Monetary and Exchange Rate Policy Coordination in ASEAN 1

This paper develops the basis for monetary and exchange rate coordination in Asia as part of a package of monetary integration that could support growth and poverty reduction. This could be achieved directly through coordinated exchange rate stabilization, and indirectly through the implications of this for reserve pooling and investment in an Asian development fund (ADF) and through development of the Asian bond market (ABM). Macro policy coordination could be viewed as a necessary condition for further development of both reserve pooling via the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and of the ABM. The paper analyzes the trade structure of ASEAN and China in terms of both geographic sources of imports and markets for exports, and of the commodity structure of trade. The similarities of the geographic and commodity trade structures across the region are consistent with adoption of a common currency basket for stabilization, and with an argument for monetary integration across the region along the lines of Mundell (1961) on optimum currency areas. The paper constructs currency baskets and real effective exchange rates (REERs) for the countries in the region. Since their trade patterns are quite similar and their policies are already implicitly coordinated, their REERs tend to move together. This means that ASEAN and China are already moving toward integration in practical effect. Explicit movement toward coordination could support surveillance and reserve-sharing under the CMI, and release reserves to be invested in an ADF.

Influence of structural position on fracture networks in the Torridon Group, Achnashellach fold and thrust belt, NW Scotland

Acknowledgements This research is funded by a NERC CASE studentship (NERC code NE/I018166/1) in partnership with Midland Valley. The authors thank Midland Valley for use of FieldMove Clino software for fracture data collection, and Move software for cross section construction, and strain modelling. 3D Field software is acknowledged for contour map creation. We also thank Toru Takeshita for overseeing the editorial process, and Catherine Hanks and Ole Petter Wennberg for constructive reviews.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Permeability evolution across carbonate hosted normal fault zones

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Total E&P and BG Group for project funding and support, and the Industry Technology Facilitator for facilitating the collaborative development (grant number 3322PSD). The authors would also like to express their gratitude to the Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society and the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen for partial financial support. Raymi Castilla (Total E&P), Fabrizio Agosta and Cathy Hollis are also thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the standard of this manuscript as are John Still and Colin Taylor (University of Aberdeen) for technical assistance in the laboratory. Piero Gianolla is thanked for his editorial handling of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin

Geophysical studies of basin structure along the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada, California

A seismic and gravity survey along the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada, California, between southern Owens Valley and the Garlock fault, outlines a series of basins with maximum depths ranging from 5,000 to 9,000 ft. These basins follow the front of the Sierra Nevada in a continuous chain with one interruption of about 10 miles near Little Lake. The gravity anomalies indicate that the basins are bounded by a series of high-angle faults rather than a single large fault. The seismic velocities in the basin deposits appear to correlate with the stratigraphy of the section exposed in the El Paso Mountains. A comparison of Bouguer anomalies with seismic depths indicates a density contrast of 0.35 g/cc in basins less than 3,000 ft deep, and an average but widely varying density contrast of 0.25 g/cc in basins 4,000 to 8,000 ft deep. A digital-computer program for automatic computation of basin depths from gravity anomalies was evaluated and found to be useful in this type of analysis. Changes in the depth to the Mohorovicic discontinuity cannot produce regional gradients as large as the regional gradients observed in the area of the survey. Either structure on an intermediate crustal boundary or lateral changes in crustal densities, or a combination of these, is required to explain the gravity data

Directed polymers in random media under confining force

The scaling behavior of a directed polymer in a two-dimensional (2D) random potential under confining force is investigated. The energy of a polymer with configuration $\{y(x)\}$ is given by H\big(\{y(x)\}\big) = \sum_{x=1}^N \exyx + \epsilon \Wa^\alpha, where $\eta(x,y)$ is an uncorrelated random potential and \Wa is the width of the polymer. Using an energy argument, it is conjectured that the radius of gyration $R_g(N)$ and the energy fluctuation $\Delta E(N)$ of the polymer of length $N$ in the ground state increase as $R_g(N)\sim N^{\nu}$ and $\Delta E(N)\sim N^\omega$ respectively with $\nu = 1/(1+\alpha)$ and $\omega = (1+2\alpha)/(4+4\alpha)$ for $\alpha\ge 1/2$. A novel algorithm of finding the exact ground state, with the effective time complexity of \cO(N^3), is introduced and used to confirm the conjecture numerically.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Further model study of the radiation of elastic waves from a dipole source

Earthquake-generated compressional and shear waves have been used extensively in recent years for studying the mechanism at the focus? In general the procedure is to compare the radiation pattern of these waves with the theoretical pattern derived from simple sources such as singlets, dipoles, quadrupoles, etc. The importance of these investigations to our understanding of tectonic processes makes it desirable to examine the methods with a view toward placing them on a firm theoretical and experimental foundation. One approach is to use the methods of ultrasonic-model seismology to determine whether or not the radiation pattern postulated for certain sources is actually observed. The effects of various perturbations such as finite fault length and elastic heterogeneity near the focus can be conveniently examined

Stress Field at Yucca Mountain, Nevada

Hydraulic fracturing stress measurements performed in four holes (USW G-1, USW G-2, USW G-3, and Ue25P1) indicate that at Yucca Mountain, the least horizontal stress S_h is less than the vertical stress S_v. Values of the greatest horizontal stress S_H are intermediate between S_h and S_v, corresponding to a normal faulting regime with values of Φ = (S_H-S_h)/(S_v-S_h) between 0.25 and 0.7. Drilling-induced hydraulic fractures seen on borehole televiewer logs indicate an S_h direction of N. 60° W. to N. 65° W. in USW G-1, USW G-2, and USW G-3. The same S_h direction is inferred from breakout orientations in USW G-2 and Ue25P1. The S_h values in the upper parts of the three USW G holes are less than the pressure of a column of water filling the borehole to the surface. Thus, the long drilling-induced hydraulic fractures in the shallow parts of these holes could have been formed in attempts to maintain circulation during drilling. These low S_h values may be intimately related to the low water table and fracture-dominated hydrology of Yucca Mountain