Friendship Between Banks: An Application of an Actor-Oriented Model of Network Formation on Interbank Credit Relations

This paper investigates the driving forces behind banks' link formation in the interbank market by applying the stochastic actor oriented model (SAOM) developed in sociology. Our data consists of quarterly networks constructed from the transactions on an electronic platform (e-MID) over the period from 2001 to2010. Estimating the model for the time before and after the global financial crisis (GFC), shows relatively similar behavior over the complete period. We find that past trades are a significant predictor of future credit relations which indicates a strong role for the formation of lasting relationships between banks. We also find strong importance of size-related characteristics, but little influence of past interest rates. The major changes found for the period after the onset of the financial crisis are that: (1) large banks and those identified as 'core' intermediaries became even more popular and (2) indirect counterparty risk appears to be more of a concern as indicated by a higher tendency to avoid indirect exposure via clustering effects

Complex Interactions in Financial Markets

All six studies show how complex the interactions on the micro-level (agent, bank, trader group) are and shed some light on how they determine the observed outcomes (price, network) on the macro-level. The two main findings in case of the artificial financial market are: (1) the introduction of a second asset triggers alternating herding behavior of the informed traders. This results from simple profit considerations by the individual agents rather than any form of coordination between them. (2) The FTT `bans' the informed traders already for very small tax rates and in contrast the FAT has almost no effect on them with respect to which market they submit their orders to. On account of this, the FTT is able to reduce the distortions from the fundamental value in the taxed market for very small tax rates, while the FAT is affecting the overall trading process less and therefore an introduction might bear less risk. Interesting future projects for an agent-based financial market could incorporate findings of behavioral finance, like overconfidence, anchoring and adjustment or home bias to observe how such fallacies work together in a market setup. For the banking network, the most important finding is that banks show persistent behavior over the complete sample (including the GFC) and strong preference for continued lending relations. Another interesting finding is that in terms of intermediate relations the high directed clustering coefficient (macro-level) seems not to be preferred by the banks, but emerges unintendedly out of their behavior which is steered by other preferences. However, these are only first steps and it is necessary to look for robust universal results for different banking networks and at the same time overcome the temptation of `nice' findings such as a power-law in the degree distribution which are observed in other disciplines. Moreover, a more profound knowledge of the behavior of banks is needed to finally tackle the task of modelling the financial system and provide reliable policy recommendations. In the investigation of the agricultural commodity markets it is interesting to see that the commodity index traders follow a clear `long only' strategy. They most likely seek to meet the demand of investors who want to include these assets for diversification purposes in their portfolio; a strategy that should make them relatively independent from the developments on these markets. Therefore, it makes sense that they neither systematically affect the price nor react to it. The `typical' trader groups of commercials and non-commercials on the other side also do not influence the price but react to it (in opposing directions). The results for energy commodities and precious metals show that the Money Managers (non-commercials) seem to Granger cause the most extreme price increase in the case of two out of six commodities, namely crude oil and silver. Hence, there is some evidence that excessive speculation might have influenced the prices of commodities. However, the regulators, in my view, should be primarily concerned with the less regulated off exchange trading than with futures markets. In order to add new insights to the existing literature in the future, a more detailed data set would be required

Ovarian and uterine disturbances occured in the puerperium of cows and their relationship with progesterone in the milk

Mediante exames semanais de palpação retal em 72 vacas leiteiras até o 42°dia pós-parto (p.p.) e dosagens de progesterona através do radioimunoensaio (RIE) e do enzimimunoensaio (EIE) até o 72° dia p.p., verificou-se que 9,7% dos animais portavam cistos foliculares, 6,9% tiveram aciclia completa, 6,9% tinham corpo lúteo persistente ou cisto luteínico, 22,2% foram acometidos de endometrite e 6,9% possuíam endometrite associada com cistos foliculares. Os cistos foliculares tiveram lugar, em média, no 29 ± 8,1° dia p.p., ao passo que o primeiro pico de progesterona ocorreu no 56,4 ± 7,8°dia p.p. Casos de cistos luteínicos ou corpo lúteo persistente ocorreram somente após o 42° dia p.p. Manobras obstétricas indevidas por ocasião do parto podem elevar em muito a incidência de endometrite num dado rebanho.Seventy-two dairy cows were submitted to weekly rectal palpation exames until 42nd day post-parturition (p.p.) and progesterone dosages by Radioimmunoassay (RIA) and Enzymimmunoassay (EIA) until the 72nd day p.p., were performed. It was observed that 9.7% of the animals bore follicular cysts, 6.9% were completely acyclic, 6.9% had corpus luteum persistens or luteinic cyst, 22.2% were affected by endometritis and 6.9% had endometritis associated with follicular cysts. Follicular cysts appeared in average on the 29 ± 8.1 day p.p. while the first progesterone peak occurred on the 56.4 ± 7.8 day p.p. Cases of luteinic cysts or corpus luteum persistens appeared only after the 42nd day p.p. Inadequate obstetric manipulations at parturition time could rise very much the endometritis incidence in a given herd

Structure-Function Correlation of the Human Central Retina

The impact of retinal pathology detected by high-resolution imaging on vision remains largely unexplored. Therefore, the aim of the study was to achieve high-resolution structure-function correlation of the human macula in vivo.To obtain high-resolution tomographic and topographic images of the macula spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) and confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (cSLO), respectively, were used. Functional mapping of the macula was obtained by using fundus-controlled microperimetry. Custom software allowed for co-registration of the fundus mapped microperimetry coordinates with both SD-OCT and cSLO datasets. The method was applied in a cross-sectional observational study of retinal diseases and in a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of intravitreal ranibizumab in macular telangietasia type 2. There was a significant relationship between outer retinal thickness and retinal sensitivity (p<0.001) and neurodegeneration leaving less than about 50 µm of parafoveal outer retinal thickness completely abolished light sensitivity. In contrast, functional preservation was found if neurodegeneration spared the photoreceptors, but caused quite extensive disruption of the inner retina. Longitudinal data revealed that small lesions affecting the photoreceptor layer typically precede functional detection but later cause severe loss of light sensitivity. Ranibizumab was shown to be ineffective to prevent such functional loss in macular telangietasia type 2.Since there is a general need for efficient monitoring of the effectiveness of therapy in neurodegenerative diseases of the retina and since SD-OCT imaging is becoming more widely available, surrogate endpoints derived from such structure-function correlation may become highly relevant in future clinical trials

Search for supersymmetry in events with b-quark jets and missing transverse energy in pp collisions at 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for physics beyond the standard model based on events with large missing transverse energy, at least three jets, and at least one, two, or three b-quark jets. The study is performed using a sample of proton-proton collision data collected at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2011. The integrated luminosity of the sample is 4.98 inverse femtobarns. The observed number of events is found to be consistent with the standard model expectation, which is evaluated using control samples in the data. The results are used to constrain cross sections for the production of supersymmetric particles decaying to b-quark-enriched final states in the context of simplified model spectra.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review

Chemoreception Regulates Chemical Access to Mouse Vomeronasal Organ: Role of Solitary Chemosensory Cells

Controlling stimulus access to sensory organs allows animals to optimize sensory reception and prevent damage. The vomeronasal organ (VNO) detects pheromones and other semiochemicals to regulate innate social and sexual behaviors. This semiochemical detection generally requires the VNO to draw in chemical fluids, such as bodily secretions, which are complex in composition and can be contaminated. Little is known about whether and how chemical constituents are monitored to regulate the fluid access to the VNO. Using transgenic mice and immunolabeling, we found that solitary chemosensory cells (SCCs) reside densely at the entrance duct of the VNO. In this region, most of the intraepithelial trigeminal fibers innervate the SCCs, indicating that SCCs relay sensory information onto the trigeminal fibers. These SCCs express transient receptor potential channel M5 (TRPM5) and the phospholipase C (PLC) β2 signaling pathway. Additionally, the SCCs express choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) for synthesizing and packaging acetylcholine, a potential transmitter. In intracellular Ca2+ imaging, the SCCs responded to various chemical stimuli including high concentrations of odorants and bitter compounds. The responses were suppressed significantly by a PLC inhibitor, suggesting involvement of the PLC pathway. Further, we developed a quantitative dye assay to show that the amount of stimulus fluid that entered the VNOs of behaving mice is inversely correlated to the concentration of odorous and bitter substances in the fluid. Genetic knockout and pharmacological inhibition of TRPM5 resulted in larger amounts of bitter compounds entering the VNOs. Our data uncovered that chemoreception of fluid constituents regulates chemical access to the VNO and plays an important role in limiting the access of non-specific irritating and harmful substances. Our results also provide new insight into the emerging role of SCCs in chemoreception and regulation of physiological actions

Population Genetic Differences along a Latitudinal Cline between Original and Recently Colonized Habitat in a Butterfly

BACKGROUND: Past and current range or spatial expansions have important consequences on population genetic structure. Habitat-use expansion, i.e. changing habitat associations, may also influence genetic population parameters, but has been less studied. Here we examined the genetic population structure of a Palaeartic woodland butterfly Pararge aegeria (Nymphalidae) which has recently colonized agricultural landscapes in NW-Europe. Butterflies from woodland and agricultural landscapes differ in several phenotypic traits (including morphology, behavior and life history). We investigated whether phenotypic divergence is accompanied by genetic divergence between populations of different landscapes along a 700 km latitudinal gradient. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Populations (23) along the latitudinal gradient in both landscape types were analyzed using microsatellite and allozyme markers. A general decrease in genetic diversity with latitude was detected, likely due to post-glacial colonization effects. Contrary to expectations, agricultural landscapes were not less diverse and no significant bottlenecks were detected. Nonetheless, a genetic signature of recent colonization is reflected in the absence of clinal genetic differentiation within the agricultural landscape, significantly lower gene flow between agricultural populations (3.494) than between woodland populations (4.183), and significantly higher genetic differentiation between agricultural (0.050) than woodland (0.034) pairwise comparisons, likely due to multiple founder events. Globally, the genetic data suggest multiple long distance dispersal/colonization events and subsequent high intra- and inter-landscape gene flow in this species. Phosphoglucomutase deviated from other enzymes and microsatellite markers, and hence may be under selection along the latitudinal gradient but not between landscape types. Phenotypic divergence was greater than genetic divergence, indicating directional selection on some flight morphology traits. MAIN CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Clinal differentiation characterizes the population structure within the original woodland habitat. Genetic signatures of recent habitat expansion remain, notwithstanding high gene flow. After differentiation through drift was excluded, both latitude and landscape were significant factors inducing spatially variable phenotypic variation

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass