The Big Mac Index 21 Years On: An Evaluation of Burgereconomics

The Big Mac Index, introduced by The Economist magazine 21 years ago, claims to provide the “true value” of a large number of currencies. This paper assesses the economic value of this index. We show that (i) the index suffers from a substantial bias; (ii) once the bias is allowed for, the index tracks exchange rates reasonably well over the medium to longer term in accordance with relative purchasing power parity theory; (iii) the index is at least as good as the industry standard, the random walk model, in predicting future currency values for all but short-term horizons; (iv) future nominal exchange rates are more responsive than prices to currency mispricing, but this split is difficult to determine precisely. While not perfect, at a cost of less than $US10 per year, the index seems to provide good value for money.

The online learning architecture with edge computing for high-level control for assisting patients

The prevalence of mobility impairments due to conditions such as spinal cord injuries, strokes, and degenerative diseases is on the rise globally. Lower-limb exoskeletons have been increasingly recognized as a viable solution for enhancing mobility and rehabilitation for individuals with such impairments. However, existing exoskeleton control systems often suffer from limitations such as latency, lack of adaptability, and computational inefficiency. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel online adversarial learning architecture integrated with edge computing for high-level lower-limb exoskeleton control. In the proposed architecture, sensor data from the user is processed in real-time through edge computing nodes, which then interact with an online adversarial learning model. This model adapts to the user's specific needs and controls the exoskeleton with minimal latency. Experimental evaluations demonstrate significant improvements in control accuracy and adaptability, as well as enhanced quality-of-service (QoS) metrics. These findings indicate that the integration of online adversarial learning with edge computing offers a robust and efficient approach for the next generation of lower-limb exoskeleton control systems.Comment: 10 page

The Big Mac Index Two Decades On An Evaluation Of Burgernomics

The Big Mac Index, introduced by The Economist magazine more than two decades ago, claims to provide the “true value” of a large number of currencies. This paper assesses the economic value of this index. We show that (i) the index suffers from a substantial bias; (ii) once the bias is allowed for, the index tracks exchange rates reasonably well over the medium to longer term in accordance with relative purchasing power parity theory; (iii) the index is at least as good as the industry standard, the random walk model, in predicting future currency values for all but shortterm horizons; and (iv) future nominal exchange rates are more responsive than prices to currency mispricing. While not perfect, at a cost of less than $US10 per year, the index seems to provide good value for money.

Twice Dynamic Consolidation — An Unusual Application in Treating Liquefiable Saturated Sandy Loam Deposits

More innovative methods of ground treatment have replaced traditional methods. Dynamic consolidation, for example, has been applied widespreadly in China. Presented in this paper is a case history of adopting the twice dynamic consolidation method to improve liquefiable saturated loesslike sandy loam deposit, since the site for the Aluminum Material Company which is located at the suburb of Talyuan, China, Is geotechnically adverse. In this project the effective depth of improvement increased significantly. Judged from the ln-situ investigation and laboratory triaxial shear test, the liquefaction potential was eliminated as predicted

Two Case Histories of Alkali Liquid Method to Reinforce Collapsible Loess Deposit

Presented in this paper is the summary of two case histories using alkali liquid method to reinforce collapsible Loess ground. One is the ground treatment of administration building which was not in a position of normal service because of the unequal settlement of the ground caused by collapsibility; the other is the ground improvement of the office building of a hospital before construction. The test to examine reinforcing effects is held one month after ground stabilization. It is learned from the test results that the soil compressibility characteristics within the treated aera has been changed from high grade to medium grade or tow grade, and the collapsibility of loess within the treated area has been eliminated. The method of alkali liquid to improve ground has many advantages, namely, simple in construction, with obvious effects, and no vibration or contamination to be caused

Spectral tracing of deuterium for imaging glucose metabolism.

Cells and tissues often display pronounced spatial and dynamical metabolic heterogeneity. Common glucose-imaging techniques report glucose uptake or catabolism activity, yet do not trace the functional utilization of glucose-derived anabolic products. Here we report a microscopy technique for the optical imaging, via the spectral tracing of deuterium (STRIDE), of diverse macromolecules derived from glucose. Based on stimulated Raman-scattering imaging, STRIDE visualizes the metabolic dynamics of newly synthesized macromolecules, such as DNA, protein, lipids and glycogen, via the enrichment and distinct spectra of carbon-deuterium bonds transferred from the deuterated glucose precursor. STRIDE can also use spectral differences derived from different glucose isotopologues to visualize temporally separated glucose populations using a pulse-chase protocol. We also show that STRIDE can be used to image glucose metabolism in many mouse tissues, including tumours, brain, intestine and liver, at a detection limit of 10 mM of carbon-deuterium bonds. STRIDE provides a high-resolution and chemically informative assessment of glucose anabolic utilization

A Physics-Informed Low-Shot Learning For sEMG-Based Estimation of Muscle Force and Joint Kinematics

Muscle force and joint kinematics estimation from surface electromyography (sEMG) are essential for real-time biomechanical analysis of the dynamic interplay among neural muscle stimulation, muscle dynamics, and kinetics. Recent advances in deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown the potential to improve biomechanical analysis in a fully automated and reproducible manner. However, the small sample nature and physical interpretability of biomechanical analysis limit the applications of DNNs. This paper presents a novel physics-informed low-shot learning method for sEMG-based estimation of muscle force and joint kinematics. This method seamlessly integrates Lagrange's equation of motion and inverse dynamic muscle model into the generative adversarial network (GAN) framework for structured feature decoding and extrapolated estimation from the small sample data. Specifically, Lagrange's equation of motion is introduced into the generative model to restrain the structured decoding of the high-level features following the laws of physics. And a physics-informed policy gradient is designed to improve the adversarial learning efficiency by rewarding the consistent physical representation of the extrapolated estimations and the physical references. Experimental validations are conducted on two scenarios (i.e. the walking trials and wrist motion trials). Results indicate that the estimations of the muscle forces and joint kinematics are unbiased compared to the physics-based inverse dynamics, which outperforms the selected benchmark methods, including physics-informed convolution neural network (PI-CNN), vallina generative adversarial network (GAN), and multi-layer extreme learning machine (ML-ELM).Comment: 17 pages, 8 Figure

Impact of bile acids on the growth of human cholangiocarcinoma via FXR

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of different types of bile acids on proliferation of cholangiocarcinoma and the potential molecular mechanisms.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>PCR assay and Western blot were performed to detect the expression of farnesoid × receptor (FXR) in mRNA and protein level. Immunohistochemical analysis was carried out to monitor the expression of FXR in cholangiocarcinoma tissues from 26 patients and 10 normal controls. The effects on in vivo tumor growth were also studied in nude mouse model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Free bile acids induced an increased expression of FXR; on the contrary, the conjugated bile acids decreased the expression of FXR. The FXR effect has been illustrated with the use of the FXR agonist GW4064 and the FXR antagonist GS. More specifically, when the use of free bile acids combined with FXR agonist GW4064, the tumor cell inhibitory effect was even more pronounced. But adding FXR antagonist GS into the treatment attenuated the tumor inhibitory effect caused by free bile acids. Combined treatment of GS and CDCA could reverse the regulating effect of CDCA on the expression of FXR. Administration of CDCA and GW 4064 resulted in a significant inhibition of tumor growth. The inhibitory effect in combination group (CDCA plus GW 4064) was even more pronounced. Again, the conjugated bile acid-GDCA promoted the growth of tumor. We also found that FXR agonist GW4064 effectively blocked the stimulatory effect of GDCA on tumor growth. And the characteristic and difference of FXR expressions were in agreement with previous experimental results in mouse cholangiocarcinoma tissues. There was also significant difference in FXR expression between normal and tumor tissues from patients with cholangiocarcinoma.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The imbalance of ratio of free and conjugated bile acids may play an important role in tumorigenesis of cholangiocarcinoma. FXR, a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, may mediate the effects induced by the bile acids.</p

Multimodal Contrast Agents for Optoacoustic Brain Imaging in Small Animals

Optoacoustic (photoacoustic) imaging has demonstrated versatile applications in biomedical research, visualizing the disease pathophysiology and monitoring the treatment effect in an animal model, as well as toward applications in the clinical setting. Given the complex disease mechanism, multimodal imaging provides important etiological insights with different molecular, structural, and functional readouts in vivo. Various multimodal optoacoustic molecular imaging approaches have been applied in preclinical brain imaging studies, including optoacoustic/fluorescence imaging, optoacoustic imaging/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optoacoustic imaging/MRI/Raman, optoacoustic imaging/positron emission tomography, and optoacoustic/computed tomography. There is a rapid development in molecular imaging contrast agents employing a multimodal imaging strategy for pathological targets involved in brain diseases. Many chemical dyes for optoacoustic imaging have fluorescence properties and have been applied in hybrid optoacoustic/fluorescence imaging. Nanoparticles are widely used as hybrid contrast agents for their capability to incorporate different imaging components, tunable spectrum, and photostability. In this review, we summarize contrast agents including chemical dyes and nanoparticles applied in multimodal optoacoustic brain imaging integrated with other modalities in small animals, and provide outlook for further research

Wound healing monitoring using near infrared fluorescent fibrinogen

We demonstrate a method for imaging the wound healing process with near infrared fluorescent fibrinogen. Wound healing studies were performed on a rat punch biopsy model. Fibrinogen was conjugated with a near infrared fluorescent dye and injected into the tail vein. Fibrinogen is a useful protein for tracking wound healing because it is involved in fibrin clot formation and formation of new provisional matrix through transglutaminase’s crosslinking activity. Strong fluorescence specific to the wound was observed and persisted for several days, indicating that the fibrinogen is converted to crosslinked fibrin. Administration of contrast agent simultaneously with wound creation led to primary labeling of the fibrin clot, indicating that the wound was in its early phase of healing. Administration on the following day showed labeling on the wound periphery, indicating location of formation of a new provisional matrix. This method may prove to be useful as a diagnostic for basic studies of the wound healing process, in drug development, or in clinical assessment of chronic wounds