Overview of utility-based valuation

We review the utility-based valuation method for pricing derivative securities in incomplete markets. In particular, we review the practical approach to the utility-based pricing by the means of computing the first order expansion of marginal utility-based prices with respect to a small number of random endowments

TEMPORARY CLUSTERS AND KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE: TRADE FAIR EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND ACCESS TO REMOTE KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge is one of the most desirable commodities within any industry. Due to a continually globalizing marketplace, firms seek new venues to access pertinent information that will aid in their success. Significant sources of knowledge for industrial markets can be found in the temporary agglomerations that have been around for years: international trade fairs. The goal of this paper is to explore how firms in the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry use educational programs during trade fairs. Specifically, how firms use these programs to access remote knowledge (i.e. tacit information unavailable in local context) in these temporary, localized environments. Analysis of firm-level survey data gathered at Solar Power International revealed that there is a significant effect of educational program participation on accessing remote knowledge. The results provide evidence that firms participate in trade fair educational programs to access remote knowledge critical to success in the global economy. Moreover, the analyses intimate that firms according high levels of importance for knowledge exchange with customers and competitors also place high levels of importance on educational program attendance. Finally, relationships between the importance of exports, trade fairs as export strategies, and the importance of educational programs are also examined. This study finds that firms whom concentrate on exports were less likely to view educational programs as a beneficial opportunity

Short-term plasticity explains irregular persistent activity in working memory tasks

Persistent activity in cortex is the neural correlate of working memory (WM). In persistent activity, spike trains are highly irregular, even more than in baseline. This seemingly innocuous feature challenges our current understanding of the synaptic mechanisms underlying WM. Here we argue that in WM the prefrontal cortex (PFC) operates in a regime of balanced excitation and inhibition and that the observed temporal irregularity reflects this regime. We show that this requires that nonlinearities underlying the persistent activity are primarily in the neuronal interactions between PFC neurons. We also show that short-term synaptic facilitation can be the physiological substrate of these nonlinearities and that the resulting mechanism of balanced persistent activity is robust, in particular with respect to changes in the connectivity. As an example, we put forward a computational model of the PFC circuit involved in oculomotor delayed response task. The novelty of this model is that recurrent excitatory synapses are facilitating. We demonstrate that this model displays direction-selective persistent activity. We find that, even though the memory eventually degrades because of the heterogeneities, it can be stored for several seconds for plausible network size and connectivity. This model accounts for a large number of experimental findings, such as the findings that have shown that firing is more irregular during the persistent state than during baseline, that the neuronal responses are very diverse, and that the preferred directions during cue and delay periods are strongly correlated but tuning widths are not.Fil: Hansel, David. University Paris Descartes. Laboratory of Neurophysics and Physiology; Francia. University Paris Descartes. Institute of Neuroscience and Cognition; FranciaFil: Mato, German. Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica. Gerencia del Area de Investigaciones y Aplicaciones no Nucleares. Gerencia de Fisica (CAB); Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Proposal for the improvement of the logistic process in the care of vehicles lacked low magnitude, under the PMI approach in an insurer of Bogotá

El presente artículo se enfoca y presenta el modelo principal o propuesta para la atención de siniestros de magnitud leve en una aseguradora de Bogotá, para aquellas compañías que quieran optimizar sus procesos de atención y servicio al cliente mejorando su posicionamiento en el mercado como compañía de calidad. El documento presenta el paso a paso del desarrollo metodológico basado en los lineamientos del PMI, así mismo las estrategias que se implementaran para llevar a cabo la elaboración apropiadamente del procedimiento de atención de siniestros; este a su vez contiene entregables que constituyen la guía a seguir por parte de la aseguradora en el proceso de atención de siniestros leves. Basado en el desarrollo de los lineamientos del PMI se muestra la identificación de las actividades, recomendaciones y pasos que se deben seguir en la atención de siniestros permitiendo que la compañía pueda optimizar sus procesos y mejorar su flujo de caja, este documento se basa en la forma de prestar un excelente servicio con calidad alineado a la satisfacción del cliente. Todas estas pautas están trazadas en los fundamentos teóricos y procedimientos estandarizados por el PMI.This article focuses on and presents the main model or proposal for the care of claims of minor magnitude in an insurance company in Bogotá for those companies that want to optimize their care processes and customer service, improving their position in the market as a quality company. The document presents the step-by-step methodological development based on the guidelines of the PMI, as well as the strategies that would be implemented to carry out the proper preparation of the procedure for handling casualties; This in turn contains deliverables that constitute the guide to be followed by the insurer in the process of attention of minor accidents. Based on the development of the PMI guidelines, the identification of the activities, recommendations and steps that must be followed in claims handling, allowing the company to optimize its processes and improve its cash flow, is based on the Way of providing excellent service with quality aligned to customer satisfaction. All these guidelines are laid out in the theoretical foundations and procedures standardized by the PMI

Digestion of Protein in Premature and Term Infants.

Premature birth rates and premature infant morbidity remain discouragingly high. Improving nourishment for these infants is the key for accelerating their development and decreasing disease risk. Dietary protein is essential for growth and development of infants. Studies on protein nourishment for premature infants have focused on protein requirements for catch-up growth, nitrogen balance, and digestive protease concentrations and activities. However, little is known about the processes and products of protein digestion in the premature infant. This review briefly summarizes the protein requirements of term and preterm infants, and the protein content of milk from women delivering preterm and at term. An in-depth review is presented of the current knowledge of term and preterm infant dietary protein digestion, including human milk protease and anti-protease concentrations; neonatal intestinal pH, and enzyme activities and concentrations; and protein fermentation by intestinal bacteria. The advantages and disadvantages of incomplete protein digestion as well as factors that increase resistance to proteolysis of particular proteins are discussed. In order to better understand protein digestion in preterm and term infants, future studies should examine protein and peptide fragment products of digestion in saliva, gastric, intestinal and fecal samples, as well as the effects of the gut micro biome on protein degradation. The confluence of new mass spectrometry technology and new bioinformatics programs will now allow thorough identification of the array of peptides produced in the infant as they are digested

Co-movements in commodity prices: a note based on network analysis

This paper analyses co-movements in a wide group of commodity prices during the time period 1992-2010. Our methodological approach is based on the correlation matrix and the networks inside. Through this approach we are able to summarize global interaction and interdependence, capturing the existing heterogeneity in the degrees of synchronization between commodity prices. Our results produce two main findings: (a) we do not observe a persistent increase in the degree of co-movement of the commodity prices in our time sample, however from mid-2008 to the end of 2009 co-movements almost doubled when compared with the average correlation; (b) we observe three groups of commodities which have exhibited similar price dynamics (metals, oil and grains and oilseeds) and which have increased their degree of co-movement during the sampled period. These results suggest that speculation and uncertainty are drivers of the sharp slump in commodity prices synchronization.commodity prices, co-movement, hierarchy and topology, networks, complex systems