Agricultural Banking and Early Warning Models for the Bank Failures of the Late 2000s Great Recession

This paper is designed to validate if the agricultural sector can once again be labeled as an instigator of the late-2000s Great Recession using the early warning models technique. The empirical results indicate that exposure to agribusiness operations does not necessarily enhance a banks’ tendency to fail.Agricultural Banking, Early warning signals, In-sample accuracy, Out-of-sample forecasting, Agricultural Finance, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, G21, G32, G33, C01,

The Influence of Buying vs. Receiving an IT-based Device on User Commitment

IT-based mobile devices (i.e., smart devices), especially those with health monitoring features, are popular gifts. However, little is known about a recipient’s commitment to using the smart device when it is obtained as a gift. To explore the influence of gift- giving on user perceptions and usage, three studies are reported. These studies build on the IT use literature, the gift-giving literature, and social exchange theory to investigate whether and how gift-giving leads to device commitment. Specifically, we found two contextual factor – receiving the smart device as a gift (versus buying for yourself) and providing emotional support when giving the gift – can increase recipients’ symbolic of the smart device. Additionally, recipients’ cognitive value of the smart device negatively moderates the effect of symbolic value on device commitment. The results provide novel insight into the relationship between IT use and gift-giving and provide implications for future research and the smart device industry

Snapshots of sequential polyphosphide rearrangement upon metallatetrylene addition

Insertion and functionalization of gallasilylenes [L$^{Ph}$Si–Ga(Cl)L$^{BDI}$] (L$^{Ph}$ = PhC(NtBu)$_{2}$; L$^{BDI}$ = [{2,6-iPr$_{2}$C$_{6}$H$_{3}$NCMe}$_{2}$CH]) into the cyclo-E$_{5}$ rings of [Cp*Fe(η$^{5}$-E$_{5}$)] (Cp* = η$^{5}$-C$_{5}$Me$_{5}$; E = P, As) are reported. Reactions of [Cp*Fe(η$^{5}$-E$_{5}$)] with gallasilylene result in E–E/Si–Ga bond cleavage and the insertion of the silylene in the cyclo-E$_{5}$ rings. [(L$^{Ph}$Si-Ga(Cl)L$^{BDI}$){(η$^{4}$-P$_{5}$)FeCp*}], in which the Si atom binds to the bent cyclo-P$_{5}$ ring, was identified as a reaction intermediate. The ring-expansion products are stable at room temperature, while isomerization occurred at higher temperature, and the silylene moiety further migrates to the Fe atom, forming the corresponding ring-construction isomers. Furthermore, reaction of [Cp*Fe(η$^{5}$-As$_{5}$)] with the heavier gallagermylene [LL$^{Ph}$Ge–Ga(Cl)L$^{BDI}$B] was also investigated. All the isolated complexes represent rare examples of mixed group 13/14 iron polypnictogenides, which could only be synthesized by taking advantage of the cooperativity of the gallatetrylenes featuring low-valent Si(II) or Ge(II) and Lewis acidic Ga(III) units/entities

Non-Abelian Collective Excitations in Unlinearized Quark-Gluon Plasma Media

We study the effect of unlinearized medium on the collective excitations in quark-gluon plasma. We present two kinds of non-Abelian oscillation solutions which respectively correspond to weakly and strongly nonlinear coupling of field components in color space. We also show that the weakly nonlinear solution is similar to Abelian-like one but has the frequency shift, which is of order $g^2T$, from eigenfrequency.Comment: 7 page

Biphasic bisperoxovanadium administration and Schwann cell transplantation for repair after cervical contusive spinal cord injury

Schwann cells (SCs) hold promise for spinal cord injury (SCI) repair; however, there are limitations for its use as a lone treatment. We showed that acute inhibition of the phosphatase and tensin homolog deleted on chromosome ten (PTEN) by bisperoxovanadium (bpV) was neuroprotective and enhanced function following cervical hemicontusion SCI. We hypothesized that combining acute bpV therapy and delayed SC engraftment would further improve neuroprotection and recovery after cervical SCI. Adult female Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly sorted into 5 groups: sham, vehicle, bpV, SC transplantation, and bpV+SC transplantation. SCs were isolated from adult green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing SD rats (GFP-SCs). 200 μg/kg bpV(pic) was administered intraperitoneally (IP) twice daily for 7 days post-SCI in bpV-treated groups. GFP-SCs (1×10(6) in 5 μl medium) were transplanted into the lesion epicenter at the 8th day post-SCI. Forelimb function was tested for 10 weeks and histology was assessed. bpV alone significantly reduced lesion (by 40%, p<0.05) and cavitation (by 65%, p<0.05) and improved functional recovery (p<0.05) compared to injury alone. The combination promoted similar neuroprotection (p<0.01 vs. injury); however, GFP-SCs alone did not. Both SC-transplanted groups exhibited remarkable long-term SC survival, SMI-31(+) axon ingrowth and RECA-1(+) vasculature presence in the SC graft; however, bpV+SCs promoted an 89% greater axon-to-lesion ratio than SCs only. We concluded that bpV likely contributed largely to the neuroprotective and functional benefits while SCs facilitated considerable host-tissue interaction and modification. The combination of the two shows promise as an attractive strategy to enhance recovery after SCI

The charged-hadron/pion ratio at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

The hadron/pion ratio is calculated in 200 GeV AuAu collisions at midrapidity, applying pQCD and non-universal transverse-momentum broadening. Arguments are presented for such non-universality, and the idea is implemented in a model, which explains the enhancement of the hadron/pion ratio in central AuAu collisions. The model also describes the qualitative difference between the recently-measured dAu nuclear enhancement factors for pions and charged hadrons.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Nuclear Effects on Heavy Boson Production at RHIC and LHC

We predict W and Z transverse momentum distributions from proton-proton and nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC. A resummation formalism with power corrections to the renormalization group equations is used. The dependence of the resummed QCD results on the non-perturbative input is very weak for the systems considered. Shadowing effects are discussed and found to be unimportant at RHIC, but important for LHC. We study the enhancement of power corrections due to multiple scattering in nuclear collisions and numerically illustrate the weak effects of the dependence on the nuclear mass.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure