Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quadratic Optimization of Smooth Consumption and Optimal Annuity Design

We propose an optimization criterion that yields extraordinary consumption smoothing compared to the well known results of the life-cycle model. Under this criterion we solve the related consumption optimization problem faced by individuals with preferences for intertemporal stability in consumption. The problem is solved both with and without risky investments. We nd that the consumption and investment patterns demanded under the optimization criterion is in general oered as annuity benets from products in the class of ’formula based smoothed investment-linked annuities’.
An analysis of the papers published in Total Quality Management & Business Excellence from 1995 through 2008

In this article, a content analysis is performed for the papers that appeared in Total Quality Management and Business Excellence. A total of 1132 papers which appeared in the volumes from 6 to 19 are analysed into several different dimensions. Country origins and academic unit of authors (engineering/basic sciences/management sciences, etc.), research methods (library search/conceptual study/case study/simulation/field survey, etc.) and unit of analyses (individual/company/firm/regional/national/international level) are included in this analysis. In addition to those attributes, keywords of the papers and the content of case studies (manufacturing/service/information technology) are computed as well. Association mining has also been performed to determine the consequential relationships among the attributes.
Inhibition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa exoenzyme expression by subinhibitory antibiotic concentrations

We examined the effects of subinhibitory concentrations of ciprofloxacin, tobramycin, and ceftazidime on Pseudomonas aeruginosa exoenzyme expression in vitro and in vivo. Exotoxin A, exoenzyme S, phospholipase C, elastase, and total protease activities were suppressed by antibiotics at concentrations as low as 1/20 of the MIC over a 24-h period in broth. Continuous 10-day exposure of P. aeruginosa DG1 broth cultures to antibiotic levels equal to 1/10 of the MIC reduced exoenzyme S activity in all treatment groups. Elastase activity was reduced only by ciprofloxacin and tobramycin treatment. This suppressive effect of the antibiotics persisted throughout the 10 days and was not influenced by the increase in MIC of ciprofloxacin detected during the course of the experiment. Rats chronically infected with P. aeruginosa were treated with subinhibitory doses of antibiotics and compared with untreated controls. Bacterial numbers in lung homogenates from each of the four study groups were identical. However, the lungs from antibiotic-treated rats had significantly less histological damage than those from control rats (P less than 0.001). The protective effect was greatest for ciprofloxacin and tobramycin. Further, P. aeruginosa isolates from ciprofloxacin- and tobramycin-treated rats demonstrated significantly less exoenzyme S and elastase activity than isolates from untreated rats (P less than 0.001). Isolates from ceftazidime-treated lungs expressed less exoenzyme S activity (P less than 0.001) but an equivalent amount of elastase activity as isolates from controls. The suppression of P. aeruginosa exoenzymes may arrest progressive lung injury during chronic P. aeruginosa lung infections.
Virtual Spatial Modulation for MIMO Systems

Compared with the conventional amplitude phase modulation (APM), spatial modulation (SM) is a low- complexity, yet energy-efficient transmission technique, whereby transmit antenna (TA) indices are utilized to convey the information. However, the number of the required TAs grows exponentially with the number of transmitted bits, which leads to unacceptable pilot overhead for channel estimation in practical systems. To reduce the number of TAs whereas keep the data rate unchanged, virtual spatial modulation (VSM) is proposed in the first time. Specifically, by activating multiple TAs with their corresponding analog phase shifters (APSs), massive equivalent channel vectors could be constructed based on the combinations of original channel vectors from different TAs and their phase rotations. By way of mapping each equivalent channel vector to a virtual transmit antenna (VTA) index which might convey the information, the number of the required TAs could grow linearly with the number of transmitted bits. Furthermore, the selection of a VTA subset from all available VTAs is formulated as a combinatorial optimization problem to maximize the minimal Euclidean distance (ED) among the equivalent channel vectors. A spatial constellation optimizing (SCO) algorithm is proposed to obtain a near-optimal solution to this problem with low-complexity. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed VSM is able to achieve lower bit error rate (BER) under the same transmit rate compared with the conventional SM and APM schemes.
Prognostic value of modeled PSA clearance on biochemical relapse free survival after radical prostatectomy

Using population kinetic approach, we modeled PSA decline equations in patients with prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy (RP). We looked for relationships between early PSA decrease profile, characterized by PSA clearance (CLPSA) or half‐life (HLPSA), and the 2‐year biochemical relapse free survival (bRFS).
Determinants of Risk Premiums on Corporate Bonds

ECONOMISTS have long agreed that the rate of interest on a loan depends on the risks the lender incurs. But how lenders estimate these risks has been left largely to conjecture. This paper presents and tests a hypothesis about the determinants of risk premiums on corporate bonds. By risk premium is meant the difference between the market yield on a bond and the corresponding pure rate of interest. My hypothesis is as follows: (1) The average risk premium on a firm's bonds depends first on the risk that the firm will default on its bonds and second on their marketability. (2) The "risk of default" can be estimated by a function of three variables: the coefficient of variation of the firm's net income over the last
The Other January Effect: international evidence

This paper investigates the predictive power of stock market returns in January for the subsequent 11 months’ returns across 19 countries, thereby contributing to the literature on stock market seasonalities. Only 2 out of 19 countries’ stock markets exhibit a robust Other January Effect. In the light of this evidence, we conclude that the Other January Effect is not an international phenomenon.
Designing combo recharge plans for telecom subscribers using itemset mining technique

Customer retention in Telecom market is a big research challenge in developed as well as developing economies as the market is almost saturated as well as competitive with large number of local and global service providers. It is also well known that from business point of view retaining an existing customer is much less costly than acquiring a new one. Hence retaining existing customer by making them loyal is crucial for the sake of existence of the telecom providers. Customers can be made loyal by making them satisfied customers. One of the important factors that make a customer satisfied is the value for money as well as proper prepaid recharge plans that will suit their requirements. An association based rule mining model is proposed in this research work to enable telecom operators to choose proper recharge combo plans that will be mostly appropriate for the customers. The main objective of this analysis is to identify the frequent recharge-types (itemset) based on the support and confidence value from recharge history dataset. This will allow telecom providers to focus on creating combo plans by aggregating the mostly used service-categories.
Leadership succession and organizational success: when do new chief executives make a difference?

When do new chief executives in the public sector make a difference to organizational performance? Theory suggests that executive succession has both adaptive and disruptive effects on public organizations, and the balance between these is likely to depend on the performance of the organization in the period before a new top manager takes office. We test this proposition on several years of data on all 148 English principal local authorities. Our results suggest that chief executive succession makes a difference to performance, and that succession has a positive effect where prior performance is low, but a negative effect where it is high.
It’s the Local Economy, Stupid! Geographic Wealth Dispersion and Conflict Outbreak Location

Income varies considerably within countries and the locations where conflicts emerge are rarely typical or representative for states at large. Yet, most research on conflict has only examined national income averages and neglected spatial variation. The authors argue that civil conflicts are more likely to erupt in areas with low absolute income, even if a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is not necessarily low, and in areas with large deviations from national averages. The authors test these hypotheses empirically using spatially disaggregated data on the location of conflict outbreaks and per capita income estimates. The authors find that areas with absolute poverty indeed see more outbreaks of conflict, and they find some evidence that inequality increases the risk of conflict. Subnational information can improve on conventional country-based measures and help our understanding of how local features and variation can give rise to mobilization and violence.
Modeling Labor Markets with Heterogeneous Agents and Matches

I present a matching model with heterogeneous workers, firms, and worker-fim matches. The model generalizes the seminal Jovanovic (1979) model to the case of heterogeneous agents. The equilibrium wage is linear in a person-specific component, a firm-specific component, and a match specific component that varies with tenure. Under certain conditions, the equilibrium wage takes a simpler structure where the match specific component does not vary with tenure. I discuss fixed- and mixedeffect methods for estimating wage models with this structure on longitudinal linked employer-employee data. The fixed effect specification relies on restrictive identification conditions, but is feasible for very large databases. The mixed model requires less restrictive identification conditions, but is feasible only on relatively small databases. Both the fixed and mixed models generate empirical person, firm, and match effects with characteristics that are consistent with predictions from the matching model; the mixed model moreso than the fixed model. Shortcomings of the fixed model appear to be artifacts of the identification conditions.
Circuit simulation using state space equations

This paper proposes a method to recast the classic circuit simulation algorithm to maximize parallelism by formulating the circuit equations as state variable equations and using an integration method such as Runge Kutta as the foundation to break the time dependencies. A brief introduction to the SPICE algorithm and previous attempts to exploit parallelism is given. The implementation of the new algorithm for both linear and non-linear circuits is presented and results are compared with the traditional method. The opportunities for extracting parallelism are discussed.
SNARE proteins are highly enriched in lipid rafts in PC12 cells: Implications for the spatial control of exocytosis

Lipid rafts are microdomains present within membranes of most cell types. These membrane microdomains, which are enriched in cholesterol and glycosphingolipids, have been implicated in the regulation of certain signal transduction and membrane traffic pathways. To investigate the possibility that lipid rafts organize exocytotic pathways in neuroendocrine cells, we examined the association of proteins of the exocytotic machinery with rafts purified from PC12 cells. The target soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (tSNARE) proteins syntaxin 1A and synaptosomal-associated protein of 25 kDa (SNAP-25) were both found to be highly enriched in lipid rafts (≈25-fold). The vesicle SNARE vesicle-associated membrane protein (VAMP)2 was also present in raft fractions, but the extent of this recovery was variable. However, further analysis revealed that the majority of VAMP2 was associated with a distinct class of raft with different detergent solubility characteristics to the rafts containing syntaxin 1A and SNAP-25. Interestingly, no other studied secretory proteins were significantly associated with lipid rafts, including SNARE effector proteins such as nSec1. Chemical crosslinking experiments showed that syntaxin1A/SNAP-25 heterodimers were equally present in raft and nonraft fractions, whereas syntaxin1A/nSec1 complexes were detected only in nonraft fractions. SDS-resistance assays revealed that raft-associated syntaxin1A/SNAP-25 heterodimers were able to interact with VAMP2. Finally, reduction of cellular cholesterol levels decreased the extent of regulated exocytosis of dopamine from PC12 cells. The results described suggest that the interaction of SNARE proteins with lipid rafts is important for exocytosis and may allow structural and spatial organization of the secretory machinery.
ShearWave™ Elastography A new real time imaging mode for assessing quantitatively soft tissue viscoelasticity

ShearWavetrade Elastography (SWE) is a new real time ultrasound imaging mode that quantitatively measures local tissue elasticity in kPa. Based on the Supersonic Shear Imaging concept (developed at the Laboratoire Ondes et Acoustique, Paris), this new concept may appear as a promising tool to improve breast lesion characterization. In vitro experimental measurements have been performed to quantify SWE mode performances in terms of resolution, penetration and the ability to measure quantitatively elasticity. Results show that the SWE mode exhibits a millimetric resolution and quantifies properly tissue elasticity on a wide range of elastic contrasts (from 7 to 110 kPa). The real time capabilities and the robustness of the mode have been tested in clinical conditions, on breast lesions. 150 patients have been scanned with SWE mode in three different sites. Results show that SWE performs well on breast pathologies and presents a very good inter-site reproducibility. Finally, the quantitative elasticity value was analyzed as a function of pathology using FNA or core biopsy as the reference diagnostic method.
An Efficient Multicasting Architecture for Context-Aware Messaging Services in the Future Internet

Due to large control overhead and latency, traditional multicast and unicast mechanisms are not suitable for context-aware messaging services where multiple nodes subject to a particular context receive several appropriate messages from a particular server. We propose novel multicast architecture for context-aware messaging services. By the aid of additional infrastructure our mechanism builds a multicast tree in a top-down manner from a source to multiple receivers without clients' JOIN operations while the first data message is delivered. Simulation results show that our mechanism has significantly lower overhead and latency than traditional unicast and multicast mechanisms.
Intellectual Capital Reporting by the New Zealand Local Government Sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent and quality of intellectual capital disclosures (ICDs) in the annual reports of the New Zealand local government sector.Design/methodology/approach – This paper makes use of an ICD index constructed through a participatory stakeholder consultation process to develop a disclosure index which measures the extent and quality intellectual capital reporting in the 2004/2005 annual reports of 82 local government authorities in New Zealand. The final index comprised 26 items divided into three categories: internal, external and human capital.Findings – The results indicate that the reporting of intellectual capital by local government authorities is varied. The most reported items were joint ventures/business collaborations and management processes, while the least reported items were intellectual property and licensing agreements. The most reported category of intellectual capital was internal capital, followed by external capital. Human capital was th.
Place influences in framing and understanding climate change adaptation challenges

The climate change literature emphasises the importance of geographical understanding for guiding adaptation, in which “place” perspectives are particularly significant. After “scale”, the term “place” within the climate change adaptation literature is most often implicitly used in reference to a delineated and localised region, such as place-based risk assessment or place-based adaptation planning. Here, we use a case study of the Australian island-state of Tasmania to demonstrate the importance and particularity of place in the formation of climate change adaptation issues, problem definition and framing, and the dynamics of knowledge and praxis development across a range of research and industry sectors. We describe the significance of the place Tasmania with regard to its geographical location; its portrayal as an island place; and its cultural meaning and relations. Through a synthesis of climate change adaptation research, policy literature and engagement with researchers and stakeholders, we identify three emergent thematic place characterisations of Tasmania. We find that these characterisations have contributed directly or indirectly to the: initiation and extent of research and practical activities; the framing of adaptation issues and perspectives on potential adaptation responses in different sectors including the marine biodiversity and resources sector, small business and human health sectors. Exposing these influences is essential for focusing future adaptation activities, including research, planning, investment and practice, in Tasmania and other locations where place is a central issue.
Earnings Losses after Non-Employment Increase with Age

This paper shows that after older workers experience periods of non-employment, earnings losses increase. Before non-employment, older employees have relatively higher earnings compared to younger employees without employment interruptions. This earnings advantage turns into a strong earnings disadvantage shortly before, and for a long time after, unemployment. Younger people who lose their jobs have a relatively stable, small earnings disadvantage before non-employment and quickly earn more than those without employment interruptions. The earnings effect of returning to the same employer after non-employment suggests that more involuntary work interruptions for older employees better explains the results than the loss of an implicit contract or specific human capital.
Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage

The standard economic model of the family is a 'common preference' model that assumes that a family maximizes a single utility function and implies that family behavior is independent of which individuals receive income or control resources. In recent years, this model has been challenged by game-theoretic models of marriage that do not impose 'pooling' and are, therefore, consistent with empirical evidence that income controlled by husbands and wives does have different effects on family behavior. In this paper, the authors review a number of simple bargaining models and relevant empirical evidence, and discuss their implications for distribution within marriage.
Nucleotide sequences and comparison of the hemolysin determinants of Vibrio cholerae El Tor RV79(Hly+) and RV79(Hly-) and classical 569B(Hly-)

We determined the nucleotide sequences of the hemolysin structural gene, hlyA, of Vibrio cholerae El Tor biotype strains RV79(Hly+) and RV79(Hly-) and the hly determinant of the nonhemolytic classical biotype strain 569B(Hly-). The sequences of the hlyA gene from El Tor strains RV79(Hly+) and RV79(Hly-) have an identical 2,223-base open reading frame which is predicted to encode an 81,977-dalton precursor form of hemolysin. This value is in excellent agreement with the 84,000-Mr hemolysin described in the earlier report of Goldberg and Murphy (S. L. Goldberg and J. R. Murphy, J. Bacteriol. 162:35-41, 1985). In contrast, the sequence of the hly determinant of the classical 569B(Hly-) strain has an 11-base-pair deletion within the hlyA structural gene. In this instance the hly determinant is predicted to encode a 26,765-dalton precursor form of a truncated hemolysin. In each case, the regulatory region encoding the putative hlyA promoter and the predicted 25-amino-acid signal sequence are identical.
Psychoeducation to increase psychotherapy entry for older African Americans.

OBJECTIVE Older African Americans have low rates of mental health service use, particularly for outpatient treatment. This pilot study examined the impact of a brief psychoeducational intervention on treatment entry and attendance for older African American medical patients referred for psychotherapy. METHODS Before their first appointment, 32 participants attended a 15-minute individual psychoeducation session about psychotherapy that was specifically tailored for older African Americans. The rates of treatment entry and number of sessions attended over 3 months were compared between psychoeducation participants and a historical-comparison group of 37 African Americans referred for psychotherapy the previous year. RESULTS The proportion of patients starting therapy was equivalent in both groups (about 75%). However, psychoeducation participants attended significantly more sessions than the comparison group in the 3-month period. In 3-month follow-up interviews, participants reported favorable impressions of the psychoeducation experience. CONCLUSIONS This brief intervention was acceptable to older African Americans and may be a promising strategy to promote outpatient treatment in this underserved population.
The determinants of attrition in drug development: a duration analysis

Global research and development data on pharmaceutical drugs from 1980 to 2012 are used to estimate the risk of attrition of a project in each R&D stage as a function of the duration of each stage, and competition and alliances between rms. We nd that markets with more new drugs and less R&D competitors experience higher attrition. These eects are particularly important in the discovery and phase 2 clinical trials. Competition from longer established drugs appears to not signicantly aect attrition. The impact of alliances is not conclusive, bringing into question role of alliances on pharmaceutical innovation.