An analysis of the federal securities act of 1933.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

Disentangling causal webs in the brain using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A review of current approaches

In the past two decades, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging has been used to relate neuronal network activity to cognitive processing and behaviour. Recently this approach has been augmented by algorithms that allow us to infer causal links between component populations of neuronal networks. Multiple inference procedures have been proposed to approach this research question but so far, each method has limitations when it comes to establishing whole-brain connectivity patterns. In this work, we discuss eight ways to infer causality in fMRI research: Bayesian Nets, Dynamical Causal Modelling, Granger Causality, Likelihood Ratios, LiNGAM, Patel's Tau, Structural Equation Modelling, and Transfer Entropy. We finish with formulating some recommendations for the future directions in this area

Application of the focused beam reflectance measurement method (FBRM) to the characterization of plant cells in suspension culture

The ability to determine biomass levels and organism morphological characteristics is of importance in many bioprocesses

Affective commitment within the public sector: Antecedents and performance outcomes between ownership types

How to generate affective commitment and realize its performance potential is deemed critical to public management. But in the context of service outsourcing, does ownership type influence its antecedents and performance outcomes? Drawing on postal survey data for English leisure providers, we find training is an antecedent across public and private ownership types; performance appraisal is an antecedent for private ownership only; while performance-related pay carries an insignificant effect. Affective commitment holds business and customer performance outcomes for public ownership, but insignificant effects are observed for external ownership types. Implications of this contextual variation for public management theory are discussed

The process of identity change following ABI from the perspectives of adolescents and their mothers: A relational grounded theory approach

This study explored the process of identity adjustment following adolescent brain injury, within the systemic context of the parent–adolescent dyad. Six young people with an ABI (mean age 16.5 years, range 15–18 years; TBI: n = 3) were individually interviewed, and six respective mothers (mean age 45 years, range 37–50 years). A novel relational qualitative grounded theory approach was used, with analyses of dyads linked in an attempt to capture the shared process of adaptation post-injury for young people and their parents. Shared themes emerged for adolescents and mothers regarding “continuity and change” and “acknowledging or rejecting” experiences of change post injury. Adolescents experienced change as an, at times, distressing sense of being “not normal”. While mothers turned towards their child, working hard to try to “fix everything”, adolescents sought continuity of identity in the context of peer relationships, withdrawing socially to avoid feeling abnormal, reframing or finding new relationships. Some mothers sought to fill social losses through family or disability-specific activity. This study provides a relational understanding of the process of identity adjustment post adolescent BI. Future research and clinical practice should recognize the significant work of mothers, and significance of social relationships to adolescents’ emerging post-injury identity

Tiered trees, weights, and q-Eulerian numbers

Maxmin trees are labeled trees with the property that each vertex is either a local maximum or a local minimum. Such trees were originally introduced by Postnikov [12], who gave a formula to count them and different combinatorial interpretations for their number. In this paper we generalize this construction and define tiered trees by allowing more than two classes of vertices. Tiered trees arise naturally when counting the absolutely indecomposable representations of certain quivers, and also when one enumerates torus orbits on certain homogeneous varieties. We define a notion of weight for tiered trees and prove bijections between various weight 0 tiered trees and other combinatorial objects; in particular order n weight 0 maxmin trees are naturally in bijection with permutations on n−1 letters. We conclude by using our weight function to define a new q-analogue of the Eulerian numbers

Identification of an age-dependent biomarker signature in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are neurodevelopmental conditions with symptoms manifesting before the age of 3, generally persisting throughout life and affecting social development and com

Cardiomyocyte BRAF and type 1 RAF inhibitors promote cardiomyocyte and cardiac hypertrophy in mice in vivo

The extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) cascade promotes cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and is cardioprotective, with the three RAF kinases forming a node for signal integration. Our aims were to determine if BRAF is relevant for human heart failure, whether BRAF promotes cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, and if Type 1 RAF inhibitors developed for cancer (that paradoxically activate ERK1/2 at low concentrations: the “RAF paradox”) may have the same effect. BRAF was upregulated in heart samples from patients with heart failure compared with normal controls. We assessed the effects of activated BRAF in the heart using mice with tamoxifen-activated Cre for cardiomyocyte-specific knock-in of the activating V600E mutation into the endogenous gene. We used echocardiography to measure cardiac dimensions/function. Cardiomyocyte BRAFV600E induced cardiac hypertrophy within 10 d, resulting in increased ejection fraction and fractional shortening over 6 weeks. This was associated with increased cardiomyocyte size without significant fibrosis, consistent with compensated hypertrophy. The experimental Type 1 RAF inhibitor, SB590885, and/or encorafenib (a RAF inhibitor used clinically) increased ERK1/2 phosphorylation in cardiomyocytes, and promoted hypertrophy, consistent with a “RAF paradox” effect. Both promoted cardiac hypertrophy in mouse hearts in vivo, with increased cardiomyocyte size and no overt fibrosis. In conclusion, BRAF potentially plays an important role in human failing hearts, activation of BRAF is sufficient to induce hypertrophy, and Type 1 RAF inhibitors promote hypertrophy via the “RAF paradox”. Cardiac hypertrophy resulting from these interventions was not associated with pathological features, suggesting that Type 1 RAF inhibitors may be useful to boost cardiomyocyte function