Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson Effect in Selected Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

This study investigates the HBS effect in a panel of nine CEECs during 1993:Q1-2003:Q4 (unbalanced panel). Prior to estimating the model, we analyze several key assumptions of the model (e.g. wage equalisation, PPP and sectoral division) and elaborate on possible consequences of their failure to hold. In the empirical part of the paper, we check the level of integration of the variables in our panel using the Pedroni panel-stationarity tests. We then investigate the internal and external version of the HBS effect with the Pedroni panel-cointegration tests as well as by means of group-mean FMOLS and PMGE estimations to conclude that there is a strong evidence in support of the internal HBS and ambiguous evidence regarding the external HBS. Our estimates of the size of inflation and real appreciation consistent with the HBS effect turned out generally within the range of previous estimates in the literature (0-3 % per annum). However, we warn against drawing automatic policy conclusions based on these figures due to very strong assumptions on which they rest (which may not be met in near future). Finally, following the hypotheses put forward in the literature, we elaborate and attempt to evaluate empirically the potential impact of exchange rate regimes on the magnitude of the HBS effect.Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson effect, Real Exchange Rate, Central and Eastern Europe, EMU

Autonomous global sky surveillance with real-time robotic follow-up: Night Sky Awareness through Thinking Telescopes Technology

Abstract We discuss the development of prototypes for a global grid of advanced "thinking" sky sentinels and robotic followup telescopes that observe the full night sky to provide real-time monitoring of the night sky by autonomously recognizing anomalous behavior, selecting targets for detailed investigation, and making real-time, follow-up observations. The layered, fault-tolerant, network uses relatively inexpensive robotic EO sensors to provide persistent autonomous monitoring and real-time anomaly detection to enable rapid recognition and a swift response to transients as they emerge. This T3 global EO grid avoids the limitations imposed by geography and weather to provide persistent monitoring of the night sky

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Energetic eruptions leading to a peculiar hydrogen-rich explosion of a massive star

Every supernova so far observed has been considered to be the terminal explosion of a star. Moreover, all supernovae with absorption lines in their spectra show those lines decreasing in velocity over time, as the ejecta expand and thin, revealing slower-moving material that was previously hidden. In addition, every supernova that exhibits the absorption lines of hydrogen has one main light-curve peak, or a plateau in luminosity, lasting approximately 100 days before declining1. Here we report observations of iPTF14hls, an event that has spectra identical to a hydrogen-rich core-collapse supernova, but characteristics that differ extensively from those of known supernovae. The light curve has at least five peaks and remains bright for more than 600 days; the absorption lines show little to no decrease in velocity; and the radius of the line-forming region is more than an order of magnitude bigger than the radius of the photosphere derived from the continuum emission. These characteristics are consistent with a shell of several tens of solar masses ejected by the progenitor star at supernova-level energies a few hundred days before a terminal explosion. Another possible eruption was recorded at the same position in 1954. Multiple energetic pre-supernova eruptions are expected to occur in stars of 95 to 130 solar masses, which experience the pulsational pair instability2,3,4,5. That model, however, does not account for the continued presence of hydrogen, or the energetics observed here. Another mechanism for the violent ejection of mass in massive stars may be required