Two-player Knock 'em Down

We analyze the two-player game of Knock 'em Down, asymptotically as the number of tokens to be knocked down becomes large. Optimal play requires mixed strategies with deviations of order sqrt(n) from the naive law-of-large numbers allocation. Upon rescaling by sqrt(n) and sending n to infinity, we show that optimal play's random deviations always have bounded support and have marginal distributions that are absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure. v2 has minor revision

Efficiency of Financial Institutions: International Survey and Directions for Future Research

This paper surveys 130 studies that apply frontier efficiency analysis to financial institutions in 21 countries. The primary goals are to summarize and critically review empirical estimates of financial institution efficiency and to attempt to arrive at a consensus view. We find that the various efficiency methods do not necessarily yield consistent results and suggest some ways that these methods might be improved to bring about findings that are more consistent, accurate, and useful. Secondary goals are to address the implications of efficiency results for financial institutions in the areas of government policy, research, and managerial performance. Areas needing additional research are also outlined.

How well do conventional stock market indicators predict stock market movements?: Working paper series--03-02

The P/E ratios and the dividend yield of the S&P 500 are analyzed in relation to subsequent stock returns and are show to explain less than 20% of the variation in returns. Some analysts suggest that these indicators should be examined in relation to interest rates. Interest rates are shown not to improve the explanatory power of the indicators. Unfortunately, the conventional indicators studied here are not very helpful and may have caused some investors to miss out on substantial returns

Extractable nitrogen and microbial community structure respond to grassland restoration regardless of historical context and soil composition.

Grasslands have a long history of invasion by exotic annuals, which may alter microbial communities and nutrient cycling through changes in litter quality and biomass turnover rates. We compared plant community composition, soil chemical and microbial community composition, potential soil respiration and nitrogen (N) turnover rates between invaded and restored plots in inland and coastal grasslands. Restoration increased microbial biomass and fungal : bacterial (F : B) ratios, but sampling season had a greater influence on the F : B ratio than did restoration. Microbial community composition assessed by phospholipid fatty acid was altered by restoration, but also varied by season and by site. Total soil carbon (C) and N and potential soil respiration did not differ between treatments, but N mineralization decreased while extractable nitrate and nitrification and N immobilization rate increased in restored compared with unrestored sites. The differences in soil chemistry and microbial community composition between unrestored and restored sites indicate that these soils are responsive, and therefore not resistant to feedbacks caused by changes in vegetation type. The resilience, or recovery, of these soils is difficult to assess in the absence of uninvaded control grasslands. However, the rapid changes in microbial and N cycling characteristics following removal of invasives in both grassland sites suggest that the soils are resilient to invasion. The lack of change in total C and N pools may provide a buffer that promotes resilience of labile pools and microbial community structure

Skeletal Microdamage: Less About Biomechanics and More About Remodeling

The mechanical consequences of skeletal microdamage have been clearly documented using various experimental methods, yet recent experiments suggest that physiological levels of microdamage accumulation are not sufficient to compromise the bones’ biomechanical properties. While great advances have been made in our understanding of the biomechanical implications of microdamage, less is known concerning the physiological role of microdamage in bone remodeling. Microdamage has been shown to act as a signal for bone remodeling, likely through a disruption of the osteocyte-canalicular network. Interestingly, age-related increases in microdamage are not accompanied by increases in bone remodeling suggesting that the physiological mechanisms which link microdamage and remodeling are compromised with aging

Inefficiency and productivity growth in banking: a comparison of stochastic econometric and thick frontier methods

A comparison of alternative methods for estimating inefficiency and productivity growth in banking, showing that inefficiencies are sufficiently large to dominate scale economies and that measured technological progress has been small, or even negative, as a result of institutional events that occurred during 1977-88.Banks and banking - Costs ; Production (Economic theory)

An Analysis of Efficiency of Midwestern Agricultural Cooperatives

Agribusiness,

Cross-linguistic similarity and task demands in Japanese-English bilingual processing

Even in languages that do not share script, bilinguals process cognates faster than matched noncognates in a range of tasks. The current research more fully explores what underpins the cognate ‘advantage’ in different script bilinguals (Japanese-English). To do this, instead of the more traditional binary cognate/noncognate distinction, the current study uses continuous measures of phonological and semantic overlap, L2 (second language) proficiency and lexical variables (e.g., frequency). An L2 picture naming (Experiment 1) revealed a significant interaction between phonological and semantic similarity and demonstrates that degree of overlap modulates naming times. In lexical decision (Experiment 2), increased phonological similarity (e.g., bus/basu/vs. radio/rajio/) lead to faster response times. Interestingly, increased semantic similarity slowed response times in lexical decision. The studies also indicate how L2 proficiency and lexical variables modulate L2 word processing. These findings are explained in terms of current models of bilingual lexical processing

Alendronate treatment results in similar levels of trabecular bone remodeling in the femoral neck and vertebra

Introduction Bone turnover suppression in sites that already have a low surface-based remodeling rate may lead to oversuppression that could have negative effects on the biomechanical properties of bone. The goal was to determine how alendronate suppresses bone turnover at sites with different surface-based remodeling rates. Methods Dynamic histomorphometric parameters were assessed in trabecular bone of the femoral neck and lumbar vertebrae obtained from skeletally mature beagles treated with saline (1 ml/kg/day) or alendronate (ALN 0.2 or 1.0 mg/kg/day). The ALN0.2 and ALN1.0 doses approximate, on a milligram per kilogram basis, the clinical doses used for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis and Paget’s disease, respectively. Results Alendronate treatment resulted in similar absolute levels of bone turnover in the femoral neck and vertebrae, although the femoral neck had 33% lower pre-treatment surface-based remodeling rate than the vertebra (p < 0.05). Additionally, the high dose of alendronate (ALN 1.0) suppressed bone turnover to similar absolute levels as the low dose of alendronate (ALN 0.2) in both sites. Conclusions Alendronate treatment may result in a lower limit of trabecular bone turnover suppression, suggesting that sites of low pre-treatment remodeling rate are not more susceptible to oversuppression than those of high pre-treatment remodeling rate