Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Functional Analysis of Courtship Feeding in the Red-Billed Gull, Larus Novaehollandiae Scopulinus

The courtship behaviour of red-billed gulls (Larus novaehollandiae scopulinus) was observed in a breeding colony at Kaikoura, New Zealand, from 14 November to 30 December 1967, 1 August to 30 November 1968, and 22 September to 30 October 1973, to examine the functional aspects of courtship feeding of the female by the male. Twenty pairs of individually marked gulls were observed for 3 to 6 hours per day during the pre-laying period and the early stages of incubation. All behaviour that formed part of courtship feeding or copulation was recorded. The actions involved in courtship feeding and copulation behaviour are described. Eighty-seven per cent of the instances of feeding of the female by the male occurred after the return of the latter to the nesting site. Feeding usually took place within five minutes of the bird returning. Courtship feeding was observed as early as 40 days before the laying of the first egg but the incidence was extremely low until 20 days before egg laying. Thereafter the frequency of courtship feeding increased to reach a peak ten days before laying. After completion of the clutch there was a marked reduction in the frequency of courtship feeds. Mounting occurred at least 60 days before egg laying but started to become frequent only about 30 days before egg laying. It reached a peak six to eight days prior to laying then dropped sharply after completion of the clutch. The number of cloacal contacts per copulation did not change in relation to the date of laying but there was a trend suggesting that the female was less likely to end the mount as the date of laying approached than she had been previously. At the peak of courtship the female was fed on average every four hours. The amount of food received could represent a substantial proportion of her daily intake since she spent an average of only 18 % of the daylight hours away from the nest territory in the five days prior to laying. Some females were inadequately fed by the male and had to spend considerably more time foraging than did females which had been better nourished by their partners. The courtship feeding performance of the male appeared to affect pair-bond retention the following season. Females well fed by their mates retained partners but the female which was inadequately fed changed partner. A significantly higher incidence of mounting occurred after courtship feeding bouts that included regurgitation than after those that did not. Cloacal contact was 23 % more likely to occur during mounting when food was given than if food was not offered. It is suggested that courtship feeding is important for the female because it provides extra nutriment during egg formation, a time when the demand for food by the female is greatest, and as well plays a significant role in inducing successful copulations.
Beating Momentum: Using Neural Networks to Uncover Additional Information in Past Returns

One way of thinking about the popular momentum return factor is as a simple algorithm that predicts what percentile a stock’s returns will fall into next month using the previous eleven months of return data. We want to determine if there is more information in those past returns that could be useful in predicting next month’s relative return. To explore this question we are constructing a neural network and training it to predict what percentile a stock’s returns will fall into next month using the past eleven months worth of returns. We feel that a neural network is a good choice here because they are capable of learning non-linear patterns. After training the neural network using CRSP returns data from 1926 to 2006 our network is able to generate a portfolio that beats the momentum strategy from 2007 to 2016.
The Interaction Effect in a Nonlinear Specification of Bank Lending: A Replication and Reexamination of the Peek and Rosengren (2005) Results on 'Unnatural Selection'

Peek and Rosengren (American Economic Review 2005; 95) suggested the mechanism of ``unnatural selection,'' where low-capitalized Japanese banks increase credit to low-quality firms because of their motivation to pursue balance sheet cosmetics. In this study, we replicate their estimation results, using loan-level data from 1994 to 1999, and thereby reexamine this mechanism in terms of the interaction effect in a nonlinear specification of bank lending. We demonstrate that their results imply that Japanese banks allocated lending from viable firms to unviable ones regardless of the degree of bank capitalization, being not consistent with the balance sheet cosmetics hypothesis. <br>
Innovation and Internationalization as a Single Strategy of the Firm: A Unification of Theories

Recently, innovation and internationalization strategies have explained firm success. Some authors argue that innovation settles internationalization while some others point that internationalization settles the firm’s innovation level. This work unifies these theories, arguing that both are a single strategy of the firm. We also argue that both theories are founded in the same set of variables like technological capabilities, technology investment, alliances and firm decision structure. Tests are based on correlation and regression analysis. We demonstrate the existence of a relationship between innovation and internationalization that can’t be explained by separating them into separate theories.
Rethinking Crowdfunding Platform Design: Mechanisms to Deter Misconduct and Improve Efficiency

Lacking credible rule-enforcement mechanisms to punish misconduct, existing reward-based crowdfunding platforms can leave backers exposed to two risks: entrepreneurs may run away with backers’ money (funds misappropriation), and product specifications may be misrepresented (performance opacity). We show that each of these risks can materially impact crowdfunding efficiency, and, when jointly present, they interact with each other in ways that can dampen or, more worryingly, amplify their individual adverse effects. To mitigate these risks, we propose two mechanisms based on deferred payments. The first involves stopping the campaign once the funding goal is reached and servicing any unmet demand in the aftermarket. The second involves escrowing any funds raised in excess of the goal, as insurance for backers. We show that early stopping dominates escrow and boosts platform revenues. Pairing these deferred payment designs with (costly) performance verification contingencies can bring additional gains, but doing so can flip their relative performance, with escrow coming out on top. Overall, by accounting for different timing (pre- versus post-campaign) and enforcement rules (mandatory versus optional) of the verification contingencies, we analyze a total of 10 different designs and show that two of them dominate: the early stopping design and the escrow design with mandatory ex-post verification. We conclude by providing recommendations for which design works best under different conditions and exploring the potential of crowdsourced performance checks. This paper was accepted by Terry Taylor, operations management.
Some Relationships of Face Fly Feeding, Ovarian Development, and Incidence on Dairy Cattle

Feeding behavior, ovarian development, and incidence of the face fly, Musca autumnalis De Geer, on the faces of dairy cattle were studied. Although some field-collected flies were observed, most of the studies used flies from a laboratory culture maintained at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Wooster. The flies in the culture were held at approximately 80°F and 50% relative humidity and were provided with a diet of malt, non-fat dry skim milk, citrated bovine blood, water, and fresh bovine feces. Feeding responses were tested in the laboratory by exposing the flies to a free-choice diet and examining the contents of the digestive tract at regular intervals to determine the food consumed. Males and females 1-6 days old differed in their feeding responses. Males showed little variation in daily feeding and fed primarily on malt. Females 1-13 days old showed cyclic feeding responses—feeding on significantly greater amounts of blood and milk at 3 days of age, and dung at 4 and 6 days. Peak levels of feeding were observed for blood at 3 and 8 days and for dung at 4, 7, 10, and 13 days. Ovarian development was studied by observing the growth of ovaries and oocytes, times of oviposition, and levels of ovarian development in field-collected females. Ovarian development was cyclic in females 1-12 days old. Peak oocyte length was observed in females 5 and 10 days old, and peak oviposition in females 5 and 11 days old. Incidence on the faces of dairy cattle, by 1- to 12-dayold females, was studied by field release of 19,345 specimens tagged with fluorescent dusts. Incidence varied in a cyclic pattern with age, the highest incidence was observed in females 3 and 8 days old. Certain temporal relationships among feeding, ovarian development, and incidence on the faces of dairy cattle were evident in laboratory-reared female face flies 1-12 days old. The females alternately fed on blood and then completed gonadotrophic cycles. Peak blood feeding and peak incidence on dairy cattle were closely related. Peak dung feeding occurred 1 day before and 2 days after each oviposition peak. The females alternated between the completion of gonadotrophic cycles and incidence on dairy cattle. Levels of ovarian development in field-collected females supported the existence of this latter alternation. Differences in incidence on the faces of dairy cattle were attributed to differences in the feeding responses of the female flies. Differential feeding responses were attributed to the nutritional requirements of cyclic egg maturation.
Price Discounts and Personalized Product Assortment under Multinomial Logit Choice Model: A Robust Approach

With increasing availability of consumer data and rapid advancement and applications of technologies, online retailers are gaining better knowledge of shopping behavior and preferences of their customers. Thus more and more retailers are providing customized product assortment to better match the needs of customers and generate more sales. In this paper, we study a two-stage revenue management model where a retailer decides non-customized price discounts at stage one due to fairness consideration and customized product assortment at stage two (upon the arrival of customers) under the multinomial logit choice model. We employ a robust approach for the joint discounts and customized assortment optimization problem to handle data uncertainty for estimating customer preferences and distribution of different customer segments. We analyze the structural properties of the problems and propose efficient computational methods to solve the problems with/without cardinality constraint on the assortment. In certain cases, our algorithm converges at a superlinear rate. When there is a cardinality constraint on the assortment, we find the retailer should offer deeper discounts as the constraint becomes more restrictive. We also provide some discussion on the value of our robust solution and the extension when the customer discount sensitivity function is also uncertain. Finally, our extensive numerical study shows that the solutions under the robust approach perform very well compared to the one assuming accurate information and has robustness when there is uncertainty.
Spatial and age-dependent modifications of photosynthetic capacity in four Mediterranean oak species.

Drought is one of the most important limitations of photosynthesis in Mediterranean climates. However, Mediterranean sclerophyllous species with long-lived leaves also support extensive and dynamic canopies, with potentially large spatial and age-dependent gradients. We studied within-canopy and temporal patterns in foliage structure, chemistry and photosynthesis in the evergreen species Quercus coccifera L. , Q. ilex L. subsp. ballota (Desf.) Samp. in Bol. and Q. suber L. and in the semi-deciduous marcescent species Q. faginea Lam. to determine the role of within-canopy shading and leaf age on foliage functioning. There was a 2.5-fold within-canopy gradient in leaf dry mass per unit area (MA) that was accompanied by a 3-fold range in area-based leaf nitrogen (N) content, the capacity for photosynthetic electron transport (Jmax) and maximum Rubisco carboxylase activity (Vcmax), while the fractional investments of leaf nitrogen in electron transport (FB) and in Rubisco (FR) were relatively constant within the canopy. Leaf aging led to increased MA, larger or constant mass-based N content, larger phosphorous (P) and structural carbon contents, but decreased movable cation contents. Age-dependent increases in MA and N per dry mass meant that Jmax and Vcmax per area were weakly related to leaf age, with a trend of decreasing values in older leaves. However, Jmax and Vcmax per unit dry mass decreased 4-fold across the range of leaf age, primarily owing to decreases in apparent N investments in photosynthetic machinery. This decrease in apparent N investments in photosynthetic machinery was possibly the result of a larger fraction of N bound to cell walls, or of an enhanced CO2 diffusion resistance from the outer surface of cell walls to the chloroplasts in older leaves with thicker and more lignified cell walls. The age-dependent variation in apparent fractional investments of N in photosynthetic machinery reduced the generality of leaf nitrogen v. photosynthesis relationships. Photosynthetic characteristics qualitatively fitted the same patterns with leaf age in all species, but at a common leaf age, area-based leaf photosynthetic potentials depended on species-specific values of MA. These data collectively demonstrate important canopy and age-dependent controls on leaf structure, chemistry and photosynthetic potentials that should be included in larger-scale photosynthesis simulations in Mediterranean climates.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Exit Strategies of Private Firms

The costs and benefits of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) have been oft-debated since the inception of the Act. Much of the extant literature has assessed the costs and benefits of SOX to publicly-traded companies. We focus on the costs of SOX compliance for private firms wanting to exit the private market via either an acquisition by a public firm or an IPO. Consistent with our predictions we establish three principal findings. First, SOX appears to have shifted the incentive for firms to exit the private market via IPO to exit via acquisition by a public acquirer. Second, private target deal multiples are increasing in variables that proxy for a private target’s level of pre-acquisition SOX compliance. For our median-sized private target, the estimated dollar value decrease in deal proceeds when one moves from a high level to a low level of pre-acquisition SOX compliance is $1.3 million. Finally, public target deal multiples are not affected by a public target’s level of pre-acquisition SOX compliance. These findings suggest that SOX-related costs have both restricted the action space of possible exit strategies for private firms and led to lower deal multiples for those private acquisition targets that are less likely to be SOX compliant prior to acquisition. We believe that the implications from our tests will be relevant to regulators in the U.S. and many countries outside the U.S. that are attempting to improve their country’s governance and listing standards and potentially seeking alternatives to SOX-like standards, especially with respect to internal controls. International regulators need to assess the total costs of SOX, including costs imposed on private company shareholders, when contemplating the net benefits of SOX-like regimes.
Cultura Organizacional Y Efectividad En Las Pequeñas Empresas Constructoras De Puebla, México (Organizational Culture and Effectiveness in Small Construction Businesses in Puebla, Mexico)

<b>Spanish Abstract</b>: En la presente investigación se realizó un análisis acerca de los tipos de cultura organizacional y su relación con la efectividad organizacional en las pequeñas empresas constructoras de Puebla. A fin de caracterizar la cultura organizacional como sustento teórico, se analizaron diversos autores relacionados con el tema, para posteriormente considerar algunos aspectos que fueron medidos a través de la aplicación de un cuestionario con escala de Likert, a una muestra de 91 trabajadores administrativos de las mismas. El objetivo de la investigación fue conocer el tipo de cultura organizacional que prevalece en las pequeñas empresas constructoras en Puebla, por lo tanto las preguntas de investigación planteadas son; Qué tipo de cultura organizacional identifica a las pequeñas empresas constructoras de Puebla? : Cuál es la influencia de las mismas en la efectividad organizacional? Entre los resultados se encontró que el modelo de regresión empleado explica un 67.1% de las variaciones en la efectividad, además no existe evidencia estadística de variables omitidas (test de la constante 2.255). <b>English Abstract</b>: This research analyzes types of organizational culture and its relationship with organizational effectiveness in small construction businesses in Puebla. To characterize the organizational culture, we consider some aspects that were measured through a questionnaire based on a Likert's scale to 91 administrative workers of the same companies. The objective was to identify the type of organizational culture that prevails in small construction companies in Puebla. The research questions are; What type of organizational culture is related to small construction businesses in Puebla? : What is their influence in organizational effectiveness? We found that the regression model explains a 67.1% of variation in effectiveness, however, there is no statistical evidence of omitted variables (2,255 constant test).
Accounting Conservatism Analysis in Indonesia after Adoption of IFRS and Relation to the Characteristics of the Board As One of the Mechanism of Corporate Governance (Empirical Study on Manufacturing Companies Listed on the Stock Exchange)

This study aims to analyze the level of accounting conservatism in companies listed on the Stock Exchange. Analysis of accounting conservatism was performed using quantitative methods. Accounting conservatism roommates applied in different levels are influenced by external and internal factors. The external factors used in this study is the adoption of IFRS, while the internal factors are used that good corporate governance mechanisms such as the proportion of independent directors, the intensity of board meetings, managerial ownership, educational background of financial accounting and audit committee members and the size of the company. This study measured conservatism based on the accrual that was developed by Gipoly and Hyan (2002). The population of this study were manufacturing companies listed on the stock exchange Indonesi in 2005-2012. The sample was 38 manufacturing companies determined by purposive sampling. Data analysis was performed with the classical assumption and hypothesis testing with multiple linear regression models. The results of this study indicate that the IFRS, the intensity of board meetings, and institutional ownership have significant effects on the level of accounting conservatism. On the other hand, the proportion of independent directors, the educational background of financial accounting and audit committee members and the size of the company does not have a significant effect on the level of accounting conservatism after the adoption of IFRS.
Effective Organizational Change Management and Organizational Growth in Nigeria

Organizational change management provides the impetus for organizations to remain competitive in the global market space. Creating a new vision, embarking on social process reengineering as well as focusing on change sustainability are critical elements for effective organizational change management and organizational growth. Change is inevitable in any human enterprise and change sustainability requires the effective application of the science and art of the change management process so as to enhance organizational growth. 112 respondents participated in the study carried out through the exploratory research design. Data were generated through primary and secondary sources and analyzed by descriptive and chi-square statistical techniques. The result showed a positive relationship between effective organizational change management and organizational growth. The study was limited by time and financial factors, and it was suggested that further study should examine the relationship between social process reengineering and change management as a way of enhancing organizational growth in Nigeria. Based on the result of the study, it was recommended that effective change management process should always recognize the importance of effective business communication as a strategy for organizational growth.
Reproductive Cycles of Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides) in a Cooling Reservoir

Abstract Annual reproductive cycles of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) collected in the heated area of a 1120-hectare reservoir receiving thermal effluent were similar to cycles from bass collected in unheated waters during 1969 and 1970. Average maximum monthly temperatures at the heated area exceeded those in unheated waters by greater than 10 C for the 2 years. Few monthly differences in gonosomatic indices were found between heated and unheated areas. Earlier attainment of maximum gonadal size and the presence of significantly larger juvenile bass at the heated area suggested that reproduction might be accelerated by thermal discharge. However, gonadal condition indicated that the reproductive period started in March and continued through April in both areas. Reproduction may have been advanced in some heated-area bass, although this was not obvious from overall changes in the reproductive cycles of bass from unheated areas.
Drosophilidae of Madeira, with the description of Drosophila madeirensis‐n. sp

Summary A total of 4118 specimens belonging to 19 different species of the family Drosophilidae were captured in domesticated habitats, in agricultural areas, in pine forest and in the laurisilva forest of Madeira. Only nine of these species were previously quoted for Madeira. Among the 18 species completely identified, ten are cosmopolitan or subcosmopolitan (D. busckii, melanogaster, simulans, ananassae, hydei, repleta, buzzatii, immigrans, funebris and S. pallida). Two species (D. mercatorum and virilis) seem to be in process of becoming cosmopolitan. Five species (D. lebanonensis, subobscura, cameraria, andalusiaca and S. apicalis) are typical components of the drosophilid fauna in the Mediterranean subregion. One endemic and new species, D. madeirensis, was found in the laurisilva forest. The description of this new species is given. Zusammenfassung Die Drosophilafauna Madeiras – Mit einer Neubeschreibung der Art Drosophila madeirensis n. sp. Es wurden in Wohngebieten, in Ackerbaugebieten, in Pinus-Waldern and in Lorbeer-Waldern der Insel Madeira insgesamt 4118 Individuen gefangen, die 19 verschiedenen Drosophila-Arten zugeordnet werden konnten. Unter den 18 eindeutig bestimmten Arten fmden sich 10 kosmopolitische Arten (D. buscku, D. melanogaster, D. simulans, D. ananassae, D. hydei, D. repleta, D. buzzatu, D. immigrans, D. funebris and S. pallida). Zwei Arten (D. mercatorum and D. virilis) scheinen im Begriff zu sein, kosmopolitische Arten zu werden. Nur 5 Arten (D. lebanonensis, D. subobscura, D. cameraria, D. andalusiaca and S. apicalis) sind typische Vertreter der mediterranen Drosophila-Fauna. Eine Art, D. madeirensis, ist neu und in Madeira endemisch. Sie wurde nur in den Lorbeer-Waldern gefunden. Diese neue Art ist bier erstmalig beschrieben.