Institutional determinants of investment in transition economies

Investment has been found to be a significant determinant of growth. This paper analyses the effects of institutions and transition progress on investment rates of transition economies since the collapse of the Socialist Bloc. Political institution is measured by the Freedom House’s Political Rights and Civil Liberties indexes; economic institution is proxied by the Index of Economic Freedom compiled by the Heritage Foundation; and transition progress is documented by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s transition index. Panel data estimation techniques are applied and the results show that institutions and transition progress have expected and significant effect on investment rates of transition economies. However, it is the progress in all aspects of economic freedom that matters; just some individual economic freedom measures are significant marginally. Besides, as conditioning variables, growth, saving and financial development (liquid liabilities as % of GDP) are also found to have significant and positive effect on investment in transition economies. This paper highlights the indirect effect of institutions on economic growth via investment

Institutions and efficiency in transition economies

This paper analyzes the effects of political and economic institutions on efficiency of transition economies over the 1995-2005 period. Perpetual Inventory Method is used to construct capital series for these countries, and then stochastic production frontier analysis is used to estimate the efficiency scores and effects of institutions at the same time. The empirical results show that better institutions are associated with higher efficiency. However, all else equal, the transition countries in East Asia are more efficient than Central and Eastern European or Former Soviet Union transition countries

The population structure of wild Scottish brown trout (Samo trutta L.1758) of Loch Maree, Wester Ross: spatial genetic distribution after population decline

The wild trout of Loch Maree is an understudied population that recently experienced a population decline after once having a world status for its sea trout fisheries. Tissues and specimens sampled over the last decade exist in archives and have yet to undergo population genetic analysis. This study aims firstly to determine the best approach to characterising the genetic structure of the Salmo trutta population of Wester Ross with the available archived tissues/specimens. The population structure observed will then be analysed so as to examine the effects of the Wester Ross geography and topography upon the trout population’s genetic diversity. Nine markers from the Beaufort Trout MicroPlex microsatellite panel were used to genotype 192 Salmo trutta samples sampled across 35 sites within Loch Maree and neighbouring catchments, split into four major resident regions: NW-, CW- and SE Loch Maree, and Gairloch, as well as sea trout from the Ewe and Flowerdale systems. Results suggest the population genetics of brown trout in Wester Ross are structured at regional and river scales, and suggests a genetic bottleneck caused by the population decline is still detectable. “Within-population” genetic diversity seems similar between regional populations sampled. Differences observed in population allele frequencies suggest the Gairloch and NW Loch Maree populations are the most similar regional populations analysed, with significant departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in almost all their loci, suggesting they may be under significant environmental pressure. The Wester Ross sea trout seem to be an admixture of the resident trout populations, with overlapping coastal ranges. Headwater populations have reduced genetic diversity compared downstream which may be influenced by genetic drift in isolation caused by barriers such as waterfalls and dams. A positive correlation was also observed between geo-hydrological distance and genetic divergence within regional resident trout populations, with a degree of introgression between all populations that are hydrologically connected. The analysis also suggest Loch Maree was likely colonised initially at the NW point by ancient migrant sea trout rather than a freshwater-radiation from an inland glacial refuge since the retreat of the last glacial maximum

Stability analysis of event-triggered anytime control with multiple control laws

To deal with time-varying processor availability and lossy communication channels in embedded and networked control systems, one can employ an event-triggered sequence-based anytime control (E-SAC) algorithm. The main idea of E-SAC is, when computing resources and measurements are available, to compute a sequence of tentative control inputs and store them in a buffer for potential future use. State-dependent Random-time Drift (SRD) approach is often used to analyse and establish stability properties of such E-SAC algorithms. However, using SRD, the analysis quickly becomes combinatoric and hence difficult to extend to more sophisticated E-SAC. In this technical note, we develop a general model and a new stability analysis for E-SAC based on Markov jump systems. Using the new stability analysis, stochastic stability conditions of existing E-SAC are also recovered. In addition, the proposed technique systematically extends to a more sophisticated E-SAC scheme for which, until now, no analytical expression had been obtained.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Contro

Disorder-induced superfluidity

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the phase diagram of hard-core bosons with short-ranged {\it attractive} interactions, in the presence of uniform diagonal disorder. It is shown that moderate disorder stabilizes a glassy superfluid phase in a range of values of the attractive interaction for which the system is a Mott insulator, in the absence of disorder. A transition to an insulating Bose glass phase occurs as the strength of the disorder or interactions increases.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Shear banding of colloidal glasses - a dynamic first order transition?

We demonstrate that application of an increasing shear field on a glass leads to an intriguing dynamic first order transition in analogy to equilibrium transitions. By following the particle dynamics as a function of the driving field in a colloidal glass, we identify a critical shear rate upon which the diffusion time scale of the glass exhibits a sudden discontinuity. Using a new dynamic order parameter, we show that this discontinuity is analogous to a first order transition, in which the applied stress acts as the conjugate field on the system's dynamic evolution. These results offer new perspectives to comprehend the generic shear banding instability of a wide range of amorphous materials.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Ultra-high sensitivity magnetic field and magnetization measurements with an atomic magnetometer

We describe an ultra-sensitive atomic magnetometer using optically-pumped potassium atoms operating in spin-exchange relaxation free (SERF) regime. We demonstrate magnetic field sensitivity of 160 aT/Hz$^{1/2}$ in a gradiometer arrangement with a measurement volume of 0.45 cm$^3$ and energy resolution per unit time of $44 \hbar$. As an example of a new application enabled by such a magnetometer we describe measurements of weak remnant rock magnetization as a function of temperature with a sensitivity on the order of 10$^{-10}$ emu/cm$^3$/Hz$^{1/2}$ and temperatures up to 420$^\circ$C

On "the authentic damping mechanism" of the phonon damping model

Some general features of the phonon damping model are presented. It is concluded that the fits performed within this model have no physical content