1,612 research outputs found
Policy Rules, Regime Switches, and Trend Inflation: An Empirical Investigation for the U.S.
This paper estimates Taylor rules featuring instabilities in policy parameters, switches in policy shocks' volatility, and time-varying trend inflation using post-WWII U.S. data. The model embedding the stochastic target performs better in terms of data-fit and identification of the changes in the FOMC's chairmanships. Policy breaks are found not to be synchronized with variations in policy shocks' volatilities. Finally, we detect a negative correlation between systematic monetary policy aggressiveness and inflation gap persistence.
Characterizing rings in terms of the extent of injectivity and projectivity of their modules
Given a ring R, we define its right i-profile (resp. right p-profile) to be
the collection of injectivity domains (resp. projectivity domains) of its right
R-modules. We study the lattice theoretic properties of these profiles and
consider ways in which properties of the profiles may determine the structure
of rings and viceversa. We show that the i-profile is isomorphic to an interval
of the lattice of linear filters of right ideals of R, and is therefore modular
and coatomic. In particular, we give a practical characterization of the
i-profile of a right artinian ring. We show through an example that the
p-profile is not necessarily a set, and also characterize the right p-profile
of a right perfect ring. The study of rings in terms of their (i- or p-)profile
was inspired by the study of rings with no (i- or p-) middle class, initiated
in recent papers by Er, L\'opez-Permouth and S\"okmez, and by Holston,
L\'opez-Permouth and Orhan-Ertas. In this paper, we obtain further results
about these rings and we also use our results to provide a characterization of
a special class of QF-rings in which the injectivity and projectivity domains
of any module coincide.Comment: 19 pages, examples and propositions added. Title change
Policy rules, regime switches, and trend inflation: an empirical investigation for the United States
This paper estimates Taylor rules featuring instabilities in policy parameters and switches in policy shocksvolatility for the post-WWII U.S. economy. We contrast a rule embedding a fixed-inflation target with another featuring trend inflation, i.e. a time-varying inflation target. The rule embedding trend inflation turns out to be a) empirically superior according to a marginal likelihood-based comparison, and b) more able to pin down some relevant episodes of the post-WWII U.S. monetary policy history. Estimates conducted with Greenbook data confirm the empirical superiority of the rule featuring a time-varying inflation target. A comparison with recently published estimates of trend inflation is also conducte
GEANT4-based full simulation of the PADME experiment at the DAΦNE BTF
A possible solution to the dark matter problem postulates that dark particles can interact with Standard Model particles only through a new force mediated by a “portal”. If the new force has a U(1) gauge structure, the “portal” is a massive photon-like vector particle, called dark photon or A′. The PADME experiment at the DAΦNE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) in Frascati is designed to detect dark photons produced in positron on fixed target annihilations decaying to dark matter (e+e-→γA′) by measuring the final state missing mass. The experiment will be composed of a thin active diamond target where a 550 MeV positron beam will impinge to produce e+e- annihilation events. The surviving beam will be deflected with a magnet while the photons produced in the annihilation will be measured by a calorimeter composed of BGO crystals. To reject the background from Bremsstrahlung gamma production, a set of segmented plastic scintillator vetoes will be used to detect positrons exiting the target with an energy lower than that of the beam, while a fast small angle calorimeter will be used to reject the e+e-→γγ(γ) background. To optimize the experimental layout in terms of signal acceptance and background rejection, the full layout of the experiment was modelled with the GEANT4 simulation package. In this paper we will describe the details of the simulation and report on the results obtained with the software
Evidence that muscle cells do not express the histidine-rich glycoprotein associated with AMP deaminase but can internalise the plasma protein
Histidine-rich glycoprotein (HRG) is synthesized by liver and is present at relatively high concentration in the plasma of vertebrates. We have previously described the association of a HRG-like molecule to purified rabbit skeletal muscle AMP deaminase (AMPD). We also provided the first evidence for the presence of a HRG-like protein in human skeletal muscle where a positive correlation between HRG content and total determined AMPD activity has been shown. In the present paper we investigate the origin of skeletal muscle HRG. The screening of a human skeletal muscle cDNA expression library using an anti-HRG antibody failed to reveal any positive clone. The RT-PCR analysis, performed on human skeletal muscle RNA as well as on RNA from the rhabdomyosarcoma (RD) cell line, failed to show any mRNA specific for the plasma HRG or for the putative muscle variant. When the RD cells were incubated with human plasma HRG, a time-dependent increase of the HRG immunoreactivity was detected both at the plasma membrane level and intracellularly. The internalisation of HRG was inhibited by the addition of heparin. The above data strongly suggest that skeletal muscle cells do not synthesize the muscle variant of HRG but instead can actively internalise it from plasma
ochratoxin a as possible factor trigging autism and its male prevalence via epigenetic mechanism
The role of dysbiosis causing leaky gut with xenobiotic production and absorption is increasingly demonstrated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) pathogenesis. Among xenobiotics, we focused on ochratoxin A (one of the major food contaminating mycotoxin), that in vitro and in vivo exerts a male-specific neurotoxicity probably via microRNA modulation of a specific target gene. Among possible targets, we focused on neuroligin4X. Interestingly, this gene carries some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) already correlated with the disease and with illegitimate microRNA binding sites and, being located on X-chromosome, could explain the male prevalence. In conclusion, we propose a possible gene–environment interaction triggering ASD explaining the epigenetic neurotoxic mechanism activated by ochratoxin A in genetically predisposed children. This mechanism offers a clue for male prevalence of the disease and may have an important impact on prevention and cure of ASD
Performance of the PADME calorimeter prototype at the DANE BTF
The PADME experiment at the DANE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) aims at
searching for invisible decays of the dark photon by measuring the final state
missing mass in the process , with undetected. The
measurement requires the determination of the 4-momentum of the recoil photon,
performed using a homogeneous, highly segmented BGO crystals calorimeter. We
report the results of the test of a 55 crystals prototype performed
with an electron beam at the BTF in July 2016
A prototype large-angle photon veto detector for the P326 experiment at CERN
The P326 experiment at the CERN SPS has been proposed with the purpose of
measuring the branching ratio for the decay K^+ \to \pi^+ \nu \bar{\nu} to
within 10%. The photon veto system must provide a rejection factor of 10^8 for
\pi^0 decays. We have explored two designs for the large-angle veto detectors,
one based on scintillating tiles and the other using scintillating fibers. We
have constructed a prototype module based on the fiber solution and evaluated
its performance using low-energy electron beams from the Frascati Beam-Test
Facility. For comparison, we have also tested a tile prototype constructed for
the CKM experiment, as well as lead-glass modules from the OPAL electromagnetic
barrel calorimeter. We present results on the linearity, energy resolution, and
time resolution obtained with the fiber prototype, and compare the detection
efficiency for electrons obtained with all three instruments.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. Presented at the 2007 IEEE Nuclear
Science Symposium, Honolulu HI, USA, 28 October - 3 November 200
Effect of treatment of periodontitis on incretin axis in obese and non-obese individuals: A cohort study
CONTEXT: Periodontitis confers an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes and, in patients with obesity, it might interfere with the incretin axis. The effect of periodontal treatment on glucoregulatory hormones remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of periodontal treatment on incretin axis in obese and lean non-diabetic individuals. SETTING: King's College Dental Hospital and Institute, London, UK. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: The metabolic profile of obese and BMI-normal individuals affected by periodontitis was studied at baseline, 2 and 6 months after intensive periodontal treatment, by measuring plasma insulin, glucagon, GLP-1 and GIP and markers of systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Circulating levels of incretins and inflammatory markers. RESULTS: At baseline, periodontal parameters were worse for obese than non-obese; this was accompanied by higher levels of circulating hs-CRP, insulin and GLP-1. The response to periodontal treatment was less favourable in the obese group, without significant variations of hs-CRP or malondialdehyde. Gluco-regulatory hormones changed differently after treatment: while insulin and glucagon did not vary at 2 and 6 months, GLP-1 and GIP significantly increased at 6 months in both groups. In particular, GLP-1 increased more rapidly in obese participants, while the increase of GIP followed similar trends across visits in both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Nonsurgical treatment of periodontitis is associated with increased GLP-1 and GIP levels in non-obese and obese patients; changes in GLP-1 were more rapid in obese participants. This might have positive implications for the metabolic risk of these individuals
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