Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mesdames et Messieurs, momentum performance is not so abnormal after all!

This article provides evidence regarding the performance of momentum investment strategies that is consistent with the Neoclassical Theory. More specifically, while momentum investment returns appear orthogonal to systematic risk in the extant literature, this article illustrates that they are due to correlated changes of hedge portfolio systematic risk exposures with market conditions. Momentum portfolios are excellent market timers in both expanding and contracting markets. Their returns however are generally not abnormal when timing is considered in an augmented unconditional Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), while the standard version erroneously considers them to be so, possibly explaining why momentum studies have so far rejected the Neoclassical Theory.
A Functional-Genetic Scheme for Seizure Forecasting in Canine Epilepsy

Objective: The objective of this work is the development of an accurate seizure forecasting algorithm that considers brain's functional connectivity for electrode selection. Methods: We start by proposing Kmeans-directed transfer function, an adaptive functional connectivity method intended for seizure onset zone localization in bilateral intracranial EEG recordings. Electrodes identified as seizure activity sources and sinks are then used to implement a seizure-forecasting algorithm on long-term continuous recordings in dogs with naturally-occurring epilepsy. A precision-recall genetic algorithm is proposed for feature selection in line with a probabilistic support vector machine classifier. Results: Epileptic activity generators were focal in all dogs confirming the diagnosis of focal epilepsy in these animals while sinks spanned both hemispheres in 2 of 3 dogs. Seizure forecasting results show performance improvement compared to previous studies, achieving average sensitivity of 84.82% and time in warning of 0.1. Conclusion: Achieved performances highlight the feasibility of seizure forecasting in canine epilepsy. Significance: The ability to improve seizure forecasting provides promise for the development of EEG-triggered closed-loop seizure intervention systems for ambulatory implantation in patients with refractory epilepsy.
The Charcteristics of Expatriate Entrepreneurs

DAVID R. BEFUS is with Azusa Pacific University, California, USA, George S. Vozikis is with Memphis State University, Tennessee, USA, and Timothy S. Mescon and Debbie L. Mescon are with Salisbury State University, Maryland, USA. The investment activity of expatriate entrepreneurs in Honduras in Central America and their personal characteristics were compared with other entrepreneurial propulations for this paper. The economic development impact of the expatriate investor was also explored. The profile generated from the study indicates that personal reasons were more significant that financial reasons in motivating the investor to locate overseas and government incentives played no part in the decision-making process. The comparison of personality characteristics yielded mixed results. Unlike entrepreneurs surveyed in other studies, this population of expatriate entrepreneurs demonstrated a statistically significant difference from the normal population only in relation to the characteristic of 'order'.
Highly Valued Equity and Discretionary Accruals

Overvalued equity provides a strong incentive for managers to report earnings that do not disappoint the market ( Jensen, 2005 ). We find that this can be extended to highly valued equity more generally. In the year following the classification as highly valued and compared to firms with less extreme valuations, highly valued firms have significantly higher discretionary accruals and exhibit a more pronounced positive association between discretionary accruals and proxies for the likelihood of failing to meet earnings targets. These findings are consistent with the use of discretionary accruals to manage earnings in support of extreme valuation. Because highly valued equity will likely result in CEOs with valuable stock and stock option portfolios, we test whether and show that the overvalued equity incentive is incremental to a CEO's equity portfolio incentive. One implication is that directors and audit committees should be especially on guard for possible earnings management when a firm has extremely high valuation multiples and when the CEO has a lot of equity at risk. Copyright (c) 2010 The Authors Journal compilation (c) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Mimebot—Investigating the Expressibility of Non-Verbal Communication Across Agent Embodiments

Unlike their human counterparts, artificial agents such as robots and game characters may be deployed with a large variety of face and body configurations. Some have articulated bodies but lack facial features, and others may be talking heads ending at the neck. Generally, they have many fewer degrees of freedom than humans through which they must express themselves, and there will inevitably be a filtering effect when mapping human motion onto the agent. In this article, we investigate filtering effects on three types of embodiments: (a) an agent with a body but no facial features, (b) an agent with a head only, and (c) an agent with a body and a face. We performed a full performance capture of a mime actor enacting short interactions varying the non-verbal expression along five dimensions (e.g., level of frustration and level of certainty) for each of the three embodiments. We performed a crowd-sourced evaluation experiment comparing the video of the actor to the video of an animated robot for the different embodiments and dimensions. Our findings suggest that the face is especially important to pinpoint emotional reactions but is also most volatile to filtering effects. The body motion, on the other hand, had more diverse interpretations but tended to preserve the interpretation after mapping and thus proved to be more resilient to filtering.
Assigning amino acid sequences to 3‐dimensional protein folds

With the advent of genome sequencing projects, the amino acid sequences of thousands of proteins are determined every year. Each of these protein sequences must be identified with its function and its 3‐dimensional structure for us to gain a full understanding of the molecular biology of organisms. To meet this challenge, new methods are being developed for fold recognition, the computational assignment of newly determined amino acid sequences to 3‐dimensional protein structures. These methods start with a library of known 3‐dimensional target protein structures. The new probe sequence is then aligned to each target protein structure in the library and the compatibility of the sequence for that structure is scored. If a target structure is found to have a significantly high compatibility score, it is assumed that the probe sequence folds in much the same way as the target structure. The fundamental assumptions of this approach are that many different sequences fold in similar ways and there is a relatively high probability that a new sequence possesses a previously observed fold. We review various approaches to fold recognition and break down the process into its main steps: creation of a library of target folds; representation of the folds; alignment of the probe sequence to a target fold using a sequence‐to‐struc‐ ture compatibility scoring function; and assessment of significance of compatibility. We emphasize that even though this new field of fold recognition has made rapid progress, technical problems remain to be solved in most of the steps. Standard benchmarks may help identify the problem steps and find solutions to the problems. —Fischer, D. , Rice, D. , Bowie, J. U. , Eisenberg, D. Assigning amino acid sequences to 3‐dimensional protein folds. FASEB J. 10, 126‐136 (1996)
A Cleanroom Monitoring System for Network Computing Service Based on Remote Attestation

Most of security measures for network computing are provided by service provider itself. However, this kind of methods cannot be trusted radically by the user for lacking the ability to control the resource directly. The computing environment for the user is unable to know what software will be provided. To address this problem, we present a security scheme, named Cleanroom Monitoring System (CMS), to monitor the computing environment provided by server. The CMS provides a mechanism for the user to control the runtime system. Specifically, a secure server is added in CMS as remote trusted base, to provide clean software for the user. A kernel-based monitoring is designed into client OS for illegal procedure detecting, and it is unable to be bypassed. To protect the monitoring module from malicious attacking, the CMS creates the trust chain from the secure server to the client with a lightweight verifiable computing mechanism. This paper presents the implementation and evaluation of the CMS which has gone through rigorous and thorough evaluation of effectiveness and performance. It is currently deployed on the local server and personal computers for a real scenario. The evaluation result shows that the CMS performs effectively with an acceptable overhead.
Cost efficiency in network industries: Application of stochastic frontier analysis

Since the past decade, the regulation of several network industries is under revision in many western countries. The aim is to increase the efficiency of the provision of services by introducing new regulation instruments based on incentive mechanisms. Most of these regulation schemes used in practice are based on benchmarking, that is, measuring a company’s productive efficiency against a reference performance. In benchmarking applications the regulator is generally interested in obtaining a measure of firms’ efficiency in order to reward (or punish) companies accordingly. The reliability of efficiency scores is therefore crucial for an effective implementation of the incentive mechanism. One way to estimate this cost inefficiency of companies is by the application of Stochastic Frontier models. The results of the estimated inefficiency scores or the predicted cost from such a model can be used to set the standard against which the actual costs are compared with. As it is crucial to set the correct incentives, it would be desirable to have insights into the stability of the results obtained by different Stochastic Frontier models. The main objective of this thesis is therefore to study the sensitivity of different econometric methods in determining such benchmarks. This is accomplished by the use of traditional as well as recently developed approaches. Moreover, a new panel model based on Mundlak’s formulation will be discussed and applied. The main advantage of such parametric methods to non-parametric ones is that they allow to model explicitly cost differences due to heterogeneous production environments. As regulated companies operate in different regions and run different networks, they might incur different production costs due to firm-specific production environments. The resulting cost differences incurred by a more or less favorable production environment should not be confounded with inefficiency, since typically, the production environment is not under the control of the company. Hence, such cost differences should also be taken into account when elaborating an appropriate benchmark. Consequently, this thesis also considers the modeling of observable heterogeneity in production. Furthermore, since not all influences might be observed in practice, the ability of the models with regard to the inclusion of unobserved heterogeneity and the influence to estimated inefficiency is studied by the application of traditional as well as recently developed panel data models like the “true” random-effects model proposed by Greene (2002a, 2005). After defining different measures of inefficiency and reviewing the relevant literature, several such parametric methods are applied to two data sets to study the impact of different assumptions regarding the distribution of inefficiency and heterogeneity in a comparative analysis. The first data set consists of a sample of Swiss rural bus companies. Results suggest
The Post‐SOX Evolution of the Client Portfolio of the Second Tier: A Focus on Restatement and Internal Control Risk

The Post‐SOX era coincides with the rise of the Second Tier auditing firms. Our study tests risk characteristics of new (and departing) clients versus continuing clients of the Second Tier to judge overall risks faced by this auditing tier. We add to the prior literature by focusing on prevalence and severity of restatement and internal control weaknesses (ICW). We show that the new clients of the Second Tier indeed have higher prevalence and severity of restatements and ICW. Departing clients also show a high risk profile compared to continuing clients, but the difference is perhaps not as strong as that indicated in the new versus continuing comparison. We confirm the widely held belief that the Second Tier is gaining market share, but this gain appears to be achieved in a somewhat controlled manner.
POLYMYALGIA RHEUMATICA, GIANT‐CELL ARTERITIS AND BLINDNESS: A REVIEW AND CASE REPORT

Polymyalgia rheumatica is a chronic disease of two to four years’ duration which occurs in older people, especially women, and is characterized by muscular pain predominantly of the girdle area, malaise, slight fever, sweating, and elevation of the erythrocyte sedimentation rate. The syndrome, frequently reported in European literature, has been described under the names of anarthritic rheumatoid disease, periarthrosis humeroscapularis, periextra-articular rheumatism, myalgic syndrome of the aged with systemic reaction, pseudopolyarthrite rhizom6lique1 and giant-cell arteritis of the aged (1, 2). History: In 1957, Barber (3) first suggested the term polymyalgia rheumatica in his report of 12 patients with this syndrome. Earlier Holst and Johansen (4) described the disease in 5 persons, using the term periextra-articular rheumatism. Meulengracht and Schwartz ( 5 ) reported 78 patients with periarthrosis humeroscapularis ; their group must have included local shoulder disturbances as well as “periarthrosis humeroscapularis with prolonged fever, loss of weight, and a greatly elevated sedimentation reaction” (apparent polymyalgia rheumatica) . Bagratuni (6-8) used the term anarthritic rheumatoid disease in his description of similar cases. Incidence: Alestig and Barr (9) of Sweden reported 10 hospitalized patients seen during an 18-month period from a population area of 250,000 people. They believed the disease was common. A review of some of the reported cases shows the age range to be 46-88 years with a slight predominance of women (Table 1 ) . Etiology: The cause of the syndrome is unknown (9, 12, 13) although it has been considered a collagen disease (11) possibly related to auto-immunity or to a foreign-body reaction from nonspecific irritation (9). Clinical picture: There is often an acute onset of muscular aching in the neck and shoulders with increasing pain which may involve the back and thighs (1, 3, 6, 10-12). A preceding period of malaise, lassitude and depression has been reported. Anorexia and weight loss often occur. There may be fever with sweating, especially a t night. Headache (1) ) pruritis and disorders
MEASURING FINANCIAL SECTOR DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF SELECTED ASIA‐PACIFIC COUNTRIES

RADITIONAL measures of financial deepening, those based on monetary and credit aggregates, may not enable to assess accurately a country’s financial development. For example, China has a higher ratio of broad money to GDP than Australia, and around the same level as Japan. Yet no one would consider China’s financial system to be anywhere near as well developed as either of these two. Alternative measures are required to improve the evaluation of levels of financial development. This is of practical importance. Financial sector development is promoted as a means to generate economic efficiency by national governments and multinational agencies, like the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank. A well-defined set of measures of financial development is required for effective policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Indicators of financial development suggested in this paper may contribute to achieving this objective. Section II briefly examines the theoretical foundations of financial development. Based on this discussion, Section III presents a range of indicators of financial development for selected Asia-Pacific countries. Financial development is concerned with the unification of fragmented financial markets and these indicators can be used for this purpose. Thus, they extend beyond traditional indicators and, taken as a set, can trace financial development from less developed financial systems, like those of China, to highly advanced systems, like those of Australia. Section IV presents some conclusions.
Designing Monetary Policy When Unemployment Persists

This paper investigates how unemployment persistence affects the optimal delegation of monetary policy to an independent central banker (CB). Two opposing forces are shown to be at work: with more persistence, the government's incentive to stabilize the economy is greater; but (if the CB is forward-looking) its incentive to create inflation surprises is also greater. The authors show that, owing to the second effect, the government may wish not to delegate at all, unlike the case where there is no persistence. In the event that the government does delegate, the paper identifies conditions under which either effect dominates in the government's choice of conservatism of the CB. The authors compare delegation to discretion and precommitment, using a diagrammatic approach that may be of independent interest. They also present some preliminary empirical evidence on the cross-country relationship between unemployment persistence and inflation that appears consistent with the model's predictions. Copyright 1998 by The London School of Economics and Political Science
Relationships of perceived benefits and barriers to physical activity, physical activity participation and physical fitness in Hong Kong female adolescents.

AIM Previous studies that examined participation in physical activity suggested that female adolescents were less active compared with males. However, the relationship between physical fitness, physical activity participation, and perceived benefits and barriers for physical activity to adolescents, irrespective of gender, has not been made clear. This study examines the association of these factors in female adolescents. METHODS Physical activity participation and perceived benefits and barriers to physical activity were determined in 206 secondary school female subjects (aged 11 to 18) using a validated questionnaire. RESULTS Subjects with a correct concept about optimal physical activity participation to maintain health engaged in an activity level higher than the group without a correct concept (t=2.37, p=0.02). A significant correlation was established between the physical activity participation with "health" (r=0.22, p<0.001) and "body image" (r=0.17, p=0.02) in the perceived benefit category. The individual factor, "make me feel better in general" in the "health" category (p=0.04) and the intention to participate (p<0.001) were shown to be significant predictors for physical activity participation. The combined effects of the regression model explained 35.9% of the variance in participation in physical activity. CONCLUSION Policies to support regular physical activity participation at school and out-of-school should be strategically developed and promoted, highlighting the promotion of health benefits in exercise and the reinforcement of initial intent towards exercise.
The Challenges and Strategies of Internationalizing Hong Kong's Higher Education in a Globalized World

This article presents a study of how to attract students from the Asian markets to pursue higher education in Hong Kong. The study found that the strategies of internationalization, at both the system level and the institutional level, attempted to address problems generated from the barriers of exporting higher education and so build on the attractions of studying in Hong Kong's higher education system. These strategies are mainly driven by concerns of brain gain and income generation. Although these strategies help to attract overseas students, we caution the importance of going beyond recruiting overseas students and put forward a more humanized way of looking at internationalization to counteract the overriding economic-driven globalization.
THE DETERMINATION OF ANTIBODY TO GROUP A STREPTOCOCCAL POLYSACCHARIDE IN HUMAN SERA BY HEMAGGLUTINATION

A hemagglutination method employing tanned human O erythrocytes sensitized with purified Group A streptococcal polysaccharide has been developed to measure A polysaccharide antibody in antistreptococcal rabbit and human sera. The reaction of sensitized RBC with known Group A streptococcal rabbit antisera, inhibition of hemagglutination with A polysaccharide, and abolition of hemagglutination and hemagglutination-inhibition by exposure of polysaccharide antigen to A enzyme, which destroys the specific immunologic determinant of A carbohydrate, were utilized to demonstrate the specificity of this hemagglutinating system. The results of A polysaccharide antibody determinations on sera from normal persons, patients convalescent from streptococcal infection, and patients with non-suppurative streptococcal sequelae are presented.
A State Space Approach to Estimate Systemic Risk

The recent global financial crisis has given one important lesson that, the traditional approach of managing the soundness of the banks needs to be supplemented by a system-wide macro-prudential approach. Hence, there is a pressing need for containing this system wide risk. However, prior to containing the systemic risk and form the regulations we need to measure this risk properly and study its sources. I in this paper propose a state space modelling framework to estimate a systemic risk measure "Systemic Expected Shortfall" (SES). This measure was introduced by Acharya et al. (2010) on the basis of a two period model of the economy having N banks but the authors did not present any estimation methodology to estimate this unobserved ex-ante measure of risk over a period of time. I apply the proposed state space estimation approach to estimate the time varying daily SES to evaluate the riskiness of Indian banks and the evolution of systemic risk over the period of time. And evaluate the forecasting performance of the estimated measure.