Estimating the Costs and Benefits of EMU: The Impact of External Shocks on Labour Markets

Discussions of the economic costs and benefits of EMU usually take as their basis the optimum currency area (OCA) approach. This approach starts from the premise that when an external shock hits the economy, it is easier to adjust the exchange rate than domestic prices or wages. Most economists accept the general idea behind this approach, namely that nominal wages are usually sticky in the shortrun and that it is therefore easier to adjust to external shocks and obtain changes in the real exchange rate or the terms of trade through a movement in the exchange rate. But there is little agreement on how important these "external" shocks are in reality. We try to measure the importance of external shocks for (un)employment. We find that external shocks have little impact on unemployment, but are more important in the evolution of employment in manufacturing. The results differ, however, strongly from country to country and for about half of EU member countries we did not find any significant relationship. Taking into account various potential shock absorbers (exchange rate movements, fiscal and monetary policy) does not affect the results. We conclude that the loss of the exchange rate instrument will not lead to massive unemployment problems.exchange rates;export demand;external shocks;optimal currency area;(un)employment

High Temperature Strength Reduces Soldering In Aluminum High Pressure Die Casting

Die soldering, an adhesion defect in high pressure die casting (HPDC), is a symptom of localized sticking where a localized portion of the cast material is adhered to the tooling surface causing build up over time. This requires the tooling to be serviced which incurs additional costs to the process that gets passed on to the parts. Historically, soldering has been mitigated using lubricants, coatings, and alloy chemistry modifications but solder persists. The Tresca friction thermomechanical model suggests soldering occurs when the local interfacial shear stress between the casting and die surface exceeds the local shear strength of the casting. The ratio of these shear strengths, as a function of temperature, has been shown to predict solder. Research up to this point has focused on reducing the friction coefficient, and in turn the interface shear strength, with no work done on the strengthening of the castings regarding solder. Chemistry of the alloy has been shown to influence soldering behavior, but for the wrong reason as Al-Fe intermetallics are the commonly accepted soldering mechanism. High temperature strengthening mechanisms through chemistry modifications were investigated to support the Tresca friction model. First, the improvement of the solid solution and Orowan strengthening mechanisms was quantified for several aluminum HPDC alloys through the addition of magnesium, improving the hot shear strength of the alloys. Next, the improved alloy shear strength was applied to the Tresca model and tested using a laboratory scale permanent mold designed to solder along with a full scale HPDC production trial with results pointing towards a new soldering mechanism. Finally, the relationship between solder and the casting surface chill zone or “skin” is examined and discussed

Refractory effects in picture naming as assessed in a semantic blocking paradigm

In the cyclic semantic blocking paradigm participants repeatedly name sets of objects with semantically related names (homogeneous sets) or unrelated names (heterogeneous sets). The naming latencies are typically longer in related than in unrelated sets. In we replicated this semantic blocking effect and demonstrated that the effect only arose after all objects of a set had been shown and named once. In , the objects of a set were presented simultaneously (instead of on successive trials). Evidence for semantic blocking was found in the naming latencies and in the gaze durations for the objects, which were longer in homogeneous than in heterogeneous sets. For the gaze-to-speech lag between the offset of gaze on an object and the onset of the articulation of its name, a repetition priming effect was obtained but no blocking effect. showed that the blocking effect for speech onset latencies generalized to new, previously unnamed lexical items. We propose that the blocking effect is due to refractory behaviour in the semantic system

Early activation of object names in visual search

In a visual search experiment, participants had to decide whether or not a target object was present in a four-object search array. One of these objects could be a semantically related competitor (e.g., shirt for the target trousers) or a conceptually unrelated object with the same name as the target-for example, bat (baseball) for the target bat (animal). In the control condition, the related competitor was replaced by an unrelated object. The participants' response latencies and eye movements demonstrated that the two types of related competitors had similar effects: Competitors attracted the participants' visual attention and thereby delayed positive and negative decisions. The results imply that semantic and name information associated with the objects becomes rapidly available and affects the allocation of visual attention

Microstructure predicts non-motor outcomes following deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) effectively treats motor and non-motor symptoms in advanced Parkinson's disease (PD). As considerable interindividual variability of outcomes exists, neuroimaging-based biomarkers, including microstructural metrics, have been proposed to anticipate treatment response. In this prospective open-label study, we sought to detect microstructural properties of brain areas associated with short-term non-motor outcomes following STN-DBS. Thirty-seven PD patients underwent diffusion MRI and clinical assessments at preoperative baseline and 6-month follow-up. Whole brain voxel-wise analysis assessed associations between microstructural metrics and non-motor outcomes. Intact microstructure within specific areas, including the right insular cortex, right putamen, right cingulum, and bilateral corticospinal tract were associated with greater postoperative improvement of non-motor symptom burden. Furthermore, microstructural properties of distinct brain regions were associated with postoperative changes in sleep, attention/memory, urinary symptoms, and apathy. In conclusion, diffusion MRI could support preoperative patient counselling by identifying patients with above- or below-average non-motor responses