Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Advantages to Competing with Yourself: Why an Exchange Might Design Futures Contracts with Correlated Payoffs

This paper examines the form of futures contracts which a monopolistic exchange will offer to maximize transaction revenue when transaction fees are endogenously determined. We establish the desirable characteristics of participants in contracts. For example, we show that contracts which appeal to hedgers on one side of the market and to speculators on the other are desirable. In contrast to earlier work, we show that the sequentially selected set of contracts may not be optimal. It may be desirable for the exchange to offer correlated contracts, or even to bundle several contracts together and sell the bundled contract at a fee lower than the fee charged for the set of contracts purchased separately.
Soluble CD44 Is a Potential Marker for the Early Detection of Head and Neck Cancer

Introduction: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a devastating and deadly disease, largely because it is diagnosed in late stage. Cure rates, currently at 50%, could increase to >80% with early detection. In this study, we evaluate soluble CD44 (solCD44) as an early detection tool for HNSCC by determining whether it reliably distinguishes HNSCC from benign disease of the upper aerodigestive tract. Methods: We carried out the solCD44 ELISA on oral rinses from 102 patients with HNSCC and 69 control patients with benign diseases of upper aerodigestive tract to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the test for differentiating HNSCC from benign disease. Furthermore, we did a pilot study using methylation-specific PCR primers on oral rinses from 11 HNSCC patients with low solCD44 levels and 10 benign disease controls. Results: Mean salivary solCD44 levels were 24.4 ± 32.0 ng/mL for HNSCC patients (range, 0.99-201 ng/mL) and 9.9 ± 16.1 ng/mL (range, 0.73-124 ng/mL) for the patients with benign disease (P < 0.0001). Depending on cutoff point and HNSCC site, sensitivity ranged from 62% to 70% and specificity ranged from 75% to 88%. Nine of 11 HNSCC and 0 of 10 controls with low solCD44 levels showed hypermethylation of the CD44 promoter. Conclusions: SolCD44 is elevated in the majority of HNSCC and distinguishes cancer from benign disease with high specificity. Whereas the solCD44 test lacks sensitivity by itself, methylation status of the CD44 gene seems to complement the solCD44 test. Our pilot data indicate that, together, these markers will detect HNSCC with very high sensitivity and specificity. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(7):1348–55)
Genotoxicity Testing and Biomarker Studies on Surface Waters: An Overview of the Techniques and Their Efficacies

Rapid industrialization, use of modern agriculture practices, and fast urbanization vis-a-vis indiscriminate use of xenobiotics have led to the serious problems of water pollution in India and abroad. The complexicity of the pollutants in environmental samples demands a multitude of genotoxicity testing with increasing simplicity, sensitivity, and affordability. Moreover, various pollutants mutually affect their own toxic behavior, which complicates the problem of risk assessment. An overview, highlighting the genotoxicity testing system, such as Ames plate incorporation test, Ames fluctuation test, E. coli survival assay, Allium cepa toxicity/genotoxicity test, comet assay, and plasmid nicking assay, is presented in this article, and a comparison has been made to estimate the efficacy of these genotoxicity bioassays performed on some surface waters. Some work on toxicity biomarkers vis-a-vis studies on surface waters has also been included in the present review.
Histomorphometric analysis of the osseointegration of four different implant surfaces in the femoral epiphyses of rabbits.

OBJECTIVES The surface properties of titanium dental implants are key parameters for rapid and intimate bone-implant contact. The osseointegration of four implant surfaces was studied in the femoral epiphyses of rabbits. MATERIAL AND METHODS Titanium implants were either grit-blasted with alumina or biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) ceramic particles, coated with a thin octacalcium phosphate (OCP) layer, or prepared by large-grit sand blasting and acid-etched (SLA). After 2 and 8 weeks of implantation, the bone-implant contact and bone growth inside the chambers were compared. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and profilometry showed distinct microtopographies. RESULTS The alumina-Ti, BCP-Ti and OCP-Ti groups had similar average surface roughness in the 1-2 mum range whereas the SLA surface was significantly higher with a roughness averaging 4.5 microm. Concerning the osseointegration, the study demonstrated a significantly greater bone-to-implant contact for both the SLA and OCP-Ti surfaces as compared with the grit-blasted surfaces, alumina- and BCP-Ti at both 2 and 8 weeks of healing. CONCLUSION In this animal model, a biomimetic calcium phosphate coating gave similar osseointegration to the SLA surface. This biomimetic coating method may enhance the apposition of bone onto titanium dental implants.
The Effects of Cognitive Misfit on Students' Accounting Task Performance

ABSTRACT : Accounting educators have long been interested in the effects of cognitive style on student performance. Research suggests that students' cognitive styles can moderate their success across a variety of assessment methods (i.e., multiple-choice versus written reports versus case study) (Au 1997) and instructional methodologies (Ott et al. 1990). Not clear, however, is the impact of cognitive style on a student's accounting task performance. Several studies have examined the relationship between accounting students' cognitive styles and their performance on accounting tasks, but the results have been mixed (Jones and Davidson 2007; Togo 1993; Arunachalam et al. 1997; Swanson et al. 2005). Using Chan's (1996) theory of cognitive misfit, this study proposes that diminished performance will occur when there is incongruence between a student's cognitive style and the cognitive demands of an accounting task. The Felder-Solomon Index of Learning Styles was used to classify students' cognitive styles as.
Clinical efficacy of budesonide Turbuhaler® compared with that of beclomethasone dipropionate pMDI with volumatic spacer

A total of 102 patients had their asthma treatment with beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) optimized in order to achieve the best possible control of symptoms. Thereafter, the BDP doses were gradually reduced over a 2‐year period (1988–90) to the lowest possible without deterioration of their asthmatic condition. In the beginning of 1990, treatment was changed in 76 patients (group A) to the nearest possible dose of budesonide delivered via Turbuhaler® Twenty‐six randomly selected patients (25% of the study population; group B) continued treatment with BDP. In both groups, dose reductions were tried during 1990–2 every third month as long as the patients remained symptom‐free and without significant decreases in FEV1 or PEF. In group A, the maintenance dose could be reduced from 1003.9 ± 325.4 μg BDP (mean ± SD) to 602.9 ± 454.4 μg budesonide Turbuhaler (P<0.001). In group B, no significant dose reduction was possible; the mean dose was ± SD 1067.3 ± 36.6 μg in 1990, and 1019.2 ± 324.7 μg in 1992. The results indicate that, in efficacy, 0.6 mg budesonide Turbuhaler corresponds to approximately 1.0 mg BDP with volumatic spacer. This difference is probably due to an improved pulmonary delivery of budesonide with Turbuhaler.
Managerial Incentives and Corporate Fraud: The Sources of Incentives Matter

Operating performance and stock return results imply that managers who commit fraud anticipate large stock price declines if they were to report truthfully, which would cause greater losses for managerial stockholdings than for options because of differences in convexity. Fraud firms have significantly greater incentives from unrestricted stockholdings than control firms do, and unrestricted stockholdings are their largest incentive source. Our results emphasize the importance of the shape and vesting status of incentive payoffs in providing incentives to commit fraud. Fraud firms also have characteristics that suggest a lower likelihood of fraud detection, which implies lower expected costs of fraud. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.
The Effects of Landfills on Rural Residential Property Values: Some Empirical Evidence

The question of whether solid waste landfills affect residential property values has long been a subject of debate. Past research has resulted in mixed conclusions. The current study examines six landfills, which differ in size, operating status, and history of contamination. The effect of each landfill is estimated by the use of multiple regression. In five of the landfills, no statistically significant evidence of an effect was found. In the remaining case, evidence of an effect was found, indicating that houses in close proximity to this landfill suffered an average loss of about six percent in value.
Experiencing Cultural Tourism: Visitors at the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, New Zealand

This study reports results derived from semistructured interviews with 40 visitors to the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Rotorua, New Zealand. The article discusses briefly the mode of data capture used and adopts an approach of identifying classifications of a primarily functional nature to list reasons why people visit such a site and what it is they seek. In general, visitors reported high levels of satisfaction, yet the cultural component of their experience was primarily reported in terms of the visit being informative and entertaining. Additionally, whereas modest levels of interest in things Maori seemed to motivate visits to other Maori sites, the actual list of other locations being nominated was few in number. The impression results that visits are made to Maori sites because this is a “done thing” when visiting New Zealand, but overall, the level of interest shown by most visitors in indigenous culture is modest.
Research Impact: How Seemingly Innocuous Social Cues in a CEO Survey Can Lead to Change in Board of Director Network Ties

This study extends earlier research suggesting that board network ties may reflect the strategic and/or political concerns of top managers by considering how the managerial objectives that drive the formation and maintenance of board interlock ties may be subject to social influence. The particular form of social influence examined in this study derives from the social network research process itself. Specifically, we draw from research on social information processing and the framing of information to suggest how the administration of social network surveys can influence managers’ perceptions about their relationship to directors and the potential benefits to be derived from director network ties, thus affecting their subsequent selection of board members in ways that change the firm’s board interlock ties.We also consider how this social influence effect may diffuse beyond the actual survey respondents to create a more pervasive influence on the actions of managers at other firms in the board interlock network. We test our theoretical argument with an original quasiexperiment in which CEOs are randomly assigned to different versions of a survey questionnaire that have the potential to prime different schemata about the possible benefits to be derived from board network ties. Beyond addressing the potential for social influence in the formation and maintenance of board network ties, our study also addresses the potential for unintended reactive measurement effects in social network research, wherein network surveys influence the very ties that they are designed to measure.
Impact of climate change on renewable groundwater resources: assessing the benefits of avoided greenhouse gas emissions using selected CMIP5 climate projections

Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to minimize climate change requires very significant societal effort. To motivate this effort, it is important to clarify the benefits of avoided emissions. To this end, we analysed the impact of four emissions scenarios on future renewable groundwater resources, which range from 1600 GtCO2 during the 21st century (RCP2.6) to 7300 GtCO2 (RCP8.5). Climate modelling uncertainty was taken into account by applying the bias-corrected output of a small ensemble of five CMIP5 global climate models (GCM) as provided by the ISI-MIP effort to the global hydrological model WaterGAP. Despite significant climate model uncertainty, the benefits of avoided emissions with respect to renewable groundwater resources (i.e. groundwater recharge (GWR)) are obvious. The percentage of projected global population (SSP2 population scenario) suffering from a significant decrease of GWR of more than 10% by the 2080s as compared to 1971–2000 decreases from 38% (GCM range 27–50%) for RCP8.5 to 24% (11–39%) for RCP2.6. The population fraction that is spared from any significant GWR change would increase from 29% to 47% if emissions were restricted to RCP2.6. Increases of GWR are more likely to occur in areas with below average population density, while GWR decreases of more than 30% affect especially (semi)arid regions, across all GCMs. Considering change of renewable groundwater resources as a function of mean global temperature (GMT) rise, the land area that is affected by GWR decreases of more than 30% and 70% increases linearly with global warming from 0 to 3 ° C. For each degree of GMT rise, an additional 4% of the global land area (except Greenland and Antarctica) is affected by a GWR decrease of more than 30%, and an additional 1% is affected by a decrease of more than 70%.
Sources of Exchange Rate Fluctuations: Are They Real or Nominal?

I analyze the role of real and monetary shocks on exchange rate behavior using a structural vector autoregressive model of the US vis-a-vis the rest of the world. The shocks are identified using sign restrictions on the responses of the variables to orthogonal disturbances. These restrictions are derived from the predictions of a two-country DSGE model. I find that monetary shocks are unimportant in explaining exchange rate fluctuations. By contrast, demand shocks explain between 21% and 37% of exchange rate variance at 4-quarter and 20-quarter horizons, respectively. The contribution of demand shocks plays an important role but not of the order of magnitude sometimes found in earlier studies. My results, however, support the recent focus of the literature on real shocks to match the empirical properties of real exchange rates.
Imagining Rurality in the New Europe and Dilemmas for Spatial Policy

In the discourse on European integration from the mid 1960s until the beginning of the 1990s, rural space and rurality have been traditionally associated with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), while little attention has been devoted to the spatial development of the countryside. These approaches and policies were associated with a 'geographical imagination' of rural space and rurality as a place of production, where the emphasis was on sectoral policies. In Europe today the discourse has changed dramatically. The current dominant geographical imagination of rurality is shifted to consumption and leisure, following both specific structural trends internally to rural areas and the more general post-modern trend away from production per se . These trends are discussed in a highly influential European document, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) introduced in Leipzig in 1994 and formally adopted in 1999. In this document a new language and new policy guidelines are introduced, which openly support the consumption/leisure imagination, introducing at the same time spatial policies, which will deal more effectively with urban and rural spaces. Bearing this in mind, this article will try first to describe the two phases of imagining rurality in Europe (production versus consumption/leisure) and second their impact on southern European (SE) rural regions.
Is there an extended family of Mediterranean welfare states?

The goal of this article is to suggest that an extended family of Mediterranean welfare states exists and that it consists of eight different nations, some of which have been ignored in the ongoing discourse on Mediterranean welfare states. More specifically, it is claimed that the extended family of Mediterranean welfare states includes Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Malta, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. The article underscores a number of features common to members of this extended family of welfare states. Finally, three overarching themes that, in the past and present, appear to underlie the commonalities of Mediterranean welfare states and that can offer potential fruitful avenues for further study will be identified and discussed. These are religion, family and the role of clientelist—particularist relations in the structuring and functioning of welfare state institutions.
Youth, Governance and the City: Towards a Critical Urban Sociology of Youth Crime and Disorder Prevention

This article considers the historical and spatial context for the emergence of youth crime and disorder prevention initiatives in Ireland. These initiatives have to be understood in the context of their relationship to the broader ‘urban question’ and in particular the relationship of the peripheral housing estate to the rest of society and the economic sphere. More recent changes in the nature of society and the emergence of a ‘liberal creed’ have resulted in greater use of surveillance technologies for offsetting the opportunities for crime to be committed. In this context, youth crime prevention initiatives must be seen as an extension of an ensemble of devices for governing young people’s behaviour. The rise of fortified locales in cities serves to reinforce exclusivity and to mask the working class and marginalized from the elite and vice versa. The paper suggests that the challenge is to create an active public sphere for young people.
A comparison of demand for two different feeds with horses (Equus callabus)

There are few studies with horses that examine either their food preferences or the use of increasing work requirements to assess their demand for food. The first experiment used Multiple-Stimulus-Without-Replacement procedure to measure six horses’ preferences for four different feeds. From these, a high(Yearling mix) and a low(Rice) preference feed were selected. The horses were then exposed to two series of increasing fixed ratio (FR) schedules with each of two feeds, in fixed-length sessions. The overall response rates were bitonic, running response rates decreased and average post-reinforcement pauses increased with increases in fixed-ratio value, typical of previous research. Yearling mix maintained faster responding to higher fixed-ratio values for most horses than did Rice. The demand functions (i.e., the numbers of reinforcers obtained in a session as functions of the ratio size on double logarithmic coordinates) showed mixed elasticity for both Yearling mix and Rice (where there were enough data that a function could be sensibly fitted). There were lower levels of demand (i.e., number of reinforcers obtained) for Rice than Yearling mix at small fixed ratio values, the reverse of the findings reported previously for reinforcer size and preference value. It is suggested that this difference could have been the result of the open economic conditions of this study. However, the equation suggested by Hursh and Silberberg (2008) provided a good description of the data in this study, with Rice having a lower essential value that Yearling mix.
Teaching Australian Football in Physical Education: Constraints Theory in Practice

the value of the typical physical education drill-based pedagogy for sport-skill learning and that the notion of a textbook technique is being challenged as an inaccurate idea. There appears to be a growing awareness that skill-learning theory needs to afford greater emphasis to the value of guided exploration at both the coordination and control stages of learning (Davids, Araujo, & Shuttleworth, 2005). One perspective that emphasizes guided exploration of the learning process is the constraint-led approach (Renshaw, Chappell, Fitzgerald, Davison, & McFadyen, 2010). In contrast to the linear “closed-to-open” progressive part structure of skill-drill training (Magill, 2003), a constraints-led approach is a nonlinear process where learning is guided by the manipulation of constraints acting to control game parameters’ action (Chow, Davids, Hristovski, Araujo, & Passos, 2011; Williams & Hodges, 2005). Rather than the idea that sport can be taught through a single and linear recipe (Davids, Button, & Bennett, 2007), physical education teachers manipulate the individual, environment, and task constraints to encourage exploratory sport learning (Chow et al., 2007; Davids, 1998; Williams & Hodges). By Shane Pill Teaching
On the Dynamic Behavior of Prices in Disequilibrium

SATISFIED AS WE MAY BE with the overall efficiency of the market system and with the tenets of the perfect market model, we all viscerally know that were we down on the market floor we would certainly react to a multitude of apparent price discrepancies. Indeed, it is intuitively inconceivable that a man-made institution (such as the market) could be so mechanically perfect that all such discrepancies would be totally annihilated before they can be observed. Accordingly, we would expect floor traders and other professionals to be speculating abundantly on what they perceive to be the direction in which the market is going. Almost surely, such behavior has an effect on the dynamics of stock prices. A financial theory that cavalierly ignores this component in the determination of prices would be regrettably deficient. Theoretical studies of security prices have traditionally concentrated on fundamentals, e.g., the relationship between a security's anticipated cash flows and its price, given the time and risk preferences of the investors bidding for it. Recent research on the microstructure of security markets draws attention to the role of the market's organization in the determination of security prices. It is now increasingly recognized that institutional factors-such as the brokers' handling of investors' orders, the management of the limit order book, or the existence of designated specialists entrusted with an affirmative obligation to maintain "price continuity"-affect the speed of the prices' adjustment to changing conditions. This study extends the scope of the analysis one step further. It takes explicit consideration of the investors' reaction to the limitations of existing markets. When traders attempt to exploit market "imperfections", and act on their perception of the current price trend, their actions can cause phenomena which are totally unrelated to economic fundamentals, and are thus unpredictable by fundamental analysis. For economists, who view the market as an instrument for resource allocation, the platonic ideal of a market price is a price that instantaneously equilibriates the notional supplies and demands of all traders. These equilibrium prices guarantee an efficient allocation of resources, and are fully determined by the current state of the economic environment, i.e., the agents' endowments, prefer