Habit Formation: Deep and Uncertain

We extend the Ravn, Schmitt-Grohe and Uribe (Review of Economic Studies, 2006) model of external deep-habits with the idea that some product varieties are more prone to habit formation than others. This s uncertainty in habit formation which affects firm's pricing. Provided that uncertainty is strong, a profound implication is that role of market frictions, such as habit formation, and its consequences for the dynamic variations in the markups can be reversed.

Metastable Innershell Molecular State (MIMS)

We propose that the existence of Metastable Innershell Molecular State (MIMS) was experimentally discovered by Bae et al. in hypervelocity (v>100km/s) impact of nanoparticles. The decay of MIMS resulted in the observed intense soft x-rays in the range of 75 - 100 eV in agreement with Winterberg's recent prediction.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

On intuitionistic fuzzy sub-hyperquasigroups of hyperquasigroups

The notion of intuitionistic fuzzy sets was introduced by Atanassov as a generalization of the notion of fuzzy sets. In this paper, we consider the intuitionistic fuzzification of the concept of sub-hyperquasigroups in a hyperquasigroup and investigate some properties of such sub-hyperquasigroups. In particular, we investigate some natural equivalence relations on the set of all intuitionistic fuzzy sub-hyperquasigroups of a hyperquasigroup.Comment: 13 page

Single crystalline BaTiO_3 thin films synthesized using ion implantation induced layer transfer

Layer transfer of BaTiO3 thin films onto silicon-based substrates has been investigated. Hydrogen and helium ions were co-implanted to facilitate ion-implantation-induced layer transfer of films from BaTiO3 single crystals. From thermodynamic equilibrium calculations, we suggest that the dominant species during cavity nucleation and growth are H2, H+, H2O, Ba2+ and Ba–OH, and that the addition of hydrogen to the Ba–Ti–O system can effectively suppress volatile oxide formation during layer transfer and subsequent annealing. After ion implantation, BaTiO3 layers contain microstructural defects and hydrogen precipitates in the lattice, but after layer transfer, the single crystal is found to be stoichiometric. Using direct wafer bonding and layer splitting, single crystal BaTiO3 thin films were transferred onto amorphous Si3N4 and Pt substrates. Micro-Raman spectroscopy indicated that the density of defects generated by ion implantation in BaTiO3 can be significantly reduced during post-transfer annealing, returning the transferred layer to its single crystal state. Characterization using piezoresponse force microscopy shows that the layer transferred thin films are ferroelectric, with domain structures and piezoresponse characteristics similar to that of bulk crystals

Migration, skill composition and growth

The UK, with its relatively liberal immigration policies following recent enlargements, has been one of the main recipients of migrants from new EU member states. This paper poses the questions: what is the effect of immigration on a receiving economy such as the UK? Is the effect beneficial or adverse for growth? How differently would skilled (or unskilled) migration affect both receiving and sending economies? What factors would contribute to immigration/emigration benefits/costs and economic growth driven by migration? Who are the winners and losers in both the sending and host regions? We utilize an endogenous growth two-bloc model with labour mobility of different skill compositions to address these questions. We show that migration, in general, is beneficial to the receiving country and increases the world growth rate. With remittances, the sending country in aggregate can also benefit. The only exception is in the case of unskilled migration, which can actually have a detrimental impact on the world growth rate. Winners are migrants, and the skill group in the region that sees its relative size decrease.