HABITS AND THE SAVINGS-GROWTH RELATIONSHIP Why US Personal Savings Rates Are At Historic Lows

In this paper we show that the solution to the standard consumer maximisation problem which is augmented by habit-persistence can imply a positive and linear relationship between changes in the level of savings and changes in present income. We show that these savings-income dynamics contrast with the orthodox view that the level of the savings rate is related to the present growth rate of income. The model also implies that if expectations of future changes in income are positive and present income itself is stationary, then the level of consumption tends to converge on income over time and savings fall. In these circumstances the standard model predicts that the level of savings and consumption remain constant. Using personal savings and disposable income time series data, we show that a simple bivariate version of the habits-augmented model which assumes constant expectations of future changes in income and strong habit persistence performs extremely well in terms of explaining the dynamics of post-war United States personal savings rates; in particular their recent decline to historic lows.Savings Consumption Habits Growth

X-CNN: Cross-modal Convolutional Neural Networks for Sparse Datasets

In this paper we propose cross-modal convolutional neural networks (X-CNNs), a novel biologically inspired type of CNN architectures, treating gradient descent-specialised CNNs as individual units of processing in a larger-scale network topology, while allowing for unconstrained information flow and/or weight sharing between analogous hidden layers of the network---thus generalising the already well-established concept of neural network ensembles (where information typically may flow only between the output layers of the individual networks). The constituent networks are individually designed to learn the output function on their own subset of the input data, after which cross-connections between them are introduced after each pooling operation to periodically allow for information exchange between them. This injection of knowledge into a model (by prior partition of the input data through domain knowledge or unsupervised methods) is expected to yield greatest returns in sparse data environments, which are typically less suitable for training CNNs. For evaluation purposes, we have compared a standard four-layer CNN as well as a sophisticated FitNet4 architecture against their cross-modal variants on the CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 datasets with differing percentages of the training data being removed, and find that at lower levels of data availability, the X-CNNs significantly outperform their baselines (typically providing a 2--6% benefit, depending on the dataset size and whether data augmentation is used), while still maintaining an edge on all of the full dataset tests.Comment: To appear in the 7th IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI 2016), 8 pages, 6 figures. Minor revisions, in response to reviewers' comment

Boka Kotorska u Starom vijeku

Opsežan povijesni pregled Boke Kotorske u Starom vijeku. Pod imenom Boke Kotorske podrazumijeva se danas politički kotar kotorski, koji se pruža od Sutorine kod Hercegnovoga do rječice Željeznice blizu Bara. S jedne ga strane oplakiva Jadransko More, a s druge opkoljuju hercegovačko-crnogorske planine, te obuhvaća kotorski zaljev, Grbalj, Budvu sa okolinom, Paštroviće i Spič. (1 slika

Наноструктурне и микроархитектонске карактеристике врата бутне кости: утицај на повећану коштану фрагилност са старењем код жена

Background: Hip fractures are among the most important health problems in elderly population worldwide, particularly in elderly women. However, despite extensive research on age-related bone fragility, the factors leading to decreased bone strength in advanced age are not yet clear enough. Indeed, in clinical settings bone mineral density (BMD) assessed by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry has been used as an indicator of hip fracture risk. However, as it has been already pointed out that age-related decrease in BMD fails to fully explain the high increase in hip fracture risk with aging, other bone features also account for age-related deterioration in bone strength. Since bone is a hierarchically organized structure, it can be hypothesized that its strength depends on various features from nano-scale to macro-scale. Although numerous studies addressed macro- and microstructural basis of bone fragility, so far the direct data at microarchitectural level have been scarce. Moreover, nanostructure of the bone mineralized matrix has received insufficient attention with regard to effects of aging and its relation to bone fragility. Hypotheses: Our hypotheses were that region-dependant worsening of bone microarchitecture in elderly women leads to increased femoral neck fragility, and that - besides the microarchitectural deterioration - the age-related nanostructural changes at the bone matrix level contribute to increased bone fragility in elderly women. Material and methods: To test these hypotheses, we analyzed bone specimens from the femoral neck region obtained at autopsy in young and elderly women without hip fracture as well as in a group of postmenopausal women who sustained a hip fracture. Following sectioning process, micro-computed tomography was performed to assess bone microarchitectural properties. Bone nanostructure was analyzed via Topography and Phase modes of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), while chemical evaluation of bone material composition encompassed energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, quantitative backscatter electron imaging, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy and direct current argon arc plasma optical emission spectrometry...Увод: Преломи кука су један од најзначајнијих здравствених проблема код старих особа широм света, а посебно код старијих жена. Међутим, упркос многобројним истраживањима узрока фрагилности скелета код старијих особа, још увек се врло мало зна о чиниоцима који доводе до смањене чврстоће кости у старости. Минерална густина кости (bone mineral density, BMD) утврђена применом дензитометријске методе (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, DXA) је дуго сматрана главним показатељем коштане чврстоће и до данас коришћена у клиничкој процени коштане фрагилности и ризика за прелом кука. Међутим, будући да је више аутора указало на податак да старосни пад BMD не може потпуно објаснити значајни пораст ризика oд преломa кука код старијих особа, неопходно је испитати и допринос других коштаних карактеристика смањењу коштане чврстоће са старењем. Како је кост хијерархијски организована структура, може се претпоставити да њена чврстоћа зависи од различитих елемената коштане грађе од нанометарске до макро-скале. Премда су се многобројне студије усредсредиле на испитивање макроструктурне и микроструктурне основе коштане фрагилности, још увек недостају директни подаци о микроархитектури костију код особа са преломом кука. Поред тога, старосним променама наноструктурних параметара самог материјала од кога је кост изграђена није посвећена одговарајућа пажња, као ни њиховом значају за коштану фрагилност. Хипотеза: Нашe хипотезе су биле да регион-зависно погоршање коштане микроархитектуре код старијих жена повећава њихов ризик за прелом кука, као и да се, осим микроструктурних промена, са старењем јављају и наноструктурне промене на нивоу коштаног матрикса које такође доприносе повећаној коштаној фрагилности код старијих жена..

Stvarna institucija. Dokument i realizam

Regardless of the fact that I am using certain texts by Searle, Fer- raris, Smith and De Soto, my intention is not at all to reiterate someone else’s position in my own words, nor is it to question or modify some such position. My intention for now is to, using Ferraris’ theory of the document, affirm the existence of a paradox - one rejected by Searle, but unconvincingly so, I think - regarding the institution (or the institutionalization of the institution). In order to do that, it seems to me that I am forced to slightly disturb both Searle’s and Ferraris’ conception, in attempting to offer my own contribution to a new future theory of the institution