Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Valuation and Risk Management Working Paper No . 648 Three Make a Dynamic Smile – Unspanned Skewness and Interacting Volatility Components in Option Valuation

We study a new class of three-factor affine option pricing models with interdependent volatility dynamics and a stochastic skewness component unrelated to volatility shocks. These properties are useful in order (i) to model a term structure of implied volatility skews more consistent with the data and (ii) to capture comovements of short and long term skews largely unrelated to the volatility dynamics. We estimate our models using about fourteen years of S&P 500 index option data and find that on average they improve the out-of-sample pricing accuracy of benchmark twoand three-factor affine models by 20%. Using an appropriate decomposition of volatility and skewness, highlighting the main directions of improvements produced by our setting, we show that the enhanced fit results from an improved modeling of the term structure of implied-volatility skews. The largest pricing improvements tend to concentrate during periods of financial crises or market distress, suggesting volatilityunrelated skewness as a potentially useful reduced-form risk factor for reproducing some of the crisis-related dynamics of index option smiles. JEL classification: G10, G12, G13
Youth attitudes towards assessment tools in after-school informal learning and employment training programs

Youth Attitudes Towards Assessment Tools in After-school Informal Learning and Employment Training Programs Dr. Foad Hamidi, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Dr. Foad Hamidi is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction, Participatory Design and Assistive Technology. Mr. William Easley, University of Maryland, Baltimore County William is a Ph.D. student in the Human-Centered Computing program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He earned a B.S. in Information Systems and a M.S. in Human-Centered Computing, both from UMBC. His primary research investigates the impact that Making may have on youth engagement in STEM education and careers. Stephanie Grimes, Digital Harbor Foundation Stephanie Grimes has been working in education for over 15 years in many different capacities. A former Early Childhood Educator, Stephanie is now the Director of Education for Digital Harbor Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland. Steph oversees all curricular creations and youth programs for the DHF Tech Center and workshop experiences. She works to produce innovative, project-based, and accessible content that focuses on preparing youth for the careers of tomorrow, with a focus on technology and making. Shawn Grimes, Digital Harbor Foundation Shawn Grimes is the Executive Director at the Digital Harbor Foundation where they use technology and maker skills to develop a blend of creativity and productivity in youth and educators. Dr. Amy Hurst, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Amy Hurst an Associate Professor of Human-Centered Computing in the Information Systems Department at UMBC and studies accessibility problems and build assistive technologies.
A 4-Year Follow-Up Study of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Symptoms, Comorbidities, and Psychostimulant Use in a Brazilian Sample of Children and Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The aim of this study was to evaluate symptom persistence in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the development of comorbidities, and psychostimulant usage patterns. Follow-up studies were conducted in 37 patients with ADHD and 22 healthy controls, aged 10 and 18, 4 years after their first assessment. The ADHD was rated as persistent if participants met all DSM-IV criteria for syndromic or sub-threshold persistence, or had functional impairments (functional persistence). Of the 37 ADHD patients we reevaluated, 75% had persistent symptoms, and psychiatric comorbidities with additional functional impairments and academic problems were more common than in controls. These follow-up findings show a high comorbidity associated with ADHD and support the importance of evaluation and treatment for ADHD and comorbidities throughout life.
A comparison of three interfaces using handheld devices to intuitively drive and show objects to a social robot: the impact of underlying metaphors

In this paper, we present three human-robot interfaces using a handheld device as a mediator object between a human and a robot, allowing the human to intuitively drive the robot and show it objects. One of the interface is based on a virtual keyboard interface on the iPhone, another is a gesture based interface on the iPhone too and the last one is a Wiimote based interface. They were designed to be easy to use, especially by non-expert domestic users, and to span different metaphors of interaction. In order to compare them and study the impact of the metaphor on the interaction, we designed a user-study based on two obstacle courses. Each of the 25 participants performed two courses with two different interfaces (total of 100 trials). Although the three interfaces were rather equally efficient and all considered as satisfying by the participants, the iPhone gesture interface was largely preferred while the Wiimote was poorly chosen due to the impact of the chosen metaphor.
Challenges and Opportunities: What Can We Learn from Patients Living with Chronic Musculoskeletal Conditions, Health Professionals and Carers about the Concept of Health Literacy Using Qualitative Methods of Inquiry?

The field of health literacy continues to evolve and concern public health researchers and yet remains a largely overlooked concept elsewhere in the healthcare system. We conducted focus group discussions in England UK, about the concept of health literacy with older patients with chronic musculoskeletal conditions (mean age = 73.4 years), carers and health professionals. Our research posed methodological, intellectual and practical challenges. Gaps in conceptualisation and expectations were revealed, reiterating deficiencies in predominant models for understanding health literacy and methodological shortcomings of using focus groups in qualitative research for this topic. Building on this unique insight into what the concept of health literacy meant to participants, we present analysis of our findings on factors perceived to foster and inhibit health literacy and on the issue of responsibility in health literacy. Patients saw health literacy as a result of an inconsistent interactive process and the implications as wide ranging; healthcare professionals had more heterogeneous views. All focus group discussants agreed that health literacy most benefited from good inter-personal communication and partnership. By proposing a needs-based approach to health literacy we offer an alternative way of conceptualising health literacy to help improve the health of older people with chronic conditions.
A GROWTH MODEL WITH BEQUEST-AS-CONSUMPTION

This paper analyses a growth model wherein saving results from bequestas-consumption. It first looks at the market equilibrium and at the optimal solution. Then it turns to the issue of decentralizing the optimal solution with various taxes and transfers. Depending on the available instruments, either a first-best or a second-best optimum can be achieved. Throughout the paper the results are contrasted with those obtained in the standard altruistic (dynastic) model and in the overlapping generation model without intergenerational transfers.
Data and text mining Discovering motif pairs at interaction sites from protein sequences on a proteome-wide scale

Motivation: Protein–protein interaction, mediated by protein interaction sites, is intrinsic to many functional processes in the cell. In this paper, we propose a novel method to discover patterns in protein interaction sites. We observed from protein interaction networks that there exist a kind of significant substructures called interacting protein group pairs, which exhibit an all-versus-all interaction between the two protein-sets in such a pair. The full-interaction between the pair indicates a common interaction mechanism shared by the proteins in the pair, which can be referred as an interaction type. Motif pairs at the interaction sites of the protein group pairs can be used to represent such interaction type, with each motif derived from the sequences of a protein group by standard motif discovery algorithms. The systematic discovery of all pairs of interacting protein groups from large protein interaction networks is a computationally challenging problem. By a careful and sophisticated problem transformation, the problem is solved using efficient algorithms for mining frequent patterns, a problem extensively studied in data mining. Results: We found 5349 pairs of interacting protein groups from a yeast interaction dataset. The expected value of sequence identity within the groups is only 7.48%, indicating non-homology within these protein groups. We derived 5343 motif pairs from these group pairs, represented in the form of blocks. Comparing our motifs with domains in the BLOCKS and PRINTS databases, we found that our blocks could be mapped to an average of 3.08 correlated blocks in these two databases. The mapped blocks occur 4221 out of total 6794 domains (protein groups) in these two databases. Comparing our motif pairs with iPfam consisting of 3045 interacting domain pairs derived from PDB, we found 47 matches occurring in 105 distinct PDB complexes. Comparing with another putative domain interaction database InterDom, we found 203 matches. Availability: http://research.i2r. a-star.edu. sg/BindingMotifPairs/
Lead time and overdiagnosis in prostate-specific antigen screening: importance of methods and context.

BACKGROUND The time by which prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening advances prostate cancer diagnosis, called the lead time, has been reported by several studies, but results have varied widely, with mean lead times ranging from 3 to 12 years. A quantity that is closely linked with the lead time is the overdiagnosis frequency, which is the fraction of screen-detected cancers that would not have been diagnosed in the absence of screening. Reported overdiagnosis estimates have also been variable, ranging from 25% to greater than 80% of screen-detected cancers. METHODS We used three independently developed mathematical models of prostate cancer progression and detection that were calibrated to incidence data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program to estimate lead times and the fraction of overdiagnosed cancers due to PSA screening among US men aged 54-80 years in 1985-2000. Lead times were estimated by use of three definitions. We also compared US and earlier estimates from the Rotterdam section of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) that were calculated by use of a microsimulation screening analysis (MISCAN) model. RESULTS The models yielded similar estimates for each definition of lead time, but estimates differed across definitions. Among screen-detected cancers that would have been diagnosed in the patients' lifetimes, the estimated mean lead time ranged from 5.4 to 6.9 years across models, and overdiagnosis ranged from 23% to 42% of all screen-detected cancers. The original MISCAN model fitted to ERSPC Rotterdam data predicted a mean lead time of 7.9 years and an overdiagnosis estimate of 66%; in the model that was calibrated to the US data, these were 6.9 years and 42%, respectively. CONCLUSION The precise definition and the population used to estimate lead time and overdiagnosis can be important drivers of study results and should be clearly specified.
Regulating Trade Among Agents

Our purpose is to analyze how a principal would optimally want to regulate the amount and nature of side-trade between his agents - an aspect of the general problem of constructing incentives in a multi-agent organization. By side-trade we mean implicit or explicit exchanges between the agents which the principal cannot control directly, because he cannot observe them. Such side-trades are typically labeled by their social or organizational merits. We speak of collusion when private trades harm the organization and cooperation when they help. Evidently, the labels are intended to invoke the substantial powers of social norms to limit undesirable behavior or encourage desirable behavior. Notice that very similar trades can be labeled as "cooperation" or "collusion" depending on the context and the intent of the trade. We will attempt to identify in this paper the factors that determine the desirability of agent sidetrade in a given situation. What circumstances distinguish cooperation from collusion? And how should the principal regulate the degree of cooperation to limit collusion? We will analyze these questions in a rather special but quite tractable agency model (Holmstrom and Milgrom [1987]). In this model optimal sharing rules are linear, which permits us to expand our inquiry into richer organizational territory than is typical. Most importantly, we are able to consider agents that are engaged in multiple tasks. We will find this feature central: it is in large part substitution among activities that will determine the cost of letting agents trade with each other. Substitution will prevent the principal from creating highly varying incentives for the agent's activities, even when such variation in incentives would be desirable for risk sharing purposes. If performance in different tasks is observed with different accuracy, the principal would ideally like to balance risk and incentives separately for each task. The main trade-off is
Are Malaysian exports and imports cointegrated? A comment

This commentary aims to provide an insight on the work by Choong, Soo and Zulkornain Yusop (2004), which appeared in the inaugural i ssue of this journal. The study has found a long-run relationship (cointegration) between Malaysian imports and exports for the a nnual period 1959 ‐2000. An empirical ill ustration in this commentary reveals that a cointegration between Malaysian exports and imports as documented by CSZ requires further investigation before it can be generalized.
Learning to classify short and sparse text & web with hidden topics from large-scale data collections

This paper presents a general framework for building classifiers that deal with short and sparse text & Web segments by making the most of hidden topics discovered from large-scale data collections. The main motivation of this work is that many classification tasks working with short segments of text & Web, such as search snippets, forum & chat messages, blog & news feeds, product reviews, and book & movie summaries, fail to achieve high accuracy due to the data sparseness. We, therefore, come up with an idea of gaining external knowledge to make the data more related as well as expand the coverage of classifiers to handle future data better. The underlying idea of the framework is that for each classification task, we collect a large-scale external data collection called "universal dataset", and then build a classifier on both a (small) set of labeled training data and a rich set of hidden topics discovered from that data collection. The framework is general enough to be applied to different data domains and genres ranging from Web search results to medical text. We did a careful evaluation on several hundred megabytes of Wikipedia (30M words) and MEDLINE (18M words) with two tasks: "Web search domain disambiguation" and "disease categorization for medical text", and achieved significant quality enhancement.
Random Walks: Reality or Myth - Comment

A considerable amount of statistical investigation of security price movements by economists and statisticians indicates that successive changes in security prices are (for all practical purposes) independent random variables. That is, all the statistical evidence indicates that future security price changes cannot be predicted by using the past price series. This has become known as the theory of random walks. It implies that the trading rules and security selection procedures long advocated by "technical" analysts or "chartists", which are based solely on past price movements, will not be useful in aiding the investor to increase his returns. The technical analysts have responded to the evidence presented by the academicians by claiming their models and theories are not really captured by these statistical tests. Alexander (1961; 1964) and Fama and Blume (1966) have examined the returns earned by various "filter" rules for selecting securities which purportedly capture the essence of many technical theories. The evidence indicates these trading rules are not able to consistently earn returns superior to those of a simple buy and hold policy. Thus, the results of these studies also support the random walk hypothesis. Robert Levy (1966; 1967) has recently tested a number of additional trading rules based on technical theories. Some of his results seem to be inconsistent with the theory of random walks. In particular Levy's article, "Random Walks: Reality or Myth" (1967) contains interesting results regarding the returns earned by several mechanical stock market trading rules in the five-year period October 1960 to October 1965. Levy calculates the returns earned by a number of variations of his trading rules and finds these returns generally higher than the returns earned on a "random selection policy. " Commenting on these results Levy states: "The evidence above conclusively proves that technical stock analysis could have produced greater-than-random profitability at less-than-random risk for the 1960-1965 period. " On this basis he concludes that ". the theory of random walks has been refuted. " Unfortunately, his results do not completely support these strongly worded statements. His results have not refuted the random walk hypothesis and indeed they are subject to criticism on a number of points. It is the purpose of this "Comment" to point out and clarify some of the issues not adequately treated by Levy.
Efficiency of indoleacetic acid, gibberellic acid and ethylene synthesized in vitro by Fusarium culmorum strains with different effects on cereal growth

Three different Fusarium culmorum strains having a pathogenic, a deleterious (deleterious rhizosphere microorganism), or a promoting (plant growth promoting fungus) effect on plant growth were studied for their ability to synthesize in vitro the phytohormones indoleacetic acid (IAA), gibberellic acid (GA), and ethylene. All the phytohormones tested were synthesized in cultures supplemented with wide concentration ranges of glucose and tryptophan or methionine (precursors of phytohormone synthesis). The amounts of these secondary metabolites synthesized by the particular strains were found to be significantly different. The non-pathogenic PGPF strain (DEMFc2) synthesized the highest amounts of IAA and GA, a fact that could be responsible for the growth-promoting properties of this strain. A pathogenic strain synthesized the highest amount of ethylene, which could be responsible for the negative effect of this strain on plant growth. F. culmorum isolates with a high capacity for IAA synthesis also have a high capacity for GA synthesis and irrespective of the growth conditions, a high positive correlation (R > 0.9) between the concentrations of synthesized IAA and GA in F. culmorum cultures was found. It is worth mentioning that the optimal conditions for the growth of F. culmorum isolates and the synthesis of the individual phytohormones differed from one another. The optimal growth conditions were 1.0% of glucose and 9.9 mM of methionine or 6.0 mM of tryptophan. The optimal conditions for ethylene synthesis were 0.5% of glucose and 6.6 mM of methionine, whereas 1.0% of glucose and 9.0 mM of tryptophan were optimal for IAA and GA synthesis.
Perceptual Grouping from Motion Cues Using Tensor Voting 1

The project addresses the problem of visual motion analysis by establishing a voting-based computational framework. We present a novel approach for matching and motion capture that recovers the dense velocity field, motion boundaries and regions from a sequence of images, based on a 4-D layered representation of data, and a voting scheme for token affinity communication. We then interpret these layers in order to generate a full dense 3-D structure of the scene, with independently moving objects segmented. Our current work involves extending the formalism to multiple frames, and improving computational efficiency.
Effects of Flood Hazards on Property Values: Evidence Before and After Hurricane Floyd

This study uses a hedonic property price function to estimate the effects of flood hazards on residential property value. Utilizing data from sales of 8,000 single-family residential homes between 1992 and 2002 in Pitt County, North Carolina, an area that experienced significant flooding from Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, we find that a house located within a floodplain has a lower market value than an equivalent house located outside the floodplain. Furthermore, the price discount from locating within a floodplain is significantly larger after Hurricane Floyd than before. (JEL Q54)
Internet Addiction Disorder among Medical Students in University of Kufa: A Cross Sectional Study

Subjects & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on 218 medical students selected throughouta systematic sampling method. A selfadministered questionnaire was used for collection of data, its include three parts (demographic data, computer and internet use data, and Young Internet Addiction Test). The analysis of data was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Chi square test (X2-test), T-test, and binary logistic regression were used to investigate variables. The level of significance was considered as p-value ≤ 0.05.
Detecting z > 2 Type IIn Supernovae

Type IIn supernovae (SNe IIn) dominate the brightest supernova events in observed FUV flux (~1200-2000 Å). We show that multiband, multiepoch optical surveys complete to mr = 27 can detect the FUV emission of ~25 z > 2 SNe IIn deg−2 yr−1 (rest frame, or ~10 SNe IIn deg−2 yr−1 observed frame) to 4 σ using a technique that monitors color-selected galaxies. Moreover, the strength and evolution of the bright emission lines observed in low-redshift SNe IIn imply that the Lyα emission features in ~70% of z > 2 SNe IIn are above the spectroscopic thresholds of 8 m class telescopes for ~2 yr (rest frame). As a result, existing facilities have the capability to both photometrically detect and spectroscopically confirm z > 2 SNe IIn and pave the way for efficient searches by future 8 m class survey and 30 m class telescopes. The method presented here uses the sensitivities and wide-field capabilities of current optical instruments and exploits (1) the efficiency of z > 2 galaxy color selection techniques, (2) the intrinsic brightness distribution (⟨ MB⟩ = − 19.0,σ ± 0.9) and blue profile of SN IIn continua, (3) the presence of extremely bright, long-lived emission features, and (4) the potential to detect blueshifted SN Lyα emission shortward of host galaxy Lyα features.