Bargaining under the Illusion of Transparency

This paper studies bargaining with noncommon priors where the buyer projects and exaggerates the probability that her private information may leak to the seller. Letting the buyer name her price first, raises the seller’s payoff above his payoff from posting a price. In seller-offer bargaining, projection implies a partial reversal of classic Coasian comparative static results. Weakening price commitment can benefit the seller and, as long as the relative speed at which imaginary information versus offers arrive does not converge to zero too quickly, frictionless bargaining converges to a fast haggling process which allows the seller to extract all surplus from trade. Bargaining under common prior transparency is instead slow and becomes equivalent to simply waiting. The comparative static predictions are consistent with experimental evidence. (JEL C78, D82)

BMSC-derived Exosomes Protect Against Delayed Encephalopathy after Acute Carbon Monoxide Poisoning in Rats via Blockade of Notch Signaling

Objective: Our aim was to probe the therapeutic effect by which (BMSC-ex) protect against (DEACMP) in rat models in vivo. Methods: BMSC-ex were successfully characterized and proven to pass the blood brain barrier and migrate to the injured brain area. Rats were randomly divided into six groups and the cognitive function of mice was evaluated by the morris water maze. The severity of pathological changes was evaluated by HE staining and LFB staining. The expression of cytokines was detected by ELISA. Immunohistochemical staining and western blot analysis were utilized to detect the protein expression of Foxp3、CD4、MBP、Notch1 and Hess1 in brain tissue.Results: We found that BMSC-ex significantly reduced inflammation, increased the levels of (Tregs), relieved demyelination, and ameliorated the cognitive impairment in DEACMP rats. Furthermore, inhibiting the Notch pathway led to a partial reversal of the effect of BMSC-ex in mice.Conclusions: BMSC-ex relieved the severity of demyelination in the DEACMP rat models by regulating Tregs subsets and the expression of Notch signaling. Hence BMSC-ex play a protected role in DEACMP by upregulating Tregs and the regulatory components of Notch signaling and this may provide a new clinical strategy for the treatment of DEACMP patients.

Dose-dependent Respiratory Depression by Remifentanil in the Rabbit Parabrachial Nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse Complex and Pre-Bötzinger Complex

Background Recent studies showed partial reversal of opioid-induced respiratory depression in the pre-Bötzinger complex and the parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex. The hypothesis for this study was that opioid antagonism in the parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex plus pre-Bötzinger complex completely reverses respiratory depression from clinically relevant opioid concentrations. Methods Experiments were performed in 48 adult, artificially ventilated, decerebrate rabbits. The authors decreased baseline respiratory rate ~50% with intravenous, “analgesic” remifentanil infusion or produced apnea with remifentanil boluses and investigated the reversal with naloxone microinjections (1 mM, 700 nl) into the Kölliker–Fuse nucleus, parabrachial nucleus, and pre-Bötzinger complex. In another group of animals, naloxone was injected only into the pre-Bötzinger complex to determine whether prior parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex injection impacted the naloxone effect. Last, the µ-opioid receptor agonist [d-Ala,2N-MePhe,4Gly-ol]-enkephalin (100 μM, 700 nl) was injected into the parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex. The data are presented as medians (25 to 75%). Results Remifentanil infusion reduced the respiratory rate from 36 (31 to 40) to 16 (15 to 21) breaths/min. Naloxone microinjections into the bilateral Kölliker–Fuse nucleus, parabrachial nucleus, and pre-Bötzinger complex increased the rate to 17 (16 to 22, n = 19, P = 0.005), 23 (19 to 29, n = 19, P < 0.001), and 25 (22 to 28) breaths/min (n = 11, P < 0.001), respectively. Naloxone injection into the parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex prevented apnea in 12 of 17 animals, increasing the respiratory rate to 10 (0 to 12) breaths/min (P < 0.001); subsequent pre-Bötzinger complex injection prevented apnea in all animals (13 [10 to 19] breaths/min, n = 12, P = 0.002). Naloxone injection into the pre-Bötzinger complex alone increased the respiratory rate to 21 (15 to 26) breaths/min during analgesic concentrations (n = 10, P = 0.008) but not during apnea (0 [0 to 0] breaths/min, n = 9, P = 0.500). [d-Ala,2N-MePhe,4Gly-ol]-enkephalin injection into the parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex decreased respiratory rate to 3 (2 to 6) breaths/min. Conclusions Opioid reversal in the parabrachial nucleus/Kölliker–Fuse complex plus pre-Bötzinger complex only partially reversed respiratory depression from analgesic and even less from “apneic” opioid doses. The lack of recovery pointed to opioid-induced depression of respiratory drive that determines the activity of these areas. Editor’s Perspective What We Already Know about This Topic What This Article Tells Us That Is New

The role of soils in the regulation of ocean acidification

Soils play an important role in mediating chemical weathering reactions and carbon transfer from the land to the ocean. Proposals to increase the contribution of alkalinity to the oceans through ‘enhanced weathering’ as a means to help prevent climate change are gaining increasing attention. This would augment the existing connection between the biogeochemical function of soils and alkalinity levels in the ocean. The feasibility of enhanced weathering depends on the combined influence of what minerals are added to soils, the formation of secondary minerals in soils and the drainage regime, and the partial pressure of respired CO 2 around the dissolving mineral. Increasing the alkalinity levels in the ocean through enhanced weathering could help to ameliorate the effects of ocean acidification in two ways. First, enhanced weathering would slightly elevate the pH of drainage waters, and the receiving coastal waters. The elevated pH would result in an increase in carbonate mineral saturation states, and a partial reversal in the effects of elevated CO 2 . Second, the increase in alkalinity would help to replenish the ocean's buffering capacity by maintaining the ‘Revelle Factor’, making the oceans more resilient to further CO 2 emissions. However, there is limited research on the downstream and oceanic impacts of enhanced weathering on which to base deployment decisions. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of soils in delivering Nature's Contributions to People’.

ARE COSTS STICKY? EVIDENCE FROM SERBIA

This paper is focused on the theory of sticky costs, created out of researches which pointed to the fact that costs do not act symmetrically in the case of equivalent increase and decrease of the activity volume, as it is implied by the traditional cost theory. Deliberate business decisions, the ones made in order to increase company’s value, as well as opportunistic decisions aimed at the realization of managers' personal goals are found as some of essential causes of cost stickiness. In order to examine the phenomenon of stickiness in the cost behavior of companies that operate in Serbia, we conducted a research on a sample of 917 medium and large companies from manufacturing sector for the period 2007 – 2016. The analysis of panel data pointed to the presence of stickiness in the behavior of operating costs - it showed that they grow by 0.847% as revenues grow by 1%, and they fall by 0.718 % due to 1% drop in revenues. We also found a lagged adjustment to operating costs for changes in operating revenues and partial reversal of stickiness in the period after a revenue decrease.

Understanding uranium oxide hardening during prolonged storage

Uranium ore concentrates (UOCs), the product of uranium mining and milling, are primarily comprised of uranium oxide (U3O8 and UO2) or peroxide (UO4·4H2O and UO4·2H2O) compounds. Following production, UOCs are typically placed in storage until they are converted to uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at a uranium conversion facility. In this study, the chemical changes responsible for an interesting hardening phenomenon observed in UOCs stored for prolonged periods was investigated to understand underlying causes. Powder X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis were used to characterize free-flowing and hardened UOC samples and revealed the hardened material had undergone hydration and oxidation as indicated by increased moisture content and the presence of metaschoepite [(UO2)4O(OH)6](H2O)5 and/or schoepite [(UO2)4O(OH)6](H2O)6. Additionally, an aging study found metaschoepite in UOCs after 3 months exposure to a high relative humidity environment. The same study found agglomerated, but not fully hardened, material in nearly all aged UOCs samples. These results suggest metaschoepite and schoepite are indicative of UOCs exposed to elevated levels of H2O during storage. Lastly, a drying/calcining study of hardened U3O8 material demonstrated a means of remediation and identified an intermediate compound of potential interest, dehydrated schoepite. Dehydrated schoepite results from heating metaschoepite or schoepite between 100 and 300 °C and indicates partial reversal of hardened U3O8 to its original condition.