Durable Goods, Inter-Sectoral Linkages and Monetary Policy

Barsky, House and Kimball (2007) show that introducing durable goods into a sticky-price model leads to negative sectoral comovement of production following a monetary policy shock and, under certain conditions, to aggregate neutrality. These results appear to undermine sticky-price models. In this paper, we show that these results are not robust to two prominent and realistic features of the data, namely input-output interactions and limited mobility of productive inputs. When extended to allow for both features, the sticky-price model with durable goods delivers implications in line with VAR evidence on the effects of monetary policy shocks.

Le financement public de l’enseignement supérieur et ses impacts au Pérou : une analyse longitudinale (1993 – 2003)

Cette recherche porte sur le financement public de l’enseignement supérieur au Pérou et ses impacts dans une perspective longitudinale couvant la période 1993-2003. Cette période est importante parce qu’elle a été témoin, dans ce pays, de changements majeurs aux plans du financement public et de la configuration du système d’enseignement supérieur. La recherche consiste principalement dans des analyses secondaires de données pertinentes publiées par des organismes nationaux et internationaux. Les analyses sont structurées à partir d’un schéma d’inputs et outputs. On considère comme inputs les ressources financières et les ressources humaines, lesquelles comprennent les professeurs et les étudiants, et comme outputs les taux de diplomation (efficacité interne) et la demande de diplômés par le marché du travail (efficacité externe). La théorie de la dépendance de ressources sert de cadre pour interpréter les rapports entre le financement public et ses incidences sur les réponses institutionnels et ses conséquences. Dans la période retenue, le financement du secteur public a décru de 32% en raison d’un désengagement progressif de l’État. Une conséquence majeure de la diminution du financement public a été la croissance rapide du secteur privé de l’enseignement supérieur. En effet, alors qu’en 1993 il y avait 24 institutions privées d’enseignement supérieur, il y en avait, en 2003, 46 institutions. La baisse du financement public et la croissance du secteur privé d’enseignement supérieur ont eu des incidences sur la sélectivité des étudiants, sur le statut des professeurs, sur l’implication des universités en recherche et sur les taux de diplomation. Le taux de sélectivité dans le secteur public a augmenté entre 1993 et 2003, alors que ce taux a diminué, dans la même période, dans le secteur privé. Ainsi, le secteur public répond à la diminution du financement en restreignant l’accès à l’enseignement supérieur. Le secteur privé, par contre, diminue sa sélectivité compensant ainsi l’augmentation de la sélectivité dans le secteur public et, par le fait même, augmente sa part de marché. Également, tant dans le secteur public que dans le secteur privé, les professeurs sont engagés principalement sur une base temporaire, ce qui se traduit, particulièrement dans le secteur privé, dans un moindre engagement institutionnel. Enfin, les universités publiques et privées du Pérou font peu de recherche, car elles favorisent, pour balancer leurs budgets, la consultation et les contrats au détriment de la recherche fondamentale. Paradoxalement, alors que, dans le secteur privé, les taux de sélectivité des étudiants diminuent, leurs taux de diplomation augmentent plus que dans le secteur public. Enfin, les formations avec plus d’étudiants inscrits, tant dans le secteur public que privé, sont les moins coûteuses en infrastructure et équipements. Dès lors, la pertinence de la production universitaire devient problématique. Cette recherche révèle que les organisations universitaires, face à un environnement où les ressources financières deviennent de plus en plus rares, développent des stratégies de survie qui peuvent avoir des incidences sur la qualité et la pertinence de l’enseignement supérieur.

Modeling High-Dimensional Audio Sequences with Recurrent Neural Networks

Cette thèse étudie des modèles de séquences de haute dimension basés sur des réseaux de neurones récurrents (RNN) et leur application à la musique et à la parole. Bien qu'en principe les RNN puissent représenter les dépendances à long terme et la dynamique temporelle complexe propres aux séquences d'intérêt comme la vidéo, l'audio et la langue naturelle, ceux-ci n'ont pas été utilisés à leur plein potentiel depuis leur introduction par Rumelhart et al. (1986a) en raison de la difficulté de les entraîner efficacement par descente de gradient. Récemment, l'application fructueuse de l'optimisation Hessian-free et d'autres techniques d'entraînement avancées ont entraîné la recrudescence de leur utilisation dans plusieurs systèmes de l'état de l'art. Le travail de cette thèse prend part à ce développement. L'idée centrale consiste à exploiter la flexibilité des RNN pour apprendre une description probabiliste de séquences de symboles, c'est-à-dire une information de haut niveau associée aux signaux observés, qui en retour pourra servir d'à priori pour améliorer la précision de la recherche d'information. Par exemple, en modélisant l'évolution de groupes de notes dans la musique polyphonique, d'accords dans une progression harmonique, de phonèmes dans un énoncé oral ou encore de sources individuelles dans un mélange audio, nous pouvons améliorer significativement les méthodes de transcription polyphonique, de reconnaissance d'accords, de reconnaissance de la parole et de séparation de sources audio respectivement. L'application pratique de nos modèles à ces tâches est détaillée dans les quatre derniers articles présentés dans cette thèse. Dans le premier article, nous remplaçons la couche de sortie d'un RNN par des machines de Boltzmann restreintes conditionnelles pour décrire des distributions de sortie multimodales beaucoup plus riches. Dans le deuxième article, nous évaluons et proposons des méthodes avancées pour entraîner les RNN. Dans les quatre derniers articles, nous examinons différentes façons de combiner nos modèles symboliques à des réseaux profonds et à la factorisation matricielle non-négative, notamment par des produits d'experts, des architectures entrée/sortie et des cadres génératifs généralisant les modèles de Markov cachés. Nous proposons et analysons également des méthodes d'inférence efficaces pour ces modèles, telles la recherche vorace chronologique, la recherche en faisceau à haute dimension, la recherche en faisceau élagué et la descente de gradient. Finalement, nous abordons les questions de l'étiquette biaisée, du maître imposant, du lissage temporel, de la régularisation et du pré-entraînement.

Sediment Budgeting Studies for the Kollam Coast

The Sediment budgeting studies are done to bring out the coastal processes at work, to understand the beach-innershelf sedimentary dynamics and to assess the stability of any coastal stretch. There is a dearth of such studies as far as the Indian coast is concerned. The Chavara coast of Kollam district, Kerala, is world famous for its rich heavy mineral resources. These mineral resources are being commercially mined by the Indian Rare Earths Ltd. (IREL) and Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd. (KMML), two Public Sector Undertakings located in the area. The impact of mining on stability of the beach has been a point of debate among the local people as well as researchers. The coastal stretch of 22km length from Neendakara to Kayamkulam which is referred to as the Chavara coast. The tidal, wind driven and continental shelf currents, there could also be the contribution of coastal trapped waves and baroclinic flow associated with the plumes of fresh water coming from the estuaries. The main objectives of the study are the hydrodynamic processes and mechanism involved in the sediment movement along the Chavara coast, Identify the different sources and sinks of beach sand along the coast, Quantify the sediment input/output into/from the coast and assess the erosion/accretion scenario of the coast.

Development and Evaluation of Blind Identification Techniques for Nonlinear Systems

Identification and Control of Non‐linear dynamical systems are challenging problems to the control engineers.The topic is equally relevant in communication,weather prediction ,bio medical systems and even in social systems,where nonlinearity is an integral part of the system behavior.Most of the real world systems are nonlinear in nature and wide applications are there for nonlinear system identification/modeling.The basic approach in analyzing the nonlinear systems is to build a model from known behavior manifest in the form of system output.The problem of modeling boils down to computing a suitably parameterized model,representing the process.The parameters of the model are adjusted to optimize a performanace function,based on error between the given process output and identified process/model output.While the linear system identification is well established with many classical approaches,most of those methods cannot be directly applied for nonlinear system identification.The problem becomes more complex if the system is completely unknown but only the output time series is available.Blind recognition problem is the direct consequence of such a situation.The thesis concentrates on such problems.Capability of Artificial Neural Networks to approximate many nonlinear input-output maps makes it predominantly suitable for building a function for the identification of nonlinear systems,where only the time series is available.The literature is rich with a variety of algorithms to train the Neural Network model.A comprehensive study of the computation of the model parameters,using the different algorithms and the comparison among them to choose the best technique is still a demanding requirement from practical system designers,which is not available in a concise form in the literature.The thesis is thus an attempt to develop and evaluate some of the well known algorithms and propose some new techniques,in the context of Blind recognition of nonlinear systems.It also attempts to establish the relative merits and demerits of the different approaches.comprehensiveness is achieved in utilizing the benefits of well known evaluation techniques from statistics. The study concludes by providing the results of implementation of the currently available and modified versions and newly introduced techniques for nonlinear blind system modeling followed by a comparison of their performance.It is expected that,such comprehensive study and the comparison process can be of great relevance in many fields including chemical,electrical,biological,financial and weather data analysis.Further the results reported would be of immense help for practical system designers and analysts in selecting the most appropriate method based on the goodness of the model for the particular context.

Post Environmental Evaluation of the Rajjaprabha Dam in Thailand

This thesis Entitled Post-Environmental Evaluation of The Rajjaprabha Dam In Thailand. This post evaluation of environmental consequences of Rajjaprabha dam IS conducted ten years after its commencement. The Rajjaprabha dam project was planned and implemented as a multipurpose project, mainly for hydropower production, flood protection, fisheries, recreation and irrigation. The project includes the dam and reservoir with a 240 MW hydropower plant located about 90 km upstream from Surat Thani province, and irrigation systems covering the coastal plain in Surat Thani. The upstream storage reservoir (with about 5,639 mcm storage) and the hydropower plant had already been implemented. The first phase of irrigation system covers an area of 23,100 hectares. The second phase is envisaged to cover about 50,000 hectares. This study was conducted with the following objectives: (I) to assess all existing environmental resources and their values with the help of input-output analysis (2) to findout the beneficial impacts of the project (3) to evaluate the actual positive effects vis-a-vis the estimated effects before the project was implemented and (4) to identify all significant changes in relatives to the impacts previously assessed. The study area includes the Phum Duang river basin of about 4,668 km2 (placed on the areas that are upstream and downstream to the damsite), The duration of study is limited to 10 years after the dam has become operational i.e. from 1987-1997. The results of the study reveal that there is no significant changes in climatic and ground water resources, with respect to the study area inspte of the fact that the physical and chemical properties of the soil have slightly changed. Sedimentation in the reservoir does not have much effect on the function of the dam.

The economics of chemical industry in kerala

The main purpose of the present study is to examine the growth and development problems of a new industry ,the chemical industry in the state of kerala. Problems of productivity and efficiency are studied with respect to the different branches of the industry such as fertilizers and insecticides basic inorganic and organic chemicals drugs and pharmaceuticals and miscellaneous chemicals. A study of partial input output linkages between the different chemical units is also attempted. The chemical industry is generally characterized by high linkage effects .These linkages could be used to generate subsidiary industries and thereby help in the growth and diversification of the industry. The efficiency of the working of individual units is also studied to understand the problems involved and to suggest remedial measures.

Integrated Environment for Launch Vehicle Telemetry Data Management

The telemetry data processing operation intended for a given mission are pre-defined by an onboard telemetry configuration, mission trajectory and overall telemetry methodology have stabilized lately for ISRO vehicles. The given problem on telemetry data processing is reduced through hierarchical problem reduction whereby the sequencing of operations evolves as the control task and operations on data as the function task. The function task Input, Output and execution criteria are captured into tables which are examined by the control task and then schedules when the function task when the criteria is being met.

Die ökonomischen Perspektiven der Kommunikation

Kommunikation ist ein grundsätzlicher Bestandteil der menschlichen Gesellschaft. In den Wirtschaftswissenschaften wird der Begriff Kommunikation zwar wie in den meisten wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen als allgemein bekannt voraus gesetzt, eine Betrachtung der wirtschaftlichen Zusammenhänge ist bisher aber noch nicht erstellt worden. In dieser Arbeit werden erstmals diese Zusammenhänge in einem Gesamtsystem dargestellt. Mithilfe des statistischen Instrumentariums eines Satellitensystems wird aufgezeigt, welche wirtschaftlich relevanten monetären Ströme durch die Kommunikation der Menschen in Deutschland im Jahr 2003 ausgelöst worden sind. Dafür wird der Gesamtmarkt über Sekundärdaten in detaillierter Aufgliederung analysiert und mit den gefundenen Erkenntnissen der Grundstein für ein zukünftiges Satellitensystem der Kommunikation gelegt. Ein spezielles Bruttoinlandsprodukt der Kommunikation rundet die Darstellung ab.

Evaluation of Auditory Displays Supporting Aircraft Approach and Landing

Abstract: The paper describes an auditory interface using directional sound as a possible support for pilots during approach in an instrument landing scenario. Several ways of producing directional sounds are illustrated. One using speaker pairs and controlling power distribution between speakers is evaluated experimentally. Results show, that power alone is insufficient for positioning single isolated sound events, although discrimination in the horizontal plane performs better than in the vertical. Additional sound parameters to compensate for this are proposed.

Resource use pattern and agroecosystem functioning in Rawanganga micro-watershed in Garhwal Himalaya, India

Agro-ecological resource use pattern in a traditional hill agricultural watershed in Garhwal Himalaya was analysed along an altitudinal transect. Thirty one food crops were found, although only 0.5% agriculture land is under irrigation in the area. Fifteen different tree species within agroforestry systems were located and their density varied from 30-90 trees/ha. Grain yield, fodder from agroforest trees and crop residue were observed to be highest between 1200 and 1600 m a.s.l. Also the annual energy input- output ratio per hectare was highest between 1200 and 1600 m a.s.l. (1.46). This higher input- output ratio between 1200-1600 m a.s.l. was attributed to the fact that green fodder, obtained from agroforestry trees, was considered as farm produce. The energy budget across altitudinal zones revealed 95% contribution of the farmyard manure and the maximum output was in terms of either crop residue (35%) or fodder (55%) from the agroforestry component. Presently on average 23%, 29% and 41% cattle were dependent on stall feeding in villages located at higher, lower and middle altitudes respectively. Similarly, fuel wood consumption was greatly influenced by altitude and family size. The efficiency and sustainability of the hill agroecosystem can be restored by strengthening of the agroforestry component. The approach will be appreciated by the local communities and will readily find their acceptance and can ensure their effective participation in the programme.

The competitiveness of domestic rice production in East Africa: A domestic resource cost approach in Uganda

The rapid increase of rice imports in sub-Saharan Africa under the unstable situation in the world rice market during the 2000s has made it an important policy target for the countries in the region to increase self-sufficiency in rice in order to enhance food security. Whether domestic rice production can be competitive with imported rice is a serious question in East African countries that lie close, just across the Arabian Sea, to major rice exporting countries in South Asia. This study investigates the international competitiveness of domestic rice production in Uganda in terms of the domestic resource cost ratio. The results show that rainfed rice cultivation, which accounts for 95% of domestic rice production, does not have a comparative advantage with respect to rice imported from Pakistan, the largest supplier of imported rice to Uganda. However, the degree of non-competitiveness is not serious, and a high possibility exists for Uganda’s rainfed rice cultivation to become internationally competitive by improving yield levels by applying more modern inputs and enhancing labour productivity. Irrigated rice cultivation, though very limited in area, is competitive even under the present input-output structure when the cost of irrigation infrastructure is treated as a sunk cost. If the cost of installing irrigation infrastructure and its operation and maintenance is taken into account, the types of irrigation development that are economically feasible are not large-scale irrigation projects, but are small- and microscale projects for lowland rice cultivation and rain-water harvesting for upland rice cultivation.

Modeling Stock Order Flows and Learning Market-Making from Data

Stock markets employ specialized traders, market-makers, designed to provide liquidity and volume to the market by constantly supplying both supply and demand. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel method for modeling the market as a dynamic system and a reinforcement learning algorithm that learns profitable market-making strategies when run on this model. The sequence of buys and sells for a particular stock, the order flow, we model as an Input-Output Hidden Markov Model fit to historical data. When combined with the dynamics of the order book, this creates a highly non-linear and difficult dynamic system. Our reinforcement learning algorithm, based on likelihood ratios, is run on this partially-observable environment. We demonstrate learning results for two separate real stocks.

Certified Rapid Solution of Parametrized Linear Elliptic Equations: Application to Parameter Estimation

We present a technique for the rapid and reliable evaluation of linear-functional output of elliptic partial differential equations with affine parameter dependence. The essential components are (i) rapidly uniformly convergent reduced-basis approximations — Galerkin projection onto a space WN spanned by solutions of the governing partial differential equation at N (optimally) selected points in parameter space; (ii) a posteriori error estimation — relaxations of the residual equation that provide inexpensive yet sharp and rigorous bounds for the error in the outputs; and (iii) offline/online computational procedures — stratagems that exploit affine parameter dependence to de-couple the generation and projection stages of the approximation process. The operation count for the online stage — in which, given a new parameter value, we calculate the output and associated error bound — depends only on N (typically small) and the parametric complexity of the problem. The method is thus ideally suited to the many-query and real-time contexts. In this paper, based on the technique we develop a robust inverse computational method for very fast solution of inverse problems characterized by parametrized partial differential equations. The essential ideas are in three-fold: first, we apply the technique to the forward problem for the rapid certified evaluation of PDE input-output relations and associated rigorous error bounds; second, we incorporate the reduced-basis approximation and error bounds into the inverse problem formulation; and third, rather than regularize the goodness-of-fit objective, we may instead identify all (or almost all, in the probabilistic sense) system configurations consistent with the available experimental data — well-posedness is reflected in a bounded "possibility region" that furthermore shrinks as the experimental error is decreased.

Guía para la construcción de matrices insumo-producto y de contabilidad social en Colombia

Las matrices insumo-producto y de contabilidad social constituyen fuentes de información importante para el entendimiento de las relaciones productivas y económicas de un país en un determinado momento del tiempo. En Colombia, la construcción de estos instrumentos tiene una larga experiencia aunque poca ha sido su documentación. Este artículo pretende exponer de manera clara y concisa el procedimiento necesario para su construcción.