The track record of the Commission's forecasts - an update

This paper has updated the assessment of the Commission's forecasts' track record from 1999 by extending the observation period from 1969-1997 to also take into account the forecasts and outcome for the years 1998-2005. This update has also included some further tests on e.g. informational efficiency and undertaken a comparison with the forecasts of other international institutions and those of market participants. The tests were carried out on the forecasts for real GDP growth, total investment, inflation, the unemployment rate, the general government balance and the current account to GDP ratio. Data have been processed in a broadly similar manner compared to the study of 1999 to ensure comparability to the greatest degree possible. Overall, the Commission's forecasts continue to dispose a reasonable track record. For instance, the forecast error for the GDP forecast, as measured by the mean absolute error, has improved by 0.03 percentage point (pp.) to 0.5 pp. for the current-year outlook and by 0.08 pp. to 0.86 pp. for the year ahead. This implies that the Commission's forecasts for GDP growth has, on average, proven to be 0.5 pp. too high / low for the current year. Forecasts for the EU generally seem to be unbiased, efficient and display a high success rate for directional accuracy. The same holds true for the outlook for most Member States, although there are individual examples to the contrary. Moreover, in view of the importance of the international environment in explaining past forecast errors, it is reassuring to note that the forecasts for the largest non-EU countries generally seem to perform well. Finally, the Commission's forecasts' track record for GDP is broadly comparable with the ones of Consensus, the IMF and the OECD.forecasts, projections, economic outlook, GDP, growth, Melander, Sismanidis, Grenouilleau

A diabetes-predictive amino acid score and future cardiovascular disease.

AimsWe recently identified a metabolic signature of three amino acids (tyrosine, phenylalanine, and isoleucine) that strongly predicts diabetes development. As novel modifiable targets for intervention are needed to meet the expected increase of cardiovascular disease (CVD) caused by the diabetes epidemic, we investigated whether this diabetes-predictive amino acid score (DM-AA score) predicts development of CVD and its functional consequences.Methods and resultsWe performed a matched case-control study derived from the population-based Malmö Diet and Cancer Cardiovascular Cohort (MDC-CC), all free of CVD. During 12 years of follow-up, 253 individuals developed CVD and were matched for age, sex, and Framingham risk score with 253 controls. Amino acids were profiled in baseline plasma samples, using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and relationship to incident CVD was assessed using conditional logistic regression. We further examined whether the amino acid score also correlated with anatomical [intima-media thickness (IMT) and plaque formation] and functional (exercise-induced myocardial ischaemia) abnormalities. Compared with the lowest quartile of the DM-AA score, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for incident CVD in subjects belonging to quartiles 2, 3, and 4 was 1.27 (0.72-2.22), 1.96 (1.07-3.60), and 2.20 (1.12-4.31) (P(trend) = 0.010), respectively, after multivariate adjustment. Increasing quartile of the DM-AA score was cross-sectionally related to carotid IMT (P(trend) = 0.037) and with the presence of at least one plaque larger than 10 mm(2) (P(trend) = 0.001). Compared with the lowest quartile of the DM-AA score, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for inducible ischaemia in subjects belonging to quartiles 2, 3, and 4 was 3.31 (1.05-10.4), 4.24 (1.36-13.3), and 4.86 (1.47-16.1) (P(trend) = 0.011), respectively.ConclusionThis study identifies branched-chain and aromatic amino acids as novel markers of CVD development and as an early link between diabetes and CVD susceptibility

MESQUITE design : issues in the development of a mesh quality improvement toolkit.

Poor mesh quality is known to adversely affect both solution efficiency and accuracy. There has been considerable research on a wide variety of mesh improvement algorithms, but the impact of these algorithms on applications has been limited because they are typically embedded in particular meshing software packages. To rectify this situation, they are developing a stand-alone mesh quality improvement toolkit called MESQUITE. In this paper, the authors describe the motivation, goals, and design of MESQUITE and give some computational results using the underlying algorithms that show the benefit of such a package

Quasi-stationary States of Two-Dimensional Electron Plasma Trapped in Magnetic Field

We have performed numerical simulations on a pure electron plasma system under a strong magnetic field, in order to examine quasi-stationary states that the system eventually evolves into. We use ring states as the initial states, changing the width, and find that the system evolves into a vortex crystal state from a thinner-ring state while a state with a single-peaked density distribution is obtained from a thicker-ring initial state. For those quasi-stationary states, density distribution and macroscopic observables are defined on the basis of a coarse-grained density field. We compare our results with experiments and some statistical theories, which include the Gibbs-Boltzmann statistics, Tsallis statistics, the fluid entropy theory, and the minimum enstrophy state. From some of those initial states, we obtain the quasi-stationary states which are close to the minimum enstrophy state, but we also find that the quasi-stationary states depend upon initial states, even if the initial states have the same energy and angular momentum, which means the ergodicity does not hold.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Orthostatic Changes in Hemodynamics and Cardiovascular Biomarkers in Dysautonomic Patients

Background Impaired autonomic control of postural homeostasis results in orthostatic intolerance. However, the role of neurohormones in orthostatic intolerance has not been explained. Methods Six-hundred-and-seventy-one patients (299 males; 55±22 years) with unexplained syncope underwent head-up tilt (HUT) with serial blood sampling. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and heart rate (HR) supine, after 3min, and lowest BP/highest HR during HUT were recorded. Plasma levels of epinephrine, norepinephrine, renin, C-terminal-pro-arginine-vasopressin (CT-proAVP), C-terminal- endothelin-1 (CT-proET-1), and mid-regional-fragment of pro-atrial-natriuretic-peptide (MR-proANP) were determined at supine and 3min of HUT. Multivariate-adjusted logistic regression model was applied to compare 1st (reference) with 4th quartile of 3 min and maximal ΔSBP/ΔHR (i.e. pronounced hypotension or tachycardia) vs. changes in neuroendocrine biomarkers, respectively. Results Higher resting CT-proET-1 predicted BP fall at 3min (Odds ratio (OR) per 1 SD: 1.62, 95% CI 1.18–2.22; p = 0.003), and max BP fall during HUT (1.82, 1.28–2.61; p = 0.001). Higher resting CT-proAVP predicted BP fall at 3min (1.33, 1.03–1.73; p = 0.03), which was also associated with increase in CT-proAVP (1.86, 1.38–2.51; p = 0.00005) and epinephrine (1.47, 1.12–1.92; p = 0.05) during HUT. Lower resting MR-proANP predicted tachycardia at 3min (0.37, 0.24–0.59; p = 0.00003), and max tachycardia during HUT (0.47, 0.29–0.77; p = 0.002). Further, tachycardia during HUT was associated with increase in epinephrine (1.60, 1.15–2.21; p = 0.005), and norepinephrine (1.87, 1.38–2.53; p = 0.005). Conclusions Resting CT-proET-1 and CT-proAVP are increased in orthostatic hypotension, while resting MR-proANP is decreased in postural tachycardia. Moreover, early BP fall during orthostasis evokes increase in CT-proAVP and epinephrine, while postural tachycardia is associated with increase in norepinephrine and epinephrine

Transition-state vibrational analysis and isotope effects for COMT-catalyzed methyl transfer

Isotopic partition-function ratios (IPFRs) computed for transition structures (TSs) of the methyl-transfer reaction catalyzed by catechol O-methyltransferase and modeled by hybrid QM/MM methods are analyzed. The ability of smaller Hessians to reproduce trends in α-3H3 and 14Cα IPFRs as obtained using the much larger subset QM/MM Hessians from which they are extracted is investigated critically. A 6-atom-extracted Hessian reproduces perfectly the α-T3 IPFR values from the full-subset Hessians of all the TSs but not the α-14CIPFRs. Average AM1/OPLS-AA harmonic frequencies and mean-square amplitudes are presented for the 12 normal modes of the α-CH3 moiety within the active site of several enzymic transition structures, together with QM/MM potential energy scans along each of these modes to assess the degree of anharmonicity. A novel investigation of ponderal effects upon IPFRs suggests that the value for α-14C tends toward a limiting minimum whereas that for α-T3 tends toward a limiting maximum as the mass of the rest of the system increases. The transition vector is dominated by motions of atoms within the donor and acceptor moieties and is very well described as a simple combination of Walden-inversion “umbrella” bending and asymmetric stretching of the SCα and CαO bonds. The contribution of atoms of the protein residues Met40, Tyr68, and Asp141 to the transition vector is extremely small. Average valence force constants for the COMT TS show significant differences from early BEBOVIB estimates which were used in support of the compression hypothesis for catalysis. There is no correlation between TS IPFRs and the nonbonded distances for close contacts between the S atom of SAM and Tyr68 or between any of the H atoms of the transferring methyl group and either Met40 or Asp141

A Bifurcated Proteoglycan Binding Small Molecule Carrier for siRNA delivery.

A wider application of siRNA and miRNA based therapeutics is restricted by the currently available delivery systems. We have designed a new type of small molecule carrier (SMoC) system for siRNA modelled to interact with cell surface proteoglycans. This bifurcated SMoC has similar affinity for the model proteoglycan heparin to an equivalent polyarginine peptide and exhibits significant mRNA knockdown of protein levels comparable to lipofectamine and the previously reported linear SMoC. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved