Common Stochastic Trends in the Current Account

Solow residuals are used as proxies for productivity shocks in many empirical studies.Considering the shortcomings of this approach this paper proposes the common trends approach as an alternative.The common trends econometric technique is utilized here in an attempt to identify and analyze the long run effects of country-specific and global productivity shocks on fluctuations in investment and the current account.The theoretical framework utilized provides long run restrictions relevant for identifying global and country-specific productivity shocks.Our estimations yield the following stylized facts.Generally, consistent with theoretical predictions, the long run effects of positive idiosyncratic (country-specific) productivity shocks on the current account are significantly negative.Further, permanent global shocks are impotent (by theoretical restriction) in explaining fluctuations in the current account though very significant in explaining investment fluctuations.current account;stochastic processes;capital movements

Silicon optical modulators

Optical technology is poised to revolutionise short reach interconnects. The leading candidate technology is silicon photonics, and the workhorse of such interconnect is the optical modulator. Modulators have been improved dramatically in recent years. Most notably the bandwidth has increased from the MHz to the multi GHz regime in little more than half a decade. However, the demands of optical interconnect are significant, and many questions remain unanswered as to whether silicon can meet the required performance metrics. Minimising metrics such as the energy per bit, and device footprint, whilst maximising bandwidth and modulation depth are non trivial demands. All of this must be achieved with acceptable thermal tolerance and optical spectral width, using CMOS compatible fabrication processes. Here we discuss the techniques that have, and will, be used to implement silicon optical modulators, as well as the outlook for these devices, and the candidate solutions of the future

The Effect of Monetary Policy on Exchange Rates:How to Solve the Puzzles

Recent empirical research on the effects of monetary policy shocks on exchange rate fluctuations have encountered the exchange rate puzzle and th e forward discount bias puzzle.The exchange rate puzzle is the tendency of the domestic currency (of non-US G-7 countries) to depreciate against the US dollar following domestic monetary tightening.Forward discount bias puzzle is the failure of empirical research to find results consistent with the requirement that if uncovered interest parity holds then domestic monetary tightening (given that foreign monetary policy remains put) should be associated with an initial impact appreciation of the domestic currency followed by a gradual depreciation. This paper takes the current debate in the monetary policy literature on the measurement of monetary policy shocks a step further into international finance. The main objective here is to assess the relative performance of monetary policy identification schemes in helping solve (or generate) the puzzles mentioned above.The identification schemes considered include a fully recursive identification scheme, a semi-recursive identification scheme and a structural VAR model that explicitly incorporates international monetary policy interdependence into the identification of monetary policy shocks.The structural VAR identification scheme yields very plausible contemporaneous and dynamic estimates of the effects of monetary policy shocks on bilateral exchange rates for the data-set of the respective countries considered; and the puzzles largely disappear.

The role of interleukin 12 and nitric oxide in the development of spontaneous autoimmune disease in MRL/MP-lpr/lpr mice

MRL/MP-lpr/lpr (MRL/lpr) mice develop a spontaneous autoimmune disease. Serum from these mice contained significantly higher concentrations of nitrite/nitrate than serum from age-matched control MRL/MP-+/+ (MRL/+), BALB/c or CBA/6J mice. Spleen and peritoneal cells from MRL/lpr mice also produced significantly more nitric oxide (NO) than those from the control mice when cultured with interferon (IFN) gamma and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vitro. It is interesting to note that peritoneal cells from MRL/lpr mice also produced markedly higher concentrations of interleukin (IL) 12 than those from MRL/+ or BALB/c mice when cultured with same stimuli. It is striking that cells from MRL/lpr mice produced high concentrations of NO when cultured cells from MRL/+ or BALB/c mice. The enhanced NO synthesis induced by IFN- gamma/LPS was substantially inhibited by anti-IL-12 antibody. In addition, IL-12-induced NO production can also be markedly inhibited by anti-IFN-gamma antibody, but only weakly inhibited by anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha antibody. The effect of IL-12 on NO production was dependent on the presence of natural killer and possibly T cells. Serum from MRL/lpr mice contained significantly higher concentrations of IL-12 compared with those of MRL/+ or BALB/c control mice. Daily injection of recombinant IL-12 led to increased serum levels of IFN- gamma and NO metabolites, and accelerated glomerulonephritis in the young MRL/lpr mice (but not in the MRL/+ mice) compared with controls injected with phosphate-buffered saline alone. These data, together with previous finding that NO synthase inhibitors can ameliorate autoimmune disease in MRL/lpr mice, suggest that high capacity of such mice to produce IL-12 and their greater responsiveness to IL-12, leading to the production of high concentrations of NO, are important factors in this spontaneous model of autoimmune disease

Dimer statistics on the M\"obius strip and the Klein bottle

Closed-form expressions are obtained for the generating function of close-packed dimers on a $2M \times 2N$ simple quartic lattice embedded on a M\"obius strip and a Klein bottle. Finite-size corrections are also analyzed and compared with those under cylindrical and free boundary conditions. Particularly, it is found that, for large lattices of the same size and with a square symmetry, the number of dimer configurations on a M\"obius strip is 70.2% of that on a cylinder. We also establish two identities relating dimer generating functions for M\"obius strips and cylinders.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figs included, accepted by Phys. Lett.

Common Stochastic Trends in the Current Account

Solow residuals are used as proxies for productivity shocks in many empirical studies.Considering the shortcomings of this approach this paper proposes the common trends approach as an alternative.The common trends econometric technique is utilized here in an attempt to identify and analyze the long run effects of country-specific and global productivity shocks on fluctuations in investment and the current account.The theoretical framework utilized provides long run restrictions relevant for identifying global and country-specific productivity shocks.Our estimations yield the following stylized facts.Generally, consistent with theoretical predictions, the long run effects of positive idiosyncratic (country-specific) productivity shocks on the current account are significantly negative.Further, permanent global shocks are impotent (by theoretical restriction) in explaining fluctuations in the current account though very significant in explaining investment fluctuations.

The Status of Universal Human Rights in the 21st Century: An Appraisal

XIX Jornades de Foment de la Investigació de la Facultat de Ciències Humanes i Socials (Any 2014)The emergence of human rights into human ethical consciousness and their development and now worldwide recognition constitutes a moral phenomenon of astonishing scale and unparalleled significance, well meriting the remark of Henkin (1990: p.xvii) that “Ours is the age of human rights. Human rights is the idea of our time (Mahoney, 2007: viii). On 10th December, 1948, the famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was proclaimed as one of the most widespread and globally binding internationally-recognized human rights document in the horrendous aftermath of the First World War. Its universal importance is seen in the recognition of the day as International Human Rights Day, and celebrated as such throughout the world. One of the principal objectives then was to avert a repetition of the holocaust, and to safeguard the provision of human rights contained in this document. Dinah L. Shelton places significant emphasis on this for good reasons. As she notes, “the concept of human rights involves consideration of what “rights” a person possesses by virtue of being “human”, that is rights that human beings, independent of the infinite variety of individual characteristics and human social circumstances” (Shelton, 2014: 1). The essence of this emphasis, especially her emphasis on “infinite” human characteristic, is perhaps, to safeguard future generations from the challenges of “identity” and the idea of “us” versus “them” often used in cases of “just wars”. It is the development of this aspect which this article seeks to investigate, using circumstances of the Ebola virus threat as a reference point. The article concludes that, there are emerging threats that question the extent of universalit