Bank privatization, finance, and growth

This paper examines whether privatizing state-owned banks improves finance and economic growth. To do so, we exploit regional banking variations in Russia induced by the idiosyncratic creation of "specialized banks" in the last years of the Soviet Union (1988-91) that were subsequently privatized. Starting in 1999 private banks including surviving spetsbanks emerged as an important source of external finance for private firms and households. We document that the regional concentration of spetsbanks in the early years of the Russian federation is orthogonal to economic fundamentals that are related to growth after the emergence of bank finance. Results indicate that while privatized banking increased lending significantly, it did not increase economic growth. However, privatization did increase growth when banks retained fewer political connections and when regional property rights were better protected, highlighting the importance of both factors

The relation of ambulatory heart rate with all-cause mortality among middle-aged men : a prospective cohort study

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between average 24-hour ambulatory heart rate and all-cause mortality, while adjusting for resting clinical heart rate, cardiorespiratory fitness, occupational and leisure time physical activity as well as classical risk factors. A group of 439 middle-aged male workers free of baseline coronary heart disease from the Belgian Physical Fitness Study was included in the analysis. Data were collected by questionnaires and clinical examinations from 1976 to 1978. All-cause mortality was collected from the national mortality registration with a mean follow-up period of 16.5 years, with a total of 48 events. After adjustment for all before mentioned confounders in a Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, a significant increased risk for all-cause mortality was found among the tertile of workers with highest average ambulatory heart rate compared to the tertile with lowest ambulatory heart rate (Hazard ratio = 3.21, 95% confidence interval: 1.22-8.44). No significant independent association was found between resting clinic heart rate and all-cause mortality. The study indicates that average 24-hour ambulatory heart rate is a strong predictor of all-cause mortality independent from resting clinic heart rate, cardiorespiratory fitness, occupational and leisure time physical activity and other classical risk factors among healthy middle-aged workers.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Retrieving highly structured models starting from black-box nonlinear state-space models using polynomial decoupling

Nonlinear state-space modelling is a very powerful black-box modelling approach. However powerful, the resulting models tend to be complex, described by a large number of parameters. In many cases interpretability is preferred over complexity, making too complex models unfit or undesired. In this work, the complexity of such models is reduced by retrieving a more structured, parsimonious model from the data, without exploiting physical knowledge. Essential to the method is a translation of all multivariate nonlinear functions, typically found in nonlinear state-space models, into sets of univariate nonlinear functions. The latter is computed from a tensor decomposition. It is shown that typically an excess of degrees of freedom are used in the description of the nonlinear system whereas reduced representations can be found. The method yields highly structured state-space models where the nonlinearity is contained in as little as a single univariate function, with limited loss of performance. Results are illustrated on simulations and experiments for: the forced Duffing oscillator, the forced Van der Pol oscillator, a Bouc-Wen hysteretic system, and a Li-Ion battery model.Comment: submitted to Mechanical Systems and Signal Processin

Design patterns for an interactive storytelling robot to support children's engagement and agency

In this paper we specify and validate three interaction design patterns for an interactive storytelling experience with an autonomous social robot. The patterns enable the child to make decisions about the story by talking with the robot, reenact parts of the story together with the robot, and recording self-made sound effects. The design patterns successfully support children's engagement and agency. A user study (N = 27, 8-10 y.o.) showed that children paid more attention to the robot, enjoyed the storytelling experience more, and could recall more about the story, when the design patterns were employed by the robot during storytelling. All three aspects are important features of engagement. Children felt more autonomous during storytelling with the design patterns and highly appreciated that the design patterns allowed them to express themselves more freely. Both aspects are important features of children's agency. Important lessons we have learned are that reducing points of confusion and giving the children more time to make themselves heard by the robot will improve the patterns efficiency to support engagement and agency. Allowing children to pick and choose from a diverse set of stories and interaction settings would make the storytelling experience more inclusive for a broader range of children

Personality functioning in adults with refractory epilepsy and community adults: Implications for health-related quality of life

Introduction Prior research has shown that people with epilepsy are at risk for a poorer health-related quality of life (HRQOL). However, patients differ greatly in how well they adjust to their epilepsy. To better understand these differences, the present study examined the role of personality. More specifically, we examined mean-level differences in Big Five personality traits between adults with refractory epilepsy and a community sample and related these traits to patients’ HRQOL. Methods A total of 121 adults with refractory epilepsy (18-40 years old, 56% women) completed questionnaires on the Big Five personality traits, HRQOL, and seizure frequency and severity. Patients’ Big Five scores were compared to those of a community sample matched on sex and age using paired samples t-tests. We conducted hierarchical regression analyses to examine associations between personality and HRQOL, while controlling for the effects of sex, age, age at diagnosis, seizure frequency, and seizure severity. Results Patients reported higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of openness as compared to controls. In patients, seizure severity was positively related to neuroticism and negatively related to agreeableness. Finally, patients high in neuroticism and low in conscientiousness generally reported a poorer HRQOL. Conclusion In the present study, small personality differences were observed between adults with refractory epilepsy and a community sample. Patients’ personality was found to play an important role in adjusting to epilepsy, even after controlling for seizure frequency and severity. Personality assessment may help healthcare professionals in identifying patients at risk for poor HRQOL later in life

Complex response of dinoflagellate cyst distribution patterns to cooler early Oligocene oceans

Previous studies have made extensive use of dinoflagellate cysts to reconstruct past sea surface temperature (SST). Analysis of associations of dinoflagellate cysts using two new ocean datasets for the mid Eocene (Bartonian) and early Oligocene (Rupelian) reveals clear latitudinally constrained distributions for the Bartonian, but unexpected changes in their Rupelian distribution; a significant number of species with low and mid latitude northern hemisphere occurrences in the Bartonian extend their northward ranges in the Rupelian, including some forms characterised as ‘warm water’ by previous studies. This suggests either that dinoflagellates are faithfully tracking a complex oceanographic response to Rupelian cooling, or that dinoflagellate sensitivity/adaptability to a range of ecological variables means that at a global scale their distributions are not primarily controlled by sea surface temperature-variability. Previous use of dinoflagellate cysts for palaeoclimate work has relied on rather subjective and inconsistent identification of ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ water forms, rather than comprehensive analysis of community associations at the global-scale. It is clear from this study that a better understanding of the (palaeo-)ecology of dinoflagellates and their cysts is required. Rupelian dinoflagellate cyst distribution may reflect changes in a range of environmental variables linked to early Oligocene climate-cooling, for example changes in nutrient fluxes triggered by glacially-induced base-level fall; complex reorganisation of ocean current systems between the Bartonian and Rupelian, or muted changes to Rupelian summer SSTs in the northern hemisphere that have previously been reported. Many extant dinoflagellate species also exhibit relatively broad temperature tolerance. Moreover, they have potentially extensive cryptic diversity, and are able to produce dormant cysts during short-lived environmental deterioration, all of which may act to limit the value of undifferentiated dinoflagellate cyst assemblages for identifying climate signals

Observation weights unlock bulk RNA-seq tools for zero inflation and single-cell applications

Dropout events in single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) cause many transcripts to go undetected and induce an excess of zero read counts, leading to power issues in differential expression (DE) analysis. This has triggered the development of bespoke scRNA-seq DE methods to cope with zero inflation. Recent evaluations, however, have shown that dedicated scRNA-seq tools provide no advantage compared to traditional bulk RNA-seq tools. We introduce a weighting strategy, based on a zero-inflated negative binomial model, that identifies excess zero counts and generates gene-and cell-specific weights to unlock bulk RNA-seq DE pipelines for zero-inflated data, boosting performance for scRNA-seq

Experimental verification of a self-consistent theory of the first-, second-, and third-order (non)linear optical response

We show that a combination of linear absorption spectroscopy, hyper-Rayleigh scattering, and a theoretical analysis using sum rules to reduce the size of the parameter space leads to a prediction of the two-photon absorption cross-section of the dye AF455 that agrees with two-photon absorption spectroscopy. Our procedure, which demands self-consistency between several measurement techniques and does not use adjustable parameters, provides a means for determining transition moments between the dominant excited states based strictly on experimental characterization. This is made possible by our new approach that uses sum rules and molecular symmetry to rigorously reduce the number of required physical quantities.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

A nonlinear model of vortex-induced forces on an oscillating cylinder in a fluid flow

A nonlinear model relating the imposed motion of a circular cylinder, submerged in a fluid flow, to the transverse force coefficient is presented. The nonlinear fluid system, featuring vortex shedding patterns, limit cycle oscillations and synchronisation, is studied both for swept sine and multisine excitation. A nonparametric nonlinear distortion analysis (FAST) is used to distinguish odd from even nonlinear behaviour. The information which is obtained from the nonlinear analysis is explicitly used in constructing a nonlinear model of the polynomial nonlinear state-space (PNLSS) type. The latter results in a reduction of the number of parameters and an increased accuracy compared to the generic modelling approach where typically no such information of the nonlinearity is used. The obtained model is able to accurately simulate time series of the transverse force coefficient over a wide range of the frequency-amplitude plane of imposed cylinder motion.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Fluids and Structure