Slow Passthrough Around the World: A New Import for Developing Countries?

Developing countries traditionally exhibit passthrough of exchange rate changes that is greater and more rapid than high-income countries, but have experienced a rapid downward trend in recent years in the degree of short-run passthrough, and in the adjustment speed. As a consequence, slow and incomplete passthrough is no longer exclusively a luxury of industrial countries. Using a new data set -- prices of eight narrowly defined brand commodities, observed in 76 countries -- we find empirical support for some of the factors that have been hypothesized in the literature, but not for others. Significant determinants of the passthrough coefficient include per capita incomes, bilateral distance, tariffs, country size, wages, long-term inflation, and long-term exchange rate variability. Some of these factors changed during the 1990s. Part (and only part) of the downward trend in passthrough to imported goods prices, and in turn to competitors' prices and the CPI, can be explained by changes in the monetary environment. Real wages also work to reduce passthrough to competitors' prices and the CPI, confirming the hypothesized role of distribution and retail costs in pricing to market. Rising distribution costs, due perhaps to the Balassa-Samuelson-Baumol effect, could contribute to the decline in the passthrough coefficient in some developing countries.

Effects of candesartan, an angiotensin II receptor type I blocker, on atrial remodeling in spontaneously hypertensive rats

Hypertension-induced structural remodeling of the left atrium (LA) has been suggested to involve the renin–angiotensin system. This study investigated whether treatment with an angiotensin receptor blocker, candesartan, regresses atrial remodeling in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). Effects of treatment with candesartan were compared to treatment with a nonspecific vasodilatator, hydralazine. Thirty to 32-week-old adult male SHR were either untreated (n = 15) or received one of either candesartan cilexetil (n = 9; 3 mg/kg/day) or hydralazine (n = 10; 14 mg/kg/day) via their drinking water for 14 weeks prior to experiments. Untreated age- and sex-matched Wistar- Kyoto rats (WKY; n = 13) represented a normotensive control group. Untreated SHR were hypertensive, with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) compared to WKY, but there were no differences in systolic pressures in excised, perfused hearts. LA from SHR were hypertrophied and showed increased fibrosis compared to those from WKY, but there was no change in connexin-43 expression or phosphorylation. Treatment with candesartan reduced systolic tail artery pressures of conscious SHR below those of normotensive WKY and caused regression of both LVH and LA hypertrophy. Although hydralazine reduced SHR arterial pressures to those of WKY and led to regression of LA hypertrophy, it had no significant effect on LVH. Notably, LA fibrosis was unaffected by treatment with either agent. These data show that candesartan, at a dose sufficient to reduce blood pressure and LVH, did not cause regression of LA fibrosis in hypertensive rats. On the other hand, the data also suggest that normalization of arterial pressure can lead to the regression of LA hypertrophy

Nanoparticles for post-infarct ventricular remodeling

YesIn recent years, tremendous progress has been made in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), but pathological ventricular remodeling often causes survivors to suffer from fatal heart failure. Currently, there is no effective therapy to attenuate ventricular remodeling. Recently, nanoparticles-based drug delivery system is widely applied in biomedicine especially in cancer and liver fibrosis, owing to its excellent physical, chemical, and biological properties. Therefore, using nanoparticles as delivery vehicles of small molecules, polypeptides, etc to improve post-infarct ventricular remodeling are expected. In this review, we summarized the updated researches in this fast-growing area and suggested further works needed

Maximally entangled mixed states of two atoms trapped inside an optical cavity

In some off-resonant cases, the reduced density matrix of two atoms symmetrically coupled with an optical cavity can very approximately approach to maximally entangled mixed states or maximal Bell violation mixed states in their evolution. The influence of phase decoherence on the generation of maximally entangled mixed state is also discussed. PACS numbers: 03.67.-a, 03.65.UdComment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Latex, have a major revision of content

Mean parity of single quantum excitation of some optical fields in thermal environments

The mean parity (the Wigner function at the origin) of excited binomial states, excited coherent states and excited thermal states in thermal channel is investigated in details. It is found that the single-photon excited binomial state and the single-photon excited coherent state exhibit certain similarity in the aspect of their mean parity in the thermal channel. We show the negative mean parity can be regarded as an indicator of nonclassicality of single-photon excitation of optical fields with a little coherence, especially for the single-photon excited thermal states.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTex4; PACS numbers: 42.50.Dv, 03.65.Yz, 05.40.Ca; Three typo errors have been correcte

Performance of a characteristic-based, 3-D, time-domain Maxwell equations solver on a massively parallel computer

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77035/1/AIAA-1993-3179-911.pd