Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Venture capital returns in Australia

This paper examines the returns to venture capital in Australia. It is hypothesized that returns to venture capital will be associated with the type of venture capital firm (captive or non-captive; specialist or non-specialist), venture capital experience, syndication, duration and exit strategy. Using a sample of 129 venture capital exits between 1992 and 2002, it was found that Australian venture capitalists take only the best firms public, generating higher returns than from other exit strategies. Syndicated investments generate lower returns (after controlling for firm-specific risks), while no difference was found in return profiles on the basis of firm type (captive, specialist or experience) or duration of investment. The results are robust to model specifications that control for stage of investment, industry and year of exit.
Option-based forecasts of volatility: an empirical study in the DAX-index options market

Volatility estimation and forecasting are essential for both the pricing and the risk management of derivative securities. Volatility forecasting methods can be divided into option-based ones, which use prices of traded options in order to unlock volatility expectations, and time series volatility models, which use historical information in order to predict future volatility. Among option-based volatility forecasts, we distinguish between the ‘model-dependent’ Black–Scholes implied volatility and the ‘model-free’ implied volatility, proposed by Britten-Jones and Neuberger [Option prices, implied price processes and stochastic volatility. Journal of Finance 55: 839–66], that does not rely on a particular option pricing model. The aim of this paper is to investigate the unbiasedness and efficiency, with respect to past realised volatility, of the two option-based volatility forecasts. The comparison is pursued by using intra-daily data on the DAX-index options market. Our results suggest that Black–Scholes implied volatility subsumes all the information contained in past realised volatility and is a better predictor for future realised volatility than model-free implied volatility.
The Relationship of Budgetary Participation and Reliance on Accounting Performance Measures with Individual-Level Consequent Variables: A Meta-Analysis

Despite its long history, extant research on the relations among budgetary participation, reliance on accounting performance measures (RAPM) and individual-level consequent variables remains marked by conflicting findings. To solve these conflicts, prior research has introduced variables that might mediate or moderate the relations. But many studies use small samples, and their conflicting findings might be due to statistical artefacts, such as sampling error. This paper undertakes a meta-analysis to assess whether prior findings are homogeneous after correcting for these artefacts and to explore the moderating effects of study design choices regarding construct measurement, random vs. non-random sampling and industry differences. Many relations of participative budgeting and RAPM are homogeneous; several are truly heterogeneous. Construct measurement emerges as the most important moderator: different measures of managerial performance explain the relation of participative budgeting to managerial performance, and different measures of RAPM largely clarify the relation of RAPM to budgetary participation. This relation also seems contingent on industry differences. These findings have important implications for research and managerial practice.
Eating disorder not otherwise specified presentation in the US population.

OBJECTIVE To examine prevalence and clinical correlates of eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS) in the US population. METHOD Two cross-sectional surveys of adults and adolescents used the WHO CIDI to assess DSM-IV criteria for anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and EDNOS. RESULTS Lifetime prevalence of EDNOS was 4.78% in adolescents and 4.64% in adults. The majority of adolescents and adults with an eating disorder presented with EDNOS. Three-quarters of participants with EDNOS met criteria for comorbid disorders, while one-quarter endorsed suicidality. Severity correlates were equally prevalent in EDNOS and AN, whereas comparisons between EDNOS and BN varied by specific correlate and sample. Adolescents with subthreshold AN (SAN) endorsed more anxiety than AN (p < .05), and adolescents and adults with SAN endorsed more suicidal plans than AN (p's < .05). DISCUSSION Findings increase our understanding of the clinical relevance of EDNOS. Eating disorder diagnostic nomenclature requires modification to capture the full spectrum. © 2012 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 2012.
Frequency of CYP2C9 variant alleles, including CYP2C9*13 in a Korean population and effect on glimepiride pharmacokinetics

What is known and Objective: Cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2C9 is a clinically important enzyme involved in the metabolism of many drugs commonly used in humans. Of several allelic variants known to affect the catalytic activity of the CYP2C9 enzyme, the frequencies of the CYP2C9*3 and CYP2C9*13 alleles in the Korean population have been reported as 1·1% and 0·6%, respectively. Our objective was to re‐evaluate the frequencies of CYP2C9 allelic variants in the Korean population, including the CYP2C9*13 allele by pyrosequencing, and to investigate the pharmacokinetics of glimepiride in relation to CYP2C9 genotypes, including CYP2C9*3/*3.
Intra-industry Trade and Labour Market Adjustment in France

According to the “smooth adjustment hypothesis”, the labor market adjustment costs entailed by trade liberalization are lower if trade expansion is intra industry rather inter industry in nature. In this paper, we study the link between trade and labor-market changes in France over the period 1986-2011. The empirical survey, uses a panel data models with fixed effects, it showes a negative correlation between changes of employment and marginal intra-industry trade. These results confirm the smooth adjustment hypothesis. The mesure of marginal IIT is then found to be more appropriate for the analysis of adjustment issues than the traditional static IIT index.
Business cycle duration dependence: a parametric approach

This paper reexamines duration dependence in U.S. business cycles using parametric hazard models. Positive duration dependence would indicate that expansions or contractions are more likely to end as they become "older. " This paper provides statistically significant evidence of positive duration dependence for expansions before World War II and contractions after World War II. The evidence is stronger than in earlier research utilizing nonparametric techniques, because certain nonparametric techniques have low statistical power against the type of duration dependence found in this paper. Evidence is also presented suggesting that expansions became longer, on average, after World War II, while contractions became shorter. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.
Biological agents versus chemotherapy in the treatment of colorectal cancer

Biological agents are commonly incorporated as an adjunct to cytotoxic chemotherapy in the treatment of patients with advanced colorectal cancer. In contrast to cytotoxic chemotherapy, biological agents have minimal single agent activity and are largely considered to be cytostatic. Recent data supports the use of either combination regimens with chemotherapy and/or biological therapy. Interest in combining biological agents of co-existing molecular pathways is the most recent strategic approach. However, with the advent of these novel therapies, questions have arisen regarding appropriate clinical indication and potential treatment-related toxicities. The role of biological agents in the treatment of colorectal cancer and their role in contrast to cytotoxic chemotherapy will be explored.
WiNER: A Wikipedia Annotated Corpus for Named Entity Recognition

We revisit the idea of mining Wikipedia in order to generate named-entity annotations. We propose a new methodology that we applied to English Wikipedia to build WiNER, a large, high quality, annotated corpus. We evaluate its usefulness on 6 NER tasks, comparing 4 popular state-of-the art approaches. We show that LSTM-CRF is the approach that benefits the most from our corpus. We report impressive gains with this model when using a small portion of WiNER on top of the CONLL training material. Last, we propose a simple but efficient method for exploiting the full range of WiNER, leading to further improvements.
Epidemiology of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Bloodstream Coinfection Among Adults With Candidemia in Atlanta, GA, 2008–2012

BACKGROUND Patients with candidemia are at risk for other invasive infections, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bloodstream infection (BSI). OBJECTIVE To identify the risk factors for, and outcomes of, BSI in adults with Candida spp. and MRSA at the same time or nearly the same time. DESIGN Population-based cohort study. SETTING Metropolitan Atlanta, March 1, 2008, through November 30, 2012. PATIENTS All residents with Candida spp. or MRSA isolated from blood. METHODS The Georgia Emerging Infections Program conducts active, population-based surveillance for candidemia and invasive MRSA. Medical records for patients with incident candidemia were reviewed to identify cases of MRSA coinfection, defined as incident MRSA BSI 30 days before or after candidemia. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify factors associated with coinfection in patients with candidemia. RESULTS Among 2,070 adult candidemia cases, 110 (5.3%) had coinfection within 30 days. Among these 110 coinfections, MRSA BSI usually preceded candidemia (60.9%; n=67) or occurred on the same day (20.0%; n=22). The incidence of coinfection per 100,000 population decreased from 1.12 to 0.53 between 2009 and 2012, paralleling the decreased incidence of all MRSA BSIs and candidemia. Thirty-day mortality was similarly high between coinfection cases and candidemia alone (45.2% vs 36.0%, P=.10). Only nursing home residence (odds ratio, 1.72 [95% CI, 1.03–2.86]) predicted coinfection. CONCLUSIONS A small but important proportion of patients with candidemia have MRSA coinfection, suggesting that heightened awareness is warranted after 1 major BSI pathogen is identified. Nursing home residents should be targeted in BSI prevention efforts. Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2015;36(11):1298–1304
Public Schooling for Young Children and Maternal Labor Supply

As policy makers have sought to reduce the welfare rolls by increasing labor supply among single mothers, much attention has been given to the possible role of expanded child care subsidies, including direct provision of public preschool. At the same time, public interest in child care subsidies for two-parent households is high; for example, former Vice President Gore not long ago proposed to make "high-quality pre-school fully available to every family, for every child, in every community in America" (Albert Gore, 1999). In this paper, I use 1980 Census data to estimate the effect of public school enrollment for a woman's five-year-old on measures of labor supply and public assistance receipt. This approach has two advantages. First, I am able to estimate the effect of a large implicit child care subsidy.1 Second, because public kindergarten is universally available to all age-eligible children where it is provided, selection problems related to means-testing do not arise. A difficulty with public school enrollment arises because parents may choose to hold their children back a year or enroll them in private school. I deal with this issue by using five-yearold's quarter of birth (QOB) variables as instruments for public school enrollment status. This strategy works because parents' ability to enroll a child in public kindergarten in the academic year when the child turns five typically depends on the calendar date of the child's birth.2 In most states, children born in the second quarter (April 1-June 30) of 1974 will have been eligible to start kindergarten in the fall of 1979, while children born in the first quarter (January 1March 31) of 1975 generally will not. Eligibility for children born between July 1 and December 31, 1974 depends on the rules where they live.3
H2E-Derived Eα52-68 Peptide Presented by H2Ab Interferes with Clonal Deletion of Autoreactive T Cells in Autoimmune Thyroiditis1

Susceptibility and resistance to experimental autoimmune thyroiditis is encoded by MHC H2A genes. We reported that traditionally resistant B10 (H2b) mice permit thyroiditis induction with mouse thyroglobulin (mTg) after depleting regulatory T cells (Tregs), supporting Ab presentation to thyroiditogenic T cells. Yet, Eak transgenic mice, expressing Ab and normally absent Eb molecules (E+B10 mice), are susceptible to thyroiditis induction without Treg depletion. To explore the effect of Eb expression on mTg presentation by Ab, seven putative Ab-binding, 15–16-mer peptides were synthesized. Five were immunogenic for both B10 and E+B10 mice. The effect of Eb expression was tested by competition with an Eα52-68 peptide, because Eα52-68 occupies ∼15% of Ab molecules in E+B10 mice, binding with high affinity. Eα52-68 competitively reduced the proliferative response to mTg, mTg1677, and mTg2342 of lymph node cells primed to each Ag. Moreover, mTg1677 induced mild thyroiditis in Treg-depleted B10 mice, and in E+B10 mice without the need for Treg depletion. Eα52-68 competition with mTg-derived peptides may impede clonal deletion of pathogenic, mTg-specific T cells in the thymus.
Acute toxic effects of fenpyroximate acaricide on Guppy (Poecilia reticulata Peters, 1859)

Fenpyroximate (FP), an acaricide, is widely used in the prevention of acarids (mites) in fruit plant gardens. In this study, the acute toxic effects of different concentrations of FP were investigated using adult guppy (Poecilia reticulata Peters, 1859). Guppy adults were exposed to a range of FP concentrations (25, 50, 75, 100, 125, and 150 µg/L) during 48 h. Static method, which is one of the acute toxicity experiments, has been used in this study. According to probit analysis, the 48-h median lethal concentration (LC50) value of FP at 26°C was found to be 72.821 µg/L. Sublethal exposures were predetermined based on 48-h LC50 value. Guppies were exposed to low concentrations (15, 25, and 50 µg/L) of FP for 48 h. Signs of paralysis and behavior deformations were monitored every 12 h in a number of live and dead adults. Low concentrations of FP were also responsible for erratic swimming, loss of equilibrium, and being lethargic. Liver histology revealed several pathological damages including congestion, picnotic nucleus, sinusoidal dilatation, increase in melanomacrophagic centers, and endothelial degeneration. Finally, the toxicity test results provided 48-h LC50 value for FP, and low concentrations of FP can be highly detrimental to guppy adults with clear evidence of behavioral and histologic effects.
A multiagent-based particle swarm optimization approach for optimal reactive power dispatch

Reactive power dispatch in power systems is a complex combinatorial optimization problem involving nonlinear functions having multiple local minima and nonlinear and discontinuous constraints. In this paper, a solution to the reactive power dispatch problem with a novel particle swarm optimization approach based on multiagent systems (MAPSO) is presented. This method integrates the multiagent system (MAS) and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. An agent in MAPSO represents a particle to PSO and a candidate solution to the optimization problem. All agents live in a lattice-like environment, with each agent fixed on a lattice point. In order to obtain optimal solution quickly, each agent competes and cooperates with its neighbors, and it can also learn by using its knowledge. Making use of these agent-agent interactions and evolution mechanism of PSO, MAPSO realizes the purpose of optimizing the value of objective function. MAPSO applied to optimal reactive power dispatch is evaluated on an IEEE 30-bus power system and a practical 118-bus power system. Simulation results show that the proposed approach converges to better solutions much faster than the earlier reported approaches. The optimization strategy is general and can be used to solve other power system optimization problems as well.
DNA Polymerase Gamma in Mitochondrial DNA Replication and Repair

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are associated with aging, and they can cause tissue degeneration and neuromuscular pathologies known as mitochondrial diseases. Because DNA polymerase γ (pol γ) is the enzyme responsible for replication and repair of mitochondrial DNA, the burden of faithful duplication of mitochondrial DNA, both in preventing spontaneous errors and in DNA repair synthesis, falls on pol γ. Investigating the biological functions of pol γ and its inhibitors aids our understanding of the sources of mtDNA mutations. In animal cells, pol γ is composed of two subunits, a larger catalytic subunit of 125–140 kDa and second subunit of 35–55 kDa. The catalytic subunit contains DNA polymerase activity, 3’-5’ exonuclease activity, and a 5’-dRP lyase activity. The accessory subunit is required for highly processive DNA synthesis and increases the affinity of pol gamma to the DNA.
Obesity and radiological severity are associated with viscosupplementation failure in patients with knee osteoarthritis

Viscosupplementation (VS) is still controversial. One of the key points is the lack of well‐identified factors of response. We aimed to identify clinical and radiological factors associated with lack of relevant response after intra‐articular (IA) hyaluronic acid (HA) injections in symptomatic knee osteoarthritis patients. A post hoc analysis of the HAV‐2012 trial, a controlled, multicentre, double‐blind, randomized, non‐inferiority trial comparing 3 weekly IA injections of HA (HAnox‐M or BioHA) for symptomatic tibiofemoral OA was performed. At inclusion, demographic, anthropometric, clinical data (WOMAC score, patient global assessment, presence of knee effusion), and radiological data (OARSI grade, patello‐femoral involvement) were recorded. VS response was defined according to OMERACT–OARSI response criteria at month 6. Predictors of response were investigated in univariate then in multivariate analysis. One hundred and sixty‐six patients with full available data were included. As baseline characteristics and treatment effectiveness were similar between the 2 HA groups, their data were pooled. The mean age was 65.2 [63.7–66.8] years; 101 (60.8%) were women; 73 (44.0%) had severe TF space narrowing. At 6 months, 113 patients (68.1%) were responders. Multivariate analysis showed that obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) and radiological severity (OARSI grade 3) were significantly associated with VS failure (p = 0.001 and p = 0.008, respectively). Moreover, the association of obesity and severe TF space narrowing significantly increased the risk of VS failure. Baseline pain intensity and functional impairment were not associated with VS response. Consequently, IA injection of HA for knee OA should mainly be considered in subjects with low BMI and mild TF space narrowing. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 35:2269–2274, 2017.
Mixing Rich and Asynchronous Communication for New Service Development Performance

This article explores the nature of relationships between internal communication modes, new service development (NSD) competencies (specifically learning and development competencies) and NSD performance. To do so, it draws on and advances communication theory by comparing and contrasting the contingent approach, favoured by media richness theory and media synchronicity theory, with the multiplicative manner of dual coding theory. Antecedent roles of rich and asynchronous communication modes for two NSD competencies are investigated, and their function as critical contingency variables affecting the competencies–performance link is unravelled. An empirical quantitative study of senior managers of leading service firms was conducted, with a survey-based methodology. Results show that a learning competency drives development competency which in turn drives NSD performance. Asynchronous communication is essential for learning competency but not for development competency. In contrast, rich communication underpins development but has no direct effect on learning competency. Rich communication is essential for NSD performance when a firm has a low development competency. The interaction between asynchronous and rich communication is shown to be positive for learning, whereas surprisingly it is negative for development competency.
Downsizing the firm: Answering the strategic questions

Though downsizing has become a routine activity, most of what has been written relies on anecdotal evidence and focuses primarily on personnel issues. To make good downsizing decisions, executives need to appreciate more than just the immediate impact on human resources. And their information should be based on the collective experience of many firms. In this article, we raise five important strategic questions about downsizing and provide answers based on analyses of 100 downsizing firms. We show that downsizing has the potential to be beneficial to healthy and declining firms in a variety of industries. Those firms that are the most successful downsizers tend to use the process strategically to refocus on related business activities. Done strategically, even modest cuts have positive impact.
Technological-induced information asymmetry, M&As and earnouts: stock market evidence from Germany

To date, a few empirical studies exist that investigate the use of earnout contracts in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). However, two limitations can be attested. First, the studies predominantly investigate earnouts in Anglo-American economies and it is questionable whether we can generalize on these findings for other economies. Second, while earnouts have become an increasingly popular way of coping with information asymmetries and reducing the risk of overpayment in takeovers, less is known about what really drives the design of such contracts. To answer these questions, we conduct an event study that examines abnormal returns for different M&A contracts for a cross-industry sample of German acquirers. The novel aspect of this article is that we explicitly present a theoretical model to discuss the effect of technological-induced information asymmetries on the design of earnout contracts. While we find support for the fact that capital markets favour the use of earnouts when uncertainty and the buyer’s ability to reduce technological-induced information asymmetry is high, a too-long earnout period specified in the contract appears to be detrimental.
Is Inflation Targeting Still on Target?

This paper reviews the recent experience of a half-dozen Latin American inflation-targeting (IT) nations. We document repeated and large deviations from the standard IT framework: exchange market interventions have been lasting and widespread; the real exchange rate has often become a target of policy, though this target is seldom made explicit; a range of other non-conventional policy tools, especially changes in reserve requirements but occasionally also taxes or restrictions on international capital movements, also came into common use. As in developed nations, during the 2008-2009 crisis issues of liquidity provision took center stage. We also attempt a first evaluation of the emerging modified framework of monetary policy. In general terms, the new approach seems to have been effective, at the very least since the region weathered the crisis reasonably well. But also, and perhaps more importantly, many questions remain about the desirability of non-conventional monetary policies in Latin America.