The Subtlety of Political Risk with Foreign Direct Investment: The Case of the Vietnamese Sugar Industry

Political risk entails more than a host country taking advantage of investment from foreign sources. A more subtle form of political risk is attributable to the host government\u27s mismanagement of policies that may be intended to attract foreign direct investment, but may have unintended consequences. A perfect example is the \u27\u27One Million Tonne Sugar Program sponsored by the government of Vietnam during the mid-1990s. What appears to be a very lucrative investment for foreign investors becomes a financial disaster due to the inability of the government to allocate resources efficiently and police its borders from smugglers

Role resources and work-family enrichment: The role of work engagement

The majority of work-family research has focused on negative spillover between demands and outcomes and between the work and family domains (e.g., work-family conflict; see review by Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005). The theory that guided this research was in most cases role stress theory (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985) or the role scarcity hypothesis (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). However, according to spillover theory, work-related activities and satisfaction also affect non-work performance, and vice versa. Recently, in line with the positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), work-family interaction research has also included concepts of positive spillover (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). This emerging focus supplements the dominant conflict perspective by identifying new ways of cultivating human resource strength

Morphological variability in and distributional data on Phaleria bimaculata populations from islands of the Central Mediterranean area

This study aimed to collect new taxonomic and distribution data on Phaleria bimaculata (L.) (Coleoptera Tenebrionidae) from Sicily (southern Italy), the circum-Sicilian islands and the Maltese archipelago. Particular attention was paid to the diagnostic morphological features observed in the populations sampled, focusing on the subspecies Phaleria bimaculata marcuzzii Aliquò. P. bimaculata individuals were collected from 20 different locations, of which 2 were located in the Sicilian mainland, 9 in circum-Sicilian islands and 9 in the Maltese Islands. In addition, four Phaleria acuminata Kuster populations were also recorded along southern Sicilian shores. The two Phaleria species were never recorded in sympatry within the current study. Geometric morphometrics were deployed to quantify and analyze the intra-specific differentiation in the shape of two external anatomical structures, i.e. the pronotum and the elytra. The elytra of the individuals from the Aeolian island of Vulcano, locus typicus of the ssp. marcuzzii, were more elongated and elliptical in comparison to the Maltese and the Sicilian individuals, underscoring the degree of genetic differentiation within different populations of the species.peer-reviewe

Option pricing and perfect hedging on correlated stocks

We develop a theory for option pricing with perfect hedging in an inefficient market model where the underlying price variations are autocorrelated over a time tau. This is accomplished by assuming that the underlying noise in the system is derived by an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck, rather than from a Wiener process. With a modified portfolio consisting in calls, secondary calls and bonds we achieve a riskless strategy which results in a closed expression for the European call price which is always lower than Black-Scholes price. We also obtain a partial differential equation for the option price and study the sensitivity to several parameters and the risk of the dynamics of the call price.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Effects of a cognitive behavioral self-help program and a computerized structured writing intervention on depressed mood for HIV-infected people:A pilot randomized controlled trial

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine whether low-resource, cost-effective intervention programs can be effective in improving depressed mood in people with HIV. The efficacy of a cognitive-behavioral self-help program (CBS) and a computerized structured writing intervention (SWI) were tested in a pilot randomized controlled trial. Methods: Participants were members of a patient organization. They completed a pretest and posttest. The questionnaire included the HADS. Participants were randomly allocated to CBS (n=24), SWI (n=25) or a waiting list condition (WLC, n=24). To evaluate changes in the continuous outcome measure, a 3 × 2 (group × time) repeated measures ANCOVA was performed. Also, an ANCOVA was performed using change scores. Results: Respondents who followed the CBS improved significantly compared to the WLC. However, for people in the SWI condition no significant improvement on depression was found. Conclusion: This pilot study suggests that a low-resource, cost-effective CBS program seems to be effective in reducing depressed mood in people living with HIV. Practice implications: Because self-help programs can be delivered through regular mail or the internet, a high number of people could be reached while overcoming geographical and social barriers to treatment. © 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

A quiescent galaxy at the position of the long GRB 050219A

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) are produced by the collapse of very massive stars. Due to the short lifetime of their progenitors, LGRBs pinpoint star-forming galaxies. We present here a multi-band search for the host galaxy of the long dark GRB 050219A within the enhanced Swift/XRT error circle. We used spectroscopic observations acquired with VLT/X-shooter to determine the redshift and star-formation rate of the putative host galaxy. We compared the results with the optical/IR spectral energy distribution obtained with different facilities. Surprisingly, the host galaxy is a old and quiescent early-type galaxy at z = 0.211 characterised by an unprecedentedly low specific star-formation rate. It is the first LGRB host to be also an early-type post-starburst galaxy. This is further evidence that GRBs can explode in all kind of galaxies, with the only requirement being an episode of star-formation.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Long-Term Toxicities among Wilms Tumor Survivors

Successive trials conducted by the National Wilms Tumor Study have resulted in very high cure rates for children with Wilms tumor (WT). These trials have also significantly reduced the indications for doxorubicin and higher doses of RT in WT. Late toxicities after multimodality treatment especially RT, continues to be a major problem among WT survivors. Higher doses of RT is the most important factor responsible for the many late effects including congestive heart failure, secondary malignant neoplasms, hypogonadism, infertility and pregnancy complications, pulmonary disease, musculoskeletal effects, renal failure and diabetes mellitus. The potential for novel RT techniques like IMRT and proton therapy to reduce the incidence of these toxicities is discussed. The surveillance recommendations for WT survivors are mainly derived from the COG long-term follow-up guidelines. The future directions in late effects research include novel research to improve current knowledge of association between RT doses to target organs and late effects, discovery of novel biomarkers, and identification of predictive genetic biomarkers. Despite all these advances, there are significant challenges facing the global health care community that need to be overcome before the benefits of these innovations in late effects research can be translated to individual cancer survivors

Pegylated derivatives of recombinant human arginase (rhArg1) for sustained in vivo activity in cancer therapy: preparation, characterization and analysis of their pharmacodynamics in vivo and in vitro and action upon hepatocellular carcinoma cell (HCC)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein used in medicine, e.g. interferon, are immunogenic and quickly broken down by the body. Pegylation is a recognized way of preserving their integrity and reducing immune reactions, and works well with enzymes used to degrade amino acids, a recent focus of attention in controlling cancer growth. Of the two arginine-degrading enzymes being explored clinically, arginine deiminase is a decidedly foreign mycoplasm-derived enzyme, whereas human arginase 1 is a native liver enzyme. Both have been pegylated, the former with adjuncts of 20 kD, the latter with 5 kD PEG. Pegylation is done by several different methods, not all of which are satisfactory or desirable.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The preparation of novel polyethylene glycol (PEG) derivatives for modifying proteins is described, but directed specifically at pegylation of recombinant human arginase 1 (rhArg1). rhArg1 expressed in <it>Escherichia coli </it>was purified and coupled in various ways with 5 different PEG molecules to compare their protective properties and the residual enzyme activity, using hepatocellular cell lines both in vitro and in vivo.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Methoxypolyethylene glycol-succinimidyl propionate (mPEG-SPA 5,000) coupled with very high affinity under mild conditions. The resulting pegylated enzyme (rhArg1-peg_{5,000 mw}) had up to 6 PEG chains of 5K length which not only protected it from degradation and any residual immunogenicity, but most importantly let it retain >90% of its native catalytic activity. It remained efficacious in depleting arginine in rats after a single ip injection of 1,500 U of the conjugate as the native enzyme, plasma arginine falling to >0.05 μM from ~170 μM within 20 min and lasting 6 days. The conjugate had almost the same efficacy as unpegylated rhArg1 on 2 cultured human liver cancer (HCC) cell lines. It was considerably more effective than 4 other pegylated conjugates prepared.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Valuable data on the optimization of the pegylation procedure and choice of ligand that best stabilizes the enzyme arginase 1 are presented, a protocol that should equally fit many other enzymes and proteins. It is a long lasting arginine-depleting enzyme in vivo which will greatly improve its use in anti-cancer therapy.</p

Z2Z_2 as the Topological Origin of B+L Violation in the Hot Electroweak Theory

The space of static finite-energy configurations in the electroweak theory admits a $Z_2$ topological structure. More precisely, we show that this space contains two disconnected sectors of unstable gauge-Higgs fields odd under a properly defined generalized parity. This classification extends the description of baryon and lepton number violating electroweak processes to the symmetric phase of the theory. Configurations with odd pure-gauge behaviour at spatial infinity, such as the sphaleron, multisphalerons, electroweak strings as well as an infinite surface of their equivalents, have half-integer Chern-Simons number and mediate B+L violating processes in the early universe. Finite-energy configurations with even pure-gauge behaviour, such as the $S^*$ new sphaleron and electroweak strings, are topologically equivalent to the vacuum and are irrelevant for B+L violation. We discuss the possible formation of B+L violating quark-lepton condensates in the symmetric high-temperature phase of the electroweak theory.Comment: LaTeX, 30 pages, 4 encapsulated postscript figures (included, uuencoded), uses epsf.tex. Title/references modified, minor stylistic change