The period-luminosity and period-radius relations of Type II and anomalous Cepheids

Method: In an accompanying paper (arXiv: 1705.00886) we determined luminosity and effective temperature for the 335 T2Cs and ACs in the LMC and SMC discovered in the OGLE-III survey, by constructing the spectral energy distribution (SED) and fitting this with model atmospheres and a dust radiative transfer model (in the case of dust excess). Building on these results we study the PL and PR relations. Using existing pulsation models for RR Lyrae and classical Cepheids we derive the period-luminosity-mass-temperature-metallicity relations, and then estimate the pulsation mass. Results: The PL relation for the T2Cs does not appear to depend on metallicity, and, excluding the dusty RV Tau stars, is $M_{\rm bol}= +0.12 -1.78 \log P$ (for $P < 50$ days). Relations for fundamental and first overtone LMC ACs are also presented. The PR relation for T2C also shows little or no dependence on metallicity or period. Our preferred relation combines SMC and LMC stars and all T2C subclasses, and is $\log R = 0.846 + 0.521 \log P$. Relations for fundamental and first overtone LMC ACs are also presented. The pulsation masses from the RR Lyrae and classical Cepheid pulsation models agree well for the short period T2Cs, the BL Her subtype, and ACs, and are consistent with estimates in the literature, i.e. $M_{\rm BLH} \sim 0.49$ \msol\ and $M_{\rm AC} ~\sim 1.3$ \msol, respectively. The masses of the W Vir appear similar to the BL Her. The situation for the pWVir and RV Tau stars is less clear. For many RV Tau the masses are in conflict with the standard picture of (single-star) post-AGB evolution, the masses being either too large ($\gtrsim$ 1 \msol) or too small ($\lesssim$ 0.4 \msol).Comment: A&A accepte

Futures prices as risk-adjusted forecasts of monetary policy

Many researchers have used federal funds futures rates as measures of financial markets' expectations of future monetary policy. However, to the extent that federal funds futures reflect risk premia, these measures require some adjustment. In this paper, we document that excess returns on federal funds futures have been positive on average and strongly countercyclical. In particular, excess returns are surprisingly well predicted by macroeconomic indicators such as employment growth and financial business-cycle indicators such as Treasury yield spreads and corporate bond spreads. Excess returns on eurodollar futures display similar patterns. We document that simply ignoring these risk premia significantly biases forecasts of the future path of monetary policy. We also show that risk premia matter for some futures-based measures of monetary policy shocks used in the literature.Federal funds rate ; Federal funds market (United States) ; Monetary policy

The Environmental Law System of the Federal Republic of Germany

This paper presents a general overview of German environmental law, its principles, and its implementation. It briefly touches on the cultural and historical contexts in which this field of law evolved, as well as on its underlying policy. Being located in the center of Europe, Germany is tied into several systems of international relationships - regional, European, and global - that have to be examined with regard to their impact on German environmental law. Within the scope of this paper, the complex system of the legal obligations produced by these international relationships and German environmental law itself, consisting as it does of an agglomeration of very specific laws, can be considered only with regard to their essential features

Discovery and applications of family AA9 lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases

Auxililary activity family 9 lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (abbreviated as AA9s or LPMO9s) are fungal mono-copper enzymes capable of oxidatively cleaving various plant cell wall oligo- and/or polysaccharides. LPMO9s are key components of lignocellulolytic enzyme cocktails used in today’s biorefineries to break down biomass into fermentable sugars. Highly stable enzymes with novel functions are of great interest to improve enzymatic biorefinery processes and their economic feasibility. Genome sequencing of an industrially relevant fungus, Thermothielavioides terrestris LPH172, revealed 411 putative carbohydrate-active enzyme (CAZy) domains. Transcriptomic analysis indicated that the fungus upregulated numerous LPMO9 genes in concert with canonical cellulase and hemicellulase encoding genes to degrade lignocellulose. Nuanced co-upregulation was detected for LPMO9 genes and those encoding other redox-active CAZymes. Six strongly upregulated TtLPMO9 genes were heterologously expressed and functionally characterized using cellulosic and hemicellulosic substrates. These studies showed that the multitude of LPMO9 genes provided the fungus with different functions, including previously unknown cleavage of cellulose-associated spruce arabinoglucuronoxylan and acetylated birch glucuronoxylan. In a related study, xylanolytic LPMO9 activity was revealed or enhanced by debranching xylans enzymatically, which likely assumed a rigid and stretched xylan conformation that associated with cellulose to increase accessibility to LPMO9s. LPMOs have unique oxidative powers which render them advantageous for various biorefinery applications. A C1-oxidizing TtLPMO9G was found to increase the amount of carboxyl groups on sulfated cellulose nanocrystals by 10%, without any extensive degradation of the crystals. The functional groups thus generated were used for proof-of-concept crosslinking, which could aid in the production of bio-based materials. In another application, addition of TaLPMO9A to a benchmark LPMO-poor cellulolytic cocktail was shown to improve saccharification yields of mildly pretreated spruce substrates. The final glucose and xylose yields were increased by up to 1.6- and 1.5-fold, respectively, illustrating how LPMO9s can be exploited in the saccharification of these notoriously recalcitrant substrates

The Environmental Law System of the Federal Republic of Germany

This paper presents a general overview of German environmental law, its principles, and its implementation. It briefly touches on the cultural and historical contexts in which this field of law evolved, as well as on its underlying policy. Being located in the center of Europe, Germany is tied into several systems of international relationships - regional, European, and global - that have to be examined with regard to their impact on German environmental law. Within the scope of this paper, the complex system of the legal obligations produced by these international relationships and German environmental law itself, consisting as it does of an agglomeration of very specific laws, can be considered only with regard to their essential features

An Inverse Problem for Localization Operators

A classical result of time-frequency analysis, obtained by I. Daubechies in 1988, states that the eigenfunctions of a time-frequency localization operator with circular localization domain and Gaussian analysis window are the Hermite functions. In this contribution, a converse of Daubechies' theorem is proved. More precisely, it is shown that, for simply connected localization domains, if one of the eigenfunctions of a time-frequency localization operator with Gaussian window is a Hermite function, then its localization domain is a disc. The general problem of obtaining, from some knowledge of its eigenfunctions, information about the symbol of a time-frequency localization operator, is denoted as the inverse problem, and the problem studied by Daubechies as the direct problem of time-frequency analysis. Here, we also solve the corresponding problem for wavelet localization, providing the inverse problem analogue of the direct problem studied by Daubechies and Paul.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur

The Development of Spontaneous Sound-Shape Matching in Monolingual and Bilingual Infants During the First Year

Online First November 17, 2016Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000237.suppRecently it has been proposed that sensitivity to nonarbitrary relationships between speech sounds and objects potentially bootstraps lexical acquisition. However, it is currently unclear whether preverbal infants (e.g., before 6 months of age) with different linguistic profiles are sensitive to such nonarbitrary relationships. Here, the authors assessed 4- and 12-month-old Basque monolingual and Spanish-Basque bilingual infants’ sensitivity to cross-modal correspondences between sound symbolic nonwords without syllable repetition (buba, kike) and drawings of rounded and angular shapes. The findings demonstrate that sensitivity to sound-shape correspondences emerge by 12 months of age in both monolinguals and bilinguals. This finding suggests that spontaneous sound-shape matching is likely to be the product of language learning and development and may not be readily available prior to the onset of word learning

Wavering Interactions between Commodity Futures Prices and US Dollar Exchange Rates

This paper examines the intricate impact of commodity futures settlement prices on USD exchange rates. The daily data on changes in logs of futures prices and changes in logs of US dollar in euro and USD trade weighted exchange rate are tested with Bayesian VAR, multiple breakpoint regression and two-state Markov switching. Commodities include West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude oil, as well as copper and gold. The tests imply prevalence of an inverse relationship between changes in commodity futures prices and USD exchange rates, but their interactions become positive at stressful market conditions. Strengths, statistical significance and causal interactions between commodity futures prices and USD exchange rate depend on the type of commodities and market risk conditions. The relationship between WTI and USD exchange rates has been strengthening over time. Interactions between changes in gold prices and the exchange rate are very unstable