Projecting Productivity Growth: Lessons from the U.S. Growth Resurgence

This paper analyzes the sources of U.S. labor productivity growth in the post-1995 period and presents projections for both output and labor productivity growth for the next decade. Despite the recent downward revisions to U.S. GDP and software investment, we show that information technology (IT) played a substantial role in the U.S. productivity revival. We then outline a methodology for projecting trend output and productivity growth. Our base-case projection puts the rate of trend productivity growth at 2.21% per year over the next decade with a range of 1.33 - 2.92%, reflecting fundamental uncertainties about the rate of technological progress in IT-production and investment patterns. Our central projection is only slightly below the average growth rate of 2.36% during the 1995-2000 period.productivity, information technology

SUMOylated TβL1/TβLR1 interacts with β-catenin in palmar fascia fibrosis: a novel therapeutic target

Dupuytren’s Disease (DD) is a benign fibrosis of the palmar fascia, the connective tissue beneath the skin of palm and digits. DD leads to loss of hand function and affects 4 - 6% of the US population alone. Current treatments focus on removing diseased tissue through surgery —however, post-surgery disease recurrence rates exceed 30% with no known cure. Previous studies found that fibroproliferative diseases such as DD contain fibroblasts with abnormally high levels of β-catenin, similar to certain malignancies such as colon cancer. In colon cancer cells, nuclear translocation of β-catenin trans-activates genes responsible for cellular proliferation, and this process is facilitated by the transducin β¬-like proteins TβL1 and TβLR1 that are post-translationally modified with small ubiquitin-like modifiers (SUMOylation). The anti-cancer drug, BC2059 (Tegavivint), has been developed to competitively inhibit interactions between β-catenin and SUMOylated TβL1/TβLR1 and is currently undergoing Phase-I clinical trials. It is currently unknown whether the SUMOylated TβL1/TβLR1 complex mediates β-catenin nuclear translocation in DD. In this study, we investigated whether β-catenin interactions with SUMOylated TβL1/TβLR1 were present in primary fibroblasts derived from patients with DD, and if cytokine treatments mimicking inflammation during fibrosis modified these interactions. Through western blotting, proximity ligation assays, and confocal microscopy, we confirmed that in DD fibroblasts— the levels of SUMOylated TβL1/TβLR1 increased in response to cytokines. Moreover, we observed that the interactions between β-catenin and TβL1/TβLR1 were significantly increased. The novel finding of cytokine-induced SUMOylation of TβL1/TβLR1 presents a mechanistic link between inflammation and fibroproliferation. Given the prevalence and debilitating nature of DD, there exists a need to identify new therapeutic targets to prevent disease progression and recurrence — the results of this study identify SUMOylated TβL1/TβLR1 interactions with β-catenin as a feasible target and provide a strong rationale to cross-purpose anti-cancer drugs such as BC2059 to treat DD

Adoption of Mobile Service UpgradeL New and Current Users

The third generation (3G) mobile channels allow individuals to download digital content in anytime, at anywhere. The 3G mobile services include services like peer chatting, mobile games and movie download. While many studies explore why individuals adopt 3G mobile services, most of them consider 3G adoption to be a new technology adoption. Will users’ experience on older version of mobile services (e.g. 2G and 2.5G) influence their adoption decision on their 3G adoption? Hypotheses linking variables based on diffusion innovation technology and user’s mobile services usage background were developed. We conducted a survey and collected 175 responses. Our findings establish that different factors affecting users who have used the older version of mobile services and users’ decision to use or not to use 3G mobile services is a service upgrade decision, rather than an adoption decision

Will the U.S. productivity resurgence continue?

U.S. productivity growth has accelerated in recent years, despite a series of negative economic shocks. An analysis of the sources of this growth over the 1995-2003 period suggests that the production and use of information technology account for a large share of the gains. The authors project that during the next decade, private sector productivity growth will continue at a rate of 2.6 percent per year, a significant increase from their 2002 projection of 2.2 percent growth.Productivity ; Information technology

Projecting productivity growth: lessons from the U.S. growth resurgence

Following the 1995-2000 period of more rapid output growth and lower inflation in the United States, economists have strenuously debated whether improvements in economic performance can be sustained. The recession that began in March 2001 intensified the debate, and the economic impacts of the events of September 11 have yet to be fully understood. Both factors add to the considerable uncertainties about future growth that currently face decision makers in both the public and private sectors. ; In this article, the authors analyze the sources of U.S. labor productivity growth in the post-1995 period and present projections for both output and labor productivity growth for the next decade. Despite the 2001 downward revisions to U.S. gross domestic product and software investment, the authors show that information technology (IT) played a substantial role in the U.S. productivity revival. The article then outlines a methodology for projecting trend output and productivity growth. The base-case projection puts the rate of trend productivity growth at 2.21 percent per year over the next decade with a range of 1.33 to 2.92 percent, reflecting fundamental uncertainties about the rate of technological progress in IT-production and investment patterns. The central projection is only slightly below the average growth rate of 2.36 percent during the 1995-2000 period.Productivity ; Technology ; Economic development

Abnormal Infant Movements Classification With Deep Learning on Pose-Based Features

The pursuit of early diagnosis of cerebral palsy has been an active research area with some very promising results using tools such as the General Movements Assessment (GMA). In our previous work, we explored the feasibility of extracting pose-based features from video sequences to automatically classify infant body movement into two categories, normal and abnormal. The classification was based upon the GMA, which was carried out on the video data by an independent expert reviewer. In this paper we extend our previous work by extracting the normalised pose-based feature sets, Histograms of Joint Orientation 2D (HOJO2D) and Histograms of Joint Displacement 2D (HOJD2D), for use in new deep learning architectures. We explore the viability of using these pose-based feature sets for automated classification within a deep learning framework by carrying out extensive experiments on five new deep learning architectures. Experimental results show that the proposed fully connected neural network FCNet performed robustly across different feature sets. Furthermore, the proposed convolutional neural network architectures demonstrated excellent performance in handling features in higher dimensionality. We make the code, extracted features and associated GMA labels publicly available

Photoprotection by 20-hydroxyvitamin D3, a product of CYP11A1 in skin

Skin cancer is one of the most common health issues afflicting people in many countries, particularly in Australia. The major cause of skin cancer is ultraviolet radiation (UV), which is also needed for vitamin D synthesis. There is also evidence from the Mason group that the hormonally active form of vitamin D, 1α,25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3), provides photoprotection. Studies on the effects of 20(OH)D3 on DNA damage and immunosuppression done in our laboratory by colleagues, revealed that 20(OH)D3 is as effective as 1,25(OH)2D3 in reducing thymine dimer formation and UVR-induced immunosuppression in female hairless Skh:hr1 mice (Tongkao-on et al., 2015). The aim of this project was to explore whether 20-hydroxyvitamin D3 (20(OH)D3), a product of vitamin D3 hydroxylation, provides protection against UV-induced photocarcinogenesis. In order to investigate whether the protection against acute UV-induced damage translates into prevention of skin carcinogenesis, the major, in vivo component of this study involved a 40 week photocarcinogenesis study and contact hypersensitivity (CHS) response experiment, with 1,25(OH)2D3 and 20(OH)D3 applied as topical treatments post UV irradiation. The results from the in vivo study showed that 1,25(OH)2D3 was effective at inhibiting UV-induced tumour formation and progression, but 20(OH)D3 was not observed to be effective in reducing the following parameters: tumour incidence, tumour latency, tumour multiplicity and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) incidence

The Effects of Learners’ Personality Traits on M-Learning

Mobile learning (m-learning) is becoming increasingly significant for educators and businesses. Prior research often examines the effectiveness of m-learning; however, it overlooks that learners with different characteristics may respond to m-learning differently. This research examines how learners with different personalities react to m-learning messages. Specifically, it uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is one of the most widely-used personality instruments, and uses four dichotomies, namely introversion–extroversion, sensing–intuition, thinking–feeling and judgment–perception, to describe learner personalities. We conducted a 10-week study with 217 students. We used MBTI to categorize these 217 participating learners into sixteen personality groups, and sent short text messages to their mobile devices. These messages stimulated them to access lecture materials and to participate in online class discussions. We observed how learners with different personalities responded to text messages, and confirmed that learners of different personalities showed different levels of responses to m-learning messages