A new index of financial conditions

We use factor augmented vector autoregressive models with time-varying coefficients and stochastic volatility to construct a financial conditions index that can accurately track expectations about growth in key US macroeconomic variables. Time-variation in the model’s parameters allows for the weights attached to each financial variable in the index to evolve over time. Furthermore, we develop methods for dynamic model averaging or selection which allow the financial variables entering into the financial conditions index to change over time. We discuss why such extensions of the existing literature are important and show them to be so in an empirical application involving a wide range of financial variables

Semantic Agent for Distributed Knowledge Management

At the beginning of the decade, the Agent Mediated Knowledge Management workshops series as well as Bonifacio's theoretical approach layed the foundations of a new eld of distributed knowledge management based upon the agent paradigm. The agent based approach enables key features for knowledge management. The local management of knowledge by agents allows to go beyond the limitations of centralized knowledge management. Thus, knowledge can be maintained in each agent at a coarse-grained level, with different representations. In the mean time the rise of the semantic web technologies enables a new range of possibilities for agents dedicated to knowledge management. In this chapter we investigate the integration of semantic web technologies into an agent architecture that allows agents to represent their knowledge and their behavior in a semantic manner. We present the semantic agent model, its implementation and we discuss the perpectives open by semantic agents