The Macroeconomy and Long-Term Interest Rates: An Examination of Recent Treasury Yields

From 2001 to 2006, U.S. long-term interest rates have remained steady while the federal funds rate has both declined and increased, as Figure 1 shows. Historically, long term interest rates tend to respond to changes in short term rates, but recently this does not appear to be the case. Former chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, recently dubbed this occurrence a “conundrum,” because no one can provide a distinct explanation concerning this phenomenon. There are several noteworthy incentives for why long-term yields should have increased from 2004 to 2006, but they have remained constant during this time period. According to current economic theory, the U.S. budget deficit, the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) recent increases in short term rates, the latest recovery from recession, and the hefty current account deficit should all be contributing to higher long-term rates. Despite these macroeconomic influences, rates have not responded. Therefore, a supplementary force(s) must be creating a substantial impact. For example, this trend may be explained by a decrease in interest rate volatility, the Federal Reserve’s ability to maintain low inflation expectations, or an increase in foreign demand for U.S Treasuries. Is the ten-year Treasury yield truly a conundrum, or have macroeconomic influences caused long-term interest rates to maintain at an appropriate level? [excerpt

The parameterisation of turbulence in the marine environment

There are many problems in the fields of flow modelling around structures and tidal stream energy yield analysis which require a thorough understanding of the turbulent and time-averaged flow speeds in marine environments. In this paper we examine the relationship between the turbulence intensity and mean tidal flow speed at a potential tidal stream power site. We report data from the Humber Estuary wherein an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler were used to capture vertical profiles of the high frequency and mean tidal flow speeds throughout Spring and Neap, Flood and Ebb cycles. We show not only that our results extend earlier work but also suggest that the turbulence intensity, IT, can be described parametrically in terms of the mean flow, U, by an inverse power function IT = α Uᵖ where the coefficient appears to be dependent upon the anisotropic nature of the turbulence. For the data reported here, the coefficient has value of about 17–18 and the exponent lies between −0.6 and −1.0. Confirmation of this relationship should not only improve engineering design work and energy yield analyses in turbulent tidal flows but also be applicable to other problems such as the prediction of sediment mass transport and pollution dispersal in estuarine management studies

Community pharmacy as an effective teaching and learning environment: Student perspectives from a UK MPharm programme

Introduction: In order to increase new pharmacists' preparedness for clinical practice, pharmacy education in the United Kingdom (UK) is moving towards a five-year integrated degree incorporating the pre-registration year into the undergraduate programme. The purpose of this research is to explore masters of pharmacy (MPharm) student attitudes towards experiential learning and assess community pharmacy as a teaching and learning environment. Methods: MPharm students (n=857) at one UK pharmacy school were invited to complete an online questionnaire. Responses were statistically analysed while open comments were thematically analysed. Results: Students were positive about placement organisation, with over 80% agreeing the pharmacist and support staff were enthusiastic and well-prepared. However, 62% of respondents felt they were unable to interact with patients on placements and instead spent time completing pre-determined learning tasks. Seventy-seven percent felt these tasks limited real “hands-on” experiences. Although 78% of respondents believed placements provided a valuable learning experience, only 18% thought placements prepared them for post-graduate employment. Conclusions: Community pharmacy environments are often busy and unpredictable, and experiential learning should be designed to allow better exposure to clinical practice with less predefined learning. Placements should allow for more collaborative working between universities and employers and incorporate the use of learning standards. This would represent a move towards a five-year integrated degree and a better understanding of the associated challenges involved

LifeWatch – A European e-Science and observatory infrastructure supporting access and use of biodiversity and ecosystem data

There are many promising earth and biodiversity-monitoring projects underway across the globe, but they often operate in information islands, unable easily to share data with others. This is not convenient: It is a barrier to scientists collaborating on complex, cross-disciplinary projects which is an essential nature of biodiversity research. 

LifeWatch (www.lifewatch.eu) is an ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) initiative which has just entered its construction phase. It is aiming at new ways of collaboration, in an open-access research environment to solve complex societal and scientific questions on biodiversity and ecosystems. It installs a range of new services and tools to help the researchers communicate, share data, create models, analyze results, manage projects and organize the community. The power of LifeWatch comes from linking all kinds of biodiversity related databases (e.g. collections, long-term monitoring data) to tools for analysis and modeling, opening entirely new avenues for research with the potential for new targeted data generation. At this level the interface with national data repositories becomes most important, as this opens the opportunity for users to gain advantage from data availability on the European level. LifeWatch will provide common methods to discover, access, and develop available and new data, analytical capabilities, and to catalog everything, to track citation and re-use of data, to annotate, and to keep the system secure. This includes computing tool-kits for researchers: for instance, an interoperable computing environment for statistical analysis, cutting-edge software to manage the workflow in scientific projects, and access to new or existing computing resources. The result: ‘e-laboratories’ or virtual labs, through which researchers distributed across countries, time zones and disciplines can collaborate. With emphasis on the open sharing of data and workflows (and associated provenance information) the infrastructure allows scientists to create e-laboratories across multiple organizations, controlling access where necessary

President\u27s Notes

Twenty-five years ago Rear Adm. Henry E. Eccles retired from active naval service. In the 30 years following his graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy, Admiral Eccles spent 12 years in submarines, and several years in battleships, cruisers, and destroyers before he took command of U.S.S. John D. Edwards in 1941. Attached to the Asiatic Fleet, Edwards saw considerable combat action including the battle of the Java Sea. During World War II, Commander, and later Captain, Eccles was deeply involved in base development and logistics planning and operations for the Pacific campaigns. He commanded the battleship U.S.S. Washington in 1946

President\u27s Notes

In this issue are several important and timely articles and reviews

Bitter pit control could save export Granny Smiths

Western Australian exports of Granny Smith apples are threatened by the incidence of bitter pit. Fortunately treatments which can control this storage disorder, have become available

The elimination of cultivation in apple orchards : a new approach to orchard soil management

THE idea of eliminating cultivation in orchards suggests a reversal of accepted local practice in orchard soil management—but there is plenty of evidence to show that a noncultivation system has much in its favour. In this article the advantages and disadvantages of the three main forms of orchard soil management are discussed and experimental evidence is presented in support of noncultivation. An alternative method, winter sod culture, is proposed for irrigated orchards