Implications of Food Subsistence for Monetary Policy and Inflation

The chapter introduces subsistence requirements in food consumption into a simple New Keynesian model with flexible food and sticky non-food prices. It shows how the endogenous structural transformation that results from subsistence affects the dynamics of the economy, the design of monetary policy, and the properties of inflation at different levels of development. A calibrated version of the model encompasses both rich and poor countries and broadly replicates the properties of inflation across the development spectrum, including the dominant role played by changes in the relative price of food in poor countries. The authors derive a welfare-based loss function for the monetary authority and show that optimal policy calls for complete (in some cases near-complete) stabilization of sticky-price non-food inflation, despite the presence of a food-subsistence threshold. Subsistence amplifies the welfare losses of policy mistakes, however, raising the stakes for monetary policy at earlier stages of development.</p

A noninvasive method for measuring mammary apoptosis and epithelial cell activation in dairy animals using microparticles extracted from milk

AbstractMilk production from dairy animals has been described in terms of 3 processes: the increase in secretory cell numbers in late pregnancy and early lactation, secretion rate of milk per cell, and the decline in cell numbers as lactation progresses. This latter process is thought to be determined by the level of programmed cell death (apoptosis) found in the animal. Until now, apoptosis has been measured by taking udder biopsies, using magnetic resonance imaging scans, or using animals postmortem. This paper describes an alternative, noninvasive method for estimating apoptosis by measuring microparticles in milk samples. Microparticles are the product of several processes in dairy animals, including apoptosis. Milk samples from 12 Holstein cows, at or past peak lactation, were collected at 5 monthly samplings. The samples (n=57) were used to measure the number of microparticles and calculate microparticle density for 4 metrics: annexin V positive and merocyanine 540 dye positive, for both and total particles, in both whole milk (WM) and spun milk. Various measures of milk production were also recorded for the 12 cows, including daily milk yield, fat and protein percentage in the milk, somatic cell count, and the days in milk when the samples were taken. A high correlation was found between the 4 WM microparticle densities and days in milk (0.46 to 0.64), and a moderate correlation between WM microparticle densities and daily milk yield (−0.33 to −0.44). No significant relationships were found involving spun milk samples, somatic cell count, or fat and protein percentage. General linear model analyses revealed differences between cows for both level of microparticle density and its rate of change in late lactation. Persistency of lactation was also found to be correlated with the WM microparticle traits (−0.65 to −0.32). As apoptosis is likely to be the major contributor to microparticle numbers in late lactation, this work found a noninvasive method for estimating apoptosis that gave promising results. Further investigation is required to find out the factors affecting microparticle production and how it changes throughout lactation

Multivariate analysis of the reliability, availability, and maintainability characterizations of a Spar–Buoy wave energy converter farm

This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer via the DOI in this record.Quantitative reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) assessments are of fundamental importance at the early design stages, as well as planning and operation of marine renewable energy systems. This paper presents an RAM framework adaptable to different offshore renewable technologies, conceived to provide support in the choice of the device components and subsequent planning of the O&M strategies. A case study, characterizing a pilot farm of oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converters (WECs), is illustrated together with the method used to obtain reliable estimate of its key performance indicators (KPIs). Based on a fixed feed-in-tariff for the project, economic figures are estimated, showing a direct relationship with the availability of the farm and the cost of maintenance interventions. Consequently, the probability distributions of the most relevant output variables are presented, and the mutual correlations between them investigated using principal components analysis (PCA) with the aim of discovering the relationships influencing the performance of the offshore farm. In this way, the contributions of the individual factors on the profitability of the project are quantified, and generic guidelines to support the decision-making process are derived. It is shown how this type of analysis provides important insights not only to ocean energy farm operators after the deployment of the devices, but also to device developers at the early design stage of wave energy concepts.The first and second authors were partially funded by the Marie Curie Actions of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agreement number 607656 (OceaNet project). The fourth author was funded by FCT researcher grant No. IF/01457/2014. This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 654444 (OPERA Project) and from the FCT project PTDC/MAR-TEC/0914/2014

Mediators of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents On Outcomes in Latinos: The Role of Peer and Family Interpersonal Functioning

Peer and family interpersonal functioning were examined as mediators of the impact of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depressed Adolescents (IPT-A; Mufson, Dorta, Moreau, & Weissman, 2004) on depression and suicidal ideation among Latino youth. Only youth self-identifying as Latino (n = 50) were included in the analyses. The majority were female (86%) with a mean age of 14.58 (SD = 1.91). The current sample was drawn from the intent to treat sample of a clinical trial examining the effectiveness of IPT-A as compared with treatment as usual (TAU; Mufson, Dorta, Wickramaratne et al., 2004). Youth were randomly assigned to receive IPT-A or TAU delivered by school-based mental health clinicians. Assessments, completed at baseline and at Weeks 4, 8, and 12 (or at early termination), included self-report measures of depression and interpersonal functioning as well as clinician-Administered measures of depression. Multilevel modeling indicated that IPT-A led to greater improvement in interpersonal functioning with family and peers. Improved family and peer interpersonal functioning emerged as significant partial mediators of the relationship between IPT-A and depression. Only improved family interpersonal functioning emerged as a significant partial mediator of the relationship between IPT-A and suicidal ideation. However, this indirect effect was small, suggesting that most of the benefit of IPT-A for suicidal ideation appears to proceed through a pathway other than family interpersonal functioning. These results suggest that the impact of IPT-A on depressive symptoms is partially mediated by family and peer interpersonal functioning and contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms of IPT-A