1,464 research outputs found
Effects of movements in equities prices on M2 demand
Large swings in stock prices are sometimes associated with a redirection of household savings flows. Such changes can lead to transitory increases in M2 as investors temporarily âparkâ funds in depository assets while they determine the fundsâ ultimate destination. The authors find that, although stock price changes are statistically significant as an explanation for M2 growth, they do not account for much of M2âs recent strength.Stock - Prices ; Demand for money
Old and New Fields on Super Riemann Surfaces
The ``new fields" or ``superconformal functions" on super Riemann
surfaces introduced recently by Rogers and Langer are shown to coincide with
the Abelian differentials (plus constants), viewed as a subset of the functions
on the associated super Riemann surface. We confirm that, as originally
defined, they do not form a super vector space.Comment: 9 pages, LaTex. Published version: minor changes for clarity, two new
reference
Network analysis of canine brain morphometry links tumour risk to oestrogen deficiency and accelerated brain ageing.
Structural 'brain age' is a valuable but complex biomarker for several brain disorders. The dog is an unrivalled comparator for neurological disease modeling, however canine brain morphometric diversity creates computational and statistical challenges. Using a data-driven approach, we explored complex interactions between patient metadata, brain morphometry, and neurological disease. Twenty-four morphometric parameters measured from 286 canine brain magnetic resonance imaging scans were combined with clinical parameters to generate 9,438 data points. Network analysis was used to cluster patients according to their brain morphometry profiles. An 'aged-brain' profile, defined by a small brain width and volume combined with ventriculomegaly, was revealed in the Boxer breed. Key features of this profile were paralleled in neutered female dogs which, relative to un-neutered females, had an 11-fold greater risk of developing brain tumours. Boxer dog and geriatric dog groups were both enriched for brain tumour diagnoses, despite a lack of geriatric Boxers within the cohort. Our findings suggest that advanced brain ageing enhances brain tumour risk in dogs and may be influenced by oestrogen deficiency-a risk factor for dementia and brain tumours in humans. Morphometric features of brain ageing in dogs, like humans, might better predict neurological disease risk than patient chronological age
Reducing - duality to - duality
The infrared limit of Yang-Mills theory with compact gauge group
compactified on a two-torus is governed by an effective superconformal
field theory. We conjecture that this is a certain orbifold involving the
maximal torus of . Yang-Mills -duality makes predictions for all
correlators of this effective conformal field theory. These predictions are
shown to be implied by the standard -duality of the conformal field theory.
Consequently, Montonen-Olive duality between electric and magnetic states
reduces to the standard two-dimensional duality between momentum and winding
states.Comment: 13 pages, harvmac, no figures. (Some Comments added. Some references
added.
Health-related Quality of Life in Pediatric Patients With Chronic Hepatitis B Living in the United States and Canada
OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to determine whether selected sociodemographic and hepatitis B virus (HBV)-specific clinical factors are associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among pediatric patients chronically infected with HBV.
METHODS: Children with chronic HBV enrolled in the Hepatitis B Research Network completed the Child Health Questionnaire at study entry. Caregivers of children 5 to <10 years completed the parent-reported form (CHQ-Parent Report Form); youth 10 to <18 years completed the child-reported CHQ-Child Report Form. We examined univariable associations of the Child Health Questionnaire scores with selected independent variables: sex, adoption status, maternal education, alanine aminotransferase (U/L), aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index, and HBV-specific symptom count.
RESULTS: A total of 244 participants (83 young children 5-<10 years, 161 youth 10-<18 years) were included, all HBV treatment-naĂŻve. Among young children, increased alanine aminotransferase level was negatively associated with CHQ-Parent Report Form psychosocial summary t score (râ=â-0.28, Pâ=â0.01). No other subscale comparisons for young children were statistically significant. Among youth, adoption was associated with better physical functioning and general health (Pâ<â0.01). Higher maternal education was associated with better role/functioning-physical and -emotional scores (Pâ<â0.05). Maternal education and adoption status were linked with adoption associated with higher maternal education. Increased symptom count in youth was associated with worse HRQoL in subscales measuring bodily pain, behavior, mental health, and self-esteem (Pâ<â0.01).
CONCLUSIONS: Although overall HRQoL is preserved in children with chronic HBV, some sociodemographic and HBV-related clinical factors were associated with impaired HRQoL in our pediatric patients at baseline. Measurement of HRQoL can focus resources on education and psychosocial support in children and families most in need
Fivebrane Instantons and couplings in String Theory
We compute the gravitational coupling for IIA string theory on and use string-string duality to deduce the corresponding term for
heterotic string on . The latter is an infinite sum of gravitational
instanton effects which we associate with the effects of Euclidean fivebranes
wrapped on . These fivebranes are the neutral fivebranes or zero size
instantons of heterotic string theory.Comment: 16 pages, harvmac, no figure
Optimizing PiB-PET SUVR change-over-time measurement by a large-scale analysis of longitudinal reliability, plausibility, separability, and correlation with MMSE
AbstractQuantitative measurements of change in ÎČ-amyloid load from Positron Emission Tomography (PET) images play a critical role in clinical trials and longitudinal observational studies of Alzheimer's disease. These measurements are strongly affected by methodological differences between implementations, including choice of reference region and use of partial volume correction, but there is a lack of consensus for an optimal method. Previous works have examined some relevant variables under varying criteria, but interactions between them prevent choosing a method via combined meta-analysis. In this work, we present a thorough comparison of methods to measure change in ÎČ-amyloid over time using Pittsburgh Compound B (PiB) PET imaging.MethodsWe compare 1,024 different automated software pipeline implementations with varying methodological choices according to four quality metrics calculated over three-timepoint longitudinal trajectories of 129 subjects: reliability (straightness/variance); plausibility (lack of negative slopes); ability to predict accumulator/non-accumulator status from baseline value; and correlation between change in ÎČ-amyloid and change in Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) scores.Results and conclusionFrom this analysis, we show that an optimal longitudinal measure of ÎČ-amyloid from PiB should use a reference region that includes a combination of voxels in the supratentorial white matter and those in the whole cerebellum, measured using two-class partial volume correction in the voxel space of each subject's corresponding anatomical MR image
Xenobiotic CAR activators induce Dlk1-Dio3 locus non-coding RNA expression in mouse liver
Predicting the impact of human exposure to chemicals such as pharmaceuticals and
agrochemicals requires the development of reliable and predictive biomarkers
suitable for the detection of early events potentially leading to adverse outcomes. In
particular, drug-induced non-genotoxic carcinogenesis (NGC) during preclinical
development of novel therapeutics intended for chronic administration in humans is a
major challenge for drug safety.
We previously demonstrated Constitutive Androstane Receptor (CAR) and WNT
signaling-dependent up-regulation of the pluripotency associated Dlk1-Dio3 imprinted
gene cluster non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in the liver of mice treated with tumorpromoting
doses of phenobarbital (PB). Here, to explore the sensitivity and the
specificity of this candidate liver tumor promotion ncRNAs signature we compared
phenotypic, transcriptional and proteomic data from wild-type, CAR/PXR double
knock-out and CAR/PXR double humanized animals treated with tumor-promoting
doses of PB or chlordane, both well-established CAR activators. We further
investigated selected transcriptional profiles from mouse liver samples exposed to
seven NGC compounds working through different mode of actions, overall
suggesting CAR-activation specificity of the Dlk1-Dio3 long ncRNAs activation. We
propose that Dlk1-Dio3 long ncRNAs up-regulation is an early CAR-activation
dependent transcriptional signature during xenobiotic-induced mouse liver tumor
promotion. This signature may further contribute mode of action-based âweight of
evidenceâ cancer risk assessment for xenobiotic-induced rodent liver tumors
Mesoscopic organization reveals the constraints governing C. elegans nervous system
One of the biggest challenges in biology is to understand how activity at the
cellular level of neurons, as a result of their mutual interactions, leads to
the observed behavior of an organism responding to a variety of environmental
stimuli. Investigating the intermediate or mesoscopic level of organization in
the nervous system is a vital step towards understanding how the integration of
micro-level dynamics results in macro-level functioning. In this paper, we have
considered the somatic nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans,
for which the entire neuronal connectivity diagram is known. We focus on the
organization of the system into modules, i.e., neuronal groups having
relatively higher connection density compared to that of the overall network.
We show that this mesoscopic feature cannot be explained exclusively in terms
of considerations, such as optimizing for resource constraints (viz., total
wiring cost) and communication efficiency (i.e., network path length).
Comparison with other complex networks designed for efficient transport (of
signals or resources) implies that neuronal networks form a distinct class.
This suggests that the principal function of the network, viz., processing of
sensory information resulting in appropriate motor response, may be playing a
vital role in determining the connection topology. Using modular spectral
analysis, we make explicit the intimate relation between function and structure
in the nervous system. This is further brought out by identifying functionally
critical neurons purely on the basis of patterns of intra- and inter-modular
connections. Our study reveals how the design of the nervous system reflects
several constraints, including its key functional role as a processor of
information.Comment: Published version, Minor modifications, 16 pages, 9 figure
Extrahepatic Anomalies in Infants With Biliary Atresia: Results of a Large Prospective North American Multicenter Study
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100275/1/hep26512.pd
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