Phylogenetic relationships in the subfamily Psychodinae (Diptera, Psychodidae)

Thanks to recent advances in molecular systematics, our knowledge of phylogenetic relationships within the order Diptera has dramatically improved. However, relationships at lower taxonomic levels remain poorly investigated in several neglected groups, such as the highly diversified moth-fly subfamily Psychodinae (Lower Diptera), which occurs in numerous terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, we aimed to understand the phylogenetic relationships among 52 Palearctic taxa from all currently known Palearctic tribes and subtribes of this subfamily, based on mitochondrial DNA. Our results demonstrate that in light of the classical systematics of Psychodinae, none of the tribes sensu Je?ek or sensu Vaillant is monophyletic, whereas at least five of the 12 sampled genera were not monophyletic. The results presented in this study provide a valuable backbone for future work aiming at identifying morphological synapomorphies to propose a new tribal classification.

Astrocyte-neuron metabolic relationships: for better and for worse.

In recent years, previously unsuspected roles of astrocytes have been revealed, largely owing to the development of new tools enabling their selective study in situ. These exciting findings add to the large body of evidence demonstrating that astrocytes play a central role in brain homeostasis, in particular via the numerous cooperative metabolic processes they establish with neurons, such as the supply of energy metabolites and neurotransmitter recycling functions. Furthermore, impairments in astrocytic function are increasingly being recognized as an important contributor to neuronal dysfunction and, in particular, neurodegenerative processes. In this review, we discuss recent evidence supporting important roles for astrocytes in neuropathological conditions such as neuroinflammation, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. We also explore the potential for neuroprotective therapeutics based on the modulation of astrocytic functions.

Alliance patterns over the course of short-term dynamic psychotherapy: The shape of productive relationships.

The shape of alliance processes over the course of psychotherapy has already been studied in several process-outcome studies on very brief psychotherapy. The present study applies the shape-of-change methodology to short-term dynamic psychotherapies and complements this method with hierarchical linear modeling. A total of 50 psychotherapies of up to 40 sessions were included. Alliance was measured at the end of each session. The results indicate that a linear progression model is most adequate. Three main patterns were found: stable, linear, and quadratic growth. The linear growth pattern, along with the slope parameter, was related to treatment outcome. This study sheds additional light on alliance process research, underscores the importance of linear alliance progression for outcome, and also fosters a better understanding of its limitations.

Financial Markets and Real Ecinomy: Four Essays in International Trade

Financial markets play an important role in an economy performing various functions like mobilizing and pooling savings, producing information about investment opportunities, screening and monitoring investments, implementation of corporate governance, diversification and management of risk. These functions influence saving rates, investment decisions, technological innovation and, therefore, have important implications for welfare. In my PhD dissertation I examine the interplay of financial and product markets by looking at different channels through which financial markets may influence an economy.My dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is a co-authored work with Martin Strieborny, a PhD student from the University of Lausanne. The second chapter is a co-authored work with Melise Jaud, a PhD student from the Paris School of Economics. The third chapter is co-authored with both Melise Jaud and Martin Strieborny. The last chapter of my PhD dissertation is a single author paper.Chapter 1 of my PhD thesis analyzes the effect of financial development on growth of contract intensive industries. These industries intensively use intermediate inputs that neither can be sold on organized exchange, nor are reference-priced (Levchenko, 2007; Nunn, 2007). A typical example of a contract intensive industry would be an industry where an upstream supplier has to make investments in order to customize a product for needs of a downstream buyer. After the investment is made and the product is adjusted, the buyer may refuse to meet a commitment and trigger ex post renegotiation. Since the product is customized to the buyer's needs, the supplier cannot sell the product to a different buyer at the original price. This is referred in the literature as the holdup problem. As a consequence, the individually rational suppliers will underinvest into relationship-specific assets, hurting the downstream firms with negative consequences for aggregate growth. The standard way to mitigate the hold up problem is to write a binding contract and to rely on the legal enforcement by the state. However, even the most effective contract enforcement might fail to protect the supplier in tough times when the buyer lacks a reliable source of external financing. This suggests the potential role of financial intermediaries, banks in particular, in mitigating the incomplete contract problem. First, financial products like letters of credit and letters of guarantee can substantially decrease a risk and transaction costs of parties. Second, a bank loan can serve as a signal about a buyer's true financial situation, an upstream firm will be more willing undertake relationship-specific investment knowing that the business partner is creditworthy and will abstain from myopic behavior (Fama, 1985; von Thadden, 1995). Therefore, a well-developed financial (especially banking) system should disproportionately benefit contract intensive industries.The empirical test confirms this hypothesis. Indeed, contract intensive industries seem to grow faster in countries with a well developed financial system. Furthermore, this effect comes from a more developed banking sector rather than from a deeper stock market. These results are reaffirmed examining the effect of US bank deregulation on the growth of contract intensive industries in different states. Beyond an overall pro-growth effect, the bank deregulation seems to disproportionately benefit the industries requiring relationship-specific investments from their suppliers.Chapter 2 of my PhD focuses on the role of the financial sector in promoting exports of developing countries. In particular, it investigates how credit constraints affect the ability of firms operating in agri-food sectors of developing countries to keep exporting to foreign markets.Trade in high-value agri-food products from developing countries has expanded enormously over the last two decades offering opportunities for development. However, trade in agri-food is governed by a growing array of standards. Sanitary and Phytosanitary standards (SPS) and technical regulations impose additional sunk, fixed and operating costs along the firms' export life. Such costs may be detrimental to firms' survival, "pricing out" producers that cannot comply. The existence of these costs suggests a potential role of credit constraints in shaping the duration of trade relationships on foreign markets. A well-developed financial system provides the funds to exporters necessary to adjust production processes in order to meet quality and quantity requirements in foreign markets and to maintain long-standing trade relationships. The products with higher needs for financing should benefit the most from a well functioning financial system. This differential effect calls for a difference-in-difference approach initially proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998). As a proxy for demand for financing of agri-food products, the sanitary risk index developed by Jaud et al. (2009) is used. The empirical literature on standards and norms show high costs of compliance, both variable and fixed, for high-value food products (Garcia-Martinez and Poole, 2004; Maskus et al., 2005). The sanitary risk index reflects the propensity of products to fail health and safety controls on the European Union (EU) market. Given the high costs of compliance, the sanitary risk index captures the demand for external financing to comply with such regulations.The prediction is empirically tested examining the export survival of different agri-food products from firms operating in Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more financing to keep up with food safety regulation of the destination market, indeed sustain longer in foreign market, when they are exported from countries with better developed financial markets.Chapter 3 analyzes the link between financial markets and efficiency of resource allocation in an economy. Producing and exporting products inconsistent with a country's factor endowments constitutes a serious misallocation of funds, which undermines competitiveness of the economy and inhibits its long term growth. In this chapter, inefficient exporting patterns are analyzed through the lens of the agency theories from the corporate finance literature. Managers may pursue projects with negative net present values because their perquisites or even their job might depend on them. Exporting activities are particularly prone to this problem. Business related to foreign markets involves both high levels of additional spending and strong incentives for managers to overinvest. Rational managers might have incentives to push for exports that use country's scarce factors which is suboptimal from a social point of view. Export subsidies might further skew the incentives towards inefficient exporting. Management can divert the export subsidies into investments promoting inefficient exporting.Corporate finance literature stresses the disciplining role of outside debt in counteracting the internal pressures to divert such "free cash flow" into unprofitable investments. Managers can lose both their reputation and the control of "their" firm if the unpaid external debt triggers a bankruptcy procedure. The threat of possible failure to satisfy debt service payments pushes the managers toward an efficient use of available resources (Jensen, 1986; Stulz, 1990; Hart and Moore, 1995). The main sources of debt financing in the most countries are banks. The disciplining role of banks might be especially important in the countries suffering from insufficient judicial quality. Banks, in pursuing their rights, rely on comparatively simple legal interventions that can be implemented even by mediocre courts. In addition to their disciplining role, banks can promote efficient exporting patterns in a more direct way by relaxing credit constraints of producers, through screening, identifying and investing in the most profitable investment projects. Therefore, a well-developed domestic financial system, and particular banking system, would help to push a country's exports towards products congruent with its comparative advantage.This prediction is tested looking at the survival of different product categories exported to US market. Products are identified according to the Euclidian distance between their revealed factor intensity and the country's factor endowments. The results suggest that products suffering from a comparative disadvantage (labour-intensive products from capital-abundant countries) survive less on the competitive US market. This pattern is stronger if the exporting country has a well-developed banking system. Thus, a strong banking sector promotes exports consistent with a country comparative advantage.Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis further examines the role of financial markets in fostering efficient resource allocation in an economy. In particular, the allocative efficiency hypothesis is investigated in the context of equity market liberalization.Many empirical studies document a positive and significant effect of financial liberalization on growth (Levchenko et al. 2009; Quinn and Toyoda 2009; Bekaert et al., 2005). However, the decrease in the cost of capital and the associated growth in investment appears rather modest in comparison to the large GDP growth effect (Bekaert and Harvey, 2005; Henry, 2000, 2003). Therefore, financial liberalization may have a positive impact on growth through its effect on the allocation of funds across firms and sectors.Free access to international capital markets allows the largest and most profitable domestic firms to borrow funds in foreign markets (Rajan and Zingales, 2003). As domestic banks loose some of their best clients, they reoptimize their lending practices seeking new clients among small and younger industrial firms. These firms are likely to be more risky than large and established companies. Screening of customers becomes prevalent as the return to screening rises. Banks, ceteris paribus, tend to focus on firms operating in comparative-advantage sectors because they are better risks. Firms in comparative-disadvantage sectors finding it harder to finance their entry into or survival in export markets either exit or refrain from entering export markets. On aggregate, one should therefore expect to see less entry, more exit, and shorter survival on export markets in those sectors after financial liberalization.The paper investigates the effect of financial liberalization on a country's export pattern by comparing the dynamics of entry and exit of different products in a country export portfolio before and after financial liberalization.The results suggest that products that lie far from the country's comparative advantage set tend to disappear relatively faster from the country's export portfolio following the liberalization of financial markets. In other words, financial liberalization tends to rebalance the composition of a country's export portfolio towards the products that intensively use the economy's abundant factors.

Phylogenetic structures of the Holarctic Sorex araneus group and its relationships with S-samniticus, as inferred from mtDNA sequences

The shrews of the Sorex araneus group, characterized by the sexual chromosome complex XY1, Y2 have been intensively studied by morphological, karyotypical, and biochemical analyses. Nevertheless, the phylogenetic relationships among the species belonging to the araneus complex are still under debate, as different approaches gave often contradictory results. In this paper, partial nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b gene (1011 bp) were determined for 6 species of the araneus group from Eurasia and North America. We also included in the data set the sequences of Sorex samniticus, whose relationships with the araneus group remain controversial. Three other species representing two major karyological groups were also examined. Both parsimony and distance trees strongly support the monophyly of the araneus group. Sorex sumniticus is significantly more closely related to the araneus complex than to the other species included in the analysis. Based on the branching pattern within the araneus group, an attempt has been made to reconstruct the colonization history of the Holarctic region.

Bundling and competition for slots: Sequential pricing

In this paper we study, as in Jeon-Menicucci (2009), competition between sellerswhen each of them sells a portfolio of distinct products to a buyer having limitedslots. This paper considers sequential pricing and complements our main paper (Jeon-Menicucci, 2009) that considers simultaneous pricing.First, Jeon-Menicucci (2009) find that under simultaneous individual pricing, equilibriumoften does not exist and hence the outcome is often inefficient. By contrast,equilibrium always exists under sequential individual pricing and we characterize it inthis paper. We find that each seller faces a trade-off between the number of slots heoccupies and surplus extraction per product, and there is no particular reason thatthis leads to an efficient allocation of slots.Second, Jeon-Menicucci (2009) find that when bundling is allowed, there alwaysexists an efficient equilibrium but inefficient equilibria can also exist due to purebundling (for physical products) or slotting contracts. Under sequential pricing,we find that all equilibria are efficient regardless of whether firms can use slottingcontracts, and both for digital goods and for physical goods. Therefore, sequentialpricing presents an even stronger case for laissez-faire in the matter of bundling thansimultaneous pricing.

Phylogenetic relationships among four species of the guarani group of Drosophila (Diptera, Drosophilidae) as inferred by molecular and morphological analyses

Traditionally, the Drosophila guarani species group has been divided into two subgroups: the guarani and the guaramunu subgroups. Two, out of the four species included in this research, are members of the guarani subgroup (D. ornatifrons Duda, 1927 and D. subbadia Paterson & Mainland, 1943) and two are included in the guaramunu subgroup (D. maculifrons Duda, 1927 and D. griseolineata Duda, 1927). However, some authors have suggested that D. maculifrons and D. griseolineata are much closer to some species of the Drosophila tripunctata group than to some of the species of the guarani group. To add new data to the matter under dispute, Polyacrylamide Gel Eletrophoresis (PAGE-SDS) was used for the analysis and comparison of protein composition and Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis to find differences in genomic DNA, in addition to the analysis of quantitative morphological characters previously described. Analysis of PAGE-SDS results in a dendrogram that pointed out D. subbadia as being the most distant within the Drosophila guarani group. However, these results were not supported either by RAPD analysis or by the analysis of continuous morphological characters, which supplied the clustering of D. subbadia with D. ornatifrons. Although our data give strong support to the clustering of D. subbadia and D. ornatifrons, none of the dendrograms provided a clade comprising D. maculifrons and D. griseolineata. Thus, this research does not support the traditional subdivision of the D. guarani group into those two subgroups.

What kind of relationships between the evolution of pain, beliefs and bio-psycho-social complexity after a locomotor traumatism?

Introduction: Pain and beliefs have an influence on the patient's course in rehabilitation, pain causes fears and fears influence pain perception. The aim of this study is to understand pain and beliefs evolutions during rehabilitation taking into account of bio-psycho-social complexity.Patients and methods: 631 consecutive patients admitted in rehabilitation after a musculoskeletal traumatism were included and assessed at admission and at discharge. Pain was measured by VAS (Visual Analogical Scale), bio-psycho-social complexity by Intermed scale, and beliefs by judgement on Lickert scales. Four kinds of beliefs were evaluated: fear of a severe origin of pain, fear of movement, fear of pain and feeling of distress (loss of control). The association between the changes in pain and beliefs during the hospitalization was assessed by linear regressions.Results: After adjustment for gender, age, education and native language, patients with a decrease in pain during rehabilitation have higher probability of decreasing their fears. For the distress feeling, this relationship is weaker among bio-psycho-socially complex patients (odds-ratio 1.22 for each decreasing of 10mm/100 VAS) than among non-complex patients (OR 1.47). Patients with a pain decrease of 30% or more during hospitalization have higher probability of seeing their fears decrease, this relationship being stronger in complex patient for fear of a severe origin of pain.Discussion: The relationships between evolution of pain and beliefs move in the same direction. The higher a patient feels pain, the less they could be able to modify their dysfunctional beliefs. When the pain diminishes of 30% or more, the probability to challenge the beliefs is increased. The prognostic with regard to feeling of distress and fear of a severe origin of pain, is worse among bio-psycho-socially complex patients.

The Anarak, Jandaq and Posht-e-Badam metamorphic complexes in central Iran: New geological data, relationships and tectonic implications

The Anarak, Jandaq and Posht-e-Badam metamorphic complexes occupy the NW part of the Central-East Iranian Microcontinent and are juxtaposed with the Great Kavir block and Sanandaj-Sirjan zone. Our recent findings redefine the origin of these complexes, so far attributed to the Precambrian-Early Paleozoic orogenic episodes, and now directly related to the tectonic evolution of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. This tectonic evolution was initiated by Late Ordovician-Early Devonian rifting events and terminated in the Triassic by the Eocimmerian collision event due to the docking of the Cimmerian blocks with the Asiatic Turan block. The ``Variscan accretionary complex'' is a new name we proposed for the most widely distributed metamorphic rocks connected to the Anarak and Jandaq complexes. This accretionary complex exposed from SW of Jandaq to the Anarak and Kabudan areas is a thick and fine grain siliciclastic sequence accompanied by marginal-sea ophiolitic remnants, including gabbro-basalts with a supra-subduction-geochemical signature. New Ar-40/Ar-39 ages are obtained as 333-320 Ma for the metamorphism of this sequence under greenschist to amphibolite facies. Moreover, the limy intercalations in the volcano-sedimentary part of this complex in Godar-e-Siah yielded Upper Devonian-Tournaisian conodonts. The northeastern part of this complex in the Jandaq area was intruded by 215 +/- 15 Ma arc to collisional granite and pegmatites dated by ID-TIMS and its metamorphic rocks are characterized by Some Ar-40/Ar-39 radiometric ages of 163-156 Ma. The ``Variscan'' accretionary complex was northwardly accreted to the Airekan granitic terrane dated at 549 +/- 15 Ma. Later, from the Late Carboniferous to Triassic, huge amounts of oceanic material were accreted to its southern side and penetrated by several seamounts such as the Anarak and Kabudan. This new period of accretion is supported by the 280-230 Ma Ar-40/Ar-39 ages for the Anarak mild high-pressure metamorphic rocks and a 262 Ma U-Pb age for the trondhjemite-rhyolite association of that area. The Triassic Bayazeh flysch filled the foreland basin during the final closure of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean and was partly deposited and/or thrusted onto the Cimmerian Yazd block. The Paleo-Tethys magmatic arc products have been well-preserved in the Late Devonian-Carboniferous Godar-e-Siah intra-arc deposits and the Triassic Nakhlak fore-arc succession. On the passive margin of the Cimmerian block, in the Yazd region, the nearly continuous Upper Paleozoic platform-type deposition was totally interrupted during the Middle to Late Triassic. Local erosion, down to Lower Paleozoic levels, may be related to flexural bulge erosion. The platform was finally unconformably covered by Liassic continental molassic deposits of the Shemshak. One of the extensional periods related to Neo-Tethyan back-arc rifting in Late Cretaceous time finally separated parts of the Eocimmerian collisional domain from the Eurasian Turan domain. The opening and closing of this new ocean, characterized by the Nain and Sabzevar ophiolitic melanges, finally transported the Anarak-Jandaq composite terrane to Central Iran, accompanied by large scale rotation of the Central-East Iranian Microcontinent (CEIM). Due to many similarities between the Posht-e-Badam metamorphic complex and the Anarak-Jandaq composite terrane, the former could be part of the latter, if it was transported further south during Tertiary time. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Relationships between host plant architecture and gall abundance and survival

The plant architecture hypothesis predicts that variation in host plant architecture influences insect herbivore community structure, dynamics and performance. In this study we evaluated the effects of Macairea radula (Melastomataceae) architecture on the abundance of galls induced by a moth (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). Plant architecture and gall abundance were directly recorded on 58 arbitrarily chosen M. radula host plants in the rainy season of 2006 in an area of Cerrado vegetation, southeastern Brazil. Plant height, dry biomass, number of branches, number of shoots and leaf abundance were used as predicting variables of gall abundance and larval survival. Gall abundance correlated positively with host plant biomass and branch number. Otherwise, no correlation (p > 0.05) was found between gall abundance with shoot number or with the number of leaves/plant. From a total of 124 galls analyzed, 67.7% survived, 14.5% were attacked by parasitoids, while 17.7% died due to unknown causes. Larvae that survived or were parasitized were not influenced by architectural complexity of the host plant. Our results partially corroborate the plant architecture hypothesis, but since parasitism was not related to plant architecture it is argued that bottom-up effects may be more important than top-down effects in controlling the population dynamics of the galling lepidopteran. Because galling insects often decrease plant fitness, the potential of galling insects in selecting for less architectural complex plants is discussed.

Dynamic adverse selection and debt

This paper argues that the strategic use of debt favours the revelationof information in dynamic adverse selection problems. Our argument is basedon the idea that debt is a credible commitment to end long term relationships.Consequently, debt encourages a privately informed party to disclose itsinformation at early stages of a relationship. We illustrate our pointwith the financing decision of a monopolist selling a good to a buyerwhose valuation is private information. A high level of (renegotiable)debt, by increasing the scope for liquidation, may induce the highvaluation buyer to buy early at a high price and thus increase themonopolist's expected payoff. By affecting the buyer's strategy, it mayreduce the probability of excessive liquidation. We investigate theconsequences of good durability and we examine the way debt mayalleviate the ratchet effect.

Conflicts of interest, information provision and competition in banking

In some markets, such as the market for drugs or for financial services, sellers have better information than buyersregarding the matching between the buyer's needs and the good's actual characteristics. Depending on the market structure,this may lead to conflicts of interest and/or the underprovision of information by the seller. This paper studies this issuein the market for financial services. The analysis presents a new model of competition between banks, as banks' pricecompetition influences the ensuing incentives for truthful information revelation. We compare two different firm structures,specialized banking, where financial institutions provide a unique financial product, and one-stop banking, where a financialinstitution is able to provide several financial products which are horizontally differentiated. We show first that, althoughconflicts of interest may prevent information disclosure under monopoly, competition forces full information provision forsufficiently high reputation costs. Second, in the presence of market power, one-stop banks will use information strategicallyto increase product differentiation and therefore will always provide reliable information and charge higher rices thanspecialized banks, thus providing a new justification for the creation of one-stop banks. Finally, we show that, ifindependent financial advisers are able to provide reliable information, this increases product differentiation and thereforemarket power, so that it is in the interest of financial intermediaries to promote external independent financial advice.

Relationships of Scincid Lizards (Mabuya spp; Reptilia: Scincidae) from the Cape Verde Islands Based on Mitochondrial and Nuclear DNA Sequences

Partial DNA sequences from two mitochondrial (mt) and one nuclear gene (cytochrome b, 12S rRNA, and C-mos) were used to estimate the phylogenetic relationships among the six extant species of skinks endemic to the Cape Verde Archipelago. The species form a monophyletic unit, indicating a single colonization of the islands, probably from West Africa. Mabuya vaillanti and M. delalandii are sister taxa, as indicated by morphological characters. Mabuya fogoensis and M. stangeri are closely related, but the former is probably paraphyletic. Mabuya spinalis and M. salensis are also probably paraphyletic. Within species, samples from separate islands always form monophyletic groups. Some colonization events can be hypothesized, which are in line with the age of the islands. C-mos variation is concordant with the topology derived from mtDNA.