Planet of the Celtic Tiger

Due to the vast developments in technology and information sharing, developing countries now have instant access to a library full of articles documenting the growth of various developed countries in the world. As these countries are searching for an economic model and hoping to replicate its result, they often come across Ireland’s economic success during the Celtic Tiger times. During this period, Ireland transformed from the “poorest of the rich” to “one of Europe’s shining lights.” Although Ireland\u27s economic growth seems extremely appealing, how likely is it that another country could follow Ireland’s success by adopting its economic approach? This project begins by providing a brief overview of Ireland’s economic history to describe Ireland’s economic status prior to the growth, followed by the build-up to the Celtic Tiger years and Ireland\u27s success, and it ends by analyzing its eventual slowdown due to the global financial crisis. The paper concludes by answering the question, “Is the Celtic Tiger a replicable success story?

Experimental investigation on the enhancement of plenum window noise reduction using solid scatterers

The sound transmission across plenum windows installed with rigid non-resonant cylindrical scatterer arrays was investigated in detail using scale-down model measurements carried out inside a fully anechoic chamber. The arrays have manifested to some extent the acoustical behaviors of virtual sonic crystals. The maximum cross section blockage ratio was 0.6. The effects of plenum window gap, array configuration, and scatterer diameter on the sound transmission characteristics were also examined. Results indicate that the window cavity longitudinal modes and the gap modes control the sound transmission characteristics at low frequencies. The upper bound of this frequency range increases with decreasing gap width. Within this frequency range, the scatterers have negligible effect on the sound transmission. At higher frequencies, the array configurations with scatterer(s) attached to the window walls result in stronger sound reduction. There are relatively higher sound transmission loss improvements around the frequencies where a full bandgap is observed. There are wide bandgaps in various lattice directions, and the present results suggest that they play a role in the broadband improvement of sound reduction

Exceptional behavior in critical first-passage percolation and random sums

We study first-passage percolation (FPP) on the square lattice. The model is defined using i.i.d. nonnegative random edge-weights $(t_e)$ associated to the nearest neighbor edges of $\mathbb{Z}^2$. The passage time between vertices $x$ and $y$, $T(x,y)$, is the minimal total weight of any lattice path from $x$ to $y$. The growth rate of $T(x,y)$ depends on the value of $F(0) = \mathbb{P}(t_e=0)$: if $F(0) < 1/2$ then $T(x,y)$ grows linearly in $|x-y|$, but if $F(0) > 1/2$ then it is stochastically bounded. In the critical case, where $F(0) = 1/2$, $T(x,y)$ can be bounded or unbounded depending on the behavior of the distribution function $F$ of $t_e$ near 0. In this paper, we consider the critical case in which $T(x,y)$ is unbounded and prove the existence of an incipient infinite cluster (IIC) type measure, constructed by conditioning the environment on the event that the passage time from $0$ to a far distance remains bounded. This IIC measure is a natural candidate for the distribution of the weights at a typical exceptional time in dynamical FPP. A major part of the analysis involves characterizing the limiting behavior of independent nonnegative random variables conditioned to have small sum. We give conditions on random variables that ensure that such limits are trivial, and several examples that exhibit nontrivial limits.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figure

Verifiable wage offers and recontracting: effect on wage and consumption profiles

Abstract This paper analyzes the effect of recontracting and matching verifiable wage offers on the intertemporal structure of contract wage and consumption profile for a two-period economy. A contract firm provides specific training for a worker during the first period, which increases his productivity if he stays in the second period, but the worker may quit to accept an alternative wage offer after a successful search. Wage offers are private to the worker but can be presented to the contract firm for matching. This paper shows that when capital markets are imperfect and wage offers are verifiable, the contract firm recontracts and matches any wage offers the worker receives up to the second-period productivity. The ex ante contract wage profile will be flat. Inefficient quits will be eliminated and there will be complete ex ante consumption smoothing. It is significant to note that the result of rising wage profile derived in numerous contract models is fragile with respect to assumptions on mechanism of interfirm labor mobility.

Decreased expression of alpha-2-HS glycoprotein in the sera of rats treated with Eurycoma longifolia extract

Eurycoma longifolia is a Malaysian native herb that has been widely used as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for andropause. Although the physiological effects of the plant extract were predicted as a result of the alterations in protein expression, the key protein(s) involved in these alterations are still unclear. In the present study, we have investigated the effect of standardized E. longifolia extract on serum protein expression up to 28 days following oral administration in rats. Serum protein profiles were analyzed by 2-dimensional electrophoresis, and altered proteins were identified via mass spectrometry. We observed that alpha-2-HS glycoprotein (AHS) was significantly decreased in the serum of experimentally treated rats compared to pre-treated animals. Moreover, reduction in AHS was confirmed using competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. AHS expression is known to be associated with insulin resistance and diabetes. Our data indicated that serum AHS was reduced in rats treated with standardized E. longifolia extract, and therefore form a prelude for further investigation into the effects of this natural extract in animal models involving infertility and diabetes