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Rezension zu: Raimon Graells i Fabregat (Coord.), El valor social i comercial de la vaixella metàllica al Mediterrani centre-occidental durant la protohitòria in: Revista d’Arqueologia de Ponent 16-17, 2006-2007, 257-340 <81 pages, 65 illustrations. Edited by Secció d’Arqueologia, Prehistoria i Història Antiga, Departament d’Història, Facultat de Lletres, Universitat de Lleida. ISSN: 1131-883-X>
Event-by-event fluctuations of the particle yield ratios in heavy-ion collisions at 20 - 158 AGeV
(2010)
Non-statistical event-by-event fluctuations are considered as an important signal for the critical endpoint of the QCD phase diagram. Event-by-event fluctuations of different observables are thus investigated in detail in current experiments but are also an important observable to be studied at the future CBM experiment at FAIR. In this work we present the energy and centrality dependence of event-by-event fluctuations of particle yield ratios measured by the NA49 experiment in Pb+Pb collisions at 20 - 158 AGeV. Systematic studies of the influence of the dE/dx resolution on the particle identification and the centrality bin size were performed. Results can be compared to event-by-event fluctuations measured by NA49 for different observables such as <pt> or the mean charged particle multiplicity. Main results of these studies are an increase of absolute value of the dynamical particle ratio fluctuations with decreasing centrality for all considered ratios, saturation of the K/Pi and K/p ratio fluctuations for peripheral Pb + Pb collisions at 158A GeV and scaling of the energy and centrality dependences of the p/Pi ratio fluctuations with NpNPi. The measured energy and centrality dependences of the K/Pi and K/p ratio fluctuations scale with NK in a different way. The saturation of the mentioned ratios fluctuations was attributed to the development of pronounced spike at zero in the eventwise ratio distributions, which, as was shown by Monte Carlo simulations, influence the measured fluctuations in the very peripheral Pb + Pb collisions at 158A GeV. In future, the CBM experiment at FAIR will investigate the intermediate region of the QCD phase diagram in great detail searching for the first order phase transition line and the expected critical endpoint. It is therefore important to closely investigate its sensitivity towards particle ratio fluctuations in Au+Au collisions at 10-45 AGeV beam energy. Detailed simulation studies will be presented. As an outcome of these feasibility studies we conclude that the CBM experiment will be able to provide high quality data on the subject of the event-by-event flucutations of particle yield ratios with sensitivity in the order of 1%.
Over the past few decades, changes in market conditions such as globalisation and deregulation of financial markets as well as product innovation and technical advancements have induced financial institutions to expand their business activities beyond their traditional boundaries and to engage in cross-sectoral operations. As combining different sectoral businesses offers opportunities for operational synergies and diversification benefits, financial groups comprising banks, insurance undertakings and/or investment firms, usually referred to as financial conglomerates, have rapidly emerged, providing a wide range of services and products in distinct financial sectors and oftentimes in different geographic locations. In the European Union (EU), financial conglomerates have become part of the biggest and most active financial market participants in recent years. Financial conglomerates generally pose new problems for financial authorities as they can raise new risks and exacerbate existing ones. In particular, their cross-sectoral business activities can involve prudentially substantial risks such as the risk of regulatory arbitrage and contagion risk arising from intra-group transactions. Moreover, the generally large size of financial conglomerates as well as the high complexity and interconnectedness of their corporate structures and risk exposures can entail substantial systemic risk and can therefore threaten the stability of the financial system as a whole. Until a few years ago, there was no supervisory framework in place which addressed a financial conglomerate in its entirety as a group. Instead, each group entity within a financial conglomerate was subject to the supervisory rules of its pertinent sector only. Such silo supervisory approach had the drawback of not taking account of risks which arise or aggravate at the group level. It also failed to consider how the risks from different business lines within the group interrelate with each other and affect the group as a whole. In order to address this lack of group-wide prudential supervision of financial conglomerates, the European legislator adopted the Financial Conglomerates Directive 2002/87/EC8 (‘FCD’) on 16 December 2002. The FCD was transposed into national law in the member states of the EU (‘Member States’) by 11 August 2004 for application to financial years beginning on 1 January 2005 and after. The FCD primarily aims at supplementing the existing sectoral directives to address the additional risks of concentration, contagion and complexity presented by financial conglomerates. It therefore provides for a supervisory framework which is applicable in addition to the sectoral supervision. Most importantly, the FCD has introduced additional capital requirements at the conglomerate level so as to prevent the multiple use of the same capital by different group entities. This paper seeks to examine to what extent the FCD provides for an adequate capital regulation of financial conglomerates in the EU while taking into account the underlying sectoral capital requirements and the inherent risks associated with financial conglomerates. In Part 1, the definition and the basic corporate models of financial conglomerates will be presented (I), followed by an illustration of the core motives behind the phenomenon of financial conglomeration (II) and an overview of the development of the supervision over financial conglomerates in the EU (III). Part 2 begins with a brief elaboration on the role of regulatory capital (I) and gives a general overview of the EU capital requirements applicable to banks and insurance undertakings respectively. A delineation of the commonalities and differences of the banking and the insurance capital requirements will be provided (II). It continues to further examine the need for a group-wide capital regulation of financial conglomerates and analyses the adequacy of the FCD capital requirements. In this context, the technical advice rendered by the Joint Committee on Financial Conglomerates (JCFC) as well as the currently ongoing legislative reforms at the EU level will be discussed (III). The paper finally closes with a conclusion and an outlook on remaining open issues (IV).
This study examines the legal environment of netting agreements covering financial contracts. It concludes that an international instrument should be developed capable of improving the effectiveness of netting agreements in mitigating systemic risk. To this end, two different aspects of the enforceability of netting agreements are considered: (i) the general enforceability of netting, and (ii) the possibility of precluding the operation of netting a mechanism by way of a regulatory moratorium for considerations of systemic stability. The first part of the study presents the use of netting and the various forms it may take before going on to explain the benefits and drawbacks of enforceable netting agreements. Benefits for individual firms consist in lower counterparty risk and more favourable capital requirements. Benefits for the financial market as a whole flow from greater financial market stability since the contagion of systemically relevant institutions by the default or insolvency of another institution is limited, thus helping to avoid systemic effects. Additionally, the use of netting arrangements can improve overall market liquidity. A potential drawback of enforceability of netting, in certain situations, is that the operation of a netting mechanism could actually work against the purpose of systemic stability where the transfer of parts of the business of an insolvent financial institution to a solvent bridge entity would enhance or maintain value to a greater extent than the operation of a netting agreement would. Regulatory authorities are considering under which conditions a moratorium to halt the netting mechanism until the situation is solved could avoid this threat to systemic stability. The second part of the study examines whether there is the potential to support the purpose of enhanced systemic stability by way of international harmonisation of private and insolvency law. As regards the issue of general enforceability, the global picture of netting legislation is heterogeneous. Given the great practical relevance of the matter, an international instrument could be very useful. As to the issue of private law consequences of regulatory moratoria, the absence of a harmonised framework appears to lead to actual cross-border inconsistency and legal uncertainty as regards financial contracts that are governed by a foreign law. Taking these to aspects into account, this paper recommends that work on developing an international instrument be undertaken. The final part of the study suggests a set of preliminary guidelines for the development of suchan instrument. In the light of the findings of the previous sections, a mixed, two-step approach is recommended. First, a non-binding instrument could be developed, serving as a benchmark and reservoir of legal solutions in respect of the relevant issues. Secondly, isolated aspects relating to both the general enforceability of netting and the accommodation of a regulatory moratorium in foreign private and insolvency law could be dealt with in an international Convention, in particular where cross-border situations involving netting require uniformity of applicable legal rules.
Background: Environmental noise is ubiquitous in population growth processes, with a well acknowledged potential to affect populations regardless of their sizes. It therefore deserves consideration in population dynamics modelling. The usual approach to incorporating noise into population dynamical models is to make some model parameter(s) (typically the growth rate, the carrying capacity, or both) stochastic and responsive to environment fluctuations. It is however still unclear whether including noise in one or/and another parameter makes a difference to the model performance. Here we investigated this issue with a focus on model fit and predictive accuracy. To do this, we developed three population dynamical models of the Ricker type with the noise included in the growth rate (Model 1), in the carrying capacity (Model 2), and in both (Model 3). We generated several population time series under each model, and used a Bayesian approach to fit the three models to the simulated data. We then compared the model performances in fitting to the data and in forecasting future observations. Results: When the mean intrinsic growth rate, r, in the data was low, the three models had roughly comparable performances, irrespective of the true model and the level of noise. As r increased, Models 1 performed best on data generated from it, and Model 3 tended to perform best on data generated from either Models 2 or Model 3. Model 2 was uniformly outcompeted by the other two models, regardless of the true model and the level of noise. The correlation between the deviance information criterion (DIC) and the mean square error (MSE) used respectively as measure of fit and predictive accuracy was broadly positive. Conclusion: Our results suggested that the way environmental noise is incorporated into a population dynamical model may profoundly affect its performance. Overall, we found that including noise in one or/and another parameter does not matter as long as the mean intrinsic growth rate, r, is low. As r increased, however, the three models performed differently. Models 1 and 3 broadly outperformed Model 2, the first having the advantage of being simple and more computationally tractable. A comforting result emerging from our analysis is the broad positive correlation between MSEs and DICs, suggesting that the latter may also be informative about the predictive performance of a model.
We show that average excess returns during the last two years of the presidential cycle are significantly higher than during the first two years: 9.8 percent over the period 1948 – 2008. This pattern in returns cannot be explained by business-cycle variables capturing time-varying risk premia, differences in risk levels, or by consumer and investor sentiment. In this paper, we formally test the presidential election cycle (PEC) hypothesis as the alternative explanation found in the literature for explaining the presidential cycle anomaly. PEC states that incumbent parties and presidents have an incentive to manipulate the economy (via budget expansions and taxes) to remain in power. We formulate eight empirically testable propositions relating to the fiscal, monetary, tax, unexpected inflation and political implications of the PEC hypothesis. We do not find statistically significant evidence confirming the PEC hypothesis as a plausible explanation for the presidential cycle effect. The existence of the presidential cycle effect in U.S. financial markets thus remains a puzzle that cannot be easily explained by politicians employing their economic influence to remain in power. JEL Classification: E32; G14; P16 Keywords: Political Economy, Market Efficiency, Anomalies, Calendar Effects
The Anthonomus juniperinus group, with descriptions of two new species (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
(2010)
The Anthonomus juniperinus (Sanborn) species group is defined and two new species, Anthonomus sanborni, new species, and A. rileyi new species, from the United States are described, keyed and illustrated. The three species of the group are associated with the plant genus Juniperus and the larvae of A. juniperinus are known to develop in fungal galls of Gymnosporangium spp. as well as fruits of the Eastern redcedar, Juniperus virginiana L. The biology of the group and its taxonomic relationships to other species of Anthonomus Germar are also discussed.
The fauna of Phanaeini of the northeast of Brazil was investigated through fieldwork in the States of Ceará, Maranhão and Piauí, and through study of preserved material from other states. Seven species of Phanaeini are newly recorded from these three states. Of these, two species are also new records for the northeast region: Phanaeus melibaeus Blanchard and an unidentified Dendropaemon Perty species. A total of 13 new state records are given for eight of the 15 species of Phanaeini recorded from the northeast to date, including three new state genus records. A key is provided for identification of all species. Detailed distributional information is presented together with habitat and bait preferences and other ecological data for each species. The diversity and distribution of the tribe in the northeast is discussed in the context of regional biotopes and wider geographic ranges. The fauna is shown to be more diverse than previously believed, containing both endemic and widespread elements occurring in species assemblages that differ according to habitat type and elevation, leading to substantial complementarity of diversity amongst the main biogeographic provinces and biotopes of the region.
Four new species of Cydistomyia Taylor from New Guinea, C. missimiensis, C. madangiensis, C. waigani, and C. moresbyensis, are described and figured. A revised key to the females of New Guinea Cydistomyia and New Guinea collection records for 57 additional species of Tabanidae are provided. A table with the approximate longitudes and latitudes of all but one locality listed is provided.
Hiltonius carpinus carpinus Chamberlin, 1943 (Spirobolida: Spirobolidae), is authoritatively recorded from the United States for the first time; it is known only from southern/southeastern Arizona but should be expected in adjoining counties of New Mexico. The northernmost locality is the Pinaleno Mountains, Graham County, and its distribution extends to southern Mexico; the other subspecies, H. c. vulcan (Chamberlin, 1953), occurs in Guatemala. The range of H. c. carpinus includes the type locality of the enigmatic H. fossulifer (Pocock, 1908), lending credence to prior suggestions that the names are synonymous. Three new Mexican states – Durango, Jalisco, and Nuevo León – are documented for H. c. carpinus.