Ben Muse to Jim, 31 August 1961

Personal correspondenc

Ben to Jim, 9 July 1963

Professional correspondenc

Exchange Rate –Oil Price Nexus: The Role of Asymmetries

Using the case of the Nigerian economy, this paper utilize both the linear and nonlinear ARDL frameworks to investigate the short and long run symmetric and asymmetric response of exchange rate to oil price changes. We fail to reject the null hypothesis of no asymmetry though, the fact that the empirical evidence as established in the context of this study reveals the response of exchange rate to oil price shocks as more significantly pronounced when the changes in oil price is positive is quite instructive not to entirely ignores possible asymmetric implications of exchange rate –oil price relationship in Nigeria. JEL Classification: C22, F30, F31 Keywords: Oil price; Exchange rates; Asymmetries; Nonlinear ARD

No. 8 - The Cuban Embargo: Policy Outlook after 50 Years

Organized and sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy, The Cuban Embargo: Policy Outlook after 50 Years was a daylong conference exploring issues related to the impact of trade sanctions imposed by the United States on Cuba, pathways to lifting the embargo and potential U.S.-Cuba trade opportunities. Ambassador José R, Cabañas, the chief of mission at the Cuban Interests Section in Washinton, D.C., served as the keynote speaker for the event. The transcript of the conference proceedings has been edited for publication with the consent of the speakers

Multicenter registry and test bed for extended outpatient hemodynamic monitoring: the hemodynamic frontiers in heart failure (HF2) initiative

BackgroundHemodynamic Frontiers in Heart Failure (HF2) is a multicenter academic research consortium comprised of 14 US institutions with mature remote monitoring programs for ambulatory patients with heart failure (HF). The consortium developed a retrospective and prospective registry of patients implanted with a wireless pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) sensor.Goals/aimsHF2 registry collects demographic, clinical, laboratory, echocardiographic (ECHO), and hemodynamic data from patients with PAP sensors. The aims of HF2 are to advance understanding of HF and to accelerate development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic innovations.MethodsHF2 includes adult patients implanted with a PAP sensor as per FDA indications (New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class III HF functional class with a prior hospitalization, or patients with NYHA Class II or brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) elevation without hospitalization) at a HF2 member site between 1/1/19 to present. HF2 registry is maintained at University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). The registry was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) at all participating institutions with required data use agreements. Institutions report data into the electronic registry database using REDCap, housed at KUMC.ResultsThis initial data set includes 254 patients implanted from the start of 2019 until May 2023. At time of device implant, the cohort average age is 73 years old, 59.8% are male, 72% have NYHA Class III HF, 40% have left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) < 40%, 35% have LVEF > 50%, mean BNP is 560 pg/ml, mean N-Terminal pro-BNP (NTproBNP) is 5,490 pg/ml, mean creatinine is 1.65 mg/dl. Average baseline hemodynamics at device implant are right atrial pressure (RAP) of 11 mmHg, pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) of 47 mmHg, pulmonary artery diastolic pressure (PADP) 21 mmHg, mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) of 20 mmHg, pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) of 19 mmHg, cardiac output (CO) of 5.3 L/min, and cardiac index (CI) of 2.5 L/min/m2.ConclusionA real-world registry of patients implanted with a PAP sensor enables long-term evaluation of hemodynamic and clinic outcomes in highly-phenotyped ambulatory HF patients, and creates a unique opportunity to validate and test novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to HF

The relationship between cognitive decline and a genetic predictor of educational attainment

Genetic and environmental factors both make substantial contributions to the heterogeneity in individuals’ levels of cognitive ability. Many studies have examined the relationship between educational attainment and cognitive performance and its rate of change. Yet there remains a gap in knowledge regarding whether the effect of genetic predictors on individual differences in cognition becomes more or less prominent over the life course. In this analysis of over 5000 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the U.S., we measured the change in performance on global cognition, episodic memory, attention & concentration, and mental status over 14 years. Growth curve models are used to evaluate the association between a polygenic risk score for education (education PGS)and cognitive change. Using the most recent education PGS, we find that individuals with higher scores perform better across all measures of cognition in later life. Education PGS is associated with a faster decline in episodic memory in old age. The relationships are robust even after controlling for phenotypic educational attainment, and are unlikely to be driven by mortality bias. Future research should consider genetic effects when examining non-genetic factors in cognitive decline. Our findings represent a need to understand the mechanisms between genetic endowment of educational attainment and cognitive decline from a biological angle

Measurement of the tt¯tt¯ production cross section in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of four-top-quark production using proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 is presented. Events are selected if they contain a single lepton (electron or muon) or an opposite-sign lepton pair, in association with multiple jets. The events are categorised according to the number of jets and how likely these are to contain b-hadrons. A multivariate technique is then used to discriminate between signal and background events. The measured four-top-quark production cross section is found to be 26+17−15 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) significance of 1.9 (1.0) standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. The result is combined with the previous measurement performed by the ATLAS Collaboration in the multilepton final state. The combined four-top-quark production cross section is measured to be 24+7−6 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) signal significance of 4.7 (2.6) standard deviations over the background-only predictions. It is consistent within 2.0 standard deviations with the Standard Model expectation of 12.0 ± 2.4 fb

Measurements of Higgs bosons decaying to bottom quarks from vector boson fusion production with the ATLAS experiment at √=13TeV

The paper presents a measurement of the Standard Model Higgs Boson decaying to b-quark pairs in the vector boson fusion (VBF) production mode. A sample corresponding to 126 fb−1 of s√=13TeV proton–proton collision data, collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, is analyzed utilizing an adversarial neural network for event classification. The signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured signal yield to that predicted by the Standard Model for VBF Higgs production, is measured to be 0.95+0.38−0.36 , corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.8) standard deviations from the background only hypothesis. The results are additionally combined with an analysis of Higgs bosons decaying to b-quarks, produced via VBF in association with a photon

Muon reconstruction and identification efficiency in ATLAS using the full Run 2 pp collision data set at \sqrt{s}=13 TeV

This article documents the muon reconstruction and identification efficiency obtained by the ATLAS experiment for 139 \hbox {fb}^{-1} of pp collision data at \sqrt{s}=13 TeV collected between 2015 and 2018 during Run 2 of the LHC. The increased instantaneous luminosity delivered by the LHC over this period required a reoptimisation of the criteria for the identification of prompt muons. Improved and newly developed algorithms were deployed to preserve high muon identification efficiency with a low misidentification rate and good momentum resolution. The availability of large samples of Z\rightarrow \mu \mu and J/\psi \rightarrow \mu \mu decays, and the minimisation of systematic uncertainties, allows the efficiencies of criteria for muon identification, primary vertex association, and isolation to be measured with an accuracy at the per-mille level in the bulk of the phase space, and up to the percent level in complex kinematic configurations. Excellent performance is achieved over a range of transverse momenta from 3 GeV to several hundred GeV, and across the full muon detector acceptance of |\eta |<2.7

Search for neutral long-lived particles in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV that decay into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter

A search for decays of pair-produced neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) is presented using 139 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015–2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Dedicated techniques were developed for the reconstruction of displaced jets produced by LLPs decaying hadronically in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter. Two search regions are defined for different LLP kinematic regimes. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background, and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For a SM Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for values of c times LLP mean proper lifetime in the range between 20 mm and 10 m depending on the model. Upper limits are also set on the cross-section times branching ratio for scalars with a mass of 60 GeV and for masses between 200 GeV and 1 TeV. [Figure not available: see fulltext.