The ongoing credit crunch represents the fi rst crisis of the age of mass securitization. One conclusion sometimes drawn is that the costs of securitization, in the form of risks to fi nancial stability, exceed the benefits. The implication is that we should return to the simpler days when commercial banks originate loans to households and fi rms and hold them on their balance sheets, rather than slicing them, dicing them and selling them off. But this back-to-the-future formula ignores economic realities. Securitization is bound up with the broader deregulation of fi nancial markets and with the information-technology revolution. Policy makers cannot eliminate this process short of reimposing the kind of restrictive regulation to which banking and fi nancial systems were subject half a century ago.liquidity lines provided by financial institutions. Market liquidity depends not only on objective, exogenous factors, but also on endogenous market dynamics. Central banks responsible for systemic stability need to consider how far their traditional responsibility for the health of the banking system needs to be adapted to promote stability in the relevant financial markets. In any case, turning back the clock would not be desirable because the constellation of financial innovations referred to as securitization has real benefits for the economy. Those innovations have allowed the financial system to repackage and spread risk. They have reduced the amount of equity capital that this system requires to absorb that risk. The result has been to lower funding costs for both fi rms and homeowners as a class. In the aftermath of the Great Securitization Crisis of 2007-8, would-be reformers will surely say that financial regulators need to rethink speed limits and rules of the road. In my view, policy makers should focus on the banking system. Banks still play a unique role. They are at the center of the information-impacted segments of the financial system. Their key role and their vulnerability are recognized by the protection they receive via the financial safety net. Re-thinking should start with the role of Basel II, and within Basel II of the role of internal models and bond ratings.

Journal Article Stability Studies of MAPbI 3 : Identification of Degradation Pathways and Strategies for Observing the Native Structure of Lead Halide Perovskites Get access Mary Scott, Mary Scott Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USANational Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Joonki Suh, Joonki Suh Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Junqiao Wu, Junqiao Wu Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Andrew M Minor Andrew M Minor Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USANational Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Microscopy and Microanalysis, Volume 22, Issue S3, 1 July 2016, Pages 1510–1511, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1431927616008394 Published: 25 July 2016

However well the European economy may have performed in the past, there are reasons to worry about whether it can keep pace in a world of accelerating technical change and global competition led by the rise of India and China.

Serving Large Language Models (LLMs) efficiently in multi-region setups remains a challenge. Due to cost and GPU availability concerns, providers typically deploy LLMs in multiple regions using instance with long-term commitments, like reserved instances or on-premise clusters, which are often underutilized due to their region-local traffic handling and diurnal traffic variance. In this paper, we introduce SkyWalker, a multi-region load balancer for LLM inference that aggregates regional diurnal patterns through cross-region traffic handling. By doing so, SkyWalker enables providers to reserve instances based on expected global demand, rather than peak demand in each individual region. Meanwhile, SkyWalker preserves KV-Cache locality and load balancing, ensuring cost efficiency without sacrificing performance. SkyWalker achieves this with a cache-aware cross-region traffic handler and a selective pushing based load balancing mechanism. Our evaluation on real-world workloads shows that it achieves 1.12–2.06× higher throughput and 1.74–6.30× lower latency compared to existing load balancers, while reducing total serving cost by 25%.

The stability and band bowing effects of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide alloys MX2(1−x)X′2x (M = Mo, W, and X, X′ = S, Se, Te) are investigated by employing the cluster expansion method and the special quasi-random structure approach. It is shown that for (S, Se) alloys, there exist stable ordered alloy structures with concentration x equal to 1/3, 1/2, and 2/3, which can be explained by the small lattice mismatch between the constituents and a large additional charge exchange, while no ordered configuration exists for (Se, Te) and (S, Te) alloys at 0 K. The calculated phase diagrams indicate that complete miscibility in the alloys can be achieved at moderate temperatures. The bowing in lattice constant for the alloys is quite small, while the bowing in band gap, and more so in band edge positions, is much more significant. By decomposing the formation of alloy into multiple steps, it is found that the band bowing is the joint effect of volume deformation, chemical difference, and a low-dimensionality enhanced structure relaxation. The direct band gaps in these alloys continuously tunable from 1.8 eV to 1.0 eV, along with the moderate miscibility temperatures, make them good candidates for two-dimensional optoelectronics.

We analyze the impact of China's integration into the global economy on other countries, Asian countries in particular. We first examine how the growth of China's exports is affecting the exports of other countries in Asia and the rest of the world. Our innovation is to distinguish exports of capital goods, consumer goods, and intermediates and to disaggregate textiles and consumer electronics, the most visible sectors where China's presence is felt. We next look to the impact of China on direct foreign investment flows. Here our innovation is to distinguish vertical and horizontal foreign direct investment (FDI) and to consider how they are affected by supply‐chain relationships. We then look more closely at factors influencing the articulation of these supply chains, the fragmentation of production, and the emerging international division of labor, focusing on two industries, electronics and autos, that exhibit very different responses. The results suggest that countries specializing in the production and export of components and raw materials feel positive effects from China's growth, while countries specializing in the production of consumer goods feel negative effects. Similarly, countries that compete with China for horizontal FDI find it more difficult to attract foreign investment as a result of that country's emergence, while countries that are potentially attractive destinations for vertical FDI find it easier to attract foreign investment as a result of trade links, especially in components and intermediates, that allow them to take advantage of supply chains involving their large and dynamically growing neighbor.

This paper makes the case that Asian countries should start preparing now for a disorderly correction of global imbalances. It points to six measures they should take: allowing their currencies to appreciate against the dollar as a way of limiting their dependence on the U.S. market; accelerating regional trade initiatives to support their export sectors; using fiscal policy to sustain domestic demand; developing their financial markets; allowing intraregional exchange rates to move to accommodate differences in the impact of the shock and the scope for offsetting action; and enhancing regional cooperation to address free-rider and firstmover problems that might otherwise discourage these adjustments.

The mechanical response due to structural phase transitions in individual VO2 nanowires was quantitatively investigated in situ in a transmission electron microscope. The electron beam was employed to locally heat the nanowire, and stress-strain was measured in situ using a microfabricated push-to-pull device. Tensile loading was found to increase the metal-insulator transition temperature and decrease the insulator-insulator transition temperature, consistent with the phase diagram of VO2. These phase transitions resulted in an axial mechanical response of the VO2 nanowires, an effect that can potentially be used to actuate nanostructures or gauge the local temperature change induced by electron beam irradiation.

LLM-driven evolutionary search is emerging as a powerful approach for discovering algorithms and designs, but existing frameworks are difficult to reuse, extend, and compare. We present SkyDiscover, a flexible, adaptive framework for AI-driven scientific and algorithmic discovery. SkyDiscover decomposes the discovery loop into four reusable components: Context Builder, Solution Generator, Evaluator, and Solution Selector, while exposing the control logic above them as a programmable interface. This modular design enables rapid experimentation and even supports adaptive designs where AI can adapt or even optimize the optimization process itself during search.

We report the tuning of electrical properties of single layer graphene by α-beam irradiation. As the defect density increases upon irradiation, the surface potential of the graphene changes, as determined by Kelvin probe force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy studies. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies indicate that the formation of C/O bonding is promoted as the dose of irradiation increases when at atmospheric conditions. Our results show that the surface potential of the graphene can be engineered by introducing atomic-scale defects via irradiation with high-energy particles.

Notwithstanding concerns that the dollar’s prospects as a reserve currency have been dimmed by the crisis, there has been no actual diminution of the dollar’s international role. The dollar will remain the principal form of international reserves for the foreseeable future.