Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Regulatory Changes on Auditor Independence and Audit Quality

This study investigates the impact of CLERP 9 on auditor independence and audit quality. Audit quality is measured by performance‐adjusted discretionary accruals and the auditor's propensity to issue a going‐concern opinion for a financially distressed company. The results show a significant and positive association between auditor‐provided non‐audit services (NAS) fees and the propensity to issue a going‐concern opinion for a financially distressed company post‐CLERP 9, but an insignificant association pre‐CLERP 9. The results show a significant and positive association between NAS fees and the performance‐adjusted absolute value of discretionary accruals pre‐CLERP 9, but this significant association was mitigated by the introduction of CLERP 9. To address the potential impact of the level of abnormal NAS fees on auditor independence, the analysis is extended by incorporating predictions of abnormal NAS fees. Abnormal NAS fees are significantly and negatively associated with the propensity to issue a going‐concern opinion for a financially distressed company and positively associated with discretionary accruals pre‐CLERP 9, but they are not significant post‐CLERP 9. The results provide evidence of improved audit quality after the implementation of CLERP 9. The results will be useful to regulators for the justification of regulatory changes. The findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of regulatory changes, specifically the CLERP 9, on the improvement of auditor independence and audit quality.
The Costs of Displacement in Brazil

This paper uses new data that combines information on workersâ€™ education and earnings trajectories with information about their firms to estimate the costs of job displacement in Brazil. We find that high-tenure workers displaced from their firms during mass lay-offs suffer a long-term loss in monthly wages of about 20% per year. We show that this result is robust to different treatment of workers that leave the formal sector of the economy and is driven by the losses suffered by more educated individuals working in big firms at the time of displacement. We conclude that the displacement effects are the result of a combination of the depreciation of firm-specific human capital and the loss of a â€œgood jobâ€
The Relationship between Free Cash Flows and Agency Costs Levels: Evidence from Tehran Stock Exchange

The objective of this study is to examine this matter that how those firms in Iran which own a significant amountof free cash flow prevent the occurrence of its related agency problems and test the effect of dividend andleverage on free cash flow.Furthermore, there will be an examination of the difference in agency costs between companies that have andcompanies that do not have a low growth opportunity. In order to test the related hypotheses, profit, growth,leverage, size, and free cash flow were employed to measure the level of agency costs of the firms, whereasleverage and dividend were used as indices for financial policies to direct free cash flow problems. Following theusage of regression analysis and data collection of the firms in Iran over the period 2006-2010, the acquiredresults showed a positive insignificant effect of dividend on free cash flow, but they implied a positivesignificant effect of leverage on free cash flow. Regression results also indicated a positive insignificant effect offree cash flow on dividend, negative significant effect of growth on dividend and negative insignificant effect ofleverage on dividend. Meanwhile, a positive and statistically significant effect of profit and firm’s size ondividend was witnessed. For firms that have a low growth, a positive significant effect of leverage on free cashflow was observed, whereas for firms that have a high growth, results proved a positive but not significant effect.Finally, the effect of dividend on free cash flow for both categories of firms was positive but not significant. Keywords : Agency Costs, Free Cash Flow, Dividend, Leverage
Estimating species diversity and distribution in the era of Big Data: to what extent can we trust public databases?

Abstract Aim Massive digitalization of natural history collections is now leading to a steep accumulation of publicly available species distribution data. However, taxonomic errors and geographical uncertainty of species occurrence records are now acknowledged by the scientific community – putting into question to what extent such data can be used to unveil correct patterns of biodiversity and distribution. We explore this question through quantitative and qualitative analyses of uncleaned versus manually verified datasets of species distribution records across different spatial scales. Location The American tropics. Methods As test case we used the plant tribe Cinchoneae (Rubiaceae). We compiled four datasets of species occurrences: one created manually and verified through classical taxonomic work, and the rest derived from GBIF under different cleaning and filling schemes. We used new bioinformatic tools to code species into grids, ecoregions, and biomes following WWF's classification. We analysed species richness and altitudinal ranges of the species. Results Altitudinal ranges for species and genera were correctly inferred even without manual data cleaning and filling. However, erroneous records affected spatial patterns of species richness. They led to an overestimation of species richness in certain areas outside the centres of diversity in the clade. The location of many of these areas comprised the geographical midpoint of countries and political subdivisions, assigned long after the specimens had been collected. Main conclusion Open databases and integrative bioinformatic tools allow a rapid approximation of large‐scale patterns of biodiversity across space and altitudinal ranges. We found that geographic inaccuracy affects diversity patterns more than taxonomic uncertainties, often leading to false positives, i.e. overestimating species richness in relatively species poor regions. Public databases for species distribution are valuable and should be more explored, but under scrutiny and validation by taxonomic experts. We suggest that database managers implement easy ways of community feedback on data quality.
Coronary Calcium Score and Prediction of All-Cause Mortality in Diabetes

OBJECTIVE In diabetes, it remains unclear whether the coronary artery calcium (CAC) score provides additional information about total mortality risk beyond traditional risk factors. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 1,051 participants, aged 34–86 years, in the Diabetes Heart Study (DHS) were followed for 7.4 years. Subjects were separated into five groups using baseline computed tomography scans and CAC scores (0–9, 10–99, 100–299, 300–999, and ≥1,000). Logistic regression was performed adjusting for age, sex, race, smoking, and LDL cholesterol to examine the association between CAC and all-cause mortality. Areas under the curve with and without CAC were compared. Natural splines using continuous measures of CAC were fitted to estimate the relationship between observed CAC and mortality risk. RESULTS A total of 17% (178 of 1,051) of participants died during the follow-up. In multivariate analysis, the odds ratios (95% CIs) for all-cause mortality, using CAC 0–9 as the reference group, were CAC 10–99: 1.40 (0.57–3.74); CAC 100–299: 2.87 (1.17–7.77); CAC 300–999: 3.04 (1.32–7.90); and CAC ≥1,000: 6.71 (3.09–16.87). The area under the curve without CAC was 0.68 (95% CI 0.66–0.70), and the area under the curve with CAC was 0.72 (0.70–0.74) (P = 0.0001). Using splines, the estimated risk (95% CI) of mortality for a CAC of 0 was 6.7% (4.6–9.7), and the risk increased nearly linearly, plateauing at CAC ≥1,000 (20.0% [15.7–25.2]). CONCLUSIONS In diabetes, CAC was shown to be an independent predictor of mortality. Participants with CAC (0–9) were at lower risk (0.9% annual mortality). The risk of mortality increased with increasing levels of CAC, plateauing at approximately CAC ≥1,000 (2.7% annual mortality). More research is warranted to determine the potential utility of CAC scans in diabetes.
Big Data Analytic Service Discovery Using Social Service Network with Domain Ontology and Workflow Awareness

In the era of Big Data, data analysis gives strong competition power to enterprises. As services for Big Data Analysis (BDA) become prevalent, analysis services with intelligence and autonomy using automatic service composition show very bright prospects in the BDA market. Service composition consists of four stages: workflow generation, discovery, selection, and execution. In this paper, we propose a novel service discovery approach that considers two key concerns in the discovery domain towards better quality as well as effective service composition. BDA services are fine grained according to the domain and functional behaviors. The services need a domain context-aware and precision-guided discovery approach. Therefore, we propose domain ontology-based service discovery. It is mainly focused on the BDA domain for precise service discovery considering all behavioral signatures between queries and services. As for the second concern, components in composed services depend greatly on each other in situations such as workflow for data analysis. We show that linking services together considering sociability or user preference gives better discovery performance. We propose a Linked Social Service Network (LSSN) with multiple feature attribute-based service discovery for BDA. Our approach combines two advantages, the precision and sociability of Web services. The experimental results show that both of these methods perform well based on their perspectives, better than previous approaches.
RTSMate: Towards an Advice System for RTS Games

Real Time Strategy (RTS) games can be very challenging, especially to novice users, who are normally overwhelmed by the dynamic, distributed, and multi-objective structure of these games. In this paper we present RTSMate, an advice system designed to help the player of an RTS game. Using inference mechanisms to reason about the game state and a decision tree to encode its knowledge, RTSMate helps the player by giving him/her tactical and strategical tips about the best actions to be taken according to the current game state, aiming at improving player's performance. This paper describes the main ideas behind the system, its implementation, and the experiments performed using the system in a real game environment. Results show that RTSMate fulfills its objective: most players considered the system useful and were able to improve their performance by using it.
Are regulatory agencies independent in practice? Evidence from board members in Spain

Are the board members of regulatory agencies (regulators), taken as a particular cluster within the public sphere, independent of elected politicians and tenured bureaucrats? How can we assess their independence in practice, beyond formal rules? To address these questions, this paper delves into two key dimensions: board members' social connections and their security of tenure in office. Firstly, we focus on regulators' identity as policy adjudicators and examine their political and administrative relations. In doing so, we expect to understand better how regulators' social and political situations may influence their behavior. Secondly, we assess their political vulnerability through political cycles in order to measure their de facto independence over time. Additionally, variations in these two dimensions are compared with respect to the effect of different de jure appointment rules. We contrast these expectations with the empirical evaluation of board members of regulatory agencies in Spain (1979–2010). Thus, we confirm that regulators who have an administrative profile are more vulnerable to political changes than those with political ties, while appointment rules have an influence on their political vulnerability.
Effect of Initial Conditions on Impact Flash Decay

Introduction: Light flashes due to thermal heating and vaporization are produced during hypervelocity impact events. The shape of such a flash's light curve may be used to determine certain initial conditions of the impact. The measured flash peak intensity depends on the impact velocity and angle and varies with target and projectile type, as shown in previous studies [1,2]. Here, we examine the dependence of the flash decay curve on initial conditions for macroscopic impacts. Experiments: Laboratory experiments performed at the NASA Ames Vertical Gun Range (AVGR) allow the use of particulate (as well as solid) targets that more closely simulate the surfaces of planetary bodies. The experiments were performed in near-vacuum conditions (< 0.5 Torr) in a chamber large enough to allow the free expansion of the impact plume and ejecta without interference from chamber walls [3]. Previous photometric studies used only solid target materials and the analysis of the evolution of the light curves was limited to shorter times due to interactions with the walls [4]. A photodiode system with a rise time of 40 ns and a spectral range of 350 – 1100 nm recorded the impact flash signatures from above and from the side. Particulate (pumice dust, sand, sieved perlite, and powdered dolomite) and solid (solid pumice blocks, and frozen water-saturated perlite with a coherent crust) targets were impacted by Pyrex and copper spheres (0.318 – 0.635 cm, 0.299 g and 0.318 cm, 0.150 g respectively) with velocities between 4.05 – 6.14 km/s. Impact angle ranged from 30 – 90 degrees (from the horizontal). Under these conditions, Pyrex fails completely on impact. Analysis: A sample flash curve for a Pyrex impact into pumice is shown in Figure 1. Two components can be seen, which may represent two superimposed curves: an intensity peak lasting from 50 – 100 ms, and a long-lasting decaying blackbody signal. This first component represents a light curve signature of the projectile depending on impactor velocity and angle [1], as well as size, density, and composition. The thermal plume produced by the impact emits the long-lasting signal, and is related to the target. Trendlines fit to the decay curves show a power-law dependence on time where I ~ t-a. Sample decay curves and their decay exponents (a) are shown in Figure 2. Results: The value of a is constant for a given set of target, projectile, and viewing conditions but changes with varying …
An Australasian Currency, New Zealand Adopting The Us Dollar, Or An Independent Monetary Policy?

Arguments for and against abandoning independent national currencies and monetary policies have varied considerably over time and by country. For New Zealand, it can be argued that a key driving force behind recent debates has been the conduct of monetary policy and the need for improved overall economic performance in the longer term, rather than major dissatisfaction with its floating exchange rate system. In that context, this paper initially considers some issues considered important by other countries, and factors specific to New Zealand. It then utilises deterministic and stochastic simulation results from the RBNZ's core FPS model, to illustrate what New Zealand's inflation, output and trade outcomes might have been, had it faced US or Australian interest rate and exchange rate movements of the 1990s. The paper concludes with some implications for future research, and some ways forward for New Zealand policy.
Phenotypic Distinction and Functional Characterization of Pro-B Cells in Adult Mouse Bone Marrow1

A lymphoid-committed progenitor population was isolated from mouse bone marrow based on the cell surface phenotype Thy-1.1negSca-1posc-KitlowLinneg. These cells were CD43posCD24pos on isolation and proliferated in response to the cytokine combination of steel factor, IL-7, and Flt3 ligand. Lymphoid-committed progenitors could be segregated into more primitive and more differentiated subsets based on expression of AA4.1. The more differentiated subset generated only B lymphoid cells in 92% of total colonies assayed, lacked T lineage potential, and expressed Pax5. These studies have therefore defined and isolated a B lymphoid-committed progenitor population at a developmental stage corresponding to the initial expression of CD45R.
Practical Approach for Typing Strains of Leishmania infantum by Microsatellite Analysis

ABSTRACT Currently the universally accepted standard procedure for characterizing and identifying strains of Leishmania is isoenzyme analysis. However, in the Mediterranean area, despite their very wide geographical distribution, most Leishmania infantum strains belong to zymodeme MON-1. In order to increase our understanding of polymorphism in strains of L. infantum, we developed PCR assays amplifying 10 microsatellites and sequenced PCR products. The discriminative power of microsatellite analysis was tested by using a panel of 50 L. infantum strains collected from patients and dogs from Spain, France, and Israel, including 32 strains belonging to zymodeme MON-1, 8 strains belonging to zymodemes MON-24, MON-29, MON-33, MON-34, or MON-80, and 10 untyped strains. Five of the microsatellites were polymorphic, revealing 22 genotypes, whereas the five remaining microsatellites were not variable. In particular, MON-1 strains could be separated into 13 different closely related genotypes. MON-33 and MON-34 strains also gave two additional genotypes closely related to MON-1, while MON-29, MON-24, and MON 80 strains exhibited more divergent genotypes. Among the foci examined, the Catalonian focus displayed a high polymorphism, probably reflecting isoenzyme polymorphism, while the Israeli focus exhibited a low polymorphism that could be consistent with the recent reemergence and rapid spread of canine leishmaniasis in northern and central Israel. The strains originating from the south of France and the Madrid, Spain, area displayed significant microsatellite polymorphism even though they were monomorphic by isoenzyme analysis. In conclusion, microsatellite polymorphism exhibits a high discriminative power and appears to be suitable for characterization of closely related strains of L. infantum in epidemiological studies.
Games With Possibly Naive Hyperbolic Discounters

We propose a solution concept for games that are played among hyperbolic discounters that are possibly naive about their own, or about their opponent's future time inconsistency. Our perception-perfect equilibrium essentially requires each player to take an action consistent with the subgame perfect equilibrium, given her perceptions concerning future types, and under the assumption that other present and future players have the same perceptions. Applications include a common pool problem and Rubinstein bargaining. When players are naive about their own time consistency and sophisticated about their opponent's, the common pool problem is exacerbated, and Rubinstein bargaining breaks down completely.
TIME VALUATION IN FREIGHT TRANSPORT: METHOD AND RESULTS

The paper contains a discussion on the policy context of time valuation in freight transport, an overview of the methods which can be used for this purpose - with a focus on the methods applied in current Hague Consulting Group research, and a presentation of empirical results for the freight value-of-time. The paper will draw on two projects in particular. Hague Consulting Group is presently undertaking an investigation into the value-of-time in freight transport in The Netherlands for the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Public Works. In this research both factor cost methods and Stated Preference techniques are used to find monetary values for travel time savings and losses in goods movement. Such monetary values are needed as an input in monetary evaluation studies of infrastructural projects and other policy measures. The Stated Preference experiment is 'contextual' in the sense that respondents (shippers and carriers) are asked to choose from alternatives pivoted around the observed choice context for some representative transport. Preliminary results have already been obtained. Final results are expected before summer 1992. Furthermore Hague Consulting Group is involved in applying similar Stated Preference methods in order to assess the social benefits of goods transport by road, both in The Netherlands and in other European countries. (A) For the covering abstract see IRRD 860299.
Persistence of Motor-Equivalent Postural Fluctuations during Bipedal Quiet Standing

Theoretical and empirical work indicates that the central nervous system is able to stabilize motor performance by selectively suppressing task-relevant variability (TRV), while allowing task-equivalent variability (TEV) to occur. During unperturbed bipedal standing, it has previously been observed that, for task variables such as the whole-body center of mass (CoM), TEV exceeds TRV in amplitude. However, selective control (and correction) of TRV should also lead to different temporal characteristics, with TEV exhibiting higher temporal persistence compared to TRV. The present study was specifically designed to test this prediction. Kinematics of prolonged quiet standing (5 minutes) was measured in fourteen healthy young participants, with eyes closed. Using the uncontrolled manifold analysis, postural variability in six sagittal joint angles was decomposed into TEV and TRV with respect to four task variables: (1) center of mass (CoM) position, (2) head position, (3) trunk orientation and (4) head orientation. Persistence of fluctuations within the two variability components was quantified by the time-lagged auto-correlation, with eight time lags between 1 and 128 seconds. The pattern of results differed between task variables. For three of the four task variables (CoM position, head position, trunk orientation), TEV significantly exceeded TRV over the entire 300 s-period.The autocorrelation analysis confirmed our main hypothesis for CoM position and head position: at intermediate and longer time delays, TEV exhibited higher persistence than TRV. Trunk orientation showed a similar trend, while head orientation did not show a systematic difference between TEV and TRV persistence. The combination of temporal and task-equivalent analyses in the present study allow a refined characterization of the dynamic control processes underlying the stabilization of upright standing. The results confirm the prediction, derived from computational motor control, that task-equivalent fluctuations for specific task variables show higher temporal persistence compared to task-relevant fluctuations.
Supporting graduate employability: From generalist disciplines through employer and private institution collaboration

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