Purchasing power parity in G-7 countries: Further evidence based on ADL test for threshold cointegration

This study applies a newly-developed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ADL) test for threshold cointegration, proposed by Li and Lee (2010) to test the validity of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) for G-7 countries over the January 1994 to April 2010. The empirical results indicate that PPP only holds true for Canada and France two countries. Our results have important policy implications for the G-7 countries under study.Purchasing Power Parity; G-7 Countries; ADL Test; Threshold Cointegration

Characterizing Intermittency of 4-Hz Quasi-periodic Oscillation in XTE J1550-564 using Hilbert-Huang Transform

We present the time-frequency analysis results based on the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) for the evolution of a 4-Hz low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillation (LFQPO) around the black hole X-ray binary XTE J1550-564. The origin of LFQPOs is still debated. To understand the cause of the peak broadening, we utilized a recently developed time-frequency analysis, HHT, for tracking the evolution of the 4-Hz LFQPO from XTE J1550 564. By adaptively decomposing the ~4-Hz oscillatory component from the light curve and acquiring its instantaneous frequency, the Hilbert spectrum illustrates that the LFQPO is composed of a series of intermittent oscillations appearing occasionally between 3 Hz and 5 Hz. We further characterized this intermittency by computing the confidence limits of the instantaneous amplitudes of the intermittent oscillations, and constructed both the distributions of the QPO's high and low amplitude durations, which are the time intervals with and without significant ~4-Hz oscillations, respectively. The mean high amplitude duration is 1.45 s and 90% of the oscillation segments have lifetimes below 3.1 s. The mean low amplitude duration is 0.42 s and 90% of these segments are shorter than 0.73 s. In addition, these intermittent oscillations exhibit a correlation between the oscillation's rms amplitude and mean count rate. This correlation could be analogous to the linear rms-flux relation found in the 4-Hz LFQPO through Fourier analysis. We conclude that the LFQPO peak in the power spectrum is broadened owing to intermittent oscillations with varying frequencies, which could be explained by using the Lense-Thirring precession model.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Predicting protein-protein interactions in unbalanced data using the primary structure of proteins

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Elucidating protein-protein interactions (PPIs) is essential to constructing protein interaction networks and facilitating our understanding of the general principles of biological systems. Previous studies have revealed that interacting protein pairs can be predicted by their primary structure. Most of these approaches have achieved satisfactory performance on datasets comprising equal number of interacting and non-interacting protein pairs. However, this ratio is highly unbalanced in nature, and these techniques have not been comprehensively evaluated with respect to the effect of the large number of non-interacting pairs in realistic datasets. Moreover, since highly unbalanced distributions usually lead to large datasets, more efficient predictors are desired when handling such challenging tasks.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This study presents a method for PPI prediction based only on sequence information, which contributes in three aspects. First, we propose a probability-based mechanism for transforming protein sequences into feature vectors. Second, the proposed predictor is designed with an efficient classification algorithm, where the efficiency is essential for handling highly unbalanced datasets. Third, the proposed PPI predictor is assessed with several unbalanced datasets with different positive-to-negative ratios (from 1:1 to 1:15). This analysis provides solid evidence that the degree of dataset imbalance is important to PPI predictors.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Dealing with data imbalance is a key issue in PPI prediction since there are far fewer interacting protein pairs than non-interacting ones. This article provides a comprehensive study on this issue and develops a practical tool that achieves both good prediction performance and efficiency using only protein sequence information.</p

THE ACUTE EFFECT OF WHOLE BODY VIBRATION TRAINING ON AGILITY, SPEED AND POWER IN MALE VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS

The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effect of whole body vibration training on agility, speed and power in male volleyball players. Ten college volleyball players volunteered to participate in this study. The vibration training (VT) consisted of 60% with 28 Hz frequencies and 1Omm amplitudes. Counter movement jump (CMJ), blocking agility test (BAT), agility test (AT) and 10 meters sprinting (1 OMS) were performed at pre-test and post-test (60s rest). The peak force (PF). mean force (MF), maximum rate of force development (mRFD) and relative net impulse (RNI) from the CMJs were computed. A repeated measures ANOVA was applied to obtain the variables. The present study indicated that the WBV significantly improves the MF, mRFD and BAT parameters of CMJ and BAT performances excluding the PF. Speed and agility does not seem to be enhanced by VT

EFFECTS OF PLYOMTRIC TRAIN lNG ON MUSCLE FATIGUE AND MAXIMAL RATE OF FORCE DEVELOPMENT OF LOWER-LIMB

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of ploymetric training on muscle fatigue and maximal rate of force development in volleyball players. Ten college volleyball players volunteered to participate in this study and underwent a 6-week plyometric training. The BTS free EMG and force-plate were used to evaluate the median frequency (MDF) of the rectus femoris (RF), anterior tibialis (AT), lateral gastrocnemius (LG), biceps femoris (BF) and maximum rate of force development (mRFD). The results revealed that the plyometric training significantly improves the MDF of RF and AT and mRFD. This study demonstrated hat by using plyometric training could facilitate the mRFD and postpone muscle fatigue for trained volleyball players

Metformin Decreases the Incidence of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Promoted by Diet-induced Obesity in the Conditional KrasG12D Mouse Model.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a particularly deadly disease. Chronic conditions, including obesity and type-2 diabetes are risk factors, thus making PDAC amenable to preventive strategies. We aimed to characterize the chemo-preventive effects of metformin, a widely used anti-diabetic drug, on PDAC development using the KrasG12D mouse model subjected to a diet high in fats and calories (HFCD). LSL-KrasG12D/+;p48-Cre (KC) mice were given control diet (CD), HFCD, or HFCD with 5 mg/ml metformin in drinking water for 3 or 9 months. After 3 months, metformin prevented HFCD-induced weight gain, hepatic steatosis, depletion of intact acini, formation of advanced PanIN lesions, and stimulation of ERK and mTORC1 in pancreas. In addition to reversing hepatic and pancreatic histopathology, metformin normalized HFCD-induced hyperinsulinemia and hyperleptinemia among the 9-month cohort. Importantly, the HFCD-increased PDAC incidence was completely abrogated by metformin (p &lt; 0.01). The obesogenic diet also induced a marked increase in the expression of TAZ in pancreas, an effect abrogated by metformin. In conclusion, administration of metformin improved the metabolic profile and eliminated the promoting effects of diet-induced obesity on PDAC formation in KC mice. Given the established safety profile of metformin, our findings have a strong translational potential for novel chemo-preventive strategies for PDAC