Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trade Unions and ‘Europe’: Are the Members Out of Step?

The ‘no’ vote in the Irish referendum of June 2008 on the Lisbon Treaty – reversed in October 2009 – threw the European Union into crisis. Yet it reflected a familiar pattern of popular rejection of initiatives on European integration. This article provides an overview of such referendums in western Europe (unfortunately, the author lacks the linguistic competence to cover most post-2004 member states). It is evident that while mainstream trade unions (or at least their leaders) have usually endorsed the integration process, in most countries where referendums have been held their members have voted otherwise. Such rejection has often been based on ‘progressive’ rather than ‘reactionary’ grounds. Popular attitudes are malleable, but it requires a major strategic re-orientation if unions are to reconnect with their members in order to build a popular movement for a genuinely social Europe.
Disagreement, Information Quality and Asset Prices

We solve analytically a pure exchange general equilibrium model with a continuum of agents and two key elements: Reference-dependent preferences (in the form of habit formation) and stochastic disagreement (from fluctuating information quality). The model explains the equity premium, the stock price volatility, and the empirical relation between forecast dispersion and different properties of asset prices. We evaluate its quantitative implications and show that the usual asset pricing channels of disagreement in the literature are not quantitatively important, while information quality is as important as reference-dependent preferences.
Recent Housing Market Developments in Spain

After the sharp correction during the crisis, activity in the Spanish real estate sector commenced its recovery in early 2014. This improving trend has since been observable both in quantity and price-based indicators. However, this market is well known for its high heterogeneity due to the location of the properties, their type and the nationality of purchasers. The recent buoyancy seems to reflect, among other factors, positive labour market developments and the low cost of borrowing against a backdrop of gradual growth of loans for house purchase.
A Comparative Study on CSR Disclosure Practices of Young North America and Asia Pacific Technology Companies

The social responsibility of a corporation is when it generates services and products that maximises wealth or profit, and it is considered to be socially accountable. However in current society, corporates are not expected to merely generate profits, as various stakeholders have shifted their attention to numerous aspects of the company such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that focuses on ethical behaviours, social justice and environmental concern that as businesses receive contributions or inputs from the society such as raw materials, and competent or inexperienced labour, corporations should modestly return it in the form of outputs such as return on investments for various stakeholders, secure working milieus for workforces, and sanitary environment for the public. It is generally implied that various stakeholders have mass interests and excess demands in the organisations, thus stakeholders demanded higher standards especially being good corporate citizens, which lead to an overarching concern for CSR. Therefore, organisational performances of successes and failures are informed to the stakeholders by organisations through the annual CSR as corporations can notify their obligation to discourse the areas found lacking. Consequently, companies’ reputation and its relationship with various important stakeholders may be influenced by the corporation’s CSR performance. Thus, top management in corporations should determine on making their corporations more socially, ecologically, and economically responsible. Furthermore, it is not sustainable if corporations’ pursuit profits without an improvement in stakeholder well-being as it will eventually lead to public criticism and segregation of the corporation. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), journalists or consumer advocacy might likewise criticize corporations that neglect their CSR. Henceforth companies’ shift their attention towards the increasing trend in CSR and the related performance. Therefore stakeholders take the center stage irrespective of whether CSR seen as an ethical stance or business strategy. This study is going to compare the disclosure practices of Top 500 young tech companies each in North America and Asia Pacific region using 20 factors in Ethical, Environmental and Human Resources categories employing cluster analysis.
How Smart is Instiutional Trading?

We estimate daily aggregate order flow of individual stocks from institutional investors as well as for hedge funds and other institutions separately. We find that the estimated institutional order imbalance positively predicts stock return on the next day and outperforms other institutional order flow estimates. The institutional order flow from hedge funds generates greater and more persistent price impact than the order flow from other institutions. We also find that hedge funds trade on well-known anomalies while the other institutions do not. Our findings suggest that the superior trading skills of institutional investors can be largely attributed to hedge funds.
Isolation and characterization of microsatellite loci in Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae)

Microsatellite-enriched genomic libraries were obtained from the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) using a magnetic/biotin capture of repetitive sequences. Ten dinucleotide markers were successfully isolated and characterized from these libraries. Variability was assessed in six populations of B. tabaci collected from different localities of the island of Crete, Greece. The number of alleles per locus in approximately 105 individuals screened across populations ranged from two to 13. Averaged observed heterozygosity over the six populations ranged from 0.001 to 0.58.
Phenolic diterpene and α-tocopherol contents in leaf extracts of 60 Salvia species

BACKGROUND: Carnosic acid and carnosol, the two major phenolic diterpenes present in rosemary and sage extracts, have received attention in food science and biomedicine because of their potent antioxidant properties. In plants, these compounds have been identified as being present in some species of the family Lamiaceae, but there is still little information about their distribution within the plant kingdom. The aim of the present study was to gain a better understanding of the occurrence of these compounds within leaf extracts of the genus Salvia and also to examine to what extent leaf senescence may influence their accumulation in relation to that of α-tocopherol (vitamin E). RESULTS: Methanolic leaf extracts of 60 species of the genus Salvia were tested for the presence of carnosic acid and carnosol. These two diterpenes were detected in 48 and 27 species respectively. In contrast, α-tocopherol was present in all species examined. Leaf senescence in Salvia officinalis resulted in α-tocopherol increases by up to 5.5-fold, while carnosic acid and carnosol increased by up to 18 and 290% respectively. Isorosmanol, an oxidation product of carnosic acid, increased by up to 2.1-fold in senescing leaves. CONCLUSION: It was found that, while α-tocopherol is ubiquitous in the genus Salvia, phenolic diterpenes are present in several but not all species. It was also shown that leaf senescence may increase the yield of both phenolic diterpenes and α-tocopherol in sage extracts. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry
Earnings Volatility, Ambiguity, and Crisis-Period Stock Returns

Financial crises are typically marked by substantial increases in ambiguity where prices appear to decouple from fundamentals. Consistent with ambiguity-based asset pricing theories, we find that ambiguity concerns are more severe for firms with higher pre-crisis earnings volatility, causing investors to demand a higher ambiguity premium for such firms. While there is no relation between earnings volatility and stock returns under normal conditions, there is a significant negative relation between crisis-period stock returns and prior earnings volatility. In other words, during economic turmoil, investors punish stocks whose past earnings volatility was higher despite that they do not perceive these stocks to be riskier under stable economic conditions. Our findings indicate that a firm’s past earnings volatility predicts its stock price performance during crisis periods. We also find that this relation is stronger in firms with low institutional ownership and low analyst-following, consistent with ambiguity concerns being more important for firms with a greater proportion of unsophisticated investors. Our results are robust to controlling for firm-level characteristics as well as industry-fixed effects. Our evidence suggests that earnings stability helps mitigate ambiguity-concerns during a financial crisis.
Ciliated protozoan communities over Cobb Seamount : Increase in biomass and spatial patchiness

Species composition, abundance, biomass ans patchiness of ciliated protozoa were examined for evidence of inscresing standing stock in relation to productivity (chlorophyl a, primary production) over an eastern subartic Pacific seamount (Cobb, 46° 45' N, 130° 48' W). Ciliates were unsually duserve with 49 different taxa recorded ranging in size from 15 to 350 micrometers in length. Their abundance was relatively low while carbon biomass was very high compared to those of most marine systems. This implies that over Cobb Seamount, ciliates counterbalance their low numbers by insceasing in size, partly due to exlusion fo small planktonic common species (Strobilidium spp., scuticocilitates, hymenostome-type cells) by larger cells, particularly plastidic oligotrichs of the genus Laboa. Integrated biomass to 80 m depth at times peaked at 0.6 g C n-², which exceeds the standing stock of the entire microzooplankton in some oceanic areas. Statistical 2-dimensional analysis of the spatial structure showed the existence of patchiness. Meso-scale and circular patches (about 6 km or more un diameter, horizontally) were probably related to seamount-induced physical forcing which likely generates microhabitats favorable to the growth of opportunistic or physiologically adapted populations. Direct observations showed that ciliates were a major component of the microzooplankton over the seamount.
Shaping Liquidity: On the Causal Effects of Voluntary Disclosure

Can managers influence the liquidity of their firms' shares? We use plausibly exogenous variation in the supply of public information to show that firms seek to actively shape their information environments by voluntarily disclosing more information than is mandated by market regulations and that such efforts have a sizeable and beneficial effect on liquidity. Firms respond to an exogenous loss of public information by providing more timely and informative earnings guidance. Responses appear motivated by a desire to reduce information asymmetries between retail and institutional investors. Liquidity improves as a result of voluntary disclosure and in turn increases firm value. This suggests that managers can causally influence their cost of capital via voluntary disclosure.
Interaction of environmental xenobiotics with a multixenobiotic defense mechanism in the bay mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis from the coast of California

A multixenobiotic defense mechanism similar to a P-glycoprotein multidrug transporter was characterized in the gills of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis from Monterey, California. Using a fluorescent dye assay, we measured multixenobiotic transport activity in individual gill cells and assessed the effects of inhibitors or competitive substrates on activity. Natural products that inhibit the mammalian transporter also affected dye transport in the mussel gill. Four moderately hydrophobic pesticides (dacthal, chlorbenside, sulfallate, and pentachlorophenol) and four highly hydrophobic xenobiotics (p,p′-DDT, p,p′-DDD, p,p′-DDE, and Aroclor 1254) all inhibited the efflux of dye from the gills, indicating their interaction with a multixenobiotic transport mechanism in this organism. The reactivity with these highly hydrophobic compounds seen in M. galloprovincialis differs from related transporters found in other organisms. A protein in the gill cross-reacts with antibodies directed against the mammalian multidrug transport protein. The level of protein can be assessed easily by dot blot procedures and may facilitate quantitation of protein levels in field situations.
The Fine Structure of the Nervous System.

This is the first atlas of the ultrastructure of the mature nervous system and it is a relatively complete collection of elegant micrographs with an accompanying text. The differing quantity and distribution of perikaryal organelles are compared in pyramidal, Purkinje, and granule cells, neurons from the dorsal root ganglion, and in anterior horn cells. Criteria are listed for the identification of dendrites and axons, as well as for the special characteristics of the axon hillock and node of Ranvier. Considerable space has been given to the illustration of the different types of synapses, especially to their presynaptic and postsynaptic organelles and synaptolemmal membranes. Evidence relating synaptic vesicles to transmitter substances and their possible function is discussed. Protoplasmic and fibrous astrocytes are demonstrated and their possible functions pointed out. Of particular interest is the role that thin astrocytic processes may play in isolating receptive surfaces, thereby preventing axon terminals from influencing
DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTENSIVE SHRIMP CULTURE SYSTEM IN KUWAIT1

Development of an intensive culture system is presently being conducted in Kuwait as a means of farming penaeid shrimp in arid lands. Efficiency of commercial-scale hatchery production of Penaeus semisulcatus and P. japonicus showed significant improvement in 1981 over previous years. Three one-month hatchery rearing cycles in three 15 m3 concrete tanks yielded a total of 9.1 million post-larval shrimp with an average density of 160 PL/liter being obtained for one of these trials. Four other trials were discontinued due to low spawning rates and disease. Installation of a heat exchange system made it possible to begin larviculture in February, two months earlier than in previous years. Research in nursery and grow-out phases of intensive shrimp culture is being directed towards raceways, although Shigueno culture systems are also being investigated. Experimental work with six 18 m × 1.5 m raceways demonstrated that low water exchange rates (1 tank volume/day), combined with high aeration (9.5 liter/min) yielded the highest shrimp biomass. Unheated greenhouse structures constructed over the raceways showed that a single layer of 0.25 mm clear plastic sheeting could maintain water temperatures up to 2.7°C above those in unenclosed tanks. Rearing trials in two Shigueno tank systems demonstrated the importance of high water flow rates (3 tank volumes/day minimum) and adequate aeration. Due to sub-optimal conditions, survival was reduced to 7.5%, however, growth rates up to 6 g/month were obtained for P. semisulcatus.
Inflation and the Income Share of the Rich: Evidence for 12 OECD Countries

This paper examines the distributional implications of inflation on top income shares in 12 advanced economies using data over the period 1920-2016. We use Local Projections to analyze how top income shares respond to an inflation shock, and panel regressions in which all variables are defined as five-year averages to examine the impact of inflation on the position of the top-one-percent in the long run. Our findings suggest that inflation reduces the share of national income held by the top one percent. Furthermore, we find that inflation shocks and long-run inflation have similar effects on top income shares.
Prospect Theory and the Corrective Approach: Policy Implications of Recent Developments in QALY Measurement

Common health state valuation methodology, such as time trade-off (TTO) and standard gamble (SG), is typically applied under several descriptively invalid assumptions, for example assuming linear QALYs or expected utility (EU) theory. Hence, health state valuation exercises may lead to biased QALY weights. This bias may in turn affect decisions based on economic evaluations using such weights. Methods have been proposed to correct for these biases associated with different health state valuation techniques. In this paper we outline the relevance of prospect theory (PT), which has become the dominant descriptive alternative to EU, for health state valuations and economic evaluations. We provide an overview of work suggesting a solution for the dependence of QALY weights on the chosen methodology. We label this the corrective approach. By quantifying PT parameters, such as loss aversion, probability weighting and non-linear utility, it may be possible to correct TTO and SG for biases, in an attempt to produce more valid estimates of preferences for health states. Through straightforward examples this paper illustrates the effects of this corrective approach. Several unresolved issues currently limit the relevance of corrected weights for policy, these are listed and suggestions for research addressing these issues are provided. However, if validly corrected weights are available, we argue in favor of a deliberative approach to correcting biased health state valuations, in which policy makers utilize corrected weights. Finally we suggest that loss aversion premium for prevented health losses may be applied when deemed relevant.
Excess Corporate Payouts and Financial Distress Risk

Firms that follow excessive payout policies (over-payers) are higher on the financial distress spectrum and have lower survival rates than under-payers. In addition, over-payers endure lower future sales and asset growth than under-payers and experience negative abnormal returns in the bond and stock markets. Exogenous import tariff reductions and commodity price jumps reduce the likelihood of overpayment. We interpret this as evidence consistent with financial flexibility considerations, rather than risk-shifting, explaining the decision to overpay. We also find that CEO overconfidence and catering incentives affect overpayment.
Taxonomic Revision of the Australian Cicindelidae (Coleoptera), excluding Species of Cicindela

Australian tiger beetles of the tribes Collyrini, Megacephalini and Cicindelini and taxa of the genera Tricondyla, Megacephala, Distipsideraand Nickerleaare distinguished in identification keys. Diagnoses on the basis of adult characters, including the female and male genitalia for most species, are provided for one species of Tricondyla, two subgenera and 24 species of Megacephala, 12 species of Distipsidera, one species of Rhysopleura and two species of Nickerlea. Species sections consist of nomenclature, synonyms and types, description, remarks on recognition and relationships, habitat and period of activity, geographical distribution, lists of localities and examined specimens, distribution map and figures illustrating taxonomically important structures. Phylogenetic and zoogeographic aspects of the studied taxa are discussed.
Information and Cost of Equity Capital in Brazil: Does Competition Matter?

The objective of this paper was to analyze the effect of competition over better information on the cost of equity capital of Brazilian firms that trade their shares at the BM&FBovespa. The theoretical framework used models to analyze the expectations equilibrium when the information is not perfectly distributed (Grossman & Stiglitz, 1980; Easley & O’Hara, 2004; Hughes, Liu & Liu, 2007). The sample comprised observations from 2008 to 2014. To reach the set objective, the following proxies were used for competition over better information: investment analyst coverage, the number of institutional investors with resources applied in the firm, the total number of individual private investors (shareholders) and the probability of private information; nevertheless, only the analyst coverage provided statistically significant results. By using the ordinary least squares estimations with fixed effects, Fama-MacBeth and quantile regression (scaled and not scaled), the main results indicated, on average, that the competition over better information is capable of reducing the cost of equity capital, and that this effect is most evident in firms which are in a previously-bad information environment (latest quantiles of the quantile regression, q.90 and q.95); in addition, the effect is only significant when the firm has a low analyst coverage. This paper’s major contribution to the literature was that it demonstrated that attracting analysts to cover company activity is important, to a certain extent, so firms can manage to reduce their cost of capital; analyst coverage dominated all the other variables usually present in the literature on competition over information.
Why Do Funds Make More When They Trade More?

We introduce a conditional measure of skill, the correlation between a funds' residual trades, net of common trading motives, and future news about the stocks traded. Using this measure, we show that the average mutual fund manager in the cross-section has stock-picking skill. This result is robust to different benchmarks and is mainly driven by the manager's ability to predict a firm's cash-flow news. This skill has short-term persistence and is distinctly related to traditional measures of performance. Importantly, consistent with the Berk and Green (2004), fund flows are increasing with respect to managerial skill after controlling for fund performance.