Measurement in Economics and Social Science

The paper discusses measurement, primarily in economics, from both analytical and historical perspectives. The historical section traces the commitment to ordinalism on the part of economic theorists from the doctrinal disputes between classical economics and marginalism, through the struggle of orthodox economics against socialism down to the cold-war alliance between mathematical social science and anti-communist ideology. In economics the commitment to ordinalism led to the separation of theory from the quantitative measures that are computed in practice: price and quantity indexes, consumer surplus and real national product. The commitment to ordinality entered political science, via Arrow’s ‘impossibility theorem’, effectively merging it with economics, and ensuring its sterility. How can a field that has as its central result the impossibility of democracy contribute to the design of democratic institutions? The analytical part of the paper deals with the quantitative measures mentioned above. I begin with the conceptual clarification that what these measures try to achieve is a restoration of the money metric that is lost when prices are variable. I conclude that there is only one measure that can be embedded in a satisfactory economic theory, free from unreasonable restrictions. It is the Törnqvist index as an approximation to its theoretical counterpart the Divisia index. The statistical agencies have at various times produced different measures for real national product and its components, as well as related concepts. I argue that all of these are flawed and that a single deflator should be used for the aggregate and the components. Ideally this should be a chained Törnqvist price index defined on aggregate consumption. The social sciences are split. The economic approach is abstract, focused on the assumption of rational and informed behavior, and tends to the political right. The sociological approach is empirical, stresses the non-rational aspects of human behavior and tends to the political left. I argue that the split is due to the fact that the empirical and theoretical traditions were never joined in the social sciences as they were in the natural sciences. I also argue that measurement can potentially help in healing this split

Early Detection of COVID-19 in Female Athletes Using Wearable Technology

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV), respiratory rate (RR), and resting heart rate (RHR) are common variables measured by wrist-worn activity trackers to monitor health, fitness, and recovery in athletes. Variations in RR are observed in lower-respiratory infections, and preliminary data suggest changes in HRV and RR are linked to early detection of COVID-19 infection in nonathletes. Hypothesis: Wearable technology measuring HRV, RR, RHR, and recovery will be successful for early detection of COVID-19 in NCAA Division I female athletes. Study Design: Cohort study. Level of Evidence: Level 2. Methods: Female athletes wore WHOOP, Inc. bands through the 2020 to 2021 competitive season. Of the athletes who tested positive for COVID (n = 33), 14 had enough data to be assessed (N = 14; 20.0 ± 1.3 years; 69.8 ± 7.2 kg; 172.0 ± 8.3 cm). Roughly 2 weeks of noninfected days were used to set baseline levels of HRV, RR, recovery, and RHR to compare with -3, -2, and -1 days before a positive COVID-19 result. Results: Increases in RR (P = 0.02) were detected on day -3. RHR (P \u3c 0.01) and RR increased (P \u3c 0.01), while HRV decreased (P \u3c 0.05) on day -1, compared with baseline. Differences were noted in all variables on the day of the positive COVID-19 result: decreased HRV (P \u3c 0.05) and recovery scores (P \u3c 0.01), and increased RHR (P \u3c 0.01) and RR (P \u3c 0.01). Conclusion: In female athletes, wearable technology was successful in predicting COVID-19 infection through changes in RR 3 days before a positive test, and also HRV and RHR the day before a positive test. Clinical Relevance: Wearable technology may be used, as part of a multifaceted approach, for the early detection of COVID-19 in elite athletes through monitoring of HRV, RR, and RHR for overall team health

Pre-sleep feeding, sleep quality, and markers of recovery in division I NCAA female soccer players

Pre-sleep nutrition habits in elite female athletes have yet to be evaluated. A retrospective analysis was performed with 14 NCAA Division I female soccer players who wore a WHOOP, Inc. band – a wearable device that quantifies recovery by measuring sleep, activity, and heart rate metrics through actigraphy and photoplethysmography, respectively – 24 h a day for an entire competitive season to measure sleep and recovery. Pre-sleep food consumption data were collected via surveys every 3 days. Average pre-sleep nutritional intake (mean ± sd: kcals 330 ± 284; cho 46.2 ± 40.5 g; pro 7.6 ± 7.3 g; fat 12 ± 10.5 g) was recorded. Macronutrients and kcals were grouped into high and low categories based upon the 50th percentile of the mean to compare the impact of a high versus low pre-sleep intake on sleep and recovery variables. Sleep duration (p = 0.10, 0.69, 0.16, 0.17) and sleep disturbances (p = 0.42, 0.65, 0.81, 0.81) were not affected by high versus low kcal, PRO, fat, CHO intake, respectively. Recovery (p = 0.81, 0.06, 0.81, 0.92), RHR (p = 0.84, 0.64, 0.26, 0.66), or HRV (p = 0.84, 0.70, 0.76, 0.93) were also not affected by high versus low kcal, PRO, fat, or CHO consumption, respectively. Consuming a small meal before bed may have no impact on sleep or recovery

Human airway xenograft models of epithelial cell regeneration

Regeneration and restoration of the airway epithelium after mechanical, viral or bacterial injury have a determinant role in the evolution of numerous respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis, asthma and cystic fibrosis. The study in vivo of epithelial regeneration in animal models has shown that airway epithelial cells are able to dedifferentiate, spread, migrate over the denuded basement membrane and progressively redifferentiate to restore a functional respiratory epithelium after several weeks. Recently, human tracheal xenografts have been developed in immunodeficient severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) and nude mice. In this review we recall that human airway cells implanted in such conditioned host grafts can regenerate a well-differentiated and functional human epithelium; we stress the interest in these humanized mice in assaying candidate progenitor and stem cells of the human airway mucosa

Unconfined Aquifer Flow Theory - from Dupuit to present

Analytic and semi-analytic solution are often used by researchers and practicioners to estimate aquifer parameters from unconfined aquifer pumping tests. The non-linearities associated with unconfined (i.e., water table) aquifer tests makes their analysis more complex than confined tests. Although analytical solutions for unconfined flow began in the mid-1800s with Dupuit, Thiem was possibly the first to use them to estimate aquifer parameters from pumping tests in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, Boulton developed the first transient well test solution specialized to unconfined flow. By the 1970s Neuman had developed solutions considering both primary transient storage mechanisms (confined storage and delayed yield) without non-physical fitting parameters. In the last decade, research into developing unconfined aquifer test solutions has mostly focused on explicitly coupling the aquifer with the linearized vadose zone. Despite the many advanced solution methods available, there still exists a need for realism to accurately simulate real-world aquifer tests

Alternative Splicing at a NAGNAG Acceptor Site as a Novel Phenotype Modifier

Approximately 30% of alleles causing genetic disorders generate premature termination codons (PTCs), which are usually associated with severe phenotypes. However, bypassing the deleterious stop codon can lead to a mild disease outcome. Splicing at NAGNAG tandem splice sites has been reported to result in insertion or deletion (indel) of three nucleotides. We identified such a mechanism as the origin of the mild to asymptomatic phenotype observed in cystic fibrosis patients homozygous for the E831X mutation (2623G>T) in the CFTR gene. Analyses performed on nasal epithelial cell mRNA detected three distinct isoforms, a considerably more complex situation than expected for a single nucleotide substitution. Structure-function studies and in silico analyses provided the first experimental evidence of an indel of a stop codon by alternative splicing at a NAGNAG acceptor site. In addition to contributing to proteome plasticity, alternative splicing at a NAGNAG tandem site can thus remove a disease-causing UAG stop codon. This molecular study reveals a naturally occurring mechanism where the effect of either modifier genes or epigenetic factors could be suspected. This finding is of importance for genetic counseling as well as for deciding appropriate therapeutic strategies

Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Infection Facilitates Invasion of Staphylococcus aureus into the Nasal Mucosa and Nasal Polyp Tissue

Background: Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of severe chronic airway disease, such as nasal polyps. However the mechanisms underlying the initiation of damage and/or invasion of the nasal mucosa by S. aureus are not clearly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction between S. aureus and herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) in the invasion of the nasal mucosa and nasal polyp tissue. Methodology/Principal Findings: Inferior turbinate and nasal polyp samples were cultured and infected with either HSV1 alone, S. aureus alone or a combination of both. Both in turbinate mucosa and nasal polyp tissue, HSV1, with or without S. aureus incubation, led to focal infection of outer epithelial cells within 48 h, and loss or damage of the epithelium and invasion of HSV1 into the lamina propria within 72 h. After pre-infection with HSV1 for 24 h or 48 h, S. aureus was able to pass the basement membrane and invade the mucosa. Epithelial damage scores were significantly higher for HSV1 and S. aureus co-infected explants compared with control explants or S. aureus only-infected explants, and significantly correlated with HSV1-invasion scores. The epithelial damage scores of nasal polyp tissues were significantly higher than those of inferior turbinate tissues upon HSV1 infection. Consequently, invasion scores of HSV1 of nasal polyp tissues were significantly higher than those of inferior turbinate mucosa in the HSV1 and co-infection groups, and invasion scores of S. aureus of nasal polyp tissues were significantly higher than those of inferior turbinate tissues in the co-infection group. Conclusions/Significance: HSV1 may lead to a significant damage of the nasal epithelium and consequently may facilitate invasion of S. aureus into the nasal mucosa. Nasal polyp tissue is more susceptible to the invasion of HSV1 and epithelial damage by HSV1 compared with inferior turbinate mucosa

Traité de l'équilibre des voûtes et de la construction des ponts en maçonnerie /

Atlas has 49 plates numbered 1-49, some of these on double-size leaves folded at center.Includes bibliographical references.Mode of access: Internet