Optimal allocation–consumption problem for a portfolio with an illiquid asset

During financial crises investors manage portfolios with low liquidity, where the paper-value of an asset differs from the price proposed by the buyer. We consider an optimization problem for a portfolio with an illiquid, a risky and a risk-free asset. We work in the Merton's optimal consumption framework with continuous time. The liquid part of the investment is described by a standard Black–Scholes market. The illiquid asset is sold at a random moment with prescribed distribution and generates additional liquid wealth dependent on its paper-value. The investor has a hyperbolic absolute risk aversion also denoted as HARA-type utility function, in particular, the logarithmic utility function as a limit case. We study two different distributions of the liquidation time of the illiquid asset – a classical exponential distribution and a more practically relevant Weibull distribution. Under certain conditions we show the smoothness of the viscosity solution and obtain closed formulae relevant for numerics.     

Externality, internality, and (in)dispensability of grammatical features in speech production: Evidence from Czech declension and conjugation.

In 3 picture–word experiments, the authors explored the activation of 2 grammatical features in Czech during lexical access: declensional class of nouns and conjugational class of verbs. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated congruency effects of declensional and conjugational class, respectively. Picture naming times were reliably longer if the declensional or conjugational classes of the pictures' names and the distractors were incongruent. Experiment 3 explored the origin of the congruency effect in more detail. Congruency effects were obtained for declensional class regardless of whether the target name and the distractor differed in form, speaking for competition at the lemma level. These findings are discussed in comparison with gender congruency effects. The authors propose a differentiation between externally and internally specified features of lemmas, especially with respect to the time course of their activation. Internal features that become available only when the lemma is activated (e.g., gender, declensional or conjugational class of nouns and verbs) can be bypassed or not, depending on the grammatical specification of the earlier available external features (like case or number). Following this argument, supposedly inconsistent findings regarding grammatical gender and declensional or conjugational class can be explained straightforwardly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is singular value decomposition useful for word similarity extraction?

In this paper, we analyze the behaviour of Singular Value Decomposition in a number of word similarity extraction tasks, namely acquisition of translation equivalents from comparable corpora. Special attention is paid to two different aspects: computational efficiency and extraction quality. The main objective of the paper is to describe several experiments comparing methods based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to other strategies. The results lead us to conclude that SVD makes the extraction less computationally efficient and much less precise than other more basic models for the task of extracting translation equivalents from comparable corpora.     

Gender processing in first and second languages: The role of noun termination.

In 2 picture-naming and 2 grammaticality judgment experiments, the authors explored how the phonological form of a word, especially its termination, affects gender processing by monolinguals and unbalanced bilinguals speaking German. The results of the 2 experiments with native German speakers yielded no significant differences: The reaction times were statistically identical for items from gender typical, ambiguous, and gender atypical groups. The 2 experiments with English bilinguals who had learned German as a second language (L2), however, provided evidence that the L2 word's termination plays a role in L2 gender processing. Participants were fastest when producing gender-marked noun phrases containing a noun with a gender typical termination and slowest when the noun had a gender atypical termination. Analogous results were obtained in the grammaticality judgment experiment. These findings support the assumption that there is interaction between the levels of phonological encoding and grammatical encoding at least in bilingual processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

RGS5 Determines Neutrophil Migration in the Acute Inflammatory Phase of Bleomycin-Induced Lung Injury

The regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) represents a widespread system of controllers of cellular responses. The activities of the R4 subfamily of RGSs have been elucidated in allergic pulmonary diseases. However, the R4 signaling in other inflammatory lung diseases, with a strong cellular immune response, remained unexplored. Thus, our study aimed to discern the functional relevance of the R4 family member, RGS5, as a potential modulating element in this context. Gene profiling of the R4 subfamily showed increased RGS5 expression in human fibrosing lung disease samples. In line with this, RGS5 was markedly increased in murine lungs following bleomycin injury. RGS knock-out mice (RGS-/-) had preserved lung function while control mice showed significant combined ventilatory disorders three days after bleomycin application as compared to untreated control mice. Loss of RGS5 was associated with a significantly reduced neutrophil influx and tissue myeloperoxidase expression. In the LPS lung injury model, RGS5-/- mice also failed to recruit neutrophils into the lung, which was accompanied by reduced tissue myeloperoxidase levels after 24 h. Our in-vitro assays showed impaired migration of RGS5-/- neutrophils towards chemokines despite preserved Ca²⁺ signaling. ERK dephosphorylation might play a role in reduced neutrophil migration in our model. As a conclusion, loss of RGS5 preserves lung function and attenuates hyperinflammation in the acute phase of bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis and LPS-induced lung injury. Targeting RGS5 might alleviate the severity of exacerbations in interstitial lung diseases.