The paper presents a model that determines when (at which output price level) it is optimum for a firm to invest in environmental technologies and which are the main parameters that affect this decision. Our analysis shows that firms require high output price levels to be induced to invest in environmental technologies, because they optimally would not want to commit to a heavy irreversible investment that could turn out to be unprofitable in the event of a price fall. A comparative static analysis predicts that firms in industries with high output price volatility would be more reluctant to invest in environmental protection technologies and would be more willing to operate at low output levels (thus attaining low emission levels). Increases in the interest rate would also reduce optimal environmental investment levels.Real Options, Environmental Economics, Capital Budgeting, Natural Resources

The McGurk effect is a popular assay of multisensory integration in which participants report the illusory percept of “da” when presented with incongruent auditory “ba” and visual “ga” (AbaVga). While the original publication describing the effect found that 98% of participants perceived it, later studies reported much lower prevalence, ranging from 17% to 81%. Understanding the source of this variability is important for interpreting the panoply of studies that examine McGurk prevalence between groups, including clinical populations such as individuals with autism or schizophrenia. The original publication used stimuli consisting of multiple repetitions of a co-articulated syllable (three repetitions, AgagaVbaba). Later studies used stimuli without repetition or co-articulation (AbaVga) and used congruent syllables from the same talker as a control. In three experiments, we tested how stimulus repetition, co-articulation, and talker repetition affect McGurk prevalence. Repetition with co-articulation increased prevalence by 20%, while repetition without co-articulation and talker repetition had no effect. A fourth experiment compared the effect of the on-line testing used in the first three experiments with the in-person testing used in the original publication; no differences were observed. We interpret our results in the framework of causal inference: co-articulation increases the evidence that auditory and visual speech tokens arise from the same talker, increasing tolerance for content disparity and likelihood of integration. The results provide a principled explanation for how co-articulation aids multisensory integration and can explain the high prevalence of the McGurk effect in the initial publication.

Most important decision problems---virtually all capital investments and planning situations---involve risky cash flows with uncertainties that are resolved over time. In most of these problems, the decision-maker has access to financial markets and may borrow and lend to smooth consumption over time. Yet, because of the difficulty of incorporating these borrowing and lending decisions into the evaluation models, these opportunities are rarely explicitly modeled in decision and risk analyses of these investments. In this paper, we study the errors induced by failing to account for these borrowing and lending decisions, and we develop extensions to the standard decision and risk analysis procedures that, given certain market and preference assumptions, take these borrowing and lending opportunities into account without overburdening the evaluation models.Decision Analysis, Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty, Risk Profiles

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Cholangiocarcinoma and combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma in cirrhotic patientsBackground: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a primary hepatic tumor, frequently found in patients with liver cirrhosis and biliary tract diseases. Its varieties include isolated CCA or "combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma" (cHCC-CCA). The latter is uncommon, with poorly defined diagnostic criteria and natural history. Aim: To characterize patients with cirrhosis with a pathological diagnosis of CCA and cHCC-CCA. Material and Methods: Forty-nine liver biopsies with a pathological diagnosis of CCA were reviewed. The clinical records of patients were reviewed to fetch demographic variables, etiology of cirrhosis and clinical presentation. Results: Eight of the 49 patients had cirrhosis (16% of CCA biopsies reviewed). Their median age was 64 (27-71) years and five were females. Four patients had CCA, three patients cHCC-CCA and one had a bifocal tumor. Patients in the CCA group were more commonly symptomatic. Alpha-fetoprotein and CA 19-9 levels were elevated in one of eight and four of six patients, respectively. Within 12 months from diagnosis, five of eight patients died. Conclusions: In most of these cases, the diagnosis of cHCC-CCA and CCA was made in the liver explant study without previous imaging diagnosis. This reinforces the usefulness of the histological study, in specific cases, prior to liver transplantation and emphasizes the importance of systematic explant exploration in these cases.