Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ohlson Model Testability : Empirical Tests Findingsi

This paper analyses the empirical testability of Ohlson Model (OM). The methodology used comprises: (i) exploratory research with regards to the study objective; (ii) bibliography research with regards to the applicable procedures; and (iii) qualitative research with regards to problem approach. Literature research has comprised both origin (dividend discount, assessment of residual income etc) and the model subjacent theory. The linear information dynamics (LID) and the assessment formulae were discussed concerning the model internal consistency, as well as the establishment of the required inputs (parameters and variables). Empirical studies have been analyzed both in terms of their structuring and their achieved results. The study has concluded that: (1) no consensus has yet been achieved over the appropriate way to measure the parameters of persistency; (2) doubts as to the appropriate way of capturing the parameters ω and γ , and the variable ν prevents verification of the effective explanatory capabilities of the Ohlson Model; (3) empirical testability is limited to absences of consistent proxies that may capture persistency and previsibility of the institution’s future income. KeyWords: Valuation, Ohlson Model, empirical testing i This paper was presented in the 4th Controlling and Accounting USP Congress Ohlson Model Testability: Empirical Tests Findings Brazilian Business Review www.bbronline. com.br 137
Comparison of density functional theory and field approaches to van der Waals interactions in plan parallel geometry

We establish a general equivalence between van der Waals interaction energies within the formalism of the nonlocal van der Waals functional of the density functional theory and within the formalism of the field approach based on the secular determinants of the electromagnetic field modes. We then compare the two methods explicitly in the case of a plan parallel geometry with a continuously varying dielectric response function and show that their respective numerical implementations are not equivalent. This allows us to discuss the merits of the two approaches and possible advantages of either method in a simple model calculation.
Spicing up politics: how soft news and infotainment form political attitudes

Televisie is nog steeds verreweg de belangrijkste bron van nieuws voor de meeste burgers. Hoe de berichtgeving over politieke onderwerpen er op televisie uitziet is daarom van groot belang voor de manier waarop de democratie functioneert. Door het grote media-aanbod van tegenwoordig zijn veel minder mensen de traditionele nieuwsmedia (kranten en televisiejournaals) gaan volgen. Daarentegen zijn er entertainende alternatieven in opmars. Om de bijdrage van "soft news" en infotainment aan de democratie te bestuderen wordt in deze dissertatie onderzocht of en hoe deze soorten van nieuws de vorming van de publieke opinie beinvloeden. Daartoe wordt onderzocht welke effecten de drie meest prominente vormen van entertainment-georienteerde nieuwsvormen hebben op politieke attitudes. Om te onderzoeken hoe deze nieuwsgenres de vorming van politieke attitudes beinvloeden zijn drie experimenten uitgevoerd. Het eerste onderzoek focust zich op de vraag hoe human-interest-geframed nieuws in het NOS Journaal de politieke attitudes van kijkers beinvloedt. Het tweede experiment onderzocht hoe opinierende nieuwsverslaggeving (PowNews) de politieke attitudes van mensen beinvloedt. Het derde en laatste experiment illustreert hoe politieke satire (LuckyTV) de attitude van kijkers kan beinvloeden. Door politieke onderwerpen te personaliseren, nieuws vergezeld te laten gaan van de opinie van de journalist, of door een satirische laag over het nieuws aan te brengen wordt de politiek aantrekkelijker om te volgen voor mensen die zich normaliter niet betrokken voelen bij de politiek. De drie experimenten vonden verschillende mechanismen die impliceren dat burgers na het zien van vermakelijke vormen van politieke verslaggeving daadwerkelijk politieke attitudes (verder) ontwikkelen.
Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Compression on the Petro-Physical and Micromechanical Properties of Wellbore Cement Containing Salt

In this study, we investigated the effect of compression on the micromechanical and the petro- physical properties of salted wellbore cement systems. The experiments were conducted using a customized bench scale model, which utilized an expandable tubulars simulating the compression of a previously cemented casing under field-like conditions. The “mini-wellbore model” sample consisted of a pipe inside pipe assembly with a cemented annulus. The cement samples were cured in a water bath for 28 days prior to the compression experiments to allow adequate hydration. The impact of compression on the cement’s petro-physical and mechanical properties was quantified by measuring the porosity, permeability and hardness of salt cement cores drilled parallel to the orientation of the pipe from the compacted cement sheath. Permeability (Core-flood) experiments were conducted at 21℃, 10,342 kPa confining pressure for a period of 120 minutes. During the core-flood experiments, conducted using Pulse-decay method, deionized water was flowed through cement cores to determine the permeability of the cores. The results obtained from these experiments confirmed that the compression of the cement positively impacted the cements ability to provide long term zonal isolation, shown by the effective reduction in porosity and permeability. Furthermore, the results confirm reduction in the detrimental effect of salt on the strength and stiffness in post-compression cement.
EFFECT OF INTRAVAGINAL PROGESTERONE SPONGE AND PMSG ADMINISTRATION ON ESTRUS OCCURRENCE AND LITTER SIZE OF PRIANGAN SHEEP

The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of intravaginal progesterone sponge followed by pregnant mare serum gonadotropin (PMSG) administration at different time of sponge withdrawal on the estrus rate and litter size of Priangan sheep. A total of 33 non-pregnant Priangan sheep were divided into four groups of treatment. Group 1 (G1) received intravaginal sponge containing 30 mg of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA). Group 2 (G2), 3 (G3), and 4 (G4) received intravaginal sponge containing 30 MPA and followed by intra muscularly injection of 300 IU PMSG at 24 hours before sponge withdrawal, at sponge withdrawal, and 24 hours after sponge withdrawal, respectively. The result showed that all treatment groups have 100% of estrus rate. However, the occurrence of estrus time varied among the group after intravaginal progesterone sponge withdrawal. Group 1 (G1) and G4 tend to have estrus occurrence at day three after intravaginal progesterone sponge withdrawal by 55% and 75% response, respectively. Whilst, G2 and G3 tend to have estrus occurrence respectively at day 1 (62.5%) and day 2 (50%) after intravaginal progesterone sponge withdrawal. A 100% of pregnancy rate occurs in G2 and G4, while G1 and G3 have an 88.9% and 87.5%, respectively. Litter size was significantly reduced in G4. In conclusion, the use of either progesterone alone or combined with PMSG is effective for estrus synchronisation in Priangan sheep, but the administration PMSG at one day after intravaginal progesterone sponge withdrawal reduced the litter size of Priangan sheep. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The effects of shear on Mode II delamination: A critical review

The paper focuses on the effects of shear deformation and shear forces on the mode II contribution to the energy release rate in delaminated beams. A critical review of the relevant literature is presented, starting from the end-notched flexure test as the prototype of delaminated laminates subjected to pure mode II fracture. Several models of the literature are recalled from simple beam theory to more refined models. The role of first-order shear deformation in line with the Timoshenko beam theory is investigated as distinct from the local crack-tip deformation related to the shear modulus of the material. Then, attention is moved on to a general delaminated beam with an arbitrarily located through-the-width delamination, subjected to mixed-mode fracture. Several fracture mode partition methods of the literature are reviewed with specific attention on the effects of shear forces and shear deformation on the mode II contribution to the energy release rate.
Mirror-image relations in category learning

The discrimination of patterns that are mirror-symmetric counterparts of each other is difficult and requires substantial training. We explored whether mirror-image discrimination during expertise acquisition is based on associative learning strategies or involves a representational shift towards configural pattern descriptions that permit resolution of symmetry relations. Subjects were trained to discriminate between sets of unfamiliar grey-level patterns in two conditions, which either required the separation of mirror images or not. Both groups were subsequently tested in a 4-class category-learning task employing the same set of stimuli. The results show that subjects who had successfully learned to discriminate between mirror-symmetric counterparts were distinctly faster in the categorization task, indicating a transfer of conceptual knowledge between the two tasks. Additional computer simulations suggest that the development of such symmetry concepts involves the construction of configural, protoholistic descriptions, in which positions of pattern parts are encoded relative to a spatial frame of reference.
Time-Varying Integral Adaptive Sliding Mode Control for the Large Erecting System

Considering the nonlinearities, uncertainties of large erecting system, and the circumstance disturbances in erecting process, a novel sliding mode control strategy is proposed in this research. The proposed control strategy establishes the sliding mode without reaching phase using an integral sliding surface. Thus, robustness against uncertainties increases from the very beginning of the process. Furthermore, adaptive laws are used for the controller to estimate the unknown but bounded system uncertainties. Therefore, the upper bounds of the system uncertainties are not required to be known in advance. Then, the time-varying term is applied to ensure the global robustness. Moreover, the boundary layer method is used to attenuate the high frequency chattering. The experiment results demonstrated that the proposed strategy could effectively restrain parametric uncertainties and external disturbances and improve the tracking accuracy in the erecting process. In addition, the control performance of the proposed control strategy is better than that of the PID control and the conventional sliding mode control.
Scenario-Based Design of Cooperative Systems Re-designing an Hospital Information System in Denmark

Over the past few years, scenario-based design has attained a growing interest as a way to incorporate a focus on the future use of an application into the construction of software. Scenarios have, however, mostly been used in the design of user-interfaces and hence focused on single-user situations. Based on experiences from applying scenarios in the re-design of an Hospital Information System in the Danish healthcare sector, this paper describes how collaborative scenarios can be used in the design of cooperative computer systems and what such collaborative scenarios should contain. The paper concludes that such scenarios were useful in bridging the gab between understanding collaborative work practices and designing collaborative computer systems.
The Relationship Between Board of Directors’ Characteristics and Bank Risk-Taking: Evidence from Egyptian Banking Sector

There is argument that the main reason behind the corporate failure is the engagement of banks in excessive risk taking. However, the existence literature provides conflicting evidence in this concern. The main objectives of this study is to investigate the influence of board characteristics on bank risk taking, by using Pooled Ordinary Least Squares regression techniques to test a sample of 27 Egyptian banks covering the period from 2006 to 2011. Measures of bank risk employed are the insolvency risk, credit risk and liquidity risk. The explanatory variables of board characteristics are board size, non-executive directors, CEO duality, female presence and, board qualifications. The control variables are bank size, debt ratio, and crisis. The results show that Board size is positively significant with the three measures of risks. Non-executive directors are negatively significant correlated with both insolvency and liquidity risk. CEO’s duality is found positively significant with credit risk. Board female is negatively significant with insolvency and liquidity risk, while it is positively significant with credit risk. Board qualifications have no effect on the three measures of risks. The findings support the idea that board of director's characteristics is a determinant factor for bank risk taking.
The Effect of Odor Familiarity on Context-Dependent Memory

Does familiarity of an odor, controlling for appropriateness, have an effect on odorbased context-dependent memory (CDM). Context-dependent memory is the enhancement of memory due to matching contextual cues in encoding and recall situations. This study separates two aspects of the Cue Distinctiveness Principle, familiarity and context appropriateness. College students were asked to learn and recall a list of words in either matching or non-matching conditions under a novel or familiar odor. The results did not show a significant CDM effect. Therefore, the familiarity component of the cue distinctiveness principle is not an adequate explanation for the mixed results of prior odor-based CDM research and thus context appropriateness, not familiarity, may carry the entire explanatory weight of odor-based CDM effects.
Global Optimization Method for Continuous-Time Sensor Scheduling

We consider a situation in which several sensors are used to collect data for signal processing. Since operating multiple sensors simultaneously causes system interference, only one sensor can be active at any one time. The problem of scheduling the operation of the sensors to minimize signal estimation error is formulated as a discrete-valued optimal control problem. This problem cannot be solved using conventional optimization techniques. We instead transform it into an equivalent mixed discrete optimization problem. The transformed problem is then decomposed into a bi-level optimization problem, which is solved using a discrete filled function method in conjunction with a conventional optimal control algorithm. Numerical results show that our algorithm is robust, efficient, and reliable in attaining a near globally optimal solution.
Biogeosciences Similar patterns of patterns of community organization characterize distinct groups of different trophic levels in the plankton of the NW Mediterranean

Planktonic populations were sampled over a 4 week period in the NW Mediterranean, at a site subject to little vertical advection during the Dynaproc 2 cruise in 2004. The characteristics of the phytoplankton, the tintinnid community and the zooplankton have recently been described in detail. Based on these studies, we compared the characteristics of 3 well-circumscribed assemblages of different trophic levels: Ceratiumof the phytoplankton, herbivorous tintinnids of the microzooplankton, and large ( >500μm) omnivorous and carnivorous copepods of the metazoan zooplankton. In all three groups, diversity as H’ or species richness, was less variable than concentration of organisms. Plotting time against species accumulation, the curves approached plateau values forCeratiumspp, tintinnids and large copepods but only a small number of species were consistently present (core species) and these accounted for most of the populations. ForCeratiumcore species numbered 10, for tintinnids 11 species, and for large copepods, core species numbered 4 during the day and 16 at night. Ceratium, tintinnids and large copepods showed some similar patterns of community structure in terms of species abundance distributions. Ceratium species were distributed in a log-normal pattern. Tintinnid species showed a log-series distribution. Large copepod assemblages were highly dominated with night samples showing much higher abundances and greater species richness than day samples. However, species abundance distributions were similar between day and night and were mostly logCorrespondence to: J. Dolan (dolan@obs-vlfr.fr) normal. The paradox of the plankton, describing phytoplankton communities as super-saturated with species, extends to the microzooplankton and zooplankton.
Numerical Studies on Heat Release Rate in Room Fire on Liquid Fuel under Different Ventilation Factors

Heat release rate (HRR) of the design fire is the most important parameter in assessing building fire hazards. However, HRR in room fire was only studied by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in most of the projects determining fire safety provisions by performance-based design. In contrast to ten years ago, officers in the Far East are now having better knowledge of CFD. Two common questions are raised on CFD-predicted results on describing free boundaries; and on computing grid size. In this work, predicting HRR by the CFD model was justified with experimental room pool fire data reported earlier. The software fire dynamics simulator (FDS) version 5 was selected as the CFD simulation tool. Prescribed input heating rate based on the experimental results was used with the liquid fuel model in FDS. Five different free boundary conditions were investigated to predict HRR. Grid sensitivity study was carried out using one stretched mesh and multiple uniform meshes with different grid sizes. As it is difficult to have the entire set of CFD predicted results agreed with experiments, macroscopic flow parameters on the mass flow rate through door opening predicted by CFD were also justified by another four conditions with different ventilation factors.
Cyberbullying among Saudi's Higher-Education Students: Implications for Educators and Policymakers

The aim of the current study was to investigate cyberbullying among Saudi’s higher-education students. It also aimedto identify possible factors that may impact cyberbullying. A quantitative approach was implemented using an onlinesurvey questionnaire distributed to 287 students. The descriptive results indicated that students mainly avoidcyberbullying. However, about 27% of the students reported that they have committed cyberbullying at least once ortwice. Furthermore, 57% of the students observed at least one student being cyberbullied. Students encountercyberbullying usually by people whom they do not know and who contacted them over the Internet. In addition,students perceive cyberbullying as a serious issue. Thus, students seem to prefer asking cyberbullies to stop, butavoiding fighting back. Gender was found to impact on how often did students commit cyberbullying. Male studentswere involved in cyberbullying more than female students. In addition, single students more than married studentsencounter cyberbullying by people they know. Finally, students who access the Internet via personal devices observecyberbullying more than those using shared devices. Based on this, implications were analyzed and suggested wereproposed in relation to policy and practice.
The Visual Evoked Potential in Idiopathic Inflammatory Demyelinating Diseas s

Within the group of inflammatory idiopathic demyelinating diseases, there is a great number of diseases that have an initial attack in common, including visual. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, demyelinating, immune‐mediated disease, with considerably varying prevalence and incidence. Neuromyelitis optica (NMO), which until recently was considered a variant of MS, is currently considered an independent entity. However, it resembles MS, because it is an immune‐mediated disease characterized by the simul‐ taneous or sequential involvement in time of optic neuritis and extensive demyelinating myelitis. Fifty percent of patients with MS have isolated optic neuritis. However, the frequency of abnormalities ranges from 57 to 100% in visual evoked potential (VEP). Several studies have evaluated the clinical, evolutive, and demographic characteristics of idiopathic optic neuritis and demonstrated their differences among the cases related to MS and NMO. The most common changes in VEP studies in multiple sclerosis are as follows: increased interocular differential latency of P100 wave and the absolute increase in latency of P100 wave. New studies indicate that VEP pattern in NOM spectrum syn‐ dromes is different from that of MS.
Acceptability and Compliance to a 10-Day Regimen of Zinc Treatment in Diarrhea in Rural Bangladesh

We hypothesised that the promotion of blister packs of zinc may be carried out by health personnel in health care facilities to the mothers of children suffering from diarrhea. We predicted that good acceptability and good compliance to zinc treatment in rural Bangladesh would be over 75% and at least 60%, respectively. Between January and December 2011, six hundred and thirty five children aged 6 - 59 months who presented with acute diarrhea received a 10-day zinc regimen. Determination of acceptability and compliance of a dispersible zinc tablet in children 6 - 59 months old was main point of the study. In-home follow-ups started within 2 - 3 weeks after the regimen began. Seventy seven percent of the mothers/caretakers perceived that the taste of the zinc tablets was the same or better than that of other medicines given to their children and expressed willingness to use zinc in the future (good acceptability). Sixty-two percent of the children completed full 10-day course of zinc treatment by taking one tablet a day that had been completely dissolved in a small amount of water (good compliance). There was 63% excess risk for poor compliance to zinc if father stays at home with the family [OR = 1.63 (95%CI; 1.09, 2.46) p = 0.019]. Despite vomiting, 33% children continued to receive zinc tablet [OR = 0.67 (95%CI; (0.47, 0.97, 0.032)] after adjusting for co-variates. Both acceptability and compliance to dispersible zinc tablets in childhood diarrheal illnesses are still not at the expected level in rural Bangladesh.
Foreign Currency Derivatives and Firm Value: Evidence from New Zealand

The benefit of corporate hedging remains controversial. While hedging could reduce the likelihood of adverse outcome, it will incur additional costs that may offset such benefit. This study provides some evidences to resolve the debate. We examine the benefits of foreign currency derivatives usage in 134 non-financial firms listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. New Zealand dollar experiences relatively high volatility so it is an ideal setting to examine whether the currency derivative usage could add value to the firm. Using Tobin-Q and other of its variants as a proxy of firm value, we find no evidence supporting the notion that the use of foreign currency derivatives can enhance a firm value.