Oil prices and emerging market exchange rates

This paper investigates the role of oil prices in explaining the dynamics of selected emerging countries exchange rates. Using daily data series, the study concludes that a rise in oil price is leading to a significant appreciation in emerging economies currencies against the US dollar. In our study, we divide daily returns from 03/01/2003 to 02/06/2010 into 3 subsamples and test the role of oil price changes on exchange rate movements. We employ generalized impulse response functions to trace out the dynamic response of each exchange rate in three different time periods. Our findings suggest that oil price dynamics are changing significantly in the sample period and the relation between oil prices and exchange rates becomes more relevant after the 2008 financial crisis.oil prices; emerging market exchange rates; international financial markets; financial crisis

The Second International: The Impact of Domestic Factors on International Organization Dysfunction

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This article explores the role of domestic factors in international organization dysfunction, exemplified by the failure of the Second International to agree on a common stance and policy for the prevention of the First World War. Focusing on the French and cof these socialist parties. It concludes that these domestic differences were the source of discrepancy and lack of orchestrated action among the members of the Second International. As a result of these differences, the Second International failed to coordinate and produce a binding resolution that would commit its members to a uniform action against war, hence culminating in international organization dysfunction. © 2013 The Authors. © 2013 Political Studies Association

Amino-terminal cysteine residues of RGS16 are required for palmitoylation and modulation of G(i)- and G(q)-mediated signaling

RGS proteins (Regulators of G protein Signaling) are a recently discovered family of proteins that accelerate the GTPase activity of heterotrimeric G protein α subunits of the i, q, and 12 classes. The proteins share a homologous core domain but have divergent amino-terminal sequences that are the site of palmitoylation for RGS-GAIP and RGS4. We investigated the function of palmitoylation for RGS16, which shares conserved amino-terminal cysteines with RGS4 and RGS5. Mutation of cysteine residues at residues 2 and 12 blocked the incorporation of [3H]palmitate into RGS16 in metabolic labeling studies of transfected cells or into purified RGS proteins in a cell-free palmitoylation assay. The purified RGS16 proteins with the cysteine mutations were still able to act as GTPase-activating protein for Giα. Inhibition or a decrease in palmitoylation did not significantly change the amount of protein that was membrane-associated. However, palmitoylation-defective RGS16 mutants demonstrated impaired ability to inhibit both Gi- and Gq-linked signaling pathways when expressed in HEK293T cells. These findings suggest that the amino-terminal region of RGS16 may affect the affinity of these proteins for Gα subunits in vivo or that palmitoylation localizes the RGS protein in close proximity to Gα subunits on cellular membranes

UK and EU subsidies and private R&D investment: Is there input additionality?

Business research and development (R&D) expenditures in the UK is low by international standards. To encourage investment, the UK government has been providing both direct and indirect support. The aim of this paper is to address four inter-related and policy-relevant questions: (i) what do we know about the UK regime for direct grant schemes? (ii) is the UK subsidy complementary or substitute for privately-funded R&D? (iii) does the UK funding regime differ from the EU regime in terms of selection and effect? (iv) does the scope for complementarity/additionality differ between different rates of funding? We address these questions using a rich dataset for more than 44 thousand UK firms from 1998-2012; and a range of treatment-effect estimators with and without control for selection. We report that the EU selection regime is more likely to support firms with long-term R&D plans. In addition, the UK subsidy is not associated with additionality, but the EU subsidy is. Finally, leverage estimations indicate that targeting a particular rate of subsidy is not likely to make a difference to private R&D effort in the UK subsidy case; but an increase in EU subsidy intensity does create leverage among firms that fall between the median and 75th percentile of the subsidy intensity distribution

Chaos edges of zz-logistic maps: Connection between the relaxation and sensitivity entropic indices

Chaos thresholds of the $z$-logistic maps $x_{t+1}=1-a|x_t|^z$ $(z>1; t=0,1,2,...)$ are numerically analysed at accumulation points of cycles 2, 3 and 5. We verify that the nonextensive $q$-generalization of a Pesin-like identity is preserved through averaging over the entire phase space. More precisely, we computationally verify $\lim_{t \to\infty}< S_{q_{sen}^{av}} >(t)/t= \lim_{t \to\infty}(t)/t \equiv \lambda_{q_{sen}^{av}}^{av}$, where the entropy $S_{q} \equiv (1- \sum_i p_i^q)/ (q-1)$ ($S_1=-\sum_ip_i \ln p_i$), the sensitivity to the initial conditions $\xi \equiv \lim_{\Delta x(0) \to 0} \Delta x(t)/\Delta x(0)$, and $\ln_q x \equiv (x^{1-q}-1)/ (1-q)$ ($\ln_1 x=\ln x$). The entropic index $q_{sen}^{av}0$ depend on both $z$ and the cycle. We also study the relaxation that occurs if we start with an ensemble of initial conditions homogeneously occupying the entire phase space. The associated Lebesgue measure asymptotically decreases as $1/t^{1/(q_{rel}-1)}$ ($q_{rel}>1$). These results led to (i) the first illustration of the connection (conjectured by one of us) between sensitivity and relaxation entropic indices, namely $q_{rel}-1 \simeq A (1-q_{sen}^{av})^\alpha$, where the positive numbers $(A,\alpha)$ depend on the cycle; (ii) an unexpected and new scaling, namely $q_{sen}^{av}(cycle n)=2.5 q_{sen}^{av}(cycle 2)+ \epsilon$ ($\epsilon=-0.03$ for $n=3$, and $\epsilon = 0.03$ for $n=5$).Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Hippocampus and retrosplenial cortex combine path integration signals for successful navigation

The current study used fMRI in humans to examine goal-directed navigation in an open field environment. We designed a task that required participants to encode survey-level spatial information and subsequently navigate to a goal location in either first person, third person, or survey perspectives. Critically, no distinguishing landmarks or goal location markers were present in the environment, thereby requiring participants to rely on path integration mechanisms for successful navigation. We focused our analysis on mechanisms related to navigation and mechanisms tracking linear distance to the goal location. Successful navigation required translation of encoded survey-level map information for orientation and implementation of a planned route to the goal. Our results demonstrate that successful first and third person navigation trials recruited the anterior hippocampus more than trials when the goal location was not successfully reached. When examining only successful trials, the retrosplenial and posterior parietal cortices were recruited for goal-directed navigation in both first person and third person perspectives. Unique to first person perspective navigation, the hippocampus was recruited to path integrate self-motion cues with location computations toward the goal location. Last, our results demonstrate that the hippocampus supports goal-directed navigation by actively tracking proximity to the goal throughout navigation. When using path integration mechanisms in first person and third person perspective navigation, the posterior hippocampus was more strongly recruited as participants approach the goal. These findings provide critical insight into the neural mechanisms by which we are able to use map-level representations of our environment to reach our navigational goals

Added Complexity of Social Entrepreneurship: A Knowledge-Based Approach

Social entrepreneurship evades easy definition and conceptualization. In this paper we attempt to advance social entrepreneurship theoretically by examining it conceptually, from a theory of the firm perspective. If social entrepreneurship entails pursuit of a double bottom line (Dees 1998), the added complexity of the social entrepreneurial venture identified by Tracey and Phillips (2007) should be discoverable from a theory of the firm perspective. Applying the knowledge-based theory of the firm to social entrepreneurship, we aver that social entrepreneurship’s added complexity is manifest when social entrepreneurs make decisions about their knowledge. In contrast to ordinary entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs have to balance two incommensurable objectives when they form their attitude toward protection of their knowledge