HOW LONG DO HOUSING CYCLES LAST? A DURATION ANALYSIS FOR EMERGING ECONOMIES

In this paper, I empirically study the amplitudes and durations of housing cycles in selected emerging countries. Using the Harding and Pagan (2002) approach, I identify peaks and troughs of house prices for 10 countries. I find that, on average, housing expansions last longer and have greater amplitudes than housing contractions. I, then, estimate a discrete time survival model of housing expansions and contractions. I show that both contractions and expansions have positive duration dependence. I find that inflation and economic growth are useful predictors for the end of periods of expansions and contractions.In this paper, I empirically study the amplitudes and durations of housing cycles in selected emerging countries. Using the Harding and Pagan (2002) approach, I identify peaks and troughs of house prices for 10 countries. I find that, on average, housing expansions last longer and have greater amplitudes than housing contractions. I, then, estimate a discrete time survival model of housing expansions and contractions. I show that both contractions and expansions have positive duration dependence. I find that inflation and economic growth are useful predictors for the end of periods of expansions and contractions

Regulation of the metabolic phenotype of human hepatocytes by glucocorticoids and androgens

Glucocorticoids and androgens have both been implicated in the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); androgen deficiency in males, androgen excess in females and glucocorticoid excess in both sexes are associated with NAFLD. Glucocorticoid and androgen action are regulated at a pre-receptor level by the enzyme 5αR2 (SRD5A2) that inactivates glucocorticoids to their dihydrometabolites and converts testosterone to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). We have therefore explored the role of androgens and glucocorticoids and their metabolism by SRD5A2 upon lipid homeostasis in human hepatocytes. In both primary human hepatocytes and human hepatoma cell lines, glucocorticoids decreased de novo lipogenesis in a dose-dependent manner. Whilst androgen treatment (testosterone and DHT) increased lipogenesis in cell lines and in primary cultures of human hepatocytes from female donors, it was without effect in primary hepatocyte cultures from men. SRD5A2 overexpression reduced the effects of cortisol to suppress lipogenesis and this effect was lost following transfection with an inactive mutant construct. Conversely, pharmacological inhibition using the 5αR inhibitors finasteride and dutasteride, augmented cortisol action. We have demonstrated that manipulation of 5αR2 activity can regulate lipogenesis in human hepatocytes in vitro. This may have significant clinical implications for those patients prescribed 5αR inhibitors, in particular augmenting the actions of glucocorticoids to modulate hepatic lipid flux

Fetal Electrocardiogram Signal Extraction by ANFIS Trained with PSO Method

Studies indicate that the primary source of distress in pregnent mothers is their concerns about fetus’s condition and health. One way to know about condition of fetus is non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram signal extraction through which the components of fetal electrocardiogram signal are extracted from a signal recorded at abdominal area of mother which is a combination of fetal and maternal electrocardiogram signal and noise source components. The purpose of this study is to propose an algorithm to boost this extraction. To this end, we decomposed electrocardiogram signal to its Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) thruogh Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithm; then, we removed the last and collected the other IMFs to reconstruct electrocardiogram signal without Baseline. Afterwards, we used Particle Swarm Optimization to train and adjust the parameters of Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System to model the path that maternal electrocardiogram signal travel to reach abdominal area. Accordingly, we were able to distinguish and remove maternal electrocardiogram signal components from the recorded signal and hence we obtained a good approximation of fetal electrocardiogram signal. We implemented our algorithm and other algorithms on simulated and real signals and found out that, in most cases, the proposed algorithm improved the extraction of fetal electrocardiogram signal.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v2i2.23

Three essays on credit markets

In this dissertation, three empirical studies are undertaken to unravel the behavior of the credit market. The outcome of this research provides better understanding toward the role of the credit rating on corporate financial decisions, the reaction of Credit default swap market after the release of financial reports and the impact of CDS trading on corporate investmen

Interference Alignment Using Reaction in Molecular Interference Channels

Interference alignment (IA) is a promising scheme to increase the throughput of the system with shared mediums. In this paper, we propose a novel IA scheme in molecular interference channels (IFCs) based on the choice of releasing/sampling times. To cancel the aligned interference signals and reduce the signal dependent noise, we use molecular reaction in the proposed IA scheme. We obtain the feasible region for the releasing/sampling times in the IA scheme using reaction. Further, we investigate the error performance of the proposed scheme. Our results show that the proposed IA scheme using reaction improves the performance significantly.Comment: 5 page

Therapeutic Effects of Adrenocorticotropic Hormone ACTH in Children with Severely Intractable Seizure

How to Cite This Article: Nasiri J, Sarajan A, Salari M, Sedghi M. Therapeutic Effects of Adrenocorticotropic Hormone ACTH in Children withSeverely Intractable Seizure. Iran J Child Neurol. Summer 2017; 11(3):19-26.AbstractObjectiveTreatment of intractable seizures other than spasms is difficult and controversial.There are few studies on efficacy of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) in treatment of patients with intractable seizure.Materials & MethodsTwenty-five patients with intractable seizure other than spasm including 14 boys and 11 girls with median age of 58 months referred to university clinics of Pediatric Neurology in Isfahan, Iran, during 2014-2015 were prospectively investigated. ACTH was administrated according to our protocol. All cases were followed regularly and assessed for response to treatment and probable side effects, 3 wk after beginning of ACTH therapy and three months after the ACTH therapy. EEG finding were recorded before and three months after the end of ACTH therapy. Statistical analysis using Freidman test and Wilcoxon signed – rank test were performed in order to compare seizure frequency and EEG changes, respectively.ResultsMean A significant reduction (>80%) in seizure frequency in 11 cases (44%) and moderate reduction (50%-80%) in 7 (28%) after 3 wk of ACTH therapy.Despite initial positive response, recurrence of seizure was observed in 7 out of 18 cases with favorable initial response within 3 months after ACTH therapy cessation. The comparison of EEG finding before and 3 months after ACTH therapy using Wilcoxon signed – rank test showed  significant differences.ConclusionACTH therapy may be useful in treatment of children with intractable seizures who are resistant to usual antiepileptic drugs. However further studies should be performed to determine the long-term efficacy of ACTH in treatment of intractable seizure.References1. Dunin-Wąsowicz D, Mazurkiewicz-Bełdzińska M, Steinborn B, Wheless J, Jóźwiak S. Treatment of pediatric epilepsy in Poland. Eur J Paediatr Neurol 2015;19(3):320-6.2. Oka E, Ohtsuka Y, Yoshinaga H, Murakami N, Kobayashi K, Ogino T. Prevalence of Childhood Epilepsy and Distribution of Epileptic Syndromes: A Population-based Survey in Okayama, Japan. Epilepsia 2006;47(3):626-30.3. Beleza P. Refractory epilepsy: a clinically oriented review. Eur Neurol 2009; 62(2):65-71.4. Pentella K, Bachman D, Sandman CA. Trial of an ACTH4-9 Analogue (ORG 2766) in children with intractable seizures. Neuropediatrics 1982;13(2):59-62.5. Snead OC, Benton JW, Myers GJ. ACTH and prednisone in childhood seizure disorders. Neurology 1983;33(8):966-70.6. Okumura A, Tsuji T, Kato T, Natsume J, Negoro T, Watanabe K. ACTH therapy for generalized seizures other than spasms. Seizure 2006;15(7):469-75.7. Verhelst H, Boon P, Buyse G, Ceulemans B, D’Hooghe M, De Meirleir L, et al. Steroids in intractable childhood epilepsy: clinical experience and review of the literature. Seizure 2005;14(6):412-21.8. Oguni H, Funatsuka M, Sasaki K, Nakajima T, Yoshii K, Nishimura T, et al. Effect of ACTH therapy for epileptic spasms without hypsarrhythmia. Epilepsia 2005;46(5):709-15.9. Haberlandt E, Weger C, Sigl SB, Rauchenzauner M, Scholl-Bürgi S, Rostásy K, et al. Adrenocorticotropic hormone versus pulsatile dexamethasone in the treatment of infantile epilepsy syndromes. Pediatr Neurol 2010;42(1):21-7.10. Inutsuka M, Kobayashi K, Oka M, Hattori J, Ohtsuka Y. Treatment of epilepsy with electrical status epilepticus during slow sleep and its related disorders. Brain Dev 2006;28(5):281-6.11. Fujii A, Oguni H, Hirano Y, Osawa M. Atypical benign partial epilepsy: recognition can prevent pseudocatastrophe. Pediatr Neurol 2010;43(6):411-9.12. Inui T, Kobayashi T, Kobayashi S, Sato R, Endo W, Kikuchi A, et al. Efficacy of long term weekly ACTH therapy for intractable epilepsy. Brain Dev 2015;37(4):449-54.13. Kalra V, Sharma S, Arya R. ACTH therapy in refractory generalized epilepsy. Indian J Pediatr 2009;76(1):91-3.14. Kurian M, Korff CM. Steroids in pediatric epilepsy: infantile spasms and beyond. Epileptologie 2011; 28(1):15-20.15. Rogawski MA, DS R. Neurosteroids and infantile spasms: The deoxycorticosterone hypothesis. In: JMR PAS, editor. International Review of Neurobiology Volume 49: Academic Press; 2002. p. 199-219.16. Snead OC. How does ACTH work against infantile spasms? Bedside to bench. Ann Neurol 2001;49(3):288-9.17. Jacobson L, Sapolsky R. The Role of the Hippocampus in Feedback Regulation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary- Adrenocortical Axis. Endocr Rev 1991;12(2):118-34.18. Sinclair DB. Prednisone therapy in pediatric epilepsy. Pediatr Neurol 2003;28(3):194-8

Relationship between breast feeding and obesity in children with low birth weight

Background: Breast feeding appears to play a role in determining obesity and abdominal obesity during childhood, specifically in children with a history of low birth weight. Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation of breast-feeding with either of abdominal obesity and obesity among Iranian school children. Materials and Methods: A total of 1184 students (625 girls and 559 boys), aged 10 to 13 years old, were selected from 112 governmental elementary schools in Iran. Height, weight, waist circumference and blood pressure were measured using standard instruments and a pretested standardized questionnaire was performed for compiling information about family economics and educational level, first–degree family history of obesity, history of breast feeding, food pattern and birth weight, as well. Results: 13.68% (n = 160) of students had a history of low birth weight, and 26.41% of them had abdominal obesity. Of all participants, 22.04% were overweight and 5.32% were obese which was more prevalent in girls than in boys (P = 0.03). First-degree family history of obesity (P = 0.001), excessive gestational weight gain (P = 0.001) and birth weight (P = 0.01) were significantly correlated with the prevalence of obesity and abdominal obesity during childhood. Moreover the prevalence of abdominal obesity in children with low birth weight was significantly correlated with breast feeding (P = 0.04); But this relation was not significantly about obesity in our participants (P = 0.9). Furthermore duration of breast feeding was significantly and inversely correlated with obesity and abdominal obesity in schoolchildren with low birth weight (P = 0.01). Conclusions: The results suggest that Breast feeding and its long-term consequences were important factors for preventing metabolic syndrome criteria in childhood and later years of life span. With regard to the increasing prevalence of obesity in children, more research is urgently needed to clarify whether breast feeding have negative consequences for the risk of chronic disease in children, especially in children with low birth weight

Effect of Time Management Training on Lifestyle of Nurses Working at General Surgery Wards of Hospitals in Sari Affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, 2016

AbstractBackground and objective: time management skills are necessary for success and promotion of clinical competency of nurses. Effective use of time is one of the unavoidable necessities for success in work and life and is considered as one of the methods to create balance between work and life aspects. Time management includes the use of skills to control and use time. This study aimed to determine the effect of time management training on lifestyle of nurses working in medical surgical wards of selected hospitals of Sari under the supervision of Medical University of Mazandaran in 2016.Material and methods: this intervention study was conducted on 70 nurses working in medical surgical ward of selected hospitals of Sari. Samples were selected by the available sampling method. Subjects were divided into control and experimental groups. Data were gathered by two questionnaires including demographic information and Walker’s Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (1987) before and after time management skills training. The validity of instruments was examined and necessary modifications were done. The reliability of instruments was measured by Cronbach’s alpha (0.83). Time management skills were instructed for 3 hours in two sessions for the experimental group. After a month, all participants in two groups again completed the questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22, descriptive and analytical statistics such as mean, standard deviation, absolute and relative frequency, independent t-test, and pairwise t-test.Findings: control group and experimental group were similar in terms of demographic variables and lifestyle in all aspects and no significant difference was observed. One month after intervention, no significant difference was observed between variables. Scores in all aspects and total score of lifestyle in both groups before and after intervention showed a significant difference.Conclusion: the findings of this study showed that time management training influences lifestyle at all aspects and total score. Therefore, some efforts should be applied to train time management skills and lead to improved lifestyle. Therefore, it is recommended to consider time management training in programs for nurses.