Long Run Macroeconomic Relations in the Global Economy

This paper focuses on testing long run macroeconomic relations for interest rates, equity, prices and exchange rates within a model of the global economy. It considers a number of plausible long run relationships suggested by arbitrage in financial and goods markets, and uses the global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model in Dees, di Mauro, Peseran and Smith (2007) to test for long run restrictions in each country/region conditioning on the rest of the world. Bootstrapping is used to compute both the empirical distribution of the impulse responses and log-likelihood ratio statistic for over-identifying restrictions. The paper also examines the speed with which adjustments to the long tun relations take place via the persistence profiles. We find strong evidence in favour of the uncovered interest parity and to a lesser extent the Fisher equation across a number of countries, but our results for the PPP are much weaker. Also as to be expected, the transmission of shocks and subsequent adjustments in financial markets are much faster than those in goods markets

THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN PREDICTING ADOPTION OF WIND EROSION CONTROL PRACTICES

Logit and ordered probit analyses were used to identify factors associated with reduced tillage adoption, continuous spring cropping, and the number of changes made in response to wind erosion. Contrary to previous results for water erosion control, simple perception of a wind erosion problem or membership in a particular socioeconomic category did not significantly explain adoption of wind erosion control practices, but participating in a targeted educational program did. This educational program: (a) highlighted the threats of wind erosion to human health and to soil productivity, and (b) described specific potentially profitable farming practices for solving the wind erosion problem.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Long Run Macroeconomic Relations in the Global Economy

This paper focuses on testing long run macroeconomic relations for interest rates, equity, prices and exchange rates within a model of the global economy. It considers a number of plausible long run relationships suggested by arbitrage in financial and goods markets, and uses the global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model developed in Dees, di Mauro, Pesaran and Smith (2007) to test for long run restrictions in each country/region conditioning on the rest of the world. Bootstrapping is used to compute both the empirical distribution of the impulse responses and the log-likelihood ratio statistic for over-identifying restrictions. The paper also examines the speed with which adjustments to the long run relations take place via the persistence profiles. We find strong evidence in favour of the uncovered interest parity and to a lesser extent the Fisher equation across a number of countries, but our results for the PPP are much weaker. Also as to be expected, the transmission of shocks and subsequent adjustments in financial markets are much faster than those in goods markets.Global VAR, interdependencies, Fisher relationship, Uncovered Interest Rate Parity, Purchasing Power Parity, persistence profile, error variance decomposition

Persistent Habits, optimal Monetary Policy Inertia and Interest Rate Smoothing

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models featuring imperfect competition and nominal rigidities have become central for the analysis of the monetary transmission mechanism and for understanding the conduct of monetary policy. However, it is agreed that the benchmark model fails to generate the persistence of output and inflation that is observed in the data. Moreover, it cannot provide a theoretically well-grounded justification for the interest rate smoothing behaviour of monetary authorities. This paper attempts to overcome these deficiencies by embedding a multiplicative habit specification in a New Keynesian model. We show that this particular form of habit formation can explain why monetary authorities smooth interest rates

Factor demand linkages, technology shocks, and the business cycle

This paper argues that factor demand linkages can be important for the transmission of both sectoral and aggregate shocks. We show this using a panel of highly disaggregated manufacturing sectors together with sectoral structural VARs. When sectoral interactions are explicitly accounted for, a contemporaneous technology shock to all manufacturing sectors implies a positive response in both output and hours at the aggregate level. Otherwise there is a negative correlation, as in much of the existing literature. Furthermore, we find that technology shocks are important drivers of the business cycle

Chronic parasitization by Nosema microsporidia causes global expression changes in core nutritional, metabolic and behavioral pathways in honey bee workers (Apis mellifera)

BACKGROUND: Chronic infections can profoundly affect the physiology, behavior, fitness and longevity of individuals, and may alter the organization and demography of social groups. Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae are two microsporidian parasites which chronically infect the digestive tract of honey bees (Apis mellifera). These parasites, in addition to other stressors, have been linked to increased mortality of individual workers and colony losses in this key pollinator species. Physiologically, Nosema infection damages midgut tissue, is energetically expensive and alters expression of immune genes in worker honey bees. Infection also accelerates worker transition from nursing to foraging behavior (termed behavioral maturation). Here, using microarrays, we characterized global gene expression patterns in adult worker honey bee midgut and fat body tissue in response to Nosema infection. RESULTS: Our results indicate that N. apis infection in young workers (1 and 2 days old) disrupts midgut development. At 2 and 7 days post-infection in the fat body tissue, N. apis drives metabolic changes consistent with energetic costs of infection. A final experiment characterizing gene expression in the fat bodies of 14 day old workers parasitized with N. apis and N. ceranae demonstrated that Nosema co-infection specifically alters conserved nutritional, metabolic and hormonal pathways, including the insulin signaling pathway, which is also linked to behavioral maturation in workers. Interestingly, in all experiments, Nosema infection did not appear to significantly regulate overall expression of canonical immune response genes, but infection did alter expression of acute immune response genes identified in a previous study. Comparative analyses suggest that changes in nutritional/metabolic processes precede changes in behavioral maturation and immune processes. CONCLUSIONS: These genome-wide studies of expression patterns can help us disentangle the direct and indirect effects of chronic infection, and understand the molecular pathways that regulate disease symptoms. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-799) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

\u3cem\u3eMUTYH\u3c/em\u3e as an Emerging Predictive Biomarker in Ovarian Cancer

Approximately 18% of ovarian cancers have an underlying genetic predisposition and many of the genetic alterations have become intervention and therapy targets. Although mutations in MutY homolog (MUTYH) are best known for MUTYH associated polyposis and colorectal cancer, it plays a role in the development of ovarian cancer. In this review, we discuss the function of the MUTYH gene, mutation epidemiology, and its mechanism for carcinogenesis. We additionally examine its emerging role in the development of ovarian cancer and how it may be used as a predictive and targetable biomarker. MUTYH mutations may confer the risk of ovarian cancer by the failure of its well-known base excision repair mechanism or by failure to induce cell death. Biallelic germline MUTYH mutations confer a 14% risk of ovarian cancer by age 70. A monoallelic germline mutation in conjunction with a somatic MUTYH mutation may also contribute to the development of ovarian cancer. Resistance to platinum-based chemotherapeutic agents may be seen in tumors with monoallelic mutations, but platinum sensitivity in the biallelic setting. As MUTYH is intimately associated with targetable molecular partners, therapeutic options for MUTYH driven ovarian cancers include programed-death 1/programed-death ligand-1 inhibitors and poly-adenosine diphosphate ribose polymerase inhibitors. Understanding the function of MUTYH and its associated partners is critical for determining screening, risk reduction, and therapeutic approaches for MUTYH-driven ovarian cancers

In Vivo screening and discovery of novel candidate thalidomide analogs in the zebrafish embryo and chicken embryo model systems

This study was supported by a Wellcome Trust-NIH PhD Studentship to SB, WDF and NV. Grant number 098252/Z/12/Z. SB, CHC and WDF are supported by the Intramural Research Program, NCI, NIH. NHG and WL are supported by the Intramural Research Program, NIA, NIH.Peer reviewedPublisher PD