965 research outputs found
Initial public offerings (IPOs): The Spanish experience
This study examines the Spanish IPOs and possible links between a firm's characteristics and the degree of mispricing. The results are consistent with those of similar studies in other countries. Data reveal that the price adjustment process of Spanish IPOs needed, on average, a longer period of time. This study provides evidence that IPOs in the Spanish market have experienced, on average, an underpricing of 11%. In addition, it is possible to reduce the degree of underpricing by selecting the optimum timing, correct underwriter, and type of placement. Handsome returns may be earned by investing in new issues, but liquidating holdings in the first 90 days after the first market price. Our results reveal a low level of efficiency for the Spanish IPO markets over the period of 1986-90.Public offerings;
DutchHatTrick: semantic query modeling, ConText, section detection, and match score maximization
This report discusses the collaborative work of the ErasmusMC, University of Twente, and the University of Amsterdam on the TREC 2011 Medical track. Here, the task is to retrieve patient visits from the University of Pittsburgh NLP Repository for 35 topics. The repository consists of 101,711 patient reports, and a patient visit was recorded in one or more reports
A Single-Stage Approach to Anscombe and Aumann's Expected Utility
expected utility theory;decision analysis;revealed preference
Variations in amenable mortality--trends in 16 high-income nations.
BACKGROUND: There has been growing interest in the comparison of health system performance within and between countries, using a range of different indicators. This study examines trends in amenable mortality, as one measure of health system performance, in sixteen high-income countries. METHODS: Amenable mortality was defined as premature death from causes that should not occur in the presence of timely and effective health care. We analysed age-standardised rates of amenable mortality under age 75 in 16 countries for 1997/1998 and 2006/2007. RESULTS: Amenable mortality remains an important contributor to premature mortality in 16 high-income countries, accounting for 24% of deaths under age 75. Between 1997/1998 and 2006/2007, amenable mortality fell by between 20.5% in the US and 42.1% in Ireland (average decline: 31%). In 2007, amenable mortality in the US was almost twice that in France, which had the lowest levels. CONCLUSIONS: Amenable mortality continues to fall across high-income nations although the USA is lagging increasingly behind other high income countries. Despite its many limitations, amenable mortality remains a useful indicator to monitor progress of nations
Berberis microphylla: A species with phenotypic plasticity in different climatic conditions
Berberis microphylla G. Forst., commonly called as "calafate" produces small fruits with high content of carbohydrates, phenols and antioxidants. The objective of this work was to characterize the vegetative and reproductive cycle of Berberis microphylla cultivated on Moreno (Buenos Aires province), Argentina in comparison with the results obtained in Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego) which is its place of origin. Vegetative growth was very different in the two localities. Moreno plants grew with more lax branches than Ushuaia. In effect, length of the shoots was significantly higher for Moreno than Ushuaia plants. Flowering period in Ushuaia plants was concentrated in November while in Moreno it happens earlier and over a longer period. Pollen grains collected from Moreno flowers had a diameter of ~60 ÎŒm, significantly different to pollen grain from Ushuaia (57.11 ÎŒm). Nevertheless, pollen grain vitality was superior in Ushuaia flowers (75%) as compared to Moreno flowers (52%). On the other hand, fruit harvested in Moreno was at 60 days from full bloom while in Ushuaia plants at 120 days. Although the size and compounds measured in the fruits of Moreno were lower than those of Ushuaia, results obtained indicate that B. microphylla grown on Moreno is an interesting option to obtain another nutraceutical fruit near the centers of mass consumption.Fil: Radice, Silvia. Universidad de MorĂłn. Facultad de AgronomĂa y Ciencias Agroalimentarias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas; ArgentinaFil: Alonso, Marta. Universidad de MorĂłn. Facultad de AgronomĂa y Ciencias Agroalimentarias; ArgentinaFil: Arena, Miriam Elisabet. Universidad de MorĂłn. Facultad de AgronomĂa y Ciencias Agroalimentarias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas; Argentin
Funding intensive care - approaches in systems using diagnosis-related groups.
This report reviews approaches to funding intensive care in health systems that use activitybased
payment mechanisms based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) to reimburse
hospital care. The report aims to inform the current debate about options for funding
intensive care services for adults, children and newborns in England.
Funding mechanisms reviewed here include those in Australia (Victoria), Denmark,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United States (Medicare). Approaches to
organising, providing and funding hospital care vary widely among these countries/states,
largely reflecting structural differences in the organisation of healthcare systems.
Mechanisms of funding intensive care services tend to fall into three broad categories:
âą those that fund intensive care through DRGs as part of one episode of hospital
care only (US Medicare, Germany, selected regions in Sweden and Italy)
âą those that use DRGs in combination with co-payments (Victoria, France)
âą those that exclude intensive care from DRG funding and use an alternative form
of payment, for example global budgets (Spain) or per diems (South Australia).
Approaches to funding paediatric and neonatal intensive care largely reflect the overall
funding mechanism for intensive care. Evidence reviewed here indicates a general concern
of potential underfunding of intensive care. These problems may be particularly pertinent
for those settings that provide neonatal and paediatric care because of the very high costs
and the relatively smaller number of cases in these settings compared with adult intensive
care. Similar issues apply to highly specialised services in adult intensive care, such as
treatment of severe burns.
Given the variety of approaches to funding intensive care services, this review suggests that
there is no obvious example of âbest practiceâ or dominant approach used by a majority of
systems. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, particularly in relation to the
financial risk involved in providing intensive care. While the risk of underfunding
intensive care may be highest in systems that apply DRGs to the entire episode of hospital
care, including intensive care, concerns about potential underfunding were voiced in all
systems reviewed here. Arrangements for additional funding in the form of co-payments or
surcharges may reduce the risk of underfunding. However, these approaches also face the
difficulty of determining the appropriate level of (additional) payment and balancing the
incentive effect arising from higher payment
Dioxins in organic eggs: a review
Eggs contribute for about 4% to the daily dioxin intake of humans. Research among layer farms in the Netherlands and other EU countries has shown that organic eggs contain more dioxin than conventional ones and that a significant number of organic farms produce eggs with a dioxin content that exceeds the EU standard. The hensâ intake of dioxins from various sources leads to an increase in the dioxin content of organic eggs. These sources include plants, feed, soil, worms and insects, and compared with hens on conventional and free-range farms, organic hens make more use of these sources due to better access to the outdoor run. Plants appear to be relatively unimportant as a source of dioxins. Also commercial organic feed generally has very low dioxin contents, but not much is known about non-commercial feed. Consumption of worms and insects and particularly ingestion of soil are important causes of high dioxin levels in eggs. Management interventions, like a reduction of the time the hens spend outside, may decrease the dioxin levels in organic eggs but at the same time may interfere with the image of the organic production system
Verification of Gyrokinetic codes: theoretical background and applications
In fusion plasmas the strong magnetic field allows the fast gyro-motion to be
systematically removed from the description of the dynamics, resulting in a
considerable model simplification and gain of computational time. Nowadays, the
gyrokinetic (GK) codes play a major role in the understanding of the
development and the saturation of turbulence and in the prediction of the
subsequent transport. Naturally, these codes require thorough verification and
validation.
Here we present a new and generic theoretical framework and specific
numerical applications to test the faithfulness of the implemented models to
theory and to verify the domain of applicability of existing GK codes. For a
sound verification process, the underlying theoretical GK model and the
numerical scheme must be considered at the same time, which has rarely been
done and therefore makes this approach pioneering. At the analytical level, the
main novelty consists in using advanced mathematical tools such as variational
formulation of dynamics for systematization of basic GK code's equations to
access the limits of their applicability. The verification of numerical scheme
is proposed via the benchmark effort.
In this work, specific examples of code verification are presented for two GK
codes: the multi-species electromagnetic ORB5 (PIC) and the radially global
version of GENE (Eulerian). The proposed methodology can be applied to any
existing GK code. We establish a hierarchy of reduced GK Vlasov-Maxwell
equations implemented in the ORB5 and GENE codes using the Lagrangian
variational formulation. At the computational level, detailed verifications of
global electromagnetic test cases developed from the CYCLONE Base Case are
considered, including a parametric -scan covering the transition from
ITG to KBM and the spectral properties at the nominal value.Comment: 16 pages, 2 Figures, APS DPP 2016 invited pape
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