Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Gasoline Prices Respond Asymmetrically to Crude Oil Price Changes?

Our empirical investigation confirms the common belief that retail gasoline prices react more quickly to increases in crude oil prices than to decreases. Nearly all of the response to a crude oil price increase shows up in the pump price within 4 weeks, while decreases are passed along gradually over 8 weeks. The asymmetry could indicate market power of some producers or distributors, or it could result from inventory adjustment costs. By analyzing price transmission at different points in the distribution chain we investigate these theories. We find that some asymmetry occurs at the level of the competitive spot market for gasoline, perhaps reflecting inventory costs. Wholesale gasoline prices, however, exhibit no asymmetry in responding to crude oil price changes, indicating that refiners who set wholesale prices are not the source of the asymmetry. The most significant asymmetry appears in the response of retail prices to wholesale price changes. We argue that this probably reflects short run market power among retail gasoline sellers.
What Happened to Liquidity When World War I Shut the Nyse?

The suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange for more than four months following the outbreak of World War I fostered a substitute market on New Street as a source of liquidity. The New Street market suffered from a lack of price transparency because its transactions were not disseminated on the NYSE ticker and its quotations were blacklisted at the leading newspapers. This paper shows that despite the impaired information flow and the somewhat wider bid-ask spreads compared with the New York Stock Exchange, New Street offered economically meaningful liquidity services. The absence of price transparency turned an individual stock’s reputation for liquidity into an important variable in explaining the structure of bid-ask spreads on New Street
Joint middlebox selection and routing for software-defined networking

In the context of Software-Defined Networking (SDN), various sophisticated policy-aware network functions such as intrusion detection, access control and load balancer, can be realized via specified middlebox devices. However, high congestions may occur in specific bottleneck links if middlebox selection and traffic routing are not well jointly planed. To this end, we study a joint optimization of MiddleBox Selection and Routing (MBSR) problem with the objective to maximize the throughput for a specified set of sessions in an SDN network. In order to solve this NP-hard problem, we design a polynomial algorithm using the Markov approximation technique. Numerical results show that the proposed Markov approximation based algorithm outperforms other benchmark algorithms significantly and generates near-optimal solutions.
Ethyl 23-benzyl-8,11,14-trioxa-23,28,29-triazapentacyclo[19.7.1.02,7.015,20.022,27]nonacosa-2,4,6,15(20),16,18,21,26-octaene-26-carboxylate

The title compound, C33H35N3O5, is the product of the multicomponent condensation of 1-benzyl-4-ethoxycarbonylpiperidin-3-one with 1,5-bis(2-formylphenoxy)-3-oxapentane and ammonium acetate. The molecule comprises a pentacyclic system containing the aza-14-crown-4-ether macrocycle, tetrahydropyrimidine, tetrahydropyridine and two benzene rings. The aza-14-crown-4-ether ring adopts a bowl conformation with a dihedral angle of 62.37 (5)° between the benzene rings. The tetrahydropyrimidine ring has an envelope conformation with the chiral C atom as the flap, whereas the tetrahydropyridine ring adopts a distorted chair conformation. Two amino groups are involved in intramolecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds. In the crystal, weak C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the molecules into layers parallel to the ab plane.
The Nature of Mentoring and its Relationship with Role Socialization for the Academic Nurse Administrator

Problem. Many academic nursing organizations have a great need for leaders who can handle the complex mix of academic administration, health care facilities, and curriculum demands. These administrators are not directly trained to be professional academic nurse administrators. It was the purpose of this study to investigate the nature of mentoring as a vehicle for socializing academic nurse administrators. Method. A survey research methodology was used to study the characteristics of the mentor-protege relationship. The Mentoring Role Socialization Survey was the instrument used for data collection. For the purpose of this study, the instrument was divided into three sections: Professional Information, Mentor-Protege Characteristics, and Role Socialization Functions. Results. The results of the study indicated that academic nurse administrators with mentors reported the relationship as positive, supportive, intellectually stimulating, and encouraged independent growth. There were no significant differences between the nurse and non-nurse mentors on these characteristics. Academic nurse administrators reported receiving more guidance in clinical activities and encouragement to write and publish their ideas by nurse mentors than by non-nurse mentors. The length of the mentoring relationship was significantly related to most of the functions carried out in the mentor-protege relationship. Functions included: providing personal and career counseling, being taught new skills, encouraging decisiveness, writing, and publishing ideas. Academic nurse administrators who did not have a mentor were highly supportive that a mentor would have made a difference in their career progress and would recommend a mentoring relationship for prospective nurse administrators. Conclusion. Based on this study, a mentoring relationship was predominant among the administrators. Suggestions for further research include a longitudinal study, at 3-year intervals, of the academic nurse administrators who participated in this study. Qualitative research should be conducted to reveal the possible mentor characteristics and functions that might relate to the leadership style, administrative effectiveness, and role socialization of future academic nurse administrators.
Are exports and imports cointegrated? Evidence from 22 least developed countries

The aim of this article is to investigate whether there is a long-run relationship (cointegration) between exports and imports for 22 least developed countries (LDCs). This is an important issue, for evidence of cointegration will ensure that trade imbalances are sustainable. The article explores this issue using the bounds testing approach to cointegration. The results indicate that exports and imports are cointegrated only for six out of the 22 countries, and the coefficient on exports is less than one.
Forecasting Bankruptcy with Incomplete Information

We propose new specifications that explicitly account for information noise in the input data of bankruptcy hazard models. The specifications are motivated by a theory of modeling credit risk with incomplete information (Duffie and Lando [2001]). Based on over 2 million firm-months of data during 1979-2012, we demonstrate that our proposed specifications significantly improve both in-sample model fit and out-of-sample forecasting accuracy. The improvements in forecasting accuracy are persistent throughout the 10-year holdout periods. The improvements are also robust to empirical setup, and are more substantial in cases where information quality is a more serious problem. Our findings provide strong empirical support for using our proposed hazard specifications in credit risk research and industry applications. They also reconcile conflicting empirical results in the literature.
Incentives and the Effects of Publication Lags on Life Cycle Research Productivity in Economics

We investigate how increases in publication delays have affected the life-cycle of publications of recent Ph.D. graduates in economics. We construct a panel dataset of 14,271 individuals who were awarded Ph.D.s between 1986 and 2000 in US and Canadian economics departments. For this population of scholars, we amass complete records of publications in peer reviewed journals listed in the JEL (a total of 368,672 observations). We find evidence of significantly diminished productivity in recent relative to earlier cohorts when productivity of an individual is measured by the number of AER equivalent publications. Diminished productivity is less evident when number of AER equivalent pages is used instead. Our findings are consistent with earlier empirical findings of increasing editorial delays, decreasing acceptance rates at journals, and a trend toward longer manuscripts. This decline in productivity is evident in both graduates of top thirty and non-top thirty ranked economics departments and may have important implications for what should constitute a tenurable record. We also find that the research rankings of the faculty do not line up with the research quality of their students in many cases.
How should workers be transported to a developing hotel area in Cuba

The objective of this work was to analyse different alternatives for transporting workers every day from their towns to their workplace in a growing hotel area on the Cuban coast and back. Even though the main concern when carrying out the analysis was the reduction of travel times, other additional issues, like nature preservation or economic development, as well as the specific characteristics of the Cuban socio-economic environment, were also kept in mind. A cost? benefit analysis, both from a financial and an economic perspective, was carried out, in order to select the best alternative. Since much relevant data was lacking and had to be estimated, a sensitivity analysis was also introduced to guarantee the robustness of the results to a higher extent.
What a delta hedge really does – a theoretical and pedagogical note

The Black–Scholes description of delta hedging makes the instantaneous value of the short sale negative, but the value should be zero by the principle of no arbitrage. This violation of no-arbitrage makes it impossible to illustrate the Black–Scholes delta hedging of an endowment of one call by an example containing only legally realizable transactions, and this causes confusion as to what delta hedging really does. Like Cox and Ross (1976), we model the short sale as having cash proceeds, and after including these, its instantaneous net value is zero. From this fact, delta hedging yields the risk-free rate of return on the option's opening value, for as long as required, in both discrete and continuous time. The terms of the Black–Scholes equation can be interpreted as inflows or outflows of cash, whose values are fixed at the time of hedging, and which risk-averse investors correctly price as risk-free even under the objective probability measure. The Cox and Ross model of no-arbitrage can be re-interpreted as a model of delta hedging, giving the same result, and we also use it to directly derive the Black–Scholes equation for risk neutral investors.
Fuzzy fast classification algorithm with hybrid of ID3 and SVM

The Classification of data is usually very large database that is the reason we want to classify the large data into different fragmentation of its same type. Already many algorithms have been used for classification like Id3, rule based algorithm, decision tree based algorithm, k-nearest-neighbor classification and so on. And these algorithm mainly used for classifying the algorithm accurately and the concept of fast classification is lagging behind in the previous algorithms. In this paper we analysis the efficiency and accuracy of using the entropy, id3 and SVM algorithm with our proposed method of using entropy and fuzzy classification with lower and upper approximation to reduce the computation work for more accuracy classification. We use id3 algorithm to classify the complex member that lie between the lower and upper approximation. Now we use SVM algorithm to classify the other data members thus by hybrid of both the algorithm with our approximation we get the best result of the algorithm Fuzzy Fast Classification FFC. The result of experiments shows that the improved fuzzy fast classification algorithm considerably reduces the computational complexity and improves the speed of classification particularly in the circumstances of the large data.
Precautionary Principle under the Cartagena Protocol on Transboundary Movement of LMOs

The Cartagena Protocol, made under the Convention on Biological Diversity, aims at protecting the ‘human, animal and plant life and health’ by prescribing a high standard of precautionary principle. This has to be based on risk assessment. Thus, the importing countries of GMOs/LMOs have the right to invoke the precautionary principle provisions enshrined in the Cartagena Protocol and the exporting countries have to provide required relevant information. This is working well. However, there are certain controversial legal and ethical aspects that require to be revisited and have to be amicably settled so that there could be wider acceptability of the precautionary principle. It has been observed that a large number of states prefer international trade in GMOs/LMOs over protection of human health and the environment, some countries for a short-term economic gain ignore this aspect. Likewise, some scientists for the sake of name and fame or quick hauling of money, wish to introduce GMOs produced by them. The paper thoroughly discusses these and offers certain amicable solutions to them.
Depressive symptoms in the Netherlands 1975–1996

This article examines the longitudinal trend of depressive symptoms in the Netherlands, using large-scale national data recorded over the period 1975–1996. Our analyses showed fluctuations in the overall longitudinal trend. On the basis of a general theoretical framework, we formulated hypotheses concerning which socio-demographic characteristics determine the likelihood of suffering from depressive symptoms and how these associations might have changed over time. Our results revealed that people on low incomes, unemployed people, unmarried people and those who had given up their church membership were associated with depressive symptoms. Some associations between socio-demographic categories and depressive symptoms have changed over time. Divorced people have become progressively less likely to suffer from depressive symptoms compared with married people, whereas the reverse holds for those who were never married. People on low incomes have become more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms over time in comparison to people with the highest incomes. Gender differences in these associations were also found: educational level and church attendance were more beneficial to women in protecting them from depressive symptoms than they were to men.
Governance and Performance: Theory‐Based Evidence from U.S. Coast Guard Inspections

Given three stylized facts about the US Coast Guard (USCG), namely, soft penalties for safety violations, low incidence of penalties relative to the number of violations, and substantial resources devoted to inspections of vessels, this paper seeks (i) a theoretical lens to view USCG activities and (ii) an empirical assessment of whether those activities improve performance. Harrington’s (1988) model is motivated by these stylized facts about US regulation in general, and provides a solution via targeting of good and poor performers. The model generates hypotheses about optimal regulation in the context of pollution prevention activities of the USCG. An organization-level panel data set consisting of thousands of US flag tank barges is constructed to test those hypotheses. A count model that controls for vessel heterogeneity yields mixed evidence. If USCG inspections are considered exogenous variables (as the theory presumes), they appear to prevent pollution spills. But if inspections are endogenous and respond to previous spills then correcting for endogeneity reverses the earlier result. In addition, violations are found to be good predictors of pollution occurrences, suggesting that inspections are not as effective as they could be. Targeting as in Harrington’s model therefore appears to be incomplete, and the findings suggest that more complete targeting could increase performance. An interesting finding is that stronger penalties could increase performance.
Durable-Goods Monopoly with Maintenance

A two-period durable-goods monopoly product model with a competitive maintenance market is examined. Three types of monopoly solutions are calculated and contrasted to the social optimum: rentals, committed sales and uncommitted sales. Among other things, it is shown that contrary to the conventional wisdom a seller with committed power does not wish to commit ‘to act like a renter’ when maintenance is performed by buyers. This is due to the different objective functions of the buyer and seller. Furthermore, unlike earlier works, it is shown that the socially optimal amount of maintenance/repair does not occur in any sales case.
Testing the Boundaries of Lean Thinking: Observations from the Legal Public Sector

This article explores how Lean Thinking can be successfully extended into the legal sector, which in most advanced economies is dominated by the public sector. Two public sector cases from Portugal and Wales are discussed. The authors look at where and how implementation of Lean Thinking might start, and the modifications required to do this successfully. A tentative Lean legal supply chain model which will take three to five years to implement is presented.
Processing Fluency and Investors’ Reactions to Disclosure Readability

The SEC's emphasis on the use of plain English is designed to make disclosures more readable and more informative. Using an experiment, I find that more readable disclosures lead to stronger reactions from small investors, so that changes in valuation judgments are more positive when news is good and more negative when news is bad. Drawing on research in psychology to explain this result, I predict and find that processing fluency from a more readable disclosure acts as a subconscious heuristic cue and increases investors’ beliefs that they can rely on the disclosure. Although I do not find that more readable disclosures directly increase perceptions of management credibility, I do find evidence of an indirect effect operating through feelings of processing fluency. In supplemental analyses, I find that investors who receive more readable disclosures revise their valuation judgments to be less extreme when they are explicitly made aware of the potential for variation in readability. I discuss potential explanations for these revised valuation judgments.
Psychosis from subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulator lesion effect

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in particular is highly effective in relieving symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). However, it can also have marked psychiatric side effects, including delirium, mania, and psychosis. The etiologies of those effects are not well-understood, and both surgeons and consulting psychiatrists are in need of treatment strategies. Case Description: Two patients with young onset of PD and without significant prior psychiatric problems presented for bilateral STN DBS when medications became ineffective. Both had uneventful operative courses but developed florid psychosis 1-2 weeks later, before stimulator activation. Neither showed signs of delirium, but both required hospitalization, and one required treatment with a first-generation antipsychotic drug. Use of that drug did not worsen PD symptoms, contrary to usual expectations. Conclusion: These cases describe a previously unreported post-DBS syndrome in which local tissue reaction to lead implantation produces psychosis even without electrical stimulation of subcortical circuits. The lesion effect also appears to have anti-Parkinsonian effects that may allow the safe use of otherwise contraindicated medications. These cases have implications for management of PD DBS patients postoperatively, and may also be relevant as DBS is further used in other brain regions to treat behavioral disorders.
Impact of sludge retention time on MBR fouling: role of extracellular polymeric substances determined through membrane autopsy

Abstract The impact of sludge retention time (SRT) on the biofouling of a membrane bioreactor (MBR) by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) was investigated. The MBR was operated at 60 and 20 d SRT. The gel layer (recovered through optimized membrane autopsy methods) and the cake layer were analyzed for their content and profile of EPS proteins and polysaccharides. The change to a shorter SRT led to decreased membrane filterability, concomitant with a higher expression of EPS proteins in the cake layer, which were identified as being mainly related with biosynthesis and stress functions. The gel layer was more substantial in internal fibers, with polysaccharides being the major component in this layer. With the decrease in SRT (and filterability decrease), the overall polysaccharide content and sugar variety increased. In conclusion, SRT impacted not only on the quantity but also the composition of EPS molecules, and both were shown to be important in biofouling.
WAIPO: A Fusion-Based Collaborative Indoor Localization System on Smartphones

Indoor localization based on smartphone can enhance user’s experiences in indoor environments. Although some innovative solutions have been proposed in the past two decades, how to accurately and efficiently localize users in indoor environments is still a challenging problem. Traditional indoor positioning systems based on Wi-Fi fingerprints or dead reckoning suffer from the variation of Wi-Fi signals and the drift of dead reckoning problems, respectively. Crowdsourcing and ambient sensing stimulate new ways to improve existing localization systems’ accuracy. Using human social factors to calibrate the accuracy of localization is practical and awarding. In this paper, we propose WAIPO, a collaborative indoor localization system with the fusion of Wi-Fi and magnetic fingerprints, image-matching, and people co-occurrence. Specifically, we could obtain the most likely top- $n$ locations based on Wi-Fi fingerprints. We utilize the statistics of users’ historical locations known by image-matching, for which we propose a photo-room matching algorithm, to reduce estimating areas. In order to further improve the accuracy of localization, we propose a co-occurrence and non-co-occurrence detection algorithm to detect users’ spatial-temporal co-occurrence and determine users’ locations with magnetic calibration. We have fully implemented WAIPO on the Android platform and perform testbed experiments. The experimental results demonstrate that WAIPO achieves an accuracy of 87.3% on average, which outperforms the state-of-the-art indoor localization systems.
Convenience Yield and the Theory of Storage: Applying an Option‐Based Approach

type="main" xml:id="ajar12092-abs-0001"> We propose that an options-based approach is a superior alternative to the traditional cost-of-carry method to model both the behaviour of convenience yields and the commodity price responses to changes in inventory levels. This approach is shown to be more robust and avoids the simplifying assumptions embedded in cost-of-carry valuation which fully accounts for the non-negativity constraint on inventory. Unlike the cost-of-carry approach, the options-based approach does not treat the convenience yield as an exogenous factor. This offers a more natural measure of implied convenience yields in commodity trading strategies. We test the relationship between convenience yields and inventory levels for a number of liquidly traded base metals using both methods. Our results show that the relationship between convenience yields and inventory levels is strongly defined under the options-based approach in line with market beliefs. This result is consistent with other studies that have used the options-based approach in other nonmetals commodity markets.