Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does Overconfidence Affect Corporate Investment? CEO Overconfidence Measures Revisited

"This article presents the growing research area of Behavioural Corporate Finance in the context of one specific example: distortions in corporate investment due to CEO overconfidence. We first review the relevant psychology and experimental evidence on overconfidence. We then summarise the results of Malmendier and Tate l2005ar on the impact of overconfidence on corporate investment. We present supplementary evidence on the relationship between CEOs' press portrayals and overconfident investment decisions. This alternative approach to measuring overconfidence, developed in Malmendier and Tate l2005br, relies on the perception of outsiders rather than the CEO's own actions. The robustness of the results across such diverse proxies jointly corroborates previous findings and suggests new avenues to measuring executive overconfidence". Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2005.
Secure multiplex coding with dependent and non-uniform multiple messages

The secure multiplex coding (SMC) is a technique to remove rate loss in the coding for wiretap channels and broadcast channels with confidential messages caused by the inclusion of random bits into transmitted signals. SMC replaces the random bits by other meaningful secret messages, and a collection of secret messages serves as the random bits to hide the rest of messages. In the previous researches, multiple secret messages were assumed to have independent and uniform distributions, which is difficult to be ensured in practice. We remove this restrictive assumption by a generalization of the channel resolvability technique.
Networks of Photos, Landmarks, and People

Social photo-sharing sites like Flickr contain vast amounts of latent information about the world and human behavior. The authors describe their recent work in building automatic algorithms that analyze large collections of imagery in order to extract some of this information. At a global scale, geo-tagged photographs can be used to identify the most photographed places on Earth, as well as to infer the names and visual representations of these places. At a local scale, the authors build detailed 3D models of a scene by combining information from thousands of 2D photographs taken by different people and from different vantage points.
An efficient approach to switching activity estimation in finite state machines

This paper presents a methodology for determining the average power consumption of sequential CMOS circuits based on a ‘high-level’ FSM description. Starting from a exercised symbolic FSM description, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to estimate the average switching activity of all circuit components. Depending on user-supplied modelling parameters this simulation system can be used as a ‘circuit level’ simulator as well as a symbolic simulator of ‘high-level’ descriptions. An object-oriented modelling and simulation environment is thus presented that allows an automatic generation of high-speed simulation systems to run in a heterogeneous multiprocessor environment.
On the Number of Lambda Terms With Prescribed Size of Their De Bruijn Representation

John Tromp introduced the so-called 'binary lambda calculus' as a way to encode lambda terms in terms of binary words. Later, Grygiel and Lescanne conjectured that the number of binary lambda terms with $m$ free indices and of size $n$ (encoded as binary words of length $n$) is $o(n^{-3/2} \tau^{-n})$ for $\tau \approx 1.963448\ldots$. We generalize the proposed notion of size and show that for several classes of lambda terms, including binary lambda terms with $m$ free indices, the number of terms of size $n$ is $\Theta(n^{-3/2} \rho^{-n})$ with some class dependent constant $\rho$, which in particular disproves the above mentioned conjecture. A way to obtain lower and upper bounds for the constant near the leading term is presented and numerical results for a few previously introduced classes of lambda terms are given.
Image Watermarking Robust to Four-Color Printing and Fragile to High Resolution Copy

A blind print-scan (PS) resilient watermarking scheme is proposed in this paper. In general, a duplicated one can be obtained by high resolution scanning and printing the first printing. How to distinguish watermark quality from the first printing and the duplicated one? To solve this problem, error correction of coding is used to resist the first printing and scan processes first. Second, a suitable strength parameter to watermark is selected to balance and distinguish the fist PS and twice PC. Finally, some statistic in the space domain is computed to adjust watermark extraction after the watermarked images is first printed and scanned. The cover image is not needed when the watermark is detected. Experiments results show that the scheme can resist first printing and scan process. Furthermore watermark cannot be extracted from the duplicated one. The scheme is also robust to geometrical transformation, noise, compression, cut and so on.
Relating Clusterization Measures and Software Quality

Empirical studies have shown that dependence clusters are both prevalent in source code and detrimental to many activities related to software, including maintenance, testing and comprehension. Based on such observations, it would be worthwhile to try to give a more precise characterization of the connection between dependence clusters and software quality. Such attempts are hindered by a number of difficulties: there are problems in assessing the quality of software, measuring the degree of clusterization of software and finding the means to exhibit the connection (or lack of it) between the two. In this paper we present our approach to establish a connection between software quality and clusterization. Software quality models comprise of low- and high-level quality attributes, in addition we defined new clusterization metrics that give a concise characterization of the clusters contained in programs. Apart from calculating correlation coefficients, we used mutual information to quantify the relationship between clusterization and quality. Results show that a connection can be demonstrated between the two, and that mutual information combined with correlation can be a better indicator to conduct deeper examinations in the area.
Interaction-driven design: a new approach for interactive product development

As a new approach to interactive product development, we found possibilities in interactions themselves as the starting point of a product development, and propose a concept of interaction-driven design. We focused on the movements in interactions, such as users' input behaviors and feedback movements from the system's output. In this paper, design patterns and their characteristics for three different interactive product development approaches, including our newly proposed one, were examined through an ideation workshop: 1) user-driven product development, 2) technology-driven product development, and 3) interaction-driven product development. We were able to see that results for the development of interactive products differed depending on the combining order or the linking patterns of factors such as form, function, and interaction. Interaction-driven product development opens up a wider range of linking possibilities compared to the other two approaches.
Convex Program Duality, Fisher Markets, and Nash Social Welfare

We study Fisher markets and the problem of maximizing the Nash social welfare (NSW), and show several closely related new results. In particular, we obtain: A new integer program for the NSW maximization problem whose fractional relaxation has a bounded integrality gap. In contrast, the natural integer program has an unbounded integrality gap. An improved, and tight, factor 2 analysis of the algorithm of [7]; in turn showing that the integrality gap of the above relaxation is at most 2. The approximation factor shown by [7] was 2e 1/e ≈ 2.89. A lower bound of e 1/e ≈ 1.44 on the integrality gap of this relaxation. New convex programs for natural generalizations of linear Fisher markets and proofs that these markets admit rational equilibria. These results were obtained by establishing connections between previously known disparate results, and they help uncover their mathematical underpinnings. We show a formal connection between the convex programs of Eisenberg and Gale and that of Shmyrev, namely that their duals are equivalent up to a change of variables. Both programs capture equilibria of linear Fisher markets. By adding suitable constraints to Shmyrev’s program, we obtain a convex program that captures equilibria of the spendingrestricted market model defined by [7] in the context of the NSW maximization problem. Further, adding certain integral constraints to this program we get the integer program for the NSW mentioned above. The basic tool we use is convex programming duality. In the special case of convex programs with linear constraints (but convex objectives), we show a particularly simple way of obtaining dual programs, putting it almost at par with linear program duality. This simple way of finding duals has been used subsequently for many other applications.
Scaling Factorization Machines to Relational Data

The most common approach in predictive modeling is to describe cases with feature vectors (aka design matrix). Many machine learning methods such as linear regression or support vector machines rely on this representation. However, when the underlying data has strong relational patterns, especially relations with high cardinality, the design matrix can get very large which can make learning and prediction slow or even infeasible. This work solves this issue by making use of repeating patterns in the design matrix which stem from the underlying relational structure of the data. It is shown how coordinate descent learning and Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo inference can be scaled for linear regression and factorization machine models. Empirically, it is shown on two large scale and very competitive datasets (Netflix prize, KDDCup 2012), that (1) standard learning algorithms based on the design matrix representation cannot scale to relational predictor variables, (2) the proposed new algorithms scale and (3) the predictive quality of the proposed generic feature-based approach is as good as the best specialized models that have been tailored to the respective tasks.
A Kleene-Schützenberger Theorem for Trace Series over Bounded Lattices

We study weighted trace automata with weights in strong bimonoids. Traces form a generalization of words that allow to model concurrency; strong bimonoids are algebraic structures that can be regarded as “semirings without distributivity”. A very important example for the latter are bounded lattices, especially non-distributive ones. We show that if both operations of the bimonoid are locally finite, then the classes of recognizable and mc-rational trace series coincide and, in general, are properly contained in the class of c-rational series. Moreover, if, in addition, in the bimonoid the addition is idempotent and the multiplication is commutative, then all three classes coincide.
The Communication Complexity of Distributed Set-Joins with Applications to Matrix Multiplication

Given a set-comparison predicate P and given two lists of sets A = (A1,.,Am) and B = (B1,.,Bm), with all Ai, Bj ⊆ [n], the P-set join A bowtieP B is defined to be the set {(i, j) in [m] x [m] | P(Ai,Bj)}. When P(Ai,Bj) is the condition "Ai ∩ Bj ≠ is empty " we call this the set-intersection-notempty join (a.k.a. the composition of A and B); when P(Ai,Bj) is "Ai ∩ Bj is empty" we call it the set-disjointness join; when P(Ai,Bj) is "Ai = Bj" we call it the set-equality join; when P(Ai,Bj) is "|Ai ∩ Bj| ≥ T" for a given threshold T, we call it the set-intersection threshold join. Assuming A and B are stored at two different sites in a distributed environment, we study the (randomized) communication complexity of computing these, and related, set-joins A bowtieP B, as well as the (randomized) communication complexity of computing the exact and approximate value of their size k = |A bowtieP B|. Combined, our analyses shed new insights into the quantitative differences between these different set-joins. Furthermore, given the close affinity of the natural join and the set-intersection-not-empty join, our results also yield communication complexity results for computing the natural join in a distributed environment. Additionally, we obtain new algorithms for computing the distributed set-intersection-not empty join when the input and/or output is sparse. For instance, when the output is k sparse, we improve an Õ(kn) communication algorithm of (Williams and Yu, SODA 2014). Observing that the set-intersection-not-empty join is isomorphic to Boolean matrix multiplication (BMM), our results imply new algorithms for fundamental graph theoretic problems related to BMM. For example, we show how to compute the transitive closure of a directed graph in Õ(k3/2) time, when the transitive closure contains at most k edges. When k = O(n), we obtain a (practical) Õ(n3/2) time algorithm, improving a recent Õ(n1+(č+3)/4) time algorithm (Borassi, Crescenzi, and Habib, arXiv 2014) based on (impractical) fast matrix multiplication, where č ≥ 2 is the exponent for matrix multiplication.
Quality of Sterile Male Tsetse after Long Distance Transport as Chilled, Irradiated Pupae

Background Tsetse flies transmit trypanosomes that cause human and African animal trypanosomosis, a debilitating disease of humans (sleeping sickness) and livestock (nagana). An area-wide integrated pest management campaign against Glossina palpalis gambiensis has been implemented in Senegal since 2010 that includes a sterile insect technique (SIT) component. The SIT can only be successful when the sterile males that are destined for release have a flight ability, survival and competitiveness that are as close as possible to that of their wild male counterparts. Methodology/Principal Findings Tests were developed to assess the quality of G. p. gambiensis males that emerged from pupae that were produced and irradiated in Burkina Faso and Slovakia (irradiation done in Seibersdorf, Austria) and transported weekly under chilled conditions to Dakar, Senegal. For each consignment a sample of 50 pupae was used for a quality control test (QC group). To assess flight ability, the pupae were put in a cylinder filtering emerged flies that were able to escape the cylinder. The survival of these flyers was thereafter monitored under stress conditions (without feeding). Remaining pupae were emerged and released in the target area of the eradication programme (RF group). The following parameter values were obtained for the QC flies: average emergence rate more than 69%, median survival of 6 days, and average flight ability of more than 35%. The quality protocol was a good proxy of fly quality, explaining a large part of the variances of the examined parameters. Conclusions/Significance The quality protocol described here will allow the accurate monitoring of the quality of shipped sterile male tsetse used in operational eradication programmes in the framework of the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomosis Eradication Campaign.
Ph.D. Forum Abstract: Increasing Robustness in WSN Using Software Defined Network Architecture

With the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) seem to play key a role in the connectivity of smart objects. The limited resources of WSN devices and the increased demand for new and more sophisticated services call for new and more efficient architectures. The new architectures should ensure energy-efficiency, flexibility, reliability and robustness. We believe that using SDN principles in WSN will improve many important features, such as routing, robustness and reconfiguration of the networking as well as the applications. In this research, We will find ways to increase the robustness of WSN using an SDN inspired architecture and a statistical model. The initial plan is to use statistical machine learning to look for periodic interference and other periodic behaviour in typical WSN networks.
A secure distributed consensus scheme for wireless sensor networks against data falsification

This paper focuses on the problem of secure distributed consensus to defend covert misbehavior in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Distributed consensus is a promising method to improve the efficiency and precision of consensus results in WSNs, but it introduces new security issues that malicious nodes may manipulate false sensing data to degrade the sensing result of the whole network. A data falsification attack, i.e., the attacker injects random values into its neighboring nodes at each time-step of consensus process, is considered. This kind of attack cannot be defended against by most of existing detection mechanisms. We present a distributed detection mechanism with adaptive local threshold to isolate the abnormal nodes. A Weighted Averaging-based Consensus Scheme (WACS) is proposed to decrease the negative impact of the attack and make the network converge to a consensus value. It is proved that convergence property can be guaranteed by the relationship between weighted average of the noise and stochastic approximation. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed secure scheme.
Annual Variation in Flowering Phenology, Pollination, Mating System, and Pollen Yield in Two Natural Populations of Schima wallichii (DC.) Korth

Background. Schima wallichii is a highly valuable tree of tropical forest in north-east Himalaya region that grows naturally in a wide range of altitudes between 750 and 2400 m asl with varying environments. Flowering phenology of tropical tree species at population level is generally ignored and therefore a detailed knowledge of flowering and fruiting patterns of important multipurpose tree species is critical to the successful management of forest genetic resources. Materials and Methods. The study was conducted at two different altitudes (i.e., 750 m and 900 m asl) in the tropical semideciduous forest of north-east Himalaya. The floral phenology including flowering synchrony in the populations, anthesis, anther dehiscence, stigma receptivity, pollinators visitation frequency, and mating system including index of self-incompatibility were worked out in Schima wallichii according to the ear-marked standard methods given by various scientists for each parameter. Results. The flowering period in Schima wallichii varied from 33 to 42 days with mean synchrony of 0.54 to 0.68 between the populations. The stigma was receptive up to 2.5 days only and showed slightly protandrous type of dichogamy. Average pollen production ranged between 6.90 × 107 pollen per tree in 2007 and 15.49 × 108 pollen per tree in 2011. A three-year masting cycle was noticed in this species. The frequency of visitation of honey bees was fairly high (5.2 ± 1.12 visits/flower/hour) as compared to other pollinators. The hand pollination revealed maximum fruit (74.2 ± 5.72%) and seed (70.8 ± 7.46%) settings. Conclusions. The variation in flowering phenology and pollen yield individually and annually along with temporal separation in anther dehiscence and pollinator's visitation cause pollen limited reproduction, which ultimately influences the reproductive success in Schima wallichii.
Changing attitudes to cultural difference: perceptions of Muslim families in English schools

Abstract This article argues that neoliberal and neoconservative schooling policies in England legitimise a long-standing neglect of cultural difference in schools, and are having a particularly damaging effect on Muslim children’s experience of schooling. It offers evidence that relationships between teachers and Muslim families in particular may be becoming more distant, and argues that this is largely a result of a complex series of pressures on teachers’ working lives. Interview data from a small-scale interpretive, empirical study of eight primary teachers suggests that in some schools the most frequent response to issues involving Muslim families is avoidance. It is suggested this is because teachers did not see Muslims as individuals, but as representatives of an essentially different group. However, a major finding of this study is that when teachers were able to make connections with families, they gained a more complex understanding of the realities of the Muslim children in their classes.
Gifted ‘n the ‘hood: Gender and giftedness as predictors of social risk among low-income students

ABSTRACT Research abounds on adolescent poverty and on gifted education, but these fields are seldom considered together. This study explores trajectories of aggressive behavior (i.e., weapon carrying) of impoverished, gifted youth. Results indicate that gifted students engage in lower levels of weapon carrying than non-gifted students. Gifted and non-gifted girls’ trajectories are parallel across age.However, weapon carrying among gifted and non-gifted boys does not differ during early and late adolescence, but it does during middle adolescence. These differences can perhaps be explained by examining impulsivity and temperament trajectories by gifted status. Impulsivity for boys and quick-temperedness for girls is lower during early and middle adolescence for gifted students than for non-gifted students, but not during later adolescence. Quick-temperedness for boys and impulsivity for girls does not differ by gifted status during early and late adolescence, but it does during middle adolescence. These findings suggest that some characteristics of giftedness are manifest during early adolescence (perhaps even before enrollment in a gifted program). However, other giftedness characteristics appear only during middle adolescence, after students have enrolled in the gifted program. Implications of these findings for how gifted education programs can impact aggression, and ways to optimally structure these programs, are explored.
Determinants of User Demand for Lifelong Learning in Institutions of Higher Education

The main objective of this study is to identify the determinants that influence user demand for lifelong learning in institutions of higher education. Qualitative methodology was used to develop an instrument and a quantitative approach was used for the remainder of the study. After a literature review and in-depth interviews with experts in lifelong learning, we obtained the dimensions of the study and validated a questionnaire using expert opinion and a pilot test. The results and conclusions drawn from this study indicate the existence of three dimensions in user demand for lifelong learning in institutions of higher education: motivational, conflicts/difficulties and career-development. The constructs of current-work, career-change and personal improvement are linearly related to the motivational dimension; personal-constructs, external and time-related constructs are linked to the conflict/difficulties dimension; and working-environment and professional-experience constructs are related with the career development dimension. One of the novel contributions of this work is that it obtains empirical evidence on the determinants of demand for lifelong learning from the perspective of people who seek training.