National Holiday

Postcard from Rachel Go, during the Linfield College Semester Abroad Program at The China Studies Institute hosted at Peking University in Beijing, Chin

Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons

Title: Novel preaching: tips from top writers on crafting creative sermons. Author: Alyce M McKenzie. Publisher: Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, ©2010. ISBN: 978066423322

Customer Due Diligence and Its Role To Prevent The Global Economic Threat: Indonesian Anti Money Laundering Perspectives

Money laundering and financing of terrorism is one of the global threats which may occur problems for the economics of the world. The effect of Money Laundering and financing of terrorism have been manifested in the life of the nations. According to its characteristic as a transnational crime, Money laundering and financing of terrorism have been a major concern of all the countries and law enforcement agents. In this situation, law shall be a major instrument to tackle money laundering and financing of terrorism, but Customer Due Diligence and Enhance Due Diligence plays a great part to prevent money laundering and other variant of crime. The effective and efficient measure to recognize the customer who has a suspicious character of money laundering and financing of terrorism is using the method of knowing correctly and precisely their customer’s profile. Customer Due Diligence is the first resort which may operate as the first procedure which should be taken by all Financial Services Provider and also Goods and Services Providers. As a tool, Customer Due Diligence should be followed by the professionalism and awareness of the parties involved, such as bank and goods and service providers, since it is not easy to recognize the money laundering and also financing of terrorism. The presence of Law Number 8 of 2010 of Republic of Indonesia actually tries to strengthen the implementation of the Principle of Know Your Services Users or also known as the Know Your Customer Principle

Prophetic Preaching: A Pastoral Approach

Title: Prophetic preaching : a pastoral approach. Author: Leonora Tubbs Tisdale. Publisher: Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, ©2010. ISBN: 978066423332

European sovereign debt crisis and linkage of long-term government bond yields

Based on the robust cross-correlation function approach developed by Hong (2001),　this paper investigates the causality-in-mean and the causality-in-variance of long-term bond yields in seven countries including “PIIGS†(Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain), Germany, and France. A main contribution of the study is to assess the impacts of the recent European sovereign debt crisis on relationships of the bond yields. We find some evidence of the mean spillover effects, especially from Portugal and France before the crisis and from Portugal and Italy after the crisis. In contrast, the variance spillover effects from Germany interestingly strengthened through the debt crisis in particular despite the apparent lack of its mean transmission effects, whilst major sources of volatility spillover effects had been Portugal and France prior to the crisis.Volatility spillover, European sovereign debt crisis

Observation of Bell Inequality violation in B mesons

A pair of $B^0\bar B^0$ mesons from $\Upsilon(4S)$ decay exhibit EPR type non-local particle-antiparticle (flavor) correlation. It is possible to write down Bell Inequality (in the CHSH form: $S\le2$) to test the non-locality assumption of EPR. Using semileptonic $B^0$ decays of $\Upsilon(4S)$ at Belle experiment, a clear violation of Bell Inequality in particle-antiparticle correlation is observed: S=2.725+-0.167(stat)+-0.092(syst)Comment: Conference Proceeding for Garda Lake Workshop 2003 "Mysteries, Puzzles and Paradoxes in Quantum Mechanics

Singularities of improper affine spheres and surfaces of constant Gaussian curvature

We study the equation for improper (parabolic) affine spheres from the view point of contact geometry and provide the generic classification of singularities appearing in geometric solutions to the equation as well as their duals. We also show the results for surfaces of constant Gaussian curvatureand for developable surfaces. In particular we confirm that generic singularities appearing in such a surface are just cuspidal edges and swallowtails.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure

External shocks, adjustment policies, and investment : illustrations from a forward-looking CGE model of the Philippines

This paper presents a model that integrates intertemporal and forward-looking behavior in investment and consumption decisions in a multisectoral general equilibrium framework applicable to developing countries. It formulates and uses an infinite-horizon growth model to examine the adjustment, growth, and debt problems of a middle-income country, which the author illustrates using data for the Philippines. The author concludes that the expectation is a key factor. Contrary to the common suggestion that an economy should adjust and contract in response to a permanent import price shock, the behavior suggested in a model with rational expectations in investment decisions is that the opposite can be true. Combined with other policies, tariff reform could rechannel investment and resources toward the more tradable sectors and exports can be emphasized and increased. If domestic resources are also mobilized through increased tax collection, the combined effect will be to reduce or slow the accumulation of foreign debt. In other words, middle-income countries like the Philippines missed a golden opportunity for policy reform in the 1970s and found it harder to implement adjustment policies under less favorable circumstances in the 1980s.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform