Politics of Representations: \u3cem\u3eSnow Man\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eBait\u3c/em\u3e by David Albahari

The thesis analyzes stereotypes about the Balkans in two novels, Snow Man (1995) and Bait (1996), by contemporary Serbian writer David Albahari (b. 1948), and how these assumptions, mostly imposed by the West and its tradition of reading the East/the Balkans, are internalized or problematized in these works. This thesis also includes a new, original interview with Albahari conducted by the thesis author. The thesis addresses a change in Albahari’s poetics from metafiction typical for the 1970s and 1980s, to epic forms, which encapsulate the totality of historical experience, in the 1990s. Ultimately, the thesis points out a paradox in Albahari’s works. Although he and his characters adamantly claim that they want to escape from history and the limitations it imposes on an individual, they are defined by a specific historical context (war) and cultural context (the Balkans). The novels suggest that it is not only impossible to overcome a dominant negative discourse about the Balkans, but also that identity is always defined by a historical and cultural context of which an individual is a part. In addition, Snow Man is based on visual metaphors while Bait is based on aual Albahari claims that intercultural understanding is unattainable because it is rooted in stereotypes, although, paradoxically, he allows a possibility that stereotypes represent a provisional identity form

Are Banks in Switzerland Too-Big-To-Fail?

Too-big-to-fail has been a subject of controversy and has gained much attention in the course of the sub-prime financial crisis 2007-2009. Subjects related under this topic for instance are usually about the excessive risk taken by the government, and moral hazard. In this paper, we perform an analysis to examine the existence of too-big-to-fail impact on the banking sector in Switzerland during the financial crisis. By implementing a structural model to value the CDS contracts, and thus compare the model estimates with market observation. Deviation between model estimates and market data indicates the asymmetric expectations between shareholders and creditors. Since government bailout tends to favor creditors, thus the stock-implied model estimates will be less affected. As we expected, overestimation of model predicted CDS spreads are found for banks in Switzerland, where the magnitude differs by government intervention. Our results comply with the theory that under government bailout, the expected default probability diverges between shareholders and creditors, which is a sign of having too-big-to-fail impact

Valuation of Asian Options-with Levy Approximation

Asian options are difficult to price analytically. Even though they have attracted much attention in recent years, there is still no closed-form solution available for pricing the arithmetic Asian options, because the distribution of the density function is unknown. However, various studies have attempted to solve this problem, Levy (1992) approximates the unknown density function using lognormal distribution by matching the first two moments. This paper investigates how accurate the Levy approach is by comparing values of Asian options from Levy’s approach with Monte Carlo simulations. We find that Levy’s analytic solution tends to over-estimate Asian option values when volatility is constant, but under-estimates under the scenario of having stochastic volatility

Influence of the menstrual cycle on the incidence of nausea and vomiting after laparoscopic gynecological surgery: a pilot study.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the phase of menstrual cycle influences the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) in women undergoing general anesthesia for elective laparoscopic gynecological surgery. DESIGN: Prospective, observational, blinded study. SETTING: General hospital, Postanesthesia Care Unit, and gynecologic floor room. PATIENTS: 111 ASA physical status 1 and 2 women, aged 18 to 53 years. INTERVENTIONS: Patients were classified into three groups according to the phase of menstrual cycle at the time of anesthesia: Group F1: follicular phase (menstrual days 1-8; n = 34); Group O2: ovulatory phase (days 9-15; n = 40); and Group L3: luteal phase (days 16 to end of cycle; n = 37). Anesthetic, postoperative pain management, and antiemetic regimens were standardized. MEASUREMENTS: Frequency of nausea, vomiting, or both were assessed for early (0-2 hrs). Late PONV (2-24 hrs) along with the use of rescue antiemetic, severity of nausea, and pain. MAIN RESULTS: In the follicular (n = 34), ovulatory (n = 40) and luteal phase (n = 37) groups, the frequencies of PONV over 24 hours were 35%, 38%, and 14% (P = 0.04), respectively. This was due to differences in the early postoperative period where the frequencies were 21%, 25%, and 3% (P = 0.02), respectively, as frequencies were similar in the late period (15%, 20% and 14%, P = 0.71), respectively. Nausea scores, rescue antiemetic usage, pain scores, and opioid consumption were similar in the groups. CONCLUSION: Patients in the luteal phase of their menstrual cycle may have a decreased risk of PONV after laparoscopic gynecological surgery in the early postoperative period

Root causes of intraoperative hypoglycemia: a case series.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To describe the root causes of intraoperative hypoglycemic events. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis. SETTING: Large academic teaching hospital. MEASUREMENTS: Data from 80,379 ASA physical status 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 surgical patients were reviewed. Blood glucose values, insulin, oral hypoglycemic medication doses, and doses of glucose or other medications for hypoglycemia treatment were recorded. MAIN RESULTS: Hypoglycemia in many patients had multiple etiologies, with many cases (8 of 17) involving preventable errors. The most common root causes of hypoglycemia were ineffective communication, circulatory shock, failure to monitor, and excessive insulin administration. CONCLUSION: Intraoperative hypoglycemia was rare, but often preventable. Better communication among providers and between providers and patients may reduce the number of intraoperative hypoglycemic events. Many transient episodes of hypoglycemia did not result in any apparent complications, rendering their clinical importance uncertain. Critically ill patients in circulatory shock represent a group that may require close glucose monitoring

Different Pharmacokinetics of Tramadol, O-Demethyltramadol and N-Demethyltramadol in Postoperative Surgical Patients From Those Observed in Medical Patients

Background: Most studies examining tramadol metabolism have been carried out in non-surgical patients and with oral tramadol. The aim of this study was 1) to measure concentrations of tramadol, O-demethyltramadol (ODT), and N-demethyltramadol (NDT) in the surgical patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) within the first 24 postoperative hours after intravenous application of tramadol, and 2) to examine the effect of systemic inflammation on tramadol metabolism and postoperative pain.Methods: A prospective observational study was carried out in the surgical ICU in the tertiary hospital. In the group of 47 subsequent patients undergoing major abdominal surgery, pre-operative blood samples were taken for CYP2D6 polymorphism analysis. Systemic inflammation was assessed based on laboratory and clinical indicators. All patients received 100 mg of tramadol intravenously every 6 h during the first postoperative day. Postoperative pain was assessed before and 30 min after tramadol injections. Tramadol, ODT, and NDT concentrations were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography.Results:CYP2D6 analysis revealed 2 poor (PM), 22 intermediate (IM), 22 extensive (EM), and 1 ultrafast metabolizer. After a dose of 100 mg of tramadol, t1/2 of 4.8 (3.2–7.6) h was observed. There were no differences in tramadol concentration among metabolic phenotypes. The area under the concentration–time curve at the first dose interval (AUC1-6) of tramadol was 1,200 (917.9–1944.4) μg ×h ×L−1. NDT concentrations in UM were below the limit of quantification until the second dose of tramadol was administrated, while PM had higher NDT concentrations compared to EM and IM. ODT concentrations were higher in EM, compared to IM and PM. ODT AUC1-6 was 229.6 (137.7–326.2) μg ×h ×L−1 and 95.5 (49.1–204.3) μg ×h ×L−1 in EM and IM, respectively (p = 0.004). Preoperative cholinesterase activity (ChE) of ≤4244 U L−1 was a cut-off value for a prediction of systemic inflammation in an early postoperative period. NDT AUC1-6 were significantly higher in patients with low ChE compared with normal ChE patients (p = 0.006). Pain measurements have confirmed that sufficient pain control was achieved in all patients after the second tramadol dose, except in the PM.Conclusions:CYP2D6 polymorphism is a major factor in O-demethylation, while systemic inflammation accompanied by low ChE has an important role in the N-demethylation of tramadol in postoperative patients. Concentrations of tramadol, ODT, and NDT are lower in surgical patients than previously reported in non-surgical patients.Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04004481

Italy

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