Defining and Measuring High Technology in Georgia

This report defines and measures the high technology sector in Georgia

Development and Validation of a Rule-based Time Series Complexity Scoring Technique to Support Design of Adaptive Forecasting DSS

Evidence from forecasting research gives reason to believe that understanding time series complexity can enable design of adaptive forecasting decision support systems (FDSSs) to positively support forecasting behaviors and accuracy of outcomes. Yet, such FDSS design capabilities have not been formally explored because there exists no systematic approach to identifying series complexity. This study describes the development and validation of a rule-based complexity scoring technique (CST) that generates a complexity score for time series using 12 rules that rely on 14 features of series. The rule-based schema was developed on 74 series and validated on 52 holdback series using well-accepted forecasting methods as benchmarks. A supporting experimental validation was conducted with 14 participants who generated 336 structured judgmental forecasts for sets of series classified as simple or complex by the CST. Benchmark comparisons validated the CST by confirming, as hypothesized, that forecasting accuracy was lower for series scored by the technique as complex when compared to the accuracy of those scored as simple. The study concludes with a comprehensive framework for design of FDSS that can integrate the CST to adaptively support forecasters under varied conditions of series complexity. The framework is founded on the concepts of restrictiveness and guidance and offers specific recommendations on how these elements can be built in FDSS to support complexity

Revising the UMLS Semantic Network

The integration of standardized biomedical terminologies into a single, unified knowledge representation system has formed a key area of applied informatics research in recent years. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is the most advanced and most prominent effort in this direction, bringing together within its Metathesaurus a large number of distinct source-terminologies. The UMLS Semantic Network, which is designed to support the integration of these source-terminologies, has proved to be a highly successful combination of formal coherence and broad scope. We argue here, however, that its organization manifests certain structural problems, and we describe revisions which we believe are needed if the network is to be maximally successful in realizing its goals of supporting terminology integration

Elements for an economic assessment of intermediate territorial levels of government in European countries

Intermediate territorial levels of government in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Spain are quite different regarding their basic institutions, devolved powers, revenue and public expenditure systems, public revenue equalization mechanisms, accountability, public performance management, financial control bodies, etc. In spite of the complexity derived from these different characteristics, the economic operation of such intermediate territorial levels of government can be analyzed, evaluated and compared from both the efficiency and equity viewpoints. >From the theory of fiscal federalism and the analysis and comparisons of the institutional and organization aspects, constitutions and basic laws, budgets, public accounts, etc. of such countries, and taking the European Union integration process into account - with present and future repercussions on powers of central and sub-central territorial levels of government of member countries -, this paper aims: first, to identify the main inefficiency and equity problems posed by each of the different sub-systems for financing the intermediate territorial levels of territorial government in these four countries; second, to present some criteria and useful indicators for assessing the economic operation of such levels of government in a simple, significant and standardized way; third, to advance estimates concerning some economic indicators; fourth, to draw up some conclusions for improving economic efficiency in the allocation of public resources among levels of government and inter-territorial equity. The methodology, solutions and reforms proposed are of general interest for other European countries planning to create or develop their own intermediate territorial levels of government. Keywords: fiscal federalism, intermediate governments.

The Calumet Area Hazardous Substance Data Base : A User's Guide with Documentation

HWRIC Project 88/89-055NTIS PB90-25193

A New Methodology for Fiscal Visibility of Territorial Government Levels

The size and pattern of any public budget depend, among other factors, on the visibility of both the burdens and benefits of public revenue and expenditure. Furthermore, such visibility is a necessary - not a sufficient - condition for an efficient allocation of resources between the private and public sectors of an economy. Although the importance of this visibility has been well known by academicians and practitioners for a long time, attemps to quantify it by taking the internal structure of every type of revenue or expenditure and its relative financial weight in a fiscal system into consideration are recent, and indicators used till now rest on several structural parameters, each of them ranging from 0 to 1, which are combined in a multiplicative way. For this reason, a 0 estimate will always result if one of such factors is, at least, also 0. Starting from the same parameters, factors, and initial values, an alternative and probably more fruitful way to measure visibility of burdens and benefits of a public budget can consist of combining them in an additive instead of a multiplicative way. Then a null parametric value will not result in a 0 estimate, and calculations can show higher final values which could be much more sensitive to the initial values of other parameters and factors. The aim of this contribution, based on a recent research, is to present and compare new additive indicators to be applied to the several - local, intermediate, central - territorial government levels in the European Union and OECD member countries by using data and qualitative information provided by the International Monetary Fund. Comparisons, conclusions, and comments are offered for general criticism and discussion.

A classification of emerging and traditional grid systems

The grid has evolved in numerous distinct phases. It started in the early ’90s as a model of metacomputing in which supercomputers share resources; subsequently, researchers added the ability to share data. This is usually referred to as the first-generation grid. By the late ’90s, researchers had outlined the framework for second-generation grids, characterized by their use of grid middleware systems to “glue” different grid technologies together. Third-generation grids originated in the early millennium when Web technology was combined with second-generation grids. As a result, the invisible grid, in which grid complexity is fully hidden through resource virtualization, started receiving attention. Subsequently, grid researchers identified the requirement for semantically rich knowledge grids, in which middleware technologies are more intelligent and autonomic. Recently, the necessity for grids to support and extend the ambient intelligence vision has emerged. In AmI, humans are surrounded by computing technologies that are unobtrusively embedded in their surroundings. However, third-generation grids’ current architecture doesn’t meet the requirements of next-generation grids (NGG) and service-oriented knowledge utility (SOKU).4 A few years ago, a group of independent experts, arranged by the European Commission, identified these shortcomings as a way to identify potential European grid research priorities for 2010 and beyond. The experts envision grid systems’ information, knowledge, and processing capabilities as a set of utility services.3 Consequently, new grid systems are emerging to materialize these visions. Here, we review emerging grids and classify them to motivate further research and help establish a solid foundation in this rapidly evolving area

Visibility of Public Budget Burdens and Benefits in New European Union Member Countries

The size and pattern of any public budget depend, among other factors, on the visibility of both the burdens and benefits of public revenue and expenditure. Furthermore, such visibility is a necessary - not a sufficient - condition for an efficient allocation of resources between the private and public sectors of an economy. The aim of this contribution, based on a recent research, is to apply fiscal visibility indicators to territorial government levels of new European Union member countries by using data and new qualitative information provided by the International Monetary Fund to draw relevant policy conclusions. Results obtained are particularly important for present and future European Union member countries aiming to make their respective fiscal systems converge for a better integration process, since significant allocation improvements can be obtained by implementing economic policy changes (public accounting systems, tax systems, public deficit management techniques...) in the new European Union member countries to raise both multiplicative and additive visibility values of public budget burdens and benefits and to bring them near to their optimal values. The proposed methodology, applied to former and new European Union member countries, can also be extended to other OECD economies to check whether the European Union pattern is shared by all developed countries and to design future general economic policies.