ESRI Demand Responsiveness Enquiry. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 115 1975

Irish manufacturing industry suffered a fall in its sales volume in 1975 over it's 1974 level. In an effort to clarify the relative importance of price competitiveness vis a vis other factors, the authors conducted a survey amongst firms in Irish manufacturing industry in December 1975. The results indicate what managers of firms perceived as the reasons for their poor sales performance. The questions put, of their very nature require subjective answer. Thus, managers, when faced with a leftward shift in their firms demand curve, were asked to distinguish the separate effects of a fall in consumer demand, and of any loss of price competitiveness. An effort was also made to assess the degree of price responsiveness of demand amongst sectors in both domestic and export markets. The normal caveats about this type of subjective enquiry of course apply. The survey covered those firms which participate in the monthly CII/ESRI Business Opinion Survey. Of a total of 320 questionnaires despatched, 218 usable replies were received, a response rate of just over 68%. For the purposes of the survey the firms were classified in accordance with the ten sector classification used by the CSO in the Quarterly Industrial Enquiry. The actual processing and calculation of the results was carried out by computer, each firm's replies being weighed by that firm's turnover weight as used in the CII/ESRI survey. Sectoral output weights were derived from the finer sectoral classification of the same survey

The C.1.1.- E.S.R.I. Quarterly and Monthly Surveys of Business Attitudes: Methods and Uses. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, March 1975

Beginning with the fourth quarter of 1961, the Confederation of Irish Industry (C.1.1.) and the Economic and Social Research Institute (E.S.R.I.) have been jointly administering a quarterly survey of businessmen's attitudes in the Republic of Ireland. The results of this survey were circulated to C.I.I. members and since 1968 were published in the E.S.R.I.'s Quarterly Economic Commentary. Similar monthly surveys have been carried out on a coordinated basis by the member countries of the European Economic Community since 1961. On Ireland's accession to the E.E.C. it was decided to revise the C.1.1.-E.S.R.I. survey so as to ensure comparability with those in other member countries. The process of revision has now been completed: the last quarterly survey referred to the fist quarter of 1974, while the first monthly survey was carried out in March 1974, and has been continued on a regular basis since then. The purpose of this note is to describe the methods and coverage of the two surveys, to outline the uses to which the results may be put, and to suggest some directions for further research into both the methods and application of the surveys

The 'CUB' Budget as a Measure of Fiscal Policy. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, January 1976

In a recession or depression, as at present, government budgets tend to be much less expansionary in their effects on the economy than one might infer from the sizes of their overall deficits. In other words, those who try to gauge the effect of the budget on demand in the economy by reference .to the size of the deficit in the overall budget are likely, in a recession, to be wrong. When government budget deficits rise, the usual interpretation is that the budget is more expansionary than theretofore in its influence on the economy, and when budget deficits fall (or surpluses grow), the usual interpretation is that the influence is less expansionary (or more contractionary). But the fact is that increased deficits are not necessarily more expansionary, nor are reduced deficits necessarily more contractionary, even apart from such matters as the types of taxes used, the mix of expenditures, the ways in which deficits are financed, and movements in the supply of money. The sizes of budget deficits and surpluses are influenced not only by the direction and strength of fiscal policy, but by short-term movements of the economy itself

Inter-Industry Differences in Male Percentage Unemployment Compensation - A Cross Section Analysis for Irish Manufacturing Industry. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, November 1976

It is widely accepted that unemployment rates vary substantially amongst industrial sectors in Ireland. However, it does not appear to be equally recognised that there are substantial inter-industry differences in the percentage of net earnings which an unemployed person receives from Unemployment and Pay-Related Benefits. These differences are accentuated by the non-uniformity of the dependency structure of the labour force in different industries. This paper, therefore, comprises two parts. Part 1 is methodological and consists of an attempt to compute, under fairly restrictive assumptions, for each of 36 manufacturing industries, the proportion of net earnings obtained from unemployment compensation. This is done for persons of differing dependency status. These proportions are then weighted by the dependency distribution of the unemployed in each industry in order to obtain a representative percentage compensation figure for each of the 36 industries. Some space is devoted to an examination of these results. In Part 2 an attempt is made to explore the hypothesis that levels of unemployment compensation may be an important factor in explaining the extent and duration of registered unemployment

Carbon nanotube: a low-loss spin-current waveguide

We demonstrate with a quantum-mechanical approach that carbon nanotubes are excellent spin-current waveguides and are able to carry information stored in a precessing magnetic moment for long distances with very little dispersion and with tunable degrees of attenuation. Pulsed magnetic excitations are predicted to travel with the nanotube Fermi velocity and are able to induce similar excitations in remote locations. Such an efficient way of transporting magnetic information suggests that nanotubes are promising candidates for memory devices with fast magnetization switchings

The Consumer Price Index and Different Household Expenditure Patterns. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, October 1975

The Consumer Price Index ( CPI) is now used increasingly as the major reference point in adjusting pay and social benefits to "compensate" for inflation. This raises many interesting questions about the precise meaning of compensation, its feasibility and its effects as well as the suitability of the CPI for the purpose. This paper, which is part of work in progress on these issues, examines how price changes affect different types of household by virtue of differences in their expenditure patterns

Hodge polynomials of some moduli spaces of Coherent Systems

When $k<n$, we study the coherent systems that come from a BGN extension in which the quotient bundle is strictly semistable. In this case we describe a stratification of the moduli space of coherent systems. We also describe the strata as complements of determinantal varieties and we prove that these are irreducible and smooth. These descriptions allow us to compute the Hodge polynomials of this moduli space in some cases. In particular, we give explicit computations for the cases in which $(n,d,k)=(3,d,1)$ and $d$ is even, obtaining from them the usual Poincar\'e polynomials.Comment: Formerly entitled: "A stratification of some moduli spaces of coherent systems on algebraic curves and their Hodge--Poincar\'e polynomials". The paper has been substantially shorten. Theorem 8.20 has been revised and corrected. Final version accepted for publication in International Journal of Mathematics. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:math/0407523 by other author

Subconjunctival Injection of XG-102, a JNK Inhibitor Peptide, in Patients with Intraocular Inflammation: A Safety and Tolerability Study.

Abstract Purpose: We aimed to investigate the safety, tolerability, and systemic diffusion of a single escalating dose of XG-102 (a 31-D-amino-acid peptide inhibiting JNK pathway activation), administered subconjunctivally in the treatment of post-surgery or post-trauma intraocular inflammation. Methods: This is a dose-escalating, tolerance Phase Ib study. Twenty patients with post-surgery or post-traumatic intraocular inflammation were assigned to 1 of the 4 dose escalating (45, 90, 450, or 900 μg XG-102) groups of 5 patients each. Patients were evaluated at 24, 48 h, 8, and 28 days following the administration of XG-102, including laboratory tests, standard eye examinations, vital signs, and occurrence of adverse events. A single plasma quantification of XG-102 was performed 30 min after administration, according to previous pharmacokinetics studies performed on volunteers. Results: A total of 17 non-serious adverse events, considered unrelated to the study treatment, were reported for 10 patients. The adverse event incidence was not related to the drug dose. All patients experienced a decrease in intraocular inflammation as of 24 h post-administration and this decrease was sustained up to 28 days thereafter. No patient required local injection or systemic administration of corticoids following the administration of XG-102. XG-102 was undetectable in the first 3 dose groups. In the fourth-dose group (900 μg) the XG-102 plasma levels were above the limit of detection for 3 patients and above the limit of quantification for 1 patient. Conclusions: In this first clinical trial using XG-102, administered as a single subconjunctival injection as adjunct therapy, in patients with recent post-surgery or post-trauma intraocular inflammation is safe and well tolerated. Further studies are required to evaluate its efficacy

Quantization of Fayet-Iliopoulos Parameters in Supergravity

In this short note we discuss quantization of the Fayet-Iliopoulos parameter in supergravity theories. We argue that in supergravity, the Fayet-Iliopoulos parameter determines a lift of the group action to a line bundle, and such lifts are quantized. Just as D-terms in rigid N=1 supersymmetry are interpreted in terms of moment maps and symplectic reductions, we argue that in supergravity the quantization of the Fayet-Iliopoulos parameter has a natural understanding in terms of linearizations in geometric invariant theory (GIT) quotients, the algebro-geometric version of symplectic quotients.Comment: 21 pages, utarticle class; v2: typos and tex issue fixe