Central Bank Transparency: Where, Why, and with What Effects?

Greater transparency in central bank operations is the most dramatic change in the conduct of monetary policy in recent years. In this paper we present new information on its extent and effects. We show that the trend is general: a large number of central banks have moved in the direction of greater transparency since the late 1990s. We then analyze the determinants and effects of central bank transparency in an integrated empirical framework. Transparency is greater in countries with more stable and developed political systems and deeper and more developed financial markets. Our preliminary analysis suggests broadly favorable if relatively weak impacts on inflation and output variability.

Macroeconomic Impact of Bank Regulation and Supervision: A cross-country investigation

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Bank regulation and supervision (RS) is a formal institutional mechanism that aims to reduce the adverse selection and moral hazard risks in the banking sector. This paper offers an empirical exploration of the relationship between banking-sector performance and RS using data on the legal quality of bank regulation and supervision. The main channels via which RS affects bank performance are considered to be depositor trust, investment mobilization, and borrower discipline. An event study of up to fifty-three countries provides robust evidence that RS has significant positive effects on bank deposits and investment rate and significant negative effects on nonperforming loans

Effects of Growth Volatility on Economic Performance

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper examines the relationship between growth and growth volatility for a small open economy with high growth volatility: Turkey. Quarterly data for the period from 1987Q1 to 2007Q3 suggests that growth volatility reduces growth and that this result is robust under different specifications. This paper contributes to the literature by focusing on how growth volatility affects a set of variables that are crucial for growth. Empirical evidence from Turkey suggests that higher growth volatility reduces total factor productivity, investment, and the foreign currency value of local currency (depreciation). Moreover, it increases employment, though the evidence for this is not statistically significant. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

External Income Shocks and turkish Exports: A Sectoral Analysis

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This study assesses how the growth rates of Turkish trading partners affected Turkish exports in various sectors for the period 1996:01 to 2009:12. To determine this, we modeled the destination countries and the export demand for each sector separately. Each model is estimated as a system of equations, where each equation represents a country using a seemingly unrelated regression method. The empirical evidence suggests that Motor Vehicles, Basic Metals, and Radio-Television are the sectors with the highest income elasticities for most of the analyzed countries, whereas the Food Products and Beverages sector has the lowest income elasticity. We also performed simulations for the effect of a 1% increase in the growth rate of each country on Turkish exports. © 2013 Elsevier B.V

Inflation and inflation uncertainty in the G-7 countries

This study examines the relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty in the G-7 countries for the period from 1957 to 2001. The causality between the inflation and inflation uncertainty is tested by using the Full Information Maximum Likelihood Method with extended lags. Our results suggest that inflation causes inflation uncertainty for all the G-7 countries, while inflation uncertainty causes inflation for Canada, France, Japan, the UK and the US. Furthermore, we find that in four countries (Canada, France, the UK and the US) increased uncertainty lowers inflation, and in only one country (Japan), increased uncertainty raises inflation. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in Turkish breast/ovarian families and young breast cancer patients

To date, BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in breast and/or ovarian patients have not been characterized in the Turkish population. We investigated the presence of BRCA mutations in 53 individuals with a personal and family history of breast and/or ovarian cancer, and 52 individuals with a personal history of breast cancer diagnosed below age 50 without additional family history. We have identified 11 mutations (nine BRCA1 and two BRCA2) using combined techniques involving protein truncation test, direct sequencing and heteroduplex analysis. We found eight out of 53 patients (15.1%) with a family history to carry BRCA gene mutations (seven BRCA1 and one BRCA2). Of these, four were found in 43 families presenting only breast cancer histories, and four were found in families presenting ovarian cancer with or without breast cancer. We also demonstrated two BRCA1 and one BRCA2 mutations in three out of 52 (5.8%) early-onset breast cancer cases without additional family history. Three of nine BRCA1 and both BRCA2 mutations detected in this study were not reported previously. These mutations may be specific to the Turkish population. The BRCA1 5382insC mutation, specific to Ashkenazi and Russian populations, was found twice in our study group, representing a possible founder mutation in the Turkish population. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Structure-based design and synthesis of antiparasitic pyrrolopyrimidines targeting pteridine reductase 1

The treatment of Human African Trypanosomiasis remains a major unmet health need in sub-Saharan Africa. Approaches involving new molecular targets are important and pteridine reductase 1 (PTR1), an enzyme that reduces dihydrobiopterin in Trypanosoma spp. has been identified as a candidate target and it has been shown previously that substituted pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidines are inhibitors of PTR1 from T. brucei (J. Med. Chem. 2010, 53, 221-229). In this study, 61 new pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidines have been prepared, designed with input from new crystal structures of 23 of these compounds complexed with PTR1, and evaluated in screens for enzyme inhibitory activity against PTR1 and in vitro antitrypanosomal activity. 8 compounds were sufficiently active in both screens to take forward to in vivo evaluation. Thus although evidence for trypanocidal activity in a stage I disease model in mice was obtained, the compounds were too toxic to mice for further development

Fatal encephalitis associated with novel influenza A (H1N1) virus infection in a child

A 4-year-old girl presented with fever, coughing, and vomiting; followed by unconsciousness. Magnetic resonance imaging showed hyperintense changes in the thalami bilaterally, brain stem, cerebellum, and subcortical cortex. Novel influenza A (H1N1) virus was identified by polymerase chain reaction in patient’s nasopharyngeal swab specimen. We reported a rare case of clinically severe, novel influenza A-associated encephalitis. Novel influenza A should be considered in the differential diagnosis in patients with seizures and mental status changes, especially during an influenza outbreak

Lepton polarization asymmetry in radiative dileptonic B-meson decays in MSSM

In this paper we study the polarization asymmetries of the final state lepton in the radiative dileptonic decay of B meson (\bsllg) in the framework of Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and various other unified models within the framework of MSSM e.g. mSUGRA, SUGRA (where condition of universality of scalar masses is relaxed) etc. Lepton polarization, in addition of having a longitudinal component (\pl), can have two other components, \pt and \pn, lying in and perpendicular to the decay plane, which are proportional to \ml and hence are significant for final state being $\mu^+ ~ \mu^-$ or $\tau^+ \~\tau^-$. We analyse the dependence of these polarization asymmetries on the parameters of the various models.Comment: typos corrected to match with published versio

Lack of association between acute stroke, post-stroke dementia, race, and β-amyloid status

INTRODUCTION: Stroke and Alzheimer disease share risk factors and often co-occur, and both have been reported to have a higher prevalence in African Americans as compared to non-Hispanic whites. However, their interaction has not been established. The objective of this study was to determine if preclinical Alzheimer disease is a risk factor for stroke and post-stroke dementia and whether racial differences moderate this relationship. METHODS: This case-control study was analyzed in 2019 using retrospective data from 2007 to 2013. Participants were adults age 65 and older with and without acute ischemic stroke. Recruitment included word of mouth and referrals in Saint Louis, MO, with stroke participants recruited from acutely hospitalized patients and non-stroke participants from community living older adults who were research volunteers. Our assessment included radiologic reads of infarcts, microbleeds, and white matter hyperintensitites (WMH); a Pittsburgh Compound B PET measure of cortical β-amyloid binding; quantitative measures of hippocampal and WMH volume; longitudinal Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores; and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) 1 year post-stroke. RESULTS: A total of 243 participants were enrolled, 81 of which had a recent ischemic stroke. Participants had a mean age of 75, 57% were women, and 52% were African American. Cortical amyloid did not differ significantly by race, stroke status, or CDR post-stroke. There were racial differences in MMSE scores at baseline (mean 26.8 for African Americans, 27.9 for non-Hispanic whites, p = 0.03), but not longitudinally. African Americans were more likely to have microbleeds (32.8% vs 22.6%, p = 0.04), and within the acute stroke group, African Americans were more likely to have small infarcts (75.6% vs 56.8%, p = 0.049). CONCLUSION: Preclinical Alzheimer disease did not show evidence of being a risk factor for stroke nor predictive of post-stroke dementia. We did not observe racial differences in β-amyloid levels. However, even after controlling for several vascular risk factors, African Americans with clinical stroke presentations had greater levels of vascular pathology on MRI