Alternative options for the monetary integration of Central and Eastern European EU accession countries

The final destination of monetary policy and integration for the Central and Eastern European EU accession countries is the joining of the euro area. The European union has affirmed that, according to the EC treaty, this will be possible, at the earliest, two years after EU accession. Against this background, the most important issue for the accession countries to decide whether to aim for an early introduction of the euro a few years after EU accession or to adopt for a more gradual strategy of monetary integration. This paper reviews the main arguments for and against either of this approaches. Thus the focus is on the question of how speedily to introduce the euro in the accession countries, within the standard path laid down in the EU accession regulations

Trends in multiparticle production and some "predictions" for pp and PbPb collisions at LHC

Based on trends seen at lower energies we "predict" the multiplicities and pseudorapidity distributions of particle density and elliptic flow that will be seen in PbPb and pp collisions at the LHC. We argue that, if these predictions turn out to be correct, either these quantities are insensitive to the state of matter created in high energy heavy ion collisions or the observed simplicity and universality of the data must be telling us something profound about the mechanism of particle production, which to this date is not well understood.Comment: Invited Talk at SQM2007 Conferenc

Where Is Your Farm Today?

The typical farm business is different from most nonfarm businesses. In farming, there\u27s a close interdependence between the farm household and the farm business- they can\u27t be separated into two distinct units as in most other industries

Silicon Pad Detectors for the PHOBOS Experiment at RHIC

The PHOBOS experiment is well positioned to obtain crucial information about relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC, combining a multiplicity counter with a multi-particle spectrometer. The multiplicity arrays will measure the charged particle multiplicity over the full solid angle. The spectrometer will be able to identify particles at mid-rapidity. The experiment is constructed almost exclusively of silicon pad detectors. Detectors of nine different types are configured in the multiplicity and vertex detector (22,000 channels) and two multi-particle spectrometers (120,000 channels). The overall layout of the experiment, testing of the silicon sensors and the performance of the detectors during the engineering run at RHIC in 1999 are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, Late