Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asset Redeployability and Stock Price Crash Risk

There is tension underlying whether asset redeployability, which refers to the salability of the corporate capital assets of the firm, shapes crash risk. On one hand, greater asset redeployability engenders liquidity benefits that should enhance financial stability, thereby mitigating future stock price crash risk. On the other hand, asset redeployability enables managers to opportunistically exploit asset sales to engage in upward real earnings management in order to hide bad news, which, in turn, increases future stock crash risk. We find that, on average, asset redeployability is positively associated with stock price crash risk, suggesting that relying on redeployable assets to orchestrate upward real earnings undermines shareholders’ interests. Reinforcing that real earnings management explains the positive association between asset redeployability and stock price crash risk, we find that this association is stronger for firms experiencing greater internal and external pressure to manage earnings. In additional evidence supporting the real earnings management channel, we find that asset redeployability is associated with a higher likelihood of just meeting or beating analyst forecasts, and recording of gains from asset sales. We contribute to extant research by providing evidence implying that asset redeployability has a dark side stemming from managers’ incentives to suppress bad news, particularly when internal and external forces motivate them to manage real earnings upward.
Liquidity Risk and Asset Pricing: Evidence from Amman Stock Exchange

إن الهدف الرئيس للدراسة التحقق من مخاطر السيولة وأثرها على قوة التفسير لنموذج التسعير الأصلي المنشأ من قبل (Fama and French)، والذي يسمى نموذج ثلاثي العوامل (Three-Factor Model)، وذلك بإستخدام معدل دوران حجم التدول (Turnover Rate) كمقياس للسيولة. وباستخدام بيانات شهرية عن الفترة من كانون الثاني 2007 إلى كانون الأول 2013 لعينة مكونة من 56 شركة مدرجة في بورصة عمان. وقد أظهرت نتائج الدراسة وجود أثر لعامل الحجم، وعامل القيمة، وعامل السيولة. وأن عامل السيولة يحسن من القوة التفسيرية للنموذج الأصلي في السوق الأردني في تشكيلات كل المحافظ. وكذلك تم إيجاد أثر ذو دلالة إحصائية لعامل السيولة في معظم المحافظ. كما أظهرت نتائج الدراسة أن إضافة عامل السيولة يمكن أن يحسن نموذج تسعير الأصول الرأسمالية، ونموذج ثلاثي العوامل (Fama and French Three-Factor Model). وعليه أوصت الدراسة أن يقوم مدارء المحافظ والمستثمارين باستخدام نموذج (Fama and French)، والذي يسمى نموذج ثلاثي العوامل (Three-Factor Model) مع إضافة عامل السيولة عند تكوين المحافظ؛ وذلك لأن النموذج يفسر الاختلاف في العوائد بطريقه أفضل.
The impact of workplace learning on academic career path development in tertiary education

This research addresses the situated learning experiences of academics in workplaces by gaining insights into how communities of practice influence career development of academics in Cypriot public universities. The study set out to explore academics’ lived experiences of community relations by taking into consideration the impact of power inequalities, access to resources, and their legitimate peripheral participation through the lens of Situated Learning Theory (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998). To understand how academics develop their careers in Cypriot public universities, it was important to comprehend how they adapt to their disciplinary communities, engage with their peers, and perceive the existing support for learning and its outcomes. The research was informed by an interpretive paradigm. A single case study approach was used to bring to the fore academics’ narratives about their participatory practices. The data were generated through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty academics chosen through a combination of convenience and snowball sampling strategies. The research has been conducted during five and a half months (December 2012-May 2013). Academics’ experiences in CoPs were thematically analysed. The findings revealed that academics’ career development cannot be properly understood without looking into social relations among scholars and the contextual factors within and across their CoPs. Even though this study challenged Lave and Wenger’s (1991) and Wenger’s (1998) theorisation, the research findings confirm the significance they placed on the mutual engagement of participants in practice, since task mastery on its own cannot be perceived as a prerequisite for academics’ full membership in CoPs. That is why the recommendations highlight the importance of an ongoing involvement of newcomers, who may face diverse forms of participation at the boundaries of CoPs, within the academic life of departmental communities. This is how they construct their academic identities and further develop their membership of the disciplinary CoPs.
Uncertainty and Investment Choice in a Real-Options Model of the Firm

A firm must consider many factors when adopting an investment policy including, but not limited to the size, scope, and cost of each investment, as well as the firm's financial condition. The multitude of considerations makes optimal decision-making much more complex than is indicated by standard real-option models of investment. This thesis investigates the behaviour of a cash-constrained firm that has access to two distinct investment opportunities. Such a firm must not only choose the timing of each investment, but often it must also choose between investments. When compared with similar one-project models of the past, the introduction of an additional investment opportunity alters the general results in a variety of ways. If one of the projects has a high yield, and therefore a quick payback period, this project can provide benefits over and above its NPV as the cash it generates relaxes future capital constraints for follow-up investment. When the firm is sufficiently constrained, this can lead to an investment policy where high-yield low-NPV projects are implemented instead of lower-yield higher-NPV projects, a direct deviation from the NPV rule. If one of the projects can raise a relatively large proportion of its value as collateral for investment, then the constrained firm will at times accelerate investment in this project in order to free up cash reserves for the other opportunity. In single-project models, when the firm is able to invest in a low NPV project, the value of additional cash is low. This is because the project will be delayed regardless of the level of cash. However, when the firm has a second investment opportunity, if one project has a low NPV and the other a high NPV then additional cash is beneficial to the firm. The two-project model also provides insights into how resources should be allocated if the constrained firm decides to split and operate the projects as separate firms. When cash is low, more resources should go to the spin-off with the high NPV project in order to give it the best chance of being initiated. However, when cash is high, disproportionately more resources should go to the spin-off with the lower NPV project as investment in the higher NPV project is likely to occur without the help of additional resources.
Ruling by Statute

What are the main factors that allow presidents and prime ministers to enact policy through acts of government that carry the force of law? Or, simply put, when does a government actually govern? I argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom, variations in legislative passage rates are the consequences of differences in uncertainty, not partisan support. The empirical evidence supports this view: chief executives’ legislative success rates depend on the predictability of legislators’ voting behavior and whether buying votes is a feasible option. From a normative standpoint, an important implication of my theory is that governability is best served when the opposition has realistic chances of occasionally defeating the executive in the legislative arena.
Attitudes towards Death and Euthanasia among Nurses and Nursing students : In Convergence era

Abstract The purpose of the study was to investigate the attitudes towards death and euthanasia of Nurses and Nursing students live in convergence era. The participants were 380 nurses and nursing students and data were collected from May until June of 2014. The data were collected by means of self reported questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics t-test, one-way ANOVA and Scheffe test with the SPSS/WIN 18.0 program. The result showed that the fear of death of others with nursing students was higher than nurses (t=-3.34, p=.001) and nursing students supported euthanasia more than nurses(t=-3.06, p=.002). Among the death attitude, both of the nurses and the nursing students had the highest score 'fear of their own dying' and the lowest score 'fear of the dying of others'. Regarding attitude to euthanasia, both of them the most important factor was 'the right of the client'. These results suggest that death education program to deal with nursing services without ethical conflicts should be developed.
Prospective study on the predictive model of cardiovascular disease risk in a Chinese population aged 35-64

Objective To examine the association between cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and 10-year absolute risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a Chinese population and to establish mathematic models for predicting the risk of CVD for Chinese with different risk factors profiles. Methods A cohort of 31 728 subjects, aged 35-64, enrolled from 11 provinces of China has been set up since 1992. The baseline survey for CVD risk factors was carried out among all the subjects. Follow up of the subjects was performed from enrollment to the end of 2002. The data was analyzed by univariate and multivariate methods. Results (1) The 10-year accumulated coronary event rates were 1.41% for men and 0.62% for women and stroke event rates, 2.02% for men and 1.37% for women. (2) The predicated absolute risk of CVD increased with the coexistence of risk factors. There were synergic effects among different CVD risk factors. Different combination of major risk factors had different impact on CVD risk. (3) In 95.4% of the population aged 35-64 the probability of developing CVD in the next 10 years was less than 10%, while in 4.6% of the population more than 10%. Conclusion From the public health point of view, the evaluation of CVD absolute risk is more important than that of CVD relative risk. When evaluating the risk of CVD we should consider not only the numbers of risk factors but also the combination of risk factors.
The case of Project Citizen in the Philippines

The purpose of this study was to examine how and why a small non-governmental organization called the Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy (PCCED) chose to implement the Project Citizen curriculum, a project-based civic education program promoting civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions, in the Philippine schools. Attention was given to how Project Citizen was adapted for, and implemented in, the Philippine context. The origins of PCCED, its objectives, and how stakeholders perceived program effectiveness were explored. By examining how the PCCED implemented Project Citizen in Manila schools, I investigated how democratic education is maintained in a developing nation faced with the marginalization of civic education in the national curriculum. This qualitative case study relied on interviews, observations, and documents as the main data sources. A comparative education theoretical framework served as my interpretive perspective, and more specifically, I applied Phillips and Ochs’s (2004) policy borrowing and lending model to test its utility with a grassroots case of policy adoption. The data analysis process was guided by Vavrus and Bartlett’s (2014) vertical case study method which relies equally on three different dimensions of comparison: the horizontal, the vertical, and the transversal. The findings of this research indicated that Project Citizen’s growth in its reach and membership since its adoption was the result of several interconnected factors. First, seeking to prevent further marginalization of civic education in the national curriculum, the PCCED offered Project Citizen as an extracurricular participatory citizenship program to engage students, solve community problems, and promote political efficacy. Second, focusing on teacher training, the PCCED was able to convince teachers of the program’s benefits through indigenized nationalist discourse, thus successfully imbedding the curriculum within participating schools. Third, although forced to conduct Project Citizen as an extracurricular activity, teachers and students willingly participated with its implementation, ostensibly due to personal convictions regarding citizenship education’s ability to improve democracy in the nation. Due to these factors, the PCCED successfully implemented Project Citizen without the Department of Education’s mandate, and with limited resources and personnel. INDEX WORDS: Civic education, Philippine education, Policy borrowing and lending THE CASE OF PROJECT CITIZEN IN THE PHILIPPINES: EXAMINING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A GRASSROOTS CIVIC EDUCATION PROGRAM
Endogenous Information Cycles

This paper studies a simple model with information and business cycles to explain an endogenous bust. In such a cycle, a booming economy experiences a bust despite the absence of an exogenous trigger shock; instead, increasing economic activity in a boom state itself causes a crash. The key is a feedback loop between investment activity and the efficiency of a public signal that aggregates information and determines the aggregate risk. High-risk and low economic activity augment each other (positive feedback), making the downturn state stable. In a low-risk and high-activity state, however, the feedback can be reversed: stronger activity contaminates the public signal, generating an increase in the risk and subsequent decline in investment. As a switch from positive to negative feedback is governed by the endogenous level of economic activity, a transition from boom to crash is explained as an endogenous event.
University graduates in Germany: Determinants of time to degree, final grade, and pay at labor market entrance

Die vier Studien der Dissertation befassen sich mit verschiedenen Themen studentischer Leistungen und Determinanten von Einstiegsgehaltern in Deutschland. Die ersten beiden Studien analysieren den Einfluss einer Nebentatigkeit wahrend des Studiums auf die Studiendauer. Deutschland ist charakterisiert durch sehr lange Studienzeiten und die Regelstudienzeit wird haufig uberschritten. Ein moglicher Grund konnte der grose Anteil an Studierenden sein, die wahrend ihres Studiums arbeiten. Die dritte Studie befasst sich mit dem Einfluss des sozio-okonomischen Hintergrundes Studierender und ihrer Abiturnote auf ihre Universitatsabschlussnote. Da vorangegangene Untersuchungen einen Zusammenhang zwischen sozialem Hintergrund und Schulleistungen zeigen, wird eine Ubertragung dieses Zusammenhangs auf die akademische Ebene untersucht. In der vierten Studie werden Determinanten von Einstiegsgehaltern und die Lohnlucke zwischen mannlichen und weiblichen Absolventen untersucht. Lohnunterschiede sind zu einem grosen Teil bestimmt durch Lohnunterschiede direkt beim Arbeitsmarkteintritt. Eine detaillierte Analyse direkt beim Berufseinstieg legt moglicherweise Ursprunge und Ursachen der spateren Lohnlucke zwischen Mannern und Frauen offen.
Effeets of folie aeid on phenytoin kineties in healthy subjeets

Phenytoin (DPH) disposition was studied in normal subjects before and after treatment with folic acid for 14 days. Our results suggest that folic acid lowers DPH serum levels without significantly modifying its bound fraction and inereases the rate of DPH and meta‐hydroxydiphenylhydantoin excretion in urine.
AAV-vector mediated gene delivery for Huntington's Disease : an investigative therapeutic study.

Kells AP, Henry RA, Hughes SM, Faull, RLM, Connor B. (2007) Attenuation of Functional Deficits in the QA Model of Huntington’s Disease following AAV Vector Delivery. 10 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene Therapy, Seattle, WA, USA. Molecular Therapy 15: S209 Kells AP, Henry RA, Hughes SM, Faull, RLM, Connor B. (2006) Protection against Huntington’s Disease Progression: AAV-mediated Delivery of Biotherapeutics. 9 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene Therapy, Baltimore, MD, USA. Molecular Therapy 13: S96 Kells AP, Henry RA, Hughes SM, Faull, RLM, Connor B. (2005) Investigating the Protective Effect of GDNF and Bcl-xL Gene Delivery in a Rat Model of Huntington’s Disease. 9 th International Conference on Neural Transplantation and Repair, Taipei, Taiwan. AAV-vector Mediated Gene Delivery for Huntingtons Disease: An Investigative Therapeutic Study
PUBLIC DELIBERATION GOES ON-LINE? AN ANALYSIS OF CITIZENS' POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS ON THE INTERNET PRIOR TO THE

This article examines on-line political discussions' po- tential of becoming truly deliberative discussions, capable of bringing about democratic benefi ts, through combining two theoretically important aspects found in the literature - concerns regarding citizens' participation in on-line poli- tics and the quality (or lack thereof ) of on-line discussions - in one analytical framework. Specifi cally, the article fi rstly examines how many, and more importantly, which types of citizens participate in on-line discussions. This part of the analysis adds to the scholarly debate concerning whether on-line politics is reaching beyond politically active and interested segments of the public. Secondly, the article examines the discussions on four Finnish political discus- sion boards during the last three weeks before the Finnish parliamentary election in March 2007. The quality of the discussions is assessed and discussed in light of several criteria based on the literature concerning deliberative de- mocracy. In combining these two aspects, the article fia gap in the research fiwhere these aspects have mostly been examined separately. The fi ndings of the article gen- erally demonstrate that on-line discussions are not, at least for the time being, truly deliberative. The debates analysed generally did not meet deliberative standards in terms of quality and only politically very active and interested citi- zens seemed to take part in them. The question thus still remains if, and how, on-line citizens' discussions can ever become truly deliberative.
RR-DnCNN v2.0: Enhanced Restoration-Reconstruction Deep Neural Network for Down-Sampling-Based Video Coding

Integrating deep learning techniques into the video coding framework gains significant improvement compared to the standard compression techniques, especially applying super-resolution (up-sampling) to down-sampling based video coding as post-processing. However, besides up-sampling degradation, the various artifacts brought from compression make super-resolution problem more difficult to solve. The straightforward solution is to integrate the artifact removal techniques before super-resolution. However, some helpful features may be removed together, degrading the super-resolution performance. To address this problem, we proposed an end-to-end restoration-reconstruction deep neural network (RR-DnCNN) using the degradation-aware technique, which entirely solves degradation from compression and sub-sampling. Besides, we proved that the compression degradation produced by Random Access configuration is rich enough to cover other degradation types, such as Low Delay P and All Intra, for training. Since the straightforward network RR-DnCNN with many layers as a chain has poor learning capability suffering from the gradient vanishing problem, we redesign the network architecture to let reconstruction leverages the captured features from restoration using up-sampling skip connections. Our novel architecture is called restoration-reconstruction u-shaped deep neural network (RR-DnCNN v2.0). As a result, our RR-DnCNN v2.0 outperforms the previous works and can attain 17.02% BD-rate reduction on UHD resolution for all-intra anchored by the standard H.265/HEVC. The source code is available at https://minhmanho.github. io/rrdncnn/.
On the use of spectral discretizations with time strong stability preserving properties to Dirichlet pseudo-parabolic problems

This paper is concerned with the approximation of linear and nonlinearinitial-boundary-value problems of pseudo-parabolic equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions. They are discretized in space by spectral Galerkin and collocation methods based on Legendre and Chebyshev polynomials. The time integration is carried out suitably with robust schemes attending to qualitative features such as stiffness and preservation of strong stability to simulate nonregular problems more correctly. The corresponding semidiscrete and fully discrete schemes are described and the performance of the methods is analyzed computationally.
Compressive Sensing for Cut Improvement and Local Clustering

We show how one can phrase the cut improvement problem for graphs as a sparse recovery problem, whence one can use algorithms originally developed for use in compressive sensing (such as SubspacePursuit or CoSaMP) to solve it. We show that this approach to cut improvement is fast, both in theory and practice and moreover enjoys statistical guarantees of success when applied to graphs drawn from probabilistic models such as the Stochastic Block Model. Using this new cut improvement approach, which we call ClusterPursuit, as an algorithmic primitive we then propose new methods for local clustering and semi-supervised clustering, which enjoy similar guarantees of success and speed. Finally, we verify the promise of our approach with extensive numerical benchmarking.
Operads of enriched pre-Lie algebras and freeness theorems

In this paper, we study the operad of C-enriched pre-Lie algebras, defined for any Hopf cooperad C; it slightly generalises a similar notion defined by Calaque and Willwacher to produce conceptual constructions of the operads acting on various deformation complexes. Maps between Hopf cooperads lead to maps between the corresponding operads of enriched pre-Lie algebras; we prove a criterion for the module action of the domain on the codomain to be free, on the left and on the right. In particular, this implies a new functorial Poincare--Birkhoff--Witt type theorem for universal enveloping brace algebras of pre-Lie algebras.
PointAugment: An Auto-Augmentation Framework for Point Cloud Classification

We present PointAugment, a new auto-augmentation framework that automatically optimizes and augments point cloud samples to enrich the data diversity when we train a classification network. Different from existing auto-augmentation methods for 2D images, PointAugment is sample-aware and takes an adversarial learning strategy to jointly optimize an augmentor network and a classifier network, such that the augmentor can learn to produce augmented samples that best fit the classifier. Moreover, we formulate a learnable point augmentation function with a shape-wise transformation and a point-wise displacement, and carefully design loss functions to adopt the augmented samples based on the learning progress of the classifier. Extensive experiments also confirm PointAugment's effectiveness and robustness to improve the performance of various networks on shape classification and retrival.