Market risk premium used in 2010 by professors: A survey with 1,500 answers

The average Market Risk Premium (MRP) used in 2010 by professors in the United States (6.0%) was higher than the one used by their colleagues in Europe (5.3%). We also report statistics for 33 countries: the average MRP used in 2010 ranges from 3.6% (Denmark) to 10.9% (Mexico). 29% of the professors decreased the MRP in 2010, 16% increased it and 55% used the same MRP. The dispersion of the MRP used was high: the average range of MRP used by professors for the same country was 7.4% and the average standard deviation was 2.4%. Most previous surveys have been interested in the Expected MRP, but this survey asks about the Required MRP. The paper also contains the references that professors use to justify their MRP, and comments from 85 professors that illustrate the various interpretations of what is the required MRP.equity premium puzzle; required equity premium; expected equity premium; historical equity premium;

Market risk premium used in 2010 by analysts and companies: A survey with 2.400 answers

The average MRP used by analysts in the United States and Canada (5.1%) was similar to the one used by their colleagues in Europe (5.0%), and United Kingdom (5.2%). But the average MRP used by companies in the United States and Canada (5.3%) was smaller than the one used by companies in Europe (5.7%), and United Kingdom (5.6%). The dispersion of the MRP used was high, but lower than that of the MRP used by professors: the average range of MRP used by analysts (companies) for the same country was 5.7% (4.1%) and the average standard deviation was 1.7% (1.2%). These statistics were 7.4% and 2.4% for the professors. Most previous surveys have been interested in the Expected MRP, but this survey asks about the Required MRP. The paper also contains the references that analysts and companies use to justify their MRP, and comments from 89 respondents that illustrate the various interpretations of what is the required MRP.market risk premium; required equity premium; expected equity premium; historical equity premium;

Subgrid-scale modeling and implicit numerical dissipation in DG-based Large-Eddy Simulation

Over the past few years, high-order discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) have emerged as a promising approach to solve complex turbulent flows. However, despite the significant research investment, the relation between the discretization scheme, the subgrid-scale (SGS) model and the resulting LES solver remains unclear. This paper aims to shed some light on this matter. To that end, we investigate the role of the Riemann solver, the SGS model, the time resolution, and the accuracy order in the ability to predict a variety of flow regimes, including transition to turbulence, wall-free turbulence, wall-bounded turbulence, and turbulence decay. The transitional flow over the Eppler 387 wing, the TaylorGreen vortex problem and the turbulent channel flow are considered to this end. The focus is placed on post-processing the LES results and providing with a rationale for the performance of the various approaches.United States. Air Force. Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-16-1-0214

A physics-based shock capturing method for unsteady laminar and turbulent flows

We present a shock capturing method for unsteady laminar and turbulent flows. The proposed approach relies on physical principles to increase selected transport coefficients and resolve unstable sharp features, such as shock waves and strong thermal and shear gradients, over the smallest distance allowed by the discretization. In particular, we devise various sensors to detect when the shear viscosity, bulk viscosity and thermal conductivity of the fluid do not suffice to stabilize the numerical solution. In such cases, the transport coefficients are increased as necessary to optimally resolve these features with the available resolution. The performance of the method is illustrated through numerical simulation of external and internal flows in transonic, supersonic, and hypersonic regimes.United States. Air Force. Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-16-1-0214)Pratt & Whitney Aircraft CompanyFundación Obra Social de La CaixaMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Office of the Dean for Graduate Education (Zakhartchenko Fellowship

Rentabilidad y creación de valor de 125 empresas españolas en 2009

En 2009, la rentabilidad del IBEX 35 fue del 38,3% y hubo 89 empresas (entre 125) con rentabilidad positiva. Considerando conjuntamente los años 2009 y 2008, sólo diez empresas tuvieron rentabilidad positiva. Las 125 empresas crearon valor para sus accionistas por importe de 100 millardos de euros. Ha sido un año con gran volatilidad (y, por tanto, con grandes oportunidades de inversión): el cociente entre la cotización máxima y la cotización mínima ha sido superior a 2,5 en 30 empresas y superior a 2 en 60 empresas. También se muestra que el descenso de 2008-2009 fue menor que los de 2002, 1947 y 1980, y similar a los de 1958 y 1992. La bolsa española no es representativa de la economía española. Esta "crisis" se superará cuando el sentido común, el trabajo bien hecho, la competencia profesional y la veracidad vuelvan a ser la tónica dominante en la sociedad (dirigentes políticos, directivos de empresas, organismos reguladores, empleados).Creación valor; IBEX 35; Rentabilidad accionistas; Capitalización bursátil;

Rentabilidad de los fondos de inversión en España. 1991-2009

La exigua rentabilidad media de los fondos de inversión en España en los últimos 3, 5 y 10 años (0,51%, 2,23% y 0,85%) fue inferior a la inversión en bonos del Estado a cualquier plazo y a la inflación. A pesar de estos resultados, los 2.586 fondos existentes tenían un patrimonio de 163 millardos de euros en diciembre de 2009. Sólo 14 de los 368 fondos con 15 años de historia y 16 de los 1.117 con 10 años tuvieron una rentabilidad superior a la de los bonos del Estado a 10 años. Sólo cuatro de los 1.117 fondos con 10 años de historia proporcionaron a sus partícipes una rentabilidad superior al 10%: Bestinver Bolsa (15,7%), Bestinfond (14,6%), Bestinver mixto (11,3%) y Metavalor (10,0%). Un total de 263 fondos con 10 años de historia (7 eran garantizados) proporcionaron a sus partícipes una rentabilidad ¡negativa!, y su patrimonio en diciembre de 2009 fue de 5.816 millones de euros. En el período 1991-2009, los fondos destruyeron 118 millardos de euros de sus partícipes. El total de comisiones y gastos repercutidos en este período ascendió a 39 millardos.fondos inversión; rentabilidad partícipes; benchmark; apreciación fondos;

Long-term effects of the transient COD concentration on the performance of microbial fuel cells

In this work, the long-term effects of transient chemical oxygen demands (COD) concentrations over the performance of a microbial fuel cell were studied. From the obtained results, it was observed that the repetitive change in the COD loading rate during 12 h conditioned the behavior of the system during periods of up to 7 days. The main modifications were the enhancement of the COD consumption rate and the exerted current. These enhancements yielded increasing Coulombic efficiencies (CEs) when working with COD concentrations of 300 mg/L, but constant CEs when working with COD concentrations from 900 to 1800 mg/L. This effect could be explained by the higher affinity for the substrate of Geobacter than that of the nonelectrogenic organisms such as Clostridia.En este trabajo, se estudiaron los efectos a largo plazo de las concentraciones transitorias de demandas químicas de oxígeno (DQO) sobre el rendimiento de una celda de combustible microbiana. A partir de los resultados obtenidos, se observó que el cambio repetitivo en la tasa de carga de DQO durante 12 h condicionó el comportamiento del sistema durante períodos de hasta 7 días. Las principales modificaciones fueron la mejora de la tasa de consumo de DQO y la corriente ejercida. Estas mejoras produjeron un aumento de las eficiencias de Coulombic (CE) cuando se trabaja con concentraciones de DQO de 300 mg / L, pero CE constantes cuando se trabaja con concentraciones de DQO de 900 a 1800 mg / L. Este efecto podría explicarse por la mayor afinidad por el sustrato de Geobacter que por los organismos no electrogénicos como Clostridia.

Explicit processing of verbal and spatial features during letter-location binding modulates oscillatory activity of a fronto-parietal network.

The present study investigated the binding of verbal and spatial features in immediate memory. In a recent study, we demonstrated incidental and asymmetrical letter-location binding effects when participants attended to letter features (but not when they attended to location features) that were associated with greater oscillatory activity over prefrontal and posterior regions during the retention period. We were interested to investigate whether the patterns of brain activity associated with the incidental binding of letters and locations observed when only the verbal feature is attended differ from those reflecting the binding resulting from the controlled/explicit processing of both verbal and spatial features. To achieve this, neural activity was recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG) while participants performed two working memory tasks. Both tasks were identical in terms of their perceptual characteristics and only differed with respect to the task instructions. One of the tasks required participants to process both letters and locations. In the other, participants were instructed to memorize only the letters, regardless of their location. Time–frequency representation of MEG data based on the wavelet transform of the signals was calculated on a single trial basis during the maintenance period of both tasks. Critically, despite equivalent behavioural binding effects in both tasks, single and dual feature encoding relied on different neuroanatomical and neural oscillatory correlates. We propose that enhanced activation of an anterior–posterior dorsal network observed in the task requiring the processing of both features reflects the necessity for allocating greater resources to intentionally process verbal and spatial features in this task

Viral RNA load in plasma is associated with critical illness and a dysregulated host response in COVID‑19

Background. COVID-19 can course with respiratory and extrapulmonary disease. SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detected in respiratory samples but also in blood, stool and urine. Severe COVID-19 is characterized by a dysregulated host response to this virus. We studied whether viral RNAemia or viral RNA load in plasma is associated with severe COVID-19 and also to this dysregulated response. Methods. A total of 250 patients with COVID-19 were recruited (50 outpatients, 100 hospitalized ward patients and 100 critically ill). Viral RNA detection and quantification in plasma was performed using droplet digital PCR, targeting the N1 and N2 regions of the SARS-CoV-2 nucleoprotein gene. The association between SARS-CoV-2 RNAemia and viral RNA load in plasma with severity was evaluated by multivariate logistic regression. Correlations between viral RNA load and biomarkers evidencing dysregulation of host response were evaluated by calculating the Spearman correlation coefficients. Results. The frequency of viral RNAemia was higher in the critically ill patients (78%) compared to ward patients (27%) and outpatients (2%) (p < 0.001). Critical patients had higher viral RNA loads in plasma than non-critically ill patients, with non-survivors showing the highest values. When outpatients and ward patients were compared, viral RNAemia did not show significant associations in the multivariate analysis. In contrast, when ward patients were compared with ICU patients, both viral RNAemia and viral RNA load in plasma were associated with critical illness (OR [CI 95%], p): RNAemia (3.92 [1.183–12.968], 0.025), viral RNA load (N1) (1.962 [1.244–3.096], 0.004); viral RNA load (N2) (2.229 [1.382–3.595], 0.001). Viral RNA load in plasma correlated with higher levels of chemokines (CXCL10, CCL2), biomarkers indicative of a systemic inflammatory response (IL-6, CRP, ferritin), activation of NK cells (IL-15), endothelial dysfunction (VCAM-1, angiopoietin-2, ICAM-1), coagulation activation (D-Dimer and INR), tissue damage (LDH, GPT), neutrophil response (neutrophils counts, myeloperoxidase, GM-CSF) and immunodepression (PD-L1, IL-10, lymphopenia and monocytopenia). Conclusions. SARS-CoV-2 RNAemia and viral RNA load in plasma are associated with critical illness in COVID-19. Viral RNA load in plasma correlates with key signatures of dysregulated host responses, suggesting a major role of uncontrolled viral replication in the pathogenesis of this disease.This work was supported by awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research Funding initiative (CIHR OV2 – 170357), Research Nova Scotia (DJK), Atlantic Genome/Genome Canada (DJK), Li-Ka Shing Foundation (DJK), Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation (DJK), the “Subvenciones de concesión directa para proyectos y programas de investigación del virus SARS‐CoV2, causante del COVID‐19”, FONDO–COVID19, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (COV20/00110, CIBERES, 06/06/0028), (AT) and fnally by the “Convocatoria extraordinaria y urgente de la Gerencia Regional de Salud de Castilla y León, para la fnanciación de proyectos de investigación en enfermedad COVID-19” (GRS COVID 53/A/20) (CA). DJK is a recipient of the Canada Research Chair in Translational Vaccinology and Infammation. APT was funded by the Sara Borrell Research Grant CD018/0123 funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III and co-fnanced by the European Development Regional Fund (A Way to Achieve Europe programme). The funding sources did not play any role neither in the design of the study and collection, not in the analysis, in the interpretation of data or in writing the manuscript

CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research