125,858 research outputs found
84. Hadjisterkotis E., Masala B.: Vertebrate extinction in Mediterranean islets: an example from Cyprus.
No full textGirlhood and Masculinity in Rajdeep Paulus's Swimming Through Clouds: An Atypical "Masala" Young Adult Novel
No full textThe in-between identity, mainly female, has been the focus of most contemporary English-language Young Adult novels by Indian diaspora authors (Superle, 2011). The hybrid self illustrated in those texts is metaphorically characterised as “Masala”, referring to the blend of spices used to add flavour to the Indian cuisine. However, within the genre at hand, little focus has been given to psychologically rounded female protagonists and masculinities have been almost invisible. An atypical approach to bicultural identities and gender performance has been adopted by the award-winning Indo-American author of “Masala-marinated” fiction Rajdeep Paulus, whose representation of girlhood and masculinity is realistic and inspiring for a young audience.
After outlining the main features of Masala literature (Kumar, 2003), I will discuss to what extent Paulus departs from the standard portrayal of the “New Indian Girl” (Bohemer, 2005; Superle, 2011) in her novel Swimming Through Clouds (2013). I will then move on to the analysis of the masculinities presented in the novel (Connel, 2005; Sinha, 2016), thus showing how giving visibility to both positive and negative examples of masculinity is a necessary condition if socio-cultural needs are to be met (Priya, 2014).
In conclusion, as a powerful ideological tool, Masala Young Adult fiction should provide a realistic description of the deep problematic identity transition of bicultural selves as well as a thorough representation of masculinities alongside femininities in order to stimulate the young adult audience to explore and create their own identities and develop a positive attitude towards the norms of gender equality
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
DETECTION OF THE COMMON HB F SARDINIA [Aγ75(E19)ILE→THR] VARIANT BY ISOELECTRIC FOCUSING IN NORMAL NEWBORN AND IN ADULT AFFECTED BY ELEVATED FETAL HEMOGLOBIN SYNDROMES
No full textPricing credit derivatives with a copula-based actuarial model for credit risk
No full textCredit derivatives are financial contracts whose pay-off are contingent on the creditworthiness of some counterparts. As was pointed out in some recent works (Mashal & Naldi (2002), Meneguzzo & Vecchiato (2002)), they have become in recent years the main tool for transferring and hedging credit risk. The most complicated of such instruments are the multinames ones. Indeed, these instruments are not quoted (market prices are not available). Besides, we do not posses closed forms for their pricing: we must necessarily set up a Monte Carlo simulation procedure. The key to perform this task consists in modelling correctly multiple defaults. A dependence structure using copulas methods was first set up by Li (2000). In this paper, Li considers time-until-default for each obligor and model their dependence structure through a Student t-copula. Other papers which take into account a copula dependence structure are due to Cherubini & Luciano (2002, 2004), Galiani (2003), Gregory & Laurent (2002), Li describes a default for a single obligor through the so-called survival function S(t) " Pr T # t! which represents the probability that this counterpart attains age t and is the time-until-default.
Li also assumes that the hazard rate function is constant, . This means that the survival time is exponentially distributed with constant parameter . Other features of this model are the following: credit
migrations at the end of the time horizon were not taken into account and recovery rates in default situations are assumed deterministic.
This model has been resumed by Mashal & Naldi with the intent to price particular multinames credit derivatives such as nth-to-default baskets. Their model is a hybrid of the well-known structural and reduced form approaches for modelling defaults.
After simulating a large number of multivariate times-until-default, one deduces pay-off for our derivative. Finally, the pricing is estimated using
standard risk-neutral pricing technology (by assuming complete markets and no-arbitrage hypothesis). The credit risk model for the underlying portfolio, already developed in Masala, Menzietti & Micocci (2004), follows a general credit risk framework: hazard rates are random variables whose values follow gamma distributions coherently with Credit Risk Plus (1997), Micocci (2000), Burgisser, Kurth & Wagner (2001) and Menzietti (2002); recovery rates themselves are supposed to be stochastic as in Gupton, Finger & Bathia (1997), and following a Beta distribution, moreover credit migrations are allowed. This feature becomes very important when we treat credit derivatives whose payoff depends on credit spread. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the model for default and credit migration; the section is divided in subsections facing the problems of time-until-default, the hazard rate function and the recovery rates, the credit migration and the exposure valuation, the loss distribution. Section 3 introduces some basket credit derivatives with numerical applications. Section 4 concludes
Separation of globin chains by the reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Methods in Enzymology, 231:21-44, 1994
No full textDispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Pricing index linked policies with basket cliquet options embedded using a copula approach
No full textIn this paper we present a model for the pricing of an index linked insurance contract with a basket cliquet option embedded.
The model moves from the seminal and widely accepted model of Brennan & Schwartz but uses a copula approach to describe the dependence between the two stochastic indexes composing the underlying basket.
The pricing is made via Monte Carlo stochastic simulation; some useful algorithms are described.
An application and a comparative static analysis are presente
KINETICS OF THE ONTOGENIC AND REVERSIBLE HEMOGLOBIN SWITCHING IN THE MOUFLON (OVIS-MUSIMON) AND SHEEP X MOUFLON HYBRID
No full text1. Hemoglobin (Hb) switching in the perinatal life of wild mouflon (Ovis musimon) was characterized by the replacement of Hb F by 60% levels of Hb C, and subsequently of Hb C by Hb B. 2. The recently discovered Hb M variant was not replaced by Hb C; thus, Hb BM heterozygote newborns synthesized 30% Hb C at the expense of Hb B. 3. Hybrid B mouflon x B sheep synthesized only 5% Hb C at birth but were able to produce 30% Hb C in adult life following induced anemia. 4. Adult BB and BM mouflons, after the same extent of induced anemia, synthesized HB C levels similar to those produced at birth. The results indicate a mouflon beta-globin gene cluster arrangement similar to those of sheep and goat, the beta-c gene having an intermediate expression. Results also suggest a selective disadvantage in hybrid animals
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