Remittances, exchange rate regimes, and the Dutch disease: a panel data analysis

Using disaggregated sectorial data, this study shows that rising levels of remittances have spending effects that lead to real exchange rate appreciation and resource movement effects that favor the nontradable sector at the expense of tradable goods production. These characteristics are two aspects of the phenomenon known as Dutch disease. The results further indicate that these effects operate more strongly under fixed nominal exchange rate regimes.Emigrant remittances ; Foreign exchange rates

Temperature and magnetic field dependent longitudinal spin relaxation in nitrogen-vacancy ensembles in diamond

We present an experimental study of the longitudinal electron-spin relaxation time (T1) of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) ensembles in diamond. T1 was studied as a function of temperature from 5 to 475 K and magnetic field from 0 to 630 G for several samples with various NV and nitrogen concentrations. Our studies reveal three processes responsible for T1 relaxation. Above room temperature, a two-phonon Raman process dominates, and below, we observe an Orbach-type process with an activation energy, 73(4) meV, which closely matches the local vibrational modes of the NV center. At yet lower temperatures, sample dependent cross relaxation processes dominate, resulting in temperature independent values of T1, from ms to minutes. The value of T1 in this limit depends sensitively on magnetic field and can be tuned by more than an order of magnitude.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, and 3 pages of supplemental material with additional figure

Financial development, remittances, and real exchange rate appreciation

For developing countries, remittances are an important and expanding source of capital, equivalent to two-thirds of overall foreign direct investment and nearly 2 percent of gross domestic product. ; This article examines the relationship between remittance inflows, financial sector development, and the real exchange rate. The authors test whether financial sector development can prevent appreciation of the real exchange rate. In particular, they show that well-developed financial sectors can more effectively channel remittances into investment opportunities. ; Using panel data for 109 developing and transition countries for 1990–2003, the authors find that remittances by themselves tend to put upward pressure on the real exchange rate. But this effect is weaker in countries with deeper and more sophisticated financial markets, which seem to retain trade competitiveness.Emigrant remittances ; Foreign exchange rates

N<i>e</i>XOS – the design, development and evaluation of a rehabilitation system for the lower limbs

Recent years have seen the development of a number of automated and semi-automated systems to support for physiotherapy and rehabilitation. These deploy a range of technologies from highly complex purpose built systems to approaches based around the use of industrial robots operating either individually or in combination for applications ranging from stroke to mobility enhancement. The NeXOS project set out to investigate an approach to the rehabilitation of the lower limbs in a way which brought together expertise in engineering design and mechatronics with specilists in rehabilitation and physiotherapy. The resulting system has resulted in a prototype of a system which is capable in operating in a number of modes from fully independent to providing direct support to a physiotherapist during manipulation of the limb. Designed around a low cost approach for an implementation ultimately capable of use in a patients home using web-baased strategies for communication with their support team, the prototype NeXOS system has validated the adoption of an integrated approach to its development. The paper considers this design and development process and provides the results from the initial tests with physiotherapists to establish the operational basis for clinical implementation

Characterization of Multivariate Permutation Polynomials in Positive Characteristic

Multivariate permutation polynomials over the algebra of formal series over a finite field and its residual algebras are characterized. Some known properties of permutation polynomials over finite fields are also extended.AMS Classification 2000: 13B25, 13F25, 11T55. Keywords: Multivariate permutation polynomials.

Nonlocal interactions in doped cuprates: correlated motion of Zhang-Rice polarons

In-plane, inter-carrier correlations in hole doped cuprates are investigated by ab initio multiconfiguration calculations. The dressed carriers display features that are reminiscent of both Zhang-Rice (ZR) CuO4 singlet states and Jahn-Teller polarons. The interaction between these quasiparticles is repulsive. At doping levels that are high enough, the interplay between long-range unscreened Coulomb interactions and long-range phase coherence among the O-ion half-breathing vibrations on the ZR plaquettes may lead to a strong reduction of the effective adiabatic energy barrier associated to each polaronic state. Tunneling effects cannot be neglected for a relatively flat, multi-well energy landscape. We suggest that the coherent, superconducting quantum state is the result of such coherent quantum lattice fluctuations involving the in-plane O ions. Our findings appear to support models where the superconductivity is related to a lowering of the in-plane kinetic energy

Case study of active array feed compensation with sidelobe control for reflector surface distortion

The feasibility of electromagnetically compensating for reflector surface distortions has been investigated. The performance characteristics (gain, sidelobe levels, etc.) of large communication antenna systems degrade as the reflector surface distorts mainly due to thermal effects from a varying solar flux. The techniques described in this report can be used to maintain the design performance characteristics independently of thermal effects on the reflector surface. With the advent of monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMIC), a greater flexibility in array-fed reflector system design can be achieved. MMIC arrays provide independent control of amplitude and phase for each of many radiating elements of the feed array. It is assumed that the surface characteristics (x,y,z, its first and second derivatives) under distorted conditions are known

Impurity Effects in Two-Electron Coupled Quantum Dots: Entanglement Modulation

We present a detailed analysis of the electronic and optical properties of two-electron quantum dots with a two-dimensional Gaussian confinement potential. We study the effects of Coulomb impurities and the possibility of manipulate the entanglement of the electrons by controlling the confinement potential parameters. The degree of entanglement becomes highly modulated by both the location and charge screening of the impurity atom, resulting two regimes: one of low entanglement and other of high entanglement, with both of them mainly determined by the magnitude of the charge. It is shown that the magnitude of the oscillator strength of the system could provide an indication of the presence and characteristics of impurities that could largely influence the degree of entanglement of the system.Comment: Regular Article (Journal of Physics B, in press), 9 pages, 10 figure