Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Liquidity, Growth Opportunity, and Financial Distress on Hedging Decisions

This study aims to determine the effect of liquidity, growth opportunity, and financial distress on hedging decisions in manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The sample selection technique used was a purposive sampling technique which consisted of 320 observations during 2016 – 2020. The data used is secondary data derived from company financial reports obtained from the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) website and several other sources. The data analysis technique used in this study is logistic regression analysis using the Statistical Product and Service Solution (SPSS) version 26 application. The results of this study indicate that liquidity has an influence on hedging decisions, growth opportunity has no effect on hedging decisions, and financial distress has an influence on hedging decisions.
Provably secure session key distribution: the three party case

We study session key distribution in the three-party setting of Needham and Schroeder. (This is the trust model assumed by the popular Kerberos authentication system.) Such protocols are basic building blocks for contemporary distributed systems|yet the underlying problem has, up until now, lacked a de(cid:12)nition or provably-good solution. One consequence is that incorrect protocols have proliferated. This paper provides the (cid:12)rst treatment of this problem in the complexity-theoretic framework of modern cryptography. We present a de(cid:12)nition, protocol, and a proof that the protocol satis(cid:12)es the de(cid:12)nition, assuming the (minimal) assumption of a pseudorandom function. When this assumption is appropriately instantiated, our protocols are simple and e(cid:14)cient.
Coverage Optimization based on Improved NSGA-II in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) constitute the platform of a wide application related to military, remote monitoring, inhospitable physical environment, and national security. Reducing energy consumption to extend network lifetime is one of the most important requirements in designing wireless sensor networks. Keeping only a minimal number of sensors active and putting others into low-power sleep mode is one promising approach to conserve system energy, in which the active sensors can maintain the communication connectivity and cover the target region completely. However, the problem of sorting such minimal active sensor set is NP-complete. In this paper, elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), a new multi-objective genetic algorithm, is applied to coverage problem in wireless sensor networks. The novel scheme maximizes the coverage using a relative small quantity of sensor nodes in a given target area. Simulation results show that the algorithm is fast and effective, which gives strong support to the selection of optimal node set.
Uncoupling of transcription and translation during zygotic gene activation in the mouse.

Zygotic gene expression in mice is delayed by a time‐dependent mechanism until the two‐cell stage in development. To investigate the basis of this ‘zygotic clock’, the firefly luciferase gene was injected into mouse embryos, and quantitative assays were used to monitor luciferase gene transcription and translation in individual embryos from single mothers. These studies confirmed, at the mRNA level, previous conclusions about the relative capacities of paternal and maternal pronuclei to transcribe genes, and the requirements for promoters and enhancers during zygotic gene activation. Furthermore, these studies revealed that fertilized mouse eggs can delay expression of zygotic genes by uncoupling translation from transcription. An RNA polymerase II‐dependent gene could be translated until zygotic gene expression began (a delay of up to 15 h after injection). The time course for nascent mRNA accumulation was biphasic, with the second phase occurring during zygotic gene expression. If the luciferase gene was injected after zygotic gene expression had begun, then translation was tightly linked to transcription. If the second phase of mRNA accumulation was repressed, then luciferase was not produced. Therefore, translation was linked to the accumulation of mRNA during the onset of zygotic gene expression. Similar biphasic time courses also were observed for RNA polymerase I‐ and III‐dependent transcription. These and other results reveal that the zygotic clock regulates the onset of both transcription and translation of zygotic genes.
Convergence of the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Game

We consider a stochastic process based on the iterated prisoner's dilemma game. During the game, each of n players has a state, either cooperate or defect. The players are connected by an ‘interaction graph’. During each step of the process, an edge of the graph is chosen uniformly at random and the states of the players connected by the edge are modified according to the Pavlov strategy. The process converges to a unique absorbing state in which all players cooperate. We prove two conjectures of Kittock: the convergence rate is exponential in n when the interaction graph is a complete graph, and it is polynomial in n when the interaction graph is a cycle. In fact, we show that the rate is O(n log n) in the latter case.
Limits on speculative module-level parallelism in imperative and object-oriented programs on CMP platforms

We consider program modules, e.g. procedures, functions, and methods as the basic method to exploit speculative parallelism in existing codes. We analyze how much inherent and exploitable parallelism exists in a set of C and Java programs on a set of chip-multiprocessor architecture models, and identify what inherent program features, as well as architectural deficiencies, that limit the speedup. Our data complement previous limit studies by indicating that the programming style-object-oriented versus imperative-does not seem to have any noticeable impact on the achievable speedup. Further, we show that as few as eight processors are enough to exploit all of the inherent parallelism. However, memory-level data dependence resolution and thread management mechanisms of recent CMP proposals may impose overheads that severely limit the speedup obtained.
Surface Expression of Basal and Englacial Features, Properties, and Processes of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Radar‐sounding surveys measuring ice thickness in Greenland have enabled an increasingly “complete” knowledge of basal topography and glaciological processes. Where such observations are spatially limited, bed elevation has been interpolated through mass conservation or kriging. Ordinary kriging fails to resolve anisotropy in bed geometry, however, leaving complex topography misrepresented in elevation models of the ice sheet bed. Here, we demonstrate the potential of new high‐resolution (≤5 m) surface topography data (ArcticDEM) to provide enhanced insight into basal and englacial geometry and processes. Notable surface features, quantified via residual surface elevation, are observed coincident with documented subglacial channels, and new, smaller‐scale tributaries (<2,000 m in width) and valley‐like structures are clearly identified. Residual surface elevation also allows the extent of basal ice units to be mapped, which in conjunction with radar data indicate that they act as “false bottoms,” likely due to a rheological contrast in the ice column.
Water-deficit equation: systematic analysis and improvement.

BACKGROUND The water-deficit equation {WD(1) = 0.6 × B(m) × [1 - (140 ÷ Na(+))]; B(m) denotes body mass} is used in medicine and nutrition to estimate the volume (L) of water required to correct dehydration during the initial stages of fluid-replacement therapy. Several equation assumptions may limit its accuracy, but none have been systematically tested. OBJECTIVES We quantified the potential error in WD(1) for the estimation of free water (FW) and total body water (TBW) losses and systematically evaluated its assumptions. DESIGN Thirty-six euhydrated volunteers were dehydrated (2.2-5.8% B(m)) via thermoregulatory sweating. Assumptions within WD(1) were tested by substituting measured euhydrated values for assumed or unknown values. These included the known (premorbid) B(m) (WD(2)), a proposed correction for unknown B(m) (WD(3)), the TBW estimated from body composition (WD(4)), the actual plasma sodium (WD(5)), the substitution of plasma osmolality (Posm) for sodium (WD(6)), and actual Posm (WD(7)). RESULTS Dehydration reduced TBW by 3.49 ± 0.91 L, 57% of which (2.02 ± 0.96 L) was FW loss, and increased plasma sodium from 139 (range: 135-143 mmol/L) to 143 (range: 141-148 mmol/L) mmol/L. Calculations for WD(1) through WD(7) all underestimated TBW loss by 1.5-2.5 L (P < 0.05). WD(1) through WD(5) underestimated FW by 0.5 L to 1.0 L (P < 0.05), but WD(6) and WD(7) estimated FW loss to within 0.06-0.16 L (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS WD(1) grossly underestimates TBW and FW losses. Corrections for unknowns and assumptions (WD(2) through WD(5)) improved estimates little. The use of WD(6) = 0.6 × B(m) × [1 - (290 ÷ Posm)] accurately estimates FW but still underestimates TBW losses by >40%.
Toward Optimal Secure Distributed Storage Systems With Exact Repair

Distributed storage systems (DSSs) in the presence of an external wiretapper are considered. A DSS is parameterized by (n, k, d), in which the data are stored across n nodes (each with storage capacity α), and must be recoverable by accessing the contents stored on any k out of n nodes. If a node fails, any d ≥ k out of (n - 1) nodes help in the repair (regeneration) of the failed node (by sending dβ units of repair data, where β ≤ α), so that the data can still be recovered from the DSS. For such a (n, k, d)-DSS, security from the two types of wiretappers is investigated: 1) Type-I (node data) wiretapper, which can read the data stored on any ℓ <; k nodes and 2) Type-II (repair data) wiretapper, which can read the data that is used to repair a set of ℓ failed nodes. The focus of this paper is on the optimal tradeoff between the storage (α) and the repair bandwidth (dβ) in presence of a Type-I/Type-II wiretapper and the practically relevant constraint of exact repair in which a failed node must be replaced by its exact replica. In this paper, several new results and outer bounds for the storage-versus-exact-repair-bandwidth tradeoff(s) are obtained for the Type-I and Type-II security problems. Furthermore, new outer bounds are presented for the Type-II problem, which hold for general (n, k, d, ℓ) parameters. It is shown that these outer bounds strictly improve upon the existing cutset-based outer bounds. The key technical contribution of this paper is in developing novel information theoretic converse proofs for these problems. From our optimal characterization results, we show that in a Type-II setting, the only efficient point in the storage-versus-exact-repair-bandwidth tradeoff is the minimum bandwidth regenerating (MBR) point corresponding to α = dβ. This is in sharp contrast to the Type-I setting in which the optimal tradeoff allows a spectrum of operating points beyond the MBR point.
Factors associated with alcohol consumption patterns in a Puerto Rican urban cohort

Abstract Objective There is little research on factors associated with alcohol consumption among Puerto Ricans living in the USA; thus the aim of the present study was to examine alcohol intake patterns, and factors associated with drinking categories, in a cohort of Puerto Rican adults in Massachusetts. Design Cross-sectional study. Descriptive and polytomous logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with drinking patterns, stratified by gender. Setting Greater Boston area, MA, USA. Subjects Puerto Rican adults (n 1292), aged 45–75 years. Results Eight per cent of men and 39 % of women were lifetime abstainers; 40 % of men and 25 % of women were former drinkers; 31 % of men and 27 % of women were moderate drinkers; and 21 % of men and 8 % of women were heavy drinkers. Thirty-five per cent of participants reported drinking alcohol while taking medications with alcohol contraindications. After multivariable adjustment, young men were less likely than older men to be moderate drinkers. Among women, higher BMI, age, lower income and lower psychological acculturation were associated with abstention; age and lower perceived emotional support were associated with increased likelihood of former drinking; and women without v. with diabetes were more likely to be heavy drinkers. Conclusions High prevalence of chronic disease, heavy drinking and alcohol use while taking medications with alcohol contraindications suggest an urgent need for better screening and interventions tailored to this rapidly growing Hispanic national subgroup. As heavy drinking appears to increase with acculturation for women, public health initiatives are needed to support appropriate alcohol use.
APC promoter hypermethylation contributes to the loss of APC expression in colorectal cancers with allelic loss on 5q1

Introduction: Germ-line mutations of the APC gene are associated with familial adenomatous polyposis, and somatic mutations occur frequently in sporadic colorectal cancer. However, to abrogate APC function, both alleles must be inactivated. Recently, it has been demonstrated that epigenetic modification of the APC promoter influences APC silencing. Here we examined the influence of APC methylation on APC expression in tumors with and without LOH at the APC locus. Material and Methods: 137 sporadic colorectal cancer specimens were investigated for LOH at the 5q locus. The methylation status of the APC promoter was determined by methylation-specific PCR. APC expression was performed by immunohistochemistry. Results: APC expression was reduced or lost in 110 of 137 (80%) tumors and LOH at 5q was found in 13 of 132 (10%) tumors. There was no difference in 5q LOH between tumors with or without intact APC expression. Vice versa, there was no difference in the APC expression in tumors with 5q LOH. Aberrant APC promoter methylation was detected in 33 of 118 (28%) tumors investigated. Of the tumors with 5q LOH for which methylation data were available, 4 of 11 (36%) were methylated versus 28 of 105 (27%) of those without LOH. No difference in methylation was observed in tumors without 5q LOH and normal APC expression and those without 5q LOH and reduced or missing APC expression. Importantly, none of the tumors with 5q LOH and normal APC staining were aberrantly methylated, whereas 50% of the cancers with LOH at 5q and reduced or absent staining were hypermethylated. Conclusions: This report suggests that tumors with 5q LOH and reduced APC expression are more frequently hypermethylated at the APC promoter compared to those tumors with 5q LOH and normal APC expression. The association among APC promoter methylation status, 5q LOH, and reduced or lost APC expression suggests that de novo methylation plays an important role as a “second hit” in silencing APC expression in colorectal neoplasia.
VAChT knock‐down mice show normal prepulse inhibition but disrupted long‐term habituation

The neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) plays a crucial role in both the central and peripheral nervous system. Central cholinergic transmission is important for cognitive functions and cholinergic disruptions have been associated with different neural disorders. We here tested the role of cholinergic transmission in basic cognitive functions, i.e. in prepulse inhibition (PPI) and short‐term habituation (STH) as well as long‐term habituation (LTH) of startle using mice with a 65% knockdown (KD) of the vesicular ACh transporter (VAChT). These mice are slow in refilling cholinergic synaptic transmitter vesicles, leading to a reduced cholinergic tone. Prepulse inhibition has been assumed to be mediated by cholinergic projections from the midbrain to the reticular formation. Surprisingly, PPI and STH were normal in these mice, whereas LTH was disrupted. This disruption could be rescued by pre‐testing injections of the ACh esterase inhibitor galantamine, but not by post‐testing injections. The lack of a PPI deficit might be because of the fact that VAChT KD mice show disruptions mainly in prolonged cholinergic activity, therefore the transient activation by prepulse processing might not be sufficient to deplete synaptic vesicles. The disruption of LTH indicates that the latter depends on a tonic cholinergic inhibition. Future experiments will address which cholinergic cell group is responsible for this effect.
DSMA: Optimal multirate anypath routing in wireless networks with directional antennas

Anypath routing can improve the end-to-end throughput by exploiting the broadcast nature of wireless communication media in wireless networks. Although anypath routing has been extensively studied in recent years, the problem of anypath routing in wireless networks with directional antennas has not been fully investigated. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study the joint problem of antenna direction scheduling and transmission rate selection for anypath routing in wireless networks with directional antennas. In this paper, we present a Directional antenna based Shortest Multirate Anypath routing algorithm (DSMA), which is proven to compute the optimal anypath routing strategy. We integrate our algorithm with a well-known opportunistic routing protocol MORE, and extensively evaluate its performance. Our evaluation results show that our algorithm can achieve at least 34.0% higher end-to-end throughput, in the median case; and at least 29.9% shorter mean end-to-end packet delay, than the single-rate anypath routing protocol.
Biclustering Sparse Binary Genomic Data

Genomic datasets often consist of large, binary, sparse data matrices. In such a dataset, one is often interested in finding contiguous blocks that (mostly) contain ones. This is a biclustering problem, and while many algorithms have been proposed to deal with gene expression data, only two algorithms have been proposed that specifically deal with binary matrices. None of the gene expression biclustering algorithms can handle the large number of zeros in sparse binary matrices. The two proposed binary algorithms failed to produce meaningful results. In this article, we present a new algorithm that is able to extract biclusters from sparse, binary datasets. A powerful feature is that biclusters with different numbers of rows and columns can be detected, varying from many rows to few columns and few rows to many columns. It allows the user to guide the search towards biclusters of specific dimensions. When applying our algorithm to an input matrix derived from TRANSFAC, we find transcription factors with distinctly dissimilar binding motifs, but a clear set of common targets that are significantly enriched for GO categories.
A Parallel Method for Scalable Anonymization of Transaction Data

Transaction data, such as market basket or diagnostic data, contain sensitive information about individuals. Such data are often disseminated widely to support analytic studies. This raises privacy concerns, as the confidentiality of individuals must be protected. Economization is an established methodology to protect transaction data, which can be applied using different algorithms. RBAT is an algorithm for anonymzitng transaction data that has many desirable features. These include flexible specification of privacy requirements and the ability to preserve data utility well. However, like most economization methods, RBAT is a sequential algorithm that is not scalable to large datasets. This limits the applicability of RBAT in practice. To address this issue, in this paper, we develop a parallel version of RBAT using MapReduce. We partition the data across cluster of computing nodes and implement the key operations of RBAT in parallel. Our experimental results show that scalable economization of large transaction datasets can be achieved using MapReduce and our method can scale nearly linear to the number of processing nodes.
Pulmonary Embolism Incidence and Fatality Trends in Chinese Hospitals from 1997 to 2008: A Multicenter Registration Study

Background There has not been sufficient evidence to support the Asians being less susceptible to pulmonary embolism (PE) than other ethnicities, because the prevalence of PE/deep venous thrombosis (DVT) in different racial and ethnic groups has not been carefully studied until recently except in Caucasians. To test the hypothesis that the Chinese population has a lower risk for PE, this study comprehensively assessed the hospital-based incidence and case fatality rates for PE during the 1997–2008 in China. Methods A registration study of patients with suspected PE syndromes admitted to 60 level-3 hospitals involved in the National Cooperative Project for the Prevention and Treatment of Venous Thromboembolism (NCPPT) was conducted from January 1997 to December 2008. The only exclusion criterion was an age of less than 18 years. Helical computed tomography scan, ventilation-perfusion lung scintigraphy or pulmonary angiography was carried out before or after hospitalization. All images were reviewed and evaluated independently by two specialists. Results A total of 18,206 patients were confirmed with PE from 16,972,182 hospital admissions. The annual incidence was 0.1% (95% CI: 0.1% to 0.2%). The overall incidence of PE in male patients (0.2%, 95% CI: 0.1% to 0.3%) was higher than that in female patients (0.1% and 95% CI: 0.0% to 0.1%). An increasing incidence gradient for PE was noticed from Southern to Northern China. In addition, the case fatality rate was apparently decreasing: 25.1% (95% CI: 16.2% to 36.9%) in 1997 to 8.7% (95% CI: 3.5% to 15.8%) in 2008. Conclusions Our findings suggest the relatively stable PE incidence and decreasing fatality trends in Chinese hospitals may be partially attributable to the implementation of the NCCPT and suggest the government should reevaluate the severity of PE so that health resources for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of PE could be used to their fullest.
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function

A study of drylands across the world highlights the importance of species richness for ecosystem function. How is the biodiversity within an ecosystem related to the ecosystem's function? Quantifying and understanding this relationship—the biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) (1)—is important because socio-economic development is almost always accompanied by the loss of natural habitat and species (2). Short-term economic gains may thus trump longer-term benefits for human society, creating vulnerabilities that could be avoided or corrected with enough knowledge about the role of biodiversity. Erosion of biodiversity at local and regional scales may also reduce resilience at larger spatial scales as a result of degradation of ecosystem function (3). On page 214 of this issue, Maestre et al. (4) report an important step toward extending our understanding of BEF to globally important ecosystems.