4,944 research outputs found
A NEW ALGORITHM FOR COMPUTING COMPENSATED INCOME FROM ORDINARY DEMAND FUNCTIONS
This paper proposes a REversible Second-ORder Taylor (RESORT) expansion of the expenditure function to compute compensated income from ordinary demand functions as an alternative to the algorithm proposed by Vartia. These algorithms provide measures of Hicksian welfare changes and Konus-type cost of living indices. RESORT also validates the results by checking the matrix of compensated price effects. obtained through the Slutsky equation, for symmetry and negative semi-definiteness as required by expenditure minimization. In contrast, Vartia's algorithm provides no validation procedure. RESORT is similar to Vartia's algorithm in using price steps. It computes compensated income at each step "forward" from the initial to the terminal prices, and insures that the compensated income computed "backward" is equal to its value computed in the "forward" procedure. Thus, RESORT is "reversible" and guarantees unique values of compensated income for each set of prices and, as a result, also unique measures of welfare changes and cost of living indices. These unique results are not, however, guaranteed by the usual Taylor series expansion for computing compensated income.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,
Playing at Home: An Ecocritical Reading of Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup
In Nadine Gordimer’s The Pickup, Julie Summers finds her sense of place in an unnamed desert country. By following the man she falls in love with back to his homeland, Julie must leave her comfortable cosmopolitan life behind. Although the text superficially presents the reader with this simple love story, the tone of the narration itself undermines Julie’s quest and troubles her easy adoption of a new home. This article draws on South African ecocritical and postcolonial approaches to explore the ways in which Julie’s privilege informs her relationship with her environments. Namely, this article is interested in showing how the text subtly questions whether a return to the land is possible in a context (of legacies of apartheid and realities of globalization) when land is never neutral (if it ever was). By framing her text around questions of citizenship tied to place, Gordimer presents a critique of the restorative power of the pastoral through the slippery character of Julie Summers
ALTERNATIVE AUCTION INSTITUTIONS FOR ELECTRIC POWER MARKETS
Restructuring of electric power markets is proceeding across the United States and in many other nations around the world. The performance of these markets will influence everything from the prices faced by consumers to the reliability of the systems. The challenges of these changes present many important areas for research. For much of the northeastern United States, restructuring proposals include, at least for the short term, the formation of a single-sided auction mechanism for the wholesale market. This research uses experimental methods to analyze how these markets may function. In the experiments, the two basic uniform price auction rules are tested under three different market sizes. Early experimental results suggest the commonly proposed last-accepted-offer auction works well, but market power could be a real concern.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
Engineering calculations for communications satellite systems planning
Observed solution times were analyzed for the extended gradient and cyclic coordinate search procedures. The times used in the analysis come from computer runs made during a previously-reported experiment conducted to assess the quality of the solutions to a BSS synthesis problem found by the two search methods. The results of a second experiment with a Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) test problem are also presented. Computational results are summarized for mixed integer programming approaches for solving FSS synthesis problems. A promising heuristic algorithm is described. A synthesis model is discussed for orbital arc allotment optimization. Research plans for the near future are also presented
Backup flight control system functional evaluator software manual
The software for the Backup Flight Control System Functional Evaluator (BFCSFE) on a Data General Corporation Nova 1200 computer consists of three programs: the ground support program, the operational flight program (OFP), and the ground pulse code modulation (PCM) program. The Nova OFP software is structurally as close as possible to the AP101 code; therefore, this document highlights and describes only those areas of the Nova OFP that are significantly different from the AP101. Since the Ground Support Program was developed to meet BFCSFE requirements and differs considerably from the AP101 code, it is described in detail
Alternative mathematical programming formulations for FSS synthesis
A variety of mathematical programming models and two solution strategies are suggested for the problem of allocating orbital positions to (synthesizing) satellites in the Fixed Satellite Service. Mixed integer programming and almost linear programming formulations are presented in detail for each of two objectives: (1) positioning satellites as closely as possible to specified desired locations, and (2) minimizing the total length of the geostationary arc allocated to the satellites whose positions are to be determined. Computational results for mixed integer and almost linear programming models, with the objective of positioning satellites as closely as possible to their desired locations, are reported for three six-administration test problems and a thirteen-administration test problem
The metaphysics of opacity
This paper examines the logical and metaphysical consequences of denying Leibniz's Law, the principle that if t1= t2, then φ(t1) if and only if φ(t2). Recently, Caie, Goodman, and Lederman (2020) and Bacon and Russell (2019) have proposed sophisticated logical systems permitting violations of Leibniz's Law. We show that their systems conflict with widely held, attractive principles concerning the metaphysics of individuals. Only by adopting a highly revisionary picture, on which there is no finest-grained equivalence relation, can a well-motivated metaphysics for rejecting Leibniz's Law be developed. We sketch one such picture—a metaphysics of stuff. Stuff ontologies can be initially motivated through ordinary language: stuff stands to mass nouns as objects stand to count nouns. The stuff ontology we propose takes stuff to be fundamental and views the world as composed of an infinite descending hierarchy of kinds and portions of stuff. We defend the coherence of this picture and offer a model theory demonstrating that it can be consistently formalized
Engineering calculations for communications satellite systems planning
An extended gradient search code for broadcasting satellite service (BSS) spectrum/orbit assignment synthesis is discussed. Progress is also reported on both single-entry and full synthesis computational aids for fixed satellite service (FSS) spectrum/orbit assignment purposes
Broadcasting satellite service synthesis using gradient and cyclic coordinate search procedures
Two search techniques are considered for solving satellite synthesis problems. Neither is likely to find a globally optimal solution. In order to determine which method performs better and what factors affect their performance, we design an experiment and solve the same problem under a variety of starting solution configuration-algorithm combinations. Since there is no randomization in the experiment, we present results of practical, rather than statistical, significance. Our implementation of a cyclic coordinate search procedure clearly finds better synthesis solutions than our implementation of a gradient search procedure does with our objective of maximizing the minimum C/I ratio computed at test points on the perimeters of the intended service areas. The length of the available orbital arc and the configuration of the starting solution are shown to affect the quality of the solutions found
Integrated care and the working record
By default, many discussions and specifications of electronic health records or integrated care records often conceptualize the record as a passive information repository. This article presents data from a case study of work in a medical unit in a major metropolitan hospital. It shows how the clinicians tailored, re-presented and augmented clinical information to support their own roles in the delivery of care for individual patients. This is referred to as the working record: a set of complexly interrelated clinician-centred documents that are locally evolved, maintained and used to support delivery of care in conjunction with the more patient-centred chart that will be stored in the medical records department on the patient’s discharge. Implications are drawn for how an integrated care record could support the local tailorability and flexibility that underpin this working record and hence underpin practice
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