A Long International Monetary Fund Intervention: Portugal 1975-1979

Most of the literature on the interventions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Portugal points to the June 1978 Stand-by arrangement (SBA) between the Portuguese authorities and the IMF as being the first such intervention (Nunes, 2010, Lopes, 1982 and 1996, Pinto, 1983, Schmitt, 1981, or Mateus, 2013). However, our research has unearthed facts that challenge such interpretation. The reasons are many. First, Portugal started using IMF resources since July 1975 and following policies to control the external deficit that were concordant with IMF principles and techniques since December of the same year. Second, Portugal signed an SBA in April 1977, one year before the 1978 one. And third, Portugal did not comply with the performance criteria of the 1978 SBA, which supposedly defined the first “intervention” and, consequently, did not receive any financial assistance from the IMF for its duration: June 1978 to May 1979. Zorrinho (2018) is a recent exception to the common interpretation, suggesting that, rather than a one-year intervention in 1978-1979 and a three-year one in 1983-1985, relations between Portugal and the IMF in order to restore external balance during the period 1975-1985 corresponded to a sort of decade-long IMF intervention, involving three SBAs and various other utilisations of IMF resources on the part of Portugal. We do agree with Zorrinho (2018) that the chronology of the first intervention should be enlarged but not with his proposed chronology, as we believe that the use of IMF resources was interrupted between 1978 and 1983 and that the third SBA signed with the IMF in October 1983 should be viewed in a different framework.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How do patients from South Asian backgrounds experience life on haemodialysis in the UK? : A multicentre qualitative study

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.OBJECTIVES: End-stage kidney disease disproportionately affects people of South Asian origin. This study aimed to uncover the lived experiences of this group of patients on centre-based haemodialysis (HD), the most prevalent dialysis modality. DESIGN: The study utilised a qualitative focus group methodology. Seven focus groups were conducted across four NHS Trusts in the UK including three in Gujarati and two each in Punjabi and Urdu. This provided an inclusive opportunity for South Asian patients to contribute in their language of origin. A total of 24 patients participated. Focus groups were facilitated by bilingual project workers and data were forward translated and analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Four themes were identified. This included (1) 'treatment imposition', which comprised of the restrictive nature of HD, the effects of treatment and the feeling of being trapped in an endless process. (2) The 'patient-clinician relationship' centred around the impact of a perceived lack of staff time, and inadequacies in the quality of interactions. (3) 'Coping strategies' highlighted the role of cognitive reappraisal, living in the moment and family support networks in facilitating adjustment. (4) 'Pursuit of transplantation' included equating this form of treatment with restoring normality, alongside cultural factors limiting hopefulness for receiving an organ. CONCLUSIONS: In general, the experiences of South Asian patients receiving HD were not unique to this ethnic group. We did find distinct issues in relation to interactions with healthcare professionals, views on access to transplantation and the importance of family support networks. The study provides useful insights which may help enhance culturally tailored renal care.Peer reviewe

SEPARATION OF TRITIATED WATER FROM WATER USING COMPOSITE MEMBRANES

The work in this task involves the use of composite membranes to remove tritium from contaminated water at DOE sites. Experience with membrane systems in industry indicates that they are inherently energy efficient. Furthermore, membrane technologies such as reverse-osmosis have been well developed for desalination and other industrial/municipal applications. Aromatic polyphosphazenes were chosen as the polymeric material for the membranes being investigated because they have excellent radiological, thermal, and chemical stability. The FY-96 effort is directed toward empirical delineation of a potential mechanism, providing a statistical approach to data acquisition, further mass balance determination, and a preliminary design for the module staged array

Magnetic structure and spin-wave excitations in the multiferroic magnetic metal-organic framework (CD3)(2)ND2[Mn(DCO2)(3)]

The authors thank STFC for the award of beam time at ISIS Neutron and Muon Source. A.E.P. is grateful to EPSRC for funding (EP/L024977/1

Drawing Graphs within Restricted Area

We study the problem of selecting a maximum-weight subgraph of a given graph such that the subgraph can be drawn within a prescribed drawing area subject to given non-uniform vertex sizes. We develop and analyze heuristics both for the general (undirected) case and for the use case of (directed) calculation graphs which are used to analyze the typical mistakes that high school students make when transforming mathematical expressions in the process of calculating, for example, sums of fractions

Biophysical Regulation of Chromatin Architecture Instills a Mechanical Memory in Mesenchymal Stem Cells

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material.This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 AR056624, R01 EB02425, T32 AR007132, and P30 AR050950) and a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship (GENOMICDIFF, grant No. 301509). Additional support was provided by a Montague Research Award from the Perelman School of Medicine and a University of Pennsylvania University Research Foundation Award

Cylindrical fractional Brownian motion in Banach spaces

In this article we introduce cylindrical fractional Brownian motions in Banach spaces and develop the related stochastic integration theory. Here a cylindrical fractional Brownian motion is understood in the classical framework of cylindrical random variables and cylindrical measures. The developed stochastic integral for deterministic operator valued integrands is based on a series representation of the cylindrical fractional Brownian motion, which is analogous to the Karhunen-Loève expansion for genuine stochastic processes. In the last part we apply our results to study the abstract stochastic Cauchy problem in a Banach space driven by cylindrical fractional Brownian motion