Regional integration and the prices of imports : an empirical investigation

The authors explore the effects on the terms of trade of regional economic integration. They show why it is an appropriate measure of the welfare effects of such integration, comparing it with the many ex post studies that base their conclusions on changes in the import shares of member and nonmember countries. They demonstrate, by using a simple strategic model, how member countries might gain in their terms of trade, and nonmembers lose, through a lowering of preferential tariffs. Most important, they show that measuring such price effects, though difficult, is feasible. This is the first ex post study of its kind, they believe, and an improvement over previous ex post studies on how integration affects the rest of theworld. Using finely disaggregated data about Spanish imports of finished manufactures from major OECD trading partners, despite their noisiness, they found a consistent story over all of the country pairs examined. They find that nonmembers (in this case, Japan and the United States) suffered detectable losses in terms of trade relative to European Community competitors in Spanish import markets for differentiated goods.Trade Policy,Environmental Economics&Policies,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT

How regional blocs affect excluded countries - the price effects of MERCOSUR

The welfare effects of preferential trading agreements, are most directly linked to changes in trade prices - that is, the terms of trade. The authors use a simple strategic pricing game in segmented markets, to measure the effects of MERCOSUR on the pricing of"non-member"exports to the regional trading bloc. Working with detailed data on unit values, and tariffs, they find that the creation of MERCOSUR is associated with significant declines in the prices of non-members'exports to the bloc. These can be explained largely by tariff preferences offered to a country's partners. Focusing on the Brazilian market (by far the largest in MERCOSUR), they show that non-members'export prices to Brazil respond to both most-favorable-nation, and preferential tariffs. Preferential tariffs induce reductions in non-memberexport prices.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Export Competitiveness,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets

Regularizing Face Verification Nets For Pain Intensity Regression

Limited labeled data are available for the research of estimating facial expression intensities. For instance, the ability to train deep networks for automated pain assessment is limited by small datasets with labels of patient-reported pain intensities. Fortunately, fine-tuning from a data-extensive pre-trained domain, such as face verification, can alleviate this problem. In this paper, we propose a network that fine-tunes a state-of-the-art face verification network using a regularized regression loss and additional data with expression labels. In this way, the expression intensity regression task can benefit from the rich feature representations trained on a huge amount of data for face verification. The proposed regularized deep regressor is applied to estimate the pain expression intensity and verified on the widely-used UNBC-McMaster Shoulder-Pain dataset, achieving the state-of-the-art performance. A weighted evaluation metric is also proposed to address the imbalance issue of different pain intensities.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure; Camera-ready version to appear at IEEE ICIP 201

Neurocognitive Correlates of Treatment Response in Children with Tourette\u27s Disorder

This paper examined neurocognitive functioning and its relationship to behavior treatment response among youth with Tourette\u27s Disorder (TD) in a large randomized controlled trial. Participants diagnosed with TD completed a brief neurocognitive battery assessing inhibitory functions, working memory, and habit learning pre- and post-treatment with behavior therapy (CBIT, Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics) or psychoeducation plus supportive therapy (PST). At baseline, youth with tics and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) exhibited some evidence of impaired working memory and simple motor inhibition relative to youth with tics without ADHD. Additionally, a small negative association was found between antipsychotic medications and youth\u27s performance speed. Across treatment groups, greater baseline working memory and aspects of inhibitory functioning were associated with a positive treatment response; no between-group differences in neurocognitive functioning at post-treatment were identified. Within the behavior therapy group, pre-treatment neurocognitive status did not predict outcome, nor was behavior therapy associated significant change in neurocognitive functioning post-treatment. Findings suggest that co-occurring ADHD is associated with some impairments in neurocognitive functioning in youth with Tourette\u27s Disorder. While neurocognitive predictors of behavior therapy were not found, participants who received behavior therapy exhibited significantly reduced tic severity without diminished cognitive functioning

The exocyst complex is required for targeting of Glut4 to the plasma membrane by insulin

Insulin stimulates glucose transport by promoting exocytosis of the glucose transporter Glut4 (refs 1, 2). The dynamic processes involved in the trafficking of Glut4-containing vesicles, and in their targeting, docking and fusion at the plasma membrane, as well as the signalling processes that govern these events, are not well understood. We recently described tyrosine-phosphorylation events restricted to subdomains of the plasma membrane that result in activation of the G protein TC10 (refs 3, 4). Here we show that TC10 interacts with one of the components of the exocyst complex, Exo70. Exo70 translocates to the plasma membrane in response to insulin through the activation of TC10, where it assembles a multiprotein complex that includes Sec6 and Sec8. Overexpression of an Exo70 mutant blocked insulin-stimulated glucose uptake, but not the trafficking of Glut4 to the plasma membrane. However, this mutant did block the extracellular exposure of the Glut4 protein. So, the exocyst might have a crucial role in the targeting of the Glut4 vesicle to the plasma membrane, perhaps directing the vesicle to the precise site of fusion.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62982/1/nature01533.pd

Source of Nitrogen Isotope Anomaly in HCN in the Atmosphere of Titan

The ^(14)N/^(15)N ratio for N_2 in the atmosphere of Titan was recently measured to be a factor of 2 higher than the corresponding ratio for HCN. Using a one-dimensional photochemical model with transport, we incorporate new isotopic photoabsorption and photodissociation cross sections of N_2, computed quantum-mechanically, and show that the difference in the ratio of ^(14)N/^(15)N between N_2 and HCN can be explained primarily by the photolytic fractionation of ^(14)N^(14)N and ^(14)N ^(15)N. The [HC^(14)N]/[HC^(15)N] ratio produced by N_2 photolysis alone is 23. This value, together with the observed ratio, constrains the flux of atomic nitrogen input from the top of the atmosphere to be in the range (1-2) × 10^9 atoms cm^(-2) s^(-1)

GPER-induced signaling is essential for the survival of breast cancer stem cells.

G protein-coupled estrogen receptor-1 (GPER), a member of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily, mediates estrogen-induced proliferation of normal and malignant breast epithelial cells. However, its role in breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) remains unclear. Here we showed greater expression of GPER in BCSCs than non-BCSCs of three patient-derived xenografts of ER- /PR+ breast cancers. GPER silencing reduced stemness features of BCSCs as reflected by reduced mammosphere forming capacity in vitro, and tumor growth in vivo with decreased BCSC populations. Comparative phosphoproteomics revealed greater GPER-mediated PKA/BAD signaling in BCSCs. Activation of GPER by its ligands, including tamoxifen (TMX), induced phosphorylation of PKA and BAD-Ser118 to sustain BCSC characteristics. Transfection with a dominant-negative mutant BAD (Ser118Ala) led to reduced cell survival. Taken together, GPER and its downstream signaling play a key role in maintaining the stemness of BCSCs, suggesting that GPER is a potential therapeutic target for eradicating BCSCs

Examination of Several Physiological and Psychosocial Factors Potentially Associated With Masked Hypertension Among Low-Risk Adults

We examined the association of factors in addition to prehypertensive office blood pressure (BP) level that might improve detection of masked hypertension (MH, defined as non-elevated office BP with elevated out-of-office BP average) among those otherwise at low-risk. This sample of 340 untreated adults 30 years and older with office BP average <140/90 mmHg all had two sets of paired office BP measurements and 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) sessions one week apart. Other than BP levels, the only factors that were associated (at P<0.10) with MH at both sets were male sex (75% vs 66%) and working outside the home (72% vs 59% first set; 71% vs 45% second set). Adding these variables to BP level in the model did not appreciably improve detection of MH. We found no demographic, clinical, or psychosocial measures that improved upon prehypertension as a potential predictor of MH in this sample

Genomic regions associated with chocolate spot (Botrytis fabae Sard.) resistance in faba bean (Vicia faba L.)

Chocolate spot (CS), caused by Botrytis fabae Sard., is an important threat to global faba bean production. Growing resistant faba bean cultivars is, therefore, paramount to preventing yield loss. To date, there have been no reported quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with CS resistance in faba bean. The objective of this study was to identify genomic regions associated with CS resistance using a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from resistant accession ILB 938. A total of 165 RILs from the cross Melodie/2 x ILB 938/2 were genotyped and evaluated for CS reactions under replicated controlled climate conditions. The RIL population showed significant variation in response to CS resistance. QTL analysis identified five loci contributing to CS resistance on faba bean chromosomes 1 and 6, accounting for 28.4% and 12.5%, respectively, of the total phenotypic variance. The results of this study not only provide insight into disease-resistance QTL, but also can be used as potential targets for marker-assisted breeding in faba bean genetic improvement for CS resistance.Peer reviewe