The Illogicality of Stock-Brokers: Psychological Experiments on the Effects of Prior Knowledge and Belief Biases on Logical Reasoning in Stock Trading

BACKGROUND: Explanations for the current worldwide financial crisis are primarily provided by economists and politicians. However, in the present work we focus on the psychological-cognitive factors that most likely affect the thinking of people on the economic stage and thus might also have had an effect on the progression of the crises. One of these factors might be the effect of prior beliefs on reasoning and decision-making. So far, this question has been explored only to a limited extent. METHODS: We report two experiments on logical reasoning competences of nineteen stock-brokers with long-lasting vocational experiences at the stock market. The premises of reasoning problems concerned stock trading and the experiments varied whether or not their conclusions--a proposition which is reached after considering the premises--agreed with the brokers' prior beliefs. Half of the problems had a conclusion that was highly plausible for stock-brokers while the other half had a highly implausible conclusion. RESULTS: The data show a strong belief bias. Stock-brokers were strongly biased by their prior knowledge. Lowest performance was found for inferences in which the problems caused a conflict between logical validity and the experts' belief. In these cases, the stock-brokers tended to make logically invalid inferences rather than give up their existing beliefs. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the thesis that cognitive factors have an effect on the decision-making on the financial market. In the present study, stock-brokers were guided more by past experience and existing beliefs than by logical thinking and rational decision-making. They had difficulties to disengage themselves from vastly anchored thinking patterns. However, we believe, that it is wrong to accuse the brokers for their "malfunctions", because such hard-wired cognitive principles are difficult to suppress even if the person is aware of them

Association between serum keptin concentrations and insulin resistance: A population-based study from China

BACKGROUND Insulin resistance contributes to the cardio-metabolic risk. The effect of leptin in obese and overweight population on insulin resistance was seldom reported. METHODS A total of 1234 subjects (572 men and 662 women) aged ≥18 y was sampled by the procedure. Adiposity measures included BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, WHR, upper arm circumference, triceps skinfold and body fat percentage. Serum leptin concentrations were measured by an ELISA method. The homeostasis model (HOMA-IR) was applied to estimate insulin resistance. RESULTS In men, BMI was the variable which was most strongly correlated with leptin, whereas triceps skinfold was most sensitive for women. More importantly, serum leptin levels among insulin resistant subjects were almost double compared to the subjects who had normal insulin sensitivity at the same level of adiposity in both men and women, after controlling for potential confounders. In addition, HOMA-IR increased significantly across leptin quintiles after adjustment for age, BMI, total energy intake, physical activity and smoking status in both men and women (p for trend <0.0001). CONCLUSIONS There was a significant association between HOMA-IR and serum leptin concentrations in Chinese men and women, independently of adiposity levels. This may suggest that serum leptin concentration is an important predictor of insulin resistance and other metabolic risks irrespective of obesity levels. Furthermore, leptin levels may be used to identify the cardio-metabolic risk in obese and overweight population.Hui Zuo, Zumin Shi, Baojun Yuan, Yue Dai, Gaolin Wu, Akhtar Hussai

Unresponsive wakefulness syndrome: a new name for the vegetative state or apallic syndrome

BACKGROUND: Some patients awaken from coma (that is, open the eyes) but remain unresponsive (that is, only showing reflex movements without response to command). This syndrome has been coined vegetative state. We here present a new name for this challenging neurological condition: unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (abbreviated UWS). DISCUSSION: Many clinicians feel uncomfortable when referring to patients as vegetative. Indeed, to most of the lay public and media vegetative state has a pejorative connotation and seems inappropriately to refer to these patients as being vegetable-like. Some political and religious groups have hence felt the need to emphasize these vulnerable patients' rights as human beings. Moreover, since its first description over 35 years ago, an increasing number of functional neuroimaging and cognitive evoked potential studies have shown that physicians should be cautious to make strong claims about awareness in some patients without behavioral responses to command. Given these concerns regarding the negative associations intrinsic to the term vegetative state as well as the diagnostic errors and their potential effect on the treatment and care for these patients (who sometimes never recover behavioral signs of consciousness but often recover to what was recently coined a minimally conscious state) we here propose to replace the name. CONCLUSION: Since after 35 years the medical community has been unsuccessful in changing the pejorative image associated with the words vegetative state, we think it would be better to change the term itself. We here offer physicians the possibility to refer to this condition as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome or UWS. As this neutral descriptive term indicates, it refers to patients showing a number of clinical signs (hence syndrome) of unresponsiveness (that is, without response to commands) in the presence of wakefulness (that is, eye opening)

The Serotonin 5-HT7Dro Receptor Is Expressed in the Brain of Drosophila, and Is Essential for Normal Courtship and Mating

The 5-HT7 receptor remains one of the less well characterized serotonin receptors. Although it has been demonstrated to be involved in the regulation of mood, sleep, and circadian rhythms, as well as relaxation of vascular smooth muscles in mammals, the precise mechanisms underlying these functions remain largely unknown. The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an attractive model organism to study neuropharmacological, molecular, and behavioral processes that are largely conserved with mammals. Drosophila express a homolog of the mammalian 5-HT7 receptor, as well as homologs for the mammalian 5-HT1A, and 5-HT2, receptors. Each fly receptor couples to the same effector pathway as their mammalian counterpart and have been demonstrated to mediate similar behavioral responses. Here, we report on the expression and function of the 5-HT7Dro receptor in Drosophila. In the larval central nervous system, expression is detected postsynaptically in discreet cells and neuronal circuits. In the adult brain there is strong expression in all large-field R neurons that innervate the ellipsoid body, as well as in a small group of cells that cluster with the PDF-positive LNvs neurons that mediate circadian activity. Following both pharmacological and genetic approaches, we have found that 5-HT7Dro activity is essential for normal courtship and mating behaviors in the fly, where it appears to mediate levels of interest in both males and females. This is the first reported evidence of direct involvement of a particular serotonin receptor subtype in courtship and mating in the fly

Positive End-Expiratory Pressure may alter breathing cardiovascular variability and baroreflex gain in mechanically ventilated patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Baroreflex allows to reduce sudden rises or falls of arterial pressure through parallel RR interval fluctuations induced by autonomic nervous system. During spontaneous breathing, the application of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) may affect the autonomic nervous system, as suggested by changes in baroreflex efficiency and RR variability. During mechanical ventilation, some patients have stable cardiorespiratory phase difference and high-frequency amplitude of RR variability (HF-RR amplitude) over time and others do not. Our first hypothesis was that a steady pattern could be associated with reduced baroreflex sensitivity and HF-RR amplitude, reflecting a blunted autonomic nervous function. Our second hypothesis was that PEEP, widely used in critical care patients, could affect their autonomic function, promoting both steady pattern and reduced baroreflex sensitivity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We tested the effect of increasing PEEP from 5 to 10 cm H2O on the breathing variability of arterial pressure and RR intervals, and on the baroreflex. Invasive arterial pressure, ECG and ventilatory flow were recorded in 23 mechanically ventilated patients during 15 minutes for both PEEP levels. HF amplitude of RR and systolic blood pressure (SBP) time series and HF phase differences between RR, SBP and ventilatory signals were continuously computed by complex demodulation. Cross-spectral analysis was used to assess the coherence and gain functions between RR and SBP, yielding baroreflex-sensitivity indices.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>At PEEP 10, the 12 patients with a stable pattern had lower baroreflex gain and HF-RR amplitude of variability than the 11 other patients. Increasing PEEP was generally associated with a decreased baroreflex gain and a greater stability of HF-RR amplitude and cardiorespiratory phase difference. Four patients who exhibited a variable pattern at PEEP 5 became stable at PEEP 10. At PEEP 10, a stable pattern was associated with higher organ failure score and catecholamine dosage.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>During mechanical ventilation, stable HF-RR amplitude and cardiorespiratory phase difference over time reflect a blunted autonomic nervous function which might worsen as PEEP increases.</p

Probing the Interstellar Medium in Early type galaxies with ISO observations

Four IRAS-detected early type galaxies were observed with ISO. With the exception of the 15 micron image of NGC1052, the mid-IR emission from NGC1052, NGC1155, NGC5866 and NGC6958 at 4.5, 7 and 15 microns show extended emission. Mid-IR emission from NGC1052, NGC1155, and NGC6958 follows a de Vaucouleurs profile. The ratio of 15/7 micron flux decreases with radius in these galaxies, approaching the values empirically observed for purely stellar systems. In NGC5866, the 7 and 15 micron emission is concentrated in the edge-on dust lane. All the galaxies are detected in the [CII] line, and the S0s NGC1155 and NGC5866 are detected in the [OI] line as well. The ISO-LWS observations of the [CII] line are more sensitive measures of cool, neutral ISM than HI and CO by about a factor of 10-100. Three of four early type galaxies, namely NGC1052, NGC6958 and NGC5866, have low ratio FIR/Blue and show a lower [CII]/FIR, which is due to a softer radiation field from old stellar populations. The low [CII]/CO ratio in NGC5866 ([CII]/CO(1-0) < 570) confirms this scenario. We estimate the UV radiation expected from the old stellar populations in these galaxies and compare it to that needed to heat the gas to account for the cooling observed [CII] and [OI] lines. In three out of four galaxies, NGC1052, NGC5866 and NGC6958, the predicted UV radiation falls short by a factor of 2-3. In view of the observed intrinsic scatter in the "UV-upturn" in elliptical galaxies and its great sensitivity to age and metallicity effects, this is not significant. However, the much larger difference (about a factor of 20) between the UV radiation from old stars and that needed to produce the FIR lines for NGC 1155 is strong evidence for the presence of young stars, in NGC1155.Comment: To appear in the Astrophysical Journal. Figure 1 appears as a separate jpg figur

A Review on the Mechanical Modeling of Composite Manufacturing Processes

© 2016, The Author(s). The increased usage of fiber reinforced polymer composites in load bearing applications requires a detailed understanding of the process induced residual stresses and their effect on the shape distortions. This is utmost necessary in order to have more reliable composite manufacturing since the residual stresses alter the internal stress level of the composite part during the service life and the residual shape distortions may lead to not meeting the desired geometrical tolerances. The occurrence of residual stresses during the manufacturing process inherently contains diverse interactions between the involved physical phenomena mainly related to material flow, heat transfer and polymerization or crystallization. Development of numerical process models is required for virtual design and optimization of the composite manufacturing process which avoids the expensive trial-and-error based approaches. The process models as well as applications focusing on the prediction of residual stresses and shape distortions taking place in composite manufacturing are discussed in this study. The applications on both thermoset and thermoplastic based composites are reviewed in detail

Feedback within the Inter-Cellular Communication and Tumorigenesis in Carcinomas

The classical somatic mutation theory (SMT) of carcinogenesis and metastasis postulates that malignant transformation occurs in cells that accumulate a sufficient amount of mutations in the appropriate oncogenes and/or tumor suppressor genes. These mutations result in cell-autonomous activation of the mutated cell and a growth advantage relative to neighboring cells. However, the SMT cannot completely explain many characteristics of carcinomas. Contrary to the cell-centered view of the SMT with respect to carcinogenesis, recent research has revealed evidence that the tumor microenvironment plays a role in carcinogenesis as well. In this review, we present a new model that accommodates the role of the tumor microenvironment in carcinogenesis and complements the classical SMT. Our “feedback” model emphasizes the role of an altered spatiotemporal communication between epithelial and stromal cells during carcinogenesis: a dysfunctional intracellular signaling in tumorigenic epithelial cells leads to inappropriate cellular responses to stimuli from associated stromal or inflammatory cells. Thus, a positive feedback loop of the information flow between parenchymal and stromal cells results. This constant communication between the stromal cells and the tumor cells causes a perpetually activated state of tumor cells analogous to resonance disaster