U.S. Federal Reserve Monetary Policy and the Fisrt Crisis of Securitization: Mexico and Latin America, 1994-1995

The decisions of the Federal Reserve of United States (Fed)determinig interest rates have played a critical role in capital inflows/outflows toward Mexico and Latin America. The causal relationship that exists between the Fed and emergin markets is quite close; a clear example of this is the first crisis of securitization on the global level, which originated in Mexico in 1994. The monetary policy of the Fed supported the expansion of U.S. investment banks and some institutional investors, thus creating not only an enormous bubble in Mexico and other local financial markets in Latin America through the expansion of portfolio investment, but also succesive financial crises during the 1990s when those financial capital flows reversed themseleves

Development and testing of a fiber/multianode photomultiplier system for use on FiberGLAST

A scintillating fiber detector is currently being studied for the NASA Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) mission. This detector utilizes modules composed of a thin converter sheet followed by an x, y plane of scintillating fibers to examine the shower of particles created by high energy gamma-rays interacting in the converter material. The detector is composed of a tracker with 90 such modular planes and a calorimeter with 36 planes. The two major component of this detector are the scintillating fibers and their associated photodetectors. Here we present current status of development and test result of both of these. The Hamamatsu R5900-00-M64 multianode photomultiplier tube (MAPMT) is the baseline readout device. A characterization of this device has been performed including noise, cross- talk, gain variation, vibration, and thermal/vacuum test. A prototype fiber/MAPMT system has been tested at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices at Louisiana State University with a photon beam and preliminary results are presented

Beam test results for the FiberGLAST instrument

The FiberGLAST scintillating fiber telescope is a large-area instrument concept for NASA\u27s GLAST program. The detector is designed for high-energy gamma-ray astronomy, and uses plastic scintillating fibers to combine a photon pair tracking telescope and a calorimeter into a single instrument. A small prototype detector has been tested with high energy photons at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. We report on the result of this beam test, including scintillating fiber performance, photon track reconstruction, angular resolution, and detector efficiency

Estimation of GRB detection by FiberGLAST

FiberGLAST is one of several instrument concepts being developed for possible inclusion as the primary Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) instrument. The predicted FiberGLAST effective area is more than 12,000 cm2 for energies between 30 MeV and 300 GeV, with a field of view that is essentially flat from 0°–80°. The detector will achieve a sensitivity more than 10 times that of EGRET. We present results of simulations that illustrate the sensitivity of FiberGLAST for the detection of gamma-ray bursts

Mouse models for preeclampsia: disruption of redox-regulated signaling

The concept that oxidative stress contributes to the development of human preeclampsia has never been tested in genetically-defined animal models. Homozygous deletion of catechol-Omethyl transferase (Comt-/-) in pregnant mice leads to human preeclampsia-like symptoms (high blood pressure, albuminurea and preterm birth) resulting from extensive vasculo-endothelial pathology, primarily at the utero-fetal interface where maternal cardiac output is dramatically increased during pregnancy. Comt converts estradiol to 2-methoxyestradiol 2 (2ME2) which counters angiogenesis by depleting hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1 alpha) at late pregnancy. We propose that in wild type (Comt++) pregnant mice, 2ME2 destabilizes HIF-1 alpha by inhibiting mitochondrial superoxide dismutase (MnSOD). Thus, 2ME2 acts as a pro-oxidant, disrupting redox-regulated signaling which blocks angiogenesis in wild type (WT) animals in physiological pregnancy. Further, we suggest that a lack of this inhibition under normoxic conditions in mutant animals (Comt-/-) stabilises HIF-1 alpha by inactivating prolyl hydroxlases (PHD). We predict that a lack of inhibition of MnSOD, leading to persistent accumulation of HIF-1 alpha, would trigger inflammatory infiltration and endothelial damage in mutant animals. Critical tests of this hypothesis would be to recreate preeclampsia symptoms by inducing oxidative stress in WT animals or to ameliorate by treating mutant mice with Mn-SOD-catalase mimetics or activators of PHD

GT2006-90582 DESIGN AND TEST OF AN ASPIRATED COUNTER-ROTATING FAN

ABSTRACT The design and test of a two-stage, vaneless, aspirated counter-rotating fan is presented in this paper. The fan nominal design objectives were a pressure ratio of 3:1 and adiabatic efficiency of 87%. A pressure ratio of 2.9 at 89% efficiency was measured in the tests. The configuration consists of a counterswirl-producing inlet guide vane, followed by a high tip speed (1450 feet/sec) non-aspirated rotor, and a counter-rotating low speed (1150 feet/sec) aspirated rotor. The lower tip speed and lower solidity of the second rotor results in a blade loading above conventional limits, but enables a balance between the shock loss and viscous boundary layer loss, the latter of which can be controlled by aspiration. The aspiration slot on the second rotor suction surface extends from the hub up to 80% span, with a conventional tip clearance, and the bleed flow is discharged at the hub. The fan was tested in a short duration blowdown facility. Particular attention was given to the design of the instrumentation to obtain efficiency measurements within 0.5 percentage points. High response static pressure measurements were taken between the rotors and downstream of the fan to determine the stall behavior. Pressure ratio, mass flow, and efficiency on speedlines from 90% to 102% of the design speed are presented and discussed along with comparison to CFD predictions and design intent. The results presented here complement those presented earlier for two aspirated fan stages with tip shrouds, extending the validated design space for aspirated compressors to include designs with conventional unshrouded rotors and with inward removal of the aspirated flow

9th Biennial Judge Joe Lee Bankruptcy Institute

Materials from the 9th Biennial Judge Joe Lee Bankruptcy Institute held December 1999

The Coevolution of Finance and Property Rights: Evidence from Transition Economies

The transition from communism to capitalism was necessarily accompanied by a sudden and abrupt increase in the financialization of society. This increase occurred in an environment that, even now, still has little experience with or expertise in financialization. Given that financialization occurred simultaneously with the growth and evolution of other political and economic institutions, the question arises: What was the effect on these other nascent institutions like property rights? This article empirically analyzes the relationship between financialization and property rights in transition countries. Using a unique monthly database of twenty transition countries over a period from 1989 to 2012, this article finds that the influence of financialization depends on which definition of “financialization” is used. In particular, increases in basic financial intermediation improved property rights. However, higher-order “financialization,” proxied here by the size of capital markets and the wages in the financial sector, appeared to have a negative impact on the development of broad-based property rights in transition