1,206 research outputs found
Real-time prediction with U.K. monetary aggregates in the presence of model uncertainty
A popular account for the demise of the U.K.âs monetary targeting regime in the 1980s blames the fluctuating predictive relationships between broad money and inflation and real output growth. Yet ex post policy analysis based on heavily revised data suggests no fluctuations in the predictive content of money. In this paper, we investigate the predictive relationships for inflation and output growth using both real-time and heavily revised data. We consider a large set of recursively estimated vector autoregressive (VAR) and vector error correction models (VECM). These models differ in terms of lag length and the number of cointegrating relationships. We use Bayesian model averaging (BMA) to demonstrate that real-time monetary policymakers faced considerable model uncertainty. The in-sample predictive content of money fluctuated during the 1980s as a result of data revisions in the presence of model uncertainty. This feature is only apparent with real-time data as heavily revised data obscure these fluctuations. Out-of-sample predictive evaluations rarely suggest that money matters for either inflation or real output. We conclude that both data revisions and model uncertainty contributed to the demise of the U.K.âs monetary targeting regime
A traitâbased approach to plant species selection to increase functionality of farmland vegetative strips
Farmland vegetative strips are a proven source of support for ecosystem services and are globally used to mitigate effects of agricultural intensification. However, increasing pressures on agricultural land require increases in their functionality, such as supporting multiple ecosystem services concurrently.
The plant species sown in a vegetative strip seed mix determine the establishment, plant community, and ecosystem services that are supported. Currently, there is no clearly defined or structured method to select plant species for multifunctional vegetative strips.
Plant traits determine how plants support ecosystem services. Also, the establishment and persistence of plant communities is influenced by key internal and external factors. We propose a novel, evidenceâinformed method of multifunctional vegetative strip design based on these essential traits and factors.
This study had three distinct stages. The first identified plant traits that support water quality protection, pollinators and/or crop pest natural enemies, using existing research evidence. We then identified key factors affecting plant community establishment and persistence. Finally, we applied these standardized methods to design a multifunctional vegetative strip for a specific case study (UK lowland farmland).
Key plant traits identified, included floral display size, flower color, nectar content, leaf surface area, leaf trichome density, percentage fine roots, root length, rooting depth, and root density. Key internal and external establishment factors included life history, native status, distribution, established competitive strategy, associated floristic diversity, flowering time and duration, and preferred soil type and pH. In the United Kingdom case study, we used five different plant traits and all of the identified factors to design a seed mix for a multifunctional vegetative strip.
We present a transferable method of vegetative strip design that can be adapted for other ecosystem services and climates. It provides landowners and advisors with an evidenceâinformed approach to increase field margin functionality while supporting farmland biodiversity
A MULTINATIONAL, DRUG UTILISATION STUDY TO INVESTIGATE THE USE OF DEXMEDETOMIDINE (DEXDORÂŽ) IN CLINICAL PRACTICE IN THE EU
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Avoiding a bad apple: insect pollination enhances fruit quality and economic value
Insect pollination is important for food production globally and apples are one of the major fruit crops which are reliant on this ecosystem service. It is fundamentally important that the full range of benefits of insect pollination to crop production are understood, if the costs of interventions aiming to enhance pollination are to be compared against the costs of the interventions themselves. Most previous studies have simply assessed the benefits of pollination to crop yield and ignored quality benefits and how these translate through to economic values. In the present study we examine the influence of insect pollination services on farmgate output of two important UK apple varieties; Gala and Cox. Using field experiments, we quantify the influence of insect pollination on yield and importantly quality and whether either may be limited by sub-optimal insect pollination. Using an expanded bioeconomic model we value insect pollination to UK apple production and establish the potential for improvement through pollination service management. We show that insects are essential in the production of both varieties of apple in the UK and contribute a total of ÂŁ36.7 million per annum, over ÂŁ6 million more than the value calculated using more conventional dependence ratio methods. Insect pollination not only affects the quantity of production but can also have marked impacts on the quality of apples, influencing size, shape and effecting their classification for market. These effects are variety specific however. Due to the influence of pollination on both yield and quality in Gala, there is potential for insect pollination services to improve UK output by up to ÂŁ5.7 million per annum. Our research shows that continued pollinator decline could have serious financial implications for the apple industry but there is considerable scope through management of wild pollinators or using managed pollinator augmentation, to improve the quality of production. Furthermore, we show that it is critically important to consider all production parameters including quality, varietal differences and management costs when valuing the pollination service of any crop so investment in pollinator management can be proportional to its contribution
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Management and drivers of change of pollinating insects and pollination services. National Pollinator Strategy: for bees and other pollinators in England, Evidence statements and Summary of Evidence
These Evidence Statements provide up-to-date information on what is known (and not known) about the status, values, drivers of change, and responses to management of UK insect pollinators (as was September 2018). This document has been produced to inform the development of England pollinator policy, and provide insight into the evidence that underpins policy decision-making. This document sits alongside a more detailed Summary of Evidence (Annex I) document written by pollinator experts. For information on the development of the statements, and confidence ratings assigned to them, please see section âGeneration of the statementsâ below. Citations for these statements are contained in the Summary of Evidence document
Crystallization and preliminary structural analysis of the giant haemoglobin from Glossoscolex paulistus at 3.2â Ă
Diffraction data to 3.2â
Ă
from crystals of the 3.6â
MDa erythrocruorin from a Brazilian earthworm represent the highest resolution reported to date for similar complexes. An unambiguous molecular replacement solution shows the particle to belong to the type I class
Pairwise tests of purchasing power parity
Given nominal exchange rates and price data on N + 1 countries indexed by i = 0,1,2,âŚ, N, the standard procedure for testing purchasing power parity (PPP) is to apply unit root or stationarity tests to N real exchange rates all measured relative to a base country, 0, often taken to be the U.S. Such a procedure is sensitive to the choice of base country, ignores the information in all the other cross-rates and is subject to a high degree of cross-section dependence which has adverse effects on estimation and inference. In this article, we conduct a variety of unit root tests on all possible N(N + 1)/2 real rates between pairs of the N + 1 countries and estimate the proportion of the pairs that are stationary. This proportion can be consistently estimated even in the presence of cross-section dependence. We estimate this proportion using quarterly data on the real exchange rate for 50 countries over the period 1957-2001. The main substantive conclusion is that to reject the null of no adjustment to PPP requires sufficiently large disequilibria to move the real rate out of the band of inaction set by trade costs. In such cases, one can reject the null of no adjustment to PPP up to 90% of the time as compared to around 40% in the whole sample using a linear alternative and almost 60% using a nonlinear alternative
The Generic Short Patient Experiences Questionnaire (GS-PEQ): identification of core items from a survey in Norway
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Questionnaires are commonly used to collect patient, or user, experiences with health care encounters; however, their adaption to specific target groups limits comparison between groups. We present the construction of a generic questionnaire (maximum of ten questions) for user evaluation across a range of health care services.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Based on previous testing of six group-specific questionnaires, we first constructed a generic questionnaire with 23 items related to user experiences. All questions included a "not applicable" response option, as well as a follow-up question about the item's importance. Nine user groups from one health trust were surveyed. Seven groups received questionnaires by mail and two by personal distribution. Selection of core questions was based on three criteria: applicability (proportion "not applicable"), importance (mean scores on follow-up questions), and comprehensiveness (content coverage, maximum two items per dimension).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>1324 questionnaires were returned providing subsample sizes ranging from 52 to 323. Ten questions were excluded because the proportion of "not applicable" responses exceeded 20% in at least one user group. The number of remaining items was reduced to ten by applying the two other criteria. The final short questionnaire included items on outcome (2), clinician services (2), user involvement (2), incorrect treatment (1), information (1), organisation (1), and accessibility (1).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Generic Short Patient Experiences Questionnaire (GS-PEQ) is a short, generic set of questions on user experiences with specialist health care that covers important topics for a range of groups. It can be used alone or with other instruments in quality assessment or in research. The psychometric properties and the relevance of the GS-PEQ in other health care settings and countries need further evaluation.</p
The distribution and properties of DLAs at z 2 in the EAGLE simulations
Determining the spatial distribution and intrinsic physical properties of
neutral hydrogen on cosmological scales is one of the key goals of
next-generation radio surveys. We use the EAGLE galaxy formation simulations to
assess the properties of damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs) that are
associated with galaxies and their underlying dark matter haloes between 0
z 2. We find that the covering fraction of DLAs increases at
higher redshift; a significant fraction of neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) resides
in the outskirts of galaxies with stellar mass greater than or equal to
10 M; and the covering fraction of DLAs in the circumgalactic
medium (CGM) is enhanced relative to that of the interstellar medium (ISM) with
increasing halo mass. Moreover, we find that the mean density of the HI in
galaxies increases with increasing stellar mass, while the DLAs in high- and
low-halo-mass systems have higher column densities than those in galaxies with
intermediate halo masses (~ 10 M at z = 0). These high-impact
CGM DLAs in high-stellar-mass systems tend to be metal-poor, likely tracing
smooth accretion. Overall, our results point to the CGM playing an important
role in DLA studies at high redshift (z 1). However, their properties
are impacted both by numerical resolution and the detailed feedback
prescriptions employed in cosmological simulations, particularly that of AGN.Comment: 25 pages. Accepted for publication in MNRA
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