MUSE: The Bank of Canada's New Projection Model of the U.S. Economy

Staff projections provided for the Bank of Canada's monetary policy decision process take into account the integration of Canada's very open economy within the global economy, as well as its close real and financial linkages with the United States. To provide inputs for this projection, the Bank has developed several models, including MUSE, NEUQ (the New European Quarterly Model), and BoC-GEM (Bank of Canada Global Economy Model), to analyze and forecast economic developments in the rest of the world. The authors focus on MUSE, the model currently used to describe interaction among the principal U.S. economic variables, including gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates, and the exchange rate. Brief descriptions are also provided of NEUQ and BoC-GEM.

Modélisation « PAC » du secteur extérieur de l'économie américaine

In this paper, the authors use polynomial adjustment cost (PAC) models to analyze and forecast the main components of the U.S. trade sector. For instance, they model and measure the elasticities of imports and exports to changes in the exchange rate and income. PAC models provide a theoretical justification for the presence of lags within a dynamic equation where optimizing agents' expectations are completely rational and forward looking. This approach thereby adds theoretical depth to a model that has a good forecasting performance. To the authors' knowledge, this paper is the first study to model the U.S. trade sector using a PAC approach. Overall, the models' main elasticities are reasonable. Moreover, the authors find that the out-ofsample forecasting performance of their PAC models is at least as good as that of other models. Their results show that this theoretical structure is not added at the expense of the empirical features of the models.Econometric and statistical methods; International topics; Domestic demand and components

Un modèle « PAC » d'analyse et de prévision des dépense des ménages américains

Traditional structural models cannot distinguish whether changes in activity are a function of altered expectations today or lagged responses to past plans. Polynomial-adjustment-cost (PAC) models remove this ambiguity by explicitly separating observed dynamic behaviour into movements that have been induced by changes in expectations, and responses to expectations, that have been delayed because of adjustment costs. In these models, agents’ decisions are a function of forecasts of a desired level for the decision variable and, owing to frictions, this level is reached only gradually. In this paper, the authors use PAC models to analyze and forecast U.S. household spending. They find that the estimated models are rather rich from a theoretical and dynamic view-point. For example, the authors find that household spending is a function of forward-looking expectations, short- and long-term interest rates, human and non-human wealth, liquidity constraints, and uncertainty with respect to future business cycles. Moreover, out-of-sample forecasts and stability tests show that this theoretical structure is not added at the expense of the model’s empirical features.Economic models; Econometric and statistical methods; Business fluctuations and cycles

Of love, truth, and reason : critical theology and the challenge of Jürgen Habermas

A response to Habermas's objections to the project of critical theology. Contends that the task of critical theology today is to elucidate the critical potential of love as the religious contribution to the formation of a compassionate society

Beyond the Pixel: a Photometrically Calibrated HDR Dataset for Luminance and Color Prediction

Light plays an important role in human well-being. However, most computer vision tasks treat pixels without considering their relationship to physical luminance. To address this shortcoming, we introduce the Laval Photometric Indoor HDR Dataset, the first large-scale photometrically calibrated dataset of high dynamic range 360{\deg} panoramas. Our key contribution is the calibration of an existing, uncalibrated HDR Dataset. We do so by accurately capturing RAW bracketed exposures simultaneously with a professional photometric measurement device (chroma meter) for multiple scenes across a variety of lighting conditions. Using the resulting measurements, we establish the calibration coefficients to be applied to the HDR images. The resulting dataset is a rich representation of indoor scenes which displays a wide range of illuminance and color, and varied types of light sources. We exploit the dataset to introduce three novel tasks, where: per-pixel luminance, per-pixel color and planar illuminance can be predicted from a single input image. Finally, we also capture another smaller photometric dataset with a commercial 360{\deg} camera, to experiment on generalization across cameras. We are optimistic that the release of our datasets and associated code will spark interest in physically accurate light estimation within the community. Dataset and code are available at https://lvsn.github.io/beyondthepixel/

A photobiological approach to biophilic design in extreme climates

This paper proposes the biophilic design approach as a plausible hypothesis for the challenging conditions related to living and working in extreme cold climates. Biophilic design has recently been developed to overcome the adverse effects of the built environment and to improve human well-being by redefining the human-nature relationship. Yet, biophilic design should be adapted to extreme cold climates in order to meet the biological needs of people in northern territories. This issue becomes more important when considering the availability of natural light due to the strong seasonal photoperiod and its effects on human well-being in such regions. The present paper critically reviews biophilic design patterns and identifies their main shortcomings. These shortcomings include the lack of (1) recommendations applicable to extreme cold climates (2) adaptation to the local photoperiods, and (3) a systemic framework integrated into the design process. The paper draws attention to the image-forming and non-image-forming effects of light as a basis of the human-nature design approach. In this regard, photobiological outcomes have been reviewed. Then, the paper discusses the existing lighting standards and guidelines in North America and how they have mainly been developed to fulfil the image-forming demands for light. Further efforts are needed to revise these standards with respect to the non-image-forming effects of light and the biophilic design requirements. Finally, adaptive building envelopes are presented as a hypothetical solution to optimize the biophilic qualities of buildings and address the biological needs of people living and working in extreme cold climates in northern territories

Biophilic, photobiological and energy-efficient design framework of adaptive building façades for Northern Canada

This paper develops an integrated design framework of adaptive building façades (ABFs) to respond to photobiological and thermal needs of occupants, biophilic factors, energy requirements and climatic features in Northern Canada, i.e. near and above 50°N. The paper discusses the importance of biophilic and photobiological factors and ABFs to improve occupants’ health and human-nature relations and deal with the extreme climate in Northern Canada where non-adapted buildings that could negatively affect occupants’ wellbeing. The paper shows that existing ABFs must be further developed for northern applications in terms of (i) the physical structure and configuration of components (ii) the design of solar shading/louver panels to address photobiological and biophilic requirements (iii) the development of lighting adaptation scenarios to respond to biophilic and photobiological needs, local photoperiods and energy issues, and (iv) the overall biophilic quality for accessibility to natural patterns. The ABFs’ framework was developed in three phases including (1) process environmental data (2) produce adaptation scenarios, and (3) operate adaptation scenarios. The research discussed major issues of all phases that must be further studied, especially the development of hourly/daily/seasonally lighting adaptation scenarios. The paper develops a holistic parametric methodology to integrate and optimize major design variables of ABF’s components