Information, heterogeneity and market incompleteness in the stochastic growth model

We provide a microfounded account of imperfect information in the stochastic growth model which dramatically changes the properties of the model. We describe heterogenous households that acquire information about aggregates through their participation in markets. If markets are incomplete, household information will be imperfect. We solve the model taking account of the infinite regress of expectations that this lack of information implies. We derive analytical and numerical results to show that imperfect information can significantly change the properties of the model: under virtually all calibrations the impact response of consumption to a positive aggregate technology shock is negative.imperfect information; higher order expectations; Kalman filter; dynamic general equilibrium

Inspecting the noisy mechanism: the stochastic growth model with partial information

We derive a framework (and provide a software toolkit) which allows the dynamic general equilibrium modeller to specify what variables are in households' information sets, and the degree to which these variables are measured with error. We apply this framework to a canonical real business cycle model and show that which variables are observable has a significant effect, both qualitatively and quantitatively, on the dynamics of the model. Specifically, we find (i) The standard decentralised equilibrium, with households only observing returns and not aggregate quantities, is not stable to arbitrarily small measurement error (ii) A stable solution does exist, but it is dramatically different from the full-information case (iii) Having aggregate output data, even if relatively noisy, brings the economy much closer to the full-information solutionDGE, Partial information, Measurement error

Automatically Adapting Home Lighting to Assist Visually Impaired Children

For visually impaired children, activities like finding everyday items, locating favourite toys and moving around the home can be challenging. Assisting them during these activities is important because it promotes independence and encourages them to use and develop their remaining visual function. We describe our work towards a system that adapts the lighting conditions at home to help visually impaired children with everyday tasks. We discuss scenarios that show how they may benefit from adaptive lighting, report on our progress and describe our planned future work and evaluation

Towards a Multimodal Adaptive Lighting System for Visually Impaired Children

Visually impaired children often have difficulty with everyday activities like locating items, e.g. favourite toys, and moving safely around the home. It is important to assist them during activities like these because it can promote independence from adults and helps to develop skills. Our demonstration shows our work towards a multimodal sensing and output system that adapts the lighting conditions at home to help visually impaired children with such tasks

Translating coverage gains into health gains for all women and children : the quality care opportunity

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Ending open defecation in rural Tanzania: which factors facilitate latrine adoption?

Diarrheal diseases account for 7% of deaths in children under five years of age in Tanzania. Improving sanitation is an essential step towards reducing these deaths. This secondary analysis examined rural Tanzanian households sanitation behaviors and attitudes in order to identify barriers and drivers to latrine adoption. The analysis was conducted using results from a cross-sectional study of 1000 households in five rural districts of Tanzania. Motivating factors, perceptions, and constraints surrounding open defecation and latrine adoption were assessed using behavioral change theory. Results showed a significant association between use of improved sanitation and satisfaction with current sanitation facility (OR: 5.91; CI: 2.95-11.85; p = 0.008). Livestock-keeping was strongly associated with practicing open defecation (OR: 0.22; CI 0.063-0.75; p < 0.001). Of the 93 total households that practiced open defecation, 79 (85%) were dissatisfied with the practice, 62 (67%) had plans to build a latrine and 17 (18%) had started saving for a latrine. Among households that planned to build a latrine, health was the primary reason stated (60%). The inability to pay for upgrading sanitation infrastructure was commonly reported among the households. Future efforts should consider methods to reduce costs and ease payments for households to upgrade sanitation infrastructure. Messages to increase demand for latrine adoption in rural Tanzania should integrate themes of privacy, safety, prestige and health. Findings indicate a need for lower cost sanitation options and financing strategies to increase household ability to adopt sanitation facilities

Multi-Moji: Combining Thermal, Vibrotactile and Visual Stimuli to Expand the Affective Range of Feedback

This paper explores the combination of multiple concurrent modalities for conveying emotional information in HCI: temperature, vibration and abstract visual displays. Each modality has been studied individually, but can only convey a limited range of emotions within two-dimensional valencearousal space. This paper is the first to systematically combine multiple modalities to expand the available affective range. Three studies were conducted: Study 1 measured the emotionality of vibrotactile feedback by itself; Study 2 measured the perceived emotional content of three bimodal combinations: vibrotactile + thermal, vibrotactile + visual and visual + thermal. Study 3 then combined all three modalities. Results show that combining modalities increases the available range of emotional states, particularly in the problematic top-right and bottom-left quadrants of the dimensional model. We also provide a novel lookup resource for designers to identify stimuli to convey a range of emotions

Direct and generative retrieval of autobiographical memories : the roles of visual imagery and executive processes

Two experiments used a dual task methodology to investigate the role of visual imagery and executive resources in the retrieval of specific autobiographical memories. In Experiment 1, dynamic visual noise led to a reduction in the number of specific memories retrieved in response to both high and low imageability cues, but did not affect retrieval times. In Experiment 2, irrelevant pictures reduced the number of specific memories but only in response to low imageability cues. Irrelevant pictures also increased response times to both high and low imageability cues. The findings are in line with previous work suggesting that disrupting executive resources may impair generative, but not direct, retrieval of autobiographical memories. In contrast, visual distractor tasks appear to impair access to specific autobiographical memories via both the direct and generative retrieval routes, thereby highlighting the potential role of visual imagery in both pathways

Signals for gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking models at the CERN LEP2 collider

We consider a general class of models with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking in which the gravitino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. Several qualitatively different scenarios arise for the phenomenology of such models, depending on which superpartner(s) decay dominantly to the gravitino. At LEP2, neutralino pair production and slepton pair production can lead to a variety of promising discovery signals, which we systematically study. We investigate the impact of backgrounds for these signals and show how they can be reduced, and outline the effects of model parameter variations on the discovery potential.Comment: 36 pages, LaTeX, 10 figures embedded using epsf.sty (published version; minor changes in wording