Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cash‐flows, earnings, and time‐varying expected stock returns

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to empirically evaluate alternative multifactor explanations of cash-flows and earnings momentum portfolios. It aims to examine whether the common risk factors, which are related to firm level accounting characteristics, can reflect the behavior of average portfolio returns based on such measures as cash-flows and earnings momentum in the presence of each other's systematic components and time-varying measures of volatility. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses monthly stock returns for all NYSE firms on CRSP database and constructs average portfolio returns between July 1951 and June 2008. It investigates the interdependence of stock returns for cash-flows and earnings momentum portfolios using their systematic components. The methodology is implemented by extending various characteristic-based factor models of returns. Findings – The main finding of the study suggests that there is strong information transmission – both in the temporal variation and risk sensitivities of the average returns of cash-flows and earnings momentum portfolios. Also, there is compelling empirical evidence that the associated systematic components well complement the ability of common risk factors to explain the temporal behavior of all NYSE stocks. Research limitations/implications – While the results are statistically significant, the effect of aggregate risk in factor model is dubious. An integration of other accruals based accounting characteristics would be an interesting issue to explore. Practical implications – The goal of the paper is to examine how different combinations of empirically determined variables that are instrumental in the creation of style-specific benchmarks can capture the time-series variation of average portfolio returns. It will provide added value to scholars and investment professionals in making effective portfolio management decisions. Originality/value – Compared to the existing literature, in the evaluation of earnings and cash-flows based measures, the paper focuses on the predictive power of the systematic components. It shows that paying close attention to the systematic components clearly provides additional information about the time-varying behavior of average stock returns. The findings that the economic characteristics of the firm can complement the comparative role of the systematic components of cash-flows and earnings add significantly to the literature.
P Wave Dispersion on 12‐Lead Electrocardiography in Patients with Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation

The prolongation of intraatrial and interatrial conduction time and the inhomogeneous propagation of sinus impulses have been shown in patients with atrial fibrillation. Recently P wave dispersion (PWD), which is believed to reflect inhomogeneous atrial conduction, has been proposed as being useful for the prediction of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). Ninety consecutive patients (46 men, 44 women; aged 55 ± 13 years) with a history of idiopathic PAF and 70 healthy subjects (42 men, 28 women; mean age, 53 ± 14 years) were studied. The P wave duration was calculated in all 12 leads of the surface ECC. The difference between the maximum and minimum P wave duration was calculated and this difference was defined as P wave dispersion (PWD = Pmax ‐ Pmin). All patients and controls were also evaluated by echocardiography to measure the left atrial diameter and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). There was no difference between patients and controls in gender (P = 0.26), age (P = 0.12), LVEF (66 ± 4% vs 67 ± 5%, P = 0.8) and left atrial diameter (36 ± 4 mm vs 34 ± 6 mm, P = 0.13). P maximum duration was found to be significantly higher in patients with a history of PAF (116 ± 17 ms) than controls (101 ±11 ms. P < 0.001). P wave dispersion was also significantly higher in patients than in controls (44 ± 15 ms vs 27 ± 10 ms, P < 0.001). There was a weak correlation between age and P wave dispersion (r = 0.27, P < 0.001). A P maximum value of 106 ms separated patients with PAF from control subjects with a sensitivity of 83%, a specificity of 72%, and a positive predictive accuracy of 79%. A P wave dispersion value of 36 ms separated patients from control subjects with a sensitivity of 77%, a specificity of 82%, and a positive predictive accuracy of 85%. In conclusion, P maximum duration and P wave dispersion calculated on a standard surface ECG are simple ECG markers that could be used to identify the patients with idiopathic paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.
A Proof of the Existence of "Consensus Beliefs"

A PROMINENT INTERPRETATION OF market information efficiency in the finance literature is as follows. A market is efficient with respect to an information set A if the prices it generates are identical to those generated in an otherwise identical market in which the set A accurately describes the information available to each and every participant. This interpretation is implicit in what has come to be regarded as the classical reference on capital market efficiency, Fama [5]; however, it was first explicitly discussed in Rubinstein [12], and thus is commonly referred to as Fama-Rubinstein (FR) efficiency. The central feature of FR-efficiency can be described as follows. If a market is FR-efficient with respect to A, anyone whose information is accurately described as A sees his information as "fully reflected" in prices because the prices he encounters in the market are identical to those encountered in an otherwise identical market in which everyone knows A. Consequently, despite the fact that no one else may actually know A, he cannot earn a return in "excess" of what he could earn if everyone did indeed know A. Two characteristics suggest that FRefficiency may be attractive. It is consistent with the notion of information efficiency that prevails in the empirical literature, i.e., excess returns cannot be earned. (Footnote 4 elaborates on this point.) In addition, since a market can be FR-efficient with respect to A without an explicit revelation of A through prices, it is a relatively weak interpretation of information efficiency, and therefore may be characteristic of a wide class of phenomena. ' However it is not entirely clear that FR-efficiency is well-defined. Rubinstein himself suggests this. But the extent of his analysis is to cite two simple situations (both of which rely on the assumption that each and every participant has an identical, linear tolerance for risk) as sufficient conditions that in an otherwise identical market, identical prices can be derived. This paper establishes that in a complete market, all price systems are equilibrium price systems for some set of probability beliefs unanimously shared by all participants. With regard to FR-efficiency, this result has the following implication. If unanimously shared beliefs result when some common set of information is available to each and every participant, then the existence of unanimously
An Eigen-Analysis of Compact Antenna Arrays and Its Application to Port Decoupling

Placing the radiators of antenna arrays closer than aggravates the problem of power mismatch. Based on efficiency considerations, a general analysis of this effect is presented, putting forward a simple tool to quantify, compare, and optimize the performance of antenna arrays. This analysis is not restricted with respect to the number of radiators or the degree of compactness. In order to improve power matching, a systematic approach for the design of lossless decoupling and matching networks based on 180 directional couplers is suggested for up to eight radiators. Implications of network losses, which have not yet received appropriate attention by researchers in the past, will be analyzed and discussed by means of a manufactured three-element prototype array.
Drivers of Hotel Departments' Performance: Evidence From Australia

This article examined how department managers’ perceptions of their general manager's transformational leadership style, their insight into market competition, and use of management accounting systems information has influenced hotels’ departmental performances. The data were collected through a postal survey in which 112 usable responses were received from department managers of luxury hotels in Australia. The results indicated a combined significant and positive effect of transformational leadership, market competition, and management accounting systems information use on the hotels departments’ non-financial performance, but not financial performance.
The Effect of Economic Opportunity and Family Background on Adolescent Cohabitation on Adolescent Cohabitation and Childbearing among Low-Income Blacks

This article uses a hazards model permitting continuous covariates and fixed effects to estimate the effect of local employment opportunity and family background on the cohabitation and childbearing of black youths from low-income households. Support is found for W. J. Wilson's hypothesis that employment opportunity encourages the formation of cohabitational unions, as well as for the "opportunity-cost" hypothesis that employment opportunity discourages childbearing outside such unions. However, the latter effect appears to be larger, suggesting that the opportunity-cost hypothesis is the primary channel through which higher employment rates result in lower rates of illegitimacy among underclass youths.
Investment-Led Growth in China: Global Spillovers

Over the past decade, China's growth model has become more reliant on investment and its footprint in global imports has widened substantially. Several economies within China's supply chain are increasingly exposed to its investment-led growth and face growing risks from a deceleration in investment in China. This note quantifies potential global spillovers from an investment slowdown in China. It finds that a one percentage point slowdown in investment in China is associated with a reduction of global growth of just under one-tenth of a percentage point. The impact is about five times larger than in 2002. Regional supply chain economies and commodity exporters with relatively less diversified economies are most vulnerable to an investment slowdown in China. The spillover effects also register strongly across a range of macroeconomic, trade, and financial variables among G20 trading partners.
Mean Reversion in Housing Markets

Booms in house prices are usually followed by busts. This pattern is called “mean reversion. ” Mean reversion in housing markets has historically coincided with economic recessions across the world. Chapter 1 establishes mean reversion in U.S. data, and attempts to explain it using the dynamics of wages in cities. Chapter 2 takes a different approach. It models mean reversion resulting from speculation and uncertainty. This model explains why strong mean reversion in prices occurs in cities where it is easy to build houses, a phenomenon that Chapter 1 cannot explain. Chapter 3 takes the spirit of Chapter 2 and applies it to the optimal design of the income tax.
Thiamine and Cholinergic Transmission in the Electric Organ of Torpedo

Abstract: The electric organ of Torpedo marmorata was found to contain as much as 120 ± 24 nmol of thiamine per g of fresh tissue. The vitamin was distributed as nonesterified thiamine (32%), thiamine monophosphate (22%), thiamine diphosphate (8%), and an important proportion of thiamine triphosphate (38%). A high level of thiamine triphosphate was found in synaptosomes isolated from the electric organ. In contrast, the synaptic vesicles did not show any enrichment in thiamine, whereas they contained a marked peak of acetylcholine (ACh) and ATP. Thus thiamine seems to be very abundant in cholinergic nerve terminals; its localization is apparently extravesicular, either in the axoplasm or in association with plasma membrane. When calcium was reduced and magnesium increased in the external medium, the efficiency of transmission was diminished, owing to inhibition of ACh release; in a parallel manner the degree of thiamine phosphorylation was found to increase—this condition is known to modify the repartition of ACh between vesicular and extravesicular compartments. Electrical stimulation, which causes periodic variations of the level of ACh and ATP, also caused significant changes in thiamine esters. In addition, related changes of the vitamin and the transmitter were observed under other conditions, suggesting a functional link between the metabolism of thiamine and that of ACh in cholinergic nerve terminals.
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 nucleocapsid protein reduces reverse transcriptase pausing at a secondary structure near the murine leukemia virus polypurine tract

In an earlier study on minus-strand DNA synthesis catalyzed by murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase, we described a prominent pause site near the polypurine tract (J. Guo, W. Wu, Z. Y. Yuan, K. Post, R. J. Crouch, and J. G . Levin, Biochemistry 34:5018-5029, 1995). We now report that pausing at this site is due to a stem-loop structure in the RNA template, formed by interaction of a number of bases in the polypurine tract, including the six G's, and a 3' sequence which includes four C's. Addition of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) nucleocapsid (NC) protein to reverse transcriptase reactions reduces pausing by approximately 8- to 10-fold and stimulates synthesis of full-length DNA. Thus, NC functions as an accessory protein during elongation of minus-strand DNA and increases the efficiency of DNA synthesis, in this case, by apparently destabilizing a region of secondary structure in the template. Since NC is associated with genomic RNA in the viral core and is likely to be part of a viral replication complex, these results suggest that NC may also promote efficient DNA synthesis during virus replication. Mutational analysis indicates that the features of HIV-1 NC which are important for reduction of pausing include the basic amino acids flanking the first zinc finger, the zinc fingers, and the cysteine and aromatic amino acids within the fingers. These findings suggest that reverse transcription might be targeted by drugs which inactivate the zinc fingers of HIV-1 NC.
Typical chest pain and normal coronary angiogram: cardiac risk factor analysis versus PET for detection of microvascular disease.

UNLABELLED Angiography of patients with typical chest pain reveals normal epicardial coronary arteries in about 20%. Coronary flow reserve (CFR) determination is an elaborate, but helpful, task, as only the evidence of microvascular disease enables appropriate therapy. We prospectively evaluated the incidence of a dysfunctional microcirculation and searched for predictive parameters of a reduced CFR. METHODS In 79 consecutive patients (52 females, 27 males) with typical angina and a normal angiogram and 10 control subjects (6 females, 4 males), CFR was measured by 13N-ammonia rest/dipyridamole PET and correlated with clinical parameters individually and summarized as the number of risk factors (NRF) using an elaborated cardiac risk factor score. RESULTS Sixty-five percent of patients had a reduced CFR (CFR < 2.5). CFR correlated with NRF (r = 0.55, P < 0.001), systolic blood pressure (r = 0.46, P < 0.001), interventricular septal thickness (r = 0.33, P < 0.01), and age (r = 0.25, P = 0.02). Eighty-five percent of patients with a high risk factor score (NRF > or = 5) had a reduced CFR. In contrast, 100% of our patients with a low risk factor score (NRF < 2) presented a normal CFR. In total, 55% of our patients could be allocated to either one of these groups. CONCLUSION In about two thirds of patients, anginal pain can be explained by a reduced CFR. Risk factors have a cumulative negative effect on CFR. A clinical cardiac risk factor analysis enables estimation of individual probability of microvascular dysfunction in a significant proportion of these patients. However, CFR measurements are recommended for those with an intermediate NRF.
Transcriptomic Resilience of a Coral Holobiont to Low pH

Ocean acidification is considered as one of the major threats for coral reefs at a global scale. Marine calcifying organisms, including stony corals, are expected to be the most affected by the predicted decrease of the surface water pH at the end of the century. The severity of the impacts on coral reefs remains as matter of controversy. Although previous studies have explored the physiological response of stony corals to changes in pH, the response of the holobiont (i.e. the coral itself plus its symbionts) remains largely unexplored. In the present study, we assessed the changes in overall gene expression of the coral Montipora digitata and its microalgal symbionts after a short (three days) and a longer (42 days) exposure to low pH (7.6). The short-term exposure to low pH caused small differences in the expression level of the host, impacting mostly genes associated with stress response in other scleractinians. Resilience to Acidification of a Coral Holobiont Longer exposure to low pH resulted in no significant changes in gene expression of the coral host. Gene expression in the eukaryotic symbionts remained unaltered at both exposure times. Our findings suggest resilience, in terms of gene expression, of the Montipora digitata holobiont to pH decrease, as well as capability to acclimatize to extended periods of exposure to low pH.
Childhood antecedents of exposure to traumatic events and posttraumatic stress disorder.

OBJECTIVE The authors prospectively examined childhood antecedents of exposure to traumatic events to estimate the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among those exposed to trauma. METHOD Two consecutive cohorts of children entering first grade of a public school system in a large mid-Atlantic city in the mid-1980s were followed into young adulthood (mean age=21). Exposure to traumatic events and PTSD were assessed in 75% of the original cohort (N=1,698). Childhood assessments, conducted upon entry into the first grade, included standardized measures of reading readiness, teacher ratings of behavioral problems, and child self-reports about depression and anxiety. Family characteristics were assessed by parental report. RESULTS Young adults who had been rated by their first grade teacher as having aggressive/disruptive behavior problems were more likely to experience traumatic assaultive violence events (e.g., being mugged/threatened with a weapon, badly beaten-up) (relative risk=2.6) but not PTSD following trauma exposure. Youths with high levels of self-rated depressive and anxious feelings in first grade were more likely to experience PTSD once exposed to trauma (relative risk=1.5). Youths who scored in the highest quartile on a reading test in the first grade were at lower risk for exposure to assaultive violence traumas. CONCLUSIONS Childhood behavioral and depressive/anxious problems may influence the risk for PTSD directly by increasing the vulnerability to the PTSD effects of trauma exposure, and indirectly by increasing the likelihood of exposure to assaultive violence.
Stage- and subunit-specific functions of polycomb repressive complex 2 in bladder urothelial formation and regeneration

ABSTRACT Urothelium is the protective lining of the urinary tract. The mechanisms underlying urothelial formation and maintenance are largely unknown. Here, we report the stage-specific roles of PRC2 epigenetic regulators in embryonic and adult urothelial progenitors. Without Eed, the obligatory subunit of PRC2, embryonic urothelial progenitors demonstrate reduced proliferation with concomitant dysregulation of genes including Cdkn2a (p16), Cdkn2b (p15) and Shh. These mutants display premature differentiation of keratin 5-positive (Krt5+) basal cells and ectopic expression of squamous-like differentiation markers. Deletion of Ezh2, the major enzymatic component of PRC2, causes upregulation of Upk3a+ superficial cells. Unexpectedly, Eed and Eed/Ezh2 double mutants exhibit delayed superficial cell differentiation. Furthermore, Eed regulates the proliferative and regenerative capacity of adult urothelial progenitors and prevents precocious differentiation. Collectively, these findings uncover the epigenetic mechanism by which PRC2 controls urothelial progenitor cell fate and the timing of differentiation, and further suggest an epigenetic basis of urothelial maintenance and regeneration. Summary: In mouse, mutations in different subunits of the PRC2 complex have specific effects on urothelial progenitor cell proliferation and differentiation.
Pregnancy and Sickle Cell Hemoglobinopathies: Results With and Without Prophylactic Transfusions

Maternal morbidity and perinatal outcome in 108 pregnancies complicated by sickle cell anemia (hemoglobin SS disease), sickle cell-hemoglobin C disease (hemoglobin SC disease), or sickle cell-β-thalassemia disease were analyzed. Women given prophylactic red cell transfusions (1973–1982) during pregnancy were matched with historic controls whose care was almost identical except that blood was not given unless indicated (1955 to 1972). In women with hemoglobin SS disease who received prophylactic red cell transfusions, there was a sevenfold reduction in perinatal mortality and negligible maternal morbidity. In pregnancies complicated by hemoglobin SC disease during which transfusions were given, there were no perinatal losses, whereas there were in 18% of women not given transfusions. Maternal morbidity in women given transfusions was negligible; however, half of those not transfused experienced morbidity and, importantly, pulmonary complications were common. Transfusion-related complications included hepatitis and alloimmunization. From these experiences the authors conclude that prophylactic red cell transfusions reduce maternal morbidity and perinatal mortality appreciably, although perinatal morbidity is not eliminated. Transfusion therapy is justifiably started early in pregnancy for women with hemoglobin SS disease; however, transfusions may be withheld until the end of the second trimester for women with hemoglobin SC or sickle cell-β-thalassemia disease.
Molecular characterization of plasmids in Salmonella enteritidis phage types

SUMMARY Plasmids in selected type strains of 26 of the Salmonella enteritidis phage types have been characterized by restriction enzyme fingerprinting and by DNA–DNA hybridization with oligonucleotide probes for Salmonella plasmid virulence (Spv) genes. With one exception, the fingerprints of the 38 MDa plasmids studied were homogeneous but there was heterogeneity in the fingerprints of 59 MDa plasmids found in 4 of the type strains. However all 38 MDa and 59 MDa plasmids were related as was a 45 MDa plasmid identified in the type strain of phage type 19. A 3·5 kb fragment homologous to SpvC was conserved in Hind III digests of all 38 MDa and 59 MDa plasmids, and in the related 45 MDa plasmid. In contrast a 65 MDa plasmid found in the type strain of phage type 10 was not related to these three plasmid molecular weight groups and did not carry the SpvC gene.