Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Critique of Factor Analysis of Interest Rates

Term structure models typically attempt to explain the full range of observed fluctuation in the yield curve with a small number of independent factors. Factor analysis, a common tool in this effort, generally shows that three factors capture a large proportion of the variation in the curve. The first (most important) factor applies across all maturities and reflects the level of yields; the second affects the slope of the yield curve; and the third relates to its curvature. In this article, Lekkos argues that much of the apparent explanatory power of this factor structure may be an artifact induced by the arbitrage relationship that requires a given spot rate to equal the average of the forward rates over that maturity. Factor analysis on spot rates in four major countries shows that three factors explain about 97% of the variance in each case, but the fit with forward rates is distinctly less good. Lekkos then demonstrates that even in a simulated economy with completely independent forward rates, as long as spot rates are arbitrage-free and equal to averages of the relevant forward rates, standard factor analysis produces a factor structure that explains over 90% of overall yield variation, and loadings on the individual factors that closely resemble the patterns found for the actual markets.
A No-Arbitrage Analysis of Macroeconomic Determinants of Term Structures and the Exchange Rate

We study the joint dynamics of macroeconomic variables, bond yields, and the exchange rate in an empirical two-country New-Keynesian model complemented with a no-arbitrage term structure model. With Canadian and US data, we are able to study the impact of macroeconomic shocks from both countries on their yield curves and the exchange rate. The variance decomposition of the yield level shows that the US monetary policy and aggregate supply shocks explain a majority of the unconditional variations in Canadian yields. They also explain up to 50% of the variations in the expected excess holding period returns of Canadian bonds. In addition, Canadian monetary policy shocks explain more than 70% of the variations in Canadian yields over short and medium forecast horizons. It also explains around 40% of the expected excess holding period returns of Canadian bonds. Both Canadian and US macroeconomic shocks help explain the dynamics of the exchange rate and the time-varying exchange risk premium.
Fibrils with parallel in-register structure constitute a major class of amyloid fibrils: molecular insights from electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy

Abstract The deposition of amyloid- and amyloid-like fibrils is the main pathological hallmark of numerous protein misfolding diseases including Alzheimer's disease, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, and type 2 diabetes. Besides the well-established role in disease, recent work on a variety of organisms ranging from bacteria to humans suggests that amyloid fibrils can also convey biological functions. To better understand the molecular mechanisms by which amyloidogenic proteins misfold in disease or perform biological functions, structural information is essential. Although high-resolution structural analysis of amyloid fibrils has been challenging, a combination of biophysical approaches is beginning to unravel the various structural features of amyloid fibrils. Here we review these recent developments with particular emphasis on amyloid fibrils that have been studied using site-directed spin labeling and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. This approach has been used to define the precise location of fibril-forming core regions and identify local secondary structures within such core regions. Perhaps one of the most remarkable findings arrived at by site-directed spin labeling was that most fibrils that contain an extensive core region of ∼20 amino acids or more share a common parallel in-register arrangement of β strands. The preference for this arrangement can be explained on topological grounds and may be rationalized by the maximization of hydrophobic contact surface.
Job embeddedness among migrants: fit and links without sacrifice

Australian employers are increasingly reliant on migrants, but turnover among migrants is significantly higher than turnover among Australian-born workers. Job embeddedness theory emphasises the role of employee attachment in understanding retention. We interviewed migrants to learn the different kinds of attachments they created on- and off-the-job. Migrants generated on- and off-the-job fit and links using strategies suggested by job embeddedness theory, but they also actively increased cultural distance from their countries of origin, used spiritual similarity to create attachments at work and engaged with their communities by hosting social gatherings. However, in contrast to predictions from job embeddedness theory, good fit and many links were not accompanied by a sense of sacrifice – migrants perceived few costs associated with leaving their employers and communities. We use these results to suggest ways in which organisations might be able to increase the embeddedness of their migrant employees.
Association of Helicobacter pylori Infection with the Development of Colorectal Polyps and Colorectal Carcinoma

Background and Aims: Recent studies have suggested a possible association between Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection and colon neoplasia. HP infection causes hypergastrinemia, and gastrin increases colorectal mucosal proliferation, potentially leading to colorectal cancer. We investigated whether HP infection is associated with colon neoplasia. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional, single-center study in which patients who underwent routine outpatient colonoscopy and were tested for HP infection on esophagogastroduodenoscopy from January 1, 2008 to November 1, 2009 were identified. Patient demographic data (gender and age) and information on colon polyp characteristics (size, number of polyps, location, morphology, and histology) were abstracted from retrospective chart review. Presence of adenoma/carcinoma was compared in the HP-positive cases and HP-negative controls. Results: A total of 192 patients were included in the study, with 96 patients each in the HP-positive and -negative groups. The two groups did not differ significantly in gender, age, polyp size, number of polyps, polyp location, morphology, and histology. Adenomatous colon polyps were noted in 31% of the HP-positive cases and in 26% of the HP-negative controls (P = 0.52). Colon carcinoma was found in 6% of HP-positive and 2% of HP-negative patients (P = 0.28). Conclusion: The higher prevalence of adenomatous colon polyps/carcinoma in HP-positive patients compared to HP-negative patients was not statistically significant. Larger studies are needed to examine further the potential association between HP infection and colorectal adenoma/carcinoma.
Taxation Statistics and Income Inequality in Australia: 1955-56 to 1974-75

Sociological approaches to inequality, and to social problems in general, can be dichotomised into competing schools of thought: ’order’ or ’functionalism’ versus ’conflict’ or ’Marxian’ social theory (Horton, 1966). Both sets are closely aligned with different traditions in economics ; the first with ’neo-classical’ theory and the latter with ’neo-Ricardian’ economics (Berry, 1977: 18-54). Income inequality in functionalism is part of the natural social order. What one receives
A Study of the Impact of Travel Inhibitors on the Likelihood of Travelers' Revisiting Thailand

Abstract This study examined the impact of travel inhibitors on the likelihood of travelers in revisiting Thailand. A questionnaire survey was given to more than 510 randomly selected international travelers at Bangkok International Airport. A logistic regression was used to identify the impact of travel inhibitors on the likelihood of revisiting. It was found that “travel barrier” was the only significant attribute that had a negative impact on the likelihood of revisiting. It was also found that there were significant differences in the travel inhibitors between first time and repeat travelers and among travelers with different demographic profiles.
Mentors as educational leaders and change agents

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the educational leadership capacity of mentors working with new teachers and to identify factors that support and hinder the development of this leadership capacity. Design/methodology/approach – The author conducted a qualitative case study of mentors with connections to the New Teacher Center in California. Data were collected through an online survey of mentors, focus group interviews with mentors, and interviews with programme leaders. Findings – Mentors in the study view themselves as educational leaders and were able to identify enablers and barriers to the development of their leadership capacity. Enablers include: their selection and experience as mentors, mentor preparation and ongoing professional support, and the support and encouragement of skilled programme leaders and of some principals and districts. The main barrier to mentors having a positive impact is the culture of the schools and districts in which they work. Research limitations/impli.
Evolutionary Simulation of Contractors’ Learning and Behavior under Two Bid-Tendering Approaches

AbstractBidding and determining the optimum markup are two major decisions that a contractor has to think about thoroughly when faced with a new project. Several bidding models have been presented in the literature to help contractors make these two decisions; however, they mostly considered the perspective of one contractor bidding on a single project, obscuring the interaction and learning components among contractors and the observation of emergent bidding patterns at both individual and aggregate levels. This research uses an evolutionary approach to model construction-bidding market dynamics and study the effect of contractors’ risk attitude on their markups, and on the long-term progression of bid prices under two bid-tendering approaches, namely the low and average bid methods. Simulation results showed that the most risk-tolerant contractors submit the lowest bid prices under the low-bid method and the highest prices under the average bid method. Moreover, the low-bid approach revealed long-term e.
Glocalized Weisfeiler-Lehman Graph Kernels: Global-Local Feature Maps of Graphs

Most state-of-the-art graph kernels only take local graph properties into account, i.e., the kernel is computed with regard to properties of the neighborhood of vertices or other small substructures. On the other hand, kernels that do take global graph properties into account may not scale well to large graph databases. Here we propose to start exploring the spacebetween local and global graph kernels, so called glocalized graph kernels, striking the balance between both worlds. Specifically, we introduce a novel graph kernel based on the k-dimensional Weisfeiler-Lehmanalgorithm. Unfortunately, the k-dimensional Weisfeiler-Lehman algorithm scales exponentially in k. Consequently, we devise a stochastic version of the kernel with provable approximation guarantees using conditional Rademacher averages. On bounded-degree graphs, it can even be computed in constant time. We support our theoretical results with experiments on several graph classification benchmarks, showing that our kernels often outperform the state-of-the-art in terms of classification accuracies.
Low Driving Voltage of Electrowetting Display on Flexible Substrate

According to the Lippmann-Young equation, the goal of this study focuses on reducing the driving voltage of the flexible electrowetting display by implementing high contact angle and high capacitance. By inserting SiNx film and rough surface, the lower saturation voltage for electrowetting display can be achieved on PET substrate. In this study, the electrowetting characteristics with rough surface by using photolithography process as interlayer performs better swing behavior of contact angle-voltage swing on flexible substrate application.
FORECASTING VOLATILITY IN TEHRAN STOCK EXCHANGE (TSE)

Abstract. Within two past two decades, volatility has become a focal point to academics and decision makers. Since volatility was criterion for assessing the risk, it was firstly used by many investors and capital markets traders. Throughout the time as volatility affected the economy and stability of capital markets and as a result of that bonds and foreign exchange markets became important. In this article 9 modeled for forecasting volatility of TEPIX index using Tehran Stock Exchange daily data. Models employed in this article include both simple models such as historical average and complicated models such as ARCH and GARCH groups. 4 measuring tools are used to assess the accuracy of forecasting results of these models. Based on the results of this study, forecasts of GARCH (2,3) presented the most accurate results and GARCH (1,1) and regression models showed less accuracy respectively, while Exponential smoothing and random walk had the worst performance. Keywords : Forecasting, volatility, tepix, arch, garch
Diagnostic model generated by MRI‐derived brain features in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder mainly showed atypical social interaction, communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests and activities. Now clinic diagnosis of ASD is mostly based on psychological evaluation, clinical observation and medical history. All these behavioral indexes could not avoid defects such as subjectivity and reporter‐dependency. Therefore researchers devoted themselves to seek relatively stable biomarkers of ASD as supplementary diagnostic evidence. The goal of present study is to generate relatively stable predictive model based on anatomical brain features by using machine learning technique. Forty‐six ASD children and thirty‐nine development delay children aged from 18 to 37 months were evolved in. As a result, the predictive model generated by regional average cortical thickness of regions with top 20 highest importance of random forest classifier showed best diagnostic performance. And random forest was proved to be the optimal approach for neuroimaging data mining in small size set and thickness‐based classification outperformed volume‐based classification and surface area‐based classification in ASD. The brain regions selected by the models might attract attention and the idea of considering biomarkers as a supplementary evidence of ASD diagnosis worth exploring. Autism Res 2017, 0: 000–000. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Autism Res 2017, 10: 620–630. © 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Power Reduction in Frequency-Selective FIR Filters Under Voltage Overscaling

Supply voltage overscaling (VOS) has been studied recently for the design of low power finite-impulse response (FIR) filters. The supply voltage is deliberately overscaled for saving power, which introduces errors due to timing violation. These VOS-incurred errors are then compensated by using an estimation-based noise reduction scheme, at the cost of minimal performance degradation while achieving significant power savings. In this paper, novel noise reduction unit (NRU) architectures are proposed to solve two challenging problems. First, we propose to use a separate reliable mechanism for detecting VOS-incurred errors, which frees the estimator from detecting VOS-incurred errors, and consequently enables use of folding techniques and filter adaptation. Second, we propose a novel noise reduction architecture for compensating errors in broadband frequency-selective filters, which show loose statistical dependency that leads to poor estimation in conventional designs. In addition, we recognize that the location of VOS-errors is the most destructive cause to NRU performance degradation, which has not been adequately dealt with in existing literatures. Our proposed architectures are based on smoothing filters, which require minimal hardware overhead while limiting the estimation degradation due to relative dense error distribution. Compared to previous work, the simulation results show that for narrow-band filters our proposed schemes can improve the noise reduction performance by 10-22 dB while achieving the same or better power savings, and for broadband filters the proposed schemes achieve 9-21 dB performance gain while achieving 10.33%-51.74% power savings.
Regeneration of functional sweat gland‐like structures by transplanted differentiated bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells

Regeneration of sweat glands after deep burns has been an unsolved problem. Owing to lack of perspiration, survivors of an extensive deep burn injury are leading a miserable life in sultry months. It was our contemplation to solve this problem by inducing bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to acquire the phenotype of sweat gland cells in vitro. Then these cells were transplanted into fresh skin wounds resulting from excision of anhydrotic scars after healing of deep burn injury in five patients. Two to 12 months after the procedure, it was proved that there was recovery of perspiration function in all the MSCs' transplanted areas, as evidenced by positive iodine–starch perspiration test. Histological and biochemical observation confirmed the involvement of MSCs transformed sweat gland cells in the recovery of functional sweat glands, and the components of sweat collected from these areas were similar to that collected from normal skin. This is the first report of successful transplantation of MSCs in regenerating functional sweat glands, which may help solve the problem of depletion of sweat glands in patients surviving extensive deep burns in the future.
Asset planning for climate change adaptation: lessons from Cartagena, Colombia

In studies of climate change vulnerability, an important constraint relates to the uncertainty of the climate projections that local governments need to estimate precisely the risks and impacts climate events have on different parts of a city. In addition, the lack of “downscaled”, or local, climate information makes it very difficult to compare how individual communities and households adapt to severe and extreme weather events and, more importantly, what actions local governments can carry out to increase resilience in poor urban areas. Based on a conceptual and operational framework developed in recent years by the authors in collaboration with partners in the global South, this paper illustrates how “bottom-up” community asset planning for climate change adaptation can help to address this gap and be mainstreamed into “top-down” citywide strategic and operational planning. The paper describes the process by which community members and representatives of local government, the private sector and NGOs working in the city of Cartagena, Colombia, set up a dialogue space that enables them to identify, negotiate and agree climate change adaptation solutions that are legally, financially, socially and technically feasible.
Effects of individual components of multiple behavior changes: the PREMIER trial.

OBJECTIVES To assess contributions of individual lifestyle changes on systolic blood pressure (SBP) changes. METHODS We examined associations between lifestyle behavior changes and SBP after 6 and 18 months in 782 PREMIER trial participants. RESULTS In multivariate models omitting weight, predicted SBP reductions ranged from (1)/2 to 1(1)/2 mm Hg for reduced urinary sodium, improved fitness, and adherence to the DASH diet (except sodium at 18 months). With weight included, only fitness change additionally predicted SBP at 18 months. CONCLUSIONS Several lifestyle behavior changes are important for BP lowering, but are difficult to detect when weight is included in multivariate models.
A Life Cycle Model of Multi-Stakeholder Networks

In multi-stakeholder networks, actors from civil society, business and governmental institutions come together in order to find a common solution to a problem that affects all of them. Problems approached by such networks often affect people across national boundaries, tend to be very complex and are not sufficiently understood. In multi-stakeholder networks, information concerning a problem is gathered from different sources, learning takes place, conflicts between participants are addressed and cooperation is sought. Corporations are key actors in many networks, because the problems addressed are frequently related to business activities. The aim of this article is to conceptualise multi-stakeholder networks by proposing a problem-centred stakeholder definition. From an analysis of several case studies, a life cycle model is deduced that distinguishes seven phases: initiation, acquaintance, first and second agreement, implementation, consolidation and institutionalisation.
The role of Spanish local development and employment officers in human resource management

The aim of this study is to contrast the existence of a significant relation between good human resource practices and business results. The empirical analysis is applied to strategies implemented by Local Development and Employment Officers (LDEOs) with regard to the management of social integration and job placement programs within the context of Local Development in Spain for both the universalist and contingent perspectives of Human Resource Management. The novelty of this study lies in the impact local development programs are having on social integration and job placement, and, in particular, the effects of project management.
Fish imports as an environmental policy

Although Total Allowable Catch (TAC) system has not been successful in management of fisheries, fish imports have shown features of an environmental-friendly policy. Imports emerge as a significant tool to improve fish productivity through biodiversity conservation and induce the use of less capital intensive technology. Conversely, TAC system harms biodiversity leading to increased capital effort and reduced catch levels. Another interesting finding is the existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)-type relationship between per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and fish catch. As development proceeds, propensity to import increases, having favourable impact on biodiversity through reduced fish production.
A experiência internacional de regimes de metas de inflação: uma análise com painel dinâmico

This paper uses a growth model with dynamic panel techniques in order to investigate how (and if) the institutional architecture of inflation targeting regimes affects the growth performance of the countries that adopt this kind of monetary policy. The sample used to build the panel consists of 23 countries that officially adopted the inflation targeting regime. The Arellano and Bond (1991) methodology is used to estimate the parameters of the dynamic growth model. The results support the view that the adoption of headline inflation indices, since it is a index of strong credibility; the definition of a convergence horizon for target inflation larger than a year; and the capability of central banks to achieve the target inflation have positive and important effects over growth performance of selected countries.
The Delisting Bias in CRSP's Nasdaq Data and Its Implications for the Size Effect

We investigate the bias in CRSP's Nasdaq data due to missing returns for delisted stocks. We find that the missing returns are large and negative on average, and that delisted stocks experience a substantial decrease in liquidity. We estimate that using a corrected return of - 55 percent for missing performance-related delisting returns corrects the bias. We revisit previous work which finds a size effect among Nasdaq stocks. After correcting for the delisting bias, there is no evidence that there ever was a size effect on Nasdaq. Our results are inconsistent with most risk-based explanations of the size effect. Copyright The American Finance Association 1999.