Criminal Procedure - The Role of the Search Warrant in Fire Investigations - Michigan v. Clifford

This note will attempt to determine whether the Court was successful in clarifying the doubt concerning the application of the precepts stated in Tyler, or whether the Court may have sown new seeds of confusion in this area

Quantum Mechanical Realization of a Popescu-Rohrlich Box

We consider quantum ensembles which are determined by pre- and post-selection. Unlike the case of only pre-selected ensembles, we show that in this case the probabilities for measurement outcomes at intermediate times satisfy causality only rarely; such ensembles can in general be used to signal between causally disconnected regions. We show that under restrictive conditions, there are certain non-trivial bi-partite ensembles which do satisfy causality. These ensembles give rise to a violation of the CHSH inequality, which exceeds the maximal quantum violation given by Tsirelson's bound, $B_{\rm CHSH}\le 2\sqrt2$, and obtains the Popescu-Rohrlich bound for the maximal violation, $B_{\rm CHSH}\le 4$. This may be regarded as an a posteriori realization of super-correlations, which have recently been termed Popescu-Rohrlich boxes.Comment: 5 page

Space science/space station attached payload pointing accommodation study: Technology assessment white paper

Technology assessment is performed for pointing systems that accommodate payloads of large mass and large dimensions. Related technology areas are also examined. These related areas include active thermal lines or power cables across gimbals, new materials for increased passive damping, tethered pointing, and inertially reacting pointing systems. Conclusions, issues and concerns, and recommendations regarding the status and development of large pointing systems for space applications are made based on the performed assessments

Essays in International Macroeconomics and Finance

This collection of essays examines the topic of macroeconomic stabilisation in an international context, focusing on monetary policy, capital controls and exchange rates. Chapter 1, written in collaboration with Giancarlo Corsetti and Joao Duarte, reconsiders the effects of common monetary policy shocks across countries in the euro area, using a data-rich factor model and identifying shocks with high-frequency surprises around policy announcements. We show that the degree of heterogeneity in the response to shocks, while being low in financial variables and output, is significant in consumption, consumer prices and macro variables related to the labour and housing markets. Mirroring country-specific institutional and market differences, we find that home ownership rates are significantly correlated with the strength of the housing channel in monetary policy transmission. We document a high dispersion in the response to shocks of house prices and rents and show that, similar to responses in the US, these variables tend to move in different directions. In Chapter 2, I build a two-country, two-good model to examine the welfare effects of capital controls, finding that under certain circumstances, a shut-down in asset trade can be a Pareto improvement. Further, I examine the robustness of the result to parameter changes, explore a wider set of policy instruments and confront computational issues in this class of international macroeconomic models. I document that within an empirically relevant parameter span for the trade elasticity, the gains from capital controls might be significantly larger than suggested by previous contributions. Moreover, I establish that a refined form of capital controls in the shape of taxes and tariffs cannot improve upon the outcome under financial autarky. Finally, results show that the conjunction of pruning methods and endogenous discount factors can remove explosive behaviour from this class of models and restore equilibrating properties. In Chapter 3, I use a panel of 20 emerging market currencies to assess whether a model that combines fundamental and non-fundamental exchange rate forecasting approaches can successfully predict risk premia (i.e. currency excess returns) over the short horizon. In doing so, I aim to overcome three main shortcomings of earlier research: i) Sensitivity to the chosen sample period; ii) seemingly arbitrary selection of explanatory variables that differs from currency to currency; and iii) difficulty in interpreting forecasts beyond the numerical signal. Based on a theoretical model of currency risk premia, I use real exchange rate strength combined with indicators for carry, momentum and economic sentiment to homogeneously forecast risk premia across all 20 currencies in the sample at a monthly frequency. In doing so, the model remains largely agnostic about structural choices, keeping arbitrarily imposed restrictions to a minimum. Results from portfolio construction suggest that returns are significant and robust both across currencies as well as over time, with Sharpe Ratios in out-of-sample tests above 0.7

Sex trafficking in Ireland from a health care perspective.

Sex trafficking within Ireland is a hidden phenomenon. In 2010, 78 alleged victims were reported to An Garda Siochina and the recorded levels of human trafficking into Ireland have remained at this level for the last four years. Despite this, no Irish guidelines or referral pathways exist to assist health care professionals. This paper highlights that health care professionals are not aware of this occurrence nor have they been trained to identify victims. Due to a lack of awareness many potential opportunities to detect these victims may be missed. While there is no single set of symptoms or signs that differentiates sex-trafficked victims from other sex workers, an awareness of common physical and psychological health problems associated with sex trafficking by health care professionals may increase victim detection rates. This paper summarises indicators, approach mechanisms, screening questions and a referral guideline relevant to the Irish health care system. This step-by-step guide can be used by health care professionals who encounter such a situation