1,198 research outputs found
Post-Keynesian alternative policies to curb macroeconomic imbalances in the Euro area
In this paper we outline alternative post-Keynesian policy recommendations addressing the problems of differential inflation, divergence in competitiveness and associated current account imbalances within the Euro area. We provide a basic framework in order to systematically address the related issues making use of Anthony P. Thirlwall's (1979, 2002) model of a 'balance-of-payments-constrained growth rate' (BPCGR). Based on this framework, we outline the required stance for alternative economic policies and then we discuss the implications for alternative monetary, wage/incomes and fiscal policies in the Euro area as a whole, as well as the consequences for structural and regional policies in the Euro area periphery, in particular
Batch Reinforcement Learning on the Industrial Benchmark: First Experiences
The Particle Swarm Optimization Policy (PSO-P) has been recently introduced
and proven to produce remarkable results on interacting with academic
reinforcement learning benchmarks in an off-policy, batch-based setting. To
further investigate the properties and feasibility on real-world applications,
this paper investigates PSO-P on the so-called Industrial Benchmark (IB), a
novel reinforcement learning (RL) benchmark that aims at being realistic by
including a variety of aspects found in industrial applications, like
continuous state and action spaces, a high dimensional, partially observable
state space, delayed effects, and complex stochasticity. The experimental
results of PSO-P on IB are compared to results of closed-form control policies
derived from the model-based Recurrent Control Neural Network (RCNN) and the
model-free Neural Fitted Q-Iteration (NFQ). Experiments show that PSO-P is not
only of interest for academic benchmarks, but also for real-world industrial
applications, since it also yielded the best performing policy in our IB
setting. Compared to other well established RL techniques, PSO-P produced
outstanding results in performance and robustness, requiring only a relatively
low amount of effort in finding adequate parameters or making complex design
decisions
Implementing Scaled-Agile Frameworks at Non-Digital Born Companies - A Multiple Case Study
For traditional enterprises to harness the advantages of organizational agility, scaled-agile frameworks seem to be more appropriate to adopt agile practices at large scale. However, the adoption of agile practices often creates trade-offs between the implementation of an ideal theoretical framework and company-specific necessities. While extant research has covered the implications and challenges when adopting agile structures, our research focuses on the how and why of such trade-offs using Socio-Technical Systems Theory. Drawing on the results of an exploratory multiple case study, we reveal that companies either choose a top-down or bottom-up approach for implementation. While the first often is triggered by the need to increase customer centricity, the latter is mostly triggered by the need to increase the number of releases. Moreover, we found that the selected implementation approach has significant impact on the key design parameters for and the content of the implementation of scaled-agile frameworks
A Benchmark Environment Motivated by Industrial Control Problems
In the research area of reinforcement learning (RL), frequently novel and
promising methods are developed and introduced to the RL community. However,
although many researchers are keen to apply their methods on real-world
problems, implementing such methods in real industry environments often is a
frustrating and tedious process. Generally, academic research groups have only
limited access to real industrial data and applications. For this reason, new
methods are usually developed, evaluated and compared by using artificial
software benchmarks. On one hand, these benchmarks are designed to provide
interpretable RL training scenarios and detailed insight into the learning
process of the method on hand. On the other hand, they usually do not share
much similarity with industrial real-world applications. For this reason we
used our industry experience to design a benchmark which bridges the gap
between freely available, documented, and motivated artificial benchmarks and
properties of real industrial problems. The resulting industrial benchmark (IB)
has been made publicly available to the RL community by publishing its Java and
Python code, including an OpenAI Gym wrapper, on Github. In this paper we
motivate and describe in detail the IB's dynamics and identify prototypic
experimental settings that capture common situations in real-world industry
control problems
A Benchmark Environment Motivated by Industrial Control Problems
In the research area of reinforcement learning (RL), frequently novel and
promising methods are developed and introduced to the RL community. However,
although many researchers are keen to apply their methods on real-world
problems, implementing such methods in real industry environments often is a
frustrating and tedious process. Generally, academic research groups have only
limited access to real industrial data and applications. For this reason, new
methods are usually developed, evaluated and compared by using artificial
software benchmarks. On one hand, these benchmarks are designed to provide
interpretable RL training scenarios and detailed insight into the learning
process of the method on hand. On the other hand, they usually do not share
much similarity with industrial real-world applications. For this reason we
used our industry experience to design a benchmark which bridges the gap
between freely available, documented, and motivated artificial benchmarks and
properties of real industrial problems. The resulting industrial benchmark (IB)
has been made publicly available to the RL community by publishing its Java and
Python code, including an OpenAI Gym wrapper, on Github. In this paper we
motivate and describe in detail the IB's dynamics and identify prototypic
experimental settings that capture common situations in real-world industry
control problems
Recent developments in the characterization of superconducting films by microwaves
We describe and analyze selected surface impedance data recently obtained by
different groups on cuprate, ruthenate and diboride superconducting films on
metallic and dielectric substrates for fundamental studies and microwave
applications. The discussion includes a first review of microwave data on MgB2,
the weak-link behaviour of RABiTS-type YBa2Cu3O7-d tapes, and the observation
of a strong anomalous power-dependence of the microwave losses in MgO at low
temperatures. We demonstrate how microwave measurements can be used to
investigate electronic, magnetic, and dielectric dissipation and relaxation in
the films and substrates. The impact of such studies reaches from the
extraction of microscopic information to the engineering of materials and
further on to applications in power systems and communication technology.Comment: Invited contribution to EUCAS2001, accepted for publication in
Physica C in its present for
SUrvival Control Chart EStimation Software in R: the success package
Monitoring the quality of statistical processes has been of great importance,
mostly in industrial applications. Control charts are widely used for this
purpose, but often lack the possibility to monitor survival outcomes. Recently,
inspecting survival outcomes has become of interest, especially in medical
settings where outcomes often depend on risk factors of patients. For this
reason many new survival control charts have been devised and existing ones
have been extended to incorporate survival outcomes. The R package success
allows users to construct risk-adjusted control charts for survival data.
Functions to determine control chart parameters are included, which can be used
even without expert knowledge on the subject of control charts. The package
allows to create static as well as interactive charts, which are built using
ggplot2 (Wickham 2016) and plotly (Sievert 2020).Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, guide for the R package success, see
https://cran.r-project.org/package=succes
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