bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Export Destination, Product Quality and Wages in a Middle‐Income Country. The Case of South Africa
Authors: Rankin Neil , Schöer Volker 
Published: January 2013

AbstractA robust finding in the firm‐level literature is that exporting firms pay higher wages. Using South African data this paper investigates the relationship between export destination and wages at a worker level. South Africa, a middle‐income country, has two distinct main export markets—a regional market where per capita incomes are lower than at home, and an international market with higher per capita incomes. Our estimates show that workers in firms that export to the region earn less than those that produce for the domestic market. Those in firms that export outside the region earn more than either domestic producers or region‐only exporters. Much of this difference in wages can be explained by the premium the different types of exporters pay for skills. These results support previous studies which suggest that export destination is related to product quality which in turn is related to worker quality and therefore wages.
Wage Discrimination in India's Informal Labor Markets: Exploring the Impact of Caste and Gender
Authors: Deininger Klaus , Jin Songqing , Nagarajan Hari 
Published: January 2013

AbstractAlthough there has been considerable interest in wage discrimination in India, available studies have largely dealt with formal rather than informal markets that are of little relevance for the poorest people. Focusing on India's informal labor markets leads to three findings of interest. First, gender wage discrimination is larger in informal than in formal labor markets, resulting in losses that are larger than receipts from one of the country's most important safety‐net programs. Second, economic growth will not make gender discrimination in wage labor markets disappear. Finally, contrary to what is found for gender, the hypothesis of no significant wage discrimination based on caste cannot be rejected.
Assessment of the quality of hospital care for children in Indonesia
Authors: Sidik Nurul A. , Lazuardi Lilliana , Agung Fransisca H. , Pritasari Kirana , Roespandi Hanny , Setiawan Tini , Pawitro Udjiani , Nurhamzah Waldi , Weber Martin W. ,   The Indonesian Paediatric Hospital Assessment Group
Published: January 2013

AbstractObjectivesTo obtain an overview of the quality of care for children in Indonesia, by assessing hospitals with a view to proceed to a quality improvement mechanism for child care.MethodsStratified two‐stage random sampling in six regions identified 18 hospitals (provinces Jambi, East Java, Central Kalimantan, South–East Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, North Maluku). Three randomly selected hospitals in each province were visited by trained assessors who scored each assessed service (expressed as a percentage of achievement) and grouped into good (≥ 80%), requiring improvement (60–79%) and urgently requiring improvement (< 60%).ResultsThe overall median result score across all areas was 43% (IQR 28%–53%). Case management for common childhood illnesses had a median score of 37% (IQR18–43%), neonatal care 46% (IQR 26–57%) and patient monitoring 40% (IQR 30–50%), all indicating an urgent need for improvement. Qualitative data showed as main problems inadequate use of standard treatment guidelines, irrational prescribing of antibiotics, poor progress monitoring and poor supportive care.ConclusionWe found serious shortcomings in the quality of hospital care for children. Finding and documenting those is the first step in a quality improvement process. Work is needed to start an improvement cycle for hospital care.
Natural Resources, Wage Growth and Institutions – a Panel Approach
Authors: Torres Nuno , Afonso Oscar , Soares Isabel 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThis paper exam,ines the effect of nat,u,ral resource export depen,dence and fis,cal respon,si,bil,ity on wage growth, which is derived from the labour first‐order con,di,tion and esti,mated using a panel growth‐account,ing frame,work. Using annual data, the study accounts for the var,i,abil,ity of resource rev,e,nues, one of the major dif,fi,cul,ties of man,ag,ing these resources. The con,trol vari,ables include the most cru,cial growth fac,tors. Due to insuf,fi,cient annual data, human cap,i,tal is only con,sid,ered inside wages as in many endog,e,nous growth mod,els. We esti,mate the influ,ence on real wage growth aris,ing from the growth‐impacts of nat,u,ral resources through labour and cap,i,tal effi,ciency while con,trol,ling for fis,cal respon,si,bil,ity, which proves a suit,able proxy for pol,i,cies and insti,tu,tions in a sin,gle‐panel case. The results show that respon,si,ble fis,cal pol,icy, assessed by the bud,get bal,ance, pre,vents (var,i,able) dif,fuse and point‐source resources from hin,der,ing real wage growth (through labour effi,ciency), a result also sig,nif,i,cant in a sub‐sam,ple of un‐free coun,tries. The hypoth,e,sis of a resource curse work,ing through insti,tu,tions and reflected on real wage growth holds for resource export shares, but not adjust,ing for re‐expor,ta,tion. Over,all, resource effects are jointly insig,nif,i,cant, even though point‐source resources show a positive impact through cap,i,tal effi,ciency.
Taste responses in mice lacking taste receptor subunit T1R1
Authors: Kusuhara Yoko , Yoshida Ryusuke , Ohkuri Tadahiro , Yasumatsu Keiko , Voigt Anja , Hübner Sandra , Maeda Katsumasa , Boehm Ulrich , Meyerhof Wolfgang , Ninomiya Yuzo 
Published: January 2013

Key points
The taste receptor heterodimer T1R1 + T1R3, metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) and/or their variants may function as umami taste receptors.
Here, we used newly developed T1R1−/− mice and examined the role of T1R1 and mGluRs in taste detection.
The T1R1−/− mice exhibited seriously diminished synergistic responses to glutamate and inosine monophosphate but not to glutamate alone and significantly smaller responses to sweeteners.
Addition of mGluR antagonists significantly inhibited responses to glutamate in both T1R1−/− and heterozygous T1R1+/− mice.
Taken together, these results suggest that T1R1 mainly contributes to umami taste synergism and partly to sweet sensitivity, while mGluRs are involved in the detection of umami compounds.
Abstract  The T1R1 receptor subunit acts as an umami taste receptor in combination with its partner, T1R3. In addition, metabotropic glutamate receptors (brain and taste variants of mGluR1 and mGluR4) are thought to function as umami taste receptors. To elucidate the function of T1R1 and the contribution of mGluRs to umami taste detection in vivo, we used newly developed knock‐out (T1R1−/−) mice, which lack the entire coding region of the Tas1r1 gene and express mCherry in T1R1‐expressing cells. Gustatory nerve recordings demonstrated that T1R1−/− mice exhibited a serious deficit in inosine monophosphate‐elicited synergy but substantial residual responses to glutamate alone in both chorda tympani and glossopharyngeal nerves. Interestingly, chorda tympani nerve responses to sweeteners were smaller in T1R1−/− mice. Taste cell recordings demonstrated that many mCherry‐expressing taste cells in T1R1+/− mice responded to sweet and umami compounds, whereas those in T1R1−/− mice responded to sweet stimuli. The proportion of sweet‐responsive cells was smaller in T1R1−/− than in T1R1+/− mice. Single‐cell RT‐PCR demonstrated that some single mCherry‐expressing cells expressed all three T1R subunits. Chorda tympani and glossopharyngeal nerve responses to glutamate were significantly inhibited by addition of mGluR antagonists in both T1R1−/− and T1R1+/− mice. Conditioned taste aversion tests demonstrated that both T1R1−/− and T1R1+/− mice were equally capable of discriminating glutamate from other basic taste stimuli. Avoidance conditioned to glutamate was significantly reduced by addition of mGluR antagonists. These results suggest that T1R1‐expressing cells mainly contribute to umami taste synergism and partly to sweet sensitivity and that mGluRs are involved in the detection of umami compounds.
Driver obesity and the risk of fatal injury during traffic collisions
Authors: Rice Thomas M , Zhu Motao 
Published: January 2013

BackgroundFew studies have looked at how obesity affects injury outcomes among vehicle occupants involved in traffic collisions.ObjectiveTo estimate the association of obesity with death risk among drivers of passenger vehicles aged ≥16 and to examine effect modification by driver sex, driver seat belt use, vehicle type and collision type.MethodsWe conducted a matched-pair cohort study using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. WHO body mass index (BMI) categories were calculated. Data were analysed using conditional Poisson regression.ResultsEstimated risk ratios (RRs) were slightly raised for underweight drivers (RR=1.19, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.63). RR increased with higher BMI categories and were 1.21 (0.98 to 1.49) for BMI 30–34.9, 1.51 (1.10 to 2.08) for BMI 35–39.9 and 1.80 (1.15 to 2.84) for BMI ≥40. Estimated BMI effects varied by gender. We found no meaningful variation across levels of vehicle type, collision type or seat belt use.ConclusionsFindings from this study suggest that obese vehicle drivers are more likely to die from traffic collision-related injuries than non-obese occupants involved in the same collision. Education is needed to improve seat belt use among obese people, as is research to understand the potential role of comorbidities in injury outcomes.
Republished: Developing capable quality improvement leaders
Authors: Kaminski Geraldine M , Britto Maria T , Schoettker Pamela J , Farber Stacey L , Muething Stephen , Kotagal Uma R 
Published: January 2013

Abstract

Background/objective
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center created the Intermediate Improvement Science Series (I2S2) training course to develop organisational leaders to do improvement, lead improvement and get results on specific projects.

Design methods
Each multidisciplinary class consists of 25–30 participants and 12 in-class training days over 6 months. Instructional methods include lectures, case studies, interactive application exercises and dialogue, participant reports and assigned readings. Participants demonstrate competence in improvement science by completing a project with improvement in outcome and/or process measures. They present on their projects and receive feedback during each session and one-on-one coaching between sessions.

Results
Since 2006, 279 participants in 11 classes have completed the I2S2 course. Participant evaluations have consistently rated satisfaction, learning, application, impact and value very high. Large and statistically significant changes were observed in pre-course to post-course self-assessment of knowledge of five quality improvement topics. Approximately 85% of the projects demonstrated measurable improvement. At follow-up, 72% of improvement projects were completed and made a part of everyday operations in the participant's unit or were the focus of continuing improvement work. Many changes were spread to other units or programmes. Most (88%) responding graduates continued to participate in formal quality improvement efforts and many led other improvement projects. Nearly half of the respondents presented their results at one or more professional conference.

Conclusions
Through the I2S2 course, the authors are developing improvement leaders, accelerating the shift in the culture from a traditional academic medical centre to an improvement-focused culture, and building cross-silo relationships by developing leaders who understand the organisation as a large system of interdependent subsystems focused on improving health.
Vectorization technology to improve interpreter performance
Authors: Rohou Erven , Williams Kevin , Yuste David 
Published: January 2013

In the present computing landscape, interpreters are in use in a wide range of systems. Recent trends in consumer electronics have created a new category of portable, lightweight software applications. Typically, these applications have fast development cycles and short life spans. They run on a wide range of systems and are deployed in a target independent bytecode format over Internet and cellular networks. Their authors are untrusted third-party vendors, and they are executed in secure managed runtimes or virtual machines. Furthermore, due to security policies or development time constraints, these virtual machines often lack just-in-time compilers and rely on interpreted execution. At the other end of the spectrum, interpreters are also a reality in the field of high-performance computations because of the flexibility they provide.
The main performance penalty in interpreters arises from instruction dispatch. Each bytecode requires a minimum number of machine instructions to be executed. In this work, we introduce a novel approach for interpreter optimization that reduces instruction dispatch thanks to vectorization technology. We extend the split compilation paradigm to interpreters, thus guaranteeing that our approach exhibits almost no overhead at runtime. We take advantage of the vast research in vectorization and its presence in modern compilers. Complex analyses are performed ahead of time, and their results are conveyed to the executable bytecode. At runtime, the interpreter retrieves this additional information to build the SIMD IR (intermediate representation) instructions that carry the vector semantics. The bytecode language remains unmodified, making this representation compatible with legacy interpreters and previously proposed JIT compilers.
We show that this approach drastically reduces the number of instructions to interpret and decreases execution time of vectorizable applications. Moreover, we map SIMD IR instructions to hardware SIMD instructions when available, with a substantial additional improvement. Finally, we finely analyze the impact of our extension on the behavior of the caches and branch predictors.
Understanding fundamental design choices in single-ISA heterogeneous multicore architectures
Authors: Van Craeynest Kenzo , Eeckhout Lieven 
Published: January 2013

Single-ISA heterogeneous multicore processors have gained substantial interest over the past few years because of their power efficiency, as they offer the potential for high overall chip throughput within a given power budget. Prior work in heterogeneous architectures has mainly focused on how heterogeneity can improve overall system throughput. To what extent heterogeneity affects per-program performance has remained largely unanswered. In this article, we aim at understanding how heterogeneity affects both chip throughput and per-program performance; how heterogeneous architectures compare to homogeneous architectures under both performance metrics; and how fundamental design choices, such as core type, cache size, and off-chip bandwidth, affect performance.
We use analytical modeling to explore a large space of single-ISA heterogeneous architectures. The analytical model has linear-time complexity in the number of core types and programs of interest, and offers a unique opportunity for exploring the large space of both homogeneous and heterogeneous multicore processors in limited time. Our analysis provides several interesting insights: While it is true that heterogeneity can improve system throughput, it fundamentally trades per-program performance for chip throughput; although some heterogeneous configurations yield better throughput and per-program performance than homogeneous designs, some homogeneous configurations are optimal for particular throughput versus per-program performance trade-offs. Two core types provide most of the benefits from heterogeneity and a larger number of core types does not contribute much; job-to-core mapping is both important and challenging for heterogeneous multicore processors to achieve optimum performance. Limited off-chip bandwidth does alter some of the fundamental design choices in heterogeneous multicore architectures, such as the need for large on-chip caches for achieving high throughput, and per-program performance degrading more relative to throughput under constrained off-chip bandwidth.
Continuous learning of compiler heuristics
Authors: Tartara Michele , Crespi Reghizzi Stefano 
Published: January 2013

Optimizing programs to exploit the underlying hardware architecture is an important task. Much research has been done on enabling compilers to find the best set of code optimizations that can build the fastest and less resource-hungry executable for a given program. A common approach is iterative compilation, sometimes enriched by machine learning techniques. This provides good results, but requires extremely long compilation times and an initial training phase lasting even for days or weeks.
We present long-term learning, a new algorithm that allows the compiler user to improve the performance of compiled programs with reduced compilation times with respect to iterative compilation, and without an initial training phase. Our algorithm does not just build good programs: it acquires knowledge every time a program is compiled and it uses such knowledge to learn compiler heuristics, without the need for an expert to manually define them. The heuristics are evolved during every compilation, by evaluating their effect on the generated programs. We present implementations of long-term learning on top of two different compilers, and experimental data gathered on multiple hardware configurations showing its effectiveness.
A dynamic self-scheduling scheme for heterogeneous multiprocessor architectures
Authors: Belviranli Mehmet E. , Bhuyan Laxmi N. , Gupta Rajiv 
Published: January 2013

Today's heterogeneous architectures bring together multiple general-purpose CPUs and multiple domain-specific GPUs and FPGAs to provide dramatic speedup for many applications. However, the challenge lies in utilizing these heterogeneous processors to optimize overall application performance by minimizing workload completion time. Operating system and application development for these systems is in their infancy.
In this article, we propose a new scheduling and workload balancing scheme, HDSS, for execution of loops having dependent or independent iterations on heterogeneous multiprocessor systems. The new algorithm dynamically learns the computational power of each processor during an adaptive phase and then schedules the remainder of the workload using a weighted self-scheduling scheme during the completion phase. Different from previous studies, our scheme uniquely considers the runtime effects of block sizes on the performance for heterogeneous multiprocessors. It finds the right trade-off between large and small block sizes to maintain balanced workload while keeping the accelerator utilization at maximum. Our algorithm does not require offline training or architecture-specific parameters.
We have evaluated our scheme on two different heterogeneous architectures: AMD 64-core Bulldozer system with nVidia Fermi C2050 GPU and Intel Xeon 32-core SGI Altix 4700 supercomputer with Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGAs. The experimental results show that our new scheduling algorithm can achieve performance improvements up to over 200% when compared to the closest existing load balancing scheme. Our algorithm also achieves full processor utilization with all processors completing at nearly the same time which is significantly better than alternative current approaches.
Making alive register transfer level and transaction level modeling in Ada
Authors: Mahani Negin 
Published: January 2013

Over the past 50 years, design of hardware has evolved from transistor level to register transfer level (RTL), and now to transaction level. Transaction Level Modeling (TLM) enhances simulation performance of today's complex digital systems and also provides the ability of early design space exploration. TLM divides a system into computation parts, i.e. processing elements, and communication parts, i.e. channels and sockets. The inherent concurrency of Ada along with its object oriented features gives it potentials for being used as a TLM language.
In this paper, we use a specialized form of Ada as a system description language, like the way SystemC is used for description of systems. We refer to our form of Ada as SystemAda and we use a public Ada compiler (Gnat) to evaluate system descriptions written in Ada. SystemAda is meant for modeling system behavior and structure at the transaction level and we consider possible approaches for extending Ada to meet these requirements. This paper discusses the specification of our proposed SystemAda, its hardware description style, its RTL link, and description of a TLM 1.0 channel using SystemAda.
Therapeutic Efficacy of Bifunctional siRNA Combining TGF-β1 Silencing with RIG-I Activation in Pancreatic Cancer
Authors: Ellermeier Jonathan , Wei Jiwu , Duewell Peter , Hoves Sabine , Stieg Mareike R. , Adunka Tina , Noerenberg Daniel , Anders Hans-Joachim , Mayr Doris , Poeck Hendrik , Hartmann Gunther , Endres Stefan , Schnurr Max 
Published: January 2013

Abstract
Deregulated TGF-β signaling in pancreatic cancer promotes tumor growth, invasion, metastasis, and a potent immunosuppressive network. A strategy for disrupting this tumor-promoting pathway is silencing TGF-β by siRNA. By introducing a triphosphate group at the 5′ end of siRNA (ppp-siRNA), gene silencing can be combined with immune activation via the cytosolic helicase retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I), a ubiquitously expressed receptor recognizing viral RNA. We validated RIG-I as a therapeutic target by showing that activation of RIG-I in pancreatic carcinoma cells induced IRF-3 phosphorylation, production of type I IFN, the chemokine CXCL10, as well as caspase-9–mediated tumor cell apoptosis. Next, we generated a bifunctional ppp-siRNA that combines RIG-I activation with gene silencing of TGF-β1 (ppp-TGF-β) and studied its therapeutic efficacy in the orthotopic Panc02 mouse model of pancreatic cancer. Intravenous injection of ppp-TGF-β reduced systemic and tumor-associated TGF-β levels. In addition, it induced high levels of type I IFN and CXCL10 in serum and tumor tissue, systemic immune cell activation, and profound tumor cell apoptosis in vivo. Treatment of mice with established tumors with ppp-TGF-β significantly prolonged survival as compared with ppp-RNA or TGF-β siRNA alone. Furthermore, we observed the recruitment of activated CD8+ T cells to the tumor and a reduced frequency of CD11b+ Gr-1+ myeloid cells. Therapeutic efficacy was dependent on CD8+ T cells, whereas natural killer cells were dispensable. In conclusion, combing TGF-β gene silencing with RIG-I signaling confers potent antitumor efficacy against pancreatic cancer by breaking tumor-induced CD8+ T cell suppression. Cancer Res; 73(6); 1709–20. ©2013 AACR.
The Planar Cell Polarity Pathway Drives Pathogenesis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia by the Regulation of B-Lymphocyte Migration
Authors: Kaucká Markéta , Plevová Karla , Pavlová Šárka , Janovská Pavlína , Mishra Archana , Verner Jan , Procházková Jiřina , Krejčí Pavel , Kotašková Jana , Ovesná Petra , Tichý Boris , Brychtová Yvona , Doubek Michael , Kozubík Alois , Mayer Jiří , Pospíšilová Šárka , Bryja Vítězslav 
Published: January 2013

AbstractThe planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway is a conserved pathway that regulates cell migration and polarity in various contexts. Here we show that key PCP pathway components such as Vangl2, Celsr1, Prickle1, FZD3, FZD7, Dvl2, Dvl3, and casein kinase 1 (CK1)-ϵ are upregulated in B lymphocytes of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Elevated levels of PCP proteins accumulate in advanced stages of the disease. Here, we show that PCP pathway is required for the migration and transendothelial invasion of CLL cells and that patients with high expression of PCP genes, FZD3, FZD7, and PRICKLE1, have a less favorable clinical prognosis. Our findings establish that the PCP pathway acts as an important regulator of CLL cell migration and invasion. PCP proteins represent an important class of molecules regulating pathogenic interaction of CLL cells with their microenvironment. Cancer Res; 73(5); 1491–501. ©2012 AACR.