"Explaining Long-Term Exchange Rate Behavior in the United States and Japan"

Conventional exchange rate models are based on the fundamental hypothesis that, in the long run, real exchange rates will move in such a way as to make countries equally competitive. Thus they assume that, in the long run, trade between countries will be roughly balanced. The difficulty in assessing expectations about the consequences of trade arrangements (such as NAFTA or the EEC) is that these models perform quite poorly at an empirical level, making them an unreliable guide to economic policy. To have a sound foundation for economic policy requires operating from a theoretically grounded explanation of exchange rates that works well across a spectrum of developed and developing countries. This paper applies the theoretical and empirical foundation developed in Shaikh (1980, 1991, 1995), and previously applied to Spain, Mexico, and Greece (Roman 1997; Ruiz-Napoles 1996; Antonopoulos 1997), to the explanation of the exchange rates of the United States and Japan. Such a framework implies that it is a country's competitive position, as measured by the real unit costs of its tradables, that determines its real exchange rate. This determination of real exchange rates through real unit costs provides a possible explanation for why trade imbalances remain persistent and a policy rule-of-thumb for sustainable exchange rates. The aim is to show that a theoretically grounded, empirically robust, explanation of real exchange rate movements can be constructed that also can be of practical use to researchers and policymakers.

A randomized controlled clinical trial evaluating the effect of Trigonella foenum-graecum (fenugreek) versus glibenclamide in patients with diabetes

Background: Herbal medicines long have been used in the management of diabetes mellitus (DM).Objective: This study was conducted to ascertain if fenugreek compared with glibenclamide had any impacts on controlling blood glucose in patients with uncontrolled type II DM on conventional therapy.Methods: A total of 12 patients with uncontrolled DM and on metformin were recruited and divided into two groups. Patients in group 1 received 2 g fenugreek per day, whereas those in group 2 received glibenclamide 5 mg once daily. The impacts of fenugreek on the glycemic control and lipid profile were measured before initiation of the regimen and then after 12 weeks.Results: Only 9 of the 12 study participants completed the study. Fenugreek at 2 g/day caused an insignificant drop in fasting blood glucose (P = 0.63), but the fasting insulin level increased significantly (P = 0.04). The ratio of high- to low-density lipopro- tein was significantly decreased from before to after treatment (P = 0.006). Fenugreek did not cause any notable adverse impacts on hepatic and renal functions throughout the study.Conclusion: Fenugreek could be used as adjuvant therapy to anti-diabetic drugs to control blood glucose, and further studies are needed.Keywords: Trigonella foenum-graecum (fenugreek), glibenclamide, diabetes

Agents for Integrating Distributed Data for Function Computations

Many practical problems occur when we wish to manipulate the data in a way that requires information not included explicitly in this data, and where we have to deal with functions of such a nature. In a networked environment, the data may reside in components on a number of geographically distributed sites. These databases cannot be moved to other network sites due to security, size, and privacy consideration. In this paper, we present two self-decomposing algorithms for constructing a function from given discrete data, and finding the extrema of any function whose arguments are stored across a number of distributed databases

Obese patients with a binge eating disorder have an unfavorable metabolic and inflammatory profile

To evaluate whether obese patients with a binge eating disorder (BED) have an altered metabolic and inflammatory profile related to their eating behaviors compared with non-BED obese.A total of 115 White obese patients consecutively recruited underwent biochemical, anthropometrical evaluation, and a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test. Patients answered the Binge Eating Scale and were interviewed by a psychiatrist. The patients were subsequently divided into 2 groups according to diagnosis: non-BED obese (n = 85) and BED obese (n = 30). Structural equation modeling analysis was performed to elucidate the relation between eating behaviors and metabolic and inflammatory profile.BED obese exhibited significantly higher percentages of altered eating behaviors, body mass index (P < 0.001), waist circumference (P < 0.01), fat mass (P < 0.001), and a lower lean mass (P < 0.001) when compared with non-BED obese. Binge eating disorder obese also had a worse metabolic and inflammatory profile, exhibiting significantly lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (P < 0.05), and higher levels of glycated hemoglobin (P < 0.01), uric acid (P < 0.05), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (P < 0.001), high-sensitive C-reactive protein (P < 0.01), and white blood cell counts (P < 0.01). Higher fasting insulin (P < 0.01) and higher insulin resistance (P < 0.01), assessed by homeostasis model assessment index and visceral adiposity index (P < 0.001), were observed among BED obese. All differences remained significant after adjusting for body mass index. No significant differences in fasting plasma glucose or 2-hour postchallenge plasma glucose were found. Structural equation modeling analysis confirmed the relation between the altered eating behaviors of BED and the metabolic and inflammatory profile.Binge eating disorder obese exhibited an unfavorable metabolic and inflammatory profile, which is related to their characteristic eating habits

Incidence of Cronobacter sakazakii in Dairy-based Desserts

Cronobacter sakazakii is one of emerging foodborne pathogens around the world. A total of 90 dairy-based desserts samples (ice cream, Muhallabia and rice pudding) were examined for detecting C. sakazakii. All samples were submitted for bacteriological examination and confirmed by molecular identification using 16S rRNA gene for C. sakazakii. The bacteriological and molecular examination revealed that the incidence of occurrence of C. sakazakii was 5.55% from the total dairy-based desserts samples, the highest percentage occurred in rice pudding samples (10%), while the incidence of C. sakazakii in ice cream and Muhallabia were 3.33% for each type. The results pointed out that high risk for human may occur by contaminated dairy-based desserts. The hygienic precautions must be taken during the processing of these types of products

Morphological and molecular evaluation of some Egyptian pomegranate cultivars

Six Egyptian pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) cultivars were characterized by fruit characteristics (physical and chemical) and two molecular markers; Inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Genetic diversity of the pomegranate genotypes was evaluated. Physical fruit traits were determined (weight, volume and diameter), calyx [diameter, length (mm) and Carpels number], fruit firmness (Newton), peel as (weight and thickness), arils weight (g), volume of juice (ml), seeds [fresh and dry weight (g)], and color parameter of (fruit skin, internal peel, arils, juice and seeds). The chemical traits such as soluble solids contents (SSC), vitamin C content, anthocyanin content, pH, and titratable acidity (TA) were assessed and wide variations were observed in each of these traits among the studied cultivars. The genetic variability and relationships among six Egyptian pomegranate cultivars were tested using ISSR and AFLP analyses. The level of polymorphism across cultivars was 53 and 90.7% as revealed by ISSR and AFLP, respectively. ISSR and AFLP revealed different genetic similarities among the six pomegranate cultivars. Each analysis differs not only in its underlying principle, but also in their in-formativeness with regard to the type and amount of polymorphism detected. Genetic similarity matrices estimated from ISSR and AFLP data, showed similarity coefficients to range from 0.77 to 0.94 and 0.33 to 0.73, respectively. ISSR and AFLP characterized the six pomegranate cultivars by a large number of unique markers being 23 and 46 unique markers, respectively. The fruit weight ranged between 479.4 to 185 g of ʻNab El Gamalʼ and ʻAssuityʼ, the firmness was 79.98 of ʻNab El Gamalʼ and 71.84 Newton of ʻManfaloutyʼ cv. The fruit peel thickness varied from 0.6 mm ʻArabyʼ, ʻHegazyʼ and ʻWardiʼ to 0.3 mm ʻAssuityʼ. The arils weight ranged from 87.5 to 275 g of ʻAssuityʼ and ʻNab El Gamalʼ cvs. The percentage net of arils weight/ fruit weight was the highest (59.34% of ʻManfaloutyʼ cv). The juice volume ranged from 62.41 to 71.81 ml/100 g arils for ʻ Wardiʼ and ʻNab El Gamalʼ cvs. The SSC content ranged between 16.01 ʻHegazyʼ and 12.55% ʻAssuityʼ. V.C. content ranged from 3.21 to 14 mg. vitamin/100 ml juice of ʻNab El Gamalʼ and ʻAssuityʼ. The anthocyanin content ranged from 1.47 to 10.03 for ʻArabyʼ and ʻHegazyʼ. The pH values varied from 3.3 (Wardi) to 2.9 (Araby). The Egyptain cultivars of pomegranate have a wide variation in the morphological and chemical characteristics for many uses of fresh fruit and of industry purpose.Keywords: Morphological and chemical fruits characterization, pomegranate, inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR), DNA markers, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP)African Journal of Biotechnology, Vol. 13(2), pp. 226-237, 8 January, 201