The Politics of Institutional Learning and Creation: Bank Crises and Supervision in East Central Europe

This article examines the political conditions shaping the creation of new institutional capabilities. It analyzes bank sector reforms in the 1990s in three leading postcommunist democracies – Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It shows how different political approaches to economic transformation can facilitate or hinder the ability of relevant public and private actors to experiment and learn their new roles. With its emphasis on insulating power and rapidly implementing self-enforcing economic incentives, the “depoliticization” approach creates few changes in bank behavior and, indeed impedes investment in new capabilities at the bank and supervisory levels. The “deliberative restructuring” approach fostered innovative, costeffective monitoring structures for recapitalization, a strong supervisory system, and a stable, expanding banking sector.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40112/3/wp726.pd

Test ideals in diagonal hypersurface rings II

Let $R=k[x_1, ..., x_n]/(x_1^d + ... + x_n^d)$, where $k$ is a field of characteristic $p$, $p$ does not divide $d$ and $n \geq 3$. We describe a method for computing the test ideal for these diagonal hypersurface rings. This method involves using a characterization of test ideals in Gorenstein rings as well as developing a way to compute tight closures of certain ideals despite the lack of a general algorithm. In addition, we compute examples of test ideals in diagonal hypersurface rings of small characteristic (relative to $d$) including several that are not integrally closed. These examples provide a negative answer to Smith's (2000, Comm. in Alg.) question of whether the test id eal in general is always integrally closed.Comment: revised version, incorporating referee's comments, LaTeX, 10 page

The Politics of Institutional Learning and Creation: Bank Crises and Supervision in East Central Europe

This article examines the political conditions shaping the creation of new institutional capabilities. It analyzes bank sector reforms in the 1990s in three leading postcommunist democracies – Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It shows how different political approaches to economic transformation can facilitate or hinder the ability of relevant public and private actors to experiment and learn their new roles. With its emphasis on insulating power and rapidly implementing self-enforcing economic incentives, the “depoliticization” approach creates few changes in bank behavior and, indeed impedes investment in new capabilities at the bank and supervisory levels. The “deliberative restructuring” approach fostered innovative, costeffective monitoring structures for recapitalization, a strong supervisory system, and a stable, expanding banking sector.Institutional change, transition economies, bank crises, bank supervision, learn

Optimal payload rate limit algorithm for zero-G manipulators

An algorithm for continuously computing safe maximum relative velocities for two bodies joined by a manipulator is discussed. The maximum velocities are such that if the brakes are applied at that instant, the ensuing travel between the bodies will be less than or equal to a predetermined amount. An improvement in the way this limit is computed for space manipulators is shown. The new method is explained, test cases are posed, and the results of these tests are displayed and discussed

Electricity Prices, River Temperatures and Cooling Water Scarcity.

Thermal-based power stations rely on water for cooling purposes. These water sources may be subject to incidents of scarcity, environmental regulations and competing economic concerns. This paper analyses the effect of water scarcity and increased river temperatures on German electricity prices from 2002 to 2009. Having controlled for demand effects, the results indicate that the electricity price is significantly impacted by both a change in river temperatures and the relative abundance of river water. An implication is that future climate change will affect electricity prices not only through changes in demand, but also via increased water temperatures and scarcity.Thermal-based power; water scarcity.

Acoustic Supercoupling in a Zero-Compressibility Waveguide

Funneling acoustic waves through largely mismatched channels is of fundamental importance to tailor and transmit sound for a variety of applications. In electromagnetics, zero-permittivity metamaterials have been used to enhance the coupling of energy in and out of ultranarrow channels, based on a phenomenon known as supercoupling. These metamaterial channels can support total transmission and complete phase uniformity, independent of the channel length, despite being geometrically mismatched to their input and output ports. In the field of acoustics, this phenomenon is challenging to achieve, since it requires zero-density metamaterials, typically realized with waveguides periodically loaded with membranes or resonators. Compared to electromagnetics, the additional challenge is due to the fact that conventional acoustic waveguides do not support a cut-off for the dominant mode of propagation, and therefore zero-index can be achieved only based on a collective resonance of the loading elements. Here we propose and experimentally realize acoustic supercoupling in a dual regime, using a compressibility-near-zero acoustic channel. Rather than engineering the channel with subwavelength inclusions, we operate at the cut-off of a higher-order acoustic mode, demonstrating the realization and efficient excitation of a zero-compressibility waveguide with effective soft boundaries. We experimentally verify strong transmission through a largely mismatched channel and uniform phase distribution, independent of the channel length. Our results open interesting pathways towards the realization of extreme acoustic parameters, and their implementation in relevant applications, such as ultrasound imaging, sonar technology, and sound transmission

Barriers to women in the UK construction industry

Purpose – This paper aims to identify the main barriers that lead to the under-representation of women in the UK construction industry. The study, funded by ConstructionSkills, seeks to explore the issues that women face and investigate the potential positive impact that continuous professional development (CPD) may have upon improving the retention and career progression of women. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses an open-ended grounded theory (GT) approach, including 231 semi-structured questionnaires and nine focus groups with women from a range of professional occupations. All the findings were analysed using keyword analysis to identify the top two barriers that women face, alongside a series of cross-cutting key themes and issues. Findings – The findings reveal that male-dominated organisational cultures and inflexible working practices are the main barriers to women in the UK construction industry, irrespective of job role or profession. This paper concludes by arguing for a sea-change in the expansion of CPD opportunities for women in managerial, confidence and communication based skills, with accompanying networking and support systems to facilitate the retention and advancement of women in the industry sector. Research limitations/implications – Due to the research approach, the data are not generalisable. Therefore, researchers are advised to research and test the findings with a larger group. Researchers are also recommended to investigate the impact of expanded CPD opportunities for both men and women. Originality/value – The paper puts forward a business case for the advancement of specific CPD training for women, to facilitate the expansion of equality and diversity in the workforce in the UK construction industry

High fidelity single-shot readout of a transmon qubit using a SLUG {\mu}wave amplifier

We report high-fidelity, quantum nondemolition, single-shot readout of a superconducting transmon qubit using a DC-biased superconducting low-inductance undulatory galvanometer(SLUG) amplifier. The SLUG improves the system signal-to-noise ratio by 7 dB in a 20 MHz window compared with a bare HEMT amplifier. An optimal cavity drive pulse is chosen using a genetic search algorithm, leading to a maximum combined readout and preparation fidelity of 91.9% with a measurement time of Tmeas = 200ns. Using post-selection to remove preparation errors caused by heating, we realize a combined preparation and readout fidelity of 94.3%.Comment: 4 pages and 3 figure

Hybrid Atom--Photon Quantum Gate in a Superconducting Microwave Resonator

We propose a novel hybrid quantum gate between an atom and a microwave photon in a superconducting coplanar waveguide cavity by exploiting the strong resonant microwave coupling between adjacent Rydberg states. Using experimentally achievable parameters gate fidelities $> 0.99$ are possible on sub-$\mu$s timescales for waveguide temperatures below 40 mK. This provides a mechanism for generating entanglement between two disparate quantum systems and represents an important step in the creation of a hybrid quantum interface applicable for both quantum simulation and quantum information processing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure