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This study attempts to investigate the relationship between international tourism, trade, and economic growth in India over the period from April 1991 to July 2012. To account for potential asymmetries in the relationship, we make use of new asymmetric Granger-causality tests and frequency analysis. We show that there is bidirectional Granger-causality between trade and tourism in positive components, whereas unidirectional Granger-causality runs from tourism to trade for negative components. Moreover, we find evidence of bidirectional Granger-causality between economic growth and tourism in positive components, but unidirectional Granger-causality running from economic growth to tourism for negative components. On the other hand, the results from frequency analysis provide evidence of Granger-causality between trade and tourism, and also between economic growth and tourism, at different frequency bands.

Since economic theory provides reasons for nonlinearity in economic variables due to frictions/distortions in the economy, the use of linear unit root tests to examine the nonstationary properties of per-capita GDP (PCGDP) may provide misleading results. With this background we have analyzed the mean reversion properties of per capita real GDP of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries (for the period 1950–2010) using the recently developed Ucar and Omaga (Econ Lett 104:5–8, 2009) nonlinear panel unit root test. The results indicate that the PCGDP of ASEAN countries are nonlinear process and are stationary.

This study examines stationarity characteristics of per capita GDP of a panel of 17 Asian countries and sub-panels. We employed a series of panel unit root tests that assume cross sectional independence and cross sectional dependence. The results of the second-generation tests reveal stationarity of per capita GDP for the entire Asian panel, as well as the East Asian and High Income Asian sub-panels. However, we find weak evidence for stationarity for the South Asian panel. The stationarity properties of the East Asian countries were strongly consistent with the idea that business cycles have stationary fluctuations around a deterministic trend, and vice versa hold for the South Asian panel.

Low field inverse magnetocaloric effect (IMCE) associated with first-order martensitic transition in Ni50−x Mn37+x In13 (x=3,4,5) alloys was investigated. By tuning the composition of Ni/Mn, large change in the magnetization occurring between martensite and austenite phases in a narrow temperature interval was achieved, which results in large IMCE. Under low magnetic field change of 2 T, a large positive magnetic entropy change (ΔS M ) of 23.5 J/kg K with a net refrigeration capacity of 53 J/kg was obtained near room temperature (308 K) in the x=3 alloy. The results show that a small variation in Ni/Mn ratio significantly influences the martensitic transition temperature and the associated magnetic and magnetocaloric properties.

Microstructural evolution during nanocrystallization of amorphous metallic glass Fe68.5Si18.5Nb3B9Cu1 has been studied. The effect of microstructural features of nanocrystalline phases on soft magnetic properties have been evaluated and rationalized with existing theoretical models. The TEM and XRD studies have shown the presence of single Fe3Si nanocrystalline phase at 550 degrees C (size range 13-16 nm) and three nanocrystalline phases Fe3Si, Fe3B, and Fe2B at 800 degrees C (size range 18-100 nm). Increase in annealing time at 800 degrees C resulted in decomposition of metastable Fe3B phase to equilibrium Fe2B phase. Positron annihilation spectroscopy revealed the presence of nanovoids in amorphous samples. Theoretical estimations showed that these nanovoids were having free volume equivalent to that of a vacancy defect consisting of five or more atoms vacancy cluster present in the amorphous samples. Nature of interfaces associated with nanocrystalline phases could be characterized using positron annihilation spectroscopy. This study showed that metallic nanoparticles have very low concentration of thermal vacancies. Effects of nature of phases, particle density, and nanoparticle size on saturation magnetization and coercivity have been studied.

Effect of Al substitution on the magnetic properties of Ce(Ga1−x Al x )2 (x=0, 0.1 and 0.5) system has been studied. The magnetic state of CeGa2 is found to be FM with a T C of 8 K, whereas the compounds with x=0.1 and 0.5 are AFM and possess T N of about 9 K. These two compounds undergo metamagnetic transition and the critical fields are about 1.2 T and 0.5 T. respectively at 2 K. These variations are explained on the basis of helical spin structure in these compounds.