Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Larger Stocks Earn Higher Returns

We document robust empirical evidence that, after controlling for idiosyncratic volatility, large stocks earn significantly higher returns than small stocks. Our empirical results indicate that idiosyncratic volatility is positively related to return, but negatively related to size. Hence, failure to control for idiosyncratic volatility generates a downward omitted variable bias and leads to the widely documented negative relation between size and return. We explain the two contrasting size-return relations, with and without the control for idiosyncratic volatility, in a parsimonious general equilibrium model that incorporates three empirical regularities: individual investors are under-diversified; small stocks have higher idiosyncratic volatilities than large stocks; and large stocks, relative to their size, are held by fewer investors than small stocks. Investors follow mean-variance optimization to allocate wealth among their stocks. To clear the markets, large stocks have to offer higher expected returns to induce their relatively smaller number of investors to allocate more of their wealth. This positive size-return relation is masked because small firms have higher idiosyncratic volatilities and therefore earn higher returns as a result of investor under-diversification.
The Scourge of Asian Flu: In utero Exposure to Pandemic Influenza and the Development of a Cohort of British Children

This paper examines the impact of in utero exposure to the Asian influenza pandemic of 1957 upon childhood development. Outcome data are provided by the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a panel study where all members were potentially exposed in the womb. Epidemic effects are identified using geographic variation in a surrogate measure of the epidemic. Results point to multiple channels linking fetal health shocks to childhood outcomes: physical development is impeded, but only when mothers had certain health characteristics; by contrast, the negative effects on cognitive development appear general across the cohort.
A prospective study of long-term dysphagia following total laryngectomy.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the degree of dysphagia in patients before and after total laryngectomy using the Performance Status Scale for Head and Neck Cancer Patients (PSS) and to determine the effects of post-operative radiation therapy, neck dissection, and pharyngoesophageal spasm on PSS scores. METHODS We performed a controlled, prospective study at a tertiary referral university hospital. Twenty consecutive patients undergoing laryngectomy were included. Patients were followed for at least two years post-operative, without evidence of local, regional, or distant disease. Only patients with squamous cell carcinoma limited to the endolarynx requiring total laryngectomy with or without elective neck dissection for surgical management of cancer and with no pre-operative treatment were included. Dysphagia was evaluated by PSS prior to surgery and again two years postoperatively with an emphasis on eating in public and normalcy of diet domains. Video fluoroscopic evaluation of swallowing was performed one year after treatment. RESULTS The relative number of patients with low mean scores in PSS (i.e. usually swallow paste of fluid food in presence of some selected persons or alone; < or = 50) increased after total laryngectomy (p = 0.04). Patients with lower scores reported more frequent spasm of the pharyngoesophageal segment (p = 0.005). Mean scores of both domains decreased after surgery (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION Eating in public and normalcy of diet scores decreased in 50% of patients after total laryngectomy.
Knowledge discovery using genetic programming with Rough set evaluation

An important area of KDD research involves development of techniques which transform raw data into forms more useful for prediction or explanation. We present an approach to automating the search for "indicator functions" which mediate such transformations. The fitness of a function is measured as its contribution to discerning different classes of data. Genetic programming techniques are applied to the search for and improvement of the programs which make up these functions. Rough set theory is used to evaluate the fitness of functions. Rough set theory provides a unique evaluator in that it allows the fitness of each function to depend on the combined performance of a population of functions. This is desirable in applications which need a population of programs that perform well in concert and contrasts with traditional genetic programming applications which have as there goal to find a single program which performs well. This approach has been applied to a small database of iris flowers with the goal of learning to predict the species of the flower given the values of four iris attributes and to a larger breast cancer database with the goal of predicting whether remission will occur within a five year period.
Conditional Mineralocorticoid Receptor Expression in the Heart Leads to Life-Threatening Arrhythmias

Background—Life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia is a major source of mortality worldwide. Besides rare inherited monogenic diseases such as long-QT or Brugada syndromes, which reflect abnormalities in ion fluxes across cardiac ion channels as a final common pathway, arrhythmias are most frequently acquired and associated with heart disease. The mineralocorticoid hormone aldosterone is an important contributor to morbidity and mortality in heart failure, but its mechanisms of action are incompletely understood. Methods and Results—To specifically assess the role of the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) in the heart, in the absence of changes in aldosteronemia, we generated a transgenic mouse model with conditional cardiac-specific overexpression of the human MR. Mice exhibit a high rate of death prevented by spironolactone, an MR antagonist used in human therapy. Cardiac MR overexpression led to ion channel remodeling, resulting in prolonged ventricular repolarization at both the cellular and integrated levels and in severe ventricular arrhythmias. Conclusions—Our results indicate that cardiac MR triggers cardiac arrhythmias, suggesting novel opportunities for prevention of arrhythmia-related sudden death.
Alexithymia—an independent risk factor for impulsive‐compulsive disorders in Parkinson's disease

Impulsive‐compulsive disorders (ICDs) are frequent side effects of dopaminergic medication in Parkinson's disease (PD). Alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings and an externally oriented thinking style, has been linked to various impulse‐control problems in the general population. In PD, the prevalence of alexithymia is approximately twice as high as in the general population. However, whether alexithymia is associated with ICDs in PD is currently unknown. We examined the relationship between self‐reported ICDs and alexithymia in a sample of 91 PD patients (89 on dopaminergic medication). Additional self‐report measures assessed impulsivity, depression, anxiety, behavioral inhibition/approach, and emotion‐regulation strategies. We observed that alexithymia, and particularly difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings, was significantly correlated with ICDs, even when controlling for impulsivity, anxiety, and depression. In addition, a group analysis revealed that PD patients with clinical and moderate levels of alexithymia had significantly more ICDs than non‐alexithymic patients, suggesting that even moderately high alexithymia levels increase the risk for ICDs in PD. Our results identify alexithymia as an independent risk factor for ICDs in PD. Thus, the inclusion of alexithymia in the neuropsychiatric assessment of patients with PD may help identify patients at risk for ICDs. © 2013 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society
Dynamical changes in the tropical Pacific warm pool and zonal SST gradient during the Pleistocene

In the late Pleistocene, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (pCO2) is thought to be a primary driving force for tropical sea surface temperature (SST) change because glacial‐interglacial changes in tropical Pacific SST covary with pCO2. However, if the regional radiative effects of pCO2 were the only agent of change, tropical SST gradients should have remained similar as pCO2 varied with time. Instead, a new record of SST from the west Pacific shows that tropical SST gradients were different, even reversed, in the past, suggesting an important role for dynamical circulation changes. Specifically, changes in the temperature of upwelled source water, in addition to local pCO2 forcing, influenced tropical Pacific SST. These dynamical changes, rather than pCO2, may have shifted the background state of the tropics and even helped set the stage for the mid‐Pleistocene transition.
Domain-specific languages

Domain-Specific Languages are used in software engineering in order to enhance quality, flexibility, and timely delivery of software systems, by taking advantage of specific properties of a particular application domain. This survey covers terminology, risks and benefits, examples, design methodologies, and implementation techniques of domain-specific languages as used for the construction and maintenance of software systems. Moreover, it covers an annotated selection of 75 key publications in the area of domain-specific languages.
Spontaneous shape reconfigurations in multicompartmental microcylinders

Nature’s particles, such as spores, viruses or cells, are adaptive—i.e., they can rapidly alter major phenomenological attributes such as shape, size, or curvature in response to environmental changes. Prominent examples include the hydration-mediated opening of ice plant seeds, actuation of pine cones, or the ingenious snapping mechanism of predatory Venus flytraps that rely on concave-to-convex reconfigurations. In contrast, experimental realization of reconfigurable synthetic microparticles has been extremely challenging and only very few examples have been reported so far. Here, we demonstrate a generic approach towards dynamically reconfigurable microparticles that explores unique anisotropic particle architectures, rather than direct synthesis of sophisticated materials such as shape-memory polymers. Solely enabled by their architecture, multicompartmental microcylinders made of conventional polymers underwent active reconfiguration including shape-shifting, reversible switching, or three-way toggling. Once microcylinders with appropriate multicompartmental architectures were prepared by electrohydrodynamic cojetting, simple exposure to an external stimulus, such as ultrasound or an appropriate solvent, gives rise to interfacial stresses that ultimately cause reversible topographical reconfiguration. The broad versatility of the electrohydrodynamic cojetting process with respect to materials selection and processing suggests strategies for a wide range of dynamically reconfigurable adaptive materials including those with prospective applications for sensors, reprogrammable microactuators, or targeted drug delivery.
Energy performance of the photovoltaic system in urban area - case study

Nowadays, photovoltaic systems installed in urban areas may be essential for distributed generation and lead to increase energy security and improve economy of building exploitation. Unfortunately, in many cases their operation in urban area is not so efficient. It is connected with shadowing by neighbouring buildings, trees or by the HVAC systems installed on roofs (including such elements as fans, compressors, etc). Moreover, HVAC systems often occupy “the best” place on roofs. Level of shadowing varies during a day, and a year, significantly influencing on the power generation from PV installations. It caused serious difficulties in designing such installations (e.g. choosing position, orientation, number of modules etc.). In the paper a PV efficiency analysis was performed for the case of photovoltaic installation located on the roof of didactic building in Krakow centre. The projected power of the installation was 8.48 kWp (total nominal power of panels), and 7.5 kWp at the output of the inverters used for own building demand and car load station. The available area for PV system was strongly limited and achieving of the optimal tilting angle was impossible. Presented simulations have been conducted using two commercially available software: TRNSYS and Polysun. Results of the simulations were used for improving operation parameters of the installation. A three approaches was considered: avoiding the shadow, tilting angle optimization and redirecting of additional light stream.
Differential privacy for neighborhood-based Collaborative Filtering

As a popular technique in recommender systems, Collaborative Filtering (CF) has received extensive attention in recent years. However, its privacy-related issues, especially for neighborhood-based CF methods, can not be overlooked. The aim of this study is to address the privacy issues in the context of neighborhood-based CF methods by proposing a Private Neighbor Collaborative Filtering (PNCF) algorithm. The algorithm includes two privacy-preserving operations: Private Neighbor Selection and Recommendation-Aware Sensitivity. Private Neighbor Selection is constructed on the basis of the notion of differential privacy to privately choose neighbors. Recommendation-Aware Sensitivity is introduced to enhance the performance of recommendations. Theoretical and experimental analysis are provided to show the proposed algorithm can preserve differential privacy while retaining the accuracy of recommendations.
Surface Characteristics and Catalytic Activity of Copper Deposited Porous Silicon Powder

Porous structured silicon or porous silicon (PS) powder was prepared by chemical etching of silicon powder in an etchant solution of HF: HNO3: H2O (1:3:5 v/v). An immersion time of 4 min was sufficient for depositing Cu metal from an aqueous solution of CuSO4 in the presence of HF. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed that the Cu particles aggregated upon an increase in metal content from 3.3 wt% to 9.8 wt%. H2-temperature programmed reduction (H2-TPR) profiles reveal that re-oxidation of the Cu particles occurs after deposition. Furthermore, the profiles denote the existence of various sizes of Cu metal on the PS. The Cu-PS powders show excellent catalytic reduction on the p-nitrophenol regardless of the Cu loadings.
Caching Meets Millimeter Wave Communications for Enhanced Mobility Management in 5G Networks

One of the most promising approaches to overcoming the uncertainty of millimeter wave (mm-wave) communications is to deploy dual-mode small base stations (SBSs) that integrate both mm-wave and microwave ( $\mu \text{W}$ ) frequencies. In this paper, a novel approach to analyzing and managing mobility in joint mmwave– $\mu \text{W}$ networks is proposed. The proposed approach leverages device-level caching along with the capabilities of dual-mode SBSs to minimize handover failures and reduce inter-frequency measurement energy consumption. First, fundamental results on the caching capabilities are derived for the proposed dual-mode network scenario. Second, the impact of caching on the number of handovers (HOs), energy consumption, and the average handover failure (HOF) is analyzed. Then, the proposed cache-enabled mobility management problem is formulated as a dynamic matching game between mobile user equipments (MUEs) and SBSs. The goal of this game is to find a distributed HO mechanism that, under network constraints on HOFs and limited cache sizes, allows each MUE to choose between: 1) executing an HO to a target SBS; 2) being connected to the macrocell base station; or 3) perform a transparent HO by using the cached content. To solve this dynamic matching problem, a novel algorithm is proposed and its convergence to a two-sided dynamically stable HO policy for MUEs and target SBSs is proved. Numerical results corroborate the analytical derivations and show that the proposed solution will significantly reduce both the HOF and energy consumption of MUEs, resulting in an enhanced mobility management for heterogeneous wireless networks with mm-wave capabilities.
Semantic Analysis of Tag Similarity Measures in Collaborative Tagging Systems

Social bookmarking systems allow users to organise collections of resources on the Web in a collaborative fashion. The increasing popularity of these systems as well as first insights into their emergent semantics have made them relevant to disciplines like knowledge extraction and ontology learning. The problem of devising methods to measure the semantic relatedness between tags and characterizing it semantically is still largely open. Here we analyze three measures of tag relatedness: tag co-occurrence, cosine similarity of co-occurrence distributions, and FolkRank, an adaptation of the PageRank algorithm to folksonomies. Each measure is computed on tags from a large-scale dataset crawled from the social bookmarking system del.icio. us. To provide a semantic grounding of our findings, a connection to WordNet (a semantic lexicon for the English language) is established by mapping tags into synonym sets of WordNet, and applying there well-known metrics of semantic similarity. Our results clearly expose different characteristics of the selected measures of relatedness, making them applicable to different subtasks of knowledge extraction such as synonym detection or discovery of concept hierarchies.
Multimodal system processing in mobile environments

One major goal of multimodal system design is to support more robust performance than can be achieved with a unimodal recognition technology, such as a spoken language system. In recent years, the multimodal literatures on speech and pen input and speech and lip movements have begun developing relevant performance criteria and demonstrating a reliability advantage for multimodal architectures. In the present studies, over 2,600 utterances processed by a multimodal pen/voice system were collected during both mobile and stationary use. A new data collection infrastructure was developed, including instrumentation worn by the user while roaming, a researcher field station, and a multimodal data logger and analysis tool tailored for mobile research. Although speech recognition as a stand-alone failed more often during mobile system use, the results confirmed that a more stable multimodal architecture decreased this error rate by 1935%. Furthermore, these findings were replicated across different types of microphone technology. In large part this performance gain was due to significant levels of mutual disambiguation in the multimodal architecture, with higher levels occurring in the noisy mobile environment. Implications of these findings are discussed for expanding computing to support more challenging usage contexts in a robust manner.
The use of UML class diagrams and its effect on code change-proneness

The goal of this study is to investigate the use of UML and its impact on the change proneness of the implementation code. We look at whether the use of UML class diagrams, as opposed to using no modeling notation, influences code change proneness. Furthermore, using five design metrics we measure the quality of UML class diagrams and explore its correlation with code change proneness. Based on a UML model of an industrial system and multiple snapshots of the implementation code, we have found that at the system level the change proneness of code modeled using class diagrams is lower than that of code that is not modeled at all. However, we observe different results when performing the analysis at different system levels (e.g., subsystem and sub subsystem). Additionally, we have found significant correlations between class diagram size, complexity, and level of detail and the change proneness of the implementation code.
A probabilistic Demons algorithm for texture-rich image registration

Demons algorithm has attracted considerable attention from the image processing community for registering (i.e., matching/aligning) deformable objects or images. It is observed that this algorithm is particularly successful when it applies to nonrigid object having homogenous region, but often fails when the object of interest is rich in texture. This is mainly because the Demons algorithm tends to overfit the many spurious edges inside the texture-rich region, consequently leading to erroneous thermodynamic ‘forces’. In this paper, we describe a probabilistic Demons algorithm that overcomes this problem. Our key idea is to re-formulate the deformable registration problem in Bayesian statistics framework. The result is a new and more robust Demons algorithm able to capture the essence (e.g., the mass) of a deformable image/object even it is rich in texture. This will significantly expand the applicable scopes of the traditional Demons algorithm. We give encouraging experimental results on real test images.
Gait, wrist, and sensors: Detecting freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease from wrist movement

We investigate the correlation between wrist movement and freezing of the gait in Parkinsons disease. Detecting such freezes allows real-time monitoring to reduce the risk of falls in subjects with Parkinson's. While most of research focuses on placing inertial sensors on lower limb, i.e., foot, ankle, thigh, lower back, we focus on the wrist as an alternative placement. Commonly worn accessories at the wrist such as watches or wristbands are easier to be accepted and worn by elderly users, in special subjects with motor problems. Experiments on data from 11 subjects show that freezing of gait episodes can be detected using the wrist movements, with a freeze hit-rate of 90% and 83% specificity in a subject-dependent evaluation scheme. This suggests that wrist sensors can be a feasible alternative to the cumbersome placement on the legs.
Cultural World Heritage Site Management - a Case Study of Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range

The research aims to examine (1) heritage management and conservation activities, (2) local communities and (3) tourism development in WHS Kii after its WHS listing. Primary data was collected though the visits to WHS Kii, observations of/ad hoc small interviews with stakeholders in the local communities, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders. According to the findings, overall diverse positive changes are confirmed in relation to the above-mentioned three fields. After its WHS inscription, for instance, people’s awareness of conservation of WHS Kii has been raised and the actual level of conservation of the WHS has also been enhanced. People from outside WHS Kii as well as local people have been involved in the conservation of the WHS and tourism in the WHS. Local people have a higher level of pride in their living place thanks to its WHS designation. The number of overseas tourists has also increased after WHS listing.