Global integration in the banking industry

Lowered regulatory barriers and advances in technology have reduced the cost of supplying banking services across borders. At the same time, growth in activity by multinational corporations has increased the demand for international financial services. As a result, many observers believe that global integration is under way in the banking industry, that banks are expanding their reach across borders, and that many banking markets will therefore develop large foreign components. The authors report on a study conducted by them, along with Qinglei Dai and Steven Ongena, that examined the nationality and international reach of banks that provide short-term financial services across Europe to affiliates of multinational corporations. The present article also looks at time-series data that provide a more recent look at the progress of integration in Europe. Based on a 1996 survey of more than 2,000 affiliates, the study found that an affiliate is most likely to choose a bank headquartered in the nation in which it is operating (a host-nation bank) rather than a bank headquartered in the home country of the affiliate or in a third nation. The affiliate is also more likely to select a bank limited to local or regional operations rather than one with global reach. The findings are consistent with the proposition that affiliates most value a bank that understands the culture, business practices, and regulatory conditions of the country in which the affiliate operates, and that host-nation banks possess a competitive advantage over other banks in this regard. The time-series data--on syndicated loans, foreign bank claims, and the dispersion of consumer goods prices across Europe--are also consistent with the picture drawn from the 1996 survey. The article concludes that banking markets evidently need not become more integrated even as economic activity otherwise becomes increasingly global.Banks and banking ; International finance

Operation LION - Report for period of the flight of Apollo 11

Observations by Lunar International Observers Network and astronauts of lunar phenomena during Apollo 11 fligh

Reduction of the QCD string to a time component vector potential

We demonstrate the equivalence of the relativistic flux tube model of mesons to a simple potential model in the regime of large radial excitation. We make no restriction on the quark masses; either quark may have a zero or finite mass. Our primary result shows that for fixed angular momentum and large radial excitation, the flux tube/QCD string meson with a short-range Coulomb interaction is described by a spinless Salpeter equation with a time component vector potential V(r) = ar - k/r.Comment: RevTeX4, 10 pages, 3 eps figure

A Dynamical Self-Consistent Finite Temperature Kinetic Theory: The ZNG Scheme

We review a self-consistent scheme for modelling trapped weakly-interacting quantum gases at temperatures where the condensate coexists with a significant thermal cloud. This method has been applied to atomic gases by Zaremba, Nikuni, and Griffin, and is often referred to as ZNG. It describes both mean-field-dominated and hydrodynamic regimes, except at very low temperatures or in the regime of large fluctuations. Condensate dynamics are described by a dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation (or the corresponding quantum hydrodynamic equation with a source term), while the non-condensate evolution is represented by a quantum Boltzmann equation, which additionally includes collisional processes which transfer atoms between these two subsystems. In the mean-field-dominated regime collisions are treated perturbatively and the full distribution function is needed to describe the thermal cloud, while in the hydrodynamic regime the system is parametrised in terms of a set of local variables. Applications to finite temperature induced damping of collective modes and vortices in the mean-field-dominated regime are presented.Comment: Unedited version of chapter to appear in Quantum Gases: Finite Temperature and Non-Equilibrium Dynamics (Vol. 1 Cold Atoms Series). N.P. Proukakis, S.A. Gardiner, M.J. Davis and M.H. Szymanska, eds. Imperial College Press, London (in press). See http://www.icpress.co.uk/physics/p817.htm

Unambiguous determination of gravitational waveforms from binary black hole mergers

Gravitational radiation is properly defined only at future null infinity (\scri), but in practice it is estimated from data calculated at a finite radius. We have used characteristic extraction to calculate gravitational radiation at \scri for the inspiral and merger of two equal mass non-spinning black holes. Thus we have determined the first unambiguous merger waveforms for this problem. The implementation is general purpose, and can be applied to calculate the gravitational radiation, at \scri, given data at a finite radius calculated in another computation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, published versio

Coherent cross-talk and parametric driving of matter-wave vortices

We show that the interaction between vortices and sound waves in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates can be elucidated in a double-well trap: with one vortex in each well, the sound emitted by each precessing vortex can be driven into the opposing vortex (if of the same polarity). This cross-talk leads to a periodic exchange of energy between the vortices which is long-range and highly efficient. The increase in vortex energy (obtained by numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation) is significant and experimentally observable as a migration of the vortex to higher density over just a few precession periods. Similar effects can be controllably engineered by introducing a precessing localised obstacle into one well as an artificial generator of sound, thereby demonstrating the parametric driving of energy into a vortex.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure