Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of SEC Disclosure Monitoring on the Uncertainty of Fair Value Estimates

ABSTRACT We investigate the role played by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in monitoring fair value disclosures in regulatory filings. Specifically, we assess whether SEC action via the issuance of fair value comment letters to registrants is followed by reductions in uncertainty about the firms' fair value estimates. We hypothesize that registrants that receive a comment letter focusing on their fair value disclosure policies experience reductions in investor uncertainty regarding their fair value estimates in the post-letter period, compared to the pre-letter period. Supporting this prediction, we find that for the periods after the fair value comment letters, the associations between Level 2 and 3 fair value assets and our measures of uncertainty are significantly reduced. These findings are robust to a series of tests designed to ensure that we do not simply capture general changes in market uncertainty levels for firms investing in these types of assets. Our study contributes to the furt.
Multiresolution image registration

The paper describes an automatic registration procedure based on a multiresolution analysis of images. The approach is quite general and can be applied to a large variety of images. Furthermore the algorithm is very robust and can effectively cope with a considerable range of transformations, since the registration is obtained iteratively at different multiresolution scales. The procedure is completely automatic, and relies on the grey level information content of the images. We have applied the algorithm to test images of banknotes, aerial stereo pairs, multispectral and SAR images. In all the cases we have obtained excellent results, outperforming the best algorithms available at present and used in industrial applications.
Histamine production by human neutrophils

Histamine is an important mediator in the development of allergic reactions. Only a small subset of human cell types is able to produce histamine. No previous studies have shown that human neutrophils are among them. The present work was undertaken to analyze whether human neutrophils produce histamine, and to determine what agonists are involved in histamine production by human neutrophils. The expression of histidine decarboxylase in human neutrophils was established by quantitative PCR, Western blotting, and flow cytometry analysis. The activity of the enzyme was determined by ELISA, which measured histamine in the culture supernatant of neutrophils stimulated with a set of classical agonists. Human neutrophils are bona fide histamine‐producing cells. Neutrophils store ~0.29 pg/cell and release ~50% of the histamine content in an antigen‐dependent manner and on stimulation with other neutrophil agonists. Basal expression of histidine decarboxylase, the rate‐limiting enzyme in histamine production, is higher in neutrophils from patients with allergies than from healthy donors. Our results cannot be ascribed to cell contamination for several reasons. LPS failed to induce histamine release by basophils, whereas it induced histamine release by neutrophils; and we did not detect basophils, monocytes, or lymphocytes in our neutrophil preparations. Eosinophils, albeit detected, were only 0.001‐0.004% of the final cell population, and they did not store or release histamine on antigen or LPS stimulation. Antigens to which patients with allergies were sensitized stimulated release of histamine from neutrophils. These observations represent a novel view of neutrophils as possible source of histamine in the allergic diseases. —Alcañiz, L. , Vega, A. , Chacón, P., El Bekay, R. , Ventura, I. , Aroca, R. , Blanca, M. , Bergstralh, D. T. , Monteseirin, J. Histamine production by human neutrophils. FASEB J. 27, 2902–2910 (2013). www.fasebj. org
Scanner Data: New Opportunities for Demand and Competitive Strategy Analysis

This paper reviews prior research by agricultural economists on the demand for food products using scanner data. Thereafter, a differentiated product's oligopoly model with Bertrand price competition is developed and used to specify brand level demand and oligopoly price reaction equations. The model has sufficient detail to estimate brand level price elasticities and price response elasticities which in turn can be used to estimate three indices of market power. The first index estimated is the familiar Rothschild Index. The paper develops estimates two new indexes, the observed index and the Chamberlin quotient for tacit collusion. It concludes with comments on how the proposed method for the measurement of market power in a differentiated oligopoly can be improved.
Low Lymphatic Pumping Pressure in the Legs Is Associated with Leg Edema and Lower Quality of Life in Healthy Volunteers.

BACKGROUND Lymph is pumped through the collecting lymphatic vessels by both intrinsic and extrinsic forces, propelling it downstream back into circulation. The intrinsic lymph pump relies on the spontaneous contraction of lymphatic muscles to generate the force of pumping lymph (P(lp)). However, the association between leg edema and reduced leg P(lp) in the general population is unknown. Therefore, this study determined the association of leg P(lp) and edema complaints and quality of life in healthy participants. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 465 healthy volunteers (78 men and 387 women, age 30-85 years) filled out a questionnaire and medical history to rule out severe systemic diseases and local venous/lymphatic diseases. Quality of life was assessed using the Medical Outcome Study Short Form 36 (SF36). Leg P(lp) was measured using minimally invasive indocyanine green fluorescence lymphography and an occlusion cuff technique while sitting. All participants were divided into three groups according to the P(lp) values, as follows: Participants with P(lp) >40 mmHg in both legs, 20 mmHg-40 mmHg in either leg; and <20 mmHg in both legs were divided into the good (n=100), moderate (n=314), and poor (n=51) P(lp) groups, respectively. The survey revealed the poor leg P(lp) group was associated with more frequently complaints of leg edema, as well as lower quality of life than the moderate and good P(lp) groups. CONCLUSION Reduced leg P(lp) is significantly associated with leg edema complaints and lower quality of life in the general population.
Strategic issues in managing innovation’s fuzzy front‐end

A product is more likely to be successfully developed and marketed when the “upfront or fuzzy front‐end (FFE)” activities are understood and carefully managed. A framework is developed to illuminate several factors affecting FFE performance. Using this framework, several strategic issues involved in managing the FFE are identified and managerial recommendations are advanced.
Factors Influencing Human Resource Management Solutions at Subsidiaries of Multinational Companies in Central and Eastern Europe

There is a shortage of empirical human resource management (HRM) literature in respect to identifying new patterns of multinational company (MNC) involvement in the Central and Eastern Europe region and the impact of ongoing MNC operations on the patterns of the HRM behavior of these companies. To counter this lack of understanding within the field, our broadly based, international survey asked 279 subsidiaries located in Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia and was conducted in 2010. It aimed to describe the relationships within the companies involved—between the influencing factors and the HR solutions applied—in a statistically valid way.
Geopolitics, Global Patterns of Oil Trade, and China’s Oil Security Quest

Does China’s quest for oil raise tensions with the United States? This paper examines the effect of international relations on global oil trade patterns. Using voting records for the United Nations General Assembly to measure the state of international relations, we estimate a modified gravity model in a panel data framework over the period 1962-2000. Our presumption is that a divergence in voting patterns reflects misalignment in political interests among pairs of states, and hence an increase in “political distance. ” Controlling for oil exporters’ endowment, potential supply disruption due to civil conflict, other standard gravity controls, as well as exporter and year fixed effects, we first show that private energy companies based in the United States import significantly less crude oil from US political opponents. The result is robust to controlling for economic sanctions and militarized interstate disputes, suggesting that the political oil import diversification is more than a wartime phenomenon. A similar oil import pattern is observed in China, in which case only a few national oil companies control the oil sector. While the incentives to diversify are stronger for both the United States and China when the exporters are nondemocratic, import sanctions have opposite effects on oil imports into the United States and China. Finally, we document that there is no such oil import pattern in other non-major power oil importing countries.
Citizenship education pedagogy : teachers' characterisations (what teachers say and what teachers do)

This thesis explores specialist secondary school teachers' characterisations of citizenship education pedagogy in Canada and England. Aspects of pedagogical practice (e. g. ways teachers shape the classroom learning environment, teaching practices, assessment applications) communicated and exhibited by teachers and overlapping factors (e. g. teachers' understandings of citizenship, views of learning, contextual pressures) that appear to relate to these practices are investigated and
Randomized clinical trials: the double edged sword

> “Evidence based medicine has contributed to the development of a rigid hierarchy of research design that underestimates the limitations of randomized controlled trials”1 > J Concato In May 2013, the Data Safety Monitoring Board of A Randomized Trial of Unruptured Brain Arteriovenous Malformations (ARUBA) halted enrollment due to excess morbidity in the interventional group. This result was not surprising to the medical community, as prior editorials attest.2 Until complete trial data are available, it is impossible to determine why interventional treatment was deemed inferior to medical management. However, the trial had major inherent limitations that portended failure from the outset. Brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are congenital lesions, which frequently present in young patients. The goal of treatment is a complete and durable cure, with limited neurological morbidity and mortality, and a better quality of life, for the rest of that patient's life. Unfortunately, the logistics of any trial, particularly a National Institutes of Health funded trial, initially will only accommodate follow-up for a finite period of time—5 years in the case of ARUBA. With this study design, patients allocated to intervention were exposed to the entire upfront risk of the interventional procedure(s) to achieve curative treatment of the lesion. While most patients allocated to intervention presumably underwent definitive treatment and were cured of the AVM during the trial, the benefit of this curative treatment was only realized for the relatively brief period of follow-up. At the same time, patients allocated to the medical management arm, who remain at a lifelong risk for neurological morbidity, were only tracked for a small fraction of their ‘at risk’ period. For this reason, the study design heavily favored medical management. In other words, patients undergoing treatment face the full risk posed by that treatment during the study while those allocated to medical management are …
Time and Dose Dependent Augmentation of Inhibitory Effects of Abciximab by Aspirin

Summary Aspirin and abciximab independently decrease the incidence of cardiac events. To identify potential interactions, antiplatelet effects of abciximab were characterized in blood from healthy subjects given aspirin. Platelet activation was determined in whole blood with and without abciximab (2 μg/ml) added in vitro. Flow cytometry was used to quantify fibrinogen binding (glycoprotein IIb-IIIa activation). Binding of fluorochrome-labeled and 125I-labeled abciximab was determined before and after exposure to aspirin. In blood from subjects given aspirin for 5 days, abciximab-induced inhibition of the capacity to bind fibrinogen in response to 1 μM ADP was greater when the daily dose had been 325 mg compared with 81 mg (% inhibition: no aspirin 53 ± 6; 81 mg daily 62 ± 5; 325 mg daily 69 ± 6). The effect of 5 daily doses of aspirin was greater than that of one. Larger single doses elicited larger effects (% inhibition 2 h after 325 mg 59 ± 6; 2 h after 650 mg 78 ± 5). Neither salicylsalicylic acid nor naproxen sodium potentiated the effect of abciximab. Exposure of platelets to 14Cacetylsalicylic acid led to acetylation of glycoprotein IIb and IIIa. Binding of 125I-abciximab to platelets was increased after 30 and 60 min. Acetylation of glycoprotein IIb-IIIa by aspirin augments inhibitory effects of abciximab in a dose- and time-dependent manner by increasing binding of abciximab to platelets.
Lack of Association between the Functional Polymorphisms in the Estrogen-Metabolizing Genes and Risk for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Estrogens have been proposed to act as tumor promoters and induce hepatocarcinogenesis. Recently, we observed a significant association between the risk for hepatocellular carcinoma and the polymorphisms of the estrogen receptor (ESR) α (ESR1) gene, supporting the hypothesis of involvement for the estrogen-ESR axis in the estrogen-induced hepatocarcinogenesis. In this study, based on another hypothesis in which estrogen metabolites can directly cause DNA damage and affect tumor initiation, we examined whether the polymorphisms of the estrogen-metabolizing enzymes (EME), which are involved in biogenesis (CYP17, CYP19), bioavailability (CYP1A1, CYP1B1), and degradation (catechol-O-methyltransferase) of the estrogens, have any bearing on the risk for hepatocellular carcinoma. Seven functional polymorphisms in five EMEs (CYP17 MspAI site, CYP19 Trp39Arg, Ile462Val and MspI site in CYP1A1, CYP1B1 Val432Leu, and Ala72Ser and Val158Met in catechol-O-methyltransferase) were genotyped in 434 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and 480 controls by PCR-RFLP analysis. The associations between the polymorphisms and hepatocellular carcinoma risk were evaluated while controlling for confounding factors. No significant association with the risk for hepatocellular carcinoma was observed with the seven polymorphisms in hepatitis B virus carriers and non–hepatitis B virus carriers after correction for multiple comparisons. After stratification by common confounding factors of hepatocellular carcinoma, the EME polymorphism remained no significant association with the hepatocellular carcinoma risk. Furthermore, no signs of gene-gene interactions were observed for each combination of the seven polymorphisms. Our findings suggest that the polymorphisms of EMEs may not contribute significantly to the risk for hepatocellular carcinoma. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(12):3621–7)
The International Dollar Standard and the Sustainability of the U.S. Current Account Deficit

April 2001 For more than 20 years, the United States has run current-account deficits with the rest of the world—and is now the world’s largest international debtor. Because the world is on a dollar standard, the United States is unique in having a virtually unlimited international line of credit which is largely denominated in its own currency, i.e., dollars. In contrast, foreign debtor countries must learn to live with currency mismatches where their banks’ and other corporate international liabilities are dollar denominated but their assets are denominated in the domestic currency. As these mismatches cumulate, any foreign country is ultimately forced to repay its debts in order to avoid a run on its currency. But however precarious and over-leveraged the financing of individual American borrowers—including American banks, which intermediate such borrowing internationally—might be, they are invulnerable to dollar devaluation. In effect, America’s collective current-account deficits are sustainable indefinitely. Working Papers Index
The Informational Content of Qtrly Earnings: An Extension and Some Further Evidence

The usefulness of quarterly earnings per share (EPS) data is subject to some debate. ' Our intent in this paper is to extend empirical knowledge of current reporting in one sense. While we adopt a different approach from the previous studies, our results have implications regarding them, and for future research.2 Previous empirical research addresses the contribution of quarterly EPS to predictions of (1) annual EPS3 or (2) ex post rates of return on common stocks for oneto twelve-year horizons.4 The results appear anomalous.5 We chose a different empirical design, based upon a different though still restricted, view of informational content.
Efficient and accurate quadratic approximation methods for pricing Asian strike options

This study is on valuing Asian strike options and presents efficient and accurate quadratic approximation methods that work extremely well, both with regard to the volatility of a wide range of underlying assets, and longer average time windows. We demonstrate that most of the well-known quadratic approximation methods used in the literature for pricing Asian strike options are special cases of our model, with the numerical results demonstrating that our method significantly outperforms the other quadratic approximation methods examined here. Using our method for the calculation of hundreds of Asian strike options, the pricing errors (in terms of the root mean square errors) are reasonably small. Compared with the Monte Carlo benchmark method, our method is shown to be rapid and accurate. We further extend our method to the valuing of quanto forward-starting Asian strike options, with the pricing accuracy of these options being largely the same as the pricing of plain vanilla Asian strike options.
Inflation, inflation uncertainty, and monetary policy in Turkey: 1960–1998

The authors constructed a time series of monthly inflation uncertainty in Turkey from 1960 to 1998 using GARCH models and investigated the link between inflation and inflation uncertainty using Granger tests. The authors found strong statistical support that inflation significantly raised inflation uncertainty in Turkey over the full sample period and three subsamples. The evidence on the effect of inflation uncertainty on average inflation is mixed and depends on the time period examined. An analysis of the political conditions and the record of macroeconomic policy making in Turkey between 1960 and 1998 reveal institutional and political factors that can help explain the empirical results.
The Impacts of the Crisis on Social Security Administrations: A Review of the Findings of an ISSA Survey

This article reviews the findings of a major survey conducted in 2009 by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) on the impacts of the financial and economic crisis on social security administrations. The findings reveal that a majority of administrations have been negatively affected in terms of diminished investment returns on social security funds and reduced contribution income and are challenged by increased expenditure on benefits. In spite of all this, the findings indicate that administrations have reacted to the challenges presented in often proactive and innovative ways. However, challenges still remain. In this regard, the most preoccupying include the possibility of a slow economic recovery involving a protracted labour market crisis and the constraints of depleted financial reserves and reduced fiscal latitude.
Identifying Valid Measures of Reading

Three concurrent validity studies were conducted to determine the relationship between performances on formative measures of reading and standardized achievement measures of reading. Correlational analyses for five formative measures and three standardized measures provided evidence for the validity of Words in Isolation, Words in Context, and Oral Reading as indices of reading achievement. Comparisons of performance of regular and resource program students in grades one through six revealed marked differences between the two groups and across grades. The usefulness of the formative measures for continuous evaluation of student growth in reading is discussed.
Probabilistic Approximation via Spatial Derivation of Some Nonlinear Parabolic Evolution Equations

For some parabolic equations with a local nonlinearity, a suitable spatial derivation leads to a Fokker-Planck equation with a nonlocal nonlinearity. In this paper we present a review of the particle methods obtained by replacing the nonlinearity in this Fokker-Planck equation by interaction. We are interested in the convergence results for the particle approximations of the original equations and give the milestones of their proofs.
Estimating the economic return to educational levels using data on twins

This paper relaxes some restrictions of previous twin-based estimates of the effects of education on earnings. First, it estimates the earnings premiums associated with different educational levels. Second, it estimates a piecewise linear relationship between the natural logarithm of annual earnings and years of schooling. Third, the measurement error corrections are based on a less restrictive, 'non-classical', measurement error model. The estimation strategy implies that ability bias can be investigated separately in different parts of the educational distribution. The linear relationship between the logarithm of annual earnings and years of schooling is rejected. Furthermore, the results in the sample of identical (MZ) twins indicated both that the ability bias could be of different signs and of different magnitudes in different parts of the educational distribution. The twin-based estimates in the sample of fraternal (DZ) twins did not display any marked differences as compared to the cross-sectional estimates. Finally, the results indicated that the error-corrected twin-based estimates of the average return to years of schooling that rely on a classical measurement error model are upwards biased by approximately 30%. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Long‐run Performance Following Dividend Initiations and Resumptions: Underreaction or Product of Chance?

We examine the long-term stock performance following dividend initiations and resumptions from 1927 to 1998. We show that postannouncement abnormal returns are significantly positive for equally weighted calendar time portfolios, but become insignificant when the portfolios are value weighted. Moreover, the equally weighted results are not robust across subsamples. We also document postannouncement reductions in the risk factor loadings of underlying stocks. Cross-sectionally, these reductions are negatively related to the contemporaneous price drifts, suggesting the price drifts may be a sample-specific result of chance. Our results underscore the importance of testing for changes in risk loadings in future long-term event studies. Copyright The American Finance Association 2002.