That's Where the Money Was: Foreign Bias and English Investment Abroad, 1866-1907

Why did Victorian Britain invest so much capital abroad? We collect over 500,000 monthly returns of British and foreign securities trading in London and the United States between 1866 and 1907. These heretofore-unknown data allow us to better quantify the historical benefits of international diversification and revisit the question of whether British Victorian investor bias starved new domestic industries of capital. We find no evidence of bias. A British investor who increased his investment in new British industry at the expense of foreign diversification would have been worse off. The addition of foreign assets significantly expanded the mean-variance frontier and resulted in utility gains equivalent to a meaningful increase in lifetime consumption.Capital markets, Home bias, History, Victorian overseas investment

Quantitative Phase Field Model of Alloy Solidification

We present a detailed derivation and thin interface analysis of a phase-field model that can accurately simulate microstructural pattern formation for low-speed directional solidification of a dilute binary alloy. This advance with respect to previous phase-field models is achieved by the addition of a phenomenological "antitrapping" solute current in the mass conservation relation [A. Karma, Phys. Rev. Lett 87, 115701 (2001)]. This antitrapping current counterbalances the physical, albeit artificially large, solute trapping effect generated when a mesoscopic interface thickness is used to simulate the interface evolution on experimental length and time scales. Furthermore, it provides additional freedom in the model to suppress other spurious effects that scale with this thickness when the diffusivity is unequal in solid and liquid [R. F. Almgren, SIAM J. Appl. Math 59, 2086 (1999)], which include surface diffusion and a curvature correction to the Stefan condition. This freedom can also be exploited to make the kinetic undercooling of the interface arbitrarily small even for mesoscopic values of both the interface thickness and the phase-field relaxation time, as for the solidification of pure melts [A. Karma and W.-J. Rappel, Phys. Rev. E 53, R3017 (1996)]. The performance of the model is demonstrated by calculating accurately for the first time within a phase-field approach the Mullins-Sekerka stability spectrum of a planar interface and nonlinear cellular shapes for realistic alloy parameters and growth conditions.Comment: 51 pages RevTeX, 5 figures; expanded introduction and discussion; one table and one reference added; various small correction

A Graphene Field-Effect Device

In this letter, a top-gated field effect device (FED) manufactured from monolayer graphene is investigated. Except for graphene deposition, a conventional top-down CMOS-compatible process flow is applied. Carrier mobilities in graphene pseudo-MOS structures are compared to those obtained from top-gated Graphene-FEDs. The extracted values exceed the universal mobility of silicon and silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Unscented Orientation Estimation Based on the Bingham Distribution

Orientation estimation for 3D objects is a common problem that is usually tackled with traditional nonlinear filtering techniques such as the extended Kalman filter (EKF) or the unscented Kalman filter (UKF). Most of these techniques assume Gaussian distributions to account for system noise and uncertain measurements. This distributional assumption does not consider the periodic nature of pose and orientation uncertainty. We propose a filter that considers the periodicity of the orientation estimation problem in its distributional assumption. This is achieved by making use of the Bingham distribution, which is defined on the hypersphere and thus inherently more suitable to periodic problems. Furthermore, handling of non-trivial system functions is done using deterministic sampling in an efficient way. A deterministic sampling scheme reminiscent of the UKF is proposed for the nonlinear manifold of orientations. It is the first deterministic sampling scheme that truly reflects the nonlinear manifold of the orientation

The Relationship of Training Methods Between NCAA Division I Cross-Country Runners with 10,000 Meter Performance

The scientific relationship between 10,000 meter performance and training methods of distance runners remains incompletely understood. Researchers such as Slovic (1977) and Pollock (1978) have attempted to study the relationship between training practices of distance runners with the use of surveys. However, these studies did not analyze the significance of various types of training regimens available. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the training methods of NCAA Division I runners and 10,000 meter performance. Fourteen Division I qualifying teams of the NCAA Division I national cross-country meet and 16 randomly chosen non-qualifying teams were recruited through the mail and direct contact. The respondents completed a survey which evaluated the training methods of the respective teams during the transition phase, competition phase, and peaking period which encompassed seven months of training. In the transition phase the non-qualifying teams ran significantly farther (p\u3c0.05) on their long runs than the qualifying teams. The qualifying teams ran more miles during the competition phase than the non-qualifiers (p\u3c0.05). No significant differences (p\u3e0.05) differences were noted between the qualifying and non-qualifying teams during the peaking period. No significant differences (p\u3e0.05) were noted between the lower seven and top seven qualifying teams during the transition phase. However, during the competition phase the lower seven teams used intervals, fartleks, and repetitions more frequently (p\u3c0.05) than the top seven qualifiers. Fartlek training during the peaking period was used more more often (p\u3c0.05) for the top seven teams than the lower seven qualifying teams. A Pearson correlation was performed to find correlations between final team time in the 10,000 meter run and various training indices obtained from the survey. Based on the results from this study, it was concluded that tempos, repetitions, intervals, and fartlek training during the transition phase were significantly (p\u3c0.05) and positively related to team 10,000 meter performance. Interval training and fartlek during the competition phase were significantly (p\u3c0.05) and positively related to team 10,000 meter performance. Tempo training during the peaking period was significantly (p\u3c0.05) and negatively related to team 10,000 meter performance. The training variables were further correlated with team rank at the Division I national crosscountry meet. Assessment of success based on order provided further insight on the training requisites for ultimate performance. Teams that ranked lower at the national cross-country meet practiced twice a day more often, and used fartlek training more frequently during the transition phase. For the competition phase, lower ranked teams used interval training and fartlek more often. Higher ranked teams used interval training more often during the peaking phase. From this study’s findings several recommendations were made concerning future research. Future studies should attempt to analyze differences that may exist between American and international training methods. A comparison of the training methods of the various collegiate divisions is needed to determine if similar training methods exist. Further research is needed on repetition, tempo, fartlek, and hill training to determine the physiological benefits that may be gained by using these training methods to peak an athlete. Further long term studies of the training of distance runners are needed

The relationship of training methods between NCAA Division I Cross-Country runners with 10,000 meter performance

The scientific relationship between 10,000 meter performance and training methods of distance runners remains incompletely understood. Researchers such as Slovic (1977) and Pollock (1978) have attempted to study the relationship between training practices of distance runners with the use of surveys. However, these studies did not analyze the significance of various types of training regimens available. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the training methods of NCAA Division I runners and 10,000 meter performance. Fourteen Division I qualifying teams of the NCAA Division I national cross-country meet and 16 randomly chosen non-qualifying teams were recruited through the mail and direct contact. The respondents completed a survey which evaluated the training methods of the respective teams during the transition phase, competition phase, and peaking period which encompassed seven months of training. In the transition phase the non-qualifying teams ran significantly farther (p\u3c0.05) on their long runs than the qualifying teams. The qualifying teams ran more miles during the competition phase than the non-qualifiers (p\u3c0.05). No significant differences (p\u3e0.05) differences were noted between the qualifying and non-qualifying teams during the peaking period. No significant differences (p\u3e0.05) were noted between the lower seven and top seven qualifying teams during the transition phase. However, during the competition phase the lower seven teams used intervals, fartleks, and repetitions more frequently (p\u3c0.05) than the top seven qualifiers. Fartlek training during the peaking period was used more more often (p\u3c0.05) for the top seven teams than the lower seven qualifying teams. A Pearson correlation was performed to find correlations between final team time in the 10,000 meter run and various training indices obtained from the survey. Based on the results from this study, it was concluded that tempos, repetitions, intervals, and fartlek training during the transition phase were significantly (p\u3c0.05) and positively related to team 10,000 meter performance. Interval training and fartlek during the competition phase were significantly (p\u3c0.05) and positively related to team 10,000 meter performance. Tempo training during the peaking period was significantly (p\u3c0.05) and negatively related to team 10,000 meter performance. The training variables were further correlated with team rank at the Division I national crosscountry meet. Assessment of success based on order provided further insight on the training requisites for ultimate performance. Teams that ranked lower at the national cross-country meet practiced twice a day more often, and used fartlek training more frequently during the transition phase. For the competition phase, lower ranked teams used interval training and fartlek more often. Higher ranked teams used interval training more often during the peaking phase. From this study’s findings several recommendations were made concerning future research. Future studies should attempt to analyze differences that may exist between American and international training methods. A comparison of the training methods of the various collegiate divisions is needed to determine if similar training methods exist. Further research is needed on repetition, tempo, fartlek, and hill training to determine the physiological benefits that may be gained by using these training methods to peak an athlete. Further long term studies of the training of distance runners are needed

Using Information from Mid Term Evaluations of RDP for the Multicriteria Analysis of Agri-environmental Schemes

This paper discusses how environmental indicators and multicriteria methodologies can support the ex post evaluation of Agri-Environmental Schemes. The paper is based on information from the Mid term evaluation of the Rural Development Programmes and develops around an example that compares Ireland and Emilia-Romagna. The results show that the application of Agri-Environmental Schemes only partially achieves to local objectives, and the way in which the Agri-Environmental Schemes are implemented can be reasonably improved. However, the tentative analysis emphasizes the scarcity of quantitative data that can be related to effectiveness, the lack of predetermined quantitatively defined target levels of objectives and the difficulty to assess the relative importance of different evaluation criteria. Clearly, the ability to properly evaluate the results depends not only on the amount of information gathered, but also on the formalisation of a clear evaluation framework at the design stage of schemes.agri-environmental schemes, mid term evaluation, multifunctional agriculture, indicators, multicriteria analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q1, Q18, Q2,