Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Rodney L . White Center for Financial Research Institutional Investors , Credit Supply , Uncertainty and the Leverage of the Firm

We examine the effects of institutional investors’ credit supply uncertainty (CSU) on the capital structure of the firm using a novel dataset. We measure CSU as the investors’ portfolio churn rate, based on the idea that the higher the portfolio churn rate of bondholders, the higher the issuer’s refinancing risk, i.e., the risk of not being able to roll over its maturing debt because of supply uncertainty. We find that high CSU leads to lower leverage and lower probability of issuing bonds in the next period, but to higher probability of issuing equity and borrowing from banks. The effects are concentrated in firms whose bond investor base is more prone to credit supply imbalances, as measured by investor geographical concentration, local bond preference, and herding propensity. Furthermore, as a robustness check, we use an alternative measure of CSU based on the prevalence of mutual funds among the firm’s bondholders (as opposed to insurance companies) and find qualitatively similar results on the firm’s incremental issuance decisions and leverage. These findings suggest that the credit supply uncertainty arising from institutional investors’ withdrawal risk significantly affects the firm’s capital structure. JEL classification: G1, G2
Effects of Central American Mountains on the Eastern Pacific Winter ITCZ and Moisture Transport

The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) is displaced to the south edge of the eastern Pacific warm pool in boreal winter, instead of being collocated. A high-resolution regional climate model is used to investigate the mechanism for this displaced ITCZ. Under the observed sea surface temperature (SST) and lateral boundary forcing, the model reproduces the salient features of eastern Pacific climate in winter, including the southward displaced ITCZ and gap wind jets off the Central American coast. As the northeast trades impinge on the mountains of Central America, subsidence prevails off the Pacific coast, pushing the ITCZ southward. Cold SST patches induced by three gap wind jets have additional effects of keeping the ITCZ away from the coast. In an experiment in which both the Central American mountains and their effect on SST are removed, the ITCZ shifts considerably northward to cover much of the eastern Pacific warm pool. The Central American mountains are considered important to freshwater transport from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, which in turn plays a key role in global ocean thermohaline circulation. The results of this study show that this transport across Central America is not very sensitive to the fine structure of the orography because the increased flow in the mountain gaps in a detailed topography run tends to be compensated for by broader flow in a smoothed topography run. Implications for global climate modeling are discussed.
Health and Medical Economics : Applications to Integrative Medicine

The responsibility for the content of this paper rests with the authors and does not necessarily represent the views or endorsement of the Institute of Medicine or its committees and convening bodies. The paper is one of several commissioned by the Institute of Medicine. Reflective of the varied range of issues and interpretations related to integrative medicine, the papers developed represent a broad range of perspectives.
What is embodied about cognition?

It is currently debated whether the meanings of words and objects are represented, in whole or in part, in a modality-specific format – the embodied cognition hypothesis. I argue that the embodied/disembodied cognition debate is either largely resolved in favour of the view that concepts are represented in an amodal format, or at a point where the embodied and disembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This merits reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. We know that the conceptual system engages, online, with sensory and motor content. This frames a new question: How is it that the human conceptual system is able to disengage from the sensorimotor system? Answering this question would say something about how the human mind is able to detach from the present and extrapolate from finite experience to hypothetical states of how the world could be. It is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition special – and that independence is guaranteed by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.
On the role of autophagy in human diseases: a gender perspective

• Introduction • Autophagy and disease ‐ Cancer ‐ Autophagy and cancer ‐ Gender differences in cancer ‐ Autophagy, gender disparity and cancer ‐ Neurodegenerative diseases ‐ Gender differences in neurodegenerative diseases ‐ Role of autophagy in neurodegenerative diseases ‐ Gender differences and hormones ‐ Autoimmune and inflammatory diseases ‐ Gender differences in autoimmune diseases ‐ Autophagy and Autoimmunity ‐ Implication of autophagy in AID: paradigmatic examples ‐ The involvement of hormones ‐ Cardiovascular diseases ‐ Gender disparity in cardiovascular diseases ‐ Autophagy and heart diseases ‐ Hormones, gender and cardiovascular diseases ‐ Autophagy and cell sex differences • Concluding remarks
Evaluation of the Conformational Switch Model for Alfalfa Mosaic Virus RNA Replication

ABSTRACT Key elements of the conformational switch model describing regulation of alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV) replication (R. C. Olsthoorn, S. Mertens, F. T. Brederode, and J. F. Bol, EMBO J. 18:4856-4864, 1999) have been tested using biochemical assays and functional studies in nontransgenic protoplasts. Although comparative sequence analysis suggests that the 3′ untranslated regions of AMV and ilarvirus RNAs have the potential to fold into pseudoknots, we were unable to confirm that a proposed pseudoknot forms or has a functional role in regulating coat protein-RNA binding or viral RNA replication. Published work has suggested that the pseudoknot is part of a tRNA-like structure (TLS); however, we argue that the canonical sequence and functional features that define the TLS are absent. We suggest here that the absence of the TLS correlates directly with the distinctive requirement for coat protein to activate replication in these viruses. Experimental data are evidence that elevated magnesium concentrations proposed to stabilize the pseudoknot structure do not block coat protein binding. Additionally, covarying nucleotide changes proposed to reestablish pseudoknot pairings do not rescue replication. Furthermore, as described in the accompanying paper (L. M. Guogas, S. M. Laforest, and L. Gehrke, J. Virol. 79:5752-5761, 2005), coat protein is not, by definition, inhibitory to minus-strand RNA synthesis. Rather, the activation of viral RNA replication by coat protein is shown to be concentration dependent. We describe the 3′ organization model as an alternate model of AMV replication that offers an improved fit to the available data.
Erim Report Series Research in Management the Mediating Effect of Npd-activities and Npd- Performance on the Relationship between Market Orientation and Organizational Performance Bibliographic Data and Classifications

Empirical research has demonstrated that a market orientation has in general a positive effect on organizational performance. The potential benefits of a market orientation have, however, not been realized because academics and practitioners do not yet understand the modus operandi that transform market orientation into superior organizational performance. Recent research has demonstrated that the proficiency in new product development (NPD) activities might be the key in the conversion of market orientation into superior NPD-performance, and hence, organizational performance. This study is designed to test a set of hypotheses related to the interrelationships among market orientation, the proficiency in NPD-activities, NPD-performance, and organizational performance. The results from a sample of 126 manufacturing firms in the Netherlands present evidence for the mediating role of the proficiency in several NPD-activities and NPD-performance in the relationship between market orientation and organizational performance. The fact that this mediating role has been found thus provides a better understanding of how market-oriented behaviors are transformed into superior value for customers.
THE QUESTIONNAIRE OF LIFESTYLE CHANGE IN REGARD TO PROBLEMATIC INTERNET USE: FACTOR STRUCTURE AND CONCURRENT AND CROSS-YEAR PREDICTIVE UTILITIES

This study constructed a questionnaire, named “Lifestyle Change in Regard to Problematic Internet Use (LC-PIU),” for helping school psychologists detect early indications of PIU-related lifestyle changes in university populations. Our focus is on all university students who use the Internet, not users who already show dependent symptoms. The lifestyles that we concerned include physical/social activities and dietary/sleep patterns that are notable consequences of excessive Internet use (Lam et al., 2009; Choi et al., 2009). With 708 university students recruited in 2009 (Time 1), we tested the factor structure of LC-PIU and determined the concurrent and cross-year predictive utilities with the same participants in 2010 (Time 2). The 2009-sample was randomly split into two independent subsamples for calibration and validation using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The calibration and validation results, along with convergent and discriminant tests, confirmed that the LC-PIU is composed of five distinct subscales: problematic Internet use, physical activity change, social activity change, dietary pattern change, and sleep pattern change. All Time-1 LC-PIU subscores were positively correlated with depression, loneliness, and weekly Internet use at Time 1 and Time 2. Only a negative correlation was found between gender and social activity change at Time 1 and Time 2.
Discontinuation from Antiretroviral Therapy: A Continuing Challenge among Adults in HIV Care in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background Discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces the immunological benefit of treatment and increases complications related to human immune-deficiency virus (HIV). However, the risk factors for ART discontinuation are poorly understood in developing countries particularly in Ethiopia. This review aimed to assess the best available evidence regarding risk factors for ART discontinuation in Ethiopia. Methods Quantitative studies conducted in Ethiopia between 2002 and 2015 that evaluated factors associated with ART discontinuation were sought across six major databases. Only English language articles were included. This review considered studies that included the following outcome: ART treatment discontinuation, i.e. ‘lost to follow up’, ‘defaulting’ and ‘stopping medication’. Meta- analysis was performed with Mantel Haenszel method using Revman-5 software. Summary statistics were expressed as pooled odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals at a p-value of <0.05. Results Nine (9) studies met the criteria of the search. Five (5) were retrospective studies, 3 were case control studies, and 1 was a prospective cohort study. The total sample size in the included studies was 62,156. Being rural dweller (OR = 2.1, 95%CI: 1.5–2.7, I2 = 60%), being illiterate (OR = 1.5, 95%CI: 1.1–2.1), being not married (OR = 1.4, 95%CI: 1.1–1.8), being alcohol drinker (OR = 2.9, 95%CI: 1.9–4.4, I2 = 39%), being tobacco smoker (OR = 2.6, 95%CI: 1.6–4.3, I2 = 74%), having mental illness (OR = 2.7, 95%CI: 1.6–4.6, I2 = 0%) and being bed ridden functional status (OR = 2.3, 95%CI: 1.5–3.4, I2 = 37%) were risk factors for ART discontinuation. Whereas, having HIV positive partner (OR = 0.4, 95%CI: 0.3–0.6, I2 = 69%) and being co-infected with Tb/HIV (OR = 0.6, 95%CI: 0.4–0.9, I2 = 0%) were protective factors. Conclusion Demographic, behavioral and clinical factors influenced ART treatment discontinuation. Hence, we recommend strengthening decentralization of HIV care services in remote areas, strengthening of ART task shifting, application of seek-test-treat-succeed model, and integration of smoking cession strategies and mental health care into the routine HIV care program.
Neuronal death induced by endogenous extracellular ATP in retinal cholinergic neuron density control

The precise assembly of neuronal circuits requires that the correct number of pre- and postsynaptic neurons form synaptic connections. Neuronal cell number is thus tightly controlled by cell death during development. Investigating the regulation of cell number in the retina we found an ATP gated mechanism of neuronal death control. By degrading endogenous extracellular ATP or blocking the P2X7 ATP receptors we found that endogenous extracellular ATP triggers the death of retinal cholinergic neurons during normal development. ATP-induced death eliminates cholinergic cells too close to one another, thereby controlling the total number, the local density and the regular spacing of these neurons.
Sustainable Interaction Design: Obsolescence in a Future of Collapse and Resource Scarcity

Electronic waste, caused by the advancements of technology and its rapidly increasing obsolescence, represents a major threat to environmental sustainability. Research in Sustainable HCI has proposed a variety of solutions to tackle this issue, but has yet to create a major impact in product design. While currently industry’s goals are opposed to research’s concepts of addressing obsolescence, a future of collapse and resource scarcity requires a revisit of those contributions: changes in society at large, such as a decrease of resource availability, different needs, requirements, and desires of the consumer, but also new directions of industry and marketing might enable researchers to bring their old concepts into practice. We take a look at a variety of obsolescence-related research in Sustainable HCI and foreshadow its potential for such a future of collapse and resource scarcity.
A Constituent-Based Approach to Argument Labeling with Joint Inference in Discourse Parsing

Discourse parsing is a challenging task and plays a critical role in discourse analysis. In this paper, we focus on labeling full argument spans of discourse connectives in the Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB). Previous studies cast this task as a linear tagging or subtree extraction problem. In this paper, we propose a novel constituent-based approach to argument labeling, which integrates the advantages of both linear tagging and subtree extraction. In particular, the proposed approach unifies intra- and intersentence cases by treating the immediately preceding sentence as a special constituent. Besides, a joint inference mechanism is introduced to incorporate global information across arguments into our constituent-based approach via integer linear programming. Evaluation on PDTB shows significant performance improvements of our constituent-based approach over the best state-of-the-art system. It also shows the effectiveness of our joint inference mechanism in modeling global information across arguments.
Illiquidity and All Its Friends 1

The recent crisis was characterized by massive illiquidity. This paper reviews what we know and don't know about illiquidity and all its friends: market freezes, fire sales, contagion, and ultimately insolvencies and bailouts. It first explains why liquidity cannot easily be apprehended through a single statistics, and asks whether liquidity should be regulated given that a capital adequacy requirement is already in place. The paper then analyzes market breakdowns due to either adverse selection or shortages of financial muscle, and explains why such breakdowns are endogenous to balance sheet choices and to information acquisition. It then looks at what economics can contribute to the debate on systemic risk and its containment. Finally, the paper takes a macroeconomic perspective, discusses shortages of aggregate liquidity and analyses how market value accounting and capital adequacy should react to asset prices. It concludes with a topical form of liquidity provision, monetary bailouts and recapitalizations, and analyses optimal combinations thereof; it stresses the need for macroprudential policies.
Large intergenic non-coding RNA-ROR reverses gemcitabine-induced autophagy and apoptosis in breast cancer cells

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the potential role of long intergenic non-protein coding RNA, regulator of reprogramming (linc-ROR) in gemcitabine (Gem)-induced autophagy and apoptosis in breast cancer cells. MDA-MB-231 cells were treated with short hairpin RNA (shRNA) to knockdown Linc-ROR expression in the presence of Gem. Gem treatment alone decreased cell survival and increased both apoptosis and autophagy. Gem treatment also increased the expression of LC3-II, Beclin 1, NOTCH1 and Bcl-2, but decreased expression of p62 and p53. Untreated MDA-MB-231 cell lines strongly expressed linc-ROR, but linc-ROR knockdown decreased cell viability and expression of p62 and p53 while increasing apoptosis. Linc-ROR knockdown also increased LC3-II/β-actin, Beclin 1, NOTCH1, and Bcl-2 expression, as well as the number of autophagic vesicles in MDA-MB-231 cells. Linc-ROR negatively regulated miR-34a expression by inhibiting histone H3 acetylation in the miR-34a promoter. We conclude that linc-ROR suppresses Gem-induced autophagy and apoptosis in breast cancer cells by silencing miR-34a expression.
Longitudinal Trajectories of Arterial Stiffness and the Role of Blood Pressure: The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging

Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), a marker of arterial stiffness, is an established independent cardiovascular risk factor. Little information is available on the pattern and determinants of the longitudinal change in PWV with aging. Such information is crucial to elucidating mechanisms underlying arterial stiffness and the design of interventions to retard it. Between 1988 and 2013, we collected 2 to 9 serial measures of PWV in 354 men and 423 women of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, who were 21 to 94 years of age and free of clinically significant cardiovascular disease. Rates of PWV increase accelerated with advancing age in men more than women, leading to sex differences in PWV after the age of 50 years. In both sexes, not only systolic blood pressure (SBP) ≥140 mm Hg but also SBP of 120 to 139 mm Hg was associated with steeper rates of PWV increase compared with SBP<120 mm Hg. Furthermore, there was a dose-dependent effect of SBP in men with marked acceleration in PWV rate of increase with age at SBP ≥140 mm Hg compared with SBP of 120 to 139 mm Hg. Except for waist circumference in women, no other traditional cardiovascular risk factors predicted longitudinal PWV increase. In conclusion, the steeper longitudinal increase of PWV in men than women led to the sex difference that expanded with advancing age. Age and SBP are the main longitudinal determinants of PWV, and the effect of SBP on PWV trajectories exists even in the prehypertensive range.
Adult Subependymal Neural Precursors, but Not Differentiated Cells, Undergo Rapid Cathodal Migration in the Presence of Direct Current Electric Fields

Background The existence of neural stem and progenitor cells (together termed neural precursor cells) in the adult mammalian brain has sparked great interest in utilizing these cells for regenerative medicine strategies. Endogenous neural precursors within the adult forebrain subependyma can be activated following injury, resulting in their proliferation and migration toward lesion sites where they differentiate into neural cells. The administration of growth factors and immunomodulatory agents following injury augments this activation and has been shown to result in behavioural functional recovery following stroke. Methods and Findings With the goal of enhancing neural precursor migration to facilitate the repair process we report that externally applied direct current electric fields induce rapid and directed cathodal migration of pure populations of undifferentiated adult subependyma-derived neural precursors. Using time-lapse imaging microscopy in vitro we performed an extensive single-cell kinematic analysis demonstrating that this galvanotactic phenomenon is a feature of undifferentiated precursors, and not differentiated phenotypes. Moreover, we have shown that the migratory response of the neural precursors is a direct effect of the electric field and not due to chemotactic gradients. We also identified that epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling plays a role in the galvanotactic response as blocking EGFR significantly attenuates the migratory behaviour. Conclusions These findings suggest direct current electric fields may be implemented in endogenous repair paradigms to promote migration and tissue repair following neurotrauma.
An iBeacon based Proximity and Indoor Localization System

Indoor localization and Location Based Services (LBS) can greatly benefit from the widescale proliferation of communication devices. The basic requirements of a system that can provide the aforementioned services are energy efficiency, scalability, lower costs, wide reception range, high localization accuracy and availability. Different technologies such as WiFi, UWB, RFID have been leveraged to provide LBS and Proximity Based Services (PBS), however they do not meet the aforementioned requirements. Apple's Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) based iBeacon solution primarily intends to provide Proximity Based Services (PBS). However, it suffers from poor proximity detection accuracy due to its reliance on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) that is prone to multipath fading and drastic fluctuations in the indoor environment. Therefore, in this paper, we present our iBeacon based accurate proximity and indoor localization system. Our two algorithms Server-Side Running Average (SRA) and Server-Side Kalman Filter (SKF) improve the proximity detection accuracy of iBeacons by 29% and 32% respectively, when compared with Apple's current moving average based approach. We also present our novel cascaded Kalman Filter-Particle Filter (KFPF) algorithm for indoor localization. Our cascaded filter approach uses a Kalman Filter (KF) to reduce the RSSI fluctuation and then inputs the filtered RSSI values into a Particle Filter (PF) to improve the accuracy of indoor localization. Our experimental results, obtained through experiments in a space replicating real-world scenario, show that our cascaded filter approach outperforms the use of only PF by 28.16% and 25.59% in 2-Dimensional (2D) and 3-Dimensional (3D) environments respectively, and achieves a localization error as low as 0.70 meters in 2D environment and 0.947 meters in 3D environment.