Why Do Wage Profiles Slope Upwards? Tests of the General Human Capital Model

This paper tests some empirical implications of the general human capital model's explanation of rising wage profiles. At the individual level, the model implies that there will be a negative relationship between the initial wage level and wage growth of young, inexperienced workers. At the market level, the model implies that the present value of the wage profile of an investor equals that of an otherwise identical non-investor, or that the ratio of the present values equals one. We test both of these hypotheses. Evidence on the wage level-wage growth tradeoff points to a negative relationship between initial wage levels and wage growth, even after correcting for negative biases that may have influenced existing estimates of this relationship. Evidence on present values of wage profiles suggests that the ratio of the present value of rising wage profiles to flat wage profiles is quite close to one. Alternative estimates of this ratio are tightly clustered around one, and more often than not are insignificantly different from one. Overall, then, the evidence is largely consistent with the general human capital model.

Efficient high-resolution video compression scheme using background and foreground layers

Video coding using dynamic background frame achieves better compression compared to the traditional techniques by encoding background and foreground separately. This process reduces coding bits for the overall frame significantly; however, encoding background still requires many bits that can be compressed further for achieving better coding efficiency. The cuboid coding framework has been proven to be one of the most effective methods of image compression which exploits homogeneous pixel correlation within a frame and has better alignment with object boundary compared to traditional block-based coding. In a video sequence, the cuboid-based frame partitioning varies with the changes of the foreground. However, since the background remains static for a group of pictures, the cuboid coding exploits better spatial pixel homogeneity. In this work, the impact of cuboid coding on the background frame for high-resolution videos (Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) and 360-degree videos) is investigated using the multilayer framework of SHVC. After the cuboid partitioning, the method of coarse frame generation has been improved with a novel idea by keeping human-visual sensitive information. Unlike the traditional SHVC scheme, in the proposed method, cuboid coded background and the foreground are encoded in separate layers in an implicit manner. Simulation results show that the proposed video coding method achieves an average BD-Rate reduction of 26.69% and BD-PSNR gain of 1.51 dB against SHVC with significant encoding time reduction for both UHD and 360 videos. It also achieves an average of 13.88% BD-Rate reduction and 0.78 dB BD-PSNR gain compared to the existing relevant method proposed by X. Hoang Van. © 2013 IEEE

Human-Machine Collaborative Video Coding Through Cuboidal Partitioning

Video coding algorithms encode and decode an entire video frame while feature coding techniques only preserve and communicate the most critical information needed for a given application. This is because video coding targets human perception, while feature coding aims for machine vision tasks. Recently, attempts are being made to bridge the gap between these two domains. In this work, we propose a video coding framework by leveraging on to the commonality that exists between human vision and machine vision applications using cuboids. This is because cuboids, estimated rectangular regions over a video frame, are computationally efficient, has a compact representation and object centric. Such properties are already shown to add value to traditional video coding systems. Herein cuboidal feature descriptors are extracted from the current frame and then employed for accomplishing a machine vision task in the form of object detection. Experimental results show that a trained classifier yields superior average precision when equipped with cuboidal features oriented representation of the current test frame. Additionally, this representation costs 7% less in bit rate if the captured frames are need be communicated to a receiver

A coarse representation of frames oriented video coding by leveraging cuboidal partitioning of image data

Video coding algorithms attempt to minimize the significant commonality that exists within a video sequence. Each new video coding standard contains tools that can perform this task more efficiently compared to its predecessors. In this work, we form a coarse representation of the current frame by minimizing commonality within that frame while preserving important structural properties of the frame. The building blocks of this coarse representation are rectangular regions called cuboids, which are computationally simple and has a compact description. Then we propose to employ the coarse frame as an additional source for predictive coding of the current frame. Experimental results show an improvement in bit rate savings over a reference codec for HEVC, with minor increase in the codec computational complexity. © 2020 IEEE

Generating continuous variable quantum codewords in the near-field atomic lithography

Recently, D. Gottesman et al. [Phys. Rev. A 64, 012310 (2001)] showed how to encode a qubit into a continuous variable quantum system. This encoding was realized by using non-normalizable quantum codewords, which therefore can only be approximated in any real physical setup. Here we show how a neutral atom, falling through an optical cavity and interacting with a single mode of the intracavity electromagnetic field, can be used to safely encode a qubit into its external degrees of freedom. In fact, the localization induced by a homodyne detection of the cavity field is able to project the near-field atomic motional state into an approximate quantum codeword. The performance of this encoding process is then analyzed by evaluating the intrinsic errors induced in the recovery process by the approximated form of the generated codeword.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Experimental test of modular noise propagation theory for quantum optics

We present and test against experiment a general technique that allows modular modeling of noise propagation in quantum optics experiments. Specifically, we consider a multielement frequency-doubling experiment that ultimately produces 1.7 dB/32% (3.0 dB/50% inferred) squeezing at 532 nm. Unlike previous theoretical treatments, we obtain completely analytical expressions for each element of the experiment. This allows intuitive analysis and straightforward experimental modeling. The exact role of driving noise is demonstrated: addition of a narrow linewidth mode cleaning cavity to reduce the driving noise improves the inferred squeezing from 0.75 to 3.0 dB. We find excellent agreement between the modular theory and experiment