Evaluating Crime as a Negative Externality of Hosting Mega-Events: Econometric Analysis of the 2012 London Summer Olympics

Analysis of the benefits and the drawbacks of hosting large-scale sporting events like the Olympics or World Cup frequently ignore the effects of crime due to its relatively small economic impact in comparison to employment and consumption effects. Literature has frequently tied sporting events and tourism to crime, in addition to observing proximity effects on crime during sporting events. This research seeks to confirm both by implementing a difference-in-difference regression that can show whether crime increased during the Olympics, in particular in London boroughs which hosted venues for the Games. Ultimately, the research concludes that crime in London as a whole does increase although it is unable to find statistically significant evidence that crime increased in host boroughs at a magnitude larger than the general increase in crime in the city. Likely reasons we have been unsuccessful in pinpointing the location effects include data limitations (daily data would be superior to monthly data due to the dates during which the event was hosted) and the relatively small geographical size of each host borough, as well as their proximity to one another

Inhibition of kinin metabolism and the role of the vascular B₁ kinin receptor in patients with congestive heart failure

BACKGROUND Angiotensin-converting enzyme and neutral endopeptidase are endothelial metallopeptidases that metabolise bradykinin. Inhibitors of angiotensinconverting enzyme improve symptoms and survival in patients with heart failure and vascular disease and potentiate bradykinin-mediated vasodilatation and endothelial tissue plasminogen activator release. The vascular actions of kinins are mediated by an inducible B₁ receptor and a constitutively expressed B₂ receptor. Vascular B₁ kinin receptor expression is markedly upregulated with left ventricular dysfunction and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition, but its role in man remains unclear.OBJECTIVES The aims of this thesis were first, to confirm biological activity of kinin receptor agonists and antagonists in human vascular tissue in vitro: second, to determine the contribution of bradykinin to the systemic haemodynamic effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition in patients with heart failure: third, to determine the effects of neutral endopeptidase inhibition on the vascular actions of bradykinin in patients treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition: fourth and finally, to determine the contribution of the B₁ kinin receptor to the vascular actions of kinins in patients with heart failureMETHODS Myography The vasomotor effects of kinin peptides were determined using myography of human umbilical vein rings. Heart failure: Systemic circulation After 6 weeks of enalapril or losartan therapy, patients underwent right heart catheterisation and received an intravenous infusion of the bradykinin receptor antagonist, B9340. Systemic haemodynamic variables were recorded. Peripheral circulation Blood flow and plasma fibrinolytic parameters were determined in both forearms using venous occlusion plethysmography and venous blood sampling. Drugs were administered via the brachial artery of the non-dominant forearm. The effect of the neutral endopeptidase inhibitor, thiorphan, on the vascular actions of bradykinin was examined in patients maintained on angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition. Vascular Bi receptor function was examined using selective peptidic kinin receptor agonists and antagonists.RESULTS Biological activity of kinin receptor agonists and antagonists was confirmed in human umbilical vein. Systemic bradykinin antagonism caused an increase in mean arterial pressure and systemic vascular resistance and attenuated the fall in pulmonary arterial and pulmonary arterial wedge pressures in patients treated with enalapril compared to losartan. Compared to placebo, thiorphan augmented the vasomotor and fibrinolytic actions of bradykinin in patients treated with chronic angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition. Bi receptor agonism and antagonism had no effect on vascular tone or enothelial tissue plasminogen activator release in the presence or absence of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition. The B2 receptor agonist, bradykinin, caused vasodilatation and tissue plasminogen activator release and these effects were markedly augmented by angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition.CONCLUSIONS Bradykinin contributes to the systemic haemodynamic effects of longterm angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition in patients with heart failure. Neutral endopeptidase contributes to the metabolism of bradykinin in patients with heart failure maintained on angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor therapy. Our findings may explain some of the apparent clinical differences between angiotensinconverting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as the greater vasodepressor effect observed with combined angiotensin-converting enzyme and neutral endopeptidase inhibition when compared to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition alone. Finally, the B₁ kinin receptor does not appear to have a major vasomotor or fibrinolytic role in patients with heart failure. Augmentation of kinin-mediated vasodilatation and tissue plasminogen activator release by angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition is restricted to the B₂ recepto

A molecular superfluid: non-classical rotations in doped para-hydrogen clusters

Clusters of para-hydrogen (pH2) have been predicted to exhibit superfluid behavior, but direct observation of this phenomenon has been elusive. Combining experiments and theoretical simulations, we have determined the size evolution of the superfluid response of pH2 clusters doped with carbon dioxide (CO2). Reduction of the effective inertia is observed when the dopant is surrounded by the pH2 solvent. This marks the onset of molecular superfluidity in pH2. The fractional occupation of solvation rings around CO2 correlates with enhanced superfluid response for certain cluster sizes

Income diversification and poverty in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam:

Poverty, income diversification,

Are Attitudes Towards Economic Risk Heritable? Analyses Using the Australian Twin Study of Gambling

This study employs multiple regression models based on DeFries and Fulker (1985), and a large sample of twins, to assess heritability in attitudes towards economic risk, and the extent to which this heritability differs between males and females. Consistent with Cesarini, Dawes, Johannesson, Lichtenstein and Wallace (2009), it is found that attitudes towards risk are moderately heritable, with about 20 percent of the variation in these attitudes across individuals being linked to genetic differences. This value is less than one-half the estimates reported by Zyphur, Narayanan, Arvey and Alexander (2009) and Zhong, Chew, Set, Zhang, Xue, Sham, Ebstein and Israel (2009). While females are more risk averse than males, there is no evidence that heritability in attitudes towards risk differs between males and females. Even though heritability is shown to be important to economic risk taking, the analyses suggest that multivariate studies of the determinants of attitudes towards risk which to not take heritability into consideration still provide reliable estimates of the partial effects of other key variables, such as gender and educational attainment.risk, heritability, gender

Radiotherapy planning for glioblastoma based on a tumor growth model: Improving target volume delineation

Glioblastoma are known to infiltrate the brain parenchyma instead of forming a solid tumor mass with a defined boundary. Only the part of the tumor with high tumor cell density can be localized through imaging directly. In contrast, brain tissue infiltrated by tumor cells at low density appears normal on current imaging modalities. In clinical practice, a uniform margin is applied to account for microscopic spread of disease. The current treatment planning procedure can potentially be improved by accounting for the anisotropy of tumor growth: Anatomical barriers such as the falx cerebri represent boundaries for migrating tumor cells. In addition, tumor cells primarily spread in white matter and infiltrate gray matter at lower rate. We investigate the use of a phenomenological tumor growth model for treatment planning. The model is based on the Fisher-Kolmogorov equation, which formalizes these growth characteristics and estimates the spatial distribution of tumor cells in normal appearing regions of the brain. The target volume for radiotherapy planning can be defined as an isoline of the simulated tumor cell density. A retrospective study involving 10 glioblastoma patients has been performed. To illustrate the main findings of the study, a detailed case study is presented for a glioblastoma located close to the falx. In this situation, the falx represents a boundary for migrating tumor cells, whereas the corpus callosum provides a route for the tumor to spread to the contralateral hemisphere. We further discuss the sensitivity of the model with respect to the input parameters. Correct segmentation of the brain appears to be the most crucial model input. We conclude that the tumor growth model provides a method to account for anisotropic growth patterns of glioblastoma, and may therefore provide a tool to make target delineation more objective and automated

Self-Organization Towards 1/f1/f Noise in Deep Neural Networks

Despite $1/f$ noise being ubiquitous in both natural and artificial systems, no general explanations for the phenomenon have received widespread acceptance. One well-known system where $1/f$ noise has been observed in is the human brain, with this 'noise' proposed by some to be important to the healthy function of the brain. As deep neural networks (DNNs) are loosely modelled after the human brain, and as they start to achieve human-level performance in specific tasks, it might be worth investigating if the same $1/f$ noise is present in these artificial networks as well. Indeed, we find the existence of $1/f$ noise in DNNs - specifically Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks modelled on real world dataset - by measuring the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of different activations within the network in response to a sequential input of natural language. This was done in analogy to the measurement of $1/f$ noise in human brains with techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). We further examine the exponent values in the $1/f$ noise in "inner" and "outer" activations in the LSTM cell, finding some resemblance in the variations of the exponents in the fMRI signal. In addition, comparing the values of the exponent at "rest" compared to when performing "tasks" of the LSTM network, we find a similar trend to that of the human brain where the exponent while performing tasks is less negative

Causal relations in the semantics of the French adverb "alors"

International audienceIn this work, we investigate the causal relations possibly conveyed by the French adverb alors (then, at that time, so) in Natural Language texts. This work is part of a broader project to provide a systematic analysis of French temporal connectives within Asher's formal framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory