Oil Price Shocks, Macroeconomics Stability and Welfare in a Small Open Economy

Since the beginning of 2000s the world economy has witnessed a sub-stantial increase in oil prices, which is seen to be an important source of economic fluctuations, causing high inflation, unemployment and low or negative growth rates. Recent experience, however, has not validated this view. Despite rising oil prices, world output growth has been strong, and although inflation has recently been increasing, it is relatively much lower compared with the 1970s. This paper focuses on the causes of oil price increases and their macroeconomic effects. Different from most of the recent literature on the subject, which understands the price of oil to be an exogenous process, we model the price of oil endogenously within a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework. Specifically, using a new Keynesian small open economy model, we analyse the effects of an increase in the price of oil caused by an oil supply shock and an oil demand shock. Our results indicate that the effects of an oil demand shock and an oil supply shock on the small open economy are quite different. In addition, we investigate the sensitivity of the general equilibrium outcomes to the degrees of oil dependence and openness, as well as the strength of the response of monetary policy authority to the inflation. Finally, we evaluate the welfare implications of alternative monetary policy regimes.Oil price, small open economy, demand and supply shocks

Multiobjective optimisation of hybrid wind-PV-battery-fuel cell-electrolyser-diesel systems : An integrated configuration-size formulation approach

Acknowledgment The financial support by Energy Renewable UK Ltd through co-funding of REST4U project is gratefully acknowledged.Peer reviewedPostprin

Comparison of Clinical and Hemodynamic Effects of Isoflurane and Sevoflurane Anesthesia in Calves

Background: Inhalation anesthesia is the preferred method for use on many animal species, including ruminants, due to its superiority over the injectable anesthetics. The most commonly used inhalation anesthetics are isoflurane and sevoflurane The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of isoflurane and sevoflurane anesthesia on the cardiovascular system of calves.Materials, Methods & Results: A total of 20 calves (11 male, 9 female) between 1 and 6 months in age and 50 to 85 kg in body weight were used. The calves were divided randomly into two groups of 10 each, with one group being administered isoflurane and the other sevoflurane. An intramuscular dosage of 0.1 mg/kg of xylazine was administered to the calves as premedication. Induction was performed 10 min after calves were given an intramuscular dosage of 4 mg/kg of ketamine. Inhalation anesthesia was maintained with isoflurane or sevoflurane in 100% oxygen saturation. Before anesthesia, after induction and at intervals of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 45, and 60 min of anesthesia, the body temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate of the calves were recorded. Additionally, before anesthesia, after induction and at intervals of 15, 30, 45, and 60 min of anesthesia, serum electrolyte (Na+, Ca++, K+, Mg++) and blood gases (pH, pCO2, pO2, HCO3-, TCO2, O2Sat, HCT) were evaluated from blood samples taken from both groups. The second derivation, durations and amplitudes of the P and T waves, the durations and amplitudes of the QRS complex, and the durations of PQ and QT intervals were evaluated on the ECGs recorded before anesthesia, after induction and during anesthesia. Following anesthesia termination, the extubation time and the time it took for straightening of the head and standing up were recorded. Decrease in heart rate and body temperature were found significant in two of the groups. Decrease in respiratory rate compared to initial values after premedication was statistically significant for both groups. However, during anesthesia, an increase occurred. This incresae in respiration rate was not statistically significant compared to initial values. The incease in the values of pCO2, pO2, HCO3 and the decrease in the values of pH and Hct comparing the initial values was found statistically significant in both groups.Discussion: In ruminants, isoflurane has an induction concentration of 3-5% and an anesthetic concentration of 1.5-3%, while sevoflurane has an induction concentration of 4-6% and an anesthetic concentration of 2.5-4%. In this study, the concentration of isoflurane was 2.3% (2-5) and the of sevoflurane was 4.07% (3-5) for surgery. In the isoflurane group, extubation, straightening of the head and standing up times were 12.40 ± 3.77 min, 20.4 ± 1.57 min, and 30.80 ± 1.89 min, respectively. In the sevoflurane group, extubation, straightening of the head and standing up times were 13.40 ± 4.99, 19.2 ± 1.49, and 28.0 ± 1.83 min, respectively. Although the calves in the isoflurane group were extubated earlier than those of the sevoflurane group, the time elapsed for straightening of the head and standing up were longer than that of the sevoflurane group. The anesthesia protocol provided a smooth anesthetic administration, general anesthesia and awakening. In conclusion, the effects of isoflurane and sevoflurane anesthesia on the cardiovascular and respiratory system were similar, and although the changes that emerged during anesthesia were statistically significant, it was nonetheless found that the changes were within the physiological limits

FaulTM: Fault-tolerance using hardware transactional memory

Fault-tolerance has become an essential concern for processor designers due to increasing soft-error rates. In this study, we are motivated by the fact that Transactional Memory (TM) hardware provides an ideal base upon which to build a fault-tolerant system. We show how it is possible to provide low-cost faulttolerance for serial programs by using a minimallymodified Hardware Transactional Memory (HTM) that features lazy conflict detection, lazy data versioning. This scheme, called FaulTM, employs a hybrid hardware-software fault-tolerance technique. On the software side, FaulTM programming model is able to provide the flexibility for programmers to decide between performance and reliability. Our experimental results indicate that FaulTM produces relatively less performance overhead by reducing the number of comparisons and by leveraging already proposed TM hardware. We also conduct experiments which indicate that the baseline FaulTM design has a good error coverage. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first architectural fault-tolerance proposal using Hardware Transactional Memory.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Circuit design of a dual-versioning L1 data cache for optimistic concurrency

This paper proposes a novel L1 data cache design with dual-versioning SRAM cells (dvSRAM) for chip multi-processors (CMP) that implement optimistic concurrency proposals. In this new cache architecture, each dvSRAM cell has two cells, a main cell and a secondary cell, which keep two versions of the same data. These values can be accessed, modified, moved back and forth between the main and secondary cells within the access time of the cache. We design and simulate a 32-KB dual-versioning L1 data cache with 45nm CMOS technology at 2GHz processor frequency and 1V supply voltage, which we describe in detail. We also introduce three well-known use cases that make use of optimistic concurrency execution and that can benefit from our proposed design. Moreover, we evaluate one of the use cases to show the impact of the dual-versioning cell in both performance and energy consumption. Our experiments show that large speedups can be achieved with acceptable overall energy dissipation.Postprint (published version

Personalized reference intervals - Statistical approaches and considerations

Under embargo until: 2022-12-13For many measurands, physicians depend on population-based reference intervals (popRI), when assessing laboratory test results. The availability of personalized reference intervals (prRI) may provide a means to improve the interpretation of laboratory test results for an individual. prRI can be calculated using estimates of biological and analytical variation and previous test results obtained in a steady-state situation. In this study, we aim to outline statistical approaches and considerations required when establishing and implementing prRI in clinical practice. Data quality assessment, including analysis for outliers and trends, is required prior to using previous test results to estimate the homeostatic set point. To calculate the prRI limits, two different statistical models based on ‘prediction intervals’ can be applied. The first model utilizes estimates of ‘within-person biological variation’ which are based on an individual’s own data. This model requires a minimum of five previous test results to generate the prRI. The second model is based on estimates of ‘within-subject biological variation’, which represents an average estimate for a population and can be found, for most measurands, in the EFLM Biological Variation Database. This model can be applied also when there are lower numbers of previous test results available. The prRI offers physicians the opportunity to improve interpretation of individuals’ test results, though studies are required to demonstrate if using prRI leads to better clinical outcomes. We recommend that both popRIs and prRIs are included in laboratory reports to aid in evaluating laboratory test results in the follow-up of patients.publishedVersio

Biological variations of ADAMTS13 and von Willebrand factor in human adults

Background: The ultra-large von Willebrand factor (vWF) multimers are very active and must be degraded by ADAMTS13 for optimal activity. A severe functional deficiency of ADAMTS13 has been associated with thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. The correct interpretation of patient vWF and ADAMTS13 plasma levels requires an understanding of the biological variation associated with these analytes. In the present paper, we aimed to determine the biological variation of ADAMTS13 and vWF in human adults. Materials and methods: Blood samples were collected weekly from 19 healthy subjects for 5 consecutive weeks. vWF activity and antigenicity were determined using aggregometric and immunoturbidimetric methods. ADAMTS13 antigenicity and activity were determined by ELISA. Results: The within-subject biological variations for vWF activity and antigenicity were 8.06% and 14.37%, respectively, while the between-subject biological variations were 18.5% and 22.59%, respectively. The index of individuality for vWF activity was 0.44, while vWF antigenicity was 0.64. Similarly, ADAMTS13 activity and antigenicity within-subject biological variations were 12.73% and 9.75%, respectively, while between-subject biological variations were 9.63% and 6.28%, respectively. The ADAMTS13 indexes of individuality were 1.32 and 1.55, respectively. Conclusion: We report high biological variation and individuality in vWF antigenicity and activity levels. However, ADAMTS13 antigenicity and activity displayed high biological variation, but low individuality. Thus, population-based reference intervals may be useful for monitoring ADAMTS13 antigenicity and activity, but not for vWF, which displays high individuality. These findings should be considered when determining the reference interval and other clinical variables associated with ADAMTS13 and vWF levels

From plasma to beefarm: Design experience of an FPGA-based multicore prototype

In this paper, we take a MIPS-based open-source uniprocessor soft core, Plasma, and extend it to obtain the Beefarm infrastructure for FPGA-based multiprocessor emulation, a popular research topic of the last few years both in the FPGA and the computer architecture communities. We discuss various design tradeoffs and we demonstrate superior scalability through experimental results compared to traditional software instruction set simulators. Based on our experience of designing and building a complete FPGA-based multiprocessor emulation system that supports run-time and compiler infrastructure and on the actual executions of our experiments running Software Transactional Memory (STM) benchmarks, we comment on the pros, cons and future trends of using hardware-based emulation for research.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft