This paper investigates the impact of sovereign defaults on the ability of the corporate sector in emerging nations to finance itself abroad. The hypothesis here is that defaults have a negative spillover effect on the private sector through credit rationing. We explore a novel dataset covering the vast majority of corporates and municipals in emerging nations that received foreign capital betw...

This paper shows, in a two-sector Malthusian model of endogenous population growth, that output per capita, population density, and industrialization depend upon the labor intensity of agricultural production. Because the diminishing returns to labor are less pronounced, high labor intensity (as in rice production) leads not only to a larger population density but also to lower output per capit...

The N-formyltransferases, also known as transformylases, play key roles in de novo purine biosynthesis where they catalyze the transfer of formyl groups to primary amine acceptors. These enzymes require N10-formyltetrahydrofolate for activity. Due to their biological importance they have been extensively investigated for many years, and they are still serving as targets for antifolate drug desi...

Efficient protein synthesis in all organisms requires the post-transcriptional methylation of specific ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) and transfer RNA (tRNA) nucleotides. The methylation reactions are almost invariably catalyzed by enzymes that use S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet) as the methyl group donor. One noteworthy exception is seen in some bacteria, where the conserved tRNA methylation ...

The bifunctional enzyme methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase - cyclohydrolase (FolD) is identified as a potential drug target in Gram-negative bacteria, in particular the troublesome Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In order to provide a comprehensive and realistic assessment of the potential of this target for drug discovery we generated a highly efficient recombinant protein production system and p...

Purpose This study aimed to verify whether cold artifacts caused by the gap state between attenuation correction computed tomography (ACCT) and positron emission (PET) data (so-called hot-in-air (HIA) state) in body trunk PET/computer (CT) examinations can be improved Absolute-single scatter simulation (SSS), which is a method phantom experiment using high-accumulation syringe of out-of-body ph...

This paper looks at the historical evolution of the relationship between an economy's structure and the corresponding political system, starting from feudal times. We show why, in an early agricultural phase, aristocratic political systems prevail, while democracies tend to emerge with the industrial phase, while at the same time the legal system regulating the intergenerational transfers of pr...

This paper establishes a simple model of long run economic and political development, which is driven by the inherent technical features of di¤erent production factors, and political con‡icts among factor owners on how to divide the outputs. The main capital form in economy evolves from land to physical capital and then to human capital, which enables their respective owners (landlords, capital...

Microplate reader assays offer several advantages over conventional spectrophotometric assays. We adapted the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) enzyme inhibition assay for use in a 96-well microplate reader to measure plasma methotrexate (MTX) concentrations. The assay is linear from 0.01 to 0.1 micromol/L. The within-run CVs at 0.03 micromol/L and 0.08 micromol/L MTX were 4.0% and 2.7%, respectiv...