Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
INFORMATION CHANNEL DISPOSITION AND USE

The use of information channels by individuals in organizations is substantially discretionary. Although much studied, variation in patterns of discretionary use has yet to be explained adequately in terms of an accepted integrative theory validated across varieties of channel types and organizational settings. In a step toward the development of such a theory, the present paper proposes a basic channel-disposition model that relates an individual's attitude or disposition toward a channel to his/her actual use of the channel in the context of information and channel supply-and-demand structures in the organization. An exploratory study of the dispositions of 186 users of ten management information system (MIS) reports in four organizational settings provides limited evidence in support of the model proposed.
Earnouts: The Effects of Adverse Selection and Agency Costs on Acquisition Techniques

We examine the effects of adverse selection and agency costs on the structure of the consideration offered in an acquisition. Specifically we investigate factors affecting the benefits arising from use of earnouts. We find that when targets have greater private information, consideration is more likely to be based on the future performance of the target. We also find an earnout is more likely to be used in an acquisition if the target is a smaller, private company in a different industry than the acquirer. In addition, earnouts are more likely to be used when fewer acquisitions take place within an industry and when targets are service companies or companies with more unrecorded assets. Finally, we compare the use of earnouts with the use of stock and find that financing considerations are a more important factor in the use of stock. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.
On modeling biomolecular–surface nonbonded interactions: application to nucleobase adsorption on single-wall carbon nanotube surfaces

In this work we explored the selectivity of single nucleobases towards adsorption on chiral single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) by density functional theory calculations. Specifically, the adsorption of molecular models of guanine (G), adenine (A), thymine (T), and cytosine (C), as well as of AT and GC Watson–Crick (WC) base pairs on chiral SWCNT C(6, 5), C(9, 1) and C(8, 3) model structures, was analyzed in detail. The importance of correcting the exchange–correlation functional for London dispersion was clearly demonstrated, yet limitations in modeling such interactions by considering the SWCNT as a molecular model may mask subtle effects in a molecular–macroscopic material system. The trend in the calculated adsorption energies of the nucleobases on same diameter C(6, 5) and C(9, 1) SWCNT surfaces, i.e. G > A > T > C, was consistent with related computations and experimental work on graphitic surfaces, however contradicting experimental data on the adsorption of single-strand short homo-oligonucleotides on SWCNTs that demonstrated a trend of G > C > A > T (Albertorio et al 2009 Nanotechnology 20 395101). A possible role of electrostatic interactions in this case was partially captured by applying the effective fragment potential method, emphasizing that the interplay of the various contributions in modeling nonbonded interactions is complicated by theoretical limitations. Finally, because the calculated adsorption energies for Watson–Crick base pairs have shown little effect upon adsorption of the base pair farther from the surface, the results on SWCNT sorting by salmon genomic DNA could be indicative of partial unfolding of the double helix upon adsorption on the SWCNT surface.
Ten Consecutive Cases of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome of Less than 12 Months Duration in Active Duty United States Military Personnel Treated with Spinal Cord Stimulation

Complex regional pain syndrome describes a constellation of symptoms that may involve the sympathetic nervous system. Emerging consensus recommends early intervention with spinal cord stimulation to facilitate physical therapy. Isolated case reports suggest this may be an effective treatment. Ten consecutive active duty United States military personnel with newly diagnosed complex regional pain syndrome underwent early intervention with spinal cord stimulation with favorable results, including decreased pain scores and decreased opioid intake. Six received injuries directly as a result of service in Iraq or Afghanistan. These patients also had posttraumatic stress disorder, but it did not interfere with successful pain control. Additionally, 6 of 10 patients continued on active duty.
An Unbiased Reexamination of Stock Market Volatility

Recent work demonstrates serious statistical problems with standard volatility tests. This paper proposes new tests that are unbiased in small samples and that do not require assumptions of stationarity. The new tests continue to find evidence against the model positing rational expectations and a constant required rate of return on equity. IN HIS SEMINAL WORK on the volatility of the stock market, Robert Shiller [10] examines the view that changes in the level of the stock market reflect news about future dividends. In particular, he considers a model in which stock prices are the present discounted value, using a constant discount rate, of expected dividends.1 He provides what appears to be overwhelming evidence against this model. Dividends appear a smooth time series, while stock prices are volatile. The standard deviation of stock prices is, he concludes, about five times greater than would be expected from the volatility of dividends. Recent work by Flavin [2], Marsh and Merton [6], and others calls into question the validity of Shiller's test for a variety of reasons. Flavin examines the small sample properties of volatility tests and shows that they are extremely biased toward finding excessive volatility. Marsh and Merton argue that the excess volatility of stock prices relative to dividends is not surprising since firms, consciously smoothing dividends, make dividends a nonstationary series. They show that under a plausible dividend pay-out rule which makes dividends a random walk, the standard volatility test finds excess volatility in every sample, even though the efficient markets model is correct. In this paper, we propose new volatility tests. Our goal is to examine the same question Shiller addresses: can stock prices, a very volatile series, be the expected present discounted value of dividends, a relatively smooth series? The new tests, however, do not suffer from the problems Flavin and Marsh and Merton discuss. In Section I we briefly review Shiller's volatility test and then present our new ones. In Section II we consider the objections to Shiller's test and show that our tests are immune to these problems. We apply our tests to the data in Section III. We find that our new unbiased tests continue to provide evidence contra
A Neural Network approach for mixing language models

The performance of Neural Network (NN)-based language models is steadily improving due to the emergence of new architectures, which are able to learn different natural language characteristics. This paper presents a novel framework, which shows that a significant improvement can be achieved by combining different existing heterogeneous models in a single architecture. This is done through 1) a feature layer, which separately learns different NN-based models and 2) a mixture layer, which merges the resulting model features. In doing so, this architecture benefits from the learning capabilities of each model with no noticeable increase in the number of model parameters or the training time. Extensive experiments conducted on the Penn Treebank (PTB) and the Large Text Compression Benchmark (LTCB) corpus showed a significant reduction of the perplexity when compared to state-of-the-art feedforward as well as recurrent neural network architectures.
Direct and Indirect Effects of Human Capital on Firm Value: Evidence from Italian Companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether information on intellectual capital (IC) is value relevant for investors and the role played by the single components of IC (human capital, organizational capital, relational capital) in creating firm value. Design/methodology/approach –The Ohlson model (1995) has been employed to investigate the relationship between the current accounting measures (book value and earnings) and future measures of profitability, proxied by IC. The value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC™) approach is used to determine the firm’s efficiency in using IC resources. The sample analysis analyzed is constituted of financial sector companies listed on the Italian Stock Exchange for the period 2006-2008. Findings – The findings fully confirm the existence of a positive relationship between accounting values and market value on the one hand and IC components as measured by VAIC™ and market value on the other. Results show that investors attach more value relevance to human capital efficiency (HCE) than to structural capital efficiency (SCE) and that HCE plays an indirect role in the relation between IC and market value. Research limitations/implications – The paper is focused on one sector (financial) and one country (Italy). The focus on the entire financial sector allows us to validate results from an Italian perspective and to extend them for similar banking structures in other countries, and to favor comparisons with other similar studies. Practical implications –The main implications for financial company managers are that, when developing a strategy aimed at strengthening IC, they should consider that human capital plays an indirect part with regard to the other components and that each investment in one of the IC subcategories should not be evaluated in isolation but in relation to its interactions. Originality/value –The article realizes a fusion between value relevance and IC literature. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that examines the relationship between VAIC™ and the market value of the Italian financial sector using an Ohlson model modified to include IC information, comprehensive of the human capital indirect effect. Post print (i.e. final draft post-refereeing) version of the article published in Journal of Human Resource Costing and Accounting Beyond the journal formatting, please note that there could be minor changes from this document to the final published version This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here (http://ssrn.com/abstract=2187427). Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
DCT-Based Adaptive Thresholding Algorithm for Binary Motion Estimation

This paper presents a discrete-cosine transform (DCT)-based adaptive thresholding algorithm to achieve an effective binarization of video image for binary motion estimation (BME). The BME through the full search mechanism requires extremely low hardware complexity. Experimental results show that the proposed adaptive BME attains performance close to the 8-bit resolution ME for low motion sequences with full search strategy. Compared to the well-known single-layer BME, the proposed adaptive algorithm shows better peak signal-to-noise ratio performance and more robustness to complex images. Moreover, the proposed algorithm has a lower computational complexity that is suitable for VLSI implementation with a smaller hardware overhead.
Reorganizing political power in Indonesia: A reconsideration of so-called 'democratic transitions'

The fall of Soeharto's long-entrenched authoritarian New Order regime in 1998 raised hopes among many about a transition in Indonesia to a liberal democratic system of politics. However, Indonesia's new democratic institutions have been captured and appropriated by predatory interests, many of which were nurtured and incubated in the New Order. These have merely now reconstituted and reinvented themselves in Indonesia's new democracy. The article assesses these developments in the light of many of the assumptions of the still influential and growing 'democratic transitions' literature and on the basis of case studies in two Indonesian provinces, Yogyakarta and North Sumatra. These show that gradual reform since the fall of Soeharto has allowed the rise in political fortunes of those formerly entrenched in the lower levels of the New Order's formerly vast system of patronage, including its political entrepreneurs and henchmen. On the other hand, those social forces that were marginalized under the New Order, for example organized labour, remain politically excluded.
Intercept Corrections and Structural Change

Analyses of forecasting that assume a constant, time-invariant data generating process (DGP), and so implicitly rule out structural change or regime shifts in the economy, ignore an aspect of the real world responsible for some of the more dramatic historical episodes of predictive failure. Some models may offer greater protection against unforeseen structural breaks than others, and various tricks may be employed to robustify forecasts to change. We show that in certain states of nature, vector autoregressions in the differences of the variables (in the spirit of Box-Jenkins time-series-modelling), can outperform vector 'equilibrium-correction' mechanisms. However, appropriate intercept corrections can enhance the performance of the latter, albeit that reductions in forecast bias may only be achieved at the cost of inflated forecast error variances. Copyright 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Changing Molecular Epidemiology of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in a Small Geographic Area over an Eight-Year Period

ABSTRACT The epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) at an international level shows that most MRSA strains belong to a few pandemic clones. At the local level, a predominance of one or two clones was generally reported. However, the situation is evolving and new clones are emerging worldwide, some of them with specific biological characteristics, such as the presence of Panton-Valentine leucocidin (PVL). Understanding these changes at the local and international levels is of great importance. Our objective was to analyze the evolution of MRSA epidemiology at multiple sites on a local level (Western Switzerland) over a period of 8 years. Data were based on MRSA reports from seven sentinel laboratories and infection control programs covering different areas. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis was used to type MRSA isolates. From 1997 to 2004, a total of 2,256 patients with MRSA were reported. Results showed the presence of four predominant clones (accounting for 86% of patients), which could be related to known international clones (Berlin, New York/Japan, Southern Germany, and Iberian clones). Within the small geographic region, the 8-year follow-up period in the different areas showed spacio-temporal differences in the relative proportions of the four clones. Other international MRSA clones, as well as clones showing genetic characteristics identical to those of community-acquired MRSA (SCCmec type IV and the presence of PVL genes), were also identified but presumably did not disseminate. Despite the worldwide predominance of a few MRSA clones, our data showed that at a local level, the epidemiology of MRSA might be different from one hospital to another. Moreover, MRSA clones were replaced by other emerging clones, suggesting a rapid change.
Redescription of Ingliseria cirrohamata (Linstow, 1888) (Nematoda: Acuariidae), Including New Hosts and Geographical Records

Abstract Inglisera cirrohamata (Linstow, 1888) (Nematoda: Acuariidae) is redescribed based on specimens collected from the type host, Phalacrocorax verrucosus (Aves: Phalacrocoracidae), and the type locality, Kerguelen Island, in the southern Indian Ocean. Three new hosts and 2 new localities were recorded, i.e., Phalacrocorax [atriceps] albiventer and P. brasilianus from Puerto Madryn, Argentina and P. magellanicus from Puerto Williams, Chile. The structure of the cephalic ornamentations was observed and fully described. The presence of 6 pairs of postcloacal papillae is confirmed, a description of the tip of left spicule is given, and the presence of post-deirids is reported for the first time. This constitutes the first record of this nematode in South America and provides the first study of the genus by scanning electron microscopy.
Firms leverage and export quality:evidence from France

Is corporate financial structure a determinant of non-price competitiveness in export markets? In this paper we provide a positive answer to this question by finding that among illiquid exporters leverage is negatively correlated with the quality of their exported goods. This result is obtained on a sample including over 120,000 export flows of 6,229 French firms exporting within six HS6 products categories. The main methodological contribution of our study is the use of a flow-level measure of export quality obtained from the estimation of a structural model of demand (Berry, 1994); this estimator enhance the validity of our approach by avoiding the drawbacks of proxying for quality using export prices, as it is common practice in the trade literature. We argue that the negative impact of leverage on quality is consistent with theoretical contributions in the financial literature predicting a negative impact of debt financing on firms' incentive to undertake quality upgrading investments.
Growth in North American white children with neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1)

OBJECTIVE To analyse the distributions of and generate growth charts for stature and occipitofrontal circumference (OFC) in neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) patients. DESIGN Cross sectional database survey. SETTING The National Neurofibromatosis Foundation International Database (NFDB) includes clinical information on NF1 patients from 14 participating centres in North America. SUBJECTS A total of 569 white, North American, NF1 patients, 55% female and 45% male. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Stature and OFC measurements of NF1 patients were compared to age and sex matched population norms using z score standardisation and centile curves. RESULTS The distributions of stature and OFC are shifted and unimodal among NF1 patients; 13% of patients have short stature (⩾2 standard deviations below the population mean) and 24% have macrocephaly (OFC ⩾2 standard deviations above the population mean). CONCLUSIONS Alterations of stature and OFC are not limited to NF1 patients with frank short stature or macrocephaly.
Longitudinal resting state fMRI analysis in healthy controls and premanifest Huntington's disease gene carriers: A three‐year follow‐up study

Background: We previously demonstrated that in the premanifest stage of Huntington's disease (preHD), a reduced functional connectivity exists compared to healthy controls. In the current study, we look at possible changes in functional connectivity occurring longitudinally over a period of 3 years, with the aim of assessing the potential usefulness of this technique as a biomarker for disease progression in preHD.
Long-Term Survival in Patients Presenting With Type B Acute Aortic Dissection: Insights From the International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection

Background— Follow-up survival studies in patients with acute type B aortic dissection have been restricted to a small number of patients in single centers. We used data from a contemporary registry of acute type B aortic dissection to better understand factors associated with adverse long-term survival. Methods and Results— We examined 242 consecutive patients discharged alive with acute type B aortic dissection enrolled in the International Registry of Acute Aortic Dissection (IRAD) between 1996 and 2003. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were constructed, and Cox proportional hazards analysis was performed to identify independent predictors of follow-up mortality. Three-year survival for patients treated medically, surgically, or with endovascular therapy was 77.6±6.6%, 82.8±18.9%, and 76.2±25.2%, respectively (median follow-up 2.3 years, log-rank P=0.61). Independent predictors of follow-up mortality included female gender (hazard ratio [HR], 1.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.07 to 3.71; P=0.03), a history of prior aortic aneurysm (HR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.03 to 4.59; P=0.04), a history of atherosclerosis (HR, 2.48; 95% CI, 1.32 to 4.66; P<0.01), in-hospital renal failure (HR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.15 to 5.63; P=0.02), pleural effusion on chest radiograph (HR, 2.56; 95% CI, 1.18 to 5.58; P=0.02), and in-hospital hypotension/shock (HR, 12.5; 95% CI, 3.24 to 48.21; P<0.01). Conclusions— Contemporary follow-up mortality in patients who survive to hospital discharge with acute type B aortic dissection is high, approaching 1 in every 4 patients at 3 years. Current treatment and follow-up surveillance require further study to better understand and optimize care for patients with this complex disease.
Effects of low day 3 luteinizing hormone levels on in vitro fertilization treatment outcome

In a previous study we demonstrated that women with day 3 luteinizing hormone (LH) values < 3 IU/l subjected to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation without pituitary desensitization responded with a lower number of follicles > 15 mm compared to women with a higher basal LH level. The aim of this study was to determine whether in patients with day 3 LH levels < 3 IU/l a further reduction of serum LH concentration by gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analog impairs follicular response to follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and treatment outcome in in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles. For this purpose we retrospectively studied 249 consecutive women subjected to standard IVF treatment employing pituitary desensitization with buserelin and follicular stimulation with urinary highly purified FSH. The patients were divided into two groups according to their day 3 LH value. The first group (group A) showed day 3 LH levels < 3 IU/l and the second (group B) had day 3 LH levels > 3 IU/l. Group A and B patients did not show statistically significant differences in the ovarian response to FSH, nor in IVF treatment outcome, showing that in FSH treated GnRH analog suppressed cycles, the ovarian responsiveness and IVF outcome do not differ according to basal LH values. However, the high dosage of FSH we employed in group A and B patients could account, at least in part, for this result. Indeed, comparative evaluations with unsuppressed cycles (our previous study) strongly suggest that a reduced ovarian responsiveness to gonadotropins in patients with day 3 LH values < 3 IU/l should be considered in clinical practice.