Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Option Prices as Predictors of Equilibrium Stock Prices

The Black-Scholes option pricing model, modified for dividend payments, is used to calculate jointly implied stock prices and implied standard deviations. A comparison of the implied stock prices with observed stock prices reveals that the implied prices contain information regarding equilibrium stock prices that is not fully reflected in observed stock prices. The implications of this finding are discussed. THIS STUDY INVESTIGATES THE role of call option prices as predictors of the equilibrium prices of their underlying stocks using the Black-Scholes [3] (BS) model. Previous tests of the BS model have shown that the formula is highly successful in explaining the observed market prices of options (see Black and Scholes [2], Galai [8], Chiras and Manaster [6], and Macbeth and Merville [12]. According to the model, the option price is a function of the current value of the underlying stock, the instantaneous variance of the stock's rate of return, the time to maturity of the option, the risk-free rate of interest, and the exercise price of the option.1 Given an observed option price and known values of all input parameters to the BS model except the stock price, one can determine the price of the underlying stock that equates the observed option price to its calculated value. It follows from the underlying logic of the model that the implied price is the value of the underlying stock for which a continuously revised option-bond portfolio would be a perfect substitute for the stock. Hence, if options are actually priced according to the model, implied stock prices will be the option market's assessment of equilibrium stock values. Previous empirical studies have assumed that observed stock prices are the relevant stock prices for option valuation. However, just as stock prices may differ, in the short run, from one exchange to another (i.e., NYSE, Midwest,
A generalization of Hausdorff dimension applied to Hilbert cubes and Wasserstein spaces

A Wasserstein spaces is a metric space of sufficiently concentrated probability measures over a general metric space. The main goal of this paper is to estimate the largeness of Wasserstein spaces, in a sense to be precised. In a first part, we generalize the Hausdorff dimension by defining a family of bi-Lipschitz invariants, called critical parameters, that measure largeness for infinite-dimensional metric spaces. Basic properties of these invariants are given, and they are estimated for a naturel set of spaces generalizing the usual Hilbert cube. In a second part, we estimate the value of these new invariants in the case of some Wasserstein spaces, as well as the dynamical complexity of push-forward maps. The lower bounds rely on several embedding results; for example we provide bi-Lipschitz embeddings of all powers of any space inside its Wasserstein space, with uniform bound and we prove that the Wasserstein space of a d-manifold has "power-exponential" critical parameter equal to d.
Impact of entrepreneurial skills on the firm’s performance: evidence from manufacturing SMEs in India

Several studies show that most small and medium businesses fail within their first five years. Although the role of factors such as access to funds and culture has been widely studied, the influence of owner/manager practices and capabilities have generally been ignored. This study has empirically tested a framework identifying the causal links among personal skills, entrepreneurial skills, business skills, and technical skills on firm's performance based on a sample of 360 manufacturing SMEs operating in the manufacture of machinery and equipment, packaging, automobile, and metal processing in India. Test of hypothesis indicate that personal skills, business skills and technical skills were positively related to the firm's performance of SMEs, whereas, entrepreneurial skills were not positively related to firm's performance of SMEs.
The American coneflower: a prophylactic role involving nonspecific immunity.

OBJECTIVE In humans, considerable circumstantial evidence exists that indicates soluble root extracts of the American coneflower, genus Echinacea, may act to ameliorate virus-mediated afflictions, such as the common cold, influenza, and even AIDS and virus-based tumors. This study was designed to quantify, in normal mice, Echinacea-mediated, quantitative, dynamic changes, with time on both mature and precursor cells, of all the hemopoietic and immune-cell lineages in the spleen and bone marrow. DESIGN A specific, commercially prepared potent extract of Echinacea root was provided daily in the diet for either 1 week or 2 weeks with the aim of establishing a possible mechanism of action for this herb. RESULTS The data revealed that natural-killer (NK) cells and monocytes, both mediators of nonspecific immunity and well-demonstrated killers of virus-containing cells, were numerically and significantly increased in both the bone marrow and the spleen as early as 1 week after beginning treatment with the dietary herb. In contrast to our observations with NK cells and monocytes, the sizes of all other hemopoietic and immune cell populations in these two organs remained at control levels even after 2 weeks of daily dietary Echinacea. CONCLUSIONS The work has demonstrated the specific nature of Echinacea-derived phytochemicals in acting as stimulants of those cells responsible for nonspecific immunity, as the first line of defense against virus-infected/transformed cells. The observations that these cells were elevated in the bone marrow indicates that at least one mechanism of action of this herb, is to stimulate new cell production in situ. The significant elevation of these two fundamental immune-cell populations, in normal animals, suggests a prophylactic role for this herb.
Muscarinic receptor heterogeneity in follicle‐enclosed Xenopus oocytes

1 Ionic current responses elicited by acetylcholine (ACh) in follicle‐enclosed Xenopus oocytes (follicles) were studied using the two‐electrode voltage‐clamp technique. ACh generated a fast chloride current (Fin) and inhibited K+ currents gated by cAMP (IK,cAMP) following receptor activation by adenosine, follicle‐stimulating hormone or noradrenaline. These previously described cholinergic responses were confirmed to be of the muscarinic type, and were independently generated among follicles from different frogs. 2 Inhibition of IK,cAMP was about 100 times more sensitive to ACh than Fin activation; the half‐maximal effective concentrations (EC50) were 6.6 ± 0.4 and 784 ± 4 nm, respectively. 3 Both responses were blocked by several muscarinic receptor antagonists. Using the respective EC50 concentrations of ACh as standard, the antagonist 4‐diphenylacetoxy‐N‐methylpiperidine methiodide blocked the two effects with very different potencies. Fin was blocked with a half‐maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 2.4 ± 0.07 nm, whilst the IC50 for IK,cAMP inhibition was 5.9 ± 0.2 μm. 4 Oxotremorine, a muscarinic agonist, preferentially stimulated IK,cAMP inhibition (EC50= 15.8 ± 1.4 μm), whilst Fin was only weakly activated. In contrast, oxotremorine inhibited Fin generated by ACh with an IC50 of 2.3 ± 0.7 μm. 5 F in elicited via purinergic receptor stimulation was not affected by oxotremorine, indicating that the inhibition produced was specific to the muscarinic receptor, and suggesting that muscarinic actions do not exert a strong effect on follicular cell‐oocyte coupling. 6 Using reverse transcription‐PCR, transcripts of a previously cloned muscarinic receptor from Xenopus (XlmR) were amplified from the RNA of both the isolated follicular cells and the oocyte. The pharmacological and molecular characteristics suggest that XlmR is involved in IK,cAMP inhibition. 7 In conclusion, follicular cells possess two different muscarinic receptors, one resembling the M2 (or M4) subtype and the other the M3 subtype. These receptors are coupled to distinct membrane mechanisms leading to independent regulation of two membrane conductances.
The effect of pH on surface hardness and microstructure of mineral trioxide aggregate.

AIM To evaluate the surface microhardness of mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) specimens following exposure of their surface to a range of acidic environments during hydration. In addition, the morphological microstructure features of samples were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). METHODOLOGY White ProRoot MTA (Dentsply Tulsa Dental, Johnson City, TN, USA) was mixed and packed into cylindrical polycarbonate tubes. Four groups, each of 10 specimens, were formed using a pressure of 3.22 MPa and exposed to pH 4.4, 5.4, 6.4 and 7.4, respectively, for 4 days. Vickers microhardness of the surface of each specimen was measured after exposure. Four groups of two specimens were prepared and treated in the same way prior to qualitative examination by SEM. Data were subjected to one-way anova and post hoc Tukey's test. RESULT The greatest mean surface hardness values (53.19 +/- 4.124) were observed following exposure to pH 7.4 with the values decreasing to 14.34 +/- 6.477 following exposure to pH 4.4. The difference between these values at the 95% CI (33.39-44.30) was statistically significant (P < 0.0001). There were no distinct morphological differences between groups in terms of the internal microstructure. However, a trend was observed that the more acidic the solution, the more extensive the porosity of the specimens. CONCLUSION Under the conditions of this study, surface hardness of MTA was impaired in an acidic environment.
Tourism education: policy versus practice

Discusses the current human resources environment in tourism at a strategic policy level, especially in the area of management level education. Describes a framework which is being used to study consultation between the makers of tourism and education policy at a national level. The framework advocates the development and implementation of a specific tourism education policy, to bring tourism education closer in line with national tourism policies. Concludes by outlining further research strategies.
Experimental Evaluation of Tactile Patterns over Frictional Surface on Mobile Phones

Tactile displays1 have been widely used in information transfer through various tactile patterns on mobile devices. The fundamental consideration in designing tactile interactions is intuitive tactile feedback patterns that convey information. This study investigates the user perception of various tactile stimuli patterns over frictional surface on mobile phones in terms of strong feedback. We designed 36 different tactile patterns with a combination of different signal lengths (w1 = 0.2-3.2 mm) and intervals (w2 = 0.2-3.2 mm) of frictional feedbacks. These parameters covered most cases in the tactile pattern design for a mobile phone. Using these stimuli, we presented 666 pairs of comparisons to 50 participants who would distinguish whether the stimuli in each pair were similar or different. The results indicated the dense patterns in which smaller values of w1 and w2 conveyed stronger tactile feedback and quick distinguish time to users. Meanwhile, the denser tactile patterns had significant differences, which suggests that users can easily distinguish different strong tactile patterns even when these patterns appeared simultaneously. The results of this study can be used as a reference to design tactons, obtain non-visual information, or encode tactile language.
Who Earns Minimum Wages in Europe? New Evidence Based on Household Surveys

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive, evidence-based, and up-to-date assessment of minimum wages in a range of European countries. A first step towards a better understanding of where Europe stands today on this issue requires to grasp the diversity of European minimum wage systems, a key objective of the paper at hand. The second objective is to document international differences in the so-called "bite" of the minimum wage. This leads to questions such as "how do national minimum wages compare to the overall wage distribution? " and "how many people earn minimum wages in each country? " that are assessed for a set of nine countries from Western, Central and Eastern Europe: Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom. This sample was designed to include countries for which recent evidence has been missing prior to this paper. What is more, the study also overcomes the narrow focus of extant overviews that have typically focussed only on full-time employment. Crucially, the study improves on existing work by looking beyond aggregate numbers; it provides a detailed panorama of the population of minimum wage earners in each country under investigation, notably by describing their composition in terms of a range of socio-demographic characteristics.
Positive organizational behavior: Developing and managing psychological strengths

Executive Overview This article proposes a positive approach to organizational behavior (OB). Although the importance of positive feelings has been recognized through the years in the academic OB and popular literature, both management scholars and practitioners have arguably too often taken a negative perspective—trying to fix what is wrong with managers and employees and concentrating on weaknesses. Positive organizational behavior (POB) follows the lead of recently emerging positive psychology, which is driven by theory and research focusing on people's strengths and psychological capabilities. Instead of just retreading and putting a positive spin on traditional OB concepts, this unveiling of POB sets forth specific criteria for inclusion. Not only does positivity have to be associated with the concept, but it must also be relatively unique to the OB field, have valid measures, be adaptable to leader/management and human resource training and development, and, most important, capable of contributing t.
Value of a modified early obstetric warning system (MEOWS) in managing maternal complications in the peripartum period: an ethnographic study

Objective To explore implementation of the modified early obstetric warning system (MEOWS) in practice to further understanding about the influence of contextual factors. Methods An ethnographic study using observations (>120 h), semi-structured interviews (n=45) and documentary review was performed in the maternity services in two UK hospitals over a 7-month period. Doctors, midwives and managers participated in the study and data were analysed thematically. Results For women admitted to hospital in the antenatal and postnatal period with an established risk of morbidity, the MEOWS enabled communication about vital signs from junior to senior midwives and obstetricians. The trigger prompts helped shape shared understandings of maternal complications. However, midwifery and obstetric staff questioned the added value of an extra chart in the postnatal period given the low incidence of maternal complications and the resulting increase in workload. In an effort to prioritise workload demands and respond to the immediate needs of both women and their babies, midwives exercised professional discretion regarding its use. However, discretionary use of MEOWS meant the loss of a potential universal safety net for detection of deterioration. Conclusions Despite a decade of use in acute settings, research into the effectiveness of early warning systems still yields conflicting results. Widespread policy support for the MEOWS is based on its intuitive appeal and no validated system for use in the maternity population currently exists. Our findings suggest that, while the MEOWS has value in structuring the surveillance of hospitalised women with an established risk of morbidity, the complexities of managing risk and safety within the maternity pathway, the associated opportunity costs of MEOWS and variation in implementation currently call into question its role for routine use.
Soil Moisture Retrieval in Agricultural Fields Using Adaptive Model-Based Polarimetric Decomposition of SAR Data

The aim of this paper was to estimate soil moisture in agricultural crop fields from fully polarimetric L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data through the polarimetric decomposition of the SAR coherency matrix. A nonnegative-eigenvalue-decomposition scheme, together with an adaptive volume scattering model, is extended to an adaptive model-based decomposition (MBD) (Adaptive MBD) model for soil moisture retrieval. The Adaptive MBD can ensure nonnegative decomposed scattering components and allows two parameters (i.e., the mean orientation angle and a degree of randomness) to be determined to characterize the volume scattering. Its performance was tested using airborne SAR data and coincident ground measurements collected over agricultural fields in southeastern Australia and compared with previous MBD methods (i.e., the Freeman three-component decomposition using the extended Bragg model, the Yamaguchi three-component decomposition, and an iterative generalized hybrid decomposition). The results obtained with the newly proposed decomposition scheme agreed well with expectations based on observed plant structure and biomass levels. The new method was superior in tracking soil moisture dynamics with respect to previous decomposition methods in our study area, with root-mean-square error of soil moisture estimations being 0.10 and 0.14 m3/m3, respectively, for surface and double-bounce components. However, large variability in the achieved soil moisture accuracy was observed, depending on the presence of row structures in the underlying soil surface.
Evaluation of a new generation of plastic evacuated blood-collection tubes in clinical chemistry, therapeutic drug monitoring, hormone and trace metal analysis

Abstract Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) tubes have several advantages over glass tubes: they are unbreakable, lighter and more easily disposed of. Despite a steady increase in their use and an expansion of the range of available tubes, few studies validating their use have been published in the literature. This paper describes the various studies that have been performed to compare VENOJECT glass, VENOSAFE PET and VENOSAFE PET/heparin tubes for the assay of a panel of analytes in routine clinical chemistry, immunochemistry, hormone and tumor marker analysis and trace metal determination. These studies demonstrate that VENOSAFE PET tubes are a suitable alternative to glass tubes.
The Persistence and Market Valuation of Recurring Nonrecurring Items

ABSTRACT: This study focuses on the persistence and market value implications of a subset of nonrecurring charges that are atypical due to repeated occurrence. The increased recurrence of supposedly nonrecurring items perhaps reflects managerial shifting of (more permanent) ordinary expenses to a transitory category or, alternatively, may reflect an environment where these items naturally occur more frequently. Either scenario suggests that these repetitive charges have future earnings implications dramatically different from truly nonrecurring events and should therefore be valued more like a recurring component of earnings. Consistent with this notion, we find that as the frequency of reporting negative special items increases (measured by the presence of multiple prior charges), the persistence of these items significantly increases with respect to future earnings. Our evidence also suggests that the valuation multiple on such charges increases with frequency. That is, the market values “recurring nonr.
Social Services in High-Growth Developing Countries

Social services are an important component of a growing society. A high level of social services is a reflection of a developed society. The ability of a society to provide social services is in large part contingent on both economics, political and institutional settings of an economy. Policies to enable effective social service provision include universal coverage, high and efficient spending and (re-)distribution of income and wealth through spending, transfers and progressive taxation. The higher the economic growth rate, the more social services, at least theoretically, it can afford to provide and viceversa. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of social services in high growth developing economies and examine whether they have achieved such social outcomes. More specifically, this paper reviews the development of the social sector through an analysis of the key social indicators for selected high growth developing countries. A second aim of this paper is to review social development policies adopted by some of these high growth developing economies. The main motivation for undertaking this review of policies and strategy is twofold: (1) to investigate the existence of any commonalities in social development policies; and (2) to provide a set of policies, as varied as they may be, that could be used by other developing countries to stimulate the growth of their social sector.
Changing Patterns in Frequency of Recovery of Five Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Clones in Portuguese Hospitals: Surveillance over a 16-Year Period

ABSTRACT A total of 629 nonduplicate methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus MRSA isolates were recovered between June and November 2006 from 11 hospitals located in different areas of Portugal. Selected isolates (n = 271, 43%) were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), representatives of which were additionally characterized by spa typing, multilocus sequence typing, staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) typing, and the presence of Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL). The 271 isolates were classified into 13 different clonal types. Three pandemic clones included the majority (n = 241, 88%) of the isolates and were observed in several hospitals: (i) EMRSA-15 (54%)—PFGE type A, ST22, spa type t022, SCCmec IV—was found in the 11 hospitals studied and was identified as the major clone in seven of them; (ii) the New York/Japan clone (17%)—PFGE B, ST5, spa type t067, SCCmec II—was identified in nine hospitals and represented the major clone in four; and (iii) the Brazilian MRSA (17%)—PFGE C, ST239, spa type t037, SCCmec IIIA—was also detected in nine hospitals but never as the main clone. All isolates tested were PVL negative. Clone EMRSA-15 is currently the predominant MRSA clonal type circulating in Portuguese hospitals, but a new wave of MRSA has emerged in the country with the recent introduction and spread of the New York/Japan clone. The Brazilian MRSA that was the leading clone in Portugal in the late 1990s is declining and being progressively replaced by the two former clones. We report the first isolate SCCmec type V (ST45) in Portugal.