Inflationary Effect of Oil-Price Shocks in an Imperfect Market: A Partial Transmission Input-output Analysis

This paper aims to examine the impacts of oil-price shocks on China’s price levels. To that end, we develop a partial transmission input-output model that captures the uniqueness of the Chinese market. We hypothesize and simulate price control, market factors and technology substitution - the three main factors that restrict the functioning of a price pass-through mechanism during oil-price shocks. Using the models of both China and the U.S., we separate the impact of price control from those of other factors leading to China’s price stickiness under oil-price shocks. The results show a sharp contrast between China and the U.S., with price control in China significantly preventing oil-price shocks from spreading into its domestic inflation, especially in the short term. However, in order to strengthen the economy’s resilience to oil-price shocks, the paper suggests a gradual relaxing of price control in China.Oil-price Shocks, Price Transmission, Price Control, Input-output Analysis, Inflation, Industrial Structure, China, the United States

Oil price shocks and their short- and long-term effects on the Chinese economy

A considerable body of economic literature shows the adverse economic impacts of oil-price shocks for the developed economies. However, there has been a lack of empirical study of this kind on China and other developing countries. This paper attempts to fill this gap by answering how and to what extent oil-price shocks impact China’s economy, emphasizing on the price transmission mechanisms. To that end, we develop a structural vector auto-regressive model. Our results show that an oil-price increase negatively affects output and investment, but positively affects inflation rate and interest rate. However, with the differentiated price control policies for materials and intermediates on the one hand and final products on the other hand in China, the impact on real economy, represented by real output and real investment, lasts much longer than that to price/monetary variables. Our decomposition results also show that the short-term impact, namely output decrease induced by the cut of capacity-utilization rate, is greater in the first one to two years, but the portion of the long-term impact, defined as the impact realized through an investment change, increases steadily and exceeds that of short-term impact at the end of the second year. Afterwards, the long-term impact dominates, and maintains for quite some time.Structural vector auto-regressive model; Unit root test; Error-correction model; Oil-price shocks; Price transmission mechanisms; Investment; Output; Producer/consumer price index; Census X-12 approach; China

Influence of sea surface temperature on air temperature in the tropics.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-234).by Zhongxiang Wu.Ph.D

Impacts of oceanic mixed layer on hurricanes: a simulation experiment with Hurricane Sandy

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 125(11), (2020): e2019JC015851, doi:10.1029/2019JC015851.Influences of the ocean mixed layer (OML) dynamics on intensity, pathway, and landfall of October 2012 Hurricane Sandy were examined through an experiment using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The WRF model was run for two cases with or without coupling to the OML. The OML in the WRF was calculated by an oceanic mixed layer submodel. The initial conditions of the depth and mean water temperature of the OML were specified using Global‐FVCOM and Global‐HYCOM fields. The comparison results between these two cases clearly show that including the OML dynamics enhanced the contribution of vertical mixing to the air‐sea heat flux. When the hurricane moved toward the coast, the local OML rapidly deepened with an increase of storm wind. Intense vertical mixing brought cold water in the deep ocean toward the surface to produce a cold wake underneath the storm, with the lowest sea temperature at the maximum wind zone. This process led to a significant latent heat loss from the ocean within the storm and hence rapid drops of the air temperature and vapor mixing ratio above the sea surface. As a result, the storm was intensified as the central sea level pressure dropped. Improving air pressure simulation with OML tended to reduce the storm size and strengthened the storm intensity and hence provided a better simulation of hurricane pathway and landfall.This work was supported by the MIT Sea Grant College Program through grant 2017‐R/RCM‐49C and 2012‐R/RC‐127, the NSF grants OCE1459096, OCE1332207, and OCE1332666, the NOAA‐funded IOOS NERACOOS program for NECOFS with subcontract numbers NA16NOS0120023 and NERACOOS A002 and A007, and the NOAA‐CINAR Hurricane Sandy fund. The development of the Global‐FVCOM system has been supported by NSF grants OCE1603000. S. Li was supported partially by the oversea Ph.D. fellowship from the China Scholarship Council (No. 1409010025).2021-04-0

Sealing of oil-gas reservoir caprock: Destruction of shale caprock by micro-fractures

The sealing ability of caprock is affected by many factors, such as cap thickness, displacement pressure, fracture development, and lithology of caprock. Shale is one of the ideal materials for oil and gas sealing cap formation due to its low porosity and permeability. Microfractures can destroy the sealing property of shale caprock. When buried deep enough, shale will change from toughness to brittleness. In general, the greater the brittleness of shale, the more developed the fractures will be. In areas with high tectonic stress, such as the anticline axis, syncline axis and stratum dip end, the strata stress is high and concentrated, and it is easier to generate fractures. When the stress state of the caprock changes, new micro-cracks are formed or previously closed cracks are re-opened, reducing the displacement pressure of the caprock. These micro-fractures are interconnected to form microleakage spaces, which reduces the sealing capacity of the caprock

Current status and prospect of PET-related imaging radiomics in lung cancer

Lung cancer is highly aggressive, which has a high mortality rate. Major types encompass lung adenocarcinoma, lung squamous cell carcinoma, lung adenosquamous carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, and large cell carcinoma. Lung adenocarcinoma and lung squamous cell carcinoma together account for more than 80% of cases. Diverse subtypes demand distinct treatment approaches. The application of precision medicine necessitates prompt and accurate evaluation of treatment effectiveness, contributing to the improvement of treatment strategies and outcomes. Medical imaging is crucial in the diagnosis and management of lung cancer, with techniques such as fluoroscopy, computed radiography (CR), digital radiography (DR), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET)/CT, and PET/MRI being essential tools. The surge of radiomics in recent times offers fresh promise for cancer diagnosis and treatment. In particular, PET/CT and PET/MRI radiomics, extensively studied in lung cancer research, have made advancements in diagnosing the disease, evaluating metastasis, predicting molecular subtypes, and forecasting patient prognosis. While conventional imaging methods continue to play a primary role in diagnosis and assessment, PET/CT and PET/MRI radiomics simultaneously provide detailed morphological and functional information. This has significant clinical potential value, offering advantages for lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. Hence, this manuscript provides a review of the latest developments in PET-related radiomics for lung cancer

Research on system of ultra-flat carrying robot based on improved PSO algorithm

Ultra-flat carrying robots (UCR) are used to carry soft targets for functional safety road tests of intelligent driving vehicles and should have superior control performance. For the sake of analyzing and upgrading the motion control performance of the ultra-flat carrying robot, this paper develops the mathematical model of its motion control system on the basis of the test data and the system identification method. Aiming at ameliorating the defects of the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, namely, low accuracy, being susceptible to being caught in a local optimum, and slow convergence when dealing with the parameter identification problems of complex systems, this paper proposes a refined PSO algorithm with inertia weight cosine adjustment and introduction of natural selection principle (IWCNS-PSO), and verifies the superiority of the algorithm by test functions. Based on the IWCNS-PSO algorithm, the identification of transfer functions in the motion control system of the ultra-flat carrying robot was completed. In comparison with the identification results of the standard PSO and linear decreasing inertia weight (LDIW)-PSO algorithms, it indicated that the IWCNS-PSO has the optimal performance, with the number of iterations it takes to reach convergence being only 95 and the fitness value being only 0.117. The interactive simulation model was constructed in MATLAB/Simulink, and the critical proportioning method and the IWCNS-PSO algorithm were employed respectively to complete the tuning and optimization of the Proportional-Integral (PI) controller parameters. The results of simulation indicated that the PI parameters optimized by the IWCNS-PSO algorithm reduce the adjustment time to 7.99 s and the overshoot to 13.41% of the system, and the system is significantly improved with regard to the control performance, which basically meets the performance requirements of speed, stability, and accuracy for the control system. In conclusion, the IWCNS-PSO algorithm presented in this paper represents an efficient system identification method, as well as a system optimization method