1,301 research outputs found
A Comparison of Medieval and Modern Price Fixing
154 pagesHistory should not be regarded as the “dry bones closed quote of the past, unreal, and of no significance for the present. Governments in the past have faced serious economic crises, unemployment, agricultural discontent, burdensome taxation and depression. While it cannot, with any degree of exactitude, be said that history repeats itself, because of the innumerable factors which serve to make each historical event unique in itself nevertheless man's proposed solution for the changing economic and social problems offers little variation. The problems of agriculture and unemployment relief, the issues bearing upon inflation, a “managed” currency, and price fixing all sound familiar. They are present day economic problems of the first order, but ancient history records them as problems of antiquity. Not only are the natures of the problems similar but the attempted solutions are similar as well even though history has demonstrated that one of the attempted solutions are unworkable. The philosopher, Hagel, has pessimistically summarized the situation in his statement that, “-- what experience and history teach is this,-- that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.
Bone Health in a Nonjaundiced Population of Children with Biliary Atresia
Objectives. To assess bone health in a cohort of nonjaundiced children with biliary atresia (BA) and the effect of growth and development on bone outcomes.
Methods. Children ages one to eighteen years receiving care from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia were recruited. Each child was seen once and assessed for growth, pubertal development, concurrent medications, bilirubin, ALT, albumin, vitamin D status, bone mineral density (BMD), and bone mineral content (BMC) of the lumbar spine and whole body. Results. BMD declined significantly with age, and upon further analysis with a well-phenotyped control cohort, it was found that BMC was significantly decreased for both lumbar spine and whole body, even after adjustment for confounding variables. An age interaction was identified, with older subjects having a significantly greater impairment in BMC. Conclusions. These preliminary results demonstrate that children with BA, including those without jaundice, are likely to have compromised bone health even when accounting for height and puberty, which are common confounding factors in chronic disease. Further investigation is needed to identify the determinants of poor bone mineral status and to develop strategies to prevent osteoporosis later in life
An MCMC Fitting Method for Triaxial Dark Matter Haloes
Measuring the 3D distribution of mass on galaxy cluster scales is a crucial
test of the LCDM model, providing constraints on the behaviour of dark matter.
Recent work investigating mass distributions of individual galaxy clusters
(e.g. Abell 1689) using weak and strong gravitational lensing has revealed
potential inconsistencies between the predictions of structure formation models
relating halo mass to concentration and those relationships as measured in
massive clusters. However, such analyses employ simple spherical halo models
while a growing body of work indicates that triaxial 3D halo structure is both
common and important in parameter estimates. The very strong assumptions about
the symmetry of the lensing halo implied with circular or perturbative
elliptical NFW models are not physically motivated and lead to incorrect
parameter estimates with significantly underestimated error bars. We here
introduce a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to fit fully triaxial models
to weak lensing data that gives parameter and error estimates that fully
incorporate the true uncertainty present in nature. Applying the MCMC triaxial
fitting method to a population of NFW triaxial lenses drawn from the shape
distribution of structure formation simulations, we find that including
triaxiality cannot explain a population of massive, highly concentrated
clusters within the framework of LCDM, but easily explains rare cases of
apparently massive, highly concentrated, very efficient lensing clusters. Our
MCMC triaxial NFW fitting method is easily expandable to include constraints
from additional data types, and its application returns model parameters and
errors that more accurately capture the true (and limited) extent of our
knowledge of the structure of galaxy cluster lenses. (abridged)Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures. Updated to match published versio
VCU Internal Alignment Project
The purpose of this project was to see how many projects were actually implemented fully throughout the years of the program. The group members contacted others who they personally knew on the project teams of six prior projects that related to VCU Infrastructure (VCU Internal Alignment projects). Interestingly, in many cases these alumni volunteered input and constructive feedback on the institute as well. The projects included Campus Pride (2005), VCU Center for Research Excellence (2005), Monroe Park Fall Festival (2006), MERCI (2006), University Link Tank (2008), and The Next Generation (2009). All of the projects were drafted and presented in completion at the end of GEHLI. We found that only one project, Monroe Park Festival, was subsequently implemented in full
Policy perspectives on expanding cogeneration from bagasse in Malawi
Agro-industries have the potential to make a substantial contribution to sustainable energy supply in Africa, including energy access in rural areas. This paper focuses on the drivers and barriers to wider use of cogeneration from sugarcane bagasse in Malawi as there is a potential for the technology to enable access to electricity in rural areas. The paper gives an overview of the policy landscape for the energy sector and the sugar industry in Malawi. The research involved site visits, focus group discussions, and individual semi-structured interviews with participants from key government departments, businesses, research institutes and international agencies. It was found that energy sector reform, the proposed feed-in tariff for renewable energy, and risk are the key issues for investment in this area
Genome-wide meta-analysis of 241,258 adults accounting for smoking behaviour identifies novel loci for obesity traits
Few genome-wide association studies (GWAS) account for environmental exposures, like smoking, potentially impacting the overall trait variance when investigating the genetic contribution to obesity-related traits. Here, we use GWAS data from 51,080 current smokers and 190,178 nonsmokers (87% European descent) to identify loci influencing BMI and central adiposity, measured as waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio both adjusted for BMI. We identify 23 novel genetic loci, and 9 loci with convincing evidence of gene-smoking interaction (GxSMK) on obesity-related traits. We show consistent direction of effect for all identified loci and significance for 18 novel and for 5 interaction loci in an independent study sample. These loci highlight novel biological functions, including response to oxidative stress, addictive behaviour, and regulatory functions emphasizing the importance of accounting for environment in genetic analyses. Our results suggest that tobacco smoking may alter the genetic susceptibility to overall adiposity and body fat distribution
A New Look at Massive Clusters: weak lensing constraints on the triaxial dark matter halos of Abell 1689, Abell 1835, & Abell 2204
Measuring the 3D distribution of mass on galaxy cluster scales is a crucial
test of the LCDM model, providing constraints on the nature of dark matter.
Recent work investigating mass distributions of individual galaxy clusters
(e.g. Abell 1689) using weak and strong gravitational lensing has revealed
potential inconsistencies between the predictions of structure formation models
relating halo mass to concentration and those relationships as measured in
massive clusters. However, such analyses employ simple spherical halo models
while a growing body of work indicates that triaxial 3D halo structure is both
common and important in parameter estimates. We recently introduced a Markov
Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to fit fully triaxial models to weak lensing
data that gives parameter and error estimates that fully incorporate the true
shape uncertainty present in nature. In this paper we apply that method to weak
lensing data obtained with the ESO/MPG Wide-Field Imager for galaxy clusters
A1689, A1835, and A2204, under a range of Bayesian priors derived from theory
and from independent X-ray and strong lensing observations. For Abell 1689,
using a simple strong lensing prior we find marginalized mean parameter values
M_200 = (0.83 +- 0.16)x10^15 M_solar/h and C=12.2 +- 6.7, which are marginally
consistent with the mass-concentration relation predicted in LCDM. The large
error contours that accompany our triaxial parameter estimates more accurately
represent the true extent of our limited knowledge of the structure of galaxy
cluster lenses, and make clear the importance of combining many constraints
from other theoretical, lensing (strong, flexion), or other observational
(X-ray, SZ, dynamical) data to confidently measure cluster mass profiles.
(Abridged)Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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