Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying consensus analysts' earnings change forecasts with correct and incorrect signs

as well as Craig Nichols and workshop participants at Indiana University. I/B/E/S provided analyst forecast data as part of a broad academic program to encourage earnings expectations research. Identifying consensus analysts' earnings change forecasts with correct and incorrect signs. Abstract This paper examines whether users of consensus analysts' earnings forecasts can exploit information in (a) the nature of analysts' historical forecast accuracy and firms' earnings predictability, and (b) fundamental analysis of firms' earnings growth to increase (reduce) the probability of relying on a consensus forecast which correctly (incorrectly) predicts the direction of the forthcoming annual earnings change. To increase (reduce) the reliance on consensus forecasts that correctly (incorrectly) predict the sign of the change in annual earnings, I develop two models to condition the consensus forecast. First, I develop a model that indicates the likelihood that the consensus analyst forecast correctly predicts the directional change based on analyst and firm characteristics. Second, I develop a model to indicate the likely sign of the earnings change using fundamental analysis. I find the conditioned forecasts significantly increase (reduce) the probability of correctly (incorrectly) predicting the sign of the annual change in earnings. I also find that implementing trading strategies based on the improved forecasts generates significant abnormal returns, which indicates the economic significance of relying on conditioned forecasts. Identifying consensus analysts' earnings change forecasts with correct and incorrect signs.
Circadian Phase and Its Relationship to Nighttime Sleep in Toddlers

Circadian phase and its relation to sleep are increasingly recognized as fundamental factors influencing human physiology and behavior. Dim light melatonin onset (DLMO) is a reliable marker of the timing of the circadian clock, which has been used in experimental, clinical, and descriptive studies in the past few decades. Although DLMO and its relationship to sleep have been well documented in school-aged children, adolescents, and adults, very little is known about these processes in early childhood. The purpose of this study was 1) to describe circadian phase and phase angles of entrainment in toddlers and 2) to examine associations between DLMO and actigraphic measures of children’s nighttime sleep. Participants were 45 healthy toddlers aged 30 to 36 months (33.5 ± 2.2 months; 21 females). After sleeping on a parent-selected schedule for 5 days (assessed with actigraphy and diaries), children participated in an in-home DLMO assessment involving the collection of saliva samples every 30 minutes for 6 hours. Average bedtime was 2015 ± 0036 h, average sleep onset time was 2043 ± 0043 h, average midsleep time was 0143 ± 0038 h, and average wake time was 0644 ± 0042 h. Average DLMO was 1929 ± 0051 h, with a 3.5-hour range. DLMO was normally distributed; however, the distribution of the bedtime, sleep onset time, and midsleep phase angles of entrainment were skewed. On average, DLMO occurred 47.8 ± 47.6 minutes (median = 39.4 minutes) before bedtime, 74.6 ± 48.0 minutes (median = 65.4 minutes) before sleep onset time, 6.2 ± 0.7 hours (median = 6.1 hours) before midsleep time, and 11.3 ± 0.7 hours before wake time. Toddlers with later DLMOs had later bedtimes (r = 0.46), sleep onset times (r = 0.51), midsleep times (r = 0.66), and wake times (r = 0.65) (all p < 0.001). Interindividual differences in toddlers’ circadian phase are large and associated with their sleep timing. The early DLMOs of toddlers indicate a maturational delay in the circadian timing system between early childhood and adolescence. These findings are a first step in describing the fundamental properties of the circadian system in toddlers and have important implications for understanding the emergence of sleep problems and the consequences of circadian misalignment in early childhood.
The Instructional Effect of Online Reading Strategies and Learning Styles on Student Academic Achievement

The purpose of this study was to examine the instructional effectiveness of different online reading strategies for students identified as possessing different learning styles, either internal or external locus of control styles, on tests measuring different learning objectives. Participants were 169 undergraduate students, randomly assigned to four online reading treatments: none, rereading strategy, keyword strategy, and question and answer strategy. Immediately after interacting with their respective instructions, students received four individual criterion measures. Analyses indicated an insignificant interaction between learning style and treatment type; however, comprehension tests reflect a significant main effect for students receiving the online rereading treatment (F = 3.09, df = 3/169, p = .03), with an effect size of . 40. The rereading treatment also appears to be significantly more effective than the control for the comprehension test. Results indicate that not all types of reading strategies are equally effective in facilitating different types of learning objectives. The results indicate that, even though different reading strategies may be structurally different, they are functionally identical for raising questions relative to the cost and amount of time required for student interaction.
Cùchulainn’s challenge : imageries and values in parliamentary debates on the Irish language Act in the Northern Ireland Assembly : an epistemic governance approach

University of Tampere School of Social Science and Humanities Master’s Programme in Global and Transnational Sociology KATRIN WINKLER: Cùchulainn’s Challenge: Imageries and Values in parliamentary debates on the Irish Language Act in the Northern Ireland Assembly: An Epistemic Governance Approach Master Thesis, 73 pages, 1 appendix
Improving Coverage and Compliance in Mass Drug Administration for the Elimination of LF in Two ‘Endgame’ Districts in Indonesia Using Micronarrative Surveys

Background As the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) approaches its 2020 goal, an increasing number of districts will enter the endgame phase where drug coverage rates from mass drug administration (MDA) are used to assess whether MDA can be stopped. As reported, the gap between reported and actual drug coverage in some contexts has overestimated the true rates, thus causing premature administration of transmission assessment surveys (TAS) that detect ongoing LF transmission. In these cases, districts must continue with additional rounds of MDA. Two districts in Indonesia (Agam District, Depok City) fit this criteria—one had not met the pre-TAS criteria and the other, had not passed the TAS criteria. In both cases, the district health teams needed insight into their drug delivery programs in order to improve drug coverage in the subsequent MDA rounds. Methodology/Principal Findings To inform the subsequent MDA round, a micronarrative survey tool was developed to capture community members’ experience with MDA and the social realm where drug delivery and compliance occur. A baseline survey was implemented after the 2013 MDA in endemic communities in both districts using the EPI sampling criteria (n = 806). Compliance in the last MDA was associated with perceived importance of the LF drugs for health (p<0.001); perceived safety of the LF drugs (p<0.001) and knowing someone in the household has complied (p<0.001). Results indicated that specialized messages were needed to reach women and younger men. Both districts used these recommendations to implement changes to their MDA without additional financial support. An endline survey was performed after the 2014 MDA using the same sampling criteria (n = 811). Reported compliance in the last MDA improved in both districts from 57% to 77% (p<0.05). Those who reported having ever taken the LF drug rose from 79% to 90% (p<0.001) in both sites. Conclusions/Significance Micronarrative surveys were shown to be a valid and effective tool to detect operational issues within MDA programs. District health staff felt ownership of the results, implementing feasible changes to their programs that resulted in significant improvements to coverage and compliance in the subsequent MDA. This kind of implementation research using a micronarrative survey tool could benefit underperforming MDA programs as well as other disease control programs where a deeper understanding is needed to improve healthcare delivery.
CHEMICAL COMPLEXITY IN THE HELIX NEBULA: MULTI-LINE OBSERVATIONS OF H2CO, HCO+, AND CO

Observations of CO, HCO+, and H2CO have been carried out at nine positions across the Helix Nebula (NGC 7293) using the Submillimeter Telescope and the 12 m antenna of the Arizona Radio Observatory. Measurements of the J = 1 → 0, 2 → 1, and 3 →2 transitions of CO, two transitions of HCO+ (J = 1 → 0 and 3 →2), and five lines of H2CO (JKa, Kc = 10, 1 → 00, 0, 21, 2 → 11, 1, 20, 2 → 10, 1, 21, 1 → 11, 0, and 30, 3 →20, 2) were conducted in the 0.8, 1, 2, and 3 mm bands toward this highly evolved planetary nebula. HCO+ and H2CO were detected at all positions, along with three transitions of CO. From a radiative transfer analysis, the kinetic temperature was found to be TK ∼ 15–40 K across the Helix with a gas density of n(H2) ∼ 0.1–5 × 105 cm−3. The warmer gas appears to be closer to the central star, but high density material is distributed throughout the nebula. For CO, the column density was found to be Ntot ∼ 0.25–4.5 × 1015 cm−2, with a fractional abundance of f (CO/H2) ∼ 0.3–6 × 10−4. Column densities for HCO+ and H2CO were determined to be Ntot ∼ 0.2–5.5 × 1011 cm−2 and 0.2–1.6 × 1012 cm−2, respectively, with fractional abundances of f (HCO+/H2) ∼ 0.3–7.3 × 10−8 and f (H2CO/H2) ∼ 0.3–2.1 × 10−7—several orders of magnitude higher than predicted by chemical models. Polyatomic molecules in the Helix appear to be well-protected from photodissociation and may actually seed the diffuse interstellar medium.
Cuestionario Pictórico de la Actividad Física Infantil: diseño y validación

La Organizacion Mundial de la Salud (OMS) indica, en el informe del ano 2016, que el 81% de los ninos y adolescentes no alcanzan los niveles de actividad fisica recomendados y que los niveles de sedentarismo han aumentado. El proposito de este articulo fue disenar el Cuestionario Pictorico de Actividad Fisica Infantil (C-PAFI) y obtener sus propiedades psicometricas. Las propiedades psicometricas se obtuvieron aplicando el C-PAFI a un total de 742 estudiantes con edades entre los 9 y 13 anos. Se obtuvo una confiabilidad moderada, por medio del alfa de Cronbach (α = .637). La validez de contenido se obtuvo por medio de la validez logica, utilizando el juicio de expertos (CVR = 0.99). La validez de constructo se obtuvo por medio del analisis de factores, los resultados indican que el cuestionario presenta un factor que explica un 70% de la varianza total. La validez de criterio se obtuvo al comparar el C-PAFI con valores obtenidos de la aplicacion del “Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C)”. Se encontro una validez moderada por medio del coeficiente correlacion intraclase entre los valores del PAQ-C y el C-PAFI (CCI = .741). El C-PAFI es un cuestionario confiable y valido para establecer el nivel de actividad fisica en la poblacion infantil de 9 a 13 anos de edad, que se encuentra en el sistema educativo y cuenta con recreos y clases de educacion fisica.
The Influence of Dispositional Factors and Situational Constraints on End User Performance: A Replication and Extension

Organizations introduce end user computing (EUC) technology to enhance productivity. Given the practical significance of end user performance, it is important to uncover factors with potential to influence end user performance (EUP). However, prior research has relied almost exclusively on dispositional variables to predict EUP. In this study, the effects of both dispositional and situational variables on EUP were examined. Of the variables examined, dispositional variables explained more variance in EUP than situational variables. Together, both sets of variables explained 40% of the variance in performance. Consistent with the predictions of several theoretical models of performance (e.g., Peters & O’Connor, 1980), dispositional variables were less predictive of performance when situational constraints were present than when they were absent. Implications of results for practitioners are discussed and avenues for future research on end user performance are suggested.
General Synergetic Control Strategies for Arbitrary Number of Paralleled Buck Converters Feeding Constant Power Load: Implementation of Dynamic Current Sharing

The inability of linear controls to predict dynamic behavior of nonlinear system leads to chaotic behavior of the system and sometimes could result in a system collapse. The advantage of synergetic control design is that it results in an analytical control law that reduces the dynamic order of the system, compensates for system nonlinearity by a particular choice of coefficients, and ensures asymptotic stability of the closed loop system. Our paper presents generalized control strategies for the system of an arbitrary number of paralleled buck converters feeding a constant power load. Using these generalized control strategies we develop a family of control strategies for a particular system of two buck converters covering a range of operating regimes. We show the impact on system dynamics of several different coordination algorithms that control transition between strategies. Finally, we describe how including a current limiting feature into the control decreases electrical stress on the switching components and we put forward a load estimator that simplifies the control strategies
Università Della Svizzera Italiana Usi Technical Report Series in Informatics Ram-dur: In-memory Deferred Update Replication

Many database replication protocols are based on the deferred update replication technique. In deferred update replication, transactions are executed at a single server and broadcast to all servers at commit time. Upon delivering a transaction, each server certifies it to ensure a globally serializable execution. One of the key assumptions of deferred update replication is that servers must store a full copy of the database. Such an assumption is detrimental to performance since in many workloads servers cannot cache the entire database in main memory. This paper introduces RAM-DUR, a variation of deferred update replication whereby transaction execution is in-memory only. RAM-DUR's key insight is a sophisticated distributed cache mechanism that provides high performance and strong consistency without the limitations of existing solutions (e.g., no single server must have enough memory to cache the entire database). In addition to presenting RAM-DUR, we detail its implementation, and provide an extensive analysis of its performance.
LEARNING BARGAINING CONVENTIONS

Abstract: I examine from a conventionalist perspective the Nash bargaining problem that philosophers use as a tool for analyzing fair division. From this perspective, the solutions to bargaining problems are conventions that can emerge from inductive learning and focal point effects. I contrast the conventionalist approach to analyzing the bargaining problem with the better-known rational choice approach, which I criticize for having overly demanding epistemic presuppositions and for producing disappointing results. I apply a simple model of inductive learning to specific bargaining problems to show that agents can learn from repeated experience to follow a variety of bargaining conventions in a given problem. I conclude that such agents can come to regard two such conventions as focal for the bargaining problem, one that assigns claimants equal shares of a good and another egalitarian solution of equal payoff gains, and that the egalitarian solution tends to prevail when these two solutions differ. I conclude further that the above analysis lends support for admitting interpersonal utility comparisons into the analysis of fair division problems, and also suggests a focal point explanation of the wide acceptance of the Aristotelian proportionality principle of distributive justice.
The processes of incorporation and secession of urban and suburban municipalities: The case of Poland

ABSTRACT The aim of the article is to explain the phenomena of mergers and territorial disintegration of Polish towns and cities from three perspectives: social, economic and spatial-primal. Administrative border changes are fundamental components of local urban policy guidelines in countries that have experienced a dual history in the socialist and post-socialist periods, such as Poland. The main method of the authors research was the application of statistical and cartographic methods focused on measuring quantitative administrative changes in urban areas and their demographic effects. The scope of the research covered all towns in Poland existing in the years 1945–2018. Since the changes in the administrative boundaries of cities particularly concern the rural areas in the vicinity of large cities, the suburban municipalities surrounding urban centres were analysed too. The findings underline the deterministic role of political systems in the territorial expansion of towns and cities, and indicates their role for current planning decisions. The authors conclude that noticeable differences between two analysed periods have had at least two significant causes. First, the political and economic systems determining the changes differed, and second, each system was accompanied by differing directions of economic development and therefore also different ‘urbogenic’ forces.
Detection of

The berry tree is native to the dry climates such as Iran. Its fruit is juicy and rich in sugars, minerals and vitamins. Condensed mulberry extract has a lot of applications in various food industries as sweetener. The purpose of this study was to introduce a suitable method for production of high quality mulberry extract in order to prevent the loss of mulberries at the time of production peak and use the unique properties of berry fruit outside of the production season.In this project, three concentrating methods such as sunny, under conventional conditions and vacuum concentration were used to produce samples with desired brix of 65. Samples were packed in plastic pet bottles and kept in a lab environment away from sunlight for 3 months. Physicochemical experiments including pH, acidity, consistency, color, transparency and sensory properties such as flavor, aroma, concentration and total acceptance of samples were performed in two stages of 3 months and the results compared with each other. The results showed that the color factors L ab were more suitable in traditional samples. These factors decreased over time. The highest pH belonged to the industrial sample (4.84) and the lowest pH belonged to the sunny sample (4.61), and the pH of the samples decreased over time. The transparency of sunny sample (1.57) and industrial (0.804) were the highest and the lowest, respectively and transparency increased over time. In terms of sensory properties, the taste and aroma of traditional sample with scores (3) and (2.916) and the concentration of sunny sample with score (3.416) were the best samples.In conclusion, the traditional sample was selected, and the sunny sample was ranked second.
Nitrogen metabolism and bone metabolism markers in healthy adults during 16 weeks of bed rest.

BACKGROUND The associations between nitrogen metabolism and bone turnover during bed rest are still not completely understood. METHODS We measured nitrogen balance (nitrogen intake minus urinary nitrogen excretion) and biochemical metabolic markers of calcium and bone turnover in six males before head-down tilt bed rest (baseline), during 2, 10, and 14 weeks of immobilization, and after reambulation. RESULTS The changes in nitrogen balance were highest between baseline and week 2 (net change, -5.05 +/- 1.30 g/day; 3.6 +/- 0.6 g/day at baseline vs -1.45 +/- 1.3 g/day at week 2; P<0.05). In parallel, serum intact osteocalcin (a marker of bone formation) was already reduced and renal calcium and phosphorus excretions were increased at week 2 (P <0.05). Fasting serum calcium and phosphorus values and renal excretion of N-telopeptide (a bone resorption marker) were enhanced at weeks 10 and 14 (P <0.05-0.001), whereas serum concentrations of parathyroid hormone, calcitriol, and type I collagen propeptide (a marker of bone collagen formation) were decreased at week 14 (P <0.05-0.01). Significant associations were present between changes of serum intact osteocalcin and 24-h calcium excretion (P <0.001), nitrogen balance and 24-h phosphorus excretion (P <0.001), nitrogen balance and renal N-telopeptide excretion (P <0.05), and between serum osteocalcin and nitrogen balance (P <0.025). CONCLUSIONS Bone formation decreases rapidly during immobilization in parallel with a higher renal excretion of intestinally absorbed calcium. These changes appear in association with the onset of a negative nitrogen balance, but decreased bone collagen synthesis and enhanced collagen breakdown occur after a time lag of several weeks.
AS601245, an Anti-Inflammatory JNK Inhibitor, and Clofibrate Have a Synergistic Effect in Inducing Cell Responses and in Affecting the Gene Expression Profile in CaCo-2 Colon Cancer Cells

PPARαs are nuclear receptors highly expressed in colon cells. They can be activated by the fibrates (clofibrate, ciprofibrate etc.) used to treat hyperlipidemia. Since PPARα transcriptional activity can be negatively regulated by JNK, the inhibition of JNK activity could increase the effectiveness of PPARα ligands. We analysed the effects of AS601245 (a JNK inhibitor) and clofibrate alone or in association, on proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation and the gene expression profile of CaCo-2 human colon cancer cells. Proliferation was inhibited in a dose-dependent way by clofibrate and AS601245. Combined treatment synergistically reduced cell proliferation, cyclin D1 and PCNA expression and induced apoptosis and differentiation. Reduction of cell proliferation, accompanied by the modulation of p21 expression was observed in HepG2 cells, also. Gene expression analysis revealed that some genes were highly modulated by the combined treatment and 28 genes containing PPRE were up-regulated, while clofibrate alone was ineffective. Moreover, STAT3 signalling was strongly reduced by combined treatment. After combined treatment, the binding of PPARα to PPRE increased and paralleled with the expression of the PPAR coactivator MED1. Results demonstrate that combined treatment increases the effectiveness of both compounds and suggest a positive interaction between PPARα ligands and anti-inflammatory agents in humans.