Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can monetary policy affect the real economy? The dubious effectiveness of interest rate policy

Summary and Conclusions This brief began by suggesting that a “new”approach to monetary policy hasemerged over the past decade or so. We have summarized the theoreticalframework within which this agenda is analyzed. Central bankers havelargely dispensed with any role for the stock of money in influencing eco-nomic variables and with any policy prescription to target the supply ofmoney. Now, monetary policy is identified with interest rate policy, with lit-tle or no reference to the stock of money (on any measure of money). 6 It hasgenerally been the case that setting an inflation target is the main (and oftenthe only) objective of monetary policy. Indeed, monetary policy can be seenas aggregate demand policy in that the interest rate set by the central bank isseen to influence aggregate demand, which, in turn, is thought to influencethe rate of inflation. The theory does not provide guidance about what to dowhen there are supply-side inflationary threats, such as oil price increases.The main features of the “new” approach have been discussed, and it hasbeen suggested that some of these can be captured in a simple macroeco-nomic model. However, that simple model needs to be complemented bya discussion of the many channels through which monetary policy is seento operate. It is a long and uncertain chain of events from an adjustmentin the interest rate controlled by the central bank to a desired change in therate of inflation. In light of the relationship between the exchange rate andthe interest rate posited by economic theory, there are constraints on thedegree to which the domestic interest rate can be set to address the levelsof aggregate demand and inflation without destabilizing the currency.In view of the central place given to monetary policy in macroeconomicpolicies and the length of the chain from central bank interest rate to rateof inflation, it is important to consider the empirical estimates of theeffects of monetary policy. In the last section we have summarized results
Sickle cell disease and the eye

Purpose of review To review recent literature pertaining to sickle cell retinopathy (SCR) and, in particular, sickle cell maculopathy. Recent findings Several recent studies suggest that macular perfusion abnormalities seen in patients with sickle cell disease of various genotypes may affect both the superficial and deep capillary plexi, with a predilection for the deep capillary plexus. Further, these changes may be associated with areas of macular thinning, as well as with peripheral retinal ischemia, even in individuals without visual symptoms, contrary to what has previously been described in both diabetic retinopathy and retinal vein occlusion. Several cases also suggest that paracentral acute middle maculopathy may be the pathophysiologic mechanism by which microvascular occlusion leads to macular thinning. Summary Sickle cell disease can manifest in a number of ways within the orbit as well as intraocularly because of its nonspecific vasoocclusive episodes. However, SCR is the most common ophthalmic manifestation of this disease. Historically, SCR has been considered a peripheral retinopathy, but the development and use of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography and optical coherence tomography angiography suggest that significant macular vascular changes occur early in this disease, even in asymptomatic individuals.
A novel diacylglycerol kinase α-selective inhibitor, CU-3, induces cancer cell apoptosis and enhances immune response[S]

Diacylglycerol kinase (DGK) consists of 10 isozymes. The α-isozyme enhances the proliferation of cancer cells. However, DGKα facilitates the nonresponsive state of immunity known as T-cell anergy; therefore, DGKα enhances malignant traits and suppresses immune surveillance. The aim of this study was to identify a novel small molecule that selectively and potently inhibits DGKα activity. We screened a library containing 9,600 chemical compounds using a newly established high-throughput DGK assay. As a result, we have obtained a promising compound, 5-[(2E)-3-(2-furyl)prop-2-enylidene]-3-[(phenylsulfonyl)amino]2-thioxo-1,3-thiazolidin-4-one) (CU-3), which selectively inhibited DGKα with an IC50 value of 0.6 μM. CU-3 targeted the catalytic region, but not the regulatory region, of DGKα. CU-3 competitively reduced the affinity of DGKα for ATP, but not diacylglycerol or phosphatidylserine. Moreover, this compound induced apoptosis in HepG2 hepatocellular carcinoma and HeLa cervical cancer cells while simultaneously enhancing the interleukin-2 production of Jurkat T cells. Taken together, these results indicate that CU-3 is a selective and potent inhibitor for DGKα and can be an ideal anticancer drug candidate that attenuates cancer cell proliferation and simultaneously enhances immune responses including anticancer immunity.
Analytic and experimental study on fast response MR-fluid actuator

Magnetorheological (MR) fluids are materials that change their rheological behavior in the presence of an applied magnetic field. Devices using MR fluids have an ability to provide high torque, low inertia, be a safe device and have a simple interface. We have developed an MR-fluid actuator, which consists of an input component, an output component and an MR-fluid clutch between the two. In this paper, we investigate the dynamic characteristics of an MR-fluid actuator and aim to improve its response. Transient magnetic analyses are examined and experimental results are shown in the case of the proposed approaches. Finally, we realize a much faster MR-fluid actuator.
Waiting for Miracles: The Commercialization of Urban Water Services in Zambia

This article focuses on the commercialization of urban water services in Zambia. It aims to demonstrate the tension between cost recovery and service extension when water sector reforms combine investment cuts with price increases. It is argued that in low-income economies where infrastructure limitations are serious and poverty is widespread, heavy reliance on ‘tariff rationalization’ with low levels of investment can lead to reduced access to water and render water charges unaffordable. Reforms to public services can prove futile in the absence of upfront resources for investment in the restoration and extension of the existing infrastructure. In many ways, Zambia typifies other low-income economies; this study thus offers useful lessons for them.
Investment as a Factor of Economic Growth

Investment is an important factor of economic growth. It defines the process of expanded reprocessing. Accumulation of social capital is possible due to investments. Investments contribute to additional revenue, which is determined by the state of general economic activity. Fluctuations in output affect the dynamics of investment over the business cycles. Theory and dynamics of investments are based on the principle of a “multiplier”. The activity of investment resources as an economic factor is determined by its multiplying property. Its essence is that investment resources increase the equilibrium level of national output by an amount greater than the investment resources themselves. Modern economic growth theory was formed based on the ideas of optimality of the market system considered as a perfect self-regulating mechanism. Significant contribution to the development of economic growth theory was introduced by R. Solow. He developed two models: the model of factor analysis of economic growth sources and the model which reveals the relationship of savings, capital accumulation, investment and economic growth. Research investments as a factor of economic growth resulted in two ways out on the economic growth in Russia formulated in the article. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015. v6n3s7p259
Sooner or Later? – Paradoxical Investment Effects of Capital Gains Taxation under Simultaneous Investment and Abandonment Flexibility

This paper analyzes the impact of capital gains taxation on investment timing decisions for risky investment projects with entry and exit flexibility under differential tax rates for ordinary income and capital gains. We investigate whether capital gains taxation influences immediate and delayed investments asymmetrically, given the optimal abandonment decision. If capital gains taxation induces a lock-in effect, this effect is anticipated in the investment timing decision. In contrast to prior research, our numerical simulations show that this lock-in effect of capital gains taxation can induce normal as well as paradoxical effects on investment timing under simultaneous entry and exit flexibility. A paradoxical timing effect, i.e., investment accelerated by capital gains taxation, especially emerges for high liquidation proceeds or, more conservative tax accounting, low interest rates, and low volatilities. In these cases, capital gains taxation reduces the value of the option to invest and hereby increases the propensity to invest immediately. As a second paradoxical tax effect, capital gains taxation may favor delayed real investment over financial investment. Facing these results, tax legislators should not use capital gains taxation as a short-term tax policy instrument to influence investors' timing decisions.
BAP guidelines on the management of weight gain, metabolic disturbances and cardiovascular risk associated with psychosis and antipsychotic drug treatment

Excess deaths from cardiovascular disease are a major contributor to the significant reduction in life expectancy experienced by people with schizophrenia. Important risk factors in this are smoking, alcohol misuse, excessive weight gain and diabetes. Weight gain also reinforces service users’ negative views of themselves and is a factor in poor adherence with treatment. Monitoring of relevant physical health risk factors is frequently inadequate, as is provision of interventions to modify these. These guidelines review issues surrounding monitoring of physical health risk factors and make recommendations about an appropriate approach. Overweight and obesity, partly driven by antipsychotic drug treatment, are important factors contributing to the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in people with schizophrenia. There have been clinical trials of many interventions for people experiencing weight gain when taking antipsychotic medications but there is a lack of clear consensus regarding which may be appropriate in usual clinical practice. These guidelines review these trials and make recommendations regarding appropriate interventions. Interventions for smoking and alcohol misuse are reviewed, but more briefly as these are similar to those recommended for the general population. The management of impaired fasting glycaemia and impaired glucose tolerance (‘pre-diabetes’), diabetes and other cardiovascular risks, such as dyslipidaemia, are also reviewed with respect to other currently available guidelines. These guidelines were compiled following a consensus meeting of experts involved in various aspects of these problems. They reviewed key areas of evidence and their clinical implications. Wider issues relating to primary care/secondary care interfaces are discussed but cannot be resolved within guidelines such as these.
Reported Measures of Hygiene and Incidence Rates for Hospital-Acquired Diarrhea in 31 French Pediatric Wards: Is There Any Relationship?

Abstract Objective: To investigate the relationship between hygienic measures reported for the prevention of hospital-acquired diarrhea and incidence rates of hospital-acquired diarrhea. Design: A survey of hospital-acquired diarrhea was conducted between January 1 and March 31, 1999. Multivariate analysis of reported measures of hygiene according to the observed incidence rates of hospital-acquired diarrhea was performed. Setting: Thirty-one pediatric or neonatal wards located in hospitals in the southeast of France, selected as a convenience sample of wards volunteering to participate. Patients: A total of 6,726 children younger than 5 years. Results: The overall incidence rate of hospital-acquired diarrhea was 3.6%. Rotavirus was responsible for 69% of the cases of hospital-acquired diarrhea. Among the hygienic measures reported by the wards for preventing hospital-acquired diarrhea were using a single room or cohorting (77.4%), washing hands (83.9%), wearing gowns (80.6%), and wearing disposable single-use gloves for diapering a patient (51.6%). By multivariate analysis, the variables statistically associated with a lower incidence of hospital-acquired diarrhea were restricting the patient's mobility outside his or her room, keeping the patient's door closed, and having fewer than 20 beds in the ward, with adjusted odds ratios of 0.34 (95% confidence interval [CL95], 0.18 to 0.65), 0.33 (CI95, 0.23 to 0.47), and 0.42 (CI95, 0.30 to 0.60), respectively. Conclusion: Simple preventive measures can decrease the rate of hospital-acquired diarrhea in pediatric wards (Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2003;24:520-525)
The more things change, the more things stay the same: a comparative analysis of budget punctuations

Abstract In this paper I identify whether budgets in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are punctuated and investigate the variation in budget punctuations over time. Building on stochastic process methods, I find that budgets in all four cases exhibit mostly incremental changes punctuated by extreme shifts. In order to explain variation in budget punctuations over time, I rely on two models: partisan control of government and partisan distance of the assembly. The two models are tested using national budgetary data across all government functions for the four countries from the mid-1960s to 1989. I find that greater distance in strength and ideology among parties leads to increases in the degree of punctuations in the German and the British cases, whereas there is some evidence for the partisan control model in the American cases. In the Danish cases, partisan distance reduces the degree of budget punctuations.
Accountant's Truth: Knowledge and Ethics in the Financial World

Accountants often see themselves as engaged in an objective, value-free, technical enterprise, representing reality ‘as is’. But in fact, they are subjective ‘constructors of reality’: presenting and representing the situations in limited and one-sided ways. They are not just technicians practising a technical craft. They are part of a much broader process of reality construction, producing partial and rather one-sided views of reality. (1988, p. 477)
The new Keynesian economics and the output-inflation trade-off

This letter reconsiders the empirical tests of the new Keynesian and new classical models performed by Ball Mankiw and Romer and Akerlof, Rose and Yellen. The original tests conform basically to cross-section analysis; we develop both time-series and pooled cross-section, time-series tests of these issues, using the methodology and results of Katsimbris. Our tests find at best weak support for either the new Keynesian or the new classical hypotheses.
High-concentration graphene dispersions with minimal stabilizer: a scaffold for enzyme immobilization for glucose oxidation.

Modified acrylate polymers are able to effectively exfoliate and stabilize pristine graphene nanosheets in aqueous media. Starting with pre-exfoliated graphite greatly promotes the exfoliation level. The graphene concentration is significantly increased up to 11 mg mL(-1) by vacuum evaporation of the solvent from the dispersions under ambient temperature. TEM shows that 75 % of the flakes have fewer than five layers with about 18 % of the flakes consisting of monolayers. Importantly, a successive centrifugation and redispersion strategy is developed to enable the formation of dispersions with exceptionally high graphene-to-stabilizer ratio. Characterization by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy shows the flakes to be of high quality with very low levels of defects. These dispersions can act as a scaffold for the immobilization of enzymes applied, for example, in glucose oxidation. The electrochemical current density was significantly enhanced to be approximately six times higher than an electrode in the absence of graphene, thus showing potential applications in enzymatic biofuel cells.
T-Cell Responses to the M3 Immune Evasion Protein of Murid Gammaherpesvirus 68 Are Partially Protective and Induced with Lytic Antigen Kinetics

ABSTRACT DNA vaccination with the M3 gene, encoding an immune evasion molecule expressed during both the acute lytic and persistent phases of murid gammaherpesvirus 68 infection, yielded a significantly lower titer of virus in the lung than controls. The protection seen was dependent on T cells, and we mapped an epitope recognized by CD8 T cells. The immune response to this epitope follows the same kinetics as lytic cycle antigens, despite the fact that this gene is expressed in both lytic and persistent stages of infection. This has important implications for our understanding of T-cell responses to putative latency-associated gammaherpesvirus proteins and how vaccination may improve control of these viruses.
SOCIAL CAPITAL OF ECONOMIC CLUSTERS: TOWARDS A NETWORK-BASED CONCEPTION OF SOCIAL RESOURCES

To grasp the critical role of socio-cultural factors for regional economic development, several concepts have been developed, including that of 'social capital'. This notion usually refers to norms, values, networks, reciprocity or trust which are held in a community and can lead to positive social and economic outcomes. Despite its popularity as a fashionable concept in the literature, the exact meaning of social capital is far from clear. This paper criticises the dominant conceptions of social capital in economic geography and regional studies and aims to place the debate in a different perspective. It argues for an alternative understanding of social capital defined as resources embedded in social networks which can be accessed or are used for actions. The potential to overcome the current weaknesses in the literature is illustrated through discussing social capital of economic clusters. Copyright (c) 2009 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.
Functional Imaging: Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced CT using a Distributed-Parameter Physiologic Model for Accessing Stroke and Intracranial Tumor

Functional imaging has the potential to be a practical and widely-available method of studying the pathophysiology of disease using modern CT and MRI technologies. With the high temporal resolution achievable by these technologies, a two-compartment distributed-parameter model, which more accurate represents the tracer concentration within the vascular space, was applied on two patients' data with intracranial tumor and stroke. The parametric maps successfully generated were more informative than the current commercial software packages and the commonly used lumped-parameter compartmental models
Evaluation of Physical Properties of a Nanocomposite after Aging, Bleaching and Staining

Purpose The objective of the in vitro study was to assess the effect accelerated artificial aging, bleaching agents and coffee staining on the color, gloss, roughness and microhardness of a nanocomposite. Materials and Methods 120 (7 × 2 mm) were prepared and randomly divided into 2 groups (n = 60) depending on the aging. Each group was further subdivided into 6 subgroups (n = 10) according to the bleaching and staining as follows: 10% carbamide peroxide (10% CP), 10% CP + staining, 35% hydrogen peroxide (35% HP), 35% HP + staining, without bleaching treatment (WB) and WB + staining. Scanning electron microscopy was performed for qualitative analysis of the resin surface. Data were submitted to 3-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's test for multiple comparisons. As for ∆E, multiple comparisons were performed by using Tukey's and Dunnett's tests (α = 0.05). Results The bleaching reduced significantly the microhardness of the nanocomposite in without aging groups. All physical properties were found to be negatively changed after the aging process, with bleaching treatment with 10% CP increasing significantly the roughness and loss of gloss compared to the 35% HP. Staining reduced microhardness of both with and without aging nanocomposite as well as the color of the former (E>25), a significantly different result compared to controls. Conclusions The bleaching reduced the microhardness of the nanocomposite, whereas the aging process changed all the properties studied. The bleaching favored extrinsic staining of the with aging nanocomposite.
LQR and MPC controller design and comparison for a stationary self-balancing bicycle robot with a reaction wheel

A self-balancing bicycle robot based on the concept of an inverted pendulum is an unstable and nonlinear system. To stabilize the system in this work, the following three main components are required, i. e. , (1) an IMU sensor that detects the tilt angle of the bicycle robot, (2) a controller that is used to control motion of a reaction wheel, and (3) a reaction wheel that is employed to produce reactionary torque to balance the bicycle robot. In this paper, we propose three control strategies: linear quadratic regulator (LQR), linear model predictive control (LMPC), and nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC). Several simulation tests have been conducted in order to show that our proposed control laws can achieve stabilizaton and make the system balance. Furthermore, LMPC and NMPC controllers can deal with state and input constraints explicitly.
Rate-of-Return Parity in Experimental Asset Markets

This paper applies experimental methods to evaluate the completeness of arbitrage and rate of return parity in simultaneous asset markets in which the assets are denominated in different currencies. Two assets, which return uncertain, but known, dividends in each trading period, are traded over twenty periods, after which the asset has no value. Results indicate that risk neutral rate of return parity is a strong predictor of relative asset prices when assets have common expected dividends and the expected dividends have common variances. The predictive power of risk neutral rate of return parity is reduced as the assets become differentiated.
Ablation of ErbB4 from excitatory neurons leads to reduced dendritic spine density in mouse prefrontal cortex

Dendritic spine loss is observed in many psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, and likely contributes to the altered sense of reality, disruption of working memory, and attention deficits that characterize these disorders. ErbB4, a member of the EGF family of receptor tyrosine kinases, is genetically associated with schizophrenia, suggesting that alterations in ErbB4 function contribute to the disease pathology. Additionally, ErbB4 functions in synaptic plasticity, leading us to hypothesize that disruption of ErbB4 signaling may affect dendritic spine development. We show that dendritic spine density is reduced in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex of ErbB4 conditional whole‐brain knockout mice. We find that ErbB4 localizes to dendritic spines of excitatory neurons in cortical neuronal cultures and is present in synaptic plasma membrane preparations. Finally, we demonstrate that selective ablation of ErbB4 from excitatory neurons leads to a decrease in the proportion of mature spines and an overall reduction in dendritic spine density in the prefrontal cortex of weanling (P21) mice that persists at 2 months of age. These results suggest that ErbB4 signaling in excitatory pyramidal cells is critical for the proper formation and maintenance of dendritic spines in excitatory pyramidal cells. J. Comp. Neurol. 522:3351–3362, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.