Forward Exchange Market Unbiasedness: The Case of the Australian Dollar Since 1984

This paper implements a new statistical approach to robust regression with nonstationary time series. The methods are presently under theoretical development in other work, and are briefly exposited here. They allow us to perform regressions in levels with nonstationary time series data, they accommodate data distributions with heavy tails and they permit serial dependence and temporal heterogeneity of unknown form in the equation errors. With these features the methods are well suited to applications with frequently sampled exchange rate data, which generally display all of these empirical characteristics. Our application is to daily data on spot and forward exchange rates between the Australian and US dollars over the period 1984-1991 following the deregulation of the Australian foreign exchange market. We find big differences between the robust and the non-robust regression outcomes and in the associated statistical tests of the hypothesis that the forward rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot rate. The robust regression tests reject the unbiasedness hypothesis but still give the forward rate an important role as a predictor of the future spot rate.

Air transportation technology program at Ohio University, 1983

The purpose is to provide a research tool, a receiver, such that engineers interested in examining Loran-C performance, usefulness, and other properties will have a flexible, modifiable, and well-known piece of receiving hardware. The significant improvements to the Loran-C receiver are summarized

Investigation of Carbon Nanotube Growth Using a Nozzle CVD Method

This work uses a modification of the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique to study the effects of source gas flow geometry (and the corresponding parameters) on carbon nanotube growth. Our approach is to flow the carbon-containing source gas through a nozzle, projecting the gas stream onto targeted regions of the substrate. This technique not only allows the potential for localized nanotube growth, but also offers an interesting opportunity to provide an experimental test of theoretical nanotube growth models

The Effects of Relative Humidity and Temperature on the Strength Properties of Corrugated Board

The objective of this thesis was the determination of the effect of temperature and relative humidity on the strength properties of corrugated board. A testing laboratory was set up in a controlled humidity room. Both temperatures and humidities were varied to form testing levels. The temperatures ranged from 32°F to 92°F. The humidity varied from 25% to 75%. Extreme conditions in either direction were not used so as to avoid damage to the room and testing equipment. Three tests were performed on the exposed board. They were H & D flat crush test, G.E. puncture test, and the mullen test. All were performed in accordance with TAPPI and Astm Standards. Results of the tests showed temperature and humidity to both have a definite effect on the strength properties of corrugated board. For example the mullen and G.E. puncture showed an increase in strength at a lower temperature with a 50% humidity. Yet at 75% humidity the strength is lost. The board at this point has reached or passed its saturation point causing the fibers to pull out of the lattice rather than stretch. The test results also proved temperature and relative humidity and also had an effect on strength due to what the board is made up of. A certain set of conditions could cause the liner board to add to the strength in a mullen test, while the corrugated medium of the board, under the same conditions, could completely destroy the crush strength

EPISTEMOLIGICAL UNCERTAINTY AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGY: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEMPORAL THREATS AND IDEOLOGY

Research in motivation suggests that individuals are highly attuned to perceived risk and danger and tend to form groups (physical and ideological) on the basis of the threats they collectively share with like-minded others. These initial stages of threat detection and evaluation are often found to occur through subtle environmental cues. This study examined the relationship between feelings of uneasiness and political ideology through the framing of temporal cues (e.g., past- vs. future-tense). Participants (n = 181) were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were randomly assigned a short vignette about a relatable life experience (e.g., purchasing a car). Each vignette was written in either the past-tense or the future-tense, and after reading the vignette, participants reported their emotional response to the presented scenario (e.g., “If I were in the scenario, I would feel uneasy.”) using a Likert-type scale. Participants’ levels of ideological conservatism were then measured. Counter to expectations, a negative interaction was found between ideological conservatism and temporal condition on uneasiness: Conservatives experienced more uneasiness when exposed to past-tense scenarios while liberals experienced more uneasiness when exposed to future-tense scenarios. However, partially consistent with expectations, conservatives’ uneasiness was partially mediated by forecasted (but not observed) risk. Implications, limitations, and possible future directions for the research are discussed