Important Connections (important + connection)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Stochastic Volatility in a Macro-Finance Model of the U.S. Term Structure of Interest Rates 1961,2004

JOURNAL OF MONEY, CREDIT AND BANKING, Issue 6 2008
PETER D. SPENCER
affine term structure model; macro finance; unit root; stochastic volatility This paper generalizes the standard homoscedastic macro-finance model by allowing for stochastic volatility, using the "square root" specification of the mainstream finance literature. Empirically, this specification dominates the standard model because it is consistent with the square root volatility found in macroeconomic time series. Thus it establishes an important connection between the stochastic volatility of the mainstream finance model and macro-economic volatility of the Okun,Friedman type. This research opens the way to a richer specification of both macro-economic and term structure models, incorporating the best features of both macro-finance and mainstream finance models. [source]


Cannabis and Fantasies of Development: Revaluing Relations through Land in Rural Papua New Guinea

THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 1 2007
Jamon Alex Halvaksz
Over the past decade, marijuana has become a significant element within Papua New Guinea's communities, revealing an important connection to the broader political economy. For young men, fluctuating commodity prices, the intermittent exploitation of mineral wealth and a reluctant tourist economy only gives them a taste for development. Marijuana seems to offer its permanence. Somewhere between the harsh reality of local economic and ecological futures young men near the town of Wau (Morobe Province) imagine themselves as successful entrepreneurs in the emerging drug trade. In particular, I consider how young men imagine the planting of this illicit crop as mediating tensions between acting individually and acting communally. While most have yet to take action on these fantasies, they provide insight into the development aspirations of rural Papua New Guineans. In this paper, I examine these development fantasies as they speak to a broader political economy and transformations of local landscapes throughout rural Pacific communities. [source]


Serving God and Country?

JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 4 2009
Military Service Among Young Adult Men, Religious Involvement
Despite important connections between religion and military action throughout world history, scholars have seldom explored the association between religiosity and military enlistment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we used a person-oriented analysis to categorize young men according to patterns of adolescent religious involvement. Youth indentified as "highly religious evangelical" are more likely to enlist in the military compared to their "highly religious nonevangelical" and "nonreligious" counterparts; however, these findings hold only for those young men without college experience. These findings are discussed along with study limitations and promising directions for future research. [source]


INTEGRATING RISK MANAGEMENT AND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 4 2002
Prakash Shimpi
Capital management and risk management are two sides of the same coin. But by treating them separately, the conventional theory and practice of corporate finance fails to account for important connections between them. Moreover, an exclusive focus on debt and equity ignores the full range of capital resources available to a corporation, thus distorting management's view of the firm's cost of capital (and its return on equity). An understanding of the role of corporate capital,including off-balance sheet as well as paid-up capital,and its relationship to the riskiness of a firm's activities provides the foundation on which the author builds a corporate finance framework that ties together both the insurance and capital markets. This framework, called the "Insurative Model," captures the economics of both conventional insurance and corporate finance instruments and embraces a wide variety of solutions and instruments,be they debt, equity, insurance, derivative, contingent capital, or any other,and allows managers to evaluate their effectiveness in a consistent, unified way. The Insurative Model demonstrates that a company's decisions on insurance and risk retention can be just as important as its decisions about its debt-equity mix. In fact, the determination of a firm's optimal debt-equity ratio should be the last in a series of capital and risk management decisions. Earlier decisions should address risk retention, risk transfer, and the optimal amounts and structure of off-balance-sheet capital used to support the company's retained risks. [source]


Localization and connectivity of the lateral amygdala in anuran amphibians

THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY, Issue 2 2004
Nerea Moreno
Abstract On the basis of chemoarchitecture and gene expression patterns in the amphibian amygdaloid complex, new subdivisions have been proposed and compared with their counterparts in amniotes. Thus, a portion of the ventral pallium of anurans has been tentatively named "lateral amygdala" (LA) and compared with the basolateral complex of mammals. To strengthen the putative homology, we have analyzed the pattern of afferent and efferent connections of the LA in the anurans Rana perezi and Xenopus laevis. Tract-tracing techniques with dextran amines were used under in vivo and in vitro conditions. The results showed important connections with the main olfactory bulb, via the lateral olfactory tract. In addition, abundant intratelencephalic connections, via the rostral branch of the stria terminalis, were revealed, involving mainly the basal ganglia, septal nuclei, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and especially other amygdaloid nuclei. Nontelencephalic connections were found from the dorsal thalamus and parabrachial area and, in particular, from the hypothalamus through the caudal branch of the stria terminalis. All these results strongly suggest that the LA in anurans is a multimodal area in the ventral pallium that shares many hodological features with the amygdaloid ventropallial derivatives of the basolateral complex of amniotes. J. Comp. Neurol. 479:130,148, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Conservative Philanthropists, Royalty and Business Elites in Nature Conservation in Southern Africa

ANTIPODE, Issue 3 2010
Marja Spierenburg
Abstract:, The article investigates the increasingly important connections between the private sector and nature conservation agencies. It looks specifically at the connections between two important philanthropists, the late Anton Rupert, a South African business tycoon, and the late Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands. Both have been highly successful in raising funds for nature conservation, and marketing the idea of transfrontier conservation. This paper explores the networks they formed and were part of to try and explain how they were able to do so. It also attempts to analyse how their donations and fund raising have shaped thinking about nature conservation in (southern) Africa. [source]


Surgical anatomy of the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve and its clinical significance in head and neck surgery

CLINICAL ANATOMY, Issue 2 2008
Xenophon Kochilas
Abstract Injury of the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve (EBSLN) increases the morbidity following a variety of neck procedures and can have catastrophic consequences in people who use their voice professionally. Identification and preservation of the EBSLN are thus important in thyroidectomy, parathyroidectomy, carotid endarterectomy, and anterior cervical spine procedures, where the nerve is at risk. There are large variations in the anatomical course of the EBSLN, which makes the intraoperative identification of the nerve challenging. The topographic relationship of the EBSLN to the superior thyroid artery and the upper pole of the thyroid gland are considered by many authors to be the key point for identifying the nerve during surgery of the neck. The classifications by Cernea et al. ([1992a] Head Neck 14:380,383; [1992b] Am. J. Surg. 164:634,639) and by Kierner et al. ([1998] Arch. Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg. 124:301,303), as well as clinically important connections are discussed in detail. Along with sound anatomical knowledge, neuromonitoring is helpful in identifying the EBSLN during neck procedures. The clinical signs of EBSLN injury include hoarseness, decreased voice projection, decreased pitch range, and fatigue after extensive voice use. Videostroboscopy, electromyography, voice analysis, and electroglottography can provide crucial information on the function of the EBSLN following neck surgery. Clin. Anat. 21:99,105, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]