Food and Energy Prices in Core Inflation

Many central bankers have made monetary policy decisions by focusing on core inflation data that exclude food and energy prices from overall inflation. In this paper, estimation results from multivariate GARCH models show that food prices not only help forecast future core inflation, but their conditional variance also affects the conditional variance of core inflation. Energy prices, on the other hand, affect core inflation primarily through the GARCH-in-mean effect. To the extent that food and energy prices affect the underlying trend and volatility of overall inflation, policymakers should not ignore these components in their assessment of future inflation risk.food and energy

Talking Helps: Evolving Communicating Agents for the Predator-Prey Pursuit Problem

We analyze a general model of multi-agent communication in which all agents communicate simultaneously to a message board. A genetic algorithm is used to evolve multi-agent languages for the predator agents in a version of the predator-prey pursuit problem. We show that the resulting behavior of the communicating multi-agent system is equivalent to that of a Mealy finite state machine whose states are determined by the agents’ usage of the evolved language. Simulations show that the evolution of a communication language improves the performance of the predators. Increasing the language size (and thus increasing the number of possible states in the Mealy machine) improves the performance even further. Furthermore, the evolved communicating predators perform significantly better than all previous work on similar preys. We introduce a method for incrementally increasing the language size which results in an effective coarse-to-fine search that significantly reduces the evolution time required to find a solution. We present some observations on the effects of language size, experimental setup, and prey difficulty on the evolved Mealy machines. In particular, we observe that the start state is often revisited, and incrementally increasing the language size results in smaller Mealy machines. Finally, a simple rule is derived that provides a pessimistic estimate on the minimum language size that should be used for any multi-agent problem

Decomposing the co-movement of the business cycle: a time- frequency analysis of growth cycles in the eurozone

This article analyses the frequency components of European business cycles using real GDP by employing multiresolution decomposition (MRD) with the use of maximal overlap discrete wavelet transforms (MODWT). Static wavelet variance and correlation analysis is performed, and phasing is studied using co-correlation with the eurozone by scale. Lastly dynamic conditional correlation GARCH models are used to obtain dynamic correlation estimates by scale against the EU to evaluate synchronicity of cycles through time. The general …ndings are that eurozone members fall into one of three categories: i) high static and dynamic correlations at all frequency cycles (e.g. France, Belgium, Germany), ii) low static and dynamic correlations, with little sign of convergence occurring (e.g. Greece), and iii) low static correlation but convergent dynamic correlations (e.g. Finland and Ireland)Business cycles, growth cycles, European Union, multiresolution analysis, wavelets, co-correlation, dynamic correlation.

Variable plant spacing

The goal of this project was to develop a system for varying the spacings between soybean plants as they grow to maximize the number of plants grown in a given volume. The project was studied to aid in the development of NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS). The resulting design consists of plant trays which are three dimensional trapezoids arranged into circles in a compact geometrical configuration. These circles are stacked together in back to back pairs to form a long cylinder. In each growth tray, plants will be housed in individual containers containing a nutrient delivery system and a plant support mechanism. Between the containers, a half trellis has been designed to space the plants for maximum space efficiency. The design allows for localized seeding and harvesting mechanisms due to the chambers' geometrical configuration. In addition, the components have been designed for ease of cleaning and minimal maintenance. Next semester, the individual components will be constructed and tested to determine the success of the design

Decomposing the co-movement of the business cycle: a time-frequency analysis of growth cycles in the euro area

This article analyses the frequency components of European business cycles using real GDP by employ-ing multiresolution decomposition (MRD) with the use of maximal overlap discrete wavelet transforms (MODWT). Static wavelet variance and correlation analysis is performed, and phasing is studied using co-correlation with the euro area by scale. Lastly dynamic conditional correlation GARCH models are used to obtain dynamic correlation estimates by scale against the EU to evaluate synchronicity of cycles through time. The general findings are that euro area members fall into one of three categories: i) high and dynamic correlations at all frequency cycles (eg France, Belgium, Germany), ii) low static and dy-namic correlations, with little sign of convergence occurring (eg Greece), and iii) low static correlation but convergent dynamic correlations (eg Finland and Ireland).business cycles; growth cycles; European Union; multiresolution analysis; wavelets; co-correlation; dynamic correlation

Evaluating the stresses from ECB monetary policy in the euro area

This paper investigates the extent to which euro area monetary policy has responded to evolving economic conditions in individual member states as opposed to the euro area as a whole. Based on a forward-looking Taylor rule-type policy reaction function, we conduct counterfactual exercises that compare the monetary policy behaviour of the ECB under alternative hypothetical scenarios: (1) the euro member states make individual policy decisions, and (2) the ECB responds to the economic conditions of individual members. Stress measures are then constructed to evaluate the degree of divergence of member state economies under these two hypothetical scenarios. The results we obtain reflect the extent of heterogeneity among the national economies in the monetary union, indicating that euro area policy rates have been particularly close to the ‘counterfactual’ interest rates of the largest euro members and countries with similar economic conditions, namely Germany, Austria, Belgium and France.European Central Bank; monetary policy reaction; Taylor rule; counterfactual analysis

Transferring Your Farm Business to the Next Generation

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Non-destructive plant health sensing using absorption spectroscopy

The sensor group of the 1988 EGM 4001 class, working on NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) project, investigated many different plant health indicators and the technologies used to test them. The project selected by the group was to measure chlorophyll levels using absorption spectroscopy. The spectrometer measures the amount of chlorophyll in a leaf by measuring the intensity of light of a specific wavelength that is passed through a leaf. The three wavelengths of light being used corresponded to the near-IR absorption peaks of chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and chlorophyll-free structures. Experimentation showed that the sensor is indeed measuring levels of chlorophyll a and b and their changes before the human eye can see any changes. The detector clamp causes little damage to the leaf and will give fairly accurate readings on similar locations on a leaf, freeing the clamp from having to remain on the same spot of a leaf for all measurements. External light affects the readings only slightly so that measurements may be taken in light or dark environments. Future designs and experimentation will concentrate on reducing the size of the sensor and adapting it to a wider range of plants

Intensity-Dependent Enhancement of Saturable Absorption in PbS-Au4 Nanohybrid Composites: Evidence for Resonant Energy Transfer by Auger Recombination

Intensity-dependent enhancement of saturable absorption in a film of PbS-Au4 nanohybrid composites has been observed by femtosecond time-resolved transient absorption measurement at 780 nm. The nonlinear absorption coefficient of saturable absorption in PbS-Au4 nanohybrid composites is found to be dependent on excitation irradiance and it is determined to be -2.9 cm/GW at 78 GW/cm2, an enhancement of nearly fourfold in comparison with that of pure PbS quantum dots (QDs). The enhancement is attributed to excitation of surface plasmon by resonant energy transfer between PbS QDs and Au nanoparticles through Auger recombination.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. Accepted in Appl. Phys. Lett. (2008