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A three-stage Bayesian-Cournot game is studied where rivaling sign contracts with an information monopoly to purchase proprietary information. The information-selling strategy depends on the clientsE inhouse information technology, the uncertainty of the economic environment, and the number of potential clients.

The assumptions made by Ira Horowitz regarding the tendency of risk-preferring individuals to engage in gambles are refutable since they violate the Lemma 4 of the original research. The work, made by Prakash, Chang, Hamid and Smyser, strictly considers conditions wherein utility functions are characterized by risk aversion and skewness preferences. This restriction implies that solutions may only be generated from specific utility functions for a given level of wealth.

The relationship between deposit insurance and bank deposit rates in a long-run equilibrium state and a very general premium structure is investigated. A price discrimination model similar to that of Lott and Roberts showed that competition between banks would establish a relationship between insured and uninsured deposit rates with the size of the insurance premium. Also, analysis of the time series characteristics of insured and uninsured interest rates revealed that these rates, including deposit insurance premiums, are cointegrated series.

Risk-averse managers who demonstrate a preference for positive skewness may enter into high risk projects that appear to be unfair gambles if the payoffs exhibit a skewed distribution. This concept appears to be contrary but is actually consistent with utility theory. Moreover, since such individuals require a lower minimum return, they are more prone to accept high-risk projects than managers who do not have a preference for positive skewness.

Background: Nursing fraternity are at an increased risk of acquiring hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections mainly attributable to occupational risk and close contact with the patients while treatment. However, unawareness and negligence about the severity, mode of transmission and preventive measures about the disease can further predispose the nursing fraternity to a higher risk of infection. To overcome these lacunae in knowledge, a training program named Project PRAKASH was initiated for in-service nurses across the country. The objective of the program was to impart up-to-date knowledge to the nursing professionals in the management of viral hepatitis and to assess the effectiveness of the training program through pre-post-knowledge assessment survey. Methodology: One-day training program titled 'Hepatitis Induction Program' was conducted for a period of 2 years (2018-2020) among nursing professionals. It was accompanied by administration of 54-item knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) questionnaire with four sections: demographic details, knowledge (30 items), attitude (11 items) and practice (13 items), followed by post-knowledge assessment. An Impact Assessment Survey (IAS) was also administered to assess the change in attitude and practice among 10% of the attendees, at least 6 months post training. Result: A total of 32 one-day training programmes were organised which witnessed the training of 5,253 nursing professionals from 292 institutions across 12 states. A data of 4,474 participants were included in the final analysis: improvement in the knowledge score was significant (P-value < 0.001) with mean knowledge score of 19.3 ± 4.4 in pre-test and 25.7 ± 3.9 in the post-test. Conclusion: The one-day training resulted in improvement of knowledge and significant changes in the attitude and practices of the nursing professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbial metabolites produced by the gut microbiome, e.g. short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), have been found to influence lung physiology and injury responses. However, how lung immune activity is regulated by SCFA is unknown. We examined fresh human lung tissue and observed the presence of SCFA with interindividual variability. In vitro, SCFA were capable of modifying the metabolic programming in LPS-exposed alveolar macrophages (AM). We hypothesized that lung immune tone could be defined by baseline detection of lung intracellular IL-1b. Therefore, we interrogated naïve mouse lungs with intact gut microbiota for IL-1b mRNA expression and localized its presence within alveolar spaces, specifically within AM subsets. We established that metabolically active gut microbiota, which produce SCFA, can transmit LPS and SCFA to the lung and thereby could create primed lung immunometabolic tone. To understand how murine lung cells sensed and upregulated IL-1b in response to gut microbiome-derived factors, we determined that, in vitro, AM and alveolar type II (AT2) cells expressed SCFA receptors, free fatty acid receptor 2 (FFAR2), free fatty acid receptor 3 (FFAR3), and IL-1b but with distinct expression patterns and different responses to LPS. Finally, we observed that IL-1b, FFAR2, and FFAR3 were expressed in isolated human AM and AT2 cells ex vivo, but in fresh human lung sections in situ, only AM expressed IL-1b at rest and after LPS challenge. Together, this translational study using mouse and human lung tissue and cells point to an important role for the gut microbiome and their SCFA in establishing and regulating lung immune tone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method of modeling the intertemporal price behavior of zero-coupon pure discount bonds in the return distributions of these securities is introduced. The log-normal model of the return distribution, called the bounded distribution model (BDM), includes the arbitrage free bounds on the range of the return distribution. Using Treasury Bill data, the BDM is found to be superior to an unbounded distribution model since it meets the general conditions of the log-normal distribution and demonstrates relatively stable parameter estimates over time.

Using Sharpe and Treynor's two moment and Prakash and Bear's and Stephens and Proffitt's higher moment performance measures, this paper presents empirical evidence that various measures provide vastly different performance rankings of 14 international stock markets, albeit in the same direction. The choice of different investment horizons (i.e., the intervaling) also affects these rankings., INTRODUCTION There is ample empirical evidence (Bailey and Stulz, 1990; Cumby and Glen, 1990; etc.) that internationally diversified portfolios provide a greater degree of diversification in comparison to domestically diversified [...]

Theoretical and empirical evidence has been established for the positive relation of the growth rate to a firm's relative systematic risk. The rate is measured either as net or operating income. An increase in the debt-to-asset ratio diminishes the rate's relationship with the beta factor. Although increased debt will raise the firm's market risk, net income growth will be affected by increased debt service charges.

Stock price movements in multimarket scenarios give investors additional data about the risk involved in those shares. The multimarket settings are typified by common stocks being traded on several markets both domestically and internationally. A simple procedure is presented to get the best linear unbiased estimator of relevant systematic risk of a stock. The procedure can integrate all the market data available at any specific timeframe.