bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
House dust and forage mite allergens and their role in human and canine atopic dermatitis
Authors: Nuttall T. J. , Hill Peter B. , Bensignor E. , Willemse T. ,   the members of the International Task Force on Canine Atopic Dermatitis
Published: July 2006

AbstractThis article reviews the literature regarding the role of house dust and forage mite allergens in canine atopic dermatitis. The presence of immunoglobulin E (IgE) to these mites, especially to Dermatophagoides farinae, is common in both normal and atopic dogs. Exposure of dogs to the different mites is described both in the direct environment and in the coat of animals for house dust mites and in the food for forage mites. Allergens causing allergic disease in dogs seem to be different from those in humans. Dogs seem to react to high molecular weight allergens, compared to the low molecular weight group 1 and group 2 proteases that are commonly implicated in humans with atopic diseases. Despite numerous published studies dealing with this subject, a number of questions still need to be addressed to better understand the exact role of these mites in the pathogenesis of canine atopic dermatitis and to improve the quality of the allergens used in practice.
Effect of combination therapy with systemic glucantime and pentoxifylline in the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis
Authors: Sadeghian G. , Nilforoushzadeh M. A. 
Published: July 2006

AbstractIntroduction  Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a common parasitic disease in Iran, especially in Isfahan. First line treatment for this disease is antimonial compounds; however, owing to the intermittent failure of this treatment and its significant side‐effects alternative therapeutic measures have been advocated.Objective  Evaluating the efficacy of pentoxifylline plus glucantime in the treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis.Methods  This double‐blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial with simple sampling was performed on 64 patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis referred to the Skin Diseases & Leishmaniasis Research Center from an endemic foci of L. major in Isfahan. The patients randomly were divided into two groups. One group was treated with systemic Glucantime (20 mg pentavalent antimony/kg/day) combined with pentoxifylline (400 mg three times daily) and the other group were treated with Glucantime (20 mg pentavalent antimony/kg/day) plus placebo (three tablets daily) for 20 days. Follow up lasted 3 months. Response to treatment was grouped as complete improvement (lesions had been flattened, no induration, and epidermal creases had appeared), partial improvement (reduction in lesion size, but without the appearance of epidermal creases) and poor response (no reduction in lesion size).Results  Of 64 participants, 32 patients in the trial group and 31 patients in the control group were followed for 3 months. One patient in group B discontinued withdrew. After this time, complete improvement, partial improvement and poor response to treatment were 81.3%, 12.5% and 6.2% in the trial group and 51.6%, 29% and 19.4% in the control group, respectively. We also observed no adverse effect resulting from pentoxifylline.Discussion  The result obtained by two therapeutic methods indicates that combined therapy with Glucantime and pentoxifylline is more effective than Glucantime alone (P < 0.05).
Roseobacter and SAR11 dominate microbial glucose uptake in coastal North Sea waters
Authors: Alonso Cecilia , Pernthaler Jakob 
Published: July 2006

SummaryBacterial assemblages in coastal pelagic environments are exposed to pronounced temporal and spatial fluctuations in the availability of monomeric substrates. Little is known about the response of particular bacterial groups to such variability. We studied glucose incorporation at various concentrations (0.1–100 nM) by bacteria related to Roseobacter, SAR11, Gammaproteobacteria and Cytophaga‐Flavobacteria in coastal North Sea waters in late winter and during a spring phytoplankton bloom dominated by Phaeocystis sp. (March and May 2004 respectively). Both the fraction of glucose‐assimilating bacterial cells and the rate of substrate incorporation per active cell were higher in May. The respective contributions of the studied groups to all glucose‐assimilating Bacteria were related to substrate concentration. The majority of glucose‐incorporating bacterial cells at the lower concentrations were members of the Roseobacter and SAR11 clades. At both time‐points the two groups formed approximately equal fractions of all glucose‐incorporating bacteria. This was due to a small population of highly active Roseobacter cells and high abundances of SAR11 bacteria with low proportions of glucose‐incorporating cells. By contrast, the proportion of active cells from the Cytophaga‐Flavobacteria lineage substantially increased at higher levels of available substrate. The determination of concentration‐dependent substrate incorporation patterns may help to better understand the different ecophysiological niches of bacterioplankton populations.
THE CORPORATE ROLE OF LARGE METROPOLITAN AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES
Authors: WHEELER JAMES O. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThis study has three purposes. The first is to determine, for the 30 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in 1980. the relationship among population size, the number of major corporations headquartered in these centers, and the number of subsidiaries located there. The expectation is that there will be positive relationships in all cases. Second, this study, based on variations in the relationships examined above, sets forth a corporate classification of the 30 metropolitan areas and identifies common characteristics and locations among six categories of centers. Finally, using the six‐fold classification of centers, metropolitan employment growth between 1980 and 1986 is analyzed, especially job growth in services and in finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE). The six‐fold classification proves useful in understanding employment growth in these 30 centers during the 1980s and, with modifications, perhaps beyond.
Industrial Development Groups, Organizational Resources, and the Prospects for Effecting Growth in Local Economies
Authors: HUMPHREY CRAIG R. , ERICKSON RODNEY A. , OTTENSMEYER EDWARD J. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTUsing data from a survey of directors of not‐for‐profit industrial development groups in the United States and from a variety of secondary sources, we test the hypothesis that the presence of an active industrial development group was a significant factor in the economic growth of its service area over the 1977‐to‐1982 period. The data permit us to control for different levels of organizational resources among growth promotion groups as well as other traditional factors of local economic change in a regression analysis. While growth promotion groups are judged to be effective in terms of the number of jobs that are created or preserved relative to their direct expenditures of resources, neither their presence nor the levels of their organizational resources are significantly related to service area net employment change. The efforts of growth promotion groups are simply overwhelmed in importance by factors such as population size, metropolitan accessibility, location in a growth region, and manufacturing wage rates that characterize the respective service areas.
State and Local Government Finances: Was There a Structural Break in the Reagan Years?
Authors: BAHL ROY , DUNCOMBE WILLIAM 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThe Reagan administration's “New Federalism” and tax reform proposals were expected to have chilling effects on growth of state and local government revenues and expenditures. This paper examines the hypothesis that there was a structural break in state and local government fiscal behavior in the 1980s. Although the evidence is far from conclusive, it does suggest some different fiscal patterns in this decade. However, the real structural break appears to have occurred in the late 1970s and these trends have continued during the Reagan years.
Canadian Investment in Northern New York: Impact of Exchange Rates on Foreign Direct Investment
Authors: SOLOCHA ANDREW , SOSKIN MARK D. , KASOFF MARKJ. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the determinants of Canadian direct investment in Northern New York, focusing on the influence of changing foreign exchange rates. Hypotheses are formulated that new investment should be positively related to the value of the U.S. dollar while expansions of existing facilities ought to be unrelated to exchange rate movements. These predictions are supported by the data. Since Canadian investment is found to behave quite differently from domestic‐source investment, we conclude that other factors besides exchange rates account for much of this difference.1
A Synthesis of Some Market Area Delimitation Models
Authors: O'KELLY M.E. , MILLER H.J. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTReilly's law of markets delimits a breakpoint between the trade areas of a pair of centers based on their size and spatial separation. The construction of trade boundaries between more thantwocenters is inadequately dealt with in the literature. This paper generalizes Reilly's market model using probability contour mapping and numerical integration. Since the allocation phase of the model can be based on any suitable interaction model, a wide variety of retail analysis techniques is synthesized. Using computer graphics, both descriptive and predictive uses of the model are illustrated.
Defense Impact Analysis Within a social Accounting Framework
Authors: ESPARZA ADRIAN 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThis paper uses a social accounting matrix (SAM) of the California economy to evaluate (1) industrial‐occupational linkages associated with defense production, and (2) the relative impact of defense expenditures in a regional economy. Multipliers derived from the SAM are used to trace the distribution of wages and salaries payments from 24 industries to managerial, professional, skilled, and unskilled sectors of the labor force. Expenditures by federal defense and non‐defense sectors and households are used to assess the relative impacts of defense spending in the overall regional economy. The results indicate that duality is prevalent in the regional labor market, with managerial and professional occupations receiving the greatest benefits from defense production. Overall impacts to the regional economy are less attributable to defense spending than non‐defense and household sectors.
An Intertemporal Cross‐Section Analysis of Economies of Scale in Mexican Manufacturing
Authors: TRUETT LILA J. , TRUETT DALE B. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTUtilizing data from quinquennial industrial censuses for the period 1960‐1975, this study examines economies of scale in a number of Mexico's manufacturing industries. A cross‐sectional approach is used to estimate production functions by industry for each of four industrial censuses. In contrast to findings of relatively constant returns to scale for the United States, the Mexican data reveal substantial economies of scale at both the beginning and the end of the study period, suggesting that further opportunities for reduction in long‐run costs exist. The resultant policy implications are that measures which promote larger scale manufacturing (incentives for expanded domestic production, export promotion, and selected tariff preferences) will speed up both short‐term recovery and long‐term growth of the Mexican economy. It is desirable, however, that these policies be harmonized with other designed to reduce the environmental contamination and congestion that has accompanied Mexico's industrial development.
Producer Services Development and the Role of Telecommunications: A Case Study in Rural Washington
Authors: KIRN THOMAS J. , CONWAY RICHARD S. , BEYERS WILLIAM B. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTInformation‐intensive producer services, which constitute one of the fastest growing components of the U.S. economy, have been identified as a potential contributor to economic development in rural areas. This issue is examined in a case study of a community in rural Washington State. The findings indicate that producer services have not been decentralizing to rural Washington, and that opportunities for producer services development in rural communities are limited because of the inaccessibility of markets, smaller pools of skilled labor, and the lack of agglomeration economies. Opportunities for producer services are greatest in large rural communities with high‐quality telecommunications systems. Although the quality of telecommunications systems is important to the economic health of communities, advances in telecommunications can be a two‐way street for rural America. While telecommunications improvements increase a rural community's access to information and make it possible for rural businesses to more easily serve non‐local markets, they can also make it easier for firms located in urban areas to serve rural markets via branch offices or through the telecommunications system.
Mixed Signals in the Job Training Partnership Act
Authors: ANDERSON KATHRYN H. , BURKHAUSER RICHARD V. , RAYMOND JENNIE E. , RUSSELL CLIFFORD S. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThe Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was developed to train the disadvantaged for work or better jobs. The Act that passed targeted the economically disadvantaged but stressed efficiency in the operation of the program. Program performance standards were established, and local Private Industry Councils (PICs) were developed to operate the program and to involve local business in JTPA training. Critics argued that this structure resulted in “creaming” of participants to the exclusion of the most disadvantaged workers. We test the “creaming” hypothesis using data on JTPA participants in Tennessee in 1987 and a sample of disadvantaged workers in Tennessee extracted from the Current Population Surveys. We find that racial and welfare targets are met but that the most able among those groups are chosen for help. We also find some evidence of “channeling.” The most disadvantaged groups are less likely to receive the most successful type of training — on‐the‐job training. Finally, we present alternative strategies to encourage PICs to do less “creaming,” and we make predictions about their likely success.
Dynamic Relationships Among Regional and Nationwide Manufacturing
Authors: WOZNIAK GREGORY D. , BABULA RONALD A. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to examine how regional manufacturing responds to a decline in manufacturing activity nationwide. A trivariate VAR model of the relationships between the Federal Reserve Board's Industrial Production Index for manufacturing, and two regional manufacturing output indexes is estimated. The regions considered correspond to the Fifth and the Seventh Federal Reserve Districts. A negative shock in the national index is imposed on the system to demonstrate the following: durations and general patterns of the impulse responses; severity of the responses in the two patterns; reaction times; and interregional differences in response patterns. The findings indicate that the response patterns generally differ between the regions.
Retail Business Adjustment in Rural Hierarchies
Authors: HENDERSON DAVID , WALLACE GEORGE 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTMany rural hierarchies are becoming increasingly dominated by a few regional growth centers while the retail sector in adjacent smaller communities either stagnates or declines. This study tests the hypothesis that the rate of adjustment of the retail sector to changing consumer spending patterns is uniform across different ordered communities in a rural hierarchy. Neoclassical investment theory is combined with central place theory to develop a conceptual model of the relationship between the retail sector and investment in a community. A three tiered 49 community hierarchy is constructed using data from the Minnesota Department of Revenue and the Report of Condition and Income of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. A crosssectional time series ordinary least squares regression model is employed to estimate retail coefficients of adjustment for the hypothesis testing. Regional estimates indicate only partial adjustment in the retail sector across the whole hierarchy to shifts in consumer spending patterns. Community estimates, which decompose the regional estimate, indicate retail businesses in the largest and mid‐sized communities adjust totally in one period, but that retail businesses in the smallest communities do not. The faster rates of adjustment by retail businesses in the larger communities to changing consumer spending patterns may augment the development of regional growth centers in rural areas.
Convergence of State Per Capita Incomes: An Examination of Its Sources
Authors: MALLICK RAJIV 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the sources of regional convergence in per capita incomes over the last four decades. Growth in per capita income is decomposed into two major components: (1) growth in employment rates and (2) growth in wage rates per worker. Using annual data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the paper finds that the observed convergence in per capita incomes of sates was largely due to convergence in employment rates; wage rates either did not converge or did so weakly. Employing an instrumental variables technique, the paper finds that rapid growth in the work force with relatively low levels of human capital in initially poor states was a depressing influence on wage rate growth in these states, and was a major reason for the relatively slow convergence in per capita incomes.
Innovation, High‐Technology Use, and Flexibility in Small Manufacturing Firms
Authors: YOUNG RUTH C. , FRANCIS JOE D. , YOUNG CHRISTOPHER H. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTInnovation, use of high technology, and flexibility of response to customer needs are studied in two surveys of small manufacturing firms in New York and Pennsylvania. They are shown in both surveys to be separate and unrelated concepts. None of five industry‐level classifications of high‐technology firms, using SIC codes predict these concepts on a firm level. Only innovation is related to a sophisticated firm marketing program. and to export from the state.
The Globalization of Japanese Manufacturing Corporations
Authors: EDGINGTON DAVID W. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses recent shifts in the overseas investment strategies of Japan's major multinational manufacturing companies (MNCs). Based on a survey of twenty corporations it is postulated that the move towards the globalization of these companies has taken place in three distinct but overlapping phases: (1) a linear link‐up to Japan, (2) a transition stage, based upon international specialization and‘mesh’strategies, and (3) a tetra‐polar strategic division of the world. The paper commences with a discussion of recent trends in MNC behavior, and then shows how overseas corporate organization has changed in the Japanese firms surveyed, especially after 1985. The implications of these changes among the major global regions is examined. The paper concludes with an assessment of whether the strategies of Japanese MNCs have converged with those. of United States or European MNCs, and to what degree they have retained their own distinctive attributes.
Application of Fuzzy‐Set Clustering for Regional Typologies
Authors: HARRIS THOMAS R. , STODDARD SHAWN W. , BEZDEK JAMES C. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTQualitative and quantitative procedures have been used to aggregate communities and counties for regional economic analysis. However, Once aggregated, communities and counties are perceived as homogeneous entities; this often belies the diversity that may exist. In order to capture the non‐uniqueness of counties, fuzzy‐set clustering procedures were employed to derive a typology of Nevada counties. Fuzzy‐set clustering procedures employing fuzzy‐set membership values and possibility theory derive county membership values associated for specific county clusters. Information from fuzzy partitions yields a means for posterior evaluation of county clusters which is independent of the algorithm producing them. From county membership values calculated from results of the fuzzy‐set clustering analysis for Nevada, specific economic development programs for aggregate and individual counties are derived.
A Survey of Group Technology Adoption in the American Midwest
Authors: KNUDSEN DANIEL C. , JACOBS F. ROBERT , CONWAY DENNIS , BLAKE MEGAN K. 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT:This paper presents results of a hierarchical, fixed‐question survey that sought responses about flexible machining cells, flexible labor cells, and concurrent changes in plant operations among nonelectrical machinery manufacturers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. General results indicate that the majority of firms in the American Midwest do not possess flexible manufacturing capability. Of those that do possess this capability, most adopted flexible labor cells prior to adopting flexible machining cells. These cells are small, employing relatively few workers and producing a limited line of products. While the adoption process has been plagued with training, scheduling, and integration problems, most plant managers are pleased with the performance of their flexible manufacturing cells. Management has been reluctant to break out of traditional relationships with suppliers, to trim levels of management and to explore strategic alliances with competitors. Survey results are disaggregated by year, size, positon‐in‐organization, and by union affiliation.
Institutions and Economic Transformation: The Case of Postwar Japanese Capitalism
Authors: FLORIDA RICHARD , KENNEY MARTIN 
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACTInstitutions matter to economic development—particularly to the process of economic transformation. New technologies and new ways of organizing economic activity do not emerge in a vacuum, but bear the imprint of institutional arrangements. Economic transformation thus entails institutional adaptation as well as technological change—the emergence of new ways of organizing production or production systems and new sets of social and economic relationships which provide the institutional context for economic growth and development. Just as importantly, new institutional arrangements do not emergetabula rasa, but reflect the legacy of old social and institutional forms. Given particular social and institutional legacies, different societies adapt differently to economic transformation. This article employs a theoretically‐informed comparative examination of postwar Japanese capitalism to explore the critical role played by institutions in the process of economic transformation.