Imperfect Central Bank Communication: Information versus Distraction

Much of the information communicated by central banks is noisy or imperfect. This paper considers the potential benefits and limitations of central bank communications in a model of imperfect knowledge and learning. It is shown that the value of communicating imperfect information is ambiguous. If the public is able to assess accurately the quality of the imperfect information communicated by a central bank, such communication can inform and improve the public’s decisions and expectations. But if not, communicating imperfect communication has the potential to mislead and distract. The risk that imperfect communication may detract from the public’s understanding should be considered in the context of a central bank’s communications strategy. The risk of distraction means the central bank may prefer to focus its communication policies on the information it knows most about. Indeed, conveying more certain information may improve the public’s understanding to the extent that it "crowds out" a role for communicating imperfect information.Transparency, forecasts, learning

Public Health in the Age of Ebola in West Africa

The Ebola epidemic, with its fast-growing toll and real potential for spreading into much of Africa, including major cities, has the makings of a “Black Swan” event. Such events, using the term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, are: 1) unpredictable, outside the realm of regular expectations; 2) have a major impact, and; 3) are rationalized after the fact as being explainable and predictable. We have learned from this outbreak the potential for an infectious disease to be politically, economically, and socially destabilizing, and that what kills us may be very different from what frightens us or substantially affects our social systems. This has important implications for resource allocation. Health threats like Ebola may not have historically have not killed large numbers of people, but because of possible scenarios under which they can have a devastating impact, require a greater share of limited resources, such as for developing a vaccine. More creative imagination is needed in considering future infectious disease scenarios and in planning accordingly. Further, this Ebola epidemic could transform global governance for health. It demonstrates the need for fundamental reform at the WHO, including for greater funding, as WHO\u27s response–unable to mobilize sufficient funding, too slow to declare this a Public Health Emergency of International Concern–indicates that the Organization is presently poorly positioned to fulfill its constitutional role as the global health authority. Meanwhile, the leadership role that the United Nations is assuming suggests the emergence of an era of direct United Nations engagement in health threats that could destabilize nations and regions

Infectious Diseases of the 21st Century: A New World Order

Inaugural address of the Norman L. Ford Science Literacy Lecture Series by Dr. Michael Osterholm : Infectious Diseases of the 21st Century: A New World Order 7:30 p.m., Sept. 29, 2015Pellegrene Auditorium, Saint John\u27s University Dr. Michael Osterholm is the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, and Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the Council of Foreign Relations and the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity. He is an international leader on public health preparedness for infectious diseases and the use of biological agents as weapons targeting civilian populations, and he is the author of more than 325 papers and abstracts, including 21 book chapters. Dr. Osterholm is widely recognized as a dynamic public speaker with a gift for making science accessible to all. Read more about Dr. Osterholm

Upgrade of the Minos+ Experiment Data Acquisition for the High Energy NuMI Beam Run

The Minos+ experiment is an extension of the Minos experiment at a higher energy and more intense neutrino beam, with the data collection having begun in the fall of 2013. The neutrino beam is provided by the Neutrinos from the Main Injector (NuMI) beam-line at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). The detector apparatus consists of two main detectors, one underground at Fermilab and the other in Soudan, Minnesota with the purpose of studying neutrino oscillations at a base line of 735 km. The original data acquisition system has been running for several years collecting data from NuMI, but with the extended run from 2013, parts of the system needed to be replaced due to obsolescence, reliability problems, and data throughput limitations. Specifically, we have replaced the front-end readout controllers, event builder, and data acquisition computing and trigger processing farms with modern, modular and reliable devices with few single points of failure. The new system is based on gigabit Ethernet TCP/IP communication to implement the event building and concatenation of data from many front-end VME readout crates. The simplicity and partitionability of the new system greatly eases the debugging and diagnosing process. The new system improves throughput by about a factor of three compared to the old system, up to 800 megabits per second, and has proven robust and reliable in the current run.Comment: 3 page

Synthesis of oligo- and polythiophenes in zeolite hosts

Oligomers and polymers of thiophene derivatives were synthesized in the channels of zeolite Y and mordenite. Intrazeolite oxidation of monomers such as thiophene , 3- methylthiophene , and bithiophene by Fe(lll) or Cu(ll) ions results in formation of insoluble polymers that have spectroscopic properties similar to the corresponding bulk polymers. The zeolites containing the polymers are nonconducting, but when extracted from the host, the polymers show d.c. conductivities typical for t he bulk materials. Oligothiophene species with welldefined electronic transitions could be produced in acidic zeolite Y

Thermal Decomposition Kinetics Of Iodine‐doped Polyacetylene In Vacuum

The thermal stability of iodine‐doped polyacetylene films, (CHIy)x, has been studied by means of electrical conductivity measurements, measurements on weight loss, and mass spectrometric analysis of desorbing species. When heated between room temperature and 125°C in vacuum, these films proved to be of poor thermal stability, being unstable at temperatures above 20°C. During the thermal treatments, molecular iodine desorbs from the films, resulting in an appreciable dopant weight loss with accompanying decrease in the electrical conductivity. The decomposition process does not follow simple kinetics. Copyright © 1983 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

A Study Of Poly(p‐xylylene)‐coated AsF5‐doped Polyacetylene

Electrical conductivity measurements and scanning electron microscopy have been used to study uncoated and poly(p‐xylylene)‐coated samples of polyacetylene doped with AsF5. These initial results indicate a considerable reduction in the decay rate of conductivity in the presence of oxygen as well as a decreased rate of thermal decomposition of the dopant when heated between 50°C and 115°C in vacuum by the coating. Copyright © 1982 John Wiley & Sons, Inc