Why have house prices risen so much more than rents in superstar cities

In most countries – particularly in supply constrained superstar cities – house prices have risen much more strongly than rents over the last two decades. We provide an explanation that does not rely on falling interest rates, changing credit conditions, unrealistic expectations, rising inequality, or global investor demand. Our model distinguishes between short- and long-run supply constraints and assumes housing demand shocks exhibit serial correlation. Employing panel data for England, our instrumental variable-fixed effect estimates suggest that in Greater London labor demand shocks in conjunction with supply constraints explain two-thirds of the 153% increase in the priceto-rent ratio between 1997 and 2018

Fallstudie Swisscom : «die Einführung von Produktions- und Servicekatalogen: der erste Schritt zur industrialisierten Fertigung»

Die vorliegende Fallstudie zeigt das Vorgehen und die Erfahrungen der Swisscom Network & IT Operations bei der Standardisierung ihrer Leistungen und der Entwicklung einer neuen Service- und Produktarchitektur. Getrieben durch die steigende Komplexität der Produkte und die wachsenden Qualitätsanforderungen der Kunden galt es, bei gleichzeitiger Erhöhung der Qualität, Kosten zu reduzieren und die Effizienz zu steigern. Inspiration holte sich Swisscom aus der herstellenden Industrie und orientierte sich an der individualisierten Massenproduktion (industrialisierten Fertigung)

Clinical Aureobasidium Isolates Are More Fungicide Sensitive than Many Agricultural Isolates.

Fungicide applications in agriculture and medicine can promote the evolution of resistant, pathogenic fungi, which is a growing problem for disease management in both settings. Nonpathogenic mycobiota are also exposed to fungicides, may become tolerant, and could turn into agricultural or medical problems, for example, due to climate change or in immunocompromised individuals. However, quantitative data about fungicide sensitivity of environmental fungi is mostly lacking. Aureobasidium species are widely distributed and frequently isolated yeast-like fungi. One species, A. pullulans, is used as a biocontrol agent, but is also encountered in clinical samples, regularly. Here, we compared 16 clinical and 30 agricultural Aureobasidium isolates based on whole-genome data and by sensitivity testing with the 3 fungicides captan, cyprodinil, and difenoconazole. Our phylogenetic analyses determined that 7 of the 16 clinical isolates did not belong to the species A. pullulans. These isolates clustered with other Aureobasidium species, including A. melanogenum, a recently separated species that expresses virulence traits that are mostly lacking in A. pullulans. Interestingly, the clinical Aureobasidium isolates were significantly more fungicide sensitive than many isolates from agricultural samples, which implies selection for fungicide tolerance of non-target fungi in agricultural ecosystems. IMPORTANCE Environmental microbiota are regularly found in clinical samples and can cause disease, in particular, in immunocompromised individuals. Organisms of the genus Aureobasidium belonging to this group are highly abundant, and some species are even described as pathogens. Many A. pullulans isolates from agricultural samples are tolerant to different fungicides, and it seems inevitable that such strains will eventually appear in the clinics. Selection for fungicide tolerance would be particularly worrisome for species A. melanogenum, which is also found in the environment and exhibits virulence traits. Based on our observation and the strains tested here, clinical Aureobasidium isolates are still fungicide sensitive. We, therefore, suggest monitoring fungicide sensitivity in species, such as A. pullulans and A. melanogenum, and to consider the development of fungicide tolerance in the evaluation process of fungicides

p14–MP1-MEK1 signaling regulates endosomal traffic and cellular proliferation during tissue homeostasis

The extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) cascade regulates proliferation, differentiation, and survival in multicellular organisms. Scaffold proteins regulate intracellular signaling by providing critical spatial and temporal specificity. The scaffold protein MEK1 (mitogen-activated protein kinase and ERK kinase 1) partner (MP1) is localized to late endosomes by the adaptor protein p14. Using conditional gene disruption of p14 in mice, we now demonstrate that the p14–MP1-MEK1 signaling complex regulates late endosomal traffic and cellular proliferation. This function its essential for early embryogenesis and during tissue homeostasis, as revealed by epidermis-specific deletion of p14. These findings show that endosomal p14–MP1-MEK1 signaling has a specific and essential function in vivo and, therefore, indicate that regulation of late endosomal traffic by extracellular signals is required to maintain tissue homeostasis

Plant Availability of Zinc and Copper in Soil after Contamination with Brass Foundry Filter Dust: Effect of Four Years of Aging

We investigated the effect of 4 yr of aging of a noncalcareous soil contaminated with filter dust from a brass foundry (80% w/w ZnO, 15% w/w Cu0.6Zn0.4) on the chemical extractability of Zn and Cu and their uptake by barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), pea (Pisum sativum L.), and sunflower (Helianthus annus L.). Pot experiments were conducted with the freshly contaminated soil (2250 mg kg21 Zn; 503 mg kg21 Cu), with the contaminated soil aged for 4 yr in the field (1811 mg kg21 Zn; 385 mg kg21 Cu), and with the uncontaminated control soil (136 mg kg21 Zn; 32 mg kg21 Cu). In comparison with the uncontaminated soil, the growth of barley and pea was clearly reduced in both contaminated soils, while toxicity symptoms did not systematically vary from the freshly contaminated to the 4 yr aged soil. The sunflower did not grow in the contaminated soils. The slow oxidative dissolution of the brass platelets led to an increase in the solubility and the plant uptake of Cu from the freshly contaminated to the 4 yr aged soil. In an earlier study, we found that the fine-grained ZnO dissolved in the field soil within 9 mo and that about half of the released Zn was incorporated into a layered double hydroxide phase and about half was adsorbed to the soil matrix. These changes in Zn speciation did not lead to a reduction of the Zn contents in the shoots and roots of barley and pea grown in the aged soil as compared with the freshly contaminated soil

A Lie algebra approach to Lie group time integration of constrained systems

peer reviewedLie group integrators preserve by construction the Lie group structure of a nonlinear configuration space. In multibody dynamics, they support a representation of (large) rotations in a Lie group setting that is free of singularities. The resulting equations of motion are differential equations on a manifold with tangent spaces being parametrized by the corresponding Lie algebra. In the present paper, we discuss the time discretization of these equations of motion by a generalized-alpha Lie group integrator for constrained systems and show how to exploit in this context the linear structure of the Lie algebra. This linear structure allows a very natural definition of the generalized-alpha Lie group integrator, an efficient practical implementation and a very detailed error analysis. Furthermore, the Lie algebra approach may be combined with analytical transformations that help to avoid an undesired order reduction phenomenon in generalized-alpha time integration. After a tutorial-like step-by-step introduction to the generalized-alpha Lie group integrator, we investigate its convergence behaviour and develop a novel initialization scheme to achieve second-order accuracy in the application to constrained systems. The theoretical results are illustrated by a comprehensive set of numerical tests for two Lie group formulations of a rotating heavy top