Bayesian Analysis

After making some general remarks, I consider two examples that illustrate the use of Bayesian Probability Theory. The first is a simple one, the physicist's favorite "toy," that provides a forum for a discussion of the key conceptual issue of Bayesian analysis: the assignment of prior probabilities. The other example illustrates the use of Bayesian ideas in the real world of experimental physics.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, Workshop on Confidence Limits, CERN, 17-18 January, 200

Spillover effects from London and Frankfurt to Central and Eastern European stock markets

This paper investigates comovement in stock markets between the emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the developed markets of Western Europe. Three approaches are employed to examine this issue. The first two approaches, time-varying realised correlation ratios and cointegration statistics, use a two-step technique to derive timevarying estimates of the comovement between returns on CEE and EU stock exchanges. The first step uses common factor analysis to define the factors driving CEE stock exchanges, while the second step evaluates the relationship between the leading principal factor for CEE countries and the DAX and FTSE using time-varying realised correlation and rolling cointegration statistics. The third approach employs multivariate GARCH techniques to obtain estimates of mean and variance spillover effects

Stock market co-movement in the Caribbean

This paper investigates co-movement in five Caribbean stock markets (Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas and Guyana) using common factor analysis. The common factors are obtained using principal component analysis and therefore account for the maximum portion of the variance present in the stock exchanges investigated. We break our analysis down and test for co-movement in different periods so as to ascertain any changes that have taken place from one period to the next. In particular we examine 10-year, 5-year and 3-year periods. We also specify a vector autoregression model and test for co-movement between the five markets during the sample period through impulse response functions. Both of our tests fail to find any evidence of co-movement between the exchanges over the entire sample period. However, we find evidence of periodic co-movement, particularly between exchanges in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago

Optimising multi-disciplinary contributions for the smart clothing development process

This research aims to introduce a strategic approach to overcome the creative boundaries and optimize multidisciplinary contributions in Smart Clothing development, since the former research results revealed that these issues are key to achieving fully integrated Smart Clothes. Therefore, this paper examines collaborative projects that are shown to break through the creative boundary and integrate multidisciplinary contributions, and identifies how individual designers overcome their creative constraints and collaborate with others, in order to identify a practical method. The research result indicates that a clear description of Smart Clothing’s context will provide a new framework for the developers to work on

Strategy for discovering a low-mass Higgs boson at the Fermilab Tevatron

We have studied the potential of the CDF and DZero experiments to discover a low-mass Standard Model Higgs boson, during Run II, via the processes $p\bar{p}$ -> WH -> $\ell\nu b\bar{b}$, $p\bar{p}$ -> ZH -> $\ell^{+}\ell^{-}b\bar{b}$ and $p\bar{p}$ -> ZH ->$\nu \bar{\nu} b\bar{b}$. We show that a multivariate analysis using neural networks, that exploits all the information contained within a set of event variables, leads to a significant reduction, with respect to {\em any} equivalent conventional analysis, in the integrated luminosity required to find a Standard Model Higgs boson in the mass range 90 GeV/c**2 < M_H < 130 GeV/c**2. The luminosity reduction is sufficient to bring the discovery of the Higgs boson within reach of the Tevatron experiments, given the anticipated integrated luminosities of Run II, whose scope has recently been expanded.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables, to appear in Physical Review D, Minor fixes and revision

Does innovation stimulate employment? A firm-level analysis using comparable micro-data from four European countries

This paper studies the impact of process and product innovations introduced by firms on employment growth in these firms. A simple model that relates employment growth to process innovations and to the growth of sales separately due to innovative and unchanged products is developed and estimated using comparable firm-level data from France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Results show that displacement effects induced by productivity growth in the production of old products are large, while those associated with process innovations, which are likely to be compensated by price decreases, appear to be small. The effects related to product innovations are, however, strong enough to overcompensate these displacement effects

Keck IR Spectroscopy of WZ Sge: Detection of Molecular Emission from the Accretion Disk

Time-resolved IR spectroscopy of WZ Sge was obtained using NIRSPEC on Keck II. We detect CO and H$_{\rm 2}$ emission from the accretion disk placing WZ Sge into a rarefied class of astronomical objects including YSOs and high luminosity early-type stars. During the eclipse phase, the molecular emission greatly weakens but no firm evidence for the secondary star is seen allowing new limits on its luminosity to be determined. The detection of molecular emission provides physical properties within the outer disk of T=3000K and N$_H$$>10^{10}$ cm$^{-3}$. Such a cool, dense region, not associated with areas of H I and He I emission, provides the first observational confirmation of predictions made by accretion disk models.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter