Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is Risk Higher during Non-Trading Periods? The Risk Trade-Off for Intraday versus Overnight Market Returns

We study the magnitude of tail risk – particularly lower tail downside risk – that is present in intraday versus overnight market returns and thereby examine the nature of the respective market risk borne by market participants. Using the Generalized Pareto Distribution for the return innovations, we use a GARCH model for the conditional market return components of major stock markets covering the U.S., France, Germany and Japan. Testing for fat-tails and tail index equality, we find that overnight return innovations exhibit significant tail risk, while intraday innovations do not. We illustrate this volatility versus tail risk trade-off based on conditional Value-at-Risk calculations. Our results show that overnight downside market risk is composed of a moderate volatility risk component and a significant tail risk component. We conclude that market participants face different intraday versus overnight risk profiles and that a risk assessment based on volatility only will severely underestimate overnight downside risk.
Low Testosterone and Hyperkinetic Blood Pressure Responses in a Cohort of South African Men: The SABPA Study

Hypertension (HT) and the metabolic syndrome are major problems in Africa. The role of sex hormones in the cardiovascular profile of black Africans in South Africa has not been studied. Our objective was to study the association between the sex hormones and ambulatory blood pressure and the heart rate (HR) in black and white South Africans. The 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure measurements were performed and the blood samples were taken between 07:00 and 09:00 hours. A total of 80 black and 98 white South African teachers between 25 and 65 years of age from similar socioeconomic backgrounds from the Sympathetic Activity and Ambulatory Blood Pressure in Africans (SABPA) study were included. As a result, a more vulnerable cardiovascular profile was observed in Africans compared with Caucasians. In the African group, low testosterone (T) explained 19%–36% of the variance in systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and HR, whereas in the Caucasian group non-sex-hormone-binding globulin (non-SHBG)-bound T explained 27% of the variance in HR. In the African males, inverse associations between blood pressure and T (SBP: P = .08; DBP: P = .02) and non-SHBG-bound T (SBP: P < .001; DBP: P < .01) and HR (P < 0.01) were observed. Ambulatory HR predicted a prediabetic state in Africans. In conclusion, low T levels may predispose or result in impaired cardiovascular function in African men. The possibility exists that a prediabetic state, vagal-impaired HR, and hyperkinetic blood pressure responses may predispose or result in low T levels in African men.
Regulations on direct investment in ASEAN: do they reduce currency instability?

Many authors have studied the impact of capital controls on currency crises. However, few attempts have been made to explore the impact of separate controls on each type of capital flow on currency instability. To date, no study has examined the impact of regulation and control of direct investment on the probability of currency instability. The hypothesis of this study is that direct investment control decreases currency instability, especially when there is no control over the liquidation of direct investment. Regression analysis of probit panel data from eight ASEAN members over 1998–2011 supported this hypothesis. Another interesting outcome, which confirms the results of previous studies, is that overall capital control insufficiently protects countries against currency attacks. This study underlines the importance of considering various types of capital flows separately during external reform policy in emerging economies.
Methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase gene polymorphism in Egyptian children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Genetic variations of the enzymes involved in chemotherapy metabolism in cancer patients may play a role in determining relapse and toxicity risks. Methotrexate is a key drug in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment; it inhibits DNA replication by blocking the conversion of 5,10 methylene tetrahydrofolate to 5-methylene tetrahydrofolate by methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR). MTHFR is central to folate metabolism and has two common functional polymorphisms (C677>T and A1298>C). The present study aimed to assess the prevalence of MTHFR polymorphisms C677>T and A1298>C in Egyptian children with ALL and the relation to the frequency of drug-induced complications and relapse rate. Forty ALL patients were included in the study. They were treated according to modified ALL-BFM 90 protocol, and were followed up for 3.1–6.5 years. The severity and duration of hepatic, mucosal and infectious complications during therapy were reported. MTHFR genotyping was done with a PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism assay. The MTHFR C677>T polymorphic allele frequencies were 40, 27.5, and 32.5% for TT, CT, and CC genotypes, respectively among the studied ALL patients. The MTHFR A1298>C polymorphic allele frequencies were 40, 35, and 25% for AA, AC, and CC genotypes, respectively. Methotrexate therapy was significantly associated with increased grade III/IV toxicity in TT genotype: diarrhea in 81.3%, oral mucositis in 81.3%, elevated transaminases in 87.5%, neutropenia in 78.7% compared to values of 7.7, 7.7, 15.3, and 7.7% in CC genotype, respectively (P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001, and P = 0.03). The 677 TT genotype was significantly associated with relapse in 5 years in 56.3%, compared to 18.2% in CT and 0% in CC alleles. The overall 5 years survival was significantly lower in 677 TT (50%) compared with CC genotypes (92.3%) (P = 0.001). No significant relation was found between MTHFR A1298C polymorphism and the risks of therapy induced complications or relapse rate in the studied ALL patients. MTHFR TT genotype is significantly associated with increased mucosal and hepatic toxicity during methotrexate therapy as well as increased relapse rate in childhood ALL. Because of the relatively high prevalence of the TT genotype in the studied Egyptian children with ALL, MTHFR gene polymorphisms should be studied in large multicenter studies; and dosage modification of methotrexate in the ALL treatment protocols should be considered based on the MTHFR gene pattern.
The relationship between human resource management and firm performance in small businesses: evidence from Canada and New Zealand

Despite an extensive body of research examining Human Resource Management (HRM) and firm performance, relatively little has addressed this issue using all three firm performance outcomes, namely, employee performance, operational performance and financial performance. In addition, little research has focused on small firms or compared differences between countries. This paper uses data from three studies from two different countries to examine the relationship between HRM practices and perceptions of firm performance. The findings from all three studies indicate that the effect of HRM practices on firm financial performance is mediated by overall employee satisfaction and operational performance.
Neural Basis for Brain Responses to TV Commercials: A High-Resolution EEG Study

We investigated brain activity during the observation of TV commercials by tracking the cortical activity and the functional connectivity changes in normal subjects. The aim was to elucidate if the TV commercials that were remembered by the subjects several days after their first observation elicited particular brain activity and connectivity compared with those generated during the observation of TV commercials that were quickly forgotten. High-resolution electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings were performed in a group of healthy subjects and the cortical activity during the observation of TV commercials was evaluated in several regions of interest coincident with the Brodmann areas (BAs). The patterns of cortical connectivity were obtained in the four principal frequency bands, Theta (3-7 Hz), Alpha (8-12 Hz), Beta (13-30 Hz), Gamma (30-40 Hz) and the directed influences between any given pair of the estimated cortical signals were evaluated by use of a multivariate spectral technique known as partial directed coherence. The topology of the cortical networks has been identified with tools derived from graph theory. Results suggest that the cortical activity and connectivity elicited by the viewing of the TV commercials that were remembered by the experimental subjects are markedly different from the brain activity elicited during the observation of the TV commercials that were forgotten. In particular, during the observation of the TV commercials that were remembered, the amount of cortical spectral activity from the frontal areas (BA 8 and 9) and from the parietal areas (BA 5, 7, and 40) is higher compared with the activity elicited by the observation of TV commercials that were forgotten. In addition, network analysis suggests a clear role of the parietal areas as a target of the incoming flow of information from all the other parts of the cortex during the observation of TV commercials that have been remembered. The techniques presented here shed new light on all the cortical networks and their behavior during the memorization of TV commercials. Such techniques could also be relevant in neuroeconomics and neuromarketing for the investigation of the neural substrates subserving other decision-making and recognition tasks.
Financial Risk Taking by Age and Birth Cohort

This study decomposes the effects of chronological age, birth cohort, and calendar year on the age profile of household financial risk taking. Using two measures of risk taking, one based on observed portfolio allocations of wealth and another based on survey respondents' stated willingness to take risk, the results support the conventional wisdom that risk taking decreases with age. The results also reveal a cohort effect that shifts the age-risk profile down from older to younger cohorts. This finding is consistent with households taking less risk in response to decreasing financial security over time. The results have implications for the impact of an aging population on stock prices and for the impact on household well-being of the trend toward individual responsibility for asset management in vehicles such as defined-contribution pensions and the proposed Social Security personal accounts.
Pricing Errors at the NYSE Open and Close: Evidence from Internationally Cross-Listed Stocks☆

We analyze the variance of pricing errors (transitory changes in prices) at the open and the close of trading for NYSE stocks that are traded in London or Tokyo, British and Japanese stocks that are listed on the NYSE, and similar stocks that are not traded abroad. The variance of pricing errors is significantly greater at the open than at the close for U.S. stocks, but not foreign stocks. These differences are explained by differences in order flow at the open and the close, and the effect of volume at the close on pricing errors is indistinguishable from the effect of volume at the open. The evidence is not supportive of hypotheses that attribute large pricing errors at the NYSE open to the specialist-assisted opening mechanism, or to traders' inability to observe recent transaction prices before the opening. Instead, our results are consistent with the simple notion that liquidity providers require greater compensation to absorb order imbalances that are, on average, larger at the NYSE open than at the close.
The Operation and Management of Agency Workers in Conditions of Vulnerability

This article focuses on the operation and management of agency labour by employers and observes that there are strong contradictions between the employers' stated reasons for using agency labour and the employment agencies' perceptions of why such labour is utilised. While discussing agency labour generally, the article also takes account of the position of migrant workers within the agency sector, since agencies have represented a significant route into employment for migrant labour. It draws primarily on 22 in-depth interviews with employers and employment agencies mainly in the food processing, cleaning and care sectors. The research revealed that while some employers were using agency staff to cover for specific peaks in production, others had used it as an alternative method of dealing with vacancies that otherwise might have resulted in permanent employment.
Medium access control in ad hoc networks with omni-directional and directional antennas

An ad hoc network is a dynamic network formed on demand by a group of nodes without the aid of any pre-existing network infrastructure. An efficient and effective medium access control (MAC) protocol which regulates nodes' access to the shared channel(s) is essential in an ad hoc network. Our work is focused on the throughput and fairness properties of existing omni-directional MAC protocols as well as enhancement of their performance with directional antennas via both analytical and simulation approaches. In the first part, we present the first analytical modeling of collision avoidance MAC protocols including the popular IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol in multi-hop ad hoc networks. We show that in ad hoc networks with a lot of hidden terminals, collision avoidance even if done correctly, can still limit achievable throughput significantly because of the much reduced spatial reuse. Then we advance the analytical modeling to evaluate those MAC protocols which use directional antennas and can achieve much higher throughput through directing transmissions and receptions to desired directions only. We show that the gain in spatial reuse outweighs that of collision avoidance and hence an aggressive all-directional scheme is more advantageous than other hybrid schemes that take conservative (or unnecessary) tradeoff between collision avoidance and spatial reuse. All the analytical work has provided very useful insight on the interaction between spatial reuse, interference reduction and collision avoidance that previous work lacked. The work done in the first part also reveals the fairness problem inherent in IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks which can hinder the deployment of high profile applications that require some quality of service (QoS) assurances. In the second part of the thesis work, we first propose a hybrid channel access scheme that can achieve better fairness while maintaining compatibility with the existing IEEE 802.11 standard. Then we propose a fairness framework to address the problem as well as mechanisms to realize the framework and show that the resulting scheme can achieve far better fairness than previous schemes with only moderate throughput degradation.
Inflation Uncertainty, Asset Valuations, and the Credit Spreads Puzzle

Investors' learning of the state of future real fundamentals from current inflation leads to macroeconomic state dependence of asset valuations and solvency ratios of firms within given rating categories. Since credit spreads are convex functions of solvency ratios, average spreads are higher than spreads at average solvency ratios. Macroeconomic shocks carry risk premiums so that expected default losses are more sensitive to changes in the price of risk than are credit spreads. By incorporating state dependence and increasing the price of risk, the econometrician obtains high credit spreads while maintaining average default losses at historical levels—the credit spreads puzzle.
Insights on the diversity of financial ratios communication

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the extent of financial ratio communication from an agency theory perspective. Design/methodology/approach - An empirical positivist approach is utilised to explore the predictors of disclosure within the 2007 annual reports of 300 Australian listed companies. Findings - Overall, the extent of financial ratio disclosures is very low (5.3 per cent) with more extensive disclosures within the sub-categories of share market measure, profitability and capital structure. A far lower liquidity and cash flow ratio information is reported. Larger firms with more dispersed share ownership provide more extensive financial ratio information than the others. Further, profit-making firms and Big4 clients exhibit more extensive financial ratio disclosures. Resources firms present significantly lower incidents of financial ratio than the financials and services sector. Corporate governance and capital management initiatives do not have predictive properties. Originality/value - Financial ratio disclosure, although important, is under-researched. A comprehensive set of predictors are investigated. The findings highlight the need for Australian regulators to consider more explicit guidelines or mandatory requirements.
Association of serum levels of retinol-binding protein 4 with male sex but not with insulin resistance in obese patients

Background: Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) is secreted by adipocytes and by the liver and modulates insulin sensitivity in animal models. However, controversial data exist regarding the association of serum levels of RBP4 with insulin resistance in humans. Obesity confers a major risk to develop insulin resistance. Aim: Therefore, we investigated RBP4 levels in non-diabetic obese patients and analysed the association with insulin sensitivity and other metabolic markers. Subjects and methods: Glucose tolerance was assessed by oral glucose tolerance tests and 70 normal glucose tolerant patients (36 women, 34 men; body mass index >30 kg/m2) were included in our study. We compared the serum level of RBP4 (measured by ELISA) with clinical features (age, sex, BMI, waist-to-hip-ratio, blood pressure) and laboratory findings (total cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, 2-hour glucose, fasting insulin, HOMA-IR and HOMA-B). The associations between RBP4 and the above mentioned variables were assessed using multiple linear regression models. Results: The mean age (±SD) of the subjects included was 48.1 (± 12.3) years and the mean BMI 41.6 (± 7.4) kg/m2. We found significantly higher RBP4 levels in men (53.0 ± 20.8 µg/ml) than in women (39.7 ± 12.3 µg/ml) (p = 0.0013). However, age and sex-adjusted multiple linear regression models showed no significant association of serum RBP4 levels with BMI, waist-to-hip-ratio, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, 2-hour glucose, insulin resistance (as assessed by HOMA-IR), or insulin secretion (as assessed by HOMA-B). Conclusion: Our data show higher RBP4 levels in obese men than in obese women. However, there was no association of RBP4 levels with insulin resistance or other components of the metabolic syndrome. We conclude that obesity might already be associated with elevated RBP4 levels which then show no additional correlation with metabolic markers.
ACTH-producing tumor of the pituitary gland.

THE association of adrenal hyperplasia with basophil tumors of the pituitary gland was first suggested by Cushing.1 This type of tumor has since been thought to be at least one cause of Cushing's syndrome, but no demonstration of elevated levels of ACTH has been reported in the plasma of patients with this condition. The case described below is that of a patient who, three years after bilateral adrenalectomy for hyperadrenocorticism, was found to have a chromophobe tumor of the pituitary gland that was secreting large quantities of ACTH. Case Report C.R. (P.B.B.H. 9G418), a 33-year-old married woman of Italian extraction, .
BALANCE BETWEEN WORK AND LIFE – NEW CORPORATE IMPOSITIONS THROUGH FLEXIBLE WORKING TIME OR OPPORTUNITY FOR TIME SOVEREIGNTY?

ABSTRACT Working time is once again on the agenda. Actors in industry and politics are demanding the extension of working time and greater, market-oriented flexibilisation in the interest of cutting costs. At the present time the advocates of further reductions in working time and greater time sovereignty for employees have little say. At the same time, the compatibility of work and life has become an increasingly important issue, not only as a problem for working mothers but for corporate human resources policy as a whole. Forms of regulating flexible working time that promise to balance various time interests are therefore particularly important. One option of major interest is the institution of working time accounts, which permit flexible overtime as well as the use of ‘banked’ time to meet personal needs without generally extending working time. The study provides insight into corporate working time arrangements in various sectors and employee time choices in reconciling company requirements and private interests. Neither side has yet made adequate progress in creating the preconditions for a successful balance.
Public ownership, privatisation and regulation: social welfare counterfactuals for British Telecom

Is privatization per se socially beneficial? Or do those benefits depend on the subsequent changes in the regulatory regime? In this paper, building on Vogelsang, Jones and Tandon (1994), we answer these questions by analyzing three different counterfactuals about British Telecom privatization and regulation. In the factual scenario, the British government decided to privatize British Telecom, and at the same time to establish an independent agency (OFTEL), which was to impose a price cap mechanism on BT services, in those market segments in which competition was unfeasible or limited. Our research strategy is to follow a simple ceteris paribus approach, and to change in each counterfactual only one aspect of the institutional setup. The analysis suggests that the change in ownership from public to private had negative welfare effects, under reasonable assumptions about the productive efficiency gains arising from it. Moreover, the paper studies the relationship between productive and allocative efficiency, by making hypotheses about the price changes induced by the new regulatory regime
Peptide array-based screening reveals a large number of proteins interacting with the ankyrin-repeat domain of the zDHHC17 S-acyltransferase

zDHHC S-acyltransferases are enzymes catalyzing protein S-acylation, a common post-translational modification on proteins frequently affecting their membrane targeting and trafficking. The ankyrin repeat (AR) domain of zDHHC17 (HIP14) and zDHHC13 (HIP14L) S-acyltransferases, which is involved in both substrate recruitment and S-acylation-independent functions, was recently shown to bind at least six proteins, by specific recognition of a consensus sequence in them. To further refine the rules governing binding to the AR of zDHHC17, we employed peptide arrays based on zDHHC AR-binding motif (zDABM) sequences of synaptosomal-associated protein 25 (SNAP25) and cysteine string protein α (CSPα). Quantitative comparisons of the binding preferences of 400 peptides allowed us to construct a position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM) for zDHHC17 AR binding, with which we predicted and subsequently validated many putative zDHHC17 interactors. We identified 95 human zDABM sequences with unexpected versatility in amino acid usage; these sequences were distributed among 90 proteins, of which 62 have not been previously implicated in zDHHC17/13 binding. These zDABM-containing proteins included all family members of the SNAP25, sprouty, cornifelin, ankyrin, and SLAIN-motif containing families; seven endogenous Gag polyproteins sharing the same binding sequence; and several proteins involved in cytoskeletal organization, cell communication, and regulation of signaling. A dozen of the zDABM-containing proteins had more than one zDABM sequence, whereas isoform-specific binding to the AR of zDHHC17 was identified for the Ena/VASP-like protein. The large number of zDABM sequences within the human proteome suggests that zDHHC17 may be an interaction hub regulating many cellular processes.