Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Introduction: The Demsetz Thesis and the Evolution of Property Rights

Both conventional price theory and standard economic accounts of tort and contract law assume fixed property rights. In fact, however, property regimes are not static but change over time. Given the assumption of fixed property that otherwise prevails in economic literature, explaining the evolution of property rights is one of the great challenges for the economic analysis of law. The point of departure for virtually all efforts to explain changes in property rights is Harold Demsetz’s path-breaking article, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights. ” The article is still widely cited and reproduced, especially in first-year property courses in law schools. Yet for all its deserved fame, the article contains at best a sketch of a theory and offers only anecdotal evidence by way of support. On April 21–22, 2001, the conference The Evolution of Property Rights was held at Northwestern University School of Law. The purpose of the conference was to reexamine the Demsetz thesis, consider possible alternatives or elaborations to it, and develop further empirical evidence either to confirm or disconfirm it. The articles in this volume, including an afterword by Demsetz, are the outgrowth of the papers presented at that conference. The Demsetz thesis can be seen as an anticipation of the idea that the common law evolves toward efficient rules. Demsetz hypothesized that property rights emerge when the social benefits of establishing such rights exceed their social costs. In effect, he suggested that legal rules regarding resources change over time along a path that produces net benefits to the relevant community. Demsetz broadly described the benefits of creating new types of property in terms of the internalization of externalities. On closer examination, we can see that he actually made three distinct arguments about the benefits of property, each presented in the language of externalities. First, following Jeremy Bentham, Demsetz noted that property provides
Migrant remittances as diasporic communication

I would like to address in this article a particular instance of transnational or diasporic connection and communication, although it has not conventionally been treated as communicative: the transmission of migrant remittances, or monetary transfers from members of migrant communities in countries of residence like Canada and the US to their intimates 'back home'. While much attention is currently paid in migration and development studies to remittances as a global capital flow amounting to well over US$100 billion per year, I emphasise here that they form an aggregate of many smallscale interpersonal transfers (for the most part, contributions of under $200). As such, remittances have much to tell us about financial transactions as an aspect of transnational communication. How can attention to these kinds of micro transactions, most often occurring within a single family unit spread across national borders, encourage a multiscalar approach to transnational communication studies? It might complement and further develop some of the questions with which this research area is centrally preoccupied: the information society and post-industrial capitalism (Webster 2002); governance of and policy regarding global media; transnational content and audiences (Srebemy-Mohammadi, Winseck, McKenna & Boyd-Barrett 1997); and diasporic community formation and support as assisted by new communications media (Karim 20031). What follows is an attempt to outline some of the ways that an analysis of remittances contributes to the study of diasporic or transnational communications, through discussions of the economic impact and emotive dimensions of remittances, the transnational family, and money as a medium of communication. For the purposes at hand, I use transnationalism and diaspora more or less interchangeably. They can be mobilised to signal different histories and emotive dimensions the language of transnationalism explicitly invokes both the nation and the nation's beyond, which is important at this historical juncture as we experience the impact of both the porousness and the rigidity of national borders; the language of diaspora opens up to collective experiences of displacement but in the literature about remittances, their distinguishing characteristics are not very significant. In fact, while scholars in the humanities and social sciences continue to debate the various
WORKING WITH OR AGAINST THE SYSTEM: ETHICAL DILEMMAS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN GHANA

The aim of this paper is to address entrepreneurship and ethics from the perspective of the Ghanaian entrepreneur in small and medium-size enterprises to extend our understanding of issues influencing entrepreneurial behavior in developing economies such as Ghana. Our study specifically addresses three typical situations in which business ethics are challenged: (1) When applying for business information and permits, (2) When competing for business contracts and financing and (3) When dealing with tax authorities. Relying on in-depth case-study data from 22 entrepreneurs, the paper conceptualizes entrepreneurial behavior related to business ethics and identifies several important challenges to overcome to enable economies to build a more effective market economy.
Private Equity Market in Brazil: Key Legal Issues in Fund Formation

This article provides insight into key legal and practical aspects of the main private equity (PE) investment vehicle in Brazil, the Fundo de Investimento em Participações (FIP). First, it analyzes the historical evolution of the PE market in Brazil and looks at the investment strategies and available exits routes within this context. Second, it scrutinizes the basic features of PE fund formation in Brazil, covering areas such as structure, investment parameters, economics, governance, and documentation and marketing, comparing them wherever applicable with U.S. and U.K. PE models. In conclusion, an FIP structure provides PE players with a valuable investment vehicle for M&A activities in Brazil, with crucial tax efficiencies, fewer transaction costs associated with structuring, and enhanced governance and transparency standards.
Intracranial plaque enhancement in patients with cerebrovascular events on high-spatial-resolution MR images.

PURPOSE To characterize intracranial plaque inflammation in vivo by using three-dimensional (3D) high-spatial-resolution contrast material-enhanced black-blood (BB) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and to investigate the relationship between intracranial plaque inflammation and cerebrovascular ischemic events. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was approved by the institutional review board and was HIPAA compliant. Twenty-seven patients (19 men; mean age, 56.8 years ± 12.4 [standard deviation]) with cerebrovascular ischemic events (acute stroke, n = 20; subacute stroke, n = 2; chronic stroke, n = 3; transient ischemic attack, n = 2) underwent 3D time-of-flight MR angiography and contrast-enhanced BB 3-T MR imaging for intracranial atherosclerotic disease. Each identified plaque was classified as either culprit (the only or most stenotic lesion upstream from a stroke), probably culprit (not the most stenotic lesion upstream from a stroke), or nonculprit (not within the vascular territory of a stroke). Plaque contrast enhancement was categorized on BB MR images (grade 0, enhancement less than or equal to that of normal arterial walls seen elsewhere; grade 1, enhancement greater than grade 0 but less than that of the pituitary infundibulum; grade 2, enhancement greater than or equal to that of the pituitary infundibulum), and degree of contrast enhancement was calculated. Associations of the likelihood of being a culprit lesion with both plaque contrast enhancement and plaque thickness were estimated with ordinal logistic regression. RESULTS Seventy-eight plaques were identified in 20 patients with acute stroke (21 [27%] culprit, 12 [15%] probably culprit, and 45 [58%] nonculprit plaques). In these patients, grade 2 contrast enhancement was associated with culprit plaques (odds ratio 34.6; 95% confidence interval: 4.5, 266.5 compared with grade 0) when adjusted for plaque thickness. Grade 0 was observed in only nonculprit plaques. Culprit plaques had a higher degree of contrast enhancement than did nonculprit plaques (25.9% ± 13.4 vs 13.6% ± 12.3, P = .003). CONCLUSION Contrast enhancement of intracranial atherosclerotic plaque is associated with its likelihood to have caused a recent ischemic event and may serve as a marker of its stability, thereby providing important insight into stroke risk.
Comparing net with gross rents

In some circumstances, property valuers (appraisers) must compare net and gross rents. Suggests a number of ways in which this can be done and describes the difficulties of adjusting rents to reflect the liability for property operating costs. Outlines several reasons why the equivalent gross rent is often not the sum of the net rent and the operating costs (the principal reason being the unwillingness of either the landlord or the tenant to bear the uncertainty of these costs). There may also be difficulties in estimating expected operating costs over the period of the lease. Contends that the evidence of recent lettings will rarely enable the valuer to isolate the effect of the basis of leasing on the rents. The views of landlords and tenants on switching from gross to net rents are often unclear. Outlines a single‐period theoretical model of the expected adjustment between gross and net rents (based on compensation for bearing the risks of the running costs). However, there are grave dangers in the valuer adopting such a model which may not reflect market practice. It is no more reliable than resorting to an arbitrary rule of thumb. As well as rental valuations, counselling and advice on lease negotiations may require that the difference between gross and net tenancies is considered. With international comparisons of rental levels becoming more important to footloose businesses, there is a growing need for methods of adjusting rents to reflect the lease conditions that prevail in different countries. Appendices illustrate a theoretical model of rental adjustment and show adjustment methods in practice.
Global Village vs. Small Town: Understanding Networks at the Base of the Pyramid

We compare and contrast business networks at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) and at the Top of the Pyramid (TOP), and analyze their implications for multinational enterprises (MNEs). We first identify the specificities of BOP environments in terms of competitive environment and institutions. Building on this analysis, we develop a series of propositions regarding the impact of these specificities on the structural characteristics of BOP networks, their boundaries, the characteristics of their ties, the diversity of their partners, and their evolution over time, as compared to TOP networks. Our analysis suggests that major differences exist between both types of networks along all dimensions and that these differences have important implications for MNEs active in BOP environments.
Equilibrium Play in Single-Server Queues with Endogenously Determined Arrival Times

We study a class of queueing problems with endogenous arrival times that we formulate as non-cooperative n-person games in normal form with discrete strategy spaces, fixed starting and closing times, and complete information. With multiple equilibria in pure strategies, these queueing games give rise to problems of tacit coordination. We first describe and illustrate a Markov chain algorithm used to compute the symmetric mixed-strategy equilibrium solution. Then, we report the results of an experimental study of a large-scale (n=20) queueing game with fixed service time, FIFO queue discipline, and no balking, reneging, and early arrivals. Our results show consistent and replicable patterns of arrival that provide strong support for mixed-strategy equilibrium play on the aggregate but not individual level.
Cerebral metabolism and atrophy in huntington's disease determined by 18FDG and computed tomographic scan

Patterns of local cerebral glucose utilization were measured with positron emission computed tomography using the 18F‐fluorodeoxyglucose method in 13 patients with Huntington's disease (HD), 15 subjects at risk for HD, and 40 normal control subjects. These data were compared with computed tomographic measures of cerebral atrophy, with age, and with duration and severity of symptoms. The results indicate that in HD there is a characteristic decrease in glucose utilization in the caudate and putamen and that this local hypometabolism appears early and precedes bulk tissue loss. In contrast to patients with senile dementia, in these HD patients glucose utilization typically was normal throughout the rest of the brain, regardless of the severity of symptoms and despite apparent shrinkage of brain tissue. Our results suggest the possibility that the caudate may be hypometabolic in some asymptomatic subjects who are potential carriers of the autosomal dominant gene for HD.
Are agreements important in Bolivia's international trade? An application of the gravity equation

Ante el debate acerca de las ventajas y desventajas del libre comercio en los países en desarrollo, el presente documento analiza la importancia que tienen los tratados bilaterales y multilaterales en los flujos comerciales de Bolivia durante el periodo 19922009. Para este propósito, se llevan a cabo estimaciones de un modelo combinado (pooled) y de datos de panel de versiones básicas y ampliadas de la ecuación gravitacional para el comercio internacional. Los resultados indican que en el periodo de estudio, los acuerdos comerciales de Bolivia con el resto del mundo no han sido relevantes para modificar los patrones existentes de comercio, en particular para incrementar las exportaciones de nuestro país hacia el resto del mundo. Dichos patrones de comercio son mejor explicados por otros factores de orden estructural, como el tamaño de las economías socias y su cercanía geográfica con el país.
Measuring Hotel Performance Using the Game Cross-Efficiency Approach

This study evaluates the comparative operating efficiencies of 23 international tourist hotels in Taipei by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA). A game cross-efficiency extension of the original DEA method is applied to provide reliable and comprehensive evaluation results. The main advantage of this approach is that it not only assesses hotel efficiency effectively based on self- and peer evaluation but also takes the competition among decision-making units (DMUs) into account. A star-rating system is also proposed to rate the performance of the international hotels under study based on their DEA efficiency scores over different periods. The results reveal that the mode of hotel operation significantly affects efficiency, in that hotels operated by international chains are more efficient than independent hotels. However, the level achieved in the traditional Taiwanese plum-rating system by hotels had no significant impact on hotel operational efficiency.
Threshold Voltage and DIBL Variability Modeling Based on Forward and Reverse Measurements for SRAM and Analog MOSFETs

A physically based variability model is developed to explain threshold voltage (VT) and drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL) variations, and their correlations for static RAMs (SRAMs) and analog devices fabricated in a 32-nm high-K metal-gate technology. Inputs to the model rely on forward (F) and reverse (R) measurement of transistor pair mismatch. The modeling results are validated on SRAMs and analog devices. Asymmetric and symmetric variation components of VT and DIBL variability are extracted by the model. Asymmetric variation is a major component responsible for the higher σ VT mismatch in saturation region compared with linear region, and higher DIBL variability.
Taking Up the Challenge of Corporate Branding: An Integrative Framework

This study develops an integrative framework that refines and extends current understanding of corporate branding by highlighting its underlying processes and thereby offering guidance to companies on developing their corporate brand. The proposed integrative framework features a reassessment of the critical position of organizational identity in corporate branding. It also explicitly highlights the central role of an organization's construed and intended images in the design and implementation of a credible and successful corporate brand proposition that can foster stakeholders' organizational identification with and support of the organization. To complement our conceptual work and its theoretical propositions, we present an illustrative case study that contextualizes our framework and examines corporate branding practices at the furniture retailer IKEA and the challenges it faces. As a whole, this study helps unravel the key processes at play in corporate branding practices within a more manageable framework.
Results of laparoscopic cryoablation in the treatment of small renal masses

Context: Study of clinical outcome in renal cryoablation. Aims: Laparoscopic cryoablation (LCA) is emerging as a reliable treatment option for small renal masses (SRMs) particularly in elderly patients. Our aim was to study the results of cryoablation for small renal masses in our cohort of patients. Settings and Design: We retrospectively studied all patients who underwent LCA for SRMs between September 2005 and July 2008. Materials and Methods: All patients were discussed in our multidisciplinary meeting prior to cryoablation. Our LCA protocol included two freeze-thaw cycles, achieving a core temperature of –70°C and a peripheral temperature of at least –40°C. Follow-up included serum creatinine measurements and pre- and postcontrast CT scans at 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months and yearly thereafter. Statistical analysis used: Paired samples t-test was used to study statistical difference. Results: Twenty-two patients underwent LCA with a mean (range) age of 68 (39–81 years) years. The mean (range) tumor size was 29 (19–45 mm) mm. Two patients required blood transfusions, one patient developed pneumonia, and another patient developed a small area of skin necrosis at the cryoneedle entry site. The average (range) hospital stay was 4 (2–14 days) days. Twenty-one patients have had CT follow-up at a mean (range) of 24 (4–42 months) months. Three of the 21 tumors showed central enhancement on follow-up CT scans, consistent with treatment failure. Conclusions: Laparoscopic cryoablation is a safe treatment option for SRM in a selected group of patients.
Independent component analysis of dynamic contrast-enhanced computed tomography images

Independent component analysis (ICA) was applied on dynamic contrast-enhanced computed tomography images of cerebral tumours to extract spatial component maps of the underlying vascular structures, which correspond to different haemodynamic phases as depicted by the passage of the contrast medium. The locations of arteries, veins and tumours can be separately identified on these spatial component maps. As the contrast enhancement behaviour of the cerebral tumour differs from the normal tissues, ICA yields a tumour component map that reveals the location and extent of the tumour. Tumour outlines can be generated using the tumour component maps, with relatively simple segmentation methods.
The Learning Curve's Role in Explaining Household Curbside Recycling Rates

This article asserts that the average household needs time to learn how to recycle common household materials once a recycling program has been put into place by the local municipality. Households must learn to sort waste efficiently and develop good recycling habits. This means learning when to recycle, what to recycle, and how to recycle. After these skills are learned the skills then need to be incorporated into the daily lifestyle of household members. The article tests this assertion by running an autoregressive model with household recycling as the dependent variable and recycling “lagged” as independent variables. Other independent variables which are common to the literature, such as education and community tenure, are used within the model as well. Monthly data was collected from waste disposal authorities during their first few months of operating a recycling program. The results presented in this article can enhance planning by community officials who are considering starting their own recycling programs. It will give them an idea as to how much time is needed before households become adept at recycling. Community officials can then better plan for the growth as they experience their own learning curve when dealing with the relatively new community service (i.e., collecting and marketing recycled products).
Barriers to investment in the informal venture capital sector

Much of the government intervention into the market ‘gap’ for start-up and early-stage equity finance in the UK is based on the belief that the problem is on the supply side. Based on an analysis of the informal venture capital market this paper argues that there is no shortage of finance available. A survey of business angels reveals that many are willing to allocate a higher proportion of their investment portfolio to investments in unquoted companies, with recent tax incentives having a positive effect on their willingness to invest. Over 90% are currently looking to make more investments. However, there are constraints on their ability to invest: they do not see enough deals that meet their investment criteria, the majority of the investment proposals that they receive are of poor quality, and they are often unable to negotiate acceptable investment terms and conditions with entrepreneurs. The implication is that there is a need for further interventions by policy-makers to remove these barriers so that more small firms can take advantage of the substantial pool of angel finance that is available.
Attachment, Parenting, and Separation–Individuation in Adolescence: A Comparison of Hospitalized Adolescents, Institutionalized Delinquents, and Controls

ABSTRACT The authors compared parent-related perceptions by hospitalized adolescents (i.e., who were admitted to a specialized psychiatric unit; n = 50) and delinquent adolescents (i.e., who were placed at a juvenile treatment institution; n = 51) with adolescents from the general population (n = 51). All adolescents completed a broad set of measures of attachment, perceived parenting, and separation–individuation. Contrary to initial expectations, hospitalized adolescents scored higher than controls on indices of excessive autonomy. Ambivalence regarding issues of interpersonal closeness and distance was found among delinquent adolescents. In addition, hospitalized and delinquent adolescents were found to be struggling, each in their specific way, with attachment-related experiences of trauma. Finally, delinquent adolescents also showed a stage-appropriate form of potentially adaptive narcissism. These findings add to the growing consensus in the literature that associations between adolescent psychopathology and parent-related perceptions are typically complex and somewhat counterintuitive.
Sparse feature extraction for Support Vector Data Description applications

Support Vector Data Description (SVDD) methods have been successfully applied to hyperspectral anomaly detection. Unfortunately, the performance of SVDD methods suffers when noisy or non-informative bands are present in the data. If a set of sparse features could be identified for these techniques, the resulting data may improve SVDD performance while enjoying the benefits of decreased processing overhead. Although band selection has been investigated in previous efforts, this work builds on recent research that has resulted in the development of a theoretical framework for signal classification with sparse representation using L1 measures.