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Trenbolone acetate (TBA) is a high-value steroidal growth promoter often administered to beef cattle, whose metabolites are potent endocrine-disrupting compounds. We performed laboratory and field phototransformation experiments to assess the fate of TBA metabolites and their photoproducts. Unexpectedly, we observed that the rapid photohydration of TBA metabolites is reversible under conditions representative of those in surface waters (pH 7, 25°C). This product-toparent reversion mechanism results in diurnal cycling and substantial regeneration of TBA metabolites at rates that are strongly temperature-and pH-dependent. Photoproducts can also react to produce structural analogs of TBA metabolites. These reactions also occur in structurally similar steroids, including human Pharmaceuticals, which suggests that predictive fate models and regulatory risk assessment paradigms must account for transformation products of high-risk environmental contaminants such as endocrine-disrupting steroids.

It is often asserted that a flexible exchange rate regime would facilitate current account adjustment. Using data on over 170 countries over the 1971—2005 period, we examine this assertion systematically. We find no strong, robust, or monotonic relationship between exchange rate regime flexibility and the rate of current account reversion, even after accounting for the degree of economic development and trade and capital account openness. This finding presents a challenge to the Friedman (1953) hypothesis and a popular policy recommendation by international financial institutions.

Suggesting a new ecological threat, hormonal metabolites thought to degrade in sunlight can revert at night, zombielike, back into the endocrine-disrupting substances. Many U.S. ranchers implant cattle with the synthetic androgen trenbolone acetate to beef them up, but concerns have been raised that its metabolites leach into streams and ponds, disrupting endocrine systems of aquatic life. Sunlight was though to permanently degrade such metabolites but a study shows that the degradation products can revert at night, zombielike, back into the endocrine-disrupting metabolites. The same could be true of metabolites of other hormones that make their way into the environment.

Aim: Decision-making in weed management involves consideration of limited budgets, long time horizons, conflicting priorities, and as a result, trade-offs. Economics provides tools that allow these issues to be addressed and is thus integral to management of the risks posed by weeds. One of the critical issues in weed risk management during the early stages of an invasion concerns feasibility of eradication. We briefly review how economics may be used in weed risk management, concentrating on this management strategy. Location: Australia. Methods: A range of innovative studies that investigate aspects of weed risk management are reviewed. We show how these could be applied to newly invading weeds, focussing on methods for investigating eradication feasibility. In particular, eradication feasibility is analysed in terms of cost and duration of an eradication programme, using a simulation model based on field-derived parameter values for chromolaena, Chromolaena odorata. Results: The duration of an eradication programme can be reduced by investing in progressively higher amounts of search effort per hectare, but increasing search area will become relatively more expensive as search effort increases. When variation in survey and control success is taken into account, increasing search effort also reduces uncertainty around the required duration of the eradication programme. Main conclusions: Economics is integral to the management of the risks posed by weeds. Decision analysis, based on economic principles, is now commonly used to tackle key issues that confront weed managers. For eradication feasibility, duration and cost of a weed eradication programme are critical components; the dimensions of both factors can usefully be estimated through simulation. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This article contrasts the original Allies' grand plans for post-WWII Asia with the subsequent turnout, which fell short of their expectations, as formulated in the Cairo Declaration (1943) and the Potsdam Declaration (1945). In the Instrument of Surrender it signed on Sept. 2, 1945, Japan pledged to implement in full the demands stated in both Declarations. One demand that was not fulfilled called for Japan's surrender of all territories it had taken by force from other countries. These would include the Ryukyus, an independent kingdom until conquered by Japan in 1879 (renamed Okinawa ever since), plus the Diaoyu island (Senkaku in Japanese) taken from China. The United States occupied both after V-J Day, but in its 1972 \"Okinawa Reversion\" move the island was included in the package, because Washington followed a deceptive 1939 Japanese map that showed Diaoyu/Senkaku as belonging to Okinawa. Consulting relevant international law, I found that the \"intent\" (commitment) the Allies conveyed in the Declarations, and Japan's signature on the Surrender Instrument, fulfilled the legal requirement to be binding international agreements. As agreements defining territorial arrangements, they were not subject to change following changed circumstances. Being equally bound by these agreements, the United States cannot escape charges of complicity by tolerating Japan's failure to live up to its obligations.

This paper examines the time-series predictability of aggregate stock returns in twenty emerging markets. In contrast to the aggregate-level findings in the United States, earnings yield forecasts the time series of aggregate stock returns in emerging markets. We consider aggregate earnings not as normalizing variables for stock price but as predictive variables in their own right. Aggregate earnings covary with the market returns; hence, it is not just the mean reversion of stock prices that is responsible for the forecasting power of earnings yield. These results are robust across different estimation methods and after controlling for small-sample bias and macroeconomic variables.

One major controversy in the field of language development concerns the nature of children's early representations of word order. While studies using preferential looking methods suggest that children as early as 20 months represent word order as an abstract, grammatical property, experiments using the Weird Word Order (WWO) paradigm suggest that it is represented as a lexical property until age four. In order to shed light on these contradictions, two types of arguments are developed. First, it is argued that the observations taken to support the lexical hypothesis, based on the WWO paradigm, have been incorrectly interpreted. Second, an experiment is reported using the standard WWO paradigm with minimal changes in the design. Two groups of French children were contrasted (mean ages 2;11 and 3;11). Both groups were found to (i) reproduce WWO at a similar, low rate; (ii) correct WWO at a similar rate, even with pseudo-verbs; (iii) reuse the grammatical, SVO order significantly more often than WWO; and (iv) produce grammatical markers, indicating productive use, in grammatical sentences only. We conclude that empirical evidence converges to support the grammatical hypothesis.

This article is the winner of the International Real Estate Investment/Portfolio Management manuscript prize (sponsored by LaSalle Investment Management) presented at the American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting. This article tests for the presence of both price continuation and price reversals in international real estate securities. The results reveal evidence of performance persistence in international markets over short and medium term horizons, however the evidence on price reversals is less compelling. The empirical analysis tests for mean reversion using Variance Ratio and Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests. In neither case is there consistent evidence of mean reversion in international real estate securities. The portfolio switching tests do reveal some evidence of performance reversals. However, while under-performing markets do outperform over longer horizons, they do not do so at statistically significant levels.