2014 Fed Challenge Script: Current State of the Economy

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for having us here today. Though the recession began in 2007 and officially ended in 2009, recovery has been painfully slow. GDP growth has been insufficient to close the output gap, there continues to be slack in the labor market and inflation has stabilized below the Federal Reserve percent target. We are not meeting our dual mandate of full employment and stable prices even 6 years after the end of the recession. Despite some signs of strengthening in the economy during the past year, we do not believe that economy is on a self-sustaining path of recovery. Furthermore, the monetary policy actions taken by the Fed thus far to pull us out of the Great Recession have been insufficient. We propose a substantial strengthening of the our forward guidance; specifically, a commitment not to raise the federal funds rate until nominal GDP has returned to a path that we consider consistent with the dual mandate. [excerpt

Development and performance evaluation of a tandem mass spectrometry assay for 4 adrenal steroids

Journal ArticleCongenital adrenal hyperplasia is a group of autosomal recessive disorders caused by a deficiency of 1 of 4 enzymes required for the synthesis of glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, and sex hormones. Analysis of 11-deoxycortisol (11DC), 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17OHP), 17-hydroxypregnenolone (17OHPr), and pregnenolone (Pr) in blood allows detection of these enzyme defects

The Dynamics of Abell 2125

We present 371 galaxy velocities in the field of the very rich cluster Abell 2125 (z~0.25). These were determined using optical spectroscopy collected over several years from both the WIYN 3.5m telescope and NOAO Mayall 4m telescope. Prior studies at a variety of wavelengths (radio, optical, and X-ray) have indicated that A2125 is a likely cluster-cluster merger, a scenario which we are able to test using our large velocity database. We identified 224 cluster galaxies, which were subjected to a broad range of statistical tests using both positional and velocity information to evaluate the cluster dynamics and substructure. The tests confirmed the presence of substructures within the Abell 2125 system at high significance, demonstrating that A2125 is a complex dynamical system. Comparison of the test results with existing simulations strengthens the merger hypothesis, and provides clues about the merger geometry and stage. The merger model for the system can reconcile A2125's low X-ray temperature and luminosity with its apparently high richness, and might also explain A2125's high fraction of active galaxies identified in prior radio and optical studies.Comment: 34 pages, including tables and 3 color figures; to appear in Ap

A Rac1-independent role for P-Rex1 in melanoblasts

No abstract available

Biomimetic direction of arrival estimation for resolving front-back confusions in hearing aids

Sound sources at the same angle in front or behind a two-microphone array (e.g., bilateral hearing aids) produce the same time delay and two estimates for the direction of arrival: A front-back confusion. The auditory system can resolve this issue using head movements. To resolve front-back confusion for hearing-aid algorithms, head movement was measured using an inertial sensor. Successive time-delay estimates between the microphones are shifted clockwise and counterclockwise by the head movement between estimates and aggregated in two histograms. The histogram with the largest peak after multiple estimates predicted the correct hemifield for the source, eliminating the front-back confusions

Influence of microphone housing on the directional response of piezoelectric mems microphones inspired by Ormia ochracea

The influence of custom microphone housings on the acoustic directionality and frequency response of a multiband bio-inspired MEMS microphone is presented. The 3.2 mm by 1.7 mm piezoelectric MEMS microphone, fabricated by a cost-effective multi-user process, has four frequency bands of operation below 10 kHz, with a desired first-order directionality for all four bands. 7×7×2.5 mm3 3-D-printed bespoke housings with varying acoustic access to the backside of the microphone membrane are investigated through simulation and experiment with respect to their influence on the directionality and frequency response to sound stimulus. Results show a clear link between directionality and acoustic access to the back cavity of the microphone. Furthermore, there was a change in direction of the first-order directionality with reduced height in this back cavity acoustic access. The required configuration for creating an identical directionality for all four frequency bands is investigated along with the influence of reducing the symmetry of the acoustic back cavity access. This paper highlights the overall requirement of considering housing geometries and their influence on acoustic behavior for bio-inspired directional microphones

The effect of hearing aid microphone mode on performance in an auditory orienting task

OBJECTIVES: Although directional microphones on a hearing aid provide a signal-to-noise ratio benefit in a noisy background, the amount of benefit is dependent on how close the signal of interest is to the front of the user. It is assumed that when the signal of interest is off-axis, users can reorient themselves to the signal to make use of the directional microphones to improve signal-to-noise ratio. The present study tested this assumption by measuring the head-orienting behavior of bilaterally fit hearing-impaired individuals with their microphones set to omnidirectional and directional modes. The authors hypothesized that listeners using directional microphones would have greater difficulty in rapidly and accurately orienting to off-axis signals than they would when using omnidirectional microphones. DESIGN: The authors instructed hearing-impaired individuals to turn and face a female talker in simultaneous surrounding male-talker babble. Participants pressed a button when they felt they were accurately oriented in the direction of the female talker. Participants completed three blocks of trials with their hearing aids in omnidirectional mode and three blocks in directional mode, with mode order randomized. Using a Vicon motion tracking system, the authors measured head position and computed fixation error, fixation latency, trajectory complexity, and proportion of misorientations. RESULTS: Results showed that for larger off-axis target angles, listeners using directional microphones took longer to reach their targets than they did when using omnidirectional microphones, although they were just as accurate. They also used more complex movements and frequently made initial turns in the wrong direction. For smaller off-axis target angles, this pattern was reversed, and listeners using directional microphones oriented more quickly and smoothly to the targets than when using omnidirectional microphones. CONCLUSIONS: The authors argue that an increase in movement complexity indicates a switch from a simple orienting movement to a search behavior. For the most off-axis target angles, listeners using directional microphones appear to not know which direction to turn, so they pick a direction at random and simply rotate their heads until the signal becomes more audible. The changes in fixation latency and head orientation trajectories suggest that the decrease in off-axis audibility is a primary concern in the use of directional microphones, and listeners could experience a loss of initial target speech while turning toward a new signal of interest. If hearing-aid users are to receive maximum directional benefit in noisy environments, both adaptive directionality in hearing aids and clinical advice on using directional microphones should take head movement and orientation behavior into account

A Novel Role of Protein Tyrosine Kinase2 in Mediating Chloride Secretion in Human Airway Epithelial Cells

Ca2+ activated Cl− channels (CaCC) are up-regulated in cystic fibrosis (CF) airway surface epithelia. The presence and functional properties of CaCC make it a possible therapeutic target to compensate for the deficiency of Cl− secretion in CF epithelia. CaCC is activated by an increase in cytosolic Ca2+, which not only activates epithelial CaCCs, but also inhibits epithelial Na+ hyperabsorption, which may also be beneficial in CF. Our previous study has shown that spiperone, a known antipsychotic drug, activates CaCCs and stimulates Cl− secretion in polarized human non-CF and CF airway epithelial cell monolayers in vitro, and in Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) knockout mice in vivo. Spiperone activates CaCC not by acting in its well-known role as an antagonist of either 5-HT2 or D2 receptors, but through a protein tyrosine kinase-coupled phospholipase C-dependent pathway. Moreover, spiperone independently activates CFTR through a novel mechanism. Herein, we performed a mass spectrometry analysis and identified the signaling molecule that mediates the spiperone effect in activating chloride secretion through CaCC and CFTR. Proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (PYK2) is a non-receptor protein tyrosine kinase, which belongs to the focal adhesion kinase family. The inhibition of PYK2 notably reduced the ability of spiperone to increase intracellular Ca2+ and Cl− secretion. In conclusion, we have identified the tyrosine kinase, PYK2, as the modulator, which plays a crucial role in the activation of CaCC and CFTR by spiperone. The identification of this novel role of PYK2 reveals a new signaling pathway in human airway epithelial cells