The Relative Value of AER P&P Economic Education Papers

The CEE had been allocated one session in the AER Papers and Proceedings (P&P) since 1964. In 2008, the American Economic Association evaluated the allocation of AER Papers and Proceedings sessions to various AEA Committees. In response, the CEE was asked to prepare a one-page rationale for keeping that session. Their response (Committee on Economic Education, 2008) made several important defenses of the session, including that the quality of the papers published in these sessions must speak for itself. In this paper, we propose to evaluate the relative quality of AER P&P papers through citation analysis. Using the Social Science Citation Index, the citation counts of CEE AER P&P papers are compared to other papers included in the issue

Pyrrolo- and pyridomorphinans:Non-selective opioid antagonists and delta opioid agonists/mu opioid partial agonists

Opioid ligands have found use in a number of therapeutic areas, including for the treatment of pain and opiate addiction (using agonists) and alcohol addiction (using antagonists such as naltrexone and nalmefene). The reaction of imines, derived from the opioid ligands oxymorphone and naltrexone, with Michael acceptors leads to pyridomorphinans with structures similar to known pyrrolo- and indolomorphinans. One of the synthesized compounds, 5e, derived from oxymorphone had substantial agonist activity at delta opioid receptors but not at mu and/or kappa opioid receptors and in that sense profiled as a selective delta opioid receptor agonist. The pyridomorphinans derived from naltrexone and naloxone were all found to be non-selective potent antagonists and as such could have utility as treatments for alcohol abuse

Does Immigration Impact Institutions?

This paper empirically examines how immigration impacts a nation's policies and institutions and finds no evidence of negative and some evidence of positive impacts in institutional quality as a result of immigration

Extensive local adaptation within the chemosensory system following Drosophila melanogaster's global expansion.

How organisms adapt to new environments is of fundamental biological interest, but poorly understood at the genetic level. Chemosensory systems provide attractive models to address this problem, because they lie between external environmental signals and internal physiological responses. To investigate how selection has shaped the well-characterized chemosensory system of Drosophila melanogaster, we have analysed genome-wide data from five diverse populations. By couching population genomic analyses of chemosensory protein families within parallel analyses of other large families, we demonstrate that chemosensory proteins are not outliers for adaptive divergence between species. However, chemosensory families often display the strongest genome-wide signals of recent selection within D. melanogaster. We show that recent adaptation has operated almost exclusively on standing variation, and that patterns of adaptive mutations predict diverse effects on protein function. Finally, we provide evidence that chemosensory proteins have experienced relaxed constraint, and argue that this has been important for their rapid adaptation over short timescales

Physician diagnosed arthritis, reported arthritis and radiological non-axial osteoarthritis

SummaryObjectiveTo determine the question that best predicts radiographic evidence of non-axial osteoarthritis (OA).DesignThe Melbourne Women's Mid-life Health Project (MWMHP), commenced in 1991, is a population-based prospective study of 438 Australian-born. Two hundred and fifty-seven (57%) women remained in longitudinal assessment in 2002 and 224 (87%) women agreed to undergo X-rays of their hands and knees between 2002 and 2003.MethodsAnnually participants were asked about aches and stiff joints and arthritis or rheumatism. In the eleventh year of follow-up X-rays were scored for evidence of OA using a validated scale, by two investigators who were blinded to questionnaire results. Information on hormone therapy use, physical activity, mood, smoking, body mass index (BMI) and age were obtained by both self-administered and face-to-face questionnaires.ResultsPatient reported physician diagnosed arthritis was the best predictor of radiological OA (ROA). The question had a specificity of 64%, a positive predictive value of 57% and a negative predictive value of 71%. Even the most reliable question about arthritis still had a relatively low specificity for radiologically diagnosed OA. Reporting symptoms were significantly more common in participants who were depressed, those who had a higher negative affect and those with a higher BMI.ConclusionIn large epidemiological studies where questionnaire assessment of OA is required, the greatest accuracy is achieved by asking about physician diagnosed arthritis. Concurrent application of a validated scale for mood is important

The Impact of Economic Freedom on Per Capita Real GDP: A Study of OECD Nation

This study of the impact of economic freedom on per capita real GDP among OECD nations over the 2003-2006 period, with each OECD nation during this time frame being treated as a de facto “economic region” within the OECD, finds strong initial support for the hypothesis proffered here that the higher the degree of economic freedom, the higher the level of economic activity and hence the higher the per capita real GDP level. In particular, the per capita real GDP level in each of the 30 nations/regions in existence as OECD members over the study period is shown, using fixed-effects PLS estimations, to be an increasing function of business freedom, freedom from corruption, investment freedom, monetary freedom, government size freedom, trade freedom, and property rights freedom

Domsiekte or pregnancy disease in sheep. III

(1) It has been confirmed that a sudden and drastic reduction in diet of fat ewes in the fourth month of pregnancy causes typical domsiekte or pregnancy disease. The condition was evinced clinically, chemically and pathologically. (2) Similar treatment of fat, non-pregnant ewes caused the same changes in blood chemistry as seen in pregnancy disease in some, and post-mortem findings typical of the disease in others. No clinical symptoms were observed in non-pregnant ewes. (3) In the non-pregnant group no correlation could be found between chemical changes, post-mortem findings and clinical symptoms. (4) The non-pregnant ewes survived for a very much longer period than the pregnant ewes. (5) A hitherto undescribed pathological finding, namely hypertrophy of the retico-endothelial system of the lymph nodes is recorded. (6) Indications are given that the use of alkaline dosing has no effect on the formation of acetonaemia. (7) Treatment by means of rapidly active purgatives and sugars is indicated.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 300dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format

Demographic History of the Human Commensal Drosophila melanogaster.

The cohabitation of Drosophila melanogaster with humans is nearly ubiquitous. Though it has been well established that this fly species originated in sub-Saharan Africa, and only recently has spread globally, many details of its swift expansion remain unclear. Elucidating the demographic history of D. melanogaster provides a unique opportunity to investigate how human movement might have impacted patterns of genetic diversity in a commensal species, as well as providing neutral null models for studies aimed at identifying genomic signatures of local adaptation. Here, we use whole-genome data from five populations (Africa, North America, Europe, Central Asia, and the South Pacific) to carry out demographic inferences, with particular attention to the inclusion of migration and admixture. We demonstrate the importance of these parameters for model fitting and show that how previous estimates of divergence times are likely to be significantly underestimated as a result of not including them. Finally, we discuss how human movement along early shipping routes might have shaped the present-day population structure of D. melanogaster