Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic biology of gymnotiform and mormyriform electric fishes: phylogenetic relationships, molecular clocks and rates of evolution in the mitochondrial rRNA genes

The phylogenetic relationships of both African and South American electric fish orders are reviewed at their intra-ordinal level taking into consideration recent studies in which cladistic principles have been employed. Several concordant topologies emerge from the different data sets, but some unsettled issues still remain. From the studies available, a consensus topology has been suggested for the Mormyriformes and for the Gymnotiformes. Subsequently, the evolutionary relationships of these two electric fish clades are considered within each respective superorder, i.e. in relation to the other osteoglossomorph and ostariophysan orders. The inter-ordinal phylogenies are used as a framework to test the molecular clock hypothesis with two gene fragments of the mitochondrial genome. Gymnotiformes, Siluriformes and Characiformes are accumulating mutations at the same pace in relation to their respective outgroups, but for all the other combinations of sister clades tested the molecular clock can be statistically rejected. Fossil records are then surveyed and used to calibrate absolute rates of genetic differentiation for each main lineage (orders) of both osteoglossomorphs and ostariophysans. The most conserved regions (stems) of the 12S and 16S gene fragments used are evolving at an average rate of 0.123 % 10(6 )years-1 for the osteoglossomorphs and 0.137 % 10(6 )years-1 for the ostariophysans, with no significant difference between these two values. The rate of mutation in the loops, the faster-evolving segments, estimated for closely related electric fish taxa is 0.82 % 10(6 )years-1 for four Brienomyrus species and 1.01 % 10(6 )years-1 for the four eigenmanniid genera. When the entire molecule (loops + stems) is considered, the rate of mutation in both mormyriforms and gymnotiforms converges to a rounded value of 0.23 % 10(6 )years-1.
Fleet Replacement, Technology Choice, and the Option to Breach a Leasing Contract

We analyze the option to breach a leasing contract when replacing a fleet of ICVs (internal combustion engine vehicles) and EVs (electric vehicles) subject to cost uncertainty. We derive the optimal policy for technology choice and breaching ICV contracts. The decision to breach is shown to offer both cost savings resulting from reduced ICV operating costs and preemptive acquisition, but incurs additional costs arising from the need to compensate for breached vehicles and in the form of opportunity costs. We also demonstrate that the effects of breaching a leasing contract have a ripple effect across the decision horizon, thus amplifying the impact of a single breach. A numerical study based on data from La Poste, the French postal service, shows that breaching a leasing contract in this context offers measurable cost benefits.
A Positive Youth Development Coach Education Program and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals

In 2000, the United Nations (UN) hosted a world summit to set their major goals and objectives. This summit produced the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight goals that addressed key social problems in the world. The UN has recognized the potential of sport and physical activity as a way to achieve the UN MDGs. Empirical evidence has shown that sport is a powerful tool that can promote life skills in youth athletes and that the coach plays a key role in youths‟ personal and social development in sport. To date, research has not examined the benefits of sport under the framework of the UN goals, nor has research created activities to achieve these goals. Thus, the purpose of the study was to assess coaches‟ thoughts and perceptions of activities that were created to address three UN MDGs (health, education, and empowering women). Six youth soccer and basketball coaches participated in this study. Coaches were required to participate in a workshop designed to teach them the UN MDGs and the principles of positive youth development (PYD). During the workshop four activities were created in a collaborative effort between the participating youth coaches and the McGill research team. These activities were delivered by the coaches to their athletes throughout the season. Data was collected using four qualitative methods: pre and post-intervention forms, interviews, research assistant field notes, and a reflective journal kept by the research coordinator. Data revealed that coaches perceived the project as successful and the activities were seen as beneficial for athletes and for the team. In particular, the coaches believed the activities improved the athletes‟ awareness of the importance of health, education, and empowering women. The coaches also believed the activities increased team cohesion and communication skills among their players, and between coaches and players. Finally, observations suggested increased indicators of PYD among youth players. In sum, the results of the present study demonstrated that coaches can be educated in the principles of PYD and the UN goals to develop activities that fostered life skills development of their athletes through sport.
Efficiency and Managerial Performance in FBS College Football

This article develops a model of managerial efficiency for National Collegiate Athletic Association’s top division college football coaches. The derived efficiency measures are then linked to the hiring and firing process. The work concludes with an evaluation of the effect of head coach succession on team performance. This study evaluates coaching efficiency in terms of both use of talent and recruiting talent. The constructed efficiency rankings are used to evaluate hiring and firing decisions and determine the degree that each type of efficiency plays in these decisions. Last, the efficiency of the market is assessed by evaluating whether universities are making a good choice and are able on average to improve performance when replacing an underperforming coach. The empirical results indicate that both constructs of efficiency matter. Coaches who exhibit high level of both types of efficiencies regularly move up to the most lucrative jobs. Replacement of poor performing coach is most often a wise decision.
Digital Compensation of Cross-Modulation Distortion in Multimode Transceivers

In a multimode transceiver, the transmitter for one communication standard induces a large interference on the receiver for another one. When this large interference passes through the inherently nonlinear receiver Front-End (FE), it introduces Cross- Modulation (CM) distortion. Increasing the FE linearity to lower the CM distortion leads to unacceptable power consumption for a handheld device. Considering the continuous increase of digital computation power governed by Moore's law an attractive alternative approach is to digitally compensate for the CM distortion. An existing CM compensation method is tailored to single-mode transceivers and requires an auxiliary FE. By using the locally available transmitted interference in the multimode transceiver, we propose a CM compensation method which requires no additional analog hardware. Hence the power consumption and complexity of the multimode transceiver will be reduced significantly.
Who cares who calls? Selective responses to the lost calls of socially dominant group members in the white‐faced capuchin (Cebus Capucinus)

In many social mammals and birds, soft vocalizations are habitually produced during dispersed moving and foraging, the function being to maintain contact and regulate spacing between group members. In some species, much louder calls are given sporadically by specific individuals when they become separated from the group, or ‘lost’. The function of these calls has seldom been specifically tested, particularly among social primates, but is often assumed to involve regaining contact with the group based on a combination of individually distinctive calls and antiphonal responses to them from within the group. To test these assumptions, we conducted research on two groups of white‐faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) in Costa Rica. We analyzed 82 bouts of ‘lost’ calls given by 13 different adult individuals when separated from the group and the antiphonal responses they elicited. Lost calls were individually distinctive and were answered in 35% of calling episodes. Answers were selective: dominant males and females were answered more than were subordinate callers of either sex. As a result, dominant callers relocated and returned to the group more quickly than did subordinate callers. We discuss the potential proximate motivations for, and ultimate benefits of, such selective answering of dominant group members. Am. J. Primatol. 69:829–835, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Perspectives of Strengthening Primary and High School Teaching Practices in South Africa

The profession of teaching is and should be considered as one of the most important in all countries. The reason is that any skill, be it technical or social, is acquired from teaching and learning process. Therefore, training teachers should be done with respect to profile of the person needed. In this article, we investigated some aspects of the South African education system with regard to faculties or colleges of education curriculum, teacher, micro-teaching lessons, and placement process. Based on the pillars underpinning the DR Congo education system, suggestions are made to strengthen the South African education system. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2015. v5n1p145
Changing patient characteristics and the effect on mortality in endocarditis.

BACKGROUND Limited data exist on recent demographic and microbiological changes in infective endocarditis (IE) and the impact of these changes on patient survival. METHODS Data were collected from all patients with definite or possible IE at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, from 1993 to 1999. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify demographic and microbiological changes that occurred in patients with IE over the study period. The impact of these changes on survival was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards modeling. RESULTS Among the 329 study patients, rates of hemodialysis dependence, immunosuppression, and Staphylococcus aureus infection increased during the study period (P=.04, P=.008, and P<.001, respectively), while rates of infection due to viridans group streptococci decreased (P=.007). Hemodialysis was independently associated with S aureus infection (odds ratio, 3.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.6-5.9). Patients with S aureus IE had a higher 1-year mortality rate (43.9% vs 32.5%; P=.04) that persisted after adjustment for other illness severity characteristics (hazard ratio, 1.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.03-2.3). CONCLUSIONS The demographic and microbiological characteristics of IE at our institution have changed over the past decade in ways that suggest a link between medical practice and IE characteristics. Staphylococcus aureus has emerged as a dominant cause of IE, and is an independent predictor of mortality. These findings identify clinical settings that may warrant closer surveillance and more aggressive measures in the identification and prevention of endocarditis.
Bupivacaine Induces Reactive Oxygen Species Production via Activation of the AMP-Activated Protein Kinase-Dependent Pathway

Aims: It was our aim to investigate whether AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) mediates the considerable increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cell apoptosis induced by bupivacaine in the human neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y. Methods: The recombinant plasmids pGPU6/GFP/Neo-shRNA AMPKα2 and pEGFP-N1-AMPKα2 were constructed and transfected into the SH-SY5Y cell line. The expression of AMPKα2 was determined by RT-PCR and Western blot after transfection. The SH-SY5Y cells transfected with recombinant plasmid were exposed to 1 mmol/l bupivacaine. Cell viability, intracellular ROS and apoptosis were determined. Results: The plasmid pEGFP-N1-AMPKα2 can upregulate the expression of AMPKα2, and the pGPU6/GFP/Neo-shRNA AMPKα2 can downregulate the expression of AMPKα2 in cells. Inhibition of AMPKα2 expression attenuated ROS production and cell apoptosis, and overexpression of AMPKα2 promoted ROS production and cell apoptosis after bupivacaine treatment. Conclusion: AMPK probably mediated ROS production and cell apoptosis induced by bupivacaine.
The Role of Financial Analysts in Stock Market Efficiency with Respect to Annual Earnings and Its Cash and Accrual Components

This study examines biases in stock prices and financial analysts' earnings forecasts. These biases take the form of systematic overweighting or underweighting of the persistence characteristics of cash versus accrual earnings components. Our evidence suggests that stock prices tend to overweight and financial analysts tend to underweight these persistence characteristics. Furthermore, we find that analysts' underweighting attenuates stock price overweighting. However, we find little evidence that the overweighting in stock prices attenuates analyst underweighting. This study brings a new perspective to the literature regarding the disciplining role of financial analysts in capital markets.
A model of involvement in work-related learning and development activity: the effects of individual, situational, motivational, and age variables.

Eight hundred employees from across the U.S. work force participated in a detailed 13-month longitudinal study of involvement in learning and development activities. A new model was posited and tested in which the hypothesized sequence was as follows: worker age --> individual and situational antecedents --> perceived benefits of participation and self-efficacy for development --> attitudes toward development --> intentions to participate --> participation. The results depict a person who is oriented toward employee development as having participated in development activities before, perceiving themselves as possessing qualities needed for learning, having social support for development at work and outside of work, being job involved, having insight into his or her career, and believing in the need for development, in his or her ability to develop skills and to receive intrinsic benefits from participating. Given the aging work force, a detailed treatment of age differences in development is presented. Implications for new ideas in practice and future research are discussed.
A study of the incidence and independence of nomination committees

The purpose of this study is to understand the factors influencing the adoption and independence of nomination committees. Previous literature identifies potential substitutability and complementarity between corporate governance arrangements that may be beneficial from the perspective of outsiders (e.g., Rediker and Seth, 1995), but our work suggests that similar complementarities may be identified from the perspective of firm insiders. Probit analysis of data from the annual reports of UK public companies from 1998 through 2002 reveals that the shareholdings of substantial shareholders are positively related to the selection of non-executive members to the nomination committee, but that these shareholdings are negatively related to the use of nomination committees in the first place. Coupled with the participation of over 40% of UK CEOs on the appointment committees of their own firms, these results suggest that some appointment committees are used to limit the influence of substantial shareholders on future board appointments.
IPO lock-in agreements in the UK

When a company offers shares in an initial public offering (IPO), existing owners often enter into lock-in agreements prohibiting them from selling shares for a specified period after the IPO. There is some recent US evidence of predictable share-price movements at the time of expiry of these lock-in agreements. Using a sample of 188 firms, 83 classified as high-tech and 105 others, that went public on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) during 1992-1998, we focus on the characteristics of lock-in agreements in the UK and on the behaviour of stocks returns around the lock-in expiry date. We find that the lock-in contracts of LSE-listed firms are much more complex, varied and diverse than US contracts, which usually standardise the lock-in period at 180 days after the IPO. We also find evidence of negative abnormal stock returns at and around lock-in expiry of similar magnitude to those reported in US studies. However, these abnormal returns are typically not statistically significant. While the deterioration in stock returns immediately around the expiry date appears to be particularly much more pronounced for high-tech stocks than for others, the differences in performance are not statistically significant. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001.
The Ideological Ends Against the Middle: House Roll Call Votes on Normal Trade Relation Status for China, 1990-2000

From 1990 to 1999, the House of Representatives held roll call votes to attempt to overturn presidential extensions of Normal Trade Relation (NTR) status to China. What was once a routine matter attracting little congressional attention became a highly divisive matter. Interestingly, the coalition that formed to oppose such extensions was a partnership of strange bedfellows: extreme liberals joining their far-right colleagues to try to rescind the president's extension of normal trade status for China. When the distribution of opposition on the yearly extensions of NTR is compared to that on the vote to approve permanent NTR (PNTR) for China, the ideological distribution of opponents changes noticeably. I argue that important procedural differences between the votes on the yearly extension, and PNTR, serve to explain why ideologically extreme members formed their strange alliance.
Reserve Bank Operations in the Foreign Exchange Market: Effectiveness and Profitability

Since the float of the Australian dollar in December 1983, the Reserve Bank has intervened in the foreign exchange market in order to exert a stabilising influence. Whether this intervention has been stabilising cannot be directly observed since the behaviour of the exchange rate in its absence cannot be known. However, there are a number of ways of assessing it indirectly. The best known is the Friedman “profits test”. Friedman (1953) argued that a central bank which was stabilising the exchange rate would tend to buy foreign exchange when its price was low, and sell when its price is high, and hence its operations would be profitable. This paper applies the profits test to the Bank’s foreign exchange operations since the exchange rate was floated. The main conclusion is that over this period the Bank’s foreign exchange operations have produced total profits of around $A3.4 billion, suggesting that intervention has tended to be stabilising. Other statistical tests developed by Wonnacott (1982) and Mayer and Taguchi (1983), also presented in this paper, support this conclusion.
Optimal Basket Liquidation for CARA Investors is Deterministic

Abstract We consider the problem faced by an investor who must liquidate a given basket of assets over a finite time horizon. The investor's goal is to maximize the expected utility of the sales revenues over a class of adaptive strategies. We assume that the investor's utility has constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) and that the asset prices are given by a very general continuous-time, multiasset price impact model. Our main result is that (perhaps surprisingly) the investor does no worse if he narrows his search to deterministic strategies. In the case where the asset prices are given by an extension of the nonlinear price impact model of Almgren [(2003) Applied Mathematical Finance, 10, pp. 1–18], we characterize the unique optimal strategy via the solution of a Hamilton equation and the value function via a nonlinear partial differential equation with singular initial condition.
Use of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and fracture risk.

CONTEXT Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), which has a high rate of use among teenagers in Europe and the United States, has been associated with impaired bone mineral acquisition during adolescence and accelerated bone loss in later life. Studies on the association between DMPA use and fracture risk are limited. OBJECTIVE We aimed at evaluating the relationship between use of hormonal contraceptives, specifically DMPA, and fracture risk. DESIGN We conducted a case-control analysis using the United Kingdom-based General Practice Research Database. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Participants were females aged 20-44 yr with an incident fracture diagnosis between 1995 and 2008. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of incident fracture in relation to exposure to DMPA or combined oral contraceptives were assessed. Adjustments were made for smoking, body mass index, and additional potential confounders. RESULTS We identified 17,527 incident fracture cases and 70,130 control patients (DMPA exposure: 11 and 8%, respectively). Compared with nonuse, current use of one to two, three to nine, or 10 or more DMPA prescriptions yielded adjusted OR for fractures of 1.18 (95% CI = 0.93-1.49), 1.36 (95% CI = 1.15-1.60), and 1.54 (95% CI = 1.33-1.78), respectively. Fracture risk was highest after longer treatment duration (>2-3 yr), and there was no difference in patients below and above the age of 30 yr. For users of combined estrogen-containing oral contraceptives, the OR were around 1. CONCLUSIONS This population-based study suggests that use of DMPA is associated with a slightly increased risk of fractures.
Incidence of Anticonvulsant Osteomalacia and Effect of Vitamin D: Controlled Therapeutic Trial

The bone mineral content (B.M.C.) in both forearms (related to total body calcium) was measured by photon absorptiometry for a controlled therapeutic trial in a representative sample of epileptic outpatients, comprising 226 patients treated with one or two major anticonvulsant drugs (phenytoin, phenobarbitone, primidone). Initially the mean B.M. C. value for all epileptic patients was 87% of normal. During treatment with 2,000 international units of vitamin D2 daily for three months an average B.M. C. increase of 4% was found, whereas the B.M. C. values remained unchanged in the placebo group and in the control groups. The incidence of hypocalcaemia and raised serum alkaline phosphatase was 12% and 43% respectively. The biochemical indices of osteomalacia were related to B.M. C. These results indicate that epileptic patients should be closely supervised for the occurrence of anticonvulsant osteomalacia, and, possibly, receive prophylactic treatment with vitamin D.
Option Trading, Price Discovery, and Earnings News Dissemination*

Option market activity increases by more than 10 percent in the four days before quarterly earnings announcements. We show that the direction of this pre-announcement trading foreshadows subsequent earnings news. Specifically, we find option traders initiate a greater proportion of long (short) positions immediately before good (bad) earnings news. Midquote returns to active-side option trades are positive during non-announcement periods, and are significantly higher immediately prior to earnings announcements. Bid-ask spreads for options widen during the announcement period, but traders do not gravitate toward high delta contracts. Collectively, the evidence shows option traders participate generally in price discovery (the incorporation of private information in price), and more specifically in the dissemination of earnings news.
Internet communication: the Italian SME case

Describes how an Italian university business school (CUOA) is collaborating with a group of ten small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to develop Internet communication strategies. The work in common outlined some typical problems affecting SMEs in their approach to Internet communication. Six problems emerged which represent the causes of the difficult and slow introduction of Internet communication.