Sovereign Wealth Funds: Form and Function in the 21st Century

As representatives of nation-states in global financial markets, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) share a common form and many functions. Arguably their form and functions owe as much to a shared (global) moment of institutional formation as they owe their form and functions to the hegemony of Anglo-American finance over the late 20th and early 21st centuries. We distinguish between the immediate future for SWFs in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and two possible long-term scenarios; one of which sees SWFs becoming financial goliaths dominating global markets, while the other sees SWFs morphing into nation-state development institutions that intermediate between financial markets and the long-term commitments of the nation-state sponsors. If the former scenario dominates, global financial integration will accelerate with attendant costs and benefits. If the latter scenario dominates, SWFs are likely to differentiate and evolve, returning, perhaps, to their national traditions and their respective places in a world of contested power and influence. Here, we clarify the assumptions underpinning the conception and formation of sovereign wealth funds over the past twenty years or so in the face of the ‘new’ realities of global finance.Sovereign Wealth Funds, Crisis, Market Performance, Long-term Investment

An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis of the experience of being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder

This study explores the experience of receiving the highly stigmatised diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, using a critical lens of psychiatric diagnostic categories and their usefulness

The Mod-2 wind turbine development project

A major phase of the Federal Wind Energy Program, the Mod-2 wind turbine, a second-generation machine developed by the Boeing Engineering and Construction Co. for the U.S. Department of Energy and the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is described. The Mod-2 is a large (2.5-MW power rating) horizontal-axis wind turbine designed for the generation of electrical power on utility networks. Three machines were built and are located in a cluster at Goodnoe Hills, Washington. All technical aspects of the project are described: design approach, significant innovation features, the mechanical system, the electrical power system, the control system, and the safety system

System architecture for the Canadian interim mobile satellite system

The system architecture for the Canadian Interim Mobile Satellite Service (IMSS) which is planned for commencement of commercial service in late 1989 is reviewed. The results of an associated field trial program which was carried out to determine the limits of coverage and the preliminary performance characteristics of the system are discussed

Cosmology With A Dark Refraction Index

We review Gordon's optical metric and the transport equations for the amplitude and polarization of a geometrical optics wave traveling in a gravity field. We apply the theory to the FLRW cosmologies by associating a refraction index with the cosmic fluid. We then derive an expression for the accumulated effect of a refraction index on the distance redshift relations and fit the Hubble curve of current supernova observations with a non-accelerating cosmological model. We also show that some observational effects caused by inhomogeneities, e.g. the Sachs-Wolfe effect, can be interpreted as being caused by an effective index of refraction, and hence this theory could extend to other speed of light communications such as gravitational radiation and neutrino fluxes.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Digitalis for treatment of heart failure in patients in sinus rhythm

<b>Background</b><p></p> Digitalis glycosides have been in clinical use for the treatment of heart failure (HF) for longer than 200 years. In recent years, several trials have been conducted to address concerns about their efficacy and toxicity.<p></p> <b>Objectives</b><p></p> To examine the effectiveness of digitalis glycosides in treating HF in patients with normal sinus rhythm. To examine the effects of digitalis in patients taking diuretics and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors; in patients with varying severity and duration of disease; in patients with prior exposure to digitalis versus no prior exposure; and in patients with "HF due to systolic dysfunction" versus "HF with preserved ejection fraction."<p></p> <b>Search methods</b><p></p> Searches on the following databases were updated in May 2013: The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Dissertation Abstracts. Annual meeting abstracts of the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardiology were searched from 1996 to March 2013. In addition, reference lists provided by the pharmaceutical industry (GlaxoSmithKline and Covis Pharma) were searched.<p></p> <b>Selection criteria</b><p></p> Included were randomized placebo-controlled trials of 20 or more adult participants of either sex with symptomatic HF who were studied for seven weeks or longer. Excluded were trials in which the prevalence of atrial fibrillation was 2% or greater, or in which any arrhythmia that might compromise cardiac function or any potentially reversible cause of HF such as acute ischemic heart disease or myocarditis was present.<p></p> <b>Data collection and analysis</b><p></p> Articles selected from the searches described above were evaluated in a joint effort of the review authors. The staff of the Cochrane Heart Group ran searches on the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, and EMBASE.<p></p> <b>Main results</b><p></p> No new studies were identified in the updated searches. Thirteen studies (7896 participants) are included, and major endpoints of mortality, hospitalization, and clinical status, based respectively on 8, 4, and 12 of these selected studies, were recorded and analyzed. The data show no evidence of a difference in mortality between treatment and control groups, whereas digitalis therapy is associated with lower rates of both hospitalization and clinical deterioration. The largest study, in which most participants were taking angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, showed a significant rise in “other cardiac” deaths, possibly due to arrhythmias. However collectively, these findings were based on studies done before beta-blockers, as well as angiotensin receptor blockers and aldosterone antagonists, became widely used to treat HF.<p></p> <b>Authors' conclusions</b><p></p> The literature indicates that digitalis may have a useful role in the treatment of patients with HF who are in normal sinus rhythm. New trials are needed to elucidate the importance of the dosage of digitalis and its usefulness in the era of beta-blockers and other agents shown to be effective in treating HF.<p></p&gt

The Mg/Ca–temperature relationship in brachiopod shells: calibrating a potential palaeoseasonality proxy

Brachiopods are long-lived, long-ranging, extant organisms, of which some groups precipitate a relatively diagenetically stable low magnesium calcite shell. Previous work has suggested that the incorporation of Mg into brachiopod calcite may be controlled by temperature (Brand et al., 2013). Here we build upon this work by using laser ablation sampling to define the intra-shell variations in two modern brachiopod species,Terebratulina retusa (Linnaeus, 1758) and Liothyrella neozelanica (Thomson, 1918). We studied three T. retusa shells collected live from the Firth of Lorne, Scotland, which witnessed annual temperature variations on the order of 7 °C, in addition to four L. neozelanica shells, which were dredged from a water depth transect (168–1488 m) off the north coast of New Zealand. The comparison of intra-shell Mg/Ca profiles with shell δ<sup>18</sup>O confirms a temperature control on brachiopod Mg/Ca and supports the use of brachiopod Mg/Ca as a palaeoseasonality indicator. Our preliminary temperature calibrations are Mg/Ca = 1.76 ± 0.27 e<sup>(0.16 ± 0.03)T</sup>, R<sup>2</sup> = 0.75, for T. retusa and Mg/Ca = 0.49 ± 1.27 e<sup>(0.2 ± 0.11)T</sup>, R<sup>2</sup> = 0.32, for L. neozelanica (errors are 95% confidence intervals)

Self-adjoint symmetry operators connected with the magnetic Heisenberg ring

We consider symmetry operators a from the group ring C[S_N] which act on the Hilbert space H of the 1D spin-1/2 Heisenberg magnetic ring with N sites. We investigate such symmetry operators a which are self-adjoint (in a sence defined in the paper) and which yield consequently observables of the Heisenberg model. We prove the following results: (i) One can construct a self-adjoint idempotent symmetry operator from every irreducible character of every subgroup of S_N. This leads to a big manifold of observables. In particular every commutation symmetry yields such an idempotent. (ii) The set of all generating idempotents of a minimal right ideal R of C[S_N] contains one and only one idempotent which ist self-adjoint. (iii) Every self-adjoint idempotent e can be decomposed into primitive idempotents e = f_1 + ... + f_k which are also self-adjoint and pairwise orthogonal. We give a computer algorithm for the calculation of such decompositions. Furthermore we present 3 additional algorithms which are helpful for the calculation of self-adjoint operators by means of discrete Fourier transforms of S_N. In our investigations we use computer calculations by means of our Mathematica packages PERMS and HRing.Comment: 13 page

Regularity in the Distribution of Participation in Group Discussions

Reports have been published indicating striking regularities in the distribution of participation in group discussions, regularities potentially important in the understanding of small group processes. Several attempts to explain the form of the regularity contain implications for many sociological analyses. These attempts to explain the regularity are found to be inadequate; at the same time, the regularity is found to be somewhat doubtful