The extent, structure and change of German, Japanese and US American direct investment in ASEAN countries

The paper presents the different investment volumes and patterns for the three home countries and the ASEAN hosts, and compares the respective structures with each other. The hypothesis that different trade performances of two countries are coupled with comparatively different investment structures is tested employing some measures of structural similarity. In the second part, the FDI in developing areas are contrasted with the holdings in industrialized countries. The third part deals with the industry structure of FDI in ASEAN manufacturing industries only, thus abstracting from the distorting effect of capital intensive resource oriented investment. The intra-ASEAN structure of foreign direct investment is analyzed in the following paragraph by linking sectoral and regional structures to each other. The final section summarizes the results.

A structural policy model for the Federal Republic of Germany

In this paper we present a structural policy model of the comparative- static general equilibrium type. Our model for the Federal Republic of Germany closely resembles the Australian ORANI model (Dixon et al., 1982) which in turn has its origin in Johansen's pioneering work for Norway (Johansen, 1960). An attractive trademark of Johansen-models is that they are written as a set of structural equations which are linear in all growth rates. Exogenous and endogenous variables can be exchanged easily and solutions require no more than simple matrix operations. This makes for a highly flexible instrument of policy analysis. A consequence of linearisation, of course, is that model solutions provide only for linear approximations. However, a method has been developed to correct for the linearisation error in case of large policy changes.

Stereospecific and chemoselective copper-catalyzed deaminative silylation of benzylic ammonium triflates

A method for the synthesis of benzylsilanes starting from the corresponding ammonium triflates is reported. Silyl boronic esters are employed as silicon pronucleophiles, and the reaction is catalyzed by copper(I) salts. Enantioenriched benzylic ammonium salts react stereospecifically through an SN2‐type displacement of the ammonium group to afford α‐chiral silanes with inversion of the configuration. A cyclopropyl‐substituted substrate does not undergo ring opening, thus suggesting an ionic reaction mechanism with no benzyl radical intermediate.DFG, 388910461, Ionische und radikalische Kreuzkupplungen zur Kohlenstoff‒Silicium-BindungsknüpfungTU Berlin, Open-Access-Mittel - 201

The causes and consequences of steel subsidization in Germany

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the possible economic consequences of the recent German steel subsidy program and assess to what extent those consequences conform with the objectives which motivated that program's adoption. The paper is organized as follows: Particular developments in the steel industry are briefly described in section II, while in section III, the political economy of protection in Germany is examined to determine the primary beneficiaries of previous protectionist policies. Both serve as a basis for identifying the revealed political objectives behind the current steel program. The next step is to simulate the economic consequences of a decline in the world market price of steel in the absence of any government intervention, using a multi-sectoral general equilibrium model of an open economy that resembles Germany. The economic impacts of a sectoral policy response and a regional policy response are then likewise examined and compared. This occurs in section V. The main elements and assumptions of the model used are outlined in section IV; the complete model specification is presented in an appendix. Conclusions are drawn in section VI.

Improving compressed sensing with the diamond norm

In low-rank matrix recovery, one aims to reconstruct a low-rank matrix from a minimal number of linear measurements. Within the paradigm of compressed sensing, this is made computationally efficient by minimizing the nuclear norm as a convex surrogate for rank. In this work, we identify an improved regularizer based on the so-called diamond norm, a concept imported from quantum information theory. We show that -for a class of matrices saturating a certain norm inequality- the descent cone of the diamond norm is contained in that of the nuclear norm. This suggests superior reconstruction properties for these matrices. We explicitly characterize this set of matrices. Moreover, we demonstrate numerically that the diamond norm indeed outperforms the nuclear norm in a number of relevant applications: These include signal analysis tasks such as blind matrix deconvolution or the retrieval of certain unitary basis changes, as well as the quantum information problem of process tomography with random measurements. The diamond norm is defined for matrices that can be interpreted as order-4 tensors and it turns out that the above condition depends crucially on that tensorial structure. In this sense, this work touches on an aspect of the notoriously difficult tensor completion problem.Comment: 25 pages + Appendix, 7 Figures, published versio

General analysis of mathematical models for bone remodeling

Bone remodeling is regulated by pathways controlling the interplay of osteoblasts and osteoclasts. In this work, we apply the method of generalized modelling to systematically analyse a large class of models of bone remodeling. Our analysis shows that osteoblast precursors can play an important role in the regulation of bone remodeling. Further, we find that the parameter regime most likely realized in nature lies very close to bifurcation lines, marking qualitative changes in the dynamics. Although proximity to a bifurcation facilitates adaptive responses to changing external conditions, it entails the danger of losing dynamical stability. Some evidence implicates such dynamical transitions as a potential mechanism leading to forms of Paget's disease