Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Fresh Look at Seasonal Anomalies: An International Perspective

Under globalization and international market integration, exploring seasonality in global equity markets is imperative for portfolio managers and individual investors to timely reconstruct their portfolios and for firms to optimally schedule the issue of either new shares or IPOs. Prior research supports the presence of the January effect, particularly in the US stock market. However, in the context of international stock markets, the evidence is less compelling and often contradictory. This paper provides a fresh look at monthly seasonality in 34 international equity markets over the period from January 1988 to December 2010. Unlike prior findings, we do not find a significant January effect except perhaps for 3 markets. Instead, we find significantly larger and positive anomalies across the vast majority of these markets for December and April. The results further suggest the presence of significant negative anomalies for June, August, and September across most global markets in the sample.
Physical inactivity is an independent risk factor for hip fracture in the elderly.

STUDY OBJECTIVE--To test the hypothesis that physical inactivity is an independent risk factor for hip fracture in the elderly. DESIGN--Population based, case-control study. SETTING--Metropolitan borough of Newcastle upon Tyne. PARTICIPANT--A total of 197 patients aged 50 years and over, resident in Newcastle, and admitted consecutively with a hip fracture, and 382 community controls, matched by age and sex, who had not suffered a hip fracture. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS--Validated methods were used to assess customary physical activity. Information on body build, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption was also obtained. Grip strength was measured. Physical inactivity was strongly associated with the risk of hip fracture in men and women. Subjects who did not regularly weight-bear, perform muscle-loading activities such as climbing stairs, and perform productive activities such as gardening, were all more than twice as likely to sustain a hip fracture, when compared with subjects at the higher end of the activity spectrum. These increases in risk remained after adjusting for body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption, and dependence in daily living activities. CONCLUSIONS--Customary physical inactivity is an independent determinant of hip fracture in the elderly. Strategies to improve the day to day activity of elderly people require urgent exploration.
The contribution of emotional intelligence and spirituality in understanding creativity and entrepreneurial intention of higher education students

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of spirituality and emotional intelligence in understanding creativity, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, perceived behavioural control (PBC) and entrepreneurial intention of students of a Portuguese higher education institution. A conceptual model is proposed representing direct and indirect relationships among these constructs. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach was adopted in the form of a survey questionnaire applied to a sample of 345 university students. To test the hypothesised relationships between the constructs, the authors used the path analysis technique. Findings Results show that personal attitudes towards entrepreneurship and PBC have a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention, and mediate the effect of emotional intelligence on entrepreneurial intention. Emotional intelligence has a direct positive effect on creativity. The results reveal no or a tenuous influence of spirituality in the various concepts studied. Practical implications It is expected that the model can serve as a support for facilitating and promoting entrepreneurship in higher education environments. It could be of valuable use to furthering our understanding of the role of individual/psychological characteristics, motivational and attitudinal factors in fostering entrepreneurial intention of university students. Originality/value Some studies suggest that psychological factors play an essential role in developing alternative models to the entrepreneurial process. However, the studies that directly explore how individual differences in emotional intelligence, spirituality and creativity relate to entrepreneurial intention are relatively few.
The Role of Oxidative Stress in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Oxidative stress is induced by an imbalanced redox states, involving either excessive generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or dysfunction of the antioxidant system. The brain is one of organs especially vulnerable to the effects of ROS because of its high oxygen demand and its abundance of peroxidation-susceptible lipid cells. Previous studies have demonstrated that oxidative stress plays a central role in a common pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Antioxidant therapy has been suggested for the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, although the results with regard to their efficacy of treating neurodegenerative disease have been inconsistent. In this review, we will discuss the role of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases and in vivo measurement of an index of damage by oxidative stress. Moreover, the present knowledge on antioxidant in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and future directions will be outlined.
Prospects

Chapter 2 begins with the intellectual stimulus of Smeathman’s voyage through tropical waters to West Africa. His powers of close observation are exercised on creatures such as the polyp, an exemplary case of the plant-animal continuum which was so perplexing to naturalists. Upon arriving at the Isles de Los, Smeathman is affronted by the sights and sounds of slavery. Pity for the enslaved, especially the women nursing babies, is accompanied by admiration of the scale and efficiency of the slave trade’s organization. In comparison his fieldwork equipment looks puny to the slave traders who consider their ‘collections’ to be far more significant, and certainly more profitable.
Efficient Metric Learning Based Dimension Reduction Using Sparse Projectors for Image Near Duplicate Retrieval

In this paper, we tackle the storage and computational cost of linear projections used in dimensionality reduction for near duplicate image retrieval. We propose a new method based on metric learning with a lower training cost than existing methods. Moreover, by adding a sparsity constraint, we obtain a projection matrix with a low storage and projection cost. We carry out experiments on a well known near duplicate image dataset and show our algorithm behaves correctly. Retrieval performances are shown to be promising when compared to the memory footprint and the projection cost of the obtained sparse matrix.
conditionally immortalized striatal progenitor cell line

We investigated Ca 2+ handling in isolated brain synaptic and non-synaptic mitochondria and in cultured striatal neurons from the YAC128 mouse model of Huntington's disease. Both synaptic and non-synaptic mitochondria from 2-and 12-month-old YAC128 mice had larger Ca 2+ uptake capacity than mitochondria from YAC18 and wild-type FVB/NJ mice. Syn-aptic mitochondria from 12-month-old YAC128 mice had further augmented Ca 2+ capacity compared with mitochondria from 2-month-old YAC128 mice and age-matched YAC18 and FVB/NJ mice. This increase in Ca 2+ uptake capacity correlated with an increase in the amount of mutant huntingtin protein (mHtt) associated with mitochondria from 12-month-old YAC128 mice. We speculate that this may happen because of mHtt-mediated sequestration of free fatty acids thereby increasing resistance of mitochondria to Ca 2+-induced damage. In experiments with striatal neurons from YAC128 and FVB/NJ mice, brief exposure to 25 or 100 lM glutamate produced transient elevations in cytosolic Ca 2+ followed by recovery to near resting levels. Following recovery of cytosolic Ca 2+ , mitochondrial depolarization with FCCP produced comparable elevations in cytosolic Ca 2+ , suggesting similar Ca 2+ release and, consequently, Ca 2+ loads in neuronal mitochon-dria from YAC128 and FVB/NJ mice. Together, our data argue against a detrimental effect of mHtt on Ca 2+ handling in brain mitochondria of YAC128 mice. Huntington's disease (HD) is a hereditary neurodegenerative disorder linked to a mutation in a single gene encoding huntingtin protein (Htt) (MacDonald et al. 1993). Although a causative link between this mutation and HD pathogenesis is well documented, the precise molecular mechanisms of the detrimental effect of mutant huntingtin (mHtt) remain obscure. One of the major hypotheses posits that mHtt leads to abnormalities in Ca 2+ signaling in affected neurons (Bezprozvanny and Hayden 2004) probably because of augmented activity of the NMDA-subtype of glutamate receptors (Zhang et al. 2008), aberrations in inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP 3) receptor function (Tang et al. 2003), and defects in mitochondrial Ca 2+ handling (Panov et al. 2002). Mitochondria possess Ca 2+ channels in the inner membrane (Baughman et al. 2011; De et al. 2011) that allow Ca 2+ influx into mitochondria and Ca 2+ accumulation in the mitochondrial matrix (Bernardi 1999). In early studies, investigators found decreased Ca 2+ uptake capacity in brain mitochondria from YAC72 mice and a rat HD model (Panov et al. 2002; Gellerich et al. 2008) and in mitochondria of a
When do infants differentiate profile face from frontal face? A near‐infrared spectroscopic study

The objective of the present study was to determine whether a developmental difference occurs in brain activity when infants look at frontal and profile views using near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which is an optical imaging technique used to measure changes in the concentrations of oxyhemoglobin (oxy‐Hb), deoxyhemoglobin (deoxy‐Hb), and total hemoglobin (total‐Hb). For this objective, we compared NIRS results in two age groups, 5‐ and 8‐month‐old infants, while they were looking at frontal views, profile views, and objects. We found that the concentration of oxy‐Hb and total‐Hb in the 5‐month‐old group increased for only frontal views in the right temporal regions. In contrast, the concentration of oxy‐Hb and total‐Hb in the 8‐month‐old group increased for both frontal and profile views in the right temporal regions. Therefore, the present study indicated that the right hemisphere was dominant for the perception of profile views as well as frontal views. In addition, the most important and interesting finding was that the infants' brain activity of the face area would become view‐invariant at the age of 8 months but not at 5 months. The developmental period for view‐invariant face recognition has been discussed in previous psychological studies, but this is the first objective study to confirm that the period is between 5‐ and 8‐months by measuring the blood flow in the brain using NIRS. Hum Brain Mapp, 2009. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
What season suits you best? Seasonal light changes and cyanobacterial competition

Nearly all living organisms, including some bacterial species, exhibit biological processes with a period of about 24 h called circadian (from the Latin circa , about and dies , day) rhythms. These rhythms allow living organisms to anticipate the daily alternation of light and darkness. Experiments carried out in cyanobacteria have shown the adaptive value of circadian clocks. In theseexperiments, a wild type cyanobacterial strain (with a 24 h circadian rhythm) and a mutantstrain (with a longer or shorter period) grow in competition. In different experiments, the external light dark cycle was chosen to match the circadian period of the different strains, revealing that the strain whose circadian period matches the light-dark cycle has a larger fitness. As a consequence, the initial population of one strain grows while the other decays. These experiments were made under fixed light and dark intervals. In Nature, however, this relationship changes according to the season. Therefore, seasonalchanges in light could affect the results of the competition. Using a theoretical model, we analyze how modulation of light can change the survival of the different cyanobacterial strains. Our results show that there is a clear shift in the competition due to the modulation of light, which could be verified experimentally. Received: 20 Novembre 2014, Accepted: 29 March 2015; Edited by: C. A. Condat, G. J. Sibona; DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.4279/PIP.070005 Cite as: G Cascallares, P M Gleiser, Papers in Physics 7, 070005 (2015) This paper, by G. Cascallares, P. M. Gleiser , is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 .
Heated spermatozoa: effects on embryonic development and epigenetics.

BACKGROUND Sperm chromatin is highly condensed and relatively resistant to chemical and physical treatments. The purpose of this study was to explore the highest temperature that sperm can tolerate and still produce live offspring. METHODS Mouse sperm were heated in a water bath at 50, 65, 80 or 95°C for 30 min before they were microinjected into mouse oocytes. Fertilization, embryo development and 1-cell embryo karyotypes were evaluated. Epigenetic reprogramming including DNA methylation and histone H3K4-trimethylation were evaluated by immunofluorescent staining. RESULTS The ability of mouse sperm to activate the egg after ICSI was heat sensitive; only 20% of eggs were activated by sperm that had been heated to 50°C and none was activated by sperm heated to 80°C. However, if eggs were activated artificially, mouse sperm subjected to 80°C for 30 min were able to produce live offspring, while 95°C treatment disabled sperm decondensation after ICSI. Once the heat-treated sperm nucleus had developed into a pronucleus, sperm chromatin was able to undergo normal active DNA demethylation and histone methylation. Aberrant chromosome rates increased from 16.3 to 100% when the temperature was raised from 50 to 95°C. CONCLUSIONS Heat treatment destroys integrity of sperm chromatin in a temperature-dependent manner. Eighty degree Celsius was the highest temperature that mouse sperm could withstand and still produce live offspring.
Enhanced Bacterial α(2,6)-Sialyltransferase Reaction through an Inhibition of Its Inherent Sialidase Activity by Dephosphorylation of Cytidine-5'-Monophosphate

Bacterial α(2,6)-sialyltransferases (STs) from Photobacterium damsela, Photobacterium sp. JT-ISH-224, and P. leiognathi JT-SHIZ-145 were recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli and their ST activities were compared directly using a galactosylated bi-antennary N-glycan as an acceptor substrate. In all ST reactions, there was an increase of sialylated glycans at shorter reaction times and later a decrease in prolonged reactions, which is related with the inherent sialidase activities of bacterial STs. These sialidase activities are greatly increased by free cytidine monophosphate (CMP) generated from a donor substrate CMP-N-acetylneuraminic acid (CMP-Neu5Ac) during the ST reactions. The decrease of sialylated glycans in prolonged ST reaction was prevented through an inhibition of sialidase activity by simple treatment of alkaline phosphatase (AP), which dephosphorylates CMP to cytidine. Through supplemental additions of AP and CMP-Neu5Ac to the reaction using the recombinant α(2,6)-ST from P. leiognathi JT-SHIZ-145 (P145-ST), the content of bi-sialylated N-glycan increased up to ~98% without any decrease in prolonged reactions. This optimized P145-ST reaction was applied successfully for α(2,6)-sialylation of asialofetuin, and this resulted in a large increase in the populations of multi-sialylated N-glycans compared with the reaction without addition of AP and CMP-Neu5Ac. These results suggest that the optimized reaction using the recombinant P145-ST readily expressed from E. coli has a promise for economic glycan synthesis and glyco-conjugate remodeling.
An ML-Based Detector for Optical Communication in the Presence of Nonlinear Phase Noise

We present a closed-form maximum likelihood-based data detection algorithm for long-haul optical channels with dominant nonlinear phase noise induced by self-phase modulation. The closed-form detector is evaluated in terms of symbol error rate as a function of input power, and compared with other sub-optimal detectors as well as a non-parametric detector. We show that the performance of the detector deteriorates for high input power levels yielding an optimal operation region. We also provide insights into the behavior of the detector in the highly nonlinear regime.
Micro-Economic Approaches to Evaluating the Burden of Malaria

The links between malaria and poverty are both obvious and subtle. While the correlation between the two is apparent, directions and mechanisms of causation are less so, and different methodological approaches to understanding the relationship provide widely divergent perspectives on the impact of the disease. Recent macroeconomic studies have suggested that in highly malarious countries the disease may be responsible for reducing economic growth by up to 1.3 percentage points a year. This methodology, however, functions independently of the chains of causation and cannot shed much light on underlying mechanisms. Micro-economic studies, which aggregate the cost per case to households, find a much smaller impact, generally less than one percent of per capita GDP. The traditional cost-of-illness methodology, which forms the basis of most of these studies, however, was designed to study illnesses that represent a far smaller disease burden. The pandemic nature of malaria presents economic costs that the traditional model is simply not able to capture. The paper explores the difference between the results of the different methodological approaches, examining some of the mechanisms through which malaria can affect long-term economic growth and development, and expands the cost-of-illness methodology to incorporate these effects.
Analysis of Enhanced Deployment Models for Sensor Networks

We present the estimation and evaluation of deployment models for sensor networks that exploit different amounts of a-priori information. Topologies generated from the models exhibit minimum energy consumption at maximum sensing coverage. The applied energy model makes use of measurements obtained from real experiments. We consider general sets of interesting points in the phenomena since those exhibit most of the information content. The estimated models lead to significantly optimized initial network deployments which can be subsequently used with other existing optimization techniques. Overall the energy-efficiency, sensing coverage and operational lifetime of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are strongly improved by our suggested deployment model. Furthermore, we derive a novel metric from our analysis enabling the estimation of the performance of WSNs. This metric makes use of both measures describing the similarity of probability distributions and measures characterizing spatial correlations.
Feedback Effects and the Limits to Arbitrage

This paper identifies a limit to arbitrage that arises from the fact that a firm's fundamental value is endogenous to the act of exploiting the arbitrage. Trading on private information reveals this information to managers and helps them improve their real decisions, in turn enhancing fundamental value. While this increases the profitability of a long position, it reduces the profitability of a short position -- selling on negative information reveals that firm prospects are poor, causing the manager to cancel investment. Optimal abandonment increases firm value and may cause the speculator to realize a loss on her initial sale. Thus, investors may strategically refrain from trading on negative information, and so bad news is incorporated more slowly into prices than good news. The effect has potentially important real consequences -- if negative information is not incorporated into stock prices, negative-NPV projects may not be abandoned, leading to overinvestment.
Narrative strategies in the policy process: social and cognitive foundations

Abstract Public policy decisions are often attributed to narrative strategies that impact policy-oriented learning within and across advocacy coalitions. Public policy research recognizes the role of influential individuals and their narrative strategies in this context. Yet frameworks that have been developed through this research lack sufficient guidance to distinguish individual learners. By combining theories of dual learning and public policy processes, this paper presents new strategies to better operationalize the concept of an individual learner, measure micro-level learning and thus the impact of narrative strategies. In particular four lessons are deduced from this literature and applied to empirical research into the rise of the sustainable mobility narrative in British road policy: First, policy learners interpret the world through the lens of their beliefs, and learn by combining heuristics and analytical processing. Second, they learn in different ways according to their education and experiences. Third, learning occurs in a political environment that is shaped to different extents by entrepreneurial and brokerage strategies promoting specific narratives. Fourth, exogenous factors impact these strategies, as does policy-oriented learning.
Debt Covenants and the Speed of Capital Structure Adjustment

This paper examines the impact of debt covenants on the speed of capital structure adjustment. Overall, we find that covenants lower the speed of adjustment by 10–13%, relative to the speed of adjustment of firms without covenants. The speed of adjustment is significantly lower, by 40–50%, for firms with the most intense covenant provisions. In particular, we find that capital covenants, as opposed to performance covenants, appear to be the main mechanism that lowers the speed of adjustment, delaying the speed of capital structure adjustment by 86%. We find that the speed of adjustment is reduced more for strict capital covenants than for strict performance covenants. We also show that, for firms that are cash and financially constrained, covenants impede the speed of adjustment even more. Lastly, we show that the negative relationship between covenants and the speed of adjustment is more pronounced for firms that are over-levered.
Modeling face identification processing in children and adults.

Two face identification experiments were carried out to study whether and how children (5-year-olds) and adults integrate single facial features to identify faces. Using the paradigm of the Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception each experiment used the same expanded factorial design, with three levels of eyes variations crossed with three levels of mouth variations as well as their corresponding half-face conditions. In Experiment 1, an integration of facial features was observed in adults only. But, in adjusting the salience of the features varied, the results of Experiment 2 indicate that children and adults evaluated and integrated information from both features to identify a face. A weighted Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception fit the judgments significantly better than a Single Channel Model and questions previous claims of holistic face processing. Although no developmental differences in the stage of the integration of facial information were observable, differences between children and adults appeared in the information used for face identification.
LATOS { A Lightweight Animation Tool for

A simple tool is proposed to aid in the development of operational semantics. The tool supports publication quality rendering using L A T E X, execution and animation using a functional programming system, and derivation tree browsing using Netscape. The tool has been implemented and it has been used on a large subset of the Java Virtual Machine, as well as a number of relatively small languages. The tool helps to check that a speciication is operationally conservative.