The correlation between human capital and morality and its effect on economic performance : theory and evidence

This paper incorporates morality -- defined as lower utility from consuming goods obtained through appropriative rather than productive activities -- into a simple static general equilibrium model in which agents choose whether to be producers or appropriators. The authors analyze the relationship between the correlation between morality and human capital on the one hand, and aggregate economic performance on the other. They show that there is a main effect that tends to cause this relationship to be positive, and that there can be secondary effects thatcan either rein-force or oppose (or even overbalance) the main effect. They test the theory using the World Val-ues Survey as a source of proxies for morality. Using their preferred proxy, they find evidence that higher within-country correlation between morality and ability, holding constant the levels of morality and ability, increases per-capita income levels. Under the preferred specification, a one-standard-deviation increase in the correlation between morality and ability raises the log of per-capita income by about one-fourth of a standard deviation, equal to approximately $3,600 for the median income country in the sample. The results are robust to correcting for endogeneity and to changes in sample and specification. The results are mixed when the analysis uses alternative morality proxies, but the coefficient on the morality-ability correlation is still usually positive and statistically significant.Educational Sciences,Teaching and Learning,Economic Theory&Research,Ethics&Belief Systems,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences

Reconstruction of Bandlimited Functions from Unsigned Samples

We consider the recovery of real-valued bandlimited functions from the absolute values of their samples, possibly spaced nonuniformly. We show that such a reconstruction is always possible if the function is sampled at more than twice its Nyquist rate, and may not necessarily be possible if the samples are taken at less than twice the Nyquist rate. In the case of uniform samples, we also describe an FFT-based algorithm to perform the reconstruction. We prove that it converges exponentially rapidly in the number of samples used and examine its numerical behavior on some test cases

Post-prandial reactive hypoglycaemia and diarrhea caused by idiopathic accelerated gastric emptying: a case report

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.Abstract Introduction The majority of cases of post-prandial reactive hypoglycemia are considered idiopathic. Abnormalities of B-cell function and glucose regulation by insulin and glucagon have been postulated as causes but associated gastrointestinal dysfunction has not been reported. We report the first case of accelerated gastric emptying associated with post-prandial reactive hypoglycemia, abdominal bloating and diarrhea. We consider that gastric dysmotility is an important cause of this condition as treatment of the underlying abnormal gastric emptying allows effective control of symptoms. Case presentation A 20-year-old Caucasian woman presented with post-prandial fatigue, sweating, nausea, faintness and intermittent confusion, which had led to pre-syncope and syncope on occasions. She also experienced marked abdominal bloating and diarrhea over the same period. These episodes responded to oral administration of sweet drinks. Her symptoms were ameliorated by modification of her diet. Conclusion This is an original case report of the association of idiopathic accelerated gastric emptying with post-prandial reactive hypoglycemia and diarrhea. Family physicians, endocrinologists and gastroenterologists often consult patients with a constellation of post-prandial symptoms, which are considered to be idiopathic in most cases. This case indicates that gastric dysmotility might be the primary cause of these symptoms in some patients and, if found, offers a therapeutic target which in our case was successful.Peer Reviewe

Multiple plasmon resonances in naturally-occurring multiwall nanotubes: infrared spectra of chrysotile asbestos

Chrysotile asbestos is formed by densely packed bundles of multiwall hollow nanotubes. Each wall in the nanotubes is a cylindrically wrapped layer of $Mg_3 Si_2 O_5 (OH)_4$. We show by experiment and theory that the infrared spectrum of chrysotile presents multiple plasmon resonances in the Si-O stretching bands. These collective charge excitations are universal features of the nanotubes that are obtained by cylindrically wrapping an anisotropic material. The multiple plasmons can be observed if the width of the resonances is sufficiently small as in chrysotile.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Revtex4 compuscript. Misprint in Eq.(6) correcte

Idiopathic accelerated gastric emptying presenting in adults with post-prandial diarrhea and reactive hypoglycemia: a case series.

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.INTRODUCTION: We have previously reported the association of gastrointestinal and hypoglycemic symptoms, with idiopathic accelerated gastric emptying. We now report the first series of six similar cases. CASE PRESENTATIONS: Patient 1: A 24-year-old Caucasian man presented to our facility with a six-month history of post-prandial nausea, flatulence, bloating, abdominal discomfort and associated diarrhea. He had associated episodes of fatigue, sweating, anxiety, confusion and craving for sweet foods. Patient 2: A 52-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our facility with a 15-year history of post-prandial bloating, abdominal pain and diarrhea, often associated with nausea, severe sweating, and fatigue. Patient 3: An 18-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our facility with a nine-year history of post-prandial diarrhea, abdominal bloating and pain. There was associated nausea, tremor, lethargy, and craving for sweet foods. Patient 4: A 77-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our facility with a four-month history of epigastric distension, pain after eating and a change in bowel habit. She experienced intermittent severe diarrhea and marked fatigue, nausea and sweating. Patient 5: A 23-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our facility with a two-year history of early satiety, and diarrhea after eating. She also complained of feeling faint and weak between meals, when she became cold and clammy, and on several occasions lost consciousness during these episodes. Patient 6: A 64-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our facility with a 10-year history of nausea, early satiety and profound bloating followed by diarrhea. All symptoms predominantly occurred in the first three hours after eating, when she felt faint, lethargic, and had a craving for sweet foods. In all cases, symptoms were alleviated or resolved by taking sweet food or drink and response to treatment was 90% or greater in all cases. CONCLUSIONS: This series extends our description of this new clinical syndrome. All patients responded well to treatment for accelerated gastric emptying. Clinicians in the disciplines of endocrinology, gastroenterology, neurology and general practice are likely to find this information useful as they will consult patients with some or all of these symptoms and in a proportion of these patients idiopathic accelerated gastric emptying may be present and provide a useful avenue for therapeutic intervention

A Uniformly Derived Catalogue of Exoplanets from Radial Velocities

A new catalogue of extrasolar planets is presented by re-analysing a selection of published radial velocity data sets using EXOFIT (Balan & Lahav 2009). All objects are treated on an equal footing within a Bayesian framework, to give orbital parameters for 94 exoplanetary systems. Model selection (between one- and two-planet solutions) is then performed, using both a visual flagging method and a standard chi-square analysis, with agreement between the two methods for 99% of the systems considered. The catalogue is to be made available online, and this 'proof of concept' study may be maintained and extended in the future to incorporate all systems with publicly available radial velocity data, as well as transit and microlensing data.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 6 table

Serializing the Parallelism in Parallel Communicating Pushdown Automata Systems

We consider parallel communicating pushdown automata systems (PCPA) and define a property called known communication for it. We use this property to prove that the power of a variant of PCPA, called returning centralized parallel communicating pushdown automata (RCPCPA), is equivalent to that of multi-head pushdown automata. The above result presents a new sub-class of returning parallel communicating pushdown automata systems (RPCPA) called simple-RPCPA and we show that it can be written as a finite intersection of multi-head pushdown automata systems

Crystallization, data collection and data processing of maltose-binding protein (MalE) from the phytopathogen Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri

Maltose-binding protein is the periplasmic component of the ABC transporter responsible for the uptake of maltose/maltodextrins. The Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri maltose-binding protein MalE has been crystallized at 293 Kusing the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. The crystal belonged to the primitive hexagonal space group P6_122, with unit-cell parameters a = 123.59, b = 123.59, c = 304.20 Å, and contained two molecules in the asymetric unit. It diffracted to 2.24 Å resolution

By-catch of the shrimp fishery in India

Every year as much as 21 million tonnes of edible marine fish are thrown away at sea by shrimp trawlers, which amounts to roughly the same quantity of fish eaten annually by the people of the developing countries in a world of increasing hunger we cannot afford to indulge in the luxury of this practice of dumping the trash fish over-board the fishing vessel in this connection a study was made to understand the shrimping by-catch and its utilisation in this country and the results are reported here. The present study makes it clear that nothing much from the shrimp trawler catches is wasted in india and almost all the fishes, which are termed trash fish and discarded over board the vessel in some of the developed countries, are utilised either for human consumption or as fish meal and fish manure. However it is to be pointed out that the handling, processing and utilization of the fish catches, need further improvement