This paper analyses the COVID-19 crisis and its management from the perspective of Austrian Economics. The attention focuses on the State’s coercive intervention according to the principles of ...political economy, capital theory and Austrian business economic cycles. The paper examines the specific case of massive intervention by governments and, especially, central banks in monetary and financial markets to deal with the pandemic trying to mitigate its negative effects. The paper offers a critical analysis of government tax policies and the increase in public spending, considered as the panacea and universal remedy for the social troubles. This review concludes with a proposal to change the mainstream paradigm, thereby proposing a more sustainable and wellbeing economics.
•A graph-based algorithm is proposed for detecting song propagation patterns in Spotify.•Nodes are countries and edges reflect the frequent flow of songs across them.•The patterns are reflected in ...cultural components such as language or migration flows.•Predictors of song propagation based on the discovered patterns are discussed.
Nowadays, music streaming services allow users to get instant access to an unprecedented amount of music of any type. This entails that songs, including potential new hits, can be discovered by listeners in any part of the globe and their propagation can be tracked through these streaming services. In this context, the present work focuses on recognizing the mobility patterns that songs follow in such a propagation among different countries of the world. To this end, this work defines a novel mechanism to uncover such mobility patterns of music from a directed-graph structure where nodes are countries and each edge reflects a frequent propagation of songs between pairs of countries. The resulting patterns reflect strong correlations with the migratory flows and the cultural and social similarities among regions. For instance, a propagation pattern was observed among North European countries with a good command of English. From such patterns, potential predictors for anticipating the mobility of a song are discussed. The results of this work can be beneficial for record companies and artists in their marketing campaigns for album releases and the organization of concerts and festivals.
Renewable energy (RE) is one of the most popular public policy orientations worldwide. Compared to some other countries and continents, Europe has gained an early awareness of energy and ...environmental problems in general. At the theoretical level, free-market environmentalism indicates that based on the principle of private property rights, with fewer state interventionist and regulation policies, entrepreneurs, as the driving force of the market economy, can provide better services to meet the necessity of offering RE to protect the environment more effectively. Previous studies have revealed that Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have made some progress in using the market to develop RE. However, this research did not analyze the three countries’ RE conditions from the perspective of free-market environmentalism. Based on our review of the principles of free-market environmentalism, this paper originally provides an empirical study of how Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have partly conducted free-market-oriented policies to successfully achieve their policy goal of RE since the 1990s on a practical level. In particular, compared with Germany and Denmark, the UK has maintained a relatively low energy tax rate and opted for more pro-market measures since the Hayekian-Thatcherism free-market reform of 1979. The paper also discovers that Fredrich A. Hayek’s theories have strongly impacted its energy liberalization reform agenda since then. Low taxes on the energy industry and electricity have alleviated the burden on the electricity enterprises and consumers in the UK. Moreover, the empirical results above show that the energy enterprises play essential roles in providing better and more affordable RE for household and industrial users in the three sampled countries. Based on the above results, the paper also warns that state intervention policies such as taxation, state subsidies, and industrial access restrictions can impede these three countries’ RE targets. Additionally, our research provides reform agendas and policy suggestions to policymakers on the importance of implementing free-market environmentalism to provide more efficient RE in the post-COVID-19 era.
To know the prevalence, associated factors and temporal trends of disabilities for basic and instrumental activities of daily living in older people in Spain from 2009 to 2017.
Disability in older ...people is associated with health problems, increased health costs and low quality of life. There are no updated data in Spain with a representative sample about disability.
Cross-sectional study with 25,465 non-institutionalized older people who participated in the European Health Survey in 2009 and 2014 and the National Health Survey in 2011/12 and 2017 in Spain. The prevalence rates of disability were evaluated using the Katz Scale and Lawton and Brody Scale. Logistic regression was used to determine if there was an association between basic and instrumental activities of daily living and sociodemographic characteristics.
More individuals had disability for instrumental activities of daily living (31.9%) than disability for basic activities of daily living (11.1%). The most predominant disability for instrumental activities of daily living was performing severe housework (34%). The prevalence of disabilities decreased from 2009 to 2017. In general, disability was associated with female gender, advanced age, lower education, restricted daily activity, being bedridden and higher pain levels.
There is a considerable prevalence of disabilities for basic and instrumental activities of daily living in older people in Spain. Although the disability prevalence has decreased slowly from 2009 to 2017, it continues to remain a health problem. Gender may influence the disabilities for basic and instrumental activities of daily living. Health policymakers should establish prevention strategies and effective interventions (e.g., physical exercise) for prevention and reduction of the disabilities for basic and instrumental activities of daily living, particularly in older females.
The analysis of sustainable economic growth and development often focuses on how to control the market process through coercive state intervention. While state interventionism may play a significant ...role in countries’ progress, entrepreneurship is the driving force behind sustainable growth and development. Entrepreneurship is the people’s judgment on ideas, plans, and projects, which promises profit in uncertain times. Its effects are the creation and transmission of information and social coordination as a dynamic process of identifying and solving human problems. Sustainable development is the widening range of entrepreneurial alternatives open to people, and sustainable growth is a phase of sustainable development that depends on genuine savings to finance increasingly capital-intensive production structures. The degree to which people are entrepreneurs and the direction genuine savings take depend on institutional arrangements. Some institutions are more conducive to sustainable growth and development than others. After reviewing principles of growth and development sustainability, how coercive state intervention influences economic performance is discussed, proposing novel policy conclusions and research avenues to cultivate entrepreneurship and genuine savings in a post-COVID-19 world.
Acute monocytic leukemia is a type of myeloid leukemia that develops in monocytes. The current clinical therapies for leukemia are unsatisfactory due to their side effects and nonspecificity toward ...target cells. Some lectins display antitumor activity and may specifically recognize cancer cells by binding to carbohydrate structures on their surface. Therefore, this study evaluated the response of the human monocytic leukemia cell lines THP‐1 to the Olneya tesota PF2 lectin. The induction of apoptosis and reactive oxygen species production in PF2‐treated cells was evaluated by flow cytometry, and the lectin‐THP‐1 cell interaction and mitochondrial membrane potential were evaluated by confocal fluorescence microscopy. PF2 genotoxicity was evaluated by DNA fragmentation analysis via gel electrophoresis. The results showed that PF2 binds to THP‐1 cells, triggers apoptosis and DNA degradation, changes the mitochondrial membrane potential, and increases reactive oxygen species levels in PF2‐treated THP‐1 cells. These results suggest the potential use of PF2 for developing alternative anticancer treatments with enhanced specificity.
The Segura River Basin is one of the most water-stressed basins in Mediterranean Europe. If we add to the actual situation that most climate change projections forecast important decreases in water ...resource availability in the Mediterranean region, the situation will become totally unsustainable. This study assessed the impact of climate change in the headwaters of the Segura River Basin using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) with bias-corrected precipitation and temperature data from two Regional Climate Models (RCMs) for the medium term (2041–2070) and the long term (2071–2100) under two emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). Bias correction was performed using the distribution mapping approach. The fuzzy TOPSIS technique was applied to rank a set of nine GCM-RCM combinations, choosing the climate models with a higher relative closeness. The study results show that the SWAT performed satisfactorily for both calibration (NSE = 0.80) and validation (NSE = 0.77) periods. Comparing the long-term and baseline (1971–2000) periods, precipitation showed a negative trend between 6% and 32%, whereas projected annual mean temperatures demonstrated an estimated increase of 1.5–3.3 °C. Water resources were estimated to experience a decrease of 2%–54%. These findings provide local water management authorities with very useful information in the face of climate change.
This paper departs from biblical images of creation (wisdom, word, mirror), and goes on to consider those images in three medieval thinkers from the Neoplatonist tradition. Firstly, Johannes Scotus ...Eriugena, who uses sapientia and in principio images. Secondly, St Hildegard of Bingen, in whose visions the images of wisdom and mirror-God appear. In third place, M. Eckhart, who refers in his Latin writings to God’s creation in se ipso. The article will try to show that a common feature regarding creatio can be found in all the three authors: the explanation of the origin of the world as manifestation of the first principle and the final return–union–to it. This subject has recently been partly dealt with by authors such as W. Beierwaltes, W. Otten or M. Marder. The present research follows the thread of previous studies, claiming at the same time to be an original contribution to the history of Neoplatonic thought about creation.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a multifaceted neurological condition characterized by challenges in timely diagnosis and personalized patient management. The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) ...to MS holds promises for early detection, accurate diagnosis, and predictive modeling. The objectives of this study are: 1) to propose new MS trajectory descriptors that could be employed in Machine Learning (ML) regressors and classifiers to predict patient evolution; 2) to explore the contribution of ML models in discerning MS trajectory descriptors using only baseline Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies. This study involved 446 MS patients who had a baseline MRI, at least two measurements of Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), and a 1-year follow-up. Patients were divided into two groups: 1) for model development and 2) for evaluation. Three descriptors: beta.sub.1, beta.sub.2, and EDSS(t), were related to baseline MRI parameters using regression and classification XGBoost models. Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) analysis enhanced model transparency by identifying influential features. The results of this study demonstrate the potential of AI in predicting MS progression using the proposed patient trajectories and baseline MRI scans, outperforming classic Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) methods. In conclusion, MS trajectory descriptors are crucial; incorporating AI analysis into MRI assessments presents promising opportunities to advance predictive capabilities. SHAP analysis enhances model interpretation, revealing feature importance for clinical decisions.
Barnett and Block (2015) claim that Bagus and Howden (2012b) support indirectly the concept of market failure. In this paper, we show that maturity mismatching in an unhampered market may imply ...entrepreneurial error but cannot be considered a market failure. We demonstrate why fractional-reserve banking leads to business cycles even if there is no central bank and why maturity mismatching does not per se lead to clusters of errors in a free market. Finally, in contrast to the examples provided by Barnett and Block, we assure that maturity mismatching does not imply the creation of two incompatible contracts due to the fungible nature of money.
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