Testimony of Deputy Undersecretary Sandra Polaski, Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) before the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Committee on Ways and Means, November 17, 2009

Statement focusing on the labor component of U.S. trade preference programs. Polaski describes labor provisions\u27 role in preference programs, specifically in the achievement of development objectives. She also shares observations on the functioning of preference programs, and highlights areas where Congress should consider improving the programs

Anomalous behavior of the Pioneer Venus entry probes during lower descent

Four Pioneer Venus Probe spacecraft entered the Venusian atmosphere on December 9 1978, and descended to the surface while making in situ measurements of chemical composition, structure, and radiative balance. In the lower Venusian atmosphere, a number of anomalous events were noted in some of the scientific instruments and Probe engineering data. Many of these anomalies occurred on each of the Probes at approximately the same altitude. The anomalies are thought to be the result of some unexpected electrical interaction between the Probe and the Venusian atmosphere. This conclusion is based on analysis and testing of similar Probe hardware on the ground. However, the possibility that some anomalies were a result of latent design of manufacturing flaws cannot be ruled out

Policy dilemmas in India: The Impact of changes in agricultural prices on rural and urban poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma: a fall in agricultural prices benefits poor urban consumers but hurts poor rural producers, while a rise yields the converse. Poor countries have argued that they need to be able to use import protection and/or price support policies to protect themselves against volatility in world agricultural prices in order to dampen these effects. In this paper, we explore this dilemma in a CGE model of India that uses a new social accounting matrix (SAM) developed at the Indira Ghandi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai. The SAM includes extensive disaggregation of agricultural activities, commodity markets, labor markets, and rural and urban households. This SAM includes 115 commodities, 48 labor types and 352 types of households, (classified by social group, income class, region, and urban/rural). The CGE model based on this SAM can be used to explore the linkages between changes in world prices of agriculture and the incomes of poor rural and urban households, capturing rural-urban linkages in both commodity and factor markets. The results indicate that the inclusion of linkages between rural and urban labor markets is necessary to fully explore, and potentially eliminate, the dilemma. A fall in agricultural prices hurts agricultural producers, lowers wages and/or employment of rural labor, and in some cases spills over into urban labor markets, depressing wages and incomes of poor urban households as well. In these cases both rural and urban poverty increases. The paper explores the strength of these commodity and factor market linkages, and the potential spillover effects of policies affecting agricultural prices.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, World prices, Labour market, CGE model

We Know You Want It: Perspectives on Predictive Shopping

Predictive shopping is a branch of predictive analytics that has surfaced over the past year. It is a concept whereby companies use predictions to enroll the consumer in special programs in which they receive goods and services, and are asked to pay for them, before they have actually chosen them. This is a revolutionary concept that could potentially change the face of online shopping. Through research and analysis I explored how a sample of 125 college students at Bridgewater State University felt about predictive shopping and what place it has in society today or in the near future. Through the creation and distribution of printed surveys, based on my own inquiries along with previously examined questions done by Harvard Law professor and lead researcher Cass Sunstein, I analyzed the results of the questionnaire. I created a database of my findings, analyzed that data, and explored topics within this field to make predictions and conclusions. I determined that about 1 out of 5 college students were in favor of predictive shopping. Out of this group, fifty percent of them would be willing to enroll into predictive shopping programs that did not explicitly ask for the buyers’ consent for the product

Dynamic asset allocation using option implied distributions in an exponentially tempered stable Lévy market

Mestrado em Mathematical FinanceEste artigo explora o problema do portfólio ideal usando distribuições implícitas na opção quando o processo de preço subjacente é assumido como sendo conduzido por um processo exponencial de Levy. Em particular, a aplicação é levada a cabo usando um processo de difusão de salto Estável Exponencialmente Temperado como o componente martingale do preço das acções de log, e as preferências do investidor são assumidas sujeitas a uma função de utilidade CRRA. Densidades de um mês neutras ao risco são extraídas dos preços das opções usando um método de precificação por transformação e são subsequentemente transformadas na densidade ajustada ao risco ou no mundo real por meio de um modelo preservando a entropia mínima que mantém a parametrização do processo Levy. Um resultado de controle otimizado estocástico é então usado para construir um portfólio que consiste em um ativo de risco e sem risco, que é reequilibrado mensalmente. Descobriu-se que os portfólios formados usando as expectativas implícitas na opção sob a hipótese de mercado Levy, que são flexíveis o suficiente para capturar os momentos mais altos da distribuição implícita, são muito mais robustos aos riscos de cauda esquerda e oferecem melhorias estatisticamente significativas ao desempenho ajustado ao risco quando a aversão ao risco do investidor é baixa, porém isso diminui à medida que aumenta a aversão ao risco.This paper explores the optimal portfolio problem using option-implied distributions when the underlying price process is assumed to be driven by an exponential Levy process. In particular, the application is carried out using an Exponentially Tempered Stable jump-diffusion process as the martingale component of the log stock price, and the investor's preferences are assumed subject to a CRRA utility function. One month risk-neutral densities are extracted from option prices by using a transform pricing method and are subsequently transformed to the risk-adjusted, or real-world density via a model preserving minimal entropy transform which importantly maintains the parameterization of the Levy process. A stochastic optimal control result is then used to construct a portfolio consisting of a risky and risk-free asset which is rebalanced on a monthly basis. It is found that the portfolios formed using option-implied expectations under the Levy market assumption, which are flexible enough to capture the higher moments of the implied distribution, are far more robust to left-tail market risks and offer statistically significant improvements to risk-adjusted performance when investor risk aversion is low, however this diminishes as risk aversion increases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Labor Relations Law in North America

[Excerpt] In establishing their Agreement on Labor Cooperation as a complement to the North American Free Trade Agreement, the governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico accepted the fact that each nation had evolved a different system of labor law and administration. They agreed that those systems should continue to evolve independently within each sovereign jurisdiction. But they also recognized the extremely important fact that these three systems were based on underlying principles which were held in common and which could be articulated. These are the 11 Labor Principles of the NAALC. Each principle defines a sector of labor law, which is given concrete expression by the statutes and jurisprudence of the different jurisdictions. The parties to the NAALC undertake solemn obligations to ensure that their laws in these sectors are effectively enforced. Thus all competitors in the North American Free Trade area will operate under the law in regard to labor matters, administered openly and consistently. Such is a major objective of the NAALC. The objective of this publication by the Commission for Labor Cooperation is to enable the public at large in North America, and not just specialists in comparative labor law, to know simply and clearly what those different labor law regimes are and how they are administered. The NAALC relies primarily on the public to draw attention to any deficiencies which may occur in regard to labor law administration. It is thus imperative that the public have ready access to the content of the laws and how they are meant to apply, organized following the schema of the NAALC

Noise.

My research is in the realm of the psychological, the emotional and way these drives manifest physically. The works in Noise. aims to give a physical representation to the non-physical. Research on Affect Theory and the teachings of Silvan Tomkins were paramount to understanding emotional drives and the ways in which they manifest. The purpose of this research is to understand how emotions are generated and communicated and to ask if specific emotions can be generated upon viewing inanimate objects. I create abstract figurative sculpture, which imitate emotion that has no specific physicality. These works exist with one foot in abstraction and the other in allusion. The work attempts to synthesize what emotions are and how they affect us on a physiological level and to give these emotions form. I take cues from body language and facial expression