Measuring research impact: A first approximation of the achievements of the iSchools in ISI's information and library science category ??? An exploratory study

In this paper, we analyze those publications of the home institutes of the iSchools that are indexed by Thomson Reuters (ISI) Web of Science in the information science and library science category, and were published between 2000 and 2009

Comparing Typical Opening Move Choices Made by Humans and Chess Engines

The opening book is an important component of a chess engine, and thus computer chess programmers have been developing automated methods to improve the quality of their books. For chess, which has a very rich opening theory, large databases of high-quality games can be used as the basis of an opening book, from which statistics relating to move choices from given positions can be collected. In order to find out whether the opening books used by modern chess engines in machine versus machine competitions are ``comparable'' to those used by chess players in human versus human competitions, we carried out analysis on 26 test positions using statistics from two opening books one compiled from humans' games and the other from machines' games. Our analysis using several nonparametric measures, shows that, overall, there is a strong association between humans' and machines' choices of opening moves when using a book to guide their choices.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, 6 table

Demand for Cash with Intra-Period Endogenous Consumption

We study the demand for money when agents can optimally choose mean rates of consumption and cash holdings over a period. Consistent with empirical evidence, we find that agents do not smooth intra-period consumption. Instead, their rate of consumption is positively correlated with their cash position. This positive correlation depends on the volatility of the consumption process. When volatility is very low or very high, agents choose to consume at a relatively high rate immediately after a cash withdrawal, drawing down quite rapidly their cash balances. Later in the period, their rate of consumption and cash depletion is more restrained. This sizeable deviation from consumption smoothing is much less pronounced when volatility is moderate.money demand; consumption smoothing; drift control

Job search by employed workers : the effects of restrictions

Within the framework of a general equilibrium search model, the authors study the effect of institutional restrictions on workers'job mobility. The model generates endogenuous job searches on the job and off the job with two forms of labor contracts emerging and coexisting in equilibrium. One form of contract involves the workers'long-term commitment to the firm ("reversed tenure"): some firms offer high wages in return for their workers'commitment not to search for better jobs. The other is a short-term contract requiring no such commitment: some firms that cannot afford to pay wages that guarantee lifetime attachment pay lower wages, have lower turn-over costs, but impose no restrictions on searches for better jobs. The authors study the effects on employment of exogenous restrictions on mobility - in the form of a transfer from the quitting worker, made either to the employer or to a third party. These transfers, the separation bonds, are typically the benefits lost by the quitting worker, such as vested pension. Restrictions of this type, by crowding out the firms that allow on-the-job searches for employment directly increase unemployment. When restrictions on workers'mobility take the form of a zero-sum transfer, there is no real effect so long as the transfer is below some bound - the worker loses nothing. When the separation bond is prohibitively large, or when it is forfeited to a third party, employment among all types of workers falls.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Markets

The Response to Fines and Probability of Detection in a Series of Experiments

We use traffic data from a series of experiments in the United States and Israel to examine how illegal behavior is deterred by various penalty schemes and whether deterrence varies with age, income, driving record and criminal record. We find that red light running decreases sharply in response to an increase in the fine or an increase in the probability of being caught. The elasticity of violations with respect to the fine is larger for younger drivers and drivers with older cars. Drivers convicted of violent offenses or property offenses run more red lights on average but have the same elasticity as drivers without a criminal record. Within Israel, members of ethnic minority groups have the smallest elasticity with respect to a fine increase.

A bibliometric index based on the complete list of cited Publications

We propose a new index, the j-index, which is defined for an author as the sum of the square roots of the numbers of citations to each of the author’s publications. The idea behind the j-index it to remedy a drawback of the h-index - that the h-index does not take into account the full citation record of a researcher. The square root function is motivated by our desire to avoid the possible bias that may occur with a simple sum when an author has several very highly cited papers. We compare the j-index to the h-index, the g-index and the total citation count for three subject areas using several association measures. Our results indicate that that the association between the j-index and the other indices varies according to the subject area. One explanation of this variation may be due to the proportion of citations to publications of the researcher that are in the h-core. The j-index is not an h-index variant, and as such is intended to complement rather than necessarily replace the h-index and other bibliometric indicators, thus providing a more complete picture of a researcher’s achievements

The Life-Cycle Permanent-Income Model and Consumer Durables

This paper presents an extension of the life-cycle permanent-income model of consumption to the case of a durable good whose purchase involves lumpy trans- actions costs. Where individual behavior is concerned, the implications of the model are different in some respects from those of standard consumption theory. Specifically, rather than choose an optimal path for the service flow from durables, the optimizing consumer will choose an optimal range and try to keep his service flow inside that range. The dynamics implied by this behavior is different from that of the stock adjustment model. Properties of aggregate durables consumption are derived by explicit aggregation. In particular, it is shown that expenditures on durables display very large short-run elasticity to changes in permanent income. Empirical tests of the sort suggested by Hall (1978) generally produce results that are in line with the predictions of the theory.

A scientometric look at scholory cooperation between Europe and Israel. An explorative study of a changing landscape.

Cooperation; Studies;

Measuring impact of academic research in computer and information science on society

Academic research in computer & information science (CIS) has contributed immensely to all aspects of society. As academic research today is substantially supported by various government sources, recent political changes have created ambivalence amongst academics about the future of research funding. With uncertainty looming, it is important to develop a framework to extract and measure the information relating to impact of CIS research on society to justify public funding, and demonstrate the actual contribution and impact of CIS research outside academia. A new method combining discourse analysis and text mining of a collection of over 1000 pages of impact case study documents written in free-text format for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 was developed in order to identify the most commonly used categories or headings for reporting impact of CIS research by UK Universities (UKU). According to the research reported in REF2014, UKU acquired 83 patents in various areas of CIS, created 64 spin-offs, generated £857.5 million in different financial forms, created substantial employment, reached over 6 billion users worldwide and has helped save over £1 billion Pounds due to improved processes etc. to various sectors internationally, between 2008 and 2013