Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Wealth Effects of Tracking Stock Restructurings

We provide a comprehensive examination of the post-issue wealth effects of 29 completed tracking stock restructurings. We document that for the parent stock and for the combined firm, tracking stock restructurings lead to insignificant long-term excess returns. However, we find that shareholders of tracking stocks realize significant post-issue wealth losses. Unlike spin-offs and carve-outs, announcements of tracking stock restructurings are preceded by negative one-year excess returns, and unlike the positive post-issue long-term excess returns to spin-off stocks and the insignificant long-term excess returns to carve-out stocks, tracking stocks experience negative long-term excess returns. 2004 The Southern Finance Association and the Southwestern Finance Association.
Certolizumab pegol: an evidence-based review of its place in the treatment of Crohn’s disease

Introduction: Crohn’s disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease characterized by a relapsing/remitting course with transmural inflammation of potentially any section of the digestive tract. Certolizumab pegol (CZP) is a pegylated Fc-free Fab’ fragment of a humanized anti-TNF-alfa monoclonal antibody that is in development for clinical use in CD. Aims: To review the available data with CZP in CD, to investigate its possible place in therapy. Evidence review: Available studies suggest that CZP has the potential to achieve and maintain clinical response and remission in moderate to severe CD, and to improve quality of life compared with placebo. Further studies with CZP are also ongoing. Place in therapy: Although only suggested by currently available studies, successive clinical practice and further ongoing trials may confirm a positive role for CZP as a new anti-TNF treatment in CD. The impact on clinical management or on resources cannot be estimated until the results from all phase III clinical trials are available and the price is determined.
Paclitaxel–Hyaluronic NanoConjugates Prolong Overall Survival in a Preclinical Brain Metastases of Breast Cancer Model

Brain (central nervous system; CNS) metastases pose a life-threatening problem for women with advanced metastatic breast cancer. It has recently been shown that the vasculature within preclinical brain metastasis model markedly restricts paclitaxel delivery in approximately 90% of CNS lesions. Therefore to improve efficacy, we have developed an ultra-small hyaluronic acid (HA) paclitaxel nanoconjugate (∼5 kDa) that can passively diffuse across the leaky blood–tumor barrier and then be taken up into cancer cells (MDA–MB–231Br) via CD44 receptor–mediated endocytocis. Using CD44 receptor–mediated endocytosis as an uptake mechanism, HA-paclitaxel was able to bypass p-glycoprotein–mediated efflux on the surface of the cancer cells. In vitro cytoxicity of the conjugate and free paclitaxel were similar in that they (i) both caused cell-cycle arrest in the G2–M phase, (ii) showed similar degrees of apoptosis induction (cleaved caspase), and (iii) had similar IC50 values when compared with paclitaxel in MTT assay. A preclinical model of brain metastases of breast cancer using intracardiac injections of Luc-2 transfected MDA–MB–231Br cells was used to evaluate in vivo efficacy of the nanoconjugate. The animals administered with HA–paclitaxel nanoconjugate had significantly longer overall survival compared with the control and the paclitaxel-treated group (P < 0.05). This study suggests that the small molecular weight HA–paclitaxel nanoconjugates can improve standard chemotherapeutic drug efficacy in a preclinical model of brain metastases of breast cancer. Mol Cancer Ther; 12(11); 2389–99. ©2013 AACR.
Stocks for the stabilization of food markets Lessons from rational expectations models ∗

This paper presents a short overview of recent research on the stabilization of food prices using rational expectations models of storage. It shows how modern tools from macroeconomics can be used to design optimal food price stabilization policies when policy makers are assumed to be concerned about food price stability. It discusses state-contingent optimal policies of storage, production and trade, but also simple stabilization rules. It argues that, despite conceptual advances in the design of stabilization policies, numerous issues remain: these policies are complex and uncertain in their incidence, they are potentially non-cooperative, and they are complex to implement because of their non-linearity and the important quantity of information required to derive them.
Expression of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α in thyroid carcinomas

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) is upregulated by hypoxia and oncogenic signalling in many solid tumours. Its regulation and function in thyroid carcinomas are unknown. We evaluated the regulation of HIF-1α and target gene expression in primary thyroid carcinomas and thyroid carcinoma cell lines (BcPAP, WRO, FTC-133 and 8505c). HIF-1α was not detectable in normal tissue but was expressed in thyroid carcinomas. Dedifferentiated anaplastic tumours (ATCs) exhibited high levels of nuclear HIF-1α staining. The HIF-1 target glucose transporter 1 was expressed to a similar level in all tumour types, whereas carbonic anhydrase-9 was significantly elevated in ATCs. In vitro studies revealed a functionally active HIF-1α pathway in thyroid cells with transcriptional activation observed after graded hypoxia (1% O2, anoxia) or treatment with a hypoxia mimetic cobalt chloride. High basal and hypoxia-induced expression of HIF-1α in FTC-133 cells that harbour a phosphatase and tensin homologue (PTEN) mutation was reduced by introduction of wild-type PTEN. Similarly, pharmacological inhibition of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway using LY294002 inhibited HIF-1α and HIF-1α targets in all cell lines, including those with B-RAF mutations (BcPAP and 8505c). In contrast, the effects of inhibition of the RAF/MEK/extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathway were restricted by environmental condition and B-RAF mutation status. HIF-1 is functionally expressed in thyroid carcinomas and is regulated not only by hypoxia but also via growth factor signalling pathways and, in particular, the PI3K pathway. Given the strong association of HIF-1α with an aggressive disease phenotype and therapeutic resistance, this pathway may be an attractive target for improved therapy in thyroid carcinomas.
The hardness of approximate optima in lattices, codes, and systems of linear equations

We prove the following about the Nearest Lattice Vector Problem (in any l/sub p/ norm), the Nearest Code-word Problem for binary codes, the problem of learning a halfspace in the presence of errors, and some other problems. 1. Approximating the optimum within any constant factor is NP-hard. 2. If for some /spl epsiv/>0 there exists a polynomial time algorithm that approximates the optimum within a factor of 2/sup log(0.5-/spl epsiv/)/ /sup n/ then NP is in quasi-polynomial deterministic time: NP/spl sube/DTIME(n/sup poly(log/ /sup n)/). Moreover, we show that result 2 also holds for the Shortest Lattice Vector Problem in the l/sub /spl infin// norm. Improving the factor 2/sup log(0.5-/spl epsiv/)/ /sup n/ to /spl radic/(dim) for either of the lattice problems would imply the hardness of the Shortest Vector Problem in l/sub 2/ norm; an old open problem. Our proofs use reductions from few-prover, one-round interactive proof systems, either directly, or through a set-cover problem. <<ETX>>
Benefits of over-actuation in motion systems

This paper studies the benefits of using additional actuators in the design of motion systems. The motion part and disturbance attenuation part require different placement of the actuators to work optimally, which is not possible in traditional designs. Allowing extra actuators in the design makes it possible to overcome this limitation. In this way the controllability of the internal dynamics of the structure can be both maximized for feedback and minimized for feedforward. By tuning a static relation between the actuators it is possible to minimize the excitation of resonances in the feedforward path. Feedback controller design is based on an existing vibration control strategy, which enables placement of the bandwidth beyond the lowest resonance frequencies. The idea is demonstrated by the example of a levitated beam.
Mobile Game Adoption in China: the Role of TAM and Perceived Entertainment, Cost, Similarity and Brand Trust

The mobile game is experiencing a rapid development and one of the favorite mobile applications. This article focuses on Chinese mobile game market and conducts an empirical research on the factors of the user adoption of mobile game. The research results show that perceived usefulness, perceived entertainment, economic cost and subject norm significantly affect the attitude of use, which results in behavior intention to adopt the mobile game, while the perceived ease of use, similarity and brand trust, which proposed to affect the user adoption in related literatures insignificantly affect use adoption of mobile game .
European American children’s and adolescents’ evaluations of interracial exclusion

No research, to date, has investigated the role of ethnic school composition (and intergroup contact) on European American youth’s use of stereotypes to explain interracial discomfort in the context of peer exclusion. In this study, European American fourth-, seventh- and 10th-grade students (N = 414), attending low and high ethnically-diverse public schools (with low and high self-reports of cross-race/ethnic friendships respectively) evaluated three contexts of interracial exclusion (at lunch time, at a school dance, and at a sleepover). In addition to age and context effects, participants enrolled in high-diversity schools were less likely to use stereotypes to explain racial discomfort, more likely to view racial exclusion as wrong, and more likely to estimate that racial exclusion occurs, than were participants enrolled in low-diversity schools. These findings have implications for the role of social experience on racial attitudes and judgments about exclusion.
Ages and metallicities of early-type galaxies in the SDSS: new insight into the physical origin of the colour-magnitude and the Mg2-sigmaV relations

We exploit recent constraints on the ages and metallicities of early-type galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to gain new insight into the physical origin of two fundamental relations obeyed by these galaxies: the colour-magnitude and the Mg2-sigmaV relations. Our sample consists of 26,003 galaxies selected from the SDSS DR2 on the basis of their concentrated light profiles, for which we have previously derived median-likelihood estimates of stellar metallicity, light-weighted age and stellar mass. Our analysis provides the most unambiguous demonstration to date of the fact that both relations are primarily sequences in stellar mass and that total stellar metallicity, alpha-elements-to-iron abundance ratio and light-weighted age all increase with mass along the two relations. For high-mass ellipticals, the dispersion in age is small and consistent with the error. At the low-mass end, there is a tail towards younger ages, which dominates the scatter in colour and index strength at fixed mass. A small, but detectable, intrinsic scatter in the mass-metallicity relation also contributes to the scatter in the two observational scaling relations, even at high masses. Our results suggest that the chemical composition of an early-type galaxy is more tightly related to its dynamical mass (including stars and dark matter) than to its stellar mass. The ratio between stellar mass and dynamical mass appears to decrease from the least massive to the most massive galaxies in our sample.
Constructions of cultural differences in post - merger change processes: A sensemaking perspective

Cultural differences are often used as explanations of organizational problems following mergers. This paper argues that this literature is to a large extent based on a realist epistemology where too little emphasis has been placed on the constructive processes. To partially bridge this gap, this study adopts a sensemaking approach to studying the (re)construction of cultural conceptions in the merger context. The study is based on extensive ethnographic material from eight cases of Finnish-Swedish mergers and acquisitions. The analysis of this material leads to a specification of three concurrent cultural sensemaking processes through which the top decision makers involved in the post-merger integration processes make sense of and enact cultural conceptions. First, this cultural sensemaking involves a search for rational understanding of cultural characteristics and differences. Second, cultural sensemaking also includes more or less suppressed emotional identification with either of the merging sides. Third, cultural sensemaking also involves purposeful manipulation of the cultural conceptions for more or less legitimate purposes. Based on this distinction, this study leads to specific propositions concerning how cultural conceptions are formed in post-merger organizations. Hence, the analysis helps us to understand that cultural conceptions are not only reflections of “real” cultural differences but are also products of complex cognitive, emotional and political processes.
The Large-Scale and Small-Scale Clustering of Lyman Break Galaxies at 3.5 ⩽ z ⩽ 5.5 from the GOODS Survey

We report on the angular correlation function of Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) at z ~ 4 and 5 from deep samples obtained from the Great Observatories Deep Origins Survey (GOODS). As for LBGs at z ~ 3, the shape of w(θ) of the GOODS LBGs is well approximated by a power law with a slope β ≈ 0.6 at angular separation θ ≥ 10''. The clustering strength of the z ~ 4 and 5 LBGs depends on the rest-frame UV luminosity similar to that of z ~ 3 LBGs, with brighter galaxies more strongly clustered than fainter ones. At smaller separations, w(θ) significantly exceeds the extrapolation of the large-scale power-law fit, implying enhanced spatial clustering on comoving scales r ≤ 1 Mpc. We also find that bright LBGs statistically have more faint companions on scales θ ≲ 20'' than fainter ones. The enhanced small-scale clustering is very likely due to substructure, reflecting multiple galaxies within the same massive halos. A simple model for the halo occupation distribution along with the halo mass function in a ΛCDM cosmology reproduces well the observed w(θ). The scaling relationship of the clustering strength with volume density and redshift is quantitatively consistent with that of CDM halos. If we associate LBGs with dark matter halos that have the same clustering strength, this luminosity dependence of w(θ) implies a close correlation between the halo mass and the star formation rate. A comparison of the clustering strength of three samples of equal luminosity limit at z ~ 3, 4, and 5 shows that the LBGs at z ~ 5 are hosted in halos about 5-10 times less massive than those at z ~ 3-4, suggesting that star formation was more efficient at z ~ 5.
Fiscal policy in Portugal: discipline, cyclicality and the scope for expenditure rules

organised by Banco de Portugal. I wish to thank the Scientific Committee of the conference for valuable comments and suggestions. The paper also benefited from conversations with António Afonso, João Ferreira do Amaral, Manuela Arcanjo, Jorge Santos and Miguel St. Aubyn. All errors are solely mine, as is the responsibility for the opinions expressed in the text. Fiscal policy in Portugal: discipline, cyclicality and the scope for expenditure rules II Conferência " Desenvolvimento Económico Português no Espaço Europeu " Abstract This paper first studies two aspects of Portuguese fiscal policy: its cyclical behaviour and recent trends in public accounts. Unlike in most European countries, primary spending has been strongly procyclical, and its fast growth in the nineties proved an obstacle to fiscal consolidation. Aiming at both discipline and stabilisation, the paper then proposes a multiyear expenditure rule based on stable real growth of a spending aggregate. The definition of this aggregate and the articulation of the rule with annual budgets are discussed in some detail. Finally, it is argued that creating an independent fiscal committee would enhance the rule's enforceability. Fiscal policy in Portugal: discipline, cyclicality and the scope for expenditure rules II Conferência " Desenvolvimento Económico Português no Espaço Europeu "
Identify the Atrophy of Alzheimer’s Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Normal Aging Using Morphometric MRI Analysis

Quantitatively assessing the medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures atrophy is vital for early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and accurately tracking of the disease progression. Morphometry characteristics such as gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness have been proved to be valuable measurements of brain atrophy. In this study, we proposed a morphometric MRI analysis based method to explore the cross-sectional differences and longitudinal changes of GMV and cortical thickness in patients with AD, MCI (mild cognitive impairment) and the normal elderly. High resolution 3D MRI data was obtained from ADNI database. SPM8 plus DARTEL was carried out for data preprocessing. Two kinds of z-score map were calculated to, respectively, reflect the GMV and cortical thickness decline compared with age-matched normal control database. A volume of interest (VOI) covering MTL structures was defined by group comparison. Within this VOI, GMV, and cortical thickness decline indicators were, respectively, defined as the mean of the negative z-scores and the sum of the normalized negative z-scores of the corresponding z-score map. Kruskal–Wallis test was applied to statistically identify group wise differences of the indicators. Support vector machines (SVM) based prediction was performed with a leave-one-out cross-validation design to evaluate the predictive accuracies of the indicators. Linear least squares estimation was utilized to assess the changing rate of the indicators for the three groups. Cross-sectional comparison of the baseline decline indicators revealed that the GMV and cortical thickness decline were more serious from NC, MCI to AD, with statistic significance. Using a multi-region based SVM model with the two indicators, the discrimination accuracy between AD and NC, MCI and NC, AD and MCI was 92.7, 91.7, and 78.4%, respectively. For three-way prediction, the accuracy was 74.6%. Furthermore, the proposed two indicators could also identify the atrophy rate differences among the three groups in longitudinal analysis. The proposed method could serve as an automatic and time-sparing approach for early diagnosis and tracking the progression of AD.
Real-Time Tracking of Selective Auditory Attention From M/EEG: A Bayesian Filtering Approach

Humans are able to identify and track a target speaker amid a cacophony of acoustic interference, which is often referred to as the cocktail party phenomenon. Results from several decades of studying this phenomenon have culminated in recent years in various promising attempts to decode the attentional state of a listener in a competing-speaker environment from non-invasive neuroimaging recordings such as magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). To this end, most existing approaches compute correlation-based measures by either regressing the features of each speech stream to the M/EEG channels (the decoding approach) or vice versa (the encoding approach). These procedures operate in an offline fashion, i.e., require the entire duration of the experiment and multiple trials to provide robust results. Therefore, they cannot be used in emerging applications such as smart hearing aid devices, where a single trial must be used in real-time to decode the attentional state. In this paper, we close this gap by developing an algorithmic pipeline for real-time decoding of the attentional state. Our proposed framework consists of three main modules: 1) Real-time and robust estimation of encoding or decoding coefficients, achieved by sparse adaptive filtering, 2) Extracting reliable markers of the attentional state, and thereby generalizing the widely-used correlation-based measures thereof, and 3) Devising a near real-time state-space estimator that translates the noisy and variable attention markers to robust and reliable estimates of the attentional state with minimal delay. Our proposed algorithms integrate various techniques including forgetting factor-based adaptive filtering, ℓ1-regularization, forward-backward splitting algorithms, fixed-lag smoothing, and Expectation Maximization. We validate the performance of our proposed framework using comprehensive simulations as well as application to experimentally acquired M/EEG data. Our results reveal that the proposed real-time algorithms perform nearly as accurate as the existing state-of-the-art offline techniques, while providing a significant degree of adaptivity, statistical robustness, and computational savings.
Vehicle Powertrain Connected Route Optimization for Conventional, Hybrid and Plug-in Electric Vehicles

Most navigation systems use data from satellites to provide drivers with the shortest-distance, shortest-time or highway-preferred paths. However, when the routing decisions are made for advanced vehicles, there are other factors affecting cost, such as vehicle powertrain type, battery state of charge (SOC) and the change of component efficiencies under traffic conditions, which are not considered by traditional routing systems. The impact of the trade-off between distance and traffic on the cost of the trip might change with the type of vehicle technology and component dynamics. As a result, the least-cost paths might be different from the shortest-distance or shortest-time paths. In this work, a novel routing strategy has been proposed where the decision-making process benefits from the aforementioned information to result in a least-cost path for drivers. We integrate vehicle powertrain dynamics into route optimization and call this strategy as Vehicle Powertrain Connected Route Optimization (VPCRO). We find that the optimal paths might change significantly for all types of vehicle powertrains when VPCRO is used instead of shortest-distance strategy. About 81% and 58% of trips were replaced by different optimal paths with VPCRO when the vehicle type was Conventional Vehicle (CV) and Electrified Vehicle (EV), respectively. Changed routes had reduced travel costs on an average of 15% up to a maximum of 60% for CVs and on an average of 6% up to a maximum of 30% for EVs. Moreover, it was observed that 3% and 10% of trips had different optimal paths for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, when initial battery SOC changed from 90% to 60% and 40%, respectively. Paper shows that using sensory information from vehicle powertrain for route optimization plays an important role to minimize travel costs.
Orthogonal search-based rule extraction (OSRE) for trained neural networks: a practical and efficient approach

There is much interest in rule extraction from neural networks and a plethora of different methods have been proposed for this purpose. We discuss the merits of pedagogical and decompositional approaches to rule extraction from trained neural networks, and show that some currently used methods for binary data comply with a theoretical formalism for extraction of Boolean rules from continuously valued logic. This formalism is extended into a generic methodology for rule extraction from smooth decision surfaces fitted to discrete or quantized continuous variables independently of the analytical structure of the underlying model, and in a manner that is efficient even for high input dimensions. This methodology is then tested with Monks' data, for which exact rules are obtained and to Wisconsin's breast cancer data, where a small number of high-order rules are identified whose discriminatory performance can be directly visualized.