Firms'responses to relative price changes in Cote d'Ivoire : the implications for export subsidies and devaluations

Since the early 1980s, export subsidies have been proposed as a way to counteract the adverse effects of an exchange rate overvaluation among member countries of the West African Monetary Union. It was felt that one way to alter the relative price of traded to nontraded goods was to attempt to mimic devaluation by raising import tariffs and export subsidies by the same proportion. This paper models the short-run response of firms to exogenous changes in export and import prices, taking into account the possibility that firms may sell to both domestic and foreign markets. The results suggest that firms in Cote d'Ivoire do sell more to the foreign market when it is more profitable to do so. Exports respond positively to increases in export prices and negatively to increases in import prices. But the fact that exports would be lower if an export subsidy were combined with an import tariff is not an argument for introducing an export subsidy alone because it would be insufficient to increase output in the tradable goods sector. The combination of an export subsidy with an import tariff, which comes closer to mimicking the effects of devaluation, would serve to counteract some of the adverse effects on output of an overvalued exchange rate.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Consumption

Financial health - how do you measure up?

Financial economics is based on the tenets that we prefer more to less and that we seek to maximise our wealth in order to maximise our happiness. Performance appraisal merely seeks measures of how well we have achieved this objective. If my tax paid wealth at the start of a period was $100 and at the end was$110 how have I done? I’ve earned 10% for sure, but just how well I have performed depends on what other people have earned having invested similar amounts in assets of similar risk and whether this year’s earning is an improvement on previous years. In principle it is no different when assessing the overall performance of a dairy farm. Sure, there are a lot of other things to take into account, but basically the increase in wealth relative to our investment at the start of the period represents our overall return

Frataxin deficiency increases cyclooxygenase 2 and prostaglandins in cell and animal models of Friedreich's ataxia.

An inherited deficiency of the mitochondrial protein frataxin causes Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA); the mechanism by which this deficiency triggers neuro- and cardio-degeneration is unclear. Microarrays of neural tissue of animal models of the disease showed decreases in antioxidant genes, and increases in inflammatory genes. Cyclooxygenase (COX)-derived oxylipins are important mediators of inflammation. We measured oxylipin levels using tandem mass spectrometry and ELISAs in multiple cell and animal models of FRDA. Mass spectrometry revealed increases in concentrations of prostaglandins, thromboxane B2, 15-HETE and 11-HETE in cerebellar samples of knockin knockout mice. One possible explanation for the elevated oxylipins is that frataxin deficiency results in increased COX activity. While constitutive COX1 was unchanged, inducible COX2 expression was elevated over 1.35-fold (P < 0.05) in two Friedreich's mouse models and Friedreich's lymphocytes. Consistent with higher COX2 expression, its activity was also increased by 58% over controls. COX2 expression is driven by multiple transcription factors, including activator protein 1 and cAMP response element-binding protein, both of which were elevated over 1.52-fold in cerebella. Taken together, the results support the hypothesis that reduced expression of frataxin leads to elevation of COX2-mediated oxylipin synthesis stimulated by increases in transcription factors that respond to increased reactive oxygen species. These findings support a neuroinflammatory mechanism in FRDA, which has both pathomechanistic and therapeutic implications

Resveratrol given intraperitoneally does not inhibit the growth of high-risk t(4;11) acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells in a NOD/SCID mouse model.

The efficacy of resveratrol as a preventive agent against the growth of t(4;11) acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) was evaluated in NOD.CB17-Prkdcscid/J mice engrafted with the human t(4;11) ALL SEM cell line. SEM cells were injected into the tail vein and engraftment was monitored by flow cytometry. Once engraftment was observed, mice were injected intraperitoneally with resveratrol (10 mg/kg body weight) dissolved in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) or DMSO alone (control) every other day, or vincristine (0.5 mg/kg body weight) 3 times per week for 4 weeks (n=16 per group). Comparisons of the percent of human leukemia cells in blood and survival curves showed resveratrol did not inhibit progression of the disease. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analyses of mouse sera showed resveratrol was rapidly metabolized to glucuronidated and sulfated forms 1 h post-injection, with low to no resveratrol or metabolites observed in sera by 24-48 h. These data indicate that in contrast to findings in in vitro models, parenterally administered resveratrol does not have potential as a preventive agent against high risk t(4;11) ALL

Wet-Site Excavation at Sunken Village Site on the Columbia River

The extensive in situ acorn pits are the most remarkable fea­tures at this landmark site. During surface exposure and mapping, all such pits contained remnants of whole acorns. Also wood and fiber artifacts were observed in and around these pits, including a shredded cedar bark cape/skirt fragment, a broken wooden wedge, wooden arrow shafts, and a well-preserved basket distinctive of the region's fine basket work. The basket piece was found with intact base and sides (no rim remained) all carefully cross-warp twined of split cedar root (identified by Bud Lane, master weaver, Siletz, and Patricia Gold, master Wasco weaver, Warm Springs; Figures 5 and 6). The style of this basket is definitely from this region and demonstrates an ancient continuity of this style of basketry. Baskets found from northern ancient wet sites are of a very different style, and themselves demonstrate at least 3,000 years of basketry cultural continuity in Salish, Makah, and Tsimshian traditional territories. For full final report on two summer's of explorations, second one sponsored by Japanese Archaeology program, see: Croes, Dale R., John L. Fagan and Maureen Newman Zehendner 2009 Sunken Village, Sauvie Island, Oregon, USA, A Report on the 2006-2007 Investigations of National Historic Landmark Site 35MU4. Journal of Wetland Archaeology Special Edition 9, 1-216. Available on Amazo

Nystagmus during an acute Ménière's attack: From prodrome to recovery

OBJECTIVE: We are currently undertaking a clinical investigation to evaluate the diagnostic capability of a system for detecting periods of pathological dizziness. This article presents an analysis of the data captured during an acute attack of Ménière's disease. DESIGN: The Continuous Ambulatory Vestibular Assessment (CAVA) device is worn by patients in the community, and continuously records eye and head movement data (vestibular telemetry). STUDY SAMPLE: A 53-year-old lady with a fifteen-year history of left-sided unilateral Ménière's disease. RESULTS: The patient wore the device nearly continuously for thirty days. The data revealed a three-hour long attack of vertigo consisting of four separate phases of nystagmus. The duration, beat-direction and slow phase velocity of the nystagmus evolved through time. The first phase contained isolated nystagmus beats which preceded the patient's record of the vertigo attack onset but coincided with anticipation of an impending vertigo attack. CONCLUSIONS: CAVA provides a unique insight into the physiological parameters present during episodes of dizziness. Here, it has provided the first full example of an acute Ménière's attack, including a period of prodrome. These findings have implications for the prediction of vertigo attack onset, for the diagnosis of Ménière's disease and other diseases resulting in dizziness

Novel Approach to Identify Optimal Metabotypes of Elongase and Desaturase Activities in Prevention of Acute Coronary Syndrome

Both metabolomic and genomic approaches are valuable for risk analysis, however typical approaches evaluating differences in means do not model the changes well. Gene polymorphisms that alter function would appear as distinct populations, or metabotypes, from the predominant one, in which case risk is revealed as changed mixing proportions between control and case samples. Here we validate a model accounting for mixed populations using biomarkers of fatty acid metabolism derived from a case/control study of acute coronary syndrome subjects in which both metabolomic and genomic approaches have been used previously. We first used simulated data to show improved power and sensitivity in the approach compared to classic approaches. We then used the metabolic biomarkers to test for evidence of distinct metabotypes and different proportions among cases and controls. In simulation, our model outperformed all other approaches including Mann-Whitney, t-tests, and χ2. Using real data, we found distinct metabotypes of six of the seven activities tested, and different mixing proportions in five of the six activity biomarkers: D9D, ELOVL6, ELOVL5, FADS1, and Sprecher pathway chain shortening (SCS). High activity metabotypes of non-essential fatty acids and SCS decreased odds for acute coronary syndrome (ACS), however high activity metabotypes of 20-carbon fatty acid synthesis increased odds. Our study validates an approach that accounts for both metabolomic and genomic theory by demonstrating improved sensitivity and specificity, better performance in real world data, and more straightforward interpretability

The 2006 and 2007 Field Seasons at Sunken Village

As mentioned, the 2005 erosion of the dike placed on the natural levee facing the intertidal waterlogged portion of the Sunken Village site had threatened the residents of the island, initiating a proposal by the Sauvie Island Drainage Improvement Company (SIDIC) to place protective rip-rap rock along the face of the bank. Since the site is on navigational waters under the authority of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, field evaluation of this National Historic Landmark archaeological wet site was required to assess the potential effects of placing protective rip rap rock on the channel bank in order to comply with U.S. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (Croes et al. 2006)

1D convolutional neural networks for detecting nystagmus

Vertigo is a type of dizziness characterised by the subjective feeling of movement despite being stationary. One in four individuals in the community experience symptoms of dizziness at any given time, and it can be challenging for clinicians to diagnose the underlying cause. When dizziness is the result of a malfunction in the inner-ear, the eyes flicker and this is called nystagmus. In this article we describe the first use of Deep Neural Network architectures applied to detecting nystagmus. The data used in these experiments was gathered during a clinical investigation of a novel medical device for recording head and eye movements. We describe methods for training networks using very limited amounts of training data, with an average of 11 mins of nystagmus across four subjects, and less than 24 hours of data in total, per subject. Our methods work by replicating and modifying existing samples to generate new data. In a cross-fold validation experiment, we achieve an average F1 score of 0.59 (SD = 0.24) across all four folds, showing that the methods employed are capable of identifying periods of nystagmus with a modest degree of accuracy. Notably, we were also able to identify periods of pathological nystagmus produced by a patient during an acute attack of Ménière's Disease, despite training the network on nystagmus that was induced by different means