bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Financial progress and the stability of long‐run money demand: Implications for the conduct of monetary policy in emerging economies
Authors: Darrat Ali F. , Al‐Sowaidi Saif S. 
Published: April 2009

AbstractThis paper examines whether recent financial changes in three emerging market economies in the Gulf region (Bahrain, the UAE, and Qatar) have distorted the character and the stability of their underlying long‐run money demand relations. Money demand instability prompts concerns about the appropriateness of targeting monetary aggregates and could weaken the presumed link between monetary policy and its ultimate objectives. Our results suggest that the quick pace of financial changes in the three emerging market economies did not cause undue shifts in their equilibrium money demand relations. Further evidence from direct tests of cointegration stability indicates the superiority of targeting M1 in the UAE and M2 for Qatar. In Bahrain, both M1 and M2 prove equally appropriate to guide monetary policy. Thus, despite the wave of financial developments that have recently swept the three Gulf economies, the evidence suggests that monetary authorities in these countries should maintain a close watch on monetary growth as a principal policy guide.
‘Banks is the villain!’? Sir Joseph Banks and the governance of the Society of Antiquaries
Authors: Morgan Evans Dai 
Published: April 2009

AbstractThe name of Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) is well known in scientific and exploration circles – he is undeservedly much less well known as an antiquary. This study considers his roles in relation to the premier antiquarian society of the time, the Society of Antiquaries of London. Using the Society’s records, Sir Joseph Banks is considered as an ordinary Fellow, as a member of Council, as an auditor of the finances and as a scrutator at elections. The relations between the Royal and Antiquarian Societies on first moving into Somerset House and the contemporary question of whether they might have merged is also examined. Joseph Banks’s role in the circumstances of the three contested presidential elections of 1785, 1799 and 1812 is especially considered, and these are seen not just to represent internal squabbling amongst the Fellows, but to reflect the wider social and political strains of the time. In producing the narrative of these elections, significant past mistakes are corrected. Lastly the relationship between Georgeiiiand the Society of Antiquaries is touched upon.
Does Sentiment Drive the Retail Demand for IPOs?
Authors: Dorn Daniel 
Published: April 2009

AbstractIndividual and institutional investors can trade German initial public equity offerings on an as-if/when-issued basis before the start of secondary trading. Using actual when-issued trades made by a sample of clients at a large German retail broker during 1999 and 2000, the paper documents that retail buyers consistently overpay for initial public offerings (IPOs) in the when-issued market relative to the immediate aftermarket. The observed willingness to overpay points to sentiment as a driver of retail trading decisions. Consistent with this interpretation and with sentiment affecting prices, IPOs that are aggressively bought by individuals in the when-issued market exhibit high first-day returns as well as poor aftermarket returns relative to benchmarks of similar stocks.
Understanding the Penalties Associated with Corporate Misconduct: An Empirical Examination of Earnings and Risk
Authors: Murphy Deborah L. , Shrieves Ronald E. , Tibbs Samuel L. 
Published: April 2009

AbstractWe examine the relationship between allegations of corporate misconduct and changes in profitability and risk of the alleged offender. Profitability is measured as reported earnings and analysts’ earnings forecasts. Risk is measured as stock return volatility and concordance among analysts’ forecasts. Decreases in earnings and increases in risk are found to accompany allegations of misconduct, and although the results are somewhat sensitive to the earnings and risk metrics used, the changes are found to be consistently greater for related-party offenses. The importance of reputational penalties is underscored by analysis of the association between allegation-related changes in firm value and changes in earnings and risk.
Is the Value Premium a Proxy for Time-Varying Investment Opportunities? Some Time-Series Evidence
Authors: Guo Hui , Savickas Robert , Wang Zijun , Yang Jian 
Published: April 2009

AbstractWe uncover a positive stock market risk-return tradeoff after controlling for the covariance of market returns with the value premium. Fama and French (1996) conjecture that the value premium proxies for investment opportunities; therefore, by ignoring it, early specifications suffer from an omitted variable problem that causes a downward bias in the risk-return tradeoff estimation. We also document a positive relation between the value premium and its conditional variance, and the estimated conditional value premium is strongly countercyclical. The latter evidence supports the view that value is riskier than growth in bad times, when the price of risk is high.
The Information Content of Idiosyncratic Volatility
Authors: Jiang George J. , Xu Danielle , Yao Tong 
Published: April 2009

AbstractAng, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang (2006a) show that stocks with high idiosyncratic return volatility tend to have low future returns. This paper further documents that idiosyncratic volatility is inversely related to future earning shocks, and more importantly, that the return-predictive power of idiosyncratic volatility is induced by its information content about future earnings. We examine various explanations of the triangular relation among idiosyncratic volatility, future earning shocks, and future stock returns. Our results show that the idiosyncratic volatility anomaly is not a simple manifestation of previously documented market anomalies related to excessive extrapolation on firm growth, over-investment tendency, accounting accruals, or investor underreaction to earnings news. On the other hand, there is evidence that the idiosyncratic volatility anomaly is related to corporate selective disclosure, and the anomaly is stronger among stocks with a less sophisticated investor base.
Negotiating candidacy: ethnic minority seniors' access to care
Authors: KOEHN SHARON 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTThe ‘Barriers to Access to Care for Ethnic Minority Seniors’ (BACEMS) study in Vancouver, British Columbia, found that immigrant families torn between changing values and the economic realities that accompany immigration cannot always provide optimal care for their elders. Ethnic minority seniors further identified language barriers, immigration status, and limited awareness of the roles of the health authority and of specific service providers as barriers to health care. The configuration and delivery of health services, and health-care providers' limited knowledge of the seniors' needs and confounded these problems. To explore the barriers to access, the BACEMS study relied primarily on focus group data collected from ethnic minority seniors and their families and from health and multicultural service providers. The applicability of the recently developed model of ‘candidacy’, which emphasises the dynamic, multi-dimensional and contingent character of health-care access to ethnic minority seniors, was assessed. The candidacy framework increased sensitivity to ethnic minority seniors' issues and enabled organisation of the data into manageable conceptual units, which facilitated translation into recommendations for action, and revealed gaps that pose questions for future research. It has the potential to make Canadian research on the topic more co-ordinated.
The welfare of Sweden's old-age pensioners in times of bust and boom from 1990
Authors: GUSTAFSSON BJÖRN , JOHANSSON MATS , PALMER EDWARD 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTThis study analyses the development of the economic wellbeing of Swedes aged 65 years and older from 1990. This period was characterised by Sweden's deepest and most prolonged recession since the Great Depression, but was then followed by buoyant growth. In a series of interventions from 1991 through to 1998, pensions were cut and their full price indexation abandoned. In spite of these dramatic measures, this study shows that pensioners fared better than the working-age population, but also that poverty among older Swedes increased in absolute terms. During the following years of rapid economic growth, in contrast, the growth in pensioners' income fell behind that of workers and their relative poverty increased. The analysis shows that the limited resources of many older Swedes put them close to a social poverty line. The study also shows that income inequality among older Swedes has grown with the increasing importance of capital income for the better off. We conclude that the increasing gap between better-off and worse-off older people raises issues about the future provision of expenditures on public services for them. The paper concludes that, overall, poverty among older people in Sweden remains low by international standards and that the Swedish welfare state has maintained its resilience.
Modernising social care services for older people: scoping the United Kingdom evidence base
Authors: JACOBS SALLY , XIE CHENGQIU , REILLY SIOBHAN , HUGHES JANE , CHALLIS DAVID 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTIn common with other developed countries at the end of the 20th century, modernising public services was a priority of the United Kingdom (UK) Labour administration after its election in 1997. The modernisation reforms in health and social care exemplified their approach to public policy. The authors were commissioned to examine the evidence base for the modernisation of social care services for older people, and for this purpose conducted a systematic review of the relevant peer-reviewed UK research literature published from 1990 to 2001. Publications that reported descriptive, analytical, evaluative, quantitative and qualitative studies were identified and critically appraised under six key themes of modernisation: integration, independence, consistency, support for carers, meeting individuals' needs, and the workforce. This paper lists the principal features of each study, provides an overview of the literature, and presents substantive findings relating to three of the modernisation themes (integration, independence and individuals' needs). The account provides a systematic portrayal both of the state of social care for older peoplepriorto the modernisation process and of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base. It suggests that, for evidence-based practice and policy to become a reality in social care for older people, there is a general need for higher quality studies in this area.
Ill, worried or worried sick? Inter-relationships among indicators of wellbeing among older people in Sweden
Authors: HALLERÖD BJÖRN 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTThis study examined the associations between a large set of health indicators and wellbeing among older people (aged 66 or more years) in Sweden. The data were drawn from the Swedish Panel Survey of Ageing and the Elderly (PSAE), with variables covering information about health, daily activities, social interaction, anxieties and worries, and economic hardship. A series of confirmative factor analyses were used to reveal if and how indicators of living conditions could be subdivided into latent factors, and several socio-economic and socio-demographic variables were used as their predictors. Differences between men and women and between a number of age groups of old people were systematically scrutinised. The preferred representation of the data was a nested model that identified one global factor, which related to all manifest indicators, and three residual factors that measured the specific experiences of physical impairment, psychosocial distress and economic difficulties. The findings improve our understanding of the relationships between indicators of health and wellbeing and the various latent dimensions that simultaneously affect response patterns. More importantly, they also facilitate our understanding of older people's wellbeing and assists the interpretation of single, commonly used indicators such as subjective health.
Lower Devonian dalmanitid trilobites of the Prague Basin (Czech Republic)
Authors: Budil Petr , Hörbinger František , Mencl Robert 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTA revision of the Lower Devonian dalmanitid trilobites of the Prague Basin (Czech Republic) is presented. The subfamily Odontochilinae Šnajdr is considered a synonym of Dalmanitidae Vogdes. Twenty-one previously and five newly described (three in open nomenclature) species and subspecies occur in the Prague Basin from the lowermost Pragian (one problematic specimen possibly comes from the uppermost Lochkovian) to the Lower Emsian; the last questionable record is from the Upper Emsian. The species have been assigned to four genera and subgenera: Odontochile Hawle & Corda, Reussiana Šnajdr, Zlichovaspis (Zlichovaspis) Přibyl & Vaněk and Zlichovaspis (Devonodontochile) Šnajdr. These trilobites are considered as scavengers or opportunistic predators, living most of their lives as vagrant benthos burying in the muddy substrate to find organic remains. The first undoubted adult-like meraspid specimens are described.
Geochemical investigation of an unusual alteration profile developed at the base of a Carboniferous lava flow, Isle of Bute, Scotland
Authors: Young Grant M. 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTAn alteration zone at the base of a Carboniferous lava flow on the island of Bute resembles modern and ancient weathering profiles, but it is ‘upside down’ in the sense that alteration is most intense at the base and decreases upwards. Values for a Chemical Index of Alteration (CIA) increase from fresh lava and corestones downwards to fine-grained structureless material. The altered material is Mg- and Cu-rich, possibly as a result of migration of these elements from underlying sediments. Rare earth elements (REE) display considerable and systematic mobility and fractionation. In general heavy rare earth elements (HREE) are concentrated during alteration, whereas the light rare earth elements (LREE) are lost. Mobility of the REE appears to be related to atomic weight, with La (the lightest REE) being the most depleted through to Lu, which is the most concentrated REE in the highly altered material. Similar systematic fractionation is shown by some weathering profiles developed on mafic igneous rocks. Movement of water into the volcanic rocks was probably driven by a steep thermal gradient between the hot lava and its sedimentary substrate.
Late Ordovician trilobites from northwest Iran and their biogeographical affinities
Authors: Karim Talia S. 
Published: April 2009

ABSTRACTA diverse, previously undescribed trilobite fauna from northwest Iran sheds new light on the Early Palaeozoic geography of the Alborz terrane. The structural history of the Alborz region is well known, though faunal data for the area are sparse, especially for the Ordovician. Trilobites, brachiopods, conodonts, bryozoans and echinoderms occur in a red grainstone/packstone near the village of Tatavrud, 35 km southwest of Bandar-e-Anzali. The fossils indicate a Late Ordovician age, although lithologically similar outcrops in northern Iran have previously been considered Silurian. Trilobite genera occurring include Trinodus, Geragnostus, Illaenus, Panderia, Phorocephala, Ovalocephalus, Dicranopeltis, Symphysops, Cyclopyge, and Sphaerexochus. Similar assemblages have been reported from the Late Ordovician of Ireland, Spain, Poland, Norway, northwest China, Kazakhstan and the Turkistan–Alai Ridge (Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan border). Reconstructions of Late Ordovician geography place the Alborz terrane near the eastern margin of Gondwana, but there is doubt as to its precise location. Some workers have considered it part of the margin while others have considered it a separate terrane. Several species present, including Mezzaluna tatavrudensis n. sp. and Phorocephala cf. ulugtana (Petrunina, 1975) are very similar to taxa described from the Turkistan–Alai Ridge. In addition, the isocolid genus Paratiresias has only been reported from Iran, the Turkistan–Alai Ridge and northwest China. The presence of these taxa indicates that the Alborz terrane was in close proximity to the eastern margin of Gondwana at this time.
GenColors: Annotation and comparative genomics made easy
Authors: Felder Marius , Romualdi Alessandro , Gloeckner Gernot , Platzer Matthias , Suehnel Juergen 
Published: April 2009

AbstractGenColors is a web-based software/database system initially aimed at an improved and accelerated annotation of prokaryotic genomes making extensive use of genome comparison (Romualdi et al., Bioinformatics 2005; Romualdi et al., Methods Mol. Biol. 2007). It offers a seamless integration of data from ongoing sequencing projects and annotated genomic sequences obtained from GenBank. With GenColors dedicated genome browsers containing a group of related genomes can be easily set up and maintained. The tool has been efficiently used for sequenceing and annotating the Borrelia garinii genome and is currently applied to a number of other ongoing genome projects on Legionella, Pseudomonas and E. coli genomes. Examples for freely accessible GenColors-based dedicated genome browsers are the Spirochetes Genome Browser SGB ("sgb.fli-leibniz.de":http://sgb.fli-leibniz.de), the Photogenome Browser CGB ("cgb.fli-leibniz.de":http://cgb.fli-leibniz.de) and the Enterobacter Genome Browser ENGENE ("engene.fli-leibniz.de":http://engene.fli-leibniz.de). The system has now been adapted to handle also eukaryotic genomes. A first application of this feature is the annotation and analysis of two fungal species (unpublished). Another GenColors-based tool is the Jena Prokaryotic Genome Viewer - JPGV ("jpgv.fli-leibniz.de":http://jpgv.fli-leibniz.de). Contrary to the dedicated browsers it offers information on almost all finished bacterial genomes. Currently, it includes 1140 genomic elements of 293 species.
Community curation on WikiPathways: How we assist knowledge collection
Authors: Evelo Chris 
Published: April 2009

AbstractBiologists typically use knowledge represented as pathways to better understand the results of genomics experiments. Through integration of data from different omics techniques with what we already know, statistical evaluation and subsequent data visualization the results often start to make sense. An important problem is that we often do not have the relevant pathways, or they may be incomplete or not suitable for usage by analytical tools. Wikipathways is meant to be an answer to the problems described above. It uses mediawiki technology and dedicated open source java code to allow biologists to edit pathway content on the web. We assist this process through the development of helpful software like a Diff tool, Go and KEGG converters, portal mechanism, webservice and pathway extension through automated suggestions.
Does Language Influence the Accuracy of Judgments of Stuttering in Children?
Authors: Einarsdóttir Jóhanna , Ingham Roger J. 
Published: April 2009

Purpose
To determine whether stuttering judgment accuracy is influenced by familiarity with the stuttering speaker’s language.

Method

Audiovisual 7-min speech samples from nine 3- to 5-year-olds were used. Icelandic children who stutter (CWS), preselected for different levels of stuttering, were subdivided into 5-s intervals. Ten experienced Icelandic speech-language pathologists (ICE-SLPs) and 10 experienced U.S. speech-language pathologists (US-SLPs), the latter being unfamiliar with the Icelandic language, independently judged each 5-s interval (
n
= 756) as
stuttered
or
nonstuttered
on 2 separate occasions.

Results
As in previous studies, intervals judged to contain stuttering showed wide variability within the ICE-SLP and US-SLP groups. However, both SLP groups (a) displayed satisfactory mean intrajudge agreement, (b) met an independent stuttering judgment accuracy criterion test using English-speaking CWS samples, and (c) met an agreement criterion on approximately 90% of their stuttering and nonstuttering judgments on the Icelandic-speaking CWS samples.

Conclusion
Experienced SLPs were shown to be highly accurate in recognizing stuttering and nonstuttering exemplars from young CWS speaking in an unfamiliar language. The findings suggest that judgments of occurrences of stuttering in CWS are not generally language dependent, although some exceptions were noted.
Perceptual Consequences of Changes in Vocoded Speech Parameters in Various Reverberation Conditions
Authors: Drgas Szymon , Blaszak Magdalena A. 
Published: April 2009

Purpose
To study the perceptual consequences of changes in parameters of vocoded speech in various reverberation conditions.

Method
The 3 controlled variables were number of vocoder bands, instantaneous frequency change rate, and reverberation conditions. The effects were quantified in terms of (a) nonsense words' recognition scores for young normal-hearing listeners, (b) ease of listening based on the time of response (response delay), and (c) the subjective measure of difficulty (10-degree scale).

Results
It has been shown that the fine structure of a signal is a relevant cue in speech perception in reverberation conditions. The results obtained for different number of bands, frequency-modulation cutoff frequencies, and reverberation conditions have shown that all these parameters are important for speech perception in reverberation.

Conclusions
Only slow variations in the instantaneous frequency (<50 Hz) seem to play a critical role in speech intelligibility in anechoic conditions. In reverberant enclosures, however, fast fluctuations of instantaneous frequency are also significant.
Objective Measures of Listening Effort: Effects of Background Noise and Noise Reduction
Authors: Sarampalis Anastasios , Kalluri Sridhar , Edwards Brent , Hafter Ervin 
Published: April 2009

PurposeThis work is aimed at addressing a seeming contradiction related to the use of noise-reduction (NR) algorithms in hearing aids. The problem is that although some listeners claim a subjective improvement from NR, it has not been shown to improve speech intelligibility, often even making it worse.MethodTo address this, the hypothesis tested here is that the positive effects of NR might be to reduce cognitive effort directed toward speech reception, making it available for other tasks. Normal-hearing individuals participated in 2 dual-task experiments, in which 1 task was to report sentences or words in noise set to various signal-to-noise ratios. Secondary tasks involved either holding words in short-term memory or responding in a complex visual reaction-time task.ResultsAt low values of signal-to-noise ratio, although NR had no positive effect on speech reception thresholds, it led to better performance on the word-memory task and quicker responses in visual reaction times.ConclusionsResults from both dual tasks support the hypothesis that NR reduces listening effort and frees up cognitive resources for other tasks. Future hearing aid research should incorporate objective measurements of cognitive benefits.