1,334 research outputs found
Valuation of Collateralized Funds of Hedge Fund Obligations: A Basket Option Pricing Approach
No full textThe purpose of the present contribution is to provide an extension to a
model developed by Tassinari and Corradi [7] to price equity and debt tranches of
collateralized funds of hedge fund obligations (CFOs). The key idea is to price each
CFO liability as an option on the underlying basket of hedge funds. The proposed
model is able to reproduce the empirical characteristics observed in the distribution
of hedge funds’ returns: skewness, excess kurtosis and dependence in the tails. Additionally,
it can be easily calibrated to the empirical correlation matrix and it requires
only historical information to be estimated and implemented. The result is a scheme
that can be useful in structuring a CFO. In particular, we believe that the approach
described in this work can be helpful to rating agencies and to deal structures to
evaluate various capital structures, test levels, liquidity profiles, coupons and equity
distribution rules
"L'albero Falcone" e i suoi epigoni. La propagazione vegetale della memoria antimafia
No full textLe stragi di Capaci e via D’Amelio segnano un punto di svolta nel linguaggio con cui i movimenti antimafia costruiscono la memoria pubblica della violenza mafiosa. Uno dei tratti salienti di questa svolta è la proliferazione di luoghi di memoria che ruotano intorno a figure arboree. Il capostipite di questa genealogia è l’albero Falcone, noto come punto di raccolta per le manifestazioni del 23 maggio, la giornata della legalità. Nel corso degli anni ’90, il modello memoriale costruito intorno all’albero si sviluppa e si diffonde, mentre sono sempre già frequenti le piantumazioni di alberi in memoria delle vittime della mafia. L’articolo cerca di esplicitare le forme semiotiche soggiacenti a questa dendrolatria antimafia e ai suoi modi di diffusione nel repertorio celebrativo dell’Italia contemporanea. Tirando le fila di questa ricostruzione, propone infine alcune considerazioni critiche sul rapporto tra memoria e paesaggio, sullo sfondo più generale del rapporto tra natura e cultura nell’epoca dell’Antropocene.The massacres of Capaci and via D'Amelio mark a turning point in the language with which the anti-mafia movements build the public memory of mafia violence. One of the salient features of this turning point is the proliferation of places of memory that revolve around tree figures. The progenitor of this genealogy is the Falcone tree, known as a collection point for the demonstrations of May 23, the day of legality. During the 90s, the memorial model built around the tree developed and spread, while the planting of trees in memory of the victims of the mafia is always already frequent. The article tries to explain the semiotic forms underlying this anti-mafia dendrolatry and its ways of spreading in the celebratory repertoire of contemporary Italy. Pulling the strings of this reconstruction, he finally proposes some critical considerations on the relationship between memory and landscape, against the more general background of the relationship between nature and culture in the Anthropocene era
On the time course of exogenous cueing effects: a response to Lupianez and Weaver
No full textResponds to the J. Lupianez and B. Weaver (see record 1998-04685-009) comments on the G. Tassinari et al (see record 1994-20171-001) discussion on the role of peripheral non-informative cues in the early facilitation of target detection. The current authors present further data and ideas which support the original claim which was disputed by Lupianez and Weaver: that the inhibitory effect precedes the facilitatory effect. ((c) 1998 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved
Metodo e testualità. Costruzioni analtiche e modi di fare
No full textThis number of E | C has an experimental character. The contributions gathered in the volume collect the fruit of the work of a cycle of seminars that took place in Palermo between October and December 2021: they were entitled "Text analysis seminars" and saw the participation of Giuditta Bassano, Denis Bertrand , Alice Giannitrapani, Manar Hammad, Tarcisio Lancioni, Dario Mangano, Francesco Mangiapane, Gianfranco Marrone, Maria Pia Pozzato, Carlo Andrea Tassinari and Ilaria Ventura Bordenca. The seminars were intended to reflect on the semiotic method, already the subject of the 2017 conference of the Italian Association of Semiotic Studies, whose proceedings were published in the numbers 24/2018 and 25/2019 of this magazine. Compared to these previous reflections, the seminars aimed to anchor the reasoning to a specific practice of work, the analysis of the text, with the desire to explain strategies and tactics of approach to analysis, of application of the method in a situation
Metodo e testualità. Costruzioni analtiche e modi di fare
No full textThis number of E | C has an experimental character. The contributions gathered in the volume collect the fruit of the work of a cycle of seminars that took place in Palermo between October and December 2021: they were entitled "Text analysis seminars" and saw the participation of Giuditta Bassano, Denis Bertrand , Alice Giannitrapani, Manar Hammad, Tarcisio Lancioni, Dario Mangano, Francesco Mangiapane, Gianfranco Marrone, Maria Pia Pozzato, Carlo Andrea Tassinari and Ilaria Ventura Bordenca. The seminars were intended to reflect on the semiotic method, already the subject of the 2017 conference of the Italian Association of Semiotic Studies, whose proceedings were published in the numbers 24/2018 and 25/2019 of this magazine. Compared to these previous reflections, the cotribibutions aimed to anchor the reasoning to a specific practice of work, the analysis of the text, with the desire to explain strategies and tactics of approach to analysis, of application of the method in a situation
Metalloproteinases gene expression in a model of genital Chlamydia infection in female BALB/c mice
No full textObjectives.
Chlamydia trachomatis genital infections can cause long-term complications in female reproductive tract, even in absence of acute symptoms. The most common complication is pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), that can lead to tubal infertility and extra-uterine pregnancies. Although the pathologic consequences of Chlamydia genital infection are well-established, the mechanisms leading to tissue damage are not completely understood. In this study we analyzed gene expression of metalloproteinases (MMP-2 and MMP-9) in genital organs obtained from female mice infected by C. muridarum, closely mimicking human infections in the mouse model.
Methods.
All the experiments were approved by the Ethical Committee of the University of Bologna. Animals used were 30 female Balb/c mice, 6-8 weeks old. All the animals received medroxyprogesterone acetate 9 and 2 days prior the infection. Twelve mice were infected by placing 15 μl of sucrose-phosphate-glutamic acid (SPG) buffer containing 106 inclusion forming units (IFUs) of C. muridarum into the vaginal vault. Twelve animals were treated with 15 μl of SPG containing heat-inactivated 106 IFUs of C. muridarum. As controls of inflammation, 6 animals were challenged with 15 μl of SPG. At 3, 10, and 20 days post-infection 4 infected animals, 4 animals inoculated with heat-inactivated bacteria and 2 controls were sacrificed. Genital tracts were divided into the cervical-vaginal region, uterine horns, and oviducts. A part of uterine horns, oviducts and vagina were stored in formalin and later processed for histological examinations. The remaining parts of the organs were used for RNA extraction, by using Trizol Reagent (Invitrogen), in combination
with RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen). cDNA was synthesized with 500 ng of total RNA and SuperScript III RT (Invitrogen). Real-time RT-PCR was performed with SYBR Green Fast start kit (Roche Diagnostics). Primers used in Real-time RT-PCR to assess GAPDH, MMP-2, and MMP-9 levels were from SuperArray (SABiosciences Corporation).
Results.
At histological examination no controls showed inflammation. On the contrary, scores of inflammation in all the organs from infected animals peaked at day 10, whereas only a single animal inoculated with inactivated bacteria showed a very mild inflammation at day 10 in its right uterine horn. At day 10, organs from infected animals showed significantly higher gene expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 than the respective organs obtained from non-infected mice.
Conclusions.
Our study showed statistically significant higher MMPs gene expression in infected animals compared to both controls and animals injected with inactivated chlamydiae. These results confirm the pivotal role of MMPs in the development of tissue damage observed during Chlamydia genital infection
Alberi. Figure del pensiero, forme dell'azione
No full textIl contributo lega il rinnovato interesse per le figure e l'immaginario arboreo allo sviluppo delle environmental humanities sullo sfondo del dibattito sull'Antropocene. In particolare, introduce gli orientamenti teorici principali che sottendono lo studio delle "dendrolatrie" negli ambiti di studio della memoria e del patrimonio culturale, dell'antropologia e della storia delle religioni e nel campo dei cultural studies.The study put into perspective the renewal of interest toward trees and botanical figures with the development of environemental humanities in the framework of the Anthropocene. In particular, it introduces the main theoretical orientations undelying the study of the cults of trees in the fields of memory and heritage studies, of anthropology and history of religion and of cultural studies
Politics in a Transformed Labor Market: Renzi's Labor Market Reform
No full textReform of the labor market has long been an important and controversial policy area in Italy, and it was one of Matteo Renzi's core concerns when he took up the leadership of the Democratic Party. This chapter recounts the main changes in Italian labor market policy since the 1990s before discussing the Jobs Act, which started as a highly publicized reform project concentrating on changes to public employment services and unemployment benefits, but which the left strongly challenged when dismissal protection was later weakened
tassinari g l, corradi c (2013). Pricing equity and debt tranches of collateralized funds of hedge fund obligations: An approach based on stochastic time change and Esscher-transformed martingale measure. QUANTITATIVE FINANCE, vol. 13, p. 1991-2010, ISSN: 1469-7696
No full textCollateralized Funds of Hedge Fund Obligations (CFOs) are relatively recent structured finance products linked to the performance of underlying funds of hedge funds. The capital structure of a CFO is similar to traditional Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), meaning that investors are offered different rated notes and equity interests. CFOs are structured as arbitrage market value CDOs. The fund of funds manager actively manages the fund to maximize total returns while limiting price volatility within the guidelines of the structure. The aim of this paper is to provide a useful framework to evaluate Collateralized Funds of Hedge Fund Obligations, that is pricing the equity and the debt tranches of a CFO. The basic idea is to evaluate each CFO liability as an option written on the underlying pool of hedge funds. The value of every tranche depends on the evolution of the collateral portfolio during the life of the contract. Care is taken to distinguish between the fund of hedge funds and its underlying hedge funds, each of which is itself a portfolio of various securities, debt instruments and financial contracts. The proposed model incorporates skewness, excess kurtosis and is able to capture more complex dependence structures among hedge fund log-returns than the mere correlation matrix. With this model it is possible to describe the impact of an equivalent change of probability measure not only on the marginal processes but also on the underlying dependence structure among hedge funds
Self or Non‐Self? It Is also a Matter of RNA Recognition and Editing by ADAR1
No full textA‐to‐I editing is a post‐transcriptional mechanism affecting coding and non‐coding dsRNAs, catalyzed by the adenosine deaminases acting on the RNA (ADAR) family of enzymes. A‐ to‐I modifications of endogenous dsRNA (mainly derived from Alu repetitive elements) prevent their recognition by cellular dsRNA sensors, thus avoiding the induction of antiviral signaling and uncontrolled IFN‐I production. This process, mediated by ADAR1 activity, ensures the activation of an innate immune response against foreign (non‐self) but not self nucleic acids. As a consequence, ADAR1 mutations or its de‐regulated activity promote the development of autoimmune diseases and strongly impact cell growth, also leading to cancer. Moreover, the excessive inflammation promoted by Adar1 ablation also impacts T and B cell maturation, as well as the development of dendritic cell subsets, revealing a new role of ADAR1 in the homeostasis of the immune system
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