Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Urban size and KIBS vertical disintegration: Evidence from Lombardy

A recent strand of the economic literature has emphasised the role of services, and in particular knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), as a primary source of knowledge creation and diffusion. Since this transferring process often occurs through strong face-to-face interactions, the role of spatial proximity becomes crucial. Theoretical and empirical literature show that the geographic concentration of industry induces firms to vertically disintegrate their production, due to the lowering of transport and governance costs as well as to the reduction of opportunism in managing transactions. However, the evidence is primarily based on manufacturing firms, whereas little or no attention is given to service firms. In this paper we try to fill this gap by estimating the effects of urban agglomeration on knowledge intensive business service firms' vertical disintegration in a longitudinal context, with reference to the Lombardy region in Italy. Data used in this work are drawn from AIDA, a commercial database collected by Bureau Van Dijck gathering information on balance sheets data as well as the geographical position of Italian joint stock companies. Relying on this rich firm-level dataset, we build a sample of almost 17.000 KIBS firms located in Lombardy over the period 2004-2009, and we estimate both a first difference and an instrumental variable GMM model in which, as dependent variable, we use both the share of purchased business services and the share of material inputs, while, as explanatory variables, we include firm size, age and population size at the municipality and local labour system level. In so doing, we estimate the impact that the short-run variations in urban size have on the short-run variations in the degree of vertical disintegration of KIBS, while controlling for potential endogeneity issues due to unobserved heterogeneity and simultaneity, and for the robustness of our measure of urban size to alternative specifications. Our results complement previous cross-sectional evidence and point to a positive and statistically significant effect of urban size on the degree of vertical disintegration. In addition, we find that this effect is particularly strong for professional KIBS and for the purchase of business services rather than for technological KIBS and for the purchase of material inputs. Keywords: agglomeration, KIBS, urban size, vertical disintegration JEL: C33; D22; R12; L24
Entropy Generation Analyze Due to the Steady Natural Convection of Newtonian Fluid in a Square Enclosure

The thermal control in many systems is widely accomplished applying mixed convection process due to its low cost, reliability and easy maintenance. Typical applications include the aircraft electronic equipment, rotating-disc heat exchangers, turbo machinery, and nuclear reactors, etc. Natural convection in an inclined square enclosure heated via wall heater has been studied numerically. Finite volume method is used for solving momentum and energy equations in the form of stream function–vorticity. The right and left walls are kept at a constant temperature, while the other parts are adiabatic. The range of the inclination angle covers a whole revolution. The method is validated for a vertical cavity. A general power law dependence of the Nusselt number with respect to the Rayleigh number with the coefficient and exponent as functions of the inclination angle is presented. For a fixed Rayleigh number, the inclination angle increases or decreases is found. Keywords—Inclined enclosure, natural convection in enclosure, Nusselt number.
Pharmacokinetics of enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium in Chinese renal transplantation recipients.

BACKGROUND Mycophenolic acid (MPA) as an anti-proliferative immune-suppressive agent is used in the majority of immunosuppressive regimens in solid organ transplantation. This study aimed to investigate the pharmacokinetic (PK) characteristics of enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium (EC-MPS) and area under the curve (AUC) from 0 to 12 hours with limited sampling strategies (LSSs) in Chinese renal transplant recipients. METHODS This study was conducted in 10 Chinese renal transplant patients receiving living donor and treated with EC-MPS, cyclosporine, and corticosteroids. MPA concentrations were measured by enzyme multiplied immunoassay technique (EMIT). Whole 12-hour PK profiles were obtained on Day 4 after operation. LSSs with jackknife technique, multiple stepwise regression analysis, and Bland-Altman analysis were developed to estimate MPA AUC. RESULTS The mean maximum plasma concentration, the mean time for it to reach peak (T(max)), and the mean MPA AUC were (11.38 ± 2.49) mg/L, (4.85 ± 3.32) hours, and (63.19 ± 13.54) mg×h×L(-1), respectively. Among the 10 profiles, MPA AUC of four patients was significantly higher than that of the other six patients, and the corresponding T(max) was significantly longer than that of the other six patients. No patient exhibited a second peak caused by enterohepatic recirculation. The best models were as follows: 27.46 + 0.94C(3) + 3.24C(8) + 2.81C(10) (r(2) = 0.972), which was used to predict AUC of fast metabolizer with a mean prediction error (MPE) of -0.21% and a mean absolute prediction error (MAE) of 2.59%; 36.65 + 3.08C(8) + 5.30C(10) - 4.04C(12) (r(2) = 0.992), which was used to predict AUC of slow metabolizer with a MPE of 0.58% and a MAE of 1.95%. CONCLUSIONS The PKs of EC-MPS had a high variability among Chinese renal transplant recipients. The preliminary PK data indicated the existence of slow and fast metabolizer. These findings may be associated with the enterohepatic recirculation.
Profit Expectations and Investment

This article examines the relationship between expectations of future profits and companies' physical investment. Theory suggests that increased profit expectations should raise share prices as well as investment. But this correlation between investment and share prices may be rather weak if investors' opinions of companies' prospects differ from those of the companies' managers. Using a simple aggregate investment equation, the article illustrates that measures of profit expectations based on current profits and analysts' earnings forecasts appear to be more informative for investment than stock prices themselves. This result is consistent with recent research at the Bank using company data.
Microwave transversal six-band bandpass planar filter for multi-standard wireless applications

An approach to design microwave multi-band bandpass planar filters with an arbitrary number of passbands is proposed. It is based on the generalization of a previously-reported transversal filter structure to synthesize multi-band responses. This filter topology, by means of signal-interference techniques, allows frequency-selective transfer functions with multiple passbands separated by inter-band transmission zeros to be derived. Analytical equations and guidelines for the theoretical design of the described multi-band bandpass filter configuration are given. Moreover, its practical viability is verified through the construction and testing of a six-band bandpass microstrip prototype. To the authors' knowledge, no other filter solution with such a plurality of passbands has been experimentally proven to date.
Fail Often, Fail Big, and Fail Fast? Learning from Small Failures and R&D Performance in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Do firms learn from their failed innovation attempts? Answering this question is important because failure is an integral part of exploratory learning. In this study, we explore whether and under what circumstances firms learn from their small failures in experimentation. Building on organizational learning literature, we examine the conditions under which prior failures influence firms’ R&D output amount and quality. An empirical analysis of voluntary patent expirations (i.e., patents that firms give up by not paying renewal fees) in 97 pharmaceutical firms between 1980 and 2002 shows that the number, importance, and timing of small failures are associated with a decrease in R&D output (patent count) but an increase in the quality of the R&D output (forward citations to patents). Exploratory interviews suggest that the results are driven by a multi-level learning process from failures in pharmaceutical R&D. The findings contribute to the organizational learning literature by providing a nuanced view of learning from failures in experimentation.
Analysts' Recommendations: Evidence from a Portuguese Investment Bank

We assess the performance of a few trading strategies based on a sample of 139 analysts' recommendations made public by a Portuguese investment bank's research department. We address whether stock picking strategies on the basis of these recommendations were effective tools for stock selection. Our results suggest that these recommendations have not been useful for stock selection. Most of the recommendation-based strategies we have built generated negative significant performance. We tested the robustness of these findings over time and across industries. We find that the recommendation-based strategies appear to be more effective for selection of Portuguese stocks, which can reflect a comparative home advantage: Portuguese analysts may have better skills in selecting Portuguese stocks rather than foreign stocks.
Evaluation of practice change in Tanzanian health professionals 12 months after participation in an Infection Prevention and Management Course

Background: Hospital-acquired infection (HAI) is a problem confronting developing countries. Education programmes have been shown to be effective in increasing awareness and changing practice in health professionals. Methods: Practice change in health professionals who completed an Infection Prevention and Management Course in Tanzania was explored via focus group 12 months after completion of the course. Findings: Positive changes in infection control practice were found, along with barriers to more widespread change. Conclusions: Providing tailored and continuing education programs to hospital staff, including managers, is recommended.
Innovation and the Export-Productivity Link

We explore the relationship between innovation activity, productivity, and exports using a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms for 1990-1998. Our results - based on non-parametric tests - suggest that firm innovation status is important in explaining the positive export-productivity association documented in prior research. For the sample of small innovating firms, we find no significant differences in productivity levels between exporters and non-exporters. Especially product innovation seems to explain the positive association between exports and productivity for this group of firms. For small non-innovating firms with low and medium productivity levels exporting firms continue to exhibit higher productivity than non-exporting firms.
Assessing the Impact of Erp Implementation in the small Enterprises

Abstract For a SME (small and medium-size enterprise) to operate competitively in an international and local market, it is necessary for it to deal with its tasks in an efficient and practical way; this can be achieved by the systematic analysis of the undertaken tasks in relation to the company’s organizational and economical ability for their completion. The author suggests in this paper that the assessment of such an implementation depends on a firm's intention to use the ERP system to achieve strategic goals. The author discusses the issue of the Balance Scorecard method being used to assess the impact of an ERP system implementation on the performance of a small service enterprise. Using a research results, the author illustrates the possibility to assess the implementation of an ERP system in the small enterprises.
Computerised analysis of osteoporotic bone patterns using texture parameters characterising bone architecture.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the geometric change of osteoporotic bone trabecular patterns using root mean square (RMS) values, first moment power spectrum (FMP) values and fractal dimension values. With the use of these methods, we attempted computerised analysis of osteoporotic bone patterns using texture parameters characterising bone architecture and computer-aided diagnosis of osteoporosis. METHODS 32 patient cases from Korea University Guro Hospital were analysed. Patient ages ranged from 51 to 89 years, with a mean age of 65 years. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was performed with determination of the area under the curve (AUC). RESULTS The bone mineral density (BMD) measurement (AUC=0.78) was a better indicator of bone quantity than the RMS, FMP and fractal dimension values (AUC=0.72) for diagnosis; therefore the combination of RMS, FMP and fractal dimension values was a better indicator of bone quality. CONCLUSION Measurements that combined BMD measurement and RMS values and combined FMP and fractal dimension values (AUC=0.85) together produced better results than the use of the two parameter sets separately for a diagnosis of osteoporosis. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE For more effective application, additional study on more cases and data will be required.
Economies of scale and optimal size of hospitals: Empirical results for Danish public hospitals

Context and aim: The Danish hospital sector is facing a significant rebuilding programme, driven by a political desire to concentrate activity in fewer and larger hospitals. Our aim is to analyse whether the current configuration of Danish hospitals is subject to scale economies that may justify such plans and to estimate an optimal hospital size. Methods: We estimate cost functions using panel data on total costs, DRG-weighted casemix, and number of beds for three years from 2004-2006. A short-run cost function is used to derive estimates of long-run scale economies by applying the envelope condition. Results: We identify moderate to significant long-run economies of scale when applying two alternative translog cost functions. However, using a quadratic functional form we identify constant economies of scale for the medium-sized sub-groups and decreasing economies of scale for the largest sub-groups. The optimal number of beds per hospital is estimated to be 275 beds per site. Sensitivity analysis to partial changes in model parameters yields a joint 95% confidence interval in the range 130 – 585 beds per site. Conclusions: The results indicate that it may be appropriate to consolidate the production of small hospitals (<230 beds) on fewer and larger units.
Are day hospitals effective for acutely ill psychiatric patients? A European multicenter randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE Acute psychiatric day care has been proposed as an alternative to conventional inpatient care, yet the evidence of its effectiveness is inconsistent and based only on single-site studies in 3 countries. The aim of this multicenter randomized controlled trial was to establish the effectiveness of acute day hospital care in a large sample across a range of mental health care systems. METHOD The trial was conducted from December 2000 to September 2003 in 5 European countries, with a sample of 1117 voluntarily admitted patients. Immediately before or very shortly after admission to the participating psychiatric facilities, patients were randomly allocated to treatment in a day hospital or an inpatient ward. Psychopathology, treatment satisfaction, subjective quality of life, and social disabilities were assessed at admission, at discharge, and 3 and 12 months after discharge. An intention-to-treat analysis was conducted using fixed-effects linear models with structured error covariance matrices and covariates. RESULTS Day hospital care was as effective as conventional inpatient care with respect to psychopathologic symptoms, treatment satisfaction, and quality of life. It was more effective on social functioning at discharge and at the 3- and 12-month follow-up assessments. CONCLUSION This study, which has more than doubled the existing evidence base, has shown that day hospital care is as effective on clinical outcomes as conventional inpatient care and more effective on social outcomes. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT00153959.
Why is IPO Underpricing a Global Phenomenon?

We explain why initial underpricing of new issue exists globally and is not arbitraged away in an efficient market. We argue that initial underpricing is a natural by-product of liquidity-motivated ownership dispersion requirements and divergence of opinion. In our framework, as shares are widely distributed to achieve exchange listing and related liquidity creation, optimistic investors rationed at the offering will bid up the share price in the secondary market, hence generating initial underpricing. We predict that as the level of divergence of opinion about an issue increases, underpricing will increase. We develop several proxies of divergence of opinion to explain the level of initial underpricing. The empirical results strongly support the model.
Investigating Pricing Decisions in the Hospitality Industry Using the Behavioral Process Method

ABSTRACT This pilot study explored the utility of a behavioral process technique in assessing the attributes service providers deem most important when pricing a hotel room. Prior studies in the Israeli hospitality industry reveal that brand name, star rating, location, and number of rooms are all assets that can predict price. However, tracing the processes of individual decision makers' pricing strategies was not addressed in past research. The technique we used tracks item by item information acquisition to address this issue. Decision makers estimated the market price of a hotel room after sequentially revealing market information about competing hotels. The order of information search and the price estimate were measured.
An output aggregation system for large scale cross-modal retrieval

This paper presents our solution to MSR-Bing Image Retrieval Challenge to measure the relevance of web images and the query given in text form. We compare and integrate three typical methods (SVM-based, CCA-based, PAMIR) to conduct the large-scale cross-modal retrieval task with concept-level visual features. In SVM-based approach, the relevance of the image and the query is scored using an on-line trained SVM classifier for the query. With canonical correlation analysis (CCA), the correlations between images and queries (i.e., text) are maximized by learning a pair of linear transformations. PAMIR [1] formalizes the retrieval task as a ranking problem and introduces a learning procedure to optimize a ranking-related criterion by projecting the images to the text space. By using the concept-level visual features obtained with convolution neural network (CNN), our output aggregation system achieves 50.93% and 51.23% in terms of NDCG@ 25 on development and test data respectively.
The Impact of Major Life Events on Australian Household Financial Decision-Making and Portfolio Rebalancing

This paper uses household-level longitudinal data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to gain insights into the asset portfolio rebalancing responses of households experiencing a severe financial shock. The four major life events we consider are serious illness or injury, death of a spouse, being fired or made redundant, and separation from a spouse. The eleven asset classes are bank accounts, cash investments, equities, superannuation (pensions), cash-in values of life insurance policies, trust funds, owner-occupied housing, investor housing, business assets, vehicles, and collectibles. We use static Tobit models to assess the impact of the life events on asset class shares in household portfolios and dynamic Tobit models to investigate the magnitude and duration of the financial shocks over time. We find that serious illness and injury, loss of employment, and separation cause households to rebalance portfolios in ways that have detrimental impacts on long-term wealth accumulation. In particular, when households experience illness/injury or employment loss, they tend to reduce their equity portfolio share in both the short- and long-term with the implication of reduced portfolio returns, while those that experience separation reduce the portfolio share of owner-occupied housing also immediately, but then increase it over the longer term, thereby causing concern about transaction costs. The insights gained from these studies are particularly important for financial planners, as it may be possible to hedge wealth adverse impacts through better financial education, insurance products, or general financial preparedness.
Adoptive therapy with CD8(+) T cells: it may get by with a little help from its friends.

The clinical goal of immunotherapy has traditionally been to provide either active or passive immunity against an infection or malignancy. In the active approach, antigen is administered (with or without some form of adjuvant) to initiate the generation within the host of a protective or therapeutic immune response. By contrast, in adoptive (or passive) cellular immunotherapy, the specific effectors of immunity are directly administered, bypassing the obstacles in the host that might prevent the generation of an effective response in vivo. Adoptive immunotherapy with CD8 + T cells permits the use of large numbers of effector T cell clones or lines of defined specificity and function, but has the disadvantage of requiring significant effort and technologic skill to isolate and expand such CTLs in vitro to the numbers needed to establish an effective in vivo response and successfully control the infection or tumor. Adoptive T cell therapy is currently being investigated as an approach to treat both infectious (e.g., cytomegalovirus [CMV], HIV, and Epstein-Barr virus [EBV]) and malignant (e.g., melanoma and leukemia) diseases in humans (1‐6). Preclinical and clinical studies have elucidated several issues that need to be addressed to improve the likelihood of success — including choosing appropriate target antigens, optimizing the methods for generating functional T cells in vitro, and providing requisite cytokines and/or proinflammatory signals to support the survival and effector functions of the T cells after infusion. In this issue of the JCI, Tuma and colleagues have used a murine model of immunity against the intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes to evaluate a potential obstacle to T cell therapy, and demonstrate the utility of providing an inflammatory stimulus (CD40 activation) to rescue otherwise ineffective adoptively transferred CD8 + T cells (7). Their provocative findings are discussed below among the strategies currently being investigated to overcome current limitations of adoptive T cell therapy. Quantitative limitations of adoptive
Analysis of equal-gain diversity receiver in correlated fading channels

Performance evaluation of equal-gain combining (EGC) diversity receivers are known to be a much more difficult task in comparison with other diversity combining techniques such as the selection diversity or the maximal-ratio combining method. The difficulty of the above mathematical problem is compounded when the diversity branches are correlated. This paper presents a novel mathematical framework for analyzing a dual-branch EGC receiver performance over nonidentical Rayleigh and Nakagami-m fading channels when the diversity branches are correlated. It is also shown that the average bit error rate (ABER) formula for coherent BPSK and BFSK schemes reduces to the familiar expressions in the literature for the limiting case of independent diversity paths by setting the correlation coefficient to zero. Selected numerical plots that illustrate the effect of branch correction on the ABER performance are also provided.