Disposable clean delivery kits and prevention of neonatal tetanus in the presence of skilled birth attendants.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the use of disposable clean delivery kits (CDKs) is effective in reducing neonatal tetanus (NNT) infection, regardless of the skills of birth attendants in resource-poor settings. METHODS: A secondary analysis was conducted on data from a matched case-control study in Karachi, Pakistan, involving 140 NNT cases and 280 controls between 1998 and 2001. Conditional logistic regression was performed to assess the independent effect on NNT of CDKs and skilled birth attendants (SBAs). RESULTS: After adjustment for socioeconomic factors, both CDKs (adjusted matched odds ratio [mOR] 2.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3-3.1) and SBAs (adjusted mOR 1.7; 95% CI, 1.1-2.7) were independently associated with NNT. The association with CDKs remained significant when additionally adjusted for SBAs (mOR 2.0; 95% CI, 1.0-3.9; P=0.05). The population attributable risk for lack of CDK use was 24% in the study setting. CONCLUSION: In the context of resource-poor settings in low-income countries with poor coverage of tetanus toxoid immunization, the use of CDKs seems to be an effective strategy for reducing NNT infection, irrespective of the skill levels of birth attendants. Approximately one-quarter of NNT cases could be prevented in low-income populations with the use of CDKs

Price level convergence, purchasing power parity and multiple structural breaks: An application to US cities

This article provides a fresh methodological and empirical approach for assessing price level convergence and its relation to purchasing power parity (PPP) using annual price data for seventeen US cities. We suggest a new procedure that can handle a wide range of PPP concepts in the presence of multiple structural breaks using all possible pairs of real exchange rates. To deal with cross-sectional dependence, we use both cross-sectional demeaned data and a parametric bootstrap approach. In general, we find more evidence for stationarity when the parity restriction is not imposed, while imposing parity restriction provides leads toward the rejection of the panel stationarity. Our results can be embedded on the view of the Balassa-Samuelson approach, but where the slope of the time trend is allowed to change in the long-run. The median half-life point estimate are found to be lower than the consensus view regardless of the parity restriction.

Another Look at the Null of Stationary RealExchange Rates. Panel Data with Structural Breaks and Cross-section Dependence

This paper re-examines the null of stationary of real exchange rate for a panel of seventeen OECD developed countries during the post-Bretton Woods era. Our analysis simultaneously considers both the presence of cross-section dependence and multiple structural breaks that have not received much attention in previous panel methods of long-run PPP. Empirical results indicate that there is little evidence in favor of PPP hypothesis when the analysis does not account for structural breaks. This conclusion is reversed when structural breaks are considered in computation of the panel statistics. We also compute point estimates of half-life separately for idiosyncratic and common factor components and find that it is always below one year.Purchasing power parity, Half-lives, Panel unit roottests, Multiple structural breaks, Cross-section dependence.

Measuring Persistence of U.S. City Prices: New Evidence from Robust Tests

This paper revisits the empirical analysis in Cecchetti, Mark and Sonora (2002) involving long-span U.S. city prices, who estimated the persistence of U.S. price differentials to be around nine years. After controlling for the structural breaks in the data, we find that U.S. city price level differentials are I(0) stationary processes with the median half-life of convergence ranged between 1.5 and 2.6 years, estimates that are in accordance with what should be expected from a highly integrated economy as the United States. Our results are also robust to a pairwise tests of price level convergence.Purchasing power parity; Price level convergence; Half-life; Multiple structural breaks; Pairwise convergence.

Corporate Governance in the Financial Sector of Pakistan

La Porta et al. (1998) assign Pakistan, a common-law country, the maximum score of 5 for their anti-director rights index. Pakistan should therefore be a country with good investor protection attracting large amounts of investments. However, the reality could not be more different. Pakistan has been lagging behind other, comparable Asian economies in terms of incoming foreign direct investment as well as GDP-per-capita growth. This paper focuses on the Pakistani banking sector. The paper analyses the banks ownership and control structure. It finds that Pakistan has its own idiosyncrasies, which are difficult to associate with La Porta et al.s characterisation of corporate governance and investor protection in common-law countries. The paper also reviews the recent reforms of corporate governance.Corporate governance, corporate control, Banks, Pakistan, Emerging Markets, investor protection

Deconstructing Shocks and Persistence in OECD Real Exchange Rates

This paper analyzes the persistence of shocks that affect the real exchange rates for a panel of seventeen OECD developed countries during the post-Bretton Woods era. The adoption of a panel data framework allows us to distinguish two different sources of shocks, i.e. the idiosyncratic and the common shocks, each of which may have di¤erent persistence patterns on the real exchange rates. We first investigate the stochastic properties of the panel data set using panel stationarity tests that simultaneously consider both the presence of cross-section dependence and multiple structural breaks that have not received much attention in previous persistence analyses. Empirical results indicate that real exchange rates are non-stationary when the analysis does not account for structural breaks, although thisconclusion is reversed when they are modeled. Consequently, misspecification errors due to the non-consideration of structural breaks leads to upward biased shocks' persistence measures. The persistence measures for the idiosyncratic and common shocks have been estimated in this paper always turn out to be less than one year.

Synaptic metaplasticity underlies tetanic potentiation in Lymnaea: a novel paradigm

We present a mathematical model which explains and interprets a novel form of short-term potentiation, which was found to be use-, but not time-dependent, in experiments done on Lymnaea neurons. The high degree of potentiation is explained using a model of synaptic metaplasticity, while the use-dependence (which is critically reliant on the presence of kinase in the experiment) is explained using a model of a stochastic and bistable biological switch.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, to appear in PLoS One (2013

Cyclin-B1: Key Player in G2 to M Phase Transition

poster abstractCyclins are a group of eukaryotic cellular proteins whose levels fluctuate through the course of the cell cycle. Cyclin B1 is a protein (enzyme) that is coded for by the CCNB1 gene. It is also called the G2/mitotic-specific cyclin-B1 because it regulates the early stages in the mitotic phase of the cell cycle. Cyclin-B 1 combines with protein kinase called Cyclin dependent kinase 1(cdk1) to form an activated complex called Mitosis promoting factor (MPF). The formation of this complex is compulsory for the cell to start mitosis.The CyclinB1-Cdk1 complex is responsible for functions such as chromosomal condensation, dissolving the nuclear lamina, assembling the spindle pole and activation of anaphase-promoting complex (APC); latter when chromosomes are properly aligned i.e. metaphase- anaphase transition the same APC rapidly degrades the Cyclin B1 at, Cdk1on the other hand is recycled. The goal of this project is to observe the cellular signals of Cyclin B1 in amphibian limb regeneration. The amputations were done on the hind limbs, through the mid tibia-fibula in the axolotls and midtarsus of stage-60 Xenopus. We used Immuno-fluorescence technique to stain the sections from axolotl and Xenopus laevis stage 60. Post limb amputation we treated the tissue sections at different time points from axolotl and xenopus with anti-Cyclin B1 antibody and measured the signal density under fluorescence microscope