Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Information and option pricings

How can one relate stock fluctuations and information-based human activities? We present a model of an incomplete market by adjoining the Black-Scholes exponential Brownian motion model for stock fluctuations with a hidden Markov process, which represents the state of information in the investors' community. The drift and volatility parameters take different values depending on the state of this hidden Markov process. Standard option pricing procedure under this model becomes problematic. Yet, with an additional economic assumption, we provide an explicit closed-form formula for the arbitrage-free price of the European call option. Our model can be discretized via a Skorohod embedding technique. We conclude with an example of a simulation of IBM stock, which shows that, not surprisingly, information does affect the market.
Practical Scheduling of Bag-of-Tasks Applications on Grids with Dynamic Resilience

Over the past decade, the grid has emerged as an attractive platform to tackle various large-scale problems, especially in science and engineering. One primary issue associated with the efficient and effective utilization of heterogeneous resources in a grid is scheduling. Grid scheduling involves a number of challenging issues, mainly due to the dynamic nature of the grid. There are only a handful of scheduling schemes for grid environments that realistically deal with this dynamic nature that have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, two novel scheduling algorithms, called the shared-input-data-based listing (SIL) algorithm and the multiple queues with duplication (MQD) algorithm for bag-of-tasks (BoT) applications in grid environments are proposed. The SIL algorithm targets scheduling data-intensive BoT (DBoT) applications, whereas the MQD algorithm deals with scheduling computationally intensive BoT (CBoT) applications. Their common and primary forte is that they make scheduling decisions without fully accurate performance prediction information. Another point to note is that both scheduling algorithms adopt task duplication as an attempt to reduce serious schedule increases. Our evaluation study employs a number of experiments with various simulation settings. The results show the practicability and competitiveness of our algorithms when compared to existing methods
Hotel Labor Productivity Assessment

SUMMARY The purpose of this study is to propose Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) as an effective tool to measure labor productivity of hotels. Using the data collected from the hotels in the State of California, the study applies DEA to calculate the labor productivity score of each sampled hotel. The internal and external determinants of labor productivity are examined. Implications of the study's results are also discussed.
Importance of physical examination in early detection of lump in breast in women of different age groups.

BACKGROUND The spectrum of breast lesions in adolescents varies markedly from that for adults, with the former lesions being overwhelmingly benign. Fine needle biopsy can be used to distinguish benign and malignant tumour. STUDY DESIGN This study examined the characteristics and outcome of women with different age groups in whom physical examination was their sole method of lump in breast detection. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 200 patients were included in the study. These were divided into 3 groups. Group A was consisting of 75 girls with age of pubescent. Group B included 69 suspected breast cancer women with age range 26-38 years. Fifty-six suspected breast cancer women with age range 41-60 year were included as group C. Study was carried out in patients admitted in the Department/Out-door of Surgery, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. Study period was 6 months. All women received a physical examination by a breast surgeon. Proforma including demographic and clinical characteristics were filled. The diagnosis for patients in this study was achieved by core needle biopsy using a 14-gauge cutting needle. RESULTS It was observed that early age at menarche (<15 year) plays an important role in developing both type of tumour, i.e., benign or malignant. Body Mass Index (BMI) with a range of 19-25 may be a risk factor in developing both type of tumours especially in pubescent and reproductive age, while BMI>25 may be a risk factor in peri/post menopausal women. Active life style is more important with increasing age as it decreases the risk of developing tumour state. Family history was more common in women with peri/post menopausal status as compared to other age groups. Clinical characteristics showed that lump size <2.5 cm was more common in both pubescent and reproductive age. While lump size with a range of 2.5-5.0 cm, was observed in all groups of patients. Fibroadenoma is observed in almost all women with pubesenct age while both benign and malignant tumour observed in women with reproductive age. Malignant tumour was observed mostly in women with peri/post menopausal status. CONCLUSION Study concluded that early detection or clinical examination with FNA cut out the patients from harassment of malignancy and complications especially in the pubescent age. It is also found that Physical examination remain the useful indicators of prognosis in diagnosing cancer. Further research is needed to fully understand the reasons for variations in breast disease outcomes i.e. malignant or benign.
Effects of varenicline on ethanol- and food-maintained responding in a concurrent access procedure.

BACKGROUND Varenicline has been reported to reduce drinking in smokers and to selectively decrease responding for ethanol (EtOH) versus alternatives in preclinical studies. Such selectivity may reflect potential therapeutic effects and the involvement of nicotinic receptors in EtOH reinforcement. However, these studies have been conducted with EtOH and an alternative available in isolation or in separate groups, and selectivity can depend on the context in which reinforcement occurs. Whether varenicline selectivity is maintained when EtOH and an alternative are concurrently available has not been reported. To examine the effects of varenicline on EtOH self-administration when an alternative is concurrently available, male Lewis rats (n = 5) were trained to respond for EtOH and food under a concurrent FR5 FRX schedule where the fixed ratio (FR) for food was adjusted (FR = 25 or 35 for each subject) to provide similar numbers of EtOH and food deliveries during a 30-minute session. METHODS Doses of varenicline (0.56 to 5.6 mg/kg, i.p.) or vehicle were administered 30 minutes before sessions. Effects of varenicline on responding across the session and during each tenth of the session were compared to responding following vehicle treatment. RESULTS Lower doses (0.56 to 1.0 mg/kg) of varenicline increased responding for EtOH without affecting responding for food. Higher doses disrupted responding for EtOH and food similarly. CONCLUSIONS Previous reports of varenicline selectivity on EtOH-maintained responding do not generalize to other experimental conditions such as a concurrent schedule. The increase in responding for EtOH following lower doses might be due to enhanced EtOH reinforcement, decreased food reinforcement, rate dependency, or greater perseverance on the initial, EtOH response.
The polycomb group BMI 1 gene is a molecular marker for predicting prognosis of chronic myeloid leukemia

Because the polycomb group gene BMI1 regulates the proliferation of both normal and leukemic stem cells, we examined whether BMI1 expression was associated with disease progression in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Levels of BMI1 RNA were significantly higher in patients with advanced-phase than in patients with chronic-phase CML in both CD34 cells (P .006) and total peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (P < .001). E2F1, a transcription factor regulating BMI1, was upregulated in CML compared with controls (P .001). In a cohort of 64 CML patients, the level of BMI1 at diagnosis correlated with time to transformation to blast crisis, and the combination of low BMI1 and high proteinase-3 expression was associated in multivariate analysis with an improved overall survival (P .001). We conclude that BMI1 may be a biomarker for the intrinsic heterogeneity of CML, and its measurement at diagnosis can help predict overall survival and thus contribute to better therapeutic decisions. (Blood. 2007;110:380-383)
Interactions between interest rates and the transmission of monetary and economic news: the cases of US and UK

In recent years, economies have become more and more interdependent. The constitution of commercial and monetary unions has increased the level of coordination of public decisions. On the other hand, some countries still have an strong influence at the world or regional levels. This paper studies the evolutions of UK and USA interest rates markets as well as their interactions during the last decade. Thus, we determine empirically the main determinants of interest rates in both countries using several explanatory variables among which, macroeconomic, monetary and financial variables. In particular, it is of interest to determine whether interest rates react and how to the publication of key economic and financial figures. We thus considered in this paper the effects of news, as measured by the difference between anticipated and observed data, on the interest rates means and volatilities. Determining the interest rates dynamics from their national determinants also allow us to evaluate the degrees of transparency and credibility of central banks in both countries. Second, we are interested in measuring the degree of integration of American and British economies by analyzing the spillover and feedback effects between interest rates as well as news spillover effects. In order to take into account the evolutions of interest rates values as well as their volatilities, we use a VAR model where the error term is specified as a multivariate GARCH. Contrary to previous papers in the same area, we do not assume that there is a "small" and a "big" country as we allow any causality to be determined by the data. We find that factors that account for most variations in interest rates are, for both countries, the monetary policy decisions, the price levels and the rate of unemployment. Moreover, the reaction of UK interest rates to US variables tend to be less important in recent years, while we observe the contrary the other way round. Those seemingly contradictory results can gain sense if one takes into account the emergence of EMU as a new economic power.
The effect of care leave on burden and job performance

In this article the expected effects of the introduction of a fully paid long-term care leave programme in the Netherlands are investigated. In particular we are interested in the effects on perceived burden and job performance. We analyse data from a survey among workers who care for a person in their social circle for longer than two weeks. The caring workers with a high perceived burden and intention to participate in the programme were asked questions regarding the expected effects on burden. An econometric model in which we account for these two potentially nonrandom selection mechanisms is set up to analyse the expected reduction in burden due to the intended take-up of care leave. As a result of the introduction of the programme about 60% of the intended participants who perceive a high burden expect a reduction in their burden. The relation between burden and job performance shows that the programme would reduce the number of caring workers who perform less precise in their job by one-third. A modified version of the programme with more stringent requirements than analysed in this article was introduced in The Netherlands in 2005.
The effects of privatisation and Foreign Direct Investment on economic growth in Argentina

This paper uses time-series model to estimate the effects of privatisation and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on economic growth in Argentina over the period 1971–2000. Unit root tests and cointegration tests are used to ensure that all variables used are stationary and that there exists a long-run relationship among the variables. An error correction model (ECM) is constructed to estimate both the short- and long-run effects of privatisation and FDI on economic growth in Argentina. The evidence suggest that during 1971–2000, FDI had no effect on either short- or long-run economic growth in Argentina, while privatisation had negative significant effects on economic growth in the long run only.
Chemical contamination during the preparation of cytotoxics: Validation protocol for operators in hospital pharmacies

Background and objectives: The chemical contamination during the preparation of cytotoxics remains a serious problem in hospital pharmacies and the operators could contribute to this risk during their manipulations. A validation protocol was developed using a non-toxic, highly detectable tracer, quinine dihydrochloride. Method: Further, a method for a high recovery extraction and quantification of this marker, and a protocol covering the critical operations of cytotoxic preparation, was developed and validated. Various devices were used to fill the syringes and perfusion bags. All the filled containers and used materials were collected at the end of the protocol and the tracer was extracted in water. The contaminated water was analyzed by fluorimetry. The number of spots on the working pads was counted under ultraviolet light. During a total of 28 sessions, the procedure was applied by 20 different operators. Results: The mean cumulated quantities of contamination were 6.2 µL (0.6–23.8) and >10 spots (0–20), which was considered as high. No correlation was observed between the contamination rate and the operator’s experience. Conclusion: This validation protocol facilitates controlling the operators’ working ‘cleanliness’ and helps to improve the initial and continuing training. This simple test presents an effective answer for the important issue of the chemical safety of operators.
Predictive evaluation in animals of the contact allergenic potential of medically important substances

Results of the optimization method and of other methods used to assess contact allergy in laboratory animals were compared with known epidemiological data on the occurrence of hypersensitivity reactions in man. Tests were performed with preservatives {formalin, ethylenediamine and sorbic acid), drugs (penicillin G, benzocaine and sulphathiazole) and other contactants belonging to widely different chemical classes (p‐phenylenediamine, triclosan, pyrazole derivatives, nickel and chrome salts, eugenol, isoeugenol and mercaptobenzothiazole). The degree of sensitization achieved in guinea pigs by the optimized procedure (intradermal test with adjuvant combination) and the maximization procedure was invariably superior to that produced by the epidermal method using prior irritation of the site of application. Both the optimized procedure and the maximization test seem to be capable of identifying contact allergens that cause hypersensitivity reactions in as few as t in 10,000 of the human population as a whole. The optimization test merits consideration as a standardized and efficiently predictive procedure.
PARSNIP: Performant Architecture for Race Safety with No Impact on Precision

Data race detection is a useful dynamic analysis for multithreaded programs that is a key building block in record-and-replay, enforcing strong consistency models, and detecting concurrency bugs. Existing software race detectors are precise but slow, and hardware support for precise data race detection relies on assumptions like type safety that many programs violate in practice.We propose PARSNIP, a fully precise hardware-supported data race detector. PARSNIP exploits new insights into the redundancy of race detection metadata to reduce storage overheads. PARSNIP also adopts new race detection metadata encodings that accelerate the common case while preserving soundness and completeness. When bounded hardware resources are exhausted, PARSNIP falls back to a software race detector to preserve correctness. PARSNIP does not assume that target programs are type safe, and is thus suitable for race detection on arbitrary code. Our evaluation of PARSNIP on several PARSEC benchmarks shows that performance overheads range from negligible to 2.6x, with an average overhead of just 1.5x. Moreover, PARSNIP outperforms the state-of-the-art Radish hardware race detector by 4.6x. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Multicore architectures; • Software and its engineering → Software maintenance tools;
Imposing no‐arbitrage conditions in implied volatilities using constrained smoothing splines

We apply constrained smoothing B‐splines to the construction of arbitrage‐free implied volatilities and derived measures. The constrained smoothing B‐splines allows the imposition of the constraints of monotonicity and convexity given by the no‐arbitrage conditions in the pricing function. We illustrate the methodology in the construction of implied volatilities and also in the construction of derived measures such as risk‐neutral densities, showing that it can be used as an effective tool for general treatment of option prices. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A study on the accuracy of location measurement of wireless ID tags integrated with multiple antennas and an antenna direction sensor

Location information of mobile terminals has become more important in relation to the achievements of the ubiquitous network, and studies of location measurement using wireless ID tag systems are attracting attention. Wireless ID tag systems are used for location measurement, and these systems usually have one antenna inside a wireless ID tag. However, the accuracy of these systems could be affected by the direction of the tags. Therefore, this study proposes a wireless ID tag integrated with multiple antennas and an antenna direction sensor in order to improve the accuracy of the system and examines the accuracy of the proposed wireless ID tag by basic experiments.
Investors’ Reactions to Analysts’ Forecast Revisions and Information Uncertainty

This study examines the relationship among analysts’ earnings forecast revisions, information uncertainty, and stock returns and provides new evidence that stock price drift occurs after analysts’ earnings forecast revisions. Using data from the Australian stock market over the period of 1992 to 2009, we find that the stocks with upward earnings revisions experience positive returns, while stocks with downward revisions have negative returns. The effect is more prominent in stocks with high information uncertainty. The results are robust after controlling for market conditions, seasonality, and risks. Our evidence supports the conservatism bias model that investors tend to underweight the public information, such as analysts’ earnings forecast revisions. Importantly, our evidence provides possible explanations about the violation of the efficient market hypothesis. Our results suggest that the conservative bias causes investors not to sufficiently update their beliefs and eventually results in subsequent return continuation as investors’ underreaction to analysts’ earnings forecast revision is stronger with higher information uncertainty.
Effectiveness of teriparatide treatment on back pain-related functional limitations in individuals affected by severe osteoporosis: a prospective pilot study.

INTRODUCTION Vertebral fractures have been associated with back pain, functional limitations and reduced health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Teriparatide is the first effective anabolic agent that demonstrated to significantly reduce the risk of vertebral fracture by 65%, as compared to placebo. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of teriparatide treatment on back pain-related functional limitations and to investigate on patients HRQoL. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this prospective observational pilot study osteoporotic patients, who were prescribed teriparatide therapy and a supplementation of calcium and vitamin D, were asked to answer to two self-administered questionnaires: the Spine Pain Index (SPI) and the SF-12 (at the recruitment, after 6, 12, and 18 months). RESULTS Fifty-two women were evaluated (mean age of 70.58 yrs). The mean SPI score passed from 50.01 at baseline to 32.20 at 18 months. The mean SF-12 PCS score passed from 30.00 at baseline to 36.79 at 18 months, while the mean SF-12 MCS score was already within the normality range at baseline, constantly improving during the 18 months. CONCLUSION In conclusion, 18 months of treatment with teriparatide has to be considered an effective therapeutic option for women with severe osteoporosis and vertebral fractures, in a real-life clinical setting, to improve both back pain related disability and quality of life.
Introduction to the JBES Symposium on Program and Policy Evaluation

Meyer. Each of the articles in this group relies on changes in state (or provincial) policies over time to identify the effect of policy changes. States instituting reforms constitute the treatment group, whereas nonreforming states are assumed to provide a valid control group. The treatment-control parison is made after differencing state observations across years. For example, in their article on Canadian national health insurance, Jon Gruber and Maria Hanratty use the fact that Canadian provinces introduced national health insurance at different times to estimate the effect of national health insurance on changes in labor-market outcomes. The presumption is that contemporaneous changes in neighboring provinces provide a control for labor-market trends that are unrelated to health-care reform. Similarly, in their article on minimum wages, Taeil Kim and Lowell Taylor use the variation afforded by California's increase in the state minimum wage in the late 1980s. The presumption underlying this work is that, within narrowly defined sectors engaged in retail trade, changes in employ
Peripheral Arterial Wall Imaging Using Contrast-Enhanced, Susceptibility-Weighted Phase Imaging

Purpose To demonstrate improved delineation of peripheral arterial wall in susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) phase images by using gadolinium contrast agent. Materials and Methods Superficial femoral arteries were imaged using high-resolution SWI in 11 healthy volunteers before and after injection of gadopentetate dimeglumine. Two postcontrast scans started 1 minute and 11 minutes after injection, respectively. Eight of the 11 volunteers also underwent double-inversion recovery turbo-spin-echo (TSE) scans. The same resolution and matrix size were used between SWI and TSE studies, and TSE locations were matched to SWI images. Arterial lumen-wall phase difference and phase contrast-to-noise ratio were measured and compared between precontrast and postcontrast SWI measurements. The lumen and wall areas measured on both TSE and matching SWI images were analyzed for agreement. Two other volunteers participated in a double-echo gradient-echo study. Results were compared to SWI. Results By injecting gadolinium contrast agent, phase difference changed by 54.5% and −1.6%, and phase contrast-to-noise ratio changed by 85.7% and 27.0% for the first and second postcontrast scans, respectively. Morphological measurements showed insignificant difference between TSE and SWIs based on paired t tests; good agreements in Bland-Altman plots were achieved. The double-echo gradient-echo study had similar phase measurements as SWI. Conclusion Contrast-enhanced phase imaging improves arterial wall delineation in SWI of peripheral arterial wall. Contrast-enhanced SWI is a promising vessel wall imaging technique.