Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relationship between Economic Characteristics and Alternative Annual Earnings Persistence Measures

Accounting researchers (and potentially others) generally select rather simple, lower‐order, time‐series models to develop proxies for earnings persistence. However, measures of persistence produced by such models are not related to characteristics of the firm's economic environment that are expected to influence earnings persistence. Using a sample of 162 calendar year‐end New York Stock Exchange firms, we document the cross‐sectional relations between a set of relatively constant, firm‐specific, economic characteristics that are theoretical determinants of persistence and measures of earnings persistence derived from both lower‐order and higher‐order Autoregressive, Integrated, Moving‐Average (ARIMA) models. When lower‐order ARIMA models are used to generate measures of earnings persistence, the cross‐sectional regression models measuring the association between persistence and economic determinants of persistence yield very low adjusted R2s. In sharp contrast, when differenced, higher‐order ARIMA model.
Market Conditions and Profitability of Proprietary Trading by Futures Floor Traders

This article depicts a complete picture of the profitability of proprietary trading by professional floor traders in four futures contract markets during 1995. Evidence shows a heterogeneous group in that more than one-third of them actually lost money in their proprietary trading. On average, only about 15 of them made annual profits of more than $100,000. Regression results show that proprietary volume increases as the market gets more volatile. However, it is only during the intermediate volatile market days that proprietary traders on the floor take the greatest advantage of these noise traders. During the most volatile market days, the informational advantage or trading skill by proprietary traders does not transform into greater trading profits. Furthermore, the support is mixed for the hypothesis that dual trading has a positive effect on dual traders' profitability.
Protection of cultured spinal motor neurons by estradiol

Estrogens have been reported to exert neuroprotection in the brain, but there have been no reports of such neuroprotection in spinal motor neurons, the neurons selectively involved in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In this study, we demonstrated that 17β-estradiol and its biologically inactive stereoisomer, 17α-estradiol, prevented glutamate- and nitric oxide (NO)-induced selective motor neuronal death observed in primary cultures of the rat spinal cord. The dose of estradiols required for motor neuron protection was greatly reduced by co-administration with glutathione. The results of this study shows that estradiol protects spinal motor neurons from excitotoxic insults in vitro, and may have application as a treatment for ALS.
Are Investors Influenced By How Earnings Press Releases Are Written?

This two-part study begins with a rhetorical analysis of the genre of earnings press releases. Then, a quantitative analysis uses capital markets data to assess the investor impact of tone and other stylistic attributes. The genre analysis explores the regulatory context, structural attributes, and dual informational-promotional role of earnings press releases, using individual releases as illustrations. The quantitative analysis explores the relation between the stock market reaction to earnings press releases and quantitative measures of style developed using elementary computer-based content analysis of a corpus of releases. Results suggest that tone influences investors' reactions. An explanation for this result is provided by prospect theory, which predicts that framing financial performance in positive terms causes investors to think about the results in terms of increases relative to reference points. Results also suggest that longer press releases reduce the market impact of unexpected earnings.
Political Risk, Trade, and Capital Allocation *

Export exposure is a significant conduit of foreign political uncertainty into US markets. Specifically, industries that export considerable shares of their output to countries with high political risk or countries that hold national elections experience suboptimal investment efficiency. Lower transparency, difficulty in predicting cash flows generated by exports and estimating cost of capital could be contributing to this result. Our findings remain robust when we account for potential endogeneity of export flows.
En coup de sabre presenting as a port‐wine stain initially treated with a pulsed dye laser

2010 Japanese Dermatological Association 4 months prior. Physical examination revealed a 1 cm · 4 cm-sized, erythematous patch on the central forehead with slight deviation to the left (Fig. 1). The surface was smooth, soft and supple without signs of induration. She denied previous trauma history, including manipulation of the site and did not apply any topical medication before. There was no family history of a similar condition. She was otherwise healthy. Suspecting acquired port-wine stain (PWS) and acquired unilateral nevoid telangiectasia (AUNT), we initially treated her with V-beam pulsed dye laser (Candela, Irvine, CA, USA) (595 nm, 7-mm spot size, pulse width of 10 msec, fluence of 10 J ⁄cm, 30 msec duration, 30 msec delay). After two sessions of treatment and minimal improvement, we decided on a skin biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.
Assessing the Strengths and Weaknesses of Macao as an Attractive Meeting and Convention Destination: Perspectives of Key Informants

Macao's meeting and convention industry has begun to develop in the past few years. The interest in developing this industry is due to the recognition of its significant contribution to the local economy and the belief that it could help to diversify the city's economy and reduce its reliance on the gambling industry. Macao's meeting and convention sector is still at an early stage of development, and research in this area is limited. This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of Macao as an attractive meeting and convention destination by interviewing 16 stakeholders in the industry. Macao's major strengths are identified as sufficient hotel, entertainment, and convention facilities; strong governmental support; a location connecting the European countries and the East; and the passion of local people working in the industry. The weaknesses include the lack of human resources, poor infrastructure and transportation, the lack of attractions, the lack of legal regulation or a government department to coordinate the sector, limited capacity of the border gates, and the absence of an industry base and a poor business climate. Recommendations are proposed to increase the attractiveness and competiveness of the industry.
Unemployment Insurance and Job Durations: Seasonal and Non-Seasonal Jobs

The authors use regional and individual variation in unemployment insurance (UI) parameters to estimate the impact of UI incentives on job durations. In doing so, they distinguish between seasonal and nonseasonal jobs. The authors find evidence of substantial tailoring of job durations to UI incentives in seasonal but not in nonseasonal jobs. Even for seasonal jobs, adjusting UI parameters has small impacts on average job duration except in high unemployment regions. Increasing the UI entrance requirement leads to some job lengthening but also to the creation of more very short jobs.
Effects of the Private‐Label Invasion in Food Industries

Using supermarket scanner data, we test a variety of hypotheses from trade journals about the invasion of private-label food products. According to conventional industry wisdom, name-brand firms defended their brands against new private-label products by lowering their prices, engaging in additional promotional activities, and increasingly differentiating their products. Our empirical evidence is inconsistent with these beliefs.
Means-Testing the Child Benefit

Improving the distributional impact of transfers may be costly if it reduces labour supply. In this paper we show how effects of changes in the design of the child benefit programme can be examined by deriving information from behavioural and non-behavioural simulations on micro data. The direct distributional effects are assessed by tax-benefit model calculations. Female labour supply responses to alternative child benefit schemes are simulated under the assumption that choices are discrete. The discrete choice model is justified with reference to the complicated process of finding a new job, and the existence of peaks in the empirical distribution of hours is interpreted as variation in number of jobs across states. The distribution of income after labour supply responses is also shown. The analysis confirms that enhanced distributional impact is traded against reductions in labour supply.
The universal provision of primary education: who benefits?

Few studies have investigated the causal spillover effects of compulsory education on children's siblings. Using a regression discontinuity method, I find that Hong Kong's 1971 free compulsory primary education policy reduced the dropout probability for the eldest siblings of full policy beneficiaries, especially for children in low-income families. Having younger brothers who were full policy beneficiaries did not affect the elder child's educational attainment. Having younger sisters who were full policy beneficiaries increased the eldest child's educational attainment, especially for the eldest sister. The results shed light on how sibling sex composition might affect intra-household resource allocation of human capital investment among children.
Cytogenetics in reproductive medicine: the contribution of comparative genomic hybridization (CGH).

Cytogenetic research has had a major impact on the field of reproductive medicine, providing an insight into the frequency of chromosomal abnormalities that occur during gametogenesis, embryonic development and pregnancy. In humans, aneuploidy has been found to be relatively common during fetal life, necessitating prenatal screening of high-risk pregnancies. Aneuploidy rates are higher still during the preimplantation stage of development. An increasing number of IVF laboratories have attempted to improve pregnancy rates by using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to ensure that the embryos transferred to the mother are chromosomally normal. This paper reviews some of the techniques that are key to the detection of aneuploidy in reproductive samples including comparative genomic hybridization (CGH). CGH has provided an unparalleled insight into the nature of chromosome imbalance in human embryos and polar bodies. The clinical application of CGH for the purposes of PGD and the future extensions of the methodology, including DNA microarrays, are discussed.
Correlation between Hearing Loss and Peritonitis Frequency and Administration of Ototoxic Intraperitoneal Antibiotics in Patients with CAPD

Aim. Aminoglycosides have been used in the treatment of CAPD peritonitis despite their potential risk for ototoxicity. The ototoxicity risk of intraperitoneally administered aminoglycosides has been investigated by a number of studies. However, their results are somewhat conflicting. The aim of the present study was to examine the frequency of hearing loss and the correlation between the repeated doses of aminoglycosides and hearing loss in CAPD peritonitis therapy. Methods. Hearing functions of the CAPD patients who had developed peritonitis and had been treated with various antibiotics including aminoglycosides were compared with those CAPD patients who had never developed peritonitis. Threshold values for hearing were determined through “pure tone audiometry” measurements. Results. Hearing threshold levels of the patients with history of peritonitis were found to be significantly higher in both lower [pure tone averages - 1 (PTA-1)] and higher [pure tone averages - 2 (PTA-2)] frequencies, when compared to the ones with no history of peritonitis (p values were 0.001 and 0.007, respectively). Conclusion. The present study showed that intraperitoneal aminoglycoside administration in CAPD patients is associated with the development of hearing loss. The severity of hearing loss may range from mild hearing loss to profound deafness. A remarkable correlation exists between the severity of the hearing loss and the repeated and total aminoglycoside dose received.
Prime Ministers, Opposition Leaders and Government Popularity in Australia

There is little doubt that political leaders are more important, and more visible, than at any time since democratisation. This article uses monthly public opinion poll data collected since 1973 to test four hypotheses concerning the relationships between leader approval, economic and political performance, and government support. The findings show that Prime Ministerial approval is based on public perceptions of both political and economic performance, with minis terial resignations, by-election defeats and the party complexion of State governments forming the major components of political performance, and unemployment and GDP being the major contributors to economic performance. There is support for the hypothesis that Prime Ministers mediate the effects of political performance on government popularity, but no support for the hypothesis that economic performance has a direct impact on government popularity. Overall, the results emphasise the extent to which the leader has absorbed the functions once exercised by the party, a pattern now common across the other advanced democracies.
Does Ownership Structure Affect Firm Value? Evidence from the Egyptian Stock Market

Corporate governance addresses the checks and balances placed in the system to prevent abuse of power. Such power may reside in a Chief Executive Officer, if ownership of a company is widely dispersed (as in the case of US or UK) or it may rest in the hands of an individual or a group(s) with controlling shareholding as more happens in markets dominated by family ownership. Thus, who owns the firm's equity and how does ownership affect firm value has been a topic investigated by researchers for decades. Thus, the impact of ownership structure on firm performance has been widely tackled in various developed markets and more recently in emerging markets, but was not addressed before, in Egypt. The paper aims to explore if there are dominant certain types of owners of actively listed and traded companies on Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchanges. Further, it investigates whether the ownership type affects some key accounting and market performance indicators of listed firms. The 90 most actively listed companies on CASE, that constitute the bulk of trading, were chosen to constitute the sample of the study as of end of 2000. The findings indicate the presence of highly concentrated ownership structure in the Egyptian market. The results of the regression analyses indicate that the dispersed ownership percentage influences certain dimensions of accounting performance indicators (i.e. ROA and ROE) but not stock market performance indicators (i.e. P/E and P/BV ratios), which indicate that there might be other factors (economic, political, contextual) affecting firms performance other than ownership structure, which supports the findings of Heracleous (2001) that researches must develop methodologies that can account for multiple, systemic and multi-directional influences on firm performance and avoid models that attempt to correlate only one element such as ownership structure with firm performance.
Temperature dependent electron and hole capture cross sections of iron-contaminated boron-doped silicon

Temperature controlled photoconductance is applied to measure the electron and hole capture cross sections of interstitial iron and iron-boron pairs in crystalline silicon. The injection-dependent lifetime was measured before and after light soaking over the range 0–90 °C, and without light soaking over the range 240–320 °C. The data was then analysed to determine the electron and hole capture cross sections of the interstitial iron defect over the range 240–320 °C, and of the iron-boron defect over the range 0–90 °C. The first of these analyses involved a novel approach that independently distinguishes the capture cross sections assuming a known defect density, energy level and thermal velocity, whereas the latter involved the “characteristic cross-over point” method, which compares carrier lifetime before and after the dissociation of iron-boron pairs. This approach independently determines the temperature dependence of the capture cross sections over a wide range of temperature and identifies their capture mechanisms.
Effects of culinary employees’ role stress on burnout and turnover intention in hotel industry: moderating effects on employees’ tenure

The purpose of this study is to understand interrelationships among culinary employees’ perception of role stress, burnout, and turnover intent in a deluxe hotel. A total of 316 employees in Korea participated in the study. The results showed a positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of role stress and burnout. Participants who reported a high level of burnout were more likely to leave their position. In addition, there were moderating effects related to tenure in the causal relationships between employees’ burnout and turnover intent. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.
Induction of the SOS Response Increases the Efficiency of Global Nucleotide Excision Repair of Cyclobutane Pyrimidine Dimers, but Not 6-4 Photoproducts, in UV-IrradiatedEscherichia coli

ABSTRACT Nucleotide excision repair (NER) is responsible for the removal of a variety of lesions from damaged DNA and proceeds through two subpathways, global repair and transcription-coupled repair. InEscherichia coli, both subpathways require UvrA and UvrB, which are induced following DNA damage as part of the SOS response. We found that elimination of the SOS response either genetically or by treatment with the transcription inhibitor rifampin reduced the efficiency of global repair of the major UV-induced lesion, the cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD), but had no effect on the global repair of 6-4 photoproducts. Mutants in which the SOS response was constitutively derepressed repaired CPDs more rapidly than did wild-type cells, and this rate was not affected by rifampin. Transcription-coupled repair of CPDs occurred in the absence of SOS induction but was undetectable when the response was expressed constitutively. These results suggest that damage-inducible synthesis of UvrA and UvrB is necessary for efficient repair of CPDs and that the levels of these proteins determine the rate of NER of UV photoproducts. We compare our findings with recent data from eukaryotic systems and suggest that damage-inducible stress responses are generally critical for efficient global repair of certain types of genomic damage.
Simultaneous Quantification of the Abundance of Several Cytochrome P450 and Uridine 5′-Diphospho-Glucuronosyltransferase Enzymes in Human Liver Microsomes Using Multiplexed Targeted Proteomics

Cytochrome P450 (P450) and uridine 5′-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) enzymes mediate a major proportion of phase I and phase II metabolism of xenobiotics. In vitro-in vivo extrapolation (IVIVE) of hepatic clearance in conjunction with physiologically-based pharmacokinetics (PBPK) has become common practice in drug development. However, prediction of xenobiotic kinetics in virtual populations requires knowledge of both enzyme abundances and the extent to which these correlate. A multiplexed quantification concatemer (QconCAT) strategy was used in this study to quantify the expression of several P450 and UGT enzymes simultaneously and to establish correlations between various enzyme abundances in 24 individual liver samples (ages 27–66, 14 male). Abundances were comparable to previously reported values, including CYP2C9 (40.0 ± 26.0 pmol mg−1), CYP2D6 (11.9 ± 13.2 pmol mg−1), CYP3A4 (68.1 ± 52.3 pmol mg−1), UGT1A1 (33.6 ± 34.0 pmol mg−1), and UGT2B7 (82.9 ± 36.1 pmol mg−1), expressed as mean ± S.D. Previous reports of correlations in expression of various P450 (CYP3A4/CYP3A5*1/*3, CYP2C8/CYP2C9, and CYP3A4/CYP2B6) were confirmed. New correlations were demonstrated between UGTs [including UGT1A6/UGT1A9 (rs = 0.82, P < 0.0001) and UGT2B4/UGT2B15 (rs = 0.71, P < 0.0001)]. Expression of some P450 and UGT enzymes were shown to be correlated [including CYP1A2/UGT2B4 (rs = 0.67, P = 0.0002)]. The expression of CYP3A5 in individuals with *1/*3 genotype (n = 11) was higher than those with *3/*3 genotype (n = 10) (P < 0.0001). No significant effect of gender or history of smoking or alcohol use on enzyme expression was observed; however, expression of several enzymes declined with age. The correlation matrix produced for the first time by this study can be used to generate more realistic virtual populations with respect to abundance of various enzymes.
The role of desiccation tolerance in determining tree species distributions along the Malay–Thai Peninsula

Summary 1Patterns of water availability are frequently implicated in local and regional tree species distributions. A major floristic and climatic transition from aseasonal to seasonal evergreen tropical forest is the Kangar–Pattani Line (KPL) in the Indo-Sundaic region of Southeast Asia. We hypothesize that differences in species’ drought tolerance will correspond with their distribution with respect to the KPL. Using a common garden study, we assess the role of differences in physiological drought tolerance traits to geographic distributions for 24 tropical tree species in relation to rainfall seasonality. 2Inherent differences in desiccation tolerance of seedlings were quantified as water potentials and relative water contents (RWCs) below which the plant could no longer support living tissue, and plant water relation parameters were measured using pressure–volume analysis. The relationships among these traits were examined using bivariate trait relationships and a principal components analysis (PCA). The physiological traits contributing most to lethal water potential and RWC were assessed using multiple regression analysis. 3Distribution-related differences in all desiccation tolerance and pressure–volume traits were detected both with and without phylogenetic correction. Widespread species that occurred in seasonally dry forests were able to maintain living tissue at more negative water potentials and lower RWCs than were species restricted to aseasonal forests. Likewise, widespread species demonstrated more negative water potentials at turgor loss, more negative saturated osmotic potential, lower symplastic water fraction and higher bulk modulus of elasticity values. Turgor loss point (TLP) and bulk modulus of elasticity were the best predictors of lethal water potential while symplastic water fraction and bulk modulus of elasticity were included as predictors of lethal RWC. 4Inherent differences in physiological traits contributing to drought tolerance are associated with differences in tropical tree species distributions in relation to rainfall seasonality. These results, combined with lack of support for hypothesized historical factors, strongly implicate climate as a determinant of tree species distributions around the KPL.
Reversing the Brain Drain: Is it Beneficial?

This paper investigates costs and benefits of calling back expatriates of a developing country. I employ a life cycle model with a rich and poor country with endogenous migration and return migration. Cost of bringing back a worker is the compensation that is paid to him while the benefit is the increased output because of his higher skill level and positive externalities, which are empirically estimated, from him resulting in higher skill levels for local workers. Results show that welfare gains are maximized when workers with skill levels 1.28 standard deviations above the domestic mean skill level are called back.