Benchmark revisions and the U.S. personal saving rate.

Initially published estimates of the personal saving rate from 1965 Q3 to 1999 Q2, which averaged 5.3 percent, have been revised up 2.8 percentage points to 8.1 percent, as we document. We show that much of the initial variation in the personal saving rate across time was meaningless noise. Nominal disposable personal income has been revised upward an average of 8.4 percent: one dollar in 12 was originally missing! We use both conventional and real-time estimates of the personal saving rate to forecast real disposable income, gross domestic product, and personal consumption and show that the personal saving rate in real-time almost invariably makes forecasts worse. Thus, while the personal saving rate may have some forecasting power once we know the true saving rate, as Campbell (1987) and Ireland (1995) have argued, as a practical matter it is useless to forecasters.Saving and investment

Bench Mark Revisions and the U.S. Personal Saving Rate

Initially published estimates of the personal saving rate from 1965 Q3 to 1999 Q2, which averaged 5.3 percent, have been revised up 2.8 percentage points to 8.1 percent, as we document. We show that much of the initial variations in personal saving rate across time was pure noise. Nominal disposable personal income has been revised upward an average of 8.3 percent: one dollar in twelve was originally missing. We use both conventional and real-time estimates of the personal saving rate to forecast real disposable income, gross domestic product, and personal consumption and show that using the personal saving rate in real-time would have almost invariably made forecasts worse. Thus while the personal saving rate may contain information about later consumption once we know the true saving rate, as Campbell (1987) and Ireland(1995) have shown, as a practical matter, noise in the U.S. personal saving rate makes it uninformative for forecasting purposesPermanent Income, Saving, Real-time data

Mismeasured personal saving and the permanent income hypothesis

Is it possible to forecast using poorly measured data? According to the permanent income hypothesis, a low personal saving rate should predict rising future income (Campbell, 1987). However, the U.S. personal saving rate is initially poorly measured and has been repeatedly revised upward in benchmark revisions. The authors use both conventional and real-time estimates of the personal saving rate in vector autoregressions to forecast real disposable income; using the level of the personal saving rate in real time would have almost invariably made forecasts worse, but first differences of the personal saving rate are predictive. They also test the lay hypothesis that a low personal saving rate has implications for consumption growth and find no evidence of forecasting ability.

Investigation of the Damping of Liquids in Right-Circular Cylindrical Tanks, Including the Effects of a Time-Variant Liquid Depth

An experimental investigation was conducted to determine the effects of several basic variables upon the damping of the fundamental antisymmetric mode of liquids in right-circular cylindrical tanks without baffles. The variables examined include liquid depth, efflux rate, liquid amplitude, kinematic viscosity, and tank size. The data are presented in dimensionless form and compared with available theory. For the range of variables examined, variations of efflux rate and liquid amplitude were found to have no significant effects on the liquid damping. The following theoretical relationship was found to be adequate for the prediction of the variation of damping with liquid depth, kinematic viscosity, and tank size: [for equation see full text] where v is the kinematic viscosity, R is the cylinder radius, g is the acceleration due to gravity, and h is the liquid depth. However, the constant K was experimentally found in this investigation to have the value 5.23, which is 50 percent higher than the theoretically predicted value

Risk Adjustment and Reinsurance: A Work Plan for State Officials

Outlines the decisions and actions states need to take to implement the risk adjustment and reinsurance provisions of the 2010 health reform law, including risk adjustment model, reinsurance parameters, stakeholder engagement, and program administration

Radioisotope Power: A Key Technology for Deep Space Exploration

A Radioisotope Power System (RPS) generates power by converting the heat released from the nuclear decay of radioactive isotopes, such as Plutonium-238 (Pu-238), into electricity. First used in space by the U.S. in 1961, these devices have enabled some of the most challenging and exciting space missions in history, including the Pioneer and Voyager probes to the outer solar system; the Apollo lunar surface experiments; the Viking landers; the Ulysses polar orbital mission about the Sun; the Galileo mission to Jupiter; the Cassini mission orbiting Saturn; and the recently launched New Horizons mission to Pluto. Radioisotopes have also served as a versatile heat source for moderating equipment thermal environments on these and many other missions, including the Mars exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The key advantage of RPS is its ability to operate continuously, independent of orientation and distance relative to the Sun. Radioisotope systems are long-lived, rugged, compact, highly reliable, and relatively insensitive to radiation and other environmental effects. As such, they are ideally suited for missions involving long-lived, autonomous operations in the extreme conditions of space and other planetary bodies. This paper reviews the history of RPS for the U.S. space program. It also describes current development of a new Stirling cycle-based generator that will greatly expand the application of nuclear-powered missions in the future

Baselines for Identifying Watermarked Large Language Models

We consider the emerging problem of identifying the presence and use of watermarking schemes in widely used, publicly hosted, closed source large language models (LLMs). We introduce a suite of baseline algorithms for identifying watermarks in LLMs that rely on analyzing distributions of output tokens and logits generated by watermarked and unmarked LLMs. Notably, watermarked LLMs tend to produce distributions that diverge qualitatively and identifiably from standard models. Furthermore, we investigate the identifiability of watermarks at varying strengths and consider the tradeoffs of each of our identification mechanisms with respect to watermarking scenario. Along the way, we formalize the specific problem of identifying watermarks in LLMs, as well as LLM watermarks and watermark detection in general, providing a framework and foundations for studying them

Learning the Wrong Lessons: Inserting Trojans During Knowledge Distillation

In recent years, knowledge distillation has become a cornerstone of efficiently deployed machine learning, with labs and industries using knowledge distillation to train models that are inexpensive and resource-optimized. Trojan attacks have contemporaneously gained significant prominence, revealing fundamental vulnerabilities in deep learning models. Given the widespread use of knowledge distillation, in this work we seek to exploit the unlabelled data knowledge distillation process to embed Trojans in a student model without introducing conspicuous behavior in the teacher. We ultimately devise a Trojan attack that effectively reduces student accuracy, does not alter teacher performance, and is efficiently constructible in practice.Comment: ICLR 2023 Workshop on Backdoor Attacks and Defenses in Machine Learnin

Ranging behaviour of commercial free-range laying hens

Simple Summary: Commercial free-range production has become a significant sector of the fresh egg market due to legislation banning conventional cages and consumer preference for products perceived as welfare friendly, as access to outdoor range can lead to welfare benefits such as greater freedom of movement and enhanced behavioural opportunities. This study investigated dispersal patterns, feather condition and activity of laying hens in three distinct zones of the range area; the apron area near shed; enriched zone 10–50 m from shed; and outer range beyond 50 m, in six flocks of laying hens under commercial free-range conditions varying in size between 4000 and 24,000 hens. Each flock was visited for four days to record number of hens in each zone, their behaviour, feather condition and nearest neighbour distances (NND), as well as record temperature and relative humidity during the visit. Temperature and relative humidity varied across the study period in line with seasonal variations and influenced the use of range with fewer hens out of shed as temperature fell or relative humidity rose. On average, 12.5% of the hens were observed on the range and most of these hens were recorded in the apron zone as hen density decreased rapidly with increasing distance from the shed. Larger flocks appeared to have a lower proportion of hens on range. The hens used the range more in the early morning followed by a progressive decrease through to early afternoon. The NND was greatest in the outer range and decreased towards the shed. Feather condition was generally good and hens observed in the outer range had the best overall feather condition. Standing, pecking, walking and foraging were the most commonly recorded behaviours and of these, standing occurred most in the apron whereas walking and foraging behaviours were recorded most in the outer range. This study supported the findings of previous studies that reported few hens in the range and greater use of areas closer to the shed in free-range flocks. This study suggests that hens in the outer range engaged more in walking and foraging activities and showed signs of better welfare than those closer to the shed. Abstract: In this study, the range use and behaviour of laying hens in commercial free-range flocks was explored. Six flocks were each visited on four separate days and data collected from their outdoor area (divided into zones based on distance from shed and available resources). These were: apron (0–10 m from shed normally without cover or other enrichments); enriched belt (10–50 m from shed where resources such as manmade cover, saplings and dust baths were provided); and outer range (beyond 50 m from shed with no cover and mainly grass pasture). Data collection consisted of counting the number of hens in each zone and recording behaviour, feather condition and nearest neighbour distance (NND) of 20 birds per zone on each visit day. In addition, we used techniques derived from ecological surveys to establish four transects perpendicular to the shed, running through the apron, enriched belt and outer range. Number of hens in each 10 m × 10 m quadrat was recorded four times per day as was the temperature and relative humidity of the outer range. On average, 12.5% of hens were found outside. Of these, 5.4% were found in the apron; 4.3% in the enriched zone; and 2.8% were in the outer range. This pattern was supported by data from quadrats, where the density of hens sharply dropped with increasing distance from shed. Animals 2016, 6, x 2 of 13 Consequently, NND was greatest in the outer range, least in the apron and intermediate in the enriched belt. Hens sampled in outer range and enriched belts had better feather condition than those from the apron. Standing, ground pecking, walking and foraging were the most commonly recorded activities with standing and pecking most likely to occur in the apron, and walking and foraging more common in the outer range. Use of the outer range declined with lower temperatures and increasing relative humidity, though use of apron and enriched belt was not affected by variation in these measures. These data support previous findings that outer range areas tend to be under-utilized in commercial free-range flocks and suggest positive relationships between range use, feather condition and increased behavioural opportunities and decline in the use of range in cold and/or damp conditions