An exact pricing formula for European call options on zero-coupon bonds in the run-up to a currency union

In this paper we analyze the dynamics of zero-coupon bond options in a situation in which two open economies plan to enter a currency union in the future. More precisely, we make use of recent theoretical work on the continuous-time dynamics of interest-rate differentials between the economies involved and derive a closed-form pricing formula for a European call option on zero-coupon bonds. In a Monte-Carlo simulation study we show that significant option-pricing errors can occur when the key features of interest-rate dynamics during the run-up to the currency union are ignored.Interest-rate dynamics; valuation of interest-rate options; currency union

The National Immigrant Survey of Spain. A new data source for migration studies in Europe

Spain has recently become the destination for large numbers of international migrants and now ranks as a key focal point for international migration in Europe. Currently, approximately one in ten residents in Spain are foreigners, up more than tenfold from figures holding at the outset of this century. Migration has now become a major social and political issue in the country. In order to provide reliable data about migrants in Spain for researchers and policy makers, acting on a proposal of a research team working within the context of the Population and Society Research Network (GEPS), the Spanish Statistical Office has recently carried out an extremely ambitious survey of foreign-born persons currently living in Spain. In the course of the survey, nearly 15,500 persons were interviewed regarding a large array of issues pertaining to their migration experience. Important documentation, including the project report, the methodological specifications of the survey, and the anonymized micro data have recently been made available to the scientific community and to policy makers at the website of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística. The purpose of this paper is to describe this data source, its content, its methodological underpinnings, and the way the fieldwork and data cleaning were carried out. Examples of preliminary results will be presented so as to underscore the potential this survey affords for researchers everywhere.immigrant survey, international migration, migrant strategies, migration data set, migration studies, migratory networks, Spain

Input to State Stability of Bipedal Walking Robots: Application to DURUS

Bipedal robots are a prime example of systems which exhibit highly nonlinear dynamics, underactuation, and undergo complex dissipative impacts. This paper discusses methods used to overcome a wide variety of uncertainties, with the end result being stable bipedal walking. The principal contribution of this paper is to establish sufficiency conditions for yielding input to state stable (ISS) hybrid periodic orbits, i.e., stable walking gaits under model-based and phase-based uncertainties. In particular, it will be shown formally that exponential input to state stabilization (e-ISS) of the continuous dynamics, and hybrid invariance conditions are enough to realize stable walking in the 23-DOF bipedal robot DURUS. This main result will be supported through successful and sustained walking of the bipedal robot DURUS in a laboratory environment.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

As long as politicians continue to ignore the concerns of the public, satisfaction with democracy will continue to decline

Political disengagement is one of the defining challenges of our time, with multiple theories as to why the public continues to drift away from democracy and the political system. Stefanie Reher argues that one factor in advanced democracies is the perceived inability of the political class to pay attention to the actual opinions and concerns of those who elect them

Evidence for the use of ultrasound therapy for the management of mandibular osteoradionecrosis

Introduction: The treatment of mandibular osteoradionecrosis includes antibiotics and curettage, hyperbaric oxygen, surgery, and more recently, therapeutic ultrasound. The aim of this thesis was to establish the possible mechanisms of action of therapeutic ultrasound, that could explain its excellent clinical results. Material and Methods: Two ultrasound machines were evaluated, a 'traditional' (1 MHz and 3 MHz) and a 'long wave' machine (45 kHz). Ultrasound was applied to human mandibular osteoblasts, gingival fibroblasts, peripheral blood monocytes (PBMc) and mice calvaria. The following in vitro assays were performed: cell proliferation, collagen and non-collagenous protein (NCP) synthesis, bone resorption, cytokines and angiogenesis factors production using ELISA and RT-PCR techniques, and nitric oxide production. To evaluate the effects of ultrasound on angiogenesis in vivo, the chick chorioallanlbic membrane assay (CAM) was used. The use of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for the measurement of radiotherapy effects in the mandible (deoxyhaemoglobin concentrations) was also evaluated. Results: Ultrasound stimulated bone formation in the mice calvaria. Cell proliferation assays showed an increase of DNA synthesis in fibroblasts and osteoblasts, up to 52%. Collagen/NCR synthesis was also enhanced, in fibroblasts up to 48%, and in osteoblasts up to 112%. Bone resorption, part of the bone turnover process, was promoted, and there is suggestion that the cyclo-oxygenase pathway is involved. In relation to cytokine production, a slight stimulation of IL-1beta was noted in all cell types. There was no difference in IL-6 and TNFalpha levels. The angiogenesis factors, IL-8 and bFGF, were significantly stimulated in osteoblasts, and VEGF was significantly stimulated in fibroblasts, osteoblasts and PBMc. RT-PCR showed that ultrasound induces mRNA transcription for several cytokines and bone related proteins, with the most evident effect being the induction of VEGF transcription in osteoblasts. The CAM assay showed that direct ultrasound application and insonated medium from fibroblasts induced angiogenesis in vivo. The best overall stimulatory intensities were 15 and 30 mW/cm2(SA) with 45 kHz ultrasound, and 0.1 and 0.4 W/cm2(SAPA) with 1 MHz ultrasound. The NIRS evaluation showed that it is very sensitive to measure deoxyhaemoglobin concentrations, however these measurements are not reproducible. No age correlations could be performed, and the differences between normal and radiotherapy mandibles was not significant because of the great variability in the measurements. Conclusions: These results show that ultrasound can correct hypocellularity, hypoxia and hypovascularity observed in osteoradionecrosis. It stimulates cell proliferation, bone formation, healing, and angiogenesis. Further in vivo experiments are recommended as well as prospective clinical trials using therapeutic ultrasound for the treatment and prevention of osteoradionecrosis, but NIRS cannot be used to measure the outcome of treatment. Therapeutic ultrasound is a viable option for the management of mandibular osteoradionecrosis, since it is effective, inexpensive and readily available

Genetic diversity in archaic humans and the distribution of archaic human DNA in present-day human genomes

The ability to retrieve DNA from the skeletal remains of ancient humans has yielded many insights into the relationship between humans living today and our nearest evolutionary relatives, the Neandertals and Denisovans. Two important insights emerged from the first high-quality genome sequences of Neandertals and Denisovans: 1) these archaic humans had very low genetic diversity in comparison to most populations of present-day humans, and 2) there was gene flow from archaic humans into the ancestors of present-day people. In my thesis, I explored aspects of both these insights. In my first project, I analysed the consequences of low genetic diversity of archaic humans for immune genes, using genetic diversity in protein-coding genes (‘gene diversity’) as a proxy for functional diversity. I conclude that low gene diversity in archaic humans did not affect immune genes more severely than any other class of protein-coding genes. I then show that the MHC genes, that typical have high genetic diversity and are a component of the adaptive immune system, have substantially higher gene diversity than expected from the genome-wide gene diversity in archaic humans. Moreover, I find no detectable reduction in gene diversity between two Neandertals that lived more than 70,000 years apart. This is first evidence indicating that diversity in late Neandertals did not decrease over the last ~100,000 years of their existence, which would be expected if low gene diversity had played a considerable role in Neandertal extinction, as has been proposed. In my second project I analysed genomic regions depleted of both Neandertal and Denisovan ancestry in the genomes of humans living today (‘shared deserts’). It has been suggested that shared deserts reflect incompatibilities between archaic humans and the ancestors of present-day humans, and were created by negative selection against archaic alleles. By analysing archaic ancestry in almost 2,000 published present-day human genomes, including 155 published genomes from Oceania, I generated a further refined set of genomic regions that are most depleted of archaic ancestry. I discuss candidate variants in these regions that may underlie important phenotypic or functional differences between archaic and modern humans, such as in the brain-expressed genes CADM2 and KCND2, and propose this refined list as a set of candidates for future molecular testing.:Bibliographische Darstellung iii Table of contents iv Summary 8 Zusammenfassung 14 1. Introduction 21 1.1. A strange fossil and its genome 21 1.2. Archaic humans had low genetic diversity 26 1.3. Evidence of gene flow between archaic humans and AMH 29 1.3.1. Identification of archaic sequence and its impact on humans today 32 1.3.1.1. The distribution of archaic sequence in AMH is heterogeneous 34 1.3.1.2. Negative selection against introgressed archaic sequence 37 1.3.1.3. Adaptive introgression: Archaic sequence under positive selection in AMH 39 1.3.1.4. Association of introgressed variants with phenotypes of present-day people 41 1.3.2. Deserts: Gene flow left regions depleted of archaic introgression 43 2. Thesis outline 46 3. Methods 47 3.1. Methods for study of immune gene diversity 47 3.1.1. Data 47 3.1.2. Measure of gene diversity 47 3.1.3. Diversity in innate immune and MHC genes 48 3.1.4. GO enrichment analysis 49 3.2. Methods for study of deserts of archaic ancestry 50 3.2.1. Data sets and processing 50 3.2.2. Identification of introgressed haplotypes 51 3.2.2.1. Hidden Markov Model (HMM) 51 3.2.2.2. Probability cut-off for haplotypes to be archaic 51 3.2.3. Reanalysis of published deserts of archaic ancestry 52 3.2.3.1. Shared deserts 52 3.2.3.2. Sliding windows 52 3.2.3.3. Mean percentage introgression 53 3.2.3.4. Comparison to random regions 53 3.2.3.5. Definition of refined shared desert regions 54 3.2.3.6. Overlap of refined shared deserts with genes 54 3.2.3.7. Enrichment analyses in refined shared desert regions 55 3.2.3.8. Overlap with regions under ancient positive selection on the AMH lineage 55 3.2.3.9. Overlap with (nearly) fixed differences between present-day and archaic humans 56 4. Results 57 4.1. Immune gene diversity in archaic and present-day humans 57 4.1.1. Abstract 58 4.1.2. Introduction 59 4.1.3. Results 61 4.1.3.1. Archaic humans had lower overall gene diversity than present-day humans 61 4.1.3.2. Archaic humans had similarly low gene diversity in innate immune genes compared with non-immune genes 62 4.1.3.3. High MHC gene diversity in archaic humans 64 4.1.3.4. Genes with highest/lowest diversity show similar GO enrichments in archaic and present-day humans 66 4.1.4. Discussion 69 4.1.5. Supplementary results 71 4.1.6. Acknowledgements and author contributions 72 4.2. Refining deserts of archaic ancestry 73 4.2.1. Abstract 73 4.2.2. Introduction 75 4.2.3. Results 78 4.2.3.1. Genome-wide patterns of archaic introgression are consistent with previous maps 78 4.2.3.2. The published shared desert regions are not the most depleted regions in the genome 79 4.2.3.3. Levels of archaic introgression in shared deserts for the IGDP data set are comparable 82 4.2.3.4. Shared deserts unique to either the Vernot or Sankararaman set have lower mean percentage introgression 84 4.2.3.5. Refined shared deserts 84 4.2.3.6. Overlap of refined shared deserts with genes 87 4.2.3.7. Enrichment analyses 88 4.2.3.8. Overlap with regions under ancient positive selection on the AMH lineage 89 4.2.3.9. Overlap of refined shared deserts with (nearly) fixed differences (nFD) 89 4.2.4. Discussion 94 4.2.5. Acknowledgements 98 5. Discussion and outlook 99 5.1. Interpreting immune gene diversity in archaic humans 99 5.2. Implications from refined deserts of archaic ancestry 104 5.2.1. Comments on the origin of desert regions 106 5.2.2. Candidates for functional molecular testing in refined deserts 107 5.2.3. Future directions in the characterisation and definition of shared deserts 110 5.3. Future directions beyond shared deserts 115 6. Outlook: Molecular functional testing of candidate variants 118 7. Conclusions and final remark 122 8. Supplementary information (SI) 124 8.1. SI: Immune gene diversity in archaic and present-day humans 124 8.2. SI: Refining deserts of archaic ancestry 152 Index of figures 216 Index of tables 218 Index of supplementary data files 220 References 221 Abbreviations 240 Acknowledgements/Danksagungen 242 Curriculum vitae 244 Publications 248 Selected talks 249 Poster presentations 249 Selbstständigkeitserklärung 250 Nachweis über Anteile der Co-Autor:innen 25

Desarrollo urbano y evolución de la población: España 1787-1930

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Producción, precios e integración de los mercados regionales de grano en la España preindustrial

Editada en la Fundación Empresa PúblicaEste trabajo aborda la integración de los distintos mercados regionales de grano en España durante el Antiguo Régimen. Haciendo uso de series de precios y de producción de diversa procedencia, el autor emplea técnicas de estimación relativamente sencillas, desde correlaciones y desviaciones típicas de series sin tendencia hasta modelos de retardos distribuidos. Estas técnicas revelan la existencia de una covariación entre los precios de granos en distintos mercados regionales, así como la existencia de efectos simultáneos y retardados de la producción de granos sobre el precio de los mismos en mercados locales y bastante más lejanos. El autor concluye que existía una integración modesta pero en aumento de los distintos mercados en la Península, sobre todo durante el siglo XVIII, y que las instituciones eran capaces de amortiguar en parte los efectos de una cosecha fallida. El trabajo concluye apuntando el calendario posible de la progresiva integración de los mercados de grano ocurrida a lo largo de buena parte del siglo XIX en España.The present paper deals with regional grain market integration in Spain during the Old Regime. Using mostly published price and production seríes, the author employs straightforward statistical techniques, rangíng from correlations and standard deviations of detrended series to distributed lag models. These techniques show the existence of a clear covariation in the price of grain on different regional markets, as well as both simultaneous and delayed effects of grain production on prices both locally and at considerably greater distances. The author concludes that regional grain markets on the peninsula were modestly but increasingly integrated over the period, especially during the eighteenth century, and that existing institutions were a partial buffer for the immediate effects of harvest failures. The paper concludes by suggesting the potential timing for the progressive intergration of grain markets taking place throughout much of the nineteenth century in Spain.Publicad

Shellfish Bag Maker

When commercially harvesting shellfish specifically clams and oyster, plastic mesh bags are commonly used to place shellfish in after harvesting on beaches. The issues is taking the raw bag material used for harvest and cutting it to a specified length. The material comes on a 2000 ft. spool and needs to be cut to a length of 54 in. Using an existing but out dated machine, a bench mark was made that the new design must be 10% more efficient for the customer to invest money into building the machine. Using mechanical machine design and computer designing software the machine was designed to the customer specifications. The design was a free standing steel frame, powered by an electric motor with a v-belt pulley system to transfer the power. The design featured safety improvement as well a reduction in size. The overall design was an improvement from the current machine being used because it was able to be moved and disassembled easily. By adjusting speed the machine rotated at and cutting process the new machine was estimated to be at least 10% and had the potential to be 25% more efficient. By guaranteeing an improved efficiency the machine was built entirely at Central Washington University and tested with a final efficiency was 20% over the current machine used. The machine highlights the skills and craftsmanship that are present in the CWU Mechanical Engineering technology major