The City's role in providing for the public equity financing needs of UK SMEs

The City of London recognises the important contribution made by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to the UK economy and the critical role played by UK financial services in providing equity finance to facilitate their growth. As a result the City of London has commissioned research to assess the role and contribution made by UK financial services in terms of supporting the provision of and access to equity finance for UK SMEs. This commission is timely given the Government’s concerns over gaps in the SME funding escalator and the recent economic downturn, which has led to a withdrawal of venture capital funds and a loss of investor confidence

India's Bond Market-Developments and Challenges Ahead

While India boasts a world-class equity market and increasingly important bank assets, its bond market has not kept up. The government bond market remains illiquid. The corporate bond market, in addition, remains restrictive to participants and largely arbitrage-driven. Securitization, which once had the jump on other Asian markets, has failed to take off. To meet the needs of its firms and investors, the bond market must therefore evolve. This will mean creating new market sectors such as exchange-traded interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives contracts. It will mean relaxing exchange restrictions, easing investment mandates on contractual savings institutions, reforming the stamp duty tax, and revamping disclosure requirements for corporate public offers. This paper reviews the development and outlook of the Indian bond market. It looks at the market participants-including life insurance, pension funds, mutual funds and foreign investors-and it discusses the importance to development of learning from the innovations and experiences of others.India; emerging East Asia; bond market; securitization; collateralized borrowing and lending obligations (CBLO)

William Dean Howells and the New Science: Darwinian Evolution and the Rise of Realism

Broad acceptance of Charles Darwin\u27s Origin of Species emboldened a young William Dean Howells to explore the possibility of a scientific foundation for a new literature combining close observations of the immediate environment with a method of interpreting these observations based on evolutionary science as Howells understood it. Charles Sprague\u27s The Darwinian Theory, published in the Atlantic in 1866, the year Howells became assistant editor, provided the foundation for this new method, and Alfred Russel Wallace\u27s The Malay Archipelago (1869) prompted Howells to take what he called a new direction in fiction based on evolutionary theory and natural selection. He began to explore this new approach in sketches written for the Atlantic (later published as Suburban Sketches) and further developed it in his first novel, Their Wedding Journey. Of special interest is the sketch Jubilee Days in which he examines the biological premises upon which Darwin and Wallace base their conclusions about natural selection. Howells continued to explore evolutionary theory in A Modern Instance in which he examines the locus of human morality and the educational process that shapes the human moral sense. Individual progress, analogous to social progress, requires inheritance of an innate altruistic tendency, which stands in tenuous opposition to the selfish impulses that had directed human behavior for millennia. If unsupported, altruism can revert to savage animalism; therefore, education must shape it. Additionally, a terminus of influence delimits the boundary beyond which the adult moral sense solidifies. Later in his career, however, Howells\u27s attitude toward evolution exhibits a slow but steady shift from measured optimism concerning the future of human society to one of doubt and pessimism. In The Minister\u27s Charge (1886), Howells concludes that adaptation is possible for the individual and that the variation introduced to the existing, relatively closed social structure will strengthen society as a whole. The Landlord at Lion\u27s Head (1897) presents an interpretation close in accord with an integrated evolutionary theory of Mendelian genetics with Darwinian natural selection. Howells eventually concludes that the best one can hope for is survival in the perpetual struggle and adaptation within a shifting social environment

A False Perception? The relative riskiness of AIM and listed Stocks

This research examines the perception that the AIM market is riskier than the Official List market in comparable stocks. The empirical analysis uses high frequency data for January 2000 to December 2004 on 533 AIM stocks and 264 comparable Official List stocks. Risk is measured in a variety of ways. At a superficial level AIM stocks appear riskier than comparable Official List stocks. However, as the analysis is refined to ensure the comparison focuses purely on the effects of being listed on different markets, the additional AIM risk shrinks and finally disappears. This conclusion concurs with the current market practitioner view that there is no significant risk differential.

Factors affecting the storage and reproduction of predictive smooth pursuit eye movements

The eyes take 100ms to react to a moving visual target. Anticipatory production of internally generated eye velocity can reduce this delay. However, smooth velocities up to only about 5 degree/s can be voluntarily generated without a moving target. In contrast, fast predictive movements without visual feedback occur during anticipatory smooth pursuit (ASP) eye movements. Frequent repetition of brief target ramp movements appears to charge an internal store that is later released as ASP before each ramp.This thesis shows that ASP velocity increases when 1) faster ramps are used (for 12- 50degree /s ramps, the eye typically reaches 60% of target velocity by 100ms after ramp onset), 2) alternate direction rather than unidirectional ramps are used and 3) when audio timing cues are given 600ms before the onset of each ramp. It decreases when a fixation target is present before ramp onset.Several results suggest ASP velocity is not precisely controlled. Variability to consecutive identical stimuli is quite high and some subjects have large directional asymmetries. Furthermore, appropriately scaled ASP velocities cannot be produced when an increase in target velocity is expected.The putative store's longevity was assessed by repetitively presenting brief ramps with different intervals of darkness between each ramp up to 7.2s. Ability to generate fast ASP declined with increasing interval, even with audio timing cues. Similar decreases were not seen in anticipatory tracking movements by the hand.The magnitude of anticipatory eye acceleration before each ramp started and of anticipatory deceleration before each ramp ended was altered by changing the target briefly into an visual acuity target that had to be identified at a set time during each ramp. However, the changes were small suggesting that subjects cannot greatly modify the predictive compromise between optimal tracking of different parts of the target motion waveform.ASP eye movements appear to be a rough estimate of target velocity released with appropriate timing and direction. This rough estimate can significantly improve pursuit whilst awaiting the visual feedback needed for precise pursuit

Early stages of phase selection in MOF formation observed in molecular Monte Carlo simulations

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) comprising metal nodes bridged by organic linkers show great promise because of their guest-specific gas sorption, separation, drug-delivery, and catalytic properties. The selection of metal node, organic linker, and synthesis conditions in principle offers engineered control over both structure and function. For MOFs to realise their potential and to become more than just promising materials, a degree of predictability in the synthesis and a better understanding of the self-assembly or initial growth processes is of paramount importance. Using cobalt succinate, a MOF that exhibits a variety of phases depending on synthesis temperature and ligand to metal ratio, as proof of concept, we present a molecular Monte Carlo approach that allows us to simulate the early stage of MOF assembly. We introduce a new Contact Cluster Monte Carlo (CCMC) algorithm which uses a system of overlapping "virtual sites" to represent the coordination environment of the cobalt and both metal-metal and metal-ligand associations. Our simulations capture the experimentally observed synthesis phase distinction in cobalt succinate at 348 K. To the best of our knowledge this is the first case in which the formation of different MOF phases as a function of composition is captured by unbiased molecular simulations. The CCMC algorithm is equally applicable to any system in which short-range attractive interactions are a dominant feature, including hydrogen-bonding networks, metal-ligand coordination networks, or the assembly of particles with "sticky" patches, such as colloidal systems or the formation of protein complexes.</p

More on Estimating Elasticities using Lagged Endogenous Variables

Demand and Price Analysis,

The Adiabatic Invariance of the Action Variable in Classical Dynamics

We consider one-dimensional classical time-dependent Hamiltonian systems with quasi-periodic orbits. It is well-known that such systems possess an adiabatic invariant which coincides with the action variable of the Hamiltonian formalism. We present a new proof of the adiabatic invariance of this quantity and illustrate our arguments by means of explicit calculations for the harmonic oscillator. The new proof makes essential use of the Hamiltonian formalism. The key step is the introduction of a slowly-varying quantity closely related to the action variable. This new quantity arises naturally within the Hamiltonian framework as follows: a canonical transformation is first performed to convert the system to action-angle coordinates; then the new quantity is constructed as an action integral (effectively a new action variable) using the new coordinates. The integration required for this construction provides, in a natural way, the averaging procedure introduced in other proofs, though here it is an average in phase space rather than over time.Comment: 8 page

An Examination of the Farm Level Demand for Pecans

Demand and Price Analysis,

FARM LEVEL DEMAND FOR PECANS RECONSIDERED

Previous studies have consistently indicated the anomalous result of a price inflexible demand for pecans. However, these efforts did not have an adequate measure of pecan stocks available and, as a result, stocks were either excluded from consideration or a proxy variable was introduced. A time series of pecan stocks is now available. Use of this time series in a price dependent demand function results in a flexible farm level demand for pecans. This points out the danger of excluding an appropriate variable or using a so-called "reasonable" proxy variable.Crop Production/Industries,