Repeated games with asymmetric information and random price fluctuations at finance markets : the case of countable state space

This paper is concerned with multistage bidding models introduced by De Meyer and Moussa Saley (2002) to analyze the evolution of the price system at finance markets with asymmetric information. The zero-sum repeated games with incomplete information are considered modeling the bidding with countable sets of possible prices and admissible bids. It is shown that, if the liquidation price of a share has a finite variance, then the sequence of values of n-step games is bounded and converges to the value of the game with infinite number of steps. We construct explicitly the optimal strategies for this game. The optimal strategy of Player 1 (the insider) generates a symmetric random walk of posterior mathematical expectations of liquidation price with absorption. The expected duration of this random walk is equal to the initial variance of liquidation price. The guaranteed total gain of Player 1 (the value of the game) is equal to this expected duration multiplied with the fixed gain per step.Multistage bidding, asymmetric information, repeated games, optimal strategy.

Car industry enterprises in Poland : strategic priorities in the circumstances of depression on the market

It is in the recent years that the automotive branch was remarkably affected by the global economic crisis. The companies that are located in Poland make up a significant element of the global system. The present paper analyses the most important data that describe the activities of these companies in the years of crisis (the research covered the period from 2005 through 2012). It is possible to formulate the thesis that this is the group of entities that relatively well coped with the difficult situation encountered in the environment. Thanks to the analysis that was made it was possible to point to the regularities that increased the possibility of making a success in this kind of circumstances

Perfused multiwell plate for 3D liver tissue engineering

In vitro models that capture the complexity of in vivo tissue and organ behaviors in a scalable and easy-to-use format are desirable for drug discovery. To address this, we have developed a bioreactor that fosters maintenance of 3D tissue cultures under constant perfusion and we have integrated multiple bioreactors into an array in a multiwell plate format. All bioreactors are fluidically isolated from each other. Each bioreactor in the array contains a scaffold that supports formation of hundreds of 3D microscale tissue units. The tissue units are perfused with cell culture medium circulated within the bioreactor by integrated pneumatic diaphragm micropumps. Electronic controls for the pumps are kept outside the incubator and connected to the perfused multiwell by pneumatic lines. The docking design and open-well bioreactor layout make handling perfused multiwell plates similar to using standard multiwell tissue culture plates. A model of oxygen consumption and transport in the circulating culture medium was used to predict appropriate operating parameters for primary liver cultures. Oxygen concentrations at key locations in the system were then measured as a function of flow rate and time after initiation of culture to determine oxygen consumption rates. After seven days of culture, tissue formed from cells seeded in the perfused multiwell reactor remained functionally viable as assessed by immunostaining for hepatocyte and liver sinusoidal endothelial cell (LSEC) phenotypic markers.National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (grant number 5P30ES002109-30)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH grant number 5R01ES015241)DuPont MIT AlliancePfizer Inc.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant number EEC-9843342

Capacidade para o trabalho entre trabalhadores de higiene e limpeza de um hospital universitário público

A capacidade para o trabalho é a base do bem-estar para o ser humano e a sua manutenção envolve condições de saúde e trabalho adequadas. Com o objetivo de verificar a capacidade para o trabalho entre trabalhadores de higiene e limpeza,realizou-se uma pesquisa quantitativa, do tipo descritivo-exploratória, em um hospital universitário público do norte paranaense, de março a junho de 2008, por meio da aplicação de um questionário constituído por dados sócio-demográficos e ocupacionais, e pelo Índice de Capacidade para o Trabalho (ICT). Os dados foram analisados pelo programa Epi Info 2002. A população foi composta por 98 trabalhadores, sendo que 82,4% possuem mais de 41 anos e 96,9% são mulheres. Quanto à avaliação da capacidade para o trabalho, 45,9% dos entrevistados obtiveram um ICT bom, 23,5% ótimo, 22,4% moderado e 8,2% baixo, com escore mínimo de 16 e máximo de 49. As doenças músculo esqueléticas foram as mais referidas pelos entrevistados. Os fatores relacionados à capacidade para o trabalho são múltiplos, assim, as ações para a prevenção erecuperação desta capacidade devem ser discutidas e conciliadas entre empregados e empregadores, garantindo um espaço para contextualização e reflexão acerca do processo de trabalho

Mapping of mobile charges on insulator surfaces with the electrostatic force microscope

Journal ArticleMigration of surface ions in lateral fields on insulator surfaces may modify the electrical characteristics of underlying semiconductor structures causing device instabilities. A high sensitivity electrostatic force microscope is used to image the movement and spatial distribution of surface ions on Si3N4. Mobile surface ions are distributed by the fringing fields of a p-n junction and an open-gate field-effect transistor. The surface charge distribution and topography are imaged simultaneously on a micrometer scale

I. S. Turgenev’s Late Vocal Translations for Music Albums of Pauline Viardot

The article examines I. S. Turgenev’s late translations for the music albums of Pauline Viardot. The authors analyse the vocal album of Pauline Viardot from 1874. For the first time, the article provides a linguacultural analysis of the translations of poems from this album (from German into Russian and from Russian into German), and attributes the authorship of the translations belonging to Turgenev. The authors of the article consider another aspect of the co-creation of Turgenev with Pauline Viardot, which remained virtually unexplored until now, i. e., the creation of the music albums of “Tuscan Songs” (“Canti popolari Toscani”), the texts of which were collected, processed and published by Giuseppe Tigri. The authors of the article examine the musical and poetic content of “Tuscan Songs,” and provide a series of evidence that the translations of the songs (with the exception of “Florentine Serenade”) belong to the Russian writer. The most convincing argument pointing to the authorship of Turgenev’s translations are the manuscripts of three Tuscan songs, in which the Russian text was written in Turgenev’s hand

Synergistic drug-cytokine induction of hepatocellular death as an in vitro approach for the study of inflammation-associated idiosyncratic drug hepatotoxicity

Idiosyncratic drug hepatotoxicity represents a major problem in drug development due to inadequacy of current preclinical screening assays, but recently established rodent models utilizing bacterial LPS co-administration to induce an inflammatory background have successfully reproduced idiosyncratic hepatotoxicity signatures for certain drugs. However, the low-throughput nature of these models renders them problematic for employment as preclinical screening assays. Here, we present an analogous, but high-throughput, in vitro approach in which drugs are administered to a variety of cell types (primary human and rat hepatocytes and the human HepG2 cell line) across a landscape of inflammatory contexts containing LPS and cytokines TNF, IFNγ, IL-1α, and IL-6. Using this assay, we observed drug–cytokine hepatotoxicity synergies for multiple idiosyncratic hepatotoxicants (ranitidine, trovafloxacin, nefazodone, nimesulide, clarithromycin, and telithromycin) but not for their corresponding non-toxic control compounds (famotidine, levofloxacin, buspirone, and aspirin). A larger compendium of drug–cytokine mix hepatotoxicity data demonstrated that hepatotoxicity synergies were largely potentiated by TNF, IL-1α, and LPS within the context of multi-cytokine mixes. Then, we screened 90 drugs for cytokine synergy in human hepatocytes and found that a significantly larger fraction of the idiosyncratic hepatotoxicants (19%) synergized with a single cytokine mix than did the non-hepatotoxic drugs (3%). Finally, we used an information theoretic approach to ascertain especially informative subsets of cytokine treatments for most highly effective construction of regression models for drug- and cytokine mix-induced hepatotoxicities across these cell systems. Our results suggest that this drug–cytokine co-treatment approach could provide a useful preclinical tool for investigating inflammation-associated idiosyncratic drug hepatotoxicity.Pfizer Inc.Institute for Collaborative BiotechnologiesMIT Center for Cell Decision ProcessesNational Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (grant P50-GM68762)National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (grant T32-GM008334)Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Biotechnology Process Engineering CenterMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Environmental Health SciencesNational Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (grant U19ES011399)Whitaker Foundatio