Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Soul of the New Consumer : Authenticity - What We Buy and Why in the New Economy

The New Consumer's Revolution: * Why buzz beats hype * Why cheap is chic * Why brands must be authentic * Why segmentation is dead * Why advertising must reinvent itself * Why New Consumers loathe 'doing the shopping' * Why individuals' Tastespace will triumph in the marketplace New Consumers are revolutionizing the world of business, our culture and social expectations. No longer confined by gender, age, ethnicity or income, they are breaking down barriers, shattering stereotypes and redefining the very meaning of consumerism and the marketplace. From traditional to online retailing, from tracking coolhunters to exploring tastepace, The Soul of the New Consumer unearths the very essence of New Consumer's behavior - their drive for authenticity - and goes far beyond the simple concepts of how we shop or what we buy to answer the most important question of all: why. Every facet of the new economy, from buzz marketing and new retailing technologies to internet shopping, has dramatically altered not only how we buy but what we buy and why. In an era of 'cheap is chic', wealthy shoppers haggle to win even the smallest discounts ; gray consumers buy more rap and techno music than anyone else and are the fastest growing group of internet users ; and the Web and the power of micro-marketing have revolutionized forever the means of wooing new customers. New Consumers are taking over the world and redefining the very meaning of consumerism and the marketplace. As likely to be affluent over-fifties as ambitious under-thirties, New Consumers defy traditional marketing concepts and segmentation by age, gender or income. In pursuit of the authentic experience, New Consumers come together in their defining drive for all things 'real', in everything from food to fashion, foreign holidays to furniture, technology to spirituality. Their attention and interest have shifted from commodity to authenticity. In an affluent world now saturated with affordable products there are three new scarcities - time, attention and trust. This major book shows how these can be won by 'giving the soul control' rather than putting customers on the 'customer is king' pedestal. Over the past decade, Lewis and Bridger have been at the forefront of researching the New Consumers - studying their lifestyles, observing behavior and watching the steady rise in their numbers, influence and economic power. Here, for the first time and with example from Starbucks to Dyson, they report the results of their work, including Amex's use of computer technology to create intimate protraits of individuals - what the author's call 'tastepace'. Regardless of product or service, for companies large and small, The Soul of the New Consumer gathers research from marketing, psychology, social trends and economics to present the first ever profile of the independent, individualistic, involved and well-informed consumers who are challenging the way marketing, selling and business are done.
Just How Serious is Insider Trading? An Evaluation using Thoroughbred Wagering Markets

This paper quantifies the extent and changes in insider trading in the Melbourne racetrack betting market using a unique, long term dataset. Wagering markets share many of the characteristics of other financial markets, and are simple, with good data and a designated endpoint. Thus they are an excellent natural laboratory to study what is probably happening in qualitatively similar conventional markets. Results of this paper provide statistically significant support for hypotheses supporting the existence and increase in level of insider trading, and suggest that around two percent of betting is by insiders.
Distance Matters: Geo-social Metrics for Online Social Networks

Online Social Networks (OSNs) are increasingly becoming one of the key media of communication over the Internet. The potential of these services as the basis to gather statistics and exploit information about user behavior is appealing and, as a consequence, the number of applications developed for these purposes has been soaring. At the same time, users are now willing to share information about their location, allowing for the study of the role of geographic distance in social ties. In this paper we present a graph analysis based approach to study social networks with geographic information and new metrics to characterize how geographic distance affects social structure. We apply our analysis to four large-scale OSN datasets: our results show that there is a vast portion of users with short-distance links and that clusters of friends are often geographically close. In addition, we demonstrate that different social networking services exhibit different geo-social properties: OSNs based mainly on location-advertising largely foster local ties and clusters, while services used mainly for news and content sharing present more connections and clusters on longer distances. The results of this work can be exploited to improve many classes of systems and a potential vast number of applications, as we illustrate by means of some practical examples.
LDI: Does it Turn CAPM into RAPM?

CAPM came under a lot of scrutiny and attack as its simplicity also led to extensive testing which did not bear out the conclusions. This paper seeks to re-think CAPM in light of the broader trend in the institutional world to implement Liability Driven Investments (LDI) to see if this can help resolve some of the conflicts between the theory and the tests. The basic principle of investing is set by the famous Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH); namely, that the reason to save and invest is to be able to finance a future stream of payments for consumption. Trends in demographics and global aging are increasing the importance of LDI.This paper asks whether this trend and approach to investing requires a rethink of asset pricing theory and especially asset allocation approaches investors are using. This requires a pivot from the current absolute theory of investing (or MVO and CAPM) to a new paradigm of relative asset pricing (or RAPM). Under RAPM, the value of an asset is driven by its relationship to a liability portfolio rather than just a market portfolio of risky assets. We develop a very simple one-period model in the vein of Markowitz-Sharpe and focus on the relative perspective. We believe and show that the CAPM is just a very specialized case of this more general approach. The practical implications are that one can potentially explain the exceptional bond performance of the last decade, and may forecast lower bond returns. The RAPM framework provides interesting implications for asset pricing, asset allocation, rebalancing and even risk-adjusted performance (and manager compensation). The simple expected return of assets has some additional terms that could be important, and we develop the concept of three fund separation.
Cumulative Weighing of Time in Intertemporal Tradeoffs

We examine preferences for sequences of delayed monetary gains. In the experimental literature, two prominent models have been advanced as psychological descriptions of preferences for sequences. In one model, the instantaneous utilities of the outcomes in a sequence are discounted as a function of their delays, and assembled into a discounted utility of the sequence. In the other model, the accumulated utility of the outcomes in a sequence is considered along with utility or disutility from improvement in outcome utilities and utility or disutility from the spreading of outcome utilities. Drawing on three threads of evidence concerning preferences for sequences of monetary gains, we propose that the accumulated utility of the outcomes in a sequence is traded off against the duration of utility accumulation. In our first experiment, aggregate choice behavior provides qualitative support for the tradeoff model. In three subsequent experiments, one of which incentivized, disaggregate choice behavior provides quantitative support for the tradeoff model in Bayesian model contests. One thread of evidence motivating the tradeoff model is that, when, in the choice between two single dated outcomes, it is conveyed that receiving less sooner means receiving nothing later, preference for receiving more later increases, but when it is conveyed that receiving more later means receiving nothing sooner, preference is left unchanged. Our results show that this asymmetric hidden-zero effect is indeed driven by those supporting the tradeoff model. The tradeoff model also accommodates all remaining evidence on preferences for sequences of monetary gains.
Does primary stakeholder management positively affect the bottom line? Some evidence from Australia

– The purpose of this research is to explore the strategic benefits of a stakeholder management approach. More specifically, to see if there is an association between primary stakeholder management and firm performance. , – The method included a purpose‐designed, secondary database for assessing primary stakeholder management. To explore the relationship between primary stakeholder management and performance, the results were merged with company performance data and regression analysis was used as the statistical technique. , – The results suggest that some primary stakeholder groups, but not all, positively affect firm performance. More specifically, corporate governance and employee management were significantly and positively associated with performance. On the other hand, environmental performance and social impact, while significant, had a negative association with performance. , – The study, to a degree, confirms stakeholder theory. However, rather than offering equal attention to all primary stakeholders, the implications of this research suggest that firms might favour those stakeholder groups that can most positively affect their performance. , – Corporate strategists face tough decisions with respect to allocating scarce resources that will positively affect the bottom line. This study suggests that investments in corporate governance mechanisms and employee management might be a means of gaining competitive advantage. , – The value of the paper rests in its offering of empirical evidence with respect to the association between primary stakeholder management and firm performance. While this association is theorized in the management literature, the current study puts forth statistical results for the testing of the theoretical postulates.
High‐resolution transcriptional analysis of the symbiotic plasmid of Rhizobium sp. NGR234

Most of the bacterial genes involved in nodulation of legumes (nod, nol and noe ) as well as nitrogen fixation (nif and fix ) are carried on pNGR234a, the 536 kb symbiotic plasmid (pSym) of the broad‐host‐range Rhizobium sp. NGR234. Putative transcription regulators comprise 24 of the predicted 416 open reading frames (ORFs) contained on this replicon. Computational analyses identified 19 nod boxes and 16 conserved NifA‐σ54 regulatory sequences, which are thought to co‐ordinate the expression of nodulation and nitrogen fixation genes respectively. To analyse transcription of all putative ORFs, the nucleotide sequence of pNGR234a was divided into 441 segments designed to represent all coding and intergenic regions. Each of these segments was amplified by polymerase chain reactions, transferred to filters and probed with radioactively labelled RNA. RNA was extracted from bacterial cultures grown under various experimental conditions, as well as from bacteroids of determinate and indeterminate nodules. Generally, genes involved in the synthesis of Nod factors (e.g. the three hsn loci) were induced rapidly after the addition of flavonoids, whereas others thought to act within the plant (e.g. those encoding the type III secretion system) responded more slowly. Many insertion (IS) and transposon (Tn)‐like sequences were expressed strongly under all conditions tested, while a number of loci other than those known to encode nod, noe, nol, nif and fix genes were also transcribed in nodules. Many more diverse transcripts were found in bacteroids of determinate as opposed to indeterminate nodules.
The Determinants of CEO Compensation: Rent Extraction or Labour Demand?

CEO compensation is topical and controversial and accordingly receiving considerable attention by various stakeholders. We investigate whether rent extraction or labour demand explains CEO compensation level in Australia. We do so by examining the determinants (economic, governance and ownership) of CEO compensation level and explore the relationship between predicted excess compensation and subsequent firm performance. Our results suggest that governance and ownership attributes, in addition to economic attributes, are significant determinants of CEO compensation. However, these attributes differentially determine the various components of CEO compensation. Our evidence is consistent with: a) the determination of fixed salary and share based compensation reflecting a firm's demand for a high quality CEO; and b) the CEO's ability to extract rent through bonus and options compensation, particularly for smaller firms or firms with above average performance. However, the rent extraction is not economically significant and does not persist beyond one year. This is in sharp contrast to the US evidence where rent extraction through CEO compensation is pervasive, economically significant and persistent (Core, Holthausen & Larcker, 1999).
Housing investment in the inner city : the dynamics of decline; a study of Baltimore, Maryland, 1968-1970

"A Study of Baltimore, Maryland, 1968-1970"The low-income housing situation in American cities is becoming steadily worse, Michael Stegman asserts, and solving housing problems with new construction is "economically inefficient" as well as "politically intolerable. " This study seeks approaches that would combine the strengths and capacities of private investment with those of the public sector to achieve satisfactory housing for "all" low-income families in a reasonable period of time.Although the question has often been debated, Stegman points out that no inquiry into low-income housing problems can afford to ignore the underlying market forces at work in the inner city. No one has consulted the so-called slumlord or made use of his intimate knowledge of the operations of the inner-city real estate market in developing low-income housing policies. "How many of them are competent and responsible property managers who should be encouraged and assisted in their efforts? " he asks. "What proportion are simply speculators who would turn public programs to prop up the inner city into windfall profits? Under what circumstances, if any, would they improve their properties voluntarily? Should housing policy attempt to phase them out of the picture or enlarge their role? These questions can no longer be ignored. ""Housing Investment in the Inner City" begins by discussing the salient characteristics of Baltimore's inner-city landlords--their personalities, motivations, methods of operation, market sophistication, organizational skills--and the housing situation of low-income families. It then examines the operations of the inner-city housing market, analyzing cash flow statements for properties of different levels of quality in an attempt to identify what determines economic success or failure. For the first time, problems of both tenant and landlord are seen in a common framework as the question arises, How does increased tenant activism affect housing quality? Chapters in the book also focus on the demand for low-income home ownership and on nonprofit rehabilitation efforts.This study sets up no fullblown solutions but rather presents a synthesis of the many ways in which city housing and related activities affect the nature of the inner-city housing market and investment climate in a large city which suffers complex urban problems, yet which is small enough to be understood and managed. From this particular experience, Stegman makes general recommendations aimed at leveling off the declining housing market and firming up the investment climate, while improving inner-city management capabilities.
Synapsins Contribute to the Dynamic Spatial Organization of Synaptic Vesicles in an Activity-Dependent Manner

The precise subcellular organization of synaptic vesicles (SVs) at presynaptic sites allows for rapid and spatially restricted exocytotic release of neurotransmitter. The synapsins (Syns) are a family of presynaptic proteins that control the availability of SVs for exocytosis by reversibly tethering them to each other and to the actin cytoskeleton in a phosphorylation-dependent manner. Syn ablation leads to reduction in the density of SV proteins in nerve terminals and increased synaptic fatigue under high-frequency stimulation, accompanied by the development of an epileptic phenotype. We analyzed cultured neurons from wild-type and Syn I,II,III−/− triple knock-out (TKO) mice and found that SVs were severely dispersed in the absence of Syns. Vesicle dispersion did not affect the readily releasable pool of SVs, whereas the total number of SVs was considerably reduced at synapses of TKO mice. Interestingly, dispersion apparently involved exocytosis-competent SVs as well; it was not affected by stimulation but was reversed by chronic neuronal activity blockade. Altogether, these findings indicate that Syns are essential to maintain the dynamic structural organization of synapses and the size of the reserve pool of SVs during intense SV recycling, whereas an additional Syn-independent mechanism, whose molecular substrate remains to be clarified, targets SVs to synaptic boutons at rest and might be outpaced by activity.
Adaptive finite element analysis of nonlinear problems: balancing of discretization and iteration errors

Abstract This article continues prior work of the authors on the combined a posteriori analysis for the discretization and iteration errors in the finite element approximation of linear elliptic problems to the nonlinear case. The underlying theoretical framework is again that of the Dual Weighted Residual (DWR) method for goal-oriented error control. The accuracy in the algebraic solution process can be balanced with that due to discretization using computable a posteriori error estimates in which the outer nonlinear and inner linear iteration errors are separated from the discretization error. This results in effective stopping criteria for the algebraic iteration, which are elaborated particularly for Newton-type methods. The performance of the proposed strategies is demonstrated for several nonlinear test problems.
Political Institutions and Sorting in a Tiebout Model

The authors construct a computational model of Tiebout competition and show that political institutions differ in their ability to sort citizens effectively. In particular, they find that certain types of institutions--those that become more 'politically unstable' as citizen heterogeneity increases--perform relatively poorly given a single jurisdiction, yet these same institutions perform relatively well when there are multiple jurisdictions. The authors provide an explanation for this phenomenon which draws upon simulated annealing, a discrete nonlinear search algorithm. Copyright 1997 by American Economic Association.
Treatment with a Monoclonal Anti-IL-12p40 Antibody Induces Substantial Gut Microbiota Changes in an Experimental Colitis Model

Background and Aim. Crohn's disease is associated with gut microbiota (GM) dysbiosis. Treatment with the anti-IL-12p40 monoclonal antibody (12p40-mAb) has therapeutic effect in Crohn's disease patients. This study addresses whether a 12p40-mAb treatment influences gut microbiota (GM) composition in mice with adoptive transfer colitis (AdTr-colitis). Methods. AdTr-colitis mice were treated with 12p40-mAb or rat-IgG2a or NaCl from days 21 to 47. Disease was monitored by changes in body weight, stool, endoscopic and histopathology scores, immunohistochemistry, and colonic cytokine/chemokine profiles. GM was characterized through DGGE and 16S rRNA gene-amplicon high-throughput sequencing. Results. Following 12p40-mAb treatment, most clinical and pathological parameters associated with colitis were either reduced or absent. GM was shifted towards a higher Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio compared to rat-IgG2a treated mice. Significant correlations between 17 bacterial genera and biological markers were found. The relative abundances of the RF32 order (Alphaproteobacteria) and Akkermansia muciniphila were positively correlated with damaged histopathology and colonic inflammation. Conclusions. Shifts in GM distribution were observed with clinical response to 12p40-mAb treatment, whereas specific GM members correlated with colitis symptoms. Our study implicates that specific changes in GM may be connected with positive clinical outcomes and suggests preventing or correcting GM dysbiosis as a treatment goal in inflammatory bowel disease.
Volatility in School Test Scores: Implications for Test-Based Accountability Systems

B y the spring of 2000, forty states had begun using student test scores to rate school performance. Twenty states have gone a step further and are attaching explicit monetary rewards or sanctions to a school's test performance. For example, California planned to spend $677 million on teacher incentives in 2001, providing bonuses of up to $25,000 to teachers in schools with the largest test score gains. We highlight an under-appreciated weakness of school accountability systems—the volatility of test score measures—and explore the implications of that volatility for the design of school accountability systems. The imprecision of test score measures arises from two sources. The first is sampling variation, which is a particularly striking problem in elementary schools. With the average elementary school containing only sixty-eight students per grade level, the amount of variation stemming from the idiosyncrasies of the particular sample of students being tested is often large relative to the total amount of variation observed between schools. The second arises from one-time factors that are not sensitive to the size of the sample; for example, a dog barking in the playground on the day of the test, a severe flu season, a disruptive student in a class, or favorable chemistry between a group of students and their teacher. Both small samples and other one-time factors can add considerable volatility to test score measures.
SiO maser observations of a wide dust-temperature range sample

Abstract We present the results of SiO line observations of a sample of known SiO maser sources covering a wide dust-temperature range. The aim of the present research is to investigate the causes of the correlation between infrared colors and SiO maser intensity ratios among different transition lines. We observed in total 75 SiO maser sources with the Nobeyama 45m telescope quasi-simultaneously in the SiO J = 1-0 v = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and J = 2-1 v = 1, 2 lines. We also observed the sample in the 29SiO J = 1-0 v = 0 and J = 2-1 v = 0, and 30SiO J = 1-0 v = 0 lines, and the H2O 61,6-52,3 line. As reported in previous papers, we confirmed that the intensity ratios of the SiO J = 1-0 v = 2 to v = 1 lines clearly correlate with infrared colors. In addition, we found possible correlation between infrared colors and the intensity ratios of the SiO J = 1-0 v = 3 to v = 1&2 lines.