Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Price and Volume Effects Associated with Changes in the S&P 500 List: New Evidence for the Existence of Price Pressures

Attempts to identify price pressures caused by large transactions may be inconclusive if the transactions convey new information to the market. This problem is addressed in an examination of prices and volume surrounding changes in the composition of the S&P 500. Since these changes cause some investors to adjust their holdings of the affected securities and since it is unlikely that the changes convey information about the future prospects of these securities, they provide an excellent opportunity to study price pressures. The results are consistent with the price-pressure hypothesis: immediately after an addition is announced, prices increase by more than 3 percent. This increase is nearly fully reversed after 2 weeks. THE EFFICIENT MARKET HYPOTHESIS (EMH) predicts that security prices reflect all publicly available information. Therefore, one corollary of the EMH is that "you can sell (or buy) large blocks of stock at close to the market price as long as you can convince other investors that you have no private information. "1 This statement assumes that securities are near perfect substitutes for each other. If so, the excess demand for a single security will be very elastic, and the sale or purchase of a large number of shares will have no impact on price. In contrast to the EMH, Scholes [8], Kraus and Stoll [5], Hess and Frost [4], and others propose two hypotheses which predict that a large stock sale (purchase) will cause the price to decrease (increase) even if no new information is associated with the transaction. The imperfect substitutes hypothesis (ISH), also known as the distribution effect hypothesis, assumes that securities are not close substitutes for each other, and hence, that long-term demand is less than perfectly elastic. Under this hypothesis, equilibrium prices change when demand curves shift to eliminate excess demand. Price reversals are not expected because the new price reflects a new equilibrium distribution of security holders. The price-pressure hypothesis (PPH) assumes that investors who accommodate demand shifts must be compensated for the transaction costs and portfolio risks that they bear when they agree to immediately buy or sell securities which they otherwise would not trade. These passive suppliers of liquidity are attracted by immediate price drops (rises) associated with large sales (purchases). They are compensated for their liquidity service when prices rise (drop) to their fullinformation levels. The PPH, like the EMH, assumes that long-run demand is
Intrinsically Motivated Agents in Teams

I develop a principal-agent model where a profit-maximizing principal employs two agents to undertake a project. The employees differ in terms of their intrinsic motivation towards the project and this is their private information. I analyze the impact of individual and team incentives on the screening problem of employees with different degrees of motivation within teams. If the principal conditions each agent's wage on his own level of effort (individual incentives), an increase of the rents paid to the motivated agents results in a lower level of effort exerted by all agents in the second-best. In this case, reversal incentives occur. Conversely, reversal incentives do not arise if the principal uses team-incentives. If the principal conditions each agent's wage on the effort of both agents and the agent's performance on the effort of his colleague (team-incentives), motivated agents exert the same level of effort as in the first-best.
Psychological Response to Amputation as a Function of Age and Time Since Amputation

Summary Much of what is known about the psychological response to amputation is derived from studies of veterans. Most recent amputees come from a different group; they are typically older and have experienced medical problems prior to their amputation. In order to investigate the effects of age and time since amputation on psychological response, 66 amputees were assessed by the Symptom Checklist-90, Beck Depression Inventory and interviewed. When classified by time since amputation and by age, the results indicate that older amputees exhibited less depression and fewer psychological symptoms: in contrast, younger amputees evidenced increased depression and psychological symptomatology the longer the time since their amputation.
Evasion of host defense by in vivo-produced protoplast-like cells of the insect mycopathogen Beauveria bassiana

In vivo cells (hyphal bodies) of the hyphomycetous insect pathogen Beauveria bassiana collected from host Spodoptera exigua larval hemolymph were osmotically sensitive and lacked a well-defined cell wall. In light and electron microscope studies, a galactose-specific lectin purified from S. exigua hemolymph, concanavalin A (specific for alpha-mannose), and a polyclonal antibody to B. bassiana cell walls all bound to surfaces of in vitro-produced B. bassiana blastospores; however, none of these probes labelled the thin layer of extracellular material covering the plasma membranes of hyphal bodies. These cells were observed freely circulating in S. exigua hemolymph at 36 h postinfection, although immunocompetent hemocytes were known to be present. Additionally, association of hyphal bodies with hemocytes in monolayers was significantly less than for opsonized in vitro blastospores or submerged conidia. The absence of antigenically important galactomannan components on in vivo cells may therefore allow these cells to escape recognition and phagocytosis. Lack of structural components (e.g., chitin, as evidenced by the absence of binding of wheat germ agglutinin) may also be important with respect to evasion of host cellular defense mechanisms. Production of wall material resumed 48 to 60 h postinfection and therefore may coincide with loss of phagocytic capabilities of the hemocytes due to immunosuppressive effects of fungal metabolites. The protoplast-like cells may be formed by the action of hydrolytic enzymes in the hemocytes or by inhibition of fungal cell wall synthetases.
Virological suppression at 6 months is related to choice of initial regimen in antiretroviral-naive patients: a cohort study

Background Guidelines recommend both protease inhibitor (PI)- and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI)-containing regimens for initial therapy in HIV-positive individuals whilst clinical trial data comparing treatment options remain limited. Objective To assess whether drug selection (PI versus NNRTI) in antiretroviral-naive patients is related to virological response at 6 months within a clinical cohort. Design Databases from two large clinics were used to identify all treatment-naive patients initiating highly active antiretroviral therapy (PI/ two PI or NNRTI). Statistical models determined the likelihood of suppressing HIV viral load < 500 copies/ml, the risk of treatment failure by 6 months, and factors associated with treatment success. Results Of 1109 potentially eligible patients 888 met study criteria and were included; 484 were prescribed a PI (40% indinavir, 41% nelfinavir) and 404 were prescribed NNRTI (40% efavirenz, 60% nevirapine). Three treatment arms were compared: efavirenz versus nevirapine versus PI. After stratification by year and centre and adjustment for baseline variables, only treatment group and baseline viral load remained significantly associated with virological suppression at 6 months. Patients on efavirenz were significantly more likely to achieve an undetectable viral load than those on PI or nevirapine. The relative hazard for nevirapine was 0.77 (95% confidence interval, 0.61–0.96, P = 0.02) and that for PI was 0.74 (95% confidence interval, 0.58–0.94, P = 0.01). Efavirenz also performed better in the analysis of treatment failure at 6 months. Conclusion Although observational cohort data may be susceptible to significant bias, this study suggests a better initial virological response for efavirenz compared to either nevirapine or the PI. Clinical trial data is required to confirm these findings.
Newly Qualified Doctors’ Views of Medical School Training and Its Adequacy in Making Them “Fit for Purpose” as First Year Doctors

Aim: To assess whether the medical graduates from one medical school felt “fit for purpose” to work as intern doctors in the Health Service in Ireland. In the early nineties documents like “Tomorrow’s Doctors” emphasised the direction and change that undergraduate medical training had to take. It stated that “students must be properly prepared for their first day as Pre-Registration House Officer”. There are current arguments that junior doctors are not fully prepared for working life when they finish university. This study aims to analyse this perceived truth. Methods: I employed use of semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of medical school’s qualified interns. A grounded theory thematic analysis approach was used. Results: The interviews confirmed the participants’ sense of being ill-prepared for the complexities of being a doctor. Issues such as managing professional relationships, navigating hospital politics, building support networks, knowing when to seek help and dealing with ethically challenging situations were all highlighted. Conclusions: The study has established that the medical school in which the study was situated is teaching its graduates to an acceptable standard with regard to their medical knowledge base, communication skill abilities and the basic tenets of history taking and examination, but it needs to prepare graduates in a more concrete way for working in complex multi-professional clinical environments and for participating effectively in the context of acute medical emergencies. It is arguable that all medical schools should follow up their graduates to assess how well the medical school curriculum has prepared their graduates for practice.
Production Externalities of Education: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

Schooling has externality effects in agriculture when, in the course of conducting their own private economic activities, educated farmers raise the productivity of their uneducated neighbours. This paper seeks to determine the potential size and source of such benefits for rural areas of Ethiopia, where school enrolment is low and the private returns to education may not be apparent. Average and stochastic frontier production functions are estimated, including household and community education, as explanatory variables to measure the productivity and efficiency of farmers. In each case, internal and external returns to schooling are compared. We find substantial and significant externality benefits of education in increasing average production and shifting out the frontier. External benefits of schooling may be several times as high as internal benefits in this regard. However, we are unable to find evidence that technical efficiency is subject to externality effects. Our results suggest that adoption and diffusion of innovations that push out the frontier is the source of externalities to schooling. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.
Devolving HR responsibility to the line: threat, opportunity or partnership?

Investigates the devolution of human resources (HR) responsibilities to the line within a large food manufacturing company. A total of 13 senior/board level line managers took part in this study. Records questionnaire and interview data with reference to line manager perceptions of their involvement in HR activities. Of interest is the finding that the line managers claimed to be satisfied with the HR responsibilities that have been devolved to them and are keen to take on activities that relate explicitly to the development of their team. Most line managers report working closely with their HR counterparts and see the configuration moving towards a partnership. The line managers’ main concern is that a lack of support from HR during the delivery of the service can detract from the overall effectiveness. They also note that junior level line managers are likely to feel less supported by HR and comment that it is merely their high level position that drives the HR‐line partnership in their situations. Suggests that this research will act as a first step in exploring the relationship between varying levels of line managers and their HR counterparts in order to ascertain whether the higher your status in the organisation, the better your relationship is with HR.
Drift Matters: An Analysis of Commodity Derivatives

This article presents a reduced‐form, two‐factor model to price commodity derivatives, which generalizes the model by Schwartz and Smith (2000). The model allows for two mean‐reverting stochastic factors and therefore implies that spot and futures prices can be stationary. An empirical study for the crude oil market tests the new model. Out‐of‐sample pricing and hedging results for futures and forwards show that the new model dominates the nonstationary model by Schwartz and Smith in the following sense: It works equally well for short‐term contracts but leads to major improvements for long‐term contracts. This finding is particularly relevant for typical applications like the valuation of commodity‐linked real assets with long maturities. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:211–241, 2005
On the Complementarity between Education and Training in Europe

This paper is an empirical investigation of the complementarity between education and training in 13 European countries, based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). After confirming the standard result that training incidence is higher among individuals with more education, I find that the relationship between educational attainment and training incidence varies significantly across countries and birth cohorts. I show that individuals have a higher training incidence in countries with a more educated labor force, a less stratified schooling system, a higher union density and a lower value of the Kaitz index. I also find evidence that individuals with more education and limited labor market experience enjoy higher private returns from recent training than individuals with the same experience and less education. More experienced individuals with higher education, however, have lower returns from recent training than less educated workers with the same experience.
Strategic Sport Communication

Chapter 1 Study of Sport Management and Sport Communication Chapter 2 Careers in Sport Communication Chapter 3 History and Growth of Sport Communication Chapter 5 Personal Sport Communication Chapter 6 Organizational and Leadership Communication in Sport Chapter 7 Sport Publishing and Print Sport Communication Chapter 8 Electronic and Visual Sport Communication Chapter 9 Online Sport Communication and the New Sport Media Chapter 10 Sport Advertising Chapter 11 Public Relations and Crisis Communication in Sport Chapter 12 Sport Communication Research Chapter 13 Sociological Aspects of Sport Communication Chapter 14 Legal Issues in Sport Communication.
Conserved epigenetic sensitivity to early life experience in the rat and human hippocampus

Early life experience is associated with long-term effects on behavior and epigenetic programming of the NR3C1 (GLUCOCORTICOID RECEPTOR) gene in the hippocampus of both rats and humans. However, it is unlikely that such effects completely capture the evolutionarily conserved epigenetic mechanisms of early adaptation to environment. Here we present DNA methylation profiles spanning 6.5 million base pairs centered at the NR3C1 gene in the hippocampus of humans who experienced abuse as children and nonabused controls. We compare these profiles to corresponding DNA methylation profiles in rats that received differential levels of maternal care. The profiles of both species reveal hundreds of DNA methylation differences associated with early life experience distributed across the entire region in nonrandom patterns. For instance, methylation differences tend to cluster by genomic location, forming clusters covering as many as 1 million bases. Even more surprisingly, these differences seem to specifically target regulatory regions such as gene promoters, particularly those of the protocadherin α, β, and γ gene families. Beyond these high-level similarities, more detailed analyses reveal methylation differences likely stemming from the significant biological and environmental differences between species. These results provide support for an analogous cross-species epigenetic regulatory response at the level of the genomic region to early life experience.
Association of Sun Exposure, Skin Colour and Body Mass Index with Vitamin D Status in Individuals Who Are Morbidly Obese

Vitamin D deficiency is a common issue, particularly in obese populations, and is tested by assessing serum 25(OH)D concentrations. This study aimed to identify factors that contribute to the vitamin D status in fifty morbidly obese individuals recruited prior to bariatric surgery. Data collected included serum 25(OH)D concentrations, dietary and supplement intake of vitamin D, sun exposure measures, skin colour via spectrophotometry, and genotype analysis of several single nucleotide polymorphisms in the vitamin D metabolism pathway. Results showed a significant correlation between serum 25(OH)D concentrations and age, and serum 25(OH)D and ITAC score (natural skin colour). Natural skin colour accounted for 13.5% of variation in serum 25(OH)D, with every 10° increase in ITAC score (i.e., lighter skin) leading to a 9 nmol/L decrease in serum 25(OH)D. Multiple linear regression using age, ITAC score, and average UV index in the three months prior to testing, significantly predicted serum 25(OH)D concentrations (R2 = 29.7%). Single nucleotide polymorphisms for all vitamin D genes tested, showed lower serum 25(OH)D for those with the rare genotype compared to the common genotype; this was most pronounced for fok1 and rs4588, where those with the rare genotype were insufficient (<50 nmol/L), and those with the common genotype were sufficient (≥50 nmol/L). Assessing vitamin D status in individuals with morbid obesity requires testing of 25(OH)D, but potential risk factors for this population include natural skin colour and age.
Navigating Constraints: The Evolution of Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1935-59

The 1950s are often pointed to as a decade in which the Federal Reserve operated a particularly successful monetary policy. The present paper examines the evolution of Federal Reserve monetary policy from the mid-1930s through the 1950s in an effort to understand better the apparent success of policy in the 1950s. Whereas others have debated whether the Fed had a sophisticated understanding of how to implement policy, our focus is on how the constraints on the Fed changed over time. Roosevelt Administration gold policies and New Deal legislation limited the Fed’s ability to conduct an independent monetary policy. The Fed was forced to cooperate with the Treasury in the 1930s, and fully ceded monetary policy to Treasury financing requirements during World War II. Nonetheless, the Fed retained a policy tool in the form of reserve requirements, and from the mid-1930s to 1951, changes in required reserve ratios were the primary means by which the Fed responded to expected inflation. The inability of the Fed to maintain a credible commitment to low interest rates in the face of increased government spending and rising inflation led to the Fed-Treasury Accord of March 1951. Following the Accord, the external pressures on the Fed diminished significantly, which enabled the Fed to focus primarily on macroeconomic objectives. We conclude that a successful outcome requires not only a good understanding of how to conduct policy, but also a conducive environment in which to operate.
Vitamin D status in patients with stage IV colorectal cancer: findings from Intergroup trial N9741.

PURPOSE Previous studies have suggested that higher plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D(3) [25(OH)D] levels are associated with decreased colorectal cancer risk and improved survival, but the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in advanced colorectal cancer and its influence on outcomes are unknown. PATIENTS AND METHODS We prospectively measured plasma 25(OH)D levels in 515 patients with stage IV colorectal cancer participating in a randomized trial of chemotherapy. Vitamin D deficiency was defined as 25(OH)D lower than 20 ng/mL, insufficiency as 20 to 29 ng/mL, and sufficiency as ≥ 30 ng/mL. We examined the association between baseline 25(OH)D level and selected patient characteristics. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) for death, disease progression, and tumor response, adjusted for prognostic factors. RESULTS Among 515 eligible patients, 50% of the study population was vitamin D deficient, and 82% were vitamin D insufficient. Plasma 25(OH)D levels were lower in black patients compared to white patients and patients of other race (median, 10.7 v 21.1 v 19.3 ng/mL, respectively; P < .001), and females compared to males (median, 18.3 v 21.7 ng/mL, respectively; P = .0005). Baseline plasma 25(OH)D levels were not associated with patient outcome, although given the distribution of plasma levels in this cohort, statistical power for survival analyses were limited. CONCLUSION Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent among patients with stage IV colorectal cancer receiving first-line chemotherapy, particularly in black and female patients.
A comparison of indirect blood pressure monitoring techniques in the anesthetized cat.

OBJECTIVE To determine the accuracy of three indirect blood pressure monitoring techniques (oscillometric technique [OS], Doppler [DOP], and optical plethysmography [OP] [blood pressure determined with a pulse oximeter waveform]) when compared with direct arterial pressure measurement in cats. STUDY DESIGN Prospective study. ANIMAL POPULATION Eight healthy (five female, three male), domestic short-hair cats weighing 3.5 +/- 0.8 kg METHODS Cats were anesthetized with isoflurane. The inspired concentration of isoflurane was adjusted to produce mild hypotension (80 to 100 mm Hg direct systolic), moderate hypotension (60 to 80 mm Hg direct systolic), and severe hypotension (< 60 mm Hg direct systolic). Indirect pressure measurements were obtained from the thoracic limb and compared with concurrent direct measurement using regression analysis and a modification of Bland and Altman's technique. RESULTS All three techniques underestimated systolic pressure. OS produced the best prediction of systolic pressure with a bias +/- precision of -15.9 +/- 8.1 mm Hg. DOP and OP were relatively inaccurate with a bias +/- precision of -25 +/- 7.4 mm Hg and -25 +/- 7.5 mm Hg. All three techniques correlated well with direct pressure with r values of 0.81, 0.88, and 0.88 for OS, DOP, and OP. DOP and OP provided an accurate prediction of direct mean arterial pressure with a bias +/- precision of -0.8 +/- 6 mm Hg and 0.6 +/- 5.5 mm Hg. Correlation was good between DOP and mean arterial pressure with r = 0.89. Correlation was also good between OP and mean arterial pressure with r = 0.90. CONCLUSIONS OS provided the most accurate prediction of direct systolic pressure. DOP and OP provided a good prediction of mean arterial pressure in the cat. CLINICAL RELEVANCE All three of these techniques are useful for detecting trends. Direct monitoring of blood pressure should be considered if accurate blood pressure measurement is required.