Optical Constants of Ices Important to Planetary Science From Laboratory Reflectance Spectroscopy

Laboratory-derived optical constants are essential for identifying ices and measuring their relative abundances on Solar System objects. Almost all optical constants of ices important to planetary science come from experiments with transmission geometries. Here, we describe our new experimental setup and the modification of an iterative algorithm in the literature to measure the optical constants of ices from experiments with reflectance geometries. We apply our techniques to CH4 ice and H2O ice samples and find good agreement between our values and those in the literature, except for one CH4 band in the literature that likely suffers from saturation. The work we present here demonstrates that labs with reflectance geometries can generate optical constants essential for the proper analysis of near- and mid-infrared spectra of outer Solar System objects such as those obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope

Optical Constants of Ices Important to Planetary Science From Laboratory Reflectance Spectroscopy

Laboratory-derived optical constants are essential for identifying ices and measuring their relative abundances on Solar System objects. Almost all optical constants of ices important to planetary science come from experiments with transmission geometries. Here, we describe our new experimental setup and the modification of an iterative algorithm in the literature to measure the optical constants of ices from experiments with reflectance geometries. We apply our techniques to CH4 ice and H2O ice samples and find good agreement between our values and those in the literature, except for one CH4 band in the literature that likely suffers from saturation. The work we present here demonstrates that labs with reflectance geometries can generate optical constants essential for the proper analysis of near- and mid-infrared spectra of outer Solar System objects such as those obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

The commercial sector demand for energy in Kuwait

This paper models and estimates the energy demand by the commercial sector, using an error correction model. It also simulates the estimated model under three pricing scenarios and presents an analysis of the results. Copyright 2007 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Residential energy demand: a case study of Kuwait

This paper models and estimates energy demand by the household sector using the top-down or the two-level approach. The discussion has been developed to include a breakdown of household consumption by fuel type. It also simulates the developed model under three scenarios and presents analyses of the results. Copyright 2007 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

THE SYSTEMATIC RISK OF DEBT: AUSTRALIAN EVIDENCE *

This paper examines systematic risk (betas) of Australian government debt securities for the period 1979-2004 and makes three contributions to academic research and practical debate. First, the empirical work provides direct evidence on the systematic risk of government debt, and provides a benchmark for estimating the systematic risk of corporate debt which is relevant for cost of capital estimation and for optimal portfolio selection by asset managers such as superannuation funds. Second, analysis of reasons for non-zero (and time varying) betas for fixed income securities aids understanding of the primary sources of systematic risk. Third, the results cast light on the appropriate choice of maturity of risk free interest rate for use in the Capital Asset Pricing Model and have implications for the current applicability of historical estimates of the market risk premium. Debt betas are found to be, on average, significantly positive and (as expected) closely related, cross sectionally, to duration. They are, however, subject to significant time series variation, and over the past few years the pre-existing positive correlation between bond and stock returns appears to have vanished. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/ University of Adelaide and Flinders University 2005..

Exchange rates and net portfolio flows: a Markov-switching approach

In this paper we investigate the impact of net bond and equity portfolio flows on exchange rate changes. Two-state Markov-switching models are estimated for Canada, the euro area, Japan and the UK exchange rates vis-à-vis the US dollar. Our results suggest that the relationship between net portfolio flows and exchange rate changes is nonlinear for all currencies considered but Canada