VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Essays on Money, Banking and Payments
Keywords: money
banking
payments

The history of money has always been intertwined with the history of banking. Nevertheless, very few papers have studied banking in a rigorous monetary environment. This thesis demonstrates that it is crucial to integrate these two literatures. I present three theories of money and banking, each generating results that are drastically different from those of the traditional banking models without microfoundations for money. Chapter 1 addresses the problem of monitoring the monitor in a model with private information and aggregate uncertainty. There is no need to monitor a bank if it requires loans to be repaid partly with money. A market arises at the repayment stage and generates information-revealing prices that perfectly discipline the bank. The mechanism also applies when multiple banks exist. With multiple banks, a prohibition on private money issuing not only eliminates welfare-improving money competition but also triggers free-rider problems among banks. In Chapter 2, I develop a dynamic model to address the following question: when both individuals and banks have private information, what is the optimal way to settle debts? I establish two main results: first, markets can improve upon the optimal dynamic contract in the presence of private information. Prices fully reveal the aggregate states and help solve the incentive problem of the bank. Secondly, it is optimal for the bank to require loans to be settled with short-term inside money, i.e., bank money that expires immediately after debt settlement. Short-term inside money makes it less costly to induce truthful revelation and achieves more efficient risk sharing. Chapter 3 studies bank runs in a model with coexistence of fiat money and private money. When fiat money is the only medium of exchange, a bank run equilibrium coexists with an equilibrium that achieves optimal risk sharing. In contrast, when private money is also a medium of exchange, there exists a unique equilibrium where no one demands early withdrawals of fiat money and agents in need of liquidity only use private money to finance consumption. This unique equilibrium achieves the first-best outcome and eliminates bank runs without having to resort to any government intervention.
Occupation Attributes Relate to Origin and Extent of Atrophy in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration
Keywords: Dementia
Occupation

Occupation provides valuable information on premorbid ability in dementia. Not only is occupation related to cognitive and brain reserve, but premorbid sub-symptomatic impairment may influence prospective career choice. Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) patients with professions dependent upon one hemisphere have demonstrated contralateral degeneration. The present work was the first group study to examine the relationship between atrophy in FTLD and occupation. Chapter one reviews methods for quantifying occupations and introduces the Occupational Information Network database. This database provided quantified occupation attribute data and enabled subsequent multivariate analyses. A principal component analysis yielded five factors that parsimoniously summarized verbal, physical, mechanical, mathematical and visuospatial occupational demands, some with hypothesized neuroanatomical substrates. Chapters two and three tested the hypothesis that occupation characteristics systematically relate to origin of atrophy in FTLD. In a multi-centre chart review of 588 patients, occupation information was related to location of atrophy. Patients with unilateral right atrophy had higher verbal scores than patients with unilateral left or bilateral atrophy. Thus, occupation selection occurring in early adulthood is related to lateralized brain damage in patients who develop FTLD decades later. The finding suggests that verbal occupations may have been pursued due to incipient right-hemisphere functional impairment. Alternatively, long-term engagement of verbal processes contributed to left-hemisphere reserve, right-hemisphere dysfunction, or both. In a subgroup of well-characterized patients with quantified brain imaging data, chapter three replicated and extended these findings. The lateralization effect was limited to the temporal lobes and included both verbal and mathematical ability. This pattern may reflect shared attributes between mathematics and language processing, which are mediated by left-temporal lobe structures. Patients whose professions placed high demands on language had relatively preserved left temporal lobes and atrophy originating in the right temporal lobes at disease onset whereas patients with less challenging linguistic occupations were more susceptible to the onset of atrophy in the left-temporal lobe. In chapter four, the hypothesized relationship between occupational attainment and global degeneration was supported. Patients with highly skilled occupations had less atrophy than patients with lower-skilled occupations. Notably, specific occupational attributes were predictive of brain volume after controlling for demography and disease progression. Overall, a relationship between occupation and FTLD is supported.
Spatially Explicit Simulation of Peatland Hydrology and Carbon Dioxide Exchange
Keywords: spatially explicit, process-oriented ecosystem modelling
biophysical parameter mapping

In this research, a recent version of the Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS), called BEPS-TerrainLab, was adapted to northern peatlands and evaluated using observations made at the Mer Bleue bog located near Ottawa, Ontario, and the Sandhill fen located near Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. The code was extended and modified with a major focus on the adequate representation of northern peatlands' multi-layer canopy and the associated processes related to energy, water vapour and carbon dioxide fluxes through remotely-sensed leaf area index (LAI) maps. An important prerequisite for the successful mapping of LAI based on remote sensing imagery is the accurate measurement of LAI in the field with a standard technique such as the LAI-2000 plant canopy analyzer. As part of this research, a quick and reliable method to determine shrub LAI with the LAI-2000 instrument was developed. This method was used to collect a large number of LAI data at the Mer Bleue bog for the development of a new remote sensing-based methodology using multiple endmember spectral unmixing that allows for separate tree and shrub LAI mapping in ombrotrophic peatlands. A slight modification of this methodology allows for its application to minerotrophic peatlands and their surrounding landscapes. These LAI maps were used to explicitly represent the tree and shrub layers of the Mer Bleue bog and the tree and shrub/sedge layers of the Sandill fen within BEPS-TerrainLab. The adapted version of BEPS-TerrainLab was used to investigate the in fluence of mescoscale topography (Mer Bleue bog) and macro- and mesoscale topography (Sandhill fen) on wetness, evapotranspiration, and gross primary productivity during the snow-free period of 2004. This research suggests that future peatland ecosystem modelling efforts at regional and continental scales should include a peatland type-specific differentiation of macro- and mesoscale topographic effects on hydrology, to allow for a more realistic simulation of peatlands' soil water balance. This is an important prerequisite for the reduction of currently existing uncertainties in wetlands' contribution to North America's carbon dioxide and methane annual fluxes from an ecosystem modelling perspective.
Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Developmental Axon Pruning
Keywords: Neural Development
Neurotrophic Factors
Axon Pruning

The formation of neural connections in the mammalian nervous system is a complex process. During development, axons are initially overproduced and compete for limited quantities of target-derived growth factors. Axons which participate in functional circuits and secure appropriate amounts of growth factors are stabilized, while those axons that are either inappropriately connected or do not obtain sufficient concentrations of growth factors are eliminated in a process termed ‘axon pruning’. In this thesis, I examined the mechanisms that regulate pruning of peripheral, NGF-dependent sympathetic neurons that project to the eye. I determined that pruning of these projections in vivo requires the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) and synthesis of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) from the activity-dependent exon IV promoter. Furthermore, analysis of an in vitro model of axon competition, which is regulated by the interplay between nerve growth factor (NGF) and neuronal activity, revealed that p75NTR and BDNF are also essential for axon competition in culture. In this model, in the presence of NGF, neural activity confers a competitive growth advantage to stimulated, active axons by enhancing downstream TrkA (NGF receptor) signaling locally in axons. More interestingly, the unstimulated, inactive axons deriving from the same and neighboring neurons acquire a "growth disadvantage" due to secreted BDNF acting through p75NTR, which induces axon degeneration by suppressing TrkA signaling that is essential for axonal integrity. These data support a model where, during developmental axon competition, successful axons secrete BDNF in an activity-dependent fashion which activates p75NTR on unsuccessful neighboring axons, suppressing TrkA signaling, and ultimately promoting pruning by a degenerative mechanism.
A Novel Asynchronous Access Method for Minimal Interface Users
Keywords: asynchronous access
control
accessibility
disabled
disability
physical impairment
access
binary interface
single-switch
human-machine interface

Current access strategies for minimal interface (e.g., binary switch) users employ time-coded (i.e., synchronous) protocols that map unique sequences of user-generated binary digits (i.e., bits) to each of the available outcomes of a device under control. With such strategies, the user must learn and/or reproduce the timing of the protocol with a certain degree of accuracy. As a result, the number, κ, of device outcomes made accessible to the user is typically bound by the memorization capacity of the latter and by the time required to generate the appropriate bit sequences. Furthermore, synchronous access strategies introduce a minimum time delay that increases with larger κ, precluding access to control applications requiring fast user response. By turning control on its head, this thesis presents an access method that completely eliminates reliance on time-coded protocols. Instead, the proposed asynchronous access method requires users to employ their interfaces only when the behavior of the device under control does not match their intentions. In response to such event, the proposed method may then be used to select, and automatically transmit, a new outcome to the device. Such outcome is informed by historical and contextual assumptions incorporated into a recursive algorithm that provides increasingly accurate estimates of user intention. This novel approach, provides signiﬁcant advantages over traditional synchronous strategies: i) the user is not required to learn any protocol, ii) there is no limit in the number of outcomes that may be made available to the user iii) there is no delay in the response of the device, iv) the expected amount of information required to achieve a particular task may be minimized, and, most importantly, v) the control of previously inaccessible devices may be enabled with minimal interfaces. This thesis presents the full mathematical development of the novel method for asynchronous control summarized above. Rigorous performance evaluations demonstrating the potential of this method in the control of complex devices, by means of minimal interfaces, are also reported.
Age Differences in the Vulnerability to Nicotine Addiction: Evidence from a Rat Model of Adolescent Nicotine Taking
Keywords: adolescent
nicotine
rat
reinforcement
reward
self-administration
withdrawal
c-fos mRNA
acquisition of drug taking
maintenance of drug taking
motivation
mecamylamine
behaviour
extinction
reinstatement
conditioned place preference
conditioned taste avoidance

Rationale: Peak initiation of smoking occurs during adolescence and early onset of smoking is associated with a reduced probability of quitting and greater risk of relapse compared to later onset. Considering the epidemiological evidence, adolescents may exhibit a unique biological susceptibility to nicotine taking, in addition to the behavioural and psychosocial factors known to influence adolescent smoking. Objectives: The current series of experiments, using a rat model of adolescent nicotine taking, was designed to investigate age differences in the processes involved in the acquisition and maintenance of nicotine taking that might account for the elevated initiation rates of smoking during adolescence. Methods: We first investigated age differences in the neural response to acute nicotine administration using c-fos mRNA expression. We then examined age differences in the rewarding and aversive effects of nicotine in the conditioned place preference (CPP) and conditioned taste avoidance (CTA) paradigms, respectively. The direct reinforcing effects of nicotine were tested in adolescent and adult rats under a variety of reinforcement schedules in the operant intravenous self-administration paradigm; extinction and nicotine priming-induced reinstatement were also examined. Finally, age differences in nicotine withdrawal precipitated by mecamylamine were assessed. Results: Nicotine had greater activational effects on c-fos mRNA expression in reward-related neural substrates of adolescent compared to adult brain. Adolescent rats were also more sensitive to the rewarding effects of nicotine (CPP) yet less sensitive to its aversive effects (CTA) compared to adult rats. Nicotine was equally reinforcing in adolescents and adults self-administering under simple reinforcement schedules, but adults were more motivated to obtain nicotine under higher reinforcement schedules. Adults were more resistant to extinction, yet both age groups demonstrated similar priming-induced reinstatement of nicotine seeking. Under spontaneous acquisition conditions, adults were more sensitive to the reinforcing effects of a low nicotine infusion dose. The aversive effects of nicotine withdrawal were also more prominent in adults compared to adolescents. Conclusions: These findings have important implications since they demonstrate a unique susceptibility to the conditioned rewarding effects of nicotine that would promote acquisition of smoking behaviour during adolescence, whereas adults may be more vulnerable to processes involved in its maintenance.
Economic Analysis of the North American Softwood Lumber Markets
Keywords: Market integration
Market efficiency
Softwood Lumber
International trade
Long-run competitive equilibrium
Cointegration

Markets have an important role to play in advancing an improved understanding of international trading relationships. Two most important economic issues, which contribute to improved national welfare and ensure long-run competitive market equilibrium in international markets, are market integration and market efficiency. To provide softwood lumber markets related information to the policy makers, economic analyses relating market integration and market efficiency of the combined markets of Canada and the US have been conducted. The economic analyses include: (i) testing cointegration of prices among North American softwood lumber markets; (ii) identifying price leading markets in long-run price structure of these cointegrated markets; (iii) examining the degree of market integration among these markets; and (iv) testing the efficiency of spatial arbitrage among these markets. First, the price linkages in the North American softwood lumber markets have been explored over different trade regimes. The results indicate that market integration is affected by product aggregation of data. Further investigations of market integration are, therefore, limited to homogeneous softwood lumber product markets. Second, oligopsonistic pricing behavior of traders is identified as the possible reason for imperfect competition among Douglas Fir product markets, while imperfect competition among the markets of Spruce-Pine-Fir and Hem Fir products can not be explained by this behavior. Third, a comprehensive picture of the adherence to price parity is formulated by evaluating the magnitude and persistence of deviations from equilibrium relation of prices. It is found that large volumes of trade, product substitutability, lower prices, and certainty of trade are the factors which contribute to higher degree of market integration among North American softwood lumber product markets. Finally, the inter-temporal shifts in regime probabilities of competitive market equilibrium are assessed over different trade regimes. It is found that lower transaction costs, large volumes of trade, short distances between markets, and certainty of trade contribute to high market efficiency among softwood lumber product markets of North America.
Harm from Home Care: A Patient Safety Study Examining Adverse Events in Home Care
Keywords: patient safety
adverse events
error
home care
qualitly

Research into adverse events in home care is at a very early stage worldwide. Adverse event research in other health care sectors has demonstrated that patients can and do suffer harm, much of which is preventable, during the receipt of health care services. A stratified, random sample of patients who had received home care nursing service and were discharged in 2004/05 from three Ontario home care programs was studied to develop basic exploratory and descriptive evidence to advance the understanding of AEs in home care. The outcome is an estimate of the incidence of adverse events among patients, description of adverse event types and factors associated with adverse events, and the development of models predictive of home care patients with higher and lower potential for adverse events, and of the location of patients with adverse events. Positive critical indicators were identified in 66.5% of 430 cases. Sixty-one adverse events were identified in 55 (19.2%) of these 286 cases. When adjusted for sampling methodology, the adverse event rate was 13.2 per 100 patients (95%, CI 10.4% - 16.6%, SE 1.6%). Thirty-three percent of the adverse events were rated as having more than a 50% probability of preventability; 1.4% of all patients experienced an adverse event related death. Eight of the 45 factors significantly associated with adverse events formed a single factor model predictive of adverse events. Six two-factor interactions and the absence of one factor were also predictive of the occurrence of adverse events. Five of the 12 critical indicators significantly related to adverse events, as well as 7 critical indicator combinations formed models that reliably located about two-thirds of patients who had, and almost all patients who had not, experienced an adverse event. This study suggests that a significant number of home care patients experience adverse events, two-thirds of which are preventable. Use of adverse event sensitive factors as a screening tool for patients that may benefit from enhanced case management and clinical vigilance, and those unlikely to be placed at increased adverse event risk by maintaining current levels of vigilance, presents an opportunity to improve patient safety. Retrospective critical indicator models identifying home care patients who have experienced an adverse event can be used to estimate adverse event incidence rates and changes in rates over time.
A Self-renewing Multi-potent Population of Cells and their Progeny Maintain Homeostasis of the Mesenchymal Compartment
Keywords: Mesenchymal
Stem Cells

Recent evidence suggests that “mesenchymal stem cells” (MSCs) are resident in the perivascular compartment of connective tissues. However, since the definition of a stem cell assumes that these progenitors have clonal self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation potential, the term “MSC” has been criticised, as it has been impossible to isolate definitive clonally derived “MSCs.” To test for this most basic definition of a stem cell, here it is shown that human umbilical cord perivascular cells (HUCPVCs) are capable of multilineage differentiation in vitro and, more importantly, in vivo, displaying the ability to differentiate into functionally synthetic cells that direct and contribute to rapid connective tissue healing by producing bone, cartilage and fibrous stroma in a mouse injury model. Uniquely, these cells can be enriched to >1:3 clonogenic frequency in early passage culture, making it possible to isolate clones and daughter sub-clones from mixed gender suspensions, determined to be definitively single-cell-derived by Y-chromosome fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis. Each clone was assayed for multi-lineage differentiation capacity into the five mesenchymal lineages: myogenic, adipogenic, chondrogenic, osteogenic and fibroblastic (stroma). The observation that daughter sub-clones possess equal or lesser differentiative potential to their respective parent clones demonstrated the two intrinsic properties of stem cells in vitro: clonal self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation. This evidence provides a new hierarchical structure of robust MSCs self-renewing to produce more restricted progenitors that gradually lose differentiation potential until a state of complete restriction to the fibroblast is reached. The methods described herein combined with recognition of this lineage hierarchy provides a significant advance to the understanding of MSC biology, and will enable interrogation of the properties of robust self-renewal and differentiation of MSCs in serially transplanted living recipients.