Investigation of damage and repair of a 1000 MTD horizontal ammonia converter

An operational upset caused by a diapharagm failure in the high pressure casting of the synthesis gas compressor resulted in major pressure/flow surges in the synthesis loop.     

Climate change adaptation actions by fish farmers: evidence from the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

This paper examined climate change adaptation strategies in fish farming and the effect of such methods on the profit of fish farmers in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Using cross‐sectional data obtained from 420 fish farmers from the region and applying multivariate probit and instrumental variable regressions, the study found that fish farmers have adopted a broad range of strategies to address climate risk and that these have significantly increased farmers’ profit. Our findings indicated important relationships between certain farm, socio‐economic and institutional characteristics and the adaptation actions. The study provides useful insight into factors that potentially encourage the adoption of livelihood‐enhancing climate risk adaptation strategies by fish farmers in the Niger Delta region and similar contexts.     

The Foreclosure–House Price Nexus: A Panel VAR Model for U.S. States, 1981–2009

Despite housing's economic importance, little has been written on how foreclosures and home prices interact in a framework that includes macroeconomic and housing variables such as employment, permits or sales. Panel VAR results for quarterly state‐level data indicate that price–foreclosure linkages run both ways. Foreclosures negatively impact home prices. The negative impact of prices on foreclosures, however, is much larger. These results suggest the low‐frequency association observed between foreclosures and prices is mostly driven by the endogenous adjustment of foreclosures to prices via the strategic choices of homeowners and lenders, rather than through the effects of foreclosures on home prices.     

REAL INCOME LEVELS IN LATIN AMERICA

The measurement and inter-spatial comparison of Latin American real income levels calls for techniques which depart substantially from the conventional procedure of applying such official or free market exchange rates as happen to prevail in any given period. The reasons are varied, the main ones being that in an area such as Latin America prices are notoriously volatile, their structure differs radically from that encountered in other parts of the world, and the exchange rate system is characterized by frequent and usually irregular revisions, while in certain countries a multiple exchange rate system applies and no single factor is available for conversion purposes. In addition, there exists the problem common to all developing countries that the rates to a large extent reflect the exchange value of a limited number of export commodities vis-à-vis a wide range of imported goods and in no way typify the internal-external price relationship for the bulk of production which by its nature fails to enter into international trading transactions.
The author has endeavoured to circumvent these difficulties by adopting the often-discussed "purchasing power parity" approach whereby national accounts data are converted into a common monetary denominator (in this case, the U.S. dollar) expressed in "real" or quantitative terms which as far as possible eliminate inter-spatial price differences. Results are presented and analyzed, first for the base year 1960, and then for the period 1955–1964 at the level of main expenditure sectors as well as for the total gross domestic product.
To the extent that available statistics permitted, results for Latin American countries are also related to the United States and certain countries in Western Europe, a main objective being to determine the approximate dimension of the incomes "gap" and to ascertain whether this is increasing, decreasing or remaining very much unchanged in size.     

Correlation dynamics and international diversification benefits

Forecasting the evolution of security co-movements is critical for asset pricing and portfolio allocation. Hence, we investigate patterns and trends in correlations over time using weekly returns for developed markets (DMs) and emerging markets (EMs) over the period 1973–2012. We show that it is possible to model co-movements for many countries simultaneously using BEKK, DCC, and DECO models. Empirically, we find that correlations have trended upward significantly for both DMs and EMs. Based on a time-varying measure of diversification benefits, we find that it is not possible to circumvent the increasing correlations in a long-only portfolio by adjusting the portfolio weights over time. However, we do find some evidence that adding EMs to a DM-only portfolio increases diversification benefits.     

The Impact of Employment on Parental Coresidence

We examine the extent to which parents use housing and shared living arrangements as a form of risk‐sharing for their adult children, using detailed data on children and parents in the Health and Retirement Study for 1998–2012. On average, a young man moving from full‐time to nonemployment raises the likelihood of coresiding with a parent by 1.5 percentage points; moving from full‐time employment to being part‐time employed raises the likelihood of coresiding with a parent by 2 percentage points. The implied elasticity of parental coresidence with respect to the son's income is ‐1.1; for daughters, the elasticity is ‐0.5.     

Do We Have a Redundant Set of Cost–Efficiency Targets in the NHS?

There has been a long history of hospital trust cost–efficiency targets being used in the National Health Service (NHS), but there is little evidence about whether they are effective in reducing hospital unit costs and reducing the dispersion of unit costs between trusts. In 1997, the new Labour government announced that it would replace the purchaser efficiency index with a new approach to securing cost–efficiency gains from trusts. Since 1999/2000 trust efficiency targets have been based on reference costs. This article presents evidence to suggest that efficiency targets have not been effective and that the new reference cost based system of targets is irrelevant. The efficiency gains that trusts seek to achieve are those that emerge from the purchaser funding formula and the contracting process.