International Equity Transactions and U.S. Portfolio Choice

This paper studies the cross-border transactions in equity by investors in Canada, Germany,Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. We find that investors from different countries make very different decisions about the allocation of their portfolio across markets. In contradiction to the notion that high variable transactions costs hinder international diversification, we find that the volume of gross equity flows vastly exceeds net equity flows and the turnover rate on foreign equity investments by some investors even exceeds domestic turnover rates. We also reject the hypothesis that U.S. investors follow the standard CAPM in allocating their global equity portfolio.

FIIs and Indian Stock Market: A Causality Investigation

While the volatility associated with portfolio capital flows is well known, there is also a concern that foreign institutional investors might introduce distortions in the host country markets due to the pressure on them to secure capital gains. In this context, present chapter attempts to find out the direction of causality between foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and performance of Indian stock market. To facilitate a better understanding of the causal linkage between FII flows and contemporaneous stock market returns (BSE National Index), a period of nineteen consecutive financial years ranging from January 1992 to December 2010 is selected. Granger Causality Test has been applied to test the direction of causality.Aczkolwiek brak stabilności związany z przepływami kapitału portfelowego jest dobrze znany, to istnieje również obawa, że zagraniczni inwestorzy instytucjonalni mogą wprowadzać zakłócenia na rynkach krajów przyjmujących z uwagi na wywieraną na nich presję, aby zapewniać zyski kapitałowe. W tym kontekście niniejszy rozdział próbuje poznać kierunek przyczynowości pomiędzy zagranicznymi inwestorami instytucjonalnymi (FIIs) i działaniem indyjskiej giełdy. Aby ułatwić lepsze zrozumienie związku przyczynowego między przepływami FII i mającymi miejsce w tym samym czasie wynikami giełdy papierów wartościowych (BSE National Index), wybrany został okres dziewiętnastu kolejnych lat począwszy od stycznia 1992 do grudnia 2010. Do zbadania kierunku przyczynowości zastosowano test przyczynowości Grangera

Instability driven flow and runoff formation in a small catchment

Two anomalous phenomena were observed in a small catchment: 1) In some situations, the water supplied by rain caused a pronounced decrease in the soil water content. 2) In these periods, the soil water movement could be explained only by assuming an irregularly oscillating outflow of soil water into lower horizons. In these situations a large volume of water flows through the soil; therefore on the hydrological scale, this phenomenon forms a great part of the outflow from a watershed. These phenomena are described in the frame of the instability driven flow theory and explained as consequences of the porous soil body's capacity to become conductive as a result of a very little change of its moisture. Therefore the soil profile can attenuate or amplify the rainfall pulses during their transformation to the outflow below the soil profile. If the soil water content is lower than the threshold value, the rainfall pulses can be suppressed down to zero. If the soil profile contains more water, the soil does not attenuate the rainfall pulses, it can even amplify them by adding the released soil water. This is the mechanism of rapid growth of rising hydrograph limb during a storm event. The rapid transport of the soil water can occur in any part of the porous soil body regardless of the pore size and can be caused by any rainfall event with any intensity, duration or total volume

The Chicken Yolk Sac IgY Receptor, a Mammalian Mannose Receptor Family Member, Transcytoses IgY across Polarized Epithelial Cells

In mammals the transfer of passive immunity from mother to young is mediated by the MHC-related receptor FcRn, which transports maternal IgG across epithelial cell barriers. In birds, maternal IgY in egg yolk is transferred across the yolk sac to passively immunize chicks during gestation and early independent life. The chicken yolk sac IgY receptor (FcRY) is the ortholog of the mammalian phospholipase A2 receptor, a mannose receptor family member, rather than an FcRn or MHC homolog. FcRn and FcRY both exhibit ligand binding at the acidic pH of endosomes and ligand release at the slightly basic pH of blood. Here we show that FcRY expressed in polarized mammalian epithelial cells functioned in endocytosis, bidirectional transcytosis, and recycling of chicken FcY/IgY. Confocal immunofluorescence studies demonstrated that IgY binding and endocytosis occurred at acidic but not basic pH, mimicking pH-dependent uptake of IgG by FcRn. Colocalization studies showed FcRY-mediated internalization via clathrin-coated pits and transport involving early and recycling endosomes. Disruption of microtubules partially inhibited apical-to-basolateral and basolateral-to-apical transcytosis, but not recycling, suggesting the use of different trafficking machinery. Our results represent the first cell biological evidence of functional equivalence between FcRY and FcRn and provide an intriguing example of how evolution can give rise to systems in which similar biological requirements in different species are satisfied utilizing distinct protein folds

A freeze substitution fixation-based gold enlarging technique for EM studies of endocytosed nanogold-labeled molecules

We have developed methods to locate individual ligands that can be used for electron microscopy studies of dynamic events during endocytosis and subsequent intracellular trafficking. The methods are based on enlargement of 1.4 nm Nanogold attached to an endocytosed ligand. Nanogold, a small label that does not induce misdirection of ligand–receptor complexes, is ideal for labeling ligands endocytosed by live cells, but is too small to be routinely located in cells by electron microscopy. Traditional pre-embedding enhancement protocols to enlarge Nanogold are not compatible with high pressure freezing/freeze substitution fixation (HPF/FSF), the most accurate method to preserve ultrastructure and dynamic events during trafficking. We have developed an improved enhancement procedure for chemically fixed samples that reduced auto-nucleation, and a new pre-embedding gold enlarging technique for HPF/FSF samples that preserved contrast and ultrastructure and can be used for high-resolution tomography. We evaluated our methods using labeled Fc as a ligand for the neonatal Fc receptor. Attachment of Nanogold to Fc did not interfere with receptor binding or uptake, and gold-labeled Fc could be specifically enlarged to allow identification in 2D projections and in tomograms. These methods should be broadly applicable to many endocytosis and transcytosis studies

Shower development of particles with momenta from 15 GeV to 150 GeV in the CALICE scintillator-tungsten hadronic calorimeter

We present a study of showers initiated by electrons, pions, kaons, and protons with momenta from 15 GeV to 150 GeV in the highly granular CALICE scintillator-tungsten analogue hadronic calorimeter. The data were recorded at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron in 2011. The analysis includes measurements of the calorimeter response to each particle type as well as measurements of the energy resolution and studies of the longitudinal and radial shower development for selected particles. The results are compared to Geant4 simulations (version 9.6.p02). In the study of the energy resolution we include previously published data with beam momenta from 1 GeV to 10 GeV recorded at the CERN Proton Synchrotron in 2010.Comment: 35 pages, 21 figures, 8 table

The Time Structure of Hadronic Showers in highly granular Calorimeters with Tungsten and Steel Absorbers

The intrinsic time structure of hadronic showers influences the timing capability and the required integration time of hadronic calorimeters in particle physics experiments, and depends on the active medium and on the absorber of the calorimeter. With the CALICE T3B experiment, a setup of 15 small plastic scintillator tiles read out with Silicon Photomultipliers, the time structure of showers is measured on a statistical basis with high spatial and temporal resolution in sampling calorimeters with tungsten and steel absorbers. The results are compared to GEANT4 (version 9.4 patch 03) simulations with different hadronic physics models. These comparisons demonstrate the importance of using high precision treatment of low-energy neutrons for tungsten absorbers, while an overall good agreement between data and simulations for all considered models is observed for steel.Comment: 24 pages including author list, 9 figures, published in JINS