Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Copycat Skills and Disclosure Costs: Evidence from Peer Companies’ Digital Footprints

The empirical challenge of identifying copycats and copycatted firms in a public disclosure setting hinders our understanding of copycat behavior and proprietary costs. We tackle this challenge by tracking the digital footprints of investment companies that view peer companies’ portfolio disclosures on the SEC EDGAR website. We find that, from the voluminous information disclosed by peer firms, copycat firms can identify profitable trades that outperform other disclosed trades by 5.5% annually. Such stock-screening skills stem from their intensive research effort and timely retrieval of peers’ disclosures. More importantly, we find that the proprietary costs to the copycatted disclosing firm are not homogeneous but depend on important contexts unexplored in the prior literature. Copycats inflict greater damage to the performance of the disclosing firm when copycats are sophisticated, when disclosed trading strategies take longer to complete, and when disclosed stock holdings are characterized by high information asymmetry. Overall, our study provides new insights into copycat skills and proprietary costs, with implications for disclosure regulations and managers’ disclosure policies.
In vitro biocompatibility assessment of naturally derived and synthetic biomaterials using normal human urothelial cells.

The reconstruction of urinary tissues often employs various types of biomaterials, and adequate material biocompatibility is essential for the successful reconstruction of urinary tissues. In this study we utilized a primary normal human urothelial cell culture system to evaluate the in vitro biocompatibility of a number of naturally derived biomaterials [i.e., bladder submucosa, small intestinal submucosa, collagen, and alginate] and polymeric biomaterials [i.e., poly(glycolic acid), poly(L-lactic acid), poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), and silicone] that are either experimentally or clinically used in urinary reconstructive surgery. To determine the cytotoxic and bioactive effects of these biomaterials, the cell viability, metabolic activity, apoptotic properties, and DNA-synthesis activity were measured with four types of assays [Neutral Red, 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5diphenyl tetrazolium bromide, apoptotic activity, and tritiated thymidine incorporation assays] using extract and direct contact methods. Most of the biomaterials tested did not induce significant cytotoxic effects and exhibited normal metabolic function and cell growth in vitro. This normal primary human urothelial cell culture model is suitable for in vitro biocompatibility assessments and is able to provide information on the cell-biomaterial interactions and the ability of biomaterials to support bioactive cell functions.
Wavelet Based Multiscale Edge Preserving Segmentation Algorithm for Object Recognition and Object Tracking

Although edge detection is basic task in computer vision, its results are very important for further procedures. In order to make task of finding edges of objects more efficient, a novel approach is proposed. It uses wavelet transform of the image to detect edges and in the same time also to segment edge points. Partial segmentation of the image is performed only around edge points, which in return enables us to preserve found edges, group edges of the same object into clusters and defines shapes of objects, where edges are missing. Because we do not perform segmentation of the whole image, but use only information from segmentation of point around edges, the procedure of finding object shapes is faster and in turn the whole step of object recognition, defined by the shape, is faster.
Melatonin Receptors Trigger cAMP Production and Inhibit Chloride Movements in Nonpigmented Ciliary Epithelial Cells

Melatonin and its analog 5-MCA-NAT (5-methylcarboxyamino-N-acetyl tryptamine) are active compounds reducing intraocular pressure (IOP). This action is mediated through MT2 and the putative MT3 melatonin receptor, producing a transient reduction of IOP that lasts for a few hours and has not yet been characterized. The use of melatonin and its analog are causing a decrease in chloride efflux from rabbit nonpigmented epithelial cells (NPE), possibly explaining the decrease in IOP. Melatonin and 5-MCA-NAT inhibited rabbit NPE chloride release in a concentration-dependent manner, whereas the pD2 values were between 4.5 ± 1.2 and 4.4 ± 1.0, respectively. Melatonin hypotensive action was enhanced by the presence of MT2 antagonists, such as DH97 (N-pentanoyl-2-benzyltryptamine) and 4-P-P-DOT (4-phenyl-2-propionamidotetralin) and by the nonselective melatonin receptor antagonist luzindole. Prazosin (1.5 µM) partially reverses the melatonin action by acting as a selective MT3 antagonist. However, at 15 nM it acts as an α-adrenergic receptor antagonist, enhancing the melatonin effect. Regarding the intracellular pathways triggered by melatonin receptors, neither phospholipase C/protein kinase C pathway nor the canonical reduction of intracellular cAMP was responsible for melatonin or 5-MCA-NAT actions. On the contrary, the application of these substances produced a concentration-dependent increase of cAMP, with pD2 values of 4.6 ± 0.2 and 4.9 ± 0.7 for melatonin and 5-MCA-NAT, respectively. In summary, melatonin reduces the release of chloride concomitantly to cAMP generation. The reduction of Cl− secretion accounts for a decrease in the water outflow and therefore a decrease in aqueous humor production. This could be one of the main mechanisms responsible for the reduction of IOP after application of melatonin and 5-MCA-NAT.
A Standardized Approach to Performing the Action Research Arm Test

The study of stroke and its treatment in human subjects requires accurate measurement of behavioral status. Arm motor deficits are among the most common sequelae after stroke. The Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) is a reliable, valid measure of arm motor status after stroke. This test has established value for characterizing clinical state and for measuring spontaneous and therapy-induced recovery; however, sufficient details have not been previously published to allow for performance of this scale in a standardized manner over time and across sites. Such an approach to ARAT scoring would likely reduce variance between investigators and sites. This report therefore includes a manual that provides a highly detailed and standardized approach for assigning ARAT scores. Intrarater reliability and interrater reliability, as well as validity, with this approach were measured and are excellent. The ARAT, when performed in a standardized manner, is a useful tool for assessment of arm motor deficits after stroke.
Quality of dying in a New Zealand teaching hospital

Objective: Studies suggest that there is a need to improve the way we deliver care at the end of life. Based on recommendations from end-of-life experts, metrics were identified to measure the quality of dying in Dunedin Hospital. Design: A retrospective observational study was performed to assess the care provided to patients who died in the hospital in 2003. Setting: Dunedin Hospital is a 350-bed tertiary care teaching hospital located in the South Island of New Zealand. Subjects and method: Medical records of 200 consecutive decedents were reviewed to evaluate communication, interventions, and symptom control during their terminal hospitalisation. Results: Mean hospital length-of-stay was 8 days; 38 patients (19%) died following an ICU admission. There was documentation of end-of-life discussion with either the patient or the family in 164 patients (82%). 74% had a DNR order. Pain status was documented in 140 patients (70%); 134 of these patients were pain-free. Conclusion: Overall, the results suggest that the ideals in end-of-life care pertaining to pain control, communication and avoidance of unnecessary interventions were achieved in a majority of the decedents during the study period. The socialised healthcare system, the availability of resources, societal expectations and a lack of a litigious environment are theorised to positively influence end-of-life care delivery in New Zealand.
Can import promotion increase export performance in times of global value chains? Firm-level evidence from Russia

This paper analyzes whether access to imported intermediate goods can raise export performance of Russian firms. We employ an instrumental variable strategy which exploits variation in firm-specific input tariffs to identify the effect of imported intermediates on firm exports during the period 20072013, utilizing a unique firm-level database on firm characteristics and customs declarations. We find that input tariff reductions can raise firm exports significantly, as can other measures aimed at increasing imports of intermediate goods of exporting firms in Russia. Import promotion targeted at exporting firms in high-tech sectors can be up to three times more effective. Better access to imports can also help increase the currently low share of exporting firms within the Russian enterprise landscape. Our results suggest that with the rising globalization and fragmentation of production processes, countries interested in raising exports need to think strategically of promoting imports as well. We propose and discuss several policy measures for Russia in the areas of tariff regulation, non-tariff measures, trade facilitation and trade integration.
E-Commerce Development and Household Consumption Growth in China

China has quickly become the largest e-commerce market in the world. By matching a nationally representative China Family Panel Studies survey with county-level e-commerce information obtained from Alibaba, this paper examines how e-commerce development has shaped household consumption growth in China. The paper presents three major findings. First, e-commerce development is associated with higher consumption growth. Second, the relationship is stronger for the rural sample, inland regions, and poor households, suggesting that e-commerce development helps reduce spatial inequality in consumption. Third, the consumption of durable goods and in-style goods has grown faster than the consumption of local services.
Preface to the Fourth Edition

During the time since the last edition, the software development went on, and therefore it was necessary to adapt the text according to the actual program versions which were also tested to work properly under MS Windows 10. A few options which are obsolete nowadays were removed, some new options were added, handling of the software was simplified in several places, and so on. For the use of own images taken with a custom digital camera, a new chapter offers an easy way of lens calibration and explains how to get good results with a minimal work. Nevertheless, the general structure and the aims of this book remain unchanged: Step by step the reader is led through several tutorials to see and learn the basics of photogrammetric processing. Like in the previous editions, not only the input data but also the intermediate and final results are presented, so that it is possible to skip parts of a tutorial and go on with a later state. The software and the data are no more delivered on CD-ROM but are available in a server: Just go to extras.springer. com and key in the ISBN number of this book. Many thanks to Mrs. Angela Rennwanz (University of Düsseldorf) for her help with the layout of this book!
Social media influencers - shaping consumption culture among Malaysian youth

This study reveals the significance of social networking sites (SNS) that created vast opportunities for cultural awareness and consumption among youth SNS users in Malaysia. Simplicity and user-friendly features on Instagram had heightened interest and growth of its users where the ability to “hashtag” on Instagram identifies current trends based on user-generated images and videos that enable users to generate search results instantaneously. Researchers have argued that SNS users at present trust peer recommendations more than search engines and this phenomenon is evident from their resonance with “social media influencers” (SMIs) who are capable of influencing massive followers through reviews of products, services and social trends on their social media accounts; particularly on dining out and “cafehopping” as a social experience. This study examined the curation of Instagram posts by SMIs and found that their visibility of content created shared voices and reinforced cultural identities among their followers. The content analysis deployed in this study also investigated feedback on the selected SMI’s curation of posts and established that peer engagement is a tangible socialization process that would contribute to the youths’ future use of Instagram as a social, cultural and educational tool.
Will Tenure Voting Give Corporate Managers Lifetime Tenure?

Dual-class voting systems have been widely employed in recent initial public offerings by large tech companies, but have been roundly condemned by institutional investors and the S&P 500. As an alternative, commentators have proposed adoption of tenure voting systems, where investor voting rights increase with the length of time that they hold shares. In furtherance of this proposal, some Silicon Valley investors have requested that the SEC permit the creation of a new stock exchange where all of the companies will be required to use tenure voting systems. Is tenure voting a better choice than dual-class stock for both corporate management and shareholders? In this paper, we review the arguments for and against tenure voting that have been made in the literature. In order to shed light on these claims veracity, we generate the first data base that documents institutional investor portfolio turnover rates for stock. We use this data to inform our mathematical voting model of tenure voting to show how its adoption would affect control rights within the corporation. We make two main findings that shed light on this question. First, we show that when corporate management holds a large block of company stock prior to the implementation of tenure voting, and retains at least 20-30% of the total number of company shares on a long term basis, then tenure voting will insure that corporate managers maintain control of the company even in the face of an attempted change of control transaction by a highly motivated dissident shareholder. Our second important finding is that if corporate management chooses to sell off its large initial block of the company’s stock over time, so that inside ownership levels drop eventually down to a low percentage level with the majority of ownership held by institutional shareholders with different investment horizons, then the use of tenure voting systems does little to protect management control in a proxy contest for corporate control. We conclude that tenure voting does indeed represent an intermediate form of voting control from a managers’ perspective: it does not guarantee management control, as dual-class share structures do, but does give control to management who maintain large equity stakes in the firm. Institutional investors are likely to see it as an improvement over dual-class stock structures in terms of giving them corporate governance rights, although less advantageous to these shareholders’ rights than a one share, one vote voting system.
Growth strategies and rural transformations in Bhutan: an institutional analysis

The development objectives of the 21 century to reduce poverty globally are at the root of the work on pro-poor growth. A growing literature has recently emerged on how economic growth can be sustained by inclusiveness and how inclusiveness can help reducing income inequality gaps. With the change in paradigm, new concerns on the equity component of the growth approach to poverty reduction and serious doubts of its capacity to tackle distributional issues and asymmetries of power also emerged. The objective of this introductory section is to show how the focus on growth has shifted from poverty reduction towards encouraging productive participation, productivity growth and therefore structural transformations. 1.1 From pro-poor growth to inclusive growth There is an active debate about the shift in paradigm from pro-poor growth to inclusive growth, particularly on whether inclusive growth can be considered an effective advancement or a regressive step in understanding the processes of economic growth and its relationships with poverty reduction and inequality. Equity and participation in the growth process are the main issues highlighted in the debate, together with the challenge of getting a clear and operational definition of the new concept (McKinley, 2009 and 2010; Saad-Filho, 2011; Ranieri and Ramos, 2013a). One of the main highlights is the multidimensionality attached to the concept of inclusive growth. While pro-poor growth literature is mainly based on unidimensional outcomes by focusing almost exclusively on income and on the relationship between economic growth, income poverty and income distribution, inclusive growth is more widely understood as multidimensional and embracing the notion of economic participation, structural transformations and
Fabrication of Stacked  ${\rm NbN}/{\rm TiN}_{\rm x}/{\rm NbN}$ Josephson Junctions Using an Inductively Coupled Plasma Etching Technique

Vertical stacks of up to five NbN/TiNx/NbN junctions were fabricated using an inductively coupled plasma etching technique. The spread in critical currents at junctions in the fabricated stacks was measured as a function of the number of junctions in a stack N and the thickness of the intermediate NbN electrodes. Stacks with thin intermediate electrodes (d = 20 nm) and N greater than 3 exhibited large spreads of critical currents, whereas stacks with thick intermediate electrodes (d = 50 nm) showed small spreads. The I - V curve for a stack of five NbN/TiNx/NbN junctions with 50-nm-thick intermediate electrodes indicated that the critical currents in those junctions were almost identical.
An epidemiological model of host–parasite coevolution and sex

The Red Queen hypothesis posits a promising way to explain the widespread existence of sexual reproduction despite the cost of producing males. The essence of the hypothesis is that coevolutionary interactions between hosts and parasites select for the genetic diversification of offspring via cross‐fertilization. Here, I relax a common assumption of many Red Queen models that each host is exposed to one parasite. Instead, I assume that the number of propagules encountered by each host depends on the number of infected hosts in the previous generation, which leads to additional complexities. The results suggest that epidemiological feedbacks, combined with frequency‐dependent selection, could lead to the long‐term persistence of sex under biologically reasonable conditions.
The effects of knee extensor eccentric training on functional tests in healthy subjects.

BACKGROUND It is well known that eccentric training increases muscle strength and promotes greater neural activation, and therefore has been used in the recovery of knee extensors. The hypothesis of this study was that there would be a strong correlation between knee extensor torque and functional tests. OBJECTIVES To investigate the relationship between knee extensor peak torque and functional tests of agility (runs) and propulsion (hop for distance) after short-term isokinetic eccentric training. METHODS Twenty healthy and active male undergraduate students (age 22.5 ± 2.1 years; height 1.72 ± 0.10 m; weight 67.8 ± 9.5 kg; body mass index: 22.5 ± 2.0 kg/m²), with no abnormalities or history of injury of the limbs, performed an isokinetic assessment of the knee extensors and flexors and also functional tests before and after isokinetic training, which consisted of 3 sets of 10 MVECs at 30º/s, with 3 minutes of rest between sets, twice a week for 6 weeks. RESULTS The eccentric training increased the extensor peak torque (16, 27 and 17%; P<0.01) and decreased the H/Q ratio (10, 20 and 13%; P<0.01) for the isometric and eccentric modes at 30°/s and 120°/s, respectively. It also decreased the time in two of the five agility tests (carioca and pivot diagonal; P<0.01), and increased the distance in the hop tests, for both dominant and non-dominant limbs (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Although the eccentric training led to an increase in extensor peak torques as well as an improvement in most of the functional tests, the hypothesis that a strong correlation would be observed between peak torques and functional tests was not confirmed. Article registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) under the number 12607000590460.
HVDC technology overview and new European network codes requirements

The number of operating High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnections is continuously increasing worldwide. This paper presents an overview of HVDC systems in Italy, including operating and planned links. The different technology solutions, in particular Half Bridge Voltage Source Converter (HB-VSC) and Line Commutated Converter (LCC) are compared considering the pros and cons of the two options. One case study about possible new SACOI (Sardinia-Corsica-Italy HVDC link) is described considering both technologies. This case underlines the effects in the voltage control in the Sardinian grid. Another focus here presented is the new scenario after 2019, with the entry into force of the Network Code of High Voltage Direct Current related to the EC 2016/1447 law.
Secure group communications using key graphs

Many emerging network applications are based upon a group communications model. As a result, securing group communications, i.e., providing confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity of messages delivered between group members, will become a critical networking issue. We present, in this paper, a novel solution to the scalability problem of group/multicast key management. We formalize the notion of a secure group as a triple (U,K,R) where U denotes a set of users, K a set of keys held by the users, and R a user-key relation. We then introduce key graphs to specify secure groups. For a special class of key graphs, we present three strategies for securely distributing rekey messages after a join/leave and specify protocols for joining and leaving a secure group. The rekeying strategies and join/leave protocols are implemented in a prototype key server we have built. We present measurement results from experiments and discuss performance comparisons. We show that our group key management service, using any of the three rekeying strategies, is scalable to large groups with frequent joins and leaves. In particular, the average measured processing time per join/leave increases linearly with the logarithm of group size.
Their Children during the HIV Disclosure Process in Kenya

The aim of this research brief is to summarize a case report study that described an HIVpositive married couple’s poor disclosure experience of their illnesses to all their children in the household. It is important to communicate this couple’s HIV disclosure experience to healthcare professionals so that they are aware of the problems that can occur if married or cohabiting couples do not collaborate with each other during the disclosure process. The data presented in the case report study and in this research brief should be used to provide targeted counseling to HIV-positive parents or cohabiting couples considering disclosure to their children.
Saliency-preserving video compression

In region-of-interest (ROI) video coding, the part of the frame designated as ROI is encoded with higher quality relative to the rest of the frame. At low bit rates, coding artifacts in non-ROI parts of the frame may become salient and draw user's attention away from ROI, thereby degrading visual quality. In this paper we propose a saliency-preserving framework for ROI video coding. This approach aims at reducing attention-grabbing visual artifacts in non-ROI parts of the frame in order to keep user's attention on ROI. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is able to improve the visual quality of ROI video at low bit rates.