A Theoretical Model of Barter in Russia

This paper develops a general equilibrium model and proposes a theory to explain the main stylized facts about the growth of barter transactions in Russia during the 1990s. Because of the high opportunity cost of using fiat money, with a tight enough credit market it may be optimal for firms to barter if they have access to that transaction technology, yet the riskiest firm will keep using money. We also claim that, in the short run, Russian managers might avoid restructuring because it jeopardizes their access to alternative transaction technologies, and that this phenomenon might also take place in well-developed market economies.Barter; money; payment system; interest rate

Brand personality: theory and dimensionality

Purpose: This paper aims to critique human personality as a theory underpinning brand personality and to propose instead a theory from human perception, and by doing so, to identify universally relevant dimensions. Design/methodology/approach: A review of published measures of brand personality, a re-analysis of two existing data bases and the analysis of one new database are used to argue and test for the dimensions derived from perception theory. Findings: Existing work on brand personality suggests 16 separate dimensions for the construct, but some appear common to most measures. When non-orthogonal rotation is used to re-analyse existing trait data on brand personality, three dimensions derived from signalling and associated theory can emerge: sincerity (e.g. warm, friendly and agreeable), competence (e.g. competent, effective and efficient) and status (e.g. prestigious, elegant and sophisticated). The first two are common to most measures, status is not. Research limitations/implications: Three dimensions derived from signalling and associated theory are proposed as generic, relevant to all contexts and cultures. They can be supplemented by context specific dimensions. Practical implications: Measures of these three dimensions should be included in all measures of brand personality. Originality/value: Prior work on brand personality has focussed on identifying apparently new dimensions for the construct. While most work is not theoretically based, some have argued for the relevance of human personality. That model is challenged, and an alternative approach to both theory and analysis is proposed and successfully tested

A Secured Technique for Transmission of an image/ video Via Mosaic image/video Creation.

A new secured image/video transmission technique is proposed in paper. Here video is considered as a sequence of frames. The secret image is automatically transformed into a secret-fragment visible mosaic image. This image looks similar to a randomly selected target image. The target image is used to cover or hide the secret image. Also relevant information for reconstructing the secret image is embedded on the mosaic image by a loss less data hiding scheme using a key. The secret image is divided into cells and the color characteristics of each cell are transformed to that of the divided target blocks. In order to reconstruct the secret image losslessly skilful techniques are designed to conduct the color transformation process. Good experimental results and high signal to noise ratio shows the feasibility of the new technique for both image and video

Case-base maintenance with multi-objective evolutionary algorithms.

Case-Base Reasoning is a problem-solving methodology that uses old solved problems, called cases, to solve new problems. The case-base is the knowledge source where the cases are stored, and the amount of stored cases is critical to the problem-solving ability of the Case-Base Reasoning system. However, when the case-base has many cases, then performance problems arise due to the time needed to find those similar cases to the input problem. At this point, Case-Base Maintenance algorithms can be used to reduce the number of cases and maintain the accuracy of the Case-Base Reasoning system at the same time. Whereas Case-Base Maintenance algorithms typically use a particular heuristic to remove (or select) cases from the case-base, the resulting maintained case-base relies on the proportion of redundant and noisy cases that are present in the case-base, among other factors. That is, a particular Case-Base Maintenance algorithm is suitable for certain types of case-bases that share some indicators, such as redundancy and noise levels. In the present work, we consider Case-Base Maintenance as a multi-objective optimization problem, which is solved with a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm. To this end, a fitness function is introduced to measure three different objectives based on the Complexity Profile model. Our hypothesis is that the Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm performing Case-Base Maintenance may be used in a wider set of case-bases, achieving a good balance between the reduction of cases and the problem-solving ability of the Case-Based Reasoning system. Finally, from a set of the experiments, our proposed Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm performing Case-Base Maintenance shows regularly good results with different sets of case-bases with different proportion of redundant and noisy cases

How Much is Post-Acute Care Use Affected by Its Availability?

To assess the relative impact of clinical factors versus non-clinical factors such as post acute care (PAC) supply - in determining whether patients receive care from skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) or inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) after discharge from acute care. Medicare acute hospital, IRF and SNF claims provided data on PAC choices; predictors of site of PAC chosen were generated from Medicare claims, provider of services, enrollment file, and Area Resource File data. We used multinomial logit models to predict post-acute care use by elderly patients after hospitalizations for stroke, hip fractures, or lower extremity joint replacements. A file was constructed linking Medicare acute and post-acute utilization data for all sample patients hospitalized in 1999. PAC availability is a more powerful predictor of PAC use than the clinical characteristics in many of our models. The effects of distance to providers and supply of providers are particularly clear in the choice between IRF and SNF care. The farther away the nearest IRF is, and the closer the nearest SNF is, the less likely a patient is to go to an IRF. Similarly, the fewer IRFs, and the more SNFs, there are in the patient's area the less likely the patient is to go to an IRF. In addition, if the hospital from which the patient is discharged has a related IRF or a related SNF the patient is more likely to go there. We find that the availability of PAC is a major determinant of whether patients use such care and which type of PAC facility they use. Further research is needed in order to evaluate whether these findings indicate that a greater supply of PAC leads to both higher use of institutional care and better outcomes or whether it leads to unwarranted expenditures of resources and delays in returning patients to their homes.

A Briefing on Metrics and Risks for Autonomous Decision-Making in Aerospace Applications

Significant technology advances will enable future aerospace systems to safely and reliably make decisions autonomously, or without human interaction. The decision-making may result in actions that enable an aircraft or spacecraft in an off-nominal state or with slightly degraded components to achieve mission performance and safety goals while reducing or avoiding damage to the aircraft or spacecraft. Some key technology enablers for autonomous decision-making include: a continuous state awareness through the maturation of the prognostics health management field, novel sensor development, and the considerable gains made in computation power and data processing bandwidth versus system size. Sophisticated algorithms and physics based models coupled with these technological advances allow reliable assessment of a system, subsystem, or components. Decisions that balance mission objectives and constraints with remaining useful life predictions can be made autonomously to maintain safety requirements, optimal performance, and ensure mission objectives. This autonomous approach to decision-making will come with new risks and benefits, some of which will be examined in this paper. To start, an account of previous work to categorize or quantify autonomy in aerospace systems will be presented. In addition, a survey of perceived risks in autonomous decision-making in the context of piloted aircraft and remotely piloted or completely autonomous unmanned autonomous systems (UAS) will be presented based on interviews that were conducted with individuals from industry, academia, and government

The Health Effects of Medicare for the Near-Elderly Uninsured

We study how the trajectory of health for the near-elderly uninsured changes upon enrolling into Medicare at the age of 65. We find that Medicare increases the probability of the previously uninsured having excellent or very good health, decreases their probability of being in good health, and has no discernable effects at lower health levels. Surprisingly, we found Medicare had a similar effect on health for the previously insured. This suggests that Medicare helps the relatively healthy 65 year olds, but does little for those who are already in declining health once they reach the age of 65. The improvement in health between the uninsured and insured were not statistically different from each other. The stability of insurance coverage afforded by Medicare may be the source of the health benefit suggesting that universal coverage at other ages may have similar health effects.