What's beyond the human developement index?

In this note, we firstly discuss Chakravarty (2003) axiomatic foundation of the Generalized Human Development Index (GHDI) then we pro- pose a different set of axioms through which a class of Foster-Shorrocks-like Human Development Measures phases out. As we will argue, this class better deals with some recent philosofical advancements of the Capability Approach.HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX; WELL-BEING MEA- SURES; CAPABILITY APPROACH

Effect of structure on current and potential distributions in porous electrode

Porous electrodes generally contain constricted macropores and localized micropores. The effects of the macropore constrictions on the resistance of a capillary were studied and an analytical model was developed for predicting the current distribution in a constricted macropore which directly includes constriction effects and does not require an empirical tortuosity parameter. The current and concentration distributions in localized micropores were also investigated and it was shown that the microporous area is fully accessible to charge and mass transfer processes. From these analyses it was concluded that the micropores primarily affect the kinetics of the interfacial processes by contributing to the interfacial area, while the macropores impose ohmic and mass transport limitations through the volume of the porous electrode

Traditional Wisdom and Monte Carlo Tree Search Face-to-Face in the Card Game Scopone

We present the design of a competitive artificial intelligence for Scopone, a popular Italian card game. We compare rule-based players using the most established strategies (one for beginners and two for advanced players) against players using Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and Information Set Monte Carlo Tree Search (ISMCTS) with different reward functions and simulation strategies. MCTS requires complete information about the game state and thus implements a cheating player while ISMCTS can deal with incomplete information and thus implements a fair player. Our results show that, as expected, the cheating MCTS outperforms all the other strategies; ISMCTS is stronger than all the rule-based players implementing well-known and most advanced strategies and it also turns out to be a challenging opponent for human players.Comment: Preprint. Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transaction on Game

Consulting an Expert with Potentially Conflicting Preferences.

In this paper, two modes of non-binding communication between an expert and a decision- maker are compared. They are distinguished mainly by the nature of the information transmitted by the expert. In the first one, the expert reports only his opinion (soft information) concerning the desirability of a certain action, whereas in the second one, he is consulted to provide evidence (hard information) to convince the decision-maker. The expert's ability to provide evidence increases with the precision of his information. The paper shows that requiring evidence is always beneficial to the decision-maker whereas it is bene�cial to the expert if and only if the preferences of both agents are different enough.

Capital Malleability and the Macroeconomic Costs of Climate Policy

This paper argues for introducing the role of capital malleability into the analysis of environmental policies. The issue is explored by means of a theoretical model, a numerical analysis and a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Considering the three approaches together is fundamental in obtaining theory-compatible policy-relevant results. The model outcomes reveal differences between results under separate assumptions regarding the malleability of capital. When capital is imperfectly malleable a carbon policy is less effective than under the assumption of perfect malleability of capital. Therefore, it is important that, especially for the analysis of short-term environmental regulations, the issue of capital malleability is taken into consideration.General Equilibrium, CGE Models, Climate Change Policy