13,984 research outputs found
Filling transition for a wedge
We study the formation and the shape of a liquid meniscus in a wedge with
opening angle which is exposed to a vapor phase. By applying a suitable
effective interface model, at liquid-vapor coexistence and at a temperature
we find a filling transition at which the height of the meniscus
becomes macroscopically large while the planar walls of the wedge far away from
its center remain nonwet up to the wetting transition occurring at
. Depending on the fluid and the substrate potential the filling
transition can be either continuous or discontinuous. In the latter case it is
accompanied by a prefilling line extending into the vapor phase of the bulk
phase diagram and describing a transition from a small to a large, but finite,
meniscus height. The filling and the prefilling transitions correspond to
nonanalyticities in the surface and line contributions to the free energy of
the fluid, respectively.Comment: 48 pages (RevTex), 14 figures (ps), submitted to PR
Skilled Immigration and Wages in Australia*
This paper addresses the implications of the increasing skill intensity of cross-border migration flows for labour market outcomes in host countries. Specifically, we investigate the impact of the relative growth of skilled migrants on domestic wages in Australia over the last quarter century (1980-2006). We use instrumental variable (IV) estimation techniques to deal with the potential endogeneity of immigration. Unlike most of the previous literature, we use macro data to allow for the adjustment of wages and aggregate demand to immigration flows. However, the limited time span of such data raises problems of small sample bias. We address the small sample bias problem by using Jackknife IV estimation. Our basic finding challenges popular presumptions about the adverse wage implications of immigration. However, our examination of the skill composition of migration flows supports the many prevailing empirical findings that immigration need not cause labour market outcomes to deteriorate. Specifically, we do not find any robust evidence that a relative increase in arrivals of skilled immigrants exerts discernible adverse consequences on wages in Australia.Immigration, wage, endogeneity, instrumental variable.
Light Composite Higgs from Higher Representations versus Electroweak Precision Measurements -- Predictions for LHC
We investigate theories in which the technifermions in higher dimensional
representations of the technicolor gauge group dynamically break the
electroweak symmetry of the standard model. For the two-index symmetric
representation of the gauge group the lowest number of techniflavors needed to
render the underlying gauge theory quasi conformal is two. We confront the
models with the recent electroweak precision measurements and demonstrate that
the two technicolor theory is a valid candidate for a dynamical breaking of the
electroweak symmetry. The electroweak precision measurements provide useful
constraints on the relative mass splitting of the new leptons needed to cure
the Witten anomaly. In the case of a fourth family of leptons with ordinary
lepton hypercharge the new heavy neutrino can be a natural candidate of cold
dark matter. We also propose theories in which the critical number of flavors
needed to enter the conformal window is higher than the one with fermions in
the two-index symmetric representation, but lower than in the walking
technicolor theories with fermions only in the fundamental representation of
the gauge group. Due to the near conformal/chiral phase transition, we show
that the composite Higgs is very light compared to the intrinsic scale of the
technicolor theory. For the two technicolor theory we predict the composite
Higgs mass not to exceed 150 GeV.Comment: RevTex, 53 pages, 7 figures and two table
Bulk and wetting phenomena in a colloidal mixture of hard spheres and platelets
Density functional theory is used to study binary colloidal fluids consisting
of hard spheres and thin platelets in their bulk and near a planar hard wall.
This system exhibits liquid-liquid coexistence of a phase that is rich in
spheres (poor in platelets) and a phase that is poor in spheres (rich in
platelets). For the mixture near a planar hard wall, we find that the phase
rich in spheres wets the wall completely upon approaching the liquid demixing
binodal from the sphere-poor phase, provided the concentration of the platelets
is smaller than a threshold value which marks a first-order wetting transition
at coexistence. No layering transitions are found in contrast to recent studies
on binary mixtures of spheres and non-adsorbing polymers or thin hard rods.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
EVOLUTION OF DOLLAR/EURO EXCHANGE RATE BEFORE AND AFTER THE BIRTH OF EURO AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS
One possible consequence of the establishment of the Euro is a challenge to the hegemony of the US dollar as the predominant international currency. No other currency has been able to rival the international role of the national currency of the US since World War II. The fact that the unipolar international monetary system can be unstable in the presence of large shocks opens a window of opportunity for the Euro to promote systemic stability. The present study pursues this conjecture by, first, exploring with cointegration and ECM techniques the interdependence between the dynamics of the Dollar/Euro exchange rate and economic fundamentals in the context of a monetary exchange rate model. Identification of the key determinants of the value of the Euro informs our analysis of the policy stance of the European Central Bank regarding the long-run global role of the Euro. Secondly, we explore whether the opportunity for a prominent systemic role of the Euro has been realized by examining the impact of the Euro on the global financial market.Euro, Exchange rate, Monetary model, Cointegration
FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND SERVICES TRADE: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE
Services trade is an important source of growth in Malaysia and Singapore. Both economies are export-oriented and actively court foreign direct investment (FDI) to advance their economic objectives of industrialisation and economic development. This paper examines the causal linkages between inward FDI and the countryâs engagement in services trade in bi-variate and tri-variate VAR frameworks. The empirical findings for Singapore show evidence of bidirectional causality between inward FDI and the total trade volume in services (i.e. the absolute sum of payments and receipts) as well as between FDI and services imports (in the tri-variate specification). This may reflect her relative open foreign investment policy and free trade regime in services. For Malaysia, the evidence of causality is weaker and unidirectional, from inward FDI to services imports. These findings are consistent with the different stages of economic development and openness attained by the two sample countries, and they provide useful background for trade and foreign investment policies and development strategies.Causality; services trade; foreign direct investment
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