Flippers in housing market search

Session - HousingWe add flippers-specialist investors who attempt to profit from buying low and selling high to a canonical housing market search model. These agents facilitate the turnover of mismatched houses on behalf of end-users and they may survive even if they face an arbitrarily large cost of financing vis-a-vis ordinary households. Multiple equilibrium may exist. In one equilibrium, most, if not all, transactions are intermediated by flippers, resulting in rapid turnover, a high vacancy rate, and high housing prices. In another equilibrium, few houses are bought and sold by these agents. Turnover is sluggish, few houses are vacant, and prices are moderate. When flippers face a lower cost of financing, their presence can, rather unexpectedly, decline. There may then be lower, not higher, housing prices to follow an interest rate decline.postprin

Investors in Housing Market Search

We add specialist investors–agents who attempt to profit from buying low and selling high–to a canonical housing market search model. These agents facilitate the turnover of mismatched houses on behalf of end-users and they may survive even if they face an arbitrarily large cost of financing vis-a-vis ordinary households. Multiple equilibrium may exist. In one equilibrium, the participation of investors is extensive, resulting in rapid turnover, a high vacancy rate, and high housing prices. In another equilibrium, few houses are bought and sold by investors. Turnover is sluggish, few houses are vacant, and prices are moderate. A decline in the rate at which investors finance investment, can rather paradoxically, lower investors participation and housing prices in equilibrium.postprin

Increasing wealth and increasing instability: The role of collateral

In development economics, growth in credit is generally associated with faster long-run growth as financial intermediation improves the efficiency of channeling capital to productive investment. Yet, among developing countries high growth in credit almost always guarantees the outbreak of a financial crisis. The authors attempt to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory facts with an endogenous growth model in which entry to international borrowing entails some significant fixed cost. The poorest countries are excluded from international borrowing because of the fixed cost. The higher-income developing countries will find it optimal to sink the fixed cost to borrow internationally, growing faster as a result, but also become prone to fluctuations arising from shocks to the international financial market.preprin

Matching of complex patterns by energy minimization

Two patterns are matched by putting one on top of the other and iteratively moving their individual parts until most of their corresponding parts are aligned. An energy function and a neighborhood of influence are defined for each iteration. Initially, a large neighborhood is used such that the movements result in global features being coarsely aligned. The neighborhood size is gradually reduced in successive iterations so that finer and finer details are aligned. Encouraging results have been obtained when applied to match complex Chinese characters. It has been observed that computation increases with the square of the number of moving parts which is quite favorable compared with other algorithms. The method was applied to the recognition of handwritten Chinese characters. After performing the iterative matching, a set of similarity measures are used to measure the similarity in topological features between the input and template characters. An overall recognition rate of 96.1% is achieved. © 1998 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Effects of qigong training on physical and psychosocial well-being of breast cancer survivors: a systematic review

published_or_final_versio

Dosimetric evaluation of the interplay between LINAC movement and tumor motion in respiratory gated VMAT of lung cancer

This journal suppl. entitled: Proceedings of the American Society for Radiation Oncology 54th Annual MeetingConference Theme: Advancing Patient Care Through InnovationPURPOSE/OBJECTIVE(s): Respiratory gated radiation therapy of lung cancer helps to minimize the treated volume and hence treatment side effects. VMAT can reduce the treatment time while producing a highly conformed dose distribution. However, in gated VMAT delivery, the interplay effect between the LINAC movement (MLC and gantry) and tumor motion may result in undesirable hot and cold spots jeopardizing tumor coverage. In this study we investigated the possible dosimetric errors caused by the interplay between the tumor motion and the LINAC movement for gated VMAT lung cancer treatment. MATERIALS/METHODS: We studied 2 …published_or_final_versio

Analysis of switching dc-dc converters using a grid-point approach

Author name used in this publication: P. K. S. TamAuthor name used in this publication: F. H. F. LeungVersion of RecordPublishe

High-Performance Pentacene Thin-Film Transistor With High-κ HfLaON as Gate Dielectric

published_or_final_versio

High-mobility pentacene OTFT with TaLaO gate dielectric passivated by fluorine plasma

Pentacene thin-film transistor with high-κ TaLaO as gate dielectric has been fabricated and shows a carrier mobility of 0.73 cm2/V s, much higher than that based on pure La2O3 (0.43 cm2/V s) due to the smoother surface of the TaLaO film and thus larger pentacene islands grown on it in the initial stage. Moreover, among various times for fluorine-plasma treatment on the TaLaO gate dielectric, 100 seconds result in the highest carrier mobility of 1.12 cm2/V s due to (1) smoothest oxide surface achieved by fluorine passivation of oxide traps, as measured by AFM and supported by smallest sub-threshold swing and lowest low-frequency noise; (2) the largest pentacene grains grown on the smoothest oxide surface, as demonstrated by AFM. Pentacene islands on on TaLaO or La2O3 gate dielectric with different plasma treatment times.postprin

E2F1 Downregulation by Arsenic Trioxide in Lung Adenocarcinoma

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Arsenic trioxide (ATO) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia. Nonetheless preliminary data have suggested potential activity of ATO in solid tumors including lung cancer. This study aimed to examine the underlying mechanisms of ATO in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma. Using a panel of 7 lung adenocarcinoma cell lines, the effects of ATO treatment on cell viability, expression of E2F1 and its downstream targets, phosphatidylserine externalization, mitochondrial membrane depolarization and alteration of apoptotic/anti-apoptotic factors were studied. Tumor growth inhibition in vivo was investigated using a nude mouse xenograft model. ATO decreased cell viability with clinically achievable concentrations (8 uM) in all cell lines investigated. This was accompanied by reduced expression of E2F1, cyclin A2, skp2, c-myc, thymidine kinase and ribonucleotide reductase M1, while p-c-Jun was upregulated. Cell viability was significantly decreased with E2F1 knockdown. Treatment with ATO resulted in phosphatidylserine externalization in H23 cells and mitochondrial membrane depolarization in all cell lines, associated with truncation of Bid, downregulation of Bcl-2, upregulation of Bax and Bak, caspase-9 and caspase-3 activation and PARP cleavage. Using a H358 xenograft model, the tumor growth was suppressed in the ATO treatment group during 8 days of treatment, associated with downregulation of E2F1 and upregulation of truncated Bid and cleaved caspase-3. In conclusion, ATO has potent in vitro and in vivo activity in lung adenocarcinoma, partially mediated through E2F1 downregulation and apoptosis.published_or_final_versio