Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large Shareholder Activism, Risk Sharing, and Financial Market Equilibrium

We develop a model in which a large investor has access to a costly monitoring technology affecting securities' expected payoffs. Allocations of shares are determined through trading among risk-averse investors. Despite the free-rider problem associated with monitoring, risk-sharing considerations lead to equilibria in which monitoring takes place. Under certain conditions the equilibrium allocation is Pareto efficient and all agents hold the market portfolio of risky assets independent of the specific monitoring technology. Otherwise distortions in risk sharing may occur, and monitoring activities that reduce the expected payoff on the market portfolio may be undertaken.
LOW-POWER DESIGN OF LOW-VOLTAGE CURRENT-MODE INTEGRATORS FOR CONTINUOUS-TIME MODULATORS

—In this paper, we present a method to design low-power low-voltage current-mirror based integrators for continuous-time modulators. It is shown that, by proper biasing of the mirror transistors, very high modulation index can be achieved at low-voltage supply. Careful analysis of the current-mode integrator shows that there exists an optimum supply voltage for minimum power consumption. Simulation results show that proper choice of the supply voltage can reduce the power consumption of the integrator by .
China's Impact on Africa – The Role of Trade, FDI and Aid

We investigate the impact of Chinese activities in sub-Saharan African countries with respect to the growth performance of economies in that region. Using a Solow-type growth model and panel data for the period 1991 to 2011, we find that African economies that export natural resources have benefited from positive terms-of-trade effects. In addition, there is evidence for displacement effects of African firms due to competition from China. Chinese foreign investment and aid in Africa does not have an impact on growth.
Reliability and validity of a kinematic spine model during active trunk movement in healthy subjects and patients with chronic non-specific low back pain.

OBJECTIVE To develop a standardized, reliable, valid spine model of active trunk movements that accurately discriminates kinematic patterns of patients with chronic non-specific low back pain from those of healthy subjects. DESIGN Comparative cohort study. SUBJECTS Healthy subjects (n = 25) and patients with chronic non-specific low back pain (n = 25) aged 30-65 years. METHODS Subjects performed 7 trunk movements from a seated position at non-imposed speed during 2 sessions. Nine markers on bony landmarks measured range of motion and speed of 5 spinal segments, recorded by 8 optoelectronic cameras. RESULTS Both groups showed good-excellent reliability in all movements for range of motion and speed of all spinal segments (intraclass correlation (ICC), 0.70-0.96; standard error of measurement, expressed as a percentage, 19.4-3.3%). The minimal detectable change in the patient group was 16.7-53.7%. Range of motion and speed in all spinal segments for trunk flexion, rotation, and flexion with rotation differed significantly between groups (p < 0.001), with large/very large effect sizes (Cohen's d = 1.2-2). Binary logistic regression yielded sensitivities/specificities of 92%/84% for range of motion and 92%/80% for speed. CONCLUSION Kinematic variables are valid, reliable measures and can be used clinically to diagnose chronic non-specific low back pain, manage treatment, and as quantitative outcome measures for clinical trial interventions.
A Comprehensive Approach to the Analysis of Contrast Enhanced Cardiac MR Images

Current magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology allows the determination of patient-individual coronary tree structure, detection of infarctions, and assessment of myocardial perfusion. Joint inspection of these three aspects yields valuable information for therapy planning, e.g., through classification of myocardium into healthy tissue, regions showing a reversible hypoperfusion, and infarction with additional information on the corresponding supplying artery. Standard imaging protocols normally provide image data with different orientations, resolutions and coverages for each of the three aspects, which makes a direct comparison of analysis results difficult. The purpose of this work is to develop methods for the alignment and combined analysis of these images. The proposed approach is applied to 21 datasets of healthy and diseased patients from the clinical routine. The evaluation shows that, despite limitations due to typical MRI artifacts, combined inspection is feasible and can yield clinically useful information.
Novel Genomic Aberrations in Testicular Germ Cell Tumors by Array-CGH, and Associated Gene Expression Changes

Introduction: Testicular germ cell tumors of adolescent and young adult men (TGCTs) generally have near triploid and complex karyotypes. The actual genes driving the tumorigenesis remain essentially to be identified. Materials and Methods: To determine the detailed DNA copy number changes, and investigate their impact on gene expression levels, we performed an integrated microarray profiling of TGCT genomes and transcriptomes. We analyzed 17 TGCTs, three precursor lesions, and the embryonal carcinoma cell lines, NTERA2 and 2102Ep, by comparative genomic hybridization microarrays (array-CGH), and integrated the data with transcriptome profiles of the same samples. Results: The gain of chromosome arm 12p was, as expected, the most common aberration, and we found CCND2, CD9, GAPD, GDF3, NANOG, and TEAD4 to be the therein most highly over-expressed genes. Additional frequent genomic aberrations revealed some shorter chromosomal segments, which are novel to TGCT, as well as known aberrations for which we here refined boundaries. These include gains from 7p15.2 and 21q22.2, and losses of 4p16.3 and 22q13.3. Integration of DNA copy number information to gene expression profiles identified that BRCC3, FOS, MLLT11, NES, and RAC1 may act as novel oncogenes in TGCT. Similarly, DDX26, ERCC5, FZD4, NME4, OPTN, and RB1 were both lost and under-expressed genes, and are thus putative TGCT suppressor genes. Conclusion: This first genome-wide integrated array-CGH and gene expression profiling of TGCT provides novel insights into the genome biology underlying testicular tumorigenesis.
Cystatins as Calpain Inhibitors: Engineered Chicken Cystatin- and Stefin B-Kininogen Domain 2 Hybrids Support a Cystatin-Like Mode of Interaction with the Catalytic Subunit of µ-Calpain

Abstract Within the cystatin superfamily, only kininogen domain 2 (KD2) is able to inhibit µ- and m-calpain. In an attempt to elucidate the structural requirements of cystatins for calpain inhibition, we constructed recombinant hybrids of human stefin B (an intracellular family 1 cystatin) with KD2 and ? L110 deletion mutants of chicken cystatin-KD2 hybrids. Substitution of the N-terminal contact region of stefinB by the corresponding KD2 sequence resulted in a calpain inhibitor of K I = 188 nM. Deletion of L110, which forms a ? -bulge in family 1 and 2 cystatins but is lacking in KD2, improved inhibition of µ-calpain 4- to 8-fold. All engineered cystatins were temporary inhibitors of calpain due to slow substratelike cleavage of a single peptide bond corresponding to Gly9-Ala10 in chicken cystatin. Biomolecular interaction analysis revealed that, unlike calpastatin, the cystatintype inhibitors do not bind to the calmodulinlike domain of the small subunit of calpain, and their interaction with the µ-calpain heterodimer is completely prevented by a synthetic peptide comprising subdomain B of calpastatin domain 1. Based on these results we propose that (i) cystatin-type calpain inhibitors interact with the active site of the catalytic domain of calpain in a similar cystatinlike mode as with papain and (ii) the potential for calpain inhibition is due to specific subsites within the papain-binding regions of the general cystatin fold.
Assessment of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) Among Food Handlers at Residential Colleges and Canteen Regarding Food Safety (Penilaian Pengetahuan, Sikap serta Amalan Pengendali Makanan di Kolej Kediaman dan Kantin Terhadap Keselamatan Makanan)

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices among food handlers at residential colleges and canteen in the main campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia regarding the aspect of food hygiene and safety. Sixty five food handlers from two residential colleges’ cafeterias and one Faculty of Science and Technology’s canteen were involved in the study. The data were collected from the food handlers through the methods of questionnaire and analyzed using the SPSS version 12.0. In general, the respondents’ knowledge was moderate with mean point of 57.8%. However, they have good knowledge on personal hygiene and definition of foodborne diseases with mean point of 93.85% and 73.85%, respectively. On the contrary, their knowledge on food storage and preparation temperatures was poor with only 28%. Respondents showed positive attitudes towards two categories of questions in the aspect of food safety and hygiene (76.9%); foodborne prevention and control (70.8%). Majority of the respondents have an average practices in all parts of the questions. Analysis tests showed significant difference (p<0.05) between the relationship of respondents’ knowledge with their working experiences (p=0.008), attitudes with training attended (p=0.006) and practices with gender (p=0.032). There was significant difference for knowledge based on cafeteria (p=0.000). In conclusion, amongst the three levels, respondents showed only good attitudes in food handling and all the cafeterias in this survey need to increase the hygiene level of their food handlers’ hand and environment of the premises.
The German Economy

Germany is clearly the dominant economic force in Europe. It occupies the pivotal position of being at the centre of both the EC and of attempts to rebuild the economies of East Central Europe. The German Economy traces the various aspects of German policy and growth, concentrating in particular on the last two decades. These include: * the German economy in perspective * the regional dimension * fiscal policy * monetary policy * social policy * the labour market * banking and finance * industry, trade and economic policy. In The German Economy Eric Owen Smith has produced the only comprehensive account of the contemporary German economy currently available in English.
Sexing murine embryos with an indirect immunofluorescence assay using phage antibody B9-Fab against SDM antigen

The use of serologically detectable male (SDM; also called H-Y) antigens to identify male embryos may be limited by the source of anti-SDM antibody. In the present study, novel anti-SDM B9-Fab recombinant clones (obtained by chain shuffling of an A8 original clone) were used to detect SDM antigens on murine embryos. Murine morulae and blastocysts (n=138) were flushed from the oviducts of Kunming mice and incubated with anti-SDM B9-Fab for 30 min at 37°C. With an indirect immunofluorescence assay, the membrane and inner cell mass had bright green fluorescence (presumptive males). Overall, 43.5% (60/138) were classified as presumptive males and 56.5% (78/138) as presumptive females, with 85.0 and 88.5% of these, respectively, confirmed as correct predictions (based on PCR analysis of a male-specific [Sry] sequence). We concluded that the anti-SDM B9-Fab molecule had potential for non-invasive, technically simple immunological sexing of mammalian embryos.
The Center for the Study of Industrial Organization Empirical Implications of Equilibrium Bidding in First-price, Symmetric, Common Value Auctions *

This paper studies federal auctions for wildcat leases on the Outer Continental Shelf from 1959 to 1970. These are leases where bidders privately acquire (at some cost) noisy, but equally informative signals about the amount of oil and gas that may be present. We develop a test of equilibrium bidding in a common values model that is implemented using data on bids and ex post values. We compute bid markups and rents under the alternative hypotheses of private and common values and find that the data are more consistent with the latter hypothesis. Finally, we use data on tract location and ex post values to test the comparative static prediction in common value auctions that bidders tend to bid less aggressively when they expect more competition.
Determination of Driver's Hypovigilance from Biosignals

Robust and reliable determination of hypovigilance is required in many areas, particularly transportation. Here, new products of Fatigue Monitoring Technologies (FMT) emerge. Their development and assessment requires an independent reference standard of driver’s hypovigilance. Until recently most approaches utilized electrooculography (EOG) and electroencephalography (EEG) combined to descriptive statistics of a few time or spectral domain features, like e.g. power spectral densities (PSD) averaged in four to six spectral bands. Here we present a more general approach of data fusion of many features utilizing computational intelligence methods, like e.g. Support-Vector Machines (SVM). For simplicity, two classes were discriminated: slight and strong hypovigilance. Validation was performed by independent class labels which were assessed from Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) and from variation of lane deviation (VLD). The first is a measure of subjectively self-experienced hypovigilance, whereas the second is an objective measure of performance decrements. 16 young volunteers participated in overnight experiments in our real car driving simulation lab. Results were compared with PERCLOS (percentage of eye closure), an oculomotoric variable utilized in several FMT systems. We conclude that EEG and EOG biosignals are substantially more suited to assess driver’s hypovigilance than the PERCLOS biosignal. In addition, computational intelligence performed better when objective class labels were used instead of subjective class labels.
Evidence for shifting connections during development of the chick retinotectal projection

The pattern in which optic axons invade the tectum and begin synaptogenesis was studied in the chick. The anterogradely transported marker, horseradish peroxidase, was injected into one eye of embryos between 5 and 16 days of development (E5 to E16). This labeled the optic axons in the brain. The first retinal axons arrived in the most superficial lamina of the tectum on E6. They entered the tectum at the rostroventral margin. During the next 6 days of development the axons grew over the tectal surface. First they filled the rostral tectum, the oldest portion of the tectum, and then they spread to the caudal pole. Shortly after the first axons entered the tectum on E6, labeled retinal axons were found penetrating from the surface into deeper tectal layers. In any given area of the tectum, optic axons were seen penetrating deeper layers shortly after arriving in that area. Electron microscopic examination showed that at least some of the labeled axons in rostral tectum formed synapses with tectal cells by E7. These results show two things which contrast with results from previous studies. First, there is no delay between the time the retinal axons enter the tectum and the time they penetrate into synaptic layers of the tectum. Second, the first retinotectal connections are formed in rostral tectum and not central tectum. Retrograde tracing showed the first optic axons that arrived in the tectum were from ganglion cells in central retina. Previous studies have shown that the ganglion cells of central retina project to the central tectum in the mature chick. This opens the possibility that the optic axons from central retina, which connect to rostral tectum in the young embryo, shift their connections to central tectum during subsequent development. As they enter the tectum the growth cones of retinal axons appear to be associated with the external limiting membrane. During the time that connections would begin to shift in the tectum a second population of axons appears at the bottom of stratum opticum, some with characteristics of growth cones. This late-appearing population may represent axons shifting their connections. These results have implications for theories on how the retinotopic pattern of retinotectal connections develops.
The Future Productivity and Competitiveness Challenge for Australian Agriculture

The objective of this paper is to review likely trends in key drivers of productivity with a view to suggesting the rate of productivity growth that is likely to be required to maintain the competitiveness of Australian agriculture both within the Australian economy and relative to the agricultural sectors of other economies. The paper also canvasses prospect for achieving this level of productivity performance over the period to 2030.Growth in agricultural productivity has slowed over the last two decades and a significant proportion of this slowdown in growth can be attributed to the stagnation in public investment in agricultural R&D since the late 1970s. The prospect that rate of growth of TFP could stay at less than 1.0% rather than recover to a long term rate of 2.0% is obviously quite concerning for the future competitiveness of agriculture both domestically and internationally. It would seem that to maintain TFP growth in the 2.0 – 2.5% per year range, investment in agricultural R&D has to be returned to a level of 3.0% of agriculture’s GVP (or 5% of GDP), a major challenge for government and industry.
Renal Denervation in a Real Life Setting: A Gradual Decrease in Home Blood Pressure

Objectives To investigate the blood pressure dynamics after renal denervation through monthly home blood pressure measurements throughout the first 12 months. Methods A cohort of 70 patients performed highly standardized monthly home blood pressure monitoring during the first year after denervation according to the European Society of Hypertension guidelines. At baseline and 12 months follow-up, office and ambulatory blood pressure as well as routine physical and laboratory assessment was performed. Results Home blood pressure decreased with a rate of 0.53 mmHg/month (95% CI 0.20 to 0.86) systolic and 0.26 mmHg/month (95% CI 0.08 to 0.44) diastolic throughout 12 months of follow-up, while the use of antihypertensive medication remained stable (+0.03 daily defined doses/month, 95% CI -0.01 to 0.08). On average, a 12 month reduction of 8.1 mmHg (95% CI 4.2 to 12.0) was achieved in home systolic blood pressure, 9.3 mmHg (95% CI -14.2 to -4.4) as measured by 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring and 15.9 mmHg (95% CI -23.8 to -7.9) on office measurements. Conclusion Blood pressure reduction after renal denervation occurs as a gradual decrease that extends to at least one-year follow-up. Home monitoring seems a suitable alternative for ambulatory blood pressure monitoring after renal denervation.
Complex Etiology, Prophylaxis and Hygiene Control in Mycotoxic Nephropathies in Farm Animals and Humans

Various etiological factors contributing to the development of mycotoxic nephropathy in farm animals and humans are reviewed. The possible synergistic effect between ochratoxin A (OTA) and other mycotoxins, as penicillic acid (PA) and fumonisin B1 (FB1), contributing to this nephropathy is also considered and discussed. The most convenient ways of prophylaxis and various preventive measures against OTA contamination of feeds or foods are reviewed. A reference is made concerning the most successful methods of veterinary hygiene control in the slaughterhouses in order to prevent the entering of OTA in commercial channels with a view to human health. The economic efficacy of these prophylactic procedures is also considered. An evaluation of human exposure to OTA is made.
Empirical findings with multi-criteria routing for Dynamic Traffic Management

Traffic simulation is conventionally based on travel time as input to the cost function. The new challenge in traffic management takes into account not only travel throughput but also vehicle emission and safety. The question is then whether the network traffic performance will change if multi-criteria are taken into account in traffic management? To address this, an experimental simulation and application have been designed to investigate how multi-criteria traffic management can be achieved and whether relevant network performance could be computed in terms of multi-criteria routing. The experiments show that a careful design of cost function with survey-supported coefficients would provide a solution to an optimized routing in multi-criteria traffic management, and the network total travel time and emission could be effectively reduced when a routing strategy is well tuned.
Interaction of frontal and perirhinal cortices in visual object recognition memory in monkeys

Monkeys were trained preoperatively in visual object recognition memory. The task was delayed matching‐to‐sample with lists of trial‐unique randomly generated visual stimuli in an automated apparatus, and the stimuli were 2D visual objects made from randomly generated coloured shapes. We then examined the effect of either: (i) disconnecting the frontal cortex in one hemisphere from the perirhinal cortex in the contralateral hemisphere by crossed unilateral ablations; (ii) disconnecting the magnocellular portion of the mediodorsal (MDmc) thalamic nucleus in one hemisphere from the perirhinal cortex in the contralateral hemisphere; or (iii) bilaterally ablating first the amygdala, then adding fornix transection, then finally perirhinal cortex ablation. We found that both frontal/perirhinal and MDmc/perirhinal disconnection had a large effect on visual object recognition memory, whereas both amygdalectomy and the addition of fornix transection had only a mild effect. We conclude that the frontal lobe needs to interact with the perirhinal cortex within the same hemisphere for visual object recognition memory, but that routes through the amygdala and hippocampus are not of primary importance.
Financial Frictions, the Financial Immoderation, and the Great Moderation∗

Balance-sheet variables of firms have been characterized by greater volatility since the early 1970s. This Financial Immoderation has coexisted with the so-called Great Moderation, which refers to the slowdown in volatility of real and nominal variables since the mid 1980s. In this paper, we examine the divergent patterns in volatility by considering the role played by financial factors. To do so, we use a DSGE model including real, nominal, and financial frictions. We estimate the model allowing for structural breaks in the volatilities of shocks, the monetary policy coefficients, and the average level of financial rigidities. We conclude that (i) the Financial Immoderation is driven by larger financial shocks, (ii) the estimated reduction in the mid 1980s of the average level of financial rigidities accounts for 30% of the decline in investment volatility, (iii) the main drivers of investment volatility are technology shocks until 1984 and financial shocks in the following decades, and (iv) the propagation mechanism of financial shocks has changed significantly since 1984.