A long-lived precision switch actuator for controlling pump-piston action

Switch mechanism limits the stroke of the piston by stopping the piston motor drive. This allows retention of a fluid sample in an automated wet-chemical analysis system

Cosmic Strings, Zero Modes and SUSY breaking in Nonabelian N=1 Gauge Theories

We investigate the microphysics of cosmic strings in Nonabelian gauge theories with N=1 supersymmetry. We give the vortex solutions in a specific example and demonstrate that fermionic superconductivity arises because of the couplings and interactions dictated by supersymmetry. We then use supersymmetry transformations to obtain the relevant fermionic zero modes and investigate the role of soft supersymmetry breaking on the existence and properties of the superconducting strings.Comment: 12 pages, RevTex, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Larceny in the Henhouse

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Equity prices and the real economy - A vector error-correction approach

We assess the impact of equity prices on the level of output in the Europe Union economies and the US using Vector Error Correction (VECM) time series techniques. The distinction between impacts in bank based and equity market based economies is shown to be important, with equity prices having a greater impact on output in market-based economies. Share prices are shown to be largely autonomous in variance decompositions, whilst equity price do have a strong impact on output in the UK and US in their variance decompositions. An analysis of impulse responses suggests that large market based economies have more effective fiscal and monetary policy instruments

The evolution of the financial crisis of 2007–8

The financial crisis that started in August 2008 reached a climax in the autumn of 2008 with a wave of bank nationalisations across North America and Europe. Although banking crises are not uncommon, this is the largest since 1929–33. This paper discusses the build-up to the crisis, looking at the role of low real interest rates in stimulating an asset price bubble. That bubble was stocked by financial innovation and increases in lending. New financial products were not stress tested and have failed in the downturn. After discussing the bubbles we look at the collapse of the complex asset structure, and then put the crisis in the context of the literature. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications of the crisis, and advocates a significant improvement in the regulatory structure

Shocks and shock absorbers: The International Propagation Of Equity Market Shocks and the design of appropriate policy responses

Equity prices are major sources of shocks to the world economy and channels for propagation of these shocks. We seek to calibrate macroeconomic effects of falls in share prices and assess appropriate policy responses, using the National Institute Global Econometric Model NiGEM. Based on estimated relationships, falls in US equity prices have significant impacts on global activity; potential for liquidity traps suggest a need for complementary monetary and fiscal policy easing. However, fiscal easing boosts long-term real interest rates and hence moderates one of the automatic shock absorbers provided by the market mechanism

Before Virtue: Halakhah, Dharmasastra, and What Law Can Create

Davis, referring to the traditional Jewish and Hindu legal texts, addresses on what law creates or produces. He focuses on both Jewish and Hindu jurisprudence claim that law can create--a human, not a biological homo sapiens, but rather the full ideal of what humans were meant to be. He argues that it is the essential indistinguishability of law and religion in both traditional Judaism and Hinduism that permits the ideal human to be created through religious law

Capacitance Measurements of Defects in Solar Cells: Checking the Model Assumptions

Capacitance measurements of solar cells are able to detect minute changes in charge in the material. For that reason, capacitance is used in many methods to electrically characterize defects in the solar cell. Standard interpretations of capacitance rely on many assumptions, which, if wrong can skew the results. We explore possible alternate explanations for capacitance transitions, which may not be linked directly to defects, such as a non-ideal back contact, and series resistance

Does European Unemployment Prop up American Wages?

We consider trade between a flexible wage America and a rigid real wage Europe. In a benchmark case, a move from autarky to free trade doubles the European unemployment rate, while it raises the American unskilled wage to the high European level. Entry of the unskilled South to world markets raises unemployment in Europe. But Europe's commitment to the high wage completely insulates America from the shock. Immigration to America raises American income, but lowers European income dollar-for-dollar, while European unemployment rises one-for-one. We consider a stylized game of the choice of factor market institutions. Mitterand's Europe chooses a high minimum wage and Reagan's America chooses a flexible wage for the unskilled. Paradoxically, unskilled workers are worse off in Europe. Trade equalizes wages, but Europeans bear all of the unemployment required to sustain the high wage.