Twin Engines of Growth

We develop an endogenous growth model in which new technology and new skills are bounded complements they complement each other up to a point, but beyond this the impact of each factor is constrained by the level of the other. As a result, both technological progress and human capital accumulation are necessary for sustained productivity growth, but neither alone is sufficient. Rapid technological progress generates increased returns to education and encourages each generation to spend more time in school. Rapid human capital accumulation increases the feasibility and profitability of innovation and encourages the private business sector to allocate more resources towards R&D. Our model has important implications for the effectiveness of alternative growth promoting policies, for the interpretation of the empirical relationship between growth and schooling, and for the relationship between growth and intergenerational wage dispersion. Keywords: Endogenous technological change, endogenous human capital accumulation, minimum skill requirements, bounded complementarity.Endogenous technological change, endogenous human capital accumulation, minimum skill requirements, bounded complementarity.

Twin Engines of Growth

We develop an endogenous growth model in which new technology and new skills are bounded complements -- they complement each other to a point, but beyond this the impact of each factor is constrained by the level of the other. As a result, both technological progress and human capital accumulation are necessary for sustained productivity growth, but neither alone is sufficient. Rapid technological progress generates increased returns to education and encourages each generation to spend more time at school. Rapid human capital accumulation increases the feasability and profitability of innovation and encourages the private business sector to allocate more resources towards R&D. Our model has important implications for the effectiveness of alternative growth-promoting policies, for the interpretation of the empirical relationship between growth and schooling, and for the relationship between growth and intergenerational wage dispersion. Nous développons un modèle de croissance endogène dans lequel la nouvelle technologie et les nouvelles compétences sont des compléments limités -- elles se complémentent jusqu'à un certain point, au delà duquel l'impact de chaque facteur est contraint par le niveau de l'autre. Alors, le progrès technologique et l'accumulation de capital humain sont nécessaires les deux pour une croissance soutenue de la productivité, mais aucun n'est suffisant seul. Un progrès technologique rapide génère des rendements croissants de l'éducation et encourage chaque génération à consacrer plus de temps à l'école. Une accumulation rapide de capital humain accroît la faisabilité et la profitabilité de l'innovation et encourage le secteur privé à allouer plus de ressources en recherche et développement. Notre modèle a des implications importantes pour la relation empirique entre croissance et éducation, et pour la relation entre croissance et dispersion intergénérationnelle des salaires.Endogenous technological change, endogenous human capital accumulation, minimum skill requirements, bounded complementarity

Efficient Bayesian Nonparametric Modelling of Structured Point Processes

This paper presents a Bayesian generative model for dependent Cox point processes, alongside an efficient inference scheme which scales as if the point processes were modelled independently. We can handle missing data naturally, infer latent structure, and cope with large numbers of observed processes. A further novel contribution enables the model to work effectively in higher dimensional spaces. Using this method, we achieve vastly improved predictive performance on both 2D and 1D real data, validating our structured approach.Comment: Presented at UAI 2014. Bibtex: @inproceedings{structcoxpp14_UAI, Author = {Tom Gunter and Chris Lloyd and Michael A. Osborne and Stephen J. Roberts}, Title = {Efficient Bayesian Nonparametric Modelling of Structured Point Processes}, Booktitle = {Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI)}, Year = {2014}

The prolegomena of La Cerda's commentary on Virgil : a commented edition from the Cologne 1642 imprint, with English translation and explanatory notes

This thesis presents a new Latin text of the Prolegomena and accompanying prefatory material of the Cologne 1642 edition of the Virgil commentary by the Spanish Jesuit scholar Juan Luis De La Cerda. It provides an original English translation of this material along with explanatory notes which focus upon the social, educational, intellectual and political influences that informed La Cerda's work. The notes also take account of some of the rhetorical and stylistic aspects of La Cerda's work. An introduction situates the work in its cultural and intellectual context and provides a clear overview of the structure and composition of the Prolegomena

Protocol for a longitudinal qualitative interview study: maintaining psychological well-being in advanced cancer - what can we learn from patients' and carers' own coping strategies?

IntroductionPeople with advanced cancer and their carers experience stress and uncertainty which affects the quality of life and physical and mental health. This study aims to understand how patients and carers recover or maintain psychological well-being by exploring the strategies employed to self-manage stress and uncertainty.Methods and analysisA longitudinal qualitative interview approach with 30 patients with advanced cancer and 30 associated family or informal carers allows the exploration of contexts, mechanisms and outcomes at an individual level. Two interviews, 4–12?weeks apart, will not only enable the exploration of individuals’ evolving coping strategies in response to changing contexts but also how patients’ and carers’ strategies inter-relate. Patient and Carer focus groups will then consider how the findings may be used in developing an intervention. Recruiting through two major tertiary cancer centres in the North West and using deliberately broad and inclusive criteria will enable the sample to capture demographic and experiential breadth.Ethics and disseminationThe research team will draw on their considerable experience to ensure that the study is sensitive to a patient and carer group, which may be considered vulnerable but still values being able to contribute its views. Public and patient involvement (PPI) is integral to the design and is evidenced by: a research advisory group incorporating patient and carers, prestudy consultations with the PPI group at one of the study sites and a user as the named applicant. The study team will use multiple methods to disseminate the findings to clinical, policy and academic audiences. A key element will be engaging health professionals in patient and carer ideas for promoting self-management of psychological well-being. The study has ethical approval from the North West Research Ethics Committee and the appropriate NHS governance clearance.RegistrationNational Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Studies Portfolio, UK Clinical Research Network (UKCRN) Study number 11725

Effect Of Coronary Bypass And Valve Structure On Outcome In Isolated Valve Replacement For Aortic Stenosis

Reports differ regarding the effect of concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients who undergo aortic valve replacement (AVR) for aortic stenosis (AS), and no reports have described the effect of aortic valve structure in patients who undergo AVR for AS. A total of 871 patients aged 24 to 94 years (mean 70) whose AVR for AS was their first cardiac operation, with or without first concomitant CABG, were included. Patients who underwent mitral valve procedures were excluded. In comparison with the 443 patients (51%) who did not undergo CABG, the 428 (49%) who underwent concomitant CABG were significantly older, were more often male, had lower transvalvular peak systolic pressure gradients and larger valve areas, had lower frequencies of congenitally malformed aortic valves, had lighter valves by weight, had higher frequencies of systemic hypertension, and had longer stays in the hospital after AVR. Early and late (to 10 years) mortality were similar by propensity-adjusted analysis in patients who did and did not undergo concomitant CABG. Congenitally unicuspid or bicuspid valves occurred in approximately 90% of those aged 21 to 50, in nearly 70% in those aged 51 to 70 years, and in just over 30% in those aged 71 to 95 years. Unadjusted and adjusted survival was significantly higher in patients with unicuspid or bicuspid valves compared to those with tricuspid valves. In conclusion, although concomitant CABG had no effect on the adjusted probability of survival, the type of aortic valve (unicuspid or bicuspid vs tricuspid) significantly affected the unadjusted and adjusted probability of survival. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (Am J Cardiol 2012;109:1334-1340)Statistic

Presence Of A Congenitally Bicuspid Aortic Valve Among Patients Having Combined Mitral And Aortic Valve Replacement

Although bicuspid aortic valve occurs in an estimated 1% of adults and mitral valve prolapse in an estimated 5% of adults, occurrence of the 2 in the same patient is infrequent. During examination of operatively excised aortic and mitral valves because of dysfunction (stenosis and/or regurgitation), we encountered 16 patients who had congenitally bicuspid aortic valves associated with various types of dysfunctioning mitral valves. Eleven of the 16 patients had aortic stenosis (AS): 5 of them also had mitral stenosis, of rheumatic origin in 4 and secondary to mitral annular calcium in 1; the other 6 with aortic stenosis had pure mitral regurgitation (MR) secondary to mitral valve prolapse in 3, to ischemia in 2, and to unclear origin in 1. Of the 5 patients with pure aortic regurgitation, each also had pure mitral regurgitation: in 1 secondary to mitral valve prolapse and in 4 secondary to infective endocarditis. In conclusion, various types of mitral dysfunction severe enough to warrant mitral valve replacement occur in patients with bicuspid aortic valves. A proper search for mitral valve dysfunction in patients with bicuspid aortic valves appears warranted. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (Am J Cardiol 2012;109:263-271)Integrative Biolog

Testing assumptions and bias of a caribou population estimator through Monte Carlo simulation

Master's Project (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2022The Rivest method is the standard way to estimate caribou herd sizes in Alaska and the northern Canadian provinces. Biologists employ radio telemetry to detect discrete groups that make up the wider herd; the Rivest estimator provides an approximate herd size by enumerating the collared and uncollared animals within each group. A key assumption of this technique is that collared caribou mix randomly amongst the wider herd. In this report I scrutinize the accuracy of the Rivest estimator and evaluate three competing hypothesis tests for testing its random-mixing assumption under simulated conditions. The Fisher’s Exact Test is the optimal test for detecting violations of random-mixing. I found the Rivest method underestimates caribou herd size in simulations where the random-mixing assumption was violated to a large degree

A multi-protocol quantum key distribution transmitter

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a technology that allows two users to communicate with theoretically perfect security using standard optical fibres. This is possible by transmitting the key on single photons, meaning a measurement by an eavesdropper disturbs the system in a way observable to the legitimate parties. The technology has advanced since the first protocol proposed in 1984, to the stage where there are now many protocols that can be experimentally implemented. These protocols have allowed secure keys to be generated over distances greater than 400 km and with secure key rates over 10 Mbit/s. In a metropolitan QKD network, it would be desirable for as many users to be connected as possible. Unfortunately, each protocol comes with different requirements on the transmitter and receiver. Even within a single protocol, different clock rates can require individualised transmitter and receiver hardware. This prohibits users from communicating with all receivers, unless they have complex transmitters with hardware for many protocols. This thesis develops a transmitter for practical QKD that is able to adapt to a number of different protocols with no changes to the hardware. The transmitter works using optical injection locking, where a pulse preparation laser adopts the phase of a phase preparation laser. Controlling the phase and intensity of the pulses in this way removes the side channel ordinarily present with direct modulation, in that the phase, intensity and frequency simultaneously change in response to an applied current. The cavity-enhanced electro-optic effect allows for the first demonstration of sub-volt half-wave phase modulation at high clock rates. The transmitter successfully demonstrates phase encoding, intensity encoding and on-demand phase randomisation. This allows for the experimental realisation and direct comparison of different QKD protocols, including one that has never before been implemented due to experimental complexity. A stable intensity modulator is also developed, based on a Sagnac interferometer. This removes a side channel in QKD systems and integrates well with the directly-modulated quantum transmitter. This development also means that the transmitter can implement all current two-party QKD protocols based on weak coherent pulses. The transmitter has the potential to become the standard transmitter for future quantum communication networks due to its stability, versatility and power efficiency. The design could also be demonstrated on a photonic chip, making it compact enough to fit in small transmitter units.Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Toshiba Research Europe Lt