Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationship between state ownership and tax avoidance level: empirical evidence from Vietnamese firms

This paper investigates the relationship between tax avoidance behavior and state-ownership level at corporates in Vietnam to find out whether state-ownership influence the tax avoidance behavior of Vietnamese firms. Effective tax rate presents for the tax avoidance level, in which higher effective tax rate means the lower tax avoidance level. In this research, the authors check robustness by using different methods to calculate the level of tax avoidance of corporates. Using Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) method with data of 460 enterprises listed on Vietnam Stock Exchange market from 2009 to 2015, the empirical result shows that the level of state ownership has an inverse relationship with tax avoidance behavior of corporates. In other words, the higher level of state-owned is, the fewer taxes they avoid. Empirical evidence also confirms that low concentration (≤ 30%) of state ownership has a positive effect on tax avoidance behavior. Besides that, size, firm performance, tangible assets level, and debt ratio have a meaningful positive relationship with the degree of tax avoidance, similarly prior studies.
If the Fed sneezes, who gets a cold?

This paper investigates the global eects of US monetary policy shocks using a two stage approach. First, estimates of US monetary policy shocks are obtained by using an identi…cation scheme that replicates the impulse responses in Gertler and Karadi (2014). This approach allows the inclusion of the recent period with US short-term rates at their lower bound. A large number of real and …nancial variables at monthly and quarterly frequency are then regressed on the estimated shocks to compute impulse responses in 37 advanced and emerging countries. Countries are grouped on the basis of characteristics like their dollar exchange rate regime or the openness of their capital accounts. The main …ndings are three. First, US mone- tary policy shocks have dierential eects across advanced and emerging economies, aecting mainly macroeconomic variables in the former, and both macroeconomic and …nancial variables in the latter. Second, emerging economies display asym- metric responses to expansionary and contractionary US monetary policy. The macroeconomic and …nancial upswing brought about by the former are bigger and more persistent than the slowdown due to the latter. Finally, the exchange rate regime or the degree of …nancial openness hardly make a dierence in how US mon- etary policy shocks aect emerging economies. Trade-os between exchange rate, macroeconomic and …nancial stabilisation objectives can thus arise for emerging economies.
The functions of novel word compounds

ABSTRACT The traditional assumptions that novel word compounds fill lexical gaps and allow speakers to convey an intended meaning more precisely were explored. Examples from spontaneous language demonstrated that some novel compounds occur in the absence of a lexical gap and that not all compounds serve a communicative function. The relation between communicative demands and novel noun–noun compound use was explored experimentally also. Twenty-eight five-year-old children and 16 adults participated in referential and non-referential communication tasks in which they were exposed to referents whose elements were inherently and non-inherently related. Both children and adults produced more compounds for inherent than for non-inherent referents. However, although the children demonstrated that they were sensitive to the need for greater communicative precision in the referential compared to the non-referential task, there was no difference in frequency of compound use across tasks. These results suggest that the functions ascribed to novel compounds warrant closer scrutiny.
The Stalling of Transcription at Abasic Sites Is Highly Mutagenic

ABSTRACT Abasic (AP) sites represent one of the most frequently formed lesions in DNA. Here, we examine the consequences of the stalling of RNA polymerase II at AP sites in DNA in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. A severe inhibition of transcription occurs in strains that are defective in the removal of AP sites and that also lack the RAD26 gene, a homolog of the human Cockayne syndrome group B (CSB) gene, and, importantly, a dramatic rise in mutagenesis is incurred in such strains. From the various observations presented here, we infer that the stalling of transcription at AP sites is highly mutagenic.
Relationship between stress and coronary heart disease

Background Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and accounts for 13.7% of deaths in countries like Pakistan. Its association with stress has not been well considered in our setup. Patients with coronary artery disease admitted for coronary artery bypass grafting may have a high prevalence of stress that might increase the risk of adverse outcomes. Methods 60 patients with coronary artery disease admitted to the Civil Hospital Karachi for coronary artery bypass graft surgery from January 1 to March 31, 2012, were evaluated using a stress evaluation scale. Results Stress of varying degrees was found to be a significant independent risk factor in patients with coronary heart disease. Analysis of our collected sample of patients with stress showed 60% with high stress (p = 0.025) and 36.7% moderate stress (p = 0.0025). An appreciable relationship was found between stress and patient age, sex, body mass index, blood group, and the incidence of myocardial infarction. Conclusion Our study found evidence of an independent causative association between psychological stress and coronary heart disease, of a similar order to the more conventional coronary heart disease risk factors.
Availability of amino acids for 10- to 20-kilogram pigs: lysine and threonine in soybean meal.

The availabilities of lysine and threonine in soybean meal for 10- to 20-kg pigs were determined in two experiments using slope-ratio methodology. In the first experiment, a basal diet formulated to contain 6 g of lysine/kg, but adequate in all other amino acids, was supplemented with 1, 2, or 3 g of lysine/kg from either soybean meal or L-lysine-HCl. Each of the seven diets was available on an ad libitum basis to six individually penned pigs (barrows:gilts, 1:1) from an initial weight of 9.9 kg until they reached a live weight of 20.8 kg. Daily feed intake was similar among diets. Common-intercept multiple linear regression of daily live weight gain and gain:feed ratio on dietary lysine level indicate slope ratios (soybean meal:lysine.HCl) of . 85 and . 88, respectively. In Exp. 2, a basal diet formulated to contain 4 g of threonine/kg was supplemented with . 65, 1.30, 1.95, or 2.60 g of threonine/kg from either soybean meal or L-threonine. Each of the nine diets was available on an ad libitum basis to six individually penned pigs (barrows:gilts, 1:1) from 9.9 to 21.0 kg live weight. As in Exp. 1, daily feed intake was similar among the nine diets. The slope ratios (soybean meal:L-threonine) from common-intercept multiple regression analyses were . 73 and . 78 for daily weight gain and gain:feed ratio, respectively. Thus, the availabilities of lysine and threonine in soybean meal for young pigs were estimated to be 85 to 88% and 73 to 78%, respectively.
Training hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in community reintegration skills.

OBJECTIVE The study examined the effectiveness of the Community Re-Entry Program, a brief, time-limited skills training module designed to help acutely ill inpatients become engaged in community-based treatment programs. METHODS Of 84 consecutive admissions to a chronic psychotic disorders unit, 44 completed assessments and attended the Community Re-Entry Program. The program consists of 16 daily small-group therapy sessions that engage the patient in efforts to define discharge readiness, identify symptoms and medication effects, and assist with discharge planning. Skill levels and positive and negative symptoms were assessed on admission and on completion of training, and a subsample of patients received two-week postdischarge follow-up assessments. RESULTS From admission to discharge, positive symptoms diminished substantially, negative symptoms diminished to a lesser but statistically significant degree, and skill levels increased significantly. Posttraining skill level was predicted by pretraining skill level and level of participation in the skills training module. Patients' symptom levels did not predict participation in the program or skill acquisition. Skill level at discharge was also more predictive of two-week postdischarge community adjustment than were symptom levels. CONCLUSIONS Although further controlled studies are required to fully establish the efficacy of the Community Re-Entry Program, these data suggest that brief, focused skills training may play an important role in augmenting optimal pharmacotherapy for hospitalized patients with chronic psychotic disorders.
Interobserver agreement in emergency department triage.

STUDY OBJECTIVES We measure the interobserver reliability of the triage process, examine the effect of vital signs on the triage process, and provide a context for the prior observation of poor interobserver agreement between in-person and telephonic interviews. METHODS We performed a prospective observational study using a randomized crossover design at a university teaching hospital emergency department. Patients were eligible if they spoke English, were not presenting for a reevaluation, and were unlikely to be harmed by the delay created by a second triage interview. Every eligible patient underwent 2 independent, sequential, in-person ED intake interviews conducted by experienced ED triage nurses. After taking a history, each nurse chose 1 of 5 hypothetic triage designations (ED by 911, ED within 2 hours, see a physician within 8 hours, see a physician within 24 hours, or home care-see a physician in >24 hours) and, after being told the patient's vital signs, again selected a designation. RESULTS Three hundred sixty-three patients presented during the study period: 113 were ineligible, 34 were missed by the investigators, and 15 refused to participate. Nineteen nurses participated in the triage of the 201 study patients. Agreement between 2 in-person designations made without knowledge of vital signs was poor (percent agreement 53%; kappa=0.30; tau(b)=0.50). Knowledge of vital signs did not improve agreement (percent agreement 49%; kappa=0.25; tau(b)=0.45). CONCLUSION There was poor interobserver agreement between certified triage nurses using a 5-item triage scale designed for telephonic triage. These findings suggest that only a small portion of the poor interobserver agreement observed in a prior study of telephonic versus in-person triage can be attributed to the use of the telephone.
Identifying wetland change in China’s Sanjiang Plain using remote sensing

Maximum likelihood supervised classification and post-classification change detection techniques were applied to Landsat MSS/TM images acquired in 1976, 1986, 1995, 2000, and 2005 to map land cover changes in the Small Sanjiang Plain in northeast China. A hotspots study identified land use changes in two National Nature Reserves. These were the Honghe National Nature Reserve (HNNR) and the Sanjiang National Nature Reserve (SNNR). Landscape metrics were used in both reserves to identify marsh landscape pattern dynamics. The results showed that the Small Sanjiang plain had been subject to much change. This resulted from direct and indirect impacts of human activities. Direct impacts, resulting in marsh loss, were associated with widespread reclamation for agriculture. Indirect impacts (mainly in HNNR) resulted from alterations to the marsh hydrology and this degraded the marsh ecosystem. Marsh landscape patterns changed significantly due to direct impacts in SNNR between 1976 and 1986 and again between 2000 and 2005, and, in HNNR between 1976 and 1986. Indirect impacts in HNNR after 1986 appeared to cause little change. It was concluded that effective wetland protection measures are needed, informed by the change analysis.
Why “Sounds Are Judged Longer than Lights”: Application of a Model of the Internal Clock in Humans

Three experiments, using temporal generalization and verbal estimation methods, studied judgements of duration of auditory (500-Hz tone) and visual (14-cm blue square) stimuli. With both methods, auditory stimuli were judged longer, and less variable, than visual ones. The verbal estimation experiments used stimuli from 77 to 1183 msec in length, and the slope of the function relating mean estimate to real length differed between modalities (but the intercept did not), consistent with the idea that a pacemaker generating duration representations ran faster for auditory than for visual stimuli. The different variability of auditory and visual stimuli was attributed to differential variability in the operation of a switch of a pacemaker-accumulator clock, and experimental datasuggested that such switch effects were separable from changes in pacemaker speed. Overall, the work showed how a clock model consistent with scalar timing theory, the leading account of animal timing, can address an issue derived from the classical literature on human time perception.
Learning and Earning: An Approximation to College Value Added in Two Dimensions

This paper explores the implications of measuring college productivity in two different dimensions: earning and learning. We compute system-wide measures using administrative data from the country of Colombia that link social security records to students’ performance on a national college graduation exam. In each case we can control for individuals’ college entrance exam scores in an approach akin to teacher value added models. We present three main findings: 1) colleges’ earning and learning productivities are far from perfectly correlated, with private institutions receiving relatively higher rankings under earning measures than under learning measures; 2) earning measures are significantly more correlated with student socioeconomic status than learning measures; and 3) in terms of rankings, earning measures tend to favor colleges with engineering and business majors, while colleges offering programs in the arts and sciences fare better under learning measures.
Relieving effects of glycine and methionine from acetic acid inhibition in Escherichia coli fermentation

Among amino acids screened for their potential to relieve wild and recombinant Escherichia coli from the negative effects of acetic acid, glycine, and methionine showed a sparing effect. In the presence of 2 g/L of acetic acid, addition of 0.5 g/L of glycine or methionine resulted in either a complete recovery or a further enhancement in the specific growth rate, while the enhancement was significant but not fully complete in the presence of 4 g/L of acetic acid. The addition of 0.5 g/L of methionine alleviated the negative effect of acetic acid on recombinant E. Coli growth to produce more β‐lactamase, which was encoded by plasmid pUC18. In continuous fermentation the methionine effect on recombinant. E. coli metabolism depended on dilution rate; at high dilution rates, above 0.4 h−1, the methionine addition enhanced β‐lactamase production and reduced acetic acid formation, while at low dilution rates, below 0.3 h −1, the effect was reversed. In def‐batch fermentation with wild‐type E. Coli, cell growth rate and cell yield from glucose were enhanced with methionine addition, while the acetic acid concentration reached over 4 g/L. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Independent directors, ownership concentration and firm performance in listed companies: Evidence from Vietnam

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of independent directors on firm performance in Vietnam and identify how different types of ownership structure and the presence of controlling shareholders influence the relationship. Design/methodology/approach For a sample of 217 non-financial Vietnam-listed companies during the period from 2010 to 2014, this study uses the ordinary least squares regressions to estimate the relationship between independent directors and firm performance. Two econometric techniques – the fixed effects estimation and the difference in difference estimation – are used to control for endogeneity. The results are also robust to the lag variable of independent directors. Findings The results reveal that independent directors have an overall negative effect on firm operating performance. This finding may be because of information asymmetry, expertise disadvantage and the dominance of ownership concentration that prevent independent directors from fulfilling their monitoring function in governance. The negative relationship between independent directors and firm performance is stronger in firms where the State is a controlling shareholder. Research limitations/implications Findings suggest that changes relating to independent directors, as a response to the new corporate governance code in 2012, do not have a positive effect on the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. Further reform is required to improve internal control mechanisms and corporate governance systems in Vietnam. Originality/value This is the first study to provide a robust evidence on the relationship between independent directors and firm performance in Vietnam as well as to explore the impact of the type of controlling shareholders on the relationship.
Abnormal cerebral cortex structure in children with ADHD

Examination of cerebral cortical structure in children with Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has thus far been principally limited to volume measures. In the current study, an automated surface‐based analysis technique was used to examine the ADHD‐associated differences in additional morphologic features of cerebral cortical gray matter structure, including surface area, thickness, and cortical folding.
Multireactive pattern of serum autoantibodies in asymptomatic individuals with immunoglobulin A deficiency

Selective immunoglobulin A (IgA) deficiency (sIgAD) is associated with certain autoimmune states. Increased production of autoantibodies and eventual development of overt autoimmune disease are related in part to genetic and environmental factors as well as to the immune deficiency. We surveyed serum specimens from 60 healthy subjects with sIgAD for the presence of 21 different autoantibodies by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. The frequencies of 16 autoantibodies were higher in sIgAD patients than in normal healthy controls. Autoantibodies to Jo-1 (28%), cardiolipin (21%), phosphatidylserine (20%), Sm (15%), asialo-GM1 (21%), sulfatide (32%), sulfoglucuronyl paragloboside (11%), and collagen type I (10%) were detected at high frequencies in comparison to those of normal healthy controls. Many of the serum samples were multireactive (i.e., exhibited binding to more than two autoantigens). Forty percent (24 of 60) of sIgAD serum samples reacted against six or more autoantigens; 10% (6 of 60) of sIgAD serum samples were not reactive with any of the 21 autoantigens. Three percent (7 of 209) of consecutive serum samples submitted for autoimmune antibody analysis that were positive for autoantibodies were from patients with IgA deficiency. Our finding of an increased frequency of autoantibodies in sIgAD patients supports the notion of polyclonal stimulation by repeated environmental stimuli as an etiologic mechanism. Alternatively, the increased frequency may be caused by a dysregulation of the immune response in such individuals. The mere detection of autoantibodies cannot predict whether a subject with sIgAD will develop an autoimmune disease or determine which specific disease will emerge.
Twins, family size and female labour force participation in Iran

ABSTRACT Despite the remarkable increase in women’s education levels and the rapid fall of their fertility rate in Iran, female labour force participation (FLFP) has remained low. Using the instrumental variable method, this article estimates the causal impact of number of children on mothers’ participation in the labour market. It finds that having an extra (unplanned) child would only reduce female participation rate for low-educated mothers and mothers with young children, thus having no causal impact on most mothers’ participation. This result explains why the rapid decline in fertility rates did not increase female participation; rather, other factors should be at play. It hence moves us a step forward in explaining the puzzle of FLFP in Iran. Policy implications are discussed. Abbreviation: FLFP: Female Labour Force Participation; LFP: Labour Force Participation
The Chemical Evolution of the Galaxy: The Two-Infall Model

We present a new chemical evolution model for the Galaxy that assumes two main infall episodes, for the formation of the halo-thick disk and thin disk, respectively. We do not try to take into account explicitly the evolution of the halo since our model is better suited for computing the evolution of the disk (thick plus thin), but we implicitly assume that the timescale for the formation of the halo was of the same order as the timescale for the formation of the thick disk. The formation of the thin disk is much longer than that of the thick disk, implying that the infalling gas forming the thin disk comes not only from the thick disk but mainly from the intergalactic medium. The timescale for the formation of the thin disk is assumed to be a function of Galactocentric distance, leading to an inside-out picture for the Galaxy's building. The model takes into account the most up-to-date nucleosynthesis prescriptions and adopts a threshold in the star formation process, which naturally produces a hiatus in the star formation rate at the end of the thick-disk phase, as suggested by recent observations. The model results are compared with an extended set of observational constraints both for the solar neighborhood and for the whole disk. Among these constraints, the tightest is the metallicity distribution of the G-dwarf stars, for which new data are now available. Our model fits these new data very well. The model also predicts the evolution of the gas mass, the star formation rate, the supernova rates, and the abundances of 16 chemical elements as functions of time and Galactocentric distance. We show that, in order to reproduce most of these constraints, a timescale of ≤1 Gyr for the (halo) thick disk and of 8 Gyr for the thin disk's formation in the solar vicinity are required. We predict that the radial abundance gradients in the inner regions of the disk (R < 1 R☉) are steeper than in the outer regions, a result confirmed by recent abundance determinations, and that the inner gradients steepen during the Galactic lifetime. The importance and the advantages of assuming a threshold gas density for the onset of the star formation process are discussed.