Modelling Investment When Relative Prices Are Trending: Theory and Evidence for the UK

This paper investigates the ability of aggregate and disaggregate equations to account for the boom in UK plant and machinery investment in the second half of the 1990s. We extend previous US research by Tevlin and Whelan (2002) by explaining the failure of the aggregate equations more formally in terms of misspecification when relative prices are trending; and by conducting the econometric analysis in a formal cointegration framework. In line with the US research, we find asset-level equations can explain the UK investment boom over this period, whereas the aggregate equation completely fails.investment, computers, relative prices

Listening Project

In an effort to better serve Southeast and Coastal Georgia, The Coastal Rivers Water Planning & Policy Center tapped the thoughts of several key stakeholders on water issues in our region.The Center was created in 2001 with a continuing mission to "assist policymakers in the formulation of policy designs to best manage sustainable economic growth and natural resource conservation via water planning, research, education and technical assistance." In order to best accomplish this mission, it is necessary for us to engage stakeholders in our region to determine those issues of critical importance.The Listening Project is designed to identify the perspective of water users throughout the Coastal Rivers Region by listening to the actual concerns and ideas for improvement of those who have a stake in the water future of the region. Using this information, the Center can better meet the research needs of stakeholders in the region.The objective of the first round of listening sessions is to identify issues, and not to take a quantitative measure of any given constituency. Thus, the results of the process do not lend themselves to conclusions that any one constituency has a certain viewpoint, but rather gives an idea for the type of issues that arise when representatives of one particular constituency gather to discuss their hopes and fears around the future of water use in Coastal Georgia region.The balance of this paper is organized in the following way: In Section II we discuss the process used in this first round of five listening sessions. In Section III we report the verbatim ideas of the participants in each of the five sessions. Section IV reports the same verbatim ideas put forward by the participants, but the ideas are organized according to dominant themes emerging from the sessions, where various constituencies' ideas on each theme are easily readable in the same place. Finally, in Section V we offer concluding remarks and describe our plans for Phase II of the project. Working Paper Number 2005-00

Case Studies Using the AFFFM

One of the primary functions of the Australian Farm Forestry Financial Model (AFFFM) is to allow landholders and their advisors to explore the potential impacts of forestry development on overall farm profitability, financial position and cashflows. In this chapter, two case studies of real-life landholdings are presented. The first examines the development of native forestry operations on a landholding in the New England Tablelands region, and the second examines the development of a hardwood plantation on a landholding in the Darling Downs region. These case studies illustrate the data input requirements and the nature and interpretation of the output from the model

Identifying Primordial Substructure in NGC 2264

We present new Spitzer Space Telescope observations of the young cluster NGC2264. Observations at 24 micron with the Multiband Imaging Photometer has enabled us to identify the most highly embedded and youngest objects in NGC2264. This letter reports on one particular region of NGC2264 where bright 24 micron sources are spatially configured in curious linear structures with quasi-uniform separations. The majority of these sources (~60% are found to be protostellar in nature with Class I spectral energy distributions. Comparison of their spatial distribution with sub-millimeter data from Wolf-Chase (2003) and millimeter data from Peretto et al. (2005) shows a close correlation between the dust filaments and the linear spatial configurations of the protostars, indicating that star formation is occurring primarily within dense dusty filaments. Finally, the quasi-uniform separations of the protostars are found to be comparable in magnitude to the expected Jeans length suggesting thermal fragmentation of the dense filamentary material.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 5 pages, 4 figures. Color version available from the following webpages: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~pteixeir/ and http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~clada

Structure and Function of a Mycobacterial NHEJ DNA Repair Polymerase

Non homologous end-joining (NHEJ)-mediated repair of DNA double-strand breaks in prokaryotes requires Ku and a specific multidomain DNA ligase (LigD). We present crystal structures of the primase/polymerisation domain (PolDom) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis LigD, alone and complexed with nucleotides. The PolDom structure combines the general fold of the archaeo-eukaryotic primase (AEP) superfamily with additional loops and domains that together form a deep cleft on the surface, likely used for DNA binding. Enzymatic analysis indicates that the PolDom of LigD, even in the absence of accessory domains and Ku proteins, has the potential to recognise DNA end-joining intermediates. Strikingly, one of the main signals for the specific and efficient binding of PolDom to DNA is the presence of a 5'-phosphate group, located at the single/double-stranded junction at both gapped and 3'-protruding DNA molecules. Although structurally unrelated, Pol lambda and Pol mu, the two eukaryotic DNA polymerases involved in NHEJ, are endowed with a similar capacity to bind a 5'-phosphate group. Other properties that are beneficial for NHEJ, such as the ability to generate template distortions and realignments of the primer, displayed by Pol lambda and Pol mu, are shared by the PolDom of bacterial LigD. In addition, PolDom can perform non-mutagenic translesion synthesis on termini containing modified bases. Significantly, ribonucleotide insertion appears to be a recurrent theme associated with NHEJ, maximised in this case by the deployment of a dedicated primase, although its in vivo relevance is unknown

Seroprevalence of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus antibody, England, 2010 and 2011.

The intense influenza activity in England during the 2010-11 winter resulted from a combination of factors. Population-based seroepidemiology confirms that the third wave of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus circulation was associated with a shift in age groups affected, with the highest rate of infection in young adults