The Effect of Rider Level on Equine Mean Heart Rate at the Trot

The effect of riders at two different levels of riding ability on the mean heart rates (HR) of school horses at the trot was studied. Five horses were each paired with a beginner (n=4) and an intermediate (n=5) rider, and the mean HR generated by the two riders at the trot were compared for each horse. There was a significant (

Strategic interaction in the Prisoner's Dilemma: A game-theoretic dimension of conflict research

This four-part enquiry treats selected theoretical and empirical developments in the Prisoner's Dilemma. The enquiry is oriented within the sphere of game-theoretic conflict research, and addresses methodological and philosophical problems embedded in the model under consideration. In Part One, relevant taxonomic criteria of the von Neumann- Morgenstern theory of games are reviewed, and controversies associated with both the utility function and game-theoretic rationality are introduced. In Part Two, salient contributions by Rapoport and others to the Prisoner's Dilemma are enlisted to illustrate the model's conceptual richness and problematic wealth. Conflicting principles of choice, divergent concepts of rational choice, and attempted resolutions of the dilemma are evaluated in the static mode. In Part Three, empirical interaction among strategies is examined in the iterated mode. A computer-simulated tournament of competing families of strategies is conducted, as both a complement to and continuation of Axelrod's previous tournaments. Combinatoric sub-tournaments are exhaustively analyzed, and an eliminatory ecological scenario is generated. In Part Four, the performance of the maximization family of strategies is subjected to deeper analysis, which reveals critical strengths and weaknesses latent in its decision-making process. On the whole, an inter-modal continuity obtains, which suggests that the maximization of expected utility, weighted toward probabilistic co-operation, is a relatively effective strategic embodiment of Rapoport's ethic of collective rationality

Behavioural Finance and Cryptocurrencies: Studies of Behavioural Finance in Cryptocurrency Markets

Interest in cryptocurrencies among researchers has been on the rise as this novel asset class continues to attract significant fund flows from retail and as well as institutional investors due to the promising returns it has offered historically. While the behavioural biases and performance of traders have been studied extensively in traditional financial markets, the literature on these topics within the crypto space remains lacking. This thesis aims to provide insight into the behavioural characteristics of cryptocurrency traders by investigating two behavioural biases that have been widely explored in traditional financial markets, namely, the disposition effect and the gambler’s fallacy. Moreover, I investigate the impact of market sentiment on trader performance and activity in the crypto space using an alternative on-chain measure of sentiment. Regarding the study on the disposition effect, I apply the popular disposition spread metric of Odean (1998) on a unique data set of individual cryptocurrency traders from an anonymous exchange and find significant evidence of an antidisposition effect. In analysing the disposition effect across market conditions, trader experience, and age groups in the cryptocurrency market, the study finds that neither market trends nor average trade size significantly alter traders’ biases in realising gains or losses. Younger traders, especially those aged 18-30, exhibit a unique positive disposition effect, suggesting quicker gains realisation. Conversely, older traders display a reduced anti-disposition effect, indicating that the tendency to hold losing investments decreases with age. The study aligns with existing literature in suggesting that experience mitigates behavioural biases, evidenced by the consistent patterns observed in both the cryptocurrency and traditional financial markets. In the second study, I investigate whether traders exhibit trend-chasing behaviour by examining the relation between traders’ past performance and their future trade size. Specifically, those who exhibit the gambler’s fallacy are likely to increase their trade size after experiencing poor past performance as they double down on future investments to make up for poor past performance. Alternatively, those who exhibit the hot-hand fallacy are likely to increase their trade after experiencing positive past performance as they believe that good performance will persist into the future. My results show that crypto traders exhibit the gambler’s fallacy, such that they are likely to increase their position size after exhibiting poor past performance, suggesting that they expect a trend reversal. In the final study, I investigate the impact of market sentiment on trader performance and activity. While the literature has mainly focused on text-based models to gauge market sentiment, I employ an alternative on-chain metric called the Net Unrealised Profit Loss (NUPL), which is a measure of accounting of the overall state of profitability of a blockchain network. A positive (negative) NUPL suggests that the blockchain network is in a state of profit (loss) and thus nearing a market top (bottom). Hence, this metric offers insight into the general degree of market sentiment based on fundamental on-chain data. My findings show that changes in sentiment positively impact the total return experienced by traders. Moreover, traders experience the highest levels of total returns when market sentiment is very high. Second, traders who react immediately to market sentiment, especially when sentiment is very high, are likely to realise higher positive returns. Third, higher levels of market sentiment lead to larger future trade sizes; hence, traders increase their exposure when market sentiment is high. Finally, I report weak evidence supporting the notion that higher levels of market sentiment result in traders modifying their trade size. This suggests that a change in trade size is agnostic to market sentiment. For robustness, I also adopt the VIX, a common equity market volatility index, to measure sentiment in the cryptocurrency market; however, the results showed no consistent impact, highlighting the need for developing a sentiment measure specifically designed for the unique characteristics of the cryptocurrency market. The concluding chapter reviews the main findings of this thesis and discusses avenues for future research

IMPACTO DE LA TERAPIA DE INMUNOSUPRESIÓN EN LAS POBLACIONES DE LINFOCITOS T REGULATORIOS EN TRASPLANTE INTESTINAL

El trasplante intestinal (TI) se aplica en casos de insuficiencia intestinal y falla de nutrición parenteral total, siendo el rechazo del injerto la complicación más frecuente y con mayor morbimortalidad. Una mejor comprensión de los mecanismos efectores y modulatorios es necesaria para desarrollar nuevas estrategias de control de alorreactividad con una mínima dosis de inmunosupresión (IS) como mantenimiento. Por razones de toxicidad renal asociadas a la terapia inmunosupresora con tacrolimus, se evalúa la posibilidad de su reemplazo por sirolimus. Este último es capaz de bloquear la respuesta efectora sin afectar la generación de células T regulatorias (Tregs), pero aún no ha sido estudiado su impacto en la generación Tregs en el TI. Se ha reportado que la administración de un anticuerpo monoclonal aCD45RC induce tolerancia e inhibición de la respuesta humoral en un modelo de trasplante cardiaco, pero mantiene la respuesta primaria y de memoria. Si bien el TI posee una complejidad mayor, hipotetizamos que la administración de aCD45RC podría inducir tolerancia, controlando el proceso de rechazo. En el presente trabajo nuestro objetivo es analizar la dinámica de las Tregs del injerto en modelos experimentales a fin de determinar su capacidad de controlar el rechazo y definir estrategias inmunosupresoras que maximicen la respuesta regulatoria con una mínima dosis de IS de mantenimiento. En nuestro grupo contamos con un modelo murino de TI alogénico que, por su carácter heterotópico, permite caracterizar en detalle la cinética del rechazo de injerto. Para cumplir el objetivo, contamos con tres grandes grupos de animales: grupo control isogénico, se realiza el TI empleando ratas Wistar como donante y receptor; grupo control de rechazo, se realiza el TI entre ratas Sprague como donantes y Wistar como receptoras sin administración de IS; y el grupo con tratamiento, en el cual se realiza el TI alogénico con distintas terapias inmunosupresoras (monoterapia con tacrolimus, terapia combinada tacrolimus + sirolimus, tacrolimus + aCD45RC y tacrolimus + sirolimus + aCD45RC). Se llevarán a cabo scores clínicos, estudios histopatológicos por tinción con hematoxilina-eosina, cuantificación de células apoptóticas por técnica de TUNEL y expresión de genes por qPCR (IL6, CXCL1, IL22, IL-17, IFN, IL13, IDO, entre otros). Asimismo, con el objetivo de estudiar la funcionalidad del injerto se realizarán pruebas de absorción y permeabilidad para glucosa. También se aislará y caracterizará poblaciones de células T intestinales por citometría de flujo, evaluando activación (CD25+) y fenotipo (expresión de CD45RC, CD4, CD8, FOXP3, PD1, PDL1 y CD45RA). Esperamos correlacionar el éxito clínico de las distintas estrategias analizadas comparativamente con la generación de respuesta T regulatoria en el injerto, lo cual permitirá mejorar la comprensión de la relación entre los distintos tipos de inmunosupresión y la generación de respuesta regulatoria

What’s so bad about scientism?

In their attempt to defend philosophy from accusations of uselessness made by prominent scientists, such as Stephen Hawking, some philosophers respond with the charge of ‘scientism.’ This charge makes endorsing a scientistic stance, a mistake by definition. For this reason, it begs the question against these critics of philosophy, or anyone who is inclined to endorse a scientistic stance, and turns the scientism debate into a verbal dispute. In this paper, I propose a different definition of scientism, and thus a new way of looking at the scientism debate. Those philosophers who seek to defend philosophy against accusations of uselessness would do philosophy a much better service, I submit, if they were to engage with the definition of scientism put forth in this paper, rather than simply make it analytic that scientism is a mistake

Targeting a cancer-specific LYPD3 glycoform for tumor therapy

Introduction: One of the most drastic changes in cancer is the altered glycosylation of proteins and lipids, giving rise to truncated O-glycans like the Thomsen Friedenreich (TF) or Thomsen nouvelle (Tn) antigen, which are almost absent on normal cells. Combined protein-carbohydrate epitopes comprising these specific glycans are ideal candidates for potent targeted therapies given their excellent tumor specificity and broad cancer expression.Methods and results: We have generated GT-002, a monoclonal antibody specifically targeting the epithelial glycoprotein LYPD3 only in the presence of a TF glycosylation. It does not cross-react with non-glycosylated LYPD3 or TF on other glycoproteins in ELISA and flow cytometry. GT-002 binds to various tumor cell lines and stains tumor tissues of different cancer indications including squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The remarkable tumor specificity was confirmed in an immunohistochemistry study on a normal human tissue panel including several LYPD3-positive organs, where GT-002 elicited almost completely abolished normal tissue binding. Consequently, we observed markedly reduced binding of GT-002 to normal human tissues compared to Lupartumab, a conventional anti-LYPD3 antibody previously in clinical development as antibody-drug conjugate (BAY1129980). Neuraminidase treatment of healthy tissues, resulting in cleavage of sialic acid residues, re-established binding of GT-002 comparable to Lupartumab, showing that the GT-002 epitope is masked by sialic acid in normal cells.Discussion: We believe that GT-002 is a promising candidate for development of antibody-drug- and radio-conjugates as well as bispecific molecules and chimeric antigen receptor therapeutics and highlights the powerful potential of antibodies against combined protein-carbohydrate epitopes to reduce on-target/off-tumor cytotoxicity

Fortalecimiento de las capacidades de diagnóstico e investigación del Laboratorio de Salud Pública de Ciencias Exactas (UNLP) integrado a la Red de Diagnóstico SARS-Cov2 de la Provincia de Buenos Aires

En el marco de la pandemia declarada en 2020 se gestan diversos grupos de trabajo e investigación en la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas de la UNLP. En esta videopresentación se relatan las experiencias de algunos de ellos, vinculados a la temática del COVID-19.Facultad de Ciencias Exacta

Rethinking childhood ependymoma: a retrospective, multi-center analysis reveals poor long-term overall survival

Ependymoma is the third most common brain tumor in children, but there is a paucity of large studies with more than 10 years of follow-up examining the long-term survival and recurrence patterns of this disease. We conducted a retrospective chart review of 103 pediatric patients with WHO Grades II/III intracranial ependymoma, who were treated at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Chicago’s Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital between 1985 and 2008, and an additional 360 ependymoma patients identified from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. For the institutional cohort, we evaluated clinical and histopathological prognostic factors of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) using the log-rank test, and univariate and multivariate Cox proportional-hazards models. Overall survival rates were compared to those of the SEER cohort. Median follow-up time was 11 years. Ten-year OS and PFS were 50 ± 5% and 29 ± 5%, respectively. Findings were validated in the independent SEER cohort, with 10-year OS rates of 52 ± 3%. GTR and grade II pathology were associated with significantly improved OS. However, GTR was not curative for all children. Ten-year OS for patients treated with a GTR was 61 ± 7% and PFS was 36 ± 6%. Pathological examination confirmed most recurrent tumors to be ependymoma, and 74% occurred at the primary tumor site. Current treatment paradigms are not sufficient to provide long-term cure for children with ependymoma. Our findings highlight the urgent need to develop novel treatment approaches for this devastating disease. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11060-017-2568-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users