How should monetary policymakers respond to the new challenges of global integration?

In a presentation at the Federal Reserve Banks of Kansas City's 2000 symposium, "Global Economic Integration: Opportunities and Challenges," Governor Brash of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand highlighted four issues related to global economic integration that affect central banks. First, increasing foreign trade is causing greater integration of countries and regions and thereby increasing the appeal of regional currency zones. Second, growing integration has potentially caused economies to become less inflation prone. Third, global financial institutions are developing at an accelerating rate, raising issues about financial regulation and the transmission of monetary policy. And fourth, the increasing speed with which capital flows around the world is making it more difficult for central banks to achieve domestic objectives.> Focusing primarily on the last issue, Governor Brash described how monetary policy in New Zealand has responded to increased economic integration. Two key challenges are the heightened response of capital flows to changes in monetary policy and the disruptive effects of exchange-rate cycles to the macro economy. Among the key ingredients to successful management of external or internal shocks in an open economy are "clear, transparent, and credible objectives" and "effective risk management." The specific approach in New Zealand has been to adopt an explicit inflation target and to maintain floating exchange rates and an open capital account.Monetary policy ; Banks and banking, Central ; New Zealand

Inflation Targeting in New Zealand: Experience and Practice

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New Zealand's economic reforms: a model for change?

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The role of monetary policy: where does unemployment fit in?

Unemployment is one of the biggest problems facing most OECD countries, and there are strong demands on policymakers to provide solutions. But responsible policymakers must recognize there are clear limits to what monetary policy can do to help lower unemployment. Monetary policy does have an important part to play, but it is not a tool we should use directly to stimulate growth or employment. The best contribution monetary policy can make to growth and employment is to maintain stability in the general level of prices.> In remarks made before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's 1994 symposium, "Reducing Unemployment: Current Issues and Policy Options," Governor Brash of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand gave his insights into the way this issue has developed in New Zealand and how the Reserve Bank has respondedMonetary policy ; Unemployment

Reuse in Information Systems Development: Classification and Comparison

There has been a trend in recent years towards an increasing acceptance of reuse as an approach to information systems development. This trend however has not been accompanied by an understanding of the underlying implications of this approach for the development process. We attempt to briefly highlight these affects by an initial categorization of the reuse approach according to two alternative taxonomies for reuse techniques followed by three philosophical frameworks from the literature. The affects on the functional property of reusability is then discussed leading to some initial conclusions regarding the application of reuse in information systems development

Surface Reconstruction through Time

Surface reconstruction is an area of computational geometry that has been progressing rapidly over the last decade. Current algorithms and their implementations can reconstruct surfaces from a variety of input and the accuracy and precision improve with each new development. These all make use of various heuristics to achieve a reconstruction. Much of this work consists of reconstructing a still object from point samples taken from the object\u27s surface. We examine reconstructing an n-dimensional object and its motion by treating time as an (n + 1)st axis. Our input consists of (n-1)-dimensional scans taken over time and at di?erent positions on the original object. This input is mapped into (n + 1) dimensions where the (n + 1)st dimension is a scaled time axis and then fed into an existing surface reconstruction algorithm. A cross section of the reconstructed surface perpendicular to the time axis yields an approximation to the shape of the n-dimensional surface at the corresponding point in time. The intended application for this work is the reconstruction of medical images from scanning technology such as MRI or CT into moving 3d surfaces. We investigate reconstructing 2d moving surfaces through time as a preliminary step towards the moving 3d problem. We spend most of our efforts in this thesis on the problem of computing a scaling factor for mapping time into the (n + 1)st axis to minimize the number of scans needed to meet the sampling requirements for an existing surface reconstruction algorithm. We give three bounds, based on features of the 2d moving object, that are necessary to accomplish this

LCA-based approach to environmental performance of Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis Fluids.

Abstract Screening LCA has been used to gain further insight into the environmental performance of Gambrosol Trio, a fluid used in Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) as a form of renal therapy. Gambrosol Trio (Trio) is produced and commercialised by Gambro AB, an international company with headquarters in Stockholm and historic roots in Lund, Sweden. The product's distinctive characteristic is its three-in-one compartment bag that allows a patient to use one of three standard glucose concentrations that form the basis of CAPD. This design has logistics and operational advantages compared to similar products packaged in single or dual compartment bags. This thesis was conducted as a first approach to explore whether or not these advantages extend to the product's environmental performance from a cradle-to-grave perspective. The environmental burden of the product is explored from the production and processing of Trio's components, to the manufacturing of the product itself to disposal of generated waste from its use, including transportation in between these stages of the product cycle. The assessment was made based on the construction of the product map, the material requirements for its production and transport and assigning an “Ecoscore” based on the Ecoindicator 99 method as presented in the Ecoindicator Manual for Designers. Results indicate the majority of the product's environmental burden is located at the production stage of its components with PVC based plastics taking the larger share. A quick exploration of Polypropylene and Polyethylene as substitutes did not indicate potential for improved environmental performance. Caution must be exercised as the effects of Phthalate leaking in land-fills or incomplete combustion in incinerators was not available as Ecoscores. Although this approach is based on Life Cycle Assessment, it does not have the validity that a full application of the method would provide; as such, results can only be used within the organisation as a tool to decide whether or not to continue efforts along this track and cannot be used to communicate claims to stakeholders or as the basis for definitive, company-wide decisions such as material substitution in their products

The Structure of the Nucleon: Elastic Electromagnetic Form Factors

Precise proton and neutron form factor measurements at Jefferson Lab, using spin observables, have recently made a significant contribution to the unraveling of the internal structure of the nucleon. Accurate experimental measurements of the nucleon form factors are a test-bed for understanding how the nucleon's static properties and dynamical behavior emerge from QCD, the theory of the strong interactions between quarks. There has been enormous theoretical progress, since the publication of the Jefferson Lab proton form factor ratio data, aiming at reevaluating the picture of the nucleon. We will review the experimental and theoretical developments in this field and discuss the outlook for the future.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1301.0905, arXiv:hep-ph/0609004, arXiv:1411.6908 by other author

Arsenite-Induced Alterations of DNA Photodamage Repair and Apoptosis After Solar-Simulation UVR in Mouse Keratinocytes in Vitro

Our laboratory has shown that arsenite markedly increased the cancer rate caused by solar-simulation ultraviolet radiation (UVR) in the hairless mouse skin model. In the present study, we investigated how arsenite affected DNA photodamage repair and apoptosis after solar-simulation UVR in the mouse keratinocyte cell line 291.03C. The keratinocytes were treated with different concentrations of sodium arsenite (0.0, 2.5, 5.0 μM) for 24 hr and then were immediately irradiated with a single dose of 0.30 kJ/m(2) UVR. At 24 hr after UVR, DNA photoproducts [cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs) and 6–4 photoproducts (6-4PPs)] and apoptosis were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and the two-color TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotide transferase dUTP nick end labeling) assay, respectively. The results showed that arsenite reduced the repair rate of 6-4PPs by about a factor of 2 at 5.0 μM and had no effect at 2.5 μM. UVR-induced apoptosis at 24 hr was decreased by 22.64% at 2.5 μM arsenite and by 61.90% at 5.0 μM arsenite. Arsenite decreased the UVR-induced caspase-3/7 activity in parallel with the inhibition of apoptosis. Colony survival assays of the 291.03C cells demonstrate a median lethal concentration (LC(50)) of arsenite of 0.9 μM and a median lethal dose (LD(50)) of UVR of 0.05 kJ/m(2). If the present results are applicable in vivo, inhibition of UVR-induced apoptosis may contribute to arsenite’s enhancement of UVR-induced skin carcinogenesis