EXTENSION ACCOUNTABILITY--A FEDERAL PERSPECTIVE

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

European Economic Integration and the Consequences for U.S. Agriculture

The pace of political-economic change in former East Bloc nations of Europe defies accurate prediction. Some events such as more price-directed markets are predictable enough but integration of former East Bloc countries into the European Community remains a matter of speculation. Analysis indicates that the economics of agriculture favors acceptance by the European Community of members of the European Free Trade Association before former members of the. East Bloc. Analysis also indicates the considerable agricultural production potential of Central and East Europe will be unleased first by market-directed economies and later by integration with the EC -- if the latter occurs. US consumers gain more than producers lose so the economic welfare of Americans is raised modestly.International Relations/Trade,

Serial Verbs in the Creole Languages

Contains fulltext : 3835.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

From Classical to Quantum Mechanics: "How to translate physical ideas into mathematical language"

In this paper, we investigate the connection between Classical and Quantum Mechanics by dividing Quantum Theory in two parts: - General Quantum Axiomatics (a system is described by a state in a Hilbert space, observables are self-adjoint operators and so on) - Quantum Mechanics properly that specifies the Hilbert space, the Heisenberg rule, the free Hamiltonian... We show that General Quantum Axiomatics (up to a supplementary "axiom of classicity") can be used as a non-standard mathematical ground to formulate all the ideas and equations of ordinary Classical Statistical Mechanics. So the question of a "true quantization" with "h" must be seen as an independent problem not directly related with quantum formalism. Moreover, this non-standard formulation of Classical Mechanics exhibits a new kind of operation with no classical counterpart: this operation is related to the "quantization process", and we show why quantization physically depends on group theory (Galileo group). This analytical procedure of quantization replaces the "correspondence principle" (or canonical quantization) and allows to map Classical Mechanics into Quantum Mechanics, giving all operators of Quantum Mechanics and Schrodinger equation. Moreover spins for particles are naturally generated, including an approximation of their interaction with magnetic fields. We find also that this approach gives a natural semi-classical formalism: some exact quantum results are obtained only using classical-like formula. So this procedure has the nice property of enlightening in a more comprehensible way both logical and analytical connection between classical and quantum pictures.Comment: 47 page

Forecasting Cross-Sections of Frailty-Correlated Default

We propose a novel econometric model for estimating and forecasting cross-sections of time-varying conditional default probabilities. The model captures the systematic variation in corporate default counts across e.g. rating and industry groups by using dynamic factors from a large panel of selected macroeconomic and financial data as well as common unobserved risk factors. All factors are statistically and economically significant and together capture a large part of the time-variation in observed default rates. In this framework we improve the out-of-sample forecasting accuracy associated with conditional default probabilities by about 10-35 % in terms of Mean Absolute Error, particularly in years of default stress

Macro, industry and frailty effects in defaults: The 2008 credit crisis in perspective

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Consistency of the Shannon entropy in quantum experiments

The consistency of the Shannon entropy, when applied to outcomes of quantum experiments, is analysed. It is shown that the Shannon entropy is fully consistent and its properties are never violated in quantum settings, but attention must be paid to logical and experimental contexts. This last remark is shown to apply regardless of the quantum or classical nature of the experiments.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX2e/REVTeX4. V5: slightly different than the published versio

The mechanism of the catalytic oxidation of hydrogen sulfide *1: III. An electron spin resonance study of the sulfur catalyzed oxidation of hydrogen sulfide

ESR experiments on the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide were performed in the temperature range 20–150 °C. Alumina, active carbon and molecular sieve zeolite 13X were investigated as catalysts. For zeolite 13X it was demonstrated that the reaction is autocatalytic and that sulfur radicals are the active sites for oxygen chemisorption. The intensity of the sulfur radical ESR signal, which is related to the degree of conversion of these radicals, by oxygen, fits in with an oxidation-reduction mechanism.\ud \ud The sulfur-oxygen radical species, which appear when oxygen is admitted to sulfur radicals, are assigned to sulfur chains containing one or two oxygen atoms at the end of the chain. It is very likely that these sulfur-oxygen radicals are intermediates in the proposed mechanism. The formation of the byproduct SO2 from SxO2 · − at temperatures above 175 °C is also visible in the ESR spectrum.\ud \ud On the basis of the experiments it is concluded that in the mechanism of H2S oxidation on active carbons, carbon radicals do not play an important role