Monetary policy and inflation persistence in the Eurozone

The primary goal of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) monetary policy is to achieve price stability. Whereas during the 1980s and 1990s there was a rapid and strong convergence in terms of price differential among the Euro countries, particularly in those countries with higher inflation rates in the past, single monetary policy has proved to be quite inefficient in continuing this trend and has not achieved further reductions in inflation rate differentials within the euro zone. Since the ECB sets the official interest rate according to the average inflation of the euro area, the persistence of such price differentials within the area would mean that the “one size interest rate policy” would not fit all. This paper studies empirically the inflation rate differentials and their persistence in some currency unions with the aim to draw some conclusions for the working of the ECB monetary policy. KEYWORDS: monetary policy; inflation persistence; currency unions

Wetting phenomenon in the liquid-vapor phase coexistence of a partially miscible Lennard-Jones binary mixture

We have carried out extensive equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study the structure and the interfacial properties in the liquid-vapor (LV) phase coexistence of partially miscible binary Lennard-Jones (LJ) mixtures. By analyzing the structural properties as a function of the miscibility parameter, $\alpha$, we found that at relatively low temperatures the system separates forming a liquid A-liquid B interface in coexistence with the vapor phase. At higher temperatures and, $0<\alpha\leq 0.5$, we found a temperature range, $T^{*}_{w}(\alpha) \leq T^{*} < T^{*}_{cons}(\alpha)$, where the liquid phases are wet by the vapor phase. Here, $T^{*}_{w}(\alpha)$ represents the wetting transition temperature (WTT) and $T^{*}_{cons}(\alpha)$ is the consolute temperature of the mixture. However, for $0.5< \alpha < 1$, no wetting phenomenon occurs. For the particular value, $\alpha=0.25$, we analyzed quantitatively the $T^{*}$ versus $\rho^{*}$, and $P^{*}$ versus $T^{*}$ phase diagrams and found, $T^{*}_{c}\simeq 1.25$, and $T^{*}_{cons}\simeq1.25$. We also studied quantitatively, as a function of temperature, the surface tension and the adsorption of molecules at the liquid-liquid interface. It was found that the adsorption shows a jump from a finite negative value up to minus infinity, when the vapor wets the liquid phases, suggesting that the wetting transition (WT) is of first order. The calculated phase diagram together with the wetting phenomenon strongly suggest the existence of a tricritical point. These results agree well with some experiments carried out in fluid binary mixtures.Comment: Enlarged version that include results of more extensive simulations. A total of 24 LaTeX pages that include 12 encapsulated poscript figures. To appear in PRE, Vol. 70, issue Sept. 1st (2004

Necrosis de la cabeza femoral tras fractura del cuello femoral tratada mediante osteosíntesis

Se presenta un análisis retrospectivo de las necrosis aparecidas en 233 pacientes con fractura de cuello femoral fijada con tornillos de esponjosa. La edad media fue de 80,6 años. Setenta y un pacientes (26%) tuvieron una fractura no desplazada (Garden I o II) y 172 (74%) una fractura desplazada (Garden III o IV). Seis meses tras la cirugía 170 pacientes sobrevivían (72,9%). Treinta y cuatro de ellos (20%) habían desarrollado necrosis y 10 (5,9%) colapso. Tras un seguimiento de 12 meses 114 pacientes sobrevivían (48,9%). Veinticuatro de ellos (21%) tenía una necrosis y 18 (15,7%) un colapso. Dos años tras la intervención, 103 pacientes sobrevivían (44,2%). Siete de ellos habían desarrollado una necrosis (7,6%) y 25 un colapso (27,2%). En el último seguimiento (a los 3 años) 84 pacientes sobrevivían (36%). Se halló un colapso en 8 de ellos (9,5%). Observamos una relación significativa entre los pacientes que tenían una fractura desplazada, una mala reducción, una fijación inestable, y el desarrollo posterior de necrosis o colapso tardío.We report a retrospective analysis of the incident of osteonecrosis in 233 patients with femoral neck fractures treated with cancellous screws. The average age was 80.6 years. Seventy-one patients (26%) had a displaced fracture (Garden I-II). Six months after surgery 170 patients survived (73%). Thirty-four of them (20%) had developed osteonecrosis and 10 (5,9%) collapse. After a follow-up of 12 months 114 patients (49%) survived. Twenty-four of these patients (21%) had an osteonecrosis and 18 (16%) a collapse. Two years after surgery 103 patients (44%) survived. Seven of them had developed an osteonecrosis (8%) and 25 a collapse (27%). At the time of most recent follow-up (three years) 84 patients survived (36%). There was a collapse in 8 of them (10%). We observed a significant relation between patients who had a displaced fracture, a failed reduction, an unstable fixation, and the later development of necrosis and late collapse

Aplicación de O- y N- radicales a la química de carbohidratos

Se demuestra la utilidad de la reacción de AIH en la síntesis cíclicos 2,7-dioxabiciclo[2.2.1] heptano, 6,8-dioxabiciclo[3.2.1]octano, 8-oxa-6-azabiciclo[3.2.1]octano, 7-oxa-2-azabiciclo[2.2.1]heptano, 2,9-dioxabiciclo[3.3.1]nonano y 7a-metoxihexahidro-2H-furo[3,2-b]pirano. Los productos obtenidos son interesantes como potenciales sintones quiroles en la síntesis de moléculas más complejas. Como se puede observar, la reacción también puede ser útil para la oxidación selectiva de carbonos específicos en carbohidratos, siendo un procedimiento muy suave para la síntesis de ulosas protegidas, las cuales no son fácilmente accesibles por otros métodos. Se ha desarrollado una teoría que explica razonablemente el mecanismo de la reacción, con el objetivo de poder predecir con anticipación lo que ocurrirá en otros ejemplos no ensayados, haciendo uso de herramientas fácilmente accesibles como son los programas de mecánica molecular. La suavidad de las condiciones de reacción nos permite trabajar con sustratos que poseen una gran variedad de grupos funcionales, tales como ésters, carbonatos, dobles enlaces, O-bencilos, isopropilidenos, nitrilos,etc. Se ha descrito por primera vez la formacón de N-radicales a partir de carbamatos, siendo éstos los grupos protectores más usados en síntesis orgánica para el grupo amino, que junto al uso de fenil y bencilfosforamidas nos abre muchas posibilidades para posteriores transformaciones de los sintones obtenidos. Se ha demostrado que se puede tener control en la regioselectividad del proceso, con el uso de diferentes grupos protectores muy comunes en la química de los carbohidratos. En el capítulo 4 hemos demostrado la posibilidad de modificar una unidad de azúcar desde la otra unidad en un disacárido D-Glc-a1--->4-D-Glc. El compuesto L-Ido-B1-->4-D-Glc puede ser de interés en la química de los análogos de la heparina, ya que la unidad L-Iduronic-B1-->4-D-Glc es un fragmento presente en este polisacárido. Actualmente, la síntesis de compuestos con esqueletos de a-L-idosa y ácido a-L-idurónico es un área de investigación muy activa. Nosotros creemos que estas condiciones de reacción de AIH, muy suaves, pueden ser extendidas a otros disacáridos a1-->4 y presumiblemente a otros diferentes que presenten las condiciones antes mencionadas. Un aspecto a resaltar es que la reacción puede realizarse en condiciones oxidativas y reductivas, dándonos un control sintético adicional sobre la evolución del radical generado en C5

Enhancing the context-aware FOREX market simulation using a parallel elastic network model

[EN] Foreign exchange (FOREX) market is a decentralized global marketplace in which different participants, such as international banks, companies or investors, can buy, sell, exchange and speculate on currencies. This market is considered to be the largest financial market in the world in terms of trading volume. Indeed, the just-in-time price prediction for a currency pair exchange rate (e.g., EUR/USD) provides valuable information for companies and investors as they can take different actions to improve their business. The trading volume in the FOREX market is huge, disperses, in continuous operations (24 h except weekends), and the context significantly affects the exchange rates. This paper introduces a context-aware algorithm to model the behavior of the FOREX Market, called parallel elastic network model (PENM). This algorithm is inspired by natural procedures like the behavior of macromolecules in dissolution. The main results of this work include the possibility to represent the market evolution of up to 21 currency pair, being all connected, thus emulating the real-world FOREX market behavior. Moreover, because the computational needs required are highly costly as the number of currency pairs increases, a hybrid parallelization using several shared memory and message passing algorithms studied on distributed cluster is evaluated to achieve a high-throughput algorithm that answers the real-time constraints of the FOREX market. The PENM is also compared with a vector autoregressive (VAR) model using both a classical statistical measure and a profitability measure. Specifically, the results indicate that PENM outperforms VAR models in terms of quality, achieving up to 930xspeed-up factor compared to traditional R codes using in this field.This work was jointly supported by the Fundación Séneca (Agencia Regional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Región de Murcia) under Grant 20813/PI/18 and by the Spanish MEC and European Commission FEDER under Grants TIN2016-78799-P and TIN2016-80565-R (AEI/FEDER, UE).Contreras, AV.; Llanes, A.; Herrera, FJ.; Navarro, S.; López-Espin, JJ.; Cecilia-Canales, JM. (2020). Enhancing the context-aware FOREX market simulation using a parallel elastic network model. The Journal of Supercomputing. 76(3):2022-2038. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-019-02838-1S20222038763Bahrepour M, Akbarzadeh-T MR, Yaghoobi M, Naghibi-S MB (2011) An adaptive ordered fuzzy time series with application to FOREX. Expert Syst Appl 38(1):475–485Bank for International Settlements. https://www.bis.org/ . 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