Financial Stress, Monetary Policy, and Economic Activity

This paper examines empirically the impact of financial stress on the transmission of monetary policy shocks in Canada. The model used is a threshold vector autoregression in which a regime change occurs if financial stress conditions cross a critical threshold. Using the financial stress index developed by Illing and Liu (2006) as a measure of the Canadian financial stress conditions, the authors examine questions such as: Do contractionary and expansionary monetary policy shocks have symmetric effects? Do financial stress conditions play a role as a nonlinear propagator of monetary policy shocks? Does monetary policy have the same effect on the real economy in the low financial stress regime and in the high financial stress regime? Suppose that the economy is currently in a given financial stress regime, do monetary policy shocks have a substantial effect on the transition probability of moving from the given regime to the other? The empirical findings reveal that (i) contractionary monetary shocks typically have a larger effect on output than expansionary monetary shocks; (ii) the effects of large and small shocks are approximately proportional; (iii) expansionary monetary shocks have larger effects on output in the high financial stress regime than in the low financial stress regime; (iv) large expansionary monetary shocks increase the likelihood of moving to, or remaining in, the low financial stress regime; (v) typically, high financial stress regime has been characterized by weaker output growth, higher inflation, and higher interest rates.Financial stability; Monetary policy and uncertainty

Financial Stress, Monetary Policy, and Economic Activity

The recent global crisis was characterized by a remarkable intensity in the negative feedback process between financial sector developments and the real economy. Exceptional measures were required to break this process, and the crisis stimulated interest in the relationship between financial sector developments, the real economy, and monetary policy. The authors examine this relationship by reviewing the relevant literature and then estimating a model with Canadian data. Both theoretical models and empirical findings point to the possibility of non-linear relationships between monetary policy, financial stress, and the real economy. The research indicates that when the economy can move into different regimes of financial stress, monetary policy can influence the likelihood of moving from one regime to another. It also implies that monetary policy actions have stronger effects when financial stress is high and that the tightening of monetary policy appears to have more powerful effects than easing.

A note on the estimation of extreme value distributions using maximum product of spacings

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Test for homogeneity in gamma mixture models using likelihood ratio

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Performance analysis of a parallel, multi-node pipeline for DNA sequencing

Post-sequencing DNA analysis typically consists of read mapping followed by variant calling and is very time-consuming, even on a multi-core machine. Recently, we proposed Halvade, a parallel, multi-node implementation of a DNA sequencing pipeline according to the GATK Best Practices recommendations. The MapReduce programming model is used to distribute the workload among different workers. In this paper, we study the impact of different hardware configurations on the performance of Halvade. Benchmarks indicate that especially the lack of good multithreading capabilities in the existing tools (BWA, SAMtools, Picard, GATK) cause suboptimal scaling behavior. We demonstrate that it is possible to circumvent this bottleneck by using multiprocessing on high-memory machines rather than using multithreading. Using a 15-node cluster with 360 CPU cores in total, this results in a runtime of 1 h 31 min. Compared to a single-threaded runtime of similar to 12 days, this corresponds to an overall parallel efficiency of 53%

An Innovative Behavioral Interview for Pre-admission Selection of Occupational Therapy Students

The goal for pre-admission interview is to identify students who will be successful both academically and professionally. The traditional structured pre-admission interview has not been shown to be effective in predicting students’ success in academic and fieldwork performance. This article describes an innovative behavioral interview process during which applicants interviewed simulated clients as part of the pre-admission selection process. The goals of the pre-admission behavioral interview were to observe applicants’ behavior as team players, and to assess their interpersonal communication skills, capability to be reflective, and professionalism. During the behavioral interview, faculty interviewers assessed the applicants’ performance in the planning phase, the simulated client interview phase and the reflection phase. The behavioral interview was evaluated with a feasibility study using a mixed methods, single group exploratory design. Results showed that applicants, simulated clients, and faculty interviewers positively endorsed the behavioral interview. In addition, applicants found the behavioral interview less intimidating than a traditional structured interview, and appreciated the opportunity to interact with faculty and demonstrate their communication skills and ability to collaborate in a team. Similarly, faculty interviewers found the behavioral interview fruitful when observing the applicants “in action” and displaying their non-academic attributes, demonstrating potential to be successful students in the program. While being one of the stronger predictors, the behavioral interview scores only weakly correlated with the admitted applicants’ first semester Grade Point Averages. Further longitudinal evaluation may demonstrate the potential of the behavioral interview as a pre-admission tool identifying students who may be successful both in academic and fieldwork performance

Alkylated-C-60 based soft materials: regulation of self-assembly and optoelectronic properties by chain branching

Derivatization of fullerene (C60) with branched aliphatic chains softens C60-based materials and enables the formation of thermotropic liquid crystals and room temperature nonvolatile liquids. This work demonstrates that by carefully tuning parameters such as type, number and substituent position of the branched chains, liquid crystalline C60 materials with mesophase temperatures suited for photovoltaic cell fabrication and room temperature nonvolatile liquid fullerenes with tunable viscosity can be obtained. In particular, compound 1, with branched chains, exhibits a smectic liquid crystalline phase extending from 84 °C to room temperature. Analysis of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells with a ca. 100 nm active layer of compound 1 and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as an electron acceptor and an electron donor, respectively, reveals an improved performance (power conversion efficiency, PCE: 1.6 ± 0.1%) in comparison with another compound, 10 (PCE: 0.5 ± 0.1%). The latter, in contrast to 1, carries linear aliphatic chains and thus forms a highly ordered solid lamellar phase at room temperature. The solar cell performance of 1 blended with P3HT approaches that of PCBM/P3HT for the same active layer thickness. This indicates that C60 derivatives bearing branched tails are a promising class of electron acceptors in soft (flexible) photovoltaic devices

Mitochondria directly influence fertilisation outcome in the pig

The mitochondrion is explicitly involved in cytoplasmic regulation and is the cell's major generator of ATP. Our aim was to determine whether mitochondria alone could influence fertilisation outcome. In vitro, oocyte competence can be assessed through the presence of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) as indicated by the dye, brilliant cresyl blue (BCB). Using porcine in vitro fertilisation (IVF), we have assessed oocyte maturation, cytoplasmic volume, fertilisation outcome, mitochondrial number as determined by mtDNA copy number, and whether mitochondria are uniformly distributed between blastomeres of each embryo. After staining with BCB, we observed a significant difference in cytoplasmic volume between BCB positive (BCB+) and BCB negative (BCB-) oocytes. There was also a significant difference in mtDNA copy number between fertilised and unfertilised oocytes and unequal mitochondrial segregation between blastomeres during early cleavage stages. Furthermore, we have supplemented BCB- oocytes with mitochondria from maternal relatives and observed a significant difference in fertilisation outcomes following both IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) between supplemented, sham-injected and non-treated BCB- oocytes. We have therefore demonstrated a relationship between oocyte maturity, cytoplasmic volume, and fertilisation outcome and mitochondrial content. These data suggest that mitochondrial number is important for fertilisation outcome and embryonic development. Furthermore, a mitochondrial pre-fertilisation threshold may ensure that, as mitochondria are diluted out during post-fertilisation cleavage, there are sufficient copies of mtDNA per blastomere to allow transmission of mtDNA to each cell of the post-implantation embryo after the initiation of mtDNA replication during the early postimplantation stages

Review of contraceptive use among women seeking for repeat termination of pregnancy in Hong Kong

Termination of pregnancy (TOP) is one of the commonly performed gynaecological procedures. We carried out this retrospective review to study the contraceptive practice among women seeking for first-time versus repeat TOPs. We analysed the data of 596 women attending the Family Planning Association of Hong Kong for TOP during January to March 2005. Among them, 340 (57.0%) of cases were seeking first-time TOP, 161 (27.0%) were undergoing second TOP, and 95 (15.9%) undergoing TOP for the third or more times. Overall, 43% of the cases under review were having repeat …postprin