Bibliography of research using the NZIER’s quarterly survey of business opinion

The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) has conducted and published a quarterly survey of business opinion continuously, and with largely unchanged questions, since June 1961. The Institute’s Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion (QSBO) is a business tendency survey based substantially on the Business Test of the IFO Munich. It covers the manufacturing, building, merchant and service sectors and architects. This bibliography lists and classifies some 80 research papers which used QSBO data and published between 1964 and 2011

Educating Strategic Lieutenants at West Point

This article argues West Point responded to the changing strategic environment from the end of the Cold War through the post-9/11 period by innovating its curriculum. Over the past several decades, however, the academy’s educational model has remained remarkably stable, rooted in an enduring commitment to a rigorous liberal education as the best preparation for officers confronting the inherent uncertainties of future wars

The Effect of Epidemiological Investor Sentiment on Financial Market Movements

This paper investigates the effect of public sentiment related to epidemiological crises on financial market movements. The outbreak of COVID-19 provided evidence of the havoc a pandemic can wreak on financial markets. The Ebola outbreak between December 2013 and January 2016 provides the ideal case study to isolate sentiment. Sentiment was quantified with established text processing methods, using news on viral events uncorrelated with other potential causes of market movements and incorporating publisher circulation. I find that epidemiological investor sentiment has a highly statistically significant, current, and non-linear relationship with individual company stock returns when controlling for company-specific fixed effects

Should An Intentional Discriminator Be Insured?

Throughout history, public policy has placed limitations on insurance coverage because of the fear that insurance provides an incentive to engage in wrongful conduct

Multi-wavelength modeling of the spatially resolved debris disk of HD 107146

(abridged) We aim to constrain the location, composition, and dynamical state of planetesimal populations and dust around the young, sun-like (G2V) star HD 107146}. We consider coronagraphic observations obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST/ACS) onboard the HST in broad V and broad I filters, a resolved 1.3mm map obtained with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA), Spitzer/IRS low resolution spectra, and the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the object at wavelengths ranging from 3.5micron to 3.1mm. We complement these data with new coronagraphic high resolution observations of the debris disk using the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (HST/NICMOS) aboard the HST in the F110W filter. The SED and images of the disk in scattered light as well as in thermal reemission are combined in our modeling using a parameterized model for the disk density distribution and optical properties of the dust. A detailed analytical model of the debris disk around HD 107146 is presented that allows us to reproduce the almost entire set of spatially resolved and unresolved multi-wavelength observations. Considering the variety of complementary observational data, we are able to break the degeneracies produced by modeling SED data alone. We find the disk to be an extended ring with a peak surface density at 131AU. Furthermore, we find evidence for an additional, inner disk probably composed of small grains released at the inner edge of the outer disk and moving inwards due to Poynting-Robertson drag. A birth ring scenario (i.e., a more or less broad ring of planetesimals creating the dust disk trough collisions) is found to be the most likely explanation of the ringlike shape of the disk.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Mid-infrared quantum optics in silicon

Applied quantum optics stands to revolutionise many aspects of information technology, provided performance can be maintained when scaled up. Silicon quantum photonics satisfies the scaling requirements of miniaturisation and manufacturability, but at 1.55 $\mu$m it suffers from unacceptable linear and nonlinear loss. Here we show that, by translating silicon quantum photonics to the mid-infrared, a new quantum optics platform is created which can simultaneously maximise manufacturability and miniaturisation, while minimising loss. We demonstrate the necessary platform components: photon-pair generation, single-photon detection, and high-visibility quantum interference, all at wavelengths beyond 2 $\mu$m. Across various regimes, we observe a maximum net coincidence rate of 448 $\pm$ 12 Hz, a coincidence-to-accidental ratio of 25.7 $\pm$ 1.1, and, a net two photon quantum interference visibility of 0.993 $\pm$ 0.017. Mid-infrared silicon quantum photonics will bring new quantum applications within reach.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; revised figures, updated discussion in section 3, typos corrected, added referenc

An Investigation of the Triterpene alpha-Amyrin and of 6-Chloro-3-Benzoyloxy-Cholest-4-Ene

Part I - alpha-Amyrin. Investigations were carried out on the naturally occurring triterpene alpha-amyrin, C30H50O, with a view to elucidating its structure. Oxidation of the hydrocarbon 1-alpha-amyradiene, C30H48, by various reagents, failed to give homogeneous products or reproducible results though potassium permanganates gave material analysing as C30H48O. Both hydrogen peroxide and ozone have been shown to react with alpha-amyrin esters to give oxides which may be isomerised to saturated ketones. The compound described in the literature as alpha-amyranonyl benzoate is, in fact, alpha-amyrin benzoate oxide. Both the oxides and ketones may be partially dehydrogenated by bromine to give iso-alpha-amyrenonyl esters. Reduction of alpha-amyrone by three different methods gave the same hydrocarbon alpha-amyrene, C30H50, in every case. This was oxidised to alpha-amyrene oxide which could be isomerised to the saturated ketone iso-alpha-amyranone (also obtained by Kishner-Wolff reduction of alpha-amyrane dione) or reduced to the alcohol iso-alpha-amyranol. Attempts to chlorinate this alcohol so that the halogens-ted derivative might be reduced to the saturated hydrocarbon alpha-amyrane, resulted in every case in dehydration, and alpha-amyrene was formed. In hydrogen peroxide oxidations of alpha-amyrin esters high melting by-products are formed together with the oxide, but investigation of these failed to elucidate their nature. It was hoped to prepare various a-diketones and ketols so that these could be treated with periodic acid, Ring opening might occur giving acid products. alpha-amyradionol, alpha-amyradionyl acetate and alpha-amyradondiol monobenzoate were all prepared. The first of these was made by an improvement of a published method, and the last (an alpha-ketol) by replacement of bromine by hydroxyl in bromo-alpha-amyranonyl benzoate. These, on treatment with periodic acid, gave neutral products which were apparently isomeric with the starting material, but without the original ketol, or dione, grouping. Reduction of alpha-amyrin benzoate oxide gave the compound described in the literature, but the action of various reducing agents on alpha-amyranonyl benzoate gave non-homogenous products. New methods of investigation of the problem were examined, and the amyrin nucleus was found to be stable to alkali at high temperature, but completely broken down by aluminium trichloride. Many other compounds were prepared, among them a sulphite of alpha-amyrin, and an examination of molecular rotation differences between some of the compounds and their esters showed that changes in the neighbourhood of the double bond appear to exert a vicinal action on the hydroxyl group. Part II. 6-Chloro-3-Benzoyloxy-Cholest-4-ene. This compound, formulated as above by Spring and Swain (J. (1939),1356) as 4-chloro-3-benzoyloxy-cholest-5-ene by Petrow, Rosenheim and Starling (J. (1943),135) and as 3-chloro-4-benzoyloxy-cholest-5-ene by Berg and Wallis, (J. Biol. Chem. (194b)162(3),683) was investigated. A synthesis of 3-chloro-4-hydroxy-cholest-5-ene was carried out by the action of selenium dioxide on cholesteryl chloride, and a new synthesis of 6-chloro-3-acetoxy-cholest-5-ene achieved by the action of phosphorus pentachloride on 6-keto-cholestanyl acetate. Degradative experiments on Spring and Swain's compound by way of its oxide failed to give the required products because of ready loss of halogen, but some new light has been thrown on the problem. A comparison of the optical rotations of the compound under investigation (as acetate) and 3-chloro-4-acetoxy-cholest-5-ene leads to the belief that Petrow, Rosenheim and Starling's formulation may be correct

Discovery of a Nearly Edge-On Disk Around HD 32297

We report the discovery of a nearly edge-on disk about the A0 star HD 32297 seen in light scattered by the disk grains revealed in NICMOS PSF-subtracted coronagraphic images. The disk extends to a distance of at least 400 AU (3.3") along its major axis with a 1.1 micron flux density of 4.81 +/-0.57 mJy beyond a radius of 0.3" from the coronagraphically occulted star. The fraction of 1.1 micron starlight scattered by the disk, 0.0033 +/- 0.0004, is comparable to its fractional excess emission at 25 + 60 micron of ~ 0.0027 as measured from IRAS data. The disk appears to be inclined 10.5 degrees +/- 2.5 degrees from an edge-on viewing geometry, with its major axis oriented 236.5 degrees +/- 1 degree eastward of north. The disk exhibits unequal brightness in opposing sides and a break in the surface brightness profile along NE-side disk major axis. Such asymmetries might implicate the existence of one or more (unseen) planetary mass companions.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ