Declining Inflation Persistence in Canada: Causes and Consequences

The persistence of both core and total consumer price index inflation in Canada has declined significantly since the 1980s. In addition to providing up-to-date estimates of inflation persistence, this article examines possible reasons for the decline suggested in the literature. The role played by monetary policy, through its effect on price- and wage-setting behaviour, is distinguished from possible changes to the structure of the economy that are independent of monetary policy. The authors also discuss the implications for monetary policy of low structural persistence in inflation, including the choice of an inflation-targeting regime versus a price-level-targeting regime.

Anti-Corruption Law in Local Government: Legal Issues related to Ordinance-Design and Municipal-Level Anti-Corruption Agencies in Macedonia

Macedonian municipalities should pass anti-corruption ordinances in order to reduce corruption. The paper reviews the legal issues involved in drafting such ordinances and provides legal advisors to local councils with the legal and economic analysis needed to tackle some of the more difficult and detailed questions. The most important issue revolves around the creation of a model ordinance which Macedonian municipalities (or the Association of Units of Local Self-Government of the Republic of Macedonia) could adopt in order to set-up and run municipal-level anti-corruption agencies. The location of such agencies as well as their competencies (to monitor conflicts of interests, oversee asset declarations, and conduct corruption risk-audits among others ) are analysed. The paper also provides legal interpretations of Macedonian legislation and their likely impact on municipal council ordinance design in the area of anti-corruption - providing the legal basis for positive administrative silence, the splitting of municipal procurement contracts, and (most controversially) qui tam rewards at the municipal level. A brief regulatory impact analysis of the ordinance shows a gain of Euro 162,900 in social welfare if such a programme were rolled-out in Macedonia.

Are X-ray properties of loose groups different from those of compact groups?

We compare the X-ray properties of loose and compact galaxy groups, using a combined sample of 42 groups. We find that we are unable to separate loose and compact groups on the luminosity-temperature relation, the luminosity-velocity dispersion relation or the velocity dispersion-temperature relation using equally weighted errors. This suggests that the distinction between compact and loose groups is not a fundamental one, and we argue that a more useful distinction is that between X-ray bright and X-ray faint systems. Given their similarity in X-ray properties, we combine the loose and compact subsamples to derive relations based on the full sample. This provides the highest statistical quality results to date on the way in which the correlations in X-ray properties of low mass systems depart from those seen in rich clusters.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

SBSI:an extensible distributed software infrastructure for parameter estimation in systems biology

Complex computational experiments in Systems Biology, such as fitting model parameters to experimental data, can be challenging to perform. Not only do they frequently require a high level of computational power, but the software needed to run the experiment needs to be usable by scientists with varying levels of computational expertise, and modellers need to be able to obtain up-to-date experimental data resources easily. We have developed a software suite, the Systems Biology Software Infrastructure (SBSI), to facilitate the parameter-fitting process. SBSI is a modular software suite composed of three major components: SBSINumerics, a high-performance library containing parallelized algorithms for performing parameter fitting; SBSIDispatcher, a middleware application to track experiments and submit jobs to back-end servers; and SBSIVisual, an extensible client application used to configure optimization experiments and view results. Furthermore, we have created a plugin infrastructure to enable project-specific modules to be easily installed. Plugin developers can take advantage of the existing user-interface and application framework to customize SBSI for their own uses, facilitated by SBSI’s use of standard data formats

Astro2020 Project White Paper: The Cosmic Accelerometer

We propose an experiment, the Cosmic Accelerometer, designed to yield velocity precision of $\leq 1$ cm/s with measurement stability over years to decades. The first-phase Cosmic Accelerometer, which is at the scale of the Astro2020 Small programs, will be ideal for precision radial velocity measurements of terrestrial exoplanets in the Habitable Zone of Sun-like stars. At the same time, this experiment will serve as the technical pathfinder and facility core for a second-phase larger facility at the Medium scale, which can provide a significant detection of cosmological redshift drift on a 6-year timescale. This larger facility will naturally provide further detection/study of Earth twin planet systems as part of its external calibration process. This experiment is fundamentally enabled by a novel low-cost telescope technology called PolyOculus, which harnesses recent advances in commercial off the shelf equipment (telescopes, CCD cameras, and control computers) combined with a novel optical architecture to produce telescope collecting areas equivalent to standard telescopes with large mirror diameters. Combining a PolyOculus array with an actively-stabilized high-precision radial velocity spectrograph provides a unique facility with novel calibration features to achieve the performance requirements for the Cosmic Accelerometer

One- and two-body decomposable Poisson-Boltzmann methods for protein design calculations

Successfully modeling electrostatic interactions is one of the key factors required for the computational design of proteins with desired physical, chemical, and biological properties. In this paper, we present formulations of the finite difference Poisson-Boltzmann (FDPB) model that are pairwise decomposable by side chain. These methods use reduced representations of the protein structure based on the backbone and one or two side chains in order to approximate the dielectric environment in and around the protein. For the desolvation of polar side chains, the two-body model has a 0.64 kcal/mol RMSD compared to FDPB calculations performed using the full representation of the protein structure. Screened Coulombic interaction energies between side chains are approximated with an RMSD of 0.13 kcal/mol. The methods presented here are compatible with the computational demands of protein design calculations and produce energies that are very similar to the results of traditional FDPB calculations

Biallelic mutations in valyl-tRNA synthetase gene VARS are associated with a progressive neurodevelopmental epileptic encephalopathy.

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (ARSs) function to transfer amino acids to cognate tRNA molecules, which are required for protein translation. To date, biallelic mutations in 31 ARS genes are known to cause recessive, early-onset severe multi-organ diseases. VARS encodes the only known valine cytoplasmic-localized aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase. Here, we report seven patients from five unrelated families with five different biallelic missense variants in VARS. Subjects present with a range of global developmental delay, epileptic encephalopathy and primary or progressive microcephaly. Longitudinal assessment demonstrates progressive cortical atrophy and white matter volume loss. Variants map to the VARS tRNA binding domain and adjacent to the anticodon domain, and disrupt highly conserved residues. Patient primary cells show intact VARS protein but reduced enzymatic activity, suggesting partial loss of function. The implication of VARS in pediatric neurodegeneration broadens the spectrum of human diseases due to mutations in tRNA synthetase genes

eHabitat: A Contribution to the Model Web for Habitat Assessments and Ecological Forecasting

In striving to improve the predictive capabilities of ecological forecasting we face three basic choices ¿ develop new models, improve existing ones or increase the connectivity of models so they can work together. The latter approach of chaining different interoperable models is of particular interest, as technical developments have made it increasingly viable to combine models that can answer more questions than the individual models alone, allowing users to address complex questions, often of a multi-disciplinary nature. This concept of a Model Web encourages the setting up of a dynamic network of interoperating models, communicating with each other using standardized web services. It is the purpose of this paper to introduce the potential contribution of e-Habitat to the Model Web. e-Habitat is conceived as a Web Processing Service for computing the likelihood of finding ecosystems with equal properties. By developing e-Habitat according to Model Web principles, end-users can define the thematic layers for input to the model from various sources. These input layers are discovered using standards-based catalogues, which are a fundamental component of Model Web and generic Spatial Data Infrastructures. e-Habitat integrates data ranging from remote sensing data to socio-economical indicators, thus offering a huge potential for multi-disciplinary modelling. We will show that e-Habitat can be used for the identification of habitats that are most vulnerable or of the optimal locations for monitoring stations or, when coupled with climate change model services, for ecological forecasting. As such, it is an excellent example of the Model Web in practice.JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin

Prime Focus Spectrograph - Subaru's future -

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) of the Subaru Measurement of Images and Redshifts (SuMIRe) project has been endorsed by Japanese community as one of the main future instruments of the Subaru 8.2-meter telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. This optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph targets cosmology with galaxy surveys, Galactic archaeology, and studies of galaxy/AGN evolution. Taking advantage of Subaru's wide field of view, which is further extended with the recently completed Wide Field Corrector, PFS will enable us to carry out multi-fiber spectroscopy of 2400 targets within 1.3 degree diameter. A microlens is attached at each fiber entrance for F-ratio transformation into a larger one so that difficulties of spectrograph design are eased. Fibers are accurately placed onto target positions by positioners, each of which consists of two stages of piezo-electric rotary motors, through iterations by using back-illuminated fiber position measurements with a wide-field metrology camera. Fibers then carry light to a set of four identical fast-Schmidt spectrographs with three color arms each: the wavelength ranges from 0.38 {\mu}m to 1.3 {\mu}m will be simultaneously observed with an average resolving power of 3000. Before and during the era of extremely large telescopes, PFS will provide the unique capability of obtaining spectra of 2400 cosmological/astrophysical targets simultaneously with an 8-10 meter class telescope. The PFS collaboration, led by IPMU, consists of USP/LNA in Brazil, Caltech/JPL, Princeton, & JHU in USA, LAM in France, ASIAA in Taiwan, and NAOJ/Subaru.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, submitted to "Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy IV, Ian S. McLean, Suzanne K. Ramsay, Hideki Takami, Editors, Proc. SPIE 8446 (2012)