Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Model of Myopic Corporate Behaviour with Efficient Stock Markets and Endogenous Management Objectives

Existing models of corporate “short-termism” rely on an exogenously imposed objective for top managers. This paper endogenizes both managers’ concern for short-term stock prices and the resulting distortions. We consider a standard agency problem between corporate managers and investors in which the short-term stock price is determined before the manager has made her effort choice and therefore cannot be informative in the standard principal-agent sense. We show that when the manager can be prevented from trading on her own account on the stock market, the manager is fully insured against short-term price movements and actually exhibits a longterm bias. We then allow the manager to trade in a way that is observable to market participants but which is not verifiable in court. In this case, shareholders will choose an incentive contract which (i) provides far weaker effort incentives than do contracts in the absence of trade, and (ii) induces a bias towards short-term returns. The bias is greater when cash-flows are more variable and the manager is more risk-averse. Pitchford and participants at the ANU theory and UBC Accounting workshops for their useful comments.
Locally Grown Foods and Farmers Markets: Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors

Farm viability poses a grave challenge to the sustainability of agriculture and food systems: the number of acres in production continues to decline as the majority of farms earn negative net income. Two related and often overlapping marketing strategies, (i) locally grown foods and (ii) distribution at farmers markets, can directly enhance food system sustainability by improving farm profitability and long-term viability, as well as contributing to an array of ancillary benefits. We present results of a representative Michigan telephone survey, which measured consumers’ perceptions and behaviors around local foods and farmers markets. We discuss the implications of our findings on greater farm profitability. We conclude with suggestions for future research to enhance the contributions of locally grown foods and farmers markets to overall food system sustainability.
Contributions Effectiveness and Safety of Hypertonic Saline Inhalation Combined With Exercise Training in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease : A Randomized Trial

BACKGROUND: Inhaled hypertonic saline is used for bronchial challenge and sputum induction in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We studied the effects of saline aerosol inhalation before each exercise session in an 8-week pulmonary rehabilitation program. METHODS: This was a double-blind randomized parallel controlled trial, conducted at an outpatient clinic. Sixty-eight subjects with COPD (mean age 67 6.5 y, percent of predicted FEV1 47 21) were randomized to inhale either 3% hypertonic saline (34 subjects) or normal saline (34 subjects) before each exercise session in an 8-week exercise program that had 3 sessions per week. We measured 6-min walk distance, dyspnea, and quality of life (with the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item short-form health survey). RESULTS: After the 8-week exercise program, both groups’ mean 6-min walk distance had significantly increased: from 195 92 m to 251 97 m (P < .001) in the hypertonic-saline group, and from 237 93 m to 441 121 m in the normal-saline group (P < .001). The normal-saline group had greater improvement than the hypertonic-saline group (P < .001). Dyspnea score improved from 3.1 0.9 to 2.3 0.8 (P < .01) in the hypertonic-saline group, and from 3.5 0.2 to 2.3 1.0 (P < .01) in the normal-saline group. Quality of life also significantly improved, except for the physical-functioning and social aspect domains in the hypertonic-saline group. Adverse effects (cough or bronchospasm) occurred in 4 patients (12%) in the hypertonic-saline group. CONCLUSIONS: The improvement in 6-min walk distance was greater with normal saline than with hypertonic saline. Hypertonic saline was associated with adverse effects. It is unclear whether the only predictor of improved functional exercise capacity was exercise training. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00639236.)
On the Diversity-Multiplexing Tradeoff for Wireless Cooperative Multiple Access Systems

A spectrally efficient strategy is proposed for cooperative multiple access (CMA) channels in a centralized communication environment with N users. By applying superposition coding, each user will transmit a mixture containing its own information as well as the other users', which means that each user shares parts of its power with the others. The use of superposition coding in cooperative networks was first proposed in [E. G. Larsson and B. R. Vojcic, Cooperative transmit diversity based on superposition modulation, IEEE Commun. Lett. , vol. 9, pp. 778 780, Sep. 2005. ] , which will be generalized to a multiple-user scenario in this paper. Since the proposed CMA system can be seen as a precoded point-to-point multiple-antenna system, its performance can be best evaluated using the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff. By carefully categorizing the outage events, the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff can be obtained, which shows that the proposed cooperative strategy can achieve larger diversity/multiplexing gain than the compared transmission schemes at any diversity/multiplexing gain. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the proposed strategy can achieve optimal tradeoff for multiplexing gains 0 les tau les1 whereas the compared cooperative scheme is only optimal for 0 les tau les (1/N) . As discussed in the paper, such superiority of the proposed CMA system is due to the fact that the relaying transmission does not consume extra channel use and, hence, the deteriorating effect of cooperative communication on the data rate is effectively limited.
PENGARUH GAYA KEPEMIMPINAN DAN LINGKUNGAN KERJA TERHADAP KINERJA KARYAWAN MELALUI KEPUASAN KERJA SEBAGAI VARIABEL INTERVENING PADA PT. WEDU KABUPATEN MERAUKE

Human resources is one of the determinants of corporate success because the role of human resources as a valuable asset is to plan, implement and control various corporate operations. This study uses quantitative methods to examine the population or specific samples, random sampling in general and quantitative / statistical data analysis with the aim to test the hypothesis that has been established using the help of software SPSS 20.0. The result of this research found that partially leadership style and work environment have positive and significant influence to the satisfaction, leadership style and work environment have positive and significant effect to performance, job satisfaction have positive and significant effect to performance. while indirect influence shows the style of leadership and work environment have positive and significant influence to performance through satisfaction.
A Logical Approach to Decomposable Matroids

A notion of branch-width may be defined for matroids, which generalizes the one known for graphs. We first give a proof of the polynomial time model checking of MSOM on representable matroids of bounded branch-width, by reduction to MSO on trees, much simpler than the one previously known. We deduce results about spectrum of MSOM formulas and enumeration on matroids of bounded branch-width. We also provide a link between our logical approach and a grammar that allows to build matroids of bounded branch-width. Finally we introduce a new class of non-necessarily representable matroids described by a grammar, on which MSOM is decidable in linear time.
Quantum fluctuations of a single trapped atom: transient Rabi oscillations and magnetic bistability

Isolation of a single atomic particle and monitoring its resonance fluorescence is a powerful tool for studies of quantum effects in radiation-matter interactions. We present observations of quantum dynamics of an isolated neutral atom stored in a magneto-optical trap. By means of photon correlations in the atom's resonance fluorescence we demonstrate the well-known phenomenon of photon antibunching which corresponds to transient Rabi oscillations in the atom. Through polarization-sensitive photon correlations, we show a novel example of resolved quantum fluctuations: spontaneous magnetic orientation of an atom. These effects can only be observed with a single atom.
X-ray/optical bursts from GS 1826–24

We report results from the first simultaneous X-ray (RXTE) and optical (SAAO) observations of the low-mass X-ray binary GS 1826–24 in 1998 June. A type I burst was detected in both X-ray and optical wavelengths. Its energy-dependent profile, energetics and spectral evolution provide evidence for an increase in the X-ray burning area but not for photospheric radius expansion. However, we may still derive an upper limit for its distance of 7.5±0.5 kpc, assuming a peak flux of ∼2.8×10−8 erg cm−2 s−1. A ∼3-s optical delay with respect to the X-ray burst is also observed, and we infer that this is related to the X-ray reprocessing in the accretion disc. The delay provides additional support for the recently proposed orbital period of ∼2 h. We also present an ASCA observation from 1998 March, during which two X-ray bursts were detected.
Transdisciplinarity from Marginal Spaces: Unsettling Epistemic Erasure of Critical and Decolonial Scholars

5 Acknowledgements 7 Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 8 What is at Stake 9 Thesis Outline 12 Chapter 2: DECOLONIAL IMAGINARIES 18 Decolonial Imaginaries and Transdisciplinary Histories: Research Gap 22 Chapter 3: TRANSDISCIPLINARITY 27 A Note on Vocabulary and Meaning 28 Knowledge Production Paradigms 30 Disciplinarity 31 Interdisciplinarity and Multidisciplinarity 32 Calls for Transdisciplinarity and Politics of Literature Reviews 34 Back to Transdisciplinarity 36 Transdisciplinarity: Traditions, Historiographies, and Exclusion 39 Chapter 4: DISCIPLINARITY 50 Disciplinarity and Critical and Decolonial Scholars 51 Disciplines as Historical Processes 53 17th to 19th Century 53 19th to 21th Century 59 Disciplinary Hegemony 65 Neoliberal Capitalism and Disciplinary Hegemony 68 Chapter 5: (DE)COLONIALITY 72 Key Concepts 73 Eurocentrism as Intellectual Paradigm and the Western Canon of Disciplinarity 76 The Westernized University and Disciplinary Configuration 79 Chapter 6: TRANSDISCIPLINARY WORK BY CRITICAL AND 83 DECOLONIAL SCHOLARS Part I: Orienting Critical and Decolonial Scholars 84 Ethnic Studies as “Discipline” and as Critical and Decolonial Scholars 86 Critical and Decolonial Thought in Ethnic Studies Movements 89 Confronting Eurocentrism from Ethnic Studies 91 Part II: Transdisciplinarity in African Studies and Chicanx/Latinx Studies 95 Africana and African American Studies’ Transdisciplinarity 95 Chicanx and Latinx Studies’ Transdisciplinarity 100 Toward a Decolonial Transdisciplinary Theory 105 Conclusion 108 Bibliography 112
Functional clustering and alignment methods with applications

We consider the issue of classification of functional data and, in particular, we deal with the problem of curve clustering when curves are misaligned. In the proposed setting, we aim at jointly aligning and clustering the curves, via the solution of an optimization problem. We describe an iterative procedure for the solution of the optimization problem, and we detail two alternative specifications of the procedure, a k-mean version and a k-medoid version. We illustrate via applications to real data the robustness of the alignment and clustering procedure under the different specifications.
AIS Electronic

Open source software communities work in a loosely knit organizational structure that works primarily on the motivations of gift and contribution of source code. They communicate using modern Internet-based applications and organize themselves into self-guided virtual communities. Several methods of collaboration and development of intellectual property through software within these communities are quite unique and innovative. Current research effort mainly focused on understanding the individual motivations, collaboration mechanisms, and associated project management challenges of various OSS projects. However, as open source software usage moves mainstream and becomes more and more widespread, factors drive its diffusion and adoption deserve more research attention. Using the concepts of innovation adoption, we attempt to examine the possible drivers that influence adoption of open source software within different open source communities. In particular, the results from two user groups - one from an OSS community in United States, one from an OSS community in India, are extensively compared and contrasted to gain better understanding of factors that lead to adoption and use of open source software.
Mitochondrial Dysfunction Accounts for the Stochastic Heterogeneity in Telomere-Dependent Senescence

Aging is an inherently stochastic process, and its hallmark is heterogeneity between organisms, cell types, and clonal populations, even in identical environments. The replicative lifespan of primary human cells is telomere dependent; however, its heterogeneity is not understood. We show that mitochondrial superoxide production increases with replicative age in human fibroblasts despite an adaptive UCP-2–dependent mitochondrial uncoupling. This mitochondrial dysfunction is accompanied by compromised [Ca2+]i homeostasis and other indicators of a retrograde response in senescent cells. Replicative senescence of human fibroblasts is delayed by mild mitochondrial uncoupling. Uncoupling reduces mitochondrial superoxide generation, slows down telomere shortening, and delays formation of telomeric γ-H2A.X foci. This indicates mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as one of the causes of replicative senescence. By sorting early senescent (SES) cells from young proliferating fibroblast cultures, we show that SES cells have higher ROS levels, dysfunctional mitochondria, shorter telomeres, and telomeric γ-H2A.X foci. We propose that mitochondrial ROS is a major determinant of telomere-dependent senescence at the single-cell level that is responsible for cell-to-cell variation in replicative lifespan.
Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography # 05 . 04 The spatial evolution of the British automobile industry

This paper aims to describe and explain the spatial evolution of the automobile sector in Great Britain from an evolutionary perspective. This analysis is based on a unique database of all entries and exits in this sector during the period 1895-1968, collected by the authors. Cox regressions show that spinoff dynamics, localization economies and time of entry have had a significant effect on the survival rate of automobile firms during the period 1895-1968.
Variable Selection Using Adaptive Nonlinear Interaction Structures in High Dimensions

Numerous penalization based methods have been proposed for fitting a traditional linear regression model in which the number of predictors, p, is large relative to the number of observations, n. Most of these approaches assume sparsity in the underlying coefficients and perform some form of variable selection. Recently, some of this work has been extended to nonlinear additive regression models. However, in many contexts one wishes to allow for the possibility of interactions among the predictors. This poses serious statistical and computational difficulties when p is large, as the number of candidate interaction terms is of order p2. We introduce a new approach, “Variable selection using Adaptive Nonlinear Interaction Structures in High dimensions” (VANISH), that is based on a penalized least squares criterion and is designed for high dimensional nonlinear problems. Our criterion is convex and enforces the heredity constraint, in other words if an interaction term is added to the model, then the corresponding main effects are automatically included. We provide theoretical conditions under which VANISH will select the correct main effects and interactions. These conditions suggest that VANISH should outperform certain natural competitors when the true interaction structure is sufficiently sparse. Detailed simulation results are also provided, demonstrating that VANISH is computationally efficient and can be applied to nonlinear models involving thousands of terms while producing superior predictive performance over other approaches.
Excessive expression of miR-27 impairs Treg-mediated immunological tolerance

MicroRNAs (miRs) are tightly regulated in the immune system, and aberrant expression of miRs often results in hematopoietic malignancies and autoimmune diseases. Previously, it was suggested that elevated levels of miR-27 in T cells isolated from patients with multiple sclerosis facilitate disease progression by inhibiting Th2 immunity and promoting pathogenic Th1 responses. Here we have demonstrated that, although mice with T cell–specific overexpression of miR-27 harbor dysregulated Th1 responses and develop autoimmune pathology, these disease phenotypes are not driven by miR-27 in effector T cells in a cell-autonomous manner. Rather, dysregulation of Th1 responses and autoimmunity resulted from a perturbed Treg compartment. Excessive miR-27 expression in murine T cells severely impaired Treg differentiation. Moreover, Tregs with exaggerated miR-27–mediated gene regulation exhibited diminished homeostasis and suppressor function in vivo. Mechanistically, we determined that miR-27 represses several known as well as previously uncharacterized targets that play critical roles in controlling multiple aspects of Treg biology. Collectively, our data show that miR-27 functions as a key regulator in Treg development and function and suggest that proper regulation of miR-27 is pivotal to safeguarding Treg-mediated immunological tolerance.
The Reliability of Output Gap Estimates in Canada

In this paper, we measure, with Canadian data, the scope of the revisions to real-time estimates of the output gap generated with several univariate and multivariate technics. We also make an empirical evaluation of the usefulness of the output gap estimates for predicting inflation. Our findings suggest that, for all technics, the standard deviation of the revisions is of the same order of magnitude as the output gap itself. We also find that, with exception of the Beveridge-Nelson technic, all revisions are very persistent, which means that there is a long lag before the scope of the output gap revisions is fully known. Finally, we found that the output gap estimates do not significantly improve the inflation forecasts. We infer from these results that estimates of the output gap are not very reliable.
Improving TCP performance over asymmetric networks

Bandwidth asymmetry is quite common among modern networks; e.g., ADSL, cable TV, wireless, and satellite link with a terrestrial return path. In these networks, the bandwidth over one direction can be orders of magnitude smaller than that over the other. The performance of TCP transfer in the high bandwidth direction can be severly reduced by the delay acknowledgment packets experienced in the reverse direction. In this paper, we describe our proposed solution ACE (Acknowledgement Based on Cwnd Estimation). In comparison to other solutions, ACE requires only modification of the TCP stack at terminals attached to an asymmetric network. We evaluated the performance of ACE over a cable modem network by simulation. We have also implemented ACE on the Linux platform and tested it on a small testbed network with an emulated asymmetric link. The performance improvement was significant especially when there is a high degree of asymmetry.
Controlling Persister and Biofilm Cells of Gram-Negative Bacteria with a New 1,3,5-Triazine Derivative

Infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria have been on the rise. This important issue presents a great challenge to the healthcare system and creates an urgent need for alternative therapeutic agents. As a potential solution to this problem, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have attracted increasing attention due to their broad spectrum of targeted microbes. However, most AMPs are expensive to synthesize, have relatively high cytotoxicity to mammalian cells, and are susceptible to proteolytic degradation. In order to overcome these limitations, novel synthetic AMPs are desired. Using 1,3,5-triazine (TN) as a template, several combinatorial libraries with varying cationic charge and lipophilicity were designed and screened by the Kallenbach lab. From this screening, TN-5 was identified as a potent lead. In the present study, this compound was tested for its antimicrobial activities on Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In addition to regular planktonic cells, the effects on biofilms and persister cells (metabolically inactive and antibiotic tolerant subpopulation) were also investigated. TN-5 was found to have a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 12.8 µM for both species and kill regular planktonic cells of both species dose dependently. TN-5 is also effective against persister cells of both E. coli and P. aeruginosa. The killing of biofilm cells of the mucoid P. aeruginosa PDO300 was enhanced by alginate lyase.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists: a systematic review of comparative effectiveness research

Background Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) act by increasing insulin secretion, decreasing glucagon secretion, slowing gastric emptying, and increasing satiety. Objective Published evidence directly comparing GLP-1RAs with other approved treatments for type 2 diabetes (T2D) was systematically reviewed. Methods A literature search was performed using MEDLINE and Embase databases to identify papers comparing GLP-1RAs with other classes of glucose-lowering therapy in patients with T2D. Results Of the 1303 papers identified, 57 met the prespecified criteria for a high-quality clinical trial or retrospective study. The efficacy and tolerability of approved GLP-1RAs (exenatide twice daily or once weekly, dulaglutide, liraglutide, lixisenatide, and albiglutide) were compared with insulin products (23 prospective studies + seven retrospective studies), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (11 prospective studies + three retrospective studies), sulfonylureas (nine prospective studies + one retrospective study), thiazolidinediones (five prospective studies), and metformin (two prospective studies). GLP-1RAs are effective as a second-line therapy in improving glycemic parameters in patients with T2D. Reductions in glycated hemoglobin from baseline with GLP-1RAs tended to be greater or similar compared with insulin therapy. GLP-1RAs were consistently more effective in reducing body weight than most oral glucose-lowering drugs and insulin and were associated with lower hypoglycemia risk versus insulin or sulfonylureas. GLP-1RAs improved cardiovascular risk factors, and preliminary data suggest they improve cardiovascular outcomes in patients with T2D compared with oral glucose-lowering drugs. However, results from ongoing studies are awaited to confirm these early findings. Conclusion This systematic review found that GLP-1RAs are an effective class of glucose-lowering drugs for T2D.
Financial Market's Appetite for Risk: And the Challenge of Assessing its Evolution by Risk Appetite Indicators

Assessments of investors' risk appetite/aversion stance via indicators often yields results which seem unsatisfactory (see e.g. Illing and Aaron (2005)). Understanding how such indicators work therefore seems essential for further improvements. The present paper seeks to contribute to this evolution, focusing on the Global Risk Appetite Index (GRAI) class of indicators going back to Kumar and Persaud (2002). Looking at international stock indices during the subprime crisis in 2007, the plausibility of the GRAIs benefits from applying the rank correlation approach of Kumar and Persaud (2002) combined with a modified version of the factor-transformation extension proposed by Misina (2006).