Money market mutual funds : a reaction to government regulations or a lasting financial innovation?

An abstract for this article is not availableMutual funds

Money market mutual funds and other short-term investment pools

Mutual funds ; Money market

Oil and Natural Gas Industry Contribution to the San Juan Basin

This report examines oil and natural gas production in New Mexico\u27s San Juan Basin during the 1999 to 2003 time period. An overview of markets, an analysis of severance and gross receipts taxes and royalties, and a brief discussion of employment and wage trends in the oil and gas industry are included

Airline Networks: A Comparison of Hub-and-Spoke and Point-to-Point Systems

The disparity between the relative success of low-cost and network carriers since 2001 has often been attributed to the difference in route system architecture. This paper compares the economic and operational characteristics of point-to-point and hub-and-spoke route systems. It also argues that the emphasis placed on route structure obscures other differences in business models. Although U.S. low-cost-carriers are frequently characterized as operating point-to-point systems, few actually do so. As network airlines simplify their domestic products and the low-cost-carriers diversify theirs, the distinction between the two is rapidly fading

Bone and metal - an orthopaedic perspective on osseointegration of metals

The area of implant osseointegration is of major importance, given the predicted significant rise in the number of orthopaedic procedures and an increasingly ageing population. Osseointegration is a complex process involving a number of distinct mechanisms affected by the implant bulk properties and surface characteristics. Our understanding and ability to modify these mechanisms through alterations in implant design is continuously expanding. The following review considers the main aspects of material and surface alterations in metal implants, and the extent of their subsequent influence on osseointegration. Clinically, osseointegration results in asymptomatic stable durable fixation of orthopaedic implants. The complexity of achieving this outcome through incorporation and balance of contributory factors is highlighted through a clinical case report

Canadian Research Ethics Board Members’ Attitudes Toward Benefits From Clinical Trials

Background While ethicists have for many years called for human subject trial participants and, in some cases, local community members to benefit from participation in pharmaceutical and other intervention-based therapies, little is known about how these discussions are impacting the practice of research ethics boards (REBs) that grant ethical approval to many of these studies. Methods Telephone interviews were conducted with 23 REB members from across Canada, a major funder country for human subject research internationally. All interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. After coding, the data was analyzed to identify central themes and topics. Themes were identified, application of the themes was confirmed, and these themes were then used to populate the findings of this manuscript. Results Our analysis of the interviews identified two primary themes when considering what benefits are owed to research participants and their communities. 1) Most study participants felt that given that these studies are led by persons in the role of researcher rather than health care provider, they had a limited obligation to provide benefits to study participants. 2) These REB members were all working in Canada, a high income country where most residents enjoy high levels of access to health care. As a result of this context, the study participants tended to focus on ethical concerns including obtaining informed consent and avoiding undue inducement to participate in research rather than ensuring that study participants directly benefit from successful trials. Conclusions Research on REB members’ attitudes toward what benefits are owed to study participants and community members is needed in other countries in order to determine how context affects these attitudes

Intranasal Inhalation of Oxytocin Improves Face Processing in Developmental Prosopagnosia

Developmental prosopagnosia (DP) is characterised by a severe, lifelong impairment in face recognition. Little work has attempted to improve face processing in these individuals, but intriguingly, recent evidence suggests oxytocin can improve face processing in both healthy participants and individuals with autism. This study examined whether oxytocin could also improve face processing in individuals with DP. Ten adults with the condition and 10 matched controls were tested using a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind within-subject experimental design (AB-BA). Each participant took part in two testing sessions where they inhaled 24IU of oxytocin or placebo spray and completed two face processing tests: one assessing face memory and the other face perception. Results showed main effects of both participant group and treatment condition in both face processing tests, but the two did not interact. Specifically, the performance of DP participants was significantly lower than control performance under both oxytocin and placebo conditions, but oxytocin improved processing to a similar extent in both groups

Essays on Teacher Mobility

The allocation of quality teachers across schools is of interest because of both the importance and costliness of teachers as inputs in the education production process. Furthermore, because teachers have preferences over their workplace characteristics, this allocation across schools is nonrandom. This research examines teacher mobility within the school system by focusing on the school characteristics that affect the probability of teachers leaving their current schools. Using longitudinal data on public schools in North Carolina, I estimate teacher mobility probabilities using empirical specifications that incorporate current school characteristics, as well as characteristics of other potential schools. I jointly estimate these teacher mobility probabilities with two endogenous teacher credential outcomes. The joint estimation uses a discrete factor random effects method to control for both individual permanent and time-varying unobserved heterogeneity. Results show that changes in student demographics have significant effects on one-year mobility probabilities. These changes in demographics have different effects across teachers of different experience levels, with teachers early in their careers being more sensitive to changes in student characteristics and salary than more experienced teachers. Long run results suggest that providing beginning teachers with preferred school characteristics may result in a substantial increase in the number of these teachers remaining in the public school system after five years.Doctor of Philosoph

Are corticosteroid injections more beneficial than anaesthetic injections alone in the management of rotator cuff-related shoulder pain? A systematic review.

This is the accepted version of the following article: Tim Cook, Catherine Minns Lowe, Mark Maybury, and Jeremy S. Lewis, ‘Are corticosteroid injections more beneficial than anaesthetic injections alone in the management of rotator cuff-related shoulder pain? A systematic review’, British Journal of Sports Medicine, April 2018, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2016-097444. Published by BMJ Journals. © 2018 The Author(s). Content in the UH Research Archive is made available for personal research, educational, and non-commercial purposes only. Unless otherwise stated, all content is protected by copyright, and in the absence of an open license, permissions for further re-use should be sought from the publisher, the author, or other copyright holder.Objective To compare the effectiveness of corticosteroid injections to local anaesthetic injections in the management of rotator cuff-related shoulder pain (RCRSP). Design Systematic review with best evidence synthesis. Data sources The Cochrane, PubMed, CINAHL Plus, PEDro and EMBASE electronic databases were searched (inception until 8 June 2017). Reference lists of included articles were also hand searched. Eligibility criteria Two reviewers independently evaluated eligibility. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were included if they compared subacromial injections of corticosteroid with anaesthetic injections. Two reviewers independently extracted data regarding short-term, midterm and long-term outcomes for pain, self-reported function, range of motion and patient-perceived improvement. Results Thirteen RCTs (n=1013) were included. Four trials (n=475) were judged as being at low risk of bias. Three studies of low risk of bias favoured the use of corticosteroid over anaesthetic-only injections in the short term (up to 8 weeks). There was strong evidence of no significant difference between injection types in midterm outcomes (12-26 weeks). There was limited evidence of no significant difference between injection types in long-term outcomes. Conclusion Corticosteroid injections may have a short-term benefit (up to 8 weeks) over local anaesthetic injections alone in the management of RCRSP. Beyond 8 weeks, there was no evidence to suggest a benefit of corticosteroid over local anaesthetic injections. Trial registration number PROSPERO CRD42016033161.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Granule formation mechanisms within an aerobic wastewater system for phosphorus removal

Granular sludge is a novel alternative for the treatment of wastewater and offers numerous operational and economic advantages over conventional floccular-sludge systems. The majority of research on granular sludge has focused on optimization of engineering aspects relating to reactor operation with little emphasis on the fundamental microbiology. In this study, we hypothesize two novel mechanisms for granule formation as observed in three laboratory scale sequencing batch reactors operating for biological phosphorus removal and treating two different types of wastewater. During the initial stages of granulation, two distinct granule types (white and yellow) were distinguished within the mixed microbial population. White granules appeared as compact, smooth, dense aggregates dominated by 97.5% "Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis," and yellow granules appeared as loose, rough, irregular aggregates with a mixed microbial population of 12.3% "Candidatus Accumulibacter phosphatis" and 57.9% "Candidatus Competibacter phosphatis," among other bacteria. Microscopy showed white granules as homogeneous microbial aggregates and yellow granules as segregated, microcolony-like aggregates, with phylogenetic analysis suggesting that the granule types are likely not a result of strain-associated differences. The microbial community composition and arrangement suggest different formation mechanisms occur for each granule type. White granules are hypothesized to form by outgrowth from a single microcolony into a granule dominated by one bacterial type, while yellow granules are hypothesized to form via multiple microcolony aggregation into a microcolony-segregated granule with a mixed microbial population. Further understanding and application of these mechanisms and the associated microbial ecology may provide conceptual information benefiting start-up procedures for full-scale granular-sludge reactors