Coordination between monetary policy and fiscal policy for an inflation targeting emerging market

Several studies including Blanchard (2004) and Favero and Giavazzi (2004) imply that in emerging market economies, a tight monetary policy within an inflation-targeting framework could actually increase the price level due to the lack of fiscal discipline and the associated high risk premium. We extend their arguments in two ways. First, we introduce a semi structural model with time-varying parameters, where the risk premium is 'unobserved' and it is derived within the system. Such an approach fits better with the volatile nature of emerging market economies by allowing us to track down the time-varying effects of macroeconomic dynamics on both the model-consistent risk premium and the other key variables. Second, we obtain impulse response functions and analyze the implications of a tight monetary policy on major macroeconomic variables. Taking the Turkish economy as our reference point, we find that the arguments of Blanchard (2004) and Favero and Giavazzi (2004) seem to be valid. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Laccase-catalyzed decolorization of the synthetic azo-dye diamond black PV 200 and of some structurally related derivatives

The kinetics of laccase-catalyzed transformation of the azo-dye Diamond Black PV 200 (CI Mordant Black 9) and various related synthesized derivatives were analyzed for dependence on pH and substrate structure. The reaction mixture of Diamond Black PV 200 was analyzed by HPLC/MS_/MS and it was shown that upon laccase oxidation, reactive chinoid fragments of lower molecular weight were formed. These may further oligomerize as indicated by the appearance of a number of compounds with increased molecular weight. The pH optimum for the decolorization was pH 5 for Diamond Black PV 200 which did not change significantly when the substitution pattern of its basic structure was varied. Biodegradability, however, was strongly dependent on the structure of the dyes

Use of polyethylene glycol coatings for optical fibre humidity sensing

Humidity induced change in the refractive index and thickness of the polyethylene glycol (PEG) coatings are in situ investigated for a range from 10 to 95%, using an optical waveguide spectroscopic technique. It is experimentally demonstrated that, upon humidity change, the optical and swelling characteristics of the PEG coatings can be employed to build a plastic fibre optic humidity sensor. The sensing mechanism is based on the humidity induced change in the refractive index of the PEG film, which is directly coated onto a polished segment of a plastic optical fibre with dip-coating method. It is observed that PEG, which is a highly hydrophilic material, shows no monotonic linear response to humidity but gives different characteristics for various ranges of humidity levels both in index of refraction and in thickness. It undergoes a physical phase change from a semi-crystal line structure to a gel one at around 80% relative humidity. At this phase change point, a drastic decrease occurs in the index of refraction as well as a drastic increase in the swelling of the PEG film. In addition, PEG coatings are hydrogenated in a vacuum chamber. It is observed that the hydrogen has a preventing effect on the humidity induced phase change in PEG coatings. Finally, the possibility of using PEG coatings in construction of a real plastic fibre optic humidity sensor is discussed. (C) 2008 The Optical Society of Japan

Hadronic final states in deep-inelastic scattering with Sherpa

We extend the multi-purpose Monte-Carlo event generator Sherpa to include processes in deeply inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering. Hadronic final states in this kinematical setting are characterised by the presence of multiple kinematical scales, which were up to now accounted for only by specific resummations in individual kinematical regions. Using an extension of the recently introduced method for merging truncated parton showers with higher-order tree-level matrix elements, it is possible to obtain predictions which are reliable in all kinematical limits. Different hadronic final states, defined by jets or individual hadrons, in deep-inelastic scattering are analysed and the corresponding results are compared to HERA data. The various sources of theoretical uncertainties of the approach are discussed and quantified. The extension to deeply inelastic processes provides the opportunity to validate the merging of matrix elements and parton showers in multi-scale kinematics inaccessible in other collider environments. It also allows to use HERA data on hadronic final states in the tuning of hadronisation models.Comment: 32 pages, 22 figure

Giant QCD K-factors beyond NLO

Hadronic observables in Z+jet events can be subject to large NLO corrections at TeV scales, with K-factors that even reach values of order 50 in some cases. We develop a method, LoopSim, by which approximate NNLO predictions can be obtained for such observables, supplementing NLO Z+jet and NLO Z+2-jet results with a unitarity-based approximation for missing higher loop terms. We first test the method against known NNLO results for Drell-Yan lepton pt spectra. We then show our approximate NNLO results for the Z+jet observables. Finally we examine whether the LoopSim method can provide useful information even in cases without giant K-factors, with results for observables in dijet events that can be compared to early LHC data.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures; v2 includes additional reference

Higgs Interference Effects in \Pg \Pg \to \PZ\PZ and their Uncertainty

Interference between the Standard Model Higgs boson and continuum contributions is considered in the heavy-mass scenario. Results are available at leading order for the background. It is discussed how to combine the result with the next-to-next-to-leading order Higgs production cross-section and a proposal for estimating the associated theoretical uncertainty is presented.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures; improved numerical accuracy, Numerics updated, conclusions unchanged, references added. v

Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering off the neutron

The present experiment exploits the interference between the Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS) and the Bethe-Heitler processes to extract the imaginary part of DVCS amplitudes on the neutron and on the deuteron from the helicity-dependent D$({\vec e},e'\gamma)X$ cross section measured at $Q^2$=1.9 GeV$^2$ and $x_B$=0.36. We extract a linear combination of generalized parton distributions (GPDs) particularly sensitive to $E_q$, the least constrained GPD. A model dependent constraint on the contribution of the up and down quarks to the nucleon spin is deduced.Comment: Published in Phys. Rev. Let

Phenomenology of event shapes at hadron colliders

We present results for matched distributions of a range of dijet event shapes at hadron colliders, combining next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy in the resummation exponent, next-to-next-to leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy in its expansion and next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy in a pure alpha_s expansion. This is the first time that such a matching has been carried out for hadronic final-state observables at hadron colliders. We compare our results to Monte Carlo predictions, with and without matching to multi-parton tree-level fixed-order calculations. These studies suggest that hadron-collider event shapes have significant scope for constraining both perturbative and non-perturbative aspects of hadron-collider QCD. The differences between various calculational methods also highlight the limits of relying on simultaneous variations of renormalisation and factorisation scale in making reliable estimates of uncertainties in QCD predictions. We also discuss the sensitivity of event shapes to the topology of multi-jet events, which are expected to appear in many New Physics scenarios.Comment: 70 pages, 25 figures, additional material available from http://www.lpthe.jussieu.fr/~salam/pp-event-shapes