Current treatments for peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) have limited success, so there is a need to develop more effective treatments. Because patients with native collaterals have a better prognosis, promoting collateral arteriogenesis is a potential PAOD treatment. Additionally, female PAOD patients have a worse response to treatment and a worse prognosis compared to males, which could be due to impaired collateralization. Cell transplantation is a potential treatment option to promote collateral arteriogenesis. Bone marrow derived stem cells are the main cell type that has been investigated, but they have had limited clinical success. Delivering a stem cell type native to the tissue like myogenic stem cells could have improved outcomes. In this study, the lateral spinotrapezius feed artery was ligated in male and female Balb/C mice to induce collateral capillary arteriogenesis, and 7 days post ligation ­­­­arterialized collateral capillary (ACC) number and diameter were determined. There were no differences between sexes, which could be because young, healthy mice were used in this study rather than aged and diseased models. Because we observed no sex differences, we then assessed the effect of myogenic cell transplantation in male mice only. Immediately following ligation of the spinotrapezius feed artery, mice were treated with myogenic cells, thrombin, or vehicle, and 7 days post ligation ACC number and diameter were determined. Thrombin increased ACC number, but myogenic cells had no effect. However, myogenic cells increased ACC diameter, and both myogenic cells and thrombin decreased ACC number in the region of the muscle with the largest collateral, and increased the maximum ACC diameter. Another factor that could affect ACC formation is a pre-existing collateral (PEC), which only some Balb/C mice have, so we also separated mice into PEC and non-PEC groups for analysis. In mice with a PEC, thrombin increased ACC number, and both myogenic cells and thrombin increased ACC diameter. There was a trend toward smaller arterialized capillaries in mice with a PEC, which could be because the majority of the blood flow is redirected through the PEC, so the PEC was the main vessel to remodel. These results are consistent with previous studies that indicated that thrombin augments arteriogenesis as well as increasing V-CAM, and suggest that myogenic cells have a similar effect possibly by secreting arteriogenic factors such as VEGF and MMPs. Because myogenic cells increase arteriogenesis, and macrophages are an essential regulator of arteriogenesis, we also tested the hypothesis that myogenic cells would increase macrophage content. Macrophage number increased with ligation, but there was no difference in macrophage number between any of the treatment groups. The lack of difference in macrophage number could be because the day 7 timepoint was too late, as macrophage content peaks at day 3. Because myoblasts increased arteriogenesis, they also may have increased the number M2 macrophages, which are the main macrophage contributor to arteriogenesis, but we used a general macrophage marker and could not detect an increase in M2 macrophages. In future studies, to determine if there is an increase in M2 macrophages a stain specific to M2 macrophages like CD206 could be added. Additionally, a diabetic Balb/C strain could be used to determine if arteriogenesis is impaired in males compared to females in a diseased model.

This dissertation was a study of the impact of financial innovation upon financial institutions and some of the collateral macroeconomics effects. Financial innovation has impacted the distribution of household assets throughout the Group of Seven (G-7) countries and indirectly negatively influenced the usage of traditional monetary aggregates as a reliable tool to forecast the growth in the domestic money supply between 1960 and 1990. The empirical results indicate that the adoption of financial innovations by large U.S. commercial banks has not influenced their return on equity and the return of assets between 1990 and 1994. The variability of the return on equity and return on assets is reduced by those banks that have incorporated financial innovations over time. The policy implications of these results indicate that sufficient market instruments exist to assist banks to control interest rate exposure caused by the volatility of interest rates and uncertain funding sources. Any intervention by regulatory authorities could be welfare-decreasing for banks and possibly increase the level of interest rates or reduce the supply of credit to prospective borrowers.

Выпускная квалификационная работа (магистерская диссертация) посвящена использованию залога в практике организации кредитных отношений, что предполагает наличие специального механизма его применения. Залоговый механизм есть процесс подготовки, заключения и исполнения договора о залоге. Залоговый механизм возникает в момент рассмотрения кредитной заявки как условие заключения кредитного договора. Он сопровождает весь период пользования ссудой. Реальное обращение к исполнению залогового механизма возникает на за­вершающей стадии движения кредита - погашении ссуды - и лишь в отдельных случаях, когда клиент не может погасить ссуду выручкой или доходом. / Final qualification work (master thesis) on the use of collateral in the practice of organization of credit relations, which implies the existence of a special mechanism for its application. The collateral mechanism is a process for the preparation, conclusion and execution of the pledge agreement. The collateral mechanism occurs at the time of loan application as a condition of the loan agreement. It accompanies the entire period of a loan. The real enforceability of the pledge mechanism occurs at the final stage of movement of the loan - the repayment of a loan, and only in some cases when the client cannot repay the loan proceeds or income.

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Title Financial Security ANNOTATION The diploma work presented deals with financial security, i.e. with one of the methods of securing an obligation, as set out under the provision of Section 323a et seq. of Act No. 513/1991 Coll., The Commercial Code, as amended. In the work as a whole, I deal in detail, on the one hand, with description of the above- mentioned legal institution, financial security, in the form ascribed to it presently by the valid and effective legal regulations in the Czech Republic. Thus, I deal with the concept of financial security in our system of law, origin of the legal institution and its inclusion in the system of law of the Czech Republic, while defining the fundamental notions being necessary to study this part of the commercial law of the Czech Republic. Further, I address explanatory and interpretation problems of financial security, both in the light of the European Union's legal regulations, which are, if simplifying, a template for our legal regulations concerning financial security, and from the point of view of our reputable law specialists, who dealt with financial security in specialised publications, in particular in their commentaries on the Commercial Code, and in articles published in professional periodicals. Also I devote a significant part of this work to the...

Gap junctions are intercellular channels that permit passage of electrical and chemical signals between neighbouring cells. Vascular endothelium typically co-expresses Cx37 and Cx40, but may downregulate its expression of Cx37 (and upregulate Cx43) in response to changes in flow. The specific regulatory roles mediated by vascular endothelial connexins, and the consequences of altered connexin expression, remain unclear. In this study, we hypothesized that Cx37 and Cx40 regulate distinct vascular responses. We further hypothesize that Cx37 is predominantly involved in vascular growth control, whereas vascular growth is not affected by ablation of Cx40 expression. We show herein that Cx37, but not Cx40 or Cx43, suppresses growth of a highly-proliferative cancer cell line by inducing G1 cell cycle accumulation. We further show that Cx37-deficient mice, lacking Cx37's putative growth inhibitory effect on the vasculature, exhibit a more extensive native and post-ischemic collateral circulation, and greater ischemia-induced microvascular density. In addition, Cx37-/- mice demonstrate a functional improvement in recovery over wild-type animals in two models of hindlimb ischemia. By contrast, Cx40-/- mice fail to recover distal limb flow following unilateral hindlimb ischemia, resulting in necrosis. Long-term angiotensin II antagonism normalized post-ischemic hindlimb bloodflow, reduced macrophage infiltration, and delayed (but did not reverse) the necrotic phenotype of these animals. In summary, we show a distinct role for each of the endothelial connexins, Cx37 and Cx40, in regulating post-ischemic vascular responses.

The mid-1990s brought sex offenders to the forefront of policy issues due to several highly publicized cases of abduction, sexual assault, and murder involving children. Following these cases, a number of sex offender management policies were passed to quell public concern over the safety of children due to sex offenders. Most notably, these new sex offender management policies mandated the creation of publicly available registries of sex offenders and enacted residence restrictions that forbid sex offenders from residing within certain distances from areas where children commonly congregate. Although current sex offender management policies have been revealed to be largely ineffective in reducing sex offender recidivism and also create a number of collateral consequences for the successful reintegration of sex offenders back into the community, the public has been found to be largely in support of these policies and believe in their effectiveness. The available literature examining the perceptions of professionals toward sex offender management policies, however, has shown mixed support depending upon the specific profession of the sample. Utilizing a sample (n=248) gathered from two professional organizations, this study aimed to explore and compare the perceptions of clinical specialists and non-clinical professionals in three areas: Support for current sex offender management policies, belief in collateral consequences that sex offenders may face due to these policies, and acceptability of collateral consequences as by-products of the current policies. Bivariate analyses revealed significant differences between the professionals groups in all three of the above areas. Given the significant bivariate findings, ordinary least squares regression was conducted to examine the consistency of profession as a significant predictor of the attitudes of the professionals while considering competing variables. Against a number of control variables, profession remained a significant predictor of support for sex offender management policies and belief in collateral consequences involving residence restrictions, however, profession was not a significant predictor of acceptability of collateral consequences. Several other factors, including punishment philosophy and belief in the cause of sex offending, emerged throughout the multivariate analyses as having a significant influence on the perceptions of the professionals.

Thesis advisor: Fabio Ghironi / This dissertation consists of three essays on macroeconomics with frictions and uncertainty shocks. The first essay is "Collateral Constrained Workers' Unemployment". Financial market and labor market are closely interconnected each other in the sense that unemployed workers have difficulty not only in borrowing new loan but also in repaying outstanding loan. In addition, if unemployment entails loss from default and no new loan, credit constrained workers will accept lower wage to avoid the loss from losing job. In this paper, we try to investigate the role of the interaction between financial market and labor market over the business cycle. To do that, we assume credit constrained workers can borrow against their houses and repay outstanding loans only when they are employed. We also introduce labor search and matching framework into our model to consider unemployment and wage bargaining process explicitly. With this setup, we find that adverse housing preference shock leads to substantial negative impact on labor market by reducing the benefit from maintaining job. As a result, high unemployment significantly amplifies the business cycle by reducing supply of loan and increasing default. This result would be helpful to understand recent "Great Recession" which was originated from the collapse of housing market and accompanied by high unemployment and default rate. The second essay is "International Financial Business Cycles". Recent international macroeconomics literature on global imbalances explains the U.S. persistent current account deficit and emerging countries' surplus, i.e., the U.S. is the borrower. Little research has been done on the banking-sector level, where U.S. banks are lenders to banks in emerging countries. We build a two country framework where banks are explicitly modeled to investigate how lending in the banking sector can affect the international macroeconomy during the recent crisis. In steady state, banks in the developing country borrows from the U.S. banks. When the borrowers in the U.S. pay back less than contractually agreed and damage the balance sheet of the U.S. banks, with the presence of bank capital requirement constraint, U.S. banks raise lending rates and decrease the loans made to U.S. borrowers as well as banks in the developing country. The results are a sharp increase in the lending spread, a reduction in output and a depreciation in the real exchange rate of the developing country. They are the experience of many emerging Asian markets following the U.S. financial crisis starting in late 2007. Another feature of our model captures an empirical fact, documented by Devereux and Yetman (2010), that across different economies, countries with lower financial rating can suffer more when the lending country deleverages. The third essay is "Uncertainty, Collateral Constrained Borrowers, and Business Cycle". Standard RBC model fails to generate the co-movement of key macro variables under uncertainty shock because precautionary saving motive decreases consumption but increases investment and labor. To fill this gap, we build a DSGE model with collateral constrained borrowers who can borrow against housing and capital. In the model with modest risk aversion, we can generate the desired co-movement of key macro variables under uncertainty shock and the co-movement comes from the collateral constraint channel through drop in housing price. Under uncertainty shock, highly indebted borrowers sell collaterals to avoid uncertainty in future consumption. As a result, housing price goes down and it makes credit crunch to borrowers through collateral constraint channel. The negative effect of uncertainty shock is strengthened in the economy with higher indebted borrowers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Richard McGowan / The author focuses on property formalization, microfinance and their effects on empowering the poor in Peru. For this purpose, the author will first analyze the economic and social conditions in which the microfinance initiative has taken place in Peru as well as its informal economy. Then, the author will explain the advantages and disadvantages that microfinance and property formalization have had as economic tools used to confront the problem of collateral. The author argues that both economic tools, if used together, may have a greater impact in the poor’s economic empowerment. The poor’s economic empowerment will be understood as the decrease in interest rates in the microfinance sector. Hence, Peruvian Microfinance Institutions – represented by Peru’s leading MFI “Microfinanzas Prisma – will be analyzed through regression analyses with intervention variables to simulate the correlations between collateral and interest rates in the microfinance sector. The results demonstrate that formal property, although correlated with interest rates up to a certain point, may not have a significant correlation with interest rates beyond that point. The author will finally interpret the results of the empirical analyses and will make some recommendations that could be implemented as development policies. A proposal would be based on the joint use of microfinance and formal property to further decrease interest rates and therefore empower the individuals borrowing below the point at which collateral has no significance correlation with interest rates. Concepts such as social capital and community organization will be addressed to further enhance the impact of collateral on interest rates. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: Economics.