicentre epidemiological study in three European countries to identify the optimal subset of simple tests applied in primary care to diagnose benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in men who spontaneously present with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS).
Use of Fuzzy Evidential Reasoning in Maritime Security Assessment

Over the last few years, there has been a growing international recognition that the security performance of the maritime industry needs to be reviewed on an urgent basis. A large number of optional maritime security control measures have been proposed through various regulations and publications in the post‐9/11 era. There is a strong need for a sound and generic methodology, which is capable of taking into account multiple selection criteria such as the cost effectiveness of the measures based on reasonable security assessment. The use of traditional risk assessment and decision‐making approaches to deal with potential terrorism threats in a maritime security area reveals two major challenges. They are lack of capability of analyzing security in situations of high‐level uncertainty and lack of capability of processing diverse data in a utility form suitable as input to a risk inference mechanism. To deal with such difficulties, this article proposes a subjective security‐based assessment and management framework using fuzzy evidential reasoning (ER) approaches. Consequently, the framework can be used to assemble and process subjective risk assessment information on different aspects of a maritime transport system from multiple experts in a systematic way. Outputs of this model can also provide decisionmakers with a transparent tool to evaluate maritime security policy options for a specific scenario in a cost‐effective manner.
Is the brazilian real a commodity currency? Large sample empirical evidence

Brazil is one of the world’s largest base materials exporters, and this paper examines through large time series samples whether the Brazilian Real can be characterized as a commodity currency. The Real/US dollar real exchange rate and a real commodity prices index are found to be non-stationary and not cointegrated, while a risk premium appeared to have a large and statistically significant long term relationship with exchange rate movements. Combined first difference models showed that real exchange rate elasticity to risk premium is twice as large as to commodity prices, although both variables have considerable influence. Some specifications outperformed a random walk model with respect to root mean square forecast errors for many horizons, but the latter still better determined the exchange rate in longer terms.
Support for an HR Approach in Australia: The Perspective of Senior HR Managers

Results from a national survey of membership of the professional body the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) provide clear support that senior HR managers have internalized key features of an HR approach and have largely moved away from the personnel mindset. Results also indicate that recent HR policy initiatives have focused on recruitment and selection, train ing and development and performance appraisal. These policy areas are com plementary, central to strategic HRM and reflect an attempt to develop key HR capabilities. Further HR policy areas that are discussed at the senior manage ment committee level reinforce policy initiatives being taken by HR managers. There is also adequate opportunity for this group of senior HR managers to communicate their ideas directly with the CEO. These findings raise important questions about how this perceived move towards an HR approach will be received and supported elsewhere in the organization. Sector and ownersbip were also taken into account. HR manage.
The Definition of Strategic Liabilities, and their Impact on Firm Performance

Strategic Liabilities are processes and tangible and intangible holdings that are firm-specific, context-specific and create competitive disadvantage. They are scarce, inconvertible, costly, and appropriated. The concept of Strategic Liabilities contrasts and complements the resource-based view's Strategic Assets. A firm is likely to possess Strategic Liabilities at some time because these liabilities can originate from endowments, from bad luck, from Strategic Assets, from rival actions, and from unfavourable changes in context. They represent the other side of the firm's ledger often implicitly ignored in the strategy literature. Thus, the formal definition and analysis of Strategic Liabilities is warranted.
Connected objects and the Internet of things — A paradigm shift

Emerging and future network requirements for the Internet of Things (IoT) or Connected Objects (CO) cannot be met by the networks and solutions we envisage today. The vision of IoT includes millions of objects that interact with the network using a plethora of applications. Some of these objects will require little attention and will generate little traffic, while on the other extreme objects may need frequent updates, generate awful amounts of data, demand seamless mobility, real time connections, high availability, advanced security. In this paper we give an overview of emerging and future CO applications and services, with examples, as well as evaluate the impact these will have on the network both in terms of traffic and in terms of new or more stringent performance requirements.
The Relevance of Christopher Pissarides’ Contribution to Mena Labor Markets

High unemployment rates in MENA appear to be structural in nature and result from the significant segmentation of the region’s economies along formal-informal and public-private lines. It thus appears at first that Christopher’s Pissarides’ seminal contribution on the search theoretic underpinnings of unemployment are less relevant than a Harris-Todaro-type dual economy model. Nevertheless, I argue in this essay that Pissarides’ search theoretic framework is becoming increasingly relevant as the role of public sectors in the labor market is gradually attenuated.
A Review on Technique in Managing Oil Palm Plantation towards a Digitalized Online 3D Application

The oil palm industry has been well known as the backbone in Malaysian agriculture and still maintain as the main commodity exports. The research on oil palm industry has been growing gradually by utilizing various methods and technology to solve the problem in managing oil palm plantation. The aim of this paper is to review the technique in managing oil palm plantation towards a digitalized online 3D application. Various problems and techniques on managing oil palm plantation has been reviewed which involving various technology such as GIS, GPS, DBMS and hyperspectral. It was found that monitoring the characteristic of oil palm plantation is beneficial and important to oil palm planters. The new online 3D application for oil palm plantation management has a potential of assisting oil palm managers in making a decision, visualizing their plantation in online 3D environment, and managing their plantation effectively.
Founders, Private Equity Investors, and Underpricing in Entrepreneurial IPOs

One of the most important events in the life of an entrepreneurial firm is when it undergoes an initial public offering (IPO). Combining signaling theory with research on the role of information asymmetry in pricing of IPOs this study examines the performance outcomes of two distinct types of agency conflicts at the time of the IPO: adverse selection and moral hazard. Empirical results show a curvilinear (U–shaped) relationship between founders‘ retained equity and underpricing. This suggests that founders‘ retained ownership in an entrepreneurial IPO limits adverse selection problems and the associated IPO underpricing; however, at some point entrepreneurs‘ investment and risk become so great that entrepreneurs may no longer act rationally and moral hazard increases. Empirical findings also indicate that the retained ownership of business angels has a stronger mitigating effect on adverse selection and moral hazard problems than do venture capitalist investors.
Actigraphic monitoring of movement and rest-activity rhythms in aging, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease

Actigraphy, the long-term assessment of wrist movements, is used in several research fields, among which sleep and circadian rhythms. Actigraphs sense movements using accelerometers. The authors have addressed the following questions. First, they investigated how to filter the accelerometer signal in order to minimize the contribution of accelerations induced by positional changes in the gravitational field. A bandpass filter of 0.5 to 11 Hz appropriately assesses movement induced accelerations while minimizing gravitational artefact. Secondly, the authors have proposed an alternative to traditional methods of signal processing in actigraphy, in order to assess both the duration and intensity of movements, and to discriminate Parkinsonian tremor. Based on this algorithm, a new type of actigraph was designed. The authors have used actigraphy in a series of studies investigating symptom fluctuations and medication responses in Parkinson patients, and circadian rhythm disturbances and possible remedies in elderly and Alzheimer patients.
Long-term delayed vascularization of human neural transplants to the rat brain

Human neural transplants are being developed to treat Parkinson's disease. Previous characterization of human transplants focused on neuronal development, while little is known of the interaction between the transplant and its environment, among which blood is of prime importance. We evaluated here the formation of blood vessels in human neural xenografts placed into the brain of rats immunosuppressed with cyclosporin A. Using capillary wall markers, we found that human transplants remain virtually nonvascularized for more than 1 month. Angiogenesis takes place very slowly and the density of blood vessels is still quite poor after 3 months, the fine structure of these capillaries, when they form, is apparently normal. Functional studies indicate that the vascular network formed in the transplant allows blood circulation and exhibits a working barrier to macromolecules. Glucose uptake and consumption and cytochrome oxidase activity are almost undetectable up to 3 months after grafting. These results demonstrate that vascularization is much delayed in human xenografts into the rat brain. This delay is likely to be dependent on the maturation of the transplanted tissue. A dedifferentiation of human endothelial cells cotransplanted with neural cells occurs since histochemical and immunocytochemical markers revealing endothelial cells in the human fetus are not present up to 1 month in the transplant. The origin of this phenomenon is a matter of speculation. How neural cells survive and mature in such conditions are issues of prime interest for the future of human neural grafting.