Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
American power and the dollar: The constraints of technical authority and declaratory policy in the 1990s

The extent to which US authorities can control movements in the dollar is a critical question in the study of International Political Economy (IPE). If US authorities have the capacity arbitrarily to manipulate their currency, then such a power will in all likelihood be used for strategic purposes. The position that the USA can manipulate and has manipulated the dollar as an instrument of statecraft has received recent expression in the Dollar Wall Street Regime (DWSR) thesis. However, such a contention and the associated claims of the DWSR thesis need to be subjected to closer scrutiny. In this article I evaluate the degree of autonomy the US Treasury enjoys in its dollar policy, through an examination of episodes of monetary cooperation between leading states that were intended to influence the value of the dollar during the 1990s. While I accept that the USA continues to enjoy an exceptional degree of what Susan Strange called ‘structural power’ in international monetary affairs, I also argue that US autonomy in the area of exchange rate policy is overstated in the DWSR thesis. A more qualified take on US monetary power can be obtained through an investigation of the politics of exchange rate cooperation in the 1990s. Not only does this enable us to present a more discerning assessment of US power in the global political economy, how that power is wielded and in what circumstances it is effective, but it also offers us the opportunity to examine the way in which states exert influence in international monetary affairs more generally. The principal empirical focus in this article is the appreciation of the dollar initiated by the Group of Seven (G7) in 1995, but later G7 statements and US Treasury positions are also considered. The article has five sections. In the first section, I discuss what is at stake in considering the USA’s capacity to engage in what Jonathon Kirshner refers to as ‘currency manipulation’. In the next section, I highlight the importance of treating technical authority as a quite distinct form of power in international monetary affairs. This enables us to appreciate how even the USA is constrained in its exchange rate policy. The third section provides a general discussion of contemporary exchange rate policy in the context of the rise of central bank independence, the technical working method of elites New Political Economy, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2006
The Role of Accounting Information in a Reforming Area: A Study of Higher Education Institutions

This paper discusses the role of budgets and accounting information in the public sector tertiary education institutions in a particular context. The focus is especially put on how accounting information is interpreted and used by key decision makers in these organisations. The research agenda is of special interest since these institutions now face large reforming initiatives. Therefore, there is a need to do empirical work in order to capture the wider social context in which higher education institutions operate and where the new-style public sector now competes to provide services (Lapsley and Pettigrew, 1994; Lawrence and Sharma, 2002; and Saravanamuthy and Tinker, 2002). Norway has until recently been a hesitant reformer, and the large changes in the management of higher education were not introduced by the Norwegian Government until 2002/2003 when some of the elements included in the Bologna declaration passed through the Parliament. These changes follow the concepts and frameworks of the New Public Management (Hood, 1995), where performance audit schemes are to be implemented, and the focus is put on output control more than the traditional input focus. This study was conducted just at the time of the introduction of these new managerial reforms in Norway. The aim was to describe the institutions as they were at the edge of large reforming processes. The paper is organised as follows: First, the theoretical framework is outlined and the main concepts are discussed. Then the organisation and management of the higher educational sector in Norway are presented. The empirical study is described, and the findings are analysed according to the analytic framework. The main findings in this study are the loose coupling between the accounting information and the professional activities, the existence of communal value bases of control and the absence of interactive control processes in the institutions. In the last part of the paper, some theoretical perspectives and implications are discussed.
mechanisms of disease Cystic Fibrosis

From the Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center (S.M.R., S.M., E.J.S.), and the Departments of Medicine (S.M.R., E.J.S.), Pediatrics (S.M.R.), Genetics (E.J.S.), and Physiology and Biophysics (E.J.S.), University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham. Address reprint requests to Dr. Sorscher at the Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1530 3rd Ave. S. , MCLM 796, Birmingham, AL 35294, or at sorscher@uab.edu.
Intergenerational Transfers, Social Solidarity, and Social Policy: Unanswered Questions and Policy Challenges

Intergenerational transfers are the essence of societal continuity, and yet not at all well conceptualized or analysed. Intergenerational transfers are also at the core of the welfare state concept of redistribution of resources and hence, of current social policy changes/challenges. In making a difference to policy choices and in linking research to policy, attention to intergenerational transfers focusses on the fundamental policy questions of guiding belief systems, family (or private) transfers versus public transfers among generations, and issues of intergenerational and cohort equity in the short and longer terms. This paper has four objectives: (1) Situating intergenerational transfers in socio-historical, international comparative, and current social policy contexts; (2) Developing a typology of intergenerational transfers that could provide the basis for answering thus far unanswerable key policy questions, such as whether the situations of seniors into future generations will be like those of seniors today; (3) Encouraging the collection of more complete and integrated data on intergenerational transfers in Canada, which would provide for more informed policy choices; and (4) Enumerating key policy questions that emerge from research and remain to be addressed. From analysis of what is known about intergenerational transfers and what remains to be known, an agenda for an information system, for future research and for addressing policy questions is outlined.
Role Strain and Burnout in Child-Protective Service Workers

Social workers in child-protective services have always been called on to fulfill complex and demanding roles. In recent years dramatic increases in public and professional awareness of child neglect and abuse have produced new patterns of service delivery and rapidly expanding expectations for protective-service workers. At the same time, the problem of job dissatisfaction and burnout among these workers has received increased attention and may be becoming more widespread. This article reports on a study which applies the role conflict and ambiguity theory developed by Kahn and others to the problem of job dissatisfaction among protective-service social workers.
Measuring the Cost Efficiency of International Tourist Hotels in Taiwan

This study employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate the relative cost efficiency of 49 international tourist hotels in Taiwan. The study uses five different measures: overall efficiency (OE), allocative efficiency (AE), technical efficiency (TE), scale efficiency (SE) and pure technical efficiency (PTE). Applying efficiency measures derived from the DEA estimation, hotel efficiency determinants are evaluated using the Tobit regression model. A bootstrapping technique is applied to overcome the interdependency problem of the DEA efficiency scores adopted in the regression analysis. The empirical results demonstrate that the international tourist hotel industry in Taiwan is inefficient, with most efficiency losses attributable to technical inefficiencies, of which scale inefficiencies are the primary cause – the scale of operations of international tourist hotels in Taiwan being too small to enable the cost-savings associated with larger-scale operations. The Tobit regression results indicate that the proportion of foreign individual travellers (FIT), online transaction function (WEB) and franchising (HOTELTYPE) are related to a better performance of international tourist hotels in Taiwan. The number of years a hotel has been operating (AGE) is not significantly related to any of the efficiency measures.
Agile Maturity Model Approach to Assessing and Enhancing the Quality of Asset Information in Engineering Asset Management Information Systems

This paper proposes a maturity model for assessing and enhancing the quality of asset information in engineering organisations. It is also intended to assist in the enhancement of the collection, storage and use of engineering asset information with the aim of enhancing the Information Quality (IQ) in order to improve organisational learning and decision making. Action research methodology is adopted to allow researchers to test and further refine this model with relevant Engineering Asset Management Organisations (EAMOs).
Monopoly, Quality, and Regulation

This paper deals with market problems that arise when a monopoly sets some aspect of product quality as well as price. It is argued that the market failure is associated with the inability of prices to convey information about the value attached to quality by inframarginal consumers. In the regulatory context, this market problem appears in the form of a difficult informational question for the regulator; what is the average valuation of quality over all the consumers in the market? The paper suggests that rate-of-return regulation may have attractive features when quality is a variable.
Biped Walking Pattern Generation by Using Preview Control Based on Three-Mass Model

Biped walking robots have been widely researched because biped walking is considered as an effective way to locomote in human environments. There are a lot of ways to generate biped walking patterns, and it is widely known that the model certainty of the robot and the immediate generation of the trajectory are very important. Using preview control is a useful way to generate the walking patterns. By using the preview control method, modeling errors, which are generated by using a simple model, can be compensated by using the preview controller again in the conventional approaches. As a matter of fact, it is known that it takes much time to generate the trajectory by using the preview controller again. In this paper, biped walking pattern generation by using preview control based on a three-mass model is proposed. By using the proposed method, the modeling errors can be decreased without using the preview controller again, which means that the immediate generation of the trajectory can be achieved. The validity of the proposed method is confirmed by numerical examples and experimental results.
Toxicity of the extracellular phase of Prymnesium parvum cultures.

SUMMARY: Cytotoxic material (‘prymnesin’) excreted into the growth medium by the phytoflagellate Prymnesium parvum was partially purified and crudely characterized. It proved to be a highly potent haemolysin; its solubility properties and some other characteristics are those of a lipid, perhaps a saponin. The high haemolytic activity which characterized the toxin was often also accompanied by a high ichthyotoxic activity. A method of locating haemolytic activity in a paper chromatogram is described. Fish were killed not by prymnesin alone, but were rendered highly susceptible to prymnesin poisoning by a range of cofactors: streptomycin sulphate, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride. Ichthyotoxicity in cofactor + prymnesin systems conformed within a wide concentration range to the relationship: a x b = Q, where a is a prymnesin concentration, b a minimum concentration of cofactor which elicits a lethal effect in presence of a, and Q is a cofactor-specific constant. The recognition of this relationship has enabled a sensitive assay to be developed. Practical implications are discussed and the hypothesis proposed that prymnesin acts on fish by inducing a state of abnormal permeability of the gill.
Sustainable consumption in Vietnam: an explorative study among the urban middle class

The middle class of Vietnam is growing and so is their consumption, especially in urbanareas. This is due to the effects of rapid economic growth, industrialization andincreasing wealth in combination with a young, growing population. This paper aims tounderstand current consumption patterns and consumption categories that can provide astart for sustainable lifestyles among the Vietnamese middle class.Data was collected in the capita l Hanoi, in the north of Vietnam. The current level ofawareness, knowle dge and attit ude was explored on ﬁve speciﬁc consumption topics:energy, transport, water, waste, and food. A combination of quantitati ve and qualitative datawas collected: 5 focus groups, 5 in-depth interviews and a survey among 158 Vietnameseurb an middle class consumers. The results are disc ussed according to the MOA model thatexplains behaviour as a function of three components: Motivation, Opportunity and Ability.The research concludes that awareness and knowledge of the urban middle class inVietnam on sustainable consumption is generally low. However, the motivation to livehealthy lifestyles and protect the planet for their future generations is rather high. Inorder to support more sustainable lifestyles, the awareness of environmental issues needsto be increased; knowledge needs to be made available and accessible (ability); and rolemodels need to set an example for the urban middle class of Vietnam.Furthermore, health in combination with food is the most important reason for peopleto pursue a sustainable lifestyle (motivation) and the need to change was expressed.However, a general distrust towards business and governmental actors was also found.Therefore, opportunities for bottom-up initiatives for sustainable food consumption mustbe explored in the future. This could support in engaging the middle class of Vietnam insustainable lifestyles.
Fiscal Decentralization and Infant Mortality: Empirical Evidence from Rural India

Over the last two decades, many countries around the world have been enthusiastically embarking on the path of decentralization. However, because of a preconceived idea that decentralization will automatically result in efficient allocation of public resources and due to the absence of an analytical framework and data, very little empirical work has been done in this area. Nor has much attention been given to an analysis of the factors enabling or constraining its outcomes. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model and use it to test empirically the impact of fiscal decentralization on rural infant mortality rates in India between 1990 and 1997. The random effect regression results show that fiscal decentralization plays a statistically significant role in reducing rural infant mortality rate and the results are robust. The results also show that the effectiveness of fiscal decentralization can be affected by other complementary factors such as the level of political decentralization.
Characterization and developmental expression pattern of the relaxin receptor rxfp1 gene in zebrafish

We report the gene characterization, the cDNA cloning and the temporal and spatial expression pattern of the relaxin receptor rxfp1 gene in the zebrafish Danio rerio. The zebrafish rxfp1 gene has the same syntenic genomic organization, and a similar exon‐intron structure to the homologue human gene. Furthermore, the deduced Rxfp1 protein sequence shows a high degree of amino acid similarity when compared with the human protein and the conservation of all amino acid identity necessary for the binding with relaxin. Our results show that rxfp1 gene is active either during embryogenesis or in the adult organism, showing a wide expression pattern. Moreover, we provide the first description of rxfp1 spatial expression pattern during embryo development, showing that the transcript is already present at the early developmental stage and is distributed in all of the embryonic cells until somitogenesis. Starting at the pharyngula stage the gene expression becomes mainly restricted in the brain territories. In fact, at the larval stage, the transcript is detectable in the epiphysis, postoptic region, posterior tuberculum, hypothalamus, optic tectum, tegmentum/pons, medulla and also in the structure of a peripheral nervous system, the terminal nerve. The rxfp1 expression pattern in Danio rerio embryos is very similar to that reported in the adult mammalian brain, suggesting a pivotal role of this receptor in the neurophysiology processes already at very early developmental stages.
Lump-Sum Quota Bonuses and Other Vertical Restraints with Cournot Retailers

Lump-sum quota bonuses are a specific type of quota bonus that provides a lump-sum transfer from a manufacturer to a retailer when the retailerâ€™s sales exceed a pre- determined quota. This paper explores whether lump-sum quota bonuses and two other vertical restraints, two-part tariffs and resale price maintenance, can resolve the double marginalization problem when the market size is uncertain. It emerges that only lump-sum quota bonuses can always resolve the double marginalization problem in our two-state case.
Digital communication, democracy and active citizen engagement in South Africa

This article argues that in the rapidly changing world of today, it is strongly recommended that governments keep up with trends and that they develop up-to-date policies for the constructive use of information and communication technology (ICT) platforms. These policies should be informed by the needs of their citizens and aligned with the prescripts and universal values entrenched in international law. It is argued that providing access to technologies that enhance communication would provide citizens with a voice in matters ranging from national politics to local service delivery, thereby strengthening democratic practices, provided that people also feel that their voices are being heard. This article looks at examples of developments that have taken place in South Africa recently and touches upon the importance of using digital communication to promote political and civic participation and activism
Are Temporary Workers Discriminated Against? Evidence from Europe

The aim of this paper is to analyse the wage gap between temporary and permanent jobs in 12 European countries. We use the semi-parametric (quantile regression) approach and evaluate the wage gap across the entire wage distribution. We show that the fixed-term wage gap decreases as higher quantiles are considered, and that having a fixed-term contract penalizes low–skilled workers (at the bottom of the earnings distribution) more than high–skilled ones. Finally, we decompose the wage differential across the entire wage distribution in order to account for the relative importance of observed characteristics versus different returns to skills. We find that workers with the same characteristics as temporary workers would receive higher wages if they worked on permanent contracts in almost all the countries considered, and that this finding is stable across? the entire wage distribution.
Randomized phase II comparison of standard CHOP with weekly CHOP in elderly patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

PURPOSE To determine whether modifying the standard regimen of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) from full doses given every 3 weeks to one-third doses given weekly (chop) increases the received chemotherapy dose-intensity in elderly patients with advanced-stage intermediate-grade lymphoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS Consenting patients, age > or = 65 years who had acceptable cardiac, renal, and liver function and an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status less than 4, were stratified by bone marrow and performance status and randomized to receive standard CHOP or weekly chop. Drug doses were attenuated or escalated according to a defined dose-modification schedule. The primary outcome was average relative received dose-intensity. Secondary outcomes included response, progression-free and overall survival, toxicity, and performance status. RESULTS Nineteen patients were allocated to each group. No difference in received dose-intensity was seen. When dose-intensity was calculated for the first six cycles of therapy, average relative received dose-intensity was . 92 with CHOP versus . 89 with weekly chop (P = .5); when calculated for the first 18 weeks of therapy, values were . 88 with CHOP versus . 89 with weekly chop (P = .8). The complete response rate was 68% with CHOP versus 74% with weekly chop (P = .9). At 2 years, the progression-free survival rate was 57% with CHOP versus 46% with weekly chop (P = .16) and the survival rate was 74% with CHOP versus 51% with weekly chop (p = .05). More myelotoxicity was seen with CHOP. CONCLUSION We conclude that CHOP can be given in sufficient doses to elderly patients and that weekly chop does not increase received dose-intensity. Progression-free and overall survival are unlikely to be superior with weekly chop, and may be worse. CHOP should remain the standard against which new therapies for elderly patients with intermediate-grade lymphoma are compared.
The Audit Committee and Internal Audit

Audit committees have been established with varying success in recent years. Although they should have a broad mandate to deal with a range of corporate issues, the committees often concentrate primarily on external audit reviews. This tendency can be addressed through the development of a close relationship between the audit committee and internal audit. The factors which will affect the internal auditor′s ability to foster this relationship include competence, corporate culture and positive thinking. Internal auditors have the opportunity to influence the role of the audit committee and ensure maximum effect in respect of good corporate management and control.
The Neutralizer: a self‐configurable failure detector for minimizing distributed storage maintenance cost

To achieve high data availability or reliability in an efficient manner, distributed storage systems must detect whether an observed node failure is permanent or transient, and if necessary, generate replicas to restore the desired level of replication. Given the unpredictability of network dynamics, however, distinguishing permanent and transient failures is extremely difficult. Though timeout‐based detectors can be used to avoid mistaking transient failures as permanent failures, it is unknown how the timeout values should be selected to achieve a better tradeoff between detection latency and accuracy. In this paper, we address this fundamental tradeoff from several perspectives. First, we explore the impact of different timeout values on maintenance cost by examining the probability of their false positives and false negatives. Second, we propose a self‐configurable failure detector called the Neutralizer based on the idea of counteracting false positives with false negatives. The Neutralizer could enable the system to maintain a desired replication level on average with the least amount of bandwidth. We conduct extensive simulations using real trace data from a widely deployed peer‐to‐peer system and synthetic traces based on PlanetLab and Microsoft PCs, showing a significant reduction in aggregate bandwidth usage after applying the Neutralizer (especially in an environment with a low average node availability). Overall, we demonstrate that the Neutralizer closely approximates the performance of a perfect ‘oracle’ detector in many cases. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.