Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THREE ESSAYS ON PARTISAN POLITICS AND STOCK RETURNS

This dissertation contains three essays on partisan politics and its effect on the time series and cross-section of stock returns. The first essay investigates the presidential puzzle (Santa-Clara and Valkanov, 2003) – the fact that the equity premium is 10% higher in years with Democratic governments than in years with Republican governments. I find the existence of a negative price reaction after Democratic victories in presidential elections. I also establish that the difference in the equity premium is significant only in the first year of the presidential cycle and that there is a negative equity premium in the fourth year of the cycle when the incumbent Republican loses the election. Moreover, the market reaction to changes in the likelihood of a candidate winning the election is significantly different for Republican and Democratic candidates. The evidence is consistent with a risk explanation and policy uncertainty. Finally, I explore several specifications for a presidential factor (P-factor) that improves on the CAPM and Fama-French 3-factor model for different test assets. The second essay considers the effect of different measures of corporate taxes on stock returns. The results support the partisan politics cycle effect on equity returns. A high minus low (Hi-Lo) portfolio sorted by (Total Corporate Taxes/Total Assets) has an annual return of +3.8% during Republican presidential terms and -6.3% for Democratic terms. Similarly, a high minus low portfolio sorted by (Marginal Tax Rate) has an annual return of +12.7% during Republican presidential terms and -6.4% for Democratic terms. Investors partially anticipate these results during the election period, i.e., increases in the probability of the Democratic candidate being elected are associated with negative returns for the (Hi-Lo) portfolio, which are significant for the 2016 election. The evidence is consistent with a cash-flow based explanation, in contrast with a risk-based explanation. The third essay studies the effect of partisan politics on stock returns in Latin America. The results are partially consistent with previous literature. There is a negative market reaction when left-wing parties win presidential elections. In contrast, the observed democratic premium in the U.S. is not observed in the sample of Latin American countries. Firms have higher returns during periods when the president is from a Centrist party. Moreover, the Christian-Secular dimension is analyzed, firms have significantly higher returns during periods when the president is from a Christian party and the market reaction is higher the day after the candidate from the Christian party wins. Results are consistent with Christian party led governments providing a low-risk and high profitability environment and stock market underreaction. %%%%Dissertation%%%%Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Ecological Zonation of Phytoplankton and Biomass Based on Bio-Optical Parameters off Baja California during Three Summer Seasons

An ecological zonation of phytoplankton was determined from its normalized spectral absorption shape (aphn) during the summers of 2001-02-03 off the west coast of Baja California. In the first two seasons, the highest abundances of the main taxonomic groups of phytoplankton were detected towards the coastal stations, but for 2003, diatoms showed higher abundances towards the oceanic region. The ecological provinces (Pv) were the footprint of the zonation in the structure of the phytoplankton community; likewise, it was observed that the spectral shape was independent of the chlorophyll-a (mg·m-3). The effect of coastal upwelling south of Vizcaino Bay favored the increase of phytoplankton cells. However, the composition of the community decreased in cells abundance and diversity due to the influence of the phenomenon called El Nino “debil” reported to the south of the California Current for the years 2002-03.
Status Quo agiler Software-Entwicklung in der europäischen institutionellen Raumfahrt

Die institutionelle Raumfahrt nimmt zunehmend die Bedeutung agiler Entwicklungsmethoden wahr. Dies geht einher mit einer Veranderung hin zu NewSpace Produkten und -Technologien. Hier sind insbesondere kurze Entwicklungszyklen und Flexibilitat wichtig. Zusammen mit Industriepartnern verabschieden sowohl die europaische (ESA) als auch die deutsche Raumfahrtagentur (DLR) derzeit zwei Artefakte, welche einen Grundstein fur agile Entwicklung in der institutionellen Raumfahrt legen werden: (1) Ein ECSS Standard (Handbuch) zu agiler Softwareentwicklung hat das offentliche Review passiert und befindet sich nun in der Fertigstellung, und (2) nimmt das Raumfahrtmanagement des DLR erstmals einen Satz von Anforderungen fur Lieferanten in seine Produktsicherungsanforderungen auf, welche auf agile Entwicklung ausgerichtet sind. Die hier vorliegende Zusammenfassung eines Vortrags auf dem diesjahrigen Deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrt Kongress beschreibt die Eigenschaften agiler Entwicklung, stellt die zwei Artefakte vor und zeigt damit auf, wie sich agile Entwicklung in die Rahmenwerke institutioneller Raumfahrt einbinden lassen kann. Die Raumfahrt-Community nimmt das Thema sowohl mit Interesse als auch kritischen Fragen zu moglichen Folgen (z.B. Qualitat, Vertragsgestaltung) auf.
School lessons, social media and political events in a get-out-the-vote campaign: successful drivers of political engagement among youth?

ABSTRACT During election times, societal actors frequently employ specific get-out-the-vote campaigns to mobilize young voters’ turnout and engagement with the election. Although such campaigns receive praise in society, little is known about how effective they are and if they shape longer lasting types of political engagement. This study presents novel evidence about the differential effects of a multi-platform get-out-the-vote campaign in Denmark, and investigates how such campaigns can help to address the important democratic problem of youth disengagement. Based on a two-wave panel study among high school- and university students in Denmark (n = 275), the effects of classroom interventions, political event participation, and social media use on political interest, knowledge, and political efficacy are explored. The results suggests that get-out-the-vote campaigns are able to strengthen youths’ political engagement, but that civic education and political events may be more important than communication via social media.
What an “Ehm” Leaks About You: Mapping Fillers into Personality Traits with Quantum Evolutionary Feature Selection Algorithms

This work shows that fillers - short utterances like “ehm” and “uhm” - allow one to predict whether someone is above median along the Big-Five personality traits. The experiments have been performed over a corpus of 2,988 fillers uttered by 120 different speakers in spontaneous conversations. The results show that the prediction accuracies range between 74 and 82 percent depending on the particular trait. The proposed approach includes a feature selection step - based on Quantum Evolutionary Algorithms - that has been used to detect the personality markers, i.e., the subset of the features that better account for the prediction outcomes and, indirectly, for the personality of the speakers. The results show that only a relatively few features tend to be consistently selected, thus acting as reliable personality markers.
Interracial encounters with the police: findings from the NCVS police-public contact survey

Abstract The public regularly encounter law enforcement. In an era of the Blacks Lives Matter movement and associated discord with law enforcement, understanding the contours of police--public relations and its potential consequences are paramount. Using national level data of police stops, we attempt to identify factors that influence attitudes of respect and legitimacy toward the police. Findings reveal that, among other things, race impacts perceptions of law enforcement through the interracial characteristics of encounters, a context in which some citizens are more likely to question police legitimacy even after controlling for other salient factors. Policy considerations are discussed.
The influence of problem based learning towards social science learning outcomes viewed from learning interest

The aim of this study is to determine the influences of Problem Based Learning and learning interest at improving the cognitive learning outcomes in social science of fourth-grade elementary school students. This study is a quasi-experiment study with pre-test and post-test control group design. The sample collection is taken with stratified cluster random sampling technique. The sample of this study is 109 fourth-grade elementary school students, consisted of 50 students from experiment group and 59 students from control group. The students from experiment group are given the application of Problem Based Learning, while the students in control group are given the application of Direct Instruction. The data collection is carried by using the instruments of social science learning outcomes test and social science learning interest questionnaire. The validity of test and questionnaire instruments is carried by expert judgement. The difficulty level, distinguishing power, and reliability of test instrument is tested by using ITEMAN application. The internal consistency and reliability of questionnaire instrument is tested by using SPSS application. The data is analysed by using two-way anova. The outcomes of the study show that PBL and learning interest contribute significant impact towards social science learning outcomes of elementary school students.
The Use of WhatsApp for Flexible Learning: Its Effectiveness in Supporting Teaching and Learning in Sierra Leone's Higher Education Institutions

Despite its inherent limitations, Whatsapp messenger has proved beneficial in bridging the gap in technology provision for enhancing students' learning experiences in Sierra Leone. The need to make sure students dedicate time in using Whatsapp for the benefit of improving their learning experiences was emphasised; this as suggested can be done through participation in group collaboration, which involve peer-to-peer and peer-to-instructor interaction. Equally, to advance effective use of flexible learning opportunities, institutions must consider alternatives like Moodle / Blackboard, which already comes with the added capabilities of MIS synchronisation features of integration with students' record. In all of the aforementioned points, there is a need for government support in ensuring the right investment is made in bringing the country's HEIs integrated ICT learning provision to international standard.
Party v. The People: Testing corrective action and supportive engagement in a partisan political context

ABSTRACT Today’s audiences have an opportunity to hear the political opinions of a more diverse sample of voters through online comment sections. Two theories suggest that the hostile or supportive climate created by peers will influence the audience’s engagement with comment sections. Corrective action hypothesis posits that citizens will engage offline and online when they perceive a hostile opinion climate. Meanwhile, the supportive-based engagement theory suggests that some audience members will be more likely to participate when a homogenous opinion climate speeds opinion crystallization. This study extends the engagement literature to the opinion climate created by online comments by investigating the interaction between political partisanship and the hostility of comments about a political candidate. In a 3 (political party congruence) X 3 (level of comment hostility) controlled experiment (N = 350), party identification of a candidate and the hostility of comments were manipulated. The change in opinion about the candidate and the likelihood of expressing a public opinion were measured. Results indicate the audience is most likely to express an opinion when the candidate and the audience member share party identification. Further, the study finds an interaction so that hostile opinion climate increased opinion polarization. Results suggest that audiences are more likely to support a fellow partisan being attacked than to attack a member of the political outgroup who is being supported. Finally, it finds the perception that comments will influence others has a role in opinion change and likelihood of expressing an opinion.
Applying Spatial Augmented Reality to Anti-Smoking Message: Focusing on Spatial Presence, Negative Emotions, and Threat Appraisal

ABSTRACT As smoking has emerged as a health-risk behavior, communication scholars and practitioners have put many efforts into finding out ways to achieve smoking cessation. In this research, participants (N = 57) were randomly assigned to a spatial augmented reality (SAR) condition (3D projection mapping) and 2D flat screen to be exposed to an anti-smoking message. This research provides insightful evidence that the effects of SAR on people’s behavioral intention to spread anti-smoking messages online could be explained by spatial presence and negative emotions. Implications for research on the potential of SAR in terms of emotions and online viral behavioral intentions are discussed.
Tinder’s lesbian digital imaginary: Investigating (im)permeable boundaries of sexual identity on a popular dating app

Dating apps have received rapid uptake, with Tinder as one of the most popular apps in the heterosexual market. However, little research has investigated the experiences of women seeking women (WSW) on this app. This article combines two interview studies of WSW in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom to investigate their self-presentations of sexual identity on Tinder. By configuring settings to “seeking women,” participants perceived they were entering a space conducive to finding WSW. However, men, couples, and heterosexual women permeated this space, heightening the need for participants to signal non-heterosexual identity. Their signals fused references to lesbian and queer culture with Tinder’s infrastructure to evoke a digital imaginary, as a routinized set of practices imagined to resonate with a shared community. Although signals within this digital imaginary were sometimes playful and ambiguous, their default toward a recognizable lesbian identity often rendered other sexual or gender identities invisible.
When does changing emotions harm authenticity? Distinct reappraisal strategies differentially impact subjective and observer-rated authenticity

ABSTRACT We compared the effect of two commonly-studied reappraisal techniques on authenticity during a lab-based social interaction: emotion-focused reappraisal, which explicitly instructs people to change their emotions, and perspective-based reappraisal, which focuses on changing people’s viewpoint of an event. Study 1 showed that people who used perspective-based reappraisal were more authentic than people who used emotion-focused reappraisal. In Study 2 we replicated this effect, demonstrating that perspective-based (vs. emotion-focused) reappraisal leads to more authenticity and that this effect is statistically mediated by greater emotion regulation awareness in the emotion-focused reappraisal condition. Taken together, these findings suggest that emotion regulation techniques that do not make people aware they are changing their natural emotional response may leave authenticity intact.
Capital Mobility and Stabilization Policy Under Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rates

The world is still a closed economy, but its regions and countries are becoming increasingly open. The trend, which has been manifested in both freer movement of goods and increased mobility of capital, has been stimulated by the dismantling of trade and exchange controls in Europe, the gradual erosion of the real burden of tariff protection, and the stability, unparalleled since 1914, of the exchange rates. The international economic climate has changed in the direction of financial integration and this has important implications for economic policy. My paper concerns the theoretical and practical implications of the increased mobility of capital. In order to present my conclusions in the simplest possible way, and to bring the implications for policy into sharpest relief, I assume the extreme degree of mobility that prevails when a country cannot maintain an interest rate different from the general level prevailing abroad. This assumption will overstate the case but it has the merit of posing a stereotype towards which international financial relations seem to be heading. At the same time it might be argued that the assumption is not far from the truth in those financial centres, of which Zurich, Amsterdam, and Brussels may be taken as examples, where the authorities already recognize their lessening ability to dominate money market conditions and insulate them from foreign influences. It should also have a high degree of relevance to a country like Canada whose financial markets are dominated to a great degree by the vast New York market.
Microseismicity caused by injection of water in a gas-saturated reservoir

Microseismic events along preexisting zones of weakness occur in a reservoir due to pore pressure buildup and fracturing during fluid injection. We have used a multiphase fluid-flow numerical simulator to model water injection in a gas reservoir. Previous studies generally consider a single fluid, in which the relative permeabilities and capillary pressure play no role. We analyze the effects of partial saturation on the injection process. On the basis of a spatial distribution of weak stress zones and a threshold pore pressure, the simulator models fluid transport in the formation and allows us to obtain the spatiotemporal distribution of the microseismic events. We consider uniform and fractal distributions of the pore pressure at which microearthquakes are triggered. We analyze the influence of the initial water saturation and the presence of preexisting natural fractures, as well as the effect of updating the rock properties after the microseismic events occur. Moreover, we perform simulations in a low-permeability reservoir in which the borehole pressure increment generates a system of fractures that propagate into the reservoir. The importance of considering two-phase fluid flow resides in the fact that partial saturation greatly affects the trigger time evolution. This is mainly due to the difference in compressibility of the two phases.
Seasonal and Topographic Variations in Ecohydrological Separation Within a Small, Temperate, Snow‐Influenced Catchment

The hypothesis of ecohydrological separation (ES) proposes that the water contained in surface soils is not uniformly extracted by root water uptake nor uniformly displaced by infiltration. Rather vegetation selectively removes water held under tension, and water infiltrating wet soil will bypass much of the water‐filled pore space. Methodological differences across previous studies have contributed to disagreement concerning the prevalence of ES. We measured stable isotopes of O and H in precipitation, snowpack, canopy throughfall, and stream water over a period of 18 months in a temperate catchment. At six locations across a wetness gradient, we sampled bulk soil water isotopes weekly and xylem water of Eastern hemlock and American beech stems seasonally. We used these observations in a soil column model including StorAge Selection functions to estimate the isotopic composition and ages of groundwater recharge and ET. Our findings suggest ES may exist with spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Root water uptake ages possibly vary between Eastern hemlock and American beech, suggesting functional strategies for water uptake may control the presence of ES. Newly infiltrated water bypassing the shallow soil was the most likely explanation for bulk soil isotopic measurements made at upslope locations during the winter and summer seasons, whereas rapid displacement of stored soil water by infiltrated waters was the most likely during the spring and fall seasons. Future research incorporating high temporal frequency soil and plant xylem water isotopic measurements applied to StorAge Selection functions may provide a useful framework for understanding rooting zone isotope dynamics.
Effectiveness of INSTAD Teaching Model in Improving Students' Critical Thinking with High and Low Level Academic Achievement

Students’ Critical Thinking Skills can be nurtured by implementing a teaching model in which students are provided with the opportunity to inquiry work, InquiryStudent Team Achievement Divisions (INSTAD) teaching models may work effectively. This research aims to investigate: (1) the influence of INSTAD teaching model towards critical thinking skills compared with Guided Inquiry teaching, STAD and conventional teaching model; (2) the influence of academic achievement on critical thinking skills; (3) the interaction of teaching models and academic achievement on critical thinking skills. A nonequivalent control group design with pretest and posttest were used to get data on Critical Thinking Skills using an essay test based on Facione' critical thinking skills indicator. Participants in this research are 194 student eleventh grades in Surakarta, Indonesia. An intact group technique was applied to determine the sample of this study after passing the normality and homogeneity test, then each sample group was divided into the High Academic group (HA) and Low Academic group (LA). The data analysis technique using AnCova with the significantly value 0.05%. The result indicates that: (1) compared with other three metods, INSTAD has higher potential to improving students’ critical thinking skills; (2) Students in HA group have higher students' critical thinking skills than students in LA group; (3) INSTAD can improving students’ critical thinking skills in HA group until on equal with guided-inquiry teaching in HA group. The conclusion is INSTAD was confirmed the most effective improving students’ critical thinking skills in HA and LA groups. Keywords—critical thinking skills, guided Inquiry, INSTAD, STAD
Influence of High-Temperature Bias Stress on Room-Temperature VT Drift Measurements in SiC Power MOSFETs

Our results reinforce the notion of the need for an improved high-temperature gate bias (HTGB) test method — one which discourages the use of slow (greater than ~1 ms) threshold-voltage (VT) measurements at elevated temperatures and includes biased cool-down if room temperature measurements are performed, to ensure that any ephemeral effects during the high-temperature stress are observed. The paper presents a series of results on both state-of-the-art commercially-available devices as well as older vintage devices that exhibit enhanced charge-trapping effects. Although modern devices appear to be robust, it is important to ensure that any new devices released commercially, especially by new vendors, are properly evaluated for VT stability.
Of bulls and bulbs: aspirations, opinions and perceptions of rural adolescents and youth in Zambia

ABSTRACT In Africa, policymakers and development practitioners focus heavily on making farming more attractive for the youth. To reach this goal, different actions are proposed, often emphasising the need for modern technology. These proposed actions are mostly based on anecdotes and prior policy beliefs. Using interviews and drawing exercises, this article shows that the aspirations, opinions and perceptions of adolescents (pre-youth) and youth are more diverse than assumed by the prevailing orthodoxies. The findings suggest that policymakers and development practitioners should pay more attention to their views, comprising environmental and social concerns, to avoid misguided policies.