Temporary controls on capital inflows

During the past decade a number of countries imposed capital controls that had two distinguishing features: they were asymmetric, in that they were designed principally to discourage capital inflows, and they were temporary. This paper studies formally the consequences of these policies, calibrates their potential effectiveness, and assesses their welfare implications in an environment in which the level of capital inflows can be suboptimal. In addition, motivated by the fact that these types of controls have often been left in place after the dissipation of the shock that lead to the controls being implemented, the paper evaluates the welfare cost of procrastination in removing these types of controls.capital flows controls international interest rates inflation reserve requirements

Too much of a good thing: The macroeconomic effects of taxing capital inflows

In addition to altering fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies in response to the surge in international capital inflows in the early 1990s,policy makers in many countries in ASIa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America have resorted to measures to control capital inflows.We provide a preliminary assessment of the effects of some of the macroeconomic effects of these policies.capital controls capital inflows reserve requirements taxes

Almost Speechless: Representations of Womanhood and Female Voices in Turn­-of-­the-Century American Novels

In this dissertation, I close read four turn-­of-­the-­century American novels by Henry James, Kate Chopin, Charles Chesnutt, and Willa Cather to analyze how the voices and silences of fictional women characters work to disrupt cultural ideals about womanhood. Examining which aspects of the characters’ identities are expressed in direct dialogue and which traits are conveyed to the reader through narrative devices reveals how cultural ideals about womanhood restrict women’s self-­expressive autonomy and work to exclude female voices from the public sphere. Chapter One examines Henry James’s The Bostonians (1886) and how erotic rivals Olive Chancellor and Basil Ransom compete to control Verena Tarrant’s voice. Although a public speech artist, Verena is an empty oratorical voice box promoting others’ ideas. Her lack of an original, self-­expressive identity locks her into the private sphere as a static, empty ideal. Chapter Two explores how Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) has two models of womanhood available to her – the “True Woman” Adèle Ratignolle models ideal motherhood, social conformity, and marital submission, and the “New Woman” and independent artist figure Mademoiselle Reisz. Edna cannot reconcile those two competing drives within her to articulate an independent identity, finally seeking solace in suicide. Although Rena Walden in Charles Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars (1900) outwardly conforms to all standards of perfected Southern womanhood, Chapter Three exposes how whiteness is inscribed in conceptions of idealized womanhood; thus, Rena’s invisible blackness disqualifies her from participating in white social politics. Rena’s gender only further exacerbates her already present, racially motivated exclusion from dominant American culture. Chapter Four discusses how Cather’s narrative focalizing of Marian Forrester through male characters creates her as an in­-the-­moment experience for the reader of A Lost Lady (1923). Despite the limitations imposed by this masculine framing of Marian, she asserts herself both through meaningful self­-expression and through silences, succeeding in establishing a comfortable place for herself in society. Advisor: Melissa J. Homestea

Guadecitabine, in combination with Cyclophosphamide, promotes anti- cancer immunity in BALB/c mice bearing 4T1 mouse mammary carcinoma

Background: The extremely high mortality rate of patients diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer makes it one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Due to the heterogenous nature of tumors, complete clearance is not achieved and clonal selection occurs resulting in tumor cells evading the immune system. I aim to design a therapeutic intervention that is able to elicit an effective immune response against the tumor and instill immunological memory to eradicate primary and metastatic lesions. I hypothesize that the combination of Guad and Cyp will synergize and promote anticancer immunity via increased expression of neo-tumor antigens and depletion of MDSCs and T-regs. Methods: Guadecitabine (Guad), is a second-generation DNA methyltransferase inhibitor (DMNTi) that has been reported to increase antigenicity and deplete myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC’s). Cyclophosphamide (Cyp) is a chemotherapy that has been shown to deplete regulatory T-cells (T-regs). Both MDSD’s and T-regs suppress antitumor immunity. BALB/c mice were challenged with 4T1 tumor cells subcutaneously in the mammary fat pad region. 4T1-bearing mice were administered low-dose Guad and Cyp for ten consecutive days. Tumor growth curves, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were measured and MDSC’s and T- regs levels were assessed by flow cytometry. Results: Results from this experiment showed significant synergy between Guad and Cyp with both drugs reducing the tumor size over monotherapy. Conclusions: Further analysis of the data along with future experiments will elucidate if this synergy is driven by the depletion of MDSC’s and T-regs alone or the increase in tumor antigenicity inducing increased numbers of TILs.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1078/thumbnail.jp

At Risk Means a Minority Kid: Deconstructing Deficit Discourses in the Study of Risk in Education and Human Services

Unexamined use of ubiquitous terms such as “at risk” in education and human service courses can lead to reifying raced, classed, and gendered deficit perspectives of youth and youth work. This paper examines the social construction of the term “at risk,” following students in four education and human services undergraduate and graduate courses and the work of two counselor and teacher educators as they engaged their students in the process of deconstructing and interrogating this term. Findings reveal that students enter the classroom with raced and classed assumptions of who is at risk. Students demonstrate a deficit orientation that contextualizes risk at the individual level, with students’ definitions of “at risk” often not including white youth engaged in risk behaviors. By engaging in explicitly taught critical inquiry and analysis of the discourses of risk, students began to voice more critical views of the term “at risk,” understand the socially constructed nature of the concept, and adopt a more systemic perspective of the social and political implications for educational and human service practice

Tomando en Cuenta lo Importante: Investigación Vecinal para la Salud y Justicia Económica y Ambiental en Richmond, North Richmond, y San Pablo

108 p. Libro electrónicoEl Proyecto de Indicadores del Oeste del Condado fue lanzado en 2006 para descubrir las respuestas de la comunidad a esta pregunta y trabajar con residentes y organizaciones locales para fortalecer el poder para alcanzar esta visión. Su punto principal: una comunidad saludable requiere justicia ambiental y económica. Con justicia ambiental, los residentes de Richmond, North Richmond, y San Pablo viven en una comunidad saludable y segura sin importar su raza, nacionalidad o situación económica. Justicia económica asegura que cada habitante tiene acceso a un medio de subsistencia significativo y que cada vecindario cuenta con los recursos necesarios para que ellos mismos puedan desarrollarse. Subyacente a todo el proyecto está la idea de que la investigación controlada y dirigida por los habitantes del vecindario puede ayudar a construir movimientos poderosos para un cambio social. El poder unificador de la investigación participativa sobre preocupaciones del vecindario construye conexiones y tiene éxito en temas como buenos trabajos, calidad del aire, oportunidades para jóvenes, condiciones del parque, alumbrado público, y calidad de las viviendas, y tiene poder para ayudar a unificar diversas comunidades

Probability matching is not the default decision making strategy in human and non-human primates

Probability matching has long been taken as a prime example of irrational behaviour in human decision making; however, its nature and uniqueness in the animal world is still much debated. In this paper we report a set of four preregistered experiments testing adult humans and Guinea baboons on matched probability learning tasks, manipulating task complexity (binary or ternary prediction tasks) and reinforcement procedures (with and without corrective feedback). Our findings suggest that probability matching behaviour within primate species is restricted to humans and the simplest possible binary prediction tasks; utility-maximising is seen in more complex tasks for humans as pattern-search becomes more effortful, and we observe it across the board in baboons, altogether suggesting that it is a cognitively less demanding strategy. These results provide further evidence that neither human nor non-human primates default to probability matching; however, unlike other primates, adult humans probability match when the cost of pattern search is low

Probability matching is not the default decision making strategy in human and non-human primates

International audienceProbability matching has long been taken as a prime example of irrational behaviour in human decision making; however, its nature and uniqueness in the animal world is still much debated. In this paper we report a set of four preregistered experiments testing adult humans and Guinea baboons on matched probability learning tasks, manipulating task complexity (binary or ternary prediction tasks) and reinforcement procedures (with and without corrective feedback). Our findings suggest that probability matching behaviour within primate species is restricted to humans and the simplest possible binary prediction tasks; utility-maximising is seen in more complex tasks for humans as pattern-search becomes more effortful, and we observe it across the board in baboons, altogether suggesting that it is a cognitively less demanding strategy. These results provide further evidence that neither human nor non-human primates default to probability matching; however, unlike other primates, adult humans probability match when the cost of pattern search is low

Is regularization uniform across linguistic levels? Comparing learning and production of unconditioned probabilistic variation in morphology and word order

Languages exhibit variation at all linguistic levels, from phonology, to the lexicon, to syntax. Importantly, that variation tends to be (at least partially) conditioned on some aspect of the social or linguistic context. When variation is unconditioned, language learners regularize it – removing some or all variants, or conditioning variant use on context. Previous studies using artificial language learning experiments have documented regularizing behavior in the learning of lexical, morphological, and syntactic variation. These studies implicitly assume that regularization reflects uniform mechanisms and processes across linguistic levels. However, studies on natural language learning and pidgin/creole formation suggest that morphological and syntactic variation may be treated differently. In particular, there is evidence that morphological variation may be more susceptible to regularization. Here we provide the first systematic comparison of the strength of regularization across these two linguistic levels. In line with previous studies, we find that the presence of a favored variant can induce different degrees of regularization. However, when input languages are carefully matched – with comparable initial variability, and no variant-specific biases – regularization can be comparable across morphology and word order. This is the case regardless of whether the task is explicitly communicative. Overall, our findings suggest an overarching regularizing mechanism at work, with apparent differences among levels likely due to differences in inherent complexity or variant-specific biases. Differences between production and encoding in our tasks further suggest this overarching mechanism is driven by production

Self-Assembling Supramolecular Hybrid Hydrogel Beads

With the goal of imposing shape and structure on supramolecular gels, we combine a low molecular weight gelator (LMWG) with the polymer gelator (PG) calcium alginate in a hybrid hydrogel. By imposing thermal and temporal control of the orthogonal gelation methods, the system either forms an extended inter-penetrating network or core-shell structured gel beads – a rare example of a supramolecular gel formulated inside discrete gel spheres. The self-assembled LMWG retains its unique properties within the beads, such as remediating Pd(II) and reducing it in situ to yield catalytically-active Pd(0) nanoparticles. A single PdNP-loaded gel bead can catalyse the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction, constituting a simple and easy-to-use reaction dosing form. These unique shaped and structured LMWG-filled gel beads are a versatile platform technology, with great potential in a range of applications