Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
External finance and trade credit extension in China: does political affiliation make a difference?

Using a dataset of 65,706 Chinese firms over the period 2000–2007, we show that politically affiliated firms benefit from easier access to short-term external finance and extend more trade credit than their non-affiliated counterparts. Furthermore, we observe that the sensitivity of trade credit extension to short-term liabilities, which is largest for private firms producing differentiated goods, decreases with the degree of political affiliation. This suggests that gaining political affiliation contributes not only to alleviating individual firms’ financing constraints, but also to reducing the overall level of constraints in the economy through the additional trade credit being made available.
SmartDoc 2017 Video Capture: Mobile Document Acquisition in Video Mode

As mobile document acquisition using smartphones is getting more and more common, along with the continuous improvement of mobile devices (both in terms of computing power and image quality), we can wonder to which extent mobile phones can replace desktop scanners. Modern applications can cope with perspective distortion and normalize the contrast of a document page captured with a smartphone, and in some cases like bottle labels or posters, smartphones even have the advantage of allowing the acquisition of non-flat or large documents. However, several cases remain hard to handle, such as reflective documents (identity cards, badges, glossy magazine cover, etc.) or large documents for which some regions require an important amount of detail. This paper introduces the SmartDoc 2017 benchmark (named "SmartDoc Video Capture"), which aims at assessing whether capturing documents using the video mode of a smartphone could solve those issues. The task under evaluation is both a stitching and a reconstruction problem, as the user can move the device over different parts of the document to capture details or try to erase highlights. The material released consists of a dataset, an evaluation method and the associated tool, a sample method, and the tools required to extend the dataset. All the components are released publicly under very permissive licenses, and we particularly cared about maximizing the ease of understanding, usage and improvement.
Quarterly advancing science and promoting understanding of traumatic stress

There is relatively little adoption of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) into routine practice. Dissemination of EBTs or practice guidelines through traditional educational activities (e.g., formal continuing education programs) has limited impact on day-to-day clinical practice. Implementation science is an emerging field that has developed as the gap between research and practice has been identified across a variety of health care settings. The field is concerned with the study of methods to promote the integration of research findings into health care practice and policy.
Government Versus Non‐Government Schools: A Nation‐Wide Assessment Using Australian NAPLAN Data

There are considerable differences in school outcomes on the NAPLAN tests in Australia between Government and non‐Government schools. This paper documents these for four years of study (Years 3, 5, 7 and 9), and for the five NAPLAN domains (Grammar and Punctuation, Numeracy, Reading, Spelling and Writing). It then examines the extent to which the differences are due to characteristics of the schools, such as the socioeconomic status of the school and the gender mix of the total enrolment at the school. It is shown that a greater share of the difference in marks between Government and non‐Government schools in Year 9 than in Year 3 is due to the characteristics of the schools. This implies that, consistent with recent press coverage, the better outcomes of the non‐Government schools are due, in part at least, to a selection process that favours academically advantaged students.
Preference Structures and the Excess Burden of Income Taxes in Brazil

The objective of this article is to estimate the excess burden associated with the personal income tax in Brazil. The study is based on a one-period utility maximization model of labor supply for urban prime-age male employees. The authors develop a sensitivity analysis based on two different specifications of preferences. Using an estimation procedure that considers the nonlinearity of the budget constraint, constraints on the choice of work hours, and possible measurement error, the authors find that the choice of functional form influences the results dramatically. Nonnested tests indicate that a linear expenditure system is more appropriate than the popular linear labor supply specification used in most labor supply studies. The results suggest that for the selected population subgroup, the deadweight loss of the personal income tax in Brazil is small.
Food consumption changes in Russia: An analysis of regional demand for herring products

Abstract In this paper, we study the effects of large income changes on the consumption of herring products in Russia. Herring consumption has shifted rapidly from low-value whole herring (WH) to high-value herring fillet products. We estimate regional herring demand using a panel data of household survey data from the seven Russian federal districts. The results show that WH is an inferior good while herring fillet products are normal goods, which implies that continued economic growth will lead to further shift towards value-added products. Furthermore, the most important factor to explain the large regional differences in herring consumption is real income disparities.
Intellectual capital in the quoted Turkish ITC sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™) of Pulic to compare quoted information technology and communication companies on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), in terms of intellectual capital efficiency. This study also examines VAIC™, and its components' impact on company performance.Design/methodology/approach – Multiple regression analysis was employed to identify the variables that significantly contribute to the company performance. Data required to calculate VAIC™ and its components were obtained from the 2005‐2007 annual reports and balance sheets of the companies.Findings – As a whole, all the companies had a relatively higher human capital efficiency than structural and capital efficiencies. In 2007, Turkcell was the most efficient company based on VAIC™ assessment, while Link Bilgisayar and Plastikkart were the least efficient companies. Additionally, the results of the study revealed that factors such as human capital efficiency, firm leverage, .
Genetic analysis of the RecE pathway of genetic recombination in Escherichia coli K-12

The RecE pathway of genetic recombination in Escherichia coli K-12 was defined to be the pathway that is utilized in deoxyribonucleic acid exonuclease V (ExoV)-defective cells which express constitutively recE+, the structural gene for deoxyribonucleic acid exonuclease VIII. Dependence on ExoVIII was shown by the occurrence in a recB21 sbcA23 strain of recombination deficiency mutations in recE, the structural gene for ExoVIII. Point mutations in recE were found as well as deletion mutations in which the entire Rac prophage, carrying recE, was lost. In addition, strain construction and mutagenesis revealed the dependence of the RecE pathway on recA+ and on recF+. Dependence on a fourth gene was shown by a mutation (rec-77) which does not map near the other genes. The problem of distinguishing the RecE pathway from that previously called RecF is discussed.
Sanctions for Unlawful Collective Action in the Nordic Countries and Germany

This article compares the industrial relations systems in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany with the aim of exploring the approach to remedies and sanctions in order to find out whether national remedies and sanctions for unlawful industrial action could also be applicable to situations of 'unlawful Collective Action under EU law'. In our opinion, it is crucial for such a comparison to focus not just on the legal remedies at hand in the national legal context, but also to take into account the context of industrial relations in which they function. A comparative study of sanctions and remedies in the Nordic countries and Germany opens up a spectrum of rather complicated rules that have been fine-tuned in legal practice at national level over several decades, including rules on defining lawful collective action, mediation, and interim injunctions. The legislator and the courts have built national systems that are based on an acceptance of Collective Action as a legitimate tool for trade unions, a tool that is not allowed to be misused and that has been developed to support and fit into the national industrial relations system and traditions of collective bargaining. The starting point is that unlawful Collective Action should be subject to economic sanctions, but these sanctions should not endanger continued contractual relations between the labour market parties. Economic sanctions are not primarily calculated on the basis of economic loss on the part of the employers, but many factors are taken into account, such as the size of the trade union as well as any mitigating and aggravating factors in accordance with national law and practice. These aspects should be taken into account also in cases of 'EU-unlawful' collective action.
Clustering of discrete cell properties essential for tumorigenicity and metastasis. III. Dissociation of the properties in N‐ras‐transfected rsv‐SR‐transformed cells

We have previously shown that RSV‐SR‐transformed hamster cells acquire high resistance to H2O2, i.e. the cytotoxic product of activated macrophages (H2OR2) and that they begin to secrete PGE (PGEs), thus inactivating the CTA of NK cells. Among normal cells, the same phenotype is expressed in activated macrophages. In all our RSV‐transformed cells these 2 properties were jointly expressed and correlated with high tumorige‐nicity and experimental metastasizing of these cells. We now show that transfection of 3 RSV‐SR‐transformed cell strains with activated N‐ras leads either to complete inhibition of the H2OR2 + PGES phenotype in all clones of one strain, or to inhibition of PGES only in the majority of clones of 2 other strains. Unexpectedly, the complete or partial inhibition of this phenotype did not alter the high tumorigenicity of 2 strains of these cells, but lower tumorigenicity was evident in almost all clones of the third strain (as well as in some gene‐neo‐transfected clones of these strains). The loss of PGES made these cells susceptible to the CTA of NK cells, while the loss of H2OR2 did not alter their resistance to the CTA of macrophages. Expression of the H2OR2 + PGES phenotype was retained in all cloned variants of control, gene‐neo‐transfected cells. The possible relation of the N‐ras gene to regulation of src gene activities in RSV‐SR‐transformed cells is discussed.
Scalable collaborative targeted learning for high-dimensional data

Robust inference of a low-dimensional parameter in a large semi-parametric model relies on external estimators of infinite-dimensional features of the distribution of the data. Typically, only one of the latter is optimized for the sake of constructing a well-behaved estimator of the low-dimensional parameter of interest. Optimizing more than one of them for the sake of achieving a better bias-variance trade-off in the estimation of the parameter of interest is the core idea driving the general template of the collaborative targeted minimum loss-based estimation procedure. The original instantiation of the collaborative targeted minimum loss-based estimation template can be presented as a greedy forward stepwise collaborative targeted minimum loss-based estimation algorithm. It does not scale well when the number p of covariates increases drastically. This motivates the introduction of a novel instantiation of the collaborative targeted minimum loss-based estimation template where the covariates are pre-ordered. Its time complexity is O ( p ) as opposed to the original O ( p 2 ) , a remarkable gain. We propose two pre-ordering strategies and suggest a rule of thumb to develop other meaningful strategies. Because it is usually unclear a priori which pre-ordering strategy to choose, we also introduce another instantiation called SL-C-TMLE algorithm that enables the data-driven choice of the better pre-ordering strategy given the problem at hand. Its time complexity is O ( p ) as well. The computational burden and relative performance of these algorithms were compared in simulation studies involving fully synthetic data or partially synthetic data based on a real world large electronic health database; and in analyses of three real, large electronic health databases. In all analyses involving electronic health databases, the greedy collaborative targeted minimum loss-based estimation algorithm is unacceptably slow. Simulation studies seem to indicate that our scalable collaborative targeted minimum loss-based estimation and SL-C-TMLE algorithms work well. All C-TMLEs are publicly available in a Julia software package.
Effects of parliamentary elections on primary budget deficits in OECD countries – robustness of the results with regard to alternative econometric estimators

Using an unbalanced panel of OECD countries for the period 1989 to 2005, the study tests the political budget cycle hypothesis empirically. The econometric approach is based on the equation proposed by Bohn (1998) for testing the sustainability of fiscal policy and various panel estimators. The empirical results strongly support the hypothesis of smaller primary surpluses (only) in election years. Brender and Drazen's (2005) result – an election effect exists only in new democracies – cannot be verified.
[Propensity score matching in SPSS].

OBJECTIVE To realize propensity score matching in PS Matching module of SPSS and interpret the analysis results. METHODS The R software and plug-in that could link with the corresponding versions of SPSS and propensity score matching package were installed. A PS matching module was added in the SPSS interface, and its use was demonstrated with test data. RESULTS Score estimation and nearest neighbor matching was achieved with the PS matching module, and the results of qualitative and quantitative statistical description and evaluation were presented in the form of a graph matching. CONCLUSION Propensity score matching can be accomplished conveniently using SPSS software.
Switching to the Inflation Targeting Regime: Does it necessary for the case of Egypt?

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question of whether the switching to the Inflation Targeting (IT) regime is necessary for the Egyptian case or not? Our judgment of applying IT regime in the Egyptian economy is established on doubled criterion. That is, the practical experience of the inflation targeters, and the efficiency of Monetary Targeting Regime (MTR) in the case of Egypt. Defining the efficiency of a monetary policy regime by the efficiency of the embedded nominal anchor to send the right message to all practitioners about the potential behavior of the price level, I assessed the efficiency of MTR in Egypt by measuring; whether there is a relationship between money and prices, the stability of the velocity of circulation, and the stability of the demand for money function. The study concluded that MTR is not efficient to tie down individuals expectations about the future path of inflation in Egypt. Taking into account that IT regime is a way to reform monetary policy and it does not worsen economic performance it becomes necessary for Egypt to switch to the IT regime once the prerequisites for IT regime have been met.
Cellular and humoral inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum growth in vitro and recovery from acute malaria

Summary Both mononuclear cell cytotoxicity and serum inhibition of Plasmodium falciparum growth in vitro were found to vary according to the stage of infection in Gambian children with clinical malaria. Cytotoxicity was displayed by mononuclear cells and serum from children with acute malaria but this form of parasite killing was more effective in children with low grade P. falciparum infections of at least 10 days duration. Parasite inhibitory antibody was not evident in sera from acutely infected children but was found in sera from children recovering from malaria and reached a peak in convalescent children when P. falciparum growth was inhibited by at least 50%. The humoral response in convalescent children was strain related, being more effective against the most recent infecting parasite strain than against other ‘wild’P. falciparum isolates. In contrast, mononuclear cell cytotoxicity was not strain related; when effective, multiplication of all parasite isolates tested was retarded to the same degree. The discussion considers the role of mononuclear cell cytotoxicity in the development of protective immunity and suggests that it may be a ‘front line’ defense mechanism during each malaria attack.
A Similarity‐based Data‐fusion Approach to the Visual Characterization and Comparison of Compound Databases

A low‐dimensional method, based on the use of multiple fusion‐based similarity measures, is described for graphically depicting and characterizing relationships among molecules in compound databases. The measures are used to construct multi‐fusion similarity maps that characterize the relationship of a set of ‘test’ molecules to a set of ‘reference’ molecules. The reference set is very general and can be made of molecules from, for example, the set of test molecules itself (the self‐referencing case), from a small library or large compound collection, or from actives in a given assay or group of assays. The test set is any collection of compounds to be analyzed with respect to the specified reference set. Multiple fusion similarity measures tend to provide more information than single fusion‐based measures, including information on the nature of the chemical‐space neighborhoods surrounding reference‐set molecules. A general discussion is presented on how to interpret multi‐fusion similarity maps, and several examples are given that illustrate how these maps can be used to compare compound libraries or collections, to select compounds for screening or acquisition, and to identify new active molecules using ligand‐based virtual screening.
Deterministic Boltzmann Learning Performs Steepest Descent in Weight-Space

The Boltzmann machine learning procedure has been successfully applied in deterministic networks of analog units that use a mean field approximation to efficiently simulate a truly stochastic system (Peterson and Anderson 1987). This type of deterministic Boltzmann machine (DBM) learns much faster than the equivalent stochastic Boltzmann machine (SBM), but since the learning procedure for DBM's is only based on an analogy with SBM's, there is no existing proof that it performs gradient descent in any function, and it has only been justified by simulations. By using the appropriate interpretation for the way in which a DBM represents the probability of an output vector given an input vector, it is shown that the DBM performs steepest descent in the same function as the original SBM, except at rare discontinuities. A very simple way of forcing the weights to become symmetrical is also described, and this makes the DBM more biologically plausible than back-propagation (Werbos 1974; Parker 1985; Rumelhart et al. 1986).
COMPENSATION CONTRACTS OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS: DETERMINANTS OF PAY-PERFORMANCE SENSITIVITY

Compensation contracts of chief executive officers of large firms typically provide for a low linkage between compensation and stock performance. We test predictions of various theoretical models of managerial behavior using pay-performance sensitivity measures. We find that even though the sensitivity measures are low on average, they vary cross-sectionally, in a manner broadly consistent with predictions from the literature on efficient contracting.
Can Public Sector Wage Bills Be Reduced?

This paper analyzes the relation between public wage bills and public deficits in the OECD countries from 1995 to 2009. The paper shows that fiscal drift episodes, characterized by simultaneous increases in the GDP shares of public wage bills and budget deficits, are more frequent during booms and election years, but not during recessions, except for the 2009 exceptionally strong recession. The emergence of fiscal drift episodes during booms and election years is less frequent in countries with more transparent government, more freedom of the press, as well as in countries with presidential regimes and less union coverage. Inversely, fiscal tightening episodes, characterized by simultaneous decreases in the GDP shares of public wage bills and budget deficits, occur less often during booms than during recessions. The emergence of fiscal tightening episodes during recessions and election years is less frequent in countries with more union coverage.
Short- and medium-term biological variation estimates of red blood cell and reticulocyte parameters in healthy subjects

Abstract Background: The integrated evaluation of traditional and innovative red blood cell (RBC) and reticulocyte parameters is a rapid, inexpensive and non-invasive diagnostic tools for differential diagnosis and follow-up of anemia and other pathological conditions needing bone marrow erythropoiesis assessment. Therefore, estimating the biological variation (BV) of these parameters is essential for evaluating the analytical performance of hematological analyzers, and for enabling accurate data interpretation and appropriate clinical management. This study aims to define short- and medium-term BV estimates and reference change value (RCV) of RBC and reticulocyte parameters. Methods: Twenty-one healthy volunteers participated in the assessment of medium-term BV (blood sampling once/week, five consecutive weeks) and 22 volunteers in the assessment of short-term BV (blood sampling once/day, five consecutive days) using Sysmex XN. Outlier analysis was performed before CV-ANOVA, to determine BV estimates with confidence intervals (CI). Results: Medium- and short-term within-subject BV were between 0.3% and 16.4% and 0.2%–10.4% (MCH and IRF), respectively, whereas medium and short-term between-subjects BV ranged between 0.9% and 66.6% (MCHC and Micro-R) and 1.4%–43.6% (MCHC and IRF), respectively. The RCVs were similar for all parameters in both arms of the study, except for hemoglobin, RDW-CV and MCV. Conclusions: This study allowed for estimating the BV of many RBC and reticulocyte parameters, some of which have not been currently explored. For RBC, hemoglobin, RDW-CV and MCV it seems advisable to use RCV calculated according to monitoring time and/or differentiated by sex. As regards analytical goals, we suggest using the most stringent targets found in the short-term arm of this study.