Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How to mitigate the impact of inappropriate distributional settings when the parametric value-at-risk approach is used

This study utilizes four types of model, which are composed of two volatility specifications (generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity–-GARCH–-and autoregressive jump intensity––ARJI) and two value-at-risk (VaR) approaches (parametric and semi-parametric) with three return distribution settings (normal, GED and SGED), to explore, under the same return distribution settings and GARCH-based models as the benchmark, which variance specification and which VaR approach can enhance the VaR performance of GARCH-based models through assessments of accuracy, and further investigate approaches to mitigating the impact of inappropriate distributional settings that may cause misestimation of the parametric approach to VaR via a range of statistics. Empirical results show that, with regard to a long position, especially for the filter historical simulation (FHS) approach, both the variance specification of the ARJI approach and the FHS VaR approach can not only improve the VaR forecasting performance of GARCH-based models but also significantly reduce the influence of inappropriate return distribution settings on the VaR estimate of GARCH-based models. Moreover, FHS-ARJI-based models seem to be superior to FHS-GARCH-based models, but less significantly so than for the other groups competing above. As to short positions, both ARJI-based models and GARCH-based models seem to have similar VaR performance whereas FHS-GARCH-based models are superior to both GARCH-based models and ARJI-based models. In addition, the other three types of model (ARJI, FHS-GARCH and FHS-ARJI) can reduce more effectively the impact of incorrect return distribution specifications of GARCH-based models as compared with the case of a long position. Finally, within the same type of model, the SGED has just about the best performance among these three distribution specifications for a long position, whereas these phenomena seem to be less significant for a short position. Additionally, the VaR forecasting performance of a short position is less significantly affected by return distribution specifications, volatility specifications or VaR approaches as compared with that of a long position.
The Pretend Solution: An Empirical Study of Bankruptcy Outcomes

When enacted in 1978, the Bankruptcy Code was heralded as a consumer protection victory. It gave families in financial trouble a complex array of legal options, including the ability to repay their debts over a number of years in chapter 13 bankruptcy. That new option was lauded by experts and became popular across the nation. Today over 1 million families are currently in chapter 13 bankruptcy; it remains the first line of defense for families facing foreclosure. For more than thirty years, research has shown that two in three families drop out of chapter 13 before completing their repayment plans and do not receive a discharge of debts. To rebut this statistic, defenders of chapter 13 argued that success was possible without case completion, for example, by curing a default on a mortgage loan early in a case or by regaining financial footing after a period of living on a strict court-imposed budget. With no data on debtors’ circumstances when their cases ended, chapter 13 endured as key component of America’s policy to address household financial distress. This article exposes the real outcomes of chapter 13 bankruptcy for the first time. It provides evidence of what problems families tried to solve in bankruptcy and what problems they did solve in bankruptcy. The data come from a new nationwide empirical study of chapter 13 cases did not end as the law intended - with completion of a repayment plan and a discharge of debt. The findings show that most families receive a temporary reprieve from chapter 13: the halt of collection activity and reduction in stress. However, these benefits evaporate just a few weeks after bankruptcy. More than half of homeowners are already in foreclosure, and families are dealing with renewed dunning calls and struggles in making ends meet. Chapter 13 is a “pretend solution,” a term that I coin to describe a social program that does not work but has escaped critique or reform because its outcomes are hidden. This paper’s data are a clarion call to stop pushing families in financial trouble into chapter 13 and to redesign the consumer bankruptcy system. The data are also a cautionary tale about what happens when well-intention policymakers offer up a generous program but fail to monitor outcomes. A pretend solution can flourish, inoculating policymakers from revisiting the social problem. The paper concludes with a framework for pretend solutions that can be applied in other contexts and a discussion of how policymakers can avoid pretend solutions by focusing sharply on outcomes, not intentions.
Aligning Tests with Theory: Presidential Approval as a Source of Influence in Congress

Over the past twenty years there has been a growing literature regarding the impact of the president's public approval and his success or support in Congress. Some studies have found very strong relationships while others have concluded that the relationship between presidential approval and congressional support is weak or nonexistent. Further complicating this issue is the virtual unanimity with which presidents and their aides assert the importance of the president's public standing to an administration's legislative success. There can be little doubt that the White House invests enormous amounts of time and energy in its efforts to obtain public support for the president, but it remains unclear (at least to political scientists) how this potential resource is translated into a tool of presidential leadership in Congress. In this paper I encourage scholars to take a fresh look at the question of the impact of presidential approval on presidential support in Congress. At the center of this rethinking, I.
Oxidative Damage to Mitochondrial Complex I Due to Peroxynitrite

There is growing evidence that oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) generates reactive oxygen and nitrogen species within mitochondria as unwanted byproducts that can damage OXPHOS enzymes with subsequent enhancement of free radical production. The accumulation of this oxidative damage to mitochondria in brain is thought to lead to neuronal cell death resulting in neurodegeneration. The predominant reactive nitrogen species in mitochondria are nitric oxide and peroxynitrite. Here we show that peroxynitrite reacts with mitochondrial membranes from bovine heart to significantly inhibit the activities of complexes I, II, and V (50–80%) but with less effect upon complex IV and no significant inhibition of complex III. Because inhibition of complex I activity has been a reported feature of Parkinson's disease, we undertook a detailed analysis of peroxynitrite-induced modifications to proteins from an enriched complex I preparation. Immunological and mass spectrometric approaches coupled with two-dimensional PAGE have been used to show that peroxynitrite modification resulting in a 3-nitrotyrosine signature is predominantly associated with the complex I subunits, 49-kDa subunit (NDUFS2), TYKY (NDUFS8), B17.2 (17.2-kDa differentiation associated protein), B15 (NDUFB4), and B14 (NDUFA6). Nitration sites and estimates of modification yields were deduced from MS/MS fragmentograms and extracted ion chromatograms, respectively, for the last three of these subunits as well as for two co-purifying proteins, the β and the d subunits of the F1F0-ATP synthase. Subunits B15 (NDUFB4) and B14 (NDUFA6) contained the highest degree of nitration. The most reactive site in subunit B14 was Tyr122, while the most reactive region in B15 contained 3 closely spaced tyrosines Tyr46, Tyr50, and Tyr51. In addition, a site of oxidation of tryptophan was detected in subunit B17.2 adding to the number of post-translationally modified tryptophans we have detected in complex I subunits (Taylor, S. W., Fahy, E., Murray, J., Capaldi, R. A., and Ghosh, S. S. (2003) J. Biol. Chem. 278, 19587–19590). These sites of oxidation and nitration may be useful biomarkers for assessing oxidative stress in neurodegenerative disorders.
Socio-economic status and subjective well-being

Increasing socio-economic status is associated with increasing levels of subjective well-being. Subjective well-being is in turn associated with physical and mental health. In this study, socio-economic gradients in subjective well-being are investigated in a large cross-section of the British population. Higher socioeconomic groups are more satisfied with life and have fewer psychosomatic symptoms. They also have higher incomes, and higher levels of perceived personal control of their lives. Path analysis is used to demonstrate that income explains neither their higher level of personal control nor their greater well-being. It is argued that the nature of high status work itself provides increased autonomy, and through this, increased well-being. Income does not appear to be causally important, since low earners with high perceived control have greater subjective well-being than high earners with low control. Implications for socio-economic gradients in health are discussed.
Prevalence of Headache at Preschool Age in An Unselected Child Population

In a representative study of 5356 five-year-old children, 4405 (82.2%) could be traced for follow-up. Headache occurred in 861 (19.5%) of them; highly frequently in 0.2%, fairly frequently in 0.5%, less frequently in 4.3% and infrequently in 14.5%. Type of dwelling was the only predictor of housing standard, the risk of headache being about 1.5–fold in children living in other than one-family houses. Low economic status of the family, nursery day care and an increasing number of leisure activities were additional risk factors. Compared with infrequent or no headache, those with highly frequent or fairly frequent headache were at a 1.4–fold risk of temper tantrums. The risk of stomach ache was 8.9–fold in children with infrequent headache and 13.7–fold in those with fairly frequent or frequent headache compared with children with no headache.
Prognostic Value of Histologic Classification of ANCA-Associated Glomerulonephritis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES A kidney biopsy is preferred for the diagnosis of ANCA-associated vasculitis with renal involvement. The aim of our study was to evaluate the prognostic value of a histopathologic classification scheme recently proposed by an international consortium of renal pathologists in a large Norwegian cohort. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS Patients diagnosed with ANCA-associated GN were included from the Norwegian Kidney Biopsy Registry 1991-2012. Renal morphology was classified as focal, mixed, crescentic, or sclerotic. Study end point was ESRD. Patients were followed from kidney biopsy to end of 2012. RESULTS Two hundred fifty patients with ≥10 glomeruli in the biopsy were included in our study. During a median follow-up of 3.5 years (0.7-7.6), 60 cases of ESRD occurred. Ninety-six (38%) biopsies were classified as focal, 61 (24%) biopsies were classified as mixed, 71 (28%) biopsies were classified as crescentic, and 22 (9%) biopsies were classified as sclerotic; 1- and 5-year cumulative renal survival rates were 96% and 90%, respectively, for the focal class, 86% and 75%, respectively, for the mixed class, 81% and 69%, respectively, for the crescentic class, and 56% and 51%, respectively, for the sclerotic class. By multivariate Cox regression analyses, the sclerotic class had a significantly worse renal prognosis than the focal (hazard ratio, 9.65; 95% confidence interval, 2.38 to 39.16) or combined mixed/crescentic classes (hazard ratio, 3.27; 95% confidence interval, 1.41 to 7.61), but no significant differences in outcome were observed in the crescentic class compared with the mixed class (hazard ratio, 1.13; 95% confidence interval, 0.44 to 2.87) or the combined mixed/crescentic class compared with the focal class (hazard ratio, 1.93; 95% confidence interval, 0.61 to 6.12). Accuracy by receiver operator characteristic curve analysis was estimated to be 0.72 (95% confidence interval, 0.65 to 0.80). In 108 additional patients with three to nine glomeruli in the biopsy, the prognostic value of this classification scheme was unchanged. CONCLUSIONS The histopathologic classification is a predictor of renal outcome of moderate quality. Merging the mixed and crescentic classes in the future could simplify the scheme.
TQM as a management system consisting of values, techniques and tools

The interest in total quality management (TQM) has increased rapidly in recent years. Some people see TQM as something necessary to reach competitiveness but others claim TQM to be merely a management fad. We believe that there are several reasons for the different opinions about TQM. One is that the gurus, who often are seen as fathers of TQM, do not like the concept. Another one is that there are several similar names for roughly the same idea. A third one, which, maybe, is the most severe, is that there are many vague descriptions and few definitions of what TQM really is. In this paper we will discuss some of the problems with TQM and describe and discuss our own view of TQM as a management system consisting of the three interdependent components: values, techniques and tools. We strongly believe that this definition will help to understand and implement TQM.
Angelman Syndrome Caused by Chromosomal Rearrangements: A Case Report of 46,XX,+der(13)t(13;15)(q14.1;q12)mat,-15 with an Atypical Phenotype and Review of the Literature

Less than 1% of the cases with Angelman syndrome (AS) are caused by chromosomal rearrangements. This category of AS is not well defined and may manifest atypical phenotypes. Here, we report a girl with AS due to der(13)t(13;15)(q14.1;q12)mat. SNP array detected the precise deletion/duplication points and the parental origin of the 15q deletion. Multicolor FISH confirmed a balanced translocation t(13;15)(q14.1;q12) in her mother. Her facial appearance showed some features of dup(13)(pter→q14). Also, she lacked the most characteristic and unique behavioral symptoms of AS, i.e., frequent laughter, happy demeanor, and easy excitability. A review of the literature indicated that AS cases caused by chromosomal rearrangements can be classified into 2 major categories and 4 groups. The first category is paternal uniparental disomy 15, which is subdivided into isodisomy by de novo rob(15;15) and heterodisomy caused by paternal translocation. The second category is the deletion of the AS locus due to maternal reciprocal translocation, which is subdivided into 2 groups associated with partial monosomy by 3:1 segregation and partial trisomy by adjacent-2 segregation. Classification into these categories facilitates the understanding of the mechanisms of chromosomal rearrangements and helps in accurate diagnosis and genetic counseling of these rare forms of AS.
Professionalization and Probity in a Patrimonial State: Labor Inspectors in the Dominican Republic

Abstract Are international labor rights campaigns making a difference in Latin America? This article reveals that Dominican policymakers and bureaucrats are responding to foreign pressure by redoubling their commitment to a distinctively Franco-Iberian model of labor law enforcement, in which skilled labor inspectors use their discretion to balance society's demand for protection with the economy's need for efficiency. In so doing, they provide an alternative to traditional collective bargaining practices—which at least partly decouples both the intensity of the enforcement effort and the degree of worker protection from the level of unionization—and an example for the rest of the region. The article therefore concludes by reconsidering the Central American experience in light of the Dominican findings and discussing their joint implications for our understanding of administrative reform, industrial relations, and globalization, not only in the so-called CAFTA countries but in Latin America more generally.
Evaluating the Effects of Incomplete Markets on Risk Sharing and Asset Pricing

We examine an economy in which agents cannot write contracts contingent on future labor income. The agents face aggregate uncertainty in the form of dividend and systematic labor income risk, and also idiosyncratic labor income risk, which is calibrated using the PSID. The agents trade in financial securities to buffer their idiosyncratic income shocks, but the extent of trade is limited by borrowing constraints, short-sales constraints, and transactions costs. By simultaneously considering aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks, we decompose the effect of transactions costs on the equity premium into two components. The direct effect occurs because individuals equate the net-of-cost margins. A second, indirect effect occurs because transactions costs result in individual consumption that more closely tracks individual income. In the simulations we find that the direct effect dominates and that the model can produce a sizable equity premium only if transactions costs are large or the assumed quantity of tradable assets is limited.
Adult and Non-Formal Education: An Imperative for Human Capacity Development and Attainment of Sustainable Livelihoods in Anambra State

This study examined the imperatives of adult and non-formal education (ANFE) as a potent factor for human capacity development and attainment of sustainable livelihoods in Anambra State. For this purpose, the study sought to find out using three research questions formulated to investigate and examine the following: importance of ANFE for human capacity development and towards attaining sustainable livelihoods and (ANFE) programmes that boost socio-economic, culturaland political activities in Anambra State. The study being a survey research, adopted the descriptive survey design in order to collect data. A systematic random sampling procedure was employed in the study. 840 participants from various ANFE programmes within the six zonal areas in Anambra State were sampled from a total population of 46, 160 participants. A questionnaire titled: “Participants Responses on Imperatives of Adult and Non-Formal Education for Human Capacity Development and Sustainable Livelihoods Questionnaire”, (PRIANFEHCDSLQ) containing 26 items of two sections and drawn on a 2-point scale of yes and no options was used by the researchers to conduct the study and collect information from the respondents. Validity of the research instrument was carried out by two experts and reliability established using the split half which yielded a coefficient value of 0.83 using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. Data was analyzed using frequency distribution and percentages. The results of the findings of the study revealed that adult and non-formal education is not only an imperative for human capacity development but also played a great role amongst the disadvantaged and marginalized groups in the society. From the findings of the study, recommendations were proffered and among such included: adequate funding and financing of adult and non-formal education (ANFE) for human capacity development which will aid citizens to achieve sustainable livelihoods not only in Anambra State but Nigeria as a whole.
The Seven Deadly Sins of Performance Auditing: Implications for Monitoring Public Audit Institutions

Performance auditing is a longstanding feature of democratic government in many countries. It aims to lift the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector organisations, but numerous authors have voiced scepticism about its ability to do so. From three decades of performance auditing literature, this paper distils seven critiques of performance auditing: ‘anti-innovation’, ‘nit-picking’, ‘expectations gap’, ‘lapdog’, ‘headline hunting’, ‘unnecessary systems’ and ‘hollow ritual’. The paper concludes that the critiques are not valid in all cases, but serve to categorise risks to be managed in the design of performance audit programs and associated institutional arrangements. In light of the critiques, the paper proposes desirable elements of frameworks for monitoring and reporting the performance of institutions with performance audit mandates.
Prevention of propofol injection-related pain using pretreatment transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation

Background/aim: This study aimed to study the effect of pretreatment transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) in preventing propofol injection-related pain. Materials and methods: A total of 360 patients who were to undergo elective hysteroscopy surgery were randomly divided into the following three groups of 120 patients each: control (Group C), sham TEAS (Group F), and TEAS (Group T). Patients in Group C did not undergo any treatment before surgery; 30 min before the induction of anesthesia, patients in Groups F and T underwent electrical stimulation of the bilateral LI4-PC6 acupoint. Patients in Group F were subjected to 'feeling flow', while those in Group T were subjected to 'tolerance flow. ' The stimulation frequency was 2/100 Hz and the duration of stimulation was 30 min. After the induction of anesthesia, propofol injection-related pain scores, hemodynamic parameters, and adverse reactions were recorded. Results: Of the 360 patients, 324 completed the study. There were significant differences among the groups in terms of the incidence of moderate-to-severe pain. In terms of the four-point scaling method, the end of the radial vein, the cubital vein, and the 'back of the hand' vein differed significantly among the three groups (P = 0.05). Finally, using a numerical rating scale, a significant difference was observed among the three groups in terms of the pain scores in the different veins. Conclusions: Pretreatment TEAS effectively reduces the incidence and severity of propofol injection-related pain, the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting, and patient postoperative pain scores.
Mobility interfaces for the visually impaired: what's missing?

Individuals with visual impairments must rely on information from their other senses to provide them with obstacle preview. Although the long cane has become the most common primary device for detecting obstacles on the ground, other systems have gained acceptance by cane users who already have a high degree of travel ability as secondary mobility devices to detect obstacles that are not ground-based. Echolocation, on the other hand, has been a method of localisation in the past that enables a traveller to orient themselves relative to obstacles in a room and successfully avoid them. Echolocation has recently been rejected due to environmental influences that make it more difficult in noisy environments and social restrictions imposed by orientation and mobility instructors. Localisation could be attained through downconverted ultrasound echoes in the auditory domain, thus echolocation by ultrasound. This paper examines the interfaces that are currently used to display information to visually impaired individuals.