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New Zealand’s Pacific Reset, a significant shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy towards the Pacific Islands region, was launched in 2018 by the government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The Pacific Reset emphasises engagement, partnerships, and collaboration, and a greater focus on soft power, public diplomacy and people-to-people measures. It has resulted in an increase in New Zealand public diplomacy in the Pacific, including a new broadcasting initiative, and enhanced domestic public diplomacy. The language and objectives of the Pacific Reset replicate key characteristics of the New Public Diplomacy, which is frequently distinguished from the ‘old’ on the basis of two way engagement. This article argues that whilst the Pacific Reset seeks to reflect the ethos of the New Public Diplomacy, in practice, New Zealand’s Pacific public diplomacy is a mixed bag. In a contested and crowded strategic and public diplomacy environment, putting into practice a New Public Diplomacy demands a greater focus on listening.

One of the most popular population-based and swarm intelligence algorithms is the artificial bee colony. Although the ABC method is known for its efficiency in exploration, it has a poor performance in exploitation ability. It uses a single solution search equation that does not provide a balance between exploration and intensification adequately, and this is one of the most common problems in optimization techniques. This study proposes an artificial bee colony algorithm with a qualified search strategy (QSSABC) that uses four different solution search equations to deal with these problems. In order to increase the ability of exploitation, the QSSABC uses the global best solution of population in both of these equations. Equations in the QSSABC method are selected by roulette-wheel method based on their success rates, and equation with the lowest success rate within determined periods is eliminated. The equations’ success rates are reset at the end of each period, and it is expected that equations will prove their success again in every period. This qualified search strategy ensures an efficient use of number of function evaluations, and also it achieves balance between global and local search. To evaluate accuracy and performance of the QSSABC, twenty-eight classical functions, twenty-four CEC05 functions and thirty CEC14 functions were used. Simulation results showed that the QSSABC surpasses other methods such as distABC, MABC, ABCVSS in classical functions, and that it is a successful tool for problems with different characteristics by showing better performance over other methods for CEC05 and CEC14 test functions.

COVID-19 is exposing the fragility of the goals adopted by the United Nations — two-thirds are now unlikely to be met. COVID-19 is exposing the fragility of the goals adopted by the United Nations — two-thirds are now unlikely to be met.

It is easy to become dispirited. Despite my concern about the near-term outlook, advising business leaders requires that I look past the pandemic. Akcigit and Ates argue that greater concentration among firms and a slowdown in business dynamism is the cause of a myriad of factors that slow economic growth. Furthermore, a slowing pace of growth of the working-age population and an increase in older members of the workforce, as well as a greater number of retirees, has significant economic consequences for the pace of startups. In contrast, it is possible that the shock from COVID may have boosted business formation and pushed technology adoption across generations, perhaps mitigating some of the demographic impediments to technology adoption. Yet for a large portion of the population, COVID has only meant devastation and despair. Here fiscal assistance is imperative.

The mortgage market has given rise to a changing and diverse set of borrowers actively using ARMs. Data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) for 2007 and 2013–2015 are used to study borrowing decisions. One view is that an ARM should be offered and taken by those better able to respond to an upward reset. Yet favorable economic conditions induce a demand for mortgages, including by higher risk borrowers, and for these households transactions occur at higher rates, often as ARMs, especially as of 2007. Panel analysis confirms some response to the spread but also to changing demand for mortgages in the shorter run. During the boom, the use of ARMs as a tool for ‘affordability’ led to actual transaction rates exceeding those for fixed rate mortgages. Analysis confirms substantial payment difficulties. Yet, analysis of mortgage transitions, 2007–13, establishes that the ‘affordability’ component to ARM, though less significant, still was present. ARMs were often taken by minorities and those with less education and with family income under $60,000 per year.

This paper examines how the sunk-cost effect on consumers’ purchasing behavior may reset the optimal two-part pricing. It shows that the sunk-cost effect of a membership fee provides the firm an incentive to raise the unit price and/or to increase the market coverage by charging a lower membership fee.

In this paper we present an alternative model for pricing exotic options and structured products with forward-starting components. As presented in the recent study by Eberlein and Madan (Quantitative Finance 9(1):27–42, 2009), the pricing of such exotic products (which consist primarily of different variations of locally/globally, capped/floored, arithmetic/geometric etc. cliquets) depends critically on the modeling of the forward–return distributions. Therefore, in our approach, we directly take up the modeling of forward variances corresponding to the tenor structure of the product to be priced. We propose a two factor forward variance market model with jumps in returns and volatility. It allows the model user to directly control the behavior of future smiles and hence properly price forward smile risk of cliquet-style exotic products. The key idea, in order to achieve consistency between the dynamics of forward variance swaps and the underlying stock, is to adopt a forward starting model for the stock dynamics over each reset period of the tenor structure. We also present in detail the calibration steps for our proposed model.

In regression analysis, model misspecification can produce spurious spatial correlation in the residuals. By means of Monte Carlo simulations, I show that the RESET test can help to disentangle this conundrum in large samples. Small samples can pose a serious challenge to finding the correct model.

Balloon loans have become increasingly popular in recent years. For this reason, it is important to understand their features, assess their potential risks, and monitor their early performance. This article focuses on these topics. The first section discusses balloon characteristics and mortgage choice. The second section discusses expected balloon performance. The third section provides an econometric model for monitoring current performance. The fourth and fifth sections describe the data and results, respectively. The final section summarizes the article and offers some concluding remarks. The fundamental conclusions are that (1) early balloon performance is slightly worse than expected (i.e., balloons are not matching fixed-rate performance prior to balloon reset dates); (2) balloon performance is, however, within the range expected over the full term of the loans (i.e., performance worse than fixed-rate performance, but better than ARM performance); and (3) balloons have important characteristics that help mitigate systematic risk.

The probability of setting global temperature records is reconsidered in light of cooling due to the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. The cooling ‘resets’ temperature by moving it away from the top of its 100-year range. Depending on the statistical model for temperature, this ‘reset’ can lead to a much lower probability for a record in the next few years. The exercise illustrates how record setting depends on the underlying model, the current record value, and - if there is serial correlation- the current temperature.

The timing of seasonal events such as flowering and migration is changing as the climate warms, reshuffling the order in which such events take place each year. Now research sheds light on the causes of changes in the timing of butterfly emergence.

Lever responses of rats were reinforced under progressive ratio schedules where the response requirement increased after each reinforcement. The ratio could be reset to its initial value by an alternative response. Systematic relations were found between the size of the progressive ratio schedule and the frequency of the reset responses. The procedure facilitated an analysis of the interaction of effort and time variables which were reflected in the sequential properties of the responses.

The Teaching of Chemistry By N. F. Newbury. Second edition, completely revised and reset. Pp. xv + 294. (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1958.) 21s. net.

Gas Calorimetry The Determination of the Calorific Value of Gaseous Fuels. By C. G. Hyde and M. W. Jones. Second edition, entirely revised and reset. Pp. vii + 456. (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1960.) 105s. net.

CHAMBERS first published a volume of mathematical tables in 1844. This was enlarged and reset in 1878, and has been re-issued at intervals in the same format. The volume will be, familiar to most people who have, at some time or other, needed to use 7-figure tables. It is now replaced by the volumes under review. They are in no sense a revision, but rather an entirely new publication. For good reasons given in the preface, six-figure values are given in the new tables instead of seven. Chambers's Six-Figure Mathematical Tables By Dr. L. J. Comrie Vol. 1: Logarithmic Values. Pp. xxii+576, Vol. 2: Natural Values. Pp. xxxvi + 576. (Edinburgh and London: W. and R. Chambers, Ltd., 1948–1949.) 42s. net each.

THE adequate control of temperature is of fundamental importance in nearly all branches of science, and there are numerous applications in industrial and technical fields. Courses of study and text-books for students of physics, chemistry, engineering and metallurgy, invariably include, in the heat section, a discussion of the methods of temperature measurement ; but, in general, the treatment is too brief and inadequate. The practical difficulties inherent in all thermal measurements are very rarely appreciated, and insufficient regard is paid to the necessity of a correct choice of instrument and method for the temperature or temperature-difference measurement. Methods of Measuring Temperature By Dr. Ezer Griffiths. Third edition, revised and reset. Pp. x + 223. (London: Charles Griffin and Co., Ltd., 1947.) 20s. net.

Life of the Shore and Shallow Sea By Dr. Douglas P. Wilson. Second edition, completely revised and reset. Pp. xvii + 213 + 45 plates. (London: Nicholson and Watson, Ltd., 1951.) 15s. net.

The Teaching of Science in Secondary Schools Compiled by a Joint Committee of the Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters and the Science Masters' Association. Second edition, revised and reset. Pp. ix + 274. (London: John Murray (Publishers), Ltd., 1958.) 17s. 6d. net.