Commentary : has financial development made the world riskier?

Greenspan, Alan ; Financial markets ; Monetary policy ; Banks and banking, Central

Statistical Risk Analyses and Application of ENSO-Based Index Insurance

Specifically, we explore (a) the reliability of the index at different levels of probability of exceedance of maximum seasonal rainfall; (b) the effect of sampling uncertainties and the strength of the proxy\u27s association to local outcome, (c) the potential for clustering of payoffs; (d) the potential that the index could be predicted with some lead time prior to the flood season; and (e) evidence for climate change or non-stationarity in the flood exceedance probability from the long ENSO record

Upper limb activity in myoelectric prosthesis users is biased towards the intact limb and appears unrelated to goal-directed task performance

Studies of the effectiveness of prosthetic hands involve assessing user performance on functional tasks in the lab/clinic, sometimes combined with self-report of real-world use. In this paper we compare real-world upper limb activity between a group of 20 myoelectric prosthesis users and 20 anatomically intact adults. Activity was measured from wrist-worn accelerometers over a 7-day period. The temporal patterns in upper limb activity are presented and the balance of activity between the two limbs quantified. We also evaluated the prosthesis users’ performance on a goal-directed task, characterised using measures including task success rate, completion time, gaze behaviour patterns, and kinematics (e.g. variability and patterns in hand aperture). Prosthesis users were heavily reliant on their intact limb during everyday life, in contrast to anatomically intact adults who demonstrated similar reliance on both upper limbs. There was no significant correlation between the amount of time a prosthesis was worn and reliance on the intact limb, and there was no significant correlation between either of these measures and any of the assessed kinematic and gaze-related measures of performance. We found participants who had been prescribed a prosthesis for longer to demonstrate more symmetry in their overall upper limb activity, although this was not reflected in the symmetry of unilateral limb use. With the exception of previously published case studies, this is the first report of real world upper limb activity in myoelectric prosthesis users and confirms the widely held belief that users are heavily reliant on their intact limb

Effects of Panicum miliaceum L. extract on adipogenic transcription factors and fatty acid accumulation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes

The dietary intake of whole grains is known to reduce the incidence of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. To investigate whether there are anti-adipogenic activities in various Korean cereals, we assessed water extracts of nine cereals. The results showed that treatment of 3T3-L1 adipocytes with Sorghum bicolor L. Moench, Setaria italica Beauvois, or Panicum miliaceum L. extract significantly inhibited adipocyte differentiation, as determined by measuring oil red-O staining, triglyceride accumulation, and glycerol 3-phosphate dehydrogenase activity. Among the nine cereals, P. miliaceum L. showed the highest anti-adipogenic activity. The effects of P. miliaceum L. on mRNA expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ, sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1, and the CCAAT/enhancer binding protein-α were evaluated, revealing that the extract significantly decreased the expression of these genes in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, P. miliaceum L. extract changed the ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids in adipocytes, which is related to biological activity and cell characteristics. These results suggest that some cereals efficiently suppress adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. In particular, the effect of P. miliaceum L. on adipocyte differentiation is associated with the downregulation of adipogenic genes and fatty acid accumulation in adipocytes

借影视作品看新加坡华人特权 ：以梁志强的电影为例 = Analysis of Chinese privilege through films : a study of Jack Neo films

本文以新加坡导演梁志强的电影作品为研究对象，探讨新加坡社会中的“华人特权”，并且了解这些“特权”或“优势”在不同语境下的呈现方式。借着《新兵正传1》与《新兵正传2》我们看到在特定的语境下，能掌握华语、福建话以及马来语所带来的优势是归属感与话语权，而处于优势外的人则遭他者化。另外，非华族角色在电影中被丑化成滑稽愚蠢，却未被大众意识，也是优势的一种体现。本文也通过《我们的故事之沉默的年代》、《小孩不笨1》与《小孩不笨2》从华文华语的被牺牲到现今的再次被重视，理解为何华文是一种“华人优势”但不是“特权”。This paper mainly discusses the concept of “Chinese Privilege” in Singapore, and how these “privilege” or “advantage” display in different context, with the study of films directed by Singapore director, Jack Neo. Through “Ah Boys to Men 1” and “Ah Boys to Men 2”, we have observed that in specific context, the advantage of mastering Mandarin, Hokkien and Malay is sense of belonging and speaking rights, while those outside of the advantage is otherisation. Also, the blindness to non-Chinese characters being portrayed into comical stupidity in the film is also a display of “advantage”. In addition, through the sacrifice of Mandarin to the current importance of Mandarin displayed in “The Diam Diam Era”, “I Not Stupid 1” and “I Not Stupid Too”, we have come to understand why Mandarin is a form of “Chinese Advantage” but not a “privilege”.Bachelor of Arts in Chines

Children's divergent thinking and bilingualism

Most children in the world grow up bilingual, and bilingualism has been linked to a range of both linguistic and other cognitive skills. One such skill is creativity, which is thought could be increased in bilinguals due to enhanced executive functions or more diverse cultural experiences. However, extant literature with children has produced mixed results, perhaps due to methodological limitations. In this study, bilingual and monolingual children (N = 111, 60% bilingual) sampled from the same British schools completed three measures of divergent thinking, alongside measures of nonverbal intelligence, vocabulary, and exposure to English. No differences were found between monolingual and bilingual children across any of the divergent thinking tasks or measures, either before or after controlling for possible confounds, and effect sizes were negligible to small. This well-powered, pre-registered study provides no evidence for a bilingual advantage in the divergent thinking component of creativity amongst children, suggesting that previous mixed results may have been due to a high prevalence of false positives. Thus, while bilingualism has many benefits for children, divergent thinking is not one of them