Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corporate Bond Valuation and Hedging with Stochastic Interest Rates and Endogenous Bankruptcy

This Paper analyses corporate bond valuation and optimal call and default rules when interest rates and firm value are stochastic. It then uses the results to explain the dynamics of hedging. Bankruptcy rules are important determinants of corporate bond sensitivity to interest rates and firm value. Although endogenous and exogenous bankruptcy models can be calibrated to produce the same prices, they can have very different hedging implications. We show that empirical results on the relation between corporate spreads and Treasury rates provide evidence on duration and find that the endogenous model explains the empirical patterns better than typical exogenous models.
Characterizing Alterations in Executive Functioning Across Distinct Subtypes of Cortical and Subcortical Dementia

Differential patterns of executive function deficits (EFD) exist in cortical and subcortical dementia; however, little work exists attempting to integrate these findings into a conceptual framework. The current study aimed to characterize EFD in cortical and subcortical dementia. Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD; n=65), subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (IVD; n=64), or Parkinson's disease with dementia (dPD; n=21) completed a variety of measures purported to require executive systems. We extracted variables of interest from measures shown in a growing body of literature to be associated with EFD in dementia. These measures included the Boston Revision of the WMS Mental Control subtest, letter fluency, WAIS-R Similarities subtest, CVLT, the Graphical Sequence Test-Dementia version, and Clock Drawing. When submitted to a PCA with varimax rotation, these variables produced a four-component solution (62% of the variance). Component 1 appeared to reflect adequacy of working memory, Component 2 irrelevant or context non-specific interference, Component 3 reflected response preparation and Component 4 relevant or context-specific interference. Post hoc analyses of z-transformed composite scores revealed that AD differentially affected context-specific interference, IVD and dPD disrupted working memory and response preparation while IVD differentially affected context non-specific interference. EFD in dementia can be divided into specific components that are differentially impaired by cortical and subcortical dementias. Implications for an overall conceptual framework of EFD in dementia are discussed.
The dazed and confused identity of Agassiz’s land tortoise, Gopherus agassizii (Testudines, Testudinidae) with the description of a new species, and its consequences for conservation

Abstract We investigate a cornucopia of problems associated with the identity of the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii (Cooper). The date of publication is found to be 1861, rather than 1863. Only one of the three original cotypes exists, and it is designated as the lectotype of the species. Another cotype is found to have been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire. The third is lost. The lectotype is genetically confirmed to be from California, and not Arizona, USA as sometimes reported. Maternally, the holotype of Gopherus lepidocephalus (Ottley & Velázques Solis. 1989) from the Cape Region of Baja California Sur, Mexico is also from the Mojavian population of the desert tortoise, and not from Tiburon Island, Sonora, Mexico as previously proposed. A suite of characters serve to diagnose tortoises west and north of the Colorado River, the Mojavian population, from those east and south of the river in Arizona, USA, and Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico, the Sonoran population. Species recognition is warranted and because Gopherus lepidocephalus is from the Mojavian population, no names are available for the Sonoran species. Thus, a new species, Gopherus morafkai sp. n. , is named and this action reduces the distribution of Gopherus agassizii to only 30% of its former range. This reduction has important implications for the conservation and protection of Gopherus agassizii, which may deserve a higher level of protection.
Remembering New Words: Integrating Early Memory Development into Word Learning

In order to successfully acquire a new word, young children must learn the correct associations between labels and their referents. For decades, word-learning researchers have explored how young children are able to form these associations. However, in addition to learning label-referent mappings, children must also remember them. Despite the importance of memory processes in forming a stable lexicon, there has been little integration of early memory research into the study of early word learning. After discussing what we know about how young children remember words over time, this paper reviews the infant memory development literature as it relates to early word learning, focusing on changes in retention duration, encoding, consolidation, and retrieval across the first 2 years of life. A third section applies this review to word learning and presents future directions, arguing that the integration of memory processes into the study of word learning will provide researchers with novel, useful insights into how young children acquire new words.
On Partitioning the Orbitals of a Transitive Permutation Group

Let G be a permutation group on a set Ω with a transitive normal subgroup M. Then G acts on the set Orbl(M, Ω) of nontrivial M-orbitals in the natural way, and here we are interested in the case where Orbl(M, Ω) has a partition P such that G acts transitively on P. The problem of characterising such tuples (M, G, Ω, P), called TODs, arises naturally in permutation group theory, and also occurs in number theory and combinatorics. The case where |P| is a prime-power is important in algebraic number theory in the study of arithmetically exceptional rational polynomials. The case where |P| = 2 exactly corresponds to self-complementary vertex-transitive graphs, while the general case corresponds to a type of isomorphic factorisation of complete graphs, called a homogeneous factorisation. Characterising homogeneous factorisations is an important problem in graph theory with applications to Ramsey theory. This paper develops a framework for the study of TODs, establishes some numerical relations between the parameters involved in TODs, gives some reduction results with respect to the G-actions on Ω and on P, and gives some construction methods for TODs.
Dynamic Hierarchical Markov Random Fields for Integrated Web Data Extraction

Existing template-independent web data extraction approaches adopt highly ineffective decoupled strategies---attempting to do data record detection and attribute labeling in two separate phases. In this paper, we propose an integrated web data extraction paradigm with hierarchical models. The proposed model is called Dynamic Hierarchical Markov Random Fields (DHMRFs). DHMRFs take structural uncertainty into consideration and define a joint distribution of both model structure and class labels. The joint distribution is an exponential family distribution. As a conditional model, DHMRFs relax the independence assumption as made in directed models. Since exact inference is intractable, a variational method is developed to learn the model's parameters and to find the MAP model structure and label assignments. We apply DHMRFs to a real-world web data extraction task. Experimental results show that: (1) integrated web data extraction models can achieve significant improvements on both record detection and attribute labeling compared to decoupled models; (2) in diverse web data extraction DHMRFs can potentially address the blocky artifact issue which is suffered by fixed-structured hierarchical models.
Warming off southwestern Japan linked to distributional shifts of subtidal canopy-forming seaweeds

To assess distributional shifts of species in response to recent warming, historical distribution records are the most requisite information. The surface seawater temperature (SST) of Kochi Prefecture, southwestern Japan on the western North Pacific, has significantly risen, being warmed by the Kuroshio Current. Past distributional records of subtidal canopy-forming seaweeds (Laminariales and Fucales) exist at about 10-year intervals from the 1970s, along with detailed SST datasets at several sites along Kochi's >700 km coastline. In order to provide a clear picture of distributional shifts of coastal marine organisms in response to warming SST, we observed the present distribution of seaweeds and analyzed the SST datasets to estimate spatiotemporal SST trends in this coastal region. We present a large increase of 0.3°C/decade in the annual mean SST of this area over the past 40 years. Furthermore, a comparison of the previous and present distributions clearly showed the contraction of temperate species' distributional ranges and expansion of tropical species' distributional ranges in the seaweeds. Although the main temperate kelp Ecklonia (Laminariales) had expanded their distribution during periods of cooler SST, they subsequently declined as the SST warmed. Notably, the warmest SST of the 1997–98 El Niño Southern Oscillation event was the most likely cause of a widespread destruction of the kelp populations; no recovery was found even in the present survey at the formerly habitable sites where warm SSTs have been maintained. Temperate Sargassum spp. (Fucales) that dominated widely in the 1970s also declined in accordance with recent warming SSTs. In contrast, the tropical species, S. ilicifolium, has gradually expanded its distribution to become the most conspicuously dominant among the present observations. Thermal gradients, mainly driven by the warming Kuroshio Current, are presented as an explanation for the successive changes in both temperate and tropical species' distributions.
Coronary artery disease in women: a review on prevention, pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment

Despite numerous studies on women's cardiac health throughout the past decade, the number of female deaths caused by cardiovascular disease still rises and remains the leading cause of death in women in most areas of the world. Novel studies have demonstrated that cardiovascular disease, and more specifically coronary artery disease presentations in women, are different than those in men. In addition, pathology and pathophysiology of the disease present significant gender differences, which leads to difficulties concerning diagnosis, treatment and outcome of the female population. The reason for this disparity is all steps for female cardiovascular disease evaluation, treatment and prevention are not well elucidated; and an area for future research. This review brings together the most recent studies published in the field of coronary artery disease in women and points out new directions for future investigation on some of the important issues.
Sample Entropy Tracks Changes in Electroencephalogram Power Spectrum With Sleep State and Aging

Abstract: The regularity of electroencephalogram signals was compared between middle-aged (47.2 ± 2.0 years) and elderly (78.4 ± 3.8 years) female subjects in wake, nonrapid eye movement stages 2 and 3 (S-2, S-3), and rapid eye movement sleep. Signals from C3A2 leads of healthy subjects, acquired from polysomnograms obtained from the Sleep Heart Health Study, were analyzed using both sample entropy (SaEn) and power spectral analysis (delta, theta, alpha, and beta frequency band powers). SaEn changed systematically and significantly (P < 0.001) with sleep state in both age groups, following the relationships wake > rapid eye movement > S-2 > S-3. SaEn was found to be negatively correlated with delta power and positively correlated with beta power. Small changes in SaEn seem to reflect changes in spectral content rather than changes in regularity of the signal. A better predictor of SaEn than the frequency band powers was the logarithm of the power ratio (alpha + beta)/(delta + theta). Thus, SaEn seems to reflect the balance between sleep-promoting and alertness-promoting mechanisms. SaEn of the elderly was larger than that of middle-aged subjects in S-2 (P = 0.029) and rapid eye movement (P = 0.001), suggesting that cortical state is shifted toward alertness in elderly subjects in these sleep states compared with the middle-aged subjects.
An IEEE 802.11a/g/p OFDM receiver for GNU radio

Experimental research on wireless communication protocols frequently requires full access to all protocol layers, down to and including the physical layer. Software Defined Radio (SDR) hardware platforms, together with real-time signal processing frameworks, offer a basis to implement transceivers that can allow such experimentation and sophisticated measurements. We present a complete Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) receiver implemented in GNU Radio and fitted for operation with an Ettus USRP N210. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prototype of a GNU Radio based OFDM receiver for this technology. Our receiver comprises all layers up to parsing the MAC header and extracting the payload of IEEE 802.11a/g/p networks. It supports both WiFi with a bandwidth of 20 MHz and IEEE 802.11p DSRC with a bandwidth of 10 MHz. We validated and verified our implementation by means of interoperability tests, and present representative performance measurements. By making the code available as Open Source we provide an easy-to-access system that can be readily used for experimenting with novel signal processing algorithms.
Long-term Outcome After Transanal Rectal Resection in Patients With Obstructed Defecation Syndrome

BACKGROUND: Stapled transanal rectal resection with a new, curved, multifire stapler (Transtar procedure) has shown promising short- and midterm results for treating obstructed defecation syndrome. However, few results have been published on long-term outcome. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate long-term functional results and quality of life after the Transtar procedure. DESIGN: This is a retrospective study. SETTING: This study was conducted at a tertiary hospital in Switzerland. PATIENTS: Seventy consecutive patients (68 female) with obstructed defecation syndrome had a median age of 65 years (range, 20–90). INTERVENTION: The Transtar procedure was performed between January 2007 and March 2010. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Postoperative functional results were evaluated with the Symptom Severity Score, Obstructed Defecation Score, and Cleveland Incontinence Score. Quality of life was evaluated with the Fecal Incontinence Quality of Life Score and the SF-36 Health Survey. Data were divided into 4 groups of 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-year follow-ups. RESULTS: The functional scores showed significant postoperative improvement throughout the studied period (p = 0.01). The quality-of-life scores showed a tendency for improvement only in the mental components on the SF-36 Health Survey (p = 0.01). Sixteen patients reported postoperative fecal urgency, but this subsided within a few months. Nine patients reported new postoperative episodes of incontinence and required further treatment. LIMITATIONS: This study was limited by its retrospective nature, the selection bias, and a bias by the small number of questionnaires available for some scores. CONCLUSION: The Transtar procedure was successful for long-term treatment of obstructed defecation syndrome. Fecal urgency and incontinence were observed, but typically resolved within months. Therefore, the Transtar procedure appears to be a reasonable approach to treating obstructed defecation syndrome in the long term.
Retinotopic to Spatiotopic Mapping in Blind Patients Implanted With the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis.

Purpose To quantify the precision of mapping from retinotopic (retina-centered) to spatiotopic (world-centered) coordinates in blind humans implanted with a retinal prosthesis device. Additionally, to demonstrate that an eye tracker can be calibrated on sightless patients based on the percept from a visual implant. Methods We directly activated epiretinal electrodes to create retinotopic stimuli and recorded the location of the percept at world-based coordinates. In contrast to normal Argus II use where stimulation is a function of the captured scene's image, in this research we directly controlled the waveform in each electrode and measured the percept's location using a trackable handheld marker. For eye tracking, pupil images were recorded with a timestamp synchronized to the stimulation and marker positions. Results Remapping of the measured world locations to the position of the electrodes on the retina is feasible by accounting for eye orientation at the onset of stimulation. Transformation of pupil images to the eye's orientation (i.e., eye tracker calibration) can be done by solving for the variables that minimize the spread of the remapped retinal electrode locations. After mapping to retinal coordinates based on eye positions, the measured precision of pointing was 2° to 3°, which is comparable to open-loop pointing in sighted individuals. Conclusions The brain accurately maps the artificial vision induced by a retinal prosthesis based on instantaneous gaze position. Remapping based on eye position is feasible and will increase visual stability in prosthetic vision.
Comparison of Type 2 Inositol 1,4,5‐Trisphosphate Receptor Distribution and Subcellular Ca2+ Release Sites that Support Ca2+ Waves in Cultured Astrocytes

Abstract: We have examined the mechanisms that underlie Ca2+ wave propagation in cultured cortical astrocytes. Norepinephrine evoked Ca2+ waves in astrocytes that began at discrete initiation loci and propagated throughout the cell by regenerative amplification at a number of cellular sites, as shown by very high Ca2+ release rates at these regions. We have hypothesized previously that domains displaying elevated Ca2+ release kinetics in astrocytes may correspond to sites of high inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate receptor (InsP3R) density. To examine this possibility, we compared the distribution pattern of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and InsP3Rs with Ca2+ release kinetics in subcellular regions during propagation of norepinephrine‐evoked waves. 3,3′‐Dihexyloxacarbocyanine iodide staining revealed that the ER in astrocytes exists as a meshwork of membranes extending throughout the cells, including fine processes. A specific antibody directed against type 2 InsP3Rs (InsP3R2) detected a 260‐kDa band in western blotting of astrocyte membranes. Immunocytochemistry using this antibody stained the entire ER system in a punctate, variegated manner. When Ca2+ responses and InsP3R2 immunofluorescence were compared in the same cell, domains of elevated Ca2+ response kinetics (high amplitude and rapid rate of rise) showed significant positive correlation with high local intensity of InsP3R2 staining. It appears, therefore, that specializations in the ER responsible for discrete local Ca2+ release sites that support regenerative wave propagation include increased levels of InsP3R2 expression.
Maturity Mismatch and Financial Crises: Evidence from Emerging Market Corporations

Substantial attention has been paid in recent years to the risk of maturity mismatch in emerging markets. Although this risk is microeconomic in nature, the evidence advanced thus far has taken the form of macro correlations. This paper empirically evaluates this mechanism at the micro level by using a database of over 3,000 publicly traded firms from fifteen emerging markets. The paper measures the risk of short-term exposure by estimating, at the firm level, the effect on investment of the interaction of short-term exposure and aggregate capital flows. This effect is (statistically) zero, contrary to the prediction of the maturity-mismatch hypothesis. This conclusion is robust to using a variety of different estimators, alternative measures of capital flows, and controls for devaluation effects and access to international capital. The paper finds evidence that short-term-exposed firms pay higher financing costs and liquidate assets at fire sale prices, but the paper does not find that this reduction in net worth translates into a drop in investment.
Monoclonal antibody analysis of p53 expression in normal and transformed cells

The cellular phosphoprotein p53 binds tightly and specifically to simian virus 40 T antigen and the 58,000-molecular-weight adenovirus E1b protein. Many human and murine tumor cell lines contain elevated levels of the p53 protein even in the absence of these associated viral proteins. Recently the cloned p53 gene, linked to strong viral promoters, has been shown to complement activated ras genes in transformation of primary rodent cell cultures. Overexpression of the p53 gene alone rescues some primary rodent cell cultures from senescence. We isolated three new monoclonal antibodies to the p53 protein, designated PAb242, PAb246, and PAb248, and mapped the epitopes they recognized on p53 in comparison with other previously isolated antibodies. At least five sterically separate epitopes were defined on murine p53. One of the antibodies, PAb246, recognizes an epitope on p53 that is unstable in the absence of bound simian virus 40 T antigen. This effect is demonstrable in vivo and in newly developed in vitro assays of T-p53 complex formation. Using the panel of anti-p53 antibodies and sensitive immunocytochemical methods, we found that p53 has a predominantly nuclear location in established but not transformed cells as well as in the vast majority of transformed cell lines. Several monoclonal antibodies to p53 showed cross-reactions with non-p53 components in immunocytochemical staining.
Optimizing Computing Costs Using Divisible Load Analysis

A bus oriented network where there is a charge for the amount of divisible load processed on each processor is investigated. A cost optimal processor sequencing result is found which involves assigning load to processors in nondecreasing order of the cost per load characteristic of each processor. More generally, one can trade cost against solution time. Algorithms are presented to minimize computing cost with an upper bound on solution time and to minimize solution time with an upper bound on cost. As an example of the use of this type of analysis, the effect of replacing one fast but expensive processor with a number of cheap but slow processors is also discussed. The type of questions investigated here are important for future computer utilities that perform distributed computation for some charge.
Resource Sharing Scheme for Device-to-Device Communication Underlaying Cellular Networks

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is deemed as a promising technology to improve the spectrum efficiency of the cellular systems. In this paper, we study a resource sharing scheme for the D2D communication underlaying cellular networks, where multiple D2D pairs can share subchannels with multiple cellular users (CUs). Our optimization task is to maximize the sum rate of D2D pairs while satisfying the rate requirements of all CUs. The formulated problem falls naturally into a mixed integer programming form that is intractable. We first develop a subchannel sharing protocol, by which we can determine whether or not a subchannel can be reused by two D2D pairs. Then, we prove that the problem can be well approximated by ignoring the mutual interference among the D2D pairs that share the same subchannels without deteriorating the performance of both the CUs and the D2D pairs. Based on the analysis results, we propose an efficient subchannel allocation scheme by employing a simple greedy strategy, as well as a power distribution algorithm that can work out almost the optimal solution to the original problem. Numerical results show that our proposal can significantly increase spectrum efficiency of the cellular system. Furthermore, our proposed subchannel sharing protocol is effective and efficient for practical communication scenarios.