This article develops a new empirical approach to analyze the potential link between fiscal decentralization and economic efficiency based on a stochastic frontier model with spatial error correction. Fiscal decentralization is not considered to be a source of growth in itself but an incentive scheme that impacts local governments’ spending as a means to improve investment conditions. Panel data f

Seven strongly supported clades, characterised by molecular, morphological and anatomical characters are described as new genera: Eilifdahlia, Elenkiniana, Franwilsia, Huneckia, Marchantiana, Mikhtomia and Yoshimuria. Two new species, Eilifdahlia wirthii from South Africa and Marchantiana maulensis from Chile are described, illustrated and compared with closely related taxa.

Acetaldehyde is a hazardous pollutant found in indoor and ambient air. Acetaldehyde photolysis is pressure- and wavelength-dependent with three distinct product channels. In this study, the photolysis rates of CH3CHO, CD3CDO, and CD3CHO are studied in natural tropospheric conditions using long path FTIR spectroscopy, at the European Photoreactor Facility (EUPHORE) in Valencia, Spain. The average r

This Letter reports on a search for narrow high-mass resonances decaying into dilepton final states. The data were recorded by the ATLAS experiment in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 1.08 (1.21) fb(-1) in the e(+)e(-) (mu(+)mu(-)) channel. No statistically significant excess above the standard model expectation is obse

This study investigated whether perinatal factors influenced the risk of a double diagnosis of type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.

The development of neutralizing antibodies to factor VIII (FVIII) is the most serious complication of therapy for haemophilia A. There is now excellent documentation that a large number of both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the risk of FVIII inhibitor incidence. One of the environmental factors that has been proposed as an influence on this complication is the occurrence of FVIII

Indonesia has experienced rapid land use change over the last few decades as forests and peatswamps have been cleared for more intensively managed land uses, including oil palm and timber plantations. Fires are the predominant method of clearing and managing land for more intensive uses, and the related emissions affect public health by contributing to regional particulate matter and ozone concent

Diffractive excitation is usually described by the Good-Walker formalism for low masses, and by the triple-Regge formalism for high masses. In the Good-Walker formalism the cross section is determined by the fluctuations in the interaction. In this paper we show that by taking the fluctuations in the BFKL ladder into account, it is possible to describe both low and high mass excitation by the Good

Synaptic dysfunction is an early event in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathogenesis and directly related to cognitive impairment. Consequently, synaptic biomarkers may be valuable tools for both early diagnosis and disease stage. Neurogranin (Ng) is a postsynaptic protein involved in memory consolidation.

BACKGROUND: Increased infection risk in inflammatory rheumatic diseases may be due to inflammation or immunosuppressive treatment. The influence of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors on the risk of developing surgical site infections (SSIs) is not fully known. We compared the incidence of SSI after elective orthopedic surgery or hand surgery in patients with a rheumatic disease when TNF inhibi

Some non-Western immigrant groups in Europe have elevated risk of psychosis relative to native-born. It is hypothesized that neighborhood ethnic density moderates this risk. Immigration to Sweden has increased substantially recently, particularly from the Middle East. This study examined the relationship between neighborhood ethnic density (i.e., living in an immigrant enclave) and risk of psychot

Bending and first flexural mode vibration behavior of electrostatic actuated nanometer-sized interdigitated cantilever arrays are characterized under vacuum conditions. The "pull-in" effect in dc driving and the "hard spring effect" in ac driving are observed. A mass sensitivity of 20 fg is expected for our devices due to the ultra-small mass of the arm and relative high.. factor. The mass-spring

Attempts have been made to make traditional local foods a part of the tourists' experiences, but few have caught great interest among the tourist and leisure consumers. An exception is the Norwegian traditional Sheep's-head meal. This article focuses on driving factors behind this success. Sheep's heads have been continuously available and used at private meals, albeit the status of the meals has

We present new algorithms for listing triangles in dense and sparse graphs. The running time of our algorithm for dense graphs is O~(n^ω+n^3(ω−1)/(5−ω)t^2(3−ω)/(5−ω)), and the running time of the algorithm for sparse graphs is O~(m^2ω/(ω+1)+m^3(ω−1)/(ω+1)t^(3−ω)/(ω+1)), where n is the number of vertices, m is the number of edges, t is the number of triangles to be listed, and ω < 2.373 is the expo

Hollow structures on the submicrometer scale (urn) are obtained with the assembly of polyelectrolytes according to the layer-by-layer (LbL) technique. Following the LbL procedure, polymers alginate and chitosan were alternatively adsorbed on a vesicular template made of didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB). Evidence for the removal of the vesicular template entrapped in the alginate/chitosan f

The recovery the alkaline solvent from of a residual stream after the extraction of hemicelluloses in wheat bran was investigated. The solution was withdrawn from an ultrafiltration (UF) process in which hemicelluloses were recovered. The UF permeate, containing mainly NaOH, lignin and mono- and oligosaccharides, was treated by nanofiltration (NF). Seven NF membranes were tested in a parametric st

Adsorption of trimethyl phosphate (TMP) and triethyl phosphate (TEP) on well-characterized nanopartides of hematite (alpha-Fe2O3), maghemite (gamma-Fe2O3), and goethite (alpha-FeOOH) has been studied by in situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS), 2D correlation DRIFTS analysis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) on dry and water pre-covered surfaces. It is