Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concept Release on Auditor Independence and Audit Firm Rotation

Dear Board Members and Staff: We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's (PCAOB or Board) Concept Release on Auditor Independence and Audit Firm Rotation, and we respectfully submit our comments and recommendations thereon. Similar to the Concept Release, the primary focus of our response is on whether mandatory audit firm rotation would enhance auditor objectivity and professional skepticism. We believe that the Concept Release discusses in a fair amount of detail the potential pros and cons of mandatory audit firm rotation and will encourage thoughtful and insightful feedback. Accordingly, we value the Board's outreach on this complex and controversial matter. We believe that such outreach will facilitate the development of viable and high quality standards that are in the best interests of investors. Objectivity is critical to the auditing profession and is worthy of more robust study, including, but not limited to, the concept of mandatory audit firm rotation as a means to enhance such objectivity. We believe that the vast majority of auditors want to do what is right. We also believe that extreme audit firm tenure creates, at a minimum, the perception of impaired objectivity. In this regard, mandatory audit firm rotation could be a component of a potential solution to this perceived loss of auditor objectivity; although, the potential negative consequences of such rotation may be significant. Unfortunately, empirical data does not exist as to whether mandatory audit firm rotation would be a practicable solution, nor do we believe that such rotation, on its own, would be the end-all solution to meaningfully enhancing audit quality, including professional skepticism and auditor judgment. As noted in the Concept Release, mandatory audit firm rotation would result in many challenges for both preparers and auditors, and changes of this magnitude will require careful evaluation as to the related costs and benefits, as well as any possible unintended consequences. The majority of our letter will address those potential challenges and consequences, including transition and implementation considerations.
Attitudes About Development: Experimental Evidence from Africa

African development encompasses a broad set of international processes and actors. Research has examined if international forms of support, like foreign aid, promote development there. Yet, no research that we know of has studied what Africans want from processes associated with international development like foreign aid or direct investment. We thus ask what Africans want from development focusing on three key areas including (i) type of ﬁnancing, e.g., aid versus private investment (ii) purpose of project, e.g., demcoracy versus health care (iii) source of funds, e.g., western donors versus China. Hypotheses about these diﬀerent dimensions of development are presented in our paper, and to test them we conducted survey experiments in Cˆote d’Ivoire and Uganda. Results indicate that there are not strong preferences for aid versus private investment, although there is a slight preference for aid in Cˆote d’Ivoire and ﬁnance in Uganda. Purpose matters a lot as respondent’s choose a project 34% of the time in Cˆote d’Ivoire and 33% in Uganda if it promotes democracy, compared with 69% and 68% respectively if it promotes health and education. Our results further indicate that in Cˆote d’Ivoire respondents generally prefer China less as a donor, especially among female respondents, and the same is largely true for respondents in Uganda. However, when we consider preference for donor by respondent religion we ﬁnd that Muslim respondents in Cˆote d’Ivoire prefer the U.S. as a donor by more than eleven percentage points over China, while Christians prefer China by more than six percentage points over the U.S. and France. In Uganda, however, Muslims prefer China as a donor by 23 percentage points compared to the U.S., while Christian respondents prefer China least compared to other donors. We present these and further results in the paper, and conclude by discussing the broader implications of these ﬁndings and ideas for future research.
Raising the Inflation Target: What Are the Effective Gains in Policy Room?

The zero lower bound on interest rates has prompted policymakers to consider raising their inflation target to regain policy room. We show that the gains generated by this strategy are not one-to-one: Because a higher inflation target leads to a steeper Phillips curve, to effectively get, for instance, 2 percentage points of extra room, policymakers need to raise their inflation target from 2% to 5%. In fact, raising the target from 2% to 4% delivers an effective extra room significantly smaller than 2 percentage points. Taking this mechanism into consideration changes the optimal inflation target. When the natural rate is near zero, the optimal inflation target is 1 percentage point higher than the optimal target obtained by conventional, earlier, calculations.
Flore et stratigraphie du Carbonifère des Alpes françaises

work—strong tectonic deformation and frequent intrusive material obliterating fossil evidence; structural complexity as well as glacial drift over large areas—it is remarkable that Fabre, Feys, and Greber have been able to subdivide the Carboniferous succession in this area on the basis of mapping and fossil collections. Five formations are recognized, viz. the Assise de Pasquier (Namurian), Assise de la Benoite (Westphalian A), Assise de Madeleine (Westphalian B? -C), Assise de Tarentaise (Westphalian D-Stephanian A), and Assise de Courchevel (Stephanian B). Dating was effected by means of fossil flora which, although rather poor in species, permitted the recognition of Namurian and different parts of the Westphalian (and including early Stephanian) as well as the middle Stephanian. Only the Westphalian B could not be detected palaeontologi- cally, since no truly characteristic flora of this age could be found. On the other hand, there was no reason to suspect its absence, for the stratigraphie sequence appeared continuous from the Namurian upwards into Stephanian A, without any marked breaks or fundamental changes in lithology. These strata were all formed as strictly non-marine coal-measures, rather like the well-known sequence of similar age in the Saar-Lorraine coalfield of the Franco-German border region. Movements of uplift were indicated by the conglomeratic measures of the Assise de Courchevel (Stephanian B) which mapped as an unconformable formation on the older Carboniferous.
Recreational valuation of the coral diving activities at Similan island national park in Thailand

The objective of this study was to evaluate the recreational value of the coral diving activity at Similan Island National Park, Phang Nga Province. The study tool was the Individual Travel Cost Method (ITCM). The study results revealed that most of the samples, who were visitors diving to see coral reefs at Similan Island National Park, Phang Nga Province, were male, single, aged 21 – 30 years, had a bachelor’s degree, had 4-7 family members, and had income between 10,001 – 30,000 Baht per month. Most of them were students, followed by traders and business owners, respectively. Most tourists diving to visit coral reefs were not members of diving clubs or marine environmental protection clubs. By the Individual Travel Cost Method (ITCM), it was found that the recreational value of Similan Island National Park, excluding the opportunity cost, was at 26,640 Baht per person per time, a total of 1,293.42 Million Baht per annum
Gendered Effects of Minimum Wage

Women are more likely to work in jobs with low hours than men. Low-hour jobs are associated with lower hourly wages and are more likely impacted by minimum wages that set a oor on hourly wages. We document that the rst German minimum wage signi cantly increased women’s transition towards jobs with higher weekly hours. We construct and estimate an equilibrium search model with demographic and rm productivity heterogeneity. The model replicates observed gender gaps in employment, hours and wage and the positive relationship between hours and hourly wages. We implement the minimum wage in our model with a penalty to address non-compliance. Based on our model, the minimum wage primarily reduces the gender income gap through the gender wage gap. At its 2022 level, the German minimum wage reduces the gender employment and hours gap due to an upward reallocation e ect, resulting in women’s increased participation in higher-hour jobs with lower separation rates. The upward reallocation e ect is the strongest for women with children and varies by marital state and spousal income. While the minimum wage only modestly discourages rms from posting jobs, it shifts job o ers toward full-time positions. JEL Classi cations: J08, J31, J16, E24, E64
Evaluation of the usefulness of the "millimeter GPS" system for determination of elevations of points in topographic surveys

Commencement of the ASG-EUPOS national network in 2008 resulted in rapid development of utilisation of satellite technologies for topographic surveys. Surveying experiments, performed in 2008 and 2009 at the chair of Engineering Geodesy and Topographic Surveys pointed to high usefulness of the RTK technology for topographic surveys. Research works, carried out at the surveying test site close to Grybów at the Nowy Sącz District, performed with the use of NAWGEO services of the ASG-EUPOS network proved that the expected maximum mean errors of horizontal locations and the ellipsoidal elevation of points, may be of the order of approximately 0.04m and 0.06 m, respectively (Malarski et al., 2010). Considering additional errors of the quasigeoid model, the issue is to obtain the centimetre accuracy in the system of normal elevations, which is required for topographic surveys. It seems that the proposal of Topcon company, concerning the mmGPS technology (Millimeter GPS) may meet those requirements.
Theoretical and Numerical Analysis of Super-Resolution Without Grid

This thesis studies the noisy sparse spikes super-resolution problem for positive measures using the BLASSO, an infinite dimensional convex optimization problem generalizing the LASSO to measures. First, we show that the support stability of the BLASSO for N clustered spikes is governed by an object called the (2N-1)-vanishing derivatives pre-certificate. When it is non-degenerate, solving the BLASSO leads to exact support recovery of the initial measure, in a low noise regime whose size is controlled by the minimal separation distance of the spikes. In a second part, we propose the Sliding Frank-Wolfe algorithm, based on the Frank-Wolfe algorithm with an added step moving continuously the amplitudes and positions of the spikes, that solves the BLASSO. We show that, under mild assumptions, it converges in a finite number of iterations. We apply this algorithm to the 3D fluorescent microscopy problem by comparing three models based on the PALM/STORM technics.
Four decades of global surface albedo estimates in the third edition of the CLARA climate data record

We present the surface albedo data in the third edition of the CM SAF cLoud, Albedo and surface Radiation (CLARA) data record family. The temporal coverage of this edition is extended from 1979 until near-present day. The core algorithms and data format remain unchanged from previous editions, but now also white-and blue-sky albedo estimates are available for the first time in CLARA data. We present an overview of the retrieval, followed by an assessment of the accuracy and stability of the data record, based on collocated comparisons with reference surface albedo measurements and 10 intercomparisons with preceding satellite-based albedo data records. Specific attention is paid to addressing the spatial representativeness problem inherent in the point-to-pixel validation of satellite-based coarse surface albedo estimates against in situ measurements. We find the CLARA-A3 albedo data to match or improve upon the accuracy and robustness of the predecessor record (CLARA-A2), with good agreement found when compared to in situ measurements. In cases of a large bias, spatial representativeness of the measurement site typically explains most of the increase. We conclude with a 15 summarizing discussion on the observed strengths and weaknesses of the new data record, including guidance for potential users. The data is available through DOI: 10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/CLARA_AVHRR/V003.
The Economic Boundaries of Affiliated-group Firms According to The Credit Rating Agencies’ Perspective

Different management literature streams concerning Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have widely recognized the concept of foreign subsidiary autonomy as a focal point of research, while very few contributions have investigated the economic boundaries of affiliated-group entities in evaluating their level of autonomy especially from a practical point of view. This research investigates the behaviours of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) experts who face daily analysis of companies and business groups answering the following research question: How do CRAs’ experts determine the economic boundaries of the legal entities belonging to a business group? An exploratory multiple case study has been conducted on the basis of multiple data sources, literature findings, two rounds of semi-structured interviews, and publicly available documents. Findings suggest that the business group dimension plays a crucial role in defining the economic boundaries of the legal entities and as an intermediate area of research emerges between the legal entity dimension and the group itself. Furthermore, substantive aspects prevail over the formal ones and multi-business operativity, role of the subsidiaries and group governance result as the main drivers in defining these boundaries.
High-Level Strategies for Parallel Shared-Memory Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication

The sparse matrix-vector multiplication is an important computational kernel, but is hard to efficiently execute even in the sequential case. The problems--namely low arithmetic intensity, inefficient cache use, and limited memory bandwidth--are magnified as the core count on shared-memory parallel architectures increases. Existing techniques are discussed in detail, and categorized chiefly based on their distribution types. Based on this, new parallelization techniques are proposed. The theoretical scalability and memory usage of the various strategies are analyzed, and experiments on multiple NUMA architectures confirm the validity of the results. One of the newly proposed methods attains the best average result in experiments on a large set of matrices. In one of the experiments it obtains a parallel efficiency of 90 percent, while on average it performs close to 60 percent.
Firm relocation in times of economic crisis. Evidence from Gree k SMEs’ movement to Bulgaria, 2007-2014

This paper examines firm relocation in the aftermath of the 2007 global economic crisis. In particular, the paper analyzes the unprecedented recent increase in movement of small and medium enterprises from Greece to Bulgaria using original insights by a survey of 103 Greek companies in Bulgaria. The findings suggest a reconsideration of the existing literature on firm mobility in order to explain the post-crisis movement of Greek SMEs. Entrepreneurs perceived firm relocation as a necessity while, contrary to existing literature, labor cost does not appear to have significantly influenced firm exit from Greece, the level of demand was highlighted more important compared with literature findings and access to external finance emerged as a major factor. Important among elements that attracted businesspeople to Bulgaria were low taxation and geographical proximity to Greece. The present analysis thus challenges the significance of firm relocation determinants in the literature.
Factors influencing academic performance of students enrolled in a lower division Cell Biology core course

Students' performance in two semesters of our Cell Biology course was examined for this study. Teaching strategies, behaviors, and pre-course variables were analyzed with respect to students' performance. Pre-semester and post- semester surveys were administered to ascertain students' perceptions about class difficulty, amount of study and effort put into the course, and professional goals. Chi-square (χ 2 ) tests of independence showed that completion of chemistry requirements, passing the laboratory component of Cell Biology, homework, and attendance were related to passing our course. Logistic regression showed that perfect attendance followed by GPA, were the most important factors associated with passing the course.
Neotectónica del sector centro-meridional de la cuenca de Madrid

The analysis and study of geomorphological features such as: sequence and geometrical disposition of Quaternary geomorphological units; hanging valleys; captures, straight scarps; triangular facets; tilted and deformed deposits. , together with the application of geomorphic indices such as: Stream gradient index; mountain front sinuosity index and ratio of valley-floor width to valley height, all of them indicators of recent tectonic activity, constitute the basis for the realization of a neotectonic cartography. Likewise an analysis of the longitudinal profiles of the several rivers crossing across the studied area and their sinuosity, has been made. From all that, it can be deduced that during the Quaternary the neotectonic activity in the centresouthern sector of the Madrid Basin has been important, mainly during the early-middle Pleistocene transit, when the capture of the River Manzanares by a tributary of the River Jarama, is produced by the southwestward-tilting of the La Maranosa block. Most of the geomorphological features indicators of neotectonics are associated to the large gypsum scarps bounding the main rivers, and are developed troughout the whole Quaternary, including the Holocene. On the other hand the study of the longitudinal profiles of the rivers shows a marked deviation from the theoretical equilibrium profile, being all of them affected by numerous inflections which in many cases correspond to the passing of faults perpendicularly to the river floor. Likewise the sinuosity degree of the rivers is conditioned at a small scale, by the passing of faults, or tectonic activity lines, parallel or perpendicular to the valley.
On the transition from heavy traffic to heavy tails for the M/G/1 queue: The regularly varying case.

Two of the most popular approximations for the distribution of the steady-state waiting time, W∞, of the M/G/1 queue are the socalled heavy-traffic approximation and heavy-tailed asymptotic, respectively. If the traffic intensity,�, is close to 1 and the processing times have finite variance, the heavy-traffic approximation s that the distribution of W∞ is roughly exponential at scale O((1 �) −1 ), while the heavy tailed asymptotic describes power law decay in the tail of the distribution of W∞ for a fixed traffic intensity. In this paper, we assume a regularly varying processing time distribution and obtain a sharp threshold in terms of the tail value, or equivalently in terms of (1 �), that describes the point at which the tail behavior transitions from the heavy-traffic regime to the heavy-tailed asymptotic. We also provide new approximations that are either uniform in the traffic intensity, or uniform on the positive axis, that avoid the need to use different expressions on the two regions defined by the threshold. 1. Introduction. A substantial literature has been developed over the last forty years that recognizes the simplifications that arise in the analysis of queueing systems in the presence of “heavy traffic. ” The earliest such “heavy traffic” approximation was that obtained byKingman (1961, 1962) for the steady-state waiting time W∞ for the G/G/1 queue. In particular, let Wn be the waiting time (exclusive of service) of the nth customer for a first-in first-out (FIFO) single-server queue (with an infinite capacity waiting room) fed by a renewal arrival process [with i.i. d. inter-arrival times (�n:n ≥ 1)] and an independent stream of i.i. d. processing times (Vn:n ≥ 0). If � ,
On the Internal Resonances of Size-Dependent Clamped–Hinged Microbeams: Continuum Modeling and Numerical Simulations

The nonlinear forced vibrations of size-dependent clamped–hinged microbeams to fundamental excitations of respectively the first mode and second mode in the presence of three-to-one internal resonance are investigated both analytically and numerically for the first time. Equation of motion incorporating large deflection, along with the symmetric part of couple stress is derived by virtue of Hamilton’s principle. Utilizing Galerkin discretization with the first two modes, the discretized ordinary differential equations (ODEs) are then handled analytically with multi-dimensional Lindstedt–Poincaré (MDLP) method. The frequency–response relationships in the fundamental resonance for the first mode and the second mode are presented as well as compared with the classical solution. Results reveal that the size-dependent internal resonances are significantly different from the classical situation whenever it is of the first mode or the second mode. Furthermore, the influences of material length scale parameter, excitation force and damping on the performance of nonlinear system are discussed for fundamental excitation of the first order. The frequency–response relationships are illustrated for the first two modes in each case. Moreover, numerical modelings are conducted to compare to the analytical solutions. The numerical results fully support the analytical predictions. Also, simulations indicate the appearance of chaos under relatively large excitation force whether it is the vibration of the first mode or the second mode.
Workplace Heterogeneity and the Rise of West German Wage Inequality

We study the role of establishment-specific wage premiums in generating recent increases in West German wage inequality. Models with additive fixed effects for workers and establishments are fit in four distinct time intervals spanning the period 1985-2009. Unlike standard wage models, specifications with both worker and plant-level heterogeneity components can explain the vast majority of the rise in wage inequality. Our estimates suggest that the increasing variability of West German wages results from a combination of rising heterogeneity between workers, rising variability in the wage premiums at different establishments, and increasing assortativeness in the matching of workers to plants. We use the models to decompose changes in wage gaps between different education levels, occupations, and industries, and in all three cases find a growing contribution of plant heterogeneity and rising assortativeness between workers and establishments.