International Coordination of Economic Policies: Scope, Methods, and Effects

This paper discusses the scope, methods, the effects of international coordination of economic policies. In addressing the scope for and of coordination, the analysis covers the rationale for coordination, barriers to coordination, the range and specificity of policies to be coordinated, the frequency of coordination, and the size of the coordinating group. Turning to the methods of coordination, the emphasis is on the broad issues of rules versus discretion, single-indicator versus multi-indicator approaches, and hegemonic versus more symmetric systems. In an attempt to shed some light on the effects of alternative rule- based proposals for coordination, we present some simulations of a global macroeconomic model (MULTIMQD) developed in the International Monetary Fund. The simulations considered range from 'smoothing rules for monetary and fiscal policy that imply only minimal international coordination, to more activist "target-zone" proposals that place greater restrictions on national authorities in the conduct of monetary and/or fiscal policies. The simulation results are compared to the actual evolution of the world economy over the 1974-87 period. Our findings suggest that simple mechanistic rule-based proposals are unlikely to lead to improved performance.

DATA ON ARTS ORGANIZATIONS: A REVIEW AND NEEDS ASSESSMENT, WITH DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

This project describes the data resources on arts organizations that are currently available to inform the efforts of policy makers, arts managers, and researchers working in the arts field. It assesses the adequacy of different data sources for identifying the population of arts and cultural organizations in a community. The report is based on a review of more than a dozen sources of information about arts and cultural organizations, interviews with researchers and data specialists, and an empirical study of arts organizations in three metropolitan areas - Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The report concludes with recommendations for improving data quality and for establishing an ongoing national database on the arts sector.

Prevoicing and Aspiration in Southern American English

This paper reports on an investigation of voicing and aspiration of stops in Southern American English (SAE) and discusses theoretical implications of the findings for the features of contrast in SAE. Languages that have a two-way stop contrast generally fall into two categories: voicing languages (Russian, Dutch, Spanish) and aspirating languages (German, English, Mandarin). Many phonologists have suggested that aspirating languages have a [spread glottis] ([sg]) contrast and true voice languages a [voice] contrast (Beckman, Jessen, & Ringen 2013, Iverson & Salmons 1995). Surface phonetic cues are intrinsically connected to these phonological features; prevoicing or aspiration in certain environments implicates the phonological feature [voice] or [sg] (Beckman et al. 2013). In utterance-initial position, voicing languages have negative VOT lenis and short-lag VOT fortis stops, while aspirating languages have short-lag lenis and long-lag fortis stops. However, Helgason and Ringen (2008) show that the two-way contrast in Swedish has phonetic cues of both [sg] and [voice]; they propose that the phonological contrast in Swedish stops is between [voice] and [sg]. Rate effects support this proposal (Beckman, Helgason, McMurray, & Ringen 2011). This study analyzed utterance-initial lenis and fortis stops across all places of articulation from 13 speakers of Southern American English (SAE). Overall, 77.8% of the 951 lenis stop tokens for SAE speakers were prevoiced in utterance-initial position, with a mean VOT of -92.0 ms for lenis stops; this far exceeds data found in Lisker and Abramson (1964) and is comparable to that found for Dutch, a [voice] contrast language. Additionally, the SAE speakers had fortis VOT values comparable to aspirating languages such as NAE (Northern American English). If prevoicing implicates phonological [voice] and aspiration implicates [spread glottis], then SAE appears to have both, as is argued for Swedish in Helgason and Ringen (2008)

Porous silica spheres as indoor air pollutant scavengers

Porous silica spheres were investigated for their effectiveness in removing typical indoor air pollutants, such as aromatic and carbonyl-containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and compared to the commercially available polymer styrene-divinylbenzene (XAD-4). The silica spheres and the XAD-4 resin were coated on denuder sampling devices and their adsorption efficiencies for volatile organic compounds evaluated using an indoor air simulation chamber. Real indoor sampling was also undertaken to evaluate the affinity of the silica adsorbents for a variety of indoor VOCs. The silica sphere adsorbents were found to have a high affinity for polar carbonyls and found to be more efficient than the XAD-4 resin at adsorbing carbonyls in an indoor environment

Properties of Hot Stars in the Wolf-Rayet galaxy NGC5253 from ISO Spectroscopy

ISO-SWS spectroscopy of the WR galaxy NGC5253 is presented, and analysed to provide estimates of its hot young star population. Our approach differs from previous investigations in that we are able to distinguish between the regions in which different infrared fine-structure lines form, using complementary ground-based observations. The high excitation nebular [SIV] emission is formed in a very compact region, which we attribute to the central super-star-nucleus, and lower excitation [NeII] nebular emission originates in the galactic core. We use photo-ionization modelling coupled with the latest theoretical O-star flux distributions to derive effective stellar temperatures and ionization parameters of Teff>38kK, logQ=8.25 for the compact nucleus, with Teff=35kK, logQ<8 for the larger core. Results are supported by more sophisticated calculations using evolutionary synthesis models. We assess the contribution that Wolf-Rayet stars may make to highly ionized nebular lines (e.g. [OIV]). From our Br(alpha) flux, the 2" nucleus contains the equivalent of approximately 1000 O7V star equivalents and the starburst there is 2-3Myr old; the 20" core contains about 2500 O7V star equivalents, with a representative age of 5Myr. The Lyman ionizing flux of the nucleus is equivalent to the 30 Doradus region. These quantities are in good agreement with the observed mid-IR dust luminosity of 7.8x10^8 L(sun) Since this structure of hot clusters embedded in cooler emission may be common in dwarf starbursts, observing a galaxy solely with a large aperture may result in confusion. Neglecting the spatial distribution of nebular emission in NGC5253, implies `global' stellar temperatures (or ages) of 36kK (4.8Myr) and 39kK (2.9 or 4.4Myr) from the observed [NeIII/II] and [SIV/III] line ratios, assuming logQ=8.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, uses mn.sty, to appear in MNRA