Does High Inflation Affect Growth in the Long and Short Run?

This paper investigates the relationship between inflation and output in the context of an economy facing persistent high inflation. By analyzing the case of Brazil, we find that inflation does not impact real output in the long run, but that in the short run there exists a negative effect from inflation on output. These results support Sidrauski’s (1967) superneutrality of money in the long run, but cast doubt on the short run implications of the model for separable utility functions in consumption and real money balances, as exposed by Fischer (1979). The results are more likely to support a class of utility functions in which real money balances and consumption are perfect complements.inflation; growth; output

Categorical Groups, Knots and Knotted Surfaces

We define a knot invariant and a 2-knot invariant from any finite categorical group. We calculate an explicit example for the Spun Trefoil.Comment: 40 pages, lots of figures. Second version: Added example and discussion, clarification of the fact that the maps associated with Reidemeister Moves are well define

Human Capital and Collegiality in Academic Beehives: Theory and Analysis of European Economics Faculties

This study investigates the importance of the quality of human capital investment and collegiality (i.e., good colleagues) in achieving the type of acclaim in economics captured by receipt of the Yrjö Jahnsson Award, arguably the second-most prestigious award that a European economist can receive as recognition of the importance of his or her research endeavors. We provide an economic model as a foundation for both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Our results indicate that four institutions, namely the Toulouse School of Economics, University College London, University of Oxford and the London School of Economics generally rank highest in supporting a position of acclaim among academic economics faculties in Europe

Learning Bidding Strategies in Local Electricity Markets using Ant Colony optimization

Local energy markets (LM) are attracting significant interest due to their potential of balancing generation and consumption and supporting the adoption of distributed renewable sources at the distribution level. Besides, LMs aim at increasing the participation of small end-users in energy transactions, setting the stage for transactive energy systems. In this work, we explore the use of ant colony optimization (ACO) for learning bidding strategies under a bi-level optimization framework that arises when trading energy in an LM. We performed an empirical analysis of the impact of ACO parameters have in the learning process and the obtained profits of agents. After that, we analyze and compare ACO performance against an evolutionary algorithm under a realistic case study with nine agents trading energy in the day-ahead LM. Results suggest that ACO can be efficient for strategic learning of agents, providing solutions in which all agents can improve their profits. Overall, it is shown the advantages that an LM can bring to market participants, thereby increasing the tolerable penetration of renewable resources and facilitating the energy transition.This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under project DOMINOES (grant agreement No 771066) and CENERGETIC (POCI-01-0145- FEDER-028983 and PTDC/EEI-EEE/28983/2017), from FEDER Funds through COMPETE program and from National Funds through (FCT) under the project UIDB/00760/2020, and grants CEECIND/02814/2017, CEECIND/02887/2017, SFRH/BD/133086/2017.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Segmentation of pathological liver tissue with Dilated Fully Convolutional Networks: A Preliminary Study

Early detection of liver cancer, whether from primary occurrence or from metastization is highly important to establish informed treatment decisions. Accurate delineation of the liver tissues of interest facilitates quantitative assessment of the regions of interest, treatment application, and prognosis. Segmentation of the liver in Computer Tomography (CT) images allows the extraction of the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the liver tissues in which the observation of their relative position to one another is particularly important in treatment scenarios of radiation therapy or interventional surgery planning. The adequate receptive field for the segmentation of such a big organ in CT images, from the remaining neighbouring organs was very successfully improved by the use of the state-of-the-art Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) algorithms, however, certain issues still arise and are highly dependent of pre-or post-processing methods to refine the final segmentations. Here, the effects of Dilated Convolutional Networks is proposed, for the purpose of improving segmentation of liver tissues in CT. The introduction of a dilation module allowed the concatenation of feature maps with a richer contextual information. The hierarchical learning process given by different dilated convolutional layers is analysed quantitatively. Experiments on the MICCAI Lits challenge dataset are described achieving segmentations with a mean Dice coefficients of 95.57% and 59.36% for the liver and liver tumour, using a total number 30 CT test volumes. (c) ENBENG 2019. All Rights Reserved

Análise in vitro da distribuição de tensões em implantes angulados de diferentes comprimentos

: Neste trabalho apresenta-se um estudo realizado para avaliar computacionalmente ouso de implantes curtos em reabilitação mandibular total com base no Método dos ElementosFinitos. Em particular, verifica-se como o comprimento desses implantes influencia adistribuição de tensões durante a aplicação de cargas mastigatórias em reabilitaçõesmandibulares de acordo com o conceito All-on-4®

A multimodal stimulation cell culture bioreactor for tissue engineering: A numerical modelling approach

This research was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and Centro2020 through the following Projects: UIDP/04044/2020, PAMI—ROTEIRO/0328/2013 (No 022158) and Stimuli2BioScaffold— Stimuli modelling for BioScaffolds: from numerical modelling to in vitro tests co-financed by COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 programme, and supported by FCT (02/SAICT/2017). Ref. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032554; Bone2Move—Development of “in vivo” experimental techniques and modeling methodologies for the evaluation of 4D scaffolds on bone defect in sheep model: an integrative research approach co-financed by COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 programme, and supported by FCT (02/SAICT/2017), Project nº 31146; MATIS—MATERIALS AND SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGIES (CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-000014-3362); Instituto de Biofísica e Engenharia Biomédica (IBEB) is supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, under Grant n UIDB/00645/2020. Also supported by UID/BIO/04565/2020.The use of digital twins in tissue engineering (TE) applications is of paramount importance to reduce the number of in vitro and in vivo tests. To pursue this aim, a novel multimodal bioreactor is developed, combining 3D design with numerical stimulation. This approach will facilitate the reproducibility between studies and the platforms optimisation (physical and digital) to enhance TE. The new bioreactor was specifically designed to be additive manufactured, which could not be reproduced with conventional techniques. Specifically, the design suggested allows the application of dual stimulation (electrical and mechanical) of a scaffold cell culture. For the selection of the most appropriate material for bioreactor manufacturing several materials were assessed for their cytotoxicity. Numerical modelling methods were then applied to the new bioreactor using one of the most appropriate material (Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol-modified (PETG)) to find the optimal stimulation input parameters for bone TE based on two reported in vitro studies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

TDF/FTC electrospun nanofibers for topical prevention of HIV transmission

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is still a problem for global health so, there is a strong need to develop effective microbicides that can be used safely to protect from infection during sexual intercourse. This pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) may be formulations containing oral or topical microbicides. Topical formulations have advantages as they are suitable for vaginal or rectal application and allow a higher local concentration of drug. It is recognized that the use of electrospun nanofibers for drug carriers is very promising in the biomedical field. So, the objective of this study is to develop a novel device for local application of antiretroviral microbicides enabling a controlled release of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) and emtricitabine (FTC), based on electrospun polymeric nanofibers. The aim of this study is to encapsulate TDF and FTC into electrospun polymeric nanofibers. Chosen polymers were polycaprolactone (PCL) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA).info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

A Review of This Enzyme Role in the Intestinal Barrier Function

Funding Information: This study was supported by ERDF through the operation POCI-01-0145-ERDF-007746 funded by Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionaliza??o?COMPETE2020 and by National Funds through FCT?Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e a Tecnologia within CINTESIS, R&D Unit (reference UID/IC/4255/2013) and (PTDC/BAA-AGR/7419/2020).Intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IALP) has recently assumed a special relevance, being the subject of study in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases related to leaky gut. This brush border enzyme (ecto-enzyme) plays an important role in the maintenance of intestinal microbial homeostasis and intestinal barrier function through its ability to dephosphorylate lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This review addresses how IALP and intestinal barrier dysfunction may be implicated in the pathophysiology of specific diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, necrotizing enterocolitis, and metabolic syndrome. The use of IALP as a possible biomarker to assess intestinal barrier function and strategies to modulate IALP activity are also discussed.publishersversionpublishe