113,652 research outputs found
How to use Rosen's normalised equilibrium to enforce a socially desirable Pareto efficient solution
No full textWe consider a situation, in which a regulator believes that constraining a complex good created jointly by competitive agents, is socially desirable. Individual levels of outputs that generate the constrained amount of the externality can be computed as a Pareto efficient solution of the agents' joint utility maximisation problem. However, generically, a Pareto efficient solution is not an equilibrium. We suggest the regulator calculates a Nash-Rosen coupled-constraint equilibrium (or a “generalised” Nash equilibrium) and uses the coupled-constraint Lagrange multiplier to formulate a threat, under which the agents will play a decoupled Nash game. An equilibrium of this game will possibly coincide with the Pareto efficient solution. We focus on situations when the constraints are saturated and examine, under which conditions a match between an equilibrium and a Pareto solution is possible. We illustrate our findings using a model for a coordination problem, in which firms' outputs depend on each other and where the output levels are important for the regulator.
Photoinduced dynamics of ethene in the N, V, and Z valence states: A six-dimensional nonadiabatic quantum dynamics investigation
No full textViel A, Krawczyk RP, Manthe U, Domcke W. Photoinduced dynamics of ethene in the N, V, and Z valence states: A six-dimensional nonadiabatic quantum dynamics investigation. JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS. 2004;120(23):11000-11010
The origins of compassion for animals: legal privileging of non-wild animals in late Georgian Britain
No full textPublished online: 07 Dec 2015Victor J. Krawczyk, Monica A. Hamilton-Bruc
author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 – Supplemental material for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct
No full textSupplemental material, author-bios-SRD-19-0063.R1 for The Network Structure of Police Misconduct by George Wood, Daria Roithmayr and Andrew V. Papachristos in Socius</p
The Lifecycle of a Digital Historical Document: Structure and Content
No full textThis paper describes the lifecycle of a digital historical document, from template-based structure definition through to content extraction from the scanned pages and its final reconstitution as an electronic document (combining content and semantic information) along with the tools that have been created to realise each stage in the lifecycle. The whole approach is described in the context of different types of typewritten documents relating to prisoners in World-War II concentration camps and is the result of a multinational collaboration under the MEMORIAL project funded (€1.5M) by the European Union (www.memorial-project.info). Extensive tests with historians/archivists and evaluation of the content extraction results indicate the superior performance of the whole semantics-driven approach both over manual transcription and over the semi-automated application of off-the-shelf OCR and the use of a conventional (text and layout) document format
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Wprowadzenie, czyli Łódź między starymi a nowymi laty…
No full textUdostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
krawczyk
No full textRecently the common adiponutrin (PNPLA3) polymorphism p.I148M has been identified as a genetic determinant of severe forms of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and alcoholic liver disease. Additionally, insulin resistance -linked to the development of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis -increases the risk of developing gallstones. Here we assessed whether the PNPLA3 p.I148M (c.444 C>G) polymorphism affects glucose and lipid levels and increases gallstone risk. We analysed 229 individuals with gallstones from 108 families (age 24-80 years, BMI 17-55 kg/m 2 ) and 258 gallstone-free controls (age 20-70 years, BMI 14-43 kg/m 2 ). Fasting glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol serum levels were determined. The p.I148M polymorphism was genotyped using a PCR-based assay with 5'-nuclease and fluorescence detection. Case-control association tests and nonparametric linkage (NPL) analysis in sib-pairs were performed. Individuals carrying the [GG] genotype had significantly (P<0.0001) higher median fasting glucose levels as compared to [GC] and [CC] carriers. After adjustment for multiple testing, we detected a trend for an association between triglyceride levels and variant adiponutrin in gallstone patients (P=0.032), and gallstone cases carrying the genotype [CC] presented with significantly higher triglyceride levels than the corresponding controls (P<0.003). No significant effects on cholesterol metabolism were detected. Neither genotype distributions nor NPL scores provided evidence for association or linkage between the PNPLA3 variant and gallstones. In conclusion, homozygous carriers of the PNPLA3 risk allele display higher fasting glucose. Although this adiponutrin variant may affect triglyceride homeostasis, it does not increase the risk of cholelithiasis. K e y w o r d s : adiponutrin, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, PNPLA3, single nucleotide polymorphism, triglyceride 25) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection Taking into account the previously reported association between the adiponutrin variant and non-genetic risk factors for gallstones (e.g. hepatic fat accumulation, liver injury, distorted glucose metabolism), we now aimed to dissect the possible role of the PNPLA3 SNP in gallstone formation. In this respect we genotyped a cohort of sibs with gallstones and unrelated gallstone-free controls. To investigate the role of variant adiponutrin in other metabolic traits, we related PNPLA3 genotypes to serum lipid and glucose levels. MATERIAL AND METHODS Patients Only individuals with documented Caucasian ethnicity were included in the study. As shown in In all study participants glucose, TG and cholesterol levels in serum (mg/dL) were determined by standard assays after an overnight fasting period. The study was conducted according to a study design approved by the local ethical committee, and all participants signed an informed consent form. Genotyping Genomic DNA was isolated from EDTA anticoagulated blood according to the membrane-based QIAamp DNA extraction protocol (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). The PNPLA3 coding SNP p.I148M (rs738409) was genotyped using solutionphase hybridization reactions with 5'-nuclease and fluorescence detection (TaqMan assays) in a 7300 real-time PCR system (Applera, Norwalk, CT). Primer and probe sequences were: forward primer 5'-AACTTCTCTCTCCTTTGCTTTCACA-3'; reverse primer 5'-TCTACAGTGGCCTTATCCCTCC-3'; VIC 5'-TTCCTGCTTCATGCC-3'; FAM 5'-CCTGCTTCATCCC-3'. To ensure genotyping quality, we included negative controls and DNA samples with known PNPLA3 genotypes as internal controls. PCR reactions contained 20 ng DNA, 900 nM of each primer, 1× TaqMan Universal Master Mix, and 200 nM of VIClabelled and FAM-labelled probes in 25 µL-reactions. Amplification conditions were 95°C for 10 min, 40 cycles of 92°C for 15 s, and 60°C for 1 min. Statistics Unless stated otherwise, statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 18.0 (SPSS, Munich, Germany). All phenotypic quantitative data were expressed as medians and ranges, unless stated specifically. Because we performed multiple tests (n=17), the significance threshold was corrected for multiple testing and two-sided P values <0.003 were considered as significant. The effects of the adiponutrin SNP and of other potential lithogenic factors (age, BMI, gender, serum glucose and lipid levels) Exact tests were performed to check the consistency of genotyping results with Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) (http://ihg2.helmholtz-muenchen.de/cgi-bin/hw/hwa1.pl). We performed power calculations using PS: Power and Sample Size Calculation v.3.0 (http://biostat. mc.vanderbilt.edu/wiki/ Main/PowerSampleSize) (35). Association case-control analysis and non-parametric linkage (NPL) tests were performed to investigate the role of the PNPLA3 p.I148M variant in the development of gallstones. For the association analysis, all gallstone-free controls and a single randomly selected member (these individuals are denoted cases throughout this report) of each sib-pair family were included. The association between the adiponutrin variant and cholelithiasis was tested in contingency tables (genotypes: Armitrage's trend test; alleles: chi 2 test). NPL scores were calculated using GENEHUNTER-MODSCORE v2.0.1 (www.staff.uni-marburg.de/_strauch/software.html) (36) both for the risk (minor) allele frequencies (MAF) in our ASP cohort and for alleles frequencies provided in the Entrez SNP database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp). In short, the NPL score allows estimation of the significance of a given allele shared among the family members in the development of the disease; for this the allele frequencies at the analysed genetic locus are compared with the null hypothesis of no linkage (4). Thus, if gallstone disease is linked to the PNPLA3 polymorphism, affected sibs are more likely to share the same allele. RESULTS Obesity enhances gallstone risk PNPLA3 p.I148M variant and gallstone risk: case-control association and sib-pairs analyses The adiponutrin p.I148M variant was successfully genotyped in all individuals with gallstones (n=229, Association between variant adiponutrin and metabolic traits For this analysis we included only unrelated cases (n=108) and all controls (n=258). DISCUSSION This study demonstrates that the adiponutrin p.I148M variant influences glucose and triglyceride levels in our study population. On the other hand, although it has been previously shown that fatty liver disease and enhanced liver fibrosis are both risk factors for cholelithiasis, the variant does not increase gallstone risk per se. Since our case-control study investigating the effect of the adiponutrin variant on gallstone formation is underpowered, we also performed a non-parametric linkage analysis. Indeed, the study cohort let us previously identify the ABCG8 p.D19H variant as the first genetic risk factor for gallstone formation in humans (4). In this study the analysis of sib-pairs showed that this variant was strongly associated with cholelithiasis (NPL score =7.1, P=4.6 x 10 -13 ), which was in line with results of a large GWAS in gallstone patients (3). Hence, the cohort of sib-pairs can be regarded as robust framework for identifying genes associated with gallstone formation. Additionally, sib-pair analysis omits the bias that is encountered in case-control analysis as controls could develop gallbladder stones later in life. Hence, the present analysis of sib-pairs, which did not reveal an association between gallstones and the PNPLA3 variant p.I148M, excludes this SNP as a major risk factor for cholelithiasis. BMI and serum glucose levels are known risk factors for gallstone formation (11). Our results show that each of these factors increases the disease risk, which is in line with the notion that cholelithiasis is a complex multifactorial disorder. Interestingly, we observed that increased serum cholesterol levels lowered the chance of developing gallstones. In contrast, previous studies have demonstrated that patients carrying the ABCG8 (35) and SLC10A2 (7) cholelithiasis risk variants present with lower total serum cholesterol concentrations. It can be hypothesised that the lower risk of developing gallstones in patients with increased serum cholesterol levels might be primarily due to decreased transport of cholesterol into bile. This might lead to increased serum cholesterol but lower biliary cholesterol concentrations. On the other hand, the use of cholesterol lowering drugs (e.g. statins) may significantly lower the risk of developing gallstones (37-39). Hence a functional link between cholesterol levels, hepatobiliary transporters and gallstone formation has not yet been thoroughly investigated and future studies are warranted. It has been previously shown that the PNPLA3 risk allele is associated with severe forms of hepatic fat accumulation In summary, our current study underscores the possible metabolic role of the adiponutrin p.I148M polymorphism. Nevertheless, given the negative results from the previous large studies this effect might be apparent only in selected individuals, for example in those who have gallstones as an additional phenotype. Although the variant does not increase the risk of developing gallstones per se, additional functional studies are warranted to define the molecular link between adiponutrin and metabolic traits
Global emission ceiling versus international cap and trade: What is the most efficient system when countries act non-cooperatively?
No full textWe model climate negotiations as a two-stage game. In the first stage of the game, players have to agree on a global emission cap (GEC). In the second stage, they non-cooperatively choose either their emission level or their emission quota, depending on whether emission trading is allowed, under the cap that potentially binds them together. A three heterogenous player quadratic game serves as a base for the analysis. In this framework, when the cap is non-binding, there exists a unique Nash equilibrium. When the emission cap is binding, among all the coupled constraints Nash equilibria, we select a normalized equilibrium by solving a variational inequality, which has a unique solution. In both scenarios – with and without emission trading – we show that there exists a non-empty range of values for which setting a binding cap improves all players’ payoff. It also appears that for some values of the cap, all players get a higher payoff under the GEC system alone than under the international cap and trade (ITC) system alone. Thus, the introduction of a GEC outperforms the ITC system both in terms of emission reduction and of payoff gains.environmental game, climate change, international cap and trade system, national emission quotas, global emission cap, normalized equilibria, variational and quasi-variational inequalities.
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