Indirect Convertibility and Quasi-futures Contracts: Two Non-operational Schemes for Automatic Stabilisation of the Price Level

This paper examines two proposals for automatic stabilization of the price level based on indirect convertibility and something called a 'quasi futures contract'. These two schemes represent attempts to render operational ideas implicit in the Black (1970) Fama (1980) and Hall (1982) vision of the monetary system. Criticisms of the two schemes have been rejected by their exponents. The paper clarifies the analytical issues at stake in this debate and concludes that both schemes do suffer from fundamental flaws which would render them nonoperational. Hence, neither scheme offers an operational basis for a laissez faire banking system or provides a workable alternative to current methods of stabilising the price level.indirect convertibility, quasi-futures contracts

Importance driven environment map sampling

In this paper we present an automatic and efficient method for supporting Image Based Lighting (IBL) for bidirectional methods which improves both the sampling of the environment, and the detection and sampling of important regions of the scene, such as windows and doors. These often have a small area proportional to that of the entire scene, so paths which pass through them are generated with a low probability. The method proposed in this paper improves this by taking into account view importance, and modifies the lighting distribution to use light transport information. This also automatically constructs a sampling distribution in locations which are relevant to the camera position, thereby improving sampling. Results are presented when our method is applied to bidirectional rendering techniques, in particular we show results for Bidirectional Path Tracing, Metropolis Light Transport and Progressive Photon Mapping. Efficiency results demonstrate speed up of orders of magnitude (depending on the rendering method used), when compared to other methods

Deactivation of TEM-1 beta-Lactamase investigated by isothermal batch and non-isothermal continuous enzyme membrane reactor methods

The thermal deactivation of TEM-1 β-lactamase was examined using two experimental techniques: a series of isothermal batch assays and a single, continuous, non-isothermal assay in an enzyme membrane reactor (EMR). The isothermal batch-mode technique was coupled with the three-state Equilibrium Model of enzyme deactivation, while the results of the EMR experiment were fitted to a four-state molten globule model . The two methods both led to the conclusions that the thermal deactivation of TEM-1 β -lactamase does not follow the Lumry-Eyring model and that the Teq of the enzyme (the point at which active and inactive states are present in equal amounts due to thermodynamic equilibrium) is at least 10 °C from the Tm (melting temperature), contrary to the idea that the true temperature optimum of a biocatalyst is necessarily close to the melting temperature

Effects of Online Parental Remediation in Alternative School Mathematics

The focus of this non-experimental correlation designed study was to investigate the relationships between the use of teacher-made instructional videos for online parental remediation in algebraic content and parental self-efficacy and students’ mathematical achievement in alternative education. The population of this study consisted of a group of 28 parents and their children who were students enrolled in an alternative school in the Southeastern United States. Multiple forms of data were analyzed that included information gained from surveys, website analytics, student assessments and parent interviews. The analyses of the data found that most parents did watch the videos and the intervention did support parental self-efficacy in mathematics. However, there was no strong correlation between the use of the videos and student achievement. The pre- and post-assessments of the control and experimental phases were not significantly different. Therefore, more research is needed on web-based parental remediation using teacher-made instructional videos and its relationship with student achievement