Information Content of Equity Analyst Reports

This paper investigates the market reaction to the information released in security analyst reports. It shows that the market reacts significantly and positively to changes in recommendation levels, earnings forecasts, and price targets. While changes in price targets and earnings forecasts both provide information to the market, revisions in price targets have a larger and more significant impact than comparable revisions in earnings forecasts. The text of the report is also a significant source of information as it provides the justifications supporting an analyst's summary opinion. When all of this information is considered simultaneously, some of it, notably the earnings forecasts, is subsumed. The results further show that analysts correctly predict price targets slightly over 50% of the time. Finally, the valuation methodology used does not seem to be correlated with either the market's reaction or the analyst's accuracy.

Loop-Induced Stochastic Bias at Small Wavevectors

Primordial non-Gaussianities enhanced at small wavevectors can induce a power spectrum of the galaxy overdensity that differs greatly from that of the matter overdensity at large length scales. In previous work, it was shown that "squeezed" three-point and "collapsed" four-point functions of the curvature perturbation $\zeta$ can generate these non-Gaussianities and give rise to so-called scale-dependent and stochastic bias in the galaxy overdensity power spectrum. We explore a third way to generate non-Gaussianities enhanced at small wavevectors: the infrared behavior of quantum loop contributions to the four-point correlations of $\zeta$. We show that these loop effects lead to stochastic bias, which can be observable in the context of quasi-single field inflation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Estimating the Effect of Poker Room Promotions on Player Traffic

This paper examines the impact of poker room promotions on player traffic in casino-based poker rooms. Casinos regularly spend significant portions of their marketing budget on promotions, including free-play, item-based offers, complementary hotel rooms, and travel reimbursements (among others), in an effort to drive casino traffic. Poker room promotions, by contrast, are unique within the context of casino promotions because they are both player-funded and paid in cash. Despite these significant differences between poker room and other casino promotions, prior research has not provided empirical evidence on the effectiveness of poker room promotions. Using collected data on casino-based poker games and poker room promotions over an eight-month period, we present an analysis investigating the impact of common types of poker room promotions on player traffic. Our research conclusively demonstrates a consistently strong positive effect of poker room promotions on player traffic. This research offers a number of important insights not only for the gaming industry, but also for other industries which make use of a variety of promotion types (e.g. retail, hospitality and tourism, etc.)

Non-perturbative phenomena in semiconductor four-wave mixing spectra

Non-perturbative phenomena in four-wave mixing spectra of semiconductors are studied using the exact solution of a widely used phenomenological non-linear equation of motion of the exciton polarization. It is shown that Coulomb interaction, included in the nonlinearity, leads to two characteristic effects, which are essentially of dynamical origin, -- a split of the exciton peak and a non-monotonous dependence of the response at the exciton frequency on the magnitude of the external field. Relations between the spectral features and the parameters of the system is obtained. It is found that the transition from perturbative to non-perturbative regimes is controlled by parameters inversely proportional to the decay rate. It implies that the condition of low excitation density does not necessarily warrant applicability of the perturbational approach.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

The Phenomenon of Locked Survival

The phenomenological model of labor, which assumes labor as some kind of imitation and as necessary but not sufficient condition for the creation of good, was suggested. The labor model is developed on theoretical base common with the model of collective. The formula of labor of survival collective happen to be the most general and may be considered as the generator of formulas of labor in towns and in wild nature. There were considered numerous consequences of labor model, including the difference between rural and urban labor, the historical disintegration of labor communities, the society self-heating, and the locked survival. The nature of non-linearity in models of labor and collective is discussed. The hypothesis that survival is locked but transition "survival-prosperity" is historically facilitated was justified. Demographic phase transition proposed by S.P. Kapitsa is confirmed by the model of locked survival. The fatal co-occurrence of completion of human population growth, displacement of population from villages to cities, and the collapse of households is explained

Diamonds from Dachine, French Guiana : a unique record of Early Proterozoic subduction

This research was supported by NERC grant NE/J008583/1 to MJW and SCK.Diamonds from Dachine, French Guiana, are unique among worldwide diamond populations. The diamonds were transported to the surface in an unusual ultramafic extrusive magma with an affinity to boninite or komatiite, which was emplaced within an arc geological setting at ~ 2.2 Ga. Dachine diamonds have internal and external morphologies indicative of relatively rapid growth from carbon oversaturated fluids or melts, and exhibit internal features consistent with residence in a high-strain environment. On the basis of nitrogen (N) defects the diamonds are categorized as Type Ib-IaA. The unusually low aggregation state of N places severe constraints on the thermal history of the diamonds, effectively ruling out derivation in convecting mantle. The carbon and N isotopic compositions of Dachine diamonds are consistent with a sedimentary source of carbon, with the majority of diamonds having δ13C values + 4‰. The primary carbon was presumably deposited on an early Proterozoic seafloor. Sulphide inclusions have low Ni and Cr and are comparable to lithospheric eclogitic-type sulphide inclusions. Three garnet and one clinopyroxene inclusion are also eclogitic in composition, and one garnet inclusion has a majorite component indicating an origin around 250 km depth. The silicate inclusions are highly depleted in many incompatible trace elements (e.g. LREE, Nb, Hf, Zr), and modelling indicates an eclogitic source lithology that contained a LREE-enriched trace phase such as epidote or allanite, and an HFSE-rich phase such as rutile. Four of the five inclusions are unusually enriched in Mn, as well as Ni and Co, and modelling indicates a protolith with the bulk composition of subducted normal MORB plus about 10% ferromanganese crust component. We suggest a model wherein Dachine diamonds precipitated from remobilized sedimentary carbon at the slab-mantle interface from liquids derived ultimately by deserpentinization of slab peridotite at depths of ~ 200 to 250 km. These fluids may also trigger melting in wedge peridotite, resulting in a volatile-rich ultramafic melt that transports the diamonds rapidly to the surface. The process of diamond formation and exhumation from the slab mantle interface likely occurred in a Paleoproterozoic subduction zone and over a very limited timespan, likely less than a million years.PostprintPeer reviewe

Systems biology approach for mapping the response of human urothelial cells to infection by Enterococcus faecalis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To better understand the response of urinary epithelial (urothelial) cells to <it>Enterococcus faecalis</it>, a uropathogen that exhibits resistance to multiple antibiotics, a genome-wide scan of gene expression was obtained as a time series from urothelial cells growing as a layered 3-dimensional culture similar to normal urothelium. We herein describe a novel means of analysis that is based on deconvolution of gene variability into technical and biological components.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Analysis of the expression of 21,521 genes from 30 minutes to 10 hours post infection, showed 9553 genes were expressed 3 standard deviations (SD) above the system zero-point noise in at least 1 time point. The asymmetric distribution of relative variances of the expressed genes was deconvoluted into technical variation (with a 6.5% relative SD) and biological variation components (>3 SD above the mode technical variability). These 1409 hypervariable (HV) genes encapsulated the effect of infection on gene expression. Pathway analysis of the HV genes revealed an orchestrated response to infection in which early events included initiation of immune response, cytoskeletal rearrangement and cell signaling followed at the end by apoptosis and shutting down cell metabolism. The number of poorly annotated genes in the earliest time points suggests heretofore unknown processes likely also are involved.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p><it>Enterococcus </it>infection produced an orchestrated response by the host cells involving several pathways and transcription factors that potentially drive these pathways. The early time points potentially identify novel targets for enhancing the host response. These approaches combine rigorous statistical principles with a biological context and are readily applied by biologists.</p

Model-dependence of the γZ\gamma Z dispersion correction to the parity-violating asymmetry in elastic epep scattering

We analyze the dispersion correction to elastic parity violating electron-proton scattering due to $\gamma Z$ exchange. In particular, we explore the theoretical uncertainties associated with modeling contributions of hadronic intermediate states. Taking into account constraints from low- and high-energy, parity-conserving electroproduction measurements, choosing different models for contributions from the non-resonant processes, and performing the corresponding flavor rotations to obtain the electroweak amplitude, we arrive at an estimate of the uncertainty in the total contribution to the parity-violating asymmetry. At the kinematics of the Q-Weak experiment, we obtain a correction to the asymmetry equivalent to a shift in the proton weak charge of $(0.0054\pm0.0020)$. This should be compared to the value of the proton's weak charge of \qwp=0.0713\pm0.0008 that includes SM contributions at tree level and one-loop radiative corrections. Therefore, we obtain a new Standard Model prediction for the parity-violating asymmetry in the kinematics of the Q-Weak experiment of $(0.0767\pm0.0008\pm0.0020_{\gamma Z})$. The latter error leads to a relative uncertainty of 2.8% in the determination of the proton's weak charge, and is dominated by the uncertainty in the isospin structure of the inclusive cross section. We argue that future parity-violating inelastic $ep$ asymmetry measurements at low-to-moderate $Q^2$ and $W^2$ could be exploited to reduce the uncertainty associated with the dispersion correction. Because the corresponding shift and error bar decrease monotonically with decreasing beam energy, a determination of the proton's weak charge with a lower-energy experiment or measurements of "isotope ratios" in atomic parity-violation could provide a useful cross check on any implications for physics beyond the Standard Model derived from the Q-Weak measurement.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables; revised version accepted for publication in PR