Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Time-Varying Importance of Country and Industry Factors in European Corporate Bonds

In this paper we study financial integration in Europe by looking at the time-varying relative importance of country versus industry factors in the European corporate bond market. Using a unique dataset that is representative for the universe of actively quoted corporate bonds, we find that although unconditionally the country factor dominates the industry factor, there is substantial time variation and no trend towards full integration. Breaks in the variation correspond with several important events in the European financial market integration, such as the introduction of the Euro and the sovereign debt crisis.
Development and Application of Numerical Models to Estimate Fluxes through the Regional Aquifer beneath the Pajarito Plateau

Before recent drilling and characterization efforts in the vicinity of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), conceptual models had been developed for recharge and discharge in the regional aquifer on the basis of sparse data. By integrating site‐wide data into a numerical model of the aquifer beneath the plateau we provide new insight into large‐scale aquifer properties and fluxes. This model is useful for understanding hydrologic mechanisms, assessing the magnitudes of different terms in the overall water budget, and, through sampling, for interpreting contaminant migration velocities in the overlying vadose zone. Modeling results suggest that the majority of water produced in well fields on the plateau, extracted at rates approaching 70% of total annual recharge, is derived from storage. This result is insensitive to assumptions about the percentage of total recharge that occurs in the near vicinity of water supply wells, because of strong anisotropy in the aquifer that prevents fast transport of local recharge to deeper units from which production occurs. Robust estimates of fluxes in the shallow portion of the aquifer immediately down gradient of LANL are important for contaminant transport simulations. Our model calculations show that these fluxes have decreased in the past 50 years by approximately 10% because of production in water supply wells. To explore the role of parameter uncertainty in flux prediction, a predictive analysis method was applied. Results showed that predicted flux through older basalts in the aquifer can vary by a factor of three because of uncertainty in aquifer properties and total recharge. We explored the impact of model parameter uncertainty on these results; however, the true uncertainty of our predictions, including the impact of possible conceptual model errors, is likely to be larger and is difficult to quantify.
Coping with the Job Abroad : A Correspondence Model of Expatriate Work Adjustment

This article presents a model of expatriate work adjustment in which the results obtained in previous investigations on expatriate adjustment are consolidated with the concepts and mechanisms introduced in the general Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawis and Lofquist 1984). It is held that correspondence has to be achieved between the abilities and needs of expatriate managers and the requirements and reinforcements of their jobs abroad in order to ensure that work adjustment can be reached and maintained during an international assignment. Furthermore, it is proposed that an expatriate's organizational commitment relates to the level of work adjustment achieved during the assignment.
The New Old World

This book offers a magisterial analysis of Europe's development since the end of the Cold War. A major work of modern history and political analysis, "The New-Old World" punctures both domestic and American myths about continental Europe. Surveying the post-Cold War trajectory of European power and the halting progress towards social and economic integration, Perry Anderson draws out the connections between the EU's eastward expansion, a foreign policy largely subservient to America's, and the popular rejection of the European Constitution. As a neoliberal economic project, pushed forward by a succession of centrist governments, the European Union cannot afford to allow its peoples a free choice that might dash elite schemes of a post-national democracy. Anderson explores Hayek's suggestion that protecting a market economy might require exactly this kind of inter-state structure, out of reach of popular opposition. With landmark chapters on France, Germany, Italy and Turkey, and a wide-ranging survey of current theories of the Union, "The New-Old World" offers an iconoclastic portrait of a continent that is now being increasingly hailed as a moral and political exemplar for the world at large.
Influence of atazanavir 200 mg on the intracellular and plasma pharmacokinetics of saquinavir and ritonavir 1600/100 mg administered once daily in HIV-infected patients.

OBJECTIVES To examine cellular and plasma concentrations of atazanavir when given in combination with saquinavir/ritonavir in HIV+ patients. METHODS Twelve HIV+ patients were receiving saquinavir/atazanavir/ritonavir 1600/200/100 mg once daily and venous blood samples were taken to determine cellular and plasma concentrations of each protease inhibitor at 2, 6, 12 and 24 h. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were separated by density gradient centrifugation. The ratio of the cellular AUC0-24/plasma AUC0-24 was calculated to determine cellular drug accumulation. Lymphocyte P-glycoprotein (P-gp), breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) and multidrug resistance-associated protein (MRP1) expression was determined by flow cytometry. Nine of the patients had previously received a regimen of saquinavir/ritonavir 1600/100 mg; therefore the effect of atazanavir on the cellular and plasma pharmacokinetics of saquinavir and ritonavir was examined. RESULTS In vivo cellular and plasma determinations of saquinavir, atazanavir and ritonavir gave accumulation ratios of 4.9, 1.2 and 1.7, respectively. There was no relationship between saquinavir, atazanavir or ritonavir accumulation and P-gp, MRP1 or BCRP expression. When comparing pharmacokinetic values in the nine patients receiving saquinavir/ritonavir with and without atazanavir, the median cellular saquinavir AUC0-24 was significantly increased (34.9-117.2 mg.h/L) on addition of atazanavir (P=0.004). The C24 of saquinavir in plasma and cells was significantly higher with atazanavir (plasma C24 0.05 versus 0.14 mg/L with atazanavir; cellular C24 0.61 versus 2.03 mg/L with atazanavir, P=0.02). CONCLUSIONS The mechanism of differential intracellular protease inhibitor accumulation is unclear. Co-administration of atazanavir caused an increase in both the plasma and cellular exposure (AUC0-24) and C24 of saquinavir but not ritonavir.
A novel quantile regression approach for eQTL discovery

Over the past decade, there has been a remarkable improvement in our understanding of the role of genetic variation in complex human diseases, especially via genome-wide association studies. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are still poorly characterized, impending the development of therapeutic interventions. Identifying genetic variants that influence the expression level of a gene, i.e. expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), can help us understand how genetic variants influence traits at the molecular level. While most eQTL studies focus on identifying mean effects on gene expression using linear regression, evidence suggests that genetic variation can impact the entire distribution of the expression level. Indeed, several studies have already investigated higher order associations with a special focus on detecting heteroskedasticity. In this paper, we develop a Quantile Rank-score Based Test (QRBT) to identify eQTLs that are associated with the conditional quantile functions of gene expression. We have applied the proposed QRBT to the Genotype-Tissue Expression project, an international tissue bank for studying the relationship between genetic variation and gene expression in human tissues, and found that the proposed QRBT complements the existing methods, and identifies new eQTLs with heterogeneous effects genome-wideacross different quantile levels. Notably, we show that the eQTLs identified by QRBT but missed by linear regression are more likely to be tissue specific, and also associated with greater enrichment in genome-wide significant SNPs from the GWAS catalog. An R package implementing QRBT is available on our website.
Comparison the Prognostic Value of Galectin-3 and Serum Markers of Cardiac Extracellular Matrix Turnover in Patients with Chronic Systolic Heart Failure

Background: Galectin-3 (Gal-3) shows the ability of survival prediction in heart failure (HF) patients. However, Gal-3 is strongly associated with serum markers of cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover. The aim of this study is to compare the impact of Gal-3 and serum markers of cardiac ECM turnover on prognostic prediction of chronic systolic HF patients. Methods: Serum Gal-3, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), extracellular matrix including type I and III aminoterminal propeptide of procollagen (PINP and PIIINP), matrix metalloproteinase-2, 9 (MMP-2, 9), and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) were analyzed. Cox regression analysis was used for survival analysis. Results: A total of 105 (81 male) patients were enrolled. During 980±346 days follow-up, 17 patients died and 36 episodes of HF admission happened. Mortality of these patients was significantly associated with the log PIIINP (β= 15.380; P=0.042), log TIMP-1(β= 44.530; P=0.003), log MMP-2 (β= 554.336; P<0.001), log BNP (β= 28.273; P=0.034). Log Gal-3 (β= 7.484; P=0.066) is borderline associated with mortality. Mortality or first HF admission of these patients was significantly associated with the log TIMP-1(β= 16.496; P=0.006), log MMP-2 (β= 221.864; P<0.001), log BNP (β= 5.999; P=0.034). Log Gal-3 (β= 4.486; P=0.095) only showed borderline significance. In several models adjusting clinical parameters, log MMP-2 was significantly associated with clinical outcome. In contrast, log Gal-3 was not. Conclusion: The prognostic strength of MMP-2 to clinical outcome prediction in HF patients is stronger than Gal-3.
Real-parameter compact supervision for the Particle Swarm Optimization (RCSPSO)

This paper proposes the Real-parameter compact supervision for the Particle Swarm Optimization (RCSPSO) in order to optimize problems with continuous parameters. RCSPSO uses the evolutionary configuration of the Real-valued Compact Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) and the search philosophy of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). As a Compact Evolutionary Algorithms (CEA), RCGA rather than operating on a population of individuals processes a statistical representation of that population. Thus, it shows a very explorative behavior. In contrast, PSO despite having access to several solutions only uses the best solution in order to explore the search space. Although it hardly consumes any additional memory, it provides great insight on the potential exploration areas to the particles. Moreover, to improve the update operation of the probability vector in RCGA, it uses an algorithm that prevents inaccurate influence of particle's fitness on its gene's fitness by evaluating each gene separately. Furthermore, to improve sampling the search space, the algorithm uses a combination of Cauchy and Gaussian distributions. To show the algorithm's viability, we use Differential Evolution (DE), CEAs and PSO on some well-known benchmark functions under identical initial conditions. The results show that the proposed method outperforms the aforementioned algorithms in majority of simulation scenarios.
Design issues in mobile agent programming systems

The article discusses system-level issues and agent programming requirements that arise in the design of mobile agent systems. The authors describe several mobile agent systems to illustrate different approaches designers have taken in addressing these challenges. The following areas are discussed: agent mobility, naming, security issues, privacy and integrity, authentication, authorization and access control, metering and charging mechanisms, programming primitives, agent communication and synchronization primitives, agent monitoring and control primitives, and fault tolerance primitives.
Image Spam Filtering by Content Obscuring Detection

We address the problem of filtering image spam, a rapidly spreading kind of spam in which the text message is embedded into attached images to defeat spam filtering techniques based on the analysis of e-mail’s body text. We propose an approach based on low-level image processing techniques to detect one of the main characterstics of most image spam, namely the use of content obscuring techniques to defeat OCR tools. A preliminary experimental evaluation of our approach is reported on a personal data set of spam images publicly available.
Reliable ABC model choice via random forests

MOTIVATION Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) methods provide an elaborate approach to Bayesian inference on complex models, including model choice. Both theoretical arguments and simulation experiments indicate, however, that model posterior probabilities may be poorly evaluated by standard ABC techniques. RESULTS We propose a novel approach based on a machine learning tool named random forests (RF) to conduct selection among the highly complex models covered by ABC algorithms. We thus modify the way Bayesian model selection is both understood and operated, in that we rephrase the inferential goal as a classification problem, first predicting the model that best fits the data with RF and postponing the approximation of the posterior probability of the selected model for a second stage also relying on RF. Compared with earlier implementations of ABC model choice, the ABC RF approach offers several potential improvements: (i) it often has a larger discriminative power among the competing models, (ii) it is more robust against the number and choice of statistics summarizing the data, (iii) the computing effort is drastically reduced (with a gain in computation efficiency of at least 50) and (iv) it includes an approximation of the posterior probability of the selected model. The call to RF will undoubtedly extend the range of size of datasets and complexity of models that ABC can handle. We illustrate the power of this novel methodology by analyzing controlled experiments as well as genuine population genetics datasets. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION The proposed methodology is implemented in the R package abcrf available on the CRAN. CONTACT jean-michel.marin@umontpellier.fr SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Complete isometries - an illustration of noncommutative functional analysis

This article, addressed to a general audience of functional ana- lysts, is intended to be an illustration of a few basic principles from 'non- commutative functional analysis', more specifically the new field of operator spaces. In our illustration we show how the classical characterization of (pos- sibly non-surjective) isometries between function algebras generalizes to oper- ator algebras. We give some variants of this characterization, and a new proof which has some advantages.
A randomized phase III adjuvant study in high-risk cervical cancer: simultaneous radiochemotherapy with cisplatin (S-RC) versus systemic paclitaxel and carboplatin followed by percutaneous radiation (PC-R): a NOGGO-AGO Intergroup Study.

BACKGROUND Simultaneous adjuvant platinum-based radiochemotherapy in high-risk cervical cancer (CC) is an established treatment strategy. Sequential paclitaxel (Taxol) and platinum followed by radiotherapy may offer further advantages regarding toxicity. PATIENTS AND METHODS An open-labeled randomized phase III trial was conducted to compare paclitaxel (175 mg/m(2)) plus carboplatin (AUC5) followed by radiation (50.4 Gy) (experimental arm-A) versus simultaneous radiochemotherapy with cisplatin (40 mg/m(2)/week) (arm-B) in patients with stage IB-IIB CC after surgery. Primary objective was progression-free survival (PFS). RESULTS Overall, 271 patients were randomized and 263 were eligible for evaluation; 132 in arm-A and 131 in arm-B appropriately balanced. The estimated 2-year PFS was 81.8% [95% confidence interval (CI) 74.4-89.1] in arm-B versus 87.2% (95% CI 81.2-93.3) in arm-A (P = 0.235) and the corresponding 5-year survival rates were 85.8% in arm-A and 78.9% in arm-B (P = 0.25). Hematological grade 3/4 toxicity was higher in arm-B. Alopecia (87.9% versus 4.1%; P < 0.001) and neurotoxicity (65.9% versus 15.6%; P < 0.001) were significantly higher in arm-A. Early treatment termination was significantly more frequent in arm-B than in arm-A (32.1% versus 12.9%; P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Sequential chemotherapy and radiation in high-risk CC could not show any significant survival benefit; however, a different toxicity profile appeared. This sequential regime may constitute an alternative option when contraindications for immediate postoperative radiation are present.
Unit Roots and the Demand for Cigarettes in Turkey: Pitfalls and Possibilities

The partial adjustment model for cigarette demand in Tansel (1993) is formulated as a restriction on the more general VAR model. The question whether the Tansel estimation results are spurious as claimed by Cameron and Collins (1998) is addressed in this framework. The role of intervention dummies and data transformations for the cointegration results is discussed in some detail. Finally, a more general model is estimated and two steady-state relations measuring demand and supply behaviour in the cigarette market are identified.
The Effects of Culture of Adoption of Telemedicine in Medically Underserved Communities

Within the information systems discipline, three streams have emerged that address the issue of information technology adoption, diffusion and use. The first examines the factors influencing an individual's decision to accept a new technology. The second stream deals with the impact of culture on the development and use of information technology; and the third stream is directed toward the transfer of information technology from one country or context into another. While these three streams have attempted to theorize and empirically explain the factors influencing information technology adoption within a new environment, they have largely been used separately and tested within the context of advanced economies. In this paper we attempt to integrate all three in examining the introduction of telemedicine technology in medically underserved communities. The results suggest that the interaction effects of the factors derived from all theories provide a better explanation of technology introduction in medically underserved communities.
Physiological dysfunction of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia revisited.

Evidence implicates subtle neuronal pathology of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in schizophrenia, but how this pathology is reflected in physiological neuroimaging experiments remains controversial. We investigated PFC function in schizophrenia using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a parametric version of the n-back working memory (WM) task. In a group of patients who performed relatively well on this task, there were three fundamental deviations from the 'healthy' pattern of PFC fMRI activation to varying WM difficulty. The first characteristic was a greater magnitude of PFC fMRI activation in the context of slightly impaired WM performance (i.e. physiological inefficiency). The second was that the significant correlations between behavioral WM performance and dorsal PFC fMRI activation were in opposite directions in the two groups. Third, the magnitude of the abnormal dorsal PFC fMRI response was predicted by an assay of N-acetylaspartate concentrations (NAA) in dorsal PFC, a measure of neuronal pathology obtained using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Patients had significantly lower dorsal PFC NAA than controls and dorsal PFC NAA inversely predicted the fMRI response in dorsal PFC (areas 9, 46) to varying WM difficulty - supporting the assumption that abnormal PFC responses arose from abnormal PFC neurons. These data suggest that under certain conditions the physiological ramifications of dorsal PFC neuronal pathology in schizophrenia includes exaggerated and inefficient cortical activity, especially of dorsal PFC.
Cash Flow and Discount Rate Risk in Up and Down Markets: What Is Actually Priced?

Abstract We test whether asymmetric preferences for losses versus gains affect the prices of cash flow versus discount rate risk. We construct a return decomposition distinguishing cash flow and discount rate betas in up and down markets. Using U.S. data, we find that downside cash flow and discount rate betas carry the largest premia. Downside cash flow risk is priced consistently across different samples, periods, and return decomposition methods. It is the only component of beta with significant out-of-sample predictive ability. Downside cash flow premia mainly occur for small stocks, while large stocks are compensated for symmetric cash-flow-related risk.
The Impact of Oral Contraceptive Initiation on Young Women’s Condom Use in 3 American Cities: Missed Opportunities for Intervention

Purpose To describe women’s condom use and assess predictors of consistent condom use and dual method use in the 6 months after the initiation of oral contraception (OC). Methods We conducted a planned secondary cohort analysis among women less than 25 years of age initiating oral contraceptives at public family planning clinics in Atlanta, Dallas and New York City, USA, as part of a randomized trial. These clinics provide care to predominantly African American or Hispanic women of low socioeconomic status. Participants completed interviews at enrollment and at 6 months after OC start. We used multivariate logistic regression to assess factors associated with consistent condom and dual method use at 6 months. Results 1281 participants met the inclusion criteria for this analysis. At enrollment prior to OC start, 28% were consistent condom users. In the six months after initiation of oral contraception, only 14% always used a condom and 4% always used dual methods. In multivariate analysis, receiving basic advice to always use a condom after OC initiation from a provider during the baseline clinic consultation was associated with a 50% increase in the odds of using condoms consistently. Only 28% of participants were given this condom use advice. Conclusions This study documents a decline in women’s condom consistent use subsequent to initiation of the oral contraceptive and suggests that opportunities for positive intervention around condom use among women starting hormonal methods are being missed. Basic condom use advice, which is neither time consuming nor resource dependent, was associated with increased consistent use and should be immediately implemented in all family planning services.