Does investor attention influence stock market activity? The case of spin-off deals

This paper investigates empirically the nature of the interactions between mass media, investor attention and the stock market using data from a sample of 16 spin-off deals traded on NYSE and published between 2004 and 2010 in “Wall Street Journal”, the US’s second-largest newspaper by circulation. The results show that: i) the impact of media sentiment on the stock market reactions is enhanced / moderated by the level of attention of investors; ii) individual investors’ attention is grabbed by stocks experiencing high trading volumes on the previous day; iii) high attention could result in downward pressure on stock market returns.Media Sentiment, Investor Attention, Internet Search, Spin-off

A Measure of Social Loss for Production Economies with Externalities

In this paper we consider a production economy and adopt a cooperative approach to equilibrium analysis which allows each individual to cooperate with others and to form a coalition whose members have access to the available technologies. Our definition of the core requires a blocking coalition to take account of the consequences of its blocking for the production of the counter-coalition. Following Montesano (2002), we introduce a measure of social loss with respect to the core of the economy which characterizes the corresponding core allocations. Our characterization holds in the presence of consumption externalities and an optimistic attitude of coalition agents with respect to the behavior of outsiders

Structural health monitoring of asphalt pavements using smart sensor networks: A comprehensive review

Abstract Early, effective and continuous monitoring allows to reduce costs and to extend life of road infrastructure. For this reason, over the years, more and more efforts have been made to implement more advanced and effective monitoring systems at ever more contained costs, going from impractical manual and destructive methods through automated in vehicle equipment to the most recent wireless sensor network (WSN) embedded into the pavement. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date critical literature review of wireless sensor networks for pavement health monitoring, considering, also, the experience gained for wired sensor as fundamental point of reference. This work presents both the methodology used to collect and analyse the current bibliography and provides a description and comments fundamental characteristics of wireless sensor networks for pavement monitoring for damage detection purposes, among which energy supply, the detection method, the hardware and network architecture and the performance validation procedures. A brief analysis of other possible complementary applications of smart sensor networks, such as traffic and surface condition monitoring, is provided. Finally, a comment is provided on the gaps and possible directions that future research could follow to allow the extensive use of wireless sensor networks for pavement health condition monitoring

DETECTive: Machine Learning-driven Automatic Test Pattern Prediction for Faults in Digital Circuits

Due to the continuous technology scaling and the ever-increasing complexity and size of the hardware designs, manufacturing defects have become a key obstacle in meeting end-user demand. Despite decades of research, traditional test-generation techniques often struggle to scale to massive and complex designs. Such scalability issues stem from the numerous backtracking the traditional test generation techniques perform before converging to a test pattern. In this work, we present DETECTive that leverages deep learning on graphs to learn fault characteristics and predict test pattern(s) to expose faults without requiring backtracking. DETECTive is trained on small circuits, and its learned knowledge is transferable to predict test patterns for circuits that contain up to 29x more gates than the training circuits. Since DETECTive avoids backtracking completely, it can predict test patterns up to 15x faster than academic tools and up to 2x faster than commercial tools. DETECTive achieves up to 100% pattern accuracy on synthetic designs and up to 95% test pattern accuracy on realistic designs. To our knowledge, DETECTive is the first to leverage deep learning to predict test patterns for digital hardware designs that can complement the traditional test generation techniques for faster design closure

Blue and red in financial documents: the influence on attentional mechanisms and behavior

Purpose This study investigates whether colors red or blue in financial disclosure documents (Key Investor Information Documents – KIIDs) affect attention distribution toward the visual stimulus and the perception of financial attractiveness of the products. Design/methodology/approach In order to observe and measure financial consumers' visual attention, the unobtrusive methodology of eye-tracking is used on a sample of nonprofessional investors, applying an ecological protocol, through a cross-sectional design. Findings Financial information processing and visual attention distribution are influenced by the color of the KIID document, as red seems to attract attention, proxied by gazing behavior, more than blue. Red color, compared to blue, is also observed to push investors to rate the products as less financially attractive, especially when the product Risk Reward Profile is high. Practical implications The findings highlight the role of the basic visual properties of documents conveying financial information, prompting to investigate the unconscious and automatic mechanisms of individual's attention and its influence on decision making. Originality/value Using the eye-tracking tool, this study bridges neuroscience, color research, marketing and finance and provides new knowledge on the underlying neural mechanisms of financial consumers' behavior

A severe infective endocarditis successfully treated with linezolid

Despite significant improvements in surgical and medical therapy, prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) is a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge and is often associated with a severe prognosis. We report a case of a 59-year-old woman, with  PVE and bacterial endocarditis (Streptococcus bovis) successfully treated with linezolid. Linezolid is a bacteriostatic oxazolidinone antibiotic that has been proven to be effective for the treatment of patients with pneumonia, skin and soft tissue infections, and infections due to Gram-positive cocci. Linezolid is not yet recognised as a standard therapy for infective endocarditis, but its use becomes a necessity when infection is due to multidrug-resistant microorganisms

Inhibition of oxidative metabolism leads to p53 genetic inactivation and transformation in neural stem cells

The final published version can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.141316511

Consonantal and vocalic gestures in the articulation of italian glide /w/ at different syllable positions

Glides have been a challenging sound category from both a phonological and phonetic perspective and this is especially true for Italian. In this language four different glides can be distinguished based on their position in a syllable (pre or post-vowel), grouped together as either "semi-consonanti" (/j/ and /w/) or "semi-vocali" (/i̯/ and /u̯/). As most studies on Italian glides have utilized acoustic data, there is little information on actual articulatory characteristics. In this paper, we present a detailed kinematic analysis of both consonantal and vocalic gestures involved in the production of one specific glide (/w/) using 3D electro-magnetic articulography (EMA). The findings allow us to distinguish between different theoretical frameworks on the nature of glides and interpret possible changes in their pro-duction in relation to variations in speech rate and position in the syllable

A data-driven analysis of the current debate on the linkages between performance and strategy studies

This paper focuses on how the relations between performance management and measurement (PMM) and strategy are considered by scholars. These relations are crucial in building a comprehensive body of knowledge of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon which attracts scholars pertaining to different management disciplines. The results obtained by adopting quantitative methodologies (descriptive statistics and text-mining analysis) on a sample of articles recently published in the most influential international 'business, and management accounting' journals, contribute to extant literature by providing evidence that several connections exist between key-concepts which are usually considered an exclusive heritage of single management disciplines, such as strategy, organisation, management control, and so forth. For that reason, an integration of competences and methodologies is needed to support further research in the field. We also find evidence suggesting that the organisational perspective should be particularly considered when investigating the relations between strategy, management control systems and PMM