Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Value Creation and Value Destruction in the Societas Europaea: Evidence from the New Legal Form

I study company characteristics that are associated with shareholder value changes in the new legal form: Societas Europaea (SE). In an event study of 47 companies that announce to become SEs I find that companies that change their board structure from two-tier to one tier have 3.7 percentage points lower returns than companies that do not change their board structure. Companies in the gambling or renewable energy industry have 2.8 percentage points higher returns than other companies. Last, companies already underperform their industry peers before they become SEs. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that adoption of the SE can be used to weaken the board's monitoring rule. Moreover, the SE's possibility of relocation within the European Union is beneficial to companies that operate in industries that depend on state subsidies, such as the renewable energy industry, or need special permits to operate (the online gambling industry).
Emotion Recognition in Spontaneous Speech within Work and Family Environments

The speech signal is an important tool for conveying information between humans; at the same time, it is an indicator of a speaker's emotions. In this paper, the automatic identification of affect from speech containing spontaneously expressed (not acted) emotions within different environments was investigated. The Teager Energy Operator? Perceptual Wavelet Packet (TEO-PWP) features as well as the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) were used to model the emotions using two classifiers: the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) and the probabilistic neural network (PNN). The classification experiments were conducted using two data sets: SUSAS with three classes (high stress, moderate stress and neutral) and ORI with five classes (angry, happy, anxious, dysphoric and neutral). Depending on the features/classifier combination, the average classification results for the SUSAS data ranged from 95% to 61%, whereas the ORI data provided lower average rates ranging from 57% to 37%. The best overall performance was achieved while using the TEO-PWP in combination with the GMM classifier giving an average of 94.75% correct classifications for the SUSAS data and 56.6% for the ORI data. Different arousal levels between SUSAS and ORI emotional classes were suggested to be most likely cause for the difference in classification rates between these two data sets.
Response: Climate and language: has the discourse shifted?

We begin by thanking the respondents for their thoughtful comments and insightful leads. The overall impression we are left with by this exchange is one of progress, even if no consensus remains about the particular hypothesis we raise. To date, there has been a failure to seriously engage with the possibility that humans might adapt their communication to ecological factors. In these exchanges, we see signs of serious engagement with that possibility. Most respondents expressed agreement with the notion that our central premise—that language is ecologically adaptive—requires further exploration and may in fact be operative. We are pleased to see this shift in discourse, and to witness a heightening appreciation of possible ecological constraints on language evolution. It is that shift in discourse that represents progress in our view. Our hope is that future work will continue to explore these issues, paying careful attention to the fact that the human larynx is clearly sensitive to characteristics of ambient air. More generally, we think this exchange is indicative of the growing realization that inquiries into language development must consider potential external factors (see Dediu 2015). Having said that, much debate remains about our more specific hypothesis vis-a-vis tonality and desiccation. Is desiccation directly implicated in the global distribution of complex tonality? The best answer anyone can offer at this point, we think, is ‘quite possibly’. Our distributional data remain highly suggestive but not conclusive (nor could they be), and the skeptical points raised in the comments are insightful but not conclusive either. (As we will demonstrate below.) Some of those comments do hint that the relationship between climate and tone might be indirect, and that more factors must be considered for the direct relationship we hypothesize to be more convincing. As we noted in our target piece, new kinds of …
Using pattern languages to mediate theory-praxis conversations in design for networked learning

Educational design for networked learning is becoming more complex but also more inclusive, with teachers and learners playing more active roles in the design of tasks and of the learning environment. This paper connects emerging research on the use of design patterns and pattern languages with a conception of educational design as a conversation between theory and praxis. We illustrate the argument by drawing on recent empirical research and literature reviews from the field of networked learning.
Lending Conditions, Macroeconomic Fluctuations, and the Impact of Bank Ownership

Using panel data of more than 950 German banks during 1987{2005, I nd that savings banks adjust their lending volume and conditions less cyclically than cooperatives, whereas this link between macroeconomic uctuations and bank behavior is most pronounced for private commercial banks. Unlike ownership types, the impact of a bank’s size and capitalization on the cyclicality of lending remains ambiguous. I also identify a more stable loan growth policy leading to higher individual bank protability. Being robust regarding dierent measures of business activity, including regional economic conditions, these results underline the role of state-owned banks in providing sustainable economic stability. JEL classication: G20, G21
Industry Relatedness and Post-Acquisition Innovative Performance

This paper examines how characteristics of acquiring and acquired firms influence the curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between relatedness and post-acquisition innovative performance. Using a relatedness index based on industry co-occurrence in the Dutch acquisition market, we test for variations in the tipping point and curvature of the relationship. In our sample of 1,736 acquisitions, we find that acquirer’s internal R&D and acquisition experience, and the small size of acquired firms, help to reach a balance between exploration of novelty and exploitation of synergies in unrelated acquisitions, and to achieve higher post-acquisition performance. However, while the acquirer’s R&D increases flexibility in the acquisition process to deviations from an optimal level of relatedness, acquisition experience may enhance rigidities.
AN EFFICIENT VLSI ARCHITECTURE OF DECISION TREE BASED DENOISING METHOD FOR REMOVAL OF IMPULSE NOISE IN IMAGES

Images are often corrupted by impulse noise in the procedures of image acquisition and transmission. Impulse noise is a category of acoustic noise which includes unwanted sharp sounds like click and pops. To avoid the damage on noise liberated pixels, the switching medium filters are used which consists of impulse detection and noise filtering. In our project, we propose an efficient denoising scheme and its VLSI architecture for the removal of randomvalued impulse noise. To attain the objective of low down cost, a low-complexity VLSI planning is proposed. We employ a decisiontree-based impulse noise detector to detect the strident pixels, and an edge-preserving filter to reconstruct the intensity values of noisy pixels. Furthermore, an adaptive machinery is used to enhance the effects of removal of impulse noise. In our project the decision tree based denoising method (DTBDM) is composed of three modules (isolationmodule), Fringe module, and resemblance module). The isolation module is used to decide whether the pixel value is in a smooth region. The fringe module is used to confirm the result of the isolation module. If isolation module and fringe . module cannot determine whether current pixel belongs to noisy free, the similarity component is used to decide the result. Our extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique can obtain better performances in terms of both quantitative evaluation and visual quality than the previous lower complexity methods.
The impact of integrated analysis on supply chain management: a coordinated approach for inventory control policy

Purpose – Effective inventory management is very critical to market success. The purpose of this paper is to formulate an integrated model for the location of warehouse, the allocation of retailers to the opened warehouses, and finding the perfect policy for inventory control to managing order quantity and safety stock level. The goal is to select the optimum numbers, locations, capacities of the opening warehouses and inventory policy so that all stochastic customer demands can be satisfied.Design/methodology/approach – It is assumed that the location of plant has already been determined and the paper answers the following questions: what are the location decisions over the planning horizon? How retailers are allocated to the warehouses? What are the optimum capacities for the opened warehouses? What is the best inventory policy for this supply chain? What are the total minimum costs? Findings – The model was developed as a non‐linear mixed integer programming and solved using Lagrange relaxation and sub‐.
Effects of pump-induced particle agglomeration during chemical mechanical planarization (CMP)

In this study, the effects of large particle in chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) slurry were investigated on slurry distribution system, which utilizes a pumping device to circulate CMP slurry. Three different types of pumps (e.g., bellows, diaphragm and magnetically levitated centrifugal pump) were evaluated their performance such as generation of agglomerated particle and defectivity in different of slurries (Ceria slurry, Silica slurry a, Silica slurry b).
Employment in Construction and Distribution Industries: The Impact of the New Jobs Tax Credit

Excerpt] The New Jobs Tax Credit (NJTC) offers a tax credit of fifty percent of the first $4200 of wages per employee for increases in employment of more than two percent over the previous year. Economic theory predicts that such a tax credit should stimulate employment, decrease hours worked per week, and reduce product prices of the subsidized industries. A time series analysis of the construction, retailing, and wholesaling industries finds strong support for these hypotheses. Our results suggest that the NJTC was responsible for 150,000-670,000 of the more than 1-million increase in employment that occurred between mid-1977 and mid-1978 in the construction and retailing industries. Similar analysis indicates that by June 1978, NJTC had produced roughly a 1 percentage point reduction in the margin between retail and wholesale prices of commodities that saved consumers $1.9-$3.6 billion over the course of the previous year.
Phytochrome A: functional diversity and polymorphism

Phytochrome (phy), a 124 kDa biliprotein, mediates plants’ perception of environmental light conditions including quantity, quality and duration of light. The complex phenomenology of phy function is connected with its polymorphism, the major phys being phyA and phyB. PhyA mediates irreversible photoresponses in the very low and high fluence ranges (VLFR and HIR) primarily in the far-red (FR) spectral region, whereas phyB mediates the ‘classical’ R/FR reversible responses in the low fluence range (LFR). This phyA specificity is determined at the level of (i) intramolecular events, (ii) turnover, phyA being light-labile, and (iii) nuclear–cytoplasmic partitioning and interaction with partner proteins. A unique feature of phyA is that two native isoforms, phyA′ and phyA″, comprise it, distinguished by spectroscopic and photochemical properties, localization and abundance in plant tissues, light stability, and other properties. They differ by the post-translational modification at the 6 kDa N-terminus, possibly phosphorylation, phyA′ being phosphorylated and phyA″ dephosphorylated. Both species participate in the light-induced nuclear–cytoplasmic partitioning. The light-labile phyA′ is responsible for de-etiolation (VLFR and HIR modes), whereas the relatively more light-stable phyA″ could be active throughout the whole life cycle. PhyA″ interferes with the action of phyA′ and this interaction may be part of the fine tuning mechanism of the phyA function. Finally, within the phyA′ pool there are different conformers in thermal equilibrium, that differ by the activation and kinetic parameters of the Pr → lumi-R photoreaction. This heterogeneity of phyA may account, at least partially, for the complex dynamics of its photoprocesses and the phenomenology of photoresponses.
Univariate Interpolation-based Modeling of Power and Performance

Performance and power scale non-linearly with device utilization, making characterization and prediction of energy efficiency at a given load level a challenging issue. A common approach to address this problem is the creation of power or performance state tables for a pre-measured subset of all possible system states. Approaches to determine performance and power for a state not included in the measured subset use simple interpolation, such as nearest neighbor interpolation, or define state switching rules. This leads to a loss in accuracy, as unmeasured system states are not considered. In this paper, we compare different interpolation functions and automatically configure and select functions for a given domain or measurement set. We evaluate our approach by comparing interpolation of measurement data subsets against power and performance measurements on a commodity server. We show that for non-extrapolating models interpolation is significantly more accurate than regression, with our automatically configured interpolation function improving modeling accuracy up to 43.6%.
Building and Maintaining Technical Relationships: An Evaluation of the In-Q-Tel Model

Abstract Partnering with a private venture capital firm is believed by many to be an innovative governmental approach to engage the commercial information technology (IT) sector. In-Q-Tel, a venture capital (VC) fund, is under contract with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to promote the integration of cutting edge IT that could enhance the capabilities of the intelligence community. The CIA's relationship with In-Q-Tel involves investing CIA funds in promising commercial technologies and the companies associated with those technologies. This paper explores the potential benefits of membership in the In-Q-Tel portfolio of companies. The paper describes the value executives from portfolio companies associate with their relationship with In-Q-Tel. Our research determined that executives find several specific membership advantages associated with the In-Q-Tel's portfolio including access to an established network of investors and technology users within the government, technical validation of member companies' products, and funding provided to finance product development and/or operating expenses. We also found that executives felt that the long-term strategic prospects for company success improved because of their membership in the In-Q-Tel portfolio.
Conformational features of a synthetic model of the first extracellular loop of the angiotensin II AT1A receptor

The angiotensin II AT1A receptor belongs to the G‐protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Like other membrane proteins, GPCRs are not easily amenable to direct structure determination by the currently available methods. The peptide encompassing the putative first extracellular loop of AT1A (residues Thr88‐Leu100, el1) has been synthesized along with a cyclic model where the linear peptide has been covalently linked to a template designed to keep the distance between the peptide termini as expected in the receptor. The conformational features of the two molecules have been studied using circular dichroism and NMR techniques. The region W94PFG97 forms a type‐II β‐turn and undergoes a Trp‐Pro peptide bond cis‐trans isomerization in both peptides confirming that these characteristics are intrinsic to el1. In addition, the presence of the spacer seems to modulate the flexibility of the peptide. Copyright © 2003 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Facility location models for vehicle sharing systems

Designing a vehicle sharing system means locating stations which allow users to pick up and give back vehicles. One takes this strategic level decision while anticipating related rebalancing costs. We study here a strategic related bi-level Vehicle Sharing Station Location (VSSL) model, which involves as slave problem a static Vehicle Sharing Rebalancing (VSR) model.
Prospective Pilot Trial of Dexmedetomidine Sedation for Awake Diagnostic Flexible Bronchoscopy

Dexmedetomidine has the favorable properties of sedation, sympatholysis, analgesia, and a low risk of apnea. These properties suggest that dexmedetomidine may be useful in procedural sedation. In view of this, we conducted a pilot trial to determine the feasibility of using dexmedetomidine as a sole agent for providing sedation during awake diagnostic flexible bronchoscopy. Patients presenting for awake diagnostic flexible bronchoscopy consented to participate in a trial of dexmedetomidine sedation for the procedure. In addition to local anesthetic topicalization of the airways, dexmedetomidine was infused at 0.5 μg/kg over 10 minutes followed by an infusion of 0.2 to 0.7 μg/kg/h titrating to a Ramsay Sedation Scale score of 3. Hemodynamic parameters (heart rate, blood pressure), oxygenation status (pulse oximetry), adverse events, use of rescue sedation, and patient and proceduralist satisfaction were recorded during the trial. Five of 9 recruited patients required rescue sedation to allow the procedure to proceed. Dexmedetomidine as a sole agent at an infusion of 0.5 μg/kg over 10 minutes followed by an infusion of 0.2 to 0.7 μg/kg/h is unable to provide adequate sedation for awake diagnostic flexible bronchoscopy without the need for rescue sedation in a large proportion of patients.
A New Freshwater Amoeba: Cochliopodium pentatrifurcatum n. sp. (Amoebozoa, Amorphea)

Cochliopodium pentatrifurcatum n. sp. (ATCC© 30935TM) is described based on light microscopic morphology, fine structure, and molecular genetic evidence. Cochliopodium pentatrifurcatum n. sp. (length ~ 25 μm) is characterized by surface microscales (0.3 μm tall) containing a circular porous base (~ 0.6 μm diam.) with a thin peripheral rim. Five radially arranged feet, emanating from the base, support a short central column terminating apically as a funnel‐shaped collar (~ 0.5 μm diam.) composed of five radial, trifurcate rays extending from the center toward a thin peripheral rim. The central spine is 0.5–0.6 μm long. The comparative morphologies and combined molecular genetic evidence, SSU‐rDNA and COI, indicate that the new species falls in a clade sufficiently different from other species to suggest that it is a valid new species.
Internal Marketing and Hotel Performance

Authors are invited to send short manuscripts upon reflections, critical notes, methodology and research design details, empirical implementation problems, certain core questions requiring further contributions or ideas, preliminary or partial results, expected or obtained conclusions, and brief accounts of completed or continuing research that they do or have done personally or in collaboration with others. The manifold aims of sending such ‘research notes’ range from the possibility of earlier (partial) publication to the benefit gained from probable reader contributions upon an incomplete work, and must actually be evident for the author. Lnisn Andreu, Assistant Professor, Department ofMarketing, Faculty of Business and Economy Studies, University of Valencin, Valencia, 46022, Spain, € mail: Luisa.Andretc@uv.es
Volatility component of derivative market: evidence from FBMKLCI based on CGARCH

This study examines the volatility component of Malaysian stock index. Despite extensive studies on stock index volatility, there are relatively few studies examining the volatility component of stock index in Malaysia. Using data from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2013, this study aims to examine the volatility component of Malaysian stock index post financial crisis period, specifically on the mean-reversion, short-run (transitory) volatility, long-run (permanent) and speed of adjustment based on the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH). The finding reveals that both the KLCI and KLCI-Futures have persistence permanent volatility component, but transitory volatility components, on the other hand varies between the two markets. This study later confirms a faster mean-reversion in the KLCI-Futures comparative to KLCI. Nevertheless, the KLCI mean return remains positive during post crisis periods comparative to the futures market.
Requirements and a framework for broker based integration in service-oriented architecture

Vanhanen, Tuomas Jooseppi Requirements and a Framework for Broker Based Integration in ServiceOriented Architecture Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla, 2003. 136 p. Master’s thesis Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a method for publishing services hosted by computer systems for the use of other computer systems. This method can be used to integrate applications and is therefore called Service-Oriented Integration (SOI). Integration brokers are a traditional method of integrating different kind of systems by sending messages from one system to another. This master’s thesis gathers requirements for an integration broker in ServiceOriented Architecture and presents standards that can be used to build a SOI architecture using Web services. Web services are a method for creating a SOA with Internet technologies. This research has conceptual, case-study and constructive elements. In the conceptual part of the research different integration architectures and methods for Service-Oriented Integration are presented. The case-study part gathers requirements for an integration broker from UPM-Kymmene Oyj. Finally in the constructive part a framework for an integration broker in SOA is presented. This framework is also the main result of this research.
Design for Dialogue Comprehension

I. Dia logue Games, Speech Acts and DCS -Examina t ion of a c t u a l h u m a n d i a logue revea ls s t r u c t u r e e x t e n d i n g over • ~overal t u r n s and cor respond ing to pa r t l cu l a r issues t ha t the participants r a i se and resolve. Our past w o r k on d ia logue has led to an accoun t of this s t ruc tu r e , Dialogue Game t h e o r y f L o r i n & Moore 1978; Moore, l ,evlu & Mann 1977]. Th is t heo ry c la ims that dialogues (and other language uses as w e l l ) are comprehensible on ly because the part icipants are mak ing avai lab le to each other the knowledge o f the goals t h e y are pursu ing , at ~he p~omcnt, Pa t terns of these goals r e c u r , r e p r e s e n t i n g l anguage convent ions : t he i r theore t i ca l r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s are ca l led Dialogue Games.