Unpleasant monetarist arithmetic: Macroprudential edition

This paper shows that the recent trend of separating macroprudential and monetary policies (M&Ms) into two autonomous institutions is undesirable. A strategic (game of chicken type) conflict is likely to occur, whereby each M&M ignores exuberant credit booms, trying to induce the other institution to tighten conditions. This has been observed, for example, in Sweden and Norway after 2010. We postulate a generalised concept of stochastic leadership and argue that greater rigidities give the prudential authority the upper hand strategically on the central bank. We show how this leads to a second type of unpleasant monetarist arithmetic and costly economic fluctuations.Web of Science96312391

Absolute measurement of the DT primary neutron yield on the National Ignition Facility

The measurement of the absolute neutron yield produced in inertial confinement fusion target experiments conducted on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is essential in benchmarking progress towards the goal of achieving ignition on this facility. This paper describes three independent diagnostic techniques that have been developed to make accurate and precise DT neutron yield measurements on the NIF

Absolute measurement of the DT primary neutron yield on the National Ignition Facility

The measurement of the absolute neutron yield produced in inertial confinement fusion target experiments conducted on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is essential in benchmarking progress towards the goal of achieving ignition on this facility. This paper describes three independent diagnostic techniques that have been developed to make accurate and precise DT neutron yield measurements on the NIF

Prediction of molecular alignment of nucleic acids in aligned media

Contains fulltext : 35529.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)We demonstrate - using the data base of all deposited DNA and RNA structures aligned in Pf1-medium and RDC refined - that for nucleic acids in a Pf1-medium the electrostatic alignment tensor can be predicted reliably and accurately via a simple and fast calculation based on the gyration tensor spanned out by the phosphodiester atoms. The rhombicity is well predicted over its full range from 0 to 0.66, while the alignment tensor orientation is predicted correctly for rhombicities up to ca. 0.4, for larger rhombicities it appears to deviate somewhat more than expected based on structural noise and measurement error. This simple analytical approach is based on the Debye-Huckel approximation for the electrostatic interaction potential, valid at distances sufficiently far away from a poly-ionic charged surface, a condition naturally enforced when the charge of alignment medium and solute are of equal sign, as for nucleic acids in a Pf1-phage medium. For the usual salt strengths and nucleic acid sizes, the Debye-Huckel screening length is smaller than the nucleic acid size, but large enough for the collective of Debye-Huckel spheres to encompass the whole molecule. The molecular alignment is then purely electrostatic, but it's functional form is under these conditions similar to that for steric alignment. The proposed analytical expression allows for very fast calculation of the alignment tensor and hence RDCs from the conformation of the nucleic acid molecule. This information provides opportunities for improved structure determination of nucleic acids, including better assessment of dynamics in (multi-domain) nucleic acids and the possibility to incorporate alignment tensor prediction from shape directly into the structure calculation process. The procedures are incorporated into MATLAB scripts, which are available on request