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Official dollarization is rare; yet, many countries' banking systems are characterized by high levels of unofficial dollarization. This dissertation provides a political-economic argument for why governments allow these deposits to exist at all. I explain the timing and level of regulations over resident foreign currency (FC) deposit accounts as well as why some countries that chose partial liberalization tend to remain there and test that explanation on a new dataset I created coding IMF reports on exchange-rate controls. Similar to other forms of monetary delegation, unrestricted accounts can serve as a commitment device for credible macroeconomic policy, contingent on two factors. Politicians must be responsive to a broad audience; and, they must be credible in their protection of property rights. Thus, unrestricted accounts are most likely when: politicians are responsive to a broad population, have experienced macroeconomic instability, and are respectful of their citizens' property rights. Responsiveness is important because restricted deposits are unlikely to be useful as a commitment device. When responsiveness is broad group, politicians are more likely to provide public goods rather than targeted, private goods. Allowing FC deposits with restrictions resembles a private good, in that politicians choose which groups are allowed access to the accounts, while unrestricted deposits resemble non-excludeable public goods. Unrestricted deposits should be more likely in those countries where politicians are responsive to a broad population and face incentives to provide public goods. Second, unofficial dollarization is a strategic situation. If property rights are weak, citizens should anticipate that their deposits would be at risk, making individuals less likely to use FC accounts. Governments should anticipate this as well; if not credible on property rights, they should be more likely to adopt restricted deposits. I test this argument on a new dataset of regulations of resident FC accounts in a sample of developed and developing countries I coded from the IMF's Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions. I use both binary cross-sectional time- series analysis and a competing risks model. I find support for my central argument, although its effectiveness is limited to periods of moderately levels of macroeconomic instability

Background Children exposed to maltreatment show neural sensitivity to facial cues signalling threat. However, little is known about how maltreatment influences the processing of social threat cues more broadly, and whether atypical processing of social threat cues relates to psychiatric risk. Methods Forty‐one 10‐ to 14‐year‐old children underwent a social rejection‐themed emotional Stroop task during functional magnetic resonance imaging: 21 children with a documented history of maltreatment (11 F) and 19 comparison children with no maltreatment history (11 F). Groups were matched on age, pubertal status, gender, IQ, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and reading ability. Classic colour Stroop stimuli were also administered in the same paradigm to investigate potential differences in general cognitive control. Results Compared with their peers, children who had experienced maltreatment showed reduced activation in the Rejection versus Neutral condition, across circuitry previously implicated in abuse‐related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including the left anterior insula, extending into left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex/orbitofrontal cortex; left amygdala; left inferior parietal cortex (STS); and bilateral visual association cortex, encompassing the cuneus and lingual gyrus. No group differences in neural or behavioural responses were found for the classic colour Stroop conditions. Significant negative associations between activity in bilateral cuneus and STS during the rejection‐themed Stroop and higher self‐reported PTSD symptomatology, including dissociation, were observed in children exposed to maltreatment. Conclusion Our findings indicate a pattern of altered neural response to social rejection cues in maltreated children. Compared to their peers, these children displayed relative hypoactivation to rejection cues in regions previously associated with PTSD, potentially reflecting an avoidant coping response. It is suggested that such atypical processing of social threat may index latent vulnerability to future psychopathology in general and PTSD in particular.

Objective: The impact of lifetime dietary habits and their role in physical, mental, and social well-being has been the focus of considerable recent research. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids as a dietary constituent have been under the spotlight for decades. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids constitute key regulating factors of neurotransmission, neurogenesis, and neuroinflammation and are thereby fundamental for development, functioning, and aging of the CNS. Of note is the fact that these processes are altered in various psychiatric disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease. Design: Relevant literature was identified through a search of MEDLINE via PubMed using the following words, “n-3 PUFAs,” “EPA,” and “DHA” in combination with “stress,” “cognition,” “ADHD,” “anxiety,” “depression,” “bipolar disorder,” “schizophrenia,” and “Alzheimer.” The principal focus was on the role of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids throughout the lifespan and their implication for psychopathologies. Recommendations for future investigation on the potential clinical value of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids were examined. Results: The inconsistent and inconclusive results from randomized clinical trials limits the usage of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in clinical practice. However, a body of literature demonstrates an inverse correlation between omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid levels and quality of life/ psychiatric diseases. Specifically, older healthy adults showing low habitual intake of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids benefit most from consuming them, showing improved age-related cognitive decline. Conclusions: Although further studies are required, there is an exciting and growing body of research suggesting that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids may have a potential clinical value in the prevention and treatment of psychopathologies.

The ability to accurately achieve performance capture of athlete motion during competitive play in near real-time promises to revolutionise not only broadcast sports graphics visualisation and commentary, but also potentially performance analysis, sports medicine, fantasy sports and wagering. In this paper, we present a highly portable, non-intrusive approach for synthesising human athlete motion in competitive game-play with lightweight instru- mentation of both the athlete and field of play. Our data-driven puppetry technique relies on a pre-captured database of short segments of motion capture data to construct a motion graph augmented with interpolated mo- tions and speed variations. An athlete’s performed motion is synthesised by finding a related action sequence through the motion graph using a sparse set of measurements from the performance, acquired from both worn inertial and global location sensors. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach in a challenging application scenario, with a high-performance tennis athlete wearing one or more lightweight body-worn accelerometers and a single overhead camera providing the athlete’s global position and orientation data. However, the approach is flexible in both the number and variety of input sensor data used. The technique can also be adopted for searching a motion graph efficiently in linear time in alternative applications.

As a proficient tennis swing is a key element of success in tennis, many amateur tennis players spend a considerable amount of time and effort perfecting their tennis stroke mechanics, hoping to create more accuracy, consistency and power in their swing. In order to achieve these aims effectively a number of independent aspects of technique need to be addressed, including forming a correct racket grip, shot timing, body orientation and precise follow--through. Outside of a one-to-one coaching scenario, where constant professional feedback on technique can be provided, keeping all aspects of technique in mind can overwhelm amateur players. In this work, we have developed a set of visualisation tools to augment the development of amateur tennis players between dedicated one-to-one coaching sessions in the area of technique, timing and body posture. Our approach temporally aligns an amateur player's swing dynamics with that of an elite athlete, allowing direct technique comparison using augmented reality techniques.

The ever increasing availability of high speed Internet access has led to a leap in technologies that support real-time realistic interaction between humans in online virtual environments. In the context of this work, we wish to realise the vision of an online dance studio where a dance class is to be provided by an expert dance teacher and to be delivered to online students via the web. In this paper we study some of the technical issues that need to be addressed in this challenging scenario. In particular, we describe an automatic dance analysis tool that would be used to evaluate a student's performance and provide him/her with meaningful feedback to aid improvement.