84 research outputs found
Exploited by complexity
Due to their complex features, structured financial products can hurt the average investor. Are certain investors particularly vulnerable? Using account-level transaction data of retail structured funds, we show that the rich (sophisticated) benefit from complexity at the expense of the poor (naive). The poor-to-rich wealth transfer that results from trading structured funds is substantially greater than from trading simple, nonstructured funds. In an event study, we further confirm that part of this wealth transfer can be directly attributed to investors' differing responses to complexity. In particular, when a market crash triggers funds into a restructuring process and their prices are expected to shrink by half on a given day, the poor and naive subset of investors fails to respond effectively
The Mechanism of Secretion and Metabolism of Gut-Derived 5-Hydroxytryptamine
Serotonin, also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), is a metabolite of tryptophan and is reported to modulate the development and neurogenesis of the enteric nervous system, gut motility, secretion, inflammation, sensation, and epithelial development. Approximately 95% of 5-HT in the body is synthesized and secreted by enterochromaffin (EC) cells, the most common type of neuroendocrine cells in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, through sensing signals from the intestinal lumen and the circulatory system. Gut microbiota, nutrients, and hormones are the main factors that play a vital role in regulating 5-HT secretion by EC cells. Apart from being an important neurotransmitter and a paracrine signaling molecule in the gut, gut-derived 5-HT was also shown to exert other biological functions (in autism and depression) far beyond the gut. Moreover, studies conducted on the regulation of 5-HT in the immune system demonstrated that 5-HT exerts anti-inflammatory and proinflammatory effects on the gut by binding to different receptors under intestinal inflammatory conditions. Understanding the regulatory mechanisms through which 5-HT participates in cell metabolism and physiology can provide potential therapeutic strategies for treating intestinal diseases. Herein, we review recent evidence to recapitulate the mechanisms of synthesis, secretion, regulation, and biofunction of 5-HT to improve the nutrition and health of humans
A proposal on the galaxy intrinsic alignment self-calibration in weak lensing surveys
The galaxy intrinsic alignment causes the galaxy ellipticity-ellipticity
power spectrum between two photometric redshifts to decrease faster with
respect to the redshift separation , for fixed mean redshift. This
offers a valuable diagnosis on the intrinsic alignment. We show that the
distinctive dependences of the GG, II and GI correlations on over
the range |\Delta z^P|\la 0.2 can be understood robustly without strong
assumptions on the intrinsic alignment. This allows us to measure the intrinsic
alignment within each conventional photo-z bin of typical size \ga 0.2,
through lensing tomography of photo-z bin size . Both the
statistical and systematical errors in the lensing cosmology can be reduced by
this self-calibration technique.Comment: v2: minor revisions. 5 pages, 4 figures. MNRAS letters in pres
Lensing of 21cm Absorption "Halos" of 20-30 First Galaxies
Extended 21cm absorption regions (dubbed ``21cm absorption halos'') around
first galaxies at are likely the first distinctive structures
accessible to radio observations. Though the radio array capable of detecting
and resolving them must have km total collecting area, given the
great impact of such detections to the understanding of the reionization
process and cosmology, such radio survey would be extremely profitable. As an
example, we point out a potentially useful byproduct of such survey. The
resolved 21cm absorption ``halos'', likely close to spherical, can serve as
(almost) ideal sources for measuring the {\it cosmic shear} and mapping the
matter distribution to . We investigate the expected lensing signal
and consider a variety of noise contributions on the shear measurement. We find
that S/N can be achieved for individual ``halos''. Given millions of
21cm absorption ``halos'' across the sky, the total S/N will be comparable to
traditional shear measurement of galaxies at .Comment: Minor revisions and expanded discussions. Accepted to MNRA
The Functional Role of Lactoferrin in Intestine Mucosal Immune System and Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), encompassing ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD), is one of the main types of intestinal inflammatory diseases with intestine mucosal immune disorder. Intestine mucosal immune system plays a remarkable and important role in the etiology and pathogenesis of IBD. Therefore, understanding the intestine mucosal immune mechanism is a key step to develop therapeutic interventions for IBD. Intestine mucosal immune system and IBD are influenced by various factors, such as inflammation, gut permeability, gut microbiota, and nutrients. Among these factors, emerging evidence show that nutrients play a key role in inflammation activation, integrity of intestinal barrier, and immune cell modulation. Lactoferrin (LF), an iron-binding glycoprotein belonging to transferrin family, is a dietary bioactive component abundantly found in mammalian milk. Notably, LF has been reported to perform diverse biological functions including antibacterial activity, anti-inflammatory activity, intestinal barrier protection, and immune cell modulation, and is involved in maintaining intestine mucosal immune homeostasis. The improved understanding of the properties of LF in intestine mucosal immune system and IBD will facilitate its application in nutrition, clinical medicine, and health. Herein, this review outlines the recent advancements on LF as a potential therapeutic intervention for IBD associated with intestine mucosal immune system dysfunction. We hope this review will provide a reference for future studies and lay a theoretical foundation for LF-based therapeutic interventions for IBD by understanding the particular effects of LF on intestine mucosal immune system.</p
Self calibration of gravitational shear-galaxy intrinsic ellipticity correlation in weak lensing surveys
The galaxy intrinsic alignment is a severe challenge to precision cosmic
shear measurement. We propose to self-calibrate the induced gravitational
shear-galaxy intrinsic ellipticity correlation (the GI correlation,
\citealt{Hirata04b}) in weak lensing surveys with photometric redshift
measurement. (1) We propose a method to extract the intrinsic
ellipticity-galaxy density cross correlation (I-g) from the galaxy
ellipticity-density measurement in the same redshift bin. (2) We also find a
generic scaling relation to convert the extracted I-g correlation to the
demanded GI correlation. We perform concept study under simplified conditions
and demonstrate its capability to significantly reduce the GI contamination. We
discuss the impact of various complexities on the two key ingredients of the
self-calibration technique, namely the method to extract the I-g correlation
and the scaling relation between the I-g and the GI correlation. We expect none
of them is likely able to completely invalidate the proposed self-calibration
technique.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. Heavily expanded version. No changes in major
results and conclusions. Accepted to Ap
Water management affects arsenic and cadmium accumulation in different rice cultivars
Paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a staple food and one of the major sources of dietary arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) in Asia. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of four water management regimes (aerobic, intermittent irrigation, conventional irrigation and flooding) on As and Cd accumulation in seven major rice cultivars grown in Zhejiang province, east China. With increasing irrigation from aerobic to flooded conditions, the soil HCl-extractable As concentrations increased significantly and the HCl-extractable Cd concentrations decreased significantly. These trends were consistent with the As and Cd concentrations in the straw, husk and brown rice. Water management both before and after the full tillering stage affected As and Cd accumulation in the grains. The intermittent and conventional treatments produced higher grain yields than the aerobic and flooded treatments. Cd concentrations in brown rice varied 13.1-40.8 times and As varied 1.75-8.80 times among the four water management regimes. Cd and As accumulation in brown rice varied among the rice cultivars, with Guodao 6 (GD6) was a low Cd but high-As-accumulating cultivar while Indonesia (IR) and Yongyou 9 (YY9) were low As but high-Cd-accumulating cultivars. Brown rice Cd and As concentrations in the 7 cultivars were significantly negatively correlated. The results indicate that As and Cd accumulated in rice grains with opposite trends that were influenced by both water management and rice cultivar. Production of 'safe' rice with respect to As and Cd might be possible by balancing water management and rice cultivar according to the severity of soil pollution.Paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a staple food and one of the major sources of dietary arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) in Asia. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of four water management regimes (aerobic, intermittent irrigation, conventional irrigation and flooding) on As and Cd accumulation in seven major rice cultivars grown in Zhejiang province, east China. With increasing irrigation from aerobic to flooded conditions, the soil HCl-extractable As concentrations increased significantly and the HCl-extractable Cd concentrations decreased significantly. These trends were consistent with the As and Cd concentrations in the straw, husk and brown rice. Water management both before and after the full tillering stage affected As and Cd accumulation in the grains. The intermittent and conventional treatments produced higher grain yields than the aerobic and flooded treatments. Cd concentrations in brown rice varied 13.1-40.8 times and As varied 1.75-8.80 times among the four water management regimes. Cd and As accumulation in brown rice varied among the rice cultivars, with Guodao 6 (GD6) was a low Cd but high-As-accumulating cultivar while Indonesia (IR) and Yongyou 9 (YY9) were low As but high-Cd-accumulating cultivars. Brown rice Cd and As concentrations in the 7 cultivars were significantly negatively correlated. The results indicate that As and Cd accumulated in rice grains with opposite trends that were influenced by both water management and rice cultivar. Production of 'safe' rice with respect to As and Cd might be possible by balancing water management and rice cultivar according to the severity of soil pollution
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