If the Unites States sneezes, does the world need paracetamol?

There is an old saying that states that “If the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”. Against this background, it is argued that some countries, especifically China, can “decouple” from the US economy and sustain strong growth in the face of a US slowdown. In this paper we analyze the extent to which the US economy affects international business fluctuations across countries. A multivariate nonlinear LSTAR model is estimated for the GDP cyclical component of China, France, Germany, the UK and the USA. This nonlinear framework allows the business cycles asymmetries to be captured properly in order to identify the synchronization behavior across countries. Our results suggest that there is a relevant influence from the US cycle, since it acts as a source of international business cycle synchronization. However, spillovers from US cycle fluctuations to China are rather modest.Business Cycle, nonlinearities, synchronization, decoupling

New Evidence on the Role of Regional Clusters and Convergence in China (1952-2008)

A new panel method is applied to the case of Chinese provinces to analyze the existence of club convergence in terms of per capita income, labor productivity, capital intensity, and total factor productivity from 1952 to 2008. The advantage of this approach is that it takes into account the heterogeneity of Chinese regions in a nonlinear time-varying framework, where more attention is paid to the spatial dimension. This time-varying approach outperforms other methods used in the relevant literature for an economy in transition, such as China, that has undergone a significant transformation over the period under consideration. Our results indicate that Chinese regions have converged into clubs. However, it is observed that Heilongjiang is diverging in terms of labor productivity and capital intensity, while Liaoning and Guizhou display similar patterns in terms of labor productivity, and Shanxi and Hebei in terms of capital intensity. These results indicate that specific economic packages need to be implemented in the clusters that were identified, with special attention to those regions that show a divergence behavior, in order to guarantee the sustainability and equality of regional growth.Endogenous Unit Root Test, Club Convergence, Chinese regions

Keeping watch over Colombia’s slumbering volcanoes

The Volcanological and Seismological Observatories of Manizales, Pasto and Popayan (Colombian Geological Survey) monitor and study the active volcanoes of Colombia using seismological, geodetic, geochemical and other techniques. Since 2009, permanent GNSS stations have been installed to complement classical geodetic measurements (e.g., tilt, EDM). At the moment, there are a total of 20 GNSS stations installed at Nevado del Ruiz, Cerro Machín, Puracé and Galeras volcanoes. Nevado del Ruiz has remained the most dynamic of the active Colombian volcanoes since its tragic eruption of 13 November 1985. The most significant deformation occurred between 2007 and 2012, when inflation, associated with magma migration and several small to moderate explosive eruptions in 2012 (VEI less or equal to 3), was observed. Galeras has experienced more than 25 moderate Vulcanian eruptions (VEI less or equal to 3) since 1989. In particular, the deformation network detected significant signals associated with magma migration and the extrusion of lava domes in 1991, 2005, 2008 and 2012. Puracé volcano has been the site of more than 10 minor eruptive episodes (VEI=2) in the past century, most recently in 1977. Monitoring of this volcano started in 1994. Unrest at Puracé since that time has been characterized by significant increases in seismic activity but with little or no deformation. We employ GAMIT/GLOBK to process GPS data from the monitoring network with support from the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (U.S. Geological Survey). Additionally, differential processing is carried out using the commercial package Trimble 4D Control. Preliminary results for 2012 show no significant deformation at Puracé and Galeras volcanoes. On the other hand, the time series from Nevado del Ruiz shows a minor inflation (2-4 cm/yr) associated with the eruptive activity of 2012

Contribución a la caracterización de los suelos mediterraneos. Mapa de suelos E:1/50.000 del término municipal de Alcalá de Guadaira (Sevilla) España

135 página.-- Memoria presentada al XXIX Curso Internacional de Edafología y Biología VegetalEl presente estudlo de caraoterización de los suelos del térmmino de Alcalá de Gudaira. Responde a la actividad práctica del XXIX Curso Internacional de Edafología y Biología Vegetal. El área de estudio (28.699 ha) comprendió las hojas topográficas 984. 985. 1002 Y 1003 a escala 1:50.000 del Servicio Geográfico del Ejército. La geomorfología se caraoteriza por una diversidad de formas que configuran varios paisajes dentro del gran valle del Guadalquivir. Se identificaron las siguientes áreas fisiográficas : Areas de morfogénesis fluvio-coluvial. denudativa y estructural. La caracterización de los suelos se realizó en una secuencia de cinco etapas: gabinete, precampo. campo, laboratorio e integración de la información nuevamente en el gabinete.UNESCO, ICI. CSIC y Universidades de Sevilla y Granada.Peer reviewe

The Quark-Mass Dependence of Two-Nucleon Systems

We explore the quark-mass dependence of two-nucleon systems. Allowed regions for the scattering lengths in the 1S0 and 3S1 channels as functions of the light-quark masses are determined from the current uncertainty in strong-interaction parameters that appear at next-to-leading order in the effective field theory. Where experimental constraints are absent, as is the case for the quark-mass dependent four-nucleon operators, we use naive dimensional analysis. We find it likely that there is no bound state in the 1S0 channel in the chiral limit. However, given the present uncertainties in strong-interaction parameters it is unclear whether the deuteron is bound or unbound in the chiral limit.Comment: 12 pages LaTeX, 6 ps figs, comments adde