Crash-Free Sequencing Strategies for Financial Development and Liberalization

This paper uses a stylized model of financial intermediation to characterize the exact circumstances along various paths of economic growth, financial development, and liberalization that can trigger a financial crisis. It shows how to avoid financial crises through proper sequencing of various financial development and liberalization measures. The results of the paper show that naive combinations of financial development and liberalization processes can give rise to financial crises. In some typical situations, in order to avoid a financial crisis, it is important that financial liberalization be accompanied by financial development, in the form of improvements in the financial sectorís efficiencies. In the case of fast growing economies, financial development becomes even more imperative. Copyright 2001, International Monetary Fund

Moving Stationary State of Exciton-Phonon Condensate in Cu2O

We explore a simple theoretical model to describe the properties of Bose condensed para-excitons in Cu2O. Taking into account the exciton-phonon interaction and introducing a coherent phonon part of the moving condensate, we derive the dynamic equations for the exciton-phonon condensate. Within the Bose approximation for excitons, we discuss the conditions for the moving inhomogeneous condensate to appear in the crystal. We calculate the condensate wave function and energy and a collective excitation spectrum in the semiclassical approximation. The stability conditions of the moving condensate are analyzed by use of Landau arguments, and two critical velocities appear in the theory. Finally, we apply our model to describe the recently observed interference between two coherent exciton-phonon packets in Cu2O.Comment: 20 pages (LaTeX), one figure (.ps) incorporated by epsf. Submitted to Phys. Stat. Sol (B

Preparation and identification of monoclonal antibodies against humanin

To generate and characterize a monoclonal antibody (mAb) against humanin (HN), BALB/c mice were immunized with the purified pet-44a-HN in adjuvant and their splenic lymphocytes were fused with myeloma SP2/0 cells. The hybridoma cell lines were screened for HN-specific antibodies by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and anti-HN mAb-producing hybridoma clones were obtained using a limiting dilution assay. The specificity and affinity of the antibodies were characterized by western blot assays and indirect ELISA. Following fusion, screening and cloning, four hybridoma clones were obtained, and the clone 5A8H3 was demonstrated to stably produce anti-HN IgG2a. Further characterization of 5A8H3 revealed that this mAb specifically recognized HN, the fusion proteins of pet- 44a-HN protein and pGEMEX-1-HN, but not control (Escherichia coli proteins). This mAb interacted with HN at an affinity constant (Ka) of 2.0 × 108 M–1 The HN-specific IgG2a mAb was successfully generated. It interacted with HN specifically and sensitively, providing a valuable tool for further study of the biological functions of HN.Key words: Humanin, monoclonal antibodies, characterizatio

Evidence Base of Clinical Studies on Qi Gong: A Bibliometric Analysis

© 2020 The Authors Objective: This bibliometric study aimed to systematically and comprehensively summarize the volume, breadth and evidence for clinical research on Qigong. And this bibliometric analysis also can provide the evidence of this field. Design: Bibliometric analysis. Methods: All types of primary and secondary studies on humans were included: systematic reviews, randomized clinical trials, non-randomized controlled clinical studies, case series and case reports. Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Chinese Academic Conference Papers Database and Chinese Dissertation Database, PubMed and the Cochrane Library were searched from the date of inception to December 10, 2018. Bibliometric information, such as publication information, disease/condition, Qigong intervention and research results were extracted and analyzed. Results: A total of 886 clinical studies were identified: including 47 systematic reviews, 705 randomized clinical trials, 116 non-randomized controlled clinical studies, 12 case series and 6 case reports. The studies were conducted in 14 countries. The top 15 diseases/conditions studied were: diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, stroke, cervical spondylosis, lumbar disc herniation, insomnia, knee osteoarthritis, low back pain, and osteoporosis, Coronary heart disease, breast cancer, periarthritis of shoulder, depression, metabolic syndrome. Of the various Qigong exercises reported in these 886 clinical studies, Ba Duan Jin was the most frequently researched in 492 (55.5%) studies, followed by Health Qigong 107 (12.1%), Dao Yin Shu 85 (9.6%), Wu Qin Xi 67 (7.6%) and Yi Jin Jing 66 (7.4%). The most frequently used comparisons in randomized trials were maintaining normal way of life unchanged 149 (18.1%), the remaining controls included conventional treatment, mainly western medicine, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, health education, psychological therapy, Yoga, Tai Chi and other non-drug therapy. The most frequently reported outcomes were physical function, quality of life, symptoms, pain and mental health indicators. Beneficial results from practicing Qigong were reported in 97% of studies. Conclusions: Qigong research publications have been increasing gradually. Reports on study types, participants, Qigong Intervention, and outcomes are diverse and inconsistent. There is an urgent need to develop a set of reporting standards for various interventions of Qigong. Further trials of high methodological quality with sufficient sample size and real world studies are needed to verify the effects of Qigong in health and disease management

DD-dimensions Dirac fermions BEC-BCS cross-over thermodynamics

An effective Proca Lagrangian action is used to address the vector condensation Lorentz violation effects on the equation of state of the strongly interacting fermions system. The interior quantum fluctuation effects are incorporated as an external field approximation indirectly through a fictive generalized Thomson Problem counterterm background. The general analytical formulas for the $d$-dimensions thermodynamics are given near the unitary limit region. In the non-relativistic limit for $d=3$, the universal dimensionless coefficient $\xi ={4}/{9}$ and energy gap $\Delta/\epsilon_f ={5}/{18}$ are reasonably consistent with the existed theoretical and experimental results. In the unitary limit for $d=2$ and T=0, the universal coefficient can even approach the extreme occasion $\xi=0$ corresponding to the infinite effective fermion mass $m^*=\infty$ which can be mapped to the strongly coupled two-dimensions electrons and is quite similar to the three-dimensions Bose-Einstein Condensation of ideal boson gas. Instead, for $d=1$, the universal coefficient $\xi$ is negative, implying the non-existence of phase transition from superfluidity to normal state. The solutions manifest the quantum Ising universal class characteristic of the strongly coupled unitary fermions gas.Comment: Improved versio

A floating connector element formulation for multi-level modelling of composite structures

Design and optimisation of large structures, including the positioning of lower-level components, typically require extensive user involvement and sequential mechanical analysis/optimisation iterations. This paper presents an original method that enables adaptive positioning of lower-level models (such as components) within higher level-models (such as large structures), and that achieves a combined mechanical/optimisation problem for the design of structures with various hierarchical levels (such as the positioning of stiffeners within a wingbox). As the position of the lower-level model evolves, our proposed method does not require re-generating of the geometry, remeshing or modifying the stiffness matrix of the elements corresponding to the various hierarchical levels. Instead, we achieve the adaptive positioning via an original concept that we propose here: Floating Connector (FC) elements. In this paper, we validate the FC elements against reference purely-mechanical solutions, show that they can be combined with gradient-descent method and genetic algorithms, and that they can be applied to optimise the positioning of a stiffener runout taking into account a debonding manufacturing defect

Maintaining Vaccine Delivery Following the Introduction of the Rotavirus and Pneumococcal Vaccines in Thailand

Although the substantial burdens of rotavirus and pneumococcal disease have motivated many countries to consider introducing the rotavirus vaccine (RV) and heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) to their National Immunization Programs (EPIs), these new vaccines could affect the countries' vaccine supply chains (i.e., the series of steps required to get a vaccine from their manufacturers to patients). We developed detailed computational models of the Trang Province, Thailand, vaccine supply chain to simulate introducing various RV and PCV-7 vaccine presentations and their combinations. Our results showed that the volumes of these new vaccines in addition to current routine vaccines could meet and even exceed (1) the refrigerator space at the provincial district and sub-district levels and (2) the transport cold space at district and sub-district levels preventing other vaccines from being available to patients who arrive to be immunized. Besides the smallest RV presentation (17.1 cm3/dose), all other vaccine introduction scenarios required added storage capacity at the provincial level (range: 20 L–1151 L per month) for the three largest formulations, and district level (range: 1 L–124 L per month) across all introduction scenarios. Similarly, with the exception of the two smallest RV presentation (17.1 cm3/dose), added transport capacity was required at both district and sub-district levels. Added transport capacity required across introduction scenarios from the provincial to district levels ranged from 1 L–187 L, and district to sub-district levels ranged from 1 L–13 L per shipment. Finally, only the smallest RV vaccine presentation (17.1 cm3/dose) had no appreciable effect on vaccine availability at sub-districts. All other RV and PCV-7 vaccines were too large for the current supply chain to handle without modifications such as increasing storage or transport capacity. Introducing these new vaccines to Thailand could have dynamic effects on the availability of all vaccines that may not be initially apparent to decision-makers

Kernelization and Parameterized Algorithms for 3-Path Vertex Cover

A 3-path vertex cover in a graph is a vertex subset $C$ such that every path of three vertices contains at least one vertex from $C$. The parameterized 3-path vertex cover problem asks whether a graph has a 3-path vertex cover of size at most $k$. In this paper, we give a kernel of $5k$ vertices and an $O^*(1.7485^k)$-time and polynomial-space algorithm for this problem, both new results improve previous known bounds.Comment: in TAMC 2016, LNCS 9796, 201