bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Look Back at Modern Finance: Accomplishments and Limitations
Authors: Fama Eugene F. , Stern Joel M. 
Published: September 2023

In a conversation held in June 2016 between Nobel laureate Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago and Joel Stern, chairman and CEO of Stern Value Management, Professor Fama revisited some of the landmarks of “modern finance,” a movement that was launched in the early 1960s at Chicago and other leading business schools, and that gave rise to Efficient Markets Theory, the Modigliani‐Miller “irrelevance” propositions, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model. These concepts and models are still taught at prestigious business schools, whose graduates continue to make use of them in corporations and investment firms throughout the world.But while acknowledging the staying power of “modern finance,” Fama also notes that, even after a half‐century of research and refinements, most asset‐pricing models have failed empirically. Estimating something as apparently simple as the cost of capital remains fraught with difficulty. He dismisses betas for individual stocks as “garbage,” and even industry betas are said to be unstable, “too dynamic through time.” What's more, the wide range of estimates for the market risk premium—anywhere from 2% to 10%—casts doubt on their reliability and practical usefulness. And as if to reaffirm the fundamental insight of the M&M “irrelevance” propositions—namely, that what companies do with the right‐hand sides of their balance sheets “doesn't matter”—Fama observes that “we still have no real resolution on the key questions of debt and taxes, or dividends and taxes.”But if he has reservations about much of modern finance, Professor Fama is even more skeptical about subfields now in vogue such as behavioral finance, which he describes as “mostly just dredging for anomalies,” with no underlying theory and no testable predictions. Although he does not dispute that a number of well‐documented traits from cognitive psychology show up in individual behavior, Fama says that behavioral economists have thus far failed to come up with a testable theory that links cognitive psychology to market prices. And he continues to defend the concept of “efficient markets” with which his name has long been closely associated, while noting that empirically based asset pricing models such as his (with Ken French) “three‐factor” CAPM have produced much better results than the standard CAPM.
The Leveraging of Corporate America: A Long‐Run Perspective on Changes in Capital Structure
Authors: Graham John R. , Leary Mark T. , Roberts Michael R. 
Published: September 2023

In a study published recently in the Journal of Financial Economics, the authors of this article documented a substantial increase in the use of debt financing by U.S. companies over the past century. From 1920 until the mid‐1940s, the aggregate leverage of unregulated U.S. companies was low and stable, with the average debt‐to‐capital ratio staying within the narrow range of 10% to 15%. But during the next 25 years, the use of debt by U.S. companies more than doubled, rising to 35% of total capital. And since 1970, aggregate leverage has remained above 35%, peaking at 47% in 1992. Moreover, this pattern has been observed in companies of all sizes and operating in all unregulated sectors.Changes in the characteristics of U.S. public companies during this period provide little help in explaining the increase in corporate leverage. For example, the displacement of tangible by intangible assets in many sectors of the U.S. economy during the past 50 years would have led most economists to predict, holding all other things equal, a reduction rather than an increase in aggregate corporate leverage. Instead, according to the authors' findings, the main contributors to the increases in U.S. corporate leverage since the 1940s have been external changes, including increases in corporate income tax rates, the development of financial markets and intermediaries, and the reduction in government borrowing in the decades following World War II. The authors' analysis also identifies these last two changes—the development of financial markets, including the rise of institutional investors and shareholder activism, and the post‐War reduction in government debt—as having played the biggest roles in the leveraging of corporate America.
The Capital Structure of PE‐Funded Companies (and How New Debt Instruments and Investors Are Expanding Their Debt Capacity)
Authors: Rizzi Joseph V. 
Published: September 2023

The capital structures and financial policies of companies controlled by private equity firms are notably different from those of public companies. The concentration of ownership and intense monitoring of leveraged buyouts by their largest investors (that is, the partners of the PE firms who sit on their boards), along with the contractual requirement of PE funds to return their capital within seven to ten years, have resulted in capital structures that are far more leveraged than those of their publicly traded counterparts, but also considerably more provisional and “opportunistic.” Whereas the average U.S. public company has long operated with roughly 30% debt and 70% equity, today's typical private‐equity sponsored company is initially capitalized with an “upside‐down” structure of 70% debt and just 30% equity, and then often charged with working down its debt as quickly as possible.Although banks supplied most of the debt for the first wave of LBOs in the 1980s, the remarkable growth of the private equity industry in the past 25 years has been supported by the parallel development of a new leveraged acquisition finance market. This financing innovation has led to a general movement away from a bankcentered funding base to one comprising a relatively new set of institutional investors, including business development corporations and hedge funds. Such investors have shown a strong appetite for new debt instruments and risks that banks have been unwilling or, thanks to increased capital requirements and other regulatory burdens, prohibited from taking on. Notable among these new instruments are second‐lien loans and uni‐tranche debt—instruments that, by shifting the allocation of claims on the debtor's cash flow and assets in ways consistent with the preferences of these new investors, have had the effect of increasing the debt capacity of their portfolio companies. And such increases in debt capacity have in turn enabled private equity funds—now sitting on near‐record amounts of capital from their limited partners—to bid higher prices and compete more effectively in today's intensely competitive M&A market, in which high target acquisition purchase prices are being fueled by a strong stock market and increased competition from corporate acquirers.
How to differentiate peasant classes in capital‐intensive agriculture?
Authors: Singh Paramjit , Kumar Mukesh 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThis paper highlights the relevance of Marxian class analysis to understand the changing nature of agrarian classes under capital‐intensive agriculture. It is a methodological exercise that builds on Patnaik's labour exploitation index (E‐criterion) in three major respects to construct a new index, namely, the Modified Labour Exploitation Index (MEI), to differentiate peasant classes. First and most important, it incorporates the role of mechanisation, which, so far, has been ignored in the methodological attempts to differentiate within the peasantry. Second, it underscores the importance of non‐agricultural (and non‐rural) bases of simple reproduction in the countryside by incorporating hired‐out labour by agricultural households to the non‐agricultural sector into the classification criteria. Finally, it makes surplus labour exploited through land leasing empirically testable by using Marx's differential and absolute rent to differentiate between subsistence and commercial leasing. The new index is then empirically tested using primary data collected from rural Haryana, India. The paper argues that MEI is an effective criterion for understanding changing class dynamics, the shifting modes of the livelihood of the poor peasantry and the largely hidden accumulation processes in agrarian societies.
Between‐sibling inequality in inheritances: Intergenerational support and patrilineality in South Korea
Authors: Kim Dahye , Lim‐Soh Jeremy 
Published: September 2023

AbstractObjectiveThis study examines sibling inequality in inheritances and investigates the associations between inheritance share, intergenerational support, and patrilineality, as well as the potential interplay between support and patrilineality.BackgroundWhile Western studies take an exchange perspective linking inheritance division to intergenerational support, the picture in Asia is complicated by patrilineal norms, which are connected to both inheritance and support.MethodUtilizing the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this study employs family fixed effects regression to estimate the relationships between actual inheritance division, comprehensive measures of intergenerational support (financial, instrumental, associational, and structural), and patrilineality (gender and birth order).ResultsFirst‐born sons receive the lion's share of inheritances, followed by first‐born daughters and later‐born sons, who receive a lesser share, while later‐born daughters receive the least. Meeting the parent frequently and caring for them before death were also associated with a larger share, and these effects were mostly uniform by birth order and gender.ConclusionPatrilineal traditions continue to dominate inheritance division in contemporary Korea, with first‐born sons claiming the largest share regardless of their contributions to intergenerational support. Physical contact and caregiving increase a child's likelihood of receiving a larger share, but ultimately do not change the patrilineal order in inheritance allocations.
Yours, mine, or ours? Dyadic sleep hygiene and associations with sleep quality, emotional distress, and conflict frequency in mixed‐gender, bed‐sharing couples
Authors: Novak Josh R. , Miller Kaleigh C. , Gunn Heather E. , Troxel Wendy M. 
Published: September 2023

SummaryAlthough prior research demonstrates the interdependence of sleep quality within couples (i.e., the sleep of one partner affects the sleep of the other), little is known about the degree to which couples’ sleep hygiene behaviours are concordant or discordant, and if one's own sleep hygiene or their report of their partners’ sleep hygiene is related to worse relational, psychological, and sleep outcomes. In a sample of 143 mixed‐gender, bed‐sharing couples, each partner completed an online questionnaire consisting of the Sleep Hygiene Index (for themselves and their partner), PROMIS sleep disturbance scale, conflict frequency, PHQ‐4 for anxiety and depressive symptoms, and the Perceived Stress Scale. Paired samplest‐tests between partners were conducted using total and individual‐item Sleep Hygiene Index scores to examine similarities and differences. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) scores of dyadic reports were conducted to examine the level of agreement between each partner's sleep hygiene. Finally, we examined associations between one's own sleep hygiene and their report of their partner's sleep hygiene with both partner's sleep quality, emotional distress, and conflict frequency in a dyadic structural equation model with important covariates and alternative model tests. The results revealed a significant difference between men's (M = 14.45, SD = 7.41) and women's total score self‐report sleep hygiene ([M = 17.67, SD = 8.27];t(142) = −5.06,p < 0.001) and partners only had similar sleep hygiene for 5 out of the 13 items. Examining dyadic reports of sleep hygiene revealed that partners had moderate agreement on their partners’ sleep hygiene (0.69–0.856). The results from the dyadic structural equation model revealed that poorer sleep hygiene was associated with one's own poor sleep quality, higher emotional distress, and more frequent relational conflict. For both men and women a poorer report of a partner's sleep hygiene was associated with one's own report of higher relationship conflict. Finally, men's poorer report of a partner's sleep hygiene was related better to their own sleep quality but was related to poorer sleep quality for their partners. These results have implications for sleep promotion and intervention efforts as well as for couple relationship functioning.
Sound production by the short‐beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)
Authors: Cooper C. E. , Erbe C. , Withers P. C. , Barker J. M. , Ball N. , Todd‐Jones L. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractAcoustic communication occurs in all major groups of terrestrial vertebrates, having evolved independently in early clades of mammals, birds, geckos, crocodilians and frogs, about 100–200 MYA. There is little doubt that acoustic communication was used by ancestral therian mammals, but it is ambiguous whether the reconstruction of the root of the mammalian acoustic evolutionary tree includes basal prototherian monotremes. We present here five first‐hand accounts of dove‐like cooing sounds and analyse the acoustics of three vocalization recordings for two observations of wild short‐beaked echidnas (Tachyglossus aculeatus) to quantitatively confirm acoustic communication by this species. The ‘cooing’ tones were quite distinctive from exhalations, wheezes and grunts, being ~0.044 s down‐sweeps from ~320 to 190 Hz, peaking at ~260 Hz, with at least one harmonic overtone. Tones occurred singly or as doublets, triplets (most common), quadruplets and quintuplets, with the leading tone typically the strongest and most broadband. We conclude that echidnas do produce vocalizations, but they are infrequent and acoustic communication is not their primary mode of communication. This unequivocal evidence for vocalization by short‐beaked echidnas resolves a long‐standing debate concerning the occurrence of acoustic communication by echidnas, which together with well‐documented vocalizations by platypus, support a very early evolution of acoustic communication amongst mammals, pre‐dating at least the common ancestor of monotremes and therian mammals.
Contributions of Morphological Awareness to Adult L2 Chinese Word Meaning Inferencing
Authors: KE SIHUI ECHO , KODA KEIKO 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThis study examined the contributions of morphological awareness (MA) to second language (L2) word meaning inferencing in English‐speaking adult learners of Chinese (N = 50). Three research questions were posed: Are L2 learners sensitive to the morphological structure of unknown multi‐character words? Does first language (L1) MA contribute to L2 MA over and above L2 linguistic knowledge? Does L2 MA contribute to L2 word meaning inference over and above L1 MA and L2 linguistic knowledge? These questions were investigated through the use of a set of experimental and paper‐and‐pencil measurements of the aforementioned L1 and L2 reading subskills and L2 linguistic knowledge, as well as working memory. Several significant results were found. The L2 learners were sensitive to the morphological structure of multi‐character words and more successful in guessing the meanings of novel words containing affixoids and familiar bases. L1 MA was found to transfer and facilitate the development of L2 MA over and above L2 linguistic knowledge. Additionally, L2 MA contributed to L2 word meaning inferencing indirectly through L2 linguistic knowledge. The discussion focuses on the intralingual and interlingual relationships among L1 MA, L2 MA, L2 linguistic knowledge, and L2 word meaning inferencing in adult L2 reading development.
Do face masks undermine social connection?
Authors: Knowles Megan L. , Dean Kristy K. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractMask mandates were commonplace around the world during the COVID‐19 pandemic and essential to slowing the spread of SARS‐CoV‐2. However, it is still unclear whether and how masks impact social bonding. Building on past research examining the effects of masking on emotion recognition and social perception, the current research examines the effect of masking on feelings of social connectedness. Three studies (total N = 177) using videotaped introductions of masked and unmasked peers and varied assessments of desire for social connectedness yielded no differences as a function of masking. Although participants reported more difficulty hearing masked (vs. unmasked) peers, masking did not significantly impact other facets of communication or perception related to social bonding. When participants filmed their own introductory videos (Study 3), results showed increased expressivity within the masked (vs. unmasked) conditions, perhaps as a compensatory measure to aid bonding. These findings speak to the resiliency of the human need to belong and belonging‐maintenance processes.
Outcomes Associated With Translating Evidence-Based Research Into Practice: The Physical Activity for Lifelong Success Program
Authors: Eggert Erin E. , Palmer Will , Shanjani Lourdes I. , Gretebeck Kimberlee , Mahoney Jane E. 
Published: September 2023

Background: Few programs assess for outcomes once translated into practice. The Physical Activity for Lifelong Success program was developed as a center-based public health intervention and shown to improve walking speed and distance among older adults with type 2 diabetes. We adapted the program for community-based delivery by lay leaders to physically inactive older adults. Methods: We followed the Replicating Effective Programs framework to identify community stakeholders, adapt, implement, and evaluate fidelity of delivery in community settings, and plan for maintenance and evolution. Sixteen community sites enrolled 184 adults (mean age 73.5 y, 85% female, 93% White) in 21 workshops. Baseline and postworkshop measures assessed participants’ health-related quality of life, physical function, and physical fitness. Data were analyzed using Fisher exact tests, Student t test, and paired linear regression with fixed effects. Results: Fidelity testing indicated leader training was sufficient to maintain key elements with delivery. Data from 122 participants showed improvements in chair stands (P < .001), arm curls (P < .001), 2-minute step test (P < .001), sit-and-reach (P = .001), 8-foot up-and-go (P < .001), and 10-m walk (P < .001). Conclusions: Adaptation of Physical Activity for Lifelong Success for implementation by community organizations for physically inactive older adults demonstrates that fidelity and effectiveness can be maintained after program translation.
Igniting the slow burn of post-COVID conditions
Authors: Henderson Jeffrey P. 
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT

Post-COVID conditions (PCCs) are persistent new patient symptoms occurring after acute COVID-19 infection and are an increasingly appreciated dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic. The factors that cause PCCs are not well understood. In recent work, Gebo et al. identify a connection between acute IL-6 levels, early COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CP) administration, and later PCCs in subjects from a randomized controlled trial of acutely ill subjects enrolled in 2020 to 2021 (K. A. Gebo, S. L. Heath, Y. Fukuta, X. Zhu, et al., mBio e00618-23, 2023,
https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.00618-23
). These results may be viewed as part of an emerging picture linking the intensity of inflammatory responses during acute infection to later PCCs.
Negative and ambisense RNA virus ribonucleocapsids: more than protective armor
Authors: Sabsay Kimberly R. , te Velthuis Aartjan J. W. 
Published: September 2023

SUMMARY
Negative and ambisense RNA viruses are the causative agents of important human diseases such as influenza, measles, Lassa fever, and Ebola hemorrhagic fever. The viral genome of these RNA viruses consists of one or more single-stranded RNA molecules that are encapsidated by viral nucleocapsid proteins to form a ribonucleoprotein complex (RNP). This RNP acts as protection, as a scaffold for RNA folding, and as the context for viral replication and transcription by a viral RNA polymerase. However, the roles of the viral nucleoproteins extend beyond these functions during the viral infection cycle. Recent advances in structural biology techniques and analysis methods have provided new insights into the formation, function, dynamics, and evolution of negative sense virus nucleocapsid proteins, as well as the role that they play in host innate immune responses against viral infection. In this review, we discuss the various roles of nucleocapsid proteins, both in the context of RNPs and in RNA-free states, as well as the open questions that remain.
Antifungal mechanism of volatile compounds emitted by
Actinomycetota Paenarthrobacter ureafaciens
from a disease-suppressive soil on
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Authors: Nguyen Tri-Phuong , Meng De-Rui , Chang Ching-Han , Su Pei-Yu , Ou Chieh-An , Hou Ping-Fu , Sung Huang-Mo , Chou Chang-Hung , Ohme-Takagi Masaru , Huang Hao-Jen 
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT

Increasing evidence suggests that in disease-suppressive soils, microbial volatile compounds (mVCs) released from bacteria may inhibit the growth of plant-pathogenic fungi. However, the antifungal activities and molecular responses of fungi to different mVCs remain largely undescribed. In this study, we first evaluated the responses of pathogenic fungi to treatment with mVCs from
Paenarthrobacter ureafaciens
. Then, we utilized the well-characterized fungal model organism
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
to study the potential mechanistic effects of the mVCs. Our data showed that exposure to
P. ureafaciens
mVCs leads to reduced growth of several pathogenic fungi, and in yeast cells, mVC exposure prompts the accumulation of reactive oxygen species. Further experiments with
S. cerevisiae
deletion mutants indicated that Slt2/Mpk1 and Hog1 MAPKs play major roles in the yeast response to
P. ureafaciens
mVCs. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that exposure to mVCs was associated with 1,030 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in yeast. According to gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses, many of these DEGs are involved in mitochondrial dysfunction, cell integrity, mitophagy, cellular metabolism, and iron uptake. Genes encoding antimicrobial proteins were also significantly altered in the yeast after exposure to mVCs. These findings suggest that oxidative damage and mitochondrial dysfunction are major contributors to the fungal toxicity of mVCs. Furthermore, our data showed that cell wall, antioxidant, and antimicrobial defenses are induced in yeast exposed to mVCs. Thus, our findings expand upon previous research by delineating the transcriptional responses of the fungal model.

IMPORTANCE

Since the use of bacteria-emitted volatile compounds in phytopathogen control is of considerable interest, it is important to understand the molecular mechanisms by which fungi may adapt to microbial volatile compounds (mVCs).
Paenarthrobacter ureafaciens
is an isolated bacterium from disease-suppressive soil that belongs to the
Actinomycetota
phylum.
P. ureafaciens
mVCs showed a potent antifungal effect on phytopathogens, which may contribute to disease suppression in soil. However, our knowledge about the antifungal mechanism of mVCs is limited. This study has proven that mVCs are toxic to fungi due to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. To deal with mVC toxicity, antioxidants and physical defenses are required. Furthermore, iron uptake and CAP proteins are required for antimicrobial defense, which is necessary for fungi to deal with the thread from mVCs. This study provides essential foundational knowledge regarding the molecular responses of fungi to inhibitory mVCs.