Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Small vs Large Firms Leverage: Determinants and Structural Relations

The aim of this paper is to examine the importance of the different theoretical proposals that explain a firm's capital structure in relation to the existence of an optimal debt ratio, the preference of the firm for internal financing and the consideration of financial constraints. The contrast of the relative importance of these theoretical proposals is carried out from a structural equation model on the database of the Encuesta de Estrategias Empresariales (Business Strategies Survey) for Spanish firms in 1998. The results of the contrast from the structural equation model reveal a greater importance in financial constraints as determinants of capital structure, in the sense that small firms together with firms not belonging to any business group, recently created firms and those with a smaller market share have less possibility of deferring required investments and leverage. With a similar importance between them, the preference for internal financing and the average debt ratio of the sector are also capital structure determinants.
Dynamics of Bond and Stock Returns

I present a production-based general equilibrium model that jointly prices bond and stock returns. The model produces time-varying correlation between stock and long-term default-free real bond returns that changes in both magnitude and sign. The real term premium is also time-varying and changes sign. To generate these results, the model incorporates time-varying risk aversion within Epstein-Zin preferences and two physical technologies with different exposure to cash-flow risk. Bonds hedge risk-aversion (discount-rate) shocks and command negative term premium through this channel. Capital (cash-flow) shocks produce comovement of bond and stock returns and positive term premium. The relative strength of these two mechanisms varies over time.
The Relationship Between Adolescents’ Personality and Neurasthenia: A Comparison of Australian and Chinese

The aim of the present study was to examine the cross-cultural differences in the relationship between personality traits and neurasthenia across early adolescence. The participants were from Australia and China. Adolescents’ personality was measured by the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and neurasthenia was measured by the Somatic and Psychological Health Report. Structural equation modeling showed that neuroticism significantly predicted neurasthenia for both Chinese and Australian adolescents. Multigroup comparisons indicated that the strength of the relationship between neuroticism and neurasthenia was consistent across Australian and Chinese adolescents. Our findings imply that the relationship between personality traits and neurasthenia is consistent across different cultures.
Temi di discussione ( Working papers ) Trust and regulation : addressing a cultural bias

Cultural traits shape both the scope and the consequences of government intervention. Failing to account for cultural differences may therefore bias the estimated effects of regulation. This paper investigates the direction and the magnitude of this bias, from both a theoretical and an empirical point of view. It presents a simple model in which agents differ in terms of trust and trustworthiness, and average trust predicts average trustworthiness across countries. Entrepreneurial activity by the untrustworthy imposes negative externalities on the whole economy and burdensome entry regulations may lower these externalities at the cost of limiting economic activity by all agents. The model delivers two main predictions: within each country, preferences for regulations depend negatively on individual trust; across countries, lower trustworthiness drives higher levels of unofficial activity, negative externalities and government regulation, thus inducing a positive spurious correlation between all these variables. Evidence from individual level and cross-country data is consistent with these implications of the model. In particular, it suggests that a large part of the previously estimated negative effects of regulation can be attributed to omitted variation in cultural traits. JEL Classification: L51, Z10, D02, K42.
Prison-based correctional offender rehabilitation programs: The 2009 national picture in Australia

Offender rehabilitation is one of the central purposes of correctional services around Australia and yet it not always easy access information about which programs are available in each state or territory. This report not only provides an overview of prison based programs, but also offers a commentary on the current status and quality of programs and the directions in which they are likely to develop in the future. It is likely to be a valuable resource for those who are interesting in understanding more about the current status of offender rehabilitation in Australia.
Surface modification does not influence the genotoxic and inflammatory effects of TiO2 nanoparticles after pulmonary exposure by instillation in mice

The influence of surface charge of nanomaterials on toxicological effects is not yet fully understood. We investigated the inflammatory response, the acute phase response and the genotoxic effect of two different titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) following a single intratracheal instillation. NRCWE-001 was unmodified rutile TiO2 with endogenous negative surface charge, whereas NRCWE-002 was surface modified to be positively charged. C57BL/6J BomTac mice received 18, 54 and 162 µg/mouse and were humanely killed 1, 3 and 28 days post-exposure. Vehicle controls were tested alongside for comparison. The cellular composition and protein concentration were determined in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid as markers for an inflammatory response. Pulmonary and systemic genotoxicity was analysed by the alkaline comet assay as DNA strand breaks in BAL cells, lung and liver tissue. The pulmonary and hepatic acute phase response was analysed by Saa3 mRNA levels in lung tissue or Saa1 mRNA levels in liver tissue by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Instillation of NRCWE-001 and -002 both induced a dose-dependent neutrophil influx into the lung lining fluid and Saa3 mRNA levels in lung tissue at all assessed time points. There was no statistically significant difference between NRCWE-001 and NRCWE-002. Exposure to both TiO2 NPs induced increased levels of DNA strand breaks in lung tissue at all doses 1 and 28 days post-exposure and NRCWE-002 at the low and middle dose 3 days post-exposure. The DNA strand break levels were statistically significantly different for NRCWE-001 and -002 for liver and for BAL cells, but no consistent pattern was observed. In conclusion, functionalisation of reactive negatively charged rutile TiO2 to positively charged did not consistently influence pulmonary toxicity of the studied TiO2 NPs.
Role of family history for Alzheimer biomarker abnormalities in the adult children study.

OBJECTIVE To assess whether family history (FH) of Alzheimer disease (AD) alone influences AD biomarker abnormalities. DESIGN Adult Children Study. SETTING Washington University's Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. PARTICIPANTS A total of 269 cognitively normal middle- to older-aged individuals with and without an FH for AD. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Clinical and cognitive measures, magnetic resonance imaging-based brain volumes, diffusion tensor imaging-based white matter microstructure, cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, and molecular imaging of cerebral fibrillar amyloid with positron emission tomography using the [(11)C] benzothiazole tracer, Pittsburgh compound B. RESULTS A positive FH for AD was associated with an age-related decrease of cerebrospinal fluid Aβ42; the ε4 allele of apolipoprotein E (APOE4) did not alter this effect. Age-adjusted cerebrospinal fluid Aβ42 was decreased for individuals with APOE4 compared with the level for those without, and the decrease was larger for individuals with a positive FH compared with the decrease for those without. The variation of cerebrospinal fluid tau and Pittsburgh compound B mean cortical binding potential increased by age. For individuals younger than 55, an age-related increase in mean cortical binding potential was associated with APOE4 but not FH. For individuals older than 55, a positive FH and a positive APOE4 implied the fastest age-related increase in mean cortical binding potential. A positive FH was associated with decreased fractional anisotropy from diffusion tensor imaging in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum. CONCLUSION Independent of APOE4, FH is associated with age-related change of several cerebrospinal fluid, Pittsburgh compound B, and diffusion tensor imaging biomarkers in cognitively normal middle- to older-aged individuals, suggesting that non- APOE susceptibility genes for AD influence AD biomarkers.
Does the Stock Market Gender Stereotype Corporate Boards? Evidence from the Market's Reaction to Directors' Trades

Attitudes towards male and female managers within organizations are well documented, but how the stock market perceives their relative capabilities is less studied. Recent evidence documents a negative short‐run market reaction to the appointment of female chief executive officers and suggests that female executives are less informed than their male counterparts about future corporate performance. These results appear to dispute the stock market value of having women on corporate boards. However, such short‐run market reactions may retain a ‘gender bias’, reflecting the prevalence of negative stereotypes, where the market reacts to ‘beliefs’ rather than ‘performance’. This study tests for such bias by examining the stock market reaction to directors' trades in their own companies' shares, by measuring both the short‐run and longer‐term returns after the directors' trades. Allowing for firm and trade effects, some evidence is found that, in the longer term, markets recognize that female executives' trades are informative about future corporate performance, although initially markets underestimate these effects. This has important implications for research that has attempted to assess the value of board diversity by examining only short‐run stock market responses.
Early Career Physical Therapy Faculty Networking and Scholarly Productivity: A Mixed-Methods Study

EARLY CAREER PHYSICAL THERAPY FACULTY NETWORKING AND SCHOLARLY PRODUCTIVITY: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY Betsy J. Becker, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2018 Supervisors: Susanna Von Essen, MD, MPH and Gilbert Willett, PT, Ph.D. While it is well-known that physical therapist (PT) faculty must retain a scholarly agenda, few report being activity engaged and many programs have low scholarly dissemination. There is evidence that knowledge of the make-up of a faculty network leads to improved performance and innovation. The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed methods study was to explore agency (behaviors and perspectives about career advancement) and the professional network structure and composition of early career PT faculty as they relate to scholarly activity. This dissertation research study included 50 early career faculty who worked in accredited entry-level physical therapy programs. The quantitative phase results showed a more open and less interconnected network is associated with higher scholarly activity when controlling for the duration as a faculty member and whether the individual has an academic doctoral degree. Agency behavior and perspective scores were not associated with higher scholarly activity. The Scholar Score developed during this phase offered a clear and uniform, peer-validated approach to account for the quantity and quality of scholarly activities. The qualitative phase used a grounded theory approach to analyze interviews with a sub-set of 20 study participants. The result was a central phenomenon of connecting with others for scholarly activity. The two constructs in the model are strategies used to develop network connections and how these connections helped faculty participate in scholarly activity. The findings about the network development process helped explain the quantitative results of high and low performers of scholarly activity. Without both study phases important information would have been missed. Key implications from this study include advancing the application of the Scholar Score and demonstrating network analysis for PT faculty. More importantly this study generated new knowledge about an effective network and the process used to create professional relationships to strengthen an early career PT faculty scholarly agenda. Network analysis made the connections visible for the early career faculty who reside at the lower end of the academic hierarchy in terms of tenure, academic rank, and scholarly productivity.
Adaptation of the “Attitudes Toward Physical Activity Scale” for Higher Education Students in Turkey

The purpose of this study was to adapt the “Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale” (APAS) for Turkish higher education students. Study was conducted during 2018–2019 autumn semester at a public university in the central Anatolia region of Turkey. The APAS was applied to 1021 voluntary university students from eleven different faculties and departments of the university. Descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, internal consistency coefficients were used in statistical analysis. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a six factor solution explaining 60.2% of the variance. Then, confirmatory factor analysis on the 38 items showed good fit to the 6-dimension model according to the goodness-of-fit criteria. The psychometric data of the scale showed that the Turkish version of the scale for higher education students reached the required levels. As a result, the “Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale” can be used in reliable and valid way at higher education students in Turkey at national or cross-cultural studies in examining physical activity attitudes.
Driving fatigue detection with fusion of EEG and forehead EOG

In this paper, we fuse EEG and forehead EOG to detect drivers' fatigue level by using discriminative graph regularized extreme learning machine (GELM). Twenty-one healthy subjects including twelve men and nine women participate in our driving simulation experiments. Two fusion strategies are adopted: feature level fusion (FLF) and decision level fusion (DLF). PERCLOS (the percentage of eye closure) is calculated by using the eye movement data recorded by eye tracking glasses as the indicator of drivers' fatigue level. The prediction correlation coefficient and root mean square error (RMSE) between the estimated fatigue level and the real fatigue level are both used to evaluate the performance of single modality and fusion modality. A comparative study on modality performance is conducted between GELM and support vector machine (SVM). The experimental results show that fusion modality can improve the performance of driving fatigue detection with a higher prediction correlation coefficient and a lower RMSE value in comparison with solely using EEG or forehead EOG. And FLF achieves better performance than DLF. GELM is more suitable for driving fatigue detection than SVM. Moreover, feature level fusion with GELM achieves the best performance with the prediction correlation coefficient of 0.8080 and the RMSE value of 0.0712 on average.
THE GLASS CEILING HYPOTHESIS

The general-case glass ceiling hypothesis states that not only is it more difficult for women than for men to be promoted up levels of authority hierarchies within workplaces but also that the obstacles women face relative to men become greater as they move up the hierarchy. Gender-based discrimination in promotions is not simply present across levels of hierarchy but is more intense at higher levels. Empirically, this implies that the relative rates of women being promoted to higher levels compared to men should decline with the level of the hierarchy. This article explores this hypothesis with data from three countries: the United States, Australia, and Sweden. The basic conclusion is that while there is strong evidence for a general gender gap in authority—the odds of women having authority are less than those of men—there is no evidence for systematic glass ceiling effects in the United States and only weak evidence for such effects in the other two countries.
EVALUASI IMPLEMENTASI PENDIDIKAN NILAI DALAM PEMBELAJARAN PENJAS

This study was aimed to obtain empirical data on the implementation of value education in physical education learning both in the Learning Implementation Plan (RPP) and in the process of learning practiced in the field. Data were collected in two steps: first, the data will be collected on the Learning Plan (RPP) which has been prepared by the teacher of Physical Education to find the presence or absence of content value education in which the data analysis performed on 100 sample RPP shows that there is 100% . The second step was to deepen the understanding of teachers about the value of education taught to learners and observation of the implementation of value education in the learning process. Of the 100% RPP that contained educational or character values, however only 65% or 13 out of 20 teachers were taken at random, applying the educational value in the learning, 35% did not apply. Of the 65% of teachers applying only 5 teachers applied the educational values from the opening, main activities and closing activities, 8 teachers only applied from the opening and closing only in the form of prayer and advice to the students.
The driving factors of continuance online shopping: gender differences in behaviour among students - the case of Saudi Arabia

This study proposes a model of e-shopping continuance intentions combining the revised technology acceptance model and expectation confirmation theory, measuring student gender differences with regard to continuance online shopping intentions in Saudi Arabia. The results of an online survey (n = 234, 61.5% women, 38.5% men) are used in a structural equation model that confirms fit. Perceived usefulness, enjoyment, and subjective norms are determinants of online shopping continuance in Saudi Arabia. The structural weights are largely equivalent, but the paths from subjective norms to enjoyment and subjective norms to continuance intention (men) and perceived usefulness to continuous intention (women) are not supported. The main contribution is to move beyond intentions to continuance. The model explains 71% of the intention to continue shopping online. The results suggest that online strategies cannot ignore gender differences on continuance intentions. The model can be generalised across the main commercial regions of Saudi Arabia.
Task-relevant and Task-irrelevant Dimensions Are Modulated Independently at a Task-irrelevant Location

Single-cell and fMRI experiments indicate that task-relevant features are enhanced globally across the visual field (VF). Moreover, this global feature-based attention can spread to task-irrelevant features of the attended object. Here we ask whether a task-irrelevant feature, by virtue of being bound to a task-relevant feature, can also be enhanced at a task-irrelevant location. Specifically, we asked whether attending to the color of moving dots in one VF would influence the motion signal to colored moving dots in the other VF. Participants attended to either red or cyan dots, superimposed and moving in opposite directions. Critically, the color and motion of dots present in the opposite VF varied as a function of the attended dots such that they were either the same color/same direction, same color/opposite direction, opposite color/same direction, or opposite color/opposite direction as the attended dots. We found greater activity in ventral visual cortex when either the color or direction of motion matched the color or direction of motion at the attended location. Similar effects were found for direction of motion in human medial temporal/medial superior temporal cortex. Moreover, the color and motion effects did not interact in any region. Together, these results suggest that the coselection of an object's features modulates those features independently beyond the selected object.
European Conference on Information Systems ( ECIS ) 5-15-2012 UNDERSTANDING VIRTUAL EXPERIENCE AND TELEPRESENCE-A REVIEW AND SYNTHESIS OF LITERATURE

To enable buyers to be better informed before purchasing, products and services can be virtually experienced on the internet. Research into virtual experience (VE) and the related construct of telepresence (TP) as means of online marketing has made great progress in recent years. However, there is still disagreement in the literature concerning the exact understanding of these terms. In this study, the two terms are analyzed by means of a systematically executed literature review, differentiated from one another, and their understandings explained. This study is to our knowledge the first to compare the concepts of VE and TP in a systematic way. The analysis shows that TP is regarded as the feeling of presence conveyed by a communication medium. VE, on the other hand, is to be defined as an active state of a consumer through the use of computer-based presentation formats, and constituting a subtype of TP. These findings are intended to help VE and TP become more uniformly understood and make it easier to compare the results of future studies. Finally, from the literature review, it is possible to derive focal points for research in future studies.
Neural pathways involved in the processing of concrete and abstract words

The purpose of this study was to delineate the neural pathways involved in processing concrete and abstract words using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Word and pseudoword stimuli were presented visually, one at a time, and the participant was required to make a lexical decision. Lexical decision epochs alternated with a resting baseline. In each lexical decision epoch, the stimuli were either concrete words and pseudowords, or abstract words and pseudowords. Behavioral data indicated that, as with previous research, concrete word stimuli were processed more efficiently than abstract word stimuli. Analysis of the fMRI data indicated that processing of word stimuli, compared to the baseline condition, was associated with neural activation in the bilateral fusiform gyrus, anterior cingulate, left middle temporal gyrus, right posterior superior temporal gyrus, and left and right inferior frontal gyrus. A direct comparison between the abstract and concrete stimuli epochs yielded a significant area of activation in the right anterior temporal cortex. The results are consistent with recent positron emission tomography work showing right hemisphere activation during processing of abstract representations of language. The results are interpreted as support for a right hemisphere neural pathway in the processing of abstract word representations. Hum. Brain Mapping 7:225–233, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The unusual emission line spectrum of I Zw 1

A detailed analysis of the spectrum of I Zw 1 shows that the Narrow Line Region, unlike that of most Seyfert 1 galaxies, is a very low excitation region dominated by both permitted and forbidden Fe II lines. The physical conditions in this region are discussed.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard. edu/abstract_service. html
A Multivariate Filter for Measuring Potential Output and the NAIRU: Application to the Czech Republic

This paper presents a multivariate (MV) methodology for obtaining measures of excess demand that can facilitate discussion of monetary policy issues and improve policy decisions. Using data for the Czech Republic, a growing economy undergoing major structural change, it shows how the use of more information to condition the paths of potential output and the non accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) improves on univariate methods as the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter.