Bank efficiency in the enlarged European Union

This paper aims to estimate bank efficiency differences across member states of the European Union and tries to explain their causes. We show on an empirical basis that the level and spread of bank efficiency in the EU and their changes are significantly determined by characteristics of operational environment and the “conscious” behaviour of management. In the long term, through the integration of financial markets and institutions, as well as the establishment of the Single European Banking Market, the impact of advantages and disadvantages underlying the operational environment is reduced or eliminated; therefore only managerial ability is of any relevance. Our findings suggest that there is a costefficiency gap and convergence between the old and new member states, irrespective of the specifications of the model. With respect to profit efficiency, however, differences in efficiency between the two regions are only established after controlling for some major characteristics of the varying operational environments. Our study also investigates the relevance of and the correlation between accounting-based and statistics-based efficiency indicators. We conclude that the accounting based efficiency indicators are inadequate for managing heterogeneity arising from institutional and operational environments. Hence such indicators only allow limited cross-sectional comparison through time

Carotenoids in corn gluten

Existing methods for the isolation of carotenoid pigments have been modified to make them more suitable for the isolation of the isomerized pigment derivatives from corn gluten. Greater recovery of pigments from saponification mixtures may be obtained by the use of concentrated aqueous alkali and centrifuging;Closely related pigments are separable only on mild adsorbents. Deactivated alumina is not suited for such separations. Calcium carbonate showing the necessary selective adsorption has been made by precipitation. The presence of acidic and saponifiable materials hinders adsorption, particularly on mild adsorbants;Acetone is of value as a developing agent. Adsorbents treated with acetone are not deactivated, and the complete removal of pigments with this solvent can be used to advantage with the microchromatograph;The original pigment of the corn kernel is almost wholly carotenoid in nature;Processing corn gluten under conditions which involve exposure to heat, air, and acid transform the carotenoids partly into heat and acid isomerized derivatives. No large amounts of colored, partly oxidized pigments are present;Neozeaxanthin B, prepared according to Zechmeister\u27s procedure, differed markedly both in melting point and in adsorption spectra from the values he records;A brief study of the acid isomerization products of zeaxanthin has been made. Dilute acetic acid results mainly in the formation of neozeaxanthin A. Dilute hydrochloric acid causes the formation of at least ten isomerized pigments. With the exception of neozeaxanthins A and B, these are oils. One of the pigments was found to be almost identical with cryptoxanthin both in partition and adsorption affinity;The presence of beta-carotene in corn has been confirmed by the isolation of the material in crystalline form;The suggestion is made that the chromatographic adsorption of carotenoids is fundamentally an acid-base reaction occurring in non-aqueous media

On LL-close Sperner systems

For a set $L$ of positive integers, a set system $\mathcal{F} \subseteq 2^{[n]}$ is said to be $L$-close Sperner, if for any pair $F,G$ of distinct sets in $\mathcal{F}$ the skew distance $sd(F,G)=\min\{|F\setminus G|,|G\setminus F|\}$ belongs to $L$. We reprove an extremal result of Boros, Gurvich, and Milani\v c on the maximum size of $L$-close Sperner set systems for $L=\{1\}$ and generalize to $|L|=1$ and obtain slightly weaker bounds for arbitrary $L$. We also consider the problem when $L$ might include 0 and reprove a theorem of Frankl, F\"uredi, and Pach on the size of largest set systems with all skew distances belonging to $L=\{0,1\}$

Ubiquitination of tombusvirus p33 replication protein plays a role in virus replication and binding to the host Vps23p ESCRT protein

AbstractPost-translational modifications of viral replication proteins could be widespread phenomena during the replication of plus-stranded RNA viruses. In this article, we identify two lysines in the tombusvirus p33 replication co-factor involved in ubiquitination and show that the same lysines are also important for the p33 to interact with the host Vps23p ESCRT-I factor. We find that the interaction of p33 with Vps23p is also affected by a “late-domain”-like sequence in p33. The combined mutations of the two lysines and the late-domain-like sequences in p33 reduced replication of a replicon RNA of Tomato bushy stunt virus in yeast model host, in plant protoplasts, and plant leaves, suggesting that p33-Vps23p ESCRT protein interaction affects tombusvirus replication. Using ubiquitin-mimicking p33 chimeras, we demonstrate that high level of p33 ubiquitination is inhibitory for TBSV replication. These findings argue that optimal level of p33 ubiquitination plays a regulatory role during tombusvirus infections

The asymptotic geometry of G2\rm G_2-monopoles

This article investigates the asymptotics of $\rm G_2$-monopoles. First, we prove that when the underlying $\rm G_2$-manifold has polynomial volume growth strictly faster than $r^{7/2}$, finite intermediate energy monopoles with bounded curvature have finite mass. The second main result restricts to the case when the underlying $\rm G_2$-manifold is asymptotically conical. In this situation, we deduce sharp decay estimates and that the connection converges, along the end, to a pseudo-Hermitian--Yang--Mills connection over the asymptotic cone. Finally, our last result exhibits a Fredholm setup describing the moduli space of finite intermediate energy monopoles on an asymptotically conical $\rm G_2$-manifold.Comment: 80 pages. v2: added 4 new sections, new results, including a third main result; previous sections fully revised, exposition improved, corrected typos and reworked some proof