Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The cyclical behavior of equity turnover D avid

We measure the extent to which the cyclical behavior of the turnover of equity shares generated by individual investors on the New York Stock Exchange can be accounted for by a single source of trade embedded in a neoclassical growth economy with dynamically complete markets. The source of trade is heterogeneity in agents’ financial wealth. In the post-war United States, turnover has been more than seven times as volatile as output and has exhibited asynchronous cyclical characteristics: lagged turnover has co-varied positively with output and led turnover negatively. The baseline model, calibrated to match the mean behavior of asset returns and the distribution of wealth across households, accounts for 29% of the level of turnover observed in the data and 22% of the volatility. The asynchronous relationship observed between turnover and output is puzzling.
Total Phenol/Flavonoid Content, Antibacterial and DPPH Free Radical Scavenging Activities of Medicinal Plants

The general desire to replace antibiotics and synthetic antioxidants with natural plants extracts has gained importance in recent years. This approach may be associated with the negative health effects of synthetic antioxidants and antibiotic resistance. Due to these controversial issues, in this study, free radical scavenging activity, Total Phenolic Content (TPC), Total Flavonoid Content (TFC), and antimicrobial activity of Methanolic Extracts (ME) from Teucrium polium, Smyrnium cordifolium Boiss, Mentha longifolia, and Nectaroscordum tripedale leaves were compared with Crocus sativus tepals. The antioxidant activity of these extracts was investigated in comparison with BHA, BHT, and α-tocopherol by DPPH method. Antimicrobial activities were determined by paper disc agar diffusion method against S. aureus (Gram positive) and E. coli O157: H7 (Gram negative). Results showed that C. sativus tepals contained the highest TPC (37.36 mg GAE g) and TFC (138.52 mg Q g). Also, radical scavenging activity of C. sativus tepals ME (87.33%) was significantly higher than the other extracts; and it was the same as BHA and α-tocopherol statistically. In addition, a significant relationship between radical scavenging activity and TPC (R= 0.964) and TFC (R= 0.806) was found, illustrating the major role of these compounds in antioxidant activity of the mentioned plants. Antibacterial activity of N. tripedale leaf extract and C. sativus tepal extract against the two abovementioned pathogens were the highest among all the studied herbal extracts (P< 0.05). Moreover, Results of antimicrobial activities were also strongly correlated to free radical scavenging activity and TPC, which indicates the importance of these factors on antimicrobial properties of the five studied medicinal herbs.
Modeling and predicting stochastic merging behaviors at freeway on-ramp bottlenecks

Merging behavior is inevitable at on-ramp bottlenecks and is a significant factor in triggering traffic breakdown. In modeling merging behaviors, the gap acceptance theory is generally used. Gap acceptance theory holds that when a gap is larger than the critical gap, the vehicle will merge into the mainline. In this study, however, analyses not only focus on the accepted gaps, but also take the rejected gaps into account, and the impact on merging behavior with multi-rejected (more than once rejecting behavior) gaps was investigated; it shows that the multi-rejected gaps have a great influence on the estimation of critical gap and merging prediction. Two empirical trajectory data sets were collected and analyzed: one at Yan’an Expressway in Shanghai, China, and the other at Highway 101 in Los Angeles, USA. The study made three main contributions. First, it gives the quantitative measurement of the rejected gap which is also a detailed description of non-merging event and investigated the characteristics of the multi-rejected gaps; second, taking the multi-rejected gaps into consideration, it further expanded the concept of the “critical gap” which can be a statistic one and the distribution function of merging probability with respect to such gaps was analyzed by means of survival analysis. This way could make the full use of multi-rejected gaps and accepted gaps and reduce the sample bias, thus estimating the critical gap accurately; finally, considering multi-rejected gaps, it created logistic regression models to predict merging behavior. These models were tested using field data, and satisfactory performances were obtained.
New product introduction and supplier integration in sales and operations planning:evidence from the Asia Pacific region

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the implementation and performance benefits of sales and operations planning (S & OP) within organizations in Asia Pacific. Design/methodology/approach – A case study method was used, with two companies selected. The first company had recently commenced S & OP and applied it to facilitate new product introduction, while the second had integrated its supplier into an existing S & OP program. Supply chain performance data were collected and analyzed in the context of an S & OP maturity framework. Findings – Both cases show significant improvements in supply chain performance. In one case, the implementation of a common form of S & OP resulted in a 67 percent reduction in order lead time for newly introduced products. The second case demonstrated a 30 percent reduction in inventory levels and a 52 percent improvement in forecast accuracy through more advanced S & OP processes. Research limitations/implications – This paper studies just two companies and is not intended to be representative of outcomes at all companies implementing S & OP. Further studies are required for a more generalized picture of S & OP implementations in the Asia Pacific region to emerge. Practical implications – The findings illustrate the potential quantitative benefits of adopting S & OP and the circumstances under which these benefits may be achieved. The results are also supportive of the notion of a maturity model for S & OP implementations. Originality/value – This paper strengthens the link between practitioner and academic literature by providing empirical evidence of the benefits of S & OP. Furthermore, the findings are derived from the Asia Pacific region for which there have been few academic studies on S & OP to date.
Trade-Off between Hard and Soft Information in Bank Lending

While the role of accounting information in debt contract design has been extensively studied, accounting’s role in determining firms’ likelihood of getting loans from potential lenders is relatively less explored. Focusing on the syndicated loan market, this paper investigates the extent to which lending decisions of lead banks incorporate trade-offs between access to a borrower’s soft, internal information and the quality of the borrower’s financial accounting information. Building on substantial finance and economics literature, this study uses the geographic distance between the borrower and the lead bank as a proxy for the bank’s access to soft information acquisition. Prior research finds that the more distant the borrower is from the bank, the more difficult it is for the bank to obtain soft information for monitoring. This paper documents that the distance between the borrower and the lead bank increases with the quality of accounting information, suggesting that lead banks viewing high quality accounting information as a substitute for internal information. Further, this trade-off between accounting information and soft information is amplified for borrowers with more opaque information environments. Finally, it is documented that for borrowers without a high-reputation bank located in their geographic area, higher quality accounting information increases the probability that a borrower transacts with a geographically remote reputable lead bank. Overall, the results suggest that the availability of high-quality accounting information increases the set of potential contracting counterparties by creating the opportunity for borrowers to transcend the limits of geography and seek lending relationships with geographically remote banks. ___________________________ * I am very grateful to the members of my dissertation committee: Robert Bushman (Chair), Jeffery Abarbanell, Wayne Landsman, Mark Lang and Anil Shivdasani for their support and guidance on this project. I also appreciate the helpful comments and suggestions from Dan Amiram, John Gallemore, Sangwan Kim, Mark Maffett, Katie McDermott, Jenna Meints, Christopher Williams and workshop participants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgetown University, and participants at the 2011 Accounting Ph.D. Rookie Recruiting and Research Camp at the University of Miami. All errors are my own.
3 Results and Discussion 3 . 1 Differential Scanning Calorimetry

Copolymers of ethylene and α-olefins (consisting of 8, 12, 18 or 26 carbons) synthesized with zirconocene catalyst (which provided regular comonomer distribution) were investigated by differential canning calorimetry and X-ray scattering. As indicated from the calorimetry and small-angle X-ray scattering, the ethylene-hexacosene copolymer with comonomer content of 3 mol% may have a second crystallites present. As no other reflections were measured with wide-angle X-ray scattering, the side chains crystallites should have the same dimensions of its crystal lattice as the main chain crystalline structures. Since this side chains crystallization was found only in the ethylene-hexacosene copolymer with higher content of comonomer, a critical concentration of sufficiently long comonomer chains should be reached for this secondary crystallite formation.
Pathogenicity of Meloidogyne Incognita on Sesamum Indicum and the Efficacy of Yield-Based Scheme in Resistance Designation

Two screenhouse experiments were conducted in 2004 and 2005 rainy season to investigate the reaction of three selected Sesamum indicum cultivars against three population densities of a root knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita. Seedlings of S. indicum were raised in pots arranged in com- pletely randomised design and inoculated with 0, 5 000, and 10 000 eggs of M. incognita, replicated six times. Root knot disease was evaluated at mid-season and harvest. A new method for evaluating and reporting resistance to Meloidogyne spp. that divides the screening procedure into two phases in the same experiment was adapted. The first phase investigated the host response through the traditional standard method that utilises only gall and nematode reproduction indices, while the second con- sidered the effect of root knot disease on grain production of the crop. There was consistency in host designation of E8 and NICRIBEN-01M (syn: 530-1-6) which were classified under the traditional and improved rating schemes as tolerant and resistant, respectively. However, S. indicum breeding line Pbtil (No. 1) which was considered susceptible under the old system was found to be tolerant using the integrated and improved system. Root galls incited by the nematode degenerated significantly from mid-season to harvest time. Utilising yield as additional parameter for assessing resistance to root knot nematode provides a complete picture of Sesamum-Meloidogyne interaction, and therefore a more meaningful system for determining host response.
Household Food Insecurity and Women’s Nutritional Status in Addis Ababa

Background: Existing poverty, soaring food price and fast population growth are challenges of urban areas’ access to food. This especially hurt women’s nutritional status. Objective: This study was conducted to assess the level of household food insecurity and its effect on women’s nutritional status in Addis Ababa. Methodology: Cross-sectional study design was conducted from January to February 2012. A total of 550 households were selected using multistage sampling technique. Result: 3/4th of households were food-insecure by access and 40.7% of households have low dietary diversity. About 12.7% of women were underweight while 26% were overweight. Women’s body mass index increases with increasing dietary diversity score but there is no association between BMI and household food access score. Conclusion and Recommendations: Despite the fast economic growth and nutrition transition in Ethiopia, majority of households in Addis Ababa were food-insecure and food insecurity triggers under nutrition than over nutrition. Prevalence of both underweight and overweight is substantial indicating the double burden of malnutrition in the population. Households’ dietary diversity score was more sensitive than food access score in determining women’s body mass Index. There is a need to do more comprehensive and longitudinal assessment to determine the full extent of the problem and need to design urban food security programs.
Using Sentiment Analysis and Pattern Matching to Signal User Review Abnormalities

User opinions on websites like Amazon, Yelp, and TripAdvisor are a key input for consumers when figuring out what to purchase, or where and what to eat. This means that in order for such websites to provide a better service to their customers, they must guard against fake and targeted reviews. Detecting such users and reviews automatically is a very complex multi-step process, and there is no direct mechanism for solving the problem reliably. Multiple AI and Machine Learning algorithms are coupled together when examining user reviews in determining if a review is fake or not. In this project we propose one such mechanism, which examines past user reviews to detect abnormalities, if any, signaling that they should be looked at more thoroughly from more dimensions. We do so by combining existing sentiment analysis techniques and pattern matching. In order to gain more insight into a review, we break it down into sentences and produce a sentiment value for each one, allowing us to represent a review as a sentiment vector. The sentiment vector then allows us to match various sized tuples against other reviews from the user and compute abnormality scores.
Effects of Silymarin on Growth Performance, Internal Organs and Some Blood Parameters in Japanese Quail Subjected to Oxidative Stress Induced by Carbon Tetrachloride

The effects of Silymarin on growth performance, internal organs, and some blood parameters were investigated in Japanese quail that were subjected to oxidative stress induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4). An experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design in a factorial arrangement (2 × 2) with four replicates of 30 birds each. Factors included two levels of Silymarin (0 and 1 mL/kg of body weight (BW)) and two levels of CCl4 (0 and 1 mL/kg of BW). Results showed that Silymarin did not affect productive parameters, whilst CCl4 significantly (P < 0.05) reduced feed intake and body weight gain. Silymarin did not affect the relative weights of breast, gizzard and heart, whereas CCl4 reduced relative weights of breast and heart. Both Silymarin and CCl4 administration resulted in higher pancreases relative weight. Birds treated with Silymarin had greater blood serum concentration of total protein and lower concentrations of glucose, triglyceride and total cholesterol (P < 0.05). In contrast, birds that received CCl4 showed decreased total protein and increased glucose concentrations of blood serum (P < 0.05). The interaction effect between Silymarin and CCL4 showed that Silymarin ameliorated the adverse effects of CCl4 on blood albumin. Treatment of CCl4 increased blood concentration of alkaline phosphatase compared with Silymarin (P < 0.05). This study showed that Silymarin may be a useful antioxidant source to ameliorate the adverse effects of oxidative stressors in Japanese quail.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Recent Work Title Anisotropy of Grain Growth in Alumina Permalink

Grain growth in theoretically dense undoped and MgO-doped polycrystalline alumina was studied and average grain boundary migration rates were compared to those of a-plane and c-plane sapphire during migration into the same undoped and Mg()-doped materials. The results are discussed in terms of a grain size dependent grain boundary mobility grain boundary energy product. MbYb· The grain size dependencies of the Mbyb products for seed and matrix grains differ. Seed orientation appears to affect the nature of solute-boundary interactions. The importance of grain boundary structure on migration characteristics is also indicated by a demonstration of twin formation enhanced grain growth. [
Impacts of Soil Heating Condition on Precipitation Simulations in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model

Abstract Soil temperature is a major variable in land surface models, representing soil energy status, storage, and transfer. It serves as an important factor indicating the underlying surface heating condition for weather and climate forecasts. This study utilizes the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to study the impacts of changes to the surface heating condition, derived from soil temperature observations, on regional weather simulations. Large cold biases are found in the 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis project (ERA-40) soil temperatures as compared to observations. At the same time, a warm bias is found in the lower boundary assumption adopted by the Noah land surface model. In six heavy rain cases studied herein, observed soil temperatures are used to initialize the land surface model and to provide a lower boundary condition at the bottom of the model soil layer. By analyzing the impacts from the incorporation of observed soil temperatures, t.
The Impact of PROGRESA on Food Consumption

In this article we used data from the Mexican poverty alleviation program called PROGRESA (Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación) to examine whether eligibility for a cash transfer provided by the program conditional on children’s regular school attendance and regular visits to health centers is also associated with increased consumption of food. We used a longitudinal sample of approximately 24,000 households from 506 communities. A distinguishing characteristic of this sample was that some of the communities were randomly selected for participation in PROGRESA, while the rest were introduced into the program at later phases. Exploiting this feature in our analysis, we found that eligible households in the villages covered by PROGRESA increased caloric acquisition compared with eligible households not receiving these benefits. By November 1999, median beneficiary households in treatment localities obtained 6.4% more calories than did comparable households in control localities. Perhaps even more significant, we found that the impact was greatest on dietary quality as measured by the acquisition of calories from vegetable and animal products—a finding consistent with the view of respondents themselves that PROGRESA was enabling them to “eat better. ”
The Global Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Bank Lending in Indonesia

This study examined the impact of the crisis on bank lending in Indonesia. The crisis was also interacted with profitability and liquidity to see the impact of profitability and liquidity during the global economic crisis on bank lending in Indonesia. This study involves bank-specific as a control variable and macroeconomic variables. Using panel data, I constructed a panel of 1,372 bank-year observations for 98 banks in Indonesia in the period 2002-2015. The empirical results showed that the profitability proxied from Return On Asset affected bank lending negatively, but this effect was relatively insigniucant. The study also found a positive and significant impact between liquidity and bank lending in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the only GDP which had a significant impact on lending with a positive sign. DOI : https://doi.org/10.26905/jkdp.v21i4. 1513
Workers' Remittances and Economic Growth in South Asia

This study investigates the effect of workers’ remittances on economic growth of five South Asian countries namely Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka & Nepal by employing long time series data from 1975 to 2009. Cointegration results confirm that there exist significant positive long run relationship between remittances and economic growth in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal while, significant negative relationship exist between remittances and economic growth in Pakistan. Causality analysis shows bidirectional causality between remittances and economic growth in Nepal and Sri Lanka. On the other hand, unidirectional causality exist, runs from remittances to economic growth in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Sensitivity analysis confirms that the results are robust. It suggested that policy makers should make policies to reduce the transaction cost to welcome remittances in the region. In addition, countries especially Pakistan should more relying on increasing exports rather than workers’ remittances as foreign exchange earnings for sustainable and long run growth in the country.
The Heidelberg Basin drilling project: Geophysical pre-site surveys

Abstract. Currently, the Heidelberg Basin is under investigation by new cored research boreholes to enhance the understanding concerning the control on Pliocene and Quaternary sedimentation by (neo)tectonics and climate. The Heidelberg Basin is expected to serve as a key location for an improved correlation of parameters that characterise the climate evolution in North Europe and the Alpine region. The recovery of sediment successions of high temporal resolution that are complete with respect to the deposition of Pleistocene glacials and interglacials in superposition is of special importance. Prior to the new research boreholes in Viernheim and Heidelberg geophysical pre-site surveys were performed to identify borehole locations that best achieve these requirements. In the area of the Heidelberg Basin the strongest negative gravity anomaly of the entire Upper Rhine Graben is observed (apart from the Alps), hinting at anomalously thick sediment deposits. However, especially reflection seismic profiles contributed significantly to the decision about the borehole locations. In the city of Heidelberg for the first time, the depocentre of the Heidelberg Basin, as indicated by additional subsidence compared to its surroundings, was mapped. In this area, sediments dip towards the eastern margin of the Upper Rhine Graben. This is interpreted to represent a rollover structure related to the maximum subsidence of the Upper Rhine Graben in this region. At the Viernheim borehole location the seismic survey revealed several faults. Although these faults are mainly restricted to depths greater than 225 m, the borehole location was fi nally adjusted with respect to this information.
Dependency conversion and parsing of the BulTreeBank

Recently dependency parsing is gaining popularity. It is broadly accepted that dependency representations are more suitable for free word order languages. Statistical dependency parsers are easy to port from one language to another, if there are dependency treebanks for learning a grammar for the particular language. However, many treebanks are based on constituency and have to be converted to dependency representations prior to learning statistical dependency parsers. In this paper we investigate the issues of the conversion of the BulTreeBank (Simov et al., 2002) from Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) format to dependency-based format and its parsing. We have performed three different conversions to three different dependency formats. For two of the conversions we used head tables and dependency tables which were stated explicitly, as in (Xia, 2001). For the other conversion the tables were implicitly implemented by rules. Our choice of rules for the tables was guided by decisions rooted in different linguistic theories. We have parsed the converted treebank with the Malt parser (Nivre et al., 2004) for ‘evaluating’ our conversions. Then we made error analysis to find advantages and pitfalls of each conversion strategy.