Unemployment persistence, wage indexing and central bank independence

This paper examines the effect of wage indexation on the optimal degree of central bank conservativeness in a dynamic economy. In particular, we find that when unemployment persists, wage indexation is inflationary as it lowers the will of the central banker to fight inflation. Furthermore, we show that there is a positive relationship between the degree of the monetary authorities'' discount factor and inflation. We conclude that it is optimal to delegate monetary policy to an independent and conservative central banker.unemployment, persistence, central bank, wage indexing

Teaching and learning in information retrieval

A literature review of pedagogical methods for teaching and learning information retrieval is presented. From the analysis of the literature a taxonomy was built and it is used to structure the paper. Information Retrieval (IR) is presented from different points of view: technical levels, educational goals, teaching and learning methods, assessment and curricula. The review is organized around two levels of abstraction which form a taxonomy that deals with the different aspects of pedagogy as applied to information retrieval. The first level looks at the technical level of delivering information retrieval concepts, and at the educational goals as articulated by the two main subject domains where IR is delivered: computer science (CS) and library and information science (LIS). The second level focuses on pedagogical issues, such as teaching and learning methods, delivery modes (classroom, online or e-learning), use of IR systems for teaching, assessment and feedback, and curricula design. The survey, and its bibliography, provides an overview of the pedagogical research carried out in the field of IR. It also provides a guide for educators on approaches that can be applied to improving the student learning experiences

Is 2% the optimal inflation rate for the Euro Area?

According to the relevant literatu re, monetary policy implications concerning the optimal inflation rate can be derived by examining the relationship between inflation and the Relative Price Variability (RPV). This paper studies this issue for selected Euro Area (EA) countries, using monthly data for the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices. In particular, semi-parametric estimations are employed so as to find the accurate form of the inflation-RPV relationship. The results indicate that this relationship exhibits a U-shape functional profile. Furthermore, the optimal inflation rates for the EA, France, Germany and Spain are also calculated. For all countries and the EA, we find that although the European Central Bank ’ s “ below but close to 2 % ” inflation target is optimal for the EA average, it is not the optimum inflation rate for the individual counties.Junta de Andalucía SEJ-454

Tako-Tsubo cardiomyopathy in a patient with schizoaffective disorder and severe hyponatremia

We report a case of Tako-Tsubo cardiomyopathy, which causes a reversible malfunction of the left  ventricular apex, diagnosed on a female inpatient in the psychiatric clinic with schizoaffective disorder and severe hyponatriaemia. After the proper treatment in the coronary unit and the psychiatric clinic, the heart function returned to normal and the psychotic episode was remitted. The early diagnosis and the cooperation of psychiatrists and cardiologists is considered necessary

‘Othering’ and ‘Self-othering’ in the Book of Tobit: A Jungian approach

The Book of Tobit is replete with various instances of ‘othering’ that hold the potential for alienation and a variety of strong emotions. For example, Tobit ‘others’ Anna by insisting that she had stolen a goat, whereas she had not. Following a Jungian paradigm, this paper reads the various ‘otherings’ inherent in the interrelationships between the characters as reflections of the main character’s relationship with himself. In so doing, it analyses these relationships through Jung’s concepts of Eros/Logos and anima/animus to determine the nature of Tobit’s ‘self-othering’ and its effect on those around him. It is concluded, among others, that Tobit’s multiple ‘self-otherings’ and his ‘othering’ of ‘other’ characters are because of his suppression of his anima-Eros function that has, in turn, given rise to a dominant (and demonic) animus-Logos

Relevance feedback and query expansion for searching the web: a model for searching a digital library

A fully operational large scale digital library is likely to be based on a distributed architecture and because of this it is likely that a number of independent search engines may be used to index different overlapping portions of the entire contents of the library. In any case, different media, text, audio, image, etc., will be indexed for retrieval by different search engines so techniques which provide a coherent and unified search over a suite of underlying independent search engines are thus likely to be an important part of navigating in a digital library. In this paper we present an architecture and a system for searching the world's largest DL, the world wide web. What makes our system novel is that we use a suite of underlying web search engines to do the bulk of the work while our system orchestrates them in a parallel fashion to provide a higher level of information retrieval functionality. Thus it is our meta search engine and not the underlying direct search engines that provide the relevance feedback and query expansion options for the user. The paper presents the design and architecture of the system which has been implemented, describes an initial version which has been operational for almost a year, and outlines the operation of the advanced version

Lithium doped N,N-dimethyl pyrrolidinium tetrafluoroborate organic ionic plastic crystal electrolytes for solid state lithium batteries

The organic ionic plastic crystal material N,N-dimethyl pyrrolidinium tetrafluoroborate ([C1mpyr][BF4]) has been mixed with LiBF4 from 0 to 8 wt% and shown to exhibit enhanced ionic conductivity, especially in the higher temperature plastic crystal phases (phases II and I). The materials retain their solid state well above 100 &deg;C with the melt not being observed up to 300 &deg;C. Interestingly the conductivity enhancement is highest with the lowest level of LiBF4 addition in phase II, but then the order of enhancement is reversed in phase I. In all cases, a conductivity drop is observed at the II &rarr; I phase transition (105 &deg;C) which is associated with increased order in the pure matrix, as previously reported, although the conductivity drop is least for the highest LiBF4 amount (8 wt%). The 8 wt% sample displays different conductivity behaviours compared to the lower LiBF4 concentrations, with a sharp increase above 50 &deg;C, which is apparently not related to the formation of an amorphous phase, based on XRD data up to 120 &deg;C. Symmetric cells, Li/OIPC/Li, were prepared and cycled at 50 &deg;C and showed evidence of significant preconditioning with continued cycling, leading to a lower over-potential and a concomitant decrease in the cell resistivity as measured by EIS. An SEM investigation of the Li/OIPC interfaces before and after cycling suggested significant grain refinement was responsible for the decrease in cell resistance upon cycling, possibly as a result of an increased grain boundary phase.<br /