Price Level Convergence Among United States Cities: Lessons for the European Central Bank

We study the dynamics of price indices for major U.S. cities using panel econometric methods and find that relative price levels among cities mean revert at an exceptionally slow rate. In a panel of 19 cities from 1918 to 1995, we estimate the half-life of convergence to be approximately nine years. These estimates provide an upper bound on speed of convergence that participants in European Monetary Union are likely to experience. The surprisingly slow rate of convergence can be explained by a combination of the presence of transportation costs, differential speeds of adjustment to small and large shocks, and the inclusion of non-traded good prices in the overall price index.

Mean Reversion in Equilibrium Asset Prices

Recent empirical studies have found that stock returns contain substantial negative serial correlation at long horizons. We examine this finding with a series of Monte Carlo simulations in order to demonstrate that it is consistent with an equilibrium model of asset pricing. When investors display only a moderate degree of risk aversion, commonly used measures of mean reversion in stock prices calculated from actual returns data nearly always lie within a 60 percent confidence interval of the median of the Monte Carlo distributions. From this evidence, we conclude that the degree of serial correlation in the data could plausibly have been generated by our model.

Retinitis pigmentosa and ocular motility alterations: new frontiers, review

Purpose: To carry out a review of the literature on alterations in extraocular motility in Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), focusing on the possible genetic basis of ocular alterations. Design: Systematic review Methods: The search of publications was carried out using the databases: Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, considering clinical cases, case reports, and systematic reviews of ocular motility alterations in the Retinitis Pigmentosa in the literature. The words: “ocular motility alterations, Retinitis Pigmentosa, orthoptic evaluation, case reports, clinical cases, systematic reviews” were used. Results: A total of 2 articles from 2006–2022 were retrieved: No other ocular motility alterations clinical cases linked to RP were found before. Particularly, a study conducted on patients affected by typical RP showed that there was an impaired motility in 50% of them. Since RP is a genetically determined disease, in reference to the studies analyzed, the absence of eye movement disorders in a percentage of the sample could be related to the different penetrance of the disease that determines the existence of healthy carriers. Conclusion: Therefore, it would be important to search for a possible correlation between the genetic mutations involved in this hereditary disorder and the deficits in extraocular motility, in order to make an early diagnosis of RP in genetically predisposed subjects. The existence of alterations of extraocular motility in subjects with RP, indicates that a careful orthoptic screening can allow a further contribution to an early diagnosis of this disease, especially in subjects with positive family history and healthy carriers

Oral health-related quality of life in partially edentulous patients before and after implant therapy: a 2-year longitudinal study

The aim of this study was to measure the Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) before and after a prosthodontic implant therapy so to determine the physical and psychological impact of implant-supported fixed partial dentures (IFPD) rehabilitation among edentulous patients. Methods. 50 partially edentulous patients aged 40-70 years, treated with IFPD, completed the OHRQoL questionnaire before the implant surgery (Time 0) and 2 years after their whole implant-prosthetic rehabilitation (Time 1). The questionnaire was proposed in a short version of Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14, range 0-56) and analyzed through the ‘additive method’. We evaluated statistical mean, standard deviation, median, variance and mode of all OHIP-14 domains and the statistical significance about oral changes at Time 0 and Time 1 using the Chi-square test (p-values 0.05). Patients with I and IV Kennedy’s class edentulism showed better improvement (p < 0.05). Preoperative and post-treatment assessments of OHRQoL exhibited significant differences. The IFPD treatment had a positive effect on the OHRQoL, which improved better in patients with I and IV Kennedy’s edentulous class

Atomic force microscopy of bacteria from periodontal subgingival biofilm: Preliminary study results

OBJECTIVE: Atomic force microscope (AFM) is a technology that allows analysis of the nanoscale morphology of bacteria within biofilm and provides details that may be better useful for understanding the role of bacterial interactions in the periodontal disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Five patients with periodontal ≥5 mm pockets diagnosed as generalized periodontitis and five patients with slight gingivitis were selected for the investigation. Bacteria biofilms were collected and morphologically investigated by AFM application. RESULTS: The investigation revealed how periodontitis bacteria are characterized by specific morphologic features of the cell wall. The major representative species of bacteria causing periodontal diseases have been reproduced by a three-dimensional reconstruction showing the bacteria surface details. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of complex glycocalyx structures, bacteriophage-like vesicles, spirochetes (classic and cystic morphology) and bacterial co-aggregation has been identified by the AFM analysis. The results suggest that AFM is a reliable technique for studying bacterial morphology and for examining microbial interactions in dental plaque

Risk factors for adenocarcinoma of the cervix: a case-control study.

To assess risk factors for cervical adenocarcinoma data were collected in a case-control study of 39 cases and 409 controls conducted in the greater Milan area. Questions were asked about personal characteristics and habits, gynaecologic and obstetric data, history of lifetime use of oral contraceptives and other female hormones, and general indicators of sexual habits (age at first intercourse and total number of sexual partners). The relative risk of cervical adenocarcinoma increased with number of births and abortions, early age at first birth and early age at first intercourse. These estimates did not materially change after adjustment for the potential reciprocal confounding effect. Further, there was a positive association with overweight, but an apparent association with lower education was not significant. No relationship emerged with oral contraceptive use. Thus, despite the similarities with the epidemiology of squamous cell cancer, reproductive patterns and other factors related to the risk of endometrial cancer (i.e., overweight) seem to play an important role in the risk of adenocarcinoma of cervix uteri

Reproductive factors and the risk of invasive and intraepithelial cervical neoplasia.

The relation between reproductive factors and cervical neoplasia was evaluated in a case-control study of 528 cases of invasive cancer compared with 456 control subjects in hospital for acute conditions unrelated to any of the established or suspected risk factors for cervical cancer, and of 335 cases of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia compared with 262 outpatient controls. The risk of invasive cervical cancer increased with number of livebirths, the estimated multivariate relative risk (RR) being 4.39 in women with five or more births compared with nulliparous women. There was also an inverse relation with age at first livebirth (RR = 0.42 for greater than or equal to 30 vs. less than 20 years) which, however, disappeared after inclusion of parity in multiple logistic regression analysis. Likewise, cases of invasive cervical cancer tended more frequently to report induced abortions. However, this association was not statistically significant after allowance for confounding factors, including parity. No relation emerged with number of spontaneous abortion and age at last pregnancy. When the interaction between parity and sexual habits was analysed, the relative risk increased in subsequent strata of parity with increasing number of sexual partners or decreasing age at first intercourse, thus suggesting an independent effect of sexual and reproductive factors, and hence multiplicative on the relative risk of invasive cervical cancer. No consistent association emerged between the risk of intraepithelial cervical neoplasm and parity, number of abortions and age at first or last birth