Investment and Consumption with Regime-Switching Discount Rates

This paper considers the problem of consumption and investment in a financial market within a continuous time stochastic economy. The investor exhibits a change in the discount rate. The investment opportunities are a stock and a riskless account. The market coefficients and discount factor switch according to a finite state Markov chain. The change in the discount rate leads to time inconsistencies of the investor's decisions. The randomness in our model is driven by a Brownian motion and a Markov chain. Following Ekeland and Pirvu we introduce and characterize the subgame perfect strategies. Numerical experiments show the effect of time preference on subgame perfect strategies and the pre-commitment strategies.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1107.189

Acoustic Needs of Older People in the Outdoor Environment of Residential Communities: A Case Study in China

This study examines the acoustic needs of older people in an outdoor environment to design outdoor spaces according to their needs. Using the grounded theory approach, we selected and interviewed 16 older people from four residential communities in China. The acoustic needs of older people in an outdoor environment are established in terms of sound preference, quietness, acoustic variability, acoustic comfort, subjective loudness, sound rhythm, sound clarity, and sound sensitivity. The findings show that older people (a) attach importance to quietness when considering sound preference, (b) prefer taking a walk in an overall quiet environment, although sometimes a lively environment, (c) chose to conduct their activities in an environment with low variation in sound, (d) rate the comfort of their overall acoustic environment highly, (e) show little need for subjective loudness as long as the sounds are not ones they dislike, (f) generally prefer relatively rhythmic sound sources, (g) did not have a significant need for sound clarity, and (h) are tolerant of outdoor acoustic environments and did not pay too much attention to certain sounds. These findings can provide direction for better outdoor space designs in communities, to suit older people, and to create age-friendly cities

Cell-based screening of antistress activity of some phytochemicals: Identification, validation, and relevance to old-age related pathologies

Background: A variety of environmental stresses have been shown to contribute to poor quality of life, tissue dysfunctions and ailments including metabolic disorders, cognitive impairment, and accelerated aging. Oxidative stress (an imbalance between the production and processing of highly reactive oxygen species) is largely associated with these phenotypes. Whereas drug development and disease therapeutics have advanced remarkably in last three decades, there are still limited options for stress management. Since the later can effectively decrease the disease burden, we aimed to screen phytochemicals with anti-oxidative stress activity using cell-based assays. Methods: Brain-derived cells were subjected to chemical models of oxidative (paraquat), metal (cadmium nitrate) or hypoxia (cobalt chloride) stresses. Stressed cells were allowed to recover either in the control or phytochemical supplemented culture medium. Cell survival and protein expression/signaling were analyzed to select the useful compounds and/or plant extracts. Results: Cells subjected to paraquat stress showed decrease in their viability. Three rounds of blind screening of the 24 phytochemicals resulted in identification of 5 compounds that caused better recovery of cells. The selected compounds were examined for their ability for protection against metal and hypoxia stresses induced by cadmium nitrate and cobalt chloride, respectively. Based on these 3D-anti stress protection ability, Withanone (Wi-N) and triethylene glycol (TEG) were selected for molecular validation. We found that whereas stress caused increase in (i) apoptosis (ii) ROS accumulation coupled with mitochondrial depolarization (iii) DNA double-strand break (iiii) protein aggregation, the selected compounds and the Ashwagandha extracts (known to possess these compounds) caused remarkable protection. Furthermore, both Wi-N and TEG caused differentiation of C6 glioblastoma and IMR-32 neuroblastoma as evidenced by the respective differentiated cell morphology and increased expression of biomarkers. Conclusion: The results suggested that Wi-N, TEG, their mixture, and the natural resource (Ashwagandha) possess potent antistress activity that may be useful for management of old-age-related ailments

Hypothesis of Buddhism activity of freeing captive animals in huge amount may have quantum superposition effects of consciousness and lead to discernible placebo effects

1: Placebo effect sometimes plausibly has powerful effects. 2: Buddhism philosophy holds that every living animal is sentient, and has a consciousness and killing them is bad for the killer and freeing them is good somehow. Consciousness may involve some aspects of quantum mechanism as Roger Penrose’s Orch OR' theory of consciousness pointed out. 3: Although previous studies show that there is no “demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer. Anecdotal cases of a special kind of Buddhist activity of freeing captive animals in huge amount seem to have powerful therapeutic effects on severe and terminal patients. We want test it experimentally. 4: The cunning point that exceeds previous stuies is, it’s reasonable to consider there may be collective and superpositional effects of this activity due to the likely quantum mechanism of consciousness, and it may play as a sort of magnifying glass that shows a discernible placebo effect. 5:We recruit a considerable number of patients that are terminally ill and the doctors said they can not help them anymore and have double-blind experiments of the above idea.The statistics may show some anomalous distribution. Ethical concerns shall take into consideration

FENDI: High-Fidelity Entanglement Distribution in the Quantum Internet

A quantum network distributes quantum entanglements between remote nodes, which is key to many quantum applications. However, unavoidable noise in quantum operations could lead to both low throughput and low quality of entanglement distribution. This paper aims to address the simultaneous exponential degradation in throughput and quality in a buffered multi-hop quantum network. Based on an end-to-end fidelity model with worst-case (isotropic) noise, we formulate the high-fidelity remote entanglement distribution problem for a single source-destination pair, and prove its NP-hardness. To address the problem, we develop a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme for the control plane of the quantum network, and a distributed data plane protocol that achieves the desired long-term throughput and worst-case fidelity based on control plane outputs. To evaluate our algorithm and protocol, we develop a discrete-time quantum network simulator. Simulation results show the superior performance of our approach compared to existing fidelity-agnostic and fidelity-aware solutions

Inhibition of lipid accumulation in hepatocytes by unique Ashwagandha extracts

Introduction: Ashwaganda (Withania Somnifera) is a popular ayurvedic herb, trusted for a variety of health benefits in Indian traditional home medicine system. Steroidal lactones, Withaferin A (Wi-A) and Withanone (Wi-N), have been characterized as its major bioactives with a variety of bioactivities. We investigated the effect of Ashwagandha extracts on steatosis, abnormal retention of fat within a cell or organ that often affects liver as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods: We prepared extracts from Ashwagandha that varied in their Wi-A and Wi-N content. Cytotoxicity of these extracts on human hepatocytes (Huh-7 and Suit-2) was evaluated by cell viability assays. Nontoxic doses were used to treat the cells subjected to activated lipid accumulation by palmitic acid (PA). The lipolygenesis was evaluated by Oil Red O and triglyceride (TG) assays, and the expression of molecules involved in this process. Results and Discussions: The four kinds of extracts with different amounts of total withanolides and Wi-A:Wi-N ratio were generated. Cells were treated with PA to induce lipid accumulation. We found that in cells pre-treated with specific Ashwahandha extracts, TG accumulation was decreased. Of note, Sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c), and its downstream effector-Fas, the key regulators of lipogenesis showed downregulation in specific extract-treated cells. Furthermore, the expression of PPARγ, a key factor involved in hepatic lipogenesis, showed decrease in cells treated with some of these extracts. Conclusion: Ashwagandha extracts may provide a useful natural resource with anti-steatosis activity, maintaining liver health and NAFLD prevention