199 research outputs found
Brexit and systemic risk
Brexit is likely to cause considerable disruption for financial markets. Some worry that it may also increase systemic risk. This column revisits the debate and argues that an increase in systemic risk is unlikely. While legal âplumbingâ and institutional and regulatory equivalence are of concern, systemic risk is more likely to fall due to increased financial fragmentation and caution by market participants in the face of uncertainty
On Gauge Bosons in the Matrix Model Approach to M Theory
We discuss the appearance of gauge bosons in Banks, Fischler,
Shenker, and Susskind's zero brane quantum mechanics approach to M theory,
compactified on the interval . The necessary bound states of zero
branes are proven to exist by a straightforward application of T-duality and
heterotic -Type I duality. We then study directly the zero brane
Hamiltonian in Type I' theory. This Hamiltonian includes couplings between the
zero branes and background Dirichlet 8 branes localized at the orientifold
planes. We identify states, localized at the orientifold planes, with the
requisite gauge boson quantum numbers. An interesting feature is that
gauge symmetry relates bound states of different numbers of zero branes.Comment: 12 pages, harvmac big. Some minor typos are correcte
Europeâs proposed capital markets union: how disruptive technologies will drive investment and innovation
An EU capital markets union (CMU) has been proposed with the aim of revitalising Europeâs economy by creating efficient funding channels between providers of loanable funds and the firms best placed to use them. Jon Danielsson, Eva Micheler, Katja Neugebauer, Andreas Uthemann and Jean-Pierre Zigrand argue that a successful capital markets union would deliver investment, innovation and growth, but would rely on overcoming difficult regulatory challenges. They note that if it were successfully implemented, the proposed CMU could also change the nature of systemic risk in Europe
Utbildning i ledarskap - en personalekonomisk lÄngsiktig satsning
Sammanfattning Titel: Utbildning i ledarskap â en personalekonomisk lĂ„ngsiktig satsning NivĂ„: Kandidatuppsats 15hp pĂ„ magisterprogrammet i Service Management, Lunds Universitet, Campus Helsingborg. Författare: Eva Berg, Annie Danielsson och Lovisa Doverholm. Handledare: Birgitta Olsson. Problem: En organisations personal betraktas ofta enbart som en kostnad och inte som en intĂ€ktsskapande resurs. Det Ă€r samtidigt personalen som skapar konkurrenskraft pĂ„ marknaden. DĂ€rför borde företag investera i att utbilda och utveckla sin personal. Det anses dock var svĂ„rt att se koppling mellan en utbildningssatsning och effekter som leder till bĂ€ttre lönsamhet. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att undersöka hur det med hjĂ€lp av personalekonomisk metod gĂ„r att synliggöra personalen i en organisation. Vi har gjort en tillĂ€mpning pĂ„ en ledarskapsutbildning. Vi har utrett vilka effekter ledarskapsutbildningar kan ha och hur dessa effekter ekonomiskt kan ta sig i uttryck pĂ„ lĂ„ng sikt i en organisation. Metod: VĂ„r undersökning har bestĂ„tt av en fallstudie pĂ„ ett sjukhus inom Region SkĂ„ne, genom en kvalitativ datainsamling i form av tolv intervjuer. Genom detta synsĂ€tt har fokus lagts pĂ„ beskrivningar av de intervjuade personernas berĂ€ttelser. Ledarskapsutbildningen vi fokuserat pĂ„ Ă€r UGL (Utveckling av grupp och ledare). Slutsatser: Undersökningen har visat att en utbildningsinvestering kan leda till ekonomisk lönsamhet för organisationen, vilket kan synliggöras genom anvĂ€ndning av personalekonomiska kalkyler. UtifrĂ„n en kalkylmodell gĂ„r det att antyda att UGL-utbildningen kan ha pĂ„verkat enhetens intĂ€kter. Nyckelord: Personalekonomi, kalkylering, ledarskap, utbildning, effekter, personal, investering, humankapital och kompetens
Outdoor Office Work - An Interactive Research Project Showing the Way Out
The physical boundaries of office work have become increasingly flexible. Work is conducted at multiple locations outside the office, such as at clients' premises, at home, in cafes, or when traveling. However, the boundary between indoor and outdoor environment seems to be strong and normative regarding how office work is performed. The aim of this study was to explore how office work may be conducted outdoors, understanding how it is being experienced by office employees and identifying its contextual preconditions. Based on a two-year interactive research project, the study was conducted together with a Swedish municipality. Fifty-eight participants engaged in the collaborative learning process, including 40 half-day workshops and reflective group discussions, co-interviews, and participants' independent experimentation of bringing work activities outdoors. Data was collected via interviews, group discussions and a custom-made mobile application. The results showed that a wide range of work activities could be done outdoors, both individually and in collaboration with others. Outdoor work activities were associated with many positive experiences by contributing to a sense of well-being, recovery, autonomy, enhanced cognition, better communication, and social relations, but also with feelings of guilt and illegitimacy. Conditions of importance for outdoor office work to happen and function well were found in the physical environment, where proximity to urban greenspaces stood out as important, but also in the sociocultural and organizational domains. Of crucial importance was managers' attitudes, as well as the overall organizational culture on this idea of bringing office work outdoors. To conclude, if working life is to benefit from outdoor office work, leaders, urban planners and policymakers need to collaborate and show the way out
Insulin receptor activation and down-regulation by cationic lipid transfection reagents
BACKGROUND: Transfection agents comprised of cationic lipid preparations are widely used to transfect cell lines in culture with specific recombinant complementary DNA molecules. We have found that cells in culture are often resistant to stimulation with insulin subsequent to treatment with transfection agents such as LipofectAMINE 2000âą and FuGENE-6âą. This is seen with a variety of different readouts, including insulin receptor signalling, glucose uptake into muscle cells, phosphorylation of protein kinase B and reporter gene activity in a variety of different cell types RESULTS: We now show that this is due in part to the fact that cationic lipid agents activate the insulin receptor fully during typical transfection experiments, which is then down-regulated. In attempts to circumvent this problem, we investigated the effects of increasing concentrations of LipofectAMINE 2000âą on insulin receptor phosphorylation in Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing the human insulin receptor. In addition, the efficiency of transfection that is supported by the same concentrations of transfection reagent was studied by using a green fluorescent protein construct. Our data indicate that considerably lower concentrations of LipofectAMINE 2000âą can be used than are recommended by the manufacturers. This is without sacrificing transfection efficiency markedly and avoids the problem of reducing insulin receptor expression in the cells. CONCLUSION: Widely-used cationic lipid transfection reagents cause a state of insulin unresponsiveness in cells in culture due to fully activating and subsequently reducing the expression of the receptor in cells. This phenomenon can be avoided by reducing the concentration of reagent used in the transfection process
DBI in the Sky
We analyze the spectrum of density perturbations generated in models of the
recently discovered "D-cceleration" mechanism of inflation. In this scenario,
strong coupling quantum field theoretic effects sum to provide a DBI-like
action for the inflaton. We show that the model has a strict lower bound on the
non-Gaussianity of the CMBR power spectrum at an observable level, and is thus
falsifiable. This in particular observationally distinguishes this mechanism
from traditional slow roll inflation generated by weakly interacting scalar
fields. The model also favors a large observable tensor component to the CMBR
spectrum.Comment: 30 pages latex. v2: references added. v3: correction in three point
function. v4: sign of non-Gaussianity corrected; fNL is negativ
Contraception after pregnancy
Whatever the outcome, pregnancy provides the opportunity to offer effective contraception to couples motivated to avoid another pregnancy. This narrative review summarizes the evidence for health providers, drawing attention to current guidelines on which contraceptive methods can be used, and when they should be started after pregnancy, whatever its outcome. Fertility returns within 1 month of the end of pregnancy unless breastfeeding occurs. Breastfeeding, which itself suppresses fertility after childbirth, influences both when contraception should start and what methods can be used. Without breastfeeding, effective contraception should be started as soon as possible if another pregnancy is to be avoided. Interpregnancy intervals of at least 6 months after miscarriage and 1â2 years after childbirth have long been recommended by the World Health Organization in order to reduce the chance of adverse pregnancy outcome. Recent research suggests that this may not be necessary, at least for healthy women <35 years old. Most contraceptive methods can be used after pregnancy regardless of the outcome. Because of an increased risk of venous thromboembolism associated with estrogenâcontaining contraceptives, initiation of these methods should be delayed until 6 weeks after childbirth. More research is required to settle the questions over the use of combined hormonal contraception during breastfeeding, the use of injectable progestinâonly contraceptives before 6 weeks after childbirth, and the use of both hormonal and intrauterine contraception after gestational trophoblastic disease. The potential impact on the risk of ectopic pregnancy of certain contraceptive methods often confuses healthcare providers. The challenges involved in providing effective, seamless service provision of contraception after pregnancy are numerous, even in industrialized countries. Nevertheless, the clear benefits demonstrate that it is worth the effort
Human endometrial cell-type-specific RNA sequencing provides new insights into the embryo-endometrium interplay
STUDY QUESTION: Which genes regulate receptivity in the epithelial and stromal cellular compartments of the human endometrium, and which molecules are interacting in the implantation process between the blastocyst and the endometrial cells?SUMMARY ANSWER: A set of receptivity-specific genes in the endometrial epithelial and stromal cells was identified, and the role of galectins (LGALS1 and LGALS3), integrin beta 1 (ITGB1), basigin (BSG) and osteopontin (SPP1) in embryo-endometrium dialogue among many other protein-protein interactions were highlighted.WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: The molecular dialogue taking place between the human embryo and the endometrium is poorly understood due to ethical and technical reasons, leaving human embryo implantation mostly uncharted.STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: Paired pre-receptive and receptive phase endometrial tissue samples from 16 healthy women were used for RNA sequencing. Trophectoderm RNA sequences were from blastocysts.PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Cell-type-specific RNA-seq analysis of freshly isolated endometrial epithelial and stromal cells using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) from 16 paired pre-receptive and receptive tissue samples was performed. Endometrial transcriptome data were further combined in silico with trophectodermal gene expression data from 466 single cells originating from 17 blastocysts to characterize the first steps of embryo implantation. We constructed a protein-protein interaction network between endometrial epithelial and embryonal trophectodermal cells, and between endometrial stromal and trophectodermal cells, thereby focusing on the very first phases of embryo implantation, and highlighting the molecules likely to be involved in the embryo apposition, attachment and invasion.MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: In total, 499 epithelial and 581 stromal genes were up-regulated in the receptive phase endometria when compared to pre-receptive samples. The constructed protein-protein interactions identified a complex network of 558 prioritized protein-protein interactions between trophectodermal, epithelial and stromal cells, which were grouped into clusters based on the function of the involved molecules. The role of galectins (LGALS1 and LGALS3), integrin beta 1 (ITGB1), basigin (BSG) and osteopontin (SPP1) in the embryo implantation process were highlighted.LARGE SCALE DATA: RNA-seq data are available at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo under accession number GSE97929.LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Providing a static snap-shot of a dynamic process and the nature of prediction analysis is limited to the known interactions available in databases. Furthermore, the cell sorting technique used separated enriched epithelial cells and stromal cells but did not separate luminal from glandular epithelium. Also, the use of biopsies taken from non-pregnant women and using spare IVF embryos (due to ethical considerations) might miss some of the critical interactions characteristic of natural conception only.WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: The findings of our study provide new insights into the molecular embryo-endometrium interplay in the first steps of implantation process in humans. Knowledge about the endometrial cell-type-specific molecules that co-ordinate successful implantation is vital for understanding human reproduction and the underlying causes of implantation failure and infertility. Our study results provide a useful resource for future reproductive research, allowing the exploration of unknown mechanisms of implantation. We envision that those studies will help to improve the understanding of the complex embryo implantation process, and hopefully generate new prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic approaches to target both infertility and fertility, in the form of new contraceptives.Peer reviewe
School nursesâ view of schoolchildren's health and their attitudes to document it in the school health record - a pilot study
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