Consumer Advisory Bulletin, More Sources on Students and Credit Card Debt, October 2007

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: More Sources on Students and Credit Card Debt Suggested by the Office of Attorney General Tom Miller

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, Tobacco Wars -- and How You Can Volunteer!, January 2008

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Tobacco Wars -- and How You Can Volunteer!

A dilution cost approach to financial intermediation and securities markets

This paper proposes a model of financial markets and corporate finance,with asymmetric information and no taxes, where equity issues, Bankdebt and Bond financing may all co-exist in equilibrium. The paperemphasizes the relationship Banking aspect of financial intermediation:firms turn to banks as a source of investment mainly because banks aregood at helping them through times of financial distress. The debtrestructuring service that banks may offer, however, is costly. Therefore,the firms which do not expect to be financially distressed prefer toobtain a cheaper market source of funding through bond or equity issues.This explains why bank lending and bond financing may co-exist inequilibrium. The reason why firms or banks also issue equity in our modelis simply to avoid bankruptcy. Banks have the additional motive that theyneed to satisfy minimum capital adequacy requeriments. Several types ofequilibria are possible, one of which has all the main characteristics ofa "credit crunch". This multiplicity implies that the channels of monetarypolicy may depend on the type of equilibrium that prevails, leadingsometimes to support a "credit view" and other times the classical "moneyview".

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, Do's and Don'ts for Online Shopping, March 2003

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Do's and Don'ts for Online Shopping

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, "Free" and "Low-Cost" Computers: Beware of Unexpected Costs, January 2008

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: "Free" and "Low-Cost" Computers: Beware of Unexpected Costs

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, "Free" and "Low-Cost" Computers: Beware of Unexpected Costs, June 2005

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: "Free" and "Low-Cost" Computers: Beware of Unexpected Costs

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, Advance Fee Loans and Credit Repair Schemes, January 2008

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Advance Fee Loans and Credit Repair Schemes

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, Prevent Home Repair Scams and Disputes, Mach 2008

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: Prevent Home Repair Scams and Disputes

Managing competition in professional services and the burden of inertia

Professional services require certain organizational patterns in order to avoid information asymmetries and external effects. These same patterns are used within production structures involving various degrees of monopoly. However, competitive restraints are justified today only when substantial external effects are clearly present, whereas information asymmetries hardly justify such restraints because reputational investments have become widespread in the economy and are relatively efficient in overcoming such asymmetries. As a consequence, innovation in the production of externalities can make competitive constraints unnecessary.

Multi-phase postmortem CT angiography: recognizing technique-related artefacts and pitfalls.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Multi-phase postmortem CT angiography (MPMCTA) is increasingly being recognized as a valuable adjunct medicolegal tool to explore the vascular system. Adequate interpretation, however, requires knowledge about the most common technique-related artefacts. The purpose of this study was to identify and index the possible artefacts related to MPMCTA. MATERIAL AND METHODS: An experienced radiologist blinded to all clinical and forensic data retrospectively reviewed 49 MPMCTAs. Each angiographic phase, i.e. arterial, venous and dynamic, was analysed separately to identify phase-specific artefacts based on location and aspect. RESULTS: Incomplete contrast filling of the cerebral venous system was the most commonly encountered artefact, followed by contrast agent layering in the lumen of the thoracic aorta. Enhancement or so-called oedematization of the digestive system mucosa was also frequently observed. CONCLUSION: All MPMCTA artefacts observed and described here are reproducible and easily identifiable. Knowledge about these artefacts is important to avoid misinterpreting them as pathological findings.

A generalization of Hull and White formula and applications to option pricing approximation

By means of Malliavin Calculus we see that the classical Hull and White formulafor option pricing can be extended to the case where the noise driving thevolatility process is correlated with the noise driving the stock prices. Thisextension will allow us to construct option pricing approximation formulas.Numerical examples are presented.

Firm-specific investment, sticky prices and the Taylor principle

According to the Taylor principle a central bank should adjust the nominal interest rate by more than one-for-one in response to changes in current inflation. Most of the existing literature supports the view that by following this simple recommendation a central bank can avoid being a source of unnecessary fluctuations in economic activity. The present paper shows that this conclusion is not robust with respect to the modelling of capital accumulation. We use our insights to discuss the desirability of alternative interest raterules. Our results suggest a reinterpretation of monetary policy under Volcker and Greenspan: The empirically plausible characterization of monetary policy can explain the stabilization of macroeconomic outcomes observed in the early eighties for the US economy. The Taylor principle in itself cannot.

Effects of mineralocorticoid and K+ concentration on K+ secretion and ROMK channel expression in a mouse cortical collecting duct cell line.

The cortical collecting duct (CCD) plays a key role in regulated K(+) secretion, which is mediated mainly through renal outer medullary K(+) (ROMK) channels located in the apical membrane. However, the mechanisms of the regulation of urinary K(+) excretion with regard to K(+) balance are not well known. We took advantage of a recently established mouse CCD cell line (mCCD(cl1)) to investigate the regulation of K(+) secretion by mineralocorticoid and K(+) concentration. We show that this cell line expresses ROMK mRNA and a barium-sensitive K(+) conductance in its apical membrane. As this conductance is sensitive to tertiapin-Q, with an apparent affinity of 6 nM, and to intracellular acidification, it is probably mediated by ROMK. Overnight exposure to 100 nM aldosterone did not significantly change the K(+) conductance, while it increased the amiloride-sensitive Na(+) transport. Overnight exposure to a high K(+) (7 mM) concentration produced a small but significant increase in the apical membrane barium-sensitive K(+) conductance. The mRNA levels of all ROMK isoforms measured by qRT-PCR were not changed by altering the basolateral K(+) concentration but were decreased by 15-45% upon treatment with aldosterone (0.3 or 300 nM for 1 and 3 h). The paradoxical response of ROMK expression to aldosterone could possibly work as a preventative mechanism to avoid excessive K(+) loss which would otherwise result from the increased electrogenic Na(+) transport and associated depolarization of the apical membrane in the CCD. In conclusion, mCCD(cl1) cells demonstrate a significant K(+) secretion, probably mediated by ROMK, which is not stimulated by aldosterone but increased by overnight exposure to a high K(+) concentration.

Consumer Advisory Bulletin, "Flood and Storm Warning: Be Wary of Impostors Posing as Utility Workers", June 12, 2008

The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division receives hundreds of calls and consumer complaints every year. Follow these tips to avoid unexpected expense and disappointments. This record is about: "Look Before You Lease!"

Validation of methane measurement using headspace-GC-MS and quantification by a stable isotope-labeled internal standard generated in situ.

A previous study has shown the possibility to identify methane (CH4 ) using headspace-GC-MS and quantify it with a stable isotope as internal standard. The main drawback of the GC-MS methods discussed in literature for CH4 measurement is the absence of a specific internal standard necessary to perform quantification. However, it becomes essential to develop a safer method to limit the manipulation of gaseous CH4 and to precisely control the injected amount of gas for spiking and calibration by comparison with external calibration. To avoid the manipulation of a stable isotope-labeled gas, we have chosen to generate a labeled gas as an internal standard in a vial on the basis of the formation of CH4 by the reaction of Grignard reagent methylmagnesium chloride with deuterated water. This method allows precise measurement of CH4 concentrations in gaseous sample as well as in a solid or a liquid sample after a thermodesorption step in a headspace vial. A full accuracy profile validation of this method is then presented.