Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Institutional environment and capital structure : evidence on EU companies

LLSV (1997) recently opened a wide research avenue when they supported the idea that a sizeable chunk of economic and financial heterogeneity across countries stems from differences in legal origins. In line with this stream of literature, the present article gives evidence on the fact that corporate capital structures are substantially impacted by the legal systems in which they operate. To the best of our knowledge, it is one of the first study providing conclusive results with a statistical cross-country sample from ten Members of the European Union. Furthermore, the results give evidence on a clear cut between the smaller and the larger companies: the capital structures are impacted by the legal framework in both cases but in different ways: the smaller firms have a higher leverage capability in a legal environment oriented towards creditor rights. By contrast, the larger companies seem more prone to switch, in the same context, towards a more intense financing by own funds.
Identification of the Mitochondrial Heme Metabolism Complex

Heme is an essential cofactor for most organisms and all metazoans. While the individual enzymes involved in synthesis and utilization of heme are fairly well known, less is known about the intracellular trafficking of porphyrins and heme, or regulation of heme biosynthesis via protein complexes. To better understand this process we have undertaken a study of macromolecular assemblies associated with heme synthesis. Herein we have utilized mass spectrometry with coimmunoprecipitation of tagged enzymes of the heme biosynthetic pathway in a developing erythroid cell culture model to identify putative protein partners. The validity of these data obtained in the tagged protein system is confirmed by normal porphyrin/heme production by the engineered cells. Data obtained are consistent with the presence of a mitochondrial heme metabolism complex which minimally consists of ferrochelatase, protoporphyrinogen oxidase and aminolevulinic acid synthase-2. Additional proteins involved in iron and intermediary metabolism as well as mitochondrial transporters were identified as potential partners in this complex. The data are consistent with the known location of protein components and support a model of transient protein-protein interactions within a dynamic protein complex.
Joint Validation of Credit Rating PDs under Default Correlation

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision recognizes that one of the greatest technical challenges to the implementation of the new Basel II Accord lies on the validation of the banks’ internal credit rating models (CRMs). This study investigates new proposals of statistical tests for validating the PDs (probabilities of default) of CRMs. It distinguishes between proposals aimed at checking calibration and those focused at discriminatory power. The proposed tests recognize the existence of default correlation, deal jointly with the default behaviour of all the ratings and, differently to previous literature, control the error of validating incorrect CRMs. Power sensitivity analysis and strategies for power improvement are discussed, providing insights on the trade-offs and limitations pertained to the calibration tests. An alternative goal is proposed for the tests of discriminatory power and results of power dominance are shown for them with direct practical consequences. Finally, as the proposed tests are asymptotic, Monte-Carlo simulations investigate the small sample bias for varying scenarios of parameters.
The origins of African-American family structure

I use a new data source, the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, to trace race differences in family structure between 1880 and 1980. Analysis confirms recent findings that the high incidence among African-Americans of single parenthood and children residing without their parents is not a recent phenomenon. From 1880 through 1960, black children were two to three times more likely to reside without one or both parents than were white children. In recent years, however, the race differential in parental absence has grown. Also, blacks have had a consistently higher percentage of extended households than have whites, but until 1940 this was the result of single parenthood and parentlessness among children: Extended households were more common among whites once the effects of absent parents were controlled. T wo distinctive features of African-American family structure are well known: Blacks are far more likely than whites to become single parents and to reside in extended families. The theories offered to explain these differences are diverse and have generated heated debates. I attempt here to narrow the field of potential explanations for race differences in family structure by presenting a concise and detailed description of changes in black family structure from 1880 to 1980. Since the turn of the century, social theorists have argued that slavery resulted in disorganization and instability in black families (DuBois 1899, 1909; Elkins 1963; Frazier 1932, 1939; Myrdal 1944). This interpretation culminated with Moynihan's (1965) report, which concluded that the "pathological" nature of black communities could be traced to the deterioration of black family life. The numerous arguments against the Moynihan report can be divided into two broad cat
Medium and Long Run Prospects for UK Growth in the Aftermath of the Financial Crisis

In this paper I argue that the financial crisis is likely to have a long term impact on the level of labour productivity in the UK while leaving the long run growth rate unaffected. Based entirely on pre-crisis data, and using a two-sector growth model, I project the future growth rate of GDP per hour in the market sector to be 2.61% p.a. Based on a cross-country panel analysis of 61 countries over 1950-2010, the permanent reduction in the level of GDP per worker resulting from the crisis could be substantial, about 5½%. The cross-country evidence also suggests that there are permanent effects on employment, implying a possibly even larger hit to the level of GDP per capita of about 9%.
Sex, Gender and the Conservative Party: From Iron Lady to Kitten Heels

Sex, Gender and the Conservative Party provides a comprehensive gendered analysis of the contemporary Conservative party. The modernization of the Conservative Party under David Cameron's leadership has garnered much comment. However, scholars have rarely considered the role of feminization in this. As leader of the party, Cameron inherited a multi-faceted gender problem: only 17 women MPs; an unhappy women's organization; electorally uncompetitive policies 'for women'; and a party which was seemingly unattractive to women voters. Written by leading gender politics and party scholars this book draws on extensive new empirical research to fill this gap. It examines how the party sought to increase the number of Conservative women MPs and looks at the nature and role of the women's organizations. It also analyzes how the party 'acted for women' in the 2005 Parliament, the nature of its electoral offer to women in 2010 and how party members and voters responded to the party's feminization efforts.
Persistence Of Income Inequality: Does Child Mortality Matter?

Many developing countries are afflicted by persistent inequality in the distribution of income. While a growing body of literature emphasize differential fertility as a channel through which income inequality persists, this paper investigates differential child mortality - differences in the incidence of child mortality across socioeconomic groups - as a critical link in this regard. Using evidence from cross-country data to evaluate this linkage, we find that differential child mortality serves as a stronger channel than differential fertility in the transmission of income inequality over time. We use random effects and generalized estimating equations techniques to account for temporal correlation within countries. The results are robust to the use of an alternate definition of fertility that reflects parental preference for children instead of realized fertility.
Of Financial And Strategic Decisions Volume 10 Number 2 Summer 1997 37 EARNINGS AND STOCK SPLITS IN THE EIGHTIES

Prior literature presents evidence on the nature of the earnings information conveyed by stock splits during 1970-1980. During 1970-1980 the information conveyed is that large pre-split earnings increases, usually viewed by the market as transitory and likely to be followed by earnings decreases, are in fact permanent. This paper presents evidence on the nature of the earnings information conveyed by splits during 1982-1989, a period of lower inflation and higher real economic growth. Results for 1982-1989 indicate that the market interprets stock splits as signals of subsequent earnings increases. Thus, the information conveyed by stock splits is time-period specific, with the market interpreting splits more optimistically during the period when economic conditions are stronger.
The effects of Phragmites australis litter on seed emergence in the Erie-Huron corridor, Michigan

THE EFFECTS OF PHRAGMITES AUSTRALIS LITTER ON SEED EMERGENCE IN THE ERIE-HURON CORRIDOR, MICHIGAN by TRAVIS J WHITE May 2014 Advisor: Dr. Donna Kashian Major: Biological Sciences Degree: Master of Science The invasive reed, Phragmites australis, is widespread within the Great Lakes region, and is often blamed for habitat degradation. Once established, it creates dense litter mats that may persist following remediation efforts of living stock removal. We investigated the effects of P. australis and Typha angustifolia, narrow-leaf cattail, litter on seedling emergence from the native seed bank by harvesting soils from five Great Lakes coastal marshes densely populated by either Phragmites or Typha and exposing them to Phramities or Typha litter in treatments of varying litter depths. Seedling emergences were quantified for six weeks. Soils from Phragmites dominated sites had significantly less instances of emergence regardless of litter depth compared to soils from Typha dominated sites, and in general the deeper the litter fewer seeds emerged regardless of litter species. These results indicate that Phragmites can have a negative impact on the viability of the seedbank in a Great lakes coastal marsh.
Making graphs reducible with controlled node splitting

Several compiler optimizations, such as data flow analysis, the exploitation of instruction-level parallelism (ILP), loop transformations, and memory disambiguation, require programs with reducible control flow graphs. However, not all programs satisfy this property. A new method for transforming irreducible control flow graphs to reducible control flow graphs, called Controlled Node Splitting (CNS), is presented. CNS duplicates nodes of the control flow graph to obtain reducible control flow graphs. CNS results in a minimum number of splits and a minimum number of duplicates. Since the computation time to find the optimal split sequence is large, a heuristic has been developed. The results of this heuristic are close to the optimum. Straightforward application of node splitting resulted in an average code size increase of 235% per procedure of our benchmark programs. CNS with the heuristic limits this increase to only 3%. The impact on the total code size of the complete programs is 13.6% for a straightforward application of node splitting. However, when CNS is used, with the heuristic the average growth in code size of a complete program dramatically reduces to 0.2%
24-hour-ahead forecasting of energy production in solar PV systems

This paper presents a flexible approach to forecasting of energy production in solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, using time series analysis and neural networks. Our goal is to develop a one day-ahead forecasting model based on an artificial neural network with tapped delay lines. Despite some methods already exist for energy forecasting problems, the main novelty of our approach is the proposal of a tool for the technician of a PV installation to correctly configure the forecasting model according to the particular installation characteristics. The correct configuration takes into account the number of hidden neurons, the number of delay elements, and the training window width, i.e., the appropriate number of days, before the predicted day, employed for the training. The irradiation along with the sampling hour are used as input variables to predict the daily accumulated energy with a percentage error less than 5%.
Survival among patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma in the pretargeted versus targeted therapy eras

Between December 2005 and October 2009, FDA approved six targeted therapies shown to significantly extend survival for advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients in clinical trials. This study aimed to examine changes in survival between the pretargeted and targeted therapy periods in advanced RCC patients in a real‐world setting. Utilizing the 2000–2010 SEER Research files, a pre–post study design with a contemporaneous comparison group was employed to examine differences in survival outcomes for patients diagnosed with advanced RCC (study group) or advanced prostate cancer (comparison group, for whom no significant treatment innovations happened during this period) across the pretargeted therapy era (2000–2005) and the targeted therapy era (2006–2010). RCC patients diagnosed in the targeted therapy era (N = 6439) showed improved survival compared to those diagnosed in the pretargeted therapy era (N = 7231, hazard ratio (HR) for all‐cause death: 0.86, P < 0.01), while the change between the pre–post periods was not significant for advanced prostate cancer patients (HR: 0.97, P = 0.08). Advanced RCC patients had significantly larger improvements in overall survival compared to advanced prostate cancer patients (z = 4.31; P < 0.01). More detailed year‐to‐year analysis revealed greater survival improvements for RCC in the later years of the posttargeted period. Similar results were seen for cause‐specific survival. Subgroup analyses by nephrectomy status, age, and gender showed consistent findings. Patients diagnosed with advanced RCC during the targeted therapy era had better survival outcomes than those diagnosed during the pretargeted therapy era. Future studies should examine the real‐world survival improvements directly associated with targeted therapies.
Guilt-selective functional disconnection of anterior temporal and subgenual cortices in major depressive disorder.

CONTEXT Proneness to overgeneralization of self-blame is a core part of cognitive vulnerability to major depressive disorder (MDD) and remains dormant after remission of symptoms. Current neuroanatomical models of MDD, however, assume general increases of negative emotions and are unable to explain biases toward emotions entailing self-blame (eg, guilt) relative to those associated with blaming others (eg, indignation). Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in healthy participants have shown that moral feelings such as guilt activate representations of social meaning within the right superior anterior temporal lobe (ATL). Furthermore, this area was selectively coupled with the subgenual cingulate cortex and adjacent septal region (SCSR) during the experience of guilt compared with indignation. Despite its psychopathological importance, the functional neuroanatomy of guilt in MDD is unknown. OBJECTIVE To use fMRI to test the hypothesis that, in comparison with control individuals, participants with remitted MDD exhibit guilt-selective SCSR-ATL decoupling as a marker of deficient functional integration. DESIGN Case-control study from May 1, 2008, to June 1, 2010. SETTING Clinical research facility. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-five patients with remitted MDD (no medication in 16 patients) with no current comorbid Axis I disorders and 22 controls with no personal or family history of MDD. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Between-group difference of ATL coupling with a priori SCSR region of interest for guilt vs indignation. RESULTS We corroborated the prediction of a guilt-selective reduction in ATL-SCSR coupling in MDD vs controls (familywise error-corrected P=.001 over the region of interest) and revealed additional medial frontopolar, right hippocampal, and lateral hypothalamic areas of decoupling while controlling for medication status and intensity of negative emotions. Lower levels of ATL-SCSR coupling were associated with higher scores on a validated measure of overgeneralized self-blame (67-item Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire). CONCLUSIONS Vulnerability to MDD is associated with temporofrontolimbic decoupling that is selective for self-blaming feelings. This provides the first neural mechanism ofMDD vulnerability that accounts for self-blaming biases.
Characterization of Phenotype and Genotype of Biofield Treated Enterobacter aerogenes

Enterobacter aerogenes (E. aerogenes) has been commonly described as a versatile opportunistic pathogen in hospital infections. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the impact of biofield treatment on E. aerogenes for its phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. E. aerogenes bearing ATCC 13048 (American Type Culture Collection) was procured from Bangalore Genei, in sealed pack and divided into control and treated groups. Treated group was subjected to Mr. Trivedi’s biofield treatment and analyzed for antimicrobial susceptibility, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), biochemical reactions, and biotype using automated MicroScan Walk-Away® system. In addition, treated group of E. aerogenes was evaluated for DNA polymorphism by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and 16S rDNA sequencing to establish the phylogenetic relationship of E. aerogenes with different closely related bacterial species. Antimicrobial susceptibility results showed an alteration of 14.28% among twenty-eight tested antimicrobials. Similarly, 15.65% tested antimicrobials showed an alteration in MIC values. Chloramphenicol showed improved sensitivity i.e. resistant to susceptible after biofield treatment, with the support of decreased MIC by two folds (i.e. >16 to ≤8 μg/mL). Norfloxacin also showed decrease MIC by two folds (i.e. 8 to ≤4 μg/mL) as compared to control. Biofield treatment showed an impact on biochemical reactions (9.09%) followed by a change in biotype number (7770 5272) in treated group with respect to control (7770 5372). Using RAPD analysis, sample showed an average range of 4 to 42% of polymorphism, while 16S rDNA study showed that treated sample was detected as Kluyvera cryocrescens (GenBank Accession Number: AM184245) with 97% identity of gene sequencing data, which was nearest homolog species to Enterobacter aerogenes strain: C1111 (Accession No. AB244467). These results suggest that Mr. Trivedi’s unique biofield treatment can alter the antimicrobial sensitivity pattern, thus it can be used as alternate energy medicine in future.
The terrain of health policy analysis in low and middle income countries: a review of published literature 1994–2007

This article provides the first ever review of literature analysing the health policy processes of low and middle income countries (LMICs). Based on a systematic search of published literature using two leading international databases, the article maps the terrain of work published between 1994 and 2007, in terms of policy topics, lines of inquiry and geographical base, as well as critically evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. The overall objective of the review is to provide a platform for the further development of this field of work. From an initial set of several thousand articles, only 391 were identified as relevant to the focus of inquiry. Of these, 164 were selected for detailed review because they present empirical analyses of health policy change processes within LMIC settings. Examination of these articles clearly shows that LMIC health policy analysis is still in its infancy. There are only small numbers of such analyses, whilst the diversity of policy areas, topics and analytical issues that have been addressed across a large number of country settings results in a limited depth of coverage within this body of work. In addition, the majority of articles are largely descriptive in nature, limiting understanding of policy change processes within or across countries. Nonetheless, the broad features of experience that can be identified from these articles clearly confirm the importance of integrating concern for politics, process and power into the study of health policy. By generating understanding of the factors influencing the experience and results of policy change, such analysis can inform action to strengthen future policy development and implementation. This article, finally, outlines five key actions needed to strengthen the field of health policy analysis within LMICs, including capacity development and efforts to generate systematic and coherent bodies of work underpinned by both the intent to undertake rigorous analytical work and concern to support policy change.
Confessions of a Venture Capitalist: Inside the High-Stakes World of Start-up Financing

Venture capitalists are the magic behind 70 per cent of the biggest and most impressive stories of the technological revolution but little is known of the method in their madness or even who "they" are. A successful venture capitalist from Silicon Valley herself, Ruthann Quindlen directed the initial public offerings for Microsoft, among many others, and is uniquely placed to tell the remarkable tale of the rise of the venture capitalist economy. Known to be a fearless and inspired gambler herself, Quindlen has seen first-hand the best and worst of what venture capital can do. Is it just lots and lots of cash? Smarts? Critical, strategic relationships? Or just plain luck? Where does the money come from and how does one decide how much to put and where to put it? This book answers all these questions and more as it provides a portrait of what life and work are all about for venture capitalists.
A pheromone-based traffic management model for vehicle re-routing and traffic light control

We propose a pheromone-based traffic management model, which simultaneously optimizes vehicle re-routing and traffic light control. Specifically, each car agent deposits multiple digital pheromone on its route. The road infrastructure agents fuse the pheromone to forecast traffic conditions. Once a congested road is predicted, we adopt a proactive vehicle re-routing algorithm for assigning alternative routes to cars before they enter the congested road. At the same time, the traffic light control agents use an online strategy for assigning long time duration of green traffic lights to the roads with a large amount of pheromone. Experimental results confirm its superiority in alleviating traffic congestion.
Nominal rigidities, relative prices and skewness

The menu costs model developed by Ball and Mankiw (BM)(1994,1995) predicts that inflation is positively related to the skewness of price changes distribution. We test this prediction in different inflationary contexts: Spain (1975-2002) and Argentina (1960-1989). We find a positive inflation-skewness relationship in both countries at low inflation, even though the mean annual inflation rates were very different: 2,2% for Spain and 23% for Argentina. Therefore, the threshold of low inflation under which the menu costs model is suitable is determined endogenously, and it depends on the inflationary experience of each economy. In the higher inflation periods skewness is not significant. Finally, our results suggest that the menu-costs model is not suitable beyond certain threshold of inflation.