History of San Marco

A brief history is reported of the first San Marco project, a joint program of the United States and Italy. The Project was a three phase effort to investigate upper air density and associated ionosphere phenomena. The initial phase included the design and development of the spacecraft, the experiments, the launch complex, and a series of suborbital flights, from Wallops Island. The second phase, consisting of designing, fabricating, and testing a spacecraft for the first orbital mission, culminated in an orbital launch also from Wallops Island. The third phase consisted of further refining the experiments and spacecraft instrumentation and of establishing a full-bore scout complex in Kenya. The launch of San Marco B, in April 1967, from this complex into an equatorial orbit, concluded the initial San Marco effort

Liquidity risk, credit risk and the overnight interest rate spread: A stochastic volatility modelling approach

In this paper we model the volatility of the spread between the overnight interest rate and the central bank policy rate (the policy spread) for the euro area and the UK during the two main phases of the financial crisis that began in late 2007. During the crisis, the policy spread exhibited signs of volatility, owing to the breakdown in interbank market activity. The determinants of this volatility are assessed using Stochastic Volatility models to gauge the role played by liquidity risk, credit risk (financial and sovereign), and interest rate expectations. Our results suggest that liquidity risk is the main determinant of the volatility of the policy spread, but also that private bank credit risk has become more apparent in the post-Lehman collapse phase of the crisis for the euro area as financial CDS premia rose due to possible default fears. In addition, the ECB appears to have been more effective in addressing liquidity risk since the onset of the crisis, and this may be related to its greater direct access to a broader range of counterparties and its acceptance of a broader range of eligible collateral. The main implication is that, in crisis times, a sufficiently flexible operational framework for monetary policy implementation produces the most timely response to market tensions

Interest and exchange rate risk and stock returns: A multivariate GARCH-M modelling approach

In this paper we examine the sensitivity of stock returns to market, interest rate, and exchange rate risk in three financial sectors (Banking, Financial Services and Insurance) in 16 countries, including various European economies, the US and Japan. We also test for the presence of causality-in-mean and volatility spillovers. The econometric framework is a four-variate GARCH-in-mean model, which incorporates long-and short-term interest rates in turn. We find in most cases a positive effect of stock market returns on mean returns in each sector; by contrast, interest rates and exchange rates have a significant effect only in a few cases, respectively negative and without a clear sign pattern. As for the three types of risk, these are found to play a role in a minority of cases, with mixed signs. Finally, most cases of volatility spillovers occur from market return to sectoral returns in the insurance and banking sector in European economies, though there are also some instances of interest rate and exchange rate spillovers, both in Europe and the US

Deterministic Versus Stochastic Seasonal Fractional Integration and structural breaks

This paper considers a general model which allows for both deterministic and stochastic forms of seasonality, including fractional (stationary and nonstationary) orders of integration, and also incorporating endogenously determined structural breaks. Monte Carlo analysis shows that the suggested procedure performs well even in small samples, accurately capturing the seasonal properties of the series, and correctly detecting the break date. As an illustration, the model is estimated for four different US series (output, consumption, imports and exports). The results suggest that the seasonal patterns of these variables have changed over time: specifically, in the second subsample the systematic component of seasonality becomes insignificant, whilst the degree of persistence increases

On the linkages between stock prices and exchange rates: evidence from the banking crisis of 2007-2010

This study examines the nature of the linkages between stock market prices and exchange rates in six advanced economies, namely the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, the euro area, and Switzerland, using data on the banking crisis between 2007 and 2010. Bivariate UEDCC-GARCH models are estimated producing evidence of unidirectional Granger causality from stock returns to exchange rate changes in the US and the UK, in the opposite direction in Canada, and bidirectional causality in the euro area and Switzerland. Furthermore, causality-in-variance from stock returns to exchange rate changes is found in the US and in the opposite direction in the euro area and Japan, whilst there is evidence of bidirectional feedback in Switzerland and Canada. The results of the time-varying correlations also show that the dependence between the two variables has increased during the recent financial crisis. These findings imply limited opportunities for investors to diversify their assets during this period

Inclusive production of a pair of hadrons separated by a large interval of rapidity in proton collisions

We consider within QCD collinear factorization the inclusive process $p+p\to h_1+h_2+X$, where the pair of identified hadrons, $h_1,h_2$, having large transverse momenta is produced in high-energy proton-proton collisions. In particular, we concentrate on the kinematics where the two identified hadrons in the final state are separated by a large interval of rapidity $\Delta y$. In this case the (calculable) hard part of the reaction receives large higher order corrections $\sim \alpha^n_s \Delta y^n$. We provide a theoretical input for the resummation of such contributions with next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy (NLA) in the BFKL approach. Specifically, we calculate in NLA the vertex (impact-factor) for the inclusive production of the identified hadron. This process has much in common with the widely discussed Mueller-Navelet jets production and can be also used to access the BFKL dynamics at proton colliders. Another application of the obtained identified-hadron vertex could be the NLA BFKL description of inclusive forward hadron production in DIS.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures; corrected few typos and added an acknowledgment; version to be published on JHEP. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1202.108

Corrections to the generalized vector dominance due to diffractive rho_3 production

The idea of the vector dominance is still in use in various analyses of experimental data of photon-hadron reactions. It makes sense, therefore, to recast results of microscopic calculations of such reactions in this language. Here we present the diffractive DIS $\rho_3$ production as a specific correction to the generalized vector dominance. We perform a coupled channel analysis of spin-orbital excitations in diffractive photoproduction and reiterate the point that rho_3 in diffractive DIS will be sensitive to a novel aspect of diffraction.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Business cycles, international trade and capital flows: Evidence from Latin America

This paper adopts a flexible framework to assess both short- and long-run business cycle linkages between six Latin American (LA) countries and the four largest economies in the world (namely the US, the Euro area, Japan and China) over the period 1980:I-2011:IV. The result indicate that within the LA region there are considerable differences between countries, success stories coexisting with extremely vulnerable economies. They also show that the LA region as a whole is largely dependent on external developments, especially in the years after the great recession of 2008 and 2009. The trade channel appears to be the most important source of business cycle comovement, whilst capital flows are found to have a limited role, especially in the very short run

A study of the diffusion pattern in N=4 SYM at high energies

In the context of evolution nequations and scattering amplitudes in the high energy limit of the N=4 super Yang–Mills theory we investigate in some detail the BFKL gluon Green function at next-to-leading order. In particular, we study its collinear be havi or in term so fan expansion in different angular components. We also perform a Monte Carlo simulation of the different final states contributing to such a Green function and construct the diffusion pattern in to in frared and ultraviolet modes and multiplicity distributions, making emphasis in separating the gluon contributions from those of scalars and gluinos. We find that the combined role of the non-gluonic degree sof freedom is to improve the collinear behavior and reduce the diffusion in to ultraviolet regions while not having any effect ont heaver age multiplicities or diffusion in to the in frared. In terms of growth with energy,the non-zero conformal spin components are mainly driven by the gluon terms in the BFKLkernel. Forze rocon formal spin (Pomeron) the effect the scalar and gluino sectors is to dramatically push the Green function towards higher valuesF.C. thanks the Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC for the warm hospitality.Weack now ledge partial support from the European Comission under contract LHC PhenoNet (PITN-GA-2010-264564), the Comunidad de Madrid through HEPHACOSS2009/ESP-1473, and MICINN (FPA2010-17747) and Spanish MINECOs Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Programme under grant SEV-2012-0249.TheworkofF.C.was supported by EuropeanCommission, European Social Fund and Calabria Region,that disclaim many lia-bility for the use that can be done of the information provided in this Letter.G.C. thanks the support from the Research Executive Agency(REA)of the European Union under the Grant Agree ment number PIEF-GA-2011-298582 and by MICINN (FPA2011-23778,FPA2007-60323 and CSD2007-00042CPAN