Revisiting Rose's common currency debate

The main objective of this research is to revisit the estimation of the effect of a common currency on international trade by applying the new methodology proposed by Helpman, Melitz and Rubistein (2008) and incorporating tourism to the theoretical framework. Rose (2000) estimates an empirical model of bilateral trade, finding a significant coefficient for a currency union variable of 1.2, suggesting an effect of currency unions on trade of over a 200%. Rose (2000)’s finding did not receive full acceptance and further research was consequently devoted to find reasons of such high effect. This still remains as a major puzzle in the International Economics. Rose and Van Wincoop (2001) hold that there may still be some omitted factors that drives countries to both participate in currency unions and trade more. In this research a gravity equation for trade is estimated controlling by international tourism.Common currency, tourism, gravity equation

On the impact of exchange rate regimes on tourism

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of the exchange rate arrangements on international tourism. The ambiguity of literature about the effect of exchange rate volatility contrasts with the magnitude of the impact of a common currency on trade. On the basis of a gravity equation we estimate a moderate effect of a currency union on tourism of almost 12%. Furthermore, we estimate a gravity equation for international trade, obtaining that the common currency effect on trade is reduced when tourism is introduced as a regressor. This suggests that tourism flows may contribute to explain the excessive magnitude of the estimated effect of a common currency on trade in this literature. Finally, we analyze the impact of several de facto exchange rate arrangements on tourism, finding that less flexible exchange rates promotes tourism flows.Tourism, Exchange Rate Regime, Common Currency

Position paper: robots as companions and therapists in elderly care

Given the increasing portion of elderly people in the western world and severe lacks in care-taking, we believe that we should research possibilities to employ robots in elderly care. Social robots could offer companionship as well as treatment of physical and psychological disturbances. In our research, we propose to adapt treatments from positive psychology to robots in order to increase the wellbeing of elderly people in the long run. In a first study, we suggest that the role that the users will subscribe to the robot (therapist or companion) might make a severe difference on the effectiveness of the treatment and the social acceptance of the robot systems

Robots for the psychological wellbeing of the elderly

The present paper examines the potential robots may have to motivate and support elderly people psychologically. Two short- and long-term research scenarios are proposed where a robot interacts with an elderly person offering psychological support. We describe one experiment that was carried out probing the short-term scenario. Another study currently under development is also presented, which is based on the long-term scenario. The two scenarios have advantages and disadvantages and appear as complementary to each other

The Evolution of Luminous Compact Blue Galaxies: Disks or Spheroids?

Luminous compact blue galaxies (LCBGs) are a diverse class of galaxies characterized by high luminosity, blue color, and high surface brightness that sit at the critical juncture of galaxies evolving from the blue to the red sequence. As part of our multi-wavelength survey of local LCBGs, we have been studying the HI content of these galaxies using both single-dish telescopes and interferometers. Our goals are to determine if single-dish HI observations represent a true measure of the dynamical mass of LCBGs and to look for signatures of recent interactions that may be triggering star formation in LCBGs. Our data show that while some LCBGs are undergoing interactions, many appear isolated. While all LCBGs contain HI and show signatures of rotation, the population does not lie on the Tully-Fisher relation nor can it evolve onto it. Furthermore, the HI maps of many LCBGs show signatures of dynamically hot components, suggesting that we are seeing the formation of a thick disk or spheroid in at least some LCBGs. There is good agreement between the HI and H-alpha kinematics for LCBGs, and both are similar in appearance to the H-alpha kinematics of high redshift star-forming galaxies. Our combined data suggest that star formation in LCBGs is primarily quenched by virial heating, consistent with model predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 277, "Tracing the Ancestry of Galaxies on the Land of our Ancestors", eds. C. Carignan, K.C. Freeman, and F. Combe

Strength tests on asphalt mixes attacked by motor fuels. Recommendations on bath immersion times

[Abstract:] One of the limitations of asphalt mixes as pavement materials is their poor resistance to attack from crude oil-based motor fuels. Several procedures exist for determining the resistance of asphalt materials to motor fuel action. Different test standards can be found for fillers and surface dressings in both the US and European series. However, where the assessment of asphalt mixes themselves are concerned, there is a considerable lack of standardisation. This paper reports on laboratory studies on certain essential aspects of the procedures for assessing the strength of asphalt mixes in respect of motor fuel attack, chiefly the time the mix is exposed to the fuel. Based on the research results, the paper makes some good-practice recommendations for weight-loss procedures after immersion in motor fuel, with or without subsequent brushing, and in respect of the Marshall stability preserved after immersion. In relation to the immersion period and in view of the laboratory findings and their subsequent statistical processing, one of the factors with the greatest influence is the recommendation that the immersion period should be 24 hours, except in the weight-loss test subseuent to immersion without any brushing where the results obtained prove to be more significant if the immersion period is seven days

Corrected coupled-wave theory for non-slanted reflection gratings

In this work we present an analysis of non-slanted reflection gratings by using a corrected Coupled Wave Theory which takes into account boundary conditions. It is well known that Kogelnik's Coupled Wave Theory predicts with great accuracy the response of the efficiency of the zero and first order for volume phase gratings, for both reflection and transmission gratings. Nonetheless, since this theory disregard the second derivatives in the coupled wave equations derived from Maxwell equations, it doesn't account for boundary conditions. Moreover only two orders are supposed, so when either the thickness is low or when high refractive index high are recorded in the element Kogelnik's Theory deviates from the expected results. In Addition, for non-slanted reflection gratings, the natural reflected wave superimpose the reflection order predicted by Coupled Wave theories, so the reflectance cannot be obtained by the classical expression of Kogelnik's Theory for reflection gratings. In this work we correct Kogelnik's Coupled Wave Theory to take into account these issues, the results are compared to those obtained by a Matrix Method, showing good agreement between both theories.This work was supported by the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación" of Spain under projects FIS2008-05856-C02-01 and FIS2008-05856-C02-02, and by the “Generalitat Valenciana" of Spain under project PROMETEO/2011/021

Performance analysis of SSE and AVX instructions in multi-core CPUs and GPU computing on FDTD scheme for solid and fluid vibration problems

In this work a unified treatment of solid and fluid vibration problems is developed by means of the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD). The scheme here proposed takes advantage from a scaling factor in the velocity fields that improves the performance of the method and the vibration analysis in heterogenous media. Moreover, the scheme has been extended in order to simulate both the propagation in porous media and the lossy solid materials. In order to accurately reproduce the interaction of fluids and solids in FDTD both time and spatial resolutions must be reduced compared with the set up used in acoustic FDTD problems. This aspect implies the use of bigger grids and hence more time and memory resources. For reducing the time simulation costs, FDTD code has been adapted in order to exploit the resources available in modern parallel architectures. For CPUs the implicit usage of the advanced vectorial extensions (AVX) in multi-core CPUs has been considered. In addition, the computation has been distributed along the different cores available by means of OpenMP directives. Graphic Processing Units have been also considered and the degree of improvement achieved by means of this parallel architecture has been compared with the highly-tuned CPU scheme by means of the relative speed up. The speed up obtained by the parallel versions implemented were up to 3 (AVX and OpenMP) and 40 (CUDA) times faster than the best sequential version for CPU that also uses OpenMP with auto-vectorization techniques, but non includes implicitely vectorial instructions. Results obtained with both parallel approaches demonstrate that massive parallel programming techniques are mandatory in solid-vibration problems with FDTD.The work is partially supported by the “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad” of Spain under project FIS2011-29803-C02-01, by the Spanish Ministry of Education (TIN2012-34557), by the “Generalitat Valenciana” of Spain under projects PROMETEO/2011/021 and ISIC/2012/013, and by the “Universidad de Alicante” of Spain under project GRE12-14

Cardiometabolic parameters in high intensity interval training in overweight or obese people: a bibliographic review

Objective. The purpose of the present review was to know the situation in regard to how different cardiometabolic parameters and/or cardiometabolic health markers are influenced in overweight or obese people when a high-intensity interval training programme is applied. Methods. A bibliographic search was carried out in the PubMed database. A total of 93 articles were analyzed and after inclusion a exclusion criteria application it were reduced to 12 the useful articles. Results. There is a maintenance or significant decrease in body mass index (2.1±0.3%), body mass (3.3%, ≈2%), fat mass (≈2%), and waist circumference. The effects on lipid values are varied between articles, certains significant decreases have occurred in some articles when we look cholesterol (32.4±5.2mg/dl), low-density lipoprotein (25.8±16.5mg/dl) and tryglicerides (22.9±3.4mg/dl), however other studies show that there are not changes in these parameters or even a slight increase after the intervention is observed. Some articles show a reduction on glucose (1.1±0.11mmol/l), diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Oxygen consumption peak suffers a significative increasing in the majority of studies analyzed(27.7±4.4%, 22.3±3.5%, 9.1%, 7.9%, 7.9%). Conclusions. High-intensity interval training allows improvements in: waist circunference, insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, lipid profile and peak of oxygen consumption. It also could control body weight and reduce fat mass. However, it is not clear that it could be effective for the modification of lipid values due to the controversy in the results