Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Digital innovation and profitability. evidence from European financial institutions

A digital revolution is changing our social and economic lives and also financial institutions have virtually no other alternative but to adapt their traditional business practices to digital structural change. In this paper we analyse the effects of the digitalization of the financial sector on bank performance in Europe in the years 2000-2015. Through a statistical regression model, we test the relationship between the main indicators of investments in Intellectual Property Products and ICT equipment and the bank interest spread at national aggregate level. Our results demonstrate that investments in digitalization have a positive effect on bank profitability. Also the presence of Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) still conduce to an enhance of income for banks and financial companies; conversely, the presence of physical branches has no effects.
Local and systemic activation of the whole complement cascade in human leukocytoclastic cutaneous vasculitis; C3d,g and terminal complement complex as sensitive markers

We have studied complement activation both in plasma samples and In lesional skin from palients with leukocytoclaslic cutaneous vasculitis (LCV). Enzyme immunoassay (EIA) quantification of the complement activation markers. C3d,g and fhe terminal complement complex (TCC) in plasma, showed lhal their levels were significantly increased in 66% and 55% of the patienis, respectively (n = 29) compared with healthy controls, whereas the standard measurements of C3, factor B, Clq, C4and C2 were generally within normal range. Elevations of C3d,g and TCC levels in plasma were signifieantly eorrelated. Importantly, a signifieant correlation was found between the severity of the vasculitis and both C3d,g and TCC plasma levels. Immunofluorescence studies of skin biopsy specimens demonstrated simultaneous presence of peri vascular dermal deposits of C3d,g and TCC in lesional skin from 96 Mi and 80% respectively of the patients (n= 25). There was a significant eorrelation between the intensity of the deposits of bolh markers. Clusterin, a TCC inhibitory protein, was always found at the same sites of perivascular TCC deposits, Immunofluorescence studies at the epidermal basemenl membrane zone (BMZ) revealed in each case deposits of C3d,g which were accompanied by TCC deposits in 52% of the biopsy specimens. These data demonstrate that there is a local and systemic activation of the whole complement cascade in human LCV. The presenee of both C3d,g and clusterin‐associatcd TCC perivascular deposits suggests an intervention of a regulatory mechanism oflocal complement activation in LCV. Einally, measurement of plasma C3d,g and TCC appears to be a sensitive indicator of systemic complement activation and disease severity in LCV.
Twenty-Five Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall: An Empirical Revisit of West German Consumers' Attitudes Toward Products and Brands from Former East Germany

ABSTRACT More than 25 years after the German reunification, data show that products/brands from the eastern regions of Germany (“Neue Länder”) still do not have significant shares in the country's western part (“Alte Länder”). To analyze potential reasons for this phenomenon, our current study replicates a previous study that investigated selected attitudes of Alte Länder consumers toward products/brands from the Neue Länder. It is shown that factors such as consumer ethnocentrism, product judgment, willingness to buy, and economic animosity continue to influence consumer behavior and as such our study offers potential explanation for the failure of Neue Länder products/brands in the western regions of Germany.
Behavioral Investors Versus Rational Investors: An Agent-based Computational Finance Model

BSV (Barberis, Huang and Vishny [1998]) model is one of the most important explanative models in the area of behavioral finance. The existing BSV model is a model of how behavioral investors form beliefs, which produces both overreaction and mean-reversion for a wide range of parameter values. However, BSV model does not address the market equilibrium problems, which is critical for the asset pricing theory. Thus the following 2 questions are meaningful for the existing BSV model to be extended to an equilibrium model in which there are both BSV investors and rational investors in a market of risky asset: Will BSV model maintain its explanative power if rational investors are introduced? Who will lose money to their counterparts in trading of risky assets, the behavioral investors or the rational investors? In this paper, we present an agent-based computational model of the dynamic game between BSV investors and rational investors. The results of our model answer the above two questions. First, the introduction of rational investors to the market of risky asset will not eliminate the anomalies of overreaction and mean-reversion. We believe that it is because the unpredictability of BSV agents' behavior adds the total risk of risky asset, which in turn prevents rational investors from taking unlimited position to arbitrage. At that time, the risky asset is mispriced. Second, we do not find any evidence that the behavioral investors will lose money to their counterparts although their cognitive bias causes them to form a false kind of expectation on the future price of the risky asset. On the contrary, some weak evidence on that behavioral investors are less likely to bankrupt is reported. We contribute it to that BSV investors will be overcautious when the market price is going down continuously due to their cognitive bias, and then decrease the probability of bankruptcy. While at that time, rational investors will try to correct the market price distorted by BSV investors and thus take an additional arbitrage position, which may increase their returns, but will increase the probability of bankruptcy
Neuropilin 1 binds PDGF-D and is a co-receptor in PDGF-D–PDGFRβ signaling

ABSTRACT Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-D is a PDGF receptor β (PDGFRβ)-specific ligand implicated in a number of pathological conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, but its biological function remains incompletely understood. In this study, we demonstrate that PDGF-D binds directly to neuropilin 1 (NRP1), in a manner that requires the PDGF-D C-terminal Arg residue. Stimulation with PDGF-D, but not PDGF-B, induced PDGFRβ–NRP1 complex formation in fibroblasts. Additionally, PDGF-D induced translocation of NRP1 to cell–cell junctions in endothelial cells, independently of PDGFRβ, altering the availability of NRP1 for VEGF-A–VEGFR2 signaling. PDGF-D showed differential effects on pericyte behavior in ex vivo sprouting assays compared to PDGF-B. Furthermore, PDGF-D-induced PDGFRβ–NRP1 interaction can occur in trans between molecules located in different cells (endothelial cells and pericytes). In summary, we show that NRP1 can act as a co-receptor for PDGF-D–PDGFRβ signaling and is possibly implicated in intercellular communication in the vascular wall. Highlighted Article: Neuropilin 1 is a co-receptor for PDGF-D, but not PDGF-B, in PDGFRβ signaling. This may represent a new and important aspect in the biology of NRP1 and PDGF-D.
The Demand for Global and Local Environmental Protection: Experimental Evidence from Climate Change Mitigation in Beijing

In this study, participants from Beijing, China, were offered the opportunity to contribute to voluntary climate change mitigation by purchasing permits from two Chinese CO2 emissions trading schemes (ETS). Since CO2 emissions abatement is linked to other local benefits like the reduction in emissions of air pollutants, our aim is to separate the demand for local and global environmental protection. To this end, Beijing and Shenzhen ETS permits were offered. Our results indicate that a substantial part of the revealed demand for voluntary climate change mitigation in Beijing is driven by concerns for local co-benefits of CO2 emissions reduction.
A Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis LuxR regulates cell envelope and virulence

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis adapts to the environment via the regulation of genes affecting its envelope’s composition. Bacteria grown in milk (in vivo conditions) presented differences in the cell wall-associated lipids and in the expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism (FadE8, FadE6 and MAP1420) and host cell invasion (MAP1203, LprL). A different lipid profile was also observed in the envelope of intracellular bacteria after 1 h of infection. Intracellular bacteria showed up-regulation of a LuxR regulator which controls the envelope’s composition by up-regulation of FadE8, MAP1420, MAP1203 and LprL and by down-regulation of pks12, mmpL2 and MAP2594. A LuxR-overexpressing strain with a lipid-deficient envelope phenotype, infected epithelial cells more efficiently than the wild-type bacteria; however, it was not more resistant than the wild-type strain to the action of bactericidal proteins. Here we show that LuxR regulates virulence determinants and is involved in mycobacteria adaptation to the host.
Vulnerable Plaque in a Swine Model of Carotid Atherosclerosis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Distal embolism and acute thrombosis due to rupture of a vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque are the common mechanisms of stroke in patients with carotid disease. The purpose of this study was to develop the first animal model of vulnerable carotid atherosclerotic plaque. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Carotid atherosclerotic models were created in 12 Yucatan minipigs by using a combination of partial ligation and high cholesterol diet. Retia mirabilia from these animals were examined histopathologically to identify distal embolism. The association of distal embolism with advanced atherosclerosis and a thin fibrous cap was analyzed by using the Fisher exact test. RESULTS: Typical features of vulnerable plaques, including a thin fibrous cap, necrotic core, and intraplaque hemorrhage, were observed in this swine model of carotid atherosclerosis. Distal embolism was detected in retia mirabilia supplied by 7 of 10 carotid arteries with advanced atherosclerotic plaques, compared with 3 of 14 carotid arteries without advanced plaque (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: This swine model of carotid atherosclerosis contains the salient features of vulnerable plaques, including plaque rupture and distal embolism.
Les turbo-codes et leur application aux transmissions à forte efficacité spectrale

Inventes recemment, les turbo-codes constituent une nouvelle famille de codes correcteurs d'erreurs binaires, obtenue en concatenant en parallele deux codes convolutifs systematiques et recursifs, et en utilisant un procede inedit de decodage avec contre-reaction. Durant cette these, nous avons effectue une etude approfondie des turbo-codes, principalement en vue de leur insertion a l'interieur de systemes permettant d'atteindre de fortes efficacites spectrales (jusqu'a 7 bit/s/hz). Pour cela, les performances des turbo-codes de rendements eleves (compris entre 1/2 et 7/8) ont tout d'abord ete etudiees. Les resultats obtenus a l'aide de simulations ont permis de mettre en evidence le haut pouvoir de correction des turbo-codes, ceci quels que soient les rendements et les canaux de transmission consideres (canal gaussien ou de rayleigh sans memoire). Ensuite, une evaluation de la complexite du codeur et du decodeur a ete effectuee, dont les conclusions sont tres favorables vis-a-vis des systemes concurrents. Tout ceci a conduit a la definition d'un nouveau systeme de transmission permettant d'atteindre de fortes efficacites spectrales (comprises entre 2 et 7 bit/s/hz), et obtenu en associant un turbo-code a une modulation a grand nombre d'etats (mdp8, maq16, maq32, etc). Elabore suivant une approche pragmatique, ce systeme est non seulement relativement simple a mettre en uvre, mais egalement tout a fait apte a fonctionner a des debits eleves. De plus, nous montrons qu'il permet d'obtenir des gains de codage importants par rapport a des modulation codees en treillis de forte complexite (treillis a 64 etats). Ainsi, grace a ses performances et a sa relative simplicite, le systeme propose constitue une excellente alternative aux modulations codees, et pourrait devenir dans les annees a venir un standard dans le domaine des communications numeriques
An A-Z of Pharma Industry Review: Bangladesh Perspective

After liberation, Bangladesh pharma industry was largely dominated by the import dependent MNCs. On or before 1982 ordinance, 75% of the market was dominated by the MNCs and the rest share was with the other 133 local companies. After NDP formulation and the Drug Control Ordinance, there was a dramatic change of reverse. By 1994, a few pharma companies achieved a tremendous growth and they reinvest their profit for faster return. By next decade, Bangladesh is aiming to 30 world class drug manufacturers to establish strong footstep in global pharma market. Bangladesh, as an LDC got exempted from the obligation of patent and data protection in this arena until 2033. Interestingly, Bangladesh already passed across the LDC landmark to a developing country. So, there’s window of opportunity of more than a decade to grow further from that aspect.
Managing online product assortment and order fulfillment for superior e-tailing service experience

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to bridge together seemingly disparate yet interconnected paradigmatic antecedents of e-tailing and servicescape, i.e., product assortment, order fulfillment, shopping assistance and its consequences for shopping efficiency. Design/methodology/approach The proposed conceptual model is well grounded in the extensive literature from e-tailing as well as retailing domain and to assess the plausibility of the model. Total 246 female online apparel shoppers were surveyed from an Indian university and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling through SmartPLS. Findings The outcomes of the study indicate that the e-customer may derive a substantial share of shopping assistance and service interface through product assortment offered by e-tailing sites. Customer-perceived performance of this e-shopping process – a crucial element of e-tail servicescape – directly affects the shopping assistance, along with order fulfillment capability of retail scope. Research limitations/implications The study used a sample of graduate students at a north-west university in India, which limits the generalizability of the research to other consumer groups. The paper links a significant body of literature within a conceptually developed framework and identifies key research areas in the e-tailing realm. Practical implications By better understanding the role of product assortment as a value-added feature in online value co-creation process, the e-tail managers can leverage the proposed integrated capability to improve e-tailing performance and customer outcomes in the form of business. Social implications With rapid advancements in internet-led communication, we are witnessing the dawn of a new era of e-tail innovations around us which is expected to change the way people experience shopping. Originality/value This research is an attempt to enrich the level of understanding about online shopping environment in light of relationships among virtual and physical facets of e-tail, i.e., product assortment, order fulfillment, shopping assistance and shopping efficiency. The authors investigate customer-perceived product assortment performance in e-tailing and its significances on shopping outcomes.
Quad-Band Circularly Polarized Antenna for 2.4/5.3/5.8-GHz WLAN and 3.5-GHz WiMAX Applications

A quad-band circularly polarized (CP) antenna for 2.4/5.3/5.8-GHz WLAN and 3.5-GHz WiMax applications is proposed. Three CP modes operating at the 2.4/3.5/5.8-GHz frequency bands are first achieved by a patch antenna composed of an inverted-U-shaped radiator with additional I-shaped and L-shaped strips, all rotated by 45 ° around the horizontal axis. By placing a simple frequency selective surface (FSS) of 6 × 6 square metallic patches under this antenna, 5.3-GHz linearly polarized (LP) signals are converted into CP signals, producing a quad-band CP antenna. The measured -10-dB impedance bandwidth is 380 MHz (2.37-2.75 GHz) and 4.6 GHz (3.4-8 GHz). The measured 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidth reaches 5.4% (2.35-2.48 GHz), 8.3% (3.45-3.75 GHz), 3.7% (5.25-5.45 GHz), and 2.9% (5.7-5.87 GHz).
Validation of compound Poisson noise model for computed tomography with energy-integrating detector

These instructions provide guidelines for preparing manuscripts for submission to the Conference Record (CR) of the 2012 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference. If you are using Microsoft Word 6.0 or later to prepare your manuscript, you should use this document as a template. Define all symbols used in the abstract. Do not cite references in the abstract. Traditional Poisson noise model underestimates noise for large object or patient sizes. We suggest a method for more accurate noise estimation (energy and object size dependent) by using a compound Poisson noise model. Our results with water phantom data show validity of the proposed noise model. Our results confirm more accurate noise estimation compared to a simple Poisson model. The new noise model has potential to improve noise accuracy in low dose simulations, data-domain noise reduction, and iterative reconstruction.
FPGA implementation of Discrete Wavelet Transform using Distributed Arithmetic Architecture

Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is used in signal compression and enhancement applications. DWT could be implemented using recursive Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filtering. DWT is a very effective analysis tool for many practical applications. Due to computational intensive nature because of multiply operations being a part of, real time processing of signals is being a tough task, as the implementations are not optimized. This paper describes implementation of DWT using Distributed Arithmetic Architecture (DAA) on FPGA device and a novel idea for implementation of Decimator function. The Low Pass FIR filters (LPF) and High Pass FIR filters (HPF) used in DWT are implemented using DAA. Simulations and syntheses are done with Virtex-5 XC5VLX20T-2FF323 FPGA device environment. Conventional Multiplier Architecture (CMA) based DWT system makes use of 8 high-cost resource DSP48Es for use of 8 8X8-bit multipliers, whereas DAA based DWT system makes use of only LUT slices. With CMA design, the maximum throughput achieved by the system is 1009.72Mbit/s, whereas DAA based system provides a throughput of 301.761Mbit/s, a metric which restricts DAA based DWT to low speed applications.
Alcohol and mortality in Ukraine

Ukraine has experienced a long-term decline in life expectancy since the late 1960s. While spectacular improvement in longevity has been observed in Western countries, the trend in Ukraine has been accompanied by increasing or stagnating mortality. Although many studies indicate that alcohol is one of the leading contributors to low life expectancy in Eastern Europe, little is known about its impact on premature mortality in Ukraine. The aim of this study is to estimate alcohol-attributable deaths at working ages (20-64) in Ukraine. We investigate the contribution of alcohol to adult mortality between 1980 and 2007 using a new method for estimating alcohol-attributable fractions by causes of death. We also assess the public health burden of alcohol in terms of length of life losses. We find that in 2007 alcohol-related deaths constituted 40% and 22% of all deaths among adult men and women, respectively. The results also indicate that alcohol-related deaths at working ages account for approximately one-third of the male and one-fifth of the female life expectancy difference between Ukraine and western countries. Alcohol is an important public health threat in Ukraine and should be addressed by relevant measures.
The Influence of Audit Time Budget Pressure on Reduced Audit Quality Behavior

Objective – The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of audit time budget pressure on audit quality reduction behavior conducted by auditors in Indonesia.Design/methodology – 240 respondents for current study where auditors in Indonesia served as the sample. Multivariate technique was deployed to data analysis using AMOS - structural equation modeling. Results – The results of this study indicate that the audit quality reduction behavior occurs in the audit assignment practices and this is becoming a concern in audit profession. Research finding statistically highlighted that there is a positive and significant relationship between time budget pressure and audit quality reduction behavior. Keywords Audit Quality, Time budget pressure, Reduce Audit Quality Behavior
Hierarchical pipelining for behaviors, loops, and operations

Behavioral specifications of DSP systems generally contain a number of nested loops. In order to obtain high date rates for such systems, it is necessary to pipeline them across their tasks, loops, and operations. This paper presents an algorithm for pipelining a given throughput-constrained system at these three different levels of granularity, while at the same time, scheduling the operations within the loop bodies and selecting components for them. Results demonstrate the feasibility and quality of our approach, and also indicate that it may be used for synthesis or estimation purposes in system-level design.
Corporate governance and blockchain: Some preliminary results by a survey

Blockchain technology can influence various aspects of the business even if empirical studies are still lacking to estimate the effective application of technology on corporate governance. Beyond its scientific-practical trendiness, blockchain should not be a matter of “if”, but a matter of “how” organizations are willing and able to integrate blockchain practices into their vision of the future, with ways to manage shareholders issues down to regular operations reaching and managing different levels of activism. It seems almost paradoxical that still not all companies subscribe to the “next best practice”. Therefore, this paper aims to answer the following research question: What is the expected impact of blockchain technology on corporate governance? The purpose of this study is to provide a starting point for research that can be used for further examination of these aspects.
A framework for enhancing information sharing and collaboration within the tourism industry in Zimbabwe

The research upon which this article I s based aimed at developing an ICT based framework that enhances information sharing and collaboration within the tourism industry. The research showed the current information sharing methods employed by tourism service providers and consumers. It illustrated the role ICTs can play in information sharing and collaboration in the tourism sector. The Design Science Research paradigm for Information technology was employed to conduct a qualitative research study. The data for the study was collected through semi-structured interviews and was analysed using structural coding to find emerging themes. The findings of the study revealed that collaborative information sharing in Zimbabwe is minimal and mainly occurs mandatorily between government institutions and tourism providers. Issues of trust, diversified information needs, poor infrastructure and rivalry between regulators and tourism providers hamper information sharing. The study developed a framework, which when adopted can help mitigate against the issues hampering information sharing.