An Extended Accelerator Model of R&D and Physical Investment

Using a multivariate autoregressive framework, we have found a simple causal structure for the variables of interest q, s, r, and i, which is consistent with our data. As expected from the stock market efficiency hypothesis, q, the stock market one period holding rate of return, is exogenous relative to the other three variables (or Granger causes them). As postulated in the traditional accelerator model of investment, the rate of growth of sales, s, can be also treated as exogenous to the rates of growth of R&D and physical. investment, r and i. Moreover, no strong feed- back interaction is detected between the last two (r and i). Within the simple structure of the extended accelerator model, the substantive conclusion is that R&D and physical investment react very similarly to the growth of the sales and to movements in q; the response of R&D is, however, more stable or less irregular than that of physical investment. Expected demand and expected profitability thus both appear to be important determinants for R&D expenditures and physical investment.

Foreign direct investment in East Asia and Latin America: Is there a People's Republic of China effect?

People's Republic of China (PRC) in recent years has emerged as the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world. Many analysts and government officials in the developing world have increasingly expressed concerns that they are losing competitiveness to PRC. Is PRC diverting FDI from other developing countries? Theoretically, a growing PRC can add to other countries' direct investment by creating more opportunities for production networking and raising the need for raw materials and resources. At the same time, the extremely low Chinese labor costs may lure multinationals away from sites in other developing countries when the foreign corporations consider alternative locations for low-cost export platforms. In this paper, we explore this important research and policy issue empirically. We focus our studies on East and Southeast Asia as well as Latin America. For Asia, we use data for eight Asian economies (Hong Kong, China, Taipei,China, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand) for 1985-2002 while for Latin America, we use data for sixteen Latin American economies (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) for 1990-2002. We control for the standard determinants of their inward direct investment. We then add PRC's inward foreign direct investment as an indicator of the 'PRC Effect'. Estimation of the coefficient associated with the PRC Effect proxy gives us indications about the existence of the PRC Effect. We have three results: (1) The level of PRC's foreign direct investment is positively related to the levels of inward direct investments of economies in East and Southeast Asia, while the PRC Effect is mostly insignificant for Latin American nations; (2) the level of PRC's foreign direct investment is negatively related to the direct investment of these economies as shares of total foreign direct investments in the developing countries; (3) The PRC Effect is generally not the most important determinant of the inward direct investments of these economies. Market sizes and policy variables such as openness and corporate tax rates tend to be more important

Foreign Direct Investment in East Asia and Latin America: Is there a People's Republic of China Effect?

In recent years, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has emerged as the world’s largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI). Many analysts and government officials in the developing world have expressed concern that they are losing competitiveness to the PRC. Is the PRC diverting FDI from other developing countries? Theoretically, a growing PRC could add to other countries’ FDI by creating more opportunities for production networking and raising the need for raw materials and resources. At the same time, the extremely low labor costs in the PRC might lure multinational enterprises (MNEs) away from other developing countries when they considered alternative locations for low-cost export platforms. In this paper, we explore this important research and policy issue empirically. We focus on East and Southeast Asia as well as Latin America. For Asia, we use data for eight economies (Hong Kong, China, Taipei,China, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand) for 1985-2002, while for Latin America, we use data for sixteen economies (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) for 1990–2002. We control for the standard determinants of inward direct investment. We then add the PRC’s inward FDI as an indicator of the “PRC Effect.” An estimation of the coefficient associated with the PRC Effect proxy gives us indications about its existence. We obtain three results: (1) the level of the PRC’s foreign direct investment is positively related to the levels of inward direct investments of economies in East and Southeast Asia, while it is mostly insignificant for Latin American economies; (2) the level of the PRC’s FDI is negatively related to the direct investment into these economies as shares of total foreign direct investments in the developing countries; (3) the PRC Effect is generally not the most important determinant of inward direct investment for these economies. Market size and policy variables such as openness and corporate tax rates tend to be more important

Hard or soft? : institutional reforms and infrastructure spending as determinants of foreign direct investment in China

In this paper, we examine empirically whether hard infrastructure, in the form of more highways and railroads, or soft infrastructure, in the form of more market-oriented institutions through deeper reform, lead to more foreign direct investment (FDI) in China. We use data of outward FDI from the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea to various regions of China from 1990 to 2002. We control for the standard determinants of FDI, namely regional market size, wage rates, human capital and tax policies. We add indices of hard and soft infrastructure and find that soft infrastructure, in the form of more market-oriented institutions through deeper structural reform, consistently outperforms hard infrastructure as a determinant of FDI. [resumen de autor

Identification of coherent patterns in gene expression data using an efficient biclustering algorithm and parallel coordinate visualization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The DNA microarray technology allows the measurement of expression levels of thousands of genes under tens/hundreds of different conditions. In microarray data, genes with similar functions usually co-express under certain conditions only <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp>. Thus, biclustering which clusters genes and conditions simultaneously is preferred over the traditional clustering technique in discovering these coherent genes. Various biclustering algorithms have been developed using different bicluster formulations. Unfortunately, many useful formulations result in NP-complete problems. In this article, we investigate an efficient method for identifying a popular type of biclusters called additive model. Furthermore, parallel coordinate (PC) plots are used for bicluster visualization and analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We develop a novel and efficient biclustering algorithm which can be regarded as a greedy version of an existing algorithm known as pCluster algorithm. By relaxing the constraint in homogeneity, the proposed algorithm has polynomial-time complexity in the worst case instead of exponential-time complexity as in the pCluster algorithm. Experiments on artificial datasets verify that our algorithm can identify both additive-related and multiplicative-related biclusters in the presence of overlap and noise. Biologically significant biclusters have been validated on the yeast cell-cycle expression dataset using Gene Ontology annotations. Comparative study shows that the proposed approach outperforms several existing biclustering algorithms. We also provide an interactive exploratory tool based on PC plot visualization for determining the parameters of our biclustering algorithm.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We have proposed a novel biclustering algorithm which works with PC plots for an interactive exploratory analysis of gene expression data. Experiments show that the biclustering algorithm is efficient and is capable of detecting co-regulated genes. The interactive analysis enables an optimum parameter determination in the biclustering algorithm so as to achieve the best result. In future, we will modify the proposed algorithm for other bicluster models such as the coherent evolution model.</p

Differential Effects of Cold Atmospheric Plasma in the Treatment of Malignant Glioma

Objective Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has recently been shown to selectively target cancer cells with minimal effects on normal cells. We systematically assessed the effects of CAP in the treatment of glioblastoma. Methods Three glioma cell lines, normal astrocytes, and endothelial cell lines were treated with CAP. The effects of CAP were then characterized for viability, cytotoxicity/apoptosis, and cell cycle effects. Statistical significance was determined with student\u27s t-test. Results CAP treatment decreases viability of glioma cells in a dose dependent manner, with the ID50 between 90-120 seconds for all glioma cell lines. Treatment with CAP for more than 120 seconds resulted in viability less than 35% at 24-hours posttreatment, with a steady decline to less than 20% at 72-hours. In contrast, the effect of CAP on the viability of NHA and HUVEC was minimal, and importantly not significant at 90 to 120 seconds, with up to 85% of the cells remained viable at 72-hours post-treatment. CAP treatment produces both cytotoxic and apoptotic effects with some variability between cell lines. CAP treatment resulted in a G2/M-phase cell cycle pause in all three cell lines. Conclusions This preliminary study determined a multi-focal effect of CAP on glioma cells in vitro, which was not observed in the non-tumor cell lines. The decreased viability depended on the treatment duration and cell line, but overall was explained by the induction of cytotoxicity, apoptosis, and G2/M pause. Future studies will aim at further characterization with more complex pre-clinical models

Spatial and temporal homogeneity of driver mutations in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPGs) are deadly paediatric brain tumours where needle biopsies help guide diagnosis and targeted therapies. To address spatial heterogeneity, here we analyse 134 specimens from various neuroanatomical structures of whole autopsy brains from nine DIPG patients. Evolutionary reconstruction indicates histone 3 (H3) K27M-including H3.2K27M-mutations potentially arise first and are invariably associated with specific, high-fidelity obligate partners throughout the tumour and its spread, from diagnosis to end-stage disease, suggesting mutual need for tumorigenesis. These H3K27M ubiquitously-associated mutations involve alterations in TP53 cell-cycle (TP53/PPM1D) or specific growth factor pathways (ACVR1/PIK3R1). Later oncogenic alterations arise in sub-clones and often affect the PI3K pathway. Our findings are consistent with early tumour spread outside the brainstem including the cerebrum. The spatial and temporal homogeneity of main driver mutations in DIPG implies they will be captured by limited biopsies and emphasizes the need to develop therapies specifically targeting obligate oncohistone partnerships

Quality assurance for Chinese herbal formulae: standardization of IBS-20, a 20-herb preparation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The employment of well characterized test samples prepared from authenticated, high quality medicinal plant materials is key to reproducible herbal research. The present study aims to demonstrate a quality assurance program covering the acquisition, botanical validation, chemical standardization and good manufacturing practices (GMP) production of IBS-20, a 20-herb Chinese herbal formula under study as a potential agent for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Purity and contaminant tests for the presence of toxic metals, pesticide residues, mycotoxins and microorganisms were performed. Qualitative chemical fingerprint analysis and quantitation of marker compounds of the herbs, as well as that of the IBS-20 formula was carried out with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Extraction and manufacture of the 20-herb formula were carried out under GMP. Chemical standardization was performed with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. Stability of the formula was monitored with HPLC in real time.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Quality component herbs, purchased from a GMP supplier were botanically and chemically authenticated and quantitative HPLC profiles (fingerprints) of each component herb and of the composite formula were established. An aqueous extract of the mixture of the 20 herbs was prepared and formulated into IBS-20, which was chemically standardized by LC-MS, with 20 chemical compounds serving as reference markers. The stability of the formula was monitored and shown to be stable at room temperature.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A quality assurance program has been developed for the preparation of a standardized 20-herb formulation for use in the clinical studies for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The procedures developed in the present study will serve as a protocol for other poly-herbal Chinese medicine studies.</p

The On-Orbit Performance of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer

We report the first year on-orbit performance results for the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), a NASA Small Explorer that is performing a survey of the sky in two ultraviolet bands. The instrument comprises a 50 cm diameter modified Ritchey-Chretien telescope with a 1.25 degree field of view, selectable imaging and objective grism spectroscopic modes, and an innovative optical system with a thin-film multilayer dichroic beam splitter that enables simultaneous imaging by a pair of photon counting, microchannel plate, delay line readout detectors. Initial measurements demonstrate that GALEX is performing well, meeting its requirements for resolution, efficiency, astrometry, bandpass definition and survey sensitivity.Comment: This paper will be published as part of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) Astrophysical Journal Letters Special Issu