Does PPP hold for Big Mac price or consumer price index? Evidence from panel cointegration

This paper examines the validity of purchasing power parity (PPP) using CPI and Big Mac prices. The benchmark model, i.e., the OLS method, which does not take nonstationarity into account, rejects the hypothesis of PPP regardless of prices used. We next use the panel cointegration method to consider the nonstationary nature of variables. Estimated results for CPI are mixed. The PPP is rejected when the nominal exchange rate is employed as the dependent variable but is not rejected when the price ratio is used as the dependent variable. By contrast, the PPP is overwhelmingly not rejected when the Big Mac price is used. Last, we remove the production bias and re-examine the same issue by using panel cointegration. The PPP is again decisively rejected when CPI price is used but not for Big Mac price. Accordingly, Big Mac price is more supportive to the validity of PPP than CPI price.Big Mac

Toward a Cultural Phenomenon of Blogging--The Impacts of Individualism-Collectivism and Self-efficacy

Blogging is a form of social communication that facilitates human interaction. The cultural orientations of individualism and collectivism, which relate to basic beliefs about human relationships and interactions, should be determinants of blogging. This study explores the impacts of individualism-collectivism orientation on perceived self-efficacy in blogging, along with blogging and attitudes toward blogging. The results from an online survey of bloggers show that peoples\u27 cultural orientation of individualism-collectivism affects blogging through the mediation of perceived self-efficacy. Additionally, while self-reliance and the supremacy of individual goals increase blogging, competitiveness, solitary work preference, and the supremacy of individual interests decreases it. These results may suggest that a new cultural value is emerging among bloggers who wish to reap the benefits of the cyberworld

Towards Energy-Efficient, Fault-Tolerant, and Load-Balanced Mobile Cloud

Recent advances in mobile technologies have enabled a new computing paradigm in which large amounts of data are generated and accessed from mobile devices. However, running resource-intensive applications (e.g., video/image storage and processing or map-reduce type) on a single mobile device still remains off bounds since it requires large computation and storage capabilities. Computer scientists overcome this issue by exploiting the abundant computation and storage resources from traditional cloud to enhance the capabilities of end-user mobile devices. Nevertheless, the designs that rely on remote cloud services sometimes underlook the available resources (e.g., storage, communication, and processing) on mobile devices. In particular, when the remote cloud services are unavailable (due to service provider or network issues) these smart devices become unusable. For mobile devices deployed in an infrastructureless network where nodes can move, join, or leave the network dynamically, the challenges on energy-efficiency, reliability, and load-balance are still largely unexplored. This research investigates challenges and proposes solutions for deploying mobile application in such environments. In particular, we focus on a distributed data storage and data processing framework for mobile cloud. The proposed mobile cloud computing (MCC) framework provides data storage and data processing services to MCC applications such as video storage and processing or map-reduce type. These services ensure the mobile cloud is energy-efficient, fault-tolerant, and load-balanced by intelligently allocating and managing the stored data and processing tasks accounting for the limited resources on mobile devices. When considering the load-balance, the framework also incorporates the heterogeneous characteristics of mobile cloud in which nodes may have various energy, communication, and processing capabilities. All the designs are built on the k-out-of-n computing theoretical foundation. The novel formulations produce a reliability-compliant, energy-efficient data storage solution and a deadline-compliant, energy-efficient job scheduler. From the promising outcomes of this research, a future where mobile cloud offers real-time computation capabilities in complex environments such as disaster relief or warzone is certainly not far

Transferring a technology incubator to address climate change – lessons from Taiwan for Vietnam

Acceleration of climate-friendly technology transfer is a key goal of international climate policy. Technology incubators are institutions that support companies in accessing technological knowledge and developing technologies that are appropriate in the context of their business activities. Taiwan is a showcase of technology incubator experience and thus can support other countries in repeating a rapid technology leapfrogging. Vietnam is a country with a strong written commitment to climate change mitigation and adaptation; it is active in all current mechanisms that generate revenues for mitigation outcomes. Particularly the agricultural and the textile sectors would be appropriate for technology incubation applying Taiwanese experience. This could harness international funding streams through multi- and bilateral climate finance. Such streams are available both for technical assistance as well as implementation of concrete projects

Future change in extreme precipitation in East Asian spring and Mei-yu seasons in two high-resolution AGCMs

Precipitation in the spring and Mei-yu seasons, the main planting and growing period in East Asia, is crucial to water resource management. Changes in spring and Mei-yu extreme precipitation under global warming are evaluated based on two sets of high-resolution simulations with various warming pattern of sea surface temperature (SST'spa). In the spring season, extreme precipitation exhibits larger enhancements over the northern flank of the present-day prevailing rainy region and a tendency of increased occurrence and enhanced intensity in the probability distribution. These changes imply a northward extension of future spring rainband. Although the mean precipitation shows minor change, enhanced precipitation intensity, less total rainfall occurrence, and prolonged consecutive dry days suggest a more challenging water resource management in the warmer climate. The projected enhancement in precipitation intensity is robust compared with the internal variability related to initial conditions (σˆint) and the uncertainty caused by SST'spa (σˆΔSST). In the Mei-yu season, extreme precipitation strengthens and becomes more frequent over the present-day prevailing rainband region. The thermodynamic component of moisture flux predominantly contributes to the changes in the spring season. In the Mei-yu season, both the thermodynamic and dynamic components of moisture flux enhance the moisture transport and intensify the extreme precipitation from southern China to northeast Asia. Compared with spring season, projecting future Mei-yu precipitation is more challenging because of its higher uncertainty associated with 1) the σˆint and σˆΔSST embedded in the projections and 2) the model characteristics of present-day climatology that determines the spatial distribution of precipitation enhancement.publishedVersio