Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Construction of Financial News Sentiment Indices Using Deep Neural Networks

With the progress in natural language processing and machine learning, using deep learning techniques to extract valuable information from financial texts has gained popularity among researchers. However, as deep learning models require large amounts of labelled data, current models for financial text mining are sensitive to noise and prone to overfitting due to the lack of labelled data in financial fields. We address this issue by using pretrained word representations and BERT model to leverage knowledge acquired from huge text corpus. In particular, we design a deep neural network model that combines CNN, Att-BLSTM and BERT for predicting financial news sentiment polarity. Then, the news sentiment indices are constructed based on the predictive model. In terms of predicting news sentiment polarity, we show that our model outperforms state-of-the-art competitors. Furthermore, we show that the news sentiment exhibits a significant relationship with stock market returns.
Cui Bono, Cui Malo? Contractual Complementarity for Rent Appropriation in Strategic Outsourcing

With the rise of strategic outsourcing, the distribution of skills and competences between partners grows increasingly uneven. This misalignment reflects the complex distribution of responsibilities under outsourcing arrangements. Because each firm in an outsourcing arrangement may have to surrender some control over tasks and processes performed by its partner, agency problems may arise on both sides. To resolve this tension, partnering firms design incentive contracts that include liability sharing instruments to align efforts and mitigate risk in the event of litigation. Although liabilities are generally negotiated simultaneously with provisions to share future revenues from outsourcing, the outsourcing literature reveals little about the complementarity of such instruments and their overall effect on value distribution. To address this lacuna, we develop a theoretical model and a set of simulations, which we test on a sample of R&amp;D outsourcing agreements from the pharmaceutical industry. In our framework, complementarity among royalties, bonus payments, and liability clauses determines configurations of contractual instruments that apportion rents and allocate future liability costs. We find also that two boundary conditions can affect the outsourcing relationship: bargaining power and each party’s relative knowledge.
Investment Effects of Pricing Schemes for Non-Convex Markets

Abstract Non-convex markets, such as those organized by electricity system operators, lack uniform clearing prices. In an attempt to align private and social costs when clearing these markets, operators have introduced a variety of price formation and uplift payment schemes. We investigate the impact that the choice of pricing scheme can have on generator entry and exit decisions. Our results suggest that despite the presence of fixed production cost elements, prices derived from marginal costs support the optimal capacity mix. The use of uplift payments to supplement these prices could lead to significant distortion of the capacity mix arising in competitive markets. Pricing schemes designed to reduce the need for uplift payments may at the same time reduce prices, leading to lower levels of capacity in equilibrium. Schemes intended to raise prices, to the extent they eliminate the need for discriminatory side payments, may allow system operators to support a higher level of capacity with less distortion to the capacity mix.
Probability Weighting: An Incomplete Solution for Insurance Demand Puzzles

Probability weighting is often used to explain insurance choices that conflict with expected utility (EU) preferences. We derive new theoretical results on the effects of probability weighting in the context of common insurance demand puzzles. We identify decreasing relative overweighting (DRO) as a useful condition on the probability weighting function for comparative statics. In a binary-risk model, probability weighting predicts higher demand than EU alone, explaining commonly-observed overinsurance of modest risks. On the contrary, probability weighting does not explain underinsurance for low-probability high-impact risks or for insurance contracts exposed to nonperformance risk.
Does Rating Analyst Subjectivity Affect Corporate Debt Pricing?

We find evidence of systematic optimism and pessimism among credit analysts, comparing contemporaneous ratings of the same firm across rating agencies. These differences in perspectives carry through to debt prices and negatively predict future changes in credit spreads, consistent with mispricing. Moreover, the pricing effects are the largest among firms that are the most opaque, likely exacerbating financing constraints. We find that MBAs provide higher quality ratings; however, optimism increases and accuracy decreases with tenure covering the firm. Our analysis demonstrates the role analysts play in shaping investor expectations and its effect on corporate debt markets.
Cockscomb Revisited: Jaguar Diet in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize 1

The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize was established in 1986 following Rabinowitz and Nottingham's 1986 study on jaguar diet and distribution. In 2002, we reexamined jaguar diet following two decades of mitigated human hunting of jaguar prey. We observed high overlap between historical and current jaguar diet constructs. Nine‐banded armadillo remained the most frequently consumed prey item. However, collared peccary consumption increased by nearly 20 percent while dietary breadth decreased by 60 percent presumably reflecting increased prey availability following reduced human hunting pressure.
Scientific Progress in the Absence of New Data: A Procedural Replication of Ross (2006)

Estimating the effect of macro variables like democracy on aggregate outcomes like child mortality remains a formidable challenge. When new data are limited, theories imprecise, and experimentation impossible, findings are mostly driven by modeling assumptions and inadvertent errors. Here I propose procedural replication as a method of generating objective evidence capable of demonstrating new insights even in the absence of new data. I develop a simple Bayesian framework for replication studies, distinguish five different types of replication, and show how procedural replication can improve answers to existing research questions, tether inferences to data, and generate checklists for cumulative research. A procedural replication of Ross's (2006) controversial finding that democracy has no effect on child mortality shows this null finding to be an artifact of the way quinquennial averages were computed, and the static nature of the preferred model. I address other shortcomings and provide a procedural checklist to inform future studies.
Trend Salience, Investor Behaviors and Momentum Profitability

Trend extrapolation in financial markets has been well documented, however it is contentious as to which trends will be extrapolated or mean reverted. We examine whether investors are more likely to extrapolate trends that they perceive to be salient by examining an investment strategy that considers both the magnitude and the strength of the trend. Consistent with behavioral models of momentum, our investment strategy based on trend salience significantly outperforms traditional momentum strategies and is not explained by the Carhart [1997] four-factor model. The relative performance of the trend salience signal is robust across different investment horizons and size-sorted portfolios, although is time-varying; the strategy does not outperform momentum in "down" markets where volatility is high and salient trends are more difficult to identify.
Phenotype and spectrum of action of the Pvr4 resistance in pepper against potyviruses, and selection for virulent variants.

The dominant Pvr4 gene identified in Capsicum annuum cv. Criollo de Morelos 334 (CM334) is frequently used in pepper cultivars because it possesses one of the largest spectra of action among plant virus resistance genes. This gene was previously shown to confer efficient resistance to all known Potato virus Y isolates, to Pepper mottle virus, to Pepper yellow mosaic virus and to Ecuadorian rocoto virus. This study showed that the W4 line, derived from CM334 and carrying Pvr4, was also resistant to Peru tomato mosaic virus and Pepper severe mosaic virus, but not to Pepper veinal mottle virus, Chilli veinal mottle virus or Tobacco etch virus. It was noticed that the phenotype of the resistance was atypical since, in the W4 line, hypersensitive reaction or extreme resistance could be observed, depending on virus isolates and inoculated organs. Despite the large deployment of Pvr4 in hybrid cultivars, the numerous tests performed in controlled conditions and the use of W4 serial back-inoculations with potyvirus isolates controlled by this line, no virulent variant isolates were obtained. However, it was shown that the use of graft inoculation experiments allow PVY virulent variants to be selected.
Extracting Tail Risk from High-Frequency S&P 500 Returns

This paper proposes to extract tail risk from a risk-neutral mean-adjusted expected shortfall of high-frequency stock returns. Risk adjustment is based on a nonparametric estimator of the state price density that does not use option prices and relies solely on a stock index returns. This makes the measure methodology applicable to many financial markets with illiquid or nonexistent options. Empirically, the tail risk factor extracted from S\&P 500 returns has a 90% correlation with the options-based VIX index and predicts well realized jumps in the stock market index at various frequencies. We document a persistent negative relation between tail risk and one-day ahead returns of several assets classes. Consistent with the crash-insurance property of put options, tail risk predicts positive one-day ahead returns for portfolios long out-of-the-money, short in-the-money put options. An analysis of equity portfolios sorted on exposure to tail risk reveals a premium for bearing such a risk, even after controlling for known and established factors related to cross-sectional variability. This cross-sectional analysis is robust to the inclusion of uncertainty indexes, as well as macroeconomic and volatility measures.
Microglia and inflammatory mechanisms in the clearance of amyloid β peptide

There is now abundant evidence that brain microglia, when activated, have the lineage, receptors, and synthetic capacity to participate in both potentially neurotoxic inflammatory responses and potentially beneficial phagocytic responses. Amyloid β peptide (Aβ) forms highly insoluble, β‐pleated aggregates that are widely deposited in the Alzheimer's disease (AD) cortex and limbic system. Aggregated Aβ also activates the classical and alternative complement cascades. These properties make Aβ an excellent target for microglial phagocytosis, a view supported by multiple reports, through well established mechanisms of phagocyte clearance. GLIA 40:260–269, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Emerging from the Shadows: Survey Evidence of Shadow IT Use from Blissfully Ignorant Employees

Current research dealt with various aspects of Shadow IT. However, we still do not have an evidence of how much the phenomenon is widespread in organizations. Are employees really using Shadow IT and how much? We conducted an online survey of 450 employees in 5 organizations to understand how much Shadow IT is used by employees. Our research found that Shadow IT phenomenon is widespread in the organizational context. We found that 52% of “Blissfully ignorant” employees, despite their 75% awareness of information security policy, do use Shadow IT to satisfy their job needs, increase their productivity and efficiency. These illegal activities are conducted as employees miss clarity on the proper compliance behaviors regarding Shadow IT but also because they believe that IT department cannot meet their needs in terms of the approval speed. Our study has several important insights for practitioners and offers some future directions for researchers.
A Review of Empirical Studies on User Acceptance of Driver Assistance Systems

Objective – Innovative and advanced driver assistance systems are increasingly being implemented into vehicles in recent years. User acceptance to such technologies is complex in nature, as it depends primarily on the degree of innovation, as well as the different characteristics and behaviour of the adopters. Thus, it is essential to understand the concept of technology acceptance as it can assist in setting up priorities during the initial stages of product development and policy making. Methodology/Technique – This paper presents a review of empirical research on technology acceptance with regards to driver assistance systems referred from 17 published studies. In addition to evaluating various behavioural science theories and models such as Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), other proposed variables that influence acceptance and usage of such technologies, potential limitations and gaps have also been analysed and evaluated. Multiple electronic databases have been thoroughly searched for relevant empirical studies based on specified criteria and defined keywords. Findings – The results indicate that TAM indeed is a very useful model and mostly used; however to better understand the user acceptance toward driver assistance systems, additional factors need to be included in order to complement the existing constructs in TAM. Novelty – In term of studied location, majority of the empirical studies only concern USA and European populations. Asian populations, especially in the Southeast Asian region, which account for quite a number of vehicle users in the world, are underrepresented. Type of Paper: Review.
Assessing food-web structure, matter fluxes, and system attributes of a Central European mountain stream by performing mass-balanced network analysis

Trophic interactions and cycling of matter within the community in a soft-water mountain stream were analyzed on the basis of a compartment food-web model. The model describes (i) the structure of the food web, quantifying biomass, production, and consumption of individual elements as well as of the entire system, and (ii) the flow of matter between compartments as well as trophic levels. Detritus and primary producers sustain a broad variety of invertebrate consumers. Fishes are the top predators; sculpin (Cottus gobio) and a compartment consisting of brown trout (Salmo trutta) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) are at the highest trophic level. Heterotrophic microorganisms (227.1 g dry mass (DW)·m2·year1) and aufwuchs algae (150.1 g DW·m2·year1) have the highest production. Secondary production of fishes and macroinvertebrates amounts to 2.56 and 19.9 g DW·m2·year1, respectively. Total consumption amounts to 1136.41 g DW·m2·year1. Main flows occur between the lower trophic levels. Food inta.
A Panel Data Analysis of Firms’ Access to Credit in the Euro Area: Endogenous Selection, Individual Heterogeneity and Time Persistence

Using panel firm-level data, this paper analyses the main factors affecting firms’ access to bank credit in eleven Euro Area countries over the period 2014-2016. We focus on firm’s loan demand behaviour and on bank’s actual credit granting decision, using alternative measures of credit constraints and controlling for endogenous sample selection and individual heterogeneity. Furthermore, we explicitly analyse the dynamics of firms’ access to credit and account for time persistence in loan demand and credit constraints. Empirical results show that small and informationally opaque businesses, with deteriorated public support and credit history, experience greater difficulties in accessing to bank loans. Moreover, we provide evidence of significant persistence in access to credit over time. In particular, we find that firms having already experienced credit restrictions are more likely to face further new financing constraints, while enterprises that repeatedly recur to external financing seem to have improved access to credit.
ETF Momentum

We document economically large momentum profits when sorting ETFs on returns over the past two to four years. A value-weighted, long-short strategy based on ETF momentum delivers Carhart (1997) four-factor alphas of up to 1.20% per month. Neither cross-sectional stock momentum nor co-variation with macroeconomic and liquidity risks can explain ETF momentum. Instead, the post-holding period returns are most consonant with the behavioral story of delayed overreaction. While ETF momentum survives multiple adjustments for transaction costs, it may be difficult to arbitrage as the profits are volatile and concentrated in ETFs with high idiosyncratic volatility or that hold low-analyst-coverage stocks.
WOOD ANATOMY OF MYRCIARIA, NEOMITRANTHES, PLINIA AND SIPHONEUGENA SPECIES (MYRTEAE, MYRTACEAE)

Myrciaria, Neomitranthes, Plinia and Siphoneugena are closely related genera whose circumscriptions are controversial. The distinctions between Myrciaria vs. Plinia, and Neomitranthes vs. Siphoneugena, have been based on a few fruit characters. The wood anatomy of 24 species of these genera was examined to determine if wood anatomical features could help delimit the genera. It was determined the four genera cannot reliably be separated by wood anatomy alone. Characteristics seen in all four genera are: growth rings usually poorly-defined; diffuse porous; exclusively solitary vessels, usually circular to oval in outline; simple perforation plates; vessel-ray pits alternate and distinctly bordered; fibers with distinctly bordered pits in radial and tangential walls, usually very thickwalled; vasicentric tracheids typically absent; scanty paratracheal parenchyma, sometimes unilateral, and diffuse to diffuse-in-aggregates; chambered crystalliferous axial parenchyma in many species, usually both prismatic and smaller crystals; rays 1–4-seriate, uniseriate rays composed of upright/square cells, multiseriate rays with procumbent body cells and 1 to many marginal rows of upright/square cells; disjunctive ray parenchyma cells usually present.
Alternative reproductive tactics and sex‐biased gene expression: the study of the bulb mite transcriptome

The sexes experience different selective pressures, which can lead to highly divergent phenotypes that are achieved via sex-biased gene expression. The effect of sexual dimorphism on the degree of sex-bias in gene expression can be studied in species characterized by sexually selected alternative male phenotypes. We analyzed gene expression in the bulb mite Rhizoglyphus robini (Acari, Acaridae), in which more sexually dimorphic, aggressive fighter males, possessing thickened legs of the third pair which are used to kill rivals, coexist with unarmored scrambler males. We sequenced transcriptomes of adult females and both types of males and de-novo assembled 114,456 transcriptome-based gene models (TGMs). Significantly more TGMs had male-biased expression than female-biased expression. Among TGMs that were over expressed in one, but not both, male morphs (compared to expression in females), we found about four times more fighter-biased genes than scrambler-biased genes. This demonstrates that the degree of expression bias reflects the degree of sexually selected dimorphism. However, the number of sex-biased genes was much higher than the number of genes differentially expressed between male morphs, and most male-biased genes were shared between morphs, suggesting that selection pressures act similarly on males irrespective of their morph. Furthermore, we found that male-biased genes evolved at a faster rate than female-biased genes, as evidenced by a higher rate of both gene-turnover and amino acid substitution, indicating that sexual selection, acting more strongly on males, accelerates the rate of molecular evolution. Interestingly, gene turnover was relatively higher, but amino acid substitution rate relatively lower among fighter-biased genes, suggesting that different components of sexual selection may have different effects on the evolution of sex-biased genes.
Religion

The present paper is a first attempt to measure and explain, from an economic perspective, the religious behavior of Uruguayans (women in this stage), and compare the results with those obtained for some Latin American and developed countries. In this first stage, the efforts were concentrated in the interpretation of the religious behavior from an microeconomic perspective, considering the individual decision about church attendance and its frequency. With this aim, we analyze the relation between the religious degree of the individuals (measured through a variable created combining two questions of the used surveys: Are you religious? How often do you go to the temple? ) and diverse personal characteristics such as age, education, marital status, among others (solely for women from 25 to 54 years old in the case of Uruguay). We confirmed that Uruguayans are less religious than the people of the other countries considered (Chile, Spain, Mexico and the United States), that the religious activity is more intense for women and older people, and that the education level have an ambiguous effect on the intensity of the religious activity. In addition, in the case of Uruguay, greater levels of deprivation imply greater levels of religious activity.
Dispersal of large farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, from simulated escapes at fish farms in Norway and Scotland

Individually tagged farmed Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L. , were released from fish farms in simulated escapes in Scotland (n = 678) and Norway (n = 597) to compare migratory behaviour and dispersal. Large fish (510-870 mm fork length) were released to simulate the escape of aquaculture growers. Fish were released in spring and all recaptures of tagged fish were reported during summer and autumn of the year of release. Recapture rates were respectively 7.0 and 0.6% of the salmon released in Norway and Scotland, indicating a higher mortality or a lower exploitation or reporting rate for Scottish fish. Recaptures of Norwegian fish were all from Norway and mostly within 150 km of the release site; 64% were taken by anglers in fresh water. By contrast, the three salmon recaptured from the release in Scotland were reported from Norway (Hardangerfjord and Lofoten) and western Sweden (River Gota); two detached tags were found on beaches in Scotland north of the release site. These findings establish the capacity for long distance dispersal among escapees from aquaculture facilities and suggest a net easterly bias in long distance dispersal of salmon escaping from Scottish fish farms.