Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rethinking revenue recognition - the case of construction contracts under International Financial Reporting Standards

Accounting scandals and deficiencies in standards have persuaded international accounting standard-setters to rethink revenue recognition. The proposals of the joint IASB/FASB-project Revenue Recognition feature an asset-liability approach relying on measurement at fair values or at allocated customer consideration amounts. This paper chooses construction contracts to illustrate and to evaluate the far reaching changes implied by the proposals in a multi period context. Main results suggest that the proposals are ambivalent in terms of relevance but critical in terms of reliability compared to the recent IAS 11. A pure fair value approach which yields irritating patterns of revenue recognition, is inappropriate for stewardship purposes, and unlikely to be adopted because of regulatory incompatibilities. Measuring performance obligations at allocated consideration amounts partly mitigates these concerns.
Modeling and forecasting volatility of Shanghai Stock Exchange with GARCH

This paper discusses the performance of modeling and forecasting volatility of daily stock returns of A-shares in Shanghai Stock Exchange. The volatility is modeled by GARCH family models which are GARCH, EGARCH and GJR-GARCH models with three distributions, namely Gaussian distribution, student-t distribution and generalized error distribution (GED). In order to determine the performance of forecasting volatility, we compare the models by using the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). The results show that the EGARCH models work so well in most of daily stock returns and the symmetric GARCH models are better than asymmetric GARCH models in this paper.
Performance challenges for heterogeneous distributed tensor decompositions

Tensor decompositions, which are factorizations of multi-dimensional arrays, are becoming increasingly important in large-scale data analytics. A popular tensor decomposition algorithm is Canonical Decomposition/Parallel Factorization using alternating least squares fitting (CP-ALS). Tensors that model real-world applications are often very large and sparse, driving the need for high performance implementations of decomposition algorithms, such as CP-ALS, that can take advantage of many types of compute resources. In this work we present ReFacTo, a heterogeneous distributed tensor decomposition implementation based on DeFacTo, an existing distributed memory approach to CP-ALS. DFacTo reduces the critical routine of CP-ALS to a series of sparse matrix-vector multiplications (SpMVs). ReFacTo leverages GPUs within a cluster via MPI to perform these SpMVs and uses OpenMP threads to parallelize other routines. We evaluate the performance of ReFacTo when using NVIDIA's GPU-based cuSPARSE library and compare it to an alternative implementation that uses Intel's CPU-based Math Kernel Library (MKL) for the SpMV. Furthermore, we provide a discussion of the performance challenges of heterogeneous distributed tensor decompositions based on the results we observed. We find that on up to 32 nodes, the SpMV of ReFacTo when using MKL is up to 6.8× faster than ReFacTo when using cuSPARSE.
Understanding Deflation: Treating the Disease, Not the Symptoms

Deflation can be defined as a falling general price level utilizing one of the common price indices.the consumer price index; the GDP deflator or other, narrower indices as the wholesale price index; or an index of manufactured goods prices. Falling indices of output prices can be the result of several mechanisms: productivity increases, quality increases and hedonic imputations of prices, competition from low-cost producers, government policy influences, or depressed aggregate demand. Falling output prices, in turn, can have strong effects, especially on the ability to service debts fixed in nominal terms; depending on the level of indebtedness of households and firms, they can set off a classic Minsky-Fisher debt deflation spiral. In this paper, we argue that deflation can and usually does generate large economic and social costs, but it is more important to understand that deflation itself is a symptom of severe and chronic economic problems. This distinction becomes important for the design and implementation of economic policy.
Determinants of Political Strategies in U.S. Multinationals

This study focuses on the determinants of political strategies used by U.S. multinationals (MNCs) in Europe. Empirical support is found for Hillman and Hitt’s taxonomy of political decisions—that is, approach, participation level, and strategy. The role of institutional- versus firm-level variable determinants of these choices is explored as are the relative effects of firm versus industry variables within differing political contexts. Results based on a survey sample of 169 U.S. MNC subsidiaries within 14 European countries support the finding that both institutional- and firm-level variables are important determinants of political strategy approach, participation level, and strategy.
Open-Phase Fault Detection of a Five-Phase Permanent Magnet Assisted Synchronous Reluctance Motor Based on Symmetrical Components Theory

This paper presents a novel approach for open-phase fault detection of a five-phase permanent magnet assisted synchronous reluctance motor (PMa-SynRM). Under faults, the five-phase PMa-SynRM is expected to run at fault-tolerant control (FTC) mode, otherwise it draws a large amount of current with a significant reduction in the reluctance torque. To successfully achieve FTC operation of five-phase PMa-SynRM, the accurate detection of a fault condition has to be preceded. With the best of these authors knowledge, the detection of faults has been limitedly studied for five-phase motors. The analysis of open-phase fault in five-phase machine involves complicated conditions including single-phase open fault, two-phase adjacent fault, and two-phase nonadjacent fault. To perform the timely fault-tolerant operation, those faults have to be accurately analyzed and detected. In this paper, a novel symmetrical components (SCs) analysis is utilized to extract the feature of those fault conditions. This analysis will provide the types of faults by logically analyzing the pattern of magnitude and phase angle changes of the fundamental signal in the SCs. The proposed method has been comprehensively analyzed through theoretical derivation, finite-element simulations, and experimental testing through a 5 hp PMa-SynRM controlled by TI-DSP F28335.
Safety and tolerability of inhaled hypertonic saline in young children with cystic fibrosis

Inhaled hypertonic saline (HS) improves lung function and decreases pulmonary exacerbations in older patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). Initiating therapies in young patients has potential to preserve lung function. Before conducting a therapeutic trial of HS in this population, its safety must be evaluated and protocols for monitoring response must be tested.
REMEASURING AGEING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

It is a commonly held view that Southeast Asian societies are ageing rapidly. This has led to a high level of policy concern about the future capacity of states to cope with increased levels of ‘old-age dependency’ which, at first glance, often appear almost unmanageable. We suggest that the rates employed to demonstrate the present/future scale of ‘old-age dependency’ are misleading and based upon a Eurocentric notion from a bygone era. Arguing that these measurements both omit changes in life expectancy and fundamentally misconceptualise ‘old’ and ‘dependent’, we present a new series of comparative measurements based upon a dynamic view of remaining life expectancy and a more accurate concept of what it means to be ‘dependent’. These measurements simultaneously provide a more realistic and optimistic view of the future challenges of ageing in Southeast Asia.
Tobacco Use in the Oncology Setting: Advancing Clinical Practice and Research

Although tobacco is a well-established causal agent for many human cancers, less emphasis has been placed on translating this evidence by evaluating the effects of continued tobacco use after a cancer diagnosis. A broad assessment of the effects of continued tobacco use demonstrates that tobacco increases cancer treatment toxicity, recurrence, second primary tumors, and mortality in patients with cancer. Few studies report the potential benefits of cessation after a cancer diagnosis, but data suggest improved treatment outcomes in patients with cancer who quit smoking. Improving tobacco cessation treatment efficacy and access to cessation support has been sparsely researched in the oncology setting compared with the general population; however, patients with cancer are receptive to standard evidence-based tobacco cessation guidelines. Several studies demonstrate moderate tobacco cessation success in patients with cancer using the general principles of evidence-based tobacco cessation support. Several systems-level issues and research efforts are needed to standardize tobacco use definitions, increase access to tobacco cessation support, improve tobacco cessation efficacy, understand the time-dependent effects of tobacco and cessation on cancer biology, and realize the potential benefits of tobacco cessation for patients with cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 23(1); 3–9. ©2014 AACR.
Union Wage Setting and Exchange Rate Policy

The performance of an optimally managed float is compared with that of a credibly fixed exchange rate in a small open-economy framework where wages are set by a monopoly union. Two key results emerge. First, a sufficient condition for the managed float to outperform a fixed rate is that the union be no less inflation-averse than society. Second, introducing an inflation target into the central bank's loss function ensures the superiority of the managed float regardless of the weight attached to inflation by the union. Both results reflect the sensitivity of the union mark-up to the policy regime.
Selective Hcn1 channels inhibition by ivabradine in mouse rod photoreceptors.

PURPOSE To evaluate in mammalian rod photoreceptors the selectivity for hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (Hcn1, coded by Hcn1) over potassium-selective (Kir 2.4, coded by Kcnj14) channels of ivabradine, a selective inhibitor of the cardiac "funny" current (I(f)). METHODS Rods were isolated from the mouse retina and voltage clamped by the perforated-patch technique. The hyperpolarization-activated current (I(h)) was blocked by ivabradine during repetitive stimulation with activating/deactivating voltage steps from -80 to -30 mV, from a holding of -35 mV. RESULTS Full inhibition was observed at a high concentration of ivabradine (30 microM), with intermediate effects at 3 and 0.3 microM. Steady state activation and activation kinetics of the ivabradine- and CsCl-blocked currents were similar, consistent with the block by ivabradine of ion permeation through Hcn1 channels. Hcn1 blockade was also consistent with the lack of current reactivation during long steps at -110 mV. At doses that fully block I(h), ivabradine does not affect the inward rectifier current through potassium-selective Kir 2.4 channels or the outward currents evoked by stepping up from -80 to 50 mV. CONCLUSIONS In mammalian rods, ivabradine is a selective inhibitor of Hcn1 channels. Phosphenes perception in response to abrupt changes in luminance, which has been transiently reported in a dose-dependent way by few patients treated with ivabradine, was consistent with Hcn1 inhibition in rods.
Phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitors induce DNA damage through nucleoside depletion

Significance Mutations in the PI3K pathway are highly prevalent in cancers, and isoform-specific and pan-PI3K inhibitors have entered clinical trials in both solid and hematologic malignancies. The PI3K δ-specific inhibitor idelalisib (in combination with rituximab) was recently approved for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. However, identifying tumor types and biological mechanisms that predict for response to PI3K inhibitors as single agents or in combination has been a challenge. Our data indicate that PI3K inhibitors induce DNA damage in tumors that have defects in DNA damage-repair pathways and that they do so by impairing the production of Rib phosphate and amino acids needed for deoxynucleotide synthesis. We previously reported that combining a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor with a poly-ADP Rib polymerase (PARP)-inhibitor enhanced DNA damage and cell death in breast cancers that have genetic aberrations in BRCA1 and TP53. Here, we show that enhanced DNA damage induced by PI3K inhibitors in this mutational background is a consequence of impaired production of nucleotides needed for DNA synthesis and DNA repair. Inhibition of PI3K causes a reduction in all four nucleotide triphosphates, whereas inhibition of the protein kinase AKT is less effective than inhibition of PI3K in suppressing nucleotide synthesis and inducing DNA damage. Carbon flux studies reveal that PI3K inhibition disproportionately affects the nonoxidative pentose phosphate pathway that delivers Rib-5-phosphate required for base ribosylation. In vivo in a mouse model of BRCA1-linked triple-negative breast cancer (K14-Cre BRCA1f/fp53f/f), the PI3K inhibitor BKM120 led to a precipitous drop in DNA synthesis within 8 h of drug treatment, whereas DNA synthesis in normal tissues was less affected. In this mouse model, combined PI3K and PARP inhibition was superior to either agent alone to induce durable remissions of established tumors.
Key issues and trends in the water policy literature

Content analysis of 2 complete years of articles published in the journal Water Policy show that a wide spread of issues dominate the policy analysis discourse, with citations of the articles being spread across the thematic issues published. Few articles in the journal were particularly technical in nature but rather the journal has tended to publish articles which are more directly linked to water policy. Articles related broadly to institutional and regulatory reform were numerically the most significant in terms of the published content of the journal. Examination of the short-term citation rate of articles published did not show a significant bias towards any thematic issue covered by the journal, suggesting broad interest in the wide range of topics relating to water policy issues.
Manufacturing reshoring and its limits: the UK automotive case

This paper explores the meaning of reshoring and its drivers in the case of UK manufacturing and in particular its automotive sector. Drawing on interviews, policy reviews and a range of recent surveys, the paper finds that while reshoring is a discernable trend in UK manufacturing, it is less pronounced than many have claimed and that—in the UK case at least—there are severe limits as to how far this reshoring trend can go, particularly in relation to the availability of skills and finance in the supply chain. This in turn raises questions over the stance of British policy and whether more could be done, with comparisons made to US experience.
Networks of piecewise linear neural mass models

Neural mass models are ubiquitous in large-scale brain modelling. At the node level, they are written in terms of a set of ordinary differential equations with a non-linearity that is typically a sigmoidal shape. Using structural data from brain atlases, they may be connected into a network to investigate the emergence of functional dynamic states, such as synchrony. With the simple restriction of the classic sigmoidal non-linearity to a piecewise linear caricature, we show that the famous Wilson–Cowan neural mass model can be explicitly analysed at both the node and network level. The construction of periodic orbits at the node level is achieved by patching together matrix exponential solutions, and stability is determined using Floquet theory. For networks with interactions described by circulant matrices, we show that the stability of the synchronous state can be determined in terms of a low-dimensional Floquet problem parameterised by the eigenvalues of the interaction matrix. Moreover, this network Floquet problem is readily solved using linear algebra to predict the onset of spatio-temporal network patterns arising from a synchronous instability. We further consider the case of a discontinuous choice for the node non-linearity, namely the replacement of the sigmoid by a Heaviside non-linearity. This gives rise to a continuous-time switching network. At the node level, this allows for the existence of unstable sliding periodic orbits, which we explicitly construct. The stability of a periodic orbit is now treated with a modification of Floquet theory to treat the evolution of small perturbations through switching manifolds via the use of saltation matrices. At the network level, the stability analysis of the synchronous state is considerably more challenging. Here, we report on the use of ideas originally developed for the study of Glass networks to treat the stability of periodic network states in neural mass models with discontinuous interactions.
Recovery from spinal cord injury in tumor necrosis factor-alpha, signal transducers and activators of transcription 4 and signal transducers and activators of transcription 6 null mice

Tumor necrosis factor-&agr; is a central cytokine involved in the regulation of the innate immune response. Signal transducers and activators of transcription 4 and signal transducers and activators of transcription 6 are second messengers mediating the Th1 and Th2-specific immune responses, respectively. We studied the outcome of spinal cord injury with respect to the locomotion and axonal regeneration in tumor necrosis factor-&agr;, signal transducers and activators of transcription 4 and signal transducers and activators of transcription 6 knockout mice. Locomotor behavior after injury differed between mouse strains, but not between wild-type and the knockout genotypes of the same strain. Regeneration of descending tracts, assessed by fluorogold/fluororuby retrograde double-labeling, however, appeared hampered by Th2 deficiency.
A clinical practice guideline for physiotherapists treating patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease based on a systematic review of available evidence

Purpose: Update of a clinical practice guideline for the physiotherapy management of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease supporting the clinical decision-making process. Methods: A systematic computerized literature search was performed on different modalities for improving physical exercise capacity, reducing exertional dyspnoea, improving airway clearance and encouraging changes in physical activity behaviour. Methodological quality was scored with the PEDro Scale. Scientific conclusions were graded according to the criteria of the `Dutch Evidence Based Guideline Development Platform'. These, together with practical considerations, were used to formulate recommendations for clinical practice. Results: A total of 103 studies were included in the systematic review, consisting of five meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials, 84 randomized controlled trials and 14 uncontrolled studies. Twenty scientific conclusions supported six recommendations on physical exercise training. Nineteen scientific conclusions supported eight recommendations on interventions for reducing dyspnoea. Five scientific conclusions supported seven recommendations concerning treatment modalities to improve mucus clearance, and two scientific conclusions supported two recommendations on strategies for encouraging permanent changes in physical activity behaviour. Conclusions: Strong recommendations support the use of physical exercise training to improve health-related quality of life and functional exercise capacity. Future research should investigate whether additional interventions for reducing exertional dyspnoea have a place as adjuncts to physical exercise training in selected patients. In addition, treatment of impaired mucus clearance, especially during acute exacerbations, requires further research. With the advance of new technologies for objective measurements of physical activities in daily life more research is needed concerning interventions to initiate and maintain physical activity behaviour change during and after supervised physical exercise training programmes
Biochemical Responses of Anodized Titanium Implants with a Poly(lactide-co-glycolide)/Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 Submicron Particle Coating. Part 2: An In Vivo Study.

PURPOSE A biochemical approach to implant surfaces can improve bone growth, resulting in desirable bone-implant interfaces. This study was conducted to identify the effect on osseointegration of direct coating of titanium (Ti) implants with poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide)(PLGA)/recombinant human bone morphogenetic 2 (rhBMP-2) submicron particles by electrospray. MATERIALS AND METHODS Anodized Ti implants were used as a control group, and implants coated with 80 μL of PLGA/rhBMP-2 (50 μg/mL rhBMP-2 per implant) submicron particles by electrospray were used as the experimental group in an in vivo rabbit tibia model. After 3 or 7 weeks of healing, specimens were obtained and prepared for histologic and histomorphometric analyses. RESULTS The implant surface coated with submicron PLGA/rhBMP-2 showed new bone growth in the apical direction earlier than control implants. In the experimental group at 3 weeks, the bone-to-implant contact ratio and bone area of the three best consecutive threads were significantly higher than those in the control group. However, there was no significant difference between groups at 7 weeks. CONCLUSION Within the limitations of this study, the PLGA/rhBMP-2-coated implants facilitated osseointegration between bone and the Ti surface during the early healing phase.
Combination of low‐dose cisplatin and recombinant xenogeneic endoglin as a vaccine induces synergistic antitumor activities

Angiogenesis is critical to the growth and metastasis of solid tumors, and acquired drug resistance is one of the major hindrances to chemotherapy. Thus, we sought a rational strategy using the combination of antiangiogenic biotherapy and chemotherapy for cancer therapy. We explored the efficacy of a strategy combining low‐dose cisplatin and a recombinant xenogeneic endoglin as a protein vaccine, which we previously demonstrated to have effective antiangiogenic effects in several mouse models. We found that both low‐dosage cisplatin and xenogeneic endoglin vaccine individually resulted in effective suppression of tumor growth in 2 tumor models via inhibition of tumor angiogenesis. Remarkably, the combination therapy resulted in not only significant antiangiogenic effects but also additional promotion of tumor cell apoptosis and inhibition of tumor cell proliferation, without any ensuing increase in host toxicity during the course of treatment, which lasted for 6 months. In addition, the combination demonstrated a synergistic relationship, which was shown in all of the synergistic indexes, i.e., tumor volume, angiogenesis, apoptosis and proliferation. Both antibodies and antibody‐producing B cells against mouse self‐endoglin were observed in all mice immunized by the xenogeneic endoglin vaccine (alone and combination), which suggested that low‐dose cisplatin did not suppress the host immune response but potentiated the antitumor activity of the xenogeneic endoglin vaccine. These observations may provide the basis for an effective alternative strategy for cancer therapy in the near future. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.