The Global Economic Recession and Industrial Structure: Evidence from Four Asian Dragons

The collapse of exports that has attended the current global economic recession threatens the export-led economic growth of the four Asian dragons. To better understand the economic performances and future prospects of the four dragons, this paper first examines the economic structural changes that have taken place in Hong Kong, China; the Republic of Korea; Singapore; and Taipei,China, as well as the gradual shifting of the sources of economic growth away from the manufacturing sector and toward the service sector. Following this, a panel data set for the four dragons for the period 1995–2008 is constructed and a fixed-effects model applied to the data.global economic recession; asian dragons; new service development; industrial structure

Responses of Real Output in Serbia to the Financial and Global Economic Conditions

Applying and extending Taylor (1993, 1999) and Romer (2000, 2006), this paper examines output fluctuations for Serbia based on a simultaneous equation model consisting of the open-economy IS function, the monetary policy function, and uncovered interest parity. The GARCH(1,0) model is employed because the residual variance is affected by the past variance. Real GDP is positively affected by the real stock price and real government deficit and negatively influenced by expected real depreciation of the dinar, the world real interest rate, and the inflation rate. There are significant seasonal effects. Therefore, a healthy stock market, a stronger dinar, a lower world real interest rate, a lower inflation rate, and an active fiscal policy will play important roles in the recovery of the Serbian economy.monetary policy function, uncovered interest parity, exchange rate, world interest rate, inflation rate, government deficit

Impacts of macroeconomic variables on the stock market index in Poland: new evidence

Applying the GARCH or ARCH model, this paper finds that Poland's stock market index is positively associated with industrial production or real GDP and the German stock market index, negatively affected by the government borrowing/GDP ratio, the real interest rate, the nominal effective exchange rate, the expected inflation rate, and the government bond yield in the euro area, and exhibits a quadratic relationship with the M2/GDP ratio. It suggests that the stock market index and the M2/GDP ratio show a positive (negative) relationship if the M2/GDP ratio is less (greater) than the critical value of 43.68%. Hence, to maintain a healthy stock market, the Polish authorities are expected to pursue economic growth, reduce government borrowing, avoid currency appreciation, and keep a relatively low interest rate or a relatively low expected inflation rate. Although currency appreciation has a negative impact on the stock market index, it is possible that the negative relationship might change if a certain threshold value is reached in the future

Pion PDFs confronted by Fixed-Target Charmonium Production

The pion, as the Goldstone boson of the strong interaction, is the lightest QCD bound state and responsible for the long-range nucleon-nucleon interaction inside the nucleus. Our knowledge on the pion partonic structure is limited by the existing Drell-Yan data which are primarily sensitive to the pion valence-quark distributions. The recent progress of global analysis of pion's parton distribution functions (PDFs) utilizing various experimental approaches are introduced. From comparisons between the pion-induced $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$ production data with theoretical calculations using the CEM and NRQCD models, we show how these charmonium production data could provide useful constraints on the pion PDFs.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; invited review. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2006.06947, arXiv:2209.0407

Antidepressant-Like Activity of the Ethanolic Extract from Uncaria lanosa Wallich var. appendiculata Ridsd in the Forced Swimming Test and in the Tail Suspension Test in Mice

This study investigated the antidepressant activity of ethanolic extract of U. lanosa Wallich var. appendiculata Ridsd (ULEtOH) for two-weeks administrations by using FST and TST on mice. In order to understand the probable mechanism of antidepressant-like activity of ULEtOH in FST and TST, the researchers measured the levels of monoamines and monoamine oxidase activities in mice brain, and combined the antidepressant drugs (fluoxetine, imipramine, maprotiline, clorgyline, bupropion and ketanserin). Lastly, the researchers analyzed the content of RHY in the ULEtOH. The results showed that ULEtOH exhibited antidepressant-like activity in FST and TST in mice. ULEtOH increased the levels of 5-HT and 5-HIAA in cortex, striatum, hippocampus, and hypothalamus, the levels of NE and MHPG in cortex and hippocampus, the level of NE in striatum, and the level of DOPAC in striatum. Two-week injection of IMI, CLO, FLU and KET enhanced the antidepressant-like activity of ULEtOH. ULEtOH inhibited the activity of MAO-A. The amount of RHY in ULEtOH was 17.12 mg/g extract. Our findings support the view that ULEtOH exerts antidepressant-like activity. The antidepressant-like mechanism of ULEtOH may be related to the increase in monoamines levels in the hippocampus, cortex, striatum, and hypothalamus of mice

First- and Second-trimester Down Syndrome Screening: Current Strategies and Clinical Guidelines

SummaryDown syndrome (DS) is the most common human disease caused by a structural chromosome defect. The original screening test for DS was maternal age or a history of a previously affected infant. Maternal serum screening has been incorporated into routine prenatal checkup in Taiwan since 1994. We used free β-human chorionic gonadotropin and α-fetoprotein (double test) as the serum markers, and this was carried out between the 15 to 20th week of gestation. The overall detection rate was 56% and was compatible with studies of Caucasian populations. The impact of double tests in Taiwan has shown itself by a dramatic lowering of the rate of DS live birth from 0.63 before screening to 0.16 per 1,000 live births at present. However, because of its relatively low detection rate and poor cost-effectiveness, the double test is not justified as a routine screening tool currently. First-trimester combined test is now becoming more widely available and provides increased sensitivity when detecting DS; it has a detection rate of approximately 85% with a false-positive rate of 5%. Nuchal translucency measurement requires ongoing quality control and sufficient certificated obstetricians; therefore, first-trimester ultrasound is limited only in designated centers. The quadruple test, having comparable detection rate, should be considered for incorporation into second-trimester screening in Taiwan in the near future. Other screening approaches and combinations have also been utilized in the Western countries. In this review, we outline the various options with respect to DS screening and hope that this will provide practical information for physicians offering such screenings. [Taiwan J Obstet Cynecol 2008;47(2):157-1 62

Concurrent image-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy and chemotherapy following neoadjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To evaluate the experience of induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiationwith helical tomotherapy (HT) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between August 2006 and December 2009, 28 patients with pathological proven nonmetastatic NPC were enrolled. All patients were staged as IIB-IVB. Patients were first treated with 2 to 3 cycles of induction chemotherapy with EP-HDFL (Epirubicin, Cisplatin, 5-FU, and Leucovorin). After induction chemotherapy, weekly based PFL was administered concurrent with HT. Radiation consisted of 70 Gy to the planning target volumes of the primary tumor plus any positive nodal disease using 2 Gy per fraction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After completion of induction chemotherapy, the response rates for primary and nodal disease were 96.4% and 80.8%, respectively. With a median follow-up after 33 months (Range, 13-53 months), there have been 2 primary and 1 nodal relapse after completion of radiotherapy. The estimated 3-year progression-free rates for local, regional, locoregional and distant metastasis survival rate were 92.4%, 95.7%, 88.4%, and 78.0%, respectively. The estimated 3-year overall survival was 83.5%. Acute grade 3, 4 toxicities for xerostomia and dermatitis were only 3.6% and 10.7%, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>HT for locoregionally advanced NPC is feasible and effective in regard to locoregional control with high compliance, even after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. None of out-field or marginal failure noted in the current study confirms the potential benefits of treating NPC patients by image-guided radiation modality. A long-term follow-up study is needed to confirm these preliminary findings.</p

Automatic Precipitation Measurement Based on Raindrop Imaging and Artificial Intelligence

Rainfall measurement is subjected to various uncertainties due to the complexity of measurement techniques and atmosphere characteristics associated with weather type. Thus, this article presents a video-based disdrometer to analyze raindrop images by introducing artificial intelligence technology for the rainfall rate. First, a high-speed CMOS camera is integrated into a planar LED as a backlight source for appropriately acquiring falling raindrops in different positions. The falling raindrops can be illuminated and used for further image analysis. Algorithms developed for raindrop detection and trajectory identification are employed. In a field test, a rainfall event of 42 continuous hours has been measured by the proposed disdrometer that is validated against a commercial PARSIVEL² disdrometer and a tipping bucket rain gauge at the same area. In the evaluation for 5-min rainfall images, the results of the trajectory identification are within the precision of 87.8%, recall of 98.4%, and F1 score of 92.8%, respectively. Furthermore, the performance exhibits that the rainfall rate and raindrop size distribution (RSD) obtained by the proposed disdrometer are remarkably consistent with those of PARSIVEL² disdrometer. The results suggest that the proposed disdrometer based on the continuous movements of the falling raindrops can achieve accurate measurements and eliminate the potential errors effectively in the real-time monitoring of rainfall