The self-referential method for linear rigid bodies : application to hard and Lennard-Jones dumbbells

The self-referential (SR) method incorporating thermodynamic integration (TI) [Sweatman et al., J. Chem. Phys. 128, 064102 (2008)] is extended to treat systems of rigid linear bodies. The method is then applied to obtain the canonical ensemble Helmholtz free energy of the alpha-N2 and plastic face centered cubic phases of systems of hard and Lennard-Jones dumbbells using Monte Carlo simulations. Generally good agreement with reference literature data is obtained, which indicates that the SR-TI method is potentially very general and robust

The gap between Peace Economics and nowadays European integration model.

The gap between Peace Economics and nowadays European integration mode

Unsigning the Rome Statute: Examining the Relationship Between the United States and the International Criminal Court

Presently, 120 states are parties to the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC). A state that one will not find on the list, however, would be the United States. This project examines the relationship between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the United States. The United States took part in the negotiating process, signing the Rome Statute under President Bill Clinton, but was not fully satisfied with the agreement reached. Under President Bush, however, the Rome Statute was unsigned. Presently, the United States remains unsigned on the Rome Statute. The relationship between the Court and the United States is important in determining the future of the Court, in terms of effectiveness and legitimacy. I will begin with a brief historical background on the development of the ICC, its structure, and the extent of its jurisdiction. From there, I will detail several problems with the court from America’s perspective. These include third-party jurisdiction and constitutional issues. I will also examine the relationship between the United States and the ICC under the three Presidents in office since the court’s conception: Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Finally, I argue that the Court needs the support of the United States to survive, but that the problems with the Court from America’s perspective will continue to stand in the way of American support for the court until U.S. interests are met

Conditional Quantiles of Volatility in Equity Index and Foreign Exchange Data

This paper uses estimation techniques related to those of Galbraith and Zinde-Walsh (2000) for ARCH and GARCH models, based on realized volatility (Andersen and Bollerslev 1998, and others), to estimate the conditional quantiles of daily volatility in samples of equity index and foreign exchange data. These techniques in principle allow us to characterize the entire conditional distribution of volatility, conditioning on past realized volatility and past squared returns. We take samples of daily and intra-day returns on the Toronto Stock Exchange 35 index, the DM/$US exchange rate and the Yen/$ US exchange rate. In addition to information about the conditional extremes of volatility, we find some evidence that lower percentiles of the conditional distribution rise proportionately less in high-volatility periods than do the higher percentiles. Nous utilisons des techniques d'estimation de modèle reliées à ceux de Galbraith et Zinde-Walsh (2000) pour les modèles ARCH et GARCH, basées sur la realized volatility (Andersen et Bollerslev 1998, et autres), afin d'obtenir les quantiles conditionnels de volatilité quotidienne dans les données provenant des marchés boursiers et des marchés de devises étrangères. Ces méthodes nous permettent en principe de caractériser la distribution entière de volatilité en utilisant la volatilité réalisée et les retours carrés. Nous prenons des échantillons de rendements quotidiens et intrajournaliers de l'indice 35 du TSE, et des taux de change DM/$US et Yen/$ US. Nos résultats montrent également que les percentiles inférieurs de la distribution conditionnelle augmentent proportionnellement moins en périodes de volatilité extrême que les percentiles supérieurs.GARCH model, integrated volatility, quantile regression, Modèle GARCH, volatilité intégrée, régression quantile

Consumption caught in the cash nexus.

During the last thirty years, ‘consumption’ has become a major topic in the study of contemporary culture within anthropology, psychology and sociology. For many authors it has become central to understanding the nature of material culture in the modern world but this paper argues that the concept is, in British writing at least, too concerned with its economic origins in the selling and buying of consumer goods or commodities. It is argued that to understand material culture as determined through the monetary exchange for things - the cash nexus - leads to an inadequate sociological understanding of the social relations with objects. The work of Jean Baudrillard is used both to critique the concept of consumption as it leads to a focus on advertising, choice, money and shopping and to point to a more sociologically adequate approach to material culture that explores objects in a system of models and series, ‘atmosphere’, functionality, biography, interaction and mediation

Inequality Rediscovered

Widespread recognition that economic inequality has been growing for forty years in most of the developed world, and in fact has tended to grow across most of the history of modern economies, shows that the period 1945-1973, when inequality of wealth and income shrank, was a marked anomaly in historical experience. At the time, however, the anomalous period of equality seemed to vindicate a long history of optimism about economic life: that growth would overcome meaningful scarcity and usher in an egalitarian and humanistic period that could almost qualify as post-economic. This has not been the experience of the last four decades. In this intellectual history of the anomalous period, we trace the main lines of that optimism and its undoing

A reliable system for the transformation of cantaloupe charentais melon (Cucumis melo L. var. cantalupensis) leading to a majority of diploid regenerants

An efficient system of transformation leading to a majority of transformed diploid plants from leaf explants of Cucumis melo L. var. Cantalupensis (cv. Védrantais) was developed. Several regeneration protocols using cotyledon or leaf explants were analysed with particular emphasis on the regeneration efficiency and the ploidy level of the regenerated melon plants. The use of leaf explants excised from 10 day-old seedlings, cultured in Murashige and Skoog's medium supplemented with 1 mM 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 1 mM 6-(g,g-dimethylallylamino)-purine (2iP), resulted in a high regeneration frequency (73%). In these conditions, more than 84% of the regenerated plants were found to be diploid. Addition of an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation step did not significantly change the percentage (81.8%) of diploid plants regenerated. This protocol was successfully used to produce diploid transgenic melon plants expressing the antisense ACC oxidase gene, encoding ACC oxidase which catalyses the last step of ethylene biosynthesis. Ethylene production and ACC oxidase activity of the leaf explants from transgenic plants was reduced by more than 80% as compared to the control untransformed tissues. This transformation/ regeneration method could be routinely used for the introduction of other genes of interest in melon

Information Content of Volatility Forecasts at Medium-term Horizons

Using realized volatility to estimate daily conditional volatility of financial returns, we compare forecasts of daily volatility from standard QML-estimated GARCH models, and from projections on past realized volatilities obtained from high-frequency data. We consider horizons extending to thirty trading days. The forecasts are compared with the unconditional sample variance of daily returns treated as a daily volatility forecast, allowing us to estimate the maximum horizon at which the model-based forecasts provide forecasting power, measured by MSE reduction. Using data from a Toronto Stock Exchange equity index and foreign exchange returns (DM/$US and Yen/$US), we find evidence of forecasting power at horizons of up to thirty trading days, on each of the three financial returns series. We also find some evidence that the result of (e.g.) Bollerslev and Wright (2001), that projections on past realized volatility provide better 1-step forecasts than the QML-GARCH forecasts, appears to extend to longer horizons up to around ten to fifteen trading days. At longer horizons, there appears to be little to distinguish the forecast methods. En utilisant la volatilité réalisée pour estimer la volatilité conditionnelle quotidienne des rendements financiers, nous comparons les prévisions de volatilité quotidienne effectuées à partir de modèles GARCH-QVM standard et à partir de projections directes sur les volatilités réalisées. Nous considérons un horizon maximal de trente jours de transaction. Les prévisions sont comparées à la variance non conditionnelle des rendements quotidiens, ce qui nous permet d'estimer l'horizon maximal pour lequel les modèles détiennent un pouvoir de prévision. Nous utilisons des données de l'indice TSE 35 et des taux de change DM/US$et Yen/US$, et nos résultats montrent qu'il y a un pouvoir de prédiction jusqu'à un horizon de trente jours, et ce, pour chacune des trois séries. Nous montrons aussi que le résultat de Bollerslev et Wright (2001), résultat indiquant que les projections sont supérieures sur l'horizon d'un jour, reste valide dans un horizon s'étendant jusqu'à dix ou quinze jours. Pour des horizons plus longs, les deux types de méthodes de prévision ne se différencient guère.GARCH, high-frequency data, integrated volatility, realized volatility, GARCH, données à haute fréquence, volatilité intégrée, volatilité réalisée

Sir Thomas Gray's Scalacronica: a medieval chronicle and its historical and literary context

Sir Thomas Gray's Scalacronica is almost unique amongst medieval English chronicles in having been written by a knight, and it is therefore surprising that so little work has been done on it; this thesis attempts to remedy that omission. Gray's life is very well documented, as is that of his father (who was the source of much of the Scalacronica’s narrative of the reign of Edward II - and also its main subject). Thus, unusually with a medieval chronicle, it is possible to examine the work in the context of its author’s career, providing a valuable insight into the attitudes and learning of a member of the gentry classes in fourteenth-century England. The Scalacronica starts with a well known literary dream sequence in which Gray names some of his written sources. An analysis of this passage reveals much about Gray's learning and his methods as a historian - and about his literary pretensions. He also relied on stories gleaned from his father; the manner in which he integrated them with his written sources is equally revealing about his interests and priorities. As the elder Gray was close to the court of Edward II, his son's political commentary is particularly interesting, providing an alternative to the more usual pro-Lancastrian bias of medieval chroniclers. Furthermore, both the father and son were prominent in the administration of the Marches, so the Scalacronica has an obvious - but hitherto unrecognised - relevance to current historiographical debates on the role of the gentry. Finally, the Scalacronica has been widely regarded as a 'chivalric' chronicle, embodying the values of medieval romance. However, a close analysis of Gray's text reveals that while he admired and respected acts of martial heroism, his attitude to the trappings of fourteenth-century chivalric culture was highly disdainful, and even cynical