Abstract
Background
Mansonellosis is a widely neglected helminth disease which is predominantly observed in tropical regions. This study was conducted to assess potential associations of the prevalence of circulating Mansonella perstans-specific cell-free DNA in human serum and HIV infection in Ghanaian individuals.
Methods
For this purpose, serum samples obtained from Ghanaian HIV-patients (n = 989) and non-HIV-infected Ghanaian control individuals (n = 91) were subjected to real-time PCR targeting the ITS-(internal transcribed spacer-)2 sequence of M. perstans and Mansonella sp. Deux.
Results
Mansonella-specific cell-free DNA was detected in serum samples of only 2 HIV-positive and 0 HIV-negative individuals, making any reliable conclusions on potential associations between HIV and mansonellosis in tropical Ghana unfeasible.
Conclusions
Future epidemiological studies on hypothetical associations between mansonellosis and HIV infections should focus more specifically on high-endemicity settings for both Mansonella spp.-infections and HIV-infections, include higher case numbers and be based on real-time PCR from whole blood rather than from serum, in which only circulating parasite DNA but no more cell-bound parasite DNA can be detected. However, the study did not show associations of HIV infections in Ghanaian individuals with Mansonella worm loads high enough to detect cell-free Mansonella DNA in serum by PCR.
Grätzer and Lakser asked in the 1971 Transactions of the American Mathematical Society if the pseudocomplemented distributive lattices in the amalgamation class of the subvariety generated by 2 n ⊕ 1 can be characterized by the property of not having a * homomorphism onto 2 i ⊕ 1 for 1 < i < n.
In this article, this question is answered.
Abstract
This investigation analyses the academic research development over the last 30 years on behavioural finance in the emerging markets. We use Web of Science database to collect the bibliographic material and a VOS Viewer software to identify similarities by using bibliometric techniques. The results show a significant growth of research in this area, especially after the subprime crisis and highlights the emergence of sub areas of interest to researchers which have arisen in a natural fashion and without a previously defined orientation. There is still no consensus in the literature regarding the causes of this phenomenon and new questions emerge to expand research on herd behaviour in the emerging markets.
Abstract
This paper documents the relationship between advertising expenditures and stock prices. Using the data of non-financial firms from India, the paper shows that advertising expenditures of a firm are sensitive to its own stock prices and to stock prices of its peer firms during the period between 2000 and 2021. These findings remain qualitatively the same when we use different estimation procedures. The paper also shows that the relationship between advertising expenditures and stock prices depends on the level of product market competition. This relationship becomes more pronounced as product competition increases.
Dr. Bugyi István professzor emlékére
125 éve született a magyar sebészet zseniális nagymestere
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic affected all countries both in social and economic dimensions. Currently, vaccination is considered to be one of the most efficient solutions which can stop the further spread of the virus. Therefore, the paper aims to understand the factors that determined the social approval of the COVID-19 vaccines in Romania. To get a detailed picture on the situation, we looked not only at economic variables, but also at social and demographic components. Accordingly, the findings of the analysis list the variables that significantly influence the vaccination rate nationwide. The social approval (or the refusal) of these shots is a complex issue, thus it is essential that policymakers make decisions based on scientific evidence. The practical relevance of the paper lies in the two policy implications suggested (i.e., transparent and predictable policymaking and adjustments on the level of the education system in the long run for similar situations), which also highlight the importance of evidence-based decision-making processes in public health. Our analysis method consists of multivariate cross-sectional OLS regressions.
Abstract
Questions are currently being posed concerning the implications of the clinical uptake of psychedelics. While enthusiasm surrounds the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics and critique surrounds their appropriation to commercial ends, limited attention has been given to the role of psychedelics in generating social transformation. Herbert Marcuse contended radical change requires ‘new imaginaries of liberation’. We consider whether clinical uptake of psychedelics may produce the perceptual shifts necessary to generate social transformation surrounding contemporary alienating conditions. Economic structures contributing to these alienating conditions are highly resistant to change and may neuter psychedelics' revolutionary potential. We illustrate how psychedelics may be instrumentalised: regulating individuals into unjust systems; redirecting psychedelic usage away from therapeutic ends towards productivity; distracting or diverting attention from systemic forms of control; usurping non-ordinary states into the domain of self-care; and fetishistically commodifying psychedelic experience as a consumable. There are, however, reasons to believe that psychedelics, in raising consciousnesses, may prove resistant to co-option. In particular, psychedelics induce perceptual experiences that: challenge the paradigmatic assumptions of industrial society by provoking alternative epistemologies and metaphysics; generate expanded or ecological constructions of selfhood, thereby offering resignifications of meanings, desires, and life potentials; and offer the enriched phenomenological insight into self, other, and world called for in combating ubiquitous social alienation. In this way, psychedelics may induce the revolution in perception necessary to imagine liberatory potentials and spark the desire for collective emancipation.
Fructus, Attianus, Ariomanus
Restoring two altar-inscriptions from Poetovio
Fructus, Attianus, Ariomanus
Két poetovioi oltárfelirat kiegészítése
Abstract
The study includes two inscriptions from Poetovio both on altars, one dedicated to Mithras, the other to Isis, both erected for the wellbeing of a person. In addition to the findspot they have in common that both persons mentioned in them were employees of the publicum portorium Illyrici customs office. This insight is the basis for the new additions to the study, as for both inscriptions it was possible to reinterpret the previously known inscriptions based on the pattern used by customs post employees, which could be observed on other inscriptions. The new addition will allow the two inscriptions to be included in the research on the operation and staffing of the Illyricum customs district.
Abstract
Objective and Method
Electronic gambling machines are a prominent cause of significant gambling harms globally. We use simulations of a simplified video poker game to show how changes in game volatility, defined primarily by the size of the main prize, affect patterns of wins and losses as well as winning streaks.
Results
We found that in low- and medium volatility games the proportion of winning players quickly drops to zero after about 30 h of play, while in the high volatility game 5% of players are still winning after playing for 100 h. However, the proportion of winning streaks was significantly higher in the low- and medium volatility games compared with high volatility: the simulated players were on a winning streak about 26.3, 25.6 and 18% of the time in the low-, medium- and high volatility games, respectively.
Conclusions
Fast-paced video poker with varying volatility levels but identical return-to-player rates and win frequencies can yield highly different result patterns across individuals. These patterns may be counter-intuitive for players and difficult to realize without simulations and visualizations. We argue that the findings have relevance for responsible gambling communication and for building a better understanding of how cognitive biases influence gambling behaviour.
Abstract
The paper addresses the problem of inflation measurement and the way it is affected by the choice of CPI weights. We focus on the bias resulting from using weights reflecting the past structure of consumption and the choice of the plutocratic index. The study is based on a comparison of the official consumer price index in Poland with superlative indices. Contrary to most literature, our findings indicate an understatement of the CPI. Additionally, in 2020 due to large changes in the pattern of household consumption, the underestimation increased. This results from the increase in the expenditure on the relatively more expensive goods which could not be accounted for in real time. In general, the lack of overstatement in the Polish CPI may result from frequent adjustments in the weights used for the calculation of CPI and a faster-than-CPI rise in the prices of those goods and services for which demand is relatively inelastic. Additionally, we deliver the estimates of the plutocratic gap, which indicates that the use of the plutocratic weights in the calculation of CPI leads to a lower price index than its democratic equivalent.
