The Great Recession and its recovery: a growth accounting analysis for selected OECD countries

The Great Recession is the name given to the period of economic crisis that began at the end of 2007 in most countries, and its severity and duration was very different. In this paper we analyze that period for some of the OECD countries: Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The selected OECD countries can be classified into two groups: Mediterranean countries (Italy, Portugal and Spain) and Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark). We focus on the study of the growth rate of output per working-age population and on the contribution of factors of production and total factor productivity to this growth rate. The methodology used is the growth accounting analysis applied to the above mentioned countries. We study those variables that contribute most to the fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per working age population and those that contribute most to its recovery for each country. Furthermore, the results obtained not only allow us to perform an individual analysis for each country, but also to identify similarities and differences among the countries chosen. The main conclusions of the work can be summarized as follows: while in the Mediterranean countries the recovery has been due to the labor factor, in the Scandivavian countries it is mostly explained by total factor productivity

An optimized full-configuration-interaction nuclear orbital approach to a “hard-core” interaction problem: Application to (3He)N–Cl2(B) clusters (N<4)

13 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, 3 appendix.An efficient full-configuration-interaction nuclear orbital treatment has been recently developed as a benchmark quantum-chemistry-like method to calculate ground and excited “solvent” energies and wave functions in small doped AEest clusters (N<4) [M. P. de Lara-Castells, G. Delgado-Barrio, P. Villarreal, and A. O. Mitrushchenkov, J. Chem. Phys. 125, 221101 (2006)]. Additional methodological and computational details of the implementation, which uses an iterative Jacobi–Davidson diagonalization algorithm to properly address the inherent “hard-core” He–He interaction problem, are described here. The convergence of total energies, average pair He–He interaction energies, and relevant one- and two-body properties upon increasing the angular part of the one-particle basis set (expanded in spherical harmonics) has been analyzed, considering Cl2 as the dopant and a semiempirical model (T-shaped) He–Cl2(B) potential. Converged results are used to analyze global energetic and structural aspects as well as the configuration makeup of the wave functions, associated with the ground and low-lying “solvent” excited states. Our study reveals that besides the fermionic nature of 3He atoms, key roles in determining total binding energies and wave-function structures are played by the strong repulsive core of the He–He potential as well as its very weak attractive region, the most stable arrangement somehow departing from the one of N He atoms equally spaced on equatorial “ring” around the dopant. The present results for N=4 fermions indicates the structural “pairing” of two 3He atoms at opposite sides on a broad “belt” around the dopant, executing a sort of asymmetric umbrella motion. This pairing is a compromise between maximizing the 3He–3He and the He-dopant attractions, and suppressing at the same time the “hard-core” repulsion. Although the He–He attractive interaction is rather weak, its contribution to the total energy is found to scale as a power of three and it thus increasingly affects the pair density distributions as the cluster grows in size.This work has been partially supported by the CSICCAM, CICYT, and MICINN-CSIC Spanish Grants Nos. CCG08-CSIC/ESP-3680, FIS2007-62006, and 2007501004.Peer reviewe

The more you take it, the better it works: six-month results of a nalmefene phase-IV trial

Background: Alcohol use disorders remain a major health problem. Reduced drinking has been increasingly recognized as a valuable alternative to abstinence. Nalmefene has shown in previous, experimental studies to be a useful tool to aid reduced drinking. However, more data from routine practice settings are needed in order to obtain evidence with high external validity. The aim of this study was to conduct a single-arm phase-IV study with alcohol-dependent outpatients starting with nalmefene for the first time. Here, we present the main effectiveness analysis, scheduled at six months. Methods: This was an observational, multisite, single-arm, phase-IV study conducted among adult alcohol-dependent outpatients who received nalmefene for the first time. The study consisted of four visits: Baseline, 1 month, 6 months, and 12 months. At each visit, drinking variables were obtained from the time-line follow-back regarding the previous month. Satisfaction with medication was also assessed from both patients and professionals with the Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire. A repeated measures mixed model was performed for effective analysis regarding drinking outcomes (reduction in total alcohol consumption and the number of heavy drinking days). Regression analyses were performed in order to find predictors of responses to nalmefene. Results: From a total of 110 patients included, 63 reported data at the six-month visit. On average, patients took nalmefene 69% of days during the month previous to the 6-month assessment. Compared to the one month results, the number of heavy drinking days and total alcohol consumption increased. Still, they were significantly lower than baseline values (outcome evolution over time was from 13.5 to 6.8 to 9.4 days/month, and from 169 to 79 to 116 units/month). A total of 23 patients were considered medication responders. The number of days of taking nalmefene was significantly associated in the regression analysis. Satisfaction was globally high for both professionals and patients and, overall, nalmefene was well-tolerated with no serious adverse events reported. Conclusion: The data provided by this phase-IV study suggest that nalmefene is an effective, well-tolerated treatment for alcohol-dependence in real world, clinical settings

A comparison between phase-III trials and a phase-IV study of nalmefene in alcohol use disorder patients. Is there a difference?

Concerns regarding the external validity of phase-III trials are common to many medical disciplines, with relevant discrepancies found between experimental and clinical samples in some diseases such as hypertension. The aim of this study was to compare the samples included in the pivotal, phase-III clinical trials of nalmefene with that of a recently conducted phase-IV trial. Baseline characteristics of the studies were compared through univariate analysis. Significant differences were found in the percentage of low-risk drinkers included. Differences were also found in the prescription and intake pattern of nalmefene, as well as in the rate of psychiatric and addictive comorbidities, which were much higher in the phase-IV study. These data suggest that in the field of alcohol use disorders there are also relevant differences between experimental and clinical samples, a fact that reinforces the need for phase-III trials to be balanced with observational, phase-IV trials

Vibrational quenching of CO2(010) by collisions with O(3P) at thermal energies: A quantum-mechanical study

10 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, 1 appendix.-- PACS nrs.: 34.50.Ez; 33.20.Tp; 33.15.Mt; 31.15.Ar.The CO2(010)–O(3P) vibrational energy transfer (VET) efficiency is a key input to aeronomical models of the energy budget of the upper atmospheres of Earth, Venus, and Mars. This work addresses the physical mechanisms responsible for the high efficiency of the VET process at the thermal energies existing in the terrestrial upper atmosphere (150 K ≤ T ≤ 550 K). We present a quantum-mechanical study of the process within a reduced-dimensionality approach. In this model, all the particles remain along a plane and the O(3P) atom collides along the C(2v) symmetry axis of CO2, which can present bending oscillations around the linear arrangement, while the stretching C–O coordinates are kept fixed at their equilibrium values. Two kinds of scattering calculations are performed on high-quality ab initio potential energy surfaces (PESs). In the first approach, the calculations are carried out separately for each one of the three PESs correlating to O(3P). In the second approach, nonadiabatic effects induced by spin-orbit couplings (SOC) are also accounted for. The results presented here provide an explanation to some of the questions raised by the experiments and aeronomical observations. At thermal energies, nonadiabatic transitions induced by SOC play a key role in causing large VET efficiencies, the process being highly sensitive to the initial fine-structure level of oxygen. At higher energies, the two above-mentioned approaches tend to coincide towards an impulsive Landau-Teller mechanism of the vibrational to translational (V-T) energy transfer.This work has been partially supported by the European Project No. R113-2003-506079 and the DGICYT Spanish Grant Nos. FIS2004-02461 and CTQ-2004-02415/BQU. One of the authors (M.P.d.L.-C.) was supported by the "Ramón y Cajal" Programme and another author (M.L.-P.) by the Spanish projects Nos. REN2001-3249/CLI, ESP2004-01556, and by EC FEDER funds. The calculations presented here were performed at CINECA (the SuperComputer Center of the University of Bologna), the Instituto de Matemáticas y Física Fundamental (CSIC), and CESGA (the SuperComputer Center of Galicia).Peer reviewe

The more you take it, the better it works : Six-month results of a nalmefene phase-IV trial

Alcohol use disorders remain a major health problem. Reduced drinking has been increasingly recognized as a valuable alternative to abstinence. Nalmefene has shown in previous, experimental studies to be a useful tool to aid reduced drinking. However, more data from routine practice settings are needed in order to obtain evidence with high external validity. The aim of this study was to conduct a single-arm phase-IV study with alcohol-dependent outpatients starting with nalmefene for the first time. Here, we present the main effectiveness analysis, scheduled at six months. This was an observational, multisite, single-arm, phase-IV study conducted among adult alcohol-dependent outpatients who received nalmefene for the first time. The study consisted of four visits: Baseline, 1 month, 6 months, and 12 months. At each visit, drinking variables were obtained from the time-line follow-back regarding the previous month. Satisfaction with medication was also assessed from both patients and professionals with the Medication Satisfaction Questionnaire. A repeated measures mixed model was performed for effective analysis regarding drinking outcomes (reduction in total alcohol consumption and the number of heavy drinking days). Regression analyses were performed in order to find predictors of responses to nalmefene. From a total of 110 patients included, 63 reported data at the six-month visit. On average, patients took nalmefene 69% of days during the month previous to the 6-month assessment. Compared to the one month results, the number of heavy drinking days and total alcohol consumption increased. Still, they were significantly lower than baseline values (outcome evolution over time was from 13.5 to 6.8 to 9.4 days/month, and from 169 to 79 to 116 units/month). A total of 23 patients were considered medication responders. The number of days of taking nalmefene was significantly associated in the regression analysis. Satisfaction was globally high for both professionals and patients and, overall, nalmefene was well-tolerated with no serious adverse events reported. The data provided by this phase-IV study suggest that nalmefene is an effective, well-tolerated treatment for alcohol-dependence in real world, clinical settings

Exact and quantum chemistry-like calculations in helium doped clusters: The He2Br2(X) example

7 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables.-- Issue title: "Proceedings from the Eleventh European Workshop on Quantum Systems in Chemistry and Physics", edited by Oleg Vasyutinskii, Jean Maruani, Piotr Piecuch, Gerardo Delgado-Barrio, Stephen Wilson.A quantum chemistry-like approach has been recently developed in our group to deal with HeN-BC doped helium clusters, where the BC dopant is a conventional diatomic molecule. The central idea is to consider the He atoms as electrons while the B and C atoms play the role of the nuclei in standard electronic structure calculations. The procedure provides energies and wavefunctions allowing to perform spectral simulations and, hence, making feasible to do proper comparisons with current experiments. However, because of the large difference of masses of He and electrons, and also to the replacement of Coulomb potentials by molecular interactions, it is worthy to assess to what extent the approximations involved in this model (decoupling of orbital angular momenta of the He atoms from the BC rotation and adiabatic separation of the BC stretch versus the He motions) lead to accurate results. In this work we address these issues on the 4He2-Br2(X) system, containing a couple of bosonic He atoms for which variational calculations can be performed.Funded by DGICYT Spanish grants (FIS2004-02461, CTQ2004-02415/BQU) and Spanish "Ramón y Cajal" Programme, Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia; Grant Number: PDRyC-2003-001015, PDRyC-2006-001017.Peer reviewe

Exact, Born–Oppenheimer, and quantum-chemistry-like calculations in helium clusters doped with light molecules: The He2N2(X) system

9 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables.-- PACS nrs.: 34.20.-b; 31.50.-x; 31.15.A-; 33.15.Mt; 33.20.Vq; 36.40.-c.Helium clusters doped with diatomic molecules, He(N)–BC, have been recently studied by means of a quantum-chemistry-like approach. The model treats He atoms as “electrons” and dopants as “nuclei” in standard electronic structure calculations. Due to the large mass difference between He atoms and electrons, and to the replacement of Coulomb interactions by intermolecular potentials, it is worth assessing up to what extent are the approximations involved in this model, i.e., decoupling of the BC rotation from the He-atom orbital angular momenta and Born–Oppenheimer separation of the BC stretch versus the He motions, accurate enough. These issues have been previously tackled elsewhere for the 4He2–Br2(X) system, which contains a heavy dopant [Roncero et al., Int. J. Quantum Chem. 107, 2756 (2007)]. Here, we consider a similar cluster but with a much lighter dopant such as N2(X). Although the model does not provide the correct energy levels for the cluster, positions and intensities of the main detectable lines of the vibrotational Raman spectrum at low temperature are accurately reproduced.This work has been partially supported by the DGICYT Spanish Grant Nos. FIS2007-62006 and CTQ2004-02415/BQU. M.P.de L.-C. acknowledges the support of a MEC-CSIC Spanish Grant No. 2007501004. The calculations presented here were performed at Centro de Cálculo of IMAFF (CSIC).Peer reviewe

Energies and density distributions of (4He)N clusters doped with Br2(X): A Hartree-like approach

10 págs.; 8 figs.; 2 tabs.; PACS numberssd: 36.40.Mr, 31.15.Ar, 33.20.Fb, 33.80.GjEnergies and density distributions of the helium atoms in Br2(X) - (4He)N clusters are calculated using a quantum >Hartree-like> approach in which the dopant molecule and the 4He atoms play the role of the nuclei and electrons, respectively, of the original Hartree formulation. A detailed generalization of the methodology is presented. The validity of this treatment is assessed by comparing energies and density distributions for N =2 up to N=18 with those obtained by performing quantum diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) calculations. The present Hartree model shows good agreement with the DMC calculations, the main difference being that the DMC density distributions of the He atoms are more isotropic than those generated via the model. The treatment is extended to larger (up to N=60) clusters and saturation effects are analyzed and discussed. ©2005 The American Physical Society.This work has been partially supported by the Italy-Spain Integrated Action Programme HI02-74, DGICYT Spanish Grant No. BFM2001-2179, European TMR network Grant No. HPRN-CT-1999-0005, and Cineca sGrant No. HPRI-CT- 1999-00048d. F.A.G. and C.DiP. thank the Research Committee of the University of Rome La Sapienza. M.P.deL.-C. was supported by the “Ramón and Cajal” Programme and J.J. by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences, U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38.Peer Reviewe

Status of the differential transformation method

Further to a recent controversy on whether the differential transformation method (DTM) for solving a differential equation is purely and solely the traditional Taylor series method, it is emphasized that the DTM is currently used, often only, as a technique for (analytically) calculating the power series of the solution (in terms of the initial value parameters). Sometimes, a piecewise analytic continuation process is implemented either in a numerical routine (e.g., within a shooting method) or in a semi-analytical procedure (e.g., to solve a boundary value problem). Emphasized also is the fact that, at the time of its invention, the currently-used basic ingredients of the DTM (that transform a differential equation into a difference equation of same order that is iteratively solvable) were already known for a long time by the "traditional"-Taylor-method users (notably in the elaboration of software packages --numerical routines-- for automatically solving ordinary differential equations). At now, the defenders of the DTM still ignore the, though much better developed, studies of the "traditional"-Taylor-method users who, in turn, seem to ignore similarly the existence of the DTM. The DTM has been given an apparent strong formalization (set on the same footing as the Fourier, Laplace or Mellin transformations). Though often used trivially, it is easily attainable and easily adaptable to different kinds of differentiation procedures. That has made it very attractive. Hence applications to various problems of the Taylor method, and more generally of the power series method (including noninteger powers) has been sketched. It seems that its potential has not been exploited as it could be. After a discussion on the reasons of the "misunderstandings" which have caused the controversy, the preceding topics are concretely illustrated.Comment: To appear in Applied Mathematics and Computation, 29 pages, references and further considerations adde