Identifying Shocks in Regionally Integrated East Asian Economies with Structural VAR and Block Exogeneity

In this paper we use a structural VAR model with block exogeneity to investigate if external shocks originating from the USA played a dominant role in influencing the macroeconomic fluctuations in East Asia during the period 1978-2007. The empirical results show a dynamic effect of external shocks, implying that, even though regional integration appears to be deepening and accelerating, especially after the recent global financial crisis, the influence of US shocks on real output fluctuations in the East Asian region is still very strong. The effects of Chinese shocks show an increasing trend over time, but the impacts are still small and not comparable with those of US shocks. The world oil price shock has become increasingly important in influencing the stability of real output growth in the region. The results from variance decomposition and impulse response analysis confirm the findings. Even though Japanese firms have established production networks in East Asia through trade and investment, and China has also grown rapidly and become a key regional country, the results suggest that US influence in the region is still asymmetric and strong. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that shocks to the East Asian economies have become more regionally oriented.East Asia;block exogeneity;external shocks;monetary union;structural vector autoregression

Identifying Shocks in Regionally Integrated East Asian Economies with Structural VaR and Block Exogeneity

In this paper we use a structural VAR model with block exogeneity to investigate if external shocks originating from the USA played a dominant role in influencing the macroeconomic fluctuations in East Asia during the period 1978-2007. The empirical results show a dynamic effect of external shocks, implying that, even though regional integration appears to be deepening and accelerating, especially after the recent global financial crisis, the influence of US shocks on real output fluctuations in the East Asian region is still very strong. The effects of Chinese shocks show an increasing trend over time, but the impacts are still small and not comparable with those of US shocks. The world oil price shock has become increasingly important in influencing the stability of real output growth in the region. The results from variance decomposition and impulse response analysis confirm the findings. Even though Japanese firms have established production networks in East Asia through trade and investment, and China has also grown rapidly and become a key regional country, the results suggest that US influence in the region is still asymmetric and strong. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that shocks to the East Asian economies have become more regionally oriented.East Asia;block exogeneity;monetary union;structural vector autoregression;extrnal shocks

Processing, microstructure and mechanical properties of bimodal size SiCp reinforced AZ31B magnesium matrix composites

AbstractThe bimodal size SiC particulates (SiCp) reinforced magnesium matrix composites with different ratios of micron SiCp and nano SiCp (M-SiCp:N-SiCp = 14.5:0.5, 14:1, and 13.5:1.5) were prepared by semisolid stirring assisted ultrasonic vibration method. The AZ31B alloy and all as-cast SiCp/AZ31B composites were extruded at 350 °C with the ratio of 12:1. Microstructural characterization of the extruded M14 + N1 (M-SiCp:N-SiCp = 14:1) composite revealed the uniform distribution of bimodal size SiCp and significant grain refinement. Optical Microscopy(OM) observation showed that, compared with the M14.5 + N0.5 (M-SiCp:N-SiCp = 14.5:0.5) composite, there are more recrystallized grains in M14 + N1 (M-SiCp:N-SiCp = 14:1) and M13.5 + N1.5 (M-SiCp:N-SiCp = 13.5:1.5) composites, but in comparison to the M13.5 + N1.5 composite, the average grain size of the M14 + N1 composite is slightly decreased. The evaluation of mechanical properties indicated that the yield strength and ultimate tensile strength of the M14 + N1 composite were obviously increased compared with other composites

Recent charm mixing results from BABAR, Belle, and CDF

A summary of the results of several recent studies of charm mixing is presented. A number of different methods were used, including the measurement of lifetime ratios for final states of different CP, time dependence of wrong-sign hadronic decays, fits to time-dependent Dalitz plots, and searches for wrong-sign semi-leptonic decays. Taken together, they suggest mixing is of order 1%. The status of searches for indirect CP violation is also reported.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, proceedings from PHIPSI0

The Ab-Initio Simulation of the Liquid Ga-Se System

Ab-initio dynamical simulation is used to study the liquid Ga-Se system at the three concentrations Ga$_2$Se, GaSe and Ga$_2$Se$_3$ at the temperature 1300~K. The simulations are based on the density functional pseudopotential technique, with the system maintained on the Born-Oppenheimer surface by conjugate gradients minimization. We present results for the partial structure factors and radial distribution functions, which reveal how the liquid structure depends on the composition. Our calculations of the electrical conductivity $\sigma$ using the Kubo-Greenwood approximation show that $\sigma$ depends very strongly on the composition. We show how this variation of $\sigma$ is related to the calculated electronic density of states. Comparisons with recent experimental determinations of the structure and conductivity are also presented.Comment: REVTEX, 8 pages, 4 uuencoded poscript figures, ([email protected]

The linewidth of a non-Markovian atom laser

We present a fully quantum mechanical treatment of a single mode atom laser including pumping and output coupling. By ignoring atom-atom interactions, we have solved this model without making the Born-Markov approximation. We find substantially less gain narrowing than is predicted under that approximation.Comment: 4 pages, 1 encapsulated postscript figur

Quantum Critical Behavior of Disordered Superfluids

The quantum critical behavior of an interacting, non-relativistic Bose theory with quenched disorder randomly distributed in space is investigated. The renormalization group is carried out in a double $\epsilon$ expansion, where one $\epsilon$ is the deviation of the effective space-time dimensionality from 4, while the other denotes the number of time dimensions. The disordered theory, which displays localization in the superfluid state, is shown to possess an infrared stable fixed point.Comment: REVTEX, 5 page

A Semantic Grid Oriented to E-Tourism

With increasing complexity of tourism business models and tasks, there is a clear need of the next generation e-Tourism infrastructure to support flexible automation, integration, computation, storage, and collaboration. Currently several enabling technologies such as semantic Web, Web service, agent and grid computing have been applied in the different e-Tourism applications, however there is no a unified framework to be able to integrate all of them. So this paper presents a promising e-Tourism framework based on emerging semantic grid, in which a number of key design issues are discussed including architecture, ontologies structure, semantic reconciliation, service and resource discovery, role based authorization and intelligent agent. The paper finally provides the implementation of the framework.Comment: 12 PAGES, 7 Figure

Energy Relaxation In Collisions Of Hydrogen And Deuterium With Oxygen Atoms

Collision energy transfer processes between hydrogen, deuterium, and oxygen atoms in the upper atmospheres of the terrestrial planets are studied. A new set of interaction potentials has been constructed using an accurate ab initio method. Full orientation-dependent scattering cross sections have been obtained quantum mechanically and have been incorporated into the construction of the linear Boltzmann kinetic equation describing the energy relaxation process. The isotope and temperature dependence of the energy relaxation parameters have been analyzed. Distributions of the secondary energetic recoil atoms have been computed and the fractions of hot atoms capable of escaping from the atmospheres of the terrestrial planets have been determined. For applications to atmospheric physics and astrophysics, we have computed effective hard sphere cross sections for O + H and O + D collisions that closely reproduce the energy relaxation kinetics obtained from the linear Boltzmann equation. These effective cross sections, which are functions of the laboratory frame collisional energy and the temperature of the bath gas, may be used in simulations of the thermalization of hot O, H, and D atoms and their escape from planets.Astronom

Prostate cancer screening in Europe and Asia

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common cancer among men worldwide and even ranks first in Europe. Although Asia is known as the region with the lowest PCa incidence, it has been rising rapidly over the last 20 years mostly due to the introduction of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing. Randomized PCa screening studies in Europe show a mortality reduction in favor of PSA-based screening but coincide with high proportions of unnecessary biopsies, overdiagnosis and subsequent overtreatment. Conclusive data on the value of PSA-based screening and hence the balance between harms and benefits in Asia is still lacking. Because of known racial variations, Asian countries should not directly apply the European screening models. Like in the western world also in Asia, new predictive markers, tools and risk stratification strategies hold great potential to improve the early detection of PCa and to reduce the worldwide existing negative aspects of PSA-based PCa screening