Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Awareness about PCPNDT act among undergraduate students of a medical college in Puducherry

Background: Sex selective abortions have become a significant social phenomenon in contemporary India. In order to curb sex selective abortions, the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act was passed in the year 1994. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Puducherry among 75 medical under-graduate students. A semi-structured, pre-designed questionnaire was used to collect the information on their knowledge, attitude and perception regarding gender discrimination and prenatal sex determination act. Results: Only 34 (45.3%) students were correctly aware of the prevailing sex ratio in India. Most common source of information for awareness was internet (44.1%), followed by newspaper (41.1%), and family/friends (14.7%). Majority (74.7%) of the students were aware of the PCPNDT Act. Awareness about PCPNDT Act among female students (85.4%) was higher as compared to male students (61.8%). Only half of the students (56.0%) correctly reported about the punishment for sex determination and implication of feticide (fine and imprisonment both). Conclusions: Awareness regarding the altered sex ratio and the PCPNDT Act was poor among medical undergraduates. In order to combat the poor awareness regular workshops and continuing medical education sessions (CMEs) should be conducted.
Pattern of Firearm Injury and Outcome

OBJECTIVE: To study the pattern and outcomes of firearm injuries at Department of Surgery during 3 years. DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: Department of Surgery, Unit II, Chandka Medical College Teaching Hospital Larkana. DURATION: Three years, from July 2004 to June 2007. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Record of all firearm injury cases, who presented during study period, was analysed. Data were collected on printed proforma from indoor patient record (case file) and operation theatre record. Demographic data, clinical presentation, site and frequency of injuries, investigations including radiology, operative findings, and postoperative course were the variables of study. RESULTS: Out of 282 firearm injured patients, 258 were males and 24 were females, with male to female ratio of 10.7:1. The age ranged 12-80 years. Ninety-nine (33.68%) patients had injuries to abdomen only and 72 (25.53%) to chest only, while 72 (25.53%) patients had multiple injuries including injuries to abdomen. One-hundred and twelve (39.71%) patients underwent Laparatomy (including patients with multiple injuries), 66 (23.40%) required chest intubations. Twohundred and forty-four (86.52%) patients were cured and discharged. Seven (2.48%) patients were referred to other departments like Orthopaedics and Neuromedicine and 14 (4.96%) to other hospitals with advanced patient care facilities. Mortality rate was 6%. CONCLUSION: The firearm injury is common in 20-39 year old males. The most common site of injury is abdomen. The commonly injured intra-abdominal organ is bowel followed by liver and kidney, while most commonly injured extra-abdominal organ is lung.
International Journal of Instruction

The study aimed at identifying the association between Bandura’s four hypothesized self-efficacy sources and metacognitive reading strategies by employing reading self-efficacy beliefs as a mediating variable. A correlational research design was used. A total of 188 Saudi EFL learners were selected from five public universities of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by employing proportionate stratified random sampling. Three questionnaires including ‘questionnaire for sources of reading self-efficacy’, ‘reading self-efficacy beliefs questionnaire’, and ‘survey of reading strategies’ were used to collect the data. Structural equation modelling by a statistical software, i.e., PLS 3.0 was utilised in order to test the relationships among variables. Findings provided support for the proposed conceptual framework, disclosing that all the four self-efficacy sources were significantly correlated with reading self-efficacy beliefs. Also, reading selfefficacy beliefs were significantly correlated with metacognitive reading strategies. Lastly, reading self-efficacy beliefs mediated the association between self-efficacy sources and metacognitive reading strategies.
The Impact of Board Connections on M&As

Using hand-collected SEC filing data on M&A deal negotiation and processing details, we examine the impact of board connections on the process and efficiency of corporate M&As. We find that targets with well-connected boards are more likely to be approached by potential acquirers, introduce more competing bidders during deal negotiations, and be ultimately acquired by connected acquirers. Moreover, well-connected targets are less likely to rely on financial advisors to source potential acquirers. The combined acquirertarget announcement abnormal returns are higher for deals involving more connected targets, and all the deal surplus accrues to the targets. These targets are also paid with significantly higher premiums. Overall, the evidence suggests that board connections help facilitate a value-enhancing deal process for targets in the market for corporate control. JEL classification: G34
Affordances and structures of risks and rewards: A case study of Clash Royale

A good gameplay analysis must consider the dilemmas that appear during the gameplay. Therefore, new dilemmas may appear every single game played and the lack of methods to analyse patterns in those dilemmas is a common problem amongst game designers. This current method utilizes a structure of risks and rewards to understand the balancing in the game, also how the knowledge about the affordances present in the game can evidence the playskill. For this case, the game “Clash Royale” that is a popular player versus player game can be helpful by methods of how players battle for a single objective, beating their opponent. “Clash Royale” was developed by Supercell for mobiles. Nevertheless, the affordances that appear during the gameplay do not bring complex schemes. For that, we can visualize the risks and the rewards of each affordance during the game. This method, which analyse affordances together with the risks and rewards structure of the game not only analyse how the affordances work, but also how those affordances works can directly relate to how the game balance work. For this article, we are going to analyse a specific match from the championship series provided by the developer of the game.
Investors’ Trust in Companies and Financial Report Misstatements

This paper documents that investors’ trust in companies reduces the likelihood of financial misstatements made by public firms. A closer examination reveals that investors’ trust can only significantly reduce the likelihood of misstatements due to reporting errors, but it is ineffective in reducing misstatements due to irregularities. This implies that honest managers prefer to maintain the trust placed in them and take more care not to accidentally misstate, while dishonest managers dismiss or exploit investors’ trust. We also find that managers in smaller, younger, unprofitable, high volatility, high growth, financially constrained and dividend paying companies are more sensitive to investors’ trust. Investors’ trust can reduce misstatements, especially accidental ones, because managers care about investors’ opinions and evidence shows that stock market reactions to restatement announcements will be more negative for firms with more trusting investors. But investors’ trust has limited impacts if the management intentionally misstates, or when corporate governance is poor. JEL Classification: M14, M41
Can the Internet improve agricultural production? Evidence from Viet Nam

This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on the potential benefits of the Internet on rural livelihoods. We estimate the relationship between Internet access and agricultural production in rural Viet Nam using a panel dataset from 2008–2012. This is a time span during which Internet access increased substantially and government‐run and private online outlets providing information about agriculture started to operate. Our findings suggest that Internet access is associated with a 6.8% higher volume of total agricultural output. We find that this result is manifested through more efficient use of fertilizer. Our findings are stronger for younger households. The less developed northern provinces have benefited the most from the arrival of the Internet. The results are weaker in the case of rice, which is related to strong government involvement in rice production and prices.
Institutional Investors and Bank Earnings Management

We conduct the first exploratory analysis of the impact of institutional investors on bank earnings management using a broad sample of non-U.S. banks across 38 countries. We find that total institutional ownership is negatively related to earnings management and that domestic institutional investors are more effective than their foreign counterparts in constraining earnings management. These findings hold during both normal economic times and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Our paper has important policy implications, given the recent financial crisis and the recent empirical finding that earnings management activities can serve as early warning signs of crash risk during a crisis. Our results suggest that policies aiming to promote the participation of institutional investors in bank governance are beneficial to investors and other stakeholders. Additionally, policies such as Basel III that aim to enhance bank disclosure should lead to a more effective disciplinary role played by market participants. JEL classification: G15; G2; G32; G34; M41
Institutional Investment Horizons and Corporate Innovation

This paper examines the impact of institutional investor’s investment horizons on corporate innovation. We conjecture that the presence of long-term institutional investors mitigates managerial myopia since long-term oriented institutions have more incentives to monitor with informational advantages, and that this will lead firms to engage in more innovative corporate activities. Using data on patents and citations of the U.S. firms over the period of 1980-2004, we find that long-term institutional ownership is positively related to the number of patents, citations, and citations per patent. Our findings suggest that firms’ innovative activities increase with the greater presence of long-term institutional investors. JEL classification: G31; G32; G34
Peer Effects in Corporate Capital Structure around the World

This paper investigates determinants of peer firm effects in capital structure decisions. In a sample of 41 countries, we find that global, regional, and domestic peer firms play an important role in determining corporate capital structures. Industries producing tradeable goods exhibit strong effects for all three definitions of peer group. Industries producing non-tradeable goods exhibit peer effects at the regional and domestic level, but not at the global level. Country estimates reveal peer effects are found primarily in advanced economies with developed capital markets. Importantly, cross-country variation in the strength of estimated peer effects is associated with variations in capital market development, investor legal protections, and political risks. Our findings provide evidence that industry, geography, and institutional factors all influence the extent to which peer-to-peer transmission of financial policies occurs. Contact Information: Aaron Brauner – abrauner@albany.edu Andy Naranjo andy.naranjo@warrington.ufl. edu Jongsub Lee jongsub.lee@warrington.ufl. edu
Is It All the Same? Forms of Racial Prejudice, Their Origins and Consequences Reconsidered

For decades, numerous social science contributions have addressed questions concerning attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. While this research gives important insights into how modern civil societies work, it also introduces misunderstandings and adds confusion to what authors understand as anti-immigrant prejudice and, in particular, how this concept is operationalised. Hitherto, attitudes towards immigrants are measured and conceptualized in multiple ways: some speak of ethnic exclusionism, others use the term ethnocentrism, and most of the publications refer to negative sentiments or attitudes towards immigrants. The aim of the present paper is to disentangle this prevailing conceptual confusion by asking if anti-immigrant prejudice is a multidimensional rather than a monolithic concept. Drawing on insights from the US literature on racism as well as the path-breaking contribution by Kleinpenning and Hagendoorn (1993), the paper hypothesizes that racism has four distinct dimensions which differ in their origins and consequences. The results based on confirmatory factor analyses as well multilevel models for individuals living in 20 European countries – taken form the most recent European Social Survey (ESS7, 2014) – reveal that we should discard the idea of anti-immigrant prejudice as a unidimensional concept.
Political Corruption and Corporate Cash Holdings: Evidence from the Recent Chinese Anti-corruption Campaign

By taking advantage of the recent anti-corruption campaign launched in China, this paper investigates the impact of political corruption on corporate cash holdings based on a quasinatural experiment. We find that firms increase cash holdings significantly following the campaign, after controlling for operational, investment and financing factors. The increase in cash is more evident in firms located in regions with high rent-seeking incentives for public officials. Furthermore, we find that the campaign results in a higher market value of cash. In addition to cash, our results reveal that political expropriation shapes investment decision through its impact on cash, and it significantly influences corporate capital structure and income taxes as well. Overall, our findings provide strong evidence that political corruption is a key determinant of corporate cash holdings. The recent anti-corruption campaign has a negative impact on political corruption, allowing firms to move back to their optimal levels of
Dynamics of Photo‐Induced Surface Oxygen Vacancies in Metal‐Oxide Semiconductors Studied Under Ambient Conditions

Surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a powerful analytical technique commonly used in the detection of traces of organic molecules. The mechanism of SERS is of a dual nature, with Raman scattering enhancements due to a combination of electromagnetic (EM) and chemical contributions. In conventional SERS, the EM component is largely responsible for the enhancement, with the chemical contribution playing a less significant role. An alternative technique, called photo‐induced enhanced Raman spectroscopy (PIERS) has been recently developed, using a photo‐activated semiconductor substrate to give additional chemical enhancement of Raman bands over traditional SERS. This enhancement is assigned to surface oxygen vacancies (Vo) formed upon pre‐irradiation of the substrate. In this work, the exceptional chemical contribution in PIERS allows for the evaluation of atomic Vo dynamics in metal oxide surfaces. This technique is applied to study the formation and healing rates of surface‐active Vo in archetypical metal‐oxide semiconductors, namely, TiO2, WO3, and ZnO. Contrary to conventional analytical tools, PIERS provides intuitive and valuable information about surface stability of atomic defects at ambient pressure and under operando conditions, which has important implications in a wide range of applications including catalysis and energy storage materials.
www.econstor.eu Rational Filters

It has been widely documented that reference points influence the choice. If references affect choice by attracting attention towards an alternative, what can be said about the joint effect of the references? Assuming that references form preferences, or are rational filters, this paper extracts a reference-dependent choice model with joint referential effects from WARP. Assume that a DM has an “unfiltered” pairwise preference which is inferred from her choice over doubletons. The DM’s uses her rational filters consecutively on the pairwise preference in order to finalize her choice.
A New Version of the SUNY Solar Forecast Model: A Scalable Approach to Site-Specific Model Training

This article introduces a new version of the SUNY solar forecast model, as implemented in the software SolarAnywhere®. Like the existing version, this new version is intended for direct, out-of-the-box application throughout North America without requiring training/feedback from measured data. The existing version was recently identified by EPRI as most accurate among thirteen operational models after an independent evaluation in two climatically distinct US regions. This new version shows further measurable performance improvements and operational functionality with capability of using historical satellite data for model training purposes. The advantage of incorporating historical satellite data is that it allows this forecast application to scale to all sizes of PV systems (large utility-scale down to individual rooftop) without the requirement of site-measured inputs. This new approach exhibits a 1-5% root mean square error (RMSE) improvement over the forecast horizon up to two-days in advance. Index Terms —solar resource, irradiance, solar forecasting, PV fleet forecasting.
1 Information overload and Cost of Equity Capital

In recent years, corporate filings and their important sections have become thicker and longer. At the same time investors are swamped with information that is available through media, analysts and other sources creating information overload. Using several firm level proxies of information overload and several firm-level proxies of cost of equity capital, we examine in this paper whether information overload affects firms required rate of returns (i.e. financing costs). Based on a sample of 13418 firm-years during the 1993 to 2009 period, we find that information overload significantly and positively affects cost of equity capital. These results are robust to a series of validity checks.
EVALUATION OF MIL-STD-883/TEST METHOD 1019.6 FOR BIPOLAR LINEAR CIRCUITS

A true dose rate response was first reported in bipolar linear circuit transistors in 1991 [1] and in bipolar linear circuits in 1994 [2-4]. In these papers it was made clear that the standard test condition in MIL-STD-883 Test Method 1019 (TM019 test condition A) did not work for many bipolar linear circuits used in a low dose rate space environment. In addition, the post irradiation annealing test (“rebound” test), of TM1019.4 required for MOS circuits in a low dose rate environment was not conservative for bipolar linear circuits. At that time the only test that could be recommended was a low dose rate test. In 1994 a model of the “enhanced low dose rate sensitivity”, ELDRS, was proposed that suggested an accelerated test for ELDRS consisting of irradiation at an elevated temperature [5]. Several studies have been conducted to establish the appropriate dose rate and temperature for the elevated temperature irradiation test [6-8] and recommendations were made in 1997 for ELDRS tests [9]. These recommendations were incorporated in an ASTM guideline document (F1892-98) “Standard Guide for Ionizing Radiation (Total Dose) Effects Testing of Semiconductor Devices”, which has recently been updated (F1892-03). In March of 2003 TM1019 was revised to include tests for bipolar linear circuits, TM1019.6, consisting of a low dose rate test and an accelerated (elevated temperature irradiation) test. The purpose of this paper is to present data on four circuit types that have shown enhanced low dose rate response, to evaluate the effectiveness of the new test methods in TM1019.6.
The Price of Liquidity Beta in China: A Sentiment-based Explanation

The conventional, risk-based view on liquidity beta is a dismal story for China: High liquidity beta stocks underperform low liquidity beta stocks by 1.17% per month in China. This striking pattern is robust to different weighting schemes, competing factor models, alternative liquidity measures, and other well-known determinants of cross-sectional returns. We propose a competing, sentiment-based explanation on the reversed pricing pattern. Consistent with our new perspective, liquidity beta is a negative return predictor at the firm level. Moreover, the return differential between high and low liquidity beta stocks is more dramatic following high market liquidity periods. JEL classification: G12; G15
Happiness and Income Inequality in Japan

Using an original questionnaire survey, we investigated how economic inequality influences people's reported subjective welfare. We found that both the Gini coefficient and perception of a rising inequality have a weak but positive correlation to happiness. Estimated impacts of other perception variables, such as recognition of a rise in inequality between fulltime and part time workers, as well as inequality due to family backgrounds turned out to be negative and significant. Decline in upward social mobility in Japan is a source of welfare loss. On the other hand, self-measured mobility in educational levels and quality of life relative to one's parents' are estimated to have a negative correlation to happiness, which is hard to interpret. We found that people who are comparatively more risk averse tend to suffer substantially from perceptions of increasing economic inequality, a finding that accords with the definition of risk aversion. The objective economic situation of each respondent has an intuitively plausible, clear-cut influence on reported happiness. Particularly significant are the impacts of unemployment and loss in earnings, and the former suggests the importance of a non-pecuniary element in the costs of being unemployed. 2
Influence of Cavity Dimensions on Microleakage of Two Bulk-Fill Composite Resins

Objective: To evaluate the effect of cavity dimensions on the amount of microleakage in two different types of bulk-fill composite resins. Material and Methods: Forty class II cavities were prepared in the mesial and distal surfaces of human molars without any carious lesions. The samples were divided into 4 groups (n=10): Group 1: cavities with 3 mm of buccolingual width (known as the smaller cavity), filled with Tetric N-Ceram Bulk Fill composite resin; Group 2: cavities with 6 mm of buccolingual width (larger cavity), filled with Tetric N-Ceram Bulk Fill composite resin; Group 3: cavities with 3 mm of buccolingual width, filled with X-Tra Base composite resin; and Group 4: cavities with 6 mm of buccolingual width, filled with X-Tra Base composite. After the specimens were thermocycled for 500 cycles at 5/55°C, they were immersed in 1% methylene blue for 24 hours, and then cut into sections mesiodistally in the longitudinal axis of each tooth. Then, the samples were scored regarding the amount of dye penetration in two occlusal and gingival areas under a stereomicroscope (x32). Data was submitted to Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. Results: The highest degrees of microleakage in larger cavities filled with X-Tra Base among the four groups. There was a significant statistic difference (p=0.012) between large and small cavities filled with X-Tra Base (Groups 3 and 4); however, there was no significant difference between the two cavity sizes of Tetric N-Ceram Bulk-filled groups. Conclusion: Microleakage of composite resins depends on the dimension of the cavity and the type of composite resin used.