Transact taxes in a price maker/taker market

We develop a price maker/taker model to study how a financial transaction tax affects markets. We find taxes widen quoted and effective spreads by more than twice the tax. Taxes increase volatility slightly (without intermediation) to significantly (with intermediation). High taxes may halve volumes and gains from trade while doubling search costs. Measures of market quality are more affected by taxes in markets with intermediaries. Investors and intermediaries competing for liquidity can triple search costs and increase quoted spreads while decreasing effective spreads. We also find revenue-optimal rates of 60-75 bp. Our results are particularly relevant to markets with high-frequency trading or thin depth

Development and AFM study of porous scaffolds for wound healing applications

An engineering approach to the development of biomaterials for promotion of wound healing emphasises the importance of a well-controlled architecture and concentrates on optimisation of morphology and surface chemistry to stimulate guidance of the cells within the wound environment. A series of three-dimensional porous scaffolds with 80–90% bulk porosity and fully interconnected macropores were prepared from two biodegradable materials – cellulose acetate (CA) and poly (lacticco-glycolic acid) (PLGA) through the phase inversion mechanism of formation. Surface morphology of obtained scaffolds was determined using atomic force microscopy (AFM) in conjunction with optical microscopy. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was applied to characterise scaffolds bulk morphology. Biocompatibility and biofunctionality of the prepared materials were assessed through a systematic study of cell/material interactions using atomic force microscopy (AFM) methodologies together with in vitro cellular assays. Preliminary data with human fibroblasts demonstrated a positive influence of both scaffolds on cellular attachment and growth. The adhesion of cells on both biomaterials were quantified by AFM force measurements in conjunction with a cell probe technique since, for the first time, a fibroblast probe has been successfully developed and optimal conditions of immobilisation of the cells on the AFM cantilever have been experimentally determined

Determination of pi-N scattering lengths from pionic hydrogen and pionic deuterium data

The pi-N s-wave scattering lengths have been inferred from a joint analysis of the pionic hydrogen and the pionic deuterium x-ray data using a non-relativistic approach in which the pi-N interaction is simulated by a short-ranged potential. The pi-d scattering length has been calculated exactly by solving the Faddeev equations and also by using a static approximation. It has been shown that the same very accurate static formula for pi-d scattering length can be derived (i) from a set of boundary conditions; (ii) by a reduction of Faddeev equations; and (iii) through a summation of Feynman diagrams. By imposing the requirement that the pi-d scattering length, resulting from Faddeev-type calculation, be in agreement with pionic deuterium data, we obtain bounds on the pi-N scattering lengths. The dominant source of uncertainty on the deduced values of the pi-N scattering lengths are the experimental errors in the pionic hydrogen data.Comment: RevTeX, 20 pages,4 PostScript figure

Moments of the Virtual Photon Structure Function

The photon structure function is a useful testing ground for QCD. It is perturbatively computable apart from a contribution from what is usually called the hadronic component of the photon. There have been many proposals for this nonperturbative part of the real photon structure function. By studying moments of the virtual photon structure function, we explore the extent to which these proposed nonperturbative contributions can be identified experimentally.Comment: LaTeX, 16 pages + 14 compressed and uuencoded postscript figures, UMN-TH-1111/9

Realistic Electron-Electron Interaction in a Quantum Wire

The form of an effective electron-electron interaction in a quantum wire with a large static dielectric constant is determined and the resulting properties of the electron liquid in such a one-dimensional system are described. The exchange and correlation energies are evaluated and a possibility of a paramagnetic-ferromagnetic phase transition in the ground state of such a system is discussed. Low-energy excitations are briefly described.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Targeting strategic investment in livestock development as a vehicle for rural livelihoods

The purpose of this report is first to provide evidence of the role of livestock in rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Further, the report aims to identify opportunities for investments that build on that evidence and hold promise for improving and sustaining the livelihoods of smallholder livestock producers and their rural communities in developing countries. This analysis is presented in order to support the decision making of those public and private development investors, and policy makers, for whom improved rural livelihoods is a key objective. The report is presented in two parts. Part 1 comprises summaries of in-depth analysis of key issues central to the role of livestock and rural livelihoods, each of which brings together a wide range of available data to inform the topic. Part 2 then uses the information generated and presented in Part 1 and through a conceptual framework for guiding pro-poor livestock investment, identifies the key value chains or livestock systems and regions that are demonstrated by the evidence to offer livelihood opportunities, and some initial description of best bet types of interventions

Evolution of electronic and ionic structure of Mg-clusters with the growth cluster size

The optimized structure and electronic properties of neutral and singly charged magnesium clusters have been investigated using ab initio theoretical methods based on density-functional theory and systematic post-Hartree-Fock many-body perturbation theory accounting for all electrons in the system. We have systematically calculated the optimized geometries of neutral and singly charged magnesium clusters consisting of up to 21 atoms, electronic shell closures, binding energies per atom, ionization potentials and the gap between the highest occupied and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals. We have investigated the transition to the hcp structure and metallic evolution of the magnesium clusters, as well as the stability of linear chains and rings of magnesium atoms. The results obtained are compared with the available experimental data and the results of other theoretical works.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, 3 table

Spatial representation of temporal information through spike timing dependent plasticity

We suggest a mechanism based on spike time dependent plasticity (STDP) of synapses to store, retrieve and predict temporal sequences. The mechanism is demonstrated in a model system of simplified integrate-and-fire type neurons densely connected by STDP synapses. All synapses are modified according to the so-called normal STDP rule observed in various real biological synapses. After conditioning through repeated input of a limited number of of temporal sequences the system is able to complete the temporal sequence upon receiving the input of a fraction of them. This is an example of effective unsupervised learning in an biologically realistic system. We investigate the dependence of learning success on entrainment time, system size and presence of noise. Possible applications include learning of motor sequences, recognition and prediction of temporal sensory information in the visual as well as the auditory system and late processing in the olfactory system of insects.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, completely revised and augmented versio

Context Preserving Focal Probes for Exploration of Volumetric Medical Datasets

During real-time medical data exploration using volume rendering, it is often difficult to enhance a particular region of interest without losing context information. In this paper, we present a new illustrative technique for focusing on a user-driven region of interest while preserving context information. Our focal probes define a region of interest using a distance function which controls the opacity of the voxels within the probe, exploit silhouette enhancement and use non-photorealistic shading techniques to improve shape depiction.187-19

Q2Q^2 Independence of QF2/F1QF_2/F_1, Poincare Invariance and the Non-Conservation of Helicity

A relativistic constituent quark model is found to reproduce the recent data regarding the ratio of proton form factors, $F_2(Q^2)/F_1(Q^2)$. We show that imposing Poincare invariance leads to substantial violation of the helicity conservation rule, as well as an analytic result that the ratio $F_2(Q^2)/F_1(Q^2)\sim 1/Q$ for intermediate values of $Q^2$.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. C typos corrected, references added, 1 new figure to show very high Q^2 behavio