Financial Openness and Employment: The Need for Coherent International and National Policies.

Abstract: External financial liberalization has led to a surge in international capital flows since the early 1990s. While the direct growth benefits of financial openness are unclear, it has led developing countries to engage in costly reserve accumulation on an unprecedented scale. Although this offers some protection against financial crises, many developing countries have nonetheless experienced greater economic volatility and full-scale financial crises since the early 1990s. These crises have had a considerable impact on GDP and long-term growth prospects, but it appears that labour has suffered disproportionately as labour market indicators typically lack economic recovery. Furthermore, the labour share in national income is typically eroded during a financial crisis. The present paper, therefore, draws the conclusion that volatility in international financial markets is currently perhaps one of the most harmful factors for enterprises and labour in developing countries. Hence, the paper suggests how greater policy coherency between international and national financial, economic and employment policies can give greater attention to employment and income

MetaGrad: Adaptation using Multiple Learning Rates in Online Learning

We provide a new adaptive method for online convex optimization, MetaGrad, that is robust to general convex losses but achieves faster rates for a broad class of special functions, including exp-concave and strongly convex functions, but also various types of stochastic and non-stochastic functions without any curvature. We prove this by drawing a connection to the Bernstein condition, which is known to imply fast rates in offline statistical learning. MetaGrad further adapts automatically to the size of the gradients. Its main feature is that it simultaneously considers multiple learning rates, which are weighted directly proportional to their empirical performance on the data using a new meta-algorithm. We provide three versions of MetaGrad. The full matrix version maintains a full covariance matrix and is applicable to learning tasks for which we can afford update time quadratic in the dimension. The other two versions provide speed-ups for high-dimensional learning tasks with an update time that is linear in the dimension: one is based on sketching, the other on running a separate copy of the basic algorithm per coordinate. We evaluate all versions of MetaGrad on benchmark online classification and regression tasks, on which they consistently outperform both online gradient descent and AdaGrad

Use of a Crop Simulation Model to Provide Long-Term Data for Economic Analysis: the Case of Early Maturing Soybeans

A target MOTAD model is used to investigate incorporation of early maturing soybeans by a crop farm in southeastern Kansas. Weather (WGEN) and crop simulation (SOYGRO) models are used to generate a long-term series of soybean yields. Results indicate that early maturing soybeans offer a risk-reducing diversification strategy.Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

Pricing in the hotel and catering sector

A model explaining gross margins in the hotel and catering sector is developed. A cost-mark-up model for the retail sector is used as a starting point. Although we have to reject the hypothesis of mark-up pricing in the hotel and catering sector, the model proves a useful instrument to discriminate between such influences as sales composition, costs and their various components, scale and demand conditions on price setting. Our empirical evidence stems from the Dutch hotel and catering sector (1977 through 1981)

Bench-to-bedside review: Hypercapnic acidosis in lung injury - from 'permissive' to 'therapeutic'

Modern ventilation strategies for patients with acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome frequently result in hypercapnic acidosis (HCA), which is regarded as an acceptable side effect ('permissive hypercapnia'). Multiple experimental studies have demonstrated advantageous effects of HCA in several lung injury models. To date, however, human trials studying the effect of carbon dioxide per se on outcome in patients with lung injury have not been performed. While significant concerns regarding HCA remain, in particular the possible unfavorable effects on bacterial killing and the inhibition of pulmonary epithelial wound repair, the potential for HCA in attenuating lung injury is promising. The underlying mechanisms by which HCA exerts its protective effects are complex, but dampening of the inflammatory response seems to play a pivotal role. After briefly summarizing the physiological effects of HCA, a critical analysis of the available evidence on the potential beneficial effects of therapeutic HCA from in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo lung injury models and from human studies will be reviewed. In addition, the potential concerns in the clinical setting will be outlined

Application Of A Heat Barrier Sleeve To Prevent Synchronous Rotor Instability.

LecturePg. 17-26This paper explains how synchronous rotor instability can occur in high speed turbomachinery due to differential heating of bearing journals. Theoretical investigations have indicated that rotors supported by fluid-film bearings inherently exhibit a nonuniform temperature distribution around the bearing journal circumference (Keogh and Morton, 1993, 1994). This thermal effect results in rotor bending, which in combination with an overhung mass, such as couplings and overhung impellers, can significantly increase rotor unbalance and thus, synchronous rotor vibration. Under certain conditions, it can even lead to synchronous rotor instability. In this paper, a case history on synchronous rotor instability is presented, concerning two pipeline compressors for a natural gas application. The compressors successfully passed an API 617 mechanical running test in the manufacturer's workshop. However, installed at site, the rotor behavior of these machines was completely unstable. The vibration analysis indicated that the cause of the instability was likely to be thermal in origin. However, ordinary labyrinth seal rubbing could be excluded. One of the compressor cartridges was returned to the manufacturer's workshop for a detailed examination and an extensive test program. It appeared that rotor instability was caused by differential heating of the impeller-end bearing journal, which could not be reduced by modification of the bearing parameters. Eventually, a heat barrier sleeve was designed to prevent thermal bending of the rotor at this location. Additional testing confirmed the expected effect and, after installation in the field, the unstable behavior of both machines was completely eliminated