Value Discount of Business Groups Surrounding the Asia Financial Crisis: Evidence from Korean Chaebols

Asian Financial Crisis, Business Group, Chaebol, Diversification, Firm Value

Higher-order Neural Additive Models: An Interpretable Machine Learning Model with Feature Interactions

Black-box models, such as deep neural networks, exhibit superior predictive performances, but understanding their behavior is notoriously difficult. Many explainable artificial intelligence methods have been proposed to reveal the decision-making processes of black box models. However, their applications in high-stakes domains remain limited. Recently proposed neural additive models (NAM) have achieved state-of-the-art interpretable machine learning. NAM can provide straightforward interpretations with slight performance sacrifices compared with multi-layer perceptron. However, NAM can only model 1$^{\text{st}}$-order feature interactions; thus, it cannot capture the co-relationships between input features. To overcome this problem, we propose a novel interpretable machine learning method called higher-order neural additive models (HONAM) and a feature interaction method for high interpretability. HONAM can model arbitrary orders of feature interactions. Therefore, it can provide the high predictive performance and interpretability that high-stakes domains need. In addition, we propose a novel hidden unit to effectively learn sharp-shape functions. We conducted experiments using various real-world datasets to examine the effectiveness of HONAM. Furthermore, we demonstrate that HONAM can achieve fair AI with a slight performance sacrifice. The source code for HONAM is publicly available

선박 검사원 처벌주의 입법의 정당성에 관한 탐색적 고찰 [translation: Exploratory Research on the Legitimacy of the Legislation Tilting toward Punishing an Individual Ship Surveyor]

Ship inspection does not guarantee the safety and seaworthiness of ships as the results of the inspection, and the act features a collective evaluation. However, since the Sewol accident, the possibility of criminal punishment for individual ship surveyors has drastically increased, and the problem has deepened. This is a very unusual phenomenon that contradicts the concept, characteristics and nature of ship inspection. To the contrary, in foreign countries, protectionist legislation is found that exempts ship surveyors, who performed the inspection in good faith, from any liability. The current Ship Safety Act stipulates government accountability, but the responsibility of the inspection rests with the natural persons of civil society. This is not only against the public interest of ship inspection, but also causes the rigidity of ship inspection. In the present era, the ship surveyors, natural persons, are placed in a blind spot away from any protection. This paper aims at presenting this problem

Synergistic effect of Indium and Gallium co-doping on growth behavior and physical properties of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods

We synthesized ZnO nanorods (NRs) using simple hydrothermal method, with the simultaneous incorporation of gallium (Ga) and indium (In), in addition, investigated the co-doping effect on the morphology, microstructure, electronic structure, and electrical/optical properties. The growth behavior of the doped NRs was affected by the nuclei density and polarity of the (001) plane. The c-axis parameter of the co-doped NRs was similar to that of undoped NRs due to the compensated lattice distortion caused by the presence of dopants that are both larger (In3+) and smaller (Ga3+) than the host Zn2+ cations. Red shifts in the ultraviolet emission peaks were observed in all doped NRs, owing to the combined effects of NR size, band gap renormalization, and the presence of stacking faults created by the dopant-induced lattice distortions. In addition, the NR/p-GaN diodes using co-doped NRs exhibited superior electrical conductivity compared to the other specimens due to the increase in the charge carrier density of NRs and the relatively large effective contact area of (001) planes. The simultaneous doping of In and Ga is therefore anticipated to provide a broader range of optical, physical, and electrical properties of ZnO NRs for a variety of opto-electronic applications

Effects of Acupuncture, Electroacupuncture, and Electrostimulation Treatments on Plantaris by Casting Model

It is essential to seek the therapeutic strategy for attenuating muscle atrophy because muscle atrophy diminishes the quality of life. Acupuncture and electrostimulation have been used as a therapeutic intervention to control pain under pathological conditions. However, little is known about the effects of acupuncture and electrostimulation on skeletal muscle mass and function. PURPOSE: To test whether acupuncture, electroacupuncture, and electrostimulation affect muscle mass and contractile properties METHODS: Forty female Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: 1) Control (CON), 2) Cast (CT), 3) CT+ Acupuncture (AC), 4) CT+ Electroacupuncture (EA), and 5) CT+ Electrostimulation (ES) (n=8 each). The plaster casting material was wrapped from the trunk to the middle of one hind paw. Acupuncture and Electro-Acupuncture treatment (2-15 Hz, 2-4 Voltage) was applied by needling ST36 and GB34 (acupoints). Electrostimulation (2-15 Hz, 2-4 Voltage) was conducted by needling in the lateral and medial Gastrocnemius. All treatments were conducted 15 minutes with 3 times/wk for 14 days. Two major atrophy markers, muscle-specific E3 ubiquitin ligases, MAFbx/atrogin1 and muscle ring Finger -1 (MuRF1), were measured using the Western blot method. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA with the Least Significant Difference post hoc test. RESULTS: After 2 weeks of casting, plantaris showed significant atrophy in CT compared to the CON group (143.94±13.08 vs. 223.9±20.93 mg; p\u3c0.05). MAFbx/atrogin1 and MuRF1 were significantly increased with CT, while decreased with treatments (AC, EA, and ES). The peak twitch tension was significantly decreased in CT, while increased in AC and ES. However, AC, EA, ES did not alleviate muscle atrophy associated with casting. CONCLUSION: Acupuncture and electrostimulation can be used as effective therapeutic interventions for decreased muscle strength that is associated with casting-induced muscle atrophy

Beclin 1 functions as a negative modulator of MLKL oligomerisation by integrating into the necrosome complex

Necroptosis is a form of regulated cell death caused by formation of the necrosome complex. However, the factors modulating this process and the systemic pathophysiological effects of necroptosis are yet to be understood. Here, we identified that Beclin 1 functions as an anti-necroptosis factor by being recruited into the necrosome complex upon treatment with TNF alpha, Smac mimetic, and pan-caspase inhibitor and by repressing MLKL oligomerisation, thus preventing the disruption of the plasma membrane. Cells ablated or knocked-out for Beclin 1 become sensitised to necroptosis in an autophagy-independent manner without affecting the necrosome formation itself. Interestingly, the recruitment of Beclin 1 into the necrosome complex is dependent on the activation and phosphorylation of MLKL. Biochemically, the coiled-coil domain (CCD) of Beclin 1 binds to the CCD of MLKL, which restrains the oligomerisation of phosphorylated MLKL. Finally, Beclin 1 depletion was found to promote necroptosis in leukaemia cells and enhance regression of xenografted-tumour upon treatment with Smac mimetics and caspase inhibitors. These results suggest that Beclin 1 functions as a negative regulator in the execution of necroptosis by suppressing MLKL oligomerisation

Atomic-scale Electronic Structure of the Cuprate Pair Density Wave State Coexisting with Superconductivity

The defining characteristic of hole-doped cuprates is $d$-wave high temperature superconductivity. However, intense theoretical interest is now focused on whether a pair density wave state (PDW) could coexist with cuprate superconductivity (D. F. Agterberg et al., Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics 11, 231 (2020)). Here, we use a strong-coupling mean-field theory of cuprates, to model the atomic-scale electronic structure of an eight-unit-cell periodic, $d$-symmetry form factor, pair density wave (PDW) state coexisting with $d$-wave superconductivity (DSC). From this PDW+DSC model, the atomically-resolved density of Bogoliubov quasiparticle states N(r,E) is predicted at the terminal BiO surface of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_8$ and compared with high-precision electronic visualization experiments using spectroscopic imaging STM. The PDW+DSC model predictions include the intra-unit-cell structure and periodic modulations of N(r,E), the modulations of the coherence peak energy $\Delta_p$ (r), and the characteristics of Bogoliubov quasiparticle interference in scattering-wavevector space (q-space). Consistency between all these predictions and the corresponding experiments indicates that lightly hole-doped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_8$ does contain a PDW+DSC state. Moreover, in the model the PDW+DSC state becomes unstable to a pure DSC state at a critical hole density p*, with empirically equivalent phenomena occurring in the experiments. All these results are consistent with a picture in which the cuprate translational symmetry breaking state is a PDW, the observed charge modulations are its consequence, the antinodal pseudogap is that of the PDW state, and the cuprate critical point at p* ~ 19% occurs due to disappearance of this PDW