Fiscal News and Macroeconomic Volatility

This paper analyzes the contribution of anticipated capital and labor tax shocks to business cycle volatility in an estimated New Keynesian DSGE model. While fiscal policy accounts for 12 to 20 percent of output variance at business cycle frequencies, the anticipated component hardly matters for explaining fluctuations of real variables. Anticipated capital tax shocks do explain a sizable part of inflation and interest rate fluctuations, accounting for between 5 and 15 percent of total variance. In line with earlier studies, news shocks in total account for 20 percent of output variance. Further decomposing this news effect, we find that it is mostly driven by stationary TFP and non-stationary investment-specific technology.Anticipated Tax Shocks; Sources of Aggregate Fluctuations; Bayesian Estimation

"Dessine-moi tes langues et je te dirai qui tu es" : le rapport des enfants lusodescendants au portugais comme Langue-Culture d’Origine en Allemagne

Après une discussion critique du concept de Langue-Culture d’Origine et son rapport avec d’autres concepts désignant le rapport des sujets aux langues, nous présentons le projet "Images (de l’enseignement) du Portugais à l’Étranger", qui vise à rendre compte des images de la langue portugaise (qu’elle soit considérée LM, LE ou LCO) dans différents contextes. Dans cette étude, nous présenterons et discuterons les images recueillies auprès d’un public d’enfants "lusodescendants" en Allemagne à travers le recueil de leurs dessins, en classe de Langue Culture d’Origine, sous l’instruction "dessine-toi en train de parler les langues que tu connais". Les résultats permettent de cerner et de discuter le profil linguistique et socio-affectif de ce public et de présenter des implications pour une Didactique des LCO en rapport avec les approches plurielles des langues-cultures.After critically discussing the concept of Heritage Language and considering the relationship between that concept and others designating the relationship individuals maintain with their languages, we will present the research project "Images of Portuguese (language, teaching and learning)". This project aims at detecting and analysing images of Portuguese and the practices used in its teaching and learning worldwide (whether it is a Mother Tongue, a Foreign Language or a Heritage Language), in different contexts. In this study, we will present and discuss the social representations “luso-descendent speaker” children living in Germany possess. These social representations were collected through drawings in the Portuguese Heritage Language classroom, under the instruction “draw yourself while speaking the languages you know”. The results allow us to determine and to discuss the linguistic and socio-affective profiles of these children as well as to present some implications in terms of Heritage Language Education when related to multilingual approaches to languages and cultures

The Art of Inclusion: Marketing Toward Social Good

The theme of this research emerges from a pedagogical philosophy that it is essential to learn the significance that business has upon society while working with a neighborhood non-profit. Undergraduate Business students from Molloy College pitch their business and marketing recommendations to a local non-profit supporting the mission of the College through transformative learning. Having students enter into the business world where profit is a healthy by-product, but acquiring the proper disposition in the process is critical toward today’s career development. The Capstone project helps develop tomorrow’s sought out ethical and social leaders. The learning activity leading to this learning outcome requires the undergraduate business students to experience this type of real-world project. The students are presented with an opportunity to study the most prevalent issues their assigned non-profit is facing and they are to collectively make a set of turnkey recommendations that will ultimately lead to social good

A neutron trigger detector for pulsed neutron sources

A variety of experiments investigating properties of neutrons can be performed at pulsed source facilities like the research reactor TRIGA Mainz. A typical problem faced by these experiments is the non-availibility of a reliable facility-provided trigger signal in coincidence with the neutron production. Here we present the design and implementation of a neutron pulse detector that provides a coincident trigger signal for experimental timing with a relative precision of 4.5 ms.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Portable Differential Detection of CTX-M ESBL Gene Variants, blaCTX-M-1 and blaCTX-M-15, from Escherichia coli Isolates and Animal Fecal Samples Using Loop-Primer Endonuclease Cleavage Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification

Cefotaximase-Munich (CTX-M) extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) enzymes produced by Enterobacteriaceae confer resistance to clinically relevant third-generation cephalosporins. CTX-M group 1 variants, CTX-M-1 and CTX-M-15, are the leading ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae associated with animal and human infection, respectively, and are an increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) global health concern. The blaCTX-M-1 and blaCTX-M-15 genes encoding these variants have an approximate nucleotide sequence similarity of 98.7%, making effective differential diagnostic monitoring difficult. Loop-primer endonuclease cleavage loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LEC-LAMP) enables rapid real-time multiplex pathogen detection with single-base specificity and portable on-site testing. We have developed an internally controlled multiplex CTX-M-1/15 LEC-LAMP assay for the differential detection of blaCTX-M-1 and blaCTX-M-15. Assay analytical specificity was established using a panel of human, animal, and environmental Escherichia coli isolates positive for blaCTX-M-1 (n = 18), blaCTX-M-15 (n = 35), and other closely related blaCTX-Ms (n = 38) from Ireland, Germany, and Portugal, with analytical sensitivity determined using probit regression analysis. Animal fecal sample testing using the CTX-M-1/15 LEC-LAMP assay in combination with a rapid DNA extraction protocol was carried out on porcine fecal samples previously confirmed to be PCR-positive for E. coli blaCTX-M. Portable instrumentation was used to further analyze each fecal sample and demonstrate the on-site testing capabilities of the LEC-LAMP assay with the rapid DNA extraction protocol. The CTX-M-1/15 LEC-LAMP assay demonstrated complete analytical specificity for the differential detection of both variants with sensitive low-level detection of 8.5 and 9.8 copies per reaction for blaCTX-M-1 and blaCTX-M-15, respectively, and E. coli blaCTX-M-1 was identified in all blaCTX-M positive porcine fecal samples tested.This research was funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under grant agreement No. 773830: One Health European Joint Program, JRP13-AMRSH5-WORLDCOM project.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Impact of School Facilities on Student Learning and Engagement

83 pagesThis document outlines, catalogs, and summarizes a framework of literature that highlights the impact of school of facilities and classroom environments on student engagement and learning. The NetZED Laboratory at the University of Oregon commenced this project following a Request for Proposals from the California School Facilities Research Initiative (CSFRI) which sought to identify elements of the built environment of K–12 schools that result in higher levels of student engagement and learning. CSFRI’s goal was to summarize existing literature regarding the effects that physical organizational environments and furnishings within classrooms, makerspaces, laboratories, and interior ancillary facilities, as well as space at the exterior of the building that contribute to student engagement and learning. The overall intent of this white paper is to draw upon published evidence and original research to support the design planning and process for facility planners/managers, architects, educator, and community members who will seek funding to renovate and build new schools in California. With learning and engagement at the center, we developed a diagram of relationships of the school’s physical environment that includes three categories: indoor environment, spatial environment, and the people/community in relation to the school and classrooms. The review initially captured more than 750 peer-reviewed papers, reports, dissertations, books and literature reviews using framework, key word searches, and relevancy criteria, and stored through shared referencing software (Mendeley). Approximately 500 publications were selected to become an annotated bibliography and form the basis for this white paper. The review included studies from around the world, though most studies are applicable to conditions in the U.S

Imagens das línguas em contextos de educação e formação: itinerários da investigação

Este Caderno do LALE, integrado na série Reflexões, vem na sequência de uma linha de trabalho muito dinâmica no grupo LALE que remonta a 2003, ano em que iniciou o projeto Imagens das línguas na comunicação intercultural: contributos para o desenvolvimento da competência plurilingue1 que coordenei e que contou com uma vasta equipa de investigadores, a maior parte deles permanecendo membros deste grupo (para informação detalhada do projeto, nos seus pressupostos, conceitos estruturantes, metodologias de trabalho, resultados e implicações, ver os seguintes volumes dos Cadernos do LALE: Andrade & Araújo e Sá, 2006; Andrade, Araújo e Sá, & Moreira, 2007). Esta linha de trabalho tem vindo a ser alargada, integrando outros investigadores que, enquanto sujeitos histórica, sociológica e intelectualmente situados (Ela, 2015), trazem consigo novos contextos, novas problemáticas e novas racionalidades à investigação, ampliando os seus sentidos e compreensões e justificando a necessidade que coletivamente sentimos de proceder agora a um novo balanço, materializado nesta edição, que coordeno e que foi construída em coautoria.publishe

OpenMS – An open-source software framework for mass spectrometry

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mass spectrometry is an essential analytical technique for high-throughput analysis in proteomics and metabolomics. The development of new separation techniques, precise mass analyzers and experimental protocols is a very active field of research. This leads to more complex experimental setups yielding ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, analysis of the data is currently often the bottleneck for experimental studies. Although software tools for many data analysis tasks are available today, they are often hard to combine with each other or not flexible enough to allow for rapid prototyping of a new analysis workflow.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present OpenMS, a software framework for rapid application development in mass spectrometry. OpenMS has been designed to be portable, easy-to-use and robust while offering a rich functionality ranging from basic data structures to sophisticated algorithms for data analysis. This has already been demonstrated in several studies.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>OpenMS is available under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL) from the project website at <url>http://www.openms.de</url>.</p

Targeting of Magnetic Nanoparticle-coated Microbubbles to the Vascular Wall Empowers Site-specific Lentiviral Gene Delivery in vivo

In the field of vascular gene therapy, targeting systems are promising advancements to improve site-specificity of gene delivery. Here, we studied whether incorporation of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) with different magnetic properties into ultrasound sensitive microbubbles may represent an efficient way to enable gene targeting in the vascular system after systemic application. Thus, we associated novel silicon oxide-coated magnetic nanoparticle containing microbubbles (SO-Mag MMB) with lentiviral particles carrying therapeutic genes and determined their physico-chemical as well as biological properties compared to MMB coated with polyethylenimine-coated magnetic nanoparticles (PEI-Mag MMB). While there were no differences between both MMB types concerning size and lentivirus binding, SO-Mag MMB exhibited superior characteristics regarding magnetic moment, magnetizability as well as transduction efficiency under static and flow conditions in vitro. Focal disruption of lentiviral SO-Mag MMB by ultrasound within isolated vessels exposed to an external magnetic field decisively improved localized VEGF expression in aortic endothelium ex vivo and enhanced the angiogenic response. Using the same system in vivo, we achieved a highly effective, site-specific lentiviral transgene expression in microvessels of the mouse dorsal skin after arterial injection. Thus, we established a novel lentiviral MMB technique, which has great potential towards site-directed vascular gene therapy