Policy lessons from a simple open - economy model

The authors show how two-sector models can be used to derive policy lessons about adjustment in developing economies. In the past two decades, changes in the external environment and in economic policies have been the key factors in the performance of developing economies. By and large the shocks have involved the external sector: terms-of-trade shocks or cutbacks in foreign capital. The policy responses most commonly proposed have targeted the external sector: depreciating the real exchange rate or reducing distortionary taxes to make the economy more competitive. The authors provide a starting point for analyzing the relation between external shocks and policy responses. Starting from a small, one-country, two-sector, three-good (1-2-3) model, the authors outline how the effects of a foreign capital inflow and terms-of-trade shock can be analyzed. They derive the assumptions underlying the conventional policy recommendation of real exchange rate depreciation in response to adverse shocks. The implications of such trade and fiscal policy instruments as export subsidies, import tariffs, and domestic indirect taxes can also be studied in this framework. The authors show that the standard advice to depreciate the real exchange rate in the wake of an adverse terms-of-trade shock rests on the condition that the income effect of the external shock dominates its substitution effect. But, depending on the characteristics of the economy (for example, the trade elasticities), policy results may run counter to received wisdom. For example, when the substitution effect ofan adverse external shock dominates, real depreciation is inappropriate. An infusion of foreign capital does not necessarily benefit the nontradable sector, as the results of"Dutch disease"models suggest (for example, in the extreme case of nearly infinite substitution elasticity between imports and domestic goods). When import tariffs are significant sources of public revenue, potential revenue losses from tariff cuts must be offset by other revenue sources to maintain the external current account balance. The paper shows a simple way to calculate the necessary tax adjustment. A major advantage of small models is their simplicity. The example in this paper can be solved analytically - either graphically or algebraically. It also can be solved numerically, using such widely available PC-based spreadsheet programs as Excel. The numerical implementation involves only modest data requirements. The data that governments normally release on national income, fiscal, and balance of payments accounts are sufficient.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Markets and Market Access

Deciphering Genetic Diversity in Spathodea campanulata Beauv. from South India Based On Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA Markers

The African tulip (Spathodea campanulata) is a monophyletic species native to tropical forests of sub-Saharan Africa belonging to family Bignoniaceae. Although its endemism in sub-Saharan Africa, it is listed as potential alien invasive species in Pacific, Indian and Caribbean, but also Singapore, Papua New Guinea and Australia. The expansion of its range from ornamental to invasive is being observed in South India. In this study, RAPD based DNA markers have been used to determine genetic diversity of the monophyletic species. About 14 populations were studied from 6 states of South India using 41 random decamer primers. The total number of 517 bands were scored which are generated by 41 primers producing 12.6 bands on an average per primer, of these 517 bands produced 379 were polymorphic showing 73% polymorphism revealing higher level of genetic polymorphism in the study population. The similarity coefficient ranged from 0.312 to 0.837 and the dendrogram constructed by the UPGMA based on Jaccard\u27s similarity matrix farmed two clusters. In the present study, results showed the high degree of genetic diversity within the populations of S. campanulata supporting high degree of adaptation and its range expansion from ornamental to possible invasive species in South India

Integrative genomic analysis identifies ancestry-related expression quantitative trait loci on DNA polymerase β and supports the association of genetic ancestry with survival disparities in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: African Americans with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) have a lower survival rate than whites. This study investigated the functional importance of ancestry-informative single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in HNSCC and also examined the effect of functionally important genetic elements on racial disparities in HNSCC survival. METHODS: Ancestry-informative SNPs, RNA sequencing, methylation, and copy number variation data for 316 oral cavity and laryngeal cancer patients were analyzed across 178 DNA repair genes. The results of expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analyses were also replicated with a Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data set. The effects of eQTLs on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were evaluated. RESULTS: Five ancestry-related SNPs were identified as cis-eQTLs in the DNA polymerase β (POLB) gene (false discovery rate [FDR] < 0.01). The homozygous/heterozygous genotypes containing the African allele showed higher POLB expression than the homozygous white allele genotype (P < .001). A replication study using a GEO data set validated all 5 eQTLs and also showed a statistically significant difference in POLB expression based on genetic ancestry (P = .002). An association was observed between these eQTLs and OS (P < .037; FDR < 0.0363) as well as DFS (P = .018 to .0629; FDR < 0.079) for oral cavity and laryngeal cancer patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Genotypes containing the African allele were associated with poor OS/DFS in comparison with homozygous genotypes harboring the white allele. CONCLUSIONS: Analyses show that ancestry-related alleles could act as eQTLs in HNSCC and support the association of ancestry-related genetic factors with survival disparities in patients diagnosed with oral cavity and laryngeal cancer. Cancer 2017;123:849-60. © 2016 American Cancer Society

Does Development Assistance for Health Really Displace Government Health Spending? Reassessing the Evidence

Rajaie Batniji and Eran Bendavid dispute recent suggestions that health aid to developing countries leads to a displacement of government spending and instead argue that current evidence about aid displacement cannot be used to guide policy

A State of Review on Instigating Resources and Technological Sustainable Approaches in Green Construction

Green building is a way to reduce the impact of the building stock on the environment, society, and economy. Despite the significance of a systematic review for the upcoming project, few studies have been conducted. Studies within the eco-friendly construction scope have been boosted in the past few decades. The present review study intends to critically analyse the available literature on green buildings by identifying the prevalent research approaches and themes. Among these recurring issues are the definition and scope of green buildings, the quantification of green buildings' advantages over conventional ones, and several green building production strategies. The study concludes that the available research focuses mainly on the environmental side of green buildings. In contrast, other crucial points of green building sustainability, such as social impacts, are often neglected. Future research objectives include the effects of climate on the effectiveness of green building assessment methods; verification of the actual performance of green buildings; specific demographic requirements; and future-proofing.O

Cohorts and community: A case study of community engagement in the establishment of a health and demographic surveillance site in Malaysia

Background: Community engagement is an increasingly important requirement of public health research and plays an important role in the informed consent and recruitment process. However, there is very little guidance about how it should be done, the indicators for assessing effectiveness of the community engagement process and the impact it has on recruitment, retention, and ultimately on the quality of the data collected as part of longitudinal cohort studies. Methods: An instrumental case study approach, with data from field notes, policy documents, unstructured interviews, and focus group discussions with key community stakeholders and informants, was used to explore systematically the implementation and outcomes of the community engagement strategy for recruitment of an entire community into a demographic and health surveillance site in Malaysia. Results: For a dynamic cohort, community engagement needs to be an ongoing process. The community engagement process has likely helped to facilitate the current response rate of 85% in the research communities. The case study highlights the importance of systematic documentation of the community engagement process to ensure an understanding of the effects of the research on recruitment and the community. Conclusions: A critical lesson from the case study data is the importance of relationships in the recruitment process for large population-based studies, and the need for ongoing documentation and analysis of the impact of cumulative interactions between research and community engagement. © 2014 Pascale Allotey et al

Serum Renin and Major Adverse Kidney Events in Critically Ill Patients: A Multicenter Prospective Study

BACKGROUND: Preliminary studies have suggested that the renin-angiotensin system is activated in critical illness and associated with mortality and kidney outcomes. We sought to assess in a larger, multicenter study the relationship between serum renin and Major Adverse Kidney Events (MAKE) in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. METHODS: Prospective, multicenter study at two institutions of patients with and without acute kidney injury (AKI). Blood samples were collected for renin measurement a median of 2 days into the index ICU admission and 5-7 days later. The primary outcome was MAKE at hospital discharge, a composite of mortality, kidney replacement therapy, or reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate to ≤ 75% of baseline. RESULTS: Patients in the highest renin tertile were more severely ill overall, including more AKI, vasopressor-dependence, and severity of illness. MAKE were significantly greater in the highest renin tertile compared to the first and second tertiles. In multivariable logistic regression, this initial measurement of renin remained significantly associated with both MAKE as well as the individual component of mortality. The association of renin with MAKE in survivors was not statistically significant. Renin measurements at the second time point were also higher in patients with MAKE. The trajectory of the renin measurements between time 1 and 2 was distinct when comparing death versus survival, but not when comparing MAKE versus those without. CONCLUSIONS: In a broad cohort of critically ill patients, serum renin measured early in the ICU admission is associated with MAKE at discharge, particularly mortality

Simultaneous non-negative matrix factorization for multiple large scale gene expression datasets in toxicology

Non-negative matrix factorization is a useful tool for reducing the dimension of large datasets. This work considers simultaneous non-negative matrix factorization of multiple sources of data. In particular, we perform the first study that involves more than two datasets. We discuss the algorithmic issues required to convert the approach into a practical computational tool and apply the technique to new gene expression data quantifying the molecular changes in four tissue types due to different dosages of an experimental panPPAR agonist in mouse. This study is of interest in toxicology because, whilst PPARs form potential therapeutic targets for diabetes, it is known that they can induce serious side-effects. Our results show that the practical simultaneous non-negative matrix factorization developed here can add value to the data analysis. In particular, we find that factorizing the data as a single object allows us to distinguish between the four tissue types, but does not correctly reproduce the known dosage level groups. Applying our new approach, which treats the four tissue types as providing distinct, but related, datasets, we find that the dosage level groups are respected. The new algorithm then provides separate gene list orderings that can be studied for each tissue type, and compared with the ordering arising from the single factorization. We find that many of our conclusions can be corroborated with known biological behaviour, and others offer new insights into the toxicological effects. Overall, the algorithm shows promise for early detection of toxicity in the drug discovery process

Tasking networked CCTV cameras and mobile phones to identify and localize multiple people

We present a method to identify and localize people by leveraging existing CCTV camera infrastructure along with inertial sensors (accelerometer and magnetometer) within each person’s mobile phones. Since a person’s motion path, as observed by the camera, must match the local motion measurements from their phone, we are able to uniquely identify people with the phones ’ IDs by detecting the statistical dependence between the phone and camera measurements. For this, we express the problem as consisting of a twomeasurement HMM for each person, with one camera measurement and one phone measurement. Then we use a maximum a posteriori formulation to find the most likely ID assignments. Through sensor fusion, our method largely bypasses the motion correspondence problem from computer vision and is able to track people across large spatial or temporal gaps in sensing. We evaluate the system through simulations and experiments in a real camera network testbed