Genetic and Vascular Risk Factors for Cognitive Decline and Cerebral Small-Vessel Disease

One of the earliest known written reports on dementia is attributed to Pythagoras in the 7th century BC, who described old age as a period of decline and decay of the human body and regression of mental capacities. In 1907, Alois Alzheimer, a german psychiatrist and scientist, observed at necropsy an overload of - at that time still unknown - amyloid plaques and neurofi brillary tangles in the brain of a 51 year old woman who had suff ered during her life course from progressive cognitive decline. Nowadays, amyloid plaques and neurofi brillary tangles are considered the main neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, which is regarded the most frequent subtype of dementia. Over the past two decades evidence has been accumulating that dementia is a heterogeneous and multifactorial disorder, and that besides accumulation of beta amyloid and neurofi brillary tangles, other factors, in particular vascular risk factors and cerebrovascular disease, may be involved, especially in late-onset dementia. Observational studies reported associations between several vascular risk factors and cognitive decline and dementia. In autopsy studies, about 35% of the brains of elderly persons, who had been diagnosed with dementia during their lifetime, had not only a higher burden of amyloid plaques and neurofi brillar tangles but rather a mixed pathology also consisting of signifi cant cerebrovascular disease. Stroke has been reported to considerably increase the risk of dementia, with prevalence rates of poststroke dementia of about 30%, refl ecting a 3.6 to 5.8-fold increased risk of dementia compared to stroke-free subjects. Cerebral small-vessel disease, which is defi ned as cerebral white matter lesions and asymptomatic lacunar brain infarcts and is a common fi nding on brain scans of elderly persons, has been reported to more than double the risk of dementia

On the nonlinear influence of Reserve Bank of Australia interventions on exchange rates

This paper applies nonlinear econometric models to empirically investigate the effectiveness of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) exchange rate policy. First, results from a STARTZ model are provided revealing nonlinear mean reversion of the Australian dollar exchange rate in the sense that mean reversion increases with the degree of exchange rate misalignment. Second, a STR-GARCH model suggests that RBA interventions account for this result by strengthening foreign exchange traders' confidence in fundamental analysis. This in line with the so-called coordination channel of intervention effectiveness. --Foreign exchange intervention,market microstructure,smooth transition,nonlinear mean reversion

A Life in the Craft of Comparative Law

It is obvious to specialists in the law of the European Union ( E.U. ) - a relatively small but steadily growing group in the United States - that a retrospective collection of Eric Stein\u27s writings would be of great interest. From his 1955 article in the Columbia Law Review, the first article about the Court of Justice of the European Coal and Steel Community to appear in English (p. 473), he has been one of the dominant U.S. scholars of what was initially called European Community ( E.C. ) law after the three original European Communities2 and more recently has been rechristened European Union law after the creation of the E.U. around and on top ofl the original Communities in the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. But this book, which won the 2001 University of Michigan Press Book Award, deserves a much wider readership. It is a fine collection of the craft of comparative law, covering much more than E.U. law, and it also has a very personal aspect that makes it a rich memento of the author and many of the people with whom he has worked. It may be foolhardy to write a review of a book that comes with a built-in review, so to speak, and one that says with great acumen most of the really important things that should be said about Stein\u27s work. Joseph Weiler, another distinguished E.U. scholar and former colleague of Stein\u27s, has written a Foreword (p. ix) with his customary exuberance and insight that neatly exposes the deepest values of Stein\u27s work with an inimitable and compelling style. Yet, while warmly commending Weiler\u27s Foreword to the reader, I will venture another review, but from a slightly different angle. After a brief overview of the book and its special personal elements, I will focus on some specific aspects of Stein\u27s comparative law craftsmanship and conclude by discussing two of the general issues about divided-powers systems that are raised by the materials in the book

Thermoluminescence fading studies: Implications for long-duration space measurements in Low Earth Orbit

Within a 1.5 year comprehensive fading experiment several batches of LiF:Mg,Ti and LiF:Mg,Cu,P thermoluminescence detectors (TLDs) were studied. The TLDs originated from two manufacturers and were processed by three laboratories using different annealing and readout conditions. The TLDs were irradiated with two radiation modalities (gamma-rays and thermal neutrons) and were stored at two temperatures (-17.4C and +18.5C). The goal of the experiment was to verify the stability of TLDs in the context of their application in long-term measurements in space. The results revealed that the response of all TLDs is stable within 10% for the studied temperature range. No influence of the radiation type was found. These results indicate that for the properly oven-annealed LiF TLDs, fading is not a significant problem, even for measuring periods longer than a year