Estimating the costs of international equity investments.

We generalize the Cooper and Kaplanis (1994) methodology for estimating the costs that couldreconcile international portfolio holdings with CAPM predictions. First, we simultaneouslyestimate inward and outward investment costs and even interactions between home and hostcountry. Second, the risk aversion parameter is estimated rather than postulated. Third, wedetect costs for domestic investments. We ¯nd that the home bias in equity portfolios is relatedto a mixture of market frictions, such as information asymmetries, institutional factors andexplicit costs. Over the period 2001-2004, the average implicit investment costs range from0.26 (US) to 16 (Turkey) percent per annum.Determinants; Investments; Variability; Companies; Size; Variables;

Toward systematic diversification of collegiate U.S. Arabic language curricula

Growing recognition of the importance of instruction in colloquial Arabic has led to increased incorporation of colloquials into collegiate Arabic programs, whether taught separately from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or in an integrated fashion. Nevertheless, collegiate U.S. Arabic programs have, overall, not yet succeeded in foregrounding the Arab world’s tremendously rich linguistic and cultural diversity. In many programs, both those that teach MSA and colloquial Arabic separately and those that follow an integrated approach, the lived experience of a great number of communities in the Arab world remains invisible. This report examines how the push for colloquial instruction has inadvertently sustained the practices of erasure that increased instruction in informal Arabic had sought to address, and calls into question existing center-versus-periphery schemata that inform the work of Arabic curriculum designers. Instead, it proposes an approach to Arabic curriculum design that centralizes the Arab world’s diversity and heterogeneity, rather than presenting it as a “tokenized side note” (Randall, 2017). This means offering alternatives to dominant narratives about Arab culture in the classroom and diversifying the Arabic colloquials taught. The report concludes with steps that Arabic program leaders, and curriculum and material designers, might take toward profound diversification of our Arabic curricula

Breathing frequency and use of expiratory muscles do influence the dynamic positive end-expiratory pressure

AbstractEnd-expiratory air trapping due to obstructive airway disease can be estimated through the measurement of intrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure PEEPi. The influence of breathing-frequency and use of expiratory muscles on PEEPi were measured in 10 normal and 10 chronic bronchitic patients (COPD). Insignificant control values of PEEPi increased to measurable values at high breathing rate in normal subjects. Control values were higher in COPD patients and increased at fast breathing rate. When corrected for the use of expiratory muscles according to simultaneous gastric pressure drop, PEEPi decreased in COPD, but still increased at high rate. We conclude that modifying the respiratory rate can increase PEEPi values independently of the severity of airway obstruction and the use of expiratory muscles. Before estimating the pathological value of a PEEPi measurement or evaluating the effects of a treatment, we always need to know the simultaneous breathing frequency

A Measure of Pure Home Bias

The literature on international equity holdings distinguishes between home bias (overweighting of home stocks) and foreign bias (relative underweighting for more 'distant' countries). The two biases can be integrated into one distance-based model. We define pure home bias as the excess of home bias relative to this model, and find pure home bias only in emerging markets. Countries with high tax rates and low credit standing have higher pure home bias, and more development comes with lower distance aversion. Methodologically, the choice of portfolio bias measure matters. We find the best measure to be a covariance-based measure relative to the world average

Sports geography: new approaches, perspectives and directions

International audienc

Multifaceted Assessment in a Family Medicine Clerkship: A Pilot Study

Background and Objectives: Programs of assessment should reflect the multifaceted nature of medical competence. We experimented with new testing methods, ie, script concordance testing (SCT) and clinical reasoning problems (CRPs), combined with the habitual OSCE for an end of family medicine clerkship. Our aims were to compare students’ scores with experts’ scores, to determine whether the new tests detected learning over a 3-month period, and to examine whether the tests were redundant. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal study on one cohort of family medicine clerks. Two formative testing sessions using both SCT and CRPs were held 3 months apart. Students’ scores were compared to those of the panel of experts used to score the tests. We examined the difference in students’ scores between the two testing sessions. Finally, we computed correlation coefficients between these scores and the summative OSCE. Results: Panelists’ scores were significantly higher than students’ scores. SCT scores did not change significantly over 3 months whereas CRP scores improved (Wilcoxon z -3.058, effect size 0.461, P=.002). Correlations between the OSCE and the written tests were low or non-significant. There were low correlations between the first CRP and both SCTs (Spearman’s rho 0.357 and 0.358) but not between the second CRP and any SCT. Conclusions: Written tests of clinical reasoning could provide relevant additional information to the evaluation of students’ competence over the course of a family medicine clerkship. Further research is needed to determine the potential educational consequences of such programs of assessment

Incidence and correlates of delirium in a West African mental health clinic

Objective: <br/> <br/> To determine the incidence of delirium in those patients presenting to a psychiatric clinic in Nigeria and to examine if any demographic or clinical variables were correlated with this diagnosis. <br/> <br/> Method <br/> <br/> A prospective survey design; 264 consecutive new referrals to a psychiatric clinic in Nigeria were assessed for the presence of delirium using a standardised diagnostic scale. Data was analysed for normality and appropriate statistical test employed to examine the relationships between the presence of delirium and demographic and clinical variables. <br/> <br/> Results <br/> <br/> Of individuals presenting to the mental health clinics, 18.2% had delirium. No demographic variable was significant regarding the presence or absence of delirium. With regard to clinical variables duration of current symptoms, referral source and the presence of comorbid physical illness were significantly associated with the presence of delirium. Most delirium was due to infections. Nearly all patients with delirium were prescribed psychotropic medication (95.2%), and most attributed their symptoms to a spiritual cause.Conclusion(s) Delirium presents more commonly to psychiatry services in the less developed world compared to the West. Development efforts should focus on recognition and management of delirium to improve outcomes and maximise resource

Comparison of five D-dimer reagents and application of an age-adjusted cut-off for the diagnosis of venous thromboembolism in emergency department

There is still a considerable uncertainty concerning D-dimer cut-off values used in exclusion of venous thromboembolic (venous thromboembolism, VTE) disease, especially among the elderly patients. The objectives were to compare five different D-dimer reagents in the daily practice of an emergency department and to test retrospectively the performances of an age-adjusted cut-off. A total of 473 consecutive ambulatory outpatients suspected of VTE (confirmed VTE = 21) were included in this study. Five commercially available tests were assessed: STA-Liatest D-Di (LI), AxSYMD-Dimer (AX), VIDAS D-Dimer (VI), INNOVANCE D-Dimer (IN), and HemosIL D-Dimer HS (HS). When using a cut-off value of 500 ng/ml fibrinogen equivalent units (FEUs), D-dimer reagents differ in their abilities to avoid further testing. Indeed, LI allowed exclusion of VTE diagnosis in statistically more patients than VI, AX, and IN but not HS. The use of an age-adjusted cut-off is cost-effective without increasing significantly the number of false negative results. The interest of such strategy is more or less pronounced, depending on the type of D-dimer reagent. The application of an age-adjusted cut-off may be useful to reduce differences among D-dimer reagents to lower costly imaging studies. Prospective validation studies on large cohorts of patients are required to determine the safety of such strategy

Bilateral Peripheral Facial Palsy in a Patient with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Infection

Neurological complications are important causes of morbidity and mortality in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. They can occur at any stage of the disease and can affect any level of the central or peripheral nervous systems. In the literature, several cases of HIV-associated facial paralysis have been reported; however, bilateral facial palsy is rarely reported. In this paper, we present the first case in Korea, of a bilateral facial palsy occurring as the first clinical manifestation of HIV infection