The macroeconomics of a financial Dutch disease

We describe the medium-run macroeconomic effects and long-run development consequences of a financial Dutch disease that may take place in a small developing country with abundant natural resources. The first move is in financial markets. An initial surge in foreign direct investment targeting natural resources sets in motion a perverse cycle between exchange rate appreciation and mounting short- and medium-term capital flows. Such a spiral easily leads to exchange rate volatility, capital reversals, and sharp macroeconomic instability. In the long run, macroeconomic instability and overdependence on natural resource exports dampen the development of nontraditional tradable goods sectors and curtail labor productivity dynamics. We advise the introduction of constraints to short- and medium-term capital flows to tame exchange rate/capital flows boom-and-bust cycles. We support the implementation of a developmentalist monetary policy targeting competitive nominal and real exchange rates in order to encourage product and export diversification

Comparison of two three-phase pll systems for more electric aircraft converters

The more electric aircraft power system is characterized by variable supply frequency, in general between 360 and 900 Hz. All equipment on board the aircraft have to operate delivering high performance under this variable frequency condition. In particular, power electronic converters need accurate control algorithms able to track the fundamental phase and frequency in real time, both in normal and unusual conditions. Phase-locked loop (PLL)-based algorithms are commonly used in traditional single-and three-phase power systems to provide phase and frequency estimations of the supply. Despite the simplicity of those algorithms, large estimation errors can arise when power supply voltage has variable frequency or amplitude, presents unbalances or is polluted with harmonics. To improve the quality of the phase and frequency real-time estimations, a robust PLL algorithm, based on a prediction-correction filter, is presented in this paper and compared with a discrete Fourier transform based procedure. The performances of the two algorithms, implemented in a floating-point DSP, have been compared through an experimental validation obtained on a laboratory power converter prototype. © 2014 IEEE

Endometriosis is characterized by an impaired localization of laminin-5 and alpha3beta1 integrin receptor

Endometriosis is an estrogen-correlated benign disease characterized by a marked ability of endometrial-like cells to invade and proliferate outside uterine cavity, resembling for some invasive aspect the cancer growth. The molecular mechanisms regulating endometrial cell invasiveness are mostly unknown, although interactions between extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and their transmembrane receptors, integrins, are likely to play a central role. In particular, laminin (Ln)-5 could be closely involved, as it is in cancer. We have investigated the expression of Ln-1, Ln-5, and collagen IV (Coll IV) ECM proteins and their receptors, alpha 3 beta 1 and alpha 6 beta 4 integrins, in atrophic, proliferative, and secretive endometrium and in endometriosis. The results show that Ln-5, but not Ln-I and Coll IV, is altered in secretive endometrium as well as in endometriosis tissues. No alterations are observed in atrophic or proliferative endometrium. Consistently, the polarization of both integrin subunits alpha 3 and beta 1, but not alpha 6 and beta 4, is altered in secretive endometrium and endometriosis tissues, but not in atrophic and proliferative endometrium. These results seem to suggest that Ln-5 and alpha 3 beta 1 could be involved in the invasive mechanism of endometriosis. The altered expression of Ln-5, by upregulating matrix metalloproteases activity, suggest an invading process similar to that of many cancer processes

«En la luna de Corfú»: amore e memoria nella poesia di Francisco Brines

In the 1960s the young Spanish poet Francisco Brines, one of the most important and intense authors of Spanish lyric poetry in the second half of the 20th century, reached Corfu coasts. He wrote seven profound collections of poems, then gathered in one volume evocatively called Ensayo de una despedida. Poesía completa (1960-1997) (Barcelona, Tusquets 1997 and 2006). Francisco Brines was born in Oliva (Valencia) in 1932 and belongs to the so-called “Generation of ‘50”. However, despite his unquestionable role within the group of poets that contributed to a fruitful and bright period in Spanish literature, his independent and original path within the generation canon is undeniable as well. The distinctive feature of Brines’ poetics is elegy. His poetry arises from a deep and steady feeling of loss. It concerns a glorious and past age, which echoes in the present only through the intense and emotional experience of memory. In this poetics of stoic resignation and invitation to enjoy every single moment, Greek and Latin imagination not only is an aesthetic theme or an interpretative and stylistic topos, but also becomes a real experience that, however isolated and enclosed in exact space and time categories, is mythicized or idealized in contact with poetry. Among the Greek places that appear in the Spanish poet’s lyric texts, Corfu island stands out. Corfu is a locus amoenus, the idealized but real setting of the love experience that marks Brines’ life and poetry indelibly (and will be represented in particular in the series of lyric poems dedicated to D. K.). Indeed, on the coasts of the mythical and epic island of the Phaeacians the young poet had enjoyed and finally recognized that happy and pure sharing experience which may justify an entire life, in the middle of repetitive, monotonous and debasing exposure “ai rapporti e ai commerci” (to quote Kavafis’ words, whose poetics recalls that of the Valencian poet in many respects, and whose verses started to circulate in Spain just in the 1960s translated by José Ángel Valente, a friend of Brines and a poet of the postwar second generation as well). In lyric poems as “Relato superviviente” and “Reminiscencias”, belonging respectively to the collections Palabras a la oscuridad (1966) and Aún no (1971), and in the poem “Los veranos”, included in the volume El otoño de las rosas (1986), Brines represents through poetry a fleeting and ineffable instant, which is inexorably headed towards nada (nothing, the only destination of human destiny according to the poet), but perfect. What is reflected “en la luna de Corfú” is a clear fragment of that lost paradise (Eden, Arcadia or simply youth) where love and memory find their ideal and brightest expression thanks to poetry: a place of sublime and eternal resistance to oblivion

A study of deep inelastic hadron-hadron collisions with a large acceptance calorimeter trigger

Bari-Krakow-Liverpool-Muenchen(MPI)-Nijmwegen Collaboration.SIGLEDEGerman