Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investor Tax Heterogeneity and Ex-Dividend Day Trading Volume

We propose that ex-dividend day excess volume is motivated by tax heterogeneity among investors, and thus is increasing in investor tax heterogeneity. Institutional ownership is our measure of heterogeneity. Since investor heterogeneity is a concave function of institutional ownership, we hypothesize that ex-day volume is a concave function of institutional ownership. Cross-sectional tests support the tax-motivated trading hypothesis. Additional tests, using trade size and pension ownership as proxies for institutional trades, yield similar results. We contribute to the literature by considering the interaction between payout policy and ownership structure in explaining the cross-sectional variation in ex-day volume.
Characterization of the minimum replicon of the broad-host-range plasmid pTF-FC2 and similarity between pTF-FC2 and the IncQ plasmids

The nucleotide sequence of a 3,202-base-pair fragment which contained the minimum region required for replication of the broad-host-range plasmid, pTF-FC2, has been determined. At least five open reading frames and a region that affected the host range were identified. Proteins corresponding in size and location to four of the five open reading frames were produced in an in vitro transcription-translation system. The predicted amino acid sequences of two of the proteins were aligned with those of the RepA and RepC proteins of the broad-host-range IncQ plasmid RSF1010 and found to be 43 and 60% homologous, respectively. Despite this similarity, neither the RepA nor the RepC protein of the IncQ plasmid was able to complement mutations in the pTF-FC2 repA and repC genes. Although there was a considerable amount of DNA homology between pTF-FC2 and RSF1010 in the oriV region and the region coding for the RepA and RepC proteins, no other homology between the two plasmids at either the DNA or protein level could be detected.
Monetary policy and economic performance of West African Monetary Zone Countries

This study examined the monetary and macroeconomic stability perspective for entering into monetary union, using data available on WAMZ countries. It tests the hypothesis that independent monetary and exchange rate policies have been relatively ineffective in influencing domestic activities (especially GDP and inflation), and that when they do, they are counter productive. Usiing econometric methods, regression result show that, erstwhile domestic monetary policy, as captured by money supply and credit to government hurt real domestic output of these countries. Indeed, rather than promote growth, it was a source of stagnation. It also confirms that there appear to be a two quarters lag in monetary policy transmission effect with regard to real sector output. The results also show that although expansion in domestic output dampened aggregate consumer prices (inflation), it was however, not adequate enough to dampen the fuelling effects of past inflation. This was accentuated by money supply variable (MS2) and aggravated by exchange rate variable which are mostly positive, confirming the a priori expectations that rapid monetary expansion and devaluations fuels domestic inflation. A country by country comparison of the single and simultaneous equations model results show that expansionary monetary policy contributed more to fuelling prices than it did to growth. It also shows that interest rates policy had adverse effects on GDP by exhibiting a positive sign contrary to the theoretical expectation of an inverse relationship. The results also show that exchange rate devaluations manifest mainly in domestic inflation and have no effect at all on the growth variable, in the short term. The study concludes that these countries would be better-off to surrender its independence over these policy instruments to the planned regional body under appropriate monetary union arrangements.
Heterotopic tubal pregnancy with live twin birth complicating ovulation induction assisted cycle

Heterotopic pregnancy is an uncommon clinical entity in Nigeria even though some of the risk factors are highly prevalent in the population. We report a case of heterotopic pregnancy following ovulation induction with clomiphene citrate. A favourable outcome resulting in live twin birth was recorded despite the presence of poor clinical features that affects pregnancy and foetal outcome.
Nested LSTMs

We propose Nested LSTMs (NLSTM), a novel RNN architecture with multiple levels of memory. Nested LSTMs add depth to LSTMs via nesting as opposed to stacking. The value of a memory cell in an NLSTM is computed by an LSTM cell, which has its own inner memory cell. Specifically, instead of computing the value of the (outer) memory cell as $c^{outer}_t = f_t \odot c_{t-1} + i_t \odot g_t$, NLSTM memory cells use the concatenation $(f_t \odot c_{t-1}, i_t \odot g_t)$ as input to an inner LSTM (or NLSTM) memory cell, and set $c^{outer}_t$ = $h^{inner}_t$. Nested LSTMs outperform both stacked and single-layer LSTMs with similar numbers of parameters in our experiments on various character-level language modeling tasks, and the inner memories of an LSTM learn longer term dependencies compared with the higher-level units of a stacked LSTM.
Intraorganizational Power and Organizational Design: Reconciling Rational and Coalitional Models of Organization

This paper contends that the analysis of organizational design and the analysis of intraorganizational power are inextricably intertwined for all major models of organization. While the coalitional model of organization is often viewed as the only model that explicitly links these topics, we argue that power does in fact play a central role in the traditional, rational model of organization, and that it is only the conception of intraorganizational power that differs between the two models. After contrasting the design prescriptions and power implications of the coalitional and rational models, the paper reconciles these two models by developing an “adaptively rational” model of organization that takes into account both the political dynamics and the task requirements of organizations.
EMERGING FORMS OF UNION FORMATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

This paper draws on recent national survey data for the Philippines to examine changes in multiple indicators of the union formation and sexual systems, and then describes the social distributions of various aspects of those behaviors. Some features of the pattern echo the ‘second demographic transition’ as reported in many other parts of the globe. This includes rising levels of premarital sex and cohabitation, but notably excludes the virtual collapse of family-building as seen in many other societies. The paper classifies the main types of union formation pattern at national scale for each of the sexes, and then disaggregates into the social distribution of each component of the overall pattern. This disaggregation is carried out in a framework defined by the cells of a socioeconomic grid based on simple urban versus rural residence and schooling dimensions. Employing this grid it is shown that the various components of the overall union and sexual system have contrasting social distributions which hint at the underlying processes involved. The analysis provides both a measurement approach suitable for large scale household surveys and a set of turn-of-the-century empirical benchmarks that will support ongoing survey-based monitoring of these important patterns.
Characterization and prediction of dialogue acts using prosodic features

This study investigates the classification of dialogue acts using prosodic features. Prosodic elements contain information about the type of dialogue acts. For this reason they can be used to increase the performance of speech recognition and speech synthesis systems. In the present study, two feature sets and two classifiers were compared. The first feature set comprised standard prosodic features, namely the F0 arithmetic mean, and its standard deviation. The overall dialogue act related F0 mean values support Ohala’s Frequency Code hypothesis. For the second feature set, intonation features accounting for F0 shapes were derived by polynomial intonation stylization. To compare the usability of both feature sets for classification, the sample of dialogue acts was classified using k-nearest neighbor and random tree classifiers. For both feature sets and classifiers accuracies around 77% were achieved. We found no significant difference between the classifiers and feature sets. One can conclude that standard F0 features already contain a reasonable amount of information about dialogue acts, and that a more elaborated F0 analysis is not beneficial for the given data.
Outward Orientation, Investment and Finance Constraints: A Study of Indian Firms

We investigate the presence of finance constraints on firms' investment behaviour using Indian manufacturing as a case study. This question becomes particularly interesting in the post-1991 period when substantial market oriented reforms were undertaken. We argue that in the Indian institutional context (especially, the underdeveloped state of bankruptcy laws and restrictive exit procedures) outward orientation rather than size is the relevant criteria for distinguishing firms that may be 'finance-constrained' from those that are not. Using panel data for 718 Indian manufacturing firms for the period 1993-98, we find that exporting firms are less constrained in financial markets than firms which sell primarily to domestic markets.
Efficient and wideband horn nanoantenna.

In this Letter, we present the design of a horn nanoantenna working at near-IR frequencies. The proposed layout consists of an Ag-air-Ag nanotransmission line terminated in a tapered horn. The antenna design is validated through proper full-wave numerical simulations, taking into account actual dispersion and losses of the involved materials. The numerical results show that the designed nanohorn is matched over a broad range of frequencies (more than 50% of fractional bandwidth) and radiates efficiently in the same frequency band (the realized gain is greater than 10 dBi). Such promising results may find application in different technical and scientific fields, ranging from smart lighting to optical wireless communications.
Measuring the economic impact of climate change on agriculture: a Ricardian analysis of farmlands in Tajikistan

We apply the Ricardian approach to analyse the economic impact of climate change on agriculture using the 2007 World Bank Tajikistan Living Standards Survey. The study analyses data of 2557 farm households in 166 villages across the 10 agro-ecological country zones. In general, the results indicated that increasing temperature and precipitation will both be damaging to Tajikistan agriculture and consequently to the net revenue (NR) of farmers in the medium and long term. Regressing NR on climate parameters, household and soil variables showed that these variables have a significant impact on the farmers' NR per hectare. We examined the impact of the current climate on farmers' NR per hectare, and how that is affected by future climate scenarios: one +2.9°C warming and one 4.6°C warming scenarios. Although the analysis did not incorporate variables such as the carbon fertilization effect, the role of technology or the change in prices in the future, significant information for policy-making can be extracted. Tajikistan has very diverse regions in terms of geography, population density and socio-economic situation; our results will help policy-makers to anticipate the adaptation effort needed in different locations of the country.
Comparison of Stent-Assisted Coil Placement and Coiling-Only for the Treatment of Ruptured Intracranial Aneurysms

Background The use of a stent during the acute post-hemorrhage period is controversial. We conducted a retrospective analysis on the clinical and angiographic outcomes of the ruptured aneurysms that were embolized with stent-assisted coiling or coiling-only. Material/Methods We reviewed data of 279 patients with 279 ruptured intracranial aneurysms who underwent coil embolization between July 2004 and June 2015. The baseline data on age, sex, medical history, aneurysm size, location, and Hunt and Hess grade were recorded. Results One hundred and thirteen aneurysms were treated with stent-assisted coiling. Adverse events occurred in similar proportions of patients in the two groups (11.5% in the stenting group and 9.0% in the coiling alone group). The incidence of permanent disabling neurologic deficit was also similar in the two groups (7.1% and 5.4% in the stenting group and coiling alone group respectively). Clinical follow-up data were available in 207 patients with a median period of 28 months. Angiographic follow-up was available in 106 aneurysms with a median period of 7.5 months. Clinical outcomes were correlated with adverse events (p=0.043, odds ratio=4.59), large aneurysms (p=0.013, odds ratio=10.24), and Hunt and Hess grade (p=0.001, odds ratio=13.51). Stent-assisted coiling for ruptured aneurysm, as compared with coiling-only, was not associated with an increased incidence of poor clinical outcome at follow-up. Aneurysm-occlusion status at follow-up were correlated with stent placement (p<0.001, odds ratio=5.85) and initial aneurysm-occlusion status (p=0.027, odds ratio=3.78). Conclusions Compared with coiling-only, stent-assisted coil placement may have better durability, with comparable safety for ruptured intracranial aneurysm.
α‐Latrotoxin Modulates the Secretory Machinery via Receptor‐Mediated Activation of Protein Kinase C

The hypothesis whether α‐latrotoxin (LTX) could directly regulate the secretory machinery was tested in pancreatic β cells using combined techniques of membrane capacitance (Cm) measurement and Ca2+ uncaging. Employing ramp increase in [Ca2+]i to stimulate exocytosis, we found that LTX lowers the Ca2+ threshold required for exocytosis without affecting the size of the readily releasable pool (RRP). The burst component of exocytosis in response to step‐like [Ca2+]i increase generated by flash photolysis of caged Ca2+ was also speeded up by LTX treatment. LTX increased the maximum rate of exocytosis compared with control responses with similar postflash [Ca2+]i and shifted the Ca2+ dependence of the exocytotic machinery toward lower Ca2+ concentrations. LTXN4C, a LTX mutant which cannot form membrane pores or penetrate through the plasma membrane but has similar affinity for the receptors as the wild‐type LTX, mimicked the effect of LTX. Moreover, the effects of both LTX and LTXN4C were independent of intracellular or extracellular Ca2+ but required extracellular Mg2+. Our data propose that LTX, by binding to the membrane receptors, sensitizes the fusion machinery to Ca2+ and, hence, may permit release at low [Ca2+]i level. This sensitization is mediated by activation of protein kinase C.
Motor Control Exercises, Sling Exercises, and General Exercises for Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial With 1-Year Follow-up

Background Exercise benefits patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain; however, the most effective type of exercise remains unknown. Objective This study compared outcomes after motor control exercises, sling exercises, and general exercises for low back pain. Design This was a randomized controlled trial with a 1-year follow-up. Setting The study was conducted in a primary care setting in Norway. Patients The participants were patients with chronic nonspecific low back pain (n=109). Interventions The interventions in this study were low-load motor control exercises, high-load sling exercises, or general exercises, all delivered by experienced physical therapists, once a week for 8 weeks. Measurements The primary outcome measure was pain reported on the Numeric Pain Rating Scale after treatment and at a 1-year follow-up. Secondary outcome measures were self-reported activity limitation (assessed with the Oswestry Disability Index), clinically examined function (assessed with the Fingertip-to-Floor Test), and fear-avoidance beliefs after intervention. Results The postintervention assessment showed no significant differences among groups with respect to pain (overall group difference) or any of the outcome measures. Mean (95% confidence interval) group differences for pain reduction after treatment and after 1 year were 0.3 (−0.7 to 1.3) and 0.4 (−0.7 to 1.4) for motor control exercises versus sling exercises, 0.7 (−0.6 to 2.0) and 0.3 (−0.8 to 1.4) for sling exercises versus general exercises, and 1.0 (−0.1 to 2.0) and 0.7 (−0.3 to 1.7) for motor control exercises versus general exercises. Limitations The nature of the interventions made blinding impossible. Conclusions This study gave no evidence that 8 treatments with individually instructed motor control exercises or sling exercises were superior to general exercises for chronic low back pain.
Properties of Realized Variance Under Alternative Sampling Schemes

This article investigates the statistical properties of the realized variance estimator in the presence of market microstructure noise. Different from the existing literature, the analysis relies on a pure jump process for high-frequency security prices and explicitly distinguishes among alternative sampling schemes, including calendar time sampling, business time sampling, and transaction time sampling. The main finding in this article is that transaction time sampling is generally superior to the common practice of calendar time sampling in that it leads to a lower mean squared error (MSE) of the realized variance. The benefits of sampling in transaction time are particularly pronounced when the trade intensity pattern is volatile. Based on IBM transaction data over the period 2000–2004, the empirical analysis finds an average optimal sampling frequency of about 3 minutes with a steady downward trend and significant day-to-day variation related to market liquidity and a consistent reduction in MSE of the realized variance due to sampling in transaction time that is about 5% on average but can be as high as 40% on days with irregular trading.
Revisiting Purchasing Power Parity in OECD

This study revisits Purchasing Power Parity theory (PPP) in the 34 OECD countries during January 1994–August 2013. We use a new panel stationary test with both sharp breaks and smooth shifts, a novel approach to panel unit-root testing, proposed by Bahmani–Oskooee et al. (2014). The results indicate that the PPP holds in half of the 34 OECD countries. These results indicate the importance of proper modelling of both sharp breaks and smooth shifts in real effective exchange rate series of OECD countries.
Consumption–Leisure Trade‐Offs and Persistency in Business Cycles

This paper studies whether non‐separabilities between consumption and leisure may help to explain the observed persistence in GNP growth. We consider an extended version of Lucas's (1988) human capital investment model that includes labour adjustment costs and compare its performance under different utility specifications with different degrees of complementarity and substitutability between consumption and leisure. We find that when consumption and leisure are complements the model succeeds in matching not only the autocorrelation of output growth but also the important trend‐reverting component found in US data. These results hold even if low adjustment costs of labour are considered. Hence, we conclude that an arguably simple margin not considered conventionally can provide useful insights into observed business cycle patterns.
Value Creation in REIT Property Sell-Offs

We examine major sales of real property by public U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) 1992-2002. We find that abnormal shareholder returns are significantly positive, a result that is consistent with findings for conventional firms that sell off real estate. Because REITs do not pay taxes, this finding supports the view that abnormal returns in real estate sell-offs by all types of firms are derived largely from asset allocation efficiencies and do not result exclusively from tax benefits. Shareholder returns are lower in sell-offs motivated by a desire to reduce long-term debt, as is consistent with financial theory regarding the information content of leverage decisions. Returns are inversely related to the firm's operating performance prior to the sell-off announcement, further supporting the case that improved asset efficiencies create value in real estate sell-offs. Copyright 2006 American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association
Noninvasive measurement of gastric accommodation by means of pertechnetate SPECT: limiting radiation dose without losing image quality.

UNLABELLED The gastric accommodation response to a meal is impaired in conditions such as functional dyspepsia. At present, a barostat study is the gold standard to assess fundic relaxation in response to a meal. However, this method is invasive and possibly induces artifacts as a result of positive intraluminal balloon pressure. A noninvasive scintigraphic test has been developed to measure gastric accommodation in humans. The aim of this study was to refine this method, increasing the imaging time span and limiting the radiation dose applied without losing image quality, so that repeated measurements within 1 subject are possible without increasing radiation risk. METHODS Thirteen healthy volunteers without gastrointestinal symptoms were recruited from a student population. Each volunteer had previously undergone a barostat study. After an overnight fast, volunteers were scanned twice on separate days after intravenous injection of 200 MBq (99m)Tc-pertechnetate. On 1 occasion, volunteers were pretreated with a proton pump inhibitor. Thirty minutes after injection, sequential, 7-min SPECT scans (72 views, 10 s/view, 128 matrix) were acquired on a dual-head gamma-camera system before and up to 2 h after ingestion of a test meal. After reconstruction (filtered backprojection, ramp-Butterworth filter; order, 10; cutoff, 0.45 Nyquist), fundus volume was calculated semiautomatically by means of a threshold voxel volume tool. RESULTS Limiting injection dose from 370-740 MBq to 200 MBq (99m)Tc-pertechnetate resulted in good-quality images, with high target-to-background ratio up to 150 min after injection. This represents a significant dose reduction, from 4.6-9.3 to 2.5 mSv. There was no significant difference between SPECT fundic volumes or accommodation response with or without proton pump inhibitor pretreatment. Volume kinetics were similar to those with barostat studies, but gastric volumes were inferior. CONCLUSION Refining the methodology yields an improved noninvasive test for the assessment of gastric accommodation without unnecessarily increasing radiation burden. This technique enables repeated and serial measurement of gastric accommodation to a test meal, a process that is potentially useful for characterization and follow-up of dyspeptic patients with and without drug intervention.
Laser Range Data Denoising via Adaptive and Robust Dictionary Learning

Sparse representation (SR) is making significant impact in the computer vision and signal processing communities due to its stunning performance in a variety of applications for images, e.g., denoising, restoration, and synthesis. We propose an adaptive and robust SR algorithm that exploits the characteristics of typical laser range data, i.e., the availability of both range and reflectance data, to realize range data denoising. Specifically, our method estimates the informative level (IL) of each patch according to the variation in both range and reflectance modalities, followed by adaptive dictionary training that assigns dynamic sparsity weights to the patches with different ILs. Furthermore, the l1-norm-based representation fidelity measure is applied to make our method robust to outliers, which are common in laser range measurements. Extensive experiments on synthesized and actual data demonstrate that our method works effectively, resulting in superior performance both visually and quantitatively.