Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative trait loci mapping for meat quality traits in swine chromosome 6

Realizou-se o mapeamento de QTL no cromossomo 6 suino (SSC6), associado as caracteristicas de qualidade da carne. Um total de 557 animais de uma populacao F2 foi obtido do cruzamento entre dois machos da raca nativa brasileira Piau e 18 femeas comerciais, cujos genotipos foram obtidos para 13 marcadores microssatelites. As caracteristicas avaliadas na F2 foram pH, medido 45 minutos e 24 horas post-mortem (pH45 e pH24, respectivamente); perda por gotejamento (DL); perda por cozimento (CL); perda total (TL); gordura intramuscular (IMF); maciez objetiva (OT); luminosidade (L); indice de vermelho (A); indice de amarelo (B); tonalidade de cor (h); e indice de saturacao (c). Utilizou-se o metodo de regressao por intervalo de mapeamento, por meio do programa QTL Express. Foram detectados QTLs significativos para pH45 e DL, sugestivos para DL, e nao foram encontrados QTLs para as demais caracteristicas. Constatou-se que grupos genicos, localizados em torno de 76, 88 e 97cM, podem atuar no pH45 e no DL. Nas regioes dos picos da estatistica F, onde se verificaram QTLs sugestivos para DL, devem ser incluidos mais marcadores, para confirmar a presenca de QTLs.
Related Lending

In many countries, banks lend to firms controlled by the bank? s owners. We examine the benefits of related lending using a newly assembled dataset for Mexico. Related lending is prevalent (20% of commercial loans) and takes place on better terms than arm? s-length lending (annual interest rates are 4 percentage points lower). Related loans are 33% more likely to default and, when they do, have lower recovery rates (30% less) than unrelated ones. The evidence supports the view that rather than enhance information sharing, related lending is a manifestation of looting.
Match Effects

We present direct evidence of the importance of matching in wage determination. It is based on an empirical specification that yields structural estimates of the returns to person-, firm-, and match-specific determinants of match productivity. We call these person, firm, and match effects. The distinction between these components is important, because they have different implications for the persistence of individual earnings and the returns to employment mobility. We find that match effects, which have been ignored in previous work, are an important determinant of earnings dispersion. They explain 16 percent of variation in earnings, and much of the change in earnings when workers change employer. Specifications that omit match effects substantially over-estimate the returns to experience, attribute too much variation to personal heterogeneity, and underestimate the extent to which good workers sort into employment at good firms.
Sports Prediction and Betting Models in the Machine Learning Age: The Case of Tennis

Machine learning and its numerous variants have meanwhile become established tools in many areas of society. Several attempts have been made to apply machine learning to the prediction of the outcome of professional sports events and to exploit “inefficiencies” in the corresponding betting markets. On the example of tennis, this paper extends previous research by conducting one of the most extensive studies of its kind and applying a wide range of machine learning techniques to male and female professional singles matches. The paper shows that the average prediction accuracy cannot be increased to more than about 70%. Irrespective of the used model, most of the relevant information is embedded in the betting markets, and adding other match- and player-specific data does not lead to any significant improvement. Returns from applying predictions to the sports betting market are subject to high volatility and mainly negative over the longer term. This conclusion holds across most tested models, various money management strategies, and for backing the match favorites or outsiders. The use of model ensembles that combine the predictions from multiple approaches proves to be the most promising choice.
Purification of freshwater picoplanktonic cyanobacteria by pour‐plating in ‘ultra‐low‐gelling‐temperature agarose’

Seven unialgal cultures of picoplanktonic cyanobacteria isolated from freshwater lakes in Japan were examined in the present study. They are assignable to the Cyanobium cluster of the Synechococcus group sensu Waterbury and Rippka (1989) based on morphology, GC content, fatty acid and quinon compositions. They include one blue‐green colored strain (NIES‐680) with only phycocyanin as well as the PCC strains of Cyanobium cluster (Waterbury and Rippka 1989) and six reddish colored strains (NIES‐715, ‐717, ‐718, ‐721, ‐722 and ‐723) with both phycocyanin and phycoerythrin. All the strains examined developed colonies in pour‐plates I of 1.4%‘ultra‐low‐gel‐ling‐temperature agarose’within 1 month. The colony numbers were 12–20 × 102 c.f. u. mL‐1. Most clones derived from the colonies were axenic by the bacteria‐free check. The length of this procedure, preculture excepted, was 4–6 weeks. Colony formation in pour‐plate II of 0.6% agarose was observed in the blue‐green strain (NIES‐680) and the three reddish strains (NIES‐717,‐721 and ‐723) after 1–2 months. The number of colonies formed on pour‐plate II were 1–2 × 102 c.f. u. mL‐1, much lower than those on pour‐plate I. Only a blue‐green strain formed colonies on spread plates of 0.6% agarose. The colony numbers developed were 10–15 × 102 c.f. u. mL‐1 and similar to those on pour‐plate I. The other reddish strains did not develop colonies on spread plates. The pour‐plating method developed provides a highly efficient and successful method for obtaining axenic clonal cultures of planktonic cyanobacteria.
Potential Use of the Life Satisfaction Approach to Value Nonmarket Goods and Services

Economic analysis often faces challenges in the valuation of non-market goods and services. The traditional set of non-market valuation tools for measuring Marshallian economic surplus has limitations related to potential bias in stated preferences and endogeneity of non-market amenity placement in revealed preference studies. The life satisfaction approach offers a Hicksian compensating variation-based alternative, which uses self-reported subjective well-being to calculate the marginal rate of substitution of income for non-market amenities or services. The conceptual basis for the approach is explained and illustrated with an example from Iloilo, Philippines. Recommendations are offered for future application of the technique in the economic analysis of investment projects.
Landlords and Access to Opportunity

Despite being eligible for use in any neighborhood, housing choice vouchers tend to be redeemed in low-opportunity neighborhoods. This paper investigates how landlords contribute to this outcome and how they respond to efforts to change it. We leverage a policy change in Washington, DC, that increased voucher rental payments only in high-rent neighborhoods. Using two waves of a correspondence experiment that bracket the policy change, we show that most opportunity landlords screen out prospective voucher tenants, and we detect no change in average screening behavior after a $450 per month increase in voucher payments. In lease-up data, however, enough landlords do respond to increased payments to equalize the flow of voucher tenants into high- vs. low-rent neighborhoods. Using tax data and listings from a website specializing in subsidized housing, we characterize a group of marginal opportunity landlords who respond to higher payments. Marginal opportunity landlords are relatively rare, list their units near market rates, operate on a small scale, and negatively select into the voucher program based on hard-to-observe differences in unit quality.
Religiosity, Political Inclination and Public Sector Employment of Women

Despite ample evidence suggesting that employers discriminate based on certain characteristics, there is scant evidence on the role of religion because employer preferences cannot be directly identified. This paper offers new insights on the link between religion and female employment by analyzing public sector employment of females in Turkey under the rule of a pro-Islamist political party. Using a novel dataset from Turkish municipalities, I use the affiliation with the pro-Islamist party to define the type (religiosity and political inclination) of the mayor; and female employees can signal their type by veiling. Where a pro-Islamist mayor was narrowly elected, female employment went down under a veiling ban. After the repeal of the ban, when women can signal their piety and political inclination, the differential becomes small and insignificant. ∗Email: gozde.corekcioglu@khas.edu. tr. Department of Economics, Kadir Has University. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3476005
The Implications of Linking Questions within the Sg and Tto Methods

We consider the impact of introducing intermediate stages, chained together, into the Standard Gamble (SG) and Time Trade-Off (TTO) methods. We broadly replicate the patterns of responses observed in other SG studies. Less is known about the impact of intermediate stages, chained together, in the TTO method. We find that the TTO responses do not replicate the patterns found in the SG responses. We discuss additional issues that are brought to bear in the TTO responses compared to the SG responses and consider whether these can account for the different results.
The Early Exercise Risk Premium

We study the asset pricing implications of being able to optimally early exercise a plain-vanilla put option, contrasting the expected returns of equivalent American and European put options. Standard pricing models with stochastic volatility and asset-value jumps suggest the expected return spread between those option types is positive, can be economically sizable, and widens with a higher early exercise probability, as induced through a higher moneyness, shorter time-to-maturity, or lower underlying-asset volatility. Studying single-stock American put options and equivalent synthetic European options formed from applying put-call parity to American call options on zero-dividend stocks, our empirical work supports our predictions.
Beta Bubbles

We show that an increase in a stock’s breadth of institutional ownership or turnover is followed by a significant but temporary increase in its CAPM beta estimate and a decrease in its CAPM alpha. The increasing effect of breadth of ownership on beta estimates strengthens if we classify institutional investors by their historical trading horizon and look at the effect of changes in the ownership breadth of short-horizon institutional investors. These transitory, trading activity-driven components of beta estimates that we find contribute to the empirical failure of the CAPM and the large returns to long-short portfolios that bet against beta. In addition, the relations between ownership breadth, turnover and betas that we document help explain the puzzling fact that on average betas increase after seasoned equity offerings and stock splits, and decrease after stock repurchases.
Pollination of kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis Planch.): Stigma-style structure and pollen tube growth

Abstract The structure of stigma — style tissues in kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis Planch. cv. ‘Hayward’) flowers was examined before, and after, hand-pollination and the course of pollen tube development was followed. At the time of flower opening the style had a well defined canal which opened at its distal end to form a V-shaped stigmatic furrow. The surface of the furrow was covered with unicellular papillae. The exposed wall of each papilla was covered with a cuticle and a distinct pellicle. The papillae were supported by a layer of hypodermal cells and an extensive layer of thin-walled transmitting cells. The transmitting tissue extended from the tip of the style through the stylar canal to its junction with the ovary. A single vascular strand, which extended along the length of the style adjacent to the stylar canal, branched into the stylar parenchyma on each side of the V-shaped furrow. Pollen grains germinated on the stigmatic papillae and grew through the intercellular spaces of the transmittin.
Effect of Plastic Mulches on the Growth and Yield of Cucumber in a Tropical Region

ABSTRACT Research was conducted to evaluate the use of plastic mulches in the production of cucumber under micro-irrigation in tropical conditions. Clear (C) plastic mulch installed on beds increased the fruit number and the yield of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. cv. Fanci Pack) in comparison to unmulched (U) soil, during 1992–1993. White (W) and black (B) plastic mulches showed a moderated effect. Marketable yields of 63.3,46.2,44.8 and 21.6 t/ha were achieved under C, W, B and U treatments respectively (P<0.05). The plastic mulches reduced the number of days to flowering and to first harvest and increased the fruit number. It is concluded that clear plastic mulch is more adequate for tropical conditions than black or white plastic mulches.
Effect of formulation on the rhizosphere competence and biocontrol ability of Trichoderma atroviride C52

The rhizosphere competence of the biological control agent Trichoderma atroviride isolate C52 was studied on onion roots both in the glasshouse and in the field when introduced into soil in a range of formulations. Proliferation of T. atroviride in the rhizosphere was formulation-dependent. A pellet formulation maintained the fungal concentration at 105 cfu per g soil, whereas solid-substrate and seed-coating formulations gave concentrations of 104 and 101 cfu per g soil, respectively. To facilitate rhizosphere-competence studies, a UP-PCR band profile generated with primer L45 for isolate C52 was used to enable conclusive identification of T. atroviride C52 when recovered from soil. When isolate C52 was introduced into Sclerotium cepivorum-infested soil as both pellet and solid-substrate formulations, there was no statistically significant difference in the disease control between these treatments, but the pellet treatment doubled the percentage of healthy plants compared with the control treatment.
Implementing the Commitment Solution via Discretionary Policy-Making

This paper demonstrates that, in a large class of linear-quadratic models with rational expectations, losses due to time-inconsistency problems can be avoided, as the commitment solution can be implemented by a policy-maker who acts under discretion. We focus on two approaches. First, we show that a non-Markovian, reputational equilibrium that implements the commitment solution always exists. Second, we show how delegation to a policy-maker with an additional objective for the policy instrument can be used to implement the commitment solution via a standard discretionary Markov equilibrium. Implementation is facilitated by the fact that the commitment outcome can be attained irrespective of the weight that the policy-maker assigns to the additional target. Using the standard new Keynesian model as an example, we study the dynamics of the economy under optimal additional output targets as well as optimal interest-rate targets for central banks.
Modeling the Response of Fatty Acid Composition to Temperature in a Traditional Sunflower Hybrid

Oil quality highly depends on its fatty acid composition. In traditional sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) hybrids, fatty acid composition is affected by night temperature during grain filling. It is unknown if the increase of oleic acid concentration when night temperature increases saturates at a temperature threshold. Modeling the response of fatty acid composition to temperature could lead to oil quality prediction. The objectives of this work were: (i) to develop precise models to estimate fatty acid composition, and (ii) to use the established models to assess differences in final fatty acid composition among regions, sowing dates, and years. The traditional hybrid Dekasol 3881 was exposed to different day–night temperature regimes during grain filling (28 and 20C, 25 and 23C, and 20 and 28C). To model the response of fatty acid composition to temperature data from two field experiments, eight field crops and five growth chamber experiments were analyzed. Night minimum temperature during the 100 to 300 ddaf (degree-days after flowering) period (base temperature 5 6C) accounted for most of the variability in oleic acid concentration (r 2 5 0.84). The relationship was linear up to 22.6C, the temperature at which the maximum value of oleic acid was reached. The model also estimated other fatty acid contents. The relationships accurately predicted independent data from Dekasol 3881 and other hybrids. Our model explained most of the variation in oleic acid concentration observed in a large region were sunflower is cultivated (27–37 S) and it is feasible for a wide range of environmental conditions.
Aggregate earnings informativeness and economic shocks: international evidence

ABSTRACT Our study proposes the usage of aggregate earnings to forecast future GDP growth. Using empirical analyses with global quarterly data, we investigate whether aggregate-level profitability drivers, which are components of aggregate earnings, are relevant for forecasting GDP growth. After confirming that aggregate-level profitability drivers are useful for forecasting future GDP growth worldwide, we show that considering the effects of crises improves the forecast model of GDP growth. In addition, we suggest that predicting GDP growth using aggregate-level profitability drivers is relevant for stock valuation in developed countries, but not in emerging countries.
Bank Regulation, Investment, and the Implementation of Capital Requirements

We study the optimal design of bank capital regulations in a model where banks face adverse selection when raising capital. We show how the implementation of capital requirements can help mitigate bank underinvestment by eliminating the information frictions that make raising capital costly. Specifically, the regulator can design incentive compatible capital requirements that induce the banks to reveal their private information to the market through their choice of capital structure. Using this insight we characterize the optimal design of capital requirements which induce such information revelation when the banking sector is weak and pool the banks' private information otherwise.
Injúria pelo frio em frutos de mamoeiro (Carica papaya L.) cv 'Golden'

The symptoms of chilling injury in papaya fruit cv -Golden' were investigated in this work. Fruits presenting 10% to 15% of fruit skin yellowing were sorted in the packaging line of the Caliman Agricola S.A (Linhares-ES), after received chemical and heat treatments. The fruits were wrapped in a plastic film and stored at temperatures of 6oC and 13oC (85-95% RH) in an incubator (BOD) for 30 days. At defined time intervals, six fruits were evaluated regarding to firmness, appearance and color change. The fruit firmness was evaluated as in the outer as in the inner mesocarp halves. According to the results found, the fruits stored at 6oC presented skin scald symptoms between six and twelve days of storage and failure to ripen after thirty days, as identified by the Hunter L (luminosity), Hunter a (loss of chlorophyll) and Hunter b (yellowing). The firmness showed a high decrease in the six days of storage in both storage temperatures. However, it stayed higher in the outer mesocarp during all the storage period at 13oC. Fruits stored at 6oC showed an increment in firmness in both mesocarp halves between six and eighteen days of storage due to the chilling injury incidence.
Surplus Extraction with Rich Type Spaces

We characterize revenue maximizing mechanisms in auction settings with ‘rich’ type spaces, where bidders obtain information from sources other than their own valuation. The focus of the paper is on the concept of Bayes-Nash implementation. By considering a relaxed problem, we provide an upper bound on revenue extraction that explicitly builds on the richness of the information structure. We provide a condition under which this upper bound is achieved and characterize a mechanism that does it. Under this condition, we also show that the optimal revenue can be achieved with dominant strategy implementation. The characterization of optimal revenue generalizes the full surplus extraction result of Cremer and McLean (1988) as well as the standard independent private values optimal auction presented in Myerson (1981), providing a unified treatment for two sets of results considered irreconcilable so far.
Blood cell profile of six Mediterranean mariculture fish species

Summary The haematological profile and a description of the cell types from the peripheral blood of six Mediterranean fish species are presented. The highest haematocrit value was recorded in the saupe, Sarpa salpa (P < 0.001), the only herbivorous species, and which also lacked monocyte cells. Eosinophils were absent from the blood of the European sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax. White sea bream, Diplodus sargus and gilthead sea bream, Sparus aurata had statistically significantly high numbers of neutrophils and low numbers of lymphocytes (P < 0.001). The numbers of different leucocyte cell types were not influenced by sex or maturity stage in any species, although some variation in the maximum diameter of the cells was observed.
Individual Investors

Traditional finance explains individual investors’ behavior and financial decision-making based on economic incentives and rationality. Modern finance, however, takes a holistic view and searches for not only economic but also biological, psychological, and social factors that shape decision-making and investor behavior. In this new approach, genetics, life experiences, psychological traits, social norms, peer influences, as well as her beliefs, values and culture in general determine stock market participation decision, share of equity holding, frequency of trading, extent of diversification, and preferences for investment styles of an individual investor. The collective preferences and actions of individual investors exert an impact on asset pricing and corporate decisions.
Spillovers and Redistribution through Intra-Firm Networks: The Product Replacement Channel

This paper studies how regional shocks spillover across U.S. local markets through intra-firm market networks and explores how such spillovers reshape household welfare across regions. We identify the spillover by linking data on barcode-region-level prices and quantities with producer-level information and by exploiting variation in firms' exposure to sudden differential drops in local house prices. We find that a firm's local sales decrease in response not only to a direct negative local demand shock but also more strongly to indirect negative demand shocks originating in its other markets. The intra-firm cross-market spillover effects occur because (i) firms replace products that have higher value---sales per product, unit price, and organic sales share---with lower-value ones in response to negative demand shocks, and (ii) such product replacements are synchronized across many markets within each firm. Counterfactual analysis using an estimated multi-region model with endogenous quality adjustment shows that our channel generates a novel inter-regional shock transmission, which leads to an economically sizable regional consumption redistribution during the Great Recession.