Institutional Herding, Business Groups, and Economic Regimes: Evidence from Japan

To gain new and important insights into institutional herding, we study Japan for the following reasons: we can examine a market that is known for its active institutional investors, we can investigate the impacts of business grouping (i.e., the keiretsu), and we can see if herding and feedback trading behaviors differ under three distinct economic regimes (i.e., a regulated period, a bubble economy, and a bear market). We argue that the culture in Japan causes institutions to have both a long-term focus and close relationships with management. Consistent with the first view, we find that herding in Japan occurs on a lower level than it does in the U.S., and that the subsequent short-run returns to herding seem to be unimportant. Consistent with the second view, we find that when herding does occur, it has a large impact on price movements, and the use of past information (feedback trading) on herding behavior seems only marginally important. Much of these findings are more pronounced for keiretsu firms. Lastly, the effects and behavior of institutional herding is dependent on the economic environment.

Textile and Clothing Safeguards: from the ATC to the Future

The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing established the textile and clothing safeguards regime from 1995 to 2004. The current safeguards regime for these products is defined in terms of the Agreement on Safeguards, the China Textile Safeguards, and the China Product-specific Safeguards. This article examines each of these three current safeguard options and assesses them in terms of a number of relevant dimensions. It also reviews safeguard actions to date to provide a sense of continued managed trade in this area.managed trade, protectionism, safeguards, textiles and clothing, International Relations/Trade,

A Note on Shareholder Oversight and the Regulatory Environment: The Japanese Banking Experience

During a period where Japanese banks operated under a less restrictive regulatory environment, 1986-88, we find positive relationships between bank risk and ownership concentration. This empirical evidence reveals shareholder activism by the largest shareholders. During the periods immediately before and immediately after this particular subperiod, which are characterized by stricter regulatory environments, we do not observe evidence of shareholder activism. Taken together, these results are consistent with the argument that restrictive regulation and shareholder oversight are substitutes for one another. Time-series results and bank performance results yield consistent evidence.Large shareholders, Japanese banks, bank risk, shareholder oversight

Predicted structures of agonist and antagonist bound complexes of adenosine A_3 receptor

We used the GEnSeMBLE Monte Carlo method to predict ensemble of the 20 best packings (helix rotations and tilts) based on the neutral total energy (E) from a vast number (10 trillion) of potential packings for each of the four subtypes of the adenosine G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are involved in many cytoprotective functions. We then used the DarwinDock Monte Carlo methods to predict the binding pose for the human A_3 adenosine receptor (hAA_3R) for subtype selective agonists and antagonists. We found that all four A_3 agonists stabilize the 15th lowest conformation of apo-hAA_3R while also binding strongly to the 1st and 3rd. In contrast the four A_3 antagonists stabilize the 2nd or 3rd lowest conformation. These results show that different ligands can stabilize different GPCR conformations, which will likely affect function, complicating the design of functionally unique ligands. Interestingly all agonists lead to a trans χ1 angle for W6.48 that experiments on other GPCRs associate with G-protein activation while all 20 apo-AA_3R conformations have a W6.48 gauche+ χ1 angle associated experimentally with inactive GPCRs for other systems. Thus docking calculations have identified critical ligand-GPCR structures involved with activation. We found that the predicted binding site for selective agonist Cl-IB-MECA to the predicted structure of hAA_3R shows favorable interactions to three subtype variable residues, I253^(6.58), V169^(EL2), and Q167^(EL2), while the predicted structure for hAA_(2A)R shows weakened to the corresponding amino acids: T256^(6.58), E169^(EL2), and L167^(EL2), explaining the observed subtype selectivity

Detectable HIV Viral Load in Kenya: Data from a Population-Based Survey.

IntroductionAt the individual level, there is clear evidence that Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) transmission can be substantially reduced by lowering viral load. However there are few data describing population-level HIV viremia especially in high-burden settings with substantial under-diagnosis of HIV infection. The 2nd Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey (KAIS 2012) provided a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact of antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage on viremia and to examine the risks for failure to suppress viral replication. We report population-level HIV viral load suppression using data from KAIS 2012.MethodsBetween October 2012 to February 2013, KAIS 2012 surveyed household members, administered questionnaires and drew serum samples to test for HIV and, for those found to be infected with HIV, plasma viral load (PVL) was measured. Our principal outcome was unsuppressed HIV viremia, defined as a PVL ≥ 550 copies/mL. The exposure variables included current treatment with ART, prior history of an HIV diagnosis, and engagement in HIV care. All point estimates were adjusted to account for the KAIS 2012 cluster sampling design and survey non-response.ResultsOverall, 61·2% (95% CI: 56·4-66·1) of HIV-infected Kenyans aged 15-64 years had not achieved virological suppression. The base10 median (interquartile range [IQR]) and mean (95% CI) VL was 4,633 copies/mL (0-51,596) and 81,750 copies/mL (59,366-104,134), respectively. Among 266 persons taking ART, 26.1% (95% CI: 20.0-32.1) had detectable viremia. Non-ART use, younger age, and lack of awareness of HIV status were independently associated with significantly higher odds of detectable viral load. In multivariate analysis for the sub-sample of patients on ART, detectable viremia was independently associated with younger age and sub-optimal adherence to ART.DiscussionThis report adds to the limited data of nationally-representative surveys to report population- level virological suppression. We established heterogeneity across the ten administrative and HIV programmatic regions on levels of detectable viral load. Timely initiation of ART and retention in care are crucial for the elimination of transmission of HIV through sex, needle and syringe use or from mother to child. Further refinement of geospatial mapping of populations with highest risk of transmission is necessary

A frictionless microswimmer

We investigate the self-locomotion of an elongated microswimmer by virtue of the unidirectional tangential surface treadmilling. We show that the propulsion could be almost frictionless, as the microswimmer is propelled forward with the speed of the backward surface motion, i.e. it moves throughout an almost quiescent fluid. We investigate this swimming technique using the special spheroidal coordinates and also find an explicit closed-form optimal solution for a two-dimensional treadmiler via complex-variable techniques.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Suppression of Heating Rates in Cryogenic Surface-Electrode Ion Traps

Dense arrays of trapped ions provide one way of scaling up ion trap quantum information processing. However, miniaturization of ion traps is currently limited by sharply increasing motional state decoherence at sub-100 um ion-electrode distances. We characterize heating rates in cryogenically cooled surface-electrode traps, with characteristic sizes in 75 um to 150 um range. Upon cooling to 6 K, the measured rates are suppressed by 7 orders of magnitude, two orders of magnitude below previously published data of similarly sized traps operated at room temperature. The observed noise depends strongly on fabrication process, which suggests further improvements are possible.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure