A chronology of turning points in economic activity: Spain 1850-2011

This paper codifies in a systematic and transparent way a historical chronology of business cycle turning points for Spain reaching back to 1850 at annual frequency, and 1939 at monthly frequency. Such an exercise would be incomplete without assessing the new chronology itself and against others —this we do with modern statistical tools of signal detection theory. We also use these tools to determine which of several existing economic activity indexes provide a better signal on the underlying state of the economy. We conclude by evaluating candidate leading indicators and hence construct recession probability forecasts up to 12 months in the future.Business cycles ; Spain

Future recession risks: an update

In 2010, statistical experiments based on components of the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index showed a significant possibility of a U.S. recession over a 24-month period. Since then, the European sovereign debt crisis has aggravated international threats to the U.S. economy. Moreover, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami demonstrated that the U.S. economy is vulnerable to outside disruptions. Updated forecasts suggest that the probability of a U.S. recession has remained elevated and may have increased over the past year, in part because of foreign financial and economic crises.Recessions

A chronology of international business cycles through non-parametric decoding

This paper introduces a new empirical strategy for the characterization of business cycles. It combines non-parametric decoding methods that classify a series into expansions and recessions but does not require specification of the underlying stochastic process generating the data. It then uses network analysis to combine the signals obtained from different economic indicators to generate a unique chronology. These methods generate a record of peak and trough dates comparable, and in one sense superior, to the NBER's own chronology. The methods are then applied to 22 OECD countries to obtain a global business cycle chronology.

Hot spot analysis in integrated circuit substrates by laser mirage effect

3 páginas, 2 figuras.This work shows an analytical and experimental technique for characterizing radial heat flow present in integrated circuits (ICs) when power is dissipated by integrated devices. The analytical model comes from the resolution of the Fermat equation for the trajectory of rays and supposing a spherical heat source dissipating a time-periodic power. An application example is presented; hence demonstrating how hot spots and heat transfer phenomena in the IC substrate can be characterized. The developed method may become a practical alternative to usual off-chip techniques for inspecting hot spots in ICs and to experimentally characterize heat flow in the semiconductor substrate.This work has been partially supported by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) (under contract “Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios,” JAEDoc No. E-08–2008–0637732) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (research programs THERMOS TEC2008- 05577, RUE CSD2009-00046, TERASYSTEMS TEC2008- 01856, and Ramón y Cajal RYC-2010-07434).Peer reviewe

Currency Carry Trades

A wave of recent research has studied the predictability of foreign currency returns. A wide variety of forecasting structures have been proposed, including signals such as carry, value, momentum, and the forward curve. Some of these have been explored individually, and others have been used in combination. In this paper we use new econometric tools for binary classification problems to evaluate the merits of a general model encompassing all these signals. We find very strong evidence of forecastability using the full set of signals, both in sample and out-of-sample. This holds true for both an unweighted directional forecast and one weighted by returns. Our preferred model generates economically meaningful returns on a portfolio of nine major currencies versus the U.S. dollar, with favorable Sharpe and skewness characteristics. We also find no relationship between our returns and a conventional set of so-called risk factors.

The ability of a barotropic model to simulate sea level extremes of meteorological origin in the Mediterranean Sea, including those caused by explosive cyclones

Storm surges are responsible for great damage to coastal property and loss of life every year. Coastal management and adaptation practices are essential to reduce such damage. Numerical models provide a useful tool for informing these practices as they simulate sea level with high spatial resolution. Here we investigate the ability of a barotropic version of the HAMSOM model to simulate sea level extremes of meteorological origin in the Mediterranean Sea, including those caused by explosive cyclones. For this purpose, the output of the model is compared to hourly sea level observations from six tide gauge records (Valencia, Barcelona, Marseille, Civitavecchia, Trieste, and Antalya). It is found that the model underestimates the positive extremes significantly at all stations, in some cases by up to 65%. At Trieste, the model can also sometimes overestimate the extremes significantly. The differences between the model and the residuals are not constant for extremes of a given height, which limits the applicability of the numerical model for storm surge forecasting because calibration is difficult. The 50 and 10 year return levels are reasonably well captured by the model at all stations except Barcelona and Marseille, where they are underestimated by over 30%. The number of exceedances of the 99.9th and 99.95% percentiles over a period of 25 years is severely underestimated by the model at all stations. The skill of the model for predicting the timing and value of the storm surges seems to be higher for the events associated with explosive cyclones at all stations

Improving sea level simulation in Mediterranean regional climate models

For now, the question about future sea level change in the Mediterranean remains a challenge. Previous climate modelling attempts to estimate future sea level change in the Mediterranean did not meet a consensus. The low resolution of CMIP-type models prevents an accurate representation of important small scales processes acting over the Mediterranean region. For this reason among others, the use of high resolution regional ocean modelling has been recommended in literature to address the question of ongoing and future Mediterranean sea level change in response to climate change or greenhouse gases emissions. Also, it has been shown that east Atlantic sea level variability is the dominant driver of the Mediterranean variability at interannual and interdecadal scales. However, up to now, long-term regional simulations of the Mediterranean Sea do not integrate the full sea level information from the Atlantic, which is a substantial shortcoming when analysing Mediterranean sea level response. In the present study we analyse different approaches followed by state-of-the-art regional climate models to simulate Mediterranean sea level variability. Additionally we present a new simulation which incorporates improved information of Atlantic sea level forcing at the lateral boundary. We evaluate the skills of the different simulations in the frame of long-term hindcast simulations spanning from 1980 to 2012 analysing sea level variability from seasonal to multidecadal scales. Results from the new simulation show a substantial improvement in the modelled Mediterranean sea level signal. This confirms that Mediterranean mean sea level is strongly influenced by the Atlantic conditions, and thus suggests that the quality of the information in the lateral boundary conditions (LBCs) is crucial for the good modelling of Mediterranean sea level. We also found that the regional differences inside the basin, that are induced by circulation changes, are model-dependent and thus not affected by the LBCs. Finally, we argue that a correct configuration of LBCs in the Atlantic should be used for future Mediterranean simulations, which cover hindcast period, but also for scenarios

Predicting language learners' grades in the L1, L2, L3 and L4: the effect of some psychological and sociocognitive variables

This study of 89 Flemish high-school students' grades for L1 (Dutch), L2 (French), L3 (English) and L4 (German) investigates the effects of three higher-level personality dimensions (psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism), one lower-level personality dimension (foreign language anxiety) and sociobiographical variables (gender, social class) on the participants' language grades. Analyses of variance revealed no significant effects of the higher-level personality dimensions on grades. Participants with high levels of foreign language anxiety obtained significantly lower grades in the L2 and L3. Gender and social class had no effect. Strong positive correlations between grades in the different languages could point to an underlying sociocognitive dimension. The implications of these findings are discussed

Exploring structure–activity relationships in photodynamic therapy anticancer agents based on Ir(III)-COUPY conjugates

Photodynamic therapy holds great promise as a non-invasive anticancer tool against drug-resistant cancers. However, highly effective, non-toxic, and reliable photosensitizers with operability under hypoxic conditions remain to be developed. Herein, we took the advantageous properties of COUPY fluorophores and cyclometalated Ir(III) complexes to develop novel PDT agents based on Ir(III)-COUPY conjugates with the aim of exploring structure–activity relationships. The structural modifications carried out within the coumarin scaffold had a strong impact on the photophysical properties and cellular uptake of the conjugates. All Ir(III)-COUPY conjugates exhibited high phototoxicity under green light irradiation, which was attributed to the photogeneration of ROS, while remaining non-toxic in the dark. Among them, two hit conjugates showed excellent phototherapeutic indexes in cisplatin-resistant A2780cis cancer cells, both in normoxia and in hypoxia, suggesting that photoactive therapy approaches based on the conjugation of far-red/NIR-emitting COUPY dyes and transition metal complexes could effectively tackle in vitro acquired resistance to cisplatin

Diseño metodológico para la elaboración de una Estadística sobre innovación tecnológica de dimensión regional: Su aplicación en Andalucía

Studying innovation in a company has become a topic of fundanlental research in order to understand the influence of technological change in the development of regions. Indeed, the fact there are important deficits in statistical matters, rnethodological difficulties, scarcity of specific studies or even, a lack of knowledge of the actual amount of innovative companies at a regional level, leads LIS to reveal in our paper the need to provide a methodology to draft statistics on innovation in Andalusia. This way, we intend to develop methodological guidelines that will allow LIS to understand the structure 2nd effects of innovative processes implemented by Andalusian conipanies. At the same time, our intention is to set forth the development of statistics in this area, which could be cormparable at a regional, national and international level. Our final aim is to create different scenarios or methodological proposals depending on the cases to develop these statistics.El estudio de la innovación en la empresa y en el espacio se ha convertido en un tema de investigación fundamental para el conocimiento de la influencia del cambio tecnológico en el desarrollo de las regiones y en la llarnada Geografía de la Organización. Precisamente la existencia en el ámbito regional de importantes déficits en materia estadística, dificultades metodológicas, escasez de estudios específicos o, incluso, el desconocimiento del número real de empresas innovadoras, nos lleva a exponer, a partir de este trabajo, la necesidad de aportar una metodología para la elaboración de una estadística sobre innovación para cualquier Comunidad Autónoma, aunque en este caso se aplique a Andalucía. De esta forma pretendernos diseñar unas directrices metodológicas para conocer la estructura y el alcance de los impactos de los procesos innovadores seguidos por las empresas andaluzas. Al mismo tiempo, plantearla construcción de estadísticas en dicha materia que sean comparables en el ámbito autonómico, nacional e internacional. Y por últiino, esbozar diferentes escenarios o propuestas metodológicas, según los casos, para la realización de esta estadística