81 research outputs found
The Eurozone Debt Crisis: From its origins to a way forward. CEPS Policy Brief No. 251, August 2011
No full textAs the Eurozone debt crisis reaches a turning point, this Policy Brief argues for a more organised intervention by the ECB to stop contagion through the creation of a quantitative easing programme, coupled with a political agreement among member states on a more federalist budget for the Eurozone.
The roots of this crisis and how institutions have repeated some of the mistakes of the Argentine crisis, both in 1998 and 2010, are considered in this paper. The author analyses the reasons why the ECB should start a quantitative easing programme to contain government bond yields, and shows that it can be done with limited impact on inflation targeting policies. The importance of reinforcing the new policy announced by the ECB, which has lain rather dormant during the Eurozone crisis, is also highlighted as a pre-condition for a broader political agreement on more harmonised fiscal policies and to stabilise market conditions. Valiante finds that responses should be organised on three levels: institutional competences, monetary policy support, and fiscal policy coordination
Changes in blood flow velocity in the middle and anterior cerebral arteries evoked by walking
No full textPURPOSE: Transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD) is an established method for assessing changes in blood flow velocity (BFV) coupled to brain activity. Our objective was to investigate whether walking induces measurable changes in BFV in healthy subjects. METHODS: Changes in BFV in both middle cerebral arteries (MCAs) of 40 healthy adult subjects during walking on a treadmill were measured using bilateral TCD. In 8 of the 40 subjects, 1 anterior cerebral artery (ACA) was monitored simultaneously with the contralateral MCA. The percentage increase in BFV (BFVI%) compared with the baseline velocity (V(0)), the percentage decrease in BFV (BFVD%) compared with the V(0), and the normalized ACA-MCA ratio were analyzed. RESULTS: The overall mean (+/- standard deviation [SD]) V(0) was 59.9 +/- 11.6 cm/second in the left MCA and 60.1 +/- 12.9 cm/second in the right MCA. Women had higher V(0) values than men had. Walking evoked an initial mean overall BFVI% in both left (8.4 +/- 5.1%) and right MCAs (9.1 +/- 5.1%), followed by a decrease to below baseline values in 38 of 40 subjects. A statistically significant increase of the normalized ACA-MCA ratio was measured, indicating that changes in BFV in the ACA territory were coupled to brain activation during walking. CONCLUSIONS: The use of functional TCD showed different changes in BFV in the ACAs and MCAs during walking. This method may be an interesting tool for monitoring progress in patients with motor deficits of the legs, such as paresis
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