Oil prices and consumer spending

Prices ; Consumption (Economics)

A Taylor rule and the Greenspan era

Federal funds rate ; Inflation (Finance) ; Interest rates

Epidermal structure and development of stomata in Ephedra foliata Boiss.

The epidermal structure of the leaf and stem of Ephedra foliata Boiss. is described. The epidermis of internodes and leaves shows longitudinal rows of cells and stomata. In the nodes and the leaf bases the stomata are irregularly orientated. The subsidiary cells are perigene and the development of stomata is typically haplocheilic

Review of Microfinance Schemes in Haryana with focus on Mewat

Inspite of the fact that Haryana is a fast developing state of India, yet it is grappling with the problem of development of a backward district like Mewat (newly carved out district from Gurgaon and Faridabad). Since Microfinance is considered as one of the major tools of poverty alleviation, this paper describes the various microfinance schemes in Haryana with focus on Mewat. The Mewat Development Agency has been set up at the district level to overview and to monitor the progress of various schemes being implemented under the Mewat Development Board, set up by the Government of Haryana in 1980, as an extra effort of development apart from the normal plan schemes. The Mewat Development Agency is actively promoting Self-Help Groups (SHGs) through its Federation. Mewat has been severely lagging behind in terms of socio-economic parameters of development and the problem is further aggravated due to the rigid socio-cultural mindset of the area. Besides examining the various microfinance schemes in operation in Haryana, an attempt has also been made to highlight the shortcomings of the schemes

Evanescent character of the repulsive thermal Casimir force

The physical origin of the negative thermal correction to the Casimir force between metals is clarified. For this purpose the asymptotic behavior of the thermal Casimir force is analyzed at large and small distances in the real frequency representation. Contributions from propagating and evanescent waves are considered separately. At large distances they cancel each other in substantial degree so that only the attractive Lifshitz limit survives. At smaller separations the repulsive evanescent contribution of s-polarization dominates in the case of two metals or a metal and a high-permittivity dielectric. Common origin and order of magnitude of the repulsion in these two cases demonstrate naturalness of the controversial large thermal correction between metals.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev.

Magnetic forming studies

Investigation of the tensile strength dependability on the characteristic time over which a pressure pulse is applied to a metal workpiece shows that the mechanical properties of these materials are functions of the rate at which the material is undergoing strain. These results and techniques are used in magnetomotive metal forming

A major T cell antigen of Mycobacterium leprae is a 10-kD heat-shock cognate protein.

Several mycobacterial antigens, identified by monoclonal antibodies and patient sera, have been found to be homologous to stress or heat-shock proteins (hsp) defined in Escherichia coli and yeast. A major antigen recognized by most Mycobacterium leprae-reactive human T cell lines and cell wall-reactive T cell clones is a 10-kD protein that has now been cloned and sequenced. The predicted amino acid sequence of this protein is 44% homologous to the hsp 10 (GroES) of E. coli. The purified native and recombinant 10-kD protein was found to be a stronger stimulator of peripheral blood T cell proliferation than other native and recombinant M. leprae proteins tested. The degree of reactivity paralleled the response to intact M. leprae throughout the spectrum of leprosy. Limiting-dilution analysis of peripheral blood lymphocytes from a patient contact and a tuberculoid patient indicated that approximately one third of M. leprae-reactive T cell precursors responded to the 10-kD antigen. T cell lines derived from lepromin skin tests were strongly responsive to the 10-kD protein. T cell clones reactive to both the purified native and recombinant 10-kD antigens recognized M. leprae-specific epitopes as well as epitopes crossreactive with the cognate antigen of M. tuberculosis. Further, the purified hsp 10 elicited strong delayed-type hypersensitivity reactions in guinea pigs sensitized to M. leprae. The strong T cell responses against the M. leprae 10-kD protein suggest a role for this heat-shock cognate protein in the protective/resistant responses to infection

Field equations from a surface term

As is well known, in order for the Einstein--Hilbert action to have a well defined variation, and therefore to be used for deriving field equation through the stationary action principle, it has to be amended by the addition of a suitable boundary term. It has recently been claimed that, if one constructs an action by adding this term to the matter action, the Einstein field equations can be derived by requiring this action to be invariant under active transformations which are normal to a null boundary. In this paper we re-examine this approach both for the case of pure gravity and in the presence of matter. We show that in the first case this procedure holds for more general actions than the Einstein-Hilbert one and trace the basis of this remarkable attribute. However, it is also pointed out the when matter is rigorously considered the approach breaks down. The reasons for that are thoroughly discussed.Comment: Typos corrected, minor changes to match published versio