Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How Patterns of Past Guidance Provision Affect Investor Judgments: The Joint Effect of Guidance Frequency and Guidance Pattern Consistency

ABSTRACT: Theory suggests that the provision of voluntary disclosure, in itself, is informative to investors, but prior empirical research largely focuses on investors' reaction to the content of disclosure. We extend the literature on earnings guidance by experimentally examining how investors react to a firm's historical pattern of guidance provision, holding constant guidance content. We manipulate two dimensions of guidance provision—how often guidance is provided (frequency), and whether guidance is provided for the same quarter(s) across consecutive years (pattern consistency). We find that consistency positively impacts investors' confidence and likelihood of investing because investors associate consistency with lesser managerial opportunism, but consistency matters only when frequency is low. Our results shed light on an important dimension of guidance provision unexamined in prior research—guidance consistency—and highlight when it can influence investor judgments even when key elements of a fir.
Carbon Nanotubes: An Emerging Drug Carrier for Targeting Cancer Cells

During recent years carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been attracted by many researchers as a drug delivery carrier. CNTs are the third allotropic form of carbon-fullerenes which were rolled into cylindrical tubes. To be integrated into the biological systems, CNTs can be chemically modified or functionalised with therapeutically active molecules by forming stable covalent bonds or supramolecular assemblies based on noncovalent interactions. Owing to their high carrying capacity, biocompatibility, and specificity to cells, various cancer cells have been explored with CNTs for evaluation of pharmacokinetic parameters, cell viability, cytotoxicty, and drug delivery in tumor cells. This review attempts to highlight all aspects of CNTs which render them as an effective anticancer drug carrier and imaging agent. Also the potential application of CNT in targeting metastatic cancer cells by entrapping biomolecules and anticancer drugs has been covered in this review.
Analysis and Simulation of the Dynamic Spectrum Allocation Based on Parallel Immune Optimization in Cognitive Wireless Networks

Spectrum allocation is one of the key issues to improve spectrum efficiency and has become the hot topic in the research of cognitive wireless network. This paper discusses the real-time feature and efficiency of dynamic spectrum allocation and presents a new spectrum allocation algorithm based on the master-slave parallel immune optimization model. The algorithm designs a new encoding scheme for the antibody based on the demand for convergence rate and population diversity. For improving the calculating efficiency, the antibody affinity in the population is calculated in multiple computing nodes at the same time. Simulation results show that the algorithm reduces the total spectrum allocation time and can achieve higher network profits. Compared with traditional serial algorithms, the algorithm proposed in this paper has better speedup ratio and parallel efficiency.
Designing Stepped Impedance Microstrip Low-Pass Filters Using Artificial Neural Network at 1.8 GHz

In this paper a design technique for a Stepped impedance Micro strip Low-pass filters is presented by using the artificial neural network (ANN) modeling method. Required dimensions of the micro strip filter layout are used to get the input-output relationships in the ANN model. This paper presents the design and analysis of Stepped impedance Micro strip Low-pass filters at cut-off frequency 1.8 GHz which gives insertion loss (S21) of-3 dB at cut-off point. Subsequently an artificial neural network model is developed to find out the Magnitude variation of scattering parameters (S-parameters) of Micro strip Low-pass filters at 1.8 GHz for different dimensions. After developing the ANN model of micro strip low-pass filter, it is computationally more efficient in the design and it has been displayed to be as accurate as an Electromagnetic simulator. The simulation is performed using the commercial software IE3D 14.1 and MATLAB programming language GUI Tools are used for ANN Training.
Projecting to a Slow Manifold: Singularly Perturbed Systems and Legacy Codes

We consider dynamical systems possessing an attracting, invariant "slow manifold" that can be parameterized by a few observable variables. We present a procedure that, given a process for integrating the system step by step and a set of values of the observables, finds the values of the remaining system variables such that the state is close to the slow manifold to some desired accuracy. It should be noted that this is not equivalent to "integrating down to the manifold" since the latter process may significantly change the values of the observables. We consider problems whose solution has a singular perturbation expansion, although we do not know what it is nor have any way to compute it (because the system is not necessarily expressed in a singular perturbation form). We show in this paper that, under some conditions, computing the values of the remaining variables so that their (m + 1)st time derivatives are zero provides an estimate of the unknown variables that is an mth-order approximation to a poin.
The Effects of Arrest, Reporting to the Police, and Victim Services on Intimate Partner Violence

Objectives: To estimate the effects of three types of responses to intimate partner violence: (1) reporting of crime to the police, (2) arresting the suspect, and (3) receiving services from agencies other than the police that assist victims of crime. Methods: We obtained a nationally representative sample of 2,221 victims, using longitudinal records from the area-identified National Crime Victimization Survey from 1996 through 2012. To reduce the threat of nonrandom selection into treatment, we estimated effects using propensity score matched and weighted survival analysis. Results: Victims’ probability of repeat victimization is not related to arrest (hazard ratio, 0.87; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.55 to 1.40; p = .57). In contrast, the reporting of crime to the police is associated with a 34 percent reduction in the risk of repeat victimization (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95 percent CI, 0.53 to 0.82; p < .001), and the use of victim services is associated with a 40 percent reduction in the risk of repeat victimization (hazard ratio, 0.60; 95 percent CI, 0.44 to 0.83; p < .01). Conclusions: The results support a model in which the deterrent effect of arrest is not substantively important, but police notification and victim-centered services produce important reductions in repeat victimization.
Sources of Dualism in Modern Rationalist Thought: Implications for Islamic Economics

This paper follows on from the previous one in this series on the incursion of rationalist thought into Christendom. In this paper, I show how the sequence of socio-political events in Europe at the turn of the 16th century provided an opportunistic environment for rationalism to supplant religion as the dominant paradigm for human thought. It gave birth to the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and their nemesis, the Romantic Movement. All of them sought to assert the primacy of human agency in the process of knowledge generation. But from inception, scientific thought itself was split between the competing claims of both intellectualism and empiricism. After discussing the key features of each episteme, I show how despite considerable efforts in the occidental world to reconcile this bifurcation, none has produced a satisfying synthesis. This dichotomy now abides not only within the individual psyche but also across the entirety of the socio-scientific enterprise and all of its institutions and artefacts. Its implications have been previously described as a watershed in the history of humankind, instituting an intellectual crisis of great import. More importantly for this study, I then juxtapose some of these outcomes vis-A -vis the agenda of Islamic economics and finance, to demonstrate the inherent dissonance between the two systems of thought. Lastly, I introduce the reader to the third and last part of this study, to appear in another edition of this series, where I demonstrate that when mainstream economics fell under the grip of rationalist philosophy, it suffered, as a result, the same fate of atomisation and methodological individualism
Edinburgh Research Explorer Using automatically labelled examples to classify rhetorical relations: an assessment

Being able to identify which rhetorical relations (e.g., contrast or explanation ) hold between spans of text is important for many natural language processing applications. Using machine learning to obtain a classiﬁer which can distinguish between diﬀerent relations typically depends on the availability of manually labelled training data, which is very time-consuming to create. However, rhetorical relations are sometimes lexically marked, i.e., signalled by discourse markers (e.g., because , but , consequently etc.), and it has been suggested (Marcu and Echihabi, 2002) that the presence of these cues in some examples can be exploited to label them automatically with the corresponding relation. The discourse markers are then removed and the automatically labelled data are used to train a classiﬁer to determine relations even when no discourse marker is present (based on other linguistic cues such as word co-occurrences). In this paper, we investigate empirically how feasible this approach is. In particular, we test whether automatically labelled, lexically marked examples are really suitable training material for classiﬁers that are then applied to unmarked examples. Our results suggest that training on this type of data may not be such a good strategy, as models trained in this way do not seem to generalise very well to unmarked data. Furthermore, we found some evidence that this behaviour is largely independent of the classiﬁers used and seems to lie in the data itself (e
Effects of estrogen in an aged animal model of stroke

Effects of Estrogen in an Aged Animal Model of Stroke Rachel L. León In 2000, approximately 10 million women were taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for alleviation of menopausal symptoms. A number of prior animal studies also suggested that HRT may be neuroprotective and cardioprotective as well. Although estrogen is neuroprotective in young adult animal models of stroke, clinical trials demonstrate that estrogen increases the incidence and severity of stroke in aged women. We have previously shown that experimental stroke pathophysiology differs between young adult and aged rats. In the first study, we show that aged rats treated with 17! -estradiol had significantly increased infarct volumes compared to placebo-treated aged rats. Young adult rats treated with 17! -estradiol had significantly decreased infarct volumes and functional outcome compared to ovariectomized young adult rats. Aged female rats treated with 17! -estradiol had decreased post-ischemic GFAP-positive astrocytes and altered astrocyte morphology. In the second study, we investigate a potential mechanism involved in the deleterious effects of estrogen in the aged female rat brain. In rats chronically supplemented with estrogen or placebo, we measure a significant reduction in erythropoietin (EPO) receptor mRNA in the ischemic cortex following transient occlusion of the middle cerebral artery. We also observe decreased EPO-receptor protein expression in the penumbral cortex and striatum using immunohistochemical techniques. In a second group of rats, we confirm that EPO administration attenuates estrogen-induced increase in infarct volume, and is accompanied by decreased expression of ER" in the ischemic penumbra. In the third study, we assess hippocampal-dependent memory using the 8-arm radial maze in young adult and aged female rats following middle cerebral artery occlusion with fibrin clot and tissue plasminogen activator reperfusion. Aged rats required greater number of sessions to become trained and had increased trial duration, suggesting reduced locomotor activity. Although baseline differences in reference and working memory errors were observed, they did not reach significance. Following MCAO, no significant differences were found in reference or working memory errors between young adult and aged rats. Finally, we investigate the effects of estrogen supplementation on structure and function of lacrimal and Meibomian glands in aged female rats. Following 90 days of estrogen supplementation in aged female rats, a reduction in tear volume and tear break up time in estrogen treated rats was accompanied by increased connective tissue fibrosis in both extraorbital and intraorbital lacrimal glands and reduced acinar lumen in the intraorbital lacrimal glands. These functional and structural changes are likely mediated by ER", as estrogen treatment led to upregulation of ER" expression in lacrimal and Meibomian glands.
Software Model‐based Performance Analysis

The chapter starts with a brief review of performance modelling formalisms and a discussion of the performance annotations that need to be added to UML software models in order to enable performance analysis. The principles for transforming annotated software models into performance models are presented next. Such model transformations must bridge a large semantic gap between the source and the target model; hence a pivot model is often used. An example of such a transformation is given, from UML extended with the MARTE profile to the Layered Queueing Network performance model. The role of an intermediate pivot language named Core Scenario Model is also discussed. The chapter ends with a discussion of lesson learned and future challenges for integrating the analysis of multiple non-functional properties in the context of MDE.
Exposing Digital Forgeries by Detecting Duplicated Image Regions Exposing Digital Forgeries by Detecting Duplicated Image Regions

We describe an efﬁcient technique that automatically detects duplicated regions in a digital image. This technique works by ﬁrst applying a principal component analysis to small ﬁxed-size image blocks to yield a reduced dimension representation. This representation is robust to minor variations in the image due to additive noise or lossy compression. Duplicated regions are then detected by lexicographically sorting all of the image blocks. We show the efﬁcacy of this technique on credible forgeries, and quantify its robustness and sensitivity to additive noise and lossy JPEG compression.
Reducing Over-Weighting in Supervised Term Weighting for Sentiment Analysis

Recently the research on supervised term weighting has attracted growing attention in the field of Traditional Text Categorization (TTC) and Sentiment Analysis (SA). Despite their impressive achievements, we show that existing methods more or less suffer from the problem of over-weighting. Overlooked by prior studies, over-weighting is a new concept proposed in this paper. To address this problem, two regularization techniques, singular term cutting and bias term, are integrated into our framework of supervised term weighting schemes. Using the concepts of over-weighting and regularization, we provide new insights into existing methods and present their regularized versions. Moreover, under the guidance of our framework, we develop a novel supervised term weighting scheme, regularized entropy (re). The proposed framework is evaluated on three datasets widely used in SA. The experimental results indicate that our re enjoys the best results in comparisons with existing methods, and regularization techniques can significantly improve the performances of existing supervised weighting methods.
The Evolutionary Ecology of Cooperation & Conflict: A case study of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland

The evolution of large-scale cooperation in humans presents one of the most crucial evolutionary puzzles yet to be solved. Two theoretical frameworks - inclusive fitness and cultural group selection – have been proposed to explain this evolutionary dilemma. Inclusive fitness theory expects individuals to behave according to an individual fitness maximising strategy, which varies with individual and ecological parameters. Cultural group selection proposes that inter-group competition permits the evolution of group beneficial traits, such as altruism, through the differential survival and reproduction of groups. Empirically, a cultural group selection framework has yet to be accurately tested. Studies measuring cooperative behaviour tend to rely on economic games - whose real world validity is increasingly being questioned - and fail to distinguish between different targets of cooperative behaviour (i.e. out-group, in-group or unbiased). The main aims of this thesis are to empirically test cultural group selection theories on the evolution of cooperation through inter-group conflict and religion, and to determine how ecological and individual characteristics affect the variation in cooperative behaviour. I use naturalistic measures of cooperation (donations, lost letters, dropped coins and lost tourist experiments) to quantify the variation in the cooperative behaviour of Catholics and Protestants - two endogamous groups with an on-going and long history of violent conflict - in a sample of different neighbourhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Overall, I find that conflict and religiosity do not increase cooperative behaviour towards the in-group, with individual and neighbourhood socio-economic characteristics being the main positive predictors of cooperation across all the measures. These findings challenge the current cultural group selection perspectives on the origins of human cooperation and highlight the importance of using real world measures of cooperation to empirically test theories on the evolution of cooperation.
Does a "Better" Employee Have Gender? : Women and Men Differences in OCBs and CWBs

Key findings. It emerges that while citizenship is the “core” organisational behaviour for women, counterproductivity is for men, and there are different antecedents for both types of behaviour, depending on the gender. Women’s OCBs could be increased by elevation of their job satisfaction and remuneration. Men’s OCBs depends on job satisfaction that does not rely on salary. Men’s CWBs depend on citizenship performance, but women’s CWBs are not related to any factors included in our models. Considering citizenship and counterproductivity, both women and men differ rather in specific behaviours than in the dimensions of OCBs and CWBs. The results could be useful in building employees’ motivational programs.
An Empirical Study of Energy Consumption in Distributed Simulations

Power and energy consumption are important concerns in the design of high performance and mobile computing systems, but have not been widely considered in the design of parallel and distributed simulations. The importance of these factors is discussed and metrics for power and energy overhead in parallel and distributed simulations are proposed. Factors affecting the energy consumed by synchronization algorithms and software architectures are examined. An experimental study is presented examining energy consumption of the well-known Chandy/Misra/Bryant algorithm executing on a peer-to-peer mobile computing platform and compared with a centralized client-server approach using the YAWNS synchronization algorithm. Initial results concerning queueing network simulations are also presented. The results of this study suggest that existing distributed simulation algorithms require a significant amount of additional energy compared to a sequential execution. Further, different synchronization algorithms can yield different energy consumption behaviors.
Mapping of H.264 decoding on a multiprocessor architecture

Due to the increasing significance of development costs in the competitive domain of high-volume consumer electronics, generic solutions are required to enable reuse of the design effort and to increase the potential market volume. As a result from this, Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) contain a growing amount of fully programmable media processing devices as opposed to application-specific systems, which offered the most attractive solutions due to a high performance density. The following motivates this trend. First, SoCs are increasingly dominated by their communication infrastructure and embedded memory, thereby making the cost of the functional units less significant. Moreover, the continuously growing design costs require generic solutions that can be applied over a broad product range. Hence, powerful programmable SoCs are becoming increasingly attractive. However, to enable power-efficient designs, that are also scalable over the advancing VLSI technology, parallelism should be fully exploited. Both task-level and instruction-level parallelism can be provided by means of e.g. a VLIW multiprocessor architecture. To provide the above-mentioned scalability, we propose to partition the data over the processors, instead of traditional functional partitioning. An advantage of this approach is the inherent locality of data, which is extremely important for communication-efficient software implementations. Consequently, a software implementation is discussed, enabling e.g. SD resolution H.264 decoding with a two-processor architecture, whereas High-Definition (HD) decoding can be achieved with an eight-processor system, executing the same software. Experimental results show that the data communication considerably reduces up to 65% directly improving the overall performance. Apart from considerable improvement in memory bandwidth, this novel concept of partitioning offers a natural approach for optimally balancing the load of all processors, thereby further improving the overall speedup.
Multilevel Performance Analysis of Scenario Specification for a Presence System

A mechanism for positioning on a dock vertical wall a fender including spaced openings, the mechanism comprising a movable support, a first arm pivotally attached to the movable support, a first hydraulic cylinder piston rod assembly for pivoting the first arm, a second arm pivotally attached to the first arm, means for pivoting said second arm, a plurality of spaced projections attached to and extending from the second arm, and pins for releasably securing the projections in the spaced openings in the fender. And a method for positioning on a dock vertical wall fenders including spaced openings opposite an attaching surface, the method comprising the steps of positioning the fender so the spaced openings are accessible, releasably fastening a fender moving mechanism in the openings, locating the fender so the attaching surface is generally vertical, locating the fender on the dock vertical wall, attaching the fender attaching surface to the dock vertical wall, and releasing the fender moving mechanism.