An examination of the effects of government purchases in an open economy

This paper examines the effects of permanent and transitory changes in government purchases in the context of a model of a small open economy that produces and consumes both traded and nontraded goods. The model incorporates an equilibrium interpretation of the business cycle that emphasizes the responsiveness of agents to intertemporal relative price changes. It is demonstrated that transitory increases in government purchases lead to an appreciation of the real exchange rate and an ambiguous change (although a likely worsening) in the current account, while permanent increases have an ambiguous impact on the real exchange rate and no effect on the current account. When agents do not know whether a given increase in government purchases is permanent or transitory the effect is a weighted average of these separate effects. The weights depend on the relative variances of the transitory and permanent components of government purchases. © 1985.

WriteSim TCExam--an open source text simulation environment for training novice researchers in scientific writing.

BACKGROUND: The ability to write clearly and effectively is of central importance to the scientific enterprise. Encouraged by the success of simulation environments in other biomedical sciences, we developed WriteSim TCExam, an open-source, Web-based, textual simulation environment for teaching effective writing techniques to novice researchers. We shortlisted and modified an existing open source application - TCExam to serve as a textual simulation environment. After testing usability internally in our team, we conducted formal field usability studies with novice researchers. These were followed by formal surveys with researchers fitting the role of administrators and users (novice researchers) RESULTS: The development process was guided by feedback from usability tests within our research team. Online surveys and formal studies, involving members of the Research on Research group and selected novice researchers, show that the application is user-friendly. Additionally it has been used to train 25 novice researchers in scientific writing to date and has generated encouraging results. CONCLUSION: WriteSim TCExam is the first Web-based, open-source textual simulation environment designed to complement traditional scientific writing instruction. While initial reviews by students and educators have been positive, a formal study is needed to measure its benefits in comparison to standard instructional methods.

Sticky central limit theorems on open books

Given a probability distribution on an open book (a metric space obtained by gluing a disjoint union of copies of a half-space along their boundary hyperplanes), we define a precise concept of when the Fréchet mean (barycenter) is sticky. This nonclassical phenomenon is quantified by a law of large numbers (LLN) stating that the empirical mean eventually almost surely lies on the (codimension 1 and hence measure 0) spine that is the glued hyperplane, and a central limit theorem (CLT) stating that the limiting distribution is Gaussian and supported on the spine.We also state versions of the LLN and CLT for the cases where the mean is nonsticky (i.e., not lying on the spine) and partly sticky (i.e., is, on the spine but not sticky). © Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2013.

Modeling economy-wide vs sectoral climate policies using combined aggregate-sectoral models

Economic analyses of climate change policies frequently focus on reductions of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions via market-based, economy-wide policies. The current course of environment and energy policy debate in the United States, however, suggests an alternative outcome: sector-based and/or inefficiently designed policies. This paper uses a collection of specialized, sector-based models in conjunction with a computable general equilibrium model of the economy to examine and compare these policies at an aggregate level. We examine the relative cost of different policies designed to achieve the same quantity of emission reductions. We find that excluding a limited number of sectors from an economy-wide policy does not significantly raise costs. Focusing policy solely on the electricity and transportation sectors doubles costs, however, and using non-market policies can raise cost by a factor of ten. These results are driven in part by, and are sensitive to, our modeling of pre-existing tax distortions. Copyright © 2006 by the IAEE. All rights reserved.

Return to sport after open and microdiscectomy surgery versus conservative treatment for lumbar disc herniation: a systematic review with meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Lumbar disc herniation has a prevalence of up to 58% in the athletic population. Lumbar discectomy is a common surgical procedure to alleviate pain and disability in athletes. We systematically reviewed the current clinical evidence regarding athlete return to sport (RTS) following lumbar discectomy compared to conservative treatment. METHODS: A computer-assisted literature search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, PEDro, OVID and PubMed databases (from inception to August 2015) was utilised using keywords related to lumbar disc herniation and surgery. The design of this systematic review was developed using the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Methodological quality of individual studies was assessed using the Downs and Black scale (0-16 points). RESULTS: The search strategy revealed 14 articles. Downs and Black quality scores were generally low with no articles in this review earning a high-quality rating, only 5 articles earning a moderate quality rating and 9 of the 14 articles earning a low-quality rating. The pooled RTS for surgical intervention of all included studies was 81% (95% CI 76% to 86%) with significant heterogeneity (I(2)=63.4%, p<0.001) although pooled estimates report only 59% RTS at same level. Pooled analysis showed no difference in RTS rate between surgical (84% (95% CI 77% to 90%)) and conservative intervention (76% (95% CI 56% to 92%); p=0.33). CONCLUSIONS: Studies comparing surgical versus conservative treatment found no significant difference between groups regarding RTS. Not all athletes that RTS return at the level of participation they performed at prior to surgery. Owing to the heterogeneity and low methodological quality of included studies, rates of RTS cannot be accurately determined.

The 2015 Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC 2015).

The Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC) is organized by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting the practice and philosophy of open source software development and open science within the biological research community. Since its inception in 2000, BOSC has provided bioinformatics developers with a forum for communicating the results of their latest efforts to the wider research community. BOSC offers a focused environment for developers and users to interact and share ideas about standards; software development practices; practical techniques for solving bioinformatics problems; and approaches that promote open science and sharing of data, results, and software. BOSC is run as a two-day special interest group (SIG) before the annual Intelligent Systems in Molecular Biology (ISMB) conference. BOSC 2015 took place in Dublin, Ireland, and was attended by over 125 people, about half of whom were first-time attendees. Session topics included "Data Science;" "Standards and Interoperability;" "Open Science and Reproducibility;" "Translational Bioinformatics;" "Visualization;" and "Bioinformatics Open Source Project Updates". In addition to two keynote talks and dozens of shorter talks chosen from submitted abstracts, BOSC 2015 included a panel, titled "Open Source, Open Door: Increasing Diversity in the Bioinformatics Open Source Community," that provided an opportunity for open discussion about ways to increase the diversity of participants in BOSC in particular, and in open source bioinformatics in general. The complete program of BOSC 2015 is available online at http://www.open-bio.org/wiki/BOSC_2015_Schedule.

Bayesian Model Averaging in the M-Open Framework

This chapter presents a model averaging approach in the M-open setting using sample re-use methods to approximate the predictive distribution of future observations. It first reviews the standard M-closed Bayesian Model Averaging approach and decision-theoretic methods for producing inferences and decisions. It then reviews model selection from the M-complete and M-open perspectives, before formulating a Bayesian solution to model averaging in the M-open perspective. It constructs optimal weights for MOMA:M-open Model Averaging using a decision-theoretic framework, where models are treated as part of the ‘action space’ rather than unknown states of nature. Using ‘incompatible’ retrospective and prospective models for data from a case-control study, the chapter demonstrates that MOMA gives better predictive accuracy than the proxy models. It concludes with open questions and future directions.