Understanding Firms' Inflation Expectations Using the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey

Inflation expectations are a key determinant of actual and future inflation and thus matter for the conduct of monetary policy. We study how firms form their inflation expectations using quarterly firm-level data from the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey, spanning the 2001 to 2015 period. The data are aggregated to construct an inflation expectations index. Results based on the index suggest that expectations are not consistent with the rationality assumption but are, still, more complex than purely adaptive expectations. Firms' own unique experiences, such as the dynamics of the prices they expect to pay (wages/inputs), significantly influence aggregate expectations. Expectations are also found to be significantly and positively correlated with movements in oil prices. Most of the preceding results hold at the firm level. The estimation of structural shift specifications suggests that inflation expectations in Canada have drifted downward since the Great Recession. However, the data do not suggest that Canadian businesses' expectations have become unanchored

Postural adjustments in catching: on the interplay between segment stabilization and equilibrium control

The purpose of this study was to investigate postural adjustments in one-handed ball catching. Specifically, the functional role of anticipatory postural adjustments (APA) during the initial arm raising and subsequent postural adjustments (SPA) for equilibrium control and ball-hand impact were scrutinized. Full-body kinematics and kinetics allowed an analysis of the mechanical consequences of raising up the arm and preparing for ball-hand impact. APA for catching were suggested to be for segment stabilization. SPA had a functional role for equilibrium control by an inverted pendulum mechanism but were also involved in preparing for the impact of the ball on the hand, which was illustrated by an increased postural response at the end of the movement. These results were compared with raising up the arm in a well-studied reaction-time task, for which an additional counter rotation equilibrium mechanism was observed. Together, our findings demonstrate that postural adjustments should be investigated in relation to their specific functional task constraints, rather than generalizing the functional role of these postural adjustments over different tasks

Allelic heterogeneity and trade-off shape natural variation for response to soil micronutrient

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Understanding firms' inflation expectations using the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey

Inflation expectations are a key determinant of actual and future inflation and thus matter for the conduct of monetary policy. We study how firms form their inflation expectations using quarterly firm-level data from the Bank of Canada's Business Outlook Survey, spanning the 2001 to 2015 period. The data are aggregated to construct an inflation expectations index. Results based on the index suggest that expectations are not consistent with the rationality assumption but are, still, more complex than purely adaptive expectations. Firms' own unique experiences, such as the dynamics of the prices they expect to pay (wages/inputs), significantly influence aggregate expectations. Expectations are also found to be significantly and positively correlated with movements in oil prices. Most of the preceding results hold at the firm level. The estimation of structural shift specifications suggests that inflation expectations in Canada have drifted downward since the Great Recession. However, the data do not suggest that Canadian businesses' expectations have become unanchored

Total Haskell is Reasonable Coq

We would like to use the Coq proof assistant to mechanically verify properties of Haskell programs. To that end, we present a tool, named hs-to-coq, that translates total Haskell programs into Coq programs via a shallow embedding. We apply our tool in three case studies -- a lawful Monad instance, "Hutton's razor", and an existing data structure library -- and prove their correctness. These examples show that this approach is viable: both that hs-to-coq applies to existing Haskell code, and that the output it produces is amenable to verification.Comment: 13 pages plus references. Published at CPP'18, In Proceedings of 7th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Certified Programs and Proofs (CPP'18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 201

Long range coherent magnetic bound states in superconductors

The quantum coherent coupling of completely different degrees of freedom is a challenging path towards creating new functionalities for quantum electronics. Usually the antagonistic coupling between spins of magnetic impurities and superconductivity leads to the destruction of the superconducting order. Here we show that a localized classical spin of an iron atom immersed in a superconducting condensate can give rise to new kind of long range coherent magnetic quantum state. In addition to the well-known Shiba bound state present on top of an impurity we reveal the existence of a star shaped pattern which extends as far as 12 nm from the impurity location. This large spatial dispersion turns out to be related, in a non-trivial way, to the superconducting coherence length. Inside star branches we observed short scale interference fringes with a particle-hole asymmetry. Our theoretical approach captures these features and relates them to the electronic band structure and the Fermi wave length of the superconductor. The discovery of a directional long range effect implies that distant magnetic atoms could coherently interact leading to new topological superconducting phases with fascinating properties