Web-Based Knowledge Extraction and the Cognitive Characterization of Cultural Groups

The advent of Web 2.0 has provided new opportunities for cultural analysts to understand more about the cognitive characteristics of cultural groups. In particular, user-contributed content provides important indications as to the beliefs, attitudes and values of cultural groups, and this is an important focus of attention for those concerned with the development of cognitively-relevant models. In order to support the exploitation of the Web in the context of cultural modeling activities, it is important to deal with both the large-scale nature of the Web and the current dominance of natural language formats. In this paper, we outline an approach to support the exploitation of the Web in the context of cultural modeling activities. The approach begins with the development of qualitative cultural models (which describe the beliefs, concepts and values of cultural groups), and these models are subsequently used to develop an ontology-based information extraction capability (which harvests model-relevant information from online textual resources). We are currently developing a system to support the approach, and the continued development of this system should enable cultural analysts to more fully exploit the Web for the purpose of developing more accurate, detailed and predictively-relevant cognitive models

Using Genetic Algorithms for Building Metrics of Collaborative Systems

he paper objective is to reveal the importance of genetic algorithms in building robust metrics of collaborative systems. The main types of collaborative systems in economy are presented and some characteristics of genetic algorithms are described. A genetic algorithm was implemented in order to determine the local maximum and minimum points of the relative complexity function associated to a collaborative banking system. The intelligent collaborative systems based on genetic algorithms, representing the new generation of collaborative systems, are analyzed and the implementation of auto-adaptive interfaces in a banking application is described.Collaborative Systems, Genetic Algorithms, Metrics, Banking, Auto-Adaptive Interfaces

THE POVERTY OF APPLIED POLICY ANALYSIS

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Real-time Taylor rules and the federal funds futures market

This article compares movements in the federal funds rate from 1987 through 1997 with predictions from the federal funds market and a Taylor rule using unemployment and core CPI data. Although a Taylor rule using revised data does about as well as the futures market predictions, the best real-time predictions would have produced forecast errors about 50 percent larger than the futures data.Federal funds market (United States) ; Federal funds market (United States) ; Monetary policy

Invasive alien species in the food chain : advancing risk assessment models to address climate change, economics and uncertainty

Economic globalization depends on the movement of people and goods between countries. As these exchanges increase, so does the potential for translocation of harmful pests, weeds, and pathogens capable of impacting our crops, livestock and natural resources (Hulme 2009), with concomitant impacts on global food security (Cook et al. 2011)