The olfactory pathway of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum and its comparison to other Coleoptera

Insects are the most successful animals on earth. They have a great impact on almost all terrestrial ecosystems, affecting mankind by beneficial and harmful ways like facilitating vast amounts of human food production via pollination or by being a devastating pest to agricultural products and food stocks as well as spreading diseases. Among insects, Coleoptera are the most divers and species richest order, containing vast quantities of pest species. The majority of insects depends heavily on their olfactory system to master most tasks they encounter during their lifespan, like finding food sources, hosts, native populations, and mates, or to avoid predators. Despite the diversity and species richness of beetles, as well as their impact as pest, not much is known about the olfactory system of these animals. To investigate the olfactory system of Coleoptera, we analyzed 1) the olfactory pathway of one model organism in highly detail and 2) we examined particular brain regions of the olfactory system of many beetles and insects and compared them with each other. 1: For the highly detailed analysis of the olfactory pathway of one species we worked with the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, an already established model organism in some fields of biology like in development and evolution. Experiments requiring genetic methods had been performed in cooperation with the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Based on immunohistochemical stainings we created 3D-reconstructions of adult and larval brains, helping us to identifying the most prominent brain structures, as a starting point for following projects. On this basis, we decrypted the olfactory pathway of the adult T. castaneum. This includes A) morphological data of the antenna with its olfactory sensilla and neuroanatomical data of the brain structures involved in olfaction, as well as B) molecular data from antennal structures involved in olfaction (like olfactory respectively gustatory receptors or olfactory binding proteins). Furthermore, we identified neuropeptide families within the primary and one higher integration center for olfaction - namely the antennal lobe (AL) and mushroom body (MB) - of T castaneum. Additionally, we investigated one neuropeptide family and its respective receptor within the brain of T. castaneum in detail. We compared this neuropeptide family and its receptor with two structurally similar and closely related neuropeptide families and their receptors. 2: The second focus of this thesis was the investigation of single features of the olfactory pathway and their comparison between different coleopteran-, respectively insect species. In one project we studied the distribution of eight neuropeptide families within the MB of 24 different insect species and compared them with each other, looking for potential evolutionary correlations. Furthermore, we analyzed the AL of 63 different Coleoptera and found an unusual architecture of the AL in some species. In a related project we investigated such an unusual architectured AL of one species (the small hive beetle Aethina tumida) highly detailed. In this thesis, the brain architecture and especially the olfactory system of Coleoptera had been investigated for the first time in high detail. We revealed new insights regarding the olfactory (respectively chemoreceptive) pathway of these animals. The findings will help to establish T. castaneum as the fist coleopteran model organism for insect neuroscience and in particular for insect olfaction. The single projects of this thesis will be described in-depth in the following eight chapters

International Portfolios with Supply, Demand and Redistributive Shocks

This paper explains three key stylized facts observed in industrialized countries: 1) portfolio holdings are biased towards local equity; 2) international portfolios are long in foreign currency assets and short in domestic currency; 3) the depreciation of a country's exchange rate is associated with a net external capital gain, i.e. with a positive wealth transfer from the rest of the world. We present a two-country, two-good model with trade in stocks and bonds, and three types of disturbances: shocks to endowments, to the relative demand for home vs. foreign goods, and to the distribution of income between labor and capital. With these shocks, optimal international portfolios are shown to be consistent with the stylized facts.

International portfolios, capital accumulation and foreign assets dynamics

Despite the liberalization of capital flows among OECD countries, equity home bias remains sizable. We depart from the two familiar explanations of equity home bias: transaction costs that impede international diversification, and terms of trade responses to supply shocks that provide risk sharing, so that there is little incentive to hold diversified portfolios. We show that the interaction of the following ingredients generates a realistic equity home bias: capital accumulation, shocks to the efficiency of physical investment, as well as international trade in stocks and bonds. In our model, domestic stocks are used to hedge fluctuations in local wage income. Terms of trade risk is hedged using bonds denominated in local goods and in foreign goods. In contrast to related models, the low level of international diversification does not depend on strongly countercyclical terms of trade. The model also reproduces the cyclical dynamics of foreign asset positions and of international capital flows.International finance ; Financial markets ; Capital movements

International portfolios, capital accumulation and foreign assets dynamics

Despite the liberalisation of capital flows among OECD countries, equity home bias remains sizable. We depart from the two familiar explanation of equity home bias: transaction costs that impede international diversification, and terms of trade responses to supply shocks that provide risk sharing, so that there is little incentive to hold diversified portfolios. We show that the interaction of the following ingredients generates a realistic equity home bias: capital accumulation, shocks to the efficiency of physical investment, as well as international trade in stocks and bonds. In our model, domestic stocks are used to hedge fluctuation in local wage income. Terms of trade risk is hedged using bonds denominated in local goods and in foreign goods. In contrast to related models, the low level of international diversification does not depend on strongly countercyclical terms of trade. The model also reproduces the cyclical dynamics of foreign asset positions and of international capital flows. --capital accumulation,international equity and bond portfolios,capital flows,current account,valuation effects,terms of trade

The New Deal, Race, and Home Ownership in the 1920s and 1930s

Many federal government housing policies began during the New Deal of the 1930s. Many claim that minorities benefited less from these policies than whites. We estimate the relationships between policies in the 1920s and 1930s and black and white home ownership in farm and nonfarm settings using a pseudo-panel of repeated cross-sections of households in 1920, 1930, and 1940 matched with policy measures in 460 state economic areas. The policies examined include FHA mortgage insurance, HOLC loan refinancing, state mortgage moratoria, farm loan programs, public housing, public works and relief, and payments to farmers to take land out of production.

Assessment of investment project's variants and their economic efficiency

Práce se zabývá investičním projektem výstavby a prodeje bytového domu. Hlavní náplní práce je vyhodnotit ekonomickou efektivnost projektu. V práci je popis ekonomických ukazatelů a pojmů používaných při investičních projektech a propočet stavby. Součástí je popis projektu a vypočítány jeho náklady na pořízení. Dále se práce zabývá problematikou výběru lokality, cenotvorbou a výpočtem výnosů z projektu. Následuje zhodnocení možností využití externího financování a jejich dopadu na výnos projektu. V závěru jsou vypočteny vybrané ekonomické ukazatele, je provedeno posouzení a vyhodnocení jednotlivých variant výstavby a zhodnocení ekonomické efektivnosti projektu.This Bachelor's thesis is devoted to investment project focusing on construction and sale of an apartment building. The main aim of the thesis is to evaluate the economic efficiency of this project. There is a description of the economic indicators and terms used during investment projects and the estimate calculation of the building in this thesis. A part of this thesis is description and cost calculation of the project. Furthermore the thesis deals with the problem of choosing the right place to build, price setting and calculation of revenues. Following part is about using the external capital and its impact to the revenues. In conclusion, selected economic indicators are calculated, assessment and evaluation of alternative development variants is performed together with an overall evaluation of the economic efficiency of the project

International portfolios, capital accumulation and foreign assets dynamics

Despite the liberalization of capital flows among OECD countries, equity home bias remains sizable. We depart from the two familiar explanations of equity home bias: transaction costs that impede international diversification, and terms of trade responses to supply shocks that provide risk sharing, so that there is little incentive to hold diversified portfolios. We show that the interaction of the following ingredients generates a realistic equity home bias: capital accumulation and international trade in stocks and bonds. In our model, domestic stocks are used to hedge fluctuations in local wage income. Terms of trade risk is hedged using bonds denominated in local goods and in foreign goods. In contrast to related models, the low level of international diversification does not depend on strongly countercyclical terms of trade. The model also reproduces the cyclical dynamics of foreign asset positions and of international capital flows

Comparison of BIM implementation in public procurement in the Czech Republic and Denmark

Předmětem diplomové práce je porovnání míry implementace metody BIM ve veřejných zakázkách na dvou vybraných trzích - Dánsko a Česká republika. Protože je pojem BIM více a více skloňovaným pojmem, hodně zemí se uchyluje k zavedení metody BIM do veřejných zakázek. Česká republika, jako jedna z těchto zemí, vytvořila Koncepci zavádění BIM s cílem stanovit povinnost využívání BIM ve veřejných zakázkách. V úvodní části jsou vysvětleny pojmy BIM, veřejná zakázka a formát IFC, který je důležitou součástí BIM. Další část práce je zaměřena na popsání historie a současného stavu obou zemí z pohledu BIM, zákonů a standardizace. Poslední část je pak věnována popisu a porovnání vyspělosti míry trhu na implementaci BIM. Závěrem autor dodává zkušenosti z dánského prostředí a možnosti jejich využití na českém trhu.The subject of the master thesis is to compare the level of BIM implementation in public procurement in two selected markets - Denmark and Czech Republic. As the BIM concept is more and more bold, many countries resort to introducing the BIM method into public procurement. The Czech Republic, as one of these countries, has created the Concept of BIM Implementation with a goal to establish mandatory use of BIM in public procurement. The introductory section explains the BIM concepts, the public contract and the IFC format, which is an important part of BIM. Another part of the thesis is focused on describing the history and the current state of the two countries in terms of BIM, laws and standardization. The last part is devoted to describing and comparing the maturity of the market to BIM implementation. Finally, the author adds experience from the Danish environment and the possibilities of their use on the Czech market

Strongly coupled, high-quality plasmonic dimer antennas fabricated using a sketch-and-peel technique

A combination of helium- and gallium-ion beam milling together with a fast and reliable sketch-and-peel technique is used to fabricate gold nanorod dimer antennas with an excellent quality factor and with gap distances of less than 6 nm. The high fabrication quality of the sketch-and-peel technique compared to a conventional ion beam milling technique is proven by polarisation-resolved linear dark-field spectromicroscopy of isolated dimer antennas. We demonstrate a strong coupling of the two antenna arms for both fabrication techniques, with a quality factor of more than 14, close to the theoretical limit, for the sketch-and-peel-produced antennas compared to only 6 for the conventional fabrication process. The obtained results on the strong coupling of the plasmonic dimer antennas are supported by finite-difference time-domain simulations of the light-dimer antenna interaction. The presented fabrication technique enables the rapid fabrication of large-scale plasmonic or dielectric nanostructures arrays and metasurfaces with single-digit nanometer scale milling accuracy. © 2020 Christoph Lienau, Martin Silies et al., published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston