Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Debt, Bankruptcy Risk, and Corporate Tax Sheltering

We examine the effect of bankruptcy risk and leverage on corporate incentives to shelter income from taxes. We derive the optimal level of sheltering for a levered firm in a two-date, single-period model in which a firm‘s perquisite-consuming manager with an equity stake in the firm maximises her/his payoff. The theory predicts that sheltering relates negatively to bankruptcy risk, leverage, and the manager‘s bankruptcy costs, and it relates positively to the manager‘s equity stake in the firm. Moreover, the theory predicts that the negative relation between leverage and sheltering becomes weaker as the manager‘s equity stake increases. Our empirical tests provide evidence that is consistent with these theoretical predictions. Leverage and bankruptcy risk relate negatively to sheltering, whereas greater managerial ownership increases sheltering and weakens the negative sheltering-leverage relation. Further, we show that the negative effects of bankruptcy risk and debt on sheltering are stronger for riskier firms and weaker for larger, better governed, more profitable firms, and for firms that are in the public eye. We show that while a change in bankruptcy law in 2005 that enhanced creditor rights in the event of bankruptcy decreased the sheltering levels, it weakened the negative sheltering-leverage relation. Finally, our analysis indicates that tax sheltering reduces firm value. * Akanksha Jalan (corresponding author) is at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore – 560076, India; e-mail: akanksha.jalan10@iimb.ernet. in. Jayant R. Kale is the Philip R. McDonald Chair and Professor of Finance, D‘Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Boston, MA – 02115; e-mail: j.kale@neu.edu. Costanza Meneghetti is at the Department of Finance, West Virginia University, Morgantown – 26506; e-mail: costanza.meneghetti@mail.wvu. edu. This research was supported in part by the National Stock Exchange, Mumbai, India under the Commissioned Research Initiative. We acknowledge the helpful comments received from Vikas Agarwal, Rajesh Aggarwal, Lixin Huang, Chip Ryan, Baozhang Yang, and the seminar participants at Georgia State University and the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd.
When Opportunity Knocks: Cross-Sectional Return Dispersion and Active Fund Performance

Active opportunity in the market, measured by cross-sectional dispersion in stock returns, significantly influences fund performance. Active strategies have the greatest impact on returns during periods of high dispersion, when alpha produced by the most active funds significantly exceeds that produced in other months. The outperformance of the most relative to the least active funds is also concentrated in months of high dispersion. Deciding when to invest in active funds, therefore, can be as important to generating outperformance as deciding which funds to invest in. Switching between highly active and passive funds based on dispersion produces significant alpha of over 2.7% p.a. after fees. This paper adds a new dimension to understanding how active funds can be used to generate value, by combining identification of which managers have the greatest potential to outperform the market with insight into when the market is most conducive to outperformance.
Fabrication of Thin Film Multijunction Thermal Converters With Improved Long-Term Stability

To increase the long-term stability of thin-film multijunction thermal converters (TFMJTCs) developed by the National Metrology Institute of Japan and Nikkohm Corporation Ltd., we prevented their degradation by improving the design and fabrication process. Judging from the Arrhenius model experiments, we successfully increased the lifetime of a renewed TFMJTC to more than 20 years by improving the deposition pattern of a Bi-Sb-Cu-based thin-film thermopile. We also evaluated the thermoelectric effect of the renewed TFMJTCs by the fast-reversed dc method. The low thermoelectric effect of less than 0.1 μV/V has been realized, which is comparable with that of high-quality multijunction thermal converters previously produced by other national metrology institutes.
Striking a balance between the costs for Web content providers and the quality of service for Web customers. Insight and Perspectives for CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKS

• A set of surrogate servers (distributed around theworld) that cache the origin servers’ content; • Routers and network elements that deliver content requests to the optimal location and theoptimal surrogate server; and • An accounting mechanism that provides logs andinformation to the origin servers.Under a CDN, the client-server communication isreplaced by two communication flows: one betweenthe client and the surrogate server, and anotherbetween the surrogate server and the origin server.This distinction into two communication flowsreduces congestion (particularly over popular servers)and increases content distribution and av ailability. Tomaintain (worldwide) distributed copies of identicalcontent, the practice for a CDN is to locate its surro-gate servers within strategic data centers (relying onmultiple network providers), over a globally distrib-uted infrastructure. In this context, the most indica-tive advantages from using CDNs are:• Reducing the customer’s need to invest in Website infrastructure and decreasing the operationalcosts of managing such infrastructure; • Bypassing traffic jams on the Web, since data iscloser to user and there is no need to traverse allof the congested pipes and peering points;
Managing service quality in HE: is SERVQUAL the answer? Part 1

Explains the need for a valid and reliable instrument for course managers to evaluate their product through customer feedback as part of the system of quality assurance, and examines the justification for viewing higher education as a service provision with the student body as the customer. Provides a short review of the existing tools for measuring student experience, along with the rationale for testing a modified version of the SERVQUAL instrument. The instrument was completed by volunteers from three undergraduate degrees (n = 134) in class time just before the Christmas vacation. Analysis of the results revealed higher average perception scores than expectation scores on every dimension except tangibles. However, analysis also revealed rather lower reliability coefficients than those achieved by Parasuraman or later replication studies. Factor analysis did not support the original five SERVQUAL dimensions in line with other replication studies. Considers the reasons for the low reliability score and the different factor structure. In particular, proposes the modified instrument’s lack of focus on a specific aspect of the complex service experience as a possible source of error. Recommends that the elements of service quality should be revisited and a higher education‐specific instrument for course managers should be constructed.
Wireless mains sensor for monitoring domestic energy consumption

Past studies have shown that awareness of energy consumption can lead to reduction in electricity usage and that real-time, per-appliance data on electricity consumption would provide greater utility and actionable information. Yet, the customers of today’s utility companies typically have to be content with data that is aggregated, delayed and difficult to access. Comprehensive real-time data would also aid in optimizing energy consumption with respect to dynamic pricing and avoiding peak consumption periods. The objective of this thesis was to design and manufacture a wireless sensor for continuous and real-time metering of the energy consumption of a household in the UBI-AMI system version 2. The resulting Mains sensor reads the total energy consumption from the kilowatt hour meter using either a galvanic or an optical connection. The individual loads of the fuses in the circuit breaker panel are measured with Hall sensors. An 8-bit microcontroller collects analog measurements, conducts 10-bit ADC and transmits the resulting digital data to the UBI-AMI system using a commercial 6LoWPAN radio module and the CoAP protocol. The data enables the differentiation of the energy consumption of integrated and builtin elements such as floor heating and sauna from the total energy consumption of the household. The Mains sensor was tested with a demonstrator that comprised of a fuse board, a kilowatt hour meter and sockets for connecting loads. The Mains sensor was found to be flawless in reading the total energy consumption from the kilowatt hour meter using a galvanic connection. The sensor was able to read 84% of fast pulses and showed 4% surplus with slow pulses if the optical connection was used. The Hall sensors had a maximum average error of 0.47% with an active power, in comparison to a commercial energy meter. These results show that the Mains sensor provides sufficiently accurate and reliable information for improving the awareness of energy consumption of a household.
Drivers of Intention to Revisit the Websites of Well-Known Companies: The Role of Corporate Brand Loyalty

Due to the increasing importance of the internet as a channel of marketing and distribution, companies are now concerned with the question of how to design attractive websites. Correspondingly, market researchers have started to examine the determinants of attitudes towards websites and potential reasons for consumers visiting or rejecting to visit the sites of companies. Several drivers of attitudes and intentions have been identified. In this article, we focus on the importance of the corporate brand in studies of websites for well-known companies. The underlying assumption is that the intention to revisit a website is decided on much broader a basis than the attributes of the site. Specifically, we hypothesise that affective brand loyalty is a powerful determinant of intentions to revisit the website of an airline company besides attitudes towards the site per se. This contention is empirically tested and supported by a study of the SAS company.
Saving and Well-Being at the Base of the Pyramid

Although much saving research has been conducted in affluent nations, little is known about consumer saving and well-being at the base of the pyramid, which includes over 3 billion people who live on less than US$2.50 per day. Research evidence suggests that financial situation, and especially saving, is central to well-being in impoverished societies; however, to our knowledge, this relationship has not been tested with a global sample. Thus, in this study, we consider how societal poverty, individual saving ability, and satisfaction with one’s household financial situation influence well-being. Further, we examine how poverty moderates the relationship between individual financial drivers and well-being to test the saving-well-being centrality assumption. Our multilevel study uses hierarchical linear models with about 50,000 consumers across 38 countries and demonstrates that as societal poverty increases, well-being decreases. Yet in high-poverty societies, saving greatly improves well-being. This significant finding among saving, poverty, and well-being is particularly telling, as household financial satisfaction was not moderated by societal poverty. As a result, we suggest novel transformative financial services that should improve the lives of the poor through formal saving mechanisms that are grounded in their lived experiences.
Mean-Variance and Stochastic Dominance Analysis of Global Exchange-Traded Funds

We employ the stochastic dominance (SD) approach that utilizes the entire return distribution to rank the performance of exchange-traded funds as traditional mean-variance and CAPM approaches may be inappropriate given the nature of non-normal returns. We find second and third-order stochastic dominance relationships amongst the assets and conclude that by investing in higher-order dominant funds, risk-averse investors can maximize their expected utilities but not their wealth. In addition, we find the common characteristic for most pairs of funds is that one fund is preferred to another in the negative domain whereas the preference reverses in the positive domain. We conclude that the stochastic dominance approach is more appropriate compared with traditional approaches as a filter in exchange-traded fund selection. Compared with traditional approaches, the SD approach, not only is assumption free, but also provides greater insights to the performance and risk inherent in an exchange-traded fund’s track record.
Crystallization of large grain polycrystalline silicon films on glass substrate induced by nano aluminum film at a low temperature of 350°C

In this paper, large grain polycrystalline silicon films on glass substrates have been fabricated at a low temperature of 350°C. The amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor (PECVD) were transformed to polysilicon films by using nano-aluminum induced crystallization (AIC) at a low temperature. Effect of the annealing time on the grain size and crystalline phase were discussed. The polycrystalline silicon films were characterized by using XRD, Raman and SEM. The surface morphology, sheet resistance and the crystallization mechanism were also discussed. Polycrystalline silicon films with grain sizes larger than 3 microns were obtained in this study at 350°C.
Information literacy, learning, and the public library: A study of Danish high school students

The paper reports on a study of 12 Danish high school students’ perceptions of public libraries’ role in learning, user education, information literacy, and librarians’ information competencies. The study is undertaken by use of literature review and interviews with a purposive select sample of public library users in Denmark. The study demonstrates that public libraries are considered an important place for learning. The high school students view the public librarians as very competent and as good at helping them to develop their information needs, identify sources, and support the students in the information search processes. The high school students show rather good critical skills, but poor information need developing skills. The study further shows that concepts of information literacy and lifelong learning are not very well understood by the users, i.e. the high school students. The results have a range of implications, both for pedagogical praxis in the public library and for Library and Information Science (LIS).
Prevention is Better than Cure: Precludine Information Acquisition in IPOs

We treat information acquisition by potential investors in IPOs as endogenous. With endogenous information, the critical question is why underwriters would allow investors to spend resources acquiring superior information intended solely to effect a wealth transfer. We show that institutional arrangements such as regulars, stabilization, short-selling constraints, and investment banking syndicates avoid such a wealth transfer by precluding information acquisition and the information asymmetry that would otherwise arise. We characterize the resulting outcome as one of symmetric ignorance.
Angiotensin II Activation of mTOR Results in Tubulointerstitial Fibrosis through Loss of N-Cadherin

Background/Aims: Angiotensin (Ang) II contributes to tubulointerstitial fibrosis. Recent data highlight mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)/S6 kinase 1 (S6K1) signaling in tubulointerstitial fibrosis; however, the mechanisms remain unclear. Thereby, we investigated the role of Ang II on mTOR/S6K1-dependent proximal tubule (PT) injury, remodeling, and fibrosis. Methods: We utilized young transgenic Ren2 rats (R2-T) and Sprague-Dawley rats (SD-T) treated with the Ang type 1 receptor (AT1R) blocker telmisartan (2 mg · kg–1 · day–1) or vehicle (R2-C; SD-C) for 3 weeks to examine PT structure and function. Results: Ren2 rats displayed increased systolic blood pressure, proteinuria and increased PT oxidant stress and remodeling. There were parallel increases in kidney injury molecule-1 and reductions in neprilysin and megalin with associated ultrastructural findings of decreased clathrin-coated pits, endosomes, and vacuoles. Ren2 rats displayed increased Serine2448 phosphorylation of mTOR and downstream S6K1, in concert with ultrastructural basement membrane thickening, tubulointerstitial fibrosis and loss of the adhesion molecule N-cadherin. Telmisartan treatment attenuated proteinuria as well as the biochemical and tubulointerstitial structural abnormalities seen in the Ren2 rats. Conclusions: Our observations suggest that Ang II activation of the AT1R contributes to PT brush border injury and remodeling, in part, due to enhanced mTOR/S6K1 signaling which promotes tubulointerstitial fibrosis through loss of N-cadherin.
Factors Influencing Brand Loyalty in Professional Sports Fans

Many researchers have provided comprehensive definitions for the term of brand loyalty and also examined the factors affecting brand loyalty with many empirical studies. But there is little research focusing on the brand loyalty of professional sports fans. The topic area about factors influencing brand loyalty in professional sports fans was identified because these fans bring significant financial benefits every year and stimulate economic growth in the United States. Although different conceptual models seek to explain brand loyalty, many factors influence customer brand loyalty. Different factors may influence brand loyalty in the sports industry as compared to other industries. The purpose of this review is to analyze critically theoretical and empirical literature about the factors influencing brand loyalty in professional sports fans, implications for brand management, and to identify areas of future scholarly inquiry. The forms of literature included in this review are periodicals, periodicals, periodical, books, non-periodical, doctoral dissertations, masters dissertations, and government documents. Most literature was retrieved from the ProQuest database. Types of scholarly literature included in the review are theoretical, empirical, critical and methodological inquiry. Only a little literature is explored in this area; more additional research is needed to explore the theme.
A Quantitative Neural Network Model (Qnnm) for Stock Trading Decisions

Trading activities are based on technical analysis, market sentiment (asymmetric information, rumours, noise trading) and imitative behavoiur. This leads to unjustified biasness in decision making. To remove such subjectivity, this paper suggests a neural network model for the investors to decide whether buy or sell the shares. The model consists two wings - one, based on technical analysis and the other, on fundamental analysis. The integral part of this model is the existence of a hidden layer between the input layer and output layer. To remain away from the subjectivity, this model does not consider the behavioural factors in modeling.
CH LOROPHYLL-PROTEINS OF THYLAKOIDS FROM WILD-TYPE AND MUTANTS OF BARLEY ( HORDEUM VULGARE L . } by

A sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis system is described that resolves wild-type barley thylakoid components into ten chlorophyll-containing bands, plus free chlorophyll. Many of these bands have been characterised with respect to their absorption spectra and polypeptide composition. The identity and probable function of eight bands were established by comparison of the wild-type pattern with those of isolated light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-protein complex and a number of nuclear gene mutants of barley. It was found that the mutant chlorina-f2, which lacks chlorophyll b, contains only three chlorophyll a-proteins designated Chla-P1, Chla-P2 and Chla-P3 according to a new system of nomenclature proposed in this paper. Chla-Pl contains the reaction centre of photosystem I (P700) and with the aid of the mutant viridis-m 29, Chla-P3 was deduced to be the most likely site of the reaction centre (P680) of photosystem 1I. Two chlorophyll a/b-proteins were found, which differed in their a/b ratios and which are thought to play a role in light-harvesting or light-focusing. These were designated Chla/b-P 1 and Chla/b-P2, the latter being found in multimeric complexes designated Chla/b-P2 ~, Cbla/b-P2 ~ ~ and Chla/b-P2 ~ ~ ~, in order of increasing apparent molecular weight. In addition to these eight bands, there were two chlorophyll-containing bands in the wild-type pattern that were not Chla/b-P2 complexes and which were called ChI-P bands until further characterised.
Fisetin Inhibits Matrix Metalloproteinases and Reduces Tumor Cell Invasiveness and Endothelial Cell Tube Formation

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play an important role in tissue remodeling during normal physiological situations and pathological implications such as tumor invasion and metastasis. MMP inhibitors were screened from extracts of medicinal herbs by an enzymatic assay using the MMP-14 catalytic domain. Among samples tested, a methanol extract of the root of Dalbergia odorifera T. CHEN (Leguminosae) showed the strongest inhibitory activity. The inhibitory component was purified through fractionation methods and identified as fisetin, abundant in many fruits and vegetables. In addition to inhibition of MMP-14, fisetin inhibits MMP-1, MMP-3, MMP-7, and MMP-9, more efficiently than a naturally occurring MMP inhibitor tetracycline. Fisetin dose-dependently inhibits proliferation of fibrosarcoma HT-1080 cells and human umbilical vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs), MMP-14-mediated activation of proMMP-2 in HT-1080 cells, invasiveness of HT-1080 cells, and in vitro tube formation of HUVECs. Therefore, fisetin could be valuable as a chemopreventive agent against cancer and a lead compound for development of therapeutic MMP inhibitors.
A Novel Method for Mining Semantics from Patterns over ECG Data

In intensive care units (ICU), electrocardiogram (ECG) wave-forms show diverse variations under different patients’ physical conditions. In general, physicians can diagnose patients efﬁciently by detecting any disorder of heart rate or rhythm and any change in the morphological pattern of ECG data, which contain underlying semantics. To help physicians better analyze ECG data in a fairly short time, it is essential to develop a novel method for mining semantics from ECG patterns. This paper is the very ﬁrst time to characterize ECG patterns by using Preﬁx Scalable Pattern Tree (PSP-Tree). Comparing with similar currently existing methods, PSP-Tree can mine signiﬁcant semantics, such as scalability, tem-porality and hierarchy over ECG patterns. We conduct extensive experiments on real ECG data set which are obtained from PhysioBank Community and Beijing No.3 People Hospital. The experiment results show that our method performs more feasibly and effectively than other related work.
A Universal Microsatellite Multiplex Kit for Genetic Analysis of Great Apes

DNA profiling with microsatellite markers is a commonly used genetic method of studying the great apes. An efficient method of generating the genetic data is amplification of multiple microsatellites in a single PCR reaction. Here we describe a PCR multiplex in which 9 genetic markers can be amplified simultaneously, thereby saving time, expenses and DNA. This marker system can discriminate between all the great ape species except bonobos and chimpanzees. Furthermore, the cumulative probability of identity values were low for all 4 species tested.