Identifying latent grouped patterns in cointegrated panels

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier 2; Lee Kong Chian Fund for Excellenc

Designing multi-target salesforce incentive contract

Multi-target incentive contracts are widely observed in practice to stimulate salesforce effort. However, little is known about their effectiveness and the issues involved in designing them. In this thesis, we investigate the incentive contracting problem between a manufacturer and an agent when the realized sales of a product are affected by both the agent\u27s selling effort and the type of the agent. The agent\u27s type is uncertain to the manufacturer, whereas the agent can observe the actual type when exerting her selling effort. Again, this is unobservable by the manufacturer. For contract design problem, we develop a principal-agent model with both moral hazard and adverse selection. We examine the manufacturer\u27s optimal contract parameter decisions employing a single multi-target contract for the agent who can be of different types. Because menu contracts are commonly studied in literature for the adverse selection problem, we also study a menu of single-target contracts; and examine the manufacturer\u27s optimal contract parameter decisions. We then compare the performance between the two types of contract. We arrive at a number of managerial insights regarding the design and the performance of multi-target contract and menu contract

Identifying latent grouped patterns in cointegrated panels

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier 2; Lee Kong Chian Fund for ExcellencePublished in Econometric Theory, (202), 36 (3), 410-456. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266466619000197</p

Effects of post-treatment electroacupuncture on ventricular monophasic action potential and cardiac function in a rat model of ischemia/reperfusion injury

Background: To determine the effects of post-treatment electroacupuncture (EA) on the electrophysiological properties of ventricular muscle in rats with ischemia/reperfusion (IR) injury. Methods: Male Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats were randomly assigned into sham-operated (SH), IR and IR + EA groups (n = 8 each). The IR model was generated by ligation of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery for 30 min. After establishing the IR model, EA was administered at PC6 for 30 min while opening the coronary artery and allowing reperfusion for 30 min. Heart rate (HR), mean arterial pressure and monophasic action potential (MAP)of cardiac muscle in the outer membrane of the antetheca of the left ventricle before coronary artery ligation (T0),after coronary artery ligation for 30 min (T1) and after reperfusion for 30 min (T2) were recorded. At the same time, ventricular electrophysiological parameters including ventricular effective refractory period (ERP), conduction velocity (CV) and ventricular fibrillation threshold (VFT) were measured. Then, the cardiac function and the levels of creatine kinase-muscle/brain (CK-MB) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) were monitored. Based on these data,monophasic action potential amplitude (MAPA), the maximum depolarization velocity (Vmax) and the MAP durations at 50% and 90% repolarization (MAPD50 and MAPD90) were calculated to determine the incidence of arrhythmia during reperfusion. Results: Compared with the SH group, the IR group showed an obviously decreased HR as well as reduced mean arterial pressure, Vmax, CV, ERP and MAPA. All indices of cardiac function except left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP) decreased (i.e. ventricular systolic pressure (LVSP), left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), fractional shortening (FS) and rate of the ventricular pressure rise/drop (±dp/dt)). Furthermore, the MAPD50 and MAPD90 were prolonged, and the levels of CK-MB and cTnI increased (p 0.05). Conclusion: EA post-treatment can relieve prolongation of repolarization and slowed depolarization of ventricular muscle during IR, thus decreasing the rate of incidence of reperfusion arrhythmia