1,485 research outputs found
Structural changes in the financial markets: economic and policy significance
In a speech delivered this spring to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and to the CS First Boston Corporation Global Banking Conference in New York City, Henry Kaufman predicted that the latest swings in bond and stock prices are likely to be merely a prologue to much greater volatility in the years ahead. This potential for financial trauma is a by-product of radical changes in the structure of financial institutions and markets that over time are leaving the system without an adequate institutional buffer and, therefore, more susceptible to sharp oscillations in the flows of investment credit.> Kaufman stressed that while new financial excesses cannot be totally prevented, proper action can mitigate their adverse consequences to some extent. To accomplish that, however, we must be willing to acknowledge the risks that lie ahead, to take them into account in the formulation of monetary policy, and to make some fundamental changes in the structure of official oversight and regulation of financial institutions and markets.Financial markets ; Financial institutions
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The yen, the dollar and the euro
"I am delighted to participate in this timely conference and to see so many friends on the
program and in the audience. I would like to offer a few observations on how the project to establish
a common European currency is progressing and then to trace through some of the implications of
that currency, the Euro, for the dollar, the yen, and the financial markets more generally. But before
turning to that important subject, I want to make some comments on the recent turmoil in the world’s
financial markets.
MemTable: An integrated system for capture and recall of shared histories in group workspaces
This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an interactive tabletop system that supports co-located meeting capture and asynchronous search and review of past meetings. The goal of the project is to evaluate the design of a conference table that augments the everyday work patterns of small collaborative groups by incorporating an integrated annotation system. We present a holistic design that values hardware ergonomics, supports heterogeneous input modalities, generates a memory of all user interactions, and provides access to historical data on and off the table. We present a user evaluation that assesses the usefulness of the input modalities and software features, and validates the effectiveness of the MemTable system as a tool for assisting memory recall
Chemical permeabilization and in situ removal of daidzein from biologically viable soybean (Glycine max) seeds
After 24 h of chemical permeabilization with 20% (v/v) methanol at 25 °C, the amount of daidzein released from soybean seeds is 15 to 20% of the amount (0.0423 ± 0.0045 mg/g seed dry wt) obtained by physical grinding. With this chemical permeabilization condition, 70% of the permeabilized seeds are still able to germinate. The release of daidzein is enhanced to 33% with the addition of XAD-4 to 20% (v/v) methanol without affecting seed viability. © Rapid Science Ltd. 1998Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42485/1/10542_2004_Article_176543.pd
Monitoring cryptic amphibians and reptiles in a Florida state park
We monitored cryptic herpetofauna at Savannas Preserve State Park, Florida, by combining artificial cover counts with a quantitative paradigm for constructing and calculating population indices. Weekly indices were calculated from two consecutive days of data collection each week for 7 months from mid-winter to mid-summer in three habitats. Seventeen species were observed at least once, and time trends using index values were followed for six species. Among these, abundance and seasonal pattern information were obtained for an exotic species (greenhouse frog) and a species identified by the Florida Committee on Rare and Endangered Plants and Animals as threatened (Florida scrub lizard). We identified winter as the optimal time in this area to monitor populations for conducting annual assessments. This combined observation and indexing approach could provide managers or researchers with an economical means to quantitatively index population trends for multiple cryptic herpetofauna species simultaneously. Using artificial cover to sample within a population indexing design can be generalized beyond monitoring herpetofauna. Other forms of artificial cover that can be used as observation stations include aquatic artificial substrates, artificial tree cavities, artificial reefs, and other artificial aquatic structures and artificial sea grass units, among many others, and a wide range of taxa are suitable for population monitoring using artificial cover as observation stations in the approach we present, including insects, soil invertebrates, micro and macro aquatic invertebrates, fish, crustaceans, and small mammals
Planetary nebulae in M33: probes of AGB nucleosynthesis and ISM abundances
We have obtained deep optical spectrophotometry of 16 planetary nebulae in
M33, mostly located in the central two kpc of the galaxy, with the Subaru and
Keck telescopes. We have derived electron temperatures and chemical abundances
from the detection of the [OIII]4363 line for the whole sample. We have found
one object with an extreme nitrogen abundance, 12+log(N/H)=9.20, accompanied by
a large helium content. After combining our data with those available in the
literature for PNe and HII regions, we have examined the behavior of nitrogen,
neon, oxygen and argon in relation to each other, and as a function of
galactocentric distance. We confirm the good correlation between Ne/H and O/H
for PNe in M33. Ar/H is also found to correlate with O/H. This strengthens the
idea that at the metallicity of the bright PNe analyzed in M33, which is
similar to that found in the LMC, these elements have not been significantly
modified during the dredge-up processes that take place during the AGB phase of
their progenitor stars. We find no significant oxygen abundance offset between
PNe and HII regions at any given galactocentric distance, despite the fact that
these objects represent different age groups in the evolution of the galaxy.
Combining the results from PNe and HII regions, we obtain a representative
slope of the ISM alpha-element (O, Ar, Ne) abundance gradient in M33 of -0.025
+/- 0.006 dex/kpc. Both PNe and HII regions display a large abundance
dispersion at any given distance from the galactic center. We find that the N/O
ratio in PNe is enhanced, relative to the HII regions, by approximately 0.8
dex.Comment: 21 pages, 20 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Faint recombination lines in Galactic PNe with [WC] nucleus
We present spatially resolved high-resolution spectrophotometric data for the
planetary nebulae PB8, NGC2867, and PB6. We have analyzed two knots in NGC2867
and PB6 and one in PB8. The three nebulae are ionized by [WC] type nuclei:
early [WO] for PB6 and NGC2867 and [WC 5-6] in the case of PB8. Our aim is to
study the behavior of the abundance discrepancy problem (ADF) in this type of
PNe. We measured a large number of optical recombination (ORL) and
collisionally excited lines (CEL), from different ionization stages (many more
than in any previous work), thus, we were able to derive physical conditions
from many different diagnostic procedures. We determined ionic abundances from
the available collisionally excited lines and recombination lines. Based on
both sets of ionic abundances, we derived total chemical abundances in the
nebulae using suitable ionization correction factors. From CELs, we have found
abundances typical of Galactic disk planetary nebulae. Moderate ADF(O++) were
found for PB8 (2.57) and NGC2867 (1.63). For NGC2867, abundances from ORLs are
higher but still consistent with Galactic disk planetary nebulae. On the
contrary, PB8 presents a very high O/H ratio from ORLs. A high C/O was obtained
from ORLs for NGC2867; this ratio is similar to C/O obtained from CELs and with
the chemical composition of the wind of the central star, indicating that there
was no further C-enrichment in the star, relative to O, after the nebular
material ejection. On the contrary, we found C/O<1 in PB8. Interestingly, we
obtain (C/O)ORLs/(C/O)CELs < 1 in PB8 and NGC2867; this added to the similarity
between the heliocentric velocities measured in [OIII] and OII lines for our
three objects, argue against the presence of H-deficient metal-rich knots
coming from a late thermal pulse event.Comment: 25 pages, 13 Tables, 4 Figures Accepted for publication in A&A. First
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Private Sector Union Density and the Wage Premium: Past, Present, and Future
The rise and decline of private sector unionization were among the more important features of the U.S. labor market during the twentieth century. Following a dramatic spurt in unionization after passage of the depression-era National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, union density peaked in the mid-1950s, and then began a continuous decline. At the end of the century, the percentage of private wage and salary workers who were union members was less than 10 percent, not greatly different from union density prior to the NLRA
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