Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Empirical Investigation of Environmental Performance and the Market Value of the Firm

This paper analyzes the shareholder value effects of environmental performance by measuring the stock market reaction associated with announcements of environmental performance. We examine the market reaction to two categories of environmental performance. The first category includes 430 announcements of Corporate Environmental Initiatives (CEIs) that provide information about self-reported corporate efforts to avoid, mitigate, or offset the environmental impacts of the firm's products, services, or processes. The second category includes 381 announcements of Environmental Awards and Certifications (EACs) that provide information about recognition granted by third parties specifically for environmental performance. Although the market does not react significantly to the aggregated CEI and EAC announcements, we find statistically significant market reactions for certain CEI and EAC subcategories. Specifically, announcements of philanthropic gifts for environmental causes are associated with significant positive market reaction, voluntary emissions reductions are associated with significant negative market reaction, and ISO 14001 certifications are associated with significant positive market reaction. The difference between the market reactions to the CEI and EAC categories is statistically insignificant. Overall, we find that the market is selective in reacting to announcements of environmental performance with certain types of announcements even valued negatively.
The relationship between addictions and bariatric surgery for nurses in recovery.

PURPOSE Determinants of morbid obesity are complex and numerous, yet understanding the neurobiological underpinnings improves our knowledge of this serious issue. Emerging science supports a comparison of disordered eating with other addictive substances. DESIGN AND METHODS The study used a sub-analysis of a cross-sectional study of nurses in a state-monitoring program. FINDINGS A study of 173 participants in a state-monitoring program for impaired nurses revealed that 14% (n= 25) had undergone bariatric surgery. Of these, 17 developed an addiction after surgery. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Evidence suggests that some individuals may require additional treatment, similar to those with pharmacological addictions.
Pricing efficiency of the 3-month KLIBOR futures contracts: an empirical analysis

This study is an empirical investigation of the pricing efficiency of Malaysia's interest rate futures contract, the 3-month Kuala Lumpur Interbank Offered Rates (KLIBOR) futures contract. This article also examines several issues related to pricing efficiency. The study spans the contract's entire 10-year history, June 1996 to June 2006. In line with findings in other markets, we find a pre-ponderance of overpricing. Almost 80% of the mispricing constituted overpricing of the futures contract. Mean overpricing was 8 basis points. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that there may be a ‘Futures Habitat Premium’. Underpricing, though less frequent was of a larger magnitude and had higher volatility. Even after adjusting for brokerage costs, most of the price deviations were arbitrageable. We find the extent of mispricing to be dependent on the trend and volatility of the underlying rate. Analysis of the impact of switch in Central Bank target policy rate, away from the underlying asset of the futures contract, showed higher pricing deviation post switch. Our examination of the interest rate announcement effect showed the spot market to be more responsive and faster in reaction than the futures market. The magnitude of reaction to rate cuts appears to be different at different interest rate levels.
Towards Understanding the Invertibility of Convolutional Neural Networks

Several recent works have empirically observed that Convolutional Neural Nets (CNNs) are (approximately) invertible. To understand this approximate invertibility phenomenon and how to leverage it more effectively, we focus on a theoretical explanation and develop a mathematical model of sparse signal recovery that is consistent with CNNs with random weights. We give an exact connection to a particular model of model-based compressive sensing (and its recovery algorithms) and random-weight CNNs. We show empirically that several learned networks are consistent with our mathematical analysis and then demonstrate that with such a simple theoretical framework, we can obtain reasonable re- construction results on real images. We also discuss gaps between our model assumptions and the CNN trained for classification in practical scenarios.
Is the Internet Bad News? The Online News Era and the Market for High-Quality News

We review and model the impact of the internet on the production and uptake of high-quality news. Our review of trends in the market for news suggests three stylized facts: i) particular quality news markets are dominated by merely a few providers, ii) demand for quality news appears stable, but provision of news has become specialized; mainstream news is decoupled from quality news, and iii) the dominant business model of internet news mirrors that of radio, television, and newspapers in that costs of news production are recouped via advertising. We build a stylized model that rationalizes these facts. Our model captures three conflicting effects: (1) economies of scale in the production of news lead to monopolies on particular markets, (2) easy access to information on the internet makes it cheaper to provide high-quality news and to disseminate it via the web, which increases the production of such news; and (3) the existence of bloggers and news aggregators who recycle the stories of news-providers reduces the effective property rights of high-quality news producers, thus forcing the business model of the internet to be advertising-based. For the most likely cases, our model would imply that the internet does not constitute bad news for the provision and uptake of quality news.
Price Effects of Dual-Class Shares

At the end of 1983, up to 10 per cent of the aggregate value of the Toronto Stock Exchange was accounted for by shares with restricted voting privileges. In most cases, these shares were distributed to holders of the original common stock. The approach is similar to a stock split, where the firm exchanges, say, one restricted voting (RV) share and one superior voting (SV) share for each original common. Analysis of the cumulated, cross-sectional differences between the returns observed over such a stock-split period and model-generated expected returns reveals the price effects of RV share issuance. There are no significant effects prior to a firm's announcement of intent to issue RV shares and only weak evidence of a price decline in conjunction with the announcement. A significant fraction of firms exhibit declining share prices in conjunction with the actual issuance of RV shares, however. Furthermore, the decline is traceable to a decrease in RV share prices, which precedes an increase in SV share prices by about one day. In effect, holders of SV shares enjoy a relative positive premium of roughly 7 per cent. The evidence suggests that investors are likely to "vote with their feet "-to choose alternative investments rather than hold shares with restricted voting privileges. It is thus particularly important that minority shareholders be given a say in a firm 's decision to issue such shares.
Determinants of the Household Electricity Consumption: A Case Study of Delhi

Electricity has attained a very important place in every household on this planet. It is a major contributor towards improvement of the standard of living of any individual, family and society at large. This paper aims to find out the monthly average household electricity consumption and seasonal variations in this consumption for the months of summer, winter and moderate weather for Delhi. The factors which influence the electricity consumption of a household have been examined by using a question naire based study of 395 Delhi households selected via stratified random sampling technique. Multiple regression models have been run to describe the pattern of household electricity consumption. The results from the study show that the stock of appliances in a household contributes the most to the variation in the dependent variable. An inverted U-shaped non-linear Temperature - Electricity Curve has been derived from the primary data used in the study.
Modeling the co-evolution of national industries and institutions

Important contributions within the realms of industrial dynamics and evolutionary economic theory have shown the need to explore the sources of industrial leadership in high-tech industries. Several of these studies suggest that the co-evolution between national industries and certain supporting institutions could play a fundamental role as a source of competitive advantage, although an analysis of these processes still poses significant formal and theoretical challenges. In this article, we draw on previous contributions to formal evolutionary theorizing in order to build up a co-evolution model suitable for the dynamic analysis of industrial leadership. This model involves national firms competing on a worldwide level in a science-based industry, and co-evolving with their respective national university systems. Certain national firms may influence university funding by institutional shaping, while national university systems crucially affect the competitive advantage of said firms in the global market. The model highlights important mechanisms through which institutional, technological, and market interrelated factors determine the dynamics of industrial leadership and, eventually, the emergence of industrial leadership shifts. Some of the implications regarding policy and future research on economic development follow.
Association of the Alzheimer's gene SORL1 with hippocampal volume in young, healthy adults.

OBJECTIVE Alzheimer's disease is among the most common neurodegenerative disorders. The SORL1 (sortilin receptor 1) gene is associated with the disease, but different variants seem to contribute. The authors used a gene-wide approach to test whether SORL1 is associated with volume of the hippocampus, one of the first structures to be affected by Alzheimer's disease in young, healthy individuals, in an attempt to map potential pathways from gene to disease. METHOD Individuals were genotyped using an array-based method, and a total of 117 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in and surrounding SORL1 were included in the analysis. Through the use of a brain segmentation protocol, SNP-by-SNP and gene-wide associations with bilateral hippocampal volume were assessed in two large, independent samples consisting of 446 (discovery cohort) and 490 (replication cohort) healthy young individuals. RESULTS Significant association of the SORL1 gene with hippocampal volume was observed in both the discovery and replication samples as well as in the combined sample. The gene-wide association was independent of the apolipoprotein E genotype and resistant to removal of four significantly associated single SNPs. CONCLUSIONS This study provides the first evidence that the SORL1 gene is associated with differences in hippocampal volume in young, healthy adults. It is demonstrated that gene-wide analysis techniques may overcome power problems caused by allelic heterogeneity in association studies. The results support the hypothesis that the SORL1 gene contributes to an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease through effects on hippocampal volume.
The effect of combined therapy according to the guidelines for the treatment of Mycobacterium avium complex pulmonary disease.

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether the combined therapy according to the guideline proposed by American Thoracic Society (ATS) and Japanese Society for Tuberculosis (JST) is clinically appropriate for Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) pulmonary disease. PATIENTS Seventy-one patients in whom MAC pulmonary disease was diagnosed at Kawasaki Medical School and our associated ten hospitals were prospectively studied. RESULTS Seventy-one patients with Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) pulmonary disease were 27 males and 44 females with a mean age of 64.4 +/- 10.2 years old. Patients received 400 mg/day or 600 mg/day of clarithromycin plus ethambutol, rifampicin, and initial streptomycin for 12 months. Among 71 patients who received more than 12 months of therapy, 41 patients (57.7%) converted their sputum to negative within six months after the initiation of this regimen, 16 of 41 patients (39.0%) relapsed, and 23 of 71 patients (32.4%) obtained clinical improvement on chest X-ray and/or clinical symptoms. The mortality rate had a comparatively good prognosis with a low incidence of 2.8%. Although the species of pathogen (M. avium or M. intracellulare) did not significantly affect the conversion rate or clinical improvement, the infectious form with or without respiratory underlying disease, the characteristics and extent of lesion on chest X-ray, and the dose of clarithromycin significantly influenced the conversion rate or clinical improvement. There were no problems concerning adverse reactions for this regimen. CONCLUSION This combined therapy, according to the guideline proposed by ATS and JST, was one of the effective treatments compared to the clinical effect of only antituberculous drugs through this study. However, this combined therapy was unsatisfactory compared to the clinical effect for pulmonary tuberculosis. The development of new companion drugs for MAC pulmonary diseases is needed.
Comparisons of different monetary policies in China with yield curve information

This work compares the effectiveness of quantity-based and price-based monetary policies in China using FAVAR. This essay is the pioneer to identify the 1-year lending rate and deposit rate as the policy rates, and includes yield curve information in the analysis. It is found that effects of tightening monetary policies in China follow largely the stylized facts of long run neutrality of money on real activities, a long term fall in inflation and a short term rise in interest rates.
Why Do Financial Markets Move Together?: An Investigation of Greek and Turkish Markets

This paper investigates which theory--crisis- or noncrisis-contingent theory-- may better explain the comovements observed between Turkish and Greek financial market returns. Using cointegration and vector error-correction models, we first establish interdependence and a long-run causal relationship between stock and foreign exchange markets. Then, using the crisis- and noncrisis-contingent theories to explain the observed linkage, we show that the comovement of the stock markets across the two countries can be primarily attributed to the sharing of similar trading and foreign direct investment partners, providing evidence for the noncrisis-contingent theory in this case. On the other hand, evidence indicates that the recent Asian and Russian crises have produced significant contagion effects between the Greek drachma and Turkish lira markets, but not between Greek and Turkish stock markets, suggesting that the crisis-contingent models may better explain the linkage between the exchange markets. The policy implications of our findings for Turkey's European Union-membership efforts, as well as for market practitioners and international investors, are discussed.
Transparency Matters: Price Formation in Presence of Order Preferencing

Using a market-making inventory model, we analyze the impact of order preferencing on dealers' quoting behavior by changing the degree of quote disclosure. We find that preferenced orders raise the inventory-holding costs of preferenced dealers, making them less able to post attractive quotes. In turn, competitors choose less aggressive prices, but still attract more likely public orders. Price competition is smoothed and expected market spreads widen. Promoting competition might be, however, enforced by (i) fine tuning through the degree of market transparency, (ii) favoring the entry of unpreferenced dealers, or (iii) requiring preferenced market-makers to have more funding capital.
Consumption of Nutrients: An Applied Microeconomic Analysis

For sustaining healthy and active life only satisfaction of hunger is not sufficient. Balanced diet is necessary. Nutritional deficiencies may cause serious health implications. The main objectives of this paper are (a) to evaluate the elasticity of nutrients and compare them across different income groups in rural and urban areas and (b) to assess the consumption of food nutrients for different income groups across rural and urban areas.Mean proteins, fibers and energy intake by Urban Higher Income Group (UHIG) and Rural Higher Income Group (RHIG) may be considered equal because the differences are not found significant. Mean fats, carbohydrates and minerals consumption are significantly higher in UHIG as compared to RHIG, similarly mean energy intake is significantly higher in Rural Lower Income Group (RLIG) as compared to Urban Lower Income Group (ULIG). The income elasticities for carbohydrates and fibers were found higher amongst RHIG. The magnitudes of nutrients (proteins, fats and energy) elasticities were observed to be higher for UHIG and ULIG. These indicate that the demand for proteins, fats and energy will go up with the increment of income.
Genotypic Resistance at Viral Rebound Among Patients Who Received Lopinavir/Ritonavir-Based or Efavirenz-Based First Antiretroviral Therapy in South Africa

AbstractNonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor–drug resistance mutations (DRM) are increasingly reported in Africans failing their first antiretroviral regimen. The Phidisa II trial randomized treatment-naive participants to lopinavir/ritonavir or efavirenz with stavudine + lamivudine or zidovudine + didanosine. We report the prevalence of DRM in subjects who achieved HIV RNA <400 copies per milliliter at 6 months, but subsequently had 2 consecutive HIV RNA >1000 copies per milliliter. Sixty-eight participants fulfilled the inclusion criteria. nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor–DRM were found in 17 of 36 (47.2%) efavirenz recipients, and M184V/I mutation in 14 of 40 (35.0%) lamivudine recipients. No protease inhibitor mutation was identified in 38 lopinavir/ritonavir recipients. This is one of the first studies in Africa confirming the paucity of protease inhibitor–associated DRM despite virologic failure.
The impact of antibiotic-impregnated catheters on ventriculoperitoneal shunt infection.

BACKGROUND/AIM Ventriculoperitoneal shunt infections remain an important problem and result mainlyfrom perioperative colonization of shunt components by skin flora. Antibiotic-impregnated shunts have been designed to prevent such colonization. T'his study evaluates the incidence of shunt infection after the insertion of antibiotic-impregnated shunts in a population of children with hydrocephalus. MATERIALS AND METHODS All pediatric patients who had undergone cerebrospinal fluid shunt insertion retrospectively were reviewed over a 6-year period between May 2004 and December 2010. The primary outcome measure was the rate of shunt infections. Patients were followed up with for an average of 26.2 months after shunt surgery, and shunt infections were evaluated. RESULTS A total of 123 pediatric patients underwent 211 shunt placement procedures. Of these operations, 193 (91%) were performed with nonimpregnated catheters and 18 shunts (9%) were placed with antibiotic-impregnated shunt catheters. Of the patients with nonimpregnated catheters, 12 (6%) experienced shunt infection, whereas none of the patients with antibiotic-impregnated catheters experienced shunt infection within the 26.2-month follow-up period (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION The antibiotic-impregnated catheters significantly reduced the incidence of shunt infection in children with hydrocephalus during the postoperative period. Antibiotic-impregnated catheters are effective devices to prevent perioperative colonization of shunt components.
The timing and pace of health transitions around the world.

Estimates from some 700 mostly national studies of survival in the past are assembled to create a broad picture of regional and global life expectancy gains across space and time and to examine implications of that picture. At the initiation of their health transitions, most countries had a life expectancy between 25 and 35 years. Countries that began later made gains at a faster pace. Those faster gains are usually associated with the dissemination of Western medicine. But rapid gains occurred in the period 1920-50, largely before the availability of antibiotics or modern vaccines. Especially rapid gains came in the years immediately after World War II in countries where the leading causes of death were communicable diseases that could be managed with antibiotics but also in countries where the leading causes of death were degenerative organ diseases. Both periods of rapid gain await satisfactory explanation. The bibliography of more than 700 sources is published separately on the web at « http://www.lifetable. de.RileyBib. htm ». Copyright 2005 The Population Council, Inc.
How important are noncorporate patents? A comparative analysis using patent citations data

This article analyses the innovative performances of noncorporate inventors using patent citations data from the European Patent Office. The results show that inventions patented outside an established corporate framework are on average less ‘important’ than corporate patents, but with large variations across technology classes. Patents applied for by independent inventors, start-ups and corporate firms are of comparable ‘quality’ in emerging technologies. The results also highlight that in these fields noncorporate patents are more ‘radical’ than corporate patents.
Combined CT-guided radiofrequency ablation with systemic chemotherapy improves the survival for nasopharyngeal carcinoma with oligometastasis in liver: Propensity score matching analysis

The aim of this study was to retrospectively compare the treatment efficacy of systemic chemotherapy combined with sequential CT-guided radiofrequency ablation (Chemo-RFA) to chemotherapy alone (Chemo-only) in the management of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) with liver metastasis. Between 2003 and 2011, 328 NPC patients diagnosed with liver metastasis at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center were enrolled. One-to-one matched pairs between Chemo-RFA group with the Chemo-only group were generated using propensity score matching. The associations of treatment modality with overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were determined by Cox regression. Of the patients enrolled, 37 patients (11.8 %) received combined treatment, 291 (82.2) received chemotherapy alone. The patients in Chemo-RFA group were more frequently classified as lower number (≤3) of liver metastatic lesions (P<0.001), had lower rates of bi-lobar liver metastasis (P<0.001) and extra-hepatic metastasis (P<0.001) than patients in Chemo-only group. After propensity score matching, 37 pairs of well-matched liver metastatic NPC patients were selected from different treatment groups. The adjusted hazard ratio in OS and PFS of the choice for Chemo-RFA approach to Chemo-only was 0.53 (95%CI, 0.30-0.93) and 0.60 (95%CI, 0.36-0.97), respectively. In conclusion, combined CT-guided RFA and chemotherapy approach offer the chance of improved survival for NPC patients with oligometastasis in liver, and should be considered if the ablation is technically feasible.