1,703 research outputs found
Does Entrepreneurship Reduce Unemployment?
The relationship between unemployment and entrepreneurship has been shrouded with ambiguity. There is assumed to be a two-way causation between changes in the level of entrepreneurship and that of unemployment-- a "Schumpeter" effect of entrepreneurship reducing unemployment and a "refugee" or "shopkeeper" effect of unemployment stimulating entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to try to reconcile the ambiguities found in the relationship between unemployment and entrepreneurship. We do this by introducing a two equation model where changes in unemployment and in the number of business owners are linked to subsequent changes in those variables for a panel of 23 OECD countries over the period 1974-1998. The existence of two distinct and separate relationships between unemployment and entrepreneurship is identified including significant "Schumpeter" and "refugee" effects
Effectiveness of a recent topical sialogogue in the management of drug-induced xerostomia
Objectives:
Use of certain drugs is the most common aetiology of xerostomia. Systemic sialogogues provide a
longer effect than topic ones, but also induce relevant side effects. Topical sialogogues, as malic acid, allow a safe
use as they induce no systemic side-effects or pharmacological interactions, being especially interesting in cases
of mild hyposalivation and oral dryness, mainly the chronic use of xerostomizing drugs. The aim of this study
was to evaluate the clinical effect of 1% malic acid in patients affected by xerostomia due to antihypertensives or
antidepressants.
Study Design:
10 patients with drug-induced xerostomia were prospectively evaluated before and after using malic
acid spray during three weeks. Xerostomia Inventory (XI) was used to evaluate subjective improvement. Unstimulated and stimulated salivary flow rates were determinated.
Results:
Severity significantly decreased, from 38.22 to 31.00 points (p = 0.011) after using the product. 77.8% of
subjects did not complain about xerostomia at the end and 66.6% achieved an improvement > 6 points. Unstimulated flow rate singnificantly increased, from 0.163 to 0.226 mL/min (p = 0.021) at the third week.
Conclusions:
1% malic acid spray induces some improvement in the management of mild and reversible xerostomia. Carrying out of randomized controlled trials is justified according to this study
Impeded Industrial Restructuring: the growth penalty
This paper documents that a process of industrial restructuring has been transforming the developed economies, where large corporations are accounting for less economic activity and small firms are accounting for a greater share of economic activity. Not all countries, however, are experiencing the same shift in their industrial structures. Very little is known about the cost of resisting this restructuring process. The goal of this paper is to identify whether there is a cost, measured in terms of forgone growth, of an impeded restructuring process. The cost is measured by linking growth rates of European countries to deviations from the optimal industrial structure. The empirical evidence suggests that countries impeding the restructuring process pay a penalty in terms of forgone growth
Detection of missense mutations by single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) analysis in five dysfunctional variants of coagulation factor VII
Five unrelated subjects with dysfunctional coagulation factor VII (FVII) were studied In order to Identify missense mutations affecting function. Exons 2 to 8 and the Intron-exon Junctions of their FVIl genes were amplified from peripheral white blood cell DNA by PCR and screened by SSCP analysis. DNA fragments showing aberrant mobility were sequenced. The following mutations were Identified: In case 1 (FVII: C <1%, FVIl:Ag 18%) a heterozygous A to G transltion at nucleotlde 8915 In exon 6 results In the amlno acid substitution Lys-137 to Glu near the C-termlnus of the FVlla llght chaln; In case 2 (FVII: C 7%, FVll:Ag 47%) a heterozygous A to G transltion at nucleotide 7834 In exon 5 results in the substitution of Gin-100 by Arg in the second EGF-like domain; In case 3 (FVll:C 20%, FVIl:Ag 76%) a homozygous G to A transition at nucleotide position 6055 in exon 4 was detected resulting in substitution of Arg-79 by Gin in the first EGF-like domain; in case 5 (FVIl:C 10%, FVIl:Ag 52%) a heterozygous C to T transition at nucleotide position 6054 in exon 4 also results in the substitution of Arg79, but in this case it is replaced by Trp; case 4 (FVll:C <1%, FVIl:Ag 100%) was homozygous for a previously reported mutation (G to A) at nucleotide position 10715 in exon 8, substituting Gin for Arg at position 304 in the protease domain. Cases 1,2 and 5 evidently have additional undetected mutation
Erratum:Correction to: Alignment of Biological Sequences with Jalview (Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) (2021) 2231 (203-224))
Raman spectroscopy to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies in blood
Accurate identification of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is still of major clinical importance considering the current lack of non-invasive and low-cost diagnostic approaches. Detection of early-stage AD is particularly desirable as it would allow early intervention and/or recruitment of patients into clinical trials. There is also an unmet need for discrimination of AD from dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), as many cases of the latter are misdiagnosed as AD. Biomarkers based on a simple blood test would be useful in research and clinical practice. Raman spectroscopy has been implemented to analyse blood plasma of a cohort that consisted of early-stage AD, late-stage AD, DLB and healthy controls. Classification algorithms achieved high accuracy for the different groups: early-stage AD vs healthy with 84% sensitivity, 86% specificity; late-stage AD vs healthy with 84% sensitivity, 77% specificity; DLB vs healthy with 83% sensitivity, 87% specificity; early-stage AD vs DLB with 81% sensitivity, 88% specificity; late-stage AD vs DLB with 90% sensitivity, 93% specificity; and lastly, early-stage AD vs late-stage AD 66% sensitivity and 83% specificity. G-score values were also estimated between 74-91%, demonstrating that the overall performance of the classification model was satisfactory. The wavenumbers responsible for differentiation were assigned to important biomolecules which can serve as a panel of biomarkers. These results suggest a cost-effective, blood-based biomarker for neurodegeneration in dementias
SU(3) Predictions for Weak Decays of Doubly Heavy Baryons -- including SU(3) breaking terms
We find expressions for the weak decay amplitudes of baryons containing two b
quarks (or one b and one c quark -- many relationship are the same) in terms of
unknown reduced matrix elements. This project was originally motivated by the
request of the FNAL Run II b Physics Workshop organizers for a guide to
experimentalists in their search for as yet unobserved hadrons. We include an
analysis of linear SU(3) breaking terms in addition to relationships generated
by unbroken SU(3) symmetry, and relate these to expressions in terms of the
complete set of possible reduced matrix elements.Comment: 49 page
MadGraph/MadEvent v4: The New Web Generation
We present the latest developments of the MadGraph/MadEvent Monte Carlo event
generator and several applications to hadron collider physics. In the current
version events at the parton, hadron and detector level can be generated
directly from a web interface, for arbitrary processes in the Standard Model
and in several physics scenarios beyond it (HEFT, MSSM, 2HDM). The most
important additions are: a new framework for implementing user-defined new
physics models; a standalone running mode for creating and testing matrix
elements; generation of events corresponding to different processes, such as
signal(s) and backgrounds, in the same run; two platforms for data analysis,
where events are accessible at the parton, hadron and detector level; and the
generation of inclusive multi-jet samples by combining parton-level events with
parton showers. To illustrate the new capabilities of the package some
applications to hadron collider physics are presented:
1) Higgs search in pp \to H \to W^+W^-: signal and backgrounds.
2) Higgs CP properties: pp \to H jj$in the HEFT.
3) Spin of a new resonance from lepton angular distributions.
4) Single-top and Higgs associated production in a generic 2HDM.
5) Comparison of strong SUSY pair production at the SPS points.
6) Inclusive W+jets matched samples: comparison with the Tevatron data.Comment: 38 pages, 15 figure
Flavor changing Z-decays from scalar interactions at a Giga-Z Linear Collider
The flavor changing decay Z -> d_I \bar{d}_J is investigated with special
emphasis on the b \bar{s} final state. Various models for flavor violation are
considered: two Higgs doublet models (2HDM's), supersymmetry (SUSY) with flavor
violation in the up and down-type squark mass matrices and SUSY with flavor
violation mediated by R-parity-violating interaction. We find that, within the
SUSY scenarios for flavor violation, the branching ratio for the decay Z -> b
\bar{s} can reach 10^{-6} for large \tan\beta values, while the typical size
for this branching ratio in the 2HDM's considered is about two orders of
magnitudes smaller at best. Thus, flavor changing SUSY signatures in radiative
Z decays such as Z -> b \bar{s} may be accessible to future ``Z factories''
such as a Giga-Z version of the TESLA design.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, REVTeX4. A new section added and a few minor
corrections were made in the tex
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