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Second Question (second + question)
Selected AbstractsMeasurement matters for modelling US import prices,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FINANCE & ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2009Charles P. Thomas Abstract We focus on capturing the increasingly important role that emerging economies play in determining US import prices. Emerging-market producers differ from others in two respects: (1) their cost structure is well below that of developed-market producers, and (2) their wide profit margins induce pricing policies that seek to exhaust production capacity. We argue that these features have dampened the short-run responses of import prices to changes in the value of the dollar but that they have not altered the associated long-run response. To capture these considerations, we develop a new method to measure foreign prices and adopt a formulation that differentiates between short- and long-run responses. Our econometric work asks two questions: First, can one replicate the literature's dispersion of pass-through estimates? Second, is there any evidence of a change in the dynamic response of import prices to changes in the exchange value of the dollar? To address the first question, we estimate the parameters of our models using several alternative measures of US and foreign prices, dynamic specifications, and sample periods. We find that these alternative inputs translate into a large range of parameter estimates, a finding that helps to rationalizing the existing dispersion of estimates. To address the second question, we compute the implied dynamic adjustment of import prices to a change in the value of the dollar using parameters estimated from two samples: 1974,2000 and 1974,2005. The long-run response of import prices is similar regardless of which sample is used,roughly one-half of the change in the exchange rate is passed through to import prices. However, the short,run response is quite sensitive to the sample period. Specifically, the short-run response based on data through 2005 is smaller than the short-run response based on data through 2000. We argue that one force behind the change in dynamics of the import-price process is the greater presence of producers from emerging economies and that their effect on import prices can be captured with their measure of foreign prices. Published in 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Access to a Telephone and Factor Market Participation of Rural Households in BangladeshJOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2006Shyamal K. Chowdhury C35; D13; D23; D83 Abstract This paper assesses the impact of access to a telephone on rural households' factor market opportunities. It answers two questions. First, does the use of a telephone have any impact on rural households' factor market participation? Second, correcting for market participation, does the use of a telephone have any impact on the type of factor market participation? For the first question, the paper uses a bivariate probit to correct for omitted variable bias and for the second question, the paper uses a two-stage probit. The empirical findings suggest that access to a telephone has a significant positive impact on factor market participation. The difference in market participation between telephone users and non-users is around 14%. However, once a household participates in the market, the use of a telephone does not have any impact on specific factor market participation. [source] Impacts of traditional land uses on biodiversity outside conservation areas: effects on dung beetle communities of Vaalbos National ParkAFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Thokozani S. Simelane Abstract Grazing is one of the key processes in terrestrial ecosystems and this can be provided by both indigenous and domestic ungulates. However, a question remains whether or not traditional forms of land use such as the grazing of domestic animals support the maintenance of biodiversity. If it does not, then the second question becomes to what extent does grazing of domestic animals alter the systems and processes that support biodiversity? This study demonstrates that in attempting to answer this question, small organisms like dung beetles are ideal indicators that can be used to express significant differences between conserved (indigenous) and non-conserved (domestic) land. As a general trend, studies that investigated these differences displayed differences through analysis of the diversity indices. This method has in most cases demonstrated a lack of contrast between conserved and non-conserved land. In the existence of such uncertainty this study has demonstrated that in such cases, where the analysis of biodiversity indices fail to demonstrate significant differences a closer examination of actual species such as guilds and functional groups could confirm significant differences between conserved and non-conserved land. These apparently conflicting findings reflect the need to consider the actual elements of biodiversity (e.g. species) when assessing conservation issues rather than just the statistical measures of biodiversity. Résumé Le pâturage est un des processus clés dans les écosystèmes terrestres, et il est le fait d'ongulés aussi bien indigènes que domestiques. Pourtant, la question subsiste de savoir si oui ou non des formes traditionnelles d'utilisation des terres telles que le pâturage des animaux domestiques favorisent le maintien de la biodiversité. Si la réponse est non, la seconde question consiste à se demander dans quelle mesure le pâturage des animaux domestiques modifie les systèmes et les processus qui sous-tendent la biodiversité. Cette étude montre que, pour essayer de répondre à cette question, de petits organismes comme les bousiers sont des indicateurs idéaux que l'on peut utiliser pour exprimer des différences significatives entre les terres protégées (animaux indigènes) et non protégées (animaux domestiques). Selon une tendance générale, les études qui ont recherché ces différences exprimaient des différences par l'analyse des indices de biodiversité. Dans la plupart des cas, cette méthode montrait un manque de contraste entre terres conservées et non conservées. Lorsqu'une telle incertitude subsiste, cette étude a pu montrer que, lorsque l'analyse des indices de biodiversité n'arrive pas à prouver de différences significatives, un examen plus approfondi d'espèces réelles, comme des guildes ou des groupes fonctionnels, peut confirmer des différences significatives entre les terres préservées et non préservées. Ces résultats apparemment contradictoires montrent bien qu'il est nécessaire de considérer les éléments réels de la biodiversité (ex. des espèces) lorsque l'on évalue des questions de conservation, au lieu de se contenter de mesures statistiques de la biodiversité. [source] Sexually antagonistic selection on primate sizeJOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2002P. Lindenfors Abstract Male intrasexual selection in haplorhine primates has previously been shown to increase male size and to a lesser degree also female size. I address the following questions: (1) why does female size increase when the selection is on males, and (2) why does female size not increase to the same extent as that of males. The potential for correlational selection on females through increased resource competition was analysed with independent contrasts analyses. No such effect was found, nor did matched pairs comparisons reveal females to increase in size because of selection to bear larger male offspring. Instead further matched pairs analyses revealed higher female postpartum investment, as indicated by a longer lactation period, in more sexually selected species, also after correcting for body weight. Concerning the second question, independent contrast analyses showed that large size has had negative effects on female reproductive rate across the primate order. Matched-pairs analyses on haplorhines revealed that females of species in more polygynous clades have lower reproductive rates than females of species in less polygynous clades. This is also true after the effects of body weight are removed. These results, both when correcting for body weight and when not, suggest that sexual selection has shifted female size from one favouring female lifetime fecundity to one favouring male success in competition. This depicts antagonistic selection pressures on female size and a trade-off for females between the ecologically optimal size of their foremothers and the larger size that made their forefathers successful. [source] Effect of defoliation on grass growth.OIKOS, Issue 1 2002A quantitative review The diversity of responses of individual grasses to defoliation created a controversy about 15 years ago, which still needs clarification. We quantitatively assessed the evidence of defoliation effects on individual grass growth, addressing two main questions: 1) what is the average and variability of the effect of defoliation on plant growth? and 2) what are the associated conditions accounting for the diversity of effects? Regarding the first question, the results showed a negative overall effect of defoliation on plant growth and substantial variability in the defoliation responses of different plant components. There was an intermediate negative effect on total production (which included clipped-off biomass), a large negative effect on final live biomass at harvest, and a minimal effect on root biomass. Regarding the second question (conditions accounting for the diversity of effects), defoliation intensity had no effect on the response to defoliation, but both time for recovery from the last defoliation and the period of time between defoliation events significantly decreased the negative effect of defoliation. Nitrogen availability also altered the effect of defoliation, as plants grown at highest nitrogen levels were more negatively affected by clipping than plants with no supplementary addition of nitrogen. These results indicate that the magnitude of defoliation response by an individual plant differs among plant compartments and this response is modulated by other factors, such as time for recovery after defoliation, and nutrient availability. In general, the effect of defoliation on individual plant production was more negative than reported effects of grazing on ecosystem primary production. [source] Thomas Carlyle and the "Characteristics" of Nineteenth-Century English LiteratureORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 3 2001C. Schatz-Jakobsen The place of Thomas Carlyle (1795,1881) in nineteenth-century English literary history is as uncertain as the nature and genre-affiliation of early writings like "Characteristics" (1831) and Sartor Resartus (1833,34). The question of whether Carlyle war ,really' a Romantic or a Victorian runs parallel to the question of the kind of ground, rhetorical or conceptual, on which his texts rest. While a sufficiently close (rhetorical) reading of "Characteristics" may provide an answer to the second question, it may be the same token render the first question, and the period-terms resorted in its formulation, irrelevant. [source] THOMAS REID ON MOLYNEUX'S QUESTIONPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2005ROBERT HOPKINS The first version is used to address whether there are any properties originally perceived in both touch and vision. Although it is tempting to think the second discussion serves the same purpose, this would render pointless various novel features of the question Reid then frames. Instead, I suggest, Reid's second question provides the acid test of one of his central claims against the Ideal system, that the blind can form a conception of visible figure. The issue is not the cross-modality of perceptual representations, but the amodality of a central concept, as befits the Inquiry's central argumentative ambitions. [source] Rosamond's complaint: Daniel, Ovid, and the purpose of poetryRENAISSANCE STUDIES, Issue 3 2008Stephen Guy-Bray ABSTRACT Samuel Daniel's The Complaint of Rosamond was first published in 1592 as the second half of Daniel's first book. In this poem, the ghost of Henry II's mistress Rosamond appears to Daniel to commission a poem. Daniel's precedents for his poem are the complaint poems written in the late 1580s and early 1590s and, ultimately, Ovid's Heroides. The Heroides provide a female perspective on love stories usually told from the male point of view; they are also hopelessly belated texts that have no effect on the narratives to which they contribute. For Daniel, the Heroides are a useful precedent as they allow him to raise questions about the effect of poetry. Can poetry do or change anything? This is an especially pertinent question for Daniel, whose sonnet sequence Delia chronicles the speaker's repeated failure to make any impression on the hard heart of the woman he loves. Related to this is a second question: is poetry justified if its end is immoral? The Complaint of Rosamond functions as a comment both on the Heroides themselves and on Daniel's own sense of himself as a poet. [source] Manually controlled human balancing using visual, vestibular and proprioceptive senses involves a common, low frequency neural processTHE JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY, Issue 1 2006Martin Lakie Ten subjects balanced their own body or a mechanically equivalent unstable inverted pendulum by hand, through a compliant spring linkage. Their balancing process was always characterized by repeated small reciprocating hand movements. These bias adjustments were an observable sign of intermittent alterations in neural output. On average, the adjustments occurred at intervals of ,400 ms. To generate appropriate stabilizing bias adjustments, sensory information about body or load movement is needed. Subjects used visual, vestibular or proprioceptive sensation alone and in combination to perform the tasks. We first ask, is the time between adjustments (bias duration) sensory specific? Vision is associated with slow responses. Other senses involved with balance are known to be faster. Our second question is; does bias duration depend on sensory abundance? An appropriate bias adjustment cannot occur until unplanned motion is unambiguously perceived (a sensory threshold). The addition of more sensory data should therefore expedite action, decreasing the mean bias adjustment duration. Statistical analysis showed that (1) the mean bias adjustment duration was remarkably independent of the sensory modality and (2) the addition of one or two sensory modalities made a small, but significant, decrease in the mean bias adjustment duration. Thus, a threshold effect can alter only a very minor part of the bias duration. The bias adjustment duration in manual balancing must reflect something more than visual sensation and perceptual thresholds; our suggestion is that it is a common central motor planning process. We predict that similar processes may be identified in the control of standing. [source] In Search of Public Accountability: The ,Wenling Model' in ChinaAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2009S. Philip Hsu This article specifically attempts to answer two interrelated research questions: firstly, how do democratic consultation assemblies (DCAs) heighten public accountability in the current institutional setting of China's sub-provincial localities?; and secondly, what can be learned, from the Chinese case, in relation to achieving public accountability elsewhere? To address the first question, this article will explore two particular variations of the DCAs, and will focus on the interplay between the managerial and democratic accountability orientations to address the second question. [source] The development of biocommodities and the role of North West European ports in biomass chainsBIOFUELS, BIOPRODUCTS AND BIOREFINING, Issue 3 2009Johan P. M. Sanders Abstract Biomass-derived commodities will compete with commodities derived from fossil fuels in 20 years' time. This perspective will explore the economic conditions that will govern the development of, and the trade in these biocommodities. Markets for biocommodities will open up new revenues for both the agricultural and the chemical sector. We shall explore the importance of the biorefinery concept for the establishment of these new markets. Biorefinery is the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of marketable products and energy. Trade in biobased substances will be greatly enhance if standard ,commodities' are defined and produced in several places in the world. Now we turn to the second question of this perspective: where will biocommodities be produced and where will they be used? The choice of where to process the biomass will depend on the type of biomass, transport distances, bulk density, decay rate, ease of handling, the type of process(ses), the presence of markets, the cost of labor, and logistical conditions. Ports, both on the exporting side and on the importing side, will have a major influence on the formation of biomass chains. In export ports, crude or partially pre-treated biomass will be collected and processed/ transformed into a biocommodity. Existing industries, such as feed production, can be combined with the production of biocommodities, The role of port areas and chemical industries in several biomass chains are shown. The combination of a major port and major application markets for biomass, such as feed industry, chemical industry, biofuels industry and power generation, will allow for the formation of a biomass hub. The formation of a biomass hub will be a step-by-step process in which services and exchange markets are added to existing logistical and industrial structures. The port of Rotterdam has an excellent starting point to become a hub in international biomass trade and processing. In the near future, 5,15 years from now, international biomass trade will become standardized and biocommodities will be defined, partly on the basis of technologies still in development. © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [source] Into Cerberus' Lair: Bringing the Idea of Security to Light1BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2005Graham M. Smith Using the motif of Cerberus, the three-headed monster watchdog of Hades, this article attempts to bring ,security' to light. Specifically, it addresses two related questions. The primary question is: What does ,security' mean?. Here it is argued that ,security' is related to ,order' and is a reflection not of a positive value in and of itself, but the relative success of any given order to realise its core values in relation to other orders. Therefore, ,security' is found to be like Cerberus insofar as it exists not as an independent value or being, but only in relation between two orders. Having located ,security' within this conceptual framework, the article then addresses its second question: What are the effects of security?. The motif of Cerberus suggests that security ,bites' in three ways: first, that specific measures of security control the members of an order; second, that the identification of security threats reinforce certain persons and structures of the order as being the definers of the order; and finally, that the implementation of certain security measures can change and transform the order itself. In this way the analysis offered here brings ,security' to light not only as an inherently political term connected to political values, but to provide foundations for critiquing the rhetorical use of ,security' in contemporary political discourse and thought. [source] | ||||||||||||||||