Players with limited memory

This paper studies a model of memory. The model takes into account that memory capacity is limited and imperfect. We study how agents with such memory limitations, who have very little information about their choice environment, play games. We introduce the notion of a Limited Memory Equilibrium (LME) and show that play converges to an LME in every generic normal form game. Our characterization of the set of LME suggests that players with limited memory do (weakly) better in games than in decision problems. We also show that agents can do quite well even with severely limited memory, although severe limitations tend to make them behave cautiously

The Cost of Doing Business: Corporate Crime and Punishment Post-Crisis

For many years, law and economics scholars, as well as politicians and regulators, have debated whether corporate criminal enforcement overdeters beneficial corporate activity or in the alternative, lets corporate criminals off too easily. This debate has recently expanded in its polarization: On the one hand, academics, judges, and politicians have excoriated the DOJ for failing to send guilty bankers to jail in the wake of the financial crisis; on the other, the DOJ has since relaxed policies aimed to secure individual lability and reduced the size of fines and number of prosecutions.A crucial and yet understudied piece of evidence in this conversation is how crime has responded to our enforcement regime. In the last few decades, the DOJ has embraced many law and economics enforcement tenents including entity liability over individual liability, fewer prosecutions and a greater number of settlements, and high fines over jail time. And several papers have documented these enforcement trends in detail. However, unlike every other type of crime, the government does not collect data about corporate crime levels. Therefore, we cannot tell how corporations are responding to these enforcement practices.In this paper, we take important first steps in determining how corporate crime, and financial institution crime in particular, is responding to the DOJ’s enforcement regime and its shifting priorities. Specifically, we proxy for financial crime using three novel sources: the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), consumer complaints made to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and whistleblower complaints made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Each source reveals a steep increase in complaints or reports indicative of financial institution misconduct. We also examine levels of public company recidivism, which are also on the rise. And we document a potential cause: recidivist companies are much larger than non-recidivist companies, but they receive smaller fines than non-recidivist companies (measured as a percentage of assets and revenue). In theory, high fines can supply adequate deterrence by themselves, but our results indicate that it might not be politically feasible to levy a sufficiently high fine to deter future incidents of corporate crime. Put differently, for large companies, criminal penalties may be just another cost of doing business — and quite a reasonable cost at that. We conclude by offering recommendations for enforcement agencies and policymakers. In particular, we observe that many of the assumptions inherent to classical law and economics theory are inacurrate with respect to white-collar crime. Fines large enough to deter malfeasance are large and potentially infinite — well outside the possibility set for policymakers. The DOJ should therefore consider other ways of securing deterrence, such as by increasing penalties against guilty individuals

Un estudio empírico de los parámetros que influyen en la compra de los consumidores que utilizan el comercio electrónico en India

Electronic Commerce has experienced rapid growth during the last few years. It is a business technique by which consumers buy and sell goods and services online. It has not only helped in increasing speed of service delivery but also helped in reducing cost factors. Leading e- commerce Companies such as Snapdeal, Jabong, and Flipkartare aiding in growth and development of this concept. As per IMAI, domestic digital commerce market is expected to register much higher growth in coming years because of better internet penetration, increase in trust level and pricing advantage. Hence, it became important for stakeholders to know more about the e-attitude of the consumers and triggered an idea to conduct study on e-commerce shopping in India. Using the Multiple Regression Model, Means Comparison Analysis and Demographic Details, the study gave decent business in sights into the Indian consumer’s cognitive decision behavior when choosing products onlineEl comercio electrónico ha experimentado un crecimiento rápido durante estos últimos años. Es una técnica de negocio por la que muchos clientes compran, y venden bienes y servicios online. Esto no solo ha ayudado a aumentar la velocidad del servicio de reparto, sino que también a reducir los factores de coste. Empresas que lideran en este tipo de comercio, como Snapdeal, Jabong, y Flipkartare, ayudan en el crecimiento y desarrollo de este concepto. Según el IMAI, se espera que el mercado de comercio digital doméstico registre un mayor crecimiento en los siguientes años por su mejor entrada en el internet, su aumento en el nivel de confianza, y ventaja en los precios. Por tanto, el hecho de conocer mejor la actitud electrónica de los clientes se convirtió en algo muy importante para los inversores, y provocó que se dirigiera un estudio en las compras en el comercio electrónico en India. Con el uso del Modelo de Regresión Múltiple, el Análisis de Comparación de Medios, y los Detalles Demográficos, este estudio proporcionó conocimientos decentes sobre el negocio en el comportamiento, en cuanto a la decisión cognitiva del cliente indio, a la hora de elegir productos online

Systematic review: combination therapies for treatment-naïve chronic hepatitis B

Background: There is a renewed interest in use of combination therapies in treatment-naïve chronic hepatitis B (CHB) because of limitations of monotherapies. Aim: To discuss the current status of combination therapies in treatment-naive CHB. Methods PubMed search was done using 'combination', 'sequential' and 'chronic hepatitis B' as the search terms. Results: The two most popular combination therapies include 'combination of nucleos(t)ide analogues' and 'combination of interferons and nucleos(t)ide analogues'. Combination therapies using two nucleos(t)ide analogues do not lead to higher long-term efficacy. However, addition of a nucleos(t)ide analogue with a good resistance profile to a nucleos(t)ide analogue with a lower genetic barrier to resistance decreases the risk of emergent resistance to the latter. Greater sustained virological, biochemical and seroconversion rates are observed with addition of lamivudine to conventional interferon, but pegylated-interferon monotherapy is equally effective as combination with lamivudine. Again, resistance to lamivudine is lower with its combination with interferons. Conclusions: The answer to the question whether hepatitis B can be treated better with combination or monotherapy remains largely unknown. Additional trials are warranted of combination therapies of peginterferon and potent nucleos(t)ide analogues or therapies with the combined use of nucleos(t)ide analogues or immunomodulators

Health problems in geriatric population of age group ≥70 years in rural Kerala, India: a cross sectional study

Background: The proportion of elderly population is increasing considerably world over. The health and socio-economic issues of this section is to be considered separately and in depth insights about them is needed for formulating elderly friendly health policy. This study intends toidentify the important health concerns of elderly population above the age group of 70 years in a rural area in North Kerala, India.Methods: It is a community based cross-sectional descriptive study involving all individuals above the age group of 70 years in a randomly selected panchayath ward from rural North Kerala. The data regarding demography, socioeconomic aspects, medical history, access to health care and treatment of chronic illnesses were collected through interview of study participants by a trained health care volunteer using a pre-validated questionnaire.Results: A total of 93 individuals above the age group of 70 years were included in the study out of which 63% were females and 37% males. In the study population 55.9% of the elderly were widowed and 87.1 % were staying along with their children. Almost 75% of the elderly received social welfare pension from government agencies and 14.3% received service pensions. 67.74% of the study population were hypertensive and 35.56% were diabetic. Other health issues included arthritis, coronary artery disease, chronic kidney disease, genito urinary symptoms and cerebrovascular accident.Conclusion:  The study provide valuable insights into the health and social issues of elderly in Kerala and points to the importance of formulating an elderly friendly health policy in the state

Comparing Platforms for C. elegans Mutant Identification Using High-Throughput Whole-Genome Sequencing

Whole-genome sequencing represents a promising approach to pinpoint chemically induced mutations in genetic model organisms, thereby short-cutting time-consuming genetic mapping efforts.We compare here the ability of two leading high-throughput platforms for paired-end deep sequencing, SOLiD (ABI) and Genome Analyzer (Illumina; "Solexa"), to achieve the goal of mutant detection. As a test case we used a mutant C. elegans strain that harbors a mutation in the lsy-12 locus which we compare to the reference wild-type genome sequence. We analyzed the accuracy, sensitivity, and depth-coverage characteristics of the two platforms. Both platforms were able to identify the mutation that causes the phenotype of the mutant C. elegans strain, lsy-12. Based on a 4 MB genomic region in which individual variants were validated by Sanger sequencing, we observe tradeoffs between rates of false positives and false negatives when using both platforms under similar coverage and mapping criteria.In conclusion, whole-genome sequencing conducted by either platform is a viable approach for the identification of single-nucleotide variations in the C. elegans genome

Small-intestinal bacterial overgrowth in cirrhosis is related to the severity of liver disease

Background: Small-intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is known to be present in patients with cirrhosis, predisposing to various complications. Aim To determine the frequency of SIBO in cirrhotics and correlate with severity of cirrhosis. Methods: Small-intestinal bacterial overgrowth was determined by glucose-hydrogen breath test (GHBT). A basal breath-hydrogen >20 ppm or a rise by ≥12 ppm above baseline following glucose administration was taken as positive test. Prevalence of SIBO in cirrhotics was compared with healthy controls and correlated with severity of cirrhosis. Results: Of the 53 cirrhotics, 26 (49%) had SIBO, compared to one (8%) control (P = 0.010). The prevalence of SIBO increased with severity of cirrhosis (Child-Pugh A 20%, B 52% and C 73%; P = 0.013). On multivariate analysis, SIBO was independently associated with serum bilirubin and ascites. The best cut-off of serum bilirubin was ≥2 mg/dL [AUROC 0.77 (95% CI 0.64-0.90)] predicting SIBO with sensitivity 65%, specificity 81%, positive predictive value 77%, negative predictive value 71% and accuracy 74%. Patients having combination of ascites and serum bilirubin ≥2 mg/dL had 82% chance, while patients having neither had only 10% chance of having SIBO. Conclusions: Small-intestinal bacterial overgrowth was prevalent in about half of cirrhotics. Its frequency increased with increase in severity of cirrhosis. Ascites and raised serum bilirubin reliably predicted presence of SIBO

Influence of Humidity on the NO₂ Sensing Properties of SrCo₀.₁Ti₀.₉O₃

Strontium Cobalt Titanate (SCT) was synthesized via solid state route. Phase formation was analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. Resistive sensors were made using screen printing technique and corresponding sensing properties were investigated in dry as well as humid environment (RH 50%). Experimental results demonstrated that sensors displayed least humidity interference at 400 °C. The operating temperature of the sensor was optimized for best responsiveness. These type of sensors can be effectively used in environmental monitoring of NO2 gas at low ppm