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The Complexities of Crankiness and Cortisol: Exploring the Association Between Irritability, Cortisol Reactivity, and Psychopathology
Get PDFIrritability is an indicator and predictor of psychopathology, as well as a sign of acute and chronic stress. Cortisol reactivity (CR), a physiological index of psychological stress, is bidirectionally associated with and predictive of psychopathology. Research addressing irritability and CR together is limited. Participants were 156 children enrolled in a longitudinal study. At age three, saliva was collected in relation to a stressor task and parents reported on child psychopathology. Psychopathology reports were also completed for ages six, nine, and 12. Results showed CR to have a moderating effect on the association between irritability and psychopathology symptoms when sex was included as an additional moderator, indicating that this moderating effect occurred differently for males and females. These findings underscore the importance of considering both biological and psychological variables, as well as sex differences, in understanding future risk for psychopathology
Merger, Efficiency, and Productivity in the US Credit Union Industry
Get PDFFirst essay examines if mergers lead to more efficient credit unions. We use a two-step methodology of estimating efficiency scores (technical and scale efficiencies) one year before the merger and three years after the merger through using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). We find that members of acquired US credit unions benefit from improving both technical and scale efficiencies. Conversely, members of acquiring US credit unions do not benefit as the efficiency scores have been unchanged. Therefore, profitability is the primary driver of mergers for the acquiring credit unions, while efficiency is the main one for the acquired credit unions. These results are robust under different assumptions and models. Finally, CAMEL ratios and credit union size are the most important characteristics of a successful merger. In addition, second examines whether mergers improve the productivity of the US credit unions and improve efficiency by decreasing the inefficiencies (slacks) of the input and output factors for the period 2007-2019. First, we estimate the Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI) of the US credit unions; results reveal that both acquired and acquiring credit unions benefit from mergers. However, acquired credit unions benefit more because of the financial synergies. On the Other hand, in terms of input and outputs slacks, acquired credit unions benefit from the merger by decreasing the slacks of two outputs (Deposite_Amount and Loan_Rate). In comparison, the acquiring credit unions benefit from the merger by reducing the slacks of two outputs (Deposite_Rate and Loan_Rate). Conversely, regarding the acquired credit unions, the merger has affected more outputs negatively than does for the acquiring credit unions; this happens by increasing the slacks of three outputs of the acquired versus slacks of one output for acquiring
The U.S. Creation of the South Vietnamese Air Force, 1955-1975
Get PDFFrom 1962 until 1973 the United States Air Force (USAF) built a small but effective South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF). VNAF grew from approximately 4,000 personnel in 1963, flying ninety-six aircraft in six squadrons, to 60,000 personnel and sixty-five squadrons with over 2,000 aircraft by 1973. There was continuous change in the type of aircraft provided to the VNAF as the USAF upgraded VNAF’s capabilities. Training VNAF personnel was a continuing problem for both pilots and support personnel because of the almost constant aircraft upgrades and increase of size of the VNAF. VNAF was growing, developing doctrine, establishing its mission requirements, training, and acquiring new aircraft types while conducting major combat operations against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. After the USAF withdrew in 1973, the VNAF was unable to maintain its aircraft readiness levels, nor coordinate with the South Vietnamese Army to stop the North Vietnamese invasion, 1974-1975
Application of Monte Carlo (MC) method and Unscented Transformation (UT) method into Trajectory Prediction of a Dropped Cylinder in Two Dimensions
Get PDFMonte Carlo (MC) method is one of the commonly used methods to study stochastic statistical problems in the field of marine engineering. There is no doubt that MC’s greatest advantage is its accuracy. However, as a method of using random numbers (or more common pseudo-random numbers) to solve calculation problems, its slow calculation speed is criticized, and its accuracy also depends on the selection of appropriate random times. The equations of the cylindrical motion with three degrees of freedom (surge, heave and pitch) in this article are formulated into a state space model. It is assumed that the small changes in its initial state (including the velocity and inclination of each degree) follow a Gaussian distribution. Linear prediction problems can be solved by using the MC method and unscented transformation (UT), then a satisfactory result can be obtained by comparing the advantages and disadvantages between them. Numerical results in published papers show that the UT method is accurate in predicting the results of cylinders that fall freely into water
Writing the Landscape: Exposing Nature in French Women’s Fiction 1789-1815 (Book Review)
Get PDFA review of the book Writing the Landscape: Exposing Nature in French Women’s Fiction 1789-1815 by Christie Margrave is presented
The Impact of Frictions on Asset Pricing
No full textEven though they are parsimonious, financial intermediary pricing models deliver an impressive performance in the cross-section of expected returns. The premise of the theory behind such models is that intermediaries better represent the marginal investor because of their competency level as traders and because they are less exposed to frictions. In addition, researchers hint at market frictions contributing to the performance of factor models, whether they are theory-based or reduced-form. Motivated by the lack of empirical evidence, we study the performance of factor models conditional on frictions. First, we examine 13 frictions individually and find that they lack the ability to explain the cross-section of re- turns. Then, we create an index to represent the level of market frictions at each point in time. Importantly, We find that frictions collectively impact the performance of factor models. Consistent with the theories, we document that the performance of theory-based and reduced-form models differ depending on the level of frictions. In addition, we find evidence that intermediary-based models outperform household-based models, especially in periods of high frictions, as suggested by the theory. Our findings hold when using different specifications of the frictions index
Chinese Equity Market Pricing and Loan Sales Discount in US Banking
Get PDFAbstract
In the recent decades, the Fama–French three-factor (1992, 1993, 1996) and five-factor (2015) models become the most widely used asset pricing models in the world. The U.S. (i.e., developed financial market) country-specific 2 additional factors in the 5-factor model, RMW and CMA or profitability and investment premium, empirically cannot further capture the return variation of the classic three-factor/characteristic in China’s stock market (i.e., developing financial markets). In China, based on our result, therefore, the classic three-factor outperforms the five-factor model. We do not presume that firms in different countries share the same features. Following Liu, Stambaugh, and Yuan (2019), we replaced the price-to-book ratio (PB) with the earnings-price ratio (EP). By using Shanghai and Shenzhen exchange stocks, we suggested that the explanatory uncertainty of HML only exists in the five-factor model. In the Fama MacBeth regression, the SMB and HML are significant factors in the three-factor model, explaining the return variation in China. Surprisingly, though the size effect is impressively persistent in both models, the ratio effect has limited explanatory power.
JEL Codes: C5, G1, G2
JEL Keywords: Fama-French Factors; Asset Pricing; Chinese Stock Market
Abstract
We analyze Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) managed 4273 loan sales transactions between 1994 and 2019 that include two major financial crises of the modern times: the dot.com bubble of 2001, and the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. We find that loan sales discounts, asset quality, industry classifications, compositions and buyers interest vary significantly during financial recessions and non-recessionary periods. Industry classifications affect loan sales discount rates. Loan sales discounts are inversely related with asset quality. While the non-performing and lower quality loans are sold at higher discounts, the sub-performing and the performing loans are sold at lower discount. Our evidences backup Demsetz’ s (2000) hypotheses that banks with limited branches and high reputation are more likely participate in the secondary market in order to erode the loan origination problem and diversify the current loan portfolio.
JEL Codes: G210, G280
JEL Keywords: Banks; Depository Institutions; Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation; Bailout, FDIC
Structure and Evolution of Lizard Immunity Genes
Get PDFOne of the most important gene families to play a role in adaptive immunity is the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). MHC class II loci are considered to be the most variable loci in the vertebrate genome, and studies have shown that this variability can be maintained through complex co-evolutionary dynamics between host and parasite. Despite the rich body of research into the MHC, there is comparatively little understanding of its genomic architecture in reptiles. Similarly, loci associated with innate immunity have received little attention in reptiles compared to other vertebrates. In the first chapter, we investigated the structure and organization of the MHC in the Anolis carolinensis genome by sequencing and annotating five bacterial artificial chromosomes (BAC) from the green anole genome library. We were able to identify three mhc2a, four mhc2b, and up to 15 mhc1 loci in A. carolinensis. Furthermore, we were able to link 17 scaffolds and provide sequence data to fill two significant gaps in the genome assembly. In the second chapter, we investigated the relative importance of drift and selection in shaping mhc2 variability in the reptile Podarcis erhardii. We sequenced the mhc2 gene from lizard populations from 14 islands in the Aegean that have experienced bottlenecks of differing duration and intensity. Despite signals of balancing selection, patterns of mhc2 variation were similar to microsatellites, providing evidence that the dominant evolutionary force in this system is drift. In the third chapter, we investigated how parasite infection rates impact innate immune variability in A. sabanus, a lizard indigenous to Saba Island where natural fluctuations in Plasmodium infection rates have been documented. We developed primers and sequenced part of the peptide binding region of three Toll-like receptors (TLRs) - tlr4, tlr6, and tlr13 and several beta-defensin (BD) loci. Although we were unable to characterize BD variability, we found three different haplotypes in tlr4, and five in tlr6. However, nucleotide variability was low (π \u3c 0.005) and was not associated with infection status. We nevertheless present primers for multiple TLR genes and two BDs that could be of use in future studies of reptile innate immunity