Unemployment Cycles

The labor market by itself can create cyclical outcomes, even in the absence of exogenous shocks. We propose a theory in which the search behavior of the employed has profound aggregate implications for the unemployed. There is a strategic complementarity between active on-the-job search and vacancy posting by firms, which leads to multiple equilibria: in the presence of sorting, active on-the-job search improves the quality of the pool of searchers. This encourages vacancy posting, which in turn makes costly on-the-job search more attractive — a self-fulfilling equilibrium. The model provides a rationale for the Jobless Recovery, the outward shift of the Beveridge curve during the boom and for pro-cyclical frictional wage dispersion. Central to the model's mechanism is the fact that the employed crowd out the unemployed when on-the-job search picks up during recovery. We also illustrate this mechanism in a stylized calibration exercise

Baking quality of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum l.) is influenced by fractionation of nitrogen fertilization

Non-Peer ReviewedNitrogen (N) fertilization is one of the most common agronomic practice to increase wheat grain yield and protein content. However, the beneficial effects of nitrogen fertilization on grain yield and quality vary significantly [1]. The objective of the study was to understand the effect of total applied N and in fractions on the wheat grain protein composition and flour functionality under western European growth conditions. A field trial with five winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars, fertilized with 3 N-rates (suggested, -30% and +30%) applied in 3 or 4 fractions, were studied for grain yield and kernel characteristics, whole meal and flour composition and functionality. Flour quality was analyzed by baking tests and an elaborate screening of the bread quality. A significant interaction between total N and fractionation was observed for both yield and protein content whereas protein composition (gluten index, Farinograph water absorption and Alveograph P/L) was solely influenced by the fractionation of N application. Applying N in four fractions resulted in an overall 3.7% increase in loaf volume compared to three N-fractions. Principal component analysis illustrated the major contribution of starch related properties to end-product quality of bread, and a prominent genotype-effect which was observed throughout the stud

Ability of FFR-CT to detect the absence of hemodynamically significant lesions in patients with high-risk NSTE-ACS admitted in the emergency department with chest pain, study design and rationale.

In the era of High-sensitive troponin (hs-Tn), up to 50% of patients with a mild increase of hs-Tn will finally have a normal invasive coronary angiogram. Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR) derived from coronary computed tomographic angiography (FFR-CT) has never been used as a non-invasive tool for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease in patients with high-risk acute coronary syndrome without ST segment elevation (NSTE-ACS). The study aims to determine the role of coronary CT angiography and FFR-CT in the setting of high-risk NSTE-ACS. We will conduct a prospective trial, enrolling 250 patients admitted with high-risk NSTE-ACS who will rapidly undergo a coronary CT angiography and then a coronary angiography with FFR measurements. Results of coronary CT, FFR-CT and coronary angiography (± FFR) will be compared. In conclusion, non-invasive identification of patients with high-risk NSTE-ACS who could avoid coronary angiography would reduce procedure related risks and medical costs

What Role for TDIs Between the EU and the UK After Brexit: A Trade or Competition Solution to a Future Problem?

This article examines different options for trade defence that would be open to the United Kingdom (UK) once it leaves the European Union (EU). It focuses on the role of trade defence instruments (TDIs) in the UK’s future trading future outside the bloc. If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, the country will be left to rely on WTO trading rules. The article looks at the UK’s continued membership to the WTO and the many hurdles the UK is likely to face in the WTO after Brexit, in particular in in issuing independent schedules for trade and services and identifying the UK’s own commitments independent of those of the EU. The article highlights the importance of TDIs to ensure that the UK is in a position to protect its industries from unfair competition after Brexit. It reviews recent proposals to establish a new trade authority and to build up the UK’s TDI capabilities. The article looks at trade defence options that would be available to the UK if it agreed to take part in a customs union with the EU, taking stock of the EU-Turkey customs union’s mixed record. Finally, it highlights that a competition law Brexit solution would leave no room for an independent trade defence

Adduct formation identification between phenyl glycidyl ether and 2'-deoxyadenosine and thymidine by chromatography, mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Thymidine 2'-deoxyadenosine were reacted with phenyl glycidyl ether in order to study the formation of the corresponding 2'-deoxynucleoside adducts. Separation methods were elaborated using either reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode-array detection, or centrifugal circular thin-layer chromatography. The adducts were isolated on a preparative scale and were fully characterized by UV spectroscopy, desorption chemical ionization and fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry and 270- and 360-MHz 1H NMR spectrometry. For thymidine the main adduct was characterized as N-3-(2-hydroxy-3-phenoxypropyl)thymidine. With 2'-deoxyadenosine, predominantly N-l-(2-hydroxy-3-phenoxypropyl)-2'-deoxyadenosine was formed. With longer reaction times, the formation of a minor amount of dialkylated 2'-deoxyadenosine was observed. These nucleoside adducts will be used as marker compounds for studies of DNA adduct formation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28807/1/0000641.pd

Statistical Outliers and Dragon-Kings as Bose-Condensed Droplets

A theory of exceptional extreme events, characterized by their abnormal sizes compared with the rest of the distribution, is presented. Such outliers, called "dragon-kings", have been reported in the distribution of financial drawdowns, city-size distributions (e.g., Paris in France and London in the UK), in material failure, epileptic seizure intensities, and other systems. Within our theory, the large outliers are interpreted as droplets of Bose-Einstein condensate: the appearance of outliers is a natural consequence of the occurrence of Bose-Einstein condensation controlled by the relative degree of attraction, or utility, of the largest entities. For large populations, Zipf's law is recovered (except for the dragon-king outliers). The theory thus provides a parsimonious description of the possible coexistence of a power law distribution of event sizes (Zipf's law) and dragon-king outliers.Comment: Latex file, 16 pages, 1 figur

Global Patterns of City Size Distributions and Their Fundamental Drivers

Urban areas and their voracious appetites are increasingly dominating the flows of energy and materials around the globe. Understanding the size distribution and dynamics of urban areas is vital if we are to manage their growth and mitigate their negative impacts on global ecosystems. For over 50 years, city size distributions have been assumed to universally follow a power function, and many theories have been put forth to explain what has become known as Zipf's law (the instance where the exponent of the power function equals unity). Most previous studies, however, only include the largest cities that comprise the tail of the distribution. Here we show that national, regional and continental city size distributions, whether based on census data or inferred from cluster areas of remotely-sensed nighttime lights, are in fact lognormally distributed through the majority of cities and only approach power functions for the largest cities in the distribution tails. To explore generating processes, we use a simple model incorporating only two basic human dynamics, migration and reproduction, that nonetheless generates distributions very similar to those found empirically. Our results suggest that macroscopic patterns of human settlements may be far more constrained by fundamental ecological principles than more fine-scale socioeconomic factors