Does the Nominal Exchange Rate Regime Matter for Investment?

This paper analyses the impact of exchange rate uncertainty upon the pattern of investment in different exchange rate regimes (very hard pegs, intermediate regimes, and floats) by means of a unified approach. The comparison of different exchange rate regimes indicates that currency volatility exerts only a small influence upon the level of investment spending. On the other hand, firms turn out to be more cautious about responding to exchange rate shocks in a credible target zone model than in a flexible exchange rate regime or in a target zone model with stochastic realignments.investment, uncertainty, irreversibility, exchange rate regimes

Analyse des Solitonengehaltes von optischen Impulsen in Glasfasern

Der Solitonengehalt von Lichtimpulsen in einer Glasfaser wird untersucht. Dabei wird ein neu entwickeltes Verfahren angewendet, welches auf der spektralen Analyse der Schwebunsstrukturen beruht. Dieses Verfahren ist in der Lage, den allemeinen Solitonengehalt zu bestimmen, sogar für nichtintegrable Systeme. Dies war bisher nur Näherungsweise möglich. Aus der vorgestellten Analyse wird ein Messprinzip abgeleitet, mit dem sich der Solitonengehalt bestimmen lässt. Dies wird anhand einer Beispielmessung demonstriert

Cardiovascular outcomes with angiotensin II receptor blockers: clinical implications of recent trials

Activation of the renin-angiotensin system plays a major role in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Recently, angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) have been the subject of a number of large clinical cardiovascular outcome trials, indicating beneficial effects of ARBs with more than 384,000 patient-years of data in different cardiovascular diseases along the cardiovascular continuum, from patients with risk factors, through high cardiovascular risk, to patients with heart failure. This article reviews the implications of these trials for the optimal management of cardiovascular risk

Top ten risk factors for morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic systolic heart failure and elevated heart rate: the SHIFT risk model

Aims We identified easily obtained baseline characteristics associated with outcomes in patients with chronic heart failure (HF) and elevated heart rate (HR) receiving contemporary guideline-recommended therapy in the SHIFT trial, and used them to develop a prognostic model. Methods We selected the 10 best predictors for each of four outcomes (cardiovascular death or HF hospitalisation; all-cause mortality; cardiovascular mortality; and HF hospitalisation). All variables with p &#60; 0.05 for association were entered into a forward stepwise Cox regression model. Our initial analysis excluded baseline therapies, though randomisation to ivabradine or placebo was forced into the model for the composite endpoint and HF hospitalisation. Results Increased resting HR, low ejection fraction, raised creatinine, New York Heart Association class III/IV, longer duration of HF, history of left bundle branch block, low systolic blood pressure and, for three models, age were strong predictors of all outcomes. Additional predictors were low body mass index, male gender, ischaemic HF, low total cholesterol, no history of hyperlipidaemia or dyslipidaemia and presence of atrial fibrillation/flutter. The c-statistics for the four outcomes ranged from 67.6% to 69.5%. There was no evidence for lack of fit of the models with the exception of all-cause mortality (p = 0.017). Similar results were found including baseline therapies. Conclusion The SHIFT Risk Model includes simple, readily obtainable clinical characteristics to produce important prognostic information in patients with chronic HF, systolic dysfunction, and elevated HR. This may help better calibrate management to individual patient risk.</p

On complexity and efficiency of mutual information estimation on static and dynamic data

Mutual Information (MI) is an established measure for the dependence of two variables and is often used as a generalization of correlation measures. Existing methods to estimate MI focus on static data. However, dynamic data is ubiquitous as well, and MI estimates on it are useful for stream mining and advanced monitoring tasks. In dynamic data, small changes (e.g., insertion or deletion of a value) may often invalidate the previous estimate. In this article, we study how to efficiently adjust an existing MI estimate when such a change occurs. As a first step, we focus on the well-known nearest-neighbor based estimators for static data and derive a tight lower bound for their computational complexity, which is unknown so far. We then propose two dynamic data structures that can update existing estimates asymptotically faster than any approach that computes the estimates independently, i.e., from scratch. Next, we infer a lower bound for the computational complexity of such updates, irrespective of the data structure and the algorithm, and present an algorithm that is only a logarithmic factor slower than this bound. In absolute numbers, these solutions offer fast and accurate estimates of MI on dynamic data as well.</p

Twenty-ninth Annual Bibliography 2015 (Contemporary German Literature Collection)

The 29th bibliography for 585 volumes added to Washington University Libraries\u27 Contemporary German Literature Collection located on level B of Olin Library. All published in 2015, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.This Collection serves as the research arm for the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature\u27s Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature. A bibliography of items added the previous year is compiled each year by Washington University\u27s Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in cooperation with the University Libraries

Post-infarction cardiac remodeling-differential biomarkers for left atrial and left ventricular remodeling

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Twenty-eighth Annual Bibliography 2014 (Contemporary German Literature Collection)

The 28th bibliography for 560 volumes added to Washington University Libraries\u27 Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2014, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals mainly from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A small number of items published in Italy and Luxembourg were also added. This Collection serves as the research arm for the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature\u27s Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature. A bibliography of items added the previous year is compiled each year by Washington University\u27s Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in cooperation with the University Libraries