Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reengineering, crafting and comparing business valuation models – the advisory exemplar

Purpose – Does target firm shareholders excessively paid or adequately rewarded or stumpy compensated? To address this query, the study aims to remix valuation parameters for better combination of mixture so that it represents fair deal value in merger and acquisition (M&A) negotiation process. The purpose of the study is to redesign the existing valuation methods, craft new models and compare them to suggest perceptive guidelines for “valuation governance”. Design/methodology/approach – This research reconstructs discounted cash flows (DCF) and net asset valuations (NAV), originate NRR‐APB approach, MCF‐RS and MCF‐ES and finally compare all seven methods for each select company in the respective industry/sector. Exclusively, estimating the forecasting hurdle rate (FHR) is a core competence of valuation process.Findings – Among the valuation models, all seven methods for select companies have been reported diverse values, however NRR‐APB approach describe factual enterprise value for bargaining the value o.
Wireless sensor networks for safety protocols in the industry

A wireless sensor node platform was created along with a base station that can be used to monitor various parameters in the industry. A literature survey was conducted on important parameters found in the industry. The various standards that are set out for these parameters were analysed. The developed wireless sensor node platform along with the base station shows that a wide variety of industrial parameters can be monitored at once from one central place. The simplistic deployment/instalment of the created wireless sensor node platform along with the centralisation of important industrial parameters should appeal to large industries and reduce the risk of accidental unfortunate events.
Oxidative stress and steroid resistance in asthma and COPD: pharmacological manipulation of HDAC-2 as a therapeutic strategy

Insensitivity to corticosteroid treatment in inflammatory conditions, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, present considerable management problems and cost burdens to health services. Oxidative stress is a major component of chronic inflammation and can have a significant suppressive effect on corticosteroid efficacy. Recent advances in the understanding of both the mechanisms of corticosteroid action and corticosteroid insensitivity have provided hope for a therapeutic strategy of restoring corticosteroid sensitivity. Histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC-2) plays a pivotal role in corticosteroid action and is reduced in many cases of steroid insensitivity. Moreover, it has shown that oxidative stress can be responsible for this reduction in HDAC-2 activity. Two structurally different compounds; methyl-xanthine theophylline and polyphenol curcumin restore HDAC activity, thereby restoring corticosteroid function. Low, subbronchodilator doses of theophylline can also act as corticosteroid-sparing drugs in asthmatics. Although these compounds appear to restore corticosteroid function and may initially provide therapeutic potential, they lack specificity and the mechanism of their action is unknown. Once their mechanisms of action are established, it is likely that derivatives of these compounds may be used as a therapeutic strategy to restore corticosteroid insensitivity in the future.
On the Approximation of the SABR Model: A Probabilistic Approach

Abstract In this article, we derive a probabilistic approximation for three different versions of the SABR model: Normal, Log-Normal and a displaced diffusion version for the general case. Specifically, we focus on capturing the terminal distribution of the underlying process (conditional on the terminal volatility) to arrive at the implied volatilities of the corresponding European options for all strikes and maturities. Our resulting method allows us to work with a variety of parameters that cover the long-dated options and highly stress market condition. This is a different feature from other current approaches that rely on the assumption of very small total volatility and usually fail for longer than 10 years maturity or large volatility of volatility (Volvol).
Foreign Capital and Economic Growth

This paper examines the economic implications of institutional arrangements by which foreign investors are required to reinvest a certain percentage of their capital within the host country. Our analysis shows that foreign capital inflow can produce long-lasting economic benefits to the host country only when the foreign capital reinvestment rate is sufficiently greater than the host country's saving rate. In this case, the economy evolves into a unique steady state equilibrium, which is also asymptotically stable. The paper also presents several comparative static results regarding the responses of steady state capital-labour ratio and the proportion of foreign capital in total capital to changes in the population growth rate, the rate of capital depreciation, the host country's saving rate and the foreign capital reinvestment rate.
Life Cycle Assessment of End‐of‐Life Management Options for Construction and Demolition Debris

A life cycle assessment (LCA) of various end‐of‐life management options for construction and demolition (C&D) debris was conducted using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Municipal Solid Waste Decision Support Tool. A comparative LCA evaluated seven different management scenarios using the annual production of C&D debris in New Hampshire as the functional unit. Each scenario encompassed C&D debris transport, processing, separation, and recycling, as well as varying end‐of‐life management options for the C&D debris (e.g., combustion to generate electricity versus landfilling for the wood debris stream and recycling versus landfilling for the nonwood debris stream) and different bases for the electricity generation offsets (e.g., the northeastern U.S. power grid versus coal‐fired power generation). A sensitivity analysis was also conducted by varying the energy content of the C&D wood debris and by examining the impact of basing the energy offsets on electricity generated from various fossil fuels. The results include impacts for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, criteria air pollutants, ancillary solid waste production, and organic and inorganic constituents in water emissions. Scenarios with nonwood C&D debris recycling coupled with combustion of C&D wood debris to generate electricity had lower impacts than other scenarios. The nonwood C&D debris recycling scenarios where C&D wood debris was landfilled resulted in less overall impact than the scenarios where all C&D debris was landfilled. The lowest impact scenario included nonwood C&D debris recycling with local combustion of the C&D wood debris to generate electricity, providing a net gain in energy production of more than 7 trillion British thermal units (BTU) per year and a 130,000 tons per year reduction in GHG emissions. The sensitivity analysis revealed that for energy consumption, the model is sensitive to the energy content of the C&D wood debris but insensitive to the basis for the energy offset, and the opposite is true for GHG emissions.
Supporting System Consistency with Differential Transactions in Flash-Based SSDs

Embedded transaction design inside solid state drives (SSDs) is an attractive way to support system consistency with low overhead due to the no-overwrite property of flash memory. Recent research proposes shadow paging variants to reduce write traffic to SSDs for longer lifetime while leveraging the random performance of SSDs. However, writes in transactions usually are small, and the page-aligned shadow paging protocols still incur high write amplification, which hurts SSD lifetime. In this paper, we propose an embedded transaction protocol, DiffTx, which differentially logs partial page updates in a write-ahead logging way and writes full page updates in a shadow paging way, aiming at low write amplification. DiffTx further improves transaction performance using two techniques. First, by clustering mapping metadata of full page updates with differential data of partial page updates in a single record, DiffTx tracks pages of each transaction at low overhead. Second, DiffTx removes the write ordering on commit by delaying the completeness check of writes, leveraging the clean-state write property of flash memory. Experiments show that DiffTx improves throughput by 25.9 percent and halves write traffic on average compared to TxFlash, a typical embedded transaction protocol for flash memory.
The Funding for Lending Scheme

The Bank of England and HM Treasury launched the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) in order to encourage lending to households and companies. The FLS offers funding to banks and building societies for an extended period. And it encourages them to supply more credit by making more and cheaper funding available if they lend more. Easier access to bank credit should boost consumption and investment by households and businesses. In turn, increased economic activity should raise incomes. Early signs have been encouraging, as funding costs for UK banks have fallen sharply. But it will be some time before the impact of the FLS on lending is clear. The Bank is monitoring a range of indicators in order to assess the direct and indirect impacts of the Scheme.
Interindustry and Interfirm Differences in the Rate of Diffusion of an Innovation

ONE of the most important stages of the process of technological change is diffusion. Since the rate of diffusion is the rate at which a new technique is actually put into use, it is a critical determinant of the rate of growth of productivity. If certain types of firms and industries are quicker to diffuse a new, more efficient technique, they are quicker to attain the resulting increases in productivity. It would certainly seem useful, particularly from the point of view of public policy, to develop convincing empirical evidence concerning the characteristics of such firms and industries. Previous studies have provided a sound foundation for studying diffusion. ' This article attempts to build on this foundation by observing the diffusion of one of the twentieth century's most important manufacturing innovations numerically controlled machine tools in ten industries. One purpose of this study is to provide a further test of the usefulness of the model of the imitation process developed by Mansfield (1961, 1968). In particular, we are interested in seeing how well his model can explain the increase over time in the percentage of new machine tools purchased that have numerical controls. This involves a different measure of the rate of diffusion than the measures investigated to date by other researchers. Also, we look at the effects on the rate of diffusion of an industry's market structure and the extent of its investment in R&D. Although previous studies have touched on these factors, this study goes further in measuring their effects than any previous work. Further, we investigate how the characteristics of the early users of numerical control (NC) differed from those that were slower to use it, and we study the determinants of the intrafirm rate of diffusion.
INTEGRATING RISK MANAGEMENT AND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

Capital management and risk management are two sides of the same coin but conventional finance theory treats them separately. Capital management focuses on delivering the optimal balance sheet (composed of equity and debt) that minimises the cost of capital. It is the domain of the chief financial officer (CFO). Currently the term risk management refers to the roles of the risk manager and treasurer, working separately in the insurance and capital markets to manage the firm’s operational and financial risks.
A sensor anonymity enhancement scheme based on pseudonym for clustered Wireless Sensor Network

Security problem is an important issue for Wireless Sensor Network. The paper focuses on the privacy protection of WSN applications. An anonymity enhancement tactic based on pseudonym mechanism is presented for clustered Wireless Sensor Network, which provides anonymity for both the sensors within a cluster and the cluster head nodes. Simulation experiments are launched through NS2 platform to validate the anonymity performance. The theoretical analysis and empirical study imply that the proposed scheme based on pseudonym can protect the privacies of both the sensor nodes and the cluster head nodes. The work is valuable and the experimental results are convincible.
Similar compliance and effect of treatment in chronic hepatitis C resulting from intravenous drug use in comparison with other infection causes

Objectives There is some reluctance to treat intravenous drug users (IVDUs) with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) because of presumed lower compliance and response to antiviral therapy. We intended to evaluate the compliance and response to antiviral treatment for CHC in IVDUs compared with non-IVDUs. Methods A retrospective cohort study — secondary analysis of the results of a treatment trial — was performed in Belgium and The Netherlands. A total of 406 previously untreated CHC patients, including 98 (24%) IVDUs, were studied for compliance (presentation at the end of treatment), complete response (alanine aminotransferase within normal limits and serum hepatitis C virus polymerase chain reaction negative) at the end of therapy and sustained virological response (SVR). Results Non-compliance (8.2%) in IVDUs was not different from non-IVDUs (6.8%) (relative risk=1.20; 95% confidence interval=0.55–2.62). Complete response after controlling for hepatitis C virus was similar (relative risk=1.19; 95% confidence interval=0.89–1.60). Controlling for treatment arm, age, sex, presence of cirrhosis or hepatitis C virus viral load before treatment did not change these results. There was a marginally significant difference in the sustained virological response between IVDUs (46.6%) and non-IVDUs (34.6%) (relative risk=1.35; 95% confidence interval=1.00–1.81), also disappearing after adjusting for genotype. No difference in compliance or sustained virological response was found between active and non-active IVDUs or between IVDU patients in or without a methadone maintenance program. Conclusions In this group of Benelux patients, IVDUs showed similar compliance and response to treatment with interferon and ribavirin compared with other patients with CHC infection. Therefore, it is no longer justifiable to withhold treatment to chronic hepatitis C patients who use intravenous drugs.
Genetic Diversity Within Colletotrichum acutatum sensu Simmonds.

ABSTRACT Isolates of Colletotrichum acutatum from several hosts were characterized by various molecular methods in comparison with morphological identification. Species-specific primer analysis was reliable for grouping C. acutatum isolates to their designated species. Arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction and A+T-rich DNA analyses identified four subgroups within C. acutatum. Subgroup I contained U.S. isolates from almond, apple, peach, and pecan, subgroup II contained isolates from anemone, olive, and strawberry, subgroup III contained isolates from almond (Israel) and strawberry (Spain), and subgroup IV contained a single isolate from anemone (the Netherlands). Likewise, sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) 2 region alone or the complete ITS (ITS 1-5.8S-ITS 2) region grouped the isolates into the same four subgroups. Percent similarity of the complete ITS region within each cluster ranged from 99.6 to 100.0, 99.8 to 100.0, and 98.6% among subgroups I, II, and III, respectively. DNA sequence analysis of the ITS 2 region alone or the entire ITS 1-2 region was more informative than that of the ITS 1 region, which could only group the isolates into two main clusters. The molecular methods employed for studying genetic variation in populations of C. acutatum determined that this species is diverse, indicating that isolates within populations of each subgroup are not host specific.
A Local Housing Market Model with Spatial Interaction and Land-Use Planning Controls

There have been relatively few attempts to construct local housing market models in the United Kingdom—particularly models with an explicit treatment of land supply. In this paper we report the results of a pilot study designed to test the practicability of estimating a system of equations which describe housing market dynamics at the local level. Former district council areas in Central Scotland are used as a proxy for local housing markets within a region, thereby providing a panel dataset. A simple supply — demand system with separate equations for inward and outward household migration is modelled using two-stage least squares. The empirical results are varied, with some equations and coefficients performing more closely in line with prior expectations than others. House price levels are explained largely with reference to household income, socioeconomic status, and past levels of house price growth. Higher price levels and higher deprivation diminish inward migration. There are also suggestions in the results that higher rates of new-build supply partly cause higher inward migration. The rate of outward migration increases with ethnicity and wealth and decreases with deprivation. The empirical performance of the new-build supply equation is poor although the results do yield some interesting insights. House building output generally decreases as the proportion of ‘small’ sites in the land supply increases. There is also evidence that house building output decreases as land supply in neighbouring areas increases. We conclude the paper by outlining further directions for modelling prices, supply, and migration at local housing market level. In particular, the case is made for further work involving the collection of wider and longer panel datasets and for extending the pilot study work beyond Scotland.
Magnetoencephalographic measurements during two types of mental rotations of three-dimensional objects

Neural mechanisms of higher-order cognitive processes are hard to study by using nonhuman primates. Of these mechanisms, the mental rotation task is the one of the best studied. When subjects decide whether two shapes presented at various orientations are the identical or mirror images, their reaction time increases with the angle of rotation between the shapes. Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) studies revealed that activities of the premotor area and/or the parietal association area are related to the angular difference between two objects. However, there are two kinds of degree of difficulty in the mental rotation task of three-dimensional objects. One is based on the angular difference and the other is based on the rotation method itself. Keeping these two difficulties in mind, this paper evaluates the activities for a mental rotation task . Here, the performance of the subjects are sufficient as judged by measuring response time prior to MEG experiment. Results reveal that the activities in the right occipital area contralateral to the left visual stimulus field were found in eight out of 12 cases in the range of 150-200 ms. On the other hand, no activities were found in the left. These results are consistent with contralateral dominance of the anatomical connection. fMRI researches showed activities of both parietal association area for the mental rotation of three-dimensional object. In this study, activities of these areas were estimated in both 2-D and 3-D rotation. In addition to this result, the number of subjects, whose activities of posterior part of both parietal association areas were estimated, was increased in 3-D rotation compared with 2-D rotation. From this result, it is implied that these activities are related to the degree of difficulties of rotation method itself. In addition to these result, activities were observed in the posterior part of parietal association area ipsilateral to those in the premotor area in two out of four cases in 2-D rotation and in three out of three cases in 3-D rotation. 3-D rotation requires subjects to imagine the invisible parts of visual stimuli for judging whether the visual stimulus is an identical pair or not. It is believed that this requirement activates the fronto-parietal circuit which is used in visuo-motor tasks.
Research and Policy: Information Texts and the Common Core Standards: What Are We Talking about, Anyway?

This column responds to a recent push in education policy toward a curriculum that requires students to read and write more informational texts. Most evident in the now well-known Common Core State Standards, these policy moves echo, in some ways, a call by researchers for more informational texts, particularly in primary classrooms. In this column, the authors work to sort out the various ways that researchers and policy documents have defined terms like “informational texts” and “nonfiction. ” In doing so, they hope to move toward more clarity and consistency in the use of such terms. The discussion in this column lays the groundwork for, and continues in, a future column (July, 2013) in which they review the research on instruction relevant to informational texts.
Quality-of-life assessment of fibroid treatment options and outcomes.

PURPOSE To obtain utilities (a unit of measure of a person's relative preferences for different health states compared with death or worst possible outcome) for uterine fibroids before and after treatment and to measure short-term utilities for the following uterine fibroid treatments: abdominal hysterectomy, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging-guided focused ultrasound surgery, and uterine artery embolization (UAE). MATERIALS AND METHODS This retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board and was HIPAA compliant. The waiting trade-off (WTO) method, a variation on the time trade-off (TTO) method, is used to obtain utilities for diagnostic procedures on the basis of the fact that people wait longer to avoid noxious tests and/or procedures. The WTO method provides short-term quality of life tolls in terms of quality-adjusted life-weeks by scaling wait times with pre- and posttreatment utilities. Utilities for uterine fibroids before and after treatment were obtained with the TTO method and a visual analog scale (VAS) by using a questionnaire administered by means of a phone interview. WTO wait times were adjusted for quality of life with VAS and TTO utilities and a transformation of VAS. Wait times were compared by using nonparametric tests. The study participants included 62 patients who had undergone abdominal hysterectomy, 74 who had undergone UAE, and 61 who had undergone MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound surgery. RESULTS Quality of life increased with all treatments. The median WTO wait time was higher for hysterectomy (21.6 weeks) than for UAE or MR imaging-guided focused ultrasound surgery (14.1 weeks for both) (P < .05). Quality-adjusted life-week tolls were smaller when scaled according to TTO than when scaled according to VAS or transformation of VAS. CONCLUSION Quality of life increased after all fibroid treatments. WTO is feasible for assessing the quality-adjusted morbidity of treatment procedures. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL http://radiology.rsna. org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1148/radiol.11100704/-/DC1.