Poverty and the business cycle: The role of the intra-household distribution of unemployment

Conventional wisdom predicts that changes in the aggregate unemployment rate may significantly affect a country’s income distribution and, as a consequence, have a relevant impact on the evolution of the poverty rate. However, the relationship between labour macroeconomic indicators and poverty seems to have become weaker in recent times. Using panel data on unemployment and poverty for Spanish regions we estimate a System GMM model in order to model this relationship taking into account that the intrahousehold distribution of unemployment can be more relevant than aggregate unemployment in order to explain poverty changes. We also test the hypothesis of asymmetric effects of the business cycle on the share of poor individuals in the population. Our results show that unemployment has a positive impact on severe poverty, while inflation has a negative effect. Among the three unemployment measures considered in order to predict poverty, the percentage of households where all active members are unemployed registers the highest explanatory power. We also find that a change in unemployment has a larger effect on poverty during a period of economic recession than during a period of expansion.poverty forecasting, unemployment, system GMM model

Novel Coating Methods on Centrifugally-Spun Polymer Fibers for Applications in Lithium-Ion Batteries

The work presented in this thesis focuses on the processing, characterization, and electrochemical results of centrifugally spun composite carbon fiber electrodes for application as anode material in lithium-ion batteries. The work is presented as a compilation of two major projects. First, the use of novel Co3O4 wet coatings to increase the capacity of carbon fibers produced from Polyacrylonitrile (PAN). In this work, PAN fibers are produced via the Forcespinning method, and were heat treated by oxidation in air at 200 °C for four hours, and subsequent carbonization at 600 °C for six hours. The electrochemical performance of the Co3O4/C composite-fiber anode with different active material loading was evaluated by using galvanostatic charge/discharge, rate performance, cyclic voltammetry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy experiments. The CCF anode delivered a specific charge capacity of 632 and 420 mAh g–1 after 100 cycles at 100 and 200 mAg–1, respectively, and exhibited good rate capability. This work is then followed by the electrochemical performance of silicon nanoparticles imbedded in fiber composites derived from polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and their enhanced cyclability when using Sodium Carboxymethyl Cellulose (Na-CMC) polymer coating. The composite anodes were fabricated via a similar sol-gel synthesis method, however, annealing of Si/PVP fibers was done at low temperature (160 °C), and carbonization was carried out under inert gas to prevent further oxidation of the silicon nanoparticles in the PVP fibers. The silicon/ carbon fiber composites, together with Na-CMC delivered a specific capacity of 2300 mAhg-1 for the first 20 cycles and showed an initial columbic efficiency of 83% when tested in a standard lithium electrolyte with FEC as additive. The positive effect of Na-CMC coating on the carbon fiber/ silicon composite was seen in the diminished loss of capacity in the first cycle by up to 20%. These results suggest that Na-CMC/ CMC structures can enhance the cyclability and stable SEI formation of centrifugally spun carbon fiber composites

YBX1 Modulates Drug Resistance in Liver Cancer

According to the Texas Cancer Registry, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cause of cancer death. In 2015, Texas had the country\u27s highest incidence rate and the fourth highest mortality rate. Texas Hispanics (87% of Mexican origin) showed the highest incidence and mortality rates compared to the overall US Hispanic population, with individuals of Mexican origin having the highest rates. The Rio Grande Valley, which is predominantly Mexican, is extremely affected by this fact, which exacerbates the need to address this issue within our community. A major challenge in improving patient therapy in liver cancer is Sorafenib resistance. Sorafenib is a tumor-suppressing drug that is used as a first-line treatment for late-stage liver cancer and is especially prescribed to patients presenting relapse and recurrence of HCC. In addition, we have identified a transcription factor, YB1, which is a common element in poorer patient outcomes across breast, colon, liver, and other types of cancer. We are proposing that YB1 plays an important role in the development of Sorafenib resistance in liver cancer. Our models to study the mechanism of the development of Sorafenib resistance are HCC cell lines from the American Type Culture Collection, enhanced with overexpression of YBX1. We analyzed the Sorafenib IC50 by performing molecular assays to validate the upregulation of drug resistance by YBX1 in HCC. Additionally, we will show that overexpression of YBX1 increases cell viability, thus cancer progression, in the presence of Sorafenib, as well as overexpression of YBX1 in the Sorafenib resistant cell lines

Elongation factor 2-diphthamide is critical for translation of two IRES-dependent protein targets, XIAP and FGF2, under oxidative stress conditions

Elongation factor-2 (eEF2) catalyzes the movement of the ribosome along the mRNA. A single histidine residue in eEF2 (H715) is modified to form diphthamide. A role for eEF2 in cellular stress responses is highlighted by the fact that eEF2 is sensitive to oxidative stress and that it must be active in order to drive the synthesis of proteins that help cells to mitigate the adverse effects of oxidative stress. Many of the latter proteins are encoded by mRNAs containing a sequence called an “internal ribosomal entry site” (IRES). Under high oxidative stress conditions diphthamide-deficient cells were significantly more sensitive to cell death. These results suggest that diphthamide may play a role in protection against the degradation of eEF2. Its protection is especially important under those situations where it is necessary for the re-programming of translation from global to IRES synthesis. Indeed, we found that the expression of X-linked inhibitor of apoptosis (XIAP) and fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), two proteins synthesized from mRNAs with IRES that promote cell survival are deregulated in diphthamide-deficient cells. Our findings therefore suggest that eEF2/diphthamide controls the selective translation of IRES-dependent protein targets XIAP and FGF2, critical for cell survival under conditions of oxidative stress.España, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación BFU 2010-20882

Three and two-hadron correlations in \sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV proton-proton and nucleus-nucleus collisions

We compare the azimuthal correlations arising from three and two hadron production in high energy proton-proton and nucleus-nucleus collisions at \sqrt{s_{NN}}=200 GeV, using the leading order matrix elements for two-to-three and two-to-two parton-processes in perturbative QCD. We first compute the two and three hadron production cross sections in mid-rapidity proton-proton collisions. Then we consider Au + Au collisions including parton energy loss using the modified fragmentation function approach. By examining the geometrical paths the hard partons follow through the medium, we show that the two away-side partons produced in two-to-three processes have in average a smaller and a greater path length than the average path length of the away-side parton in two-to-two processes. Therefore there is a large probability that in the former processes one of the particles escapes while the other gets absorbed. This effect leads to an enhancement in the azimuthal correlations of the two-to-three with respect to the two-to-two parton-processes when comparing to the same processes in proton-proton collisions since in average the particle with the shortest path length looses less energy with respect to the away side particle in two-to-two processes. We argue that this phenomenon may be responsible for the shape of the away-side in azimuthal correlations observed in mid-rapidity Au + Au collisions at RHIC.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Pion Mass Modification in presence of external magnetic field

In this work, the self energies of $\pi^0$ and $\pi^{\pm}$ up to one loop order have been calculated in the limit of weak external magnetic field. The effective masses are explicitly dependent on the magnetic field which are modified significantly for the pseudoscalar coupling due to weak field approximation of the external field. On the other hand, for the pseudovector coupling, there is a modest increment in the effective masses of the pions. These theoretical developments are relevant for the study of the phenomenological aspect of mesons in the context of neutron stars as well as heavy ion collisions.Comment: Published in conference proceedings of DAE-HEP-2016 (XXII DAE High Energy Physics Symposium, New Delhi, India

Modes of Information Flow

Information flow between components of a system takes many forms and is key to understanding the organization and functioning of large-scale, complex systems. We demonstrate three modalities of information flow from time series X to time series Y. Intrinsic information flow exists when the past of X is individually predictive of the present of Y, independent of Y's past; this is most commonly considered information flow. Shared information flow exists when X's past is predictive of Y's present in the same manner as Y's past; this occurs due to synchronization or common driving, for example. Finally, synergistic information flow occurs when neither X's nor Y's pasts are predictive of Y's present on their own, but taken together they are. The two most broadly-employed information-theoretic methods of quantifying information flow---time-delayed mutual information and transfer entropy---are both sensitive to a pair of these modalities: time-delayed mutual information to both intrinsic and shared flow, and transfer entropy to both intrinsic and synergistic flow. To quantify each mode individually we introduce our cryptographic flow ansatz, positing that intrinsic flow is synonymous with secret key agreement between X and Y. Based on this, we employ an easily-computed secret-key-agreement bound---intrinsic mutual information&mdashto quantify the three flow modalities in a variety of systems including asymmetric flows and financial markets.Comment: 11 pages; 10 figures; http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/compmech/pubs/ite.ht