Do Exchange Rate Regimes Matter For Inflation And Exchange Rate Dynamics? The Case Of Central America.

This paper makes an empirical contribution to the discussion on the optimal exchange rate regime. Using as astudy case the experience of the Central American countries, we compare the dynamics of the Real Exchange Rate (RER) and inflation persistence between dollarized economies and countries with some degree of exchange rate flexibility. Our results show that the two dollarized countries in the region, El Salvador and Panama, are quite different in terms of RER and inflation dynamics. While in El Salvador the RER spends more time away from the equilibrium level than the non-dollarized countries in the region, the opposite is true for Panama. We also find that inflation persistence in El Salvador is similar to that of the other countries, but smaller in Panama. This leads us to the conclusion that some degree of exchange rate flexibility helps countries to have a RER more aligned with its fundamentals. Nevertheless, a long-lived, highly credible dollarized economy, like Panama, can reduce inflation persistence to such an extent that RER misalignments are actually less frequent than in countries with more flexible exchange rate regimes.

Awareness towards Chikungunya virus infection risk by general practitioners in Rome: a questionnaire based survey before the 2017 outbreak

Autochthonous cases of Chikungunya (CHIKV) have been recently detected in Rome. A survey was conduct- ed prior to the 2017 outbreak to assess knowledge, attitude, and practices towards CHIKV infections on 103 randomly selected general practitioners (GPs), practicing in the centre of Rome. Only 24.3% were aware of CHIKV and completed the interview. Among completers, the knowledge of basic elements of CHIKV in- fection was insufficient. Only two thirds of them were able to identify possible CHIKV cases in hypothetical clinical scenarios presented by the interviewer. Our study highlights the need to improve GP knowledge to- wards CHIKV, as a necessary step to establish an efficacious epidemic surveillance

Supercritical Fluid Adsorption of Domperidone on Silica Aerogel

Silica aerogel (SA) was loaded with domperidone to demonstrate the potentiality of adsorption processes based on the usage of supercritical carbon dioxide to treat poorly water-soluble drugs, forming new kinds of drug delivery systems. The effects of pressure, temperature and solution concentration on loaded SA were studied. Adsorption isotherms were measured at 35\u2103 and 45\u2103 and fitted with Langmuir model. Release kinetics of the adsorbed drug were also evaluated by in vitro dissolution tests. Results showed that domperidone can be uniformly dispersed into the aerogel and that the release rate of domperidone from the composite, constituted by drug and silica aerogel, is much faster than that of the crystalline drug. The proposed adsorption method is suitable for the production of domperidone fast release tablets