Optimal Monetary Policy in an Estimated Local Currency Pricing Model

We analyze fluctuations in inflation and the nominal exchange rate under optimal monetary policy with local currency pricing by developing two-country DSGE local currency pricing and producer currency pricing models. We estimate our models using Bayesian techniques with Japanese and US data, and calculate impulse response functions. Our estimation results show that local currency pricing is strongly supported against producer currency pricing. From the estimated parameters, we show that completely stabilizing consumer price index inflation is optimal from the viewpoint of minimizing welfare costs and that completely stabilizing consumer price index inflation is consistent with completely stabilizing the nominal exchange rate.local currency pricing, optimal monetary policy, CPI inflation, fixed exchange rate, Bayesian estimation

Should the Fiscal Authority Avoid Implementation Lag?

Eguchi M., Niwa H., Tsuruga T.. Should the Fiscal Authority Avoid Implementation Lag?. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics , (2024); https://doi.org/10.1111/obes.12604.Implementation lags are a concern of policymakers as they may reduce the efficacy of fiscal policy. Using a standard New Keynesian model with an effective lower bound on the nominal interest rate, we compare the impacts of fiscal stimulus on output across various lengths of implementation lag. We show that despite concerns among policymakers, implementation lags may enhance the efficacy of government purchases on output when the economy is caught in a liquidity trap

Role of neurosteroid allopregnanolone on age-related differences in exercise-induced hypoalgesia in rats

The beneficial effects of physical activity for pain are denominated exercise-induced hypoalgesia (EIH). Here, we examined the age-related change and potential role of the neurosteroid allopregnanolone (ALLO) on EIH in rats. Adult and aged rats were randomly divided into one of three groups; non-exercise control, Low-exercise, and High-exercise. The animals in the Low- and High-exercise groups were subjected to a 10-minute treadmill workout at 40% and 80% maximum oxygen intake intensity, respectively. In the Low-exercise groups, a significant EIH response was observed in aged but not in adult rats. The pre-treatment with ALLO synthesis inhibitor finasteride, but not opioid-receptor antagonist naloxone, inhibited the Low-exercise induced EIH response in aged rats. Furthermore, the Low-exercise increased brain ALLO levels in aged animals compared with controls, which was correlated with the mechanical pain sensitivity. On the other hand, High-exercise could induce EIH response in both adult and aged animals, but it was more effective in adult rats. The pre-treatment with naloxone, but not finasteride, reduced the EIH observed after High-exercise in both adult and aged rats. Our findings demonstrated that effective EIH can be achieved even by mild-intensity exercise in aged animals via an increase of the brain ALLO levels

Resveratrol-loaded nanoemulsion prevents cognitive decline after abdominal surgery in aged rats

The maladaptive response of aged microglia to surgery and consequent neuroinflammation plays a key pathogenic role in postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). Here, we assessed the preventive effect of resveratrol (RESV) for POCD in aged rats. The emulsified form of RESV (e-RESV) was selected to improve its oral and brain bioavailability. Animals were assigned to one of four groups: e-RESV (80 mg/kg) versus vehicle treatment by abdominal surgery versus isoflurane anesthesia alone (n = 8 in each group). The dose-dependent effects of e-RESV were also assessed in dose range of 0e60 mg/kg. Either vehicle or e-RESV was administered intragastrically 24 h before surgery. Seven days after procedure, cognitive function was evaluated using a novel object recognition test, followed by measurement of hippocampal pro-inflammatory cytokine levels. Our results showed that pre-treatment with e-RESV attenuated the surgery-induced cognitive impairment and related hippocampal neuroinflammation at 40 mg/kg or higher doses. Additionally, the ex-vivo experiments revealed that the preemptive e-RESV regimen reduced the hippocampal microglial immune reactivity to lipopolysaccharide. Furthermore, e-RESV induced neuroprotective benefits were inhibited by the concomitant administration of sirtinol, a specific SIRT1 inhibitor. Our findings imply the preventive potential of e-RESV for POCD via the SIRT1 signaling pathway

Effect of febuxostat on left ventricular diastolic function in patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia : a sub analysis of the PRIZE Study

Hyperuricemia is related to an increased risk of cardiovascular events from a meta-analysis and antihyperuricemia agents may influence to cardiac function. We evaluated the effect of febuxostat on echocardiographic parameters of diastolic function in patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia as a prespecified endpoint in the subanalysis of the PRIZE study. Patients in the PRIZE study were assigned randomly to either add-on febuxostat treatment group or control group with only appropriate lifestyle modification. Of the 514 patients in the overall study, 65 patients (31 in the febuxostat group and 34 in the control group) who had complete follow-up echocardiographic data of the ratio of peak early diastolic transmitral flow velocity (E) to peak early diastolic mitral annular velocity (e′) at baseline and after 12 and 24 months were included. The primary endpoint was a comparison of the changes in the E/e′ between the two groups from baseline to 24 months. Interestingly, e′ was slightly decreased in the control group compared with in the febuxostat group (treatment p = 0.068, time, p = 0.337, treatment × Time, p = 0.217). As a result, there were significant increases in E/e′ (treatment p = 0.045, time, p = 0.177, treatment × time, p = 0.137) after 24 months in the control group compared with the febuxostat group. There was no significant difference in the serum levels of N-terminal-pro brain natriuretic peptide and high-sensitive troponin I between the two groups during the study period. In conclusions, additional febuxostat treatment in patients with asymptomatic hyperuricemia for 24 months might have a potential of preventable effects on the impaired diastolic dysfunction

Common Peak Approach Using Mass Spectrometry Data Sets for Predicting the Effects of Anticancer Drugs on Breast Cancer

We propose a method for biomarker discovery from mass spectrometry data, improving the common peak approach developed by Fushiki et al. (BMC Bioinformatics, 7:358, 2006). The common peak method is a simple way to select the sensible peaks that are shared with many subjects among all detected peaks by combining a standard spectrum alignment and kernel density estimates. The key idea of our proposed method is to apply the common peak approach to each class label separately. Hence, the proposed method gains more informative peaks for predicting class labels, while minor peaks associated with specific subjects are deleted correctly. We used a SELDI-TOF MS data set from laser microdissected cancer tissues for predicting the treatment effects of neoadjuvant therapy using an anticancer drug on breast cancer patients. The AdaBoost algorithm is adopted for pattern recognition, based on the set of candidate peaks selected by the proposed method. The analysis gives good performance in the sense of test errors for classifying the class labels for a given feature vector of selected peak values

Expression of alpha smooth muscle actin in living donor liver transplant recipients

Recently, there have been reports from liver biopsies that showed the progression of liver fibrosis in liver transplant patients after the cessation of immunosuppression. Herein, we focused on activated hepatic stellate cells expressing alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) to understand the correlation between immunosuppressant medication and liver fibrosis. The study enrolled two pediatric patients who underwent living donor liver transplantation and ceased immunosuppressant therapy. The number of α-SMA-positive cells in the specimens obtained by liver biopsy from these two patients showed a three-fold increase compared with the number from four transplanted pediatric patients who were continuing immunosuppressant therapy. In addition, the α-SMA-positive area evaluated using the Win- RooF image processing software program continued to increase over time in three adult transplanted patients with liver fibrosis, and the α-SMA-positive area was increasing even during the pre-fibrotic stage in these adult cases, according to a retrospective review. Therefore, α-SMA could be a useful marker for the detection of early stage fibrosis

Decreased Expression of SOX9 in Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms of the Bile Duct

Background/Aims: SOX9 is an important transcription factor required for development and has been implicated in several types of malignant tumor. Our recent study showed that SOX9 played an important role in multi-step carcinogenesis in cases of intraductal papillary mucinous tumor of the pancreas (IPMN-P). This study aimed to investigate the expression of SOX9 in cases of intraductal papillary mucinous tumor of the bile duct (IPMN-B). Methodology: SOX9 expression was immunohistochemically evaluated in the tumor and corresponding normal bile-duct epithelium of seven IPMN-B patients. Results: In all cases, SOX9 expression in the IPMN-B was low compared with the normal biliary epithelium. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that SOX9 expression may indicate a link between IPMN-B and IPMN-P. SOX9 may also have potential as a therapeutic target and/or prognostic marker in IPMN-B

Systemic Epstein–Barr Virus-Positive T/NK Lymphoproliferative Diseases With SH2D1A/XIAP Hypomorphic Gene Variants

X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP) is one of the X-linked primary immunodeficiency diseases (PIDs) with defective immune response to Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection. Chronic active EBV infection (CAEBV) and EBV-hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) are recognized as systemic EBV-positive T-cell and natural killer (NK)-cell lymphoproliferative diseases (LPDs) arising from the clonal proliferations of EBV-infected T cells and NK cells. A high incidence of CAEBV in East Asia implies the unknown genetic predisposition. In patients with XLP, EBV-infected cells are generally B cells. No mutation of SH2D1A/XIAP genes has ever been identified in patients with systemic EBV-positive T-cell and NK-cell LPD. We report herewith a male case of NK-cell type CAEBV with SH2D1A hypomorphic mutation (c.7G > T, p.Ala3Ser), two male cases of CAEBV/EBV-HLH with XIAP hypomorphic variant (c.1045_1047delGAG, p.Glu349del), and another female case of CD4+CAEBV with the same XIAP variant. The female underwent bone marrow transplantation from an HLA-matched sister with the XIAP variant and obtained a complete donor chimerism and a cure of laryngeal LPD lesion, but then suffered from donor-derived CD4+ T cell EBV-LPD. These observations demonstrated that SH2D1A and XIAP genes are critical for the complete regulation of EBV-positive T/NK cell LPD. X-linked lymphoproliferative disease (XLP) is one of the X-linked primary immunodeficiency diseases (PIDs) reported to have a defective immune response to Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection. Mutations in SH2D1A and XIAP genes cause XLP. Systemic EBV-positive T-cell and natural killer (NK)-cell lymphoproliferative diseases (LPDs) consist of three major types: EBV-positive hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), chronic active EBV infection (CAEBV), and EBV-positive T-cell/NK-cell lymphoma. CAEBV is recognized as a poor prognostic disease of EBV-associated T-cell and NK-cell LPD arising from the clonal proliferation of EBV-infected T cells (CD4+, CD8+, and TCRγδ+) and/or NK cells. The majority of cases with CAEBV were reported from East Asia and South America. In Caucasian patients with CAEBV disease, the target of infection is exclusively B cells. These imply a genetic predisposition to EBV-positive T/NK cell LPD according to ethnicity. In reported cases with XLP, EBV-infected cells are B cells. On the other hand, no mutation of SH2D1A/XIAP genes have been determined in patients with T/NK-cell-type (Asian type) CAEBV. We here describe, for the first time, four case series of CAEBV/EBV-HLH patients who carried the hypomorphic variants of XLP-related genes. These cases included a male patient with CAEBV carrying SH2D1A hypomorphic mutation (c.7G > T, p.Ala3Ser) and two male patients with CAEBV/EBV-HLH carrying the XIAP hypomorphic variant (c.1045_1047delGAG, p.Glu349del), along with another female patient with CAEBV carrying the same XIAP variant. The female case underwent bone marrow transplantation from a healthy HLA-matched sister having the same XIAP variant. Although a complete donor chimerism was achieved with the resolution of laryngeal LPD lesions, systemic donor-derived CD4+ T-cell EBV-LPD developed during the control phase of intractable graft- vs. -host-disease. These observations demonstrated that SH2D1A and XIAP genes are critical for the complete regulation of systemic EBV-positive T/NK-cell LPD