When the Line is Crossed... : Paths to Control and Sanction Behaviour Necessitating a State Reaction

The article presents a special form of a European comparative synopsis. For this case examples have been chosen ranging from administrative or minor (criminal) offences to increasingly serious offences and offenders. In this way it can be comparatively demonstrated how the criminal justice systems studied handle specific cases and whether they do so in a similar or different way.

A behavioral study of alpha-1b adrenergic receptor knockout mice: increased reaction to novelty and selectively reduced learning capacities.

Knockout mice lacking the alpha-1b adrenergic receptor were tested in behavioral experiments. Reaction to novelty was first assessed in a simple test in which the time taken by the knockout mice and their littermate controls to enter a second compartment was compared. Then the mice were tested in an open field to which unknown objects were subsequently added. Special novelty was introduced by moving one of the familiar objects to another location in the open field. Spatial behavior and memory were further studied in a homing board test, and in the water maze. The alpha-1b knockout mice showed an enhanced reactivity to new situations. They were faster to enter the new environment, covered longer paths in the open field, and spent more time exploring the new objects. They reacted like controls to modification inducing spatial novelty. In the homing board test, both the knockout mice and the control mice seemed to use a combination of distant visual and proximal olfactory cues, showing place preference only if the two types of cues were redundant. In the water maze the alpha-1b knockout mice were unable to learn the task, which was confirmed in a probe trial without platform. They were perfectly able, however, to escape in a visible platform procedure. These results confirm previous findings showing that the noradrenergic pathway is important for the modulation of behaviors such as reaction to novelty and exploration, and suggest that this is mediated, at least partly, through the alpha-1b adrenergic receptors. The lack of alpha-1b adrenergic receptors in spatial orientation does not seem important in cue-rich tasks but may interfere with orientation in situations providing distant cues only.

Time Horizons And Smoothing In The Bank Of England’s Reaction Function: The Contrast Between The Standard GMM And Ex Ante Forecast Approaches

The monetary policy reaction function of the Bank of England is estimated by the standard GMM approach and the ex-ante forecast method developed by Goodhart (2005), with particular attention to the horizons for inflation and output at which each approach gives the best fit. The horizons for the ex-ante approach are much closer to what is implied by the Bank’s view of the transmission mechanism, while the GMM approach produces an implausibly slow adjustment of the interest rate, and suffers from a weak instruments problem. These findings suggest a strong preference for the ex-ante approach.

Stock Market Reaction to Fed Funds Rate Surprises: State Dependence and the Financial Crisis

This paper examines the impact of Federal Funds rate (FFR) surprises on stock returns in the United States over the period 1989-2009, focusing on the impact of the recent financial crisis. We find that prior to the crisis, stock prices increased as a response to unexpected FFR cuts. State dependence is also identified with stocks exhibiting larger increases when interest rate easing coincided with recessions, bear stock markets, and tightening credit market conditions. However, an important structural shift took place during the financial crisis, which changed the stock market response to FFR shocks, as well as the nature of state dependence. Specifically, during the crisis period stock market participants did not react positively to unexpected FFR cuts. Our results highlight the severity of the recent financial turmoil episode and the ineffectiveness of conventional monetary policy close to the zero lower bound for nominal interest rates.

Time Horizons And Smoothing In The Bank Of England’s Reaction Function: The Contrast Between The Standard GMM And Ex Ante Forecast Approaches

The monetary policy reaction function of the Bank of England is estimated by the standard GMM approach and the ex-ante forecast method developed by Goodhart (2005), with particular attention to the horizons for inflation and output at which each approach gives the best fit. The horizons for the ex-ante approach are much closer to what is implied by the Bank’s view of the transmission mechanism, while the GMM approach produces an implausibly slow adjustment of the interest rate, and suffers from a weak instruments problem. These findings suggest a strong preference for the ex-ante approach.

Quaternary ammonium salt derivatives of allylphenols with peripheral analgesic effect

Ammonium salt derivatives of natural allylphenols were synthesized with the purpose of obtaining potential peripheral analgesics. These drugs, by virtue of their physicochemical properties, would not be able to cross the blood brain barrier. Their inability to enter into the central nervous system (CNS) should prevent several adverse effects observed with classical opiate analgesics (Ferreira et al., 1984). Eugenol (1) O-methyleugenol (5) and safrole (9) were submitted to nitration, reduction and permethylation, leading to the ammonium salts 4, 8 and 12. Another strategy applied to eugenol (1), consisting in its conversion to a glycidic ether (13), opening the epoxide ring with secondary amines and methylation, led to the ammonium salts 16 and 17. All these ammonium salts showed significant peripheral analgesic action, in modified version of the Randall-Sellito test (Ferreira et al. 1978), at non-lethal doses. The ammonium salt 8 showed an activity comparable to that of methylnalorphinium, the prototype of an ideal peripheral analgesic (Ferreira et al., 1984).