Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sentiment Analysis in Financial News

With the growth of social media, millions of financial news flow every day through the Web. This makes monitoring and interpreting what is happening in the financial world an extremely difficult task. Moreover, as Liu and Zhang (2012) pointed out, it is also known that human analysis of text information is subject to considerable biases. Therefore, a system for automatic detection of sentiment is extremely useful. This was the main motivation behind this work. We have decided to develop a system that can analyse news in the financial domain. As textual data can be very noisy, text pre-processing techniques were applied to the news articles (e.g. stopwords removal, stemming). Afterwards, the news were classified as positive, negative or neutral, and a series of studies were carried out to improve the classification results. The method exploited several publicly available lexicons – Opinion Lexicon, OpinionFinder, SentiWordNet, AFINN and NRC. Moreover, we have merged some of these lexicons to see if the results could be improved. Besides, a negation handling technique developed by Pang et al. (2002) was also applied. Additionally, some words mainly from the financial world were added to the available lexicons. We have thus obtained enriched lexicons. All experiments were evaluated using usual performance evaluation measures (e.g. Micro F1 ). However, as sentiment classification can be seen as a problem of classifying ordinal data, an evaluation using cost-sensitive analysis was carried out. That is, different costs were applied to different types of error. We have obtained several interesting results. We have identified combinations of
Assessing Competitive Advantage of SMEs through Effective Supply Chain Management

This study starts with an inter-organizational approach where relational elements are incorporated in the analysis of Supply Chain Management (SCM) of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This is in line with the study’s main intention of assessing the determinants or drivers for effective SCM of small businesses and their impact on the realization of competitive advantage. The findings suggest an interesting perspective on SCM and distribution channel functions among SMEs where elements of information sharing, cooperation, and integration are linked to competitive advantage. The correlation amongst the three independent variables of cooperation, information sharing, and integration with competitive advantage are all significant, depicting the relevance for SMEs to focus on these relational elements. The highest correlation is noted between information sharing and integration and this definitely makes sense as SMEs strive to integrate their functions that are moving towards the attainment of common goals. Thus, the more integrated the functions amongst supply chain and distribution partners, the more likely that information would be shared amongst them. However, it is interesting to note that the predictive ability of the relational elements of cooperation, information sharing, and integration on competitive advantage is not supported through the regression analysis. In other words, the existence of cooperation, information sharing, and integration amongst supply chain and distribution channel members do not necessarily predict that competitive advantage will be attained. There are perhaps other factors that should be considered besides relational elements that influence competitive advantage.
Transmission of Real Exchange Rate to the Manufacturing Sector: Role of Financial Access

We explore the impact of Real Exchange Rate changes on the performance of Indian manufacturing firms over the period 2000-2012. Our empirical analysis shows that real exchange rate movements have a significant impact on Indian firms’ performance but the impact varies across different firm and industry characteristics. In particular the impact depends upon the degree of market power, trade orientation, foreign ownership, access to domestic finance and industry concentration. Further, appreciation and depreciation affect firms’ performance differently. Results from Panel-VAR confirm these findings. Overall, our results point towards the need for taking in to account firm and industry level heterogeneity in designing policies aimed at managing exchange rate shocks and also the role of greater financial development in currency risk management.
The impact of service climate and service provider personality on employees' customer‐oriented behavior in a high‐contact setting

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to empirically test and extend knowledge of the determinants of customer‐oriented behavior (COB) of service providers in an affective, high contact service setting (healthcare). Design/methodology/approach – The authors examine the relative effects of dispositional variables (e.g. personality of service provider), as well as service climate and job satisfaction on five dimensions of customer‐oriented behavior. The research hypotheses are tested using self‐report data collected from 270 nurses in five hospitals (public and private). Qualitative work, including three focus groups with nurses and a series of depth interviews with patients, was conducted to test the applicability of the scales.Findings – Results support the role of personality, job satisfaction and service climate on employees' COB, but do not support interaction effects. Various personality traits have differing effects on different types of customer‐oriented behaviors. Service climate has effects on bot.
Subsurface characterization of carbon nanotubes in polymer composites via quantitative electric force microscopy

Subsurface characterization of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) dispersed in free-standing polymer composite films was achieved via quantitative electric force microscopy (EFM). The effects of relative humidity, EFM probe geometry, tip–sample distance and bias voltage on the EFM contrast were studied. Non-parabolic voltage dependence of the EFM signal of subsurface CNTs in polymer composites was observed and a new mechanism was proposed taking consideration of capacitive coupling as well as coulombic coupling. We anticipate that this quantitative EFM technique will be a useful tool for non-destructive subsurface characterization of high dielectric constant nanostructures in low dielectric constant matrices.
Total Factor Productivity Change in Commercial Banking Industry in India and Pakistan

In the early 1990s, India and Pakistan introduced a series of financial liberalisation initiatives aimed at increasing the productivity of their financial services sector. Against a background of unprecedented change, which these initiatives heralded, the paper applies a DEA-type Malmquist total factor productivity change index to examine productivity growth, efficiency change, and technical progress in the commercial banking industries of India and Pakistan during 1992-1998. Following Leightner and Lovell's (1998), a Malmquist index is constructed for two different bank service specifications. The first is derived from the corporate objectives of the commercial banks, and the second from the policy objectives of the Indian and Pakistan governments. The analysis reveals that in both countries, the improvement in total factor productivity was highest when the government's policy objective was used. In addition, the public sector banks showed very little improvement in total factor productivity due to their inability to adopt new technology and because of the presence of high non-performing loans. In contrast, foreign banks witnessed the highest improvement in total factor productivity due to an improvement in their efficiency and technological innovation.
Location in Internationalization Strategy: Determinants and Consequences

In this study, we examine the location strategies (e.g., developing versus developed countries) of Chinese multinational firms (Pantzalis 2001). We argue that domestic firm‐specific ownership advantages of a firm, in the form of larger size and higher degree of diversification, will induce internationalization into developed countries rather than into developing countries. We also predict that internationalization into developed countries will help performance, but internationalization into developing countries will hurt performance. Based on an analysis of data on 154 Chinese‐listed MNCs from 1992 to 2002, we find support for our predictions.
Transcriptome Responses to Combinations of Stresses in Arabidopsis1[W][OA]

In Arabidopsis, the response of the majority of the genes cannot be predicted from single stress experiments and only a small fraction of the genes have potential antagonistic responses, indicating that plants have evolved to cope with combinations of stresses and therefore may be bred to endure them. Biotic and abiotic stresses limit agricultural yields, and plants are often simultaneously exposed to multiple stresses. Combinations of stresses such as heat and drought or cold and high light intensity have profound effects on crop performance and yields. Thus, delineation of the regulatory networks and metabolic pathways responding to single and multiple concurrent stresses is required for breeding and engineering crop stress tolerance. Many studies have described transcriptome changes in response to single stresses. However, exposure of plants to a combination of stress factors may require agonistic or antagonistic responses or responses potentially unrelated to responses to the corresponding single stresses. To analyze such responses, we initially compared transcriptome changes in 10 Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ecotypes using cold, heat, high-light, salt, and flagellin treatments as single stress factors as well as their double combinations. This revealed that some 61% of the transcriptome changes in response to double stresses were not predic from the responses to single stress treatments. It also showed that plants prioritized between potentially antagonistic responses for only 5% to 10% of the responding transcripts. This indicates that plants have evolved to cope with combinations of stresses and, therefore, may be bred to endure them. In addition, using a subset of this data from the Columbia and Landsberg erecta ecotypes, we have delineated coexpression network modules responding to single and combined stresses.
Modeling and analysis of TCP-like multicast congestion control in hybrid terrestrial/satellite IP networks

Given their broadcast nature, satellite communications are one natural engineering choice for multicast service deployment. In this paper, the throughput performance of transmission control protocol (TCP)-like multicast congestion control is analyzed in hybrid terrestrial/satellite networks. With this objective, an analytical framework based on Markov chains is introduced. The major advantage of the proposed analytical model is its scalability in that the number of states of the Markov chain modeling the system is independent of the number of receivers in the multicast session. This is a very important feature as simulation is unfeasible for large numbers of receivers. The framework is used to evaluate the impact of the long propagation delays, high bit-error rates, and channel asymmetry characterizing hybrid terrestrial/satellite communications. The performance results show that in certain cases, it is more convenient to divide the receivers in an appropriate number of groups and establish a different multicast session toward each of the above groups. Also, the convenience of an acknowledgment (ACK) flow reconstructor is shown.
Improvement of memory bandwidth utilization using OpenMP task with processor affinity

The CPU design has been evolving for more than 30 years since the first x86 microprocessor. Recently, instead of increasing the CPU performance, the focus has shifted to multi-core architecture. Multi-core processor technology is rapidly evolving, but the memory interface is a limiting factor in fulfilling the needs of multi-core and multi-threaded processors. This is a big challenge for software developers. The run time thread is dynamically allocated to each processor core by the scheduler of the operating system. Current parallel programming researches only aim to load balance and keep the multi-core running efficiently. As a result, applications may have poor spatial data locality. This will also cause uneven memory bandwidth usage due to differences in memory access paths. The question of obtaining maximum memory bandwidth utilization by controlling the thread of a processor affinity is the main scope of this particular research. Memory bandwidth utilization of 62% (8786.87 MB/s to 14201.88 MB/s) was achieved, if appropriate processor affinity was set for thread placement. The OpenMP task level parallelism in addition to processor affinity resulted in 69% (8786.87 MB/s to 14802.69 MB/s) of improvement using 2 threads. Thus, task level parallelism combined with processor affinity greatly increases the level of parallelism in an OpenMP parallel programming environment. As a result, it can improve the overall performance of parallel applications.
Managers' Investment Timing Decisions under Endogenous Compensation Contracts

This paper considers how managers choose the timing of investment in risky but value-increasing projects with a liquidation possibility for their firm when their personal objectives are not aligned with those of shareholders but their compensation is endogenously determined. Using a real options approach for a broad class of managerial preferences, we show that without hidden information, the startup of the project is more likely to be delayed with a higher liquidation possibility, whereas the grant size of stock-based managerial compensation is independent of the liquidation possibility but is decreasing in the volatility of the firm's cash flow stream and the degree of managerial impatience if the manager is risk neutral. We also indicate that restricted stock is optimal in a general class of compensation schedules, regardless of the manager's risk preferences. Further, if there exists hidden information on the volatility of project returns and if the risk-neutral manager is as impatient as the shareholders, the equilibrium must be pooling. Then, the startup of the high- (low-)volatility project is advanced (delayed) in comparison with the case without hidden information.
Differential role of lipocalin 2 during immune complex-mediated acute and chronic inflammation in mice.

OBJECTIVE Lipocalin 2 (LCN-2) is an innate immune protein that is expressed by a variety of cells and is highly up-regulated during several pathologic conditions, including immune complex (IC)-mediated inflammatory/autoimmune disorders. However, the function of LCN-2 during IC-mediated inflammation is largely unknown. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate the role of LCN-2 in IC-mediated diseases. METHODS The up-regulation of LCN-2 was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 3 different mouse models of IC-mediated autoimmune disease: systemic lupus erythematosus, collagen-induced arthritis, and serum-transfer arthritis. The in vivo role of LCN-2 during IC-mediated inflammation was investigated using LCN-2-knockout mice and their wild-type littermates. RESULTS LCN-2 levels were significantly elevated in all 3 of the autoimmune disease models. Further, in an acute skin inflammation model, LCN-2-knockout mice exhibited a 50% reduction in inflammation, with histopathologic analysis revealing notably reduced immune cell infiltration as compared to wild-type mice. Administration of recombinant LCN-2 to LCN-2-knockout mice restored inflammation to levels observed in wild-type mice. Neutralization of LCN-2 using a monoclonal antibody significantly reduced inflammation in wild-type mice. In contrast, LCN-2-knockout mice developed more severe serum-induced arthritis compared to wild-type mice. Histologic analysis revealed extensive tissue and bone destruction, with significantly reduced neutrophil infiltration but considerably more macrophage migration, in LCN-2-knockout mice compared to wild-type mice. CONCLUSION These results demonstrate that LCN-2 may regulate immune cell recruitment to the site of inflammation, a process essential for the controlled initiation, perpetuation, and resolution of inflammatory processes. Thus, LCN-2 may present a promising target in the treatment of IC-mediated inflammatory/autoimmune diseases.
Glomus Tumour (Forearm)

Lichen Plano-Pilaris. -HUGH W. GORDON, M.C. , M.B. This patient first came under observation on 18.11. 43 with thickening of his left second toe-nail and a small lesion on his right thumb. A scraping was made for tinea which was negative, and the nails treated with X-ray. The lesions cleared up. One month later he reported an eruption on the penis which was a definite lichen planus. This is still present though much better. One month ago he reported intense irritation of the scalp, which on examination showed lesions suggestive of lichen plano-pilaris. Recently he reports that the hairs are breaking off. From examination of this patient to-day very little remains of the lesions of the nails, there being only a little disorganization present at the base of the right thumb nail. The typical lichen planus lesions of the penis have now cleared up, whether as a result of injections of bismuth or not, it is impossible to say. The lesions of the scalp are certainly not typical of -lichen plano-pilaris, being more in the nature of follicular plugging.
Non-labeled, Real-time Detection of H1N1 DNA Hybridization Using Combined QCM-D System

Detection of H1N1 or other seasonal and highly contagious viruses are of vital importance, since early diagnosis from a patient's fluid, such as saliva, would accelerate treatment and containment of the flu. Current lab tests often require cumbersome labeling steps and several hours to detect the presence of viral DNAs. The QCM-D (quartz crystal microbalances with dissipation) technology was used to detect presence as well as distinguish H1N1 and H1N5 DNAs in real-time (a few minutes) with the use of relatively small sample volume (200-500 ul). Single stranded complementary H1N1 DNA was immobilized via Neutravidin-biotin linkage on a gold substrate where biotin was anchored through self assembled monolayers (SAM). Samples containing ss-H1N1 or H5N1 DNA were introduced to the sensor chamber at various sensing conditions. Effect of temperature, ionic strength in buffer, and flow rate were studied and discussed in this paper. The setup allowed recognition and monitoring of kinetics of up to 100 nano-molar (nM) concentrations H1N1/H5N1 DNA in real-time without cumbersome labeling steps. This result demonstrates possibility of real-time diagnosis of H1N1 or other contagious viruses in a doctor's office.
Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale modified for pervasive developmental disorders.

OBJECTIVE To examine the psychometric properties of the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scales (CYBOCS) modified for pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). METHOD Raters from five Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Autism Network were trained to reliability. The modified scale (CYBOCS-PDD), which contains only the five Compulsion severity items (range 0-20), was administered to 172 medication-free children (mean 8.2 +/- 2.6 years) with PDD (autistic disorder, n = 152; Asperger's disorder, n = 6; PDD not otherwise specified, n = 14) participating in RUPP clinical trials. Reliability was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and internal consistency by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Correlations with ratings of repetitive behavior and disruptive behavior were examined for validity. RESULTS Eleven raters showed excellent reliability (ICC = 0.97). The mean CYBOCS score was 14.4 (+/- 3.86) with excellent internal consistency (alpha = .85). Correlations with other measures of repetitive behavior ranged from r = 0.11 to r = 0.28 and were similar to correlations with measures of irritability (r = 0.24) and hyperactivity (r = 0.25). Children with higher scores on the CYBOCS-PDD had higher levels of maladaptive behaviors and lower adaptive functioning. CONCLUSIONS The five-item CYBOCS-PDD is reliable, distinct from other measures of repetitive behavior, and sensitive to change.
Public-Key Encryption Schemes with Bounded CCA Security and Optimal Ciphertext Length Based on the CDH and HDH Assumptions

In [5] Cramer et al. proposed a public-key encryption scheme secure against adversaries with a bounded number of decryption queries based on the decisional Diffie-Hellman problem. In this paper, we show that the same result can be obtained based on weaker computational assumptions, namely: the computational Diffie-Hellman and the hashed Diffie-Hellman assumptions.
The many faces of human ageing: toward a psychological culture of old age

SYNOPSIS In an effort to distil major findings about the nature of human ageing, seven propositions are presented as a guiding frame of reference. This propositional framework is then used to specify some conditions for a positive culture of old age and to advance one possible model of good psychological ageing. This model focuses on the dynamic interplay between three processes: selection, optimization, and compensation. The model is universal in its basic features, but at the same time emphasizes individual variations in phenotypic manifestation.
Preventing Corruption in Africa: Emerging Challenges in the Mining Sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo

The globalisation of economies and markets, brings out the full importance of the responsibility on the part of national, regional and international authorities as regards competitiveness and support of sustainable local development. The extractive sector of natural resources is a good example of this phenomenon which involves several countries (often in less development areas) and large international enterprises which need for good procurement system. The corruption in business relationship is a barrier for development in Africa because it could be both a significant risk factor for international company investments and an inadequate solution to promote a real local development. In particular, the article is intended to provide an overview of the mining sector in Democratic Republic of Congo following the recent evolution of bribery connected to the rules of ITIE (Initiative pour la Transparence dans les Industries Extractives) and the emerging issues related to corruption and local development opportunities.
The CanMEDS role of Collaborator: How is it taught and assessed according to faculty and residents?

OBJECTIVE To explore the perspectives of paediatric residents and faculty regarding how the Collaborator role is taught and assessed. METHODS Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, focus groups at four Canadian universities were conducted. Data were analyzed iteratively for emergent themes. RESULTS Residents reported learning about collaboration through faculty role modelling but did not perceive that it was part of the formal curriculum. Faculty reported that they were not trained in how to effectively model this role. Both groups reported a need for training in conflict management, particularly as it applies to intraprofessional (physician-to-physician) relationships. Finally, the participants asserted that current methods to assess residents on their performance as collaborators are suboptimal. CONCLUSIONS The Collaborator role should be a formal part of the residency curriculum. Residents need to be better educated with regard to managing conflict and handling intraprofessional relationships. Finally, innovative methods of assessing residents on this non-medical expert role need to be created.