Financialisation at a Watershed in the USA

In the period following the Great Recession of 2007-9 the financialisation of the US economy reached a watershed characterised by stagnant financial profits, falling proportions of financial sector and mortgage debt, and rising proportion of public debt. The main macroeconomic indicators of financialisation in the USA show structural breaks that can be dated around the period of the Great Recession. The reliance of households on the formal financial system appears to have weakened for the first time since the early 1980s. The financial sector has lacked the dynamism of the previous three decades becoming more reliant on government. The state has increased its own indebtedness and supported large financial institutions via unconventional monetary policy measures. At the same time, state intervention has tightened the regulatory framework for big banks. The future path of financialisation in the USA will depend heavily on government policy with regard to state debt and financial regulation, although the scope for boosting financialisation is narrow

Coping strategies and postpartum depressive symptoms: A structural equation modelling approach

BACKGROUND: Variables such as the mother's personality, social support, coping strategies and stressful events have been described as risk factors for postpartum depression. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis was used to examine whether neuroticism, perceived social support, perceived life events, and coping strategies are associated with postpartum depressive symptoms at the 8th and 32nd weeks. METHODS: A total of 1626 pregnant women participated in a longitudinal study. Different evaluations were performed 8 and 32weeks after delivery. Several measures were used: the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies (DIGS), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-RS), the St. Paul Ramsey life events scale and the Duke-UNC Functional Social Support Questionnaire. The brief COPE scale was used to measure coping strategies. SEM analysis was conducted for all women and in those women with a clinical diagnosis of postpartum depression. RESULTS: Passive coping strategies were associated with postpartum depressive symptoms at both visits (8th and 32nd weeks). Neuroticism was associated with more passive coping strategies and less active coping strategies. Neuroticism and life stress were positively correlated, and social support was negatively correlated with life stress and neuroticism. CONCLUSIONS: Early identification of potential risk for symptomatology of depression postpartum should include assessment of neuroticism, life events, social support and coping strategies.Gobierno de España. Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII)Spanish Psychiatric Genetics and Genotyping networkRTAGeneralitat de Cataluny

El arte rupestre galaico: una reflexión crítica sobre el presente y una propuesta para el futuro

In the paper it is proposed a management standard for the Galician Rock Art having as basic idea the determination and evaluation of Heritage and, then, to work on it in order to a more effective protection and better social profitabily. General protective measures are considered and deep actions on the scientifically and socially most outstanding units are suggested.En el artículo se pasa revista a los principales problemas de conservación que afectan a los grabados rupestres galaicos y se propone un Plan de Gestión de los mismos. La idea básica es que se determina un Patrimonio, se evalúa y se actúa sobre el mismo para obtener una protección más efectiva y una mayor rentabilización social. Se sugieren acciones profundas sobre conjuntos relevantes y significativos científica y socialmente

A Comprehensive Workflow for General-Purpose Neural Modeling with Highly Configurable Neuromorphic Hardware Systems

In this paper we present a methodological framework that meets novel requirements emerging from upcoming types of accelerated and highly configurable neuromorphic hardware systems. We describe in detail a device with 45 million programmable and dynamic synapses that is currently under development, and we sketch the conceptual challenges that arise from taking this platform into operation. More specifically, we aim at the establishment of this neuromorphic system as a flexible and neuroscientifically valuable modeling tool that can be used by non-hardware-experts. We consider various functional aspects to be crucial for this purpose, and we introduce a consistent workflow with detailed descriptions of all involved modules that implement the suggested steps: The integration of the hardware interface into the simulator-independent model description language PyNN; a fully automated translation between the PyNN domain and appropriate hardware configurations; an executable specification of the future neuromorphic system that can be seamlessly integrated into this biology-to-hardware mapping process as a test bench for all software layers and possible hardware design modifications; an evaluation scheme that deploys models from a dedicated benchmark library, compares the results generated by virtual or prototype hardware devices with reference software simulations and analyzes the differences. The integration of these components into one hardware-software workflow provides an ecosystem for ongoing preparative studies that support the hardware design process and represents the basis for the maturity of the model-to-hardware mapping software. The functionality and flexibility of the latter is proven with a variety of experimental results

Factorization method for difference equations of hypergeometric type on nonuniform lattices

We study the factorization of the hypergeometric-type difference equation of Nikiforov and Uvarov on nonuniform lattices. An explicit form of the raising and lowering operators is derived and some relevant examples are given.Comment: 21 page

The Hahn Quantum Variational Calculus

We introduce the Hahn quantum variational calculus. Necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for the basic, isoperimetric, and Hahn quantum Lagrange problems, are studied. We also show the validity of Leitmann's direct method for the Hahn quantum variational calculus, and give explicit solutions to some concrete problems. To illustrate the results, we provide several examples and discuss a quantum version of the well known Ramsey model of economics.Comment: Submitted: 3/March/2010; 4th revision: 9/June/2010; accepted: 18/June/2010; for publication in Journal of Optimization Theory and Application

Research Letter: Is neuroticism a risk factor for postpartum depression?

Although the relationship between personality and depressive illness is complex (Shea, 2005), there is empirical evidence that some personality features such as neuroticism, harm avoidance, introversion, dependency, self-criticism or perfectionism are related to depressive illness risk (Gunderson et al. 1999).This work was supported by the Instituto Carlos III (Spanish Ministry of Health; grant numbers P1041635, PI041783, PI041779, PI0411761, PI041791, PI041766 and PI041782), as well as the Spanish Psychiatric Genetics and Genotyping network G03/184, RTA (RD06/001/1009), and Generalitat de Catalunya, SGR2009/1435).Ye