Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Theory of Judgment and its Application to Behavioral Finance

Returns of stock prices often exhibit cycles of momentum and reversal. During various phases of the cycles, trading volumes and trading behaviors of investors of different sizes often show distinct characteristics. It has been a long standing challenge to describe the multiple patterns simultaneously from a quantitative theory. In this paper, we present the theory of judgment, which provides a common framework to integrate behavioral and informational theories of investment. The theory of judgment provides a quantitative link between investors’ judgment and their trading activities. As an application, a simple mathematical model based on the theory of judgment is constructed. The predictions derived from the model are consistent with the multiple empirical patterns of trading volumes and investor activities at the different phases of the cycle of momentum and reversal.
Should gold be included in institutional investment portfolios?

After many years in the investment wilderness, gold investing has come back into fashion. We explore whether including gold does indeed improve institutional investment portfolios and which form of gold performs best. We do this by updating and extending Jaffe (1989), who found clear evidence in favour of including a small allocation to gold. We show that data from the 1980s and 1990s would have suggested avoiding gold investing completely. However, data from the 2000s once again provides evidence for including some gold in investment portfolios. Our analysis shows that the case for gold investing has become especially strong since the financial crisis in 2007. We attribute this shift primarily to changes in inflation expectations. We find that gold bullion almost always produces better portfolio risk-adjusted returns than alternative forms of gold investment.
Platelet-erythrocyte adhesion in sickle cell disease.

BACKGROUND The abnormal adherence of sickle red blood cells (sRBC) to other cell types likely contributes to vaso-occlusion. Increased numbers of platelet-erythrocyte aggregates (PEA) and platelet activation have been described in sickle cell disease. The present study was undertaken to determine the contribution, if any, of the extracellular matrix protein thrombospondin to the adhesion of sRBC and platelets. METHODS Platelet activation and PEA were measured using fluorescent-labeled monoclonal antibodies and flow cytometry. Platelet red-cell adhesion was measured by a gravity sedimentation assay. Erythrocyte-bound thrombospondin (TSP) was determined by enzyme-linked immunoabsorbant assay (ELISA). RESULTS Our studies demonstrate significant platelet activation and adhesion of sRBC to platelets in sickle cell disease. Thrombospondin was detected on sRBC. There was variable inhibition of sRBC-platelet adhesion by antibodies to CD36 (thrombospondin receptor) and antibodies to thrombospondin. CONCLUSIONS Thrombospondin on sRBC may mediate, at least in part, sRBC-platelet adhesion in sickle cell disease. The study of heterotypic cell-cell interactions is important in understanding the pathogenesis of vaso-occlusion in sickle cell disease.
Autofluorescence ductoscopy: a new imaging technique for intraductal breast endoscopy.

BACKGROUND Conventional diagnostic imaging techniques of the female breast, eg, ultrasound, mammography, breast magnetic resonance imaging, or ductography, can only give indirect information about the inside of breast ducts. Diagnostic ductoscopy is the first approach for direct visualization of intraductal lesions. Autofluorescence ductoscopy is a new, noninvasive imaging technique that better identifies intraductal lesions under direct vision. MATERIALS AND METHODS We describe the technical development of autofluorescence ductoscopy and initial experience with early clinical evaluation at Frauenklinik (OB/GYN) of Technical University Munich, Germany, and its potential future application. In contrast to standard white light breast endoscopy, autofluorescence ductoscopy uses a different light spectrum and, after sophisticated data processing, can mark suspicious intraductal lesions in blue-violet colors. Autofluorescence ductoscopy adds new visual information previously not seen in white-light endoscopy. Technical development is completed and clinical evaluation is under way. RESULTS In a small series, the autofluorescence ductoscope was used and confirmed the initial expectations. No complication was expected or occurred. At present time, it is being used on an experimental basis for evaluation of its clinical benefits. CONCLUSION The clinical evaluation of autofluorescence ductoscopy is a work in progress at an early stage. This technique is intended to improve visualization and identification of breast duct walls and lesions and possibly allows an instant visual semiquantitative histologic evaluation of nonbenign ductal lesions.
Epstein‐Barr virus nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) protein induction of epithelial‐mesenchymal transition in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

The Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV)‐encoded EB nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1) protein is required for maintenance and transmission of the viral episome in EBV‐infected cells. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of EBNA1 protein in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).
Phytochemical screening and antioxidant, antimitotic, and antiproliferative activities of Trichodesma indicum shoot

Background: Traditionally Trichodesma indicum has been used for its therapeutic effect in folk medicine that include anti-inflammatory, analgesic and anticancer properties. In this work, we validate the anticancer potential of the plant. Aims: To screen the shoot extracts T. indicum for their antimitotic and antiproliferative activities. Materials and Methods: The dried aerial parts of T. indicum were successively extracted with petroleum ether, successive chloroform extract (SCH), successive ethanol extract (SEE) and water. The plant extracts were subjected to study of in vitro antioxidant activity using 2,2′- diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl, 2,2′- azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) radical inhibition systems. The extracts were also tested for their in vitro antimitotic activity in Allium cepa root and antiproliferative activity using the yeast model and five human cell lines (MCF-7, HOP-62, MOLT-4, HCT-15 and PRO). Result and Conclusion: The mitotic index for SCH and SEE was found to be 12.01 ± 1.34 and 12.99 ± 0.25 mg/mL, respectively. The IC 50 value in the antiproliferative assay was found to be 30.14-35.36 mg/mL for SCH and SEE respectively. Both SCH and SEE extracts showed significant antimitotic and antiproliferative activity when compared to the standard methothreaxate, vincreastine and adriamycin. Among the extracts, SEE showed strong inhibition against MCF-7 and MOLT-4 cell lines at concentration <30 μg/mL. Phytochemical analysis of extracts indicated the presence of β-sitosterol, gallic acid and catechin. Based on these results, it is concluded that T. indicum may be a good candidate for the treatment of a variety of cancer. Thus, its traditional use is validated.
Violência policial x profissionalização em São Paulo

In Brazil, the discussion about the effectiveness of public safety policies, during democratic periods, has had as primary concern to make the police system compatible with the demands and requirements of the rule of law, increasing its level of professionalism. That was a great concern after the fall of Vargas dictatorship in 1946, and in post-military regime in 1985. In both cases, this compatibility has not been satisfactorily achieved. This article aims to develop the idea that failures in the process of professionalization of the police in Sao Paulo has created, for decades, illegal autonomies and, therefore, police violence and corruption.
On making the current military radios cognitive without hardware or firmware modifications

Cognitive Radio (CR) using Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) provides the military radios, an ability to operate in un-predictable interference environments. CRs are capable of sensing their environment and autonomously changing the radio parameters such as frequency, bandwidth and power, to avoid interference. Large amount of resources have been invested by the Department of Defense (DoD) on building these radio systems which are currently not DSA enabled. This paper provides a way to make current military radios DSA capable without making any hardware or firmware modifications to them. Radios are made DSA capable by using an external sensor as compared to an embedded sensor containing advanced feature based sensing algorithms, application level messaging and a cognitive engine, which is written in a high level language that resides outside the radios. A real-time over-the-air demonstration for such a cognitive radio test-bed using a network of three Warfighter Information Network – Tactical (WIN-T) Local Area Waveform (LAW) nodes in friendly and un-friendly interference was carried out at the Ft. Dix facility of US Army CERDEC. This paper provides a brief overview of the system, operation of this test-bed and some field demonstration results.
Regulation, measurements and incentives. The experience in the US and UK: does context matter?

Since the 1990s the US and UK healthcare systems have increasingly sought to measure the quality of services in order to stimulate improvement and publish the results. Despite the very different healthcare systems, there are some striking similarities in the results of these schemes. In both countries information that creates the threat of reputational damage and the possibility of gaining kudos is particularly effective in stimulating a response. However, these responses may be perverse: gaming, falsifying of data and measurement fixation have all been uncovered. In the UK context, information is closely aligned to the regulatory and performance management framework, and there should be a role for the new Care Quality Commission in the emerging `information landscape' of the NHS in England.
Religion as a means of resilience and adjustment to chronic illness

This qualitative study describes the understanding of health and belief practices among elderly Greek Australians. In particular, the role of religion is discussed as a means of resilience and adjustment to illness, as religious faith often influences individual’s thoughts, feelings, and how they may accept or understand their particular health condition. Adjustment has a strong psychological or emotional component that is likely to be affected by culturally determined conceptualizations of health. As such, the particular background of a population may be very significant in the level and means of adaptation of individuals and groups.
Metabolic consequences of hard work

When an animal has to meet increased demands on its working capacity, for example, for thermoregulation or parental care, two strategies are available. The animal can reallocate energy from costly maintenance processes – such as immunological defence or DNA repair systems (compensation hypothesis) – or it may try to increase the rate of energy intake or efficiency of digestion by increasing the size of the alimentary tract (increased–intake hypothesis). By manipulating brood size, I affected parental effort among marsh tits (Parus palustris) as demonstrated by a significant increase in parental feeding rate with experimental brood size. Basal metabolic rate (BMR) increased both with manipulated brood size and individual feeding rate, supporting the predictions from the increased–intake hypothesis. Furthermore, I found a direct positive relation between BMR and energy expenditure, measured with the help of the doubly labelled water technique. The cost of achieving a higher working capacity is substantial since BMR increases more quickly than the surplus energy available for work. Since the cost of a high sustained workload was not primarily dependent on a reallocation of energy away from maintenance, such a cost should be searched for among the detrimental effects of a high metabolic rate per se, for example, an increased oxidative damage to DNA, proteins and lipids.
Forecasting Accuracy and Estimation Uncertainty using VAR Models with Short- and Long-Term Economic Restrictions: A Monte-Carlo Study

Using vector autoregressive (VAR) models and Monte-Carlo simulation methods we investigate the potential gains for forecasting accuracy and estimation uncertainty of two commonly used restrictions arising from economic relationships. The first reduces parameter space by imposing long-term restrictions on the behavior of economic variables as discussed by the literature on cointegration, and the second reduces parameter space by imposing short-term restrictions as discussed by the literature on serial-correlation common features (SCCF). Our simulations cover three important issues on model building, estimation, and forecasting. First, we examine the performance of standard and modified information criteria in choosing lag length for cointegrated VARs with SCCF restrictions. Second, we provide a comparison of forecasting accuracy of . fitted VARs when only cointegration restrictions are imposed and when cointegration and SCCF restrictions are jointly imposed. Third, we propose a new estimation algorithm where short- and long-term restrictions interact to estimate the cointegrating and the cofeature spaces respectively. We have three basic results. First, ignoring SCCF restrictions has a high cost in terms of model selection, because standard information criteria chooses too frequently inconsistent models, with too small a lag length. Criteria selecting lag and rank simultaneously have a superior performance in this case. Second, this translates into a superior forecasting performance of the restricted VECM over the VECM, with important improvements in forecasting accuracy . reaching more than 100% in extreme cases. Third, the new algorithm proposed here fares very well in terms of parameter estimation, even when we consider the estimation of long-term parameters, opening up the discussion of joint estimation of short- and long-term parameters in VAR models.
A new anticancer compound, Oblongifolin C, inhibits tumor growth and promotes apoptosis in HeLa cells through bax activation

Oblongifolin C (OC) was identified as a potent apoptosis inducer from an herbal plant, Garcinia yunnanensis, during our previous bioassay‐guided drug screening. In this study, we investigated the signaling pathways through which OC activated apoptosis in HeLa cells. We also compared the IC50 values of OC with that of etoposide, paclitaxel and vinblastine in multiple cancer cell lines including HER2 and P‐glycoprotein overexpressing cells. In addition, the in vivo antitumor effect of OC was studied in nude mice model. Our results showed that OC induced a caspase‐dependent apoptosis by triggering a series of events in HeLa cells including Bax translocation, cytochrome c release, caspase‐3 activation, chromosome fragmentation followed by caspase‐8 activation, Bid cleavage and eventually cell death. Addition of a pan‐caspase inhibitor or overexpression of an anti‐apoptotic protein, Bcl‐xL, prevented OC‐induced cell death. Moreover, OC exhibited a wide anticancer spectrum in multiple cancer cell lines with comparable IC50 values, regardless of the expression levels of HER2 and P‐glycoprotein. In contrast, the IC50 values of three clinical anticancer drugs, etoposide, paclitaxel and vinblastine were significantly elevated in HER2 and/or P‐glycoprotein overexpressing cells. Furthermore, OC showed a similar antitumor effect but lower general toxicity than etoposide against xenografted human tumors in nude mice model. All these data suggested that OC is a promising apoptosis inducer with the potential to be developed into a clinical anticancer drug.
Why are the Disability Rolls Skyrocketing? The Contribution of Population Characteristics, Economic Conditions, and Program Generosity

This chapter, which addresses three categories of explanation—the characteristics of individuals insured by the Disability Insurance (DI) program, the state of the economy, and the generosity of program benefits—argues that the growth in DI rolls is likely to continue and perhaps accelerate going forward. The data indicate that the recessions of 1991 and 2001 can explain 24 percent of the growth in DI receipt among men and 12 percent of the growth among women. Changes in health during the past two decades have slowed rather than added to the growth of the DI rolls. DI awards for certain conditions were much more affected by the liberalized medical eligibility criteria than others. The aging of the Baby Boom population will result in significant increases in DI receipt during the next fifteen years. The incentive to apply for DI will increase with the rising value of health insurance through Medicare.
Dutch Personal Income Tax Reform 2001: An Exceptional Position for Owner-occupied Housing

This paper examines how personal income taxation has changed across countries and whether and how this has affected the taxation of owner-occupied dwellings. It presents a partial analysis as it focuses on imputed rent taxation and the mortgage interest deduction. Furthermore, the paper places housing taxation in a wider context by describing different benchmarks which could be used to assess the taxation of owner-occupied housing in different types of personal income tax. These international and theoretical points-of-departure are used to evaluate the taxation of owner-occupied housing in the Netherlands. The paper concludes that all along political arguments have conquered theoretical premises to the advantage of the owner occupier in comparison to the private landlord. It also concludes that the theoretical base in 2001 has become so weak that owner-occupied housing is in an exceptional position in comparison with other private wealth thus becoming an easy victim for future tax savings.
Social Considerations in Domestic Water Pricing: A Case Study of Perth, Western Australia

Abstract Domestic water pricing is a challenging balancing act of the three critical dimensions of sustainability: economic, environmental and social objectives (OECD, 2010). The increasing block tariff approach to water pricing is growing in popularity throughout the world because, arguably, it is seen to best address all three dimensions. However, social equity considerations are often at odds with other criteria and needs special scrutiny, as affordability and equity aspects may not be properly addressed especially when income and household size are not accounted for. This paper looks at social considerations that are relevant for decision making in water pricing for the city of Perth, Western Australia and proposes a pricing scheme that would address the social issues satisfactorily. The optimisation model, particle swarm optimisation, which has been used in this study can also be applied when multiple objective functions that include other considerations such as economic efficiency and environmental sustainability are used.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT STOCK REPURCHASES

Stock repurchases by U.S. companies experienced a remarkable surge in the 1980s and ‘90s. Indeed, in 1998, the total value of all stock repurchased by U.S. companies exceeded for the first time the total amount paid out as cash dividends. And the U.S. repurchase movement has gone global in the past few years, spreading not only to Canada and the U.K., but also to countries like Japan and Germany, where such transactions were prohibited until recently. Why are companies buying back their stock in such amounts? After dismissing the popular argument that stock repurchases boost earnings per share, the authors argue that repurchases serve to add value in two main ways: (1) they provide managers with a tax‐efficient means of returning excess capital to shareholders and (2) they allow managers to “signal” to investors their view that the firm is undervalued. Returning excess capital is value‐adding for two reasons: First, it helps prevent companies from pursuing growth and size at the expense of profitability and value. Second, by returning capital to investors, repurchases (like dividends) play the critically important economic function of allowing investors to channel their investment from mature or declining sectors of the economy to more promising ones. But if stock repurchases and dividends serve the same basic economic function, why are repurchases growing more rapidly? Part of the explanation is that, because repurchases are taxed as capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, repurchases are a more tax‐efficient way of distributing excess capital. But perhaps even more important than their tax treatment is the flexibility that (at least) open market repurchases provide corporate managers‐flexibility to make small adjustments in capital structure, to exploit (or correct) perceived undervaluation of the firm's shares, and possibly even to increase the liquidity of the stock, which could be particularly valuable in bear markets. For U.S. regulators, the growth in open market stock repurchases raises some interesting issues. Perhaps most important, companies are not required to (and rarely do) furnish their investors with details about a given program's structure, execution method, number of shares repurchased, or even its duration. Policy regulators (and corporate executives as well) should consider some of the benefits provided by other systems, notably Canada's, which provide greater transparency and more guidelines for the repurchase process.
Correlation between explosive strength, aerobic power and repeated sprint ability in elite basketball players.

AIM The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between explosive strength and aerobic power with basketball-specific repeated sprint ability in elite male basketball players. METHODS Twenty-four elite basketball players (age 22.2±3.4 years, height 197.1±6.2 cm, weight 95.7±8.8 kg; training experience 11.0±3.1 years; mean±SD), participated in the study. Subjects performed countermovement jump (CMJ) test and incremental pseudo-ramp test protocol with measured CMJ height and VO2max, respectively. Specific repeated sprint ability (RSA) test was conducted, with total sprinting time (summation of 10 sprint times - RSAtot) and sprint decrement (fatigue index - RSAFI) calculated. RESULTS Significant decrements in sprint performance from the eight 30-m sprint (P<0.05) were observed. Strong inverse correlation was found between CMJ and RSAtot (r=-0.74, P<0.01). No significant correlation was found between VO2max and RSA outcomes neither between CMJ and RSAFI. CONCLUSION CMJ is a predictor of RSA in elite basketball players. It seems that coaches and strength and conditioning professionals should devote additional time for explosive strength development in elite basketball players during preparatory period to enhance RSA performance.
The Santer era: the European Commission in normative, historical and theoretical perspective

This article assesses the evolution of the European Commission's role, power and effectiveness in the post-Delors era. It develops four main arguments. First, the performance of the Commission should be judged by its ability to further the European Union's (EU's) basic objectives, defend the 'Community interest', offer leadership, and operate efficiently. Second, the early Delors Commissions were far more an exception in their strength than is Santer's in its weakness. Third, Santer promises to leave a legacy of a better managed Commission, but one that is also more fragmented and riven by sectoral and national rivalries. Fourth, theories of EU governance must be able to capture the 'actor-based' nature of EU policy-making, the lack of any dichotomy between the interests of 'national governments' and 'EU institutions', and the determinant effect of the political and economic environment in which the EU operates.