Do exchange-rate forecasters herd? A note on the zloty/dollar and yen/dollar exchange rate

We used the foreign-exchange rate forecasts of the Consensus Economics Inc. poll to analyze whether exchange-rate forecasters herd or anti-herd. Forecasters herd (anti-herd) if their forecasts are biased towards (away from) the consensus. Upon implementing a robust empirical test developed by Bernhardt, Campello, Kutsoati (2006), we found that forecasters anti-herd.exchange rates, forecasting, herding

Excited light and strange hadrons from the lattice with two Chirally Improved quarks

Results for excited light and strange hadrons from the lattice with two flavors of Chirally Improved sea quarks are presented. We perform simulations at several values of the pion mass ranging from 250 to 600 MeV and extrapolate to the physical pion mass. The variational method is applied to extract excited energy levels but also to discuss the content of the states. Among others, we explore the flavor singlet/octet content of Lambda states. In general, our results agree well with experiment, in particular we confirm the Lambda(1405) and its dominant flavor singlet structure.Comment: Contribution to the XV International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy "Hadron 2013", 4-8 November 2013, Nara, Japa

Different types of atrophy in the prostate with and without adenocarcinoma

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to evaluate, according to a classification proposed by a working group, the extent and type of atrophy lesions in radical prostatectomy specimens obtained from patients with prostatic carcinoma and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and to compare the prevalence and types of atrophy between two investigated groups. ----- METHODS: Histologic analysis of 1096 slides from 50 patients with carcinoma and 277 slides from 31 patients with BPH was performed to evaluate, according to the new prostatic atrophy classification, the number of foci and type of atrophic lesions. ----- RESULTS: Age, Gleason grade, and TNM showed no significant correlation with the number of proliferative atrophy (PA) and proliferative inflammatory atrophy (PIA) foci (p>0.05). PIA was significantly more frequent in prostates with carcinoma (1.63 vs 1.27 atrophic lesions per slide) (p<0.001), whereas PA displayed an increased frequency in BPH (2.28 vs 0.76 atrophic lesions per slide) (p<0.001). ----- CONCLUSIONS: We confirmed that PA and PIA are common findings in prostates with and without carcinoma, but the question of whether inflammation produces tissue damage and PA or whether some other insult induces the tissue damage and atrophy directly, with inflammation occurring secondarily, is still unresolved

Fly with the eagles or scratch with the chickens? Zum Herdenverhalten von Wechselkursprognostikern

In diesem Beitrag wird analysiert, ob Wechselkursprognosen Anhaltspunkte dafür liefern, dass Prognostiker ein so genanntes Herdenverhalten zeigen. Auf der Basis unterschiedlicher theoretischer Modellansätze wird skizziert, warum Prognostiker einen Anreiz haben könnten, einem Herdentrieb zu folgen. In einer empirischen Untersuchung werden Prognosen für die Wechselkurse des Japanischen Yen, des Schweizer Franken, der Deutschen Mark und des Euros - gemessen jeweils gegenüber dem U.S.-Dollar - eingesetzt, um empirisch auf Herdenverhalten zu testen. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass nicht Herdenverhalten, sondern Anti-Herding vorzuherrschen scheint. Die Prognostiker scheinen daher im Hinblick auf ihre Prognosen 'Produktdifferenzierung' zu betreiben. -- We analyze whether exchange-rate forecasters herd. To this end, we lay out two widely studied theoretical models of forecaster herding. The models illustrate why forecasters may herd. We then empirically analyze whether forecasts of the Yen/Dollar, Swiss franc/Dollar, German mark/Dollar, and Euro/Dollar exchange rates provide evidence of herding. Our results do not yield evidence of herding. On the contrary, we find strong evidence of anti-herding. Anti-herding could indicate that forecasters adhere to a strategy of 'forecast differentation'.Wechselkurse,Wechselkursprognosen,Herdenverhalten

An Architecture for Deploying Reinforcement Learning in Industrial Environments

Industry 4.0 is driven by demands like shorter time-to-market, mass customization of products, and batch size one production. Reinforcement Learning (RL), a machine learning paradigm shown to possess a great potential in improving and surpassing human level performance in numerous complex tasks, allows coping with the mentioned demands. In this paper, we present an OPC UA based Operational Technology (OT)-aware RL architecture, which extends the standard RL setting, combining it with the setting of digital twins. Moreover, we define an OPC UA information model allowing for a generalized plug-and-play like approach for exchanging the RL agent used. In conclusion, we demonstrate and evaluate the architecture, by creating a proof of concept. By means of solving a toy example, we show that this architecture can be used to determine the optimal policy using a real control system.Comment: This preprint has not undergone peer review or any post-submission improvements or corrections. The Version of Record of this contribution is published in Computer Aided Systems Theory - EUROCAST 2022 and is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25312-6_6