Cointegration and Structural Change in the Exports-Gdp Nexus: The Case of Iran, 1960-2003

This paper examines the major sources of economic growth in Iran using annual time series data (1960 to 2003). The time series properties of the data are analysed by Perron’s innovational outlier and additive outlier models. The empirical results based these models show that there is not enough evidence against the null hypothesis of unit root for all of the variables under investigation. Moreover, we found that the most significant structural breaks over the last four decades which have been detected endogenously in fact correspond to the regime change (e.g the 1979 Islamic revolution) and the Iraqi war in the 1980s. Finally, an ARDL methodology is employed to obtain the short and long-term determinants of economic growth. The results show that while the effects of gross capital formation and oil exports are highly significant, as expected, non-oil exports and human capital have an even smaller effect than had been anticipated.structural break, unit root tests, ARDL method, and Iranian economy

MULTIPLE STRUCTURAL BREAKS IN AUSTRALIA’S MACROECONOMIC DATA: AN APPLICATION OF THE LUMSDAINE AND PAPELL TEST

This paper employs all available annual time series data to endogenously determine the timing of structural breaks for 10 macroeconomic variables in the Australian economy. The ADF (Augmented Dickey and Fuller) test and the LP (Lumsdaine and Papell, 1997) test are used to examine the time series properties of the data. The ADF test results provide no evidence against the unit root null hypothesis in all ten macroeconomic variables. After accounting for the two most significant structural breaks in the data impacting on both the intercept and trend, the results from the LP test indicate that the null of at least one unit root is rejected for four of the variables under investigation at the 10 per cent level or better. We also found that the dates of structural breaks in most cases point to: (a) the oil/wages shock occurring in the 1973-1975 period, (b) the 1990-1991 recession; (c) the culmination of financial deregulation and innovation in the late 1980s; and (d) the 1997 Asian crisis.Unit roots Hypothesis, structural breaks, and Australian economy

Study on combining ability, heterosis and genetic parameters of yield traits in rice

A study was conducted on heterosis, combining ability and genetic parameters of yield and yield components in rice. Five lines were crossed with two testers in line × tester manner to produce ten F1 hybrids. Results show that general combining ability (GCA) effect was only significant for total number of kernels per panicle, number of filled kernels and grain yield per plant, and specific combining ability (SCA) effect was significant for yield and all of its studied components (except for 100-kernel weight). Lines IR42 and Pouya showed a significant GCA for grain yield in opposite direction (20.9 and -13.7 g/plant, respectively). The two lines also showed highest significant GCA for number of filled kernels (22.7 and 23.3, respectively). In the total number of kernels, lines IR8 and IR42 and tester Usen showed the highest significant GCA (34.79, 27.97 and 12.56). In tiller number, only line IR36 and tester IR68897 had the highest significant GCA (3.51 and 0.84). Combination of IR68897×IR8 showed highest significant SCA for grain yield (9.7 g/plant), while in the case of number of filled kernels and tiller number, combinations IR68897×IR8 and Usen/IR36 showed a significant positive SCA (18.9 and 2.1, respectively), indicating that hybridization can be a choice for improving hybrids with better quantity of these traits. The highest general heritability (hbs) was obtained for tiller number (96.1%), indicating slight effects of the environment on the trait, while for other traits, a mild general heritability (~70%) was obtained, indicating considerable effect of environment on phenotypic expression of most yield traits. A low specific heritability (hn2) was obtained for all traits (18.2 to 26.3%), indicating that non-additive effects play an important role in genetic control of yield traits. Therefore, it seems that hybridization must be a choice for utilizing the putative heterosis in special crosses, and such a condition was observed for tiller number and grain yield in combinations of IR42×IR68897 and IR42×Usen.Key words: Rice, line × tester, combining ability, heritability, heterosis

Application of AdS/CFT in Nuclear Physics

We review some recent progress in studying the nuclear physics especially nucleon-nucleon (NN) force within the gauge-gravity duality, in context of noncritical string theory. Our main focus is on the holographic QCD model based on the AdS6 background. We explain the noncritical holography model and obtain the vector-meson spectrum and pion decay constant. Also, we study the NN interaction in this frame and calculate the nucleonmeson coupling constants. A further topic covered is a toy model for calculating the light nuclei potential. In particular, we calculate the light nuclei binding energies and also excited energies of some available excited states. We compare our results with the results of other nuclear models and also with the experimental data. Moreover, we describe some other issues which are studied using the gauge-gravity duality