Banking in General Equilibrium with an Application to Japan

Japan has now experienced over a decade of slow growth and deflation. This period has also been associated with protracted problems in the banking sector. A wide range of measures have been tried in to restore health in the banking sector including recapitalization, the extension of 100% guarantees to all deposits, and central bank purchases of shares held by banks. It has also argued that ending deflation is an important ingredient in restoring banking sector health. This paper develops a general equilibrium of the banking sector. In our model the banking sector produces an intermediate good that is used to produce investment goods and a variable fraction of consumption goods. We then assess the implications of alternative policies designed to assist the banking sector in terms of their implications for welfare and the size and profitability of the banking sector.

Indecomposable modules and Gelfand rings

It is proved that a commutative ring is clean if and only if it is Gelfand with a totally disconnected maximal spectrum. Commutative rings for which each indecomposable module has a local endomorphism ring are studied. These rings are clean and elementary divisor rings

Jay\u27s Collectibles

There is growing interest in collectibles of many types, as indicated by the popularity of television programs such as the History Channel’s Pawn Stars and American Pickers and the Public Broadcasting Service’s Antiques Road Show. The availability of online auction sites such as eBay has enabled many people to collect items of interest as a hobby and to sell parts of their collection as a business or for extra income. As a collection grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to track through manual methods, and it is often useful to develop a computer-based system for this purpose. This case raises the possibility of developing an information system to manage a collection of sports autographs. This case may be used in a systems analysis and design, database, or systems development course to address a number of important topics such as: systems scope identification, problem and opportunity analysis, requirements analysis, data modeling, and application development. The case is designed to provoke interest and raise a sufficient level of complexity to challenge students to apply a range of systems development and database concepts. While the case addresses sports collectibles, its concepts may be applicable other types of systems, especially those involving other types of collections or “one of a kind” items. Since many students are likely to have at least some experience using online auction sites, following professional sports, seeing television programs about collectibles, or attending flea markets where collectibles are sold, the case builds in some way on their life experience. This teaching case enables students to discover how systems development and database concepts are applicable to a practical problem solving scenario

Hybrid Pixel Detector Development for the Linear Collider Vertex Tracker

In order to fully exploit the physics potential of the future high energy e+e- linear collider, a Vertex Tracker able to provide particle track extrapolation with very high resolution is needed. Hybrid Si pixel sensors are an attractive technology due to their fast read-out capabilities and radiation hardness. A novel pixel detector layout with interleaved cells has been developed to improve the single point resolution. Results of the characterisation of the first processed prototypes by electrostatic measurements and charge collection studies are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proceedings of the 9th Int. Workshop on Vertex Detectors, Lake Michigan MI (USA), September~200

Magnetically Enhanced Inductive Source for Electric Propulsion Applications

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76941/1/AIAA-2007-5294-339.pd

Underwater operation of a DBD plasma jet

A plasma jet produced in water using a submerged ac excited electrode in a coaxial dielectric barrier discharge configuration was studied. Plasma jet formation was found to occur only while the source was submerged. Plasma jet operation was characterized with and without gas flow. It was found that over 60% of the discharge power was deposited into the water and did not vary appreciably with excitation frequency. Presumably the remaining power fraction went into excitation, ionization and local electrode heating. Emission spectra of the jet revealed nitrogen, hydrogen, hydroxyl and oxygen emission lines. Operation of the plasma jet in water containing the oxidation–reduction indicator methylene blue dye resulted in a marked clearing of the water as observed visually and with a spectrophotometer, suggesting plasma-induced chemical reactivity.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/85414/1/psst10_2_025001.pd

Teacher perspectives on the introduction of linguistics in the languages classroom. Evidence from a co-creation project on French, German and Spanish

Linguistics is conspicuously absent from language teaching in UK schools. A-level cultural topics cover a range of themes such as cyber-society, cultural heritage and multiculturalism, but the approach taken to these topics is not informed by linguistics. In previous work, we have argued that this is an unfortunate omission not only because linguistics is appealing to many language students and perceived by them to be useful, but also because the existing cultural topics could be significantly enriched by the inclusion of the critical/analytical study of language itself. In this paper, we provide concrete examples of how linguistics can be integrated into the existing A-level curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) in England and Wales. Reporting on a project in which teachers trialled linguistics materials co-created by us (a group of academics) and experienced languages teachers, we present evidence that linguistics materials are perceived to be both highly novel and nonetheless compatible with the existing A-level curriculum. Data from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with participating teachers also show that: (i) these new materials can be taught with little or no prior experience of linguistics; and (ii) adding linguistics materials to the curriculum leads to significant impacts on teacher and pupil attitudes towards language(s). Despite some challenges, which we also discuss, the results highlight again the great potential of linguistics as a component of language teaching and the contribution that it can make to the enrichment of the discipline. (DIPF/Orig.

Epstein-Barr virus nuclear protein EBNA3C directly induces expression of AID and somatic mutations in B cells

Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID), the enzyme responsible for induction of sequence variation in immunoglobulins (Igs) during the process of somatic hypermutation (SHM) and also Ig class switching, can have a potent mutator phenotype in the development of lymphoma. Using various Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) recombinants, we provide definitive evidence that the viral nuclear protein EBNA3C is essential in EBV-infected primary B cells for the induction of AID mRNA and protein. Using lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) established with EBV recombinants conditional for EBNA3C function, this was confirmed, and it was shown that transactivation of the AID gene (AICDA) is associated with EBNA3C binding to highly conserved regulatory elements located proximal to and upstream of the AICDA transcription start site. EBNA3C binding initiated epigenetic changes to chromatin at specific sites across the AICDA locus. Deep sequencing of cDNA corresponding to the IgH V-D-J region from the conditional LCL was used to formally show that SHM is activated by functional EBNA3C and induction of AID. These data, showing the direct targeting and induction of functional AID by EBNA3C, suggest a novel role for EBV in the etiology of B cell cancers, including endemic Burkitt lymphoma