9,244 research outputs found

    Stains Induce Apoptosis and Autophagy in Primary and Transformed Mast Cells

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    Statin drugs are widely employed in the clinic to reduce serum low density lipoproteins (LDLs) in patients with hypocholesteremia. In addition to their cholesterol-lowering effects through HMG CoA reductase antagonism, isoprenyl lipids necessary for membrane anchorage and signaling of small G-proteins are abrogated. We previously found that statins suppress mast cell activation in murine and human cells, suggesting these drugs might be useful in treating allergic disease. While mast cell function is critical to allergic inflammation, mast cell hyperplasia and survival also impact these diseases, and were not studied in our previous work. In this study, we describe Fluvastatin-mediated apoptosis in both primary and transformed mast cells. An IC50 was achieved between 1-5μM in both systems, and apoptosis was preceded by mitochondrial dysfunction and caspase release. In addition to apoptosis, our work also uncovered evidence of autophagy, which can serve as a compensatory mechanism during apoptosis. Interestingly, autophagy appeared to be cyto-protective in the primary cells yet cytotoxic in transformed mast cells. These findings offer insight into the mechanisms of mast cell survival and support the possible utility of statins in mast cell-associated allergic and neoplastic diseases

    Leading by example: A three-wave sequential mixed method food safety study

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    (Best Paper Award/ 253 submissions) According to the most recent government data, approximately 61% of foodborne illness outbreaks were attributed to lack of personal hygiene and improper food handling by employees in the foodservice industry. Foodservice employees fail to adhere to safe food preparation practices, may directly introduce pathogens that can cause illness and death. Few qualitative studies have examined the barriers of effective managerial practices that influence employee’s food safety behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to explore employees’ perspectives about managerial practices that influence their food safety behaviors

    Interest Rate Rules and the Response to the Output Gap

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    Modern monetary policy analysis is built around the concept of an interest rate rule that responds to both inflation and output. This paper evaluates the quantitative implications of having a policy rule target different definitions of the output gap in a New Keynesian model with endogenous capital. One crucial result is that different model specifications result in alternative values for potential output, raising the issue of which output gap to target. The results of this paper suggest that targeting the true output gap can be well approximated by a rule that only reacts to inflation.Monetary Policy Rules, Output Gap

    Timeless perspective vs discretionary policymaking when the degree of inflation persistence is unknown

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    It is often assumed that monetary policy in forward looking models yields higher welfare, measured in terms of the unconditional loss, when it operates under the timeless perspective than under discretion. This paper consider the robustness of such a result in a New Keynesian model when the degree of intrinsic inflation persistence is misperceived by the policymaker. It finds that for reasonable parameter values discretion can be superior to the timeless perspective. The reason for this stems from the fact that the timeless perspective policy varies more with the degree of inflation persistence than does the discretionary policy.discretion, timeless perspective, inflation persistence, uncertainty

    New Keynesian Models and the Kydland and Prescott Test

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    This paper evaluates New Keynesian models using RBC methods for a number of key macroeconomic variables. Its main findings are that the NK model provides a good description of the behaviour of real variables but performs very poorly when nominal variables are considered. The latter result is puzzling, given the success of NK models in replicating impulse response function and presents a challenge for current models.New Keynesian, Business Cycles, Inflation

    The New Keynesian Phillips Curve: Some Counterfactual Evidence

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    New Keynesian models of the business cycle have become the new paradigm of monetary economics, often used for policy analysis. This paper shows that this class of models fail in one crucial respect: they imply a strong negative contemporaneous correlation between inflation and output. Furthermore, this result is robust to parameter values and specification of the inflation equation.New Keynesian Models, Output Inflation
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