Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of dividend policy on the valuation of equity , debt and credit risk

We show how, in a Merton-type model with bankruptcy, the dividend policy impacts the values of debt and equity. The recent financial crisis has emphasized the fact that excessive dividends can lead to financial distress and there is a strong need to set qualitative and quantitative restrictions on the dividends taking into account the potential conflict with debtholders. The model that we develop allows a quantitative setting of these restrictions and gives an important tool to justify (or not) dividend payments opposed by some of the debtholders. We show the implications of our approach compared to the implications of the Signaling Approach. JEL Classification Numbers: G12; G13; G15
Predictors of Marriage and Divorce in Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancers: A Report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study

Background/Objective: Adult survivors of childhood cancer can have altered social functioning. We sought to identify factors that predict marriage and divorce outcomes in this growing population. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of 8,928 ≥5-year adult survivors of childhood malignancy and 2,879 random sibling controls participating in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. Marital status, current health, psychological status, and neurocognitive functioning were determined from surveys and validated instruments. Results: Survivors were more likely to be never-married than siblings [relative risk (RR), 1.21; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.15-1.26] and the U.S. population (RR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.21-1.29), after adjusting for age, gender, and race. Patients with central nervous system tumors were at greatest risk of not marrying (RR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.41-1.59). Married survivors divorced at frequencies similar to controls. In multivariable regression analysis, nonmarriage was most associated with cranial radiation (RR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.02-1.31 for >2,400 centigray). In analysis of neurobehavioral functioning, nonmarriage was associated with worse task efficiency (RR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.20-1.35), but not with emotional distress, or problems with emotional regulation, memory, or organization. Physical conditions predictive of nonmarriage included short stature (RR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.20-1.34) and poor physical function (RR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.00-1.18). Structural equation modeling suggested that cranial radiation influenced marriage status through short stature, cognitive problems, and poor physical function. Conclusions: Childhood cancer survivors married at lower frequencies compared with peers. Patients with central nervous system tumors, cranial radiation, impaired processing efficiency, and short stature were more likely to never marry. Divorce patterns in survivors were similar to peers. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2009;18(10):2626–35)
The formation of teaching identities among novice social science seminar tutors : a longitudinal study at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Research into academic identities has predominantly identified how social structures influence and constrain the agency of those involved in academic work (McLean, 2012). This reflects the predominantly sociological underpinnings of this research area (Clegg,200S). This study introduces psychological theory on identity formation to offer a complementary focus on individual agency and personal meaning making. This longitudinal case study investigates how five novice social science graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) formed identities as academic teachers during their first two years inservice. These tutors participated in the London School of Economics' Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE) during these two years. Changing identity positioning over time (Wetherell, 2001) was captured in tutors' writing using discourse analysis developed in the Discursive Psychological tradition (Edley, 2001). The findings of this study offer insight into academic identity formation. However, this study also contributes to research into the impact that participation on developmental courses, such as the LSE PGCertHE, can have on aspiring faculty as academic teachers. Impact has been assessed through pre- and post-testing (Gibbs & Coffey, 2004; Hanbury, Prosser, & Rickinson, 2008; Postareff, Lindblom-Ylanne, & Nevgi, 2007) and case studies (Butcher & Stoncel, 2012; Ho, Watkins, & Kelly, 2001). These studies have found impacts in terms of increased student focus and self-efficacy (Stes, Min-Leliveld, Gijbels, & Van Petegem, 2010). This study presents complementary findings. However, the longitudinal design offers an account of how the change identified in the larger, survey-ba~ed studies can come about. This shifting positioning is presented here in terms of initial 'idealism' becoming 'realism' with experience, but then leading to 'independence' as tutors developed 'pedagogic content knowledge' (Shulman, 1987).
Assessing executive functions in children: biological, psychological, and developmental considerations

Executive functions may be defined as those skills necessary for purposeful, goal-directed activity, and are generally considered to be largely mediated by the frontal and prefrontal cortices of the brain. These cerebral regions are relatively immature during childhood, with development thought to be a protracted process which continues into early adolescence. While early theorists suggested that executive skills were not functional until cerebral maturity, recent research provides evidence that such skills can be elicited in early childhood. The aim of this paper is to review current theories of development of executive functions throughout childhood. In keeping with contemporary approaches to child neuropsychology, three critical dimensions will be evaluated; biological factors, psychological dimensions, and developmental trajectories. In addition, the literature which addresses assessment of these functions will be examined, with reference to developmental trajectories observed in normal populations, and in brain-damaged samples, where there may be disruption to the underlying neural substrates thought to be subsuming these functions.
Divorce and the Political Gender Gap ∗

This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach to test the hypothesis tha t the political gender gap is driven by rising divorce risk. We exploit a largely unexpecte d legal change in Britain, theWhite v Whitecase, which in 2000 established a rule of parity for the split of assets upon divorce. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find tha t the gender gap in political preferences declined sharply for affected groups, consistent with th e economic divorce-based explanation. Corresponding author: Watson at watson.584@osu.edu.
Neuropsychological assessment of decision-making prefrontal circuits in schizophrenia : a systematic review of the literature

Objectives: A critical review of the literature was undertaken with articles assessing neuropsychological deficits in decision making (DM) in schizophrenic patients. Methods: This review included all articles that performed neuropsychological assessments with tests sensitive to cortical areas associated with DM, especially the orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction. Methodological aspects of the selected studies were compared, as well as the correlation between measures in DM tasks with clinical, cognitive and functional characteristics of the samples. Results: Eight articles between 1997 and 2005 were selected. With regard to the instrument used to assess DM, six used the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), one used the Novel Decision Making Task (NDMT) and one used the Two Choice Prediction Task (TCPT). All the studies compared schizophrenic patients to healthy controls. In four articles using the IGT and the others using either the NDMT or the TCPT, schizophrenic patients showed low performance in DM tasks. Discussion and conclusion: Current studies are inconclusive in assessing DM deficits in schizophrenia. Clinical characteristics such as diagnostic subtype, predominant symptoms, type of medication and psychosocial functioning can account for the results found. Further studies are required to better investigate the nature of DM deficits in schizophrenia and their relevance to clinical presentation and illness course.
An object-oriented framework for aspect-oriented languages

Aspect-orientation is a mechanism for modularizing cross-cutting concerns that has been added to many existing software engineering languages. The implementations of aspect-oriented language extensions, however, are typically tied to a specific base language. There is little or no code reuse between aspect-oriented extensions for different base languages, which makes these extensions difficult and expensive to build. In addition, existing software engineering tools do not work with the resulting aspect-oriented languages unless new plugins are developed. We present Carpenter, an object-oriented framework for developing aspect-oriented language extensions. An aspect language is developed by reusing classes for generic language constructs from Carpenter, and writing subclasses of the abstractions in Carpenter to define new language constructs. An aspect weaver is created by implementing framework interfaces to weave language-specific constructs. The coordination of the weaving process is done by the Carpenter framework. Aspect languages developed with Carpenter get full IDE support with only a few lines of code. We have used our framework to create aspect weavers for Java, JLo, and AspectU.
What Makes Race Salient? Juror Decision-Making in Same-Race Versus Cross-Race Identification Scenarios and the Influence of Expert Testimony

Research demonstrates that juror race may interact with defendant race to influence decision-making, but little work has investigated interactions with eyewitness race. This study tested whether Black/White jurors would produce different perceptions/decisions when faced with a Black/White defendant identified by a Black/White eyewitness. We also examined the influence of expert testimony regarding the cross-race effect in two floating cells. Mock jurors read a trial transcript, provided a verdict and trial party ratings, and indicated perceived race salience. Black jurors were more likely to convict a White defendant identified by a Black eyewitness than a Black defendant identified by a White eyewitness. Expert testimony was valued more highly when the defendant was Black, but had no direct influence on verdict; however, it raised race salience perceptions (as did presence of Black trial parties). Perceived race salience was associated with lower rates of conviction, suggesting that race and expert testimony have potential courtroom implications.
Burden and Determinants of Hypertension in Rural Pondicherry, India

Background: Globally, hypertension has been acknowledged as a significant public health concern, and is also the most frequent potential risk factor of cardiovascular diseases. The present study has been undertaken to determine the burden of hypertension and its determinants in a rural area of Pondicherry. Methods: The study was performed among the population of two villages in a rural area of Pondicherry in 2012- 14. The sampling frame comprised individuals aged above 25 years and single stage cluster random sampling was carried out. Subjects satisfying the inclusion and exclusion criteria were interviewed after obtaining informed consent using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using the SPSS statistical package version 16. The associations with risk factors were assessed using Chi-square test and Unpaired T test for the categorical (%) and continuous (mean ± SD) variables respectively. The adjusted risk of hypertension was assessed with a logistic regression model. Results: The prevalence of hypertension was 24.7% (258/1043), with higher prevalence among male (28.7%) than females (21.0%). A statistically significant association was observed between hypertension and reduced physical activity/week, smoking, alcohol consumption, higher waist circumference, raised total cholesterol and triglyceride level, and excessive consumption of salt. Conclusion: High prevalence of hypertension was observed in the study population. Interventions targeted for healthy diet, activity and de-addiction are the need of the time in rural Pondicherry
Limited attention and cue order consistency affect predictive learning: a test of similarity measures.

The authors empirically tested the similarity metrics underlying 2 predictive-learning theories: J. K. Kruschke's (1992) attention learning covering map and J. M. Pearce's (1987, 1994) configural models. In Experiment 1, participants concurrently learned 3 types of discriminations: simple (A- vs. B+), common cue (XC- vs. XD+), and compound (YE- vs. ZF+). Accuracy was ordered: simple > compound > common cue. Neither model anticipated this ordering. In Experiment 2, cue order in 2-element configurations was either inconsistent (e.g., YE and EY) as in Experiment 1 or consistent (e.g., EY throughout). Although accuracy differences were smaller under consistent ordering, the relative difficulty of the tasks was the same as in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, common cue and compound discriminations were tested in different participants to determine whether the ordering of difficulty in Experiments 1 and 2 was caused by differential generalization mediated by the number of elements; the ordering was the same as in Experiments 1 and 2. These results suggest the need for differential attention to event presence and absence and to mechanisms that incorporate limited attentional capacity.
Logarithmic dyadic wavelet transform based face recognition

In this paper, we present a new local descriptor based on logarithmic dyadic wavelet transform. The interest points at different scales have been identified and a region of size 40x40 is considered around each interest point to obtain gradient-orientation histogram in the transformed space. The chi square distance metric is used for classification. Extensive experiments have been conducted on standard face datasets such as ORL and LFW to demonstrate the suitability of the proposed descriptor for face recognition. A comparative analysis with some of the well known methods is also provided to argue that the proposed method is comparatively perform much better than the existing methods.
Verifying Causality between Distant Performance Phenomena in Large-Scale MPI Applications

In message-passing applications, the temporal or spatial distance between cause and symptom of a performance problem constitutes a major difficulty in deriving helpful conclusions from performance data. Just knowing the locations of wait states in the program is often insufficient to understand the reason for their occurrence. We present a method for verifying hypotheses on causality between temporally or spatially distant performance phenomena in message-passing applications without altering the application itself. The verification is accomplished by modifying MPI event traces and using them to simulate the hypothetical message-passing behavior. By performing a parallel real-time reenactment of the communication to be simulated using the original execution configuration, we can achieve high scalability and good predictive accuracy in relation to the measured behavior. Not relying on a potentially complex model of the message-passing subsystem, our method is also platform independent.
A Generic Framework for Testing Parallel File Systems

Large-scale parallel file systems are of prime importance today. However, despite of the importance, their failure-recovery capability is much less studied compared with local storage systems. Recent studies on local storage systems have exposed various vulnerabilities that could lead to data loss under failure events, which raise the concern for parallel file systems built on top of them.This paper proposes a generic framework for testing the failure handling of large-scale parallel file systems. The framework captures all disk I/O commands on all storage nodes of the target system to emulate realistic failure states, and checks if the target system can recover to a consistent state without incurring data loss. We have built a prototype for the Lustre file system. Our preliminary results show that the framework is able to uncover the internal I/O behavior of Lustre under different workloads and failure conditions, which provides a solid foundation for further analyzing the failure recovery of parallel file systems.
Treatment of retinal angiomatous proliferation in age-related macular degeneration: a series of 104 cases of retinal angiomatous proliferation.

OBJECTIVE To report the management of retinal angiomatous proliferation (RAP), a recently described intraretinal neovascular lesion occurring in age-related macular degeneration. METHODS This was a retrospective review of consecutive patients with age-related macular degeneration who underwent treatment of RAP from January 1, 2000, through January 31, 2003. Inclusion criteria were age 55 years or older, signs of age-related macular degeneration, and diagnosis of RAP based on dynamic indocyanine green angiography. Baseline angiograms were reviewed and RAP was classified into the following 3 stages: stage 1, intraretinal neovascularization, early stage; stage 2, subretinal neovascularization, middle stage; and stage 3, choroidal neovascularization, late stage. Treatment and concomitant treatment results were assessed separately for each RAP stage. The clinical data were statistically analyzed (chi2 test and analysis of variance) for 2 main outcome measures--complete obliteration of the lesion and final visual acuity. RESULTS Eighty-one patients (99 eyes) with 104 RAPs were identified. Forty-two lesions were at stage 1, 42 at stage 2, and 20 at stage 3. The following 5 treatments were performed: direct laser photocoagulation of the vascular lesion, laser photocoagulation of the feeder retinal arteriole, scatter "gridlike" laser photocoagulation, photodynamic therapy, and transpupillary thermotherapy. Complete obliteration of RAP was achieved in about 24 (57.1%) of the stage 1 lesions (direct laser photocoagulation of the vascular lesion, 73% success rate; photodynamic therapy, 45%), 11 (26.2%) of the stage 2 lesions (scatter gridlike laser photocoagulation, 38% success rate; direct laser photocoagulation of the vascular lesion, 17%), and only 3 (15.0%) of stage 3 lesions (P = .001). Predictive factors with a significant effect on final visual acuity were initial visual acuity (P = .003) and early lesion stage (P = .04). Best final visual acuity was 0.41 (mean, direct laser photocoagulation of the vascular lesion in stage 1) and 0.39 (mean, photodynamic therapy in stage 1), with a mean decrease of 2.5 and 3 lines from baseline, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Treatment of RAP remains difficult. Early detection of the lesion and subsequent direct conventional laser photocoagulation seems to be associated with better anatomical and functional outcome. Once the vascular complex is well established, anatomical closure is rarely achieved. Further study is warranted to assess the long-term efficacy and the need for re-treatment.
MERIT-Infonomics Research Memorandum series The adoption of e-business technology by SMEs

The paper examines the key factors influencing the adoption of e-business technology by SMEs. To this end, the paper draws on a range of literatures on the diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), many of which have hitherto been treated as separate. The reasons for this are two-fold. First, e-business technologies are the latest in a line of new ICT technologies. When exploited successfully, ICTs have increased firm competitiveness either by raising the efficiency of internal communication and organisation and/or supply chain relationships, or by facilitating the development of new/improved products and services. Second, it is hypothesised that many of the factors affecting the successful adoption of new technologies are generic in nature. With regards to SMEs specifically, consideration of earlier research may assist us in identifying a set of enablers and barriers to e-business adoption. Hence, by explicitly acknowledging the context and prior history of research in the area, we are able to map out the dimensions of future theoretical and empirical research in e-business adoption by SMEs. In addition to drawing together factors identified by existing research, the paper highlights the implications of network externalities for the timing of technology investments and the returns that accrue to early and late adopters. It also draws attention to a number of problems associated with the analytical concept of ‘the SME’ when it is applied to this area. The research proceeds by clearly defining the technological and organisational characteristics of the e-business model and a brief consideration of the trends in adoption in the UK vis-à-vis adoption in the other G7 countries. Together these set up a detailed consideration of the internal and external factors influencing adoption. A qualitative approach, in the form of a detailed case study, is then used to explore the potential usefulness of the factors that have been identified. The results of these findings are then drawn together in the concluding section of the paper.
Semicontinuous measurements of gas–particle partitioning of organic acids in a ponderosa pine forest using a MOVI-HRToF-CIMS

Abstract. Hundreds of gas- and particle-phase organic acids were measured in a rural ponderosa pine forest in Colorado, USA, during BEACHON-RoMBAS (Bio-hydro-atmosphere interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H2O, Organics & Nitrogen – Rocky Mountain Biogenic Aerosol Study). A recently developed micro-orifice volatilization impactor high-resolution time-of-flight chemical ionization mass spectrometer (MOVI-HRToF-CIMS) using acetate (CH3C(O)O−) as the reagent ion was used to selectively ionize and detect acids semicontinuously from 20 to 30 August 2011, with a measurement time resolution of ~1.5 h. At this site 98% of the organic acid mass is estimated to be in the gas phase, with only ~2% in the particle phase. We investigated gas–particle partitioning, quantified as the fraction in the particle phase (Fp), of C1–C18 alkanoic acids, six known terpenoic acids, and bulk organic acids vs. carbon number. Data were compared to the absorptive partitioning model and suggest that bulk organic acids at this site follow absorptive partitioning to the organic aerosol mass. The rapid response (
Multi-Agent Only Knowing on Planet Kripke

The idea of only knowing is a natural and intuitive notion to precisely capture the beliefs of a knowledge base. However, an extension to the many agent case, as would be needed in many applications, has been shown to be far from straightforward. For example, previous Kripke frame-based accounts appeal to proof-theoretic constructions like canonical models, while more recent works in the area abandoned Kripke semantics entirely. We propose a new account based on Moss' characteristic formulas, formulated for the usual Kripke semantics. This is shown to come with other benefits: the logic admits a group version of only knowing, and an operator for assessing the epistemic entrenchment of what an agent or a group only knows is definable. Finally, the multi-agent only knowing operator is shown to be expressible with the cover modality of classical modal logic, which then allows us to obtain a completeness result for a fragment of the logic.