How Effective is China’s Monetary Policy? An assessment of the link between the growth of monetary aggregates and inflation during the 2000s

The effectiveness of China’s monetary policy hinges on the existence of a robust link between the growth of monetary aggregates and inflation. This paper considers this link during the 2000s using Structural VAR models and simulated out-of-sample forecasting techniques. The results indicate that the link is far from robust. Such findings serve to underscore the importance of institutional reforms that will enable interest rates to play a more prominent role as an instrument of monetary policy.

Orbital transfer vehicle concept definition and system analysis study, 1985. Volume 3: System and program trades

The key system and program trade studies performed to arrive at a preferred Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) system concept and evolutionary approach to the acquisition of the requisite capabilites is documented. These efforts were expanded to encompass a Space Transportation Architecture Study (STAS) mission model and recommended unmanned cargo vehicle. The most important factors affecting the results presented are the mission model requirements and selection criteria. The reason for conducting the OTV concept definition and system analyses study is to select a concept and acquisition approach that meets a delivery requirement reflected by the mission model

Improving responsiveness of Android activity navigation via genetic improvement

Responsiveness issues are one of the key reasons why mobile phone users abandon an app or leave bad reviews. In this work, we explore the use of Genetic Improvement to automatically refactor applications to reduce the time taken to move between and within Android activities, without affecting their functionality. This particular Android responsiveness issue has not previously been tackled before. With its application directly to source code, our approach can be used to complement previous work, which modifies the operating system, or focuses on detection of specific coding patterns. We present a fully automated technique for finding improvements to this responsiveness, which does not require the use of an Android device or emulator. We apply our approach to 7 real-world open source applications and find improvements of up to 30% in navigation response time

Multi-Objective Improvement of Android Applications

Non-functional properties, such as runtime or memory use, are important to mobile app users and developers, as they affect user experience. Previous work on automated improvement of non-functional properties in mobile apps failed to address the inherent trade-offs between such properties. We propose a practical approach and the first open-source tool, GIDroid (2023), for multi-objective automated improvement of Android apps. In particular, we use Genetic improvement, a search-based technique that navigates the space of software variants to find improved software. We use a simulation-based testing framework to greatly improve the speed of search. GIDroid contains three state-of-the-art multi-objective algorithms, and two new mutation operators, which cache the results of method calls. Genetic improvement relies on testing to validate patches. Previous work showed that tests in open-source Android applications are scarce. We thus wrote tests for 21 versions of 7 Android apps, creating a new benchmark for performance improvements. We used GIDroid to improve versions of mobile apps where developers had previously found improvements to runtime, memory, and bandwidth use. Our technique automatically re-discovers 64% of existing improvements. We then applied our approach to current versions of software in which there were no known improvements. We were able to improve execution time by up to 35%, and memory use by up to 33% in these apps.Comment: 32 pages, 8 Figure

Magnetic Monopoles in String Theory

Magnetic monopole solutions to heterotic string theory are discussed in toroidal compactifications to four spacetime dimensions. Particular emphasis is placed on the relation to previously studied fivebrane solutions in ten dimensions and on the possibility of constructing exact monopole solutions related to symmetric fivebranes.Comment: 24 pages (Corrected title

Orbital transfer vehicle concept definition and system analysis study, 1985. Volume 5: Work breakdown structure and dictionary

To establish consistency and visibility within the Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) program, a preliminary work breakdown structure (WBS) and dictionary were developed. The dictionary contains definitions of terms to be used in conjunction with the WBS so that a clear understanding of the content of the hardware, function, and cost elements may be established. The OTV WBS matrix is a two-dimensional structure which shows the interrelationship of these dimensions: the hardware elements dimension and the phase and function dimension. The dimension of time cannot be shown graphically, but must be considered. Each cost entry varies with time so that it is necessary to know these cost values by year for budget planning and approval as well as for establishing cost streams for discounting purposes in the economic analysis. While a multiple dimensional approach may at first appear complex, it actually provides benefits which outweigh any concern. This structural interrelationship provides the capability to view and analyze the OTV costs from a number of different financial and management aspects. Cost may be summed by hardware groupings, phases, or functions. The WBS may be used in a number of dimensional or single listing format applications

How Do Android Developers Improve Non-Functional Properties of Software?

Nowadays there is an increased pressure on mobile app developers to take non-functional properties into account. An app that is too slow or uses much bandwidth will decrease user satisfaction, and thus can lead to users simply abandoning the app. Although automated software improvement techniques exist for traditional software, these are not as prevalent in the mobile domain. Moreover, it is yet unknown if the same software changes would be as effective. With that in mind, we mined overall 100 Android repositories to find out how developers improve execution time, memory consumption, bandwidth usage and frame rate of mobile apps. We categorised non-functional property (NFP) improving commits related to performance to see how existing automated software improvement techniques can be improved. Our results show that although NFP improving commits related to performance are rare, such improvements appear throughout the development lifecycle. We found altogether 560 NFP commits out of a total of 74,408 commits analysed. Memory consumption is sacrificed most often when improving execution time or bandwidth usage, although similar types of changes can improve multiple non-functional properties at once. Code deletion is the most frequently utilised strategy except for frame rate, where increase in concurrency is the dominant strategy. We find that automated software improvement techniques for mobile domain can benefit from addition of SQL query improvement, caching and asset manipulation. Moreover, we provide a classifier which can drastically reduce manual effort to analyse NFP improving commits

Born-Regulated Gravity in Four Dimensions

Previous work involving Born-regulated gravity theories in two dimensions is extended to four dimensions. The action we consider has two dimensionful parameters. Black hole solutions are studied for typical values of these parameters. For masses above a critical value determined in terms of these parameters, the event horizon persists. For masses below this critical value, the event horizon disappears, leaving a ``bare mass'', though of course no singularity.Comment: LaTeX, 15 pages, 2 figure

POVERTY AND TIME: PERSPECTIVES ON THE DYNAMICS OF POVERTY. General Research Series Paper No. 166, December 1994

The ESRI’s 1987 Survey of Income Distribution, Poverty and Use of State Services has served as the basis for a lengthy series of studies of poverty and related topics in Ireland. The present study extends that research by exploiting the wealth of data in the survey), which can throw light on the dynamics of resources, income and poverty. To understand why some people are trapped in poverty while others escape from it, why low income has a much more immediate impact on living standards for some households than others, and why some people are at much higher risk of poverty than others, one needs to look at socio-economic background, acquisition of education and skills, labour market experiences, and the build-up of savings versus debts over a long period. By doing so, our understanding of poverty and how best to design anti-poverty policy is significantly enhanced