This article examines the financial strategies employed by Genoese businessmen in Atlantic Castile during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, focusing on the relative value of private enterprises. It reveals how the interplay between Castilian market characteristics and the unique financial culture of Genoese merchants predominantly supported short-term and transient economic ventures. These methods significantly reduced the need for centralised corporate structures and redundant accounting procedures, supported by a robust notarial system. Consequently, trading in securities and credit extensions became prominent features of this financial market. The research demonstrates that the widespread use of account money, credit and bills of exchange allowed Ligurians to engage in trade and access markets with flexibility and agility through quantitative and functional economic analyses. It also highlights the importance of various credit arrangements, such as loans, bills of trade, or IOUs, which extend beyond merely deferring payments.

The 17-subunit RNA polymerase III (RNAP III) synthesizes essential untranslated RNAs such as tRNAs and 5S rRNA. In yeast and vertebrates, subunit C82 forms a stable subcomplex with C34 and C31 that is necessary for promoter-specific transcription initiation. Little is known about RNAP III transcription in trypanosomatid parasites. To narrow this knowledge gap, we characterized the C82 subunit in Trypanosoma brucei and Leishmania major. Bioinformatic analyses showed that the 4 distinctive extended winged-helix (eWH) domains and the coiled-coil motif are present in C82 in these microorganisms. Nevertheless, C82 in trypanosomatids presents certain unique traits, including an exclusive loop within the eWH1 domain. We found that C82 localizes to the nucleus and binds to RNAP III-dependent genes in the insect stages of both parasites. Knock-down of C82 by RNA interference significantly reduced the levels of tRNAs and 5S rRNA and led to the death of procyclic forms of T. brucei. Tandem affinity purifications with both parasites allowed the identification of several C82-interacting partners, including C34 and some genus-specific putative regulators of transcription. However, the orthologue of C31 was not found in trypanosomatids. Interestingly, our data suggest a strong association of C82 with TFIIIC subunits in T. brucei, but not in L. major.

Central banks have increased their official communications. Previous literature measures complexity, clarity, tone and sentiment. Less explored is the use of fact versus emotion in central bank communication. We test a new method for classifying factual versus emotional language, applying a pretrained transfer learning model, fine-tuned with manually coded, task-specific and domain-specific data sets. We find that the large language models outperform traditional models on some occasions; however, the results depend on a number of choices. We therefore caution researchers from depending solely on such models even for tasks that appear similar. Our findings suggest that central bank communications are not only technically but also subjectively difficult to understand.

We are now close to reaching what climate scientists advise is a ‘tipping point’ when the injuries we have visited on the planet will become self-reinforcing and produce an ecosystem that is alien to human life. The mal-distribution of consumption within and between nations is a major reason why there is little agreement on appropriate remedial action. Ensuring planetary survival while reducing inequity is made the more difficult, because the richest one-seventh of the world’s population has already reached consumption levels beyond the capacity of the planetary ecosystem to accommodate it.

This article discusses the available sources of information on the value and volume of Peru’s exports and estimates the current value of exports, the index of export prices and the quantum of exports using a wide variety of sources. By relying on several sources, I estimate the first complete series of the current value of exports for Peru for 1830-1930. Importantly, I adjust other studies’ estimates by taking into account the deficiencies of foreign sources and by distinguishing between exports of specie and of minerals. The estimations show that exports experienced substantial growth in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Guano Era. Exports stagnated in the 1870s and dropped during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) before recovering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially during World War I.

Numerous primary investigators collected and processed long-termed time series on German educational statistics in the context of their studies. As a result, there are a multitude of quantitative empirical studies. On the one hand, there is the project group on German Educational Statistics.1 Its projects were targeted at describing and analyzing the long-term structural changes of the German educational system on a broad empirical and statistical basis. On the other hand, there are comprehensive data compilations of individual research projects, focusing on a wide variety of special educational research topics. The online database “histat” provides central digital access to these datasets on German educational history. Currently, it offers more than 120,000 long-term time series on the German educational system for a period of 200 years. The striking size of the database shows its key importance for researchers in the field of education. Thus, this paper aims to provide useful insights into the background of the database, the special characteristics of the data compilations and their analytical potential. Additionally, examples are given of how the data have already been used by researchers.

Using 1971-2000 data, we examine the accuracy of corn and soybean production forecasts provided by the USD A and two private agencies. All agencies improved their forecasts as the harvest progressed, and forecast errors were highly correlated and unbiased. The relative forecast accuracy of the agencies varied by crop and month. For corn, USDA's forecasts ranked as most accurate of the three agencies in all periods except for August during the recent period and improved most markedly as harvest progressed. For soybeans, forecast errors were very similar, with the private agencies ranking as most accurate for August and September and making largest relative improvements for August during the recent period. The USDA forecasts were dominant for October and November. Our findings identify several patterns of relative forecast accuracy that have implications for private and public decision makers.