Delays in Liquidated and Resolved Firms

The ultimate objective of the Indian bankruptcy reform is to get up to plausible recovery rates and change the behavior of borrowers. The key tool for achieving these objectives is reducing the delay. In the existing literature, we know that there are large delays, particularly for large firms (Bhatia et. al. 2019, Felman et. al. 2019, Shah 2018). The most important proximate objective of the Indian bankruptcy reform is to reduce delays in the bankruptcy process (Shah and Thomas, 2018)

Ectoparasite of Rodents Collected from International Seaport, Gujarat (India) with Special Reference to Plague & Scrub Typhus

Background: Rodents are well established at port areas and their arthropod ectoparasite can be vectors of many diseases. Ships play an important role in spreading disease by transporting infected vectors.Objective: In view of the seriousness of the problem the present study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of rodent–ectoparasite association at KPT, Kandla (India).Results: Four species of rodents: Tatera indica (Hardwicke), Bandicota indica (Bechstein), Rattus norvegicus (Berkenhout), Rattus rattus (Linnaeus) were trapped from the port area. Rodent Infestation rate was 84.9 per cent. Lice (46.5%) were the predominant ectoparasites retrieved from the rodents followed by mites and fleas. The rodent ectoparasite index was 13.6 per rat. A total of 32 vector larval trombiculid chigger mite (Leptotrombidium deliense, Walch) were collected from various species of rats. Chigger infestation rate was found to be 8.0 per rat. A total of 96% chigger mites were retrieved from R. norvagicus trapped from canteen area. A total 234 fleas were retrieved giving an overall flea index of 2.5 per rat. The flea species collected from rodents were Xenopsylla cheopis (Rothschild) and X. astia (Rothschild). Serological & bacteriological examination of rodent samples showed no Orentia and plague bacilli activity.Conclusion: Result of the study suggests routine surveillance for rodent and their arthropods ectoparasite to apply appropriate control measure to prevent the spreading of rodent borne diseases

Invariant Synthesis for Incomplete Verification Engines

We propose a framework for synthesizing inductive invariants for incomplete verification engines, which soundly reduce logical problems in undecidable theories to decidable theories. Our framework is based on the counter-example guided inductive synthesis principle (CEGIS) and allows verification engines to communicate non-provability information to guide invariant synthesis. We show precisely how the verification engine can compute such non-provability information and how to build effective learning algorithms when invariants are expressed as Boolean combinations of a fixed set of predicates. Moreover, we evaluate our framework in two verification settings, one in which verification engines need to handle quantified formulas and one in which verification engines have to reason about heap properties expressed in an expressive but undecidable separation logic. Our experiments show that our invariant synthesis framework based on non-provability information can both effectively synthesize inductive invariants and adequately strengthen contracts across a large suite of programs

GDNF promotes hair formation and cutaneous wound healing by targeting bulge stem cells.

Glial-cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a well-studied neuroregenerative factor; however, the degree to which it supports hair formation and skin wound repair is not known. By using a Gfra1 (GDNF family receptor alpha 1) knock-in reporter mouse line, GDNF signaling was found to occur within hair bulge stem cells (BSCs) during the initiation of the hair cycle and early stages of hair formation after depilation. Both recombinant and transgene overexpression of GDNF promoted BSC colony growth, hair formation, and skin repair after wounding through enhanced self-renewal of BSCs and commitment of BSC-derived progenitors into becoming epidermal cells at the injury site. Conditional ablation of Gfra1 among BSCs impaired the onset of the hair cycle, while conditional ablation of the GDNF family member signal transducer, Ret, within BSCs prevented the onset of the hair cycle and depilation-induced anagen development of hair follicles. Our findings reveal that GDNF promotes hair formation and wound repair and that bulge stem cells are critical mediators of both

Arctic air pollution: Challenges and opportunities for the next decade

The Arctic is a sentinel of global change. This region is influenced by multiple physical and socio-economic drivers and feedbacks, impacting both the natural and human environment. Air pollution is one such driver that impacts Arctic climate change, ecosystems and health but significant uncertainties still surround quantification of these effects. Arctic air pollution includes harmful trace gases (e.g. tropospheric ozone) and particles (e.g. black carbon, sulphate) and toxic substances (e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) that can be transported to the Arctic from emission sources located far outside the region, or emitted within the Arctic from activities including shipping, power production, and other industrial activities. This paper qualitatively summarizes the complex science issues motivating the creation of a new international initiative, PACES (air Pollution in the Arctic: Climate, Environment and Societies). Approaches for coordinated, international and interdisciplinary research on this topic are described with the goal to improve predictive capability via new understanding about sources, processes, feedbacks and impacts of Arctic air pollution. Overarching research actions are outlined, in which we describe our recommendations for 1) the development of trans-disciplinary approaches combining social and economic research with investigation of the chemical and physical aspects of Arctic air pollution; 2) increasing the quality and quantity of observations in the Arctic using long-term monitoring and intensive field studies, both at the surface and throughout the troposphere; and 3) developing improved predictive capability across a range of spatial and temporal scales

Hemolymph acid phosphatase activity in the green mussel (Perna viridis, Linnaeus, 1758) exposed to copper and mercury

The lysosomal system in bivalves is sensitive to changes in the intra and extra cellular environment. The activity pattern of hemolymph acid phosphatase, a marker enzyme of the lysosomal system, was studied in the green mussel (Perna viridis) exposed to sub lethal concentration of 25 μg/l of copper and mercury at 24 hr, 72 hr, 7th day and 14th day. The results of the study revealed that at the sub lethal level, copper can induce remarkably higher acid phosphatase activity (hypersynthesis) than mercury. Hypersynthesis of the enzyme occurs much earlier in copper treated mussels than observed in mercury exposed mussels, but on continued exposure, the acid phosphatase activity shows a considerable decline

Classes of exact Einstein-Maxwell solutions

We find new classes of exact solutions to the Einstein-Maxwell system of equations for a charged sphere with a particular choice of the electric field intensity and one of the gravitational potentials. The condition of pressure isotropy is reduced to a linear, second order differential equation which can be solved in general. Consequently we can find exact solutions to the Einstein-Maxwell field equations corresponding to a static spherically symmetric gravitational potential in terms of hypergeometric functions. It is possible to find exact solutions which can be written explicitly in terms of elementary functions, namely polynomials and product of polynomials and algebraic functions. Uncharged solutions are regainable with our choice of electric field intensity; in particular we generate the Einstein universe for particular parameter values.Comment: 16 pages, To appear in Gen. Relativ. Gravi

Demonstration of Bias-Controlled Algorithmic Tuning of Quantum Dots in a Well (DWELL) MidIR Detectors

The quantum-confined Stark effect in intersublevel transitions present in quantum-dots-in-a-well (DWELL) detectors gives rise to a midIR spectral response that is dependent upon the detector\u27s operational bias. The spectral responses resulting from different biases exhibit spectral shifts, albeit with significant spectral overlap. A postprocessing algorithm was developed by Sakoglu that exploited this bias-dependent spectral diversity to predict the continuous and arbitrary tunability of the DWELL detector within certain limits. This paper focuses on the experimental demonstration of the DWELL-based spectral tuning algorithm. It is shown experimentally that it is possible to reconstruct the spectral content of a target electronically without using any dispersive optical elements for tuning, thereby demonstrating a DWELL-based algorithmic spectrometer. The effects of dark current, detector temperature, and bias selection on the tuning capability are also investigated experimentally