Human capital and corruption: a microeconomic model of the bribes market with democratic contestability

To overcome market failures society creates common laws that stimulate or penalize individual actions, the enforcement of which depends on the actions of public authorities who may be susceptible to corruption. Thus, a new market emerges where ‘influences’ are traded. Legislators have incentives to deviate from the goal of efficiency and produce laws that maximize the gains that can be expected from bribes. We model this behaviour for an autocracy versus a democracy, using a microeconomic framework. We assume that in an autocracy rulers have a monopoly over the bribes market, whereas in a democracy conflicting groups compete in the bribes market. In order to bring about the downfall of the incumbent rulers, these groups inform voters of the rulers' deviant actions so that, by a stochastic process, they convince voters of the existence of bribes and therefore gain their votes. The models constructed produce results that are compatible with the well-known stylized facts, namely that (1) in a democracy the level of corruption is lower than in an autocracy, although still positive, that (2) in environments where the level of human capital is higher (the proxy for the voters’ receptivity to the efforts of the opposition), regimes are closer to democracies and the level of corruption is lower, and that (3) the level of corruption is higher in more regulated economies.Human capital; corruption; democracy; computational models

Assessment of the relationship between the upper and lower arch changes with the opening of the expanding screw after the rapid maxillary expansion

Objective: the purpose of this study is to assess the relationship of the upper and lower arch dimension changes after the rapid maxillary expansion (RME) with the screw opening of the modified Hyrax® type appliance. Materials and methods: initial (T1) and final (T2) models of study of 63 children between 7 years and 6 months and 16 years and 5 months were performed. From these, 21 showed maxillary atresia and/ or posterior crossbite and were submitted to expansion and 42 children formed the control group .The appliance used in this work was the modified Hyrax appliance using the 7mm expanding screws 'Dentarum'. The measures of the upper intercanine and the upper and lower intermolar distances were performed in plaster models with the help of a digital paquimeter. The opening of the appliance's screw was also assessed. Results: the RME provoked a statistically significant increase in the upper interdental distances and no statistic significance in the lower interdental distances, i.e. the change in the 16 - 26, 13 - 23 and 36 - 46 distance was of 5,85 mm, 5,31 and 0,34 mm respectively. The average opening of the expander screw, which was of 6,27 mm. Conclusion: the appliance's opening is related to the interdental distance changes, i.e. for each appliance's opening mm, a 0,94 variation in the upper intermolar distance, a 0,87 in the upper intercanine distance and 0,054 in the lower intermolar distance are provoked

The CD14+CD16+ inflammatory monocyte subset displays increased mitochondrial activity and effector function during acute Plasmodium vivax malaria

Infection with Plasmodium vivax results in strong activation of monocytes, which are important components of both the systemic inflammatory response and parasite control. The overall goal of this study was to define the role of monocytes during P. vivax malaria. Here, we demonstrate that P. vivax-infected patients display significant increase in circulating monocytes, which were defined as CD14(+)CD16- (classical), CD14(+)CD16(+) (inflammatory), and CD14loCD16(+) (patrolling) cells. While the classical and inflammatory monocytes were found to be the primary source of pro-inflammatory cytokines, the CD16(+) cells, in particular the CD14(+)CD16(+) monocytes, expressed the highest levels of activation markers, which included chemokine receptors and adhesion molecules. Morphologically, CD14(+) were distinguished from CD14lo monocytes by displaying larger and more active mitochondria. CD14(+)CD16(+) monocytes were more efficient in phagocytizing P. vivax-infected reticulocytes, which induced them to produce high levels of intracellular TNF-alpha and reactive oxygen species. Importantly, antibodies specific for ICAM-1, PECAM-1 or LFA-1 efficiently blocked the phagocytosis of infected reticulocytes by monocytes. Hence, our results provide key information on the mechanism by which CD14(+)CD16(+) cells control parasite burden, supporting the hypothesis that they play a role in resistance to P. vivax infection

Climate change facilitated the early colonization of the Azores Archipelago during medieval times

Humans have made such dramatic and permanent changes to Earth's landscapes that much of it is now substantially and irreversibly altered from its preanthropogenic state. Remote islands, until recently isolated from humans, offer insights into how these landscapes evolved in response to human-induced perturbations. However, little is known about when and how remote systems were colonized because archaeological data and historical records are scarce and incomplete. Here, we use a multiproxy approach to reconstruct the initial colonization and subsequent environmental impacts on the Azores Archipelago. Our reconstructions provide unambiguous evidence for widespread human disturbance of this archipelago starting between 700 -60/+50 and 850 -60/+60 Common Era (CE), ca. 700 y earlier than historical records suggest the onset of Portuguese settlement of the islands. Settlement proceeded in three phases, during which human pressure on the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems grew steadily (i.e., through livestock introductions, logging, and fire), resulting in irreversible changes. Our climate models suggest that the initial colonization at the end of the early Middle Ages (500 to 900 CE) occurred in conjunction with anomalous northeasterly winds and warmer Northern Hemisphere temperatures. These climate conditions likelyinhibited exploration from southern Europe and facilitated human settlers from the northeast Atlantic. These results are consistent with recent archaeological and genetic data suggesting that the Norse were most likely the earliest settlers on the islands

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe

Search for new physics in events with opposite-sign leptons, jets, and missing transverse energy in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search is presented for physics beyond the standard model (BSM) in final states with a pair of opposite-sign isolated leptons accompanied by jets and missing transverse energy. The search uses LHC data recorded at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the CMS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 5 inverse femtobarns. Two complementary search strategies are employed. The first probes models with a specific dilepton production mechanism that leads to a characteristic kinematic edge in the dilepton mass distribution. The second strategy probes models of dilepton production with heavy, colored objects that decay to final states including invisible particles, leading to very large hadronic activity and missing transverse energy. No evidence for an event yield in excess of the standard model expectations is found. Upper limits on the BSM contributions to the signal regions are deduced from the results, which are used to exclude a region of the parameter space of the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. Additional information related to detector efficiencies and response is provided to allow testing specific models of BSM physics not considered in this paper.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO