Inflation Forecasting with Inflation Sentiment Indicators

In this paper we argue that future inflation in an economy depends on the way people perceive current inflation, their inflation sentiment.We construct some simple measures of inflation sentiment which capture whether price acceleration is shared by many components of the CPI basket. In a comparative analysis of the forecasting power of the different inflation indicators for the US and Germany, we demonstrate that our inflation sentiment indicators improve forecast accuracy in comparison to a standard Phillips curve approach. Because the forecast performance is particularly good for longer horizons, we also compare our indicators to traditional measures of core inflation.Here, the sentiment indicators outperform the weighted median and show a similar forecasting power as a trimmed mean. Thus, they offer a convincing alternative to traditional core inflation measures.Inflation forecasting, monetary policy

Electron-Phonon Interaction in Embedded Semiconductor Nanostructures

The modification of acoustic phonons in semiconductor nanostructures embedded in a host crystal is investigated including corrections due to strain within continuum elasticity theory. Effective elastic constants are calculated employing {\em ab initio} density functional theory. For a spherical InAs quantum dot embedded in GaAs barrier material, the electron-phonon coupling is calculated. Its strength is shown to be suppressed compared to the assumption of bulk phonons

Microwave Disinfection of Biohazardous Carcasses

A Medister microwave device specifically developed for thermal disinfection of infectious waste was assessed concerning its efficacy for the disinfection of biohazard us animal carcasses. Employment of animals for the experiments was avoided by simulation of carcasses with deep frozen nutrient agar contaminated with bacillus subtilis spores. At a disinfection time of 45 minutes, the reduction rate of the spores was 7.90-8.58 decimal power levels. Controlled microwave disinfection is thus a valuable alternative tool for the treatment of contaminated carcasses

Determination of the isentropic turbine efficiency due to adiabatic measurements and the validation of the conditions via a new criterion

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The determination of the isentropic turbine efficiency under adiabatic and SAE boundary conditions is studied in this paper. The study is structured into two parts. The first part describes the possibility of measuring the isentropic turbine efficiency directly. Normally this is not possible in measurements conducted following the SAE J922 guidelines. Therefore, the experiments have been carried out under adiabatic conditions, and combined with improved measuring equipment. The results were compared with adiabatic computational fluid dynamics simulations of this turbocharger. In the second part, a new criterion is defined in order to evaluate the quality of the adiabatic measurements and compare them with standard measurements. The investigation has been carried out with multiple turbochargers ranging from very small to medium passenger car size turbochargers. In the end, a possible application for the criterion is given