Purchasing power parity in G-7 countries: Further evidence based on ADL test for threshold cointegration

This study applies a newly-developed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ADL) test for threshold cointegration, proposed by Li and Lee (2010) to test the validity of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) for G-7 countries over the January 1994 to April 2010. The empirical results indicate that PPP only holds true for Canada and France two countries. Our results have important policy implications for the G-7 countries under study.Purchasing Power Parity; G-7 Countries; ADL Test; Threshold Cointegration

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Counter-rotating Accretion Disks

We consider accretion disks consisting of counter-rotating gaseous components with an intervening shear layer. Configurations of this type may arise from the accretion of newly supplied counter-rotating gas onto an existing co-rotating gas disk. For simplicity we consider the case where the gas well above the disk midplane is rotating with angular rate $+\Omega$ and that well below has the same properties but is rotating with rate $-\Omega$. Using the Shakura-Sunyaev alpha turbulence model, we find self-similar solutions where a thin (relative to the full disk thickness) equatorial layer accretes very rapidly, essentially at free-fall speed. As a result the accretion speed is much larger than it would be for an alpha disk rotating in one direction. Counter-rotating accretion disks may be a transient stage in the formation of counter-rotating galaxies and in the accretion of matter onto compact objects.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, aas2pp4.sty, submitted to Ap

Situated Learning: Learn to Tell English Stories

For students in a perspective English teacher program, enhancing language proficiency and teaching knowledge is essential so that they can participate in the teaching community. This study investigated the acquisition of an unfamiliar discursive practice by four undergraduate students in a perspective EFL teacher training program. The practice is storytelling which is often overlooked in teacher-training programs in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context such as in Taiwan. In this study, four undergraduate students in a teacher-training program of a medium-sized university in southern Taiwan were provided an opportunity to tell stories to primary-school children. Qualitative data were collected, including students’ teaching experiences and reflective journals throughout the entire project, videotapes of four storytelling rehearsals and the real storytelling episodes, and interviews. By using situated learning as the theoretical framework, this study depicts the change in the students and instructor as well as in the students’ co-participation patterns by which the students moved from peripheral to fuller participation. This study provides EFL teacher educators a perspective that considers teacher training as co-constructed development in situated discursive practices

Public relations plan for nonprofit organization: Tzu Chi Foundation

This project was designed to develop a public relations plan to increase awareness in Southern California of the Tzu Chi Foundation, a non-profit organization that is based in Taiwan

A new approach to design harmonic filters in industrial power systems

[[abstract]]Power quality can generally be achieved by installing harmonic filters in industrial power systems, thereby reducing the harmonics. Users prioritize the performance and cost of filters as primary concerns. In this study, we formulate the harmonic filter design problem by considering investment cost and operational constraints. This new formulation is a combinatorial optimization problem with a nondifferentiable objective function. A solution methodology based on an optimization technique-simulated annealing-is also proposed to determine the size of filters with minimum cost. The proposed solution methodology can offer the optimal size and minimum cost of design filters.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]19961006~19961010[[booktype]]紙本[[conferencelocation]]San Diego, CA, US