Computer-Assisted Design of Environmentally Friendly and Light-Stable Fluorescent Dyes for Textile Applications.

Five potentially environmentally friendly and light-stable hemicyanine dyes were designed based on integrated consideration of photo, environmental, and computational chemistry as well as textile applications. Two of them were synthesized and applied in dyeing polyacrylonitrile (PAN), cotton, and nylon fabrics, and demonstrated the desired properties speculated by the programs. The computer-assisted analytical processes includes estimation of the maximum absorption and emission wavelengths, aquatic environmental toxicity, affinity to fibers, and photo-stability. This procedure could effectively narrow down discovery of new potential dye structures, greatly reduce and prevent complex and expensive preparation processes, and significantly improve the development efficiency of novel environmentally friendly dyes

Minimum wage and export: evidence from Chinese firm-level data

This paper proposes a two-country trade equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms to investigate the influences of minimum wages and productivity on firms' exports. It shows that the influence of minimum wages on firms' exporting probability and foreign sales is negative while that of firms' productivity on their exports is positive. Econometric analysis based on the Annual Survey of Chinese Industrial Firms as well as the data of minimum wages collected ourselves from 1998 to 2007 verifies these predictions. Holding the other variables constant, if minimum wages and their productivity increase by 100%$, then the elasticity of minimum wage on firms' exporting sales is -8.6$ and increases by 1.6%$, respectively.Minimum wage, heterogeneous firm, productivity, export

An Evaluation of Multi-Factor CIR Models Using LIBOR, Swap Rates, and Cap and Swaption Prices

We evaluate the classical Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1985) (CIR) model using data on LIBOR, swap rates and caps and swaptions. With three factors the CIR model is able to fit the term structure of LIBOR and swap rates rather well. The model is able to match the hump shaped unconditional term structure of volatility in the LIBOR-swap market. However, statistical tests indicate that the model is misspecified. In particular the pricing errors are related to the slope of the swap yield curve. The economic importance of these shortcomings is highlighted when the model is confronted with data on cap and swaption prices. Pricing errors are large relative to the bid-ask spread in these markets. The model tends to overvalue shorter maturity caps and undervalue longer maturity caps. With only one or two factors, the model also tends to undervalue swaptions. Our findings point out the need for evaluating term structure models using data on derivative prices.