Some empirical evidences on ASEAN 5 fiscal policy regime and monetary and fiscal policy interactions

The interest of common currency among Asian countries have spurred many events happening for the past few years, notably the declaration of Asian Currency Unit in 2006 by Asia Development Bank (ADB). Hence, research papers examining on the integration of monetary policies are abundance. However, paper on examining fiscal policy regime and interaction between monetary and fiscal policy on ASEAN countries, is lacking. The success of monetary union relies on the price stability of member nations. However, joining a monetary union means the lost of monetary policy sovereignty. Therefore, fiscal policy turns to be the next important tool to maintain price stability. This is reflected from the EMU countries after year 1999, where national monetary policies are completely centralized to the European Central Bank (ECB). The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) combines unity of decisions with participation of national central banks in the decision making process and implementation. Nevertheless, national fiscal policies of the member countries are still in the hands of the national governments. This paper intents to examine the type of fiscal policy regime practiced by ASEAN 5 countries. Using macro-economic data for Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, the interrelationship of government surplus/deficits and liabilities is analyzed using Correlation test, Vector Auto-regression (VAR) and Impulse response (IR) function to determine whether a Ricardian or Non-Ricardian fiscal policy has been implemented. Also, comparison of monetary and fiscal policy interactions between some EMU countries and ASEAN 5 are made. The results indicate interactions among inter EMU countries and inter ASEAN countries are generally comparable

BAs and boride III-V alloys

Boron arsenide, the typically-ignored member of the III-V arsenide series BAs-AlAs-GaAs-InAs is found to resemble silicon electronically: its Gamma conduction band minimum is p-like (Gamma_15), not s-like (Gamma_1c), it has an X_1c-like indirect band gap, and its bond charge is distributed almost equally on the two atoms in the unit cell, exhibiting nearly perfect covalency. The reasons for these are tracked down to the anomalously low atomic p orbital energy in the boron and to the unusually strong s-s repulsion in BAs relative to most other III-V compounds. We find unexpected valence band offsets of BAs with respect to GaAs and AlAs. The valence band maximum (VBM) of BAs is significantly higher than that of AlAs, despite the much smaller bond length of BAs, and the VBM of GaAs is only slightly higher than in BAs. These effects result from the unusually strong mixing of the cation and anion states at the VBM. For the BAs-GaAs alloys, we find (i) a relatively small (~3.5 eV) and composition-independent band gap bowing. This means that while addition of small amounts of nitrogen to GaAs lowers the gap, addition of small amounts of boron to GaAs raises the gap (ii) boron ``semi-localized'' states in the conduction band (similar to those in GaN-GaAs alloys), and (iii) bulk mixing enthalpies which are smaller than in GaN-GaAs alloys. The unique features of boride III-V alloys offer new opportunities in band gap engineering.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, 6 tables, 61 references. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B. Scheduled to appear Oct. 15 200

Pulsar-wind nebulae and magnetar outflows: observations at radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths

We review observations of several classes of neutron-star-powered outflows: pulsar-wind nebulae (PWNe) inside shell supernova remnants (SNRs), PWNe interacting directly with interstellar medium (ISM), and magnetar-powered outflows. We describe radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray observations of PWNe, focusing first on integrated spectral-energy distributions (SEDs) and global spectral properties. High-resolution X-ray imaging of PWNe shows a bewildering array of morphologies, with jets, trails, and other structures. Several of the 23 so far identified magnetars show evidence for continuous or sporadic emission of material, sometimes associated with giant flares, and a few possible "magnetar-wind nebulae" have been recently identified.Comment: 61 pages, 44 figures (reduced in quality for size reasons). Published in Space Science Reviews, "Jets and Winds in Pulsar Wind Nebulae, Gamma-ray Bursts and Blazars: Physics of Extreme Energy Release

Effects of eight neuropsychiatric copy number variants on human brain structure

peer reviewedMany copy number variants (CNVs) confer risk for the same range of neurodevelopmental symptoms and psychiatric conditions including autism and schizophrenia. Yet, to date neuroimaging studies have typically been carried out one mutation at a time, showing that CNVs have large effects on brain anatomy. Here, we aimed to characterize and quantify the distinct brain morphometry effects and latent dimensions across 8 neuropsychiatric CNVs. We analyzed T1-weighted MRI data from clinically and non-clinically ascertained CNV carriers (deletion/duplication) at the 1q21.1 (n = 39/28), 16p11.2 (n = 87/78), 22q11.2 (n = 75/30), and 15q11.2 (n = 72/76) loci as well as 1296 non-carriers (controls). Case-control contrasts of all examined genomic loci demonstrated effects on brain anatomy, with deletions and duplications showing mirror effects at the global and regional levels. Although CNVs mainly showed distinct brain patterns, principal component analysis (PCA) loaded subsets of CNVs on two latent brain dimensions, which explained 32 and 29% of the variance of the 8 Cohen’s d maps. The cingulate gyrus, insula, supplementary motor cortex, and cerebellum were identified by PCA and multi-view pattern learning as top regions contributing to latent dimension shared across subsets of CNVs. The large proportion of distinct CNV effects on brain morphology may explain the small neuroimaging effect sizes reported in polygenic psychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, latent gene brain morphology dimensions will help subgroup the rapidly expanding landscape of neuropsychiatric variants and dissect the heterogeneity of idiopathic conditions. © 2021, The Author(s)

Characterization of contaminant transport using naturally-occurring U-series disequilibria. 1998 annual progress report

'The goal of the research is to study the migratory behavior of contaminants in subsurface fractured systems using naturally occurring uranium- and thorium-series radionuclides as tracers under in-situ physico-chemical and hydrogeologic conditions. Naturally occurring U- and Th-series disequilibria can provide information on the rates of adsorption-desorption and transport of contaminants as well as on fluid transport and rock dissolution in a natural setting. The authors are developing a realistic model of contaminant migration in the Snake River Plain Aquifer beneath the INEEL by evaluating the retardation processes involved in the rock/water interaction. The major tasks are to: (1) determine the natural distribution of U, Th, Pa and Ra isotopes in the groundwater as well as in rock minerals and sorbed phases, and (2) study rock/water interaction processes using U/Th series disequilibria and a statistical analysis-based model code for the calculation of in-situ retardation factors of radionuclides and rock/water interaction time scales. This study will also provide an improved understanding of the hydrogeologic features of the site and their impact on the migration of contaminants. This report summarizes results after 20 months of a 36-month project. Studies performed at LANL include analysis of the long-lived nuclides {sup 238}U, {sup 235}U, {sup 234}U, {sup 230}Th, {sup 226}Ra, {sup 232}Th, and {sup 231}Pa by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS). Studies performed at the Univ. of Southern California include the measurement of short-lived naturally occurring radionuclides by decay-counting techniques and the development of models to predict the migration behavior of these radionuclides. Initial efforts began with analysis of 31, 0.5L water samples obtained through routine sampling by USGS and INEEL personnel. One significant observation from these data is that {sup 234}U/{sup 238}U activity ratios are highest in waters that emanate from local recharge areas to the northwest of the INEEL and they decrease in the direction of groundwater flow. Contours of high {sup 234}U/{sup 238}U ratios delineate preferential flow paths extending southward from the local recharge areas. The uranium data have allowed delineation of these preferential flow pathways in greater detail than obtained by other methods. The contour map of {sup 234}U/{sup 238}U ratios also identifies isolated pockets with low {sup 234}U/{sup 238} U ratios. These are suspected to represent groundwater which has undergone more extensive water/rock interaction as a result of either longer residence times of faster reaction rates. These results are important for understanding the hydrologic context of the site and crucial for interpreting the complete data sets for the U and Th decay chains.