China's Sovereign Wealth Fund : Weakness and Challenges

The establishment of sovereign wealth funds in large developing countries has generated hot debate among participants in the international financial market. When accumulated foreign exchange reserves surpass a sufficient and an appropriate level, the costs, risks and impacts on the macro-economy of countries holding reserves need to be considered. The Chinese Government established China Investment Corporation (CIC) in 2007 to diversify its investment of foreign reserves and to raise investment income. However, because of certain conflicts of interest and institution-design caveats, CIC possesses some internal weakness, including a vague orientation, mixed investment strategies and inefficient bureaucratic style. Although the subprime crisis has softened certain regulations and lessened rejection by the USA of CIC potential investments, the increased volatility and uncertainty of the market means that CIC is facing some new challenges in terms of its investment decisions. Moreover, CIC is competing with other Chinese investment institutions for injections of funds from the Chinese Government.CIC, external challenge, internal weakness, foreign exchange reserve management

On the law of the iterated logarithm for continued fractions with sequentially restricted partial quotients

We establish a law of the iterated logarithm (LIL) for the set of real numbers whose $n$-th partial quotient is bigger than $\alpha_n$, where $(\alpha_n)$ is a sequence such that $\sum 1/\alpha_n$ is finite. This set is shown to have Hausdorff dimension $1/2$ in many cases and the measure in LIL is absolutely continuous to the Hausdorff measure. The result is obtained as an application of a strong invariance principle for unbounded observables on the limit set of a sequential iterated function system.Comment: Improved bounds for $(\alpha_n)

Mixed convection in a downward flow in a vertical duct with strong transverse magnetic field

The downward flow in a vertical duct with one heated and three thermally insulated walls is analyzed numerically using the two-dimensional approximation valid in the asymptotic limit of an imposed strong transverse magnetic field. The work is motivated by the design of liquid metal blankets with poloidal ducts for future nuclear fusion reactors, in which the main component of the magnetic field is perpendicular to the flow direction and very strong heating is applied at the wall facing the reaction chamber. The flow is found to be steady-state or oscillating depending on the strengths of the heating and magnetic field. A parametric study of the instability leading to the oscillations is performed. It is found among other results that the flow is unstable and develops high-amplitude temperature oscillations at the conditions typical for a fusion reactor blanket