Post-Socialist Culture and Entrepreneurship

In this paper it is argued that locus of control beliefs and preferences concerning state action negatively affect the formation of new firms in former socialist countries. For this purpose Kirzner's theory of costless entrepreneurship is reviewed and criticized. German reunification, in which the formerly Socialist East joined the Federal Republic of Germany, represents an intriguing natural experiment in which the formal institutional structure of one nation was almost fully transplanted into another. Traditional as well as psychological factors are examined. The results suggest that about one third of the east-west gap in new self-employment can be explained by inert informal institutions.Psychology of Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment, Transitional Economies, East Germany

Global Optimization for Value Function Approximation

Existing value function approximation methods have been successfully used in many applications, but they often lack useful a priori error bounds. We propose a new approximate bilinear programming formulation of value function approximation, which employs global optimization. The formulation provides strong a priori guarantees on both robust and expected policy loss by minimizing specific norms of the Bellman residual. Solving a bilinear program optimally is NP-hard, but this is unavoidable because the Bellman-residual minimization itself is NP-hard. We describe and analyze both optimal and approximate algorithms for solving bilinear programs. The analysis shows that this algorithm offers a convergent generalization of approximate policy iteration. We also briefly analyze the behavior of bilinear programming algorithms under incomplete samples. Finally, we demonstrate that the proposed approach can consistently minimize the Bellman residual on simple benchmark problems

Integrally regulated solar array demonstration using an Intel 8080 microprocessor

A concept for regulating the voltage of a solar array by using a microprocessor to effect discrete voltage changes was demonstrated. Eight shorting switches were employed to regulate a simulated array at set-point voltages between 10,000 and 15,000 volts. The demonstration showed that the microprocessor easily regulated the solar array output voltage independently of whether or not the switched cell groups were binary sized in voltage. In addition, the microprocessor provided logic memory capability to perform additional tasks such as locating and insolating a faulty switch

Feature Selection Using Regularization in Approximate Linear Programs for Markov Decision Processes

Approximate dynamic programming has been used successfully in a large variety of domains, but it relies on a small set of provided approximation features to calculate solutions reliably. Large and rich sets of features can cause existing algorithms to overfit because of a limited number of samples. We address this shortcoming using $L_1$ regularization in approximate linear programming. Because the proposed method can automatically select the appropriate richness of features, its performance does not degrade with an increasing number of features. These results rely on new and stronger sampling bounds for regularized approximate linear programs. We also propose a computationally efficient homotopy method. The empirical evaluation of the approach shows that the proposed method performs well on simple MDPs and standard benchmark problems.Comment: Technical report corresponding to the ICML2010 submission of the same nam

Microtectonic measurements and interpretation of the Mesozoic formations in the Villány Hills and Görcsöny-Máriakéménd Ridge, Hungary

Abstract Within the framework of a National Research Fund project, different types of scientific investigations were carried out with the aim of a comprehensive paleogeographic reconstruction of the Tisza structural unit. As part of this project microtectonic measurements in the area of the Villány Hills and Görcsöny-Máriakéménd Ridge were carried out. Several publications have already appeared concerning the structural development of the Mecsek-Villány area (Csontos and Bergerat 1988, 1993; Benkovics 1997; Csontos et al. 2002), but in these the Villány Hills and their surroundings played a secondary role compared to the Mecsek Mountains. The goal of the present study was to establish the limits of the structural phases and determine their relative and absolute ages. An important issue has been to clarify to what degree the suggested events of structural deformation could be integrated into regional geologic processes. The tectonic conditions of the area of interest were studied through description and analysis of structural elements of 12 investigated quarries within it. Calculated stress field data were also analyzed. Seven quarries in the Villány Hills, five in the Görcsöny-Máriakéménd area, the data of over 650 striae, 550 joints, various ductile deformation elements (folds, flexures) as well as stylolites, were recorded. Integrating these structural elements into the regional geologic processes was of significant importance

Transfer function determination of the primary loop of a conceptual nuclear Brayton space powerplant

Transfer functions for primary loop of conceptual nuclear Brayton space power plan