Heterogeneous Investors and their Changing Demand and Supply Schedules for Individual Common Stocks

Using 550 million limit orders submitted in the Korea Stock Exchange, we estimate demand and supply elasticities of heterogeneous investor types and their changes around the Asian financial crisis. We find that domestic individuals have substantially more inelastic demand and supply curves than domestic institutions and foreign investors. The crisis permanently reduced price elasticities of domestic individuals by 50% but had no effect on those of foreign investors. Institutional changes restricting margin purchases, implemented after the crisis, seem particularly important in explaining the dramatic drop. Information heterogeneity, availability of close substitutes and arbitrage risk also explain time-series variations in elasticities.

Formation of matter-wave soliton trains by modulational instability

Nonlinear systems can exhibit a rich set of dynamics that are inherently sensitive to their initial conditions. One such example is modulational instability, which is believed to be one of the most prevalent instabilities in nature. By exploiting a shallow zero-crossing of a Feshbach resonance, we characterize modulational instability and its role in the formation of matter-wave soliton trains from a Bose-Einstein condensate. We examine the universal scaling laws exhibited by the system, and through real-time imaging, address a long-standing question of whether the solitons in trains are created with effectively repulsive nearest neighbor interactions, or rather, evolve into such a structure

Translating the Cantor set by a random

We determine the constructive dimension of points in random translates of the Cantor set. The Cantor set "cancels randomness" in the sense that some of its members, when added to Martin-Lof random reals, identify a point with lower constructive dimension than the random itself. In particular, we find the Hausdorff dimension of the set of points in a Cantor set translate with a given constructive dimension

The Practice of Public Topography: Teaching People to Appreciate Ordinary Places Using Books and New Media

People have a deep need to connect to places, but modernity has weakened many of the traditional ways that people have bonded with localities. Geographers of the past believed that a core responsibility of geography was to describe places. This connection between geography and place education, however, has attenuated as geographers have become increasingly concerned with theory and have eschewed regional geography. This research seeks to revitalize the geographic tradition of topography (writing about small places) by examining its best works, while at the same time exploring new ways to connect people with places. It answers the question, “What lessons can we learn about place writing for non-academic audiences from the genre’s best examples, and how can these lessons inform the use of new media to connect people with places?” Examples of excellent topographic books and audio podcasts were analyzed to answer this question. Based on a study of the topographic tradition, literature on place attachment, and an empirical examination of topographic books, three essential features of a modern public topography are proposed: 1) topography teaches people to appreciate particular places; 2) topography engages the general public; and 3) topography is inherently geographical. Topographic works that incorporate these elements are found to use one or more of three strategies for facilitating the appreciation of place: 1) an explanatory strategy; 2) a poetic strategy; 3) or an experiential strategy. Specific recommendations for the application of these features and strategies to topographic writing are given. These essential features and strategies were used to analyze audio podcasts about small places. The result is a series of recommendations for the creation of topographic podcasts. To illustrate the utility of these recommendations, a podcast about the influence of the Brazos River on the landscape of Texas’s Brazos Valley was produced, along with an accompanying webpage. This research suggests that while modernity has created significant obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places.Based on a study of the topographic tradition, literature on place attachment, and an empirical examination of topographic books, three essential features of a modern public topography are proposed: 1) topography teaches people to appreciate particular places; 2) topography engages the general public; and 3) topography is inherently geographical. Topographic works that incorporate these elements are found to use one or more of three strategies for facilitating the appreciation of place: 1) an explanatory strategy; 2) a poetic strategy; 3) or an experiential strategy. Specific recommendations for the application of these features and strategies to topographic writing are given. These essential features and strategies were used to analyze audio podcasts about small places. The result is a series of recommendations for the creation of topographic podcasts. To illustrate the utility of these recommendations, a podcast about the influence of the Brazos River on the landscape of Texas’s Brazos Valley was produced, along with an accompanying webpage. This research suggests that while modernity has created significant obstacles to place attachment, a new interpretation of the old geographic tradition of topography has the potential to reduce those obstacles and to help the public to better appreciate places

Pharmacological Characterization of Novel Opioid Receptor Ligands Aimed at Reducing the Development of Tolerance

The three opioid receptor subtypes, mu (mu), delta (delta) and kappa (kappa) have long been associated with analgesia. Traditional opioid analgesics exert their effects through mu receptors located in the CNS. Recent studies suggest that the development of opioid analgesics displaying dual properties of mu agonism and delta antagonism could be of benefit by retaining potent analgesic properties while reducing the development of tolerance with chronic administration. UMB 425 displays high affinity at the mu receptor (K i = 3.2 +/- 0.14 nM), moderate affinity at the delta and kappa receptor. In vitro [35S]GTPgammaS functional assay results indicate that UMB 425 acts as partial agonist at the mu receptor, whilst having competitive antagonistic properties at the delta receptor. UMB 425 displays potent acute analgesic activity in vivo for both the hot plate and tail-flick assays, comparable to morphine itself. Naloxone, a non-selective opioid antagonist, and nor-BNI, a selective kappa-antagonist, pretreatment studies were performed to ensure proper opioid-induced analgesic mechanisms. Naloxone attenuates the analgesic effects induced by an acute ED90 of UMB 425, while nor-BNI shows no significant reduction. A chronic dosing paradigm was designed to determine UMB 425 induced analgesic tolerance. UMB 425 maintains significantly higher levels of analgesia compared to morphine on the fifth day of this chronic dosing paradigm. A dose-response challenge performed on the sixth day of this paradigm indicates a smaller shift in respective ED50 values for UMB 425 as compared to morphine for both the tail-flick (1.3-/6.4-fold) and hot plate (3.0-/7.8-fold) assays, effectively demonstrating reduced analgesic tolerance liabilities for UMB 425

Heterogeneous Investors and their Changing Demand and Supply Schedules for Individual Common Stocks

Using 550 million limit orders submitted in the Korea Stock Exchange, we estimate demand and supply elasticities of heterogeneous investor types and their changes around the Asian financial crisis. We find that domestic individuals have substantially more inelastic demand and supply curves than domestic institutions and foreign investors. The crisis permanently reduced price elasticities of domestic individuals by 50% but had no effect on those of foreign investors. Institutional changes restricting margin purchases, implemented after the crisis, seem particularly important in explaining the dramatic drop. Information heterogeneity, availability of close substitutes and arbitrage risk also explain time-series variations in elasticities.

Patterns of Comovement: The Role of Information Technology in the U.S. Economy

Firm-specific variation in stock returns and fundamental performance measures is significantly higher in industries that have a history of more investment in information technology (IT). We hypothesise that IT is associated with creative destruction or product differentiation, either of which can widen the performance difference between winner and loser firms. Thus, economy-level volatility can fall while firm-level volatility rises because firm-specific volatility cancels out in the aggregate. Our results are consistent with rising firm-specific variation in US stocks reflecting a rising pace of creative destruction; and with greater firm-specific variation in richer and faster growing countries reflecting more intensive creative destruction in those economies, though other explanations are probably valid as well.

Managing Acute Insomnia in Prison: Evaluation of a ‘one-shot’ Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) intervention

Insomnia is a serious condition that affects over 60% of the prison population and has been associated with aggression, anger, impulsivity, suicidality, and increased prison health care use. Nonpharmacological interventions for prison inmates are scarce despite the high prevalence and significant consequences of insomnia among those incarcerated. The aim of the present study was to examine the preliminary efficacy and effectiveness of a one-shot of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) for prison inmates with acute insomnia in an open trial. The intervention consisted of one 60-70 minute session of CBT-I and a self-management pamphlet. A consecutive series of 30 adult male offenders with acute insomnia from a UK prison completed measures of prospective sleep (daily sleep diary), insomnia symptoms severity (Insomnia Severity Index), and mood symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire and General Anxiety Disorder) one week before and four weeks after receiving the intervention. Pairwise t-tests revealed that a single-shot of CBT-I was effective in reducing the severity of insomnia in adult male offenders (t=(29), 12.65,p<0.001). Further, the results demonstrated high effect sizes for reductions in depressive (dz=1.07) and anxious (dz=1.06) symptoms, as well as insomnia severity (dz=2.25). A single shot session of CBT-I is effective in managing acute insomnia and mood (depression, anxiety) symptoms in adult male prison inmates. Future research should focus on testing if the single shot CBT-I intervention can be implemented and disseminated in other settings and populations (e.g., female and juvenile/youth offenders)

Net Impact Evaluation of Moving Men and Women to Economic Independence in Michigan, Within Reach Program: Year 1 and Year 2 Cohorts

The authors completed a net impact evaluation of the “Within Reach” component of the Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit program (Moving Men and Women to Economic Independence). This program provided employment-related support services to disadvantaged adults as coordinated by WorkFirst. The net impact evaluation estimated the contribution of the program to the employment outcomes of the participants. It constructed comparison groups of individuals who were similar to the program participants, but who did not participate in the program. The net impact analysis focused on three employment-related outcomes: finding a job, retaining a job (workforce attachment), and earnings