Country Creditor Rights, Information Sharing, and Commercial Banks’ Profitability

The authors analyze commercial banks’ profitability (return on equity, ROE) at different levels of creditor rights and an aggregate score of information sharing in terms of credit bureaus. After controlling for bank size and some macroeconomic variables, the results indicate that profitability is higher and more persistent when creditors are well protected. Furthermore, the presence of a (public or private) credit bureau increases the persistence of ROE, but higher levels of information sharing foster competition and erode future profitability.return on equity (ROE), commercial banks, creditor rights, information sharing, predictive ability of accounting

Beating noise with abstention in state estimation

We address the problem of estimating pure qubit states with non-ideal (noisy) measurements in the multiple-copy scenario, where the data consists of a number N of identically prepared qubits. We show that the average fidelity of the estimates can increase significantly if the estimation protocol allows for inconclusive answers, or abstentions. We present the optimal such protocol and compute its fidelity for a given probability of abstention. The improvement over standard estimation, without abstention, can be viewed as an effective noise reduction. These and other results are exemplified for small values of N. For asymptotically large N, we derive analytical expressions of the fidelity and the probability of abstention, and show that for a fixed fidelity gain the latter decreases with N at an exponential rate given by a Kulback-Leibler (relative) entropy. As a byproduct, we obtain an asymptotic expression in terms of this very entropy of the probability that a system of N qubits, all prepared in the same state, has a given total angular momentum. We also discuss an extreme situation where noise increases with N and where estimation with abstention provides a most significant improvement as compared to the standard approach

The Detection of Outflows in the IR-Quiet Molecular Core NGC 6334 I(North)

We find strong evidence for outflows originating in the dense molecular core NGC 6334 I(North): a 1000 Msol molecular core distinguished by its lack of HII regions and mid-IR emission. New observations were obtained of the SiO 2-1 and 5-4 lines with the SEST 15-m telescope and the H2 (1-0) S(1) line with the ESO 2.2-m telescope. The line profiles of the SiO transitions show broad wings extending from -50 to 40 km/s, and spatial maps of the line wing emission exhibit a bipolar morphology with the peaks of the red and blue wing separated by 30". The estimated mass loss rate of the outflow is comparable to those for young intermediate to high-mass stars. The near-IR images show eight knots of H2 emission. Five of the knots form a linear chain which is displaced from the axis of the SiO outflow; these knots may trace shock excited gas along the path of a second, highly collimated outflow. We propose that I(N) is a rare example of a molecular core in an early stage of cluster formation.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX, 3 ps figures, accepted by ApJ

Comparacion en la capacidad de memoria operativa y elaboracion de inferencias entre adultos mayores y adultos jovenes

80 p.Hacer inferencias o concluir sobre algo se refiere a la existencia de información que está implícita o la que podemos inferir. Esto significa que la información no siempre es clara pero de algún modo la utilizamos para hacer un juicio o concluir sobre algo. Los adultos mayores con envejecimiento típico presenta un enlentecimiento de las funciones cognitivas, como es en la memoria operativa y la capacidad para elaborar inferencias. Por ello el propósito de este trabajo es estudiar la diferencia que existe entre la capacidad de memoria operativa y la capacidad de elaborar inferencias entre los adultos mayores y los adultos jóvenes. Se utilizó una muestra de 60 sujetos, los cuales se asignaron a dos grupos: 30 sujetos adultos mayores con envejecimiento típico entre 60 y 80 años de edad correspondiente al grupo de estudio y 30 sujetos adultos jóvenes entre 20 y 30 años de edad correspondiente al grupo control. A ambos grupos se le aplicó en primera instancia una prueba para medir la capacidad de memoria operativa y posteriormente una prueba para medir la capacidad de la elaboración de inferencias elaborativas y puentes. Los resultados mostraron que la capacidad de memoria operativa y la elaboración de inferencias se ven disminuidas con la edad en comparación con los adultos jóvenes

Cellular bases of the RNA metabolism dysfunction in motor neurons of a murine model of spinal muscular atrophy: Role of Cajal bodies and the nucleolus

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by a homozygous deletion or mutation in the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene that leads to reduced levels of SMN protein resulting in degeneration of motor neurons (MNs). The best known functions of SMN is the biogenesis of spliceosomal snRNPs. Linked to this function, Cajal bodies (CBs) are involved in the assembly of spliceosomal (snRNPs) and nucleolar (snoRNPs) ribonucleoproteins required for pre-mRNA and pre-rRNA processing. Recent studies support that the interaction between CBs and nucleoli, which are especially prominent in neurons, is essential for the nucleolar rRNA homeostasis. We use the SMN∆7 murine model of type I SMA to investigate the cellular basis of the dysfunction of RNA metabolism in MNs. SMN deficiency in postnatal MNs produces a depletion of functional CBs and relocalization of coilin, which is a scaffold protein of CBs, in snRNP-free perinucleolar caps or within the nucleolus. Disruption of CBs is the earliest nuclear sign of MN degeneration. We demonstrate that depletion of CBs, with loss of CB-nucleolus interactions, induces a progressive nucleolar dysfunction in ribosome biogenesis. It includes reorganization and loss of nucleolar transcription units, segregation of dense fibrillar and granular components, retention of SUMO-conjugated proteins in intranucleolar bodies and a reactive, compensatory, up-regulation of mature 18S rRNA and genes encoding key nucleolar proteins, such as upstream binding factor, fibrillarin, nucleolin and nucleophosmin. We propose that CB depletion and nucleolar alterations are essential components of the dysfunction of RNA metabolism in SMA.This work was supported by the following grants: “Dirección General de Investigación” of Spain (BFU2014-54754-P), “Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobre Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED; CB06/05/0037)” from Spain, and “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” of Spain cofinanced by FEDER (SAF2015-70801-R). Dr. Tapia is a recipient of a grant from SMA Europe cofinanced by FundAME (Spain) and "Instituto de Investigación Valdecilla" (IDIVAL; Next-Val) from Santander, Spain

Mesoscopic Model for Free Energy Landscape Analysis of DNA sequences

A mesoscopic model which allows us to identify and quantify the strength of binding sites in DNA sequences is proposed. The model is based on the Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois model for the DNA chain coupled to a Brownian particle which explores the sequence interacting more importantly with open base pairs of the DNA chain. We apply the model to promoter sequences of different organisms. The free energy landscape obtained for these promoters shows a complex structure that is strongly connected to their biological behavior. The analysis method used is able to quantify free energy differences of sites within genome sequences.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Mid-Infrared Imaging of NGC 6334 I

We present high-resolution (<0.5") mid-infrared Keck II images of individual sources in the central region of NGC 6334 I. We compare these images to images at a variety of other wavelengths from the near infrared to cm radio continuum and speculate on the nature of the NGC 6334 I sources. We assert that the cometary shape of the UCHII region here, NGC 6334 F, is due to a champagne-like flow from a source on the edge of a molecular clump and not a due to a bow shock caused by the supersonic motion of the UCHII region through the interstellar medium. The mid-infrared emission in concentrated into an arc of dust that define the boundary between the UCHII region and the molecular clump. This dust arc contains a majority of the masers in the region. We discuss the nature of the four near-infrared sources associated with IRS-I 1, and suggest that one of the sources, IRS1E, is responsible for the heating and ionizing of the UCHII region and the mid-infrared dust arc. Infrared source IRS-I 2, which has been thought to be a circumstellar disk associated with a linear distribution of methanol masers, is found not to be directly coincident with the masers and elongated at a much different position angle. IRS-I 3 is found to be a extended source of mid-infrared emission coming from a cluster of young dusty sources seen in the near-infrared.Comment: Accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal, 27 pages, 9 figure

Canonical formulation of the embedded theory of gravity equivalent to Einstein's General Relativity

We study the approach in which independent variables describing gravity are functions of the space-time embedding into a flat space of higher dimension. We formulate a canonical formalism for such a theory in a form, which requires imposing additional constraints, which are a part of Einstein's equations. As a result, we obtain a theory with an eight-parameter gauge symmetry. This theory becomes equivalent to Einstein's general relativity either after partial gauge fixing or after rewriting the metric in the form that is invariant under the additional gauge transformations. We write the action for such a theory.Comment: LaTeX, 17 page