Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relation Between Expected Returns, Realized Returns, and Firm Risk Characteristics*

Existing literature employs two approaches to assess the validity of alternative proxies for firm-specific cost of equity capital (Et-1(rt)). One approach relies on the expected link between future realized returns and Et-1(rt), while the second approach relies on the expected relation between Et-1(rt) and firm-specific priced risk characteristics. The results of these two streams of literature are mixed with the first (second) approach providing no (strong) support for the construct validity of any (some) of the Et-1(rt) proxies examined. In this paper, we resolve the conflict between these two streams of research. In contrast to prior research, we document a strong positive association between the implied cost of capital estimates and future realized returns. We demonstrate that the negative or insignificant association between implied cost of capital estimates and future realized returns documented in prior research is due to empirical misspecification. Moreover, we show that although most of the estimates we examine are positively associated with future realized returns, only two, rDIV and rPEG, are also predictably related to firm-specific risk. Taken together our results suggest that rDIV and rPEG provide superior proxies for Et-1(rt).
In vitro effect of clarithromycin and alginate lyase against helicobacter pylori biofilm

It is now established that the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori has the ability to form biofilms in vitro as well as on the human gastric mucosa. The aim of this study is to evaluate the antimicrobial effects of Clarithromycin on H. pylori biofilm and to enhance the effects of this antibiotic by combining it with Alginate Lyase, an enzyme degrading the polysaccharides present in the extracellular polymeric matrix forming the biofilm. We evaluated the Clarithromycin minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) on in vitro preformed biofilm of a H. pylori. Then the synergic effect of Clarithromycin and Alginate Lyase treatment has been quantified by using the Fractional Inhibitory Concentration index, measured by checkerboard microdilution assay. To clarify the mechanisms behind the effectiveness of this antibiofilm therapeutic combination, we used Atomic Force Microscopy to analyze modifications of bacterial morphology, percentage of bacillary or coccoid shaped bacteria cells and to quantify biofilm properties. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 32:1584–1591, 2016
RankViaContact: ranking and visualization of amino acid contacts

SUMMARY RankViaContact is a web service for calculation of residue-residue contact energies in proteins based on a coarse-grained model, and for visualization of interactions. The service provides information about ranked contact energies of residues, coordination numbers and the relative solvent accessibility of selected residues, as well as sequence and structure information. The program can be used to design stabilizing mutations, to analyze residue-residue contacts and to study the consequences of mutations. AVAILABILITY http://bioinf.uta. fi/Rank.htm.
Effect of a Park-Based After-School Program on Participant Obesity-Related Health Outcomes

Purpose. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a structured after-school program housed in a large county parks system on participant health and wellness outcomes. Design. Longitudinal cohort study over one school year (fall 2011-spring 2012). Setting. A total of 23 county parks in Florida. Subjects. Children ages 5 to 16 (N= 349, 55% non-Hispanic black, 40% Hispanic, mean age 8.9 years). Intervention. An after-school program called Fit-2-Play that integrates daily standardized physical activity and health and wellness education components. Measures. Preintervention (August/September 2011) and postintervention (May/June 2012) anthropometric, systolic/diastolic blood pressure, fitness, and health and wellness knowledge measurements were collected. Analysis. Comparison of pre-post outcome measure means were assessed via general linear mixed models for normal-weight (body mass index [BMI] < 85th percentile for age and sex) and overweight/obese (BMI ≥85th percentile for age and sex) participants. Results. The overweight/obese group significantly decreased their mean (1) BMI z score (2.0 to 1.8, p < .01) and (2) subscapular skinfold measurements (19.4 to 17.5 mm, p < .01) and increased (1) mean laps on the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run test (10.8 to 12.5, p = .04) and (2) percentage with normal systolic blood pressure (58.1% to 71.0%, p = .03) from pretest to posttest. On average, participants significantly improved their health and wellness knowledge over the school year (p < .01). Normal-weight participants maintained healthy BMI ranges and significantly increased fitness levels. Conclusion. Findings suggest that the Fit-2-Play after-school programs can be a significant resource for combating childhood obesity and instilling positive physical health in children, particularly among ethnic and socioeconomically diverse communities.
Proliferation conditions for human satellite cells The fractional content of satellite cells

Primary satellite cell cultures have become an important tool as a model system for skeletal muscles. A common problem in human satellite cell culturing is fibroblast overgrowth. We combined N‐CAM (Leu19) immunocytochemical staining of satellite cells (Sc) with stereological methods to estimate the fraction of Sc in culture. Evaluation of different culture conditions allowed us to find proliferation conditions preferentially for Sc: a) Sc should be cultured on surfaces coated with ECM‐gel. b) Primary cell culture should be inoculated in DMEM supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum to increase cell adherence. c) Change of media to DMEM supplemented with 2% Ultroser‐G and 2% FCS after 24 h.d) Before subcultivation, cells should be preplated for 30 min. The fractional content of Sc in passage four when applying this method of cultivation was 0.82 +/‐ 0.07 (mean +/‐ SE, N=10). Our method enabled us to establish culture conditions which resulted in high Sc content despite several subcultivations. Estimation of the fractional cell content could be a useful tool for optimizing not only Sc‐culturing but all cultures initially containing more cell types.
Specific binding of human fibrinogen fragment D to Aspergillus fumigatus conidia

The interaction of purified human fibrinogen with Aspergillus fumigatus conidia was investigated by immunofluorescence and electron microscopy and binding assays with radiolabeled proteins. We described the localization of the binding sites on the A. fumigatus conidia and on the fibrinogen molecule and determined the binding characteristics. Immunofluorescence revealed that the fixation of purified fibrinogen was selectively associated with conidia and suggested a role for the D domains of the fibrinogen molecule. Binding assays performed with 125I-radiolabeled proteins confirmed that binding sites were located specifically in the D domains. No reaction could be detected with fragment E. The binding of 125I-fragment D to conidia was time dependent, saturable, and specific. Scatchard analysis of the data revealed an average of 1,200 binding sites per conidium, and an apparent dissociation constant (Kd) of 2.2 x 10(-9) M was estimated. Pretreatment of the cells with proteolytic enzymes or heat abolished binding, demonstrating the protein nature of the binding sites. Ultrastructural localization of the fungal receptors was determined by transmission electron microscopy. Labeling appeared to be associated with the outer electron-dense layer of the conidial wall and progressively decreased during the germination process. Labeling of thin sections with fragment D and an antifibrinogen immune serum revealed that binding sites also lay in the inner part of the wall and in vacuoles. These results indicate the presence at the conidial surface of specific receptors for fibrinogen which could act as mediators of conidial adherence to host tissues.
Dynamic Strategies for Asset Allocation

As risky assets (e.g., stocks) fluctuate in value, the value of a portfolio containing them may change, as may their allocation relative to the safe assets (e.g., bills) within the portfolio. One must decide how to rebalance the portfolio in response to such changes. Dynamic strategies are explicit rules for doing so. Different strategies will produce different risk and return characteristics. Buy-and-hold strategies are "do nothing" strategies. They have a minimum return proportional to the amount allocated to bills and an upside proportional to the amount allocated to stocks. Their performance is linearly related to the performance of the equity market. Strategies that sell stocks as the market falls and buys stocks as the market rises represent the purchase of portfolio insurance. Particular examples are constant-proportion portfolio insurance and option-based portfolio insurance. These strategies have better downside protection and better upside potential than buy-and-hold strategies. They do worse in.
Technical Change and the Returns and Investments in Firm-level Training: Evidence from Thailand

Abstract This paper examines determinants of investments in and returns to training with focus on technical changes using employee panel data in Thai manufacturing industries. Empirical findings demonstrate significant returns to both on-the-job and off-the-job training in first-difference fixed effect estimation of wage equations, controlling for technical changes which differentially influence training investments and the returns. First, returns to informal on-the-job training are robust, contrary to findings from developed countries. Second, technical change induces both on-the-job and off-the-job training, and controlling for technical change makes returns to on-the-job training even larger. Implications for training and education policies are discussed.
Bacterial Stationary-Phase Evolution

Summary Metagenomics and advances in molecular biology methods have enhanced knowledge of microbial evolution, metabolism, functions, their interactions with other organisms and their environment. The ability to persist and adapt to changes in their environment is a common lifestyle o f1%o f theknown culturable bacteria. Studies in the variety of species have identified an incredible diversity of bacterial lifespan. The holy grail of molecular biology is to understand the integrated genetic and metabolic patterns of prokaryotic organisms like the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli. The usual description of E. coli life cycle comprises four phases: lag, logarithmic, stationary, and death phase, omitting their persistence and evolution during prolonged stationary phase. During prolonged stationary/starvation period, in batch bacterial culture, selected mutants with increased fitness express growth advantage in stationary phase (GASP), which enables them to grow and displace the parent cells as the majority population. The analyses of growth competition of Gram-negative and/or Gram-positive mixed bacterial cultures showed that GASP phenomenon can result in four GASP phenotypes: strong, moderate, weak or abortive. Bacterial stress responses to starvation include functions that can increase genetic variability and produce transient mutator state, which is important for adaptive evolution.
Does Economic Growth Really Benefit the Poor? Income Distribution Dynamics and Pro-poor Growth in Indonesia

We explore the nexus between poverty, inequality, and economic growth in Indonesia between 2002 and 2012, using several pro-poor growth concepts and indices to determine whether growth in this period benefited the poor. Our regression-based decompositions of poverty into growth and redistribution components suggest that around 40% of inequality in total household expenditure in Indonesia was due to variations in expenditure by education characteristics that persisted after controlling for other factors. We find that economic growth in this period benefited households at the top of the expenditure distribution, and that a ‘trickle down’ effect saw the poor receive proportionately fewer benefits than the non-poor. If reducing poverty is one of the Indonesian government's principal objectives, then policies designed to spur growth must take into account the possible impacts of growth on inequality.
Corporate Social Performance Disoriented: Saving the Lost Paradigm?

Corporate social performance (CSP) has been a prominent concept in the management literature dealing with the social role and impacts of the corporation; it has been promulgated as a unifying paradigm for the field. However, the concept of CSP is still lacking strong theoretical foundations and empirical validity, suggesting that the paradigmatic status of CSP might be lost. In this paper, the authors draw on Hirsch and Levin’s (1999) life cycle approach to explore the development of CSP as a concept, explain why it has so recurrently failed to deliver on these dimensions, and offer possible routes for future research that may potentially ameliorate this problem.
Fault detection based on linear quadratic control performance in nonlinear systems

This paper proposes a design approach of a simple algorithm detection system based on evaluating of LQ control performance index values, that is applicable on nonlinear dynamical systems described by Takagi-Sugeno model. The same approach has been used for linear dynamical system, however the question was, whether this method could be modified and applied in nonlinear system. Arbitrary state space control is recalculated to obtain parameters of equivalent LQ control, that are used in fault detection. A simulation example is used to describe the process of design of the fault detection system applied on a nonlinear dynamical system described by Takagi-Sugeno model.
FORECASTING THE DEMAND FOR HEALTH CARE IN OECD NATIONS AND CHINA

This article argues that the nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are facing a potential disaster: intergenerational conflicts between the large number of workers approaching retirement at an earlier age than ever before in history and the smaller number entering the labor market. These nations are confronted with the choice of whether to default on commitments to pensions and health care, to reduce benefits, or to increase the taxes borne by younger workers. The author argues that this new intergenerational conflict is the result of "technophysio evolution", a synergism between technological and physiological improvements that has produced a form of human evolution that is biological but not genetic, rapid, culturally transmitted, and not necessarily stable. The author goes on to argue that an important aspect of technophysio evolution has been a change in the structure of consumption and in the division of discretionary time between work and leisure. The ongoing debate over whether or not the rapid advances in biotechnology will spare OECD nations' health systems from a financial crisis is addressed. Finally, the implications this argument has for forecasting China's future health care costs are discussed. Copyright 2003 Western Economic Association International.
The Effects of a New Child Care Subsidy on Couples' Labour Supply in Australia: An Empirical Assessment 1

In the mid-2000s the Australian Government implemented a series of changes to family policies, most notably the introduction of a universal, flat-rate at birth payment and an increased subsidisation of child care. This paper examines the effect on couples’ labour supply of these policies using two complimentary empirical approaches: simulations of a dynamic utility maximisation model of a representative couple, and empirical estimation using longitudinal survey data. The results suggest that the payment of a Child Care Rebate of 50% of out-of-pocket costs has produced a modest increase in couples’ combined hours worked. The increase in couples’ hours worked which has resulted from the increased subsidisation of child care has come entirely from the wives. The effect of this regressive child care subsidy has been greater for couples in which the husband is highly educated. The
What Makes Firms Leave the Neighbourhood?

Limited attention has been paid to neighbourhood conditions as a driver of firm relocation choices. Using a panel dataset (1999–2006) of actual firm relocations in the Netherlands, the effect of different neighbourhood conditions on firms’ propensity to relocate was estimated. Results show that, besides firm and regional characteristics, neighbourhood conditions also affect firms’ relocation choices, but which conditions matter depends on the firm’s industrial activity and size. The relocation decision of consumer services in particular is affected by neighbourhood conditions, while the choice of manufacturing, wholesale and business services firms is affected more by increases in population density. Nevertheless, a higher number of shops, cafes and restaurants and a more attractive physical environment do lower the probability that business services leave the neighbourhood, while manufacturing and wholesale firms are more inclined to leave neighbourhoods when a higher share of consumer services is not in use.
Growth and Human Capital: A Network Approach

We study the interactions and dynamics of human capital, growth and inequality by explicitly embedding networks into a standard endogenous growth model with overlapping generations. The human capital of a household depends on investment in education and on average human capital of the household's network neighborhood. Network structure is crucial for both the long run outcomes and the transition of otherwise identical economies. Network cohesion above a certain threshold eliminates differences across households and leads to long run equality, while below the threshold, inequality is high and persists more often. During transition, (i) high overall growth is achieved when the network has high degree centralization and the most degree central node has high initial human capital and (ii) high individual household growth is achieved when the household has low human capital relative to its neighborhood and is located in a neighborhood that has high average human capital relative to the whole economy.
Assessing the Adequacy of Natural Science Information: A Bayesian Approach

We apply a Bayesian framework in which the adequacy of natural science information used in setting environmental regulations may be assessed. Informational adequacy is defined as the extent to which the variability in agricultural yield response information affects the probabilities of overestimating ultimately realized economic surplus and thereby failing to plan for a more lax ambient pollution standard, or by underestimating the realized surplus and thereby failing to plan for a stricter ambient standard. For linear and for quadratic yield response functions, the framework is applied to four major U.S. field crops having dissimilar growing requirements and diverse market relations.
A Review of: “Measuring the Performance of the Hollow State by David G. Frederickson and H. George Frederickson”

David G. Frederickson and H. George Frederickson argue in their book Measuring the Performance of the Hollow State that studying the federal government’s implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993, which was expanded in 2002 to include the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART), is important for two fundamental reasons. First, GPRA represents the most recent of several attempts to improve administrative decision making in federal government through the utility of strategic goals and performance measures. Second, it provides an opportunity to study the adoption and implementation of performance measurement in federal programs where many of the services are provided by third parties, which is commonly referred to as the hollow state. Using a qualitative and descriptive approach, the authors explored the implementation of GPRA in five federal agencies—Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Indian Health Service, and National Institutes of Health—in order to address the following research question: If federal programs and policies are implemented by third parties outside the direct hierarchal control, and many are, how shall the effectiveness of those programs and policies be measured? One of the primary strengths of Measuring the Performance of the Hollow State is the synthesis of the performance measurement, organization theory, federalism, and public management literature in developing a nine continua model to analyze the implementation of GPRA across the five federal agencies. It includes:
Cyclosporine A-induced hypercalciuria in calbindin-D28k knockout and wild-type mice.

BACKGROUND It is known that cyclosporine A (CsA) treatment induces high bone-turnover osteopenia and hypercalciuria. It has been proposed that down-regulation of renal calbindin-D28k by CsA results in renal calcium wasting. We investigated the role of the kidney and bone in CsA-induced hypercalciuria in calbindin-D28k knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice. METHODS Two sets of experiments were performed. In experiment 1, KO and WT mice were treated with CsA 20 mg/kg/day intraperitoneally (IP) for 7 days. In experiment 2, to eliminate the CsA effect on bone resorption, pamidronate (APD) 2.5 mg/kg IP was given every 4 days with the first dose given 4 days prior to the 7-day course of CsA. Serum levels of creatinine, calcium, and osteocalcin, as well as renal calcium excretion were measured to assess CsA's effects on calcium homeostasis. Effects of CsA on the expression of calbindin-D28k, and two calcium channels in the apical membrane of the distal tubule, epithelial calcium channel (ECaC) and alpha1G-subunit of a voltage-dependent Ca channel (alpha1G), in the kidney were examined by semiquantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS KO mice had a threefold increase in renal calcium excretion when compared with WT mice at the baseline. This difference disappeared when calcium load was reduced by overnight fasting. After the CsA treatment, both WT and KO mice had a significant increase of renal calcium excretion (urine Ca/Cr ratio in WT, 0.11 +/- 0.01 to 1.29 +/- 0.17; in KO, 0.39 +/- 0.04 to 1.18 +/- 0.13; both P < 0.01). CsA treatment decreased renal calbindin-D28k mRNA by 61%, but did not affect the expression of ECaC and alpha1G. Baseline serum osteocalcin level of KO mice was significantly lower than that of WT mice. After CsA treatment, both groups had a 50% increase in the serum osteocalcin level, indicating increased bone turnover. When mice were treated with both CsA and APD, the increase in serum osteocalcin level was prevented, and renal calcium excretion was significantly lower than that in mice treated with CsA alone. However, there was still a significant increase in the urine Ca/Cr ratio in WT and KO mice compared with pretreatment levels (urine Ca/Cr in WT, 0.11 +/- 0.01 to 0.76 +/- 0.05, P < 0.01; in KO, 0.39 +/- 0.05 to 0.79 +/- 0.06; P < 0.01). CONCLUSION Calbindin-D28k KO mice have diet-dependent hypercalciuria and a lower bone turnover rate. CsA treatment suppresses the expression of calbindin-D28k in mice, but has no effects on ECaC and alpha1G gene expression at the mRNA level. The pathogenesis of CsA-induced hypercalciuria involves both down-regulation of calbindin-D28k with subsequent impaired renal calcium reabsorption and CsA-induced high turnover bone disease. Additionally, our results suggest that mechanism(s) independent of calbindin-D28k within the kidney also may contribute to the CsA-induced calcium leak.