Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corporate Financing Decisions When Investors Take the Path of Least Resistance

We argue that inertial behavior on the part of investors can have significant consequences for corporate financial policy. One implication of investor inertia is that it improves the terms for the acquiring firm in a stock-for-stock merger, because acquirer shares are placed in the hands of investors, who, independent of their beliefs, do not resell these shares on the open market. In the presence of a downward-sloping demand curve, this leads to a reduction in price pressure and, hence, to cheaper equity financing. We develop a simple model to illustrate this idea and present supporting empirical evidence.
Rigorous dimensionality reduction through linguistically motivated feature selection for text categorization

This paper introduces a new linguistically motivated feature selection technique for text categorization based on morphological analysis. It will be shown that compound parts that are constituents of many (different) noun compounds throughout a text are good and general indicators of this text’s content; they are more general in meaning than the compounds they are part of, but never-theless have good domain-speciﬁcity so that they distinguish between categories. Experiments with categorizing German newspaper texts show that this feature selection technique is superior to other popular ones, especially when dimensionality is reduced substantially. Additionally, a new compound splitting method based on compact patricia tries is introduced.
The Evaluation of Accent in the English of Dutchmen

English native speakers and Dutch teachers of English were asked to judge the English pronunciation of two Dutchmen. Although there was a fairly large consensus between the English and Dutch judges, the former were more tolerant. The English native speakers found more fault with consonants, whereas the Dutch judges objected more to incorrectly realized vowels. In a second experiment, native speakers of English as well as experienced and inexperienced Dutch speakers of English (teachers and students, respectively) were asked to indicate on five 7-point scales whether they found the English of Dutch people ugly or beautiful, monotonous or melodious, etc. There was considerable agreement in the global assessment of pronunciation. British listeners, again, showed themselves more tolerant in finding the pronunciation of Dutch speakers more pleasant and less ugly than did Dutch teachers of English, a finding ascribed to the Dutch teachers' undue fastidiousness.
Rules and agreements — And becoming a preschool community of learners

SUMMARY The study presented here discusses rules and agreements in a preschool group from the viewpoint of the development of a community of learners. What kinds of rules and agreements exist in the preschool group, how they are articulated and how they are adopted at the beginning of the preschool year were the questions addressed in this small-scale ethnographic study. Three types of rules, often called agreements in preschools, were found in the group: conventional, moral and prudential rules. Conventional rules were mentioned and referred to most frequently, by both teachers and children. The most typical way of articulating a rule was stating the rule or reminding others of it. Many rules referred to by teachers had to do with formal measures for maintaining group cohesion, thus directly contributing to the feeling of togetherness in the group and aiming at the development of a learners' community. However, from the standpoint of adherence to rules and agreements only, the data suggested that during the first preschool term the group had not yet developed into a genuine community of learners. The children still had to learn that “everyone must have peace in which to play, learn and work”: in the target preschool the adoption of this rule was articulated as an important criterion for a true learners' community.
Flux Pinning of Y-Ba-Cu-O Films Doped With ${\rm BaZrO}_{3}$ Nanoparticles by Multilayer and Single Target Methods

The superconducting properties of YBa<sub>2</sub>Cu<sub>3</sub>O<sub>7-x</sub> (YBCO or 123) thin films doped with BaZrO<sub>3</sub> (BZO) nanoparticles by multilayer and single-target methods were studied and compared. Thin films of 123 + BZO were processed by pulsed laser deposition on LaAlO<sub>3</sub> and SrTiO<sub>3</sub> and single crystal substrates. Multilayer (BZO<sub>0.6nm-1.4</sub> <sub>nm</sub>/123 <sub>15</sub> <sub>nm</sub>) structures were grown by alternating deposition from 123 and BZO targets, and BZO additions of 0-2 vol% were deposited using (123<sub>1-x</sub>BZO<sub>x</sub>) single-targets. The multilayer and single-target methods of BZO addition caused significant differences of superconducting transition temperatures (T<sub>c</sub>) measured by AC susceptibility, and critical current densities (J<sub>c</sub>) measured by both magnetic and transport methods as a function of temperature (T), applied magnetic field (H) and angle of H field incidence (thetas) . Single-target films had almost linear decrease T<sub>c</sub> of and self-field J<sub>c</sub> with BZO vol% addition, and compared to multilayer films had lower J<sub>c</sub> (77 K, H < 4 T) however had improved high-field properties for J<sub>c</sub> (77 K, H > 4T. Multilayer films had almost no decrease of T<sub>c</sub> and self-field J<sub>c</sub> for high BZO additions up to 10 vol% and very strong peak of J<sub>c</sub> (H// ab in - plane) and constant and high J<sub>c</sub> (H, 0 < thetas < 80 deg) . Single-target BZO-2 vol% films had slightly enhanced J<sub>c</sub>(H//c-axis), consistent with results by other authors.
Reliable neuromodulation from circuits with variable underlying structure

Recent work argues that similar network performance can result from highly variable sets of network parameters, raising the question of whether neuromodulation can be reliable across individuals with networks with different sets of synaptic strengths and intrinsic membrane conductances. To address this question, we used the dynamic clamp to construct 2-cell reciprocally inhibitory networks from gastric mill (GM) neurons of the crab stomatogastric ganglion. When the strength of the artificial inhibitory synapses (gsyn) and the conductance of an artificial Ih (gh) were varied with the dynamic clamp, a variety of network behaviors resulted, including regions of stable alternating bursting. Maps of network output as a function of gsyn and gh were constructed in normal saline and again in the presence of serotonin or oxotremorine. Both serotonin and oxotremorine depolarize and excite isolated individual GM neurons, but by different cellular mechanisms. Serotonin and oxotremorine each increased the size of the parameter regions that supported alternating bursting, and, on average, increased burst frequency. Nonetheless, in both cases some parameter sets within the sample space deviated from the mean population response and decreased in frequency. These data provide insight into why pharmacological treatments that work in most individuals can generate anomalous actions in a few individuals, and they have implications for understanding the evolution of nervous systems.
Efficacy-Performance Spirals: An Empirical Test

This study examined the pattern of the relationships between self-efficacy and performance in an experiment involving 148 students who worked on a manufacturing task over four trials. Task feedback and task experience, two variables that may influence the occurrence of efficacy-performance spirals, were also investigated. Results indicated strong support for a significant relationship between self-efficacy and performance over time. However, the pattern of changes in self-efficacy and performance from trial-to-trial contained self-corrections, suggesting that the efficacy-performance relationship does not necessarily proceed in a monotonic, deviation-amplifying spiral. Task feedback and task experience affected the occurrence of self-corrections in the pattern of changes in self-efficacy and performance over time. Implications are drawn about the dynamic nature of self-efficacy.
Heart rate variability and the central autonomic network in the severe disorder of consciousness.

OBJECTIVE To review the applicability of heart rate variability measures in research on severe disorder of consciousness. METHODS The available evidence on the correlation between heart rate variability measures and the outcome or residual functional state/responsiveness of severely brain-injured patients (including those in vegetative or minimally conscious states) are reviewed and discussed with reference to the central autonomic network model. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION Heart rate variability analyses appear to be applicable to assess residual or emerging (higher level) function in brain-injured patients with disordered consciousness and to predict outcome. In this regard, the central autonomic network model is heuristic in the understanding of heart rate variability descriptors of the central nervous system/autonomic systems relationship.
Comparative Resistance of AH26 and a New Sealer Prototype to a Bacterial Challenge

Objective. This study compared the leakage resistance of a New Sealer Prototype (NSP) with a traditional sealer (AH 26) in Resilon-filled roots subjected to a bacterial challenge. Study Design. 41 roots were instrumented to ISO size 50 apically. Group 1 (n = 20) contained Resilon and AH 26 sealer and roots in group 2 (n = 21) contained Resilon and NSP. Roots were embedded in a dual-chamber model with the upper chamber containing Streptococcus mutans inoculum. Evidence of bacterial penetration was observed for 1 month. Fisher's Test was used to analyze the data. Results. 8 of 20 roots (40%) in the AH 26 group demonstrated leakage whereas 3 of 21 roots (14%) in the NSP group leaked. The difference in leakage rates was not statistically significant (P = 0.053). Conclusion. The traditional sealer (AH 26) demonstrated increased leakage rates compared to the New Sealer Prototype (NSP), but the difference did not reach statistical significance in this study.
Comparative efficacy of inhaled corticosteroid and long-acting beta agonist combinations in preventing COPD exacerbations: a Bayesian network meta-analysis

Background A combination therapy with inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and a long-acting beta agonist (LABA) is recommended in severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients experiencing frequent exacerbations. Currently, there are five ICS/LABA combination products available on the market. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the efficacy of various ICS/LABA combinations with a network meta-analysis. Methods Several databases and manufacturer’s websites were searched for relevant clinical trials. Randomized control trials, at least 12 weeks duration, comparing an ICS/LABA combination with active control or placebo were included. Moderate and severe exacerbations were chosen as the outcome assessment criteria. The primary analyses were conducted with a Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method. Results Most of the ICS/LABA combinations reduced moderate-to-severe exacerbations as compared with placebo and LABA, but none of them reduced severe exacerbations. However, many studies excluded patients receiving long-term oxygen therapy. Moderate-dose ICS was as effective as high-dose ICS in reducing exacerbations when combined with LABA. Conclusion ICS/LABA combinations had a class effect with regard to the prevention of COPD exacerbations. Moderate-dose ICS/LABA combination therapy would be sufficient for COPD patients when indicated. The efficacy of ICS/LABA combination therapy appeared modest and had no impact in reducing severe exacerbations. Further studies are needed to evaluate the efficacy of ICS/LABA combination therapy in severely affected COPD patients requiring long-term oxygen therapy.
The relationship between burnout and organizational commitment in two samples of health professionals

Abstract Relationships between dimensions of burnout and employee commitment to the organization were tested in two hospital samples, using structural equations analysis. Whereas burnout has typically been assumed to be a predictor of organizational commitment, the present data provided support for the converse hypothesis, that low commitment contributes to the experience of burnout. Specifically, in a sample of nurses (n = 197), commitment showed direct effects on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and a weaker indirect effect (via exhaustion) on depersonalization. A similar pattern of effects emerged in a sample of laboratory technicians from the same organization (n = 110), although in this case the direct linkage between organizational commitment and depersonalization was not statistically significant. Implications for organizational efforts to reduce burnout are discussed.
Stability of Maternal Socioemotional Investment in Young Children

Objective. To investigate the stability of 3 constructs (Sensitivity, Delight, and Acceptance of the Parenting Role) of mothers' socioemotional investment in the young child from 15 months and 36 months postpartum. Design. A sample of 102 mothers participated. Factor structure stability, rank-order stability, and mean-level stability were investigated by confirmatory factor analysis, correlational analysis, and paired t tests, respectively. Results. All 3 domains of maternal investment showed reasonable stability. Each maternal investment measure showed at least a basic test of factorial stability. Both Sensitivity and Delight passed stringent tests of factorial stability, and Acceptance of the Parenting Role contained one item that was less valid at 36 months. There were no mean-level differences across time, and all rank-order stability coefficients were above. 50. Conclusions. The stability observed in maternal socioemotional investment, together with findings showing stability in related aspects of parental beliefs and attitudes, suggests that it may be neither simple nor easy to effect change in parents' attitudes and feelings regarding the child.
Association Between Increased Platelet P-Selectin Expression and Obesity in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE To determine whether obesity increases platelet reactivity and thrombin activity in patients with type 2 diabetes plus stable coronary artery disease. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We assessed platelet reactivity and markers of thrombin generation and activity in 193 patients from nine clinical sites of the Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes (BARI 2D). Blood taken at the time of enrollment was used for assay of the concentration of prothrombin fragment 1.2 (PT1.2, released when prothrombin is activated) and fibrinopeptide A (FPA, released when fibrinogen is cleaved). Platelet activation was identified with the use of flow cytometry in response to 0, 0.2, and 1 μmol/l adenosine diphosphate (ADP). RESULTS Concentrations of FPA, PT1.2, and platelet activation in the absence of agonist were low. Greater BMI was associated with higher platelet reactivity in response to 1 μm ADP as assessed by surface expression of P-selectin (r = 0.29, P < 0.0001) but not reflected by the binding of fibrinogen to activated glycoprotein IIb-IIIa. BMI was not associated with concentrations of FPA or PT1.2. Platelet reactivity correlated negatively with A1C (P < 0.04), was not related to the concentration of triglycerides in blood, and did not correlate with the concentration of C-reactive peptide. CONCLUSIONS Among patients enrolled in this substudy of BARI 2D, a greater BMI was associated with higher platelet reactivity at the time of enrollment. Our results suggest that obesity and insulin resistance that accompanies obesity may influence platelet reactivity in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Analysis of Machine Learning Approaches for Opinion Mining of Movie Reviews

Opinion Mining plays a vital role in the area of machine learning, data mining, and natural language processing. This paper describes various sentiment analysis techniques, feature extraction processes, and challenges that make the sentiment analysis difficult. The three subtasks are performed for sentiment analysis: text pre-processing, feature extraction and classification. In this paper, three machine learning techniques (Naïve Bayes, Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Decision Tree) are used to classify the movie reviews. The highest accuracy was achieved with SVM classifier using Movie Reviews when unigrams were used as a feature. The Naïve Bayes and SVM obtained 78.70% accuracy with movie reviews dataset using bigrams as a
Qualitative study of African-American job satisfaction in a scientific/technical research environment

Many studies have been conducted in the area of job satisfaction. Its necessary attributes sor components have been studied, analyzed, validated, standardized, and normed, onpredominantly white male populations. Few of these studies have focused on people of color, specifically African-Americans, and fewer still on those African-Americans working in a high-tech, scientific and research environments. The researchers have defined what is necessary for the current dominent culture`s population, but are their findings applicable and valid for our nation`s other cultures and ethnic groups? Among the conclusions: the subjects felt that there was no real difference in job satisfiers from their white colleagues; however the subjects had the sense of community (African-American) and the need to give back to it. Frustrations included politics, funding, and lack of control.
CALMS: Cloud-assisted live media streaming for globalized demands with time/region diversities

Live media streaming has become one of the most popular applications over the Internet. We have witnessed the successful deployment of commercial systems with CDN- or peer-to-peer based engines. While each being effective in certain aspects, having an all-round scalable, reliable, responsive and cost-effective solution remains an illusive goal. Moreover, today's live streaming services have become highly globalized, with subscribers from all over the world. Such a globalization makes user behaviors and demands even more diverse and dynamic, further challenging state-of-the-art system designs. The emergence of cloud computing however sheds new lights into this dilemma. Leveraging the elastic resource provisioning from cloud, we present CALMS (Cloud-Assisted Live Media Streaming), a generic framework that facilitates a migration to the cloud. CALMS adaptively leases and adjusts cloud server resources in a fine granularity to accommodate temporal and spatial dynamics of demands from live streaming users. We present optimal solutions to deal with cloud servers with diverse capacities and lease prices, as well as the potential latencies in initiating and terminating leases in real world cloud platforms. Our solution well accommodates location heterogeneity, mitigating the impact from user globalization. It also enables seamless migration for existing streaming systems, e.g., peer-to-peer, and fully explores their potentials. Simulations with data traces from both cloud service provider (Amazon EC2) and live media streaming service provider (PPTV) demonstrate that CALMS effectively mitigates the overall system deployment costs and yet provides users with satisfactory streaming latency and rate.
On‐Line Portfolio Selection Using Multiplicative Updates

We present an on‐line investment algorithm that achieves almost the same wealth as the best constant‐rebalanced portfolio determined in hindsight from the actual market outcomes. The algorithm employs a multiplicative update rule derived using a framework introduced by Kivinen and Warmuth. Our algorithm is very simple to implement and requires only constant storage and computing time per stock in each trading period. We tested the performance of our algorithm on real stock data from the New York Stock Exchange accumulated during a 22‐year period. On these data, our algorithm clearly outperforms the best single stock as well as Cover's universal portfolio selection algorithm. We also present results for the situation in which the investor has access to additional “side information. ”
Objective Standard Setting for Judge-Mediated Examinations

Judge-mediated examinations are defined as those for which expert evaluation (using rubrics) is required to determine correctness, completeness, and reasonability of test-taker responses. The use of multifaceted Rasch modeling has led to improvements in the reliability of scoring such examinations. The establishment of criterion-referenced standards for these assessments has, however, remained a labor-intensive practice. This article explores a method for incorporating the establishment of minimal competency within the measurement model itself. Two high-stakes testing boards participated in a controlled experiment comparing a multifaceted Rasch modeled approach to a traditional modified borderline approach often used for standard setting in judge-mediated situations. Criterion points from each were compared to assess differences and support validity. Results of the experiment suggest that modeling standard setting as part of the performance evaluation is an effective and efficient way to define minimal competence.
[Prevalence and early determinants of common mental disorders in the 1982 birth cohort, Pelotas, Southern Brazil].

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of common mental disorders and assess its association with risk factors in a cohort of young adults. METHODS Cross-sectional study nested in a 1982 birth cohort study conducted in Pelotas, Southern Brazil. In 2004-5, 4,297 subjects were interviewed during home visits. Common mental disorders were assessed using the Self-Report Questionnaire. Risk factors included socioeconomic, demographic, perinatal, and environmental variables. The analysis was stratified by gender and crude and adjusted prevalence ratios were estimated by Poisson regression. RESULTS The overall prevalence of common mental disorders was 28.0%; 32.8% and 23.5% in women and men, respectively. Men and women who were poor in 2004-5, regardless of their poor status in 1982, had nearly 1.5-fold increased risk for common mental disorders (p<0.001) when compared to those who have never been poor. Among women, being poor during childhood (p<0.001) and black/mixed skin color (p=0.002) increased the risk for mental disorders. Low birth weight and duration of breastfeeding were not associated to the risk of these disorders. CONCLUSIONS Higher prevalence of common mental disorders among low-income groups and race-ethnic minorities suggests that social inequalities present at birth have a major impact on mental health, especially common mental disorders.
'Field' work

Sixth grade students at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School explore a virtual field via an ImmersaDesk and collect data there using hand-helds computers. Back in the classroom they integrate their data, visualize it to see the patterns that emerge, and then propose explanations for these patterns. The goal is to help the students learn science inquiry skills within an environment that encourages their formation.