India's demand for international reserve and monetary disequilibrium: Reserve adequacy under floating regime

The main aim of this study is to investigate India's demand for international reserve by focusing on the role of national monetary disequilibrium and to present new benchmarks for assessing the adequacy of international reserves. We assessed India's position in terms of reserve adequacy and found that India is well placed and has sufficient stock of international reserves to meet the minimum adequacy requirements. Also, the results reveal that the central bank is holding substantial excess reserves and the related opportunity cost (1.5% of GDP) appears to be quite considerable. Further, the estimates of reserve demand function suggest that scale of foreign trade, uncertainty and profitability considerations play significant role in determining India's long-term reserve demand policies. More importantly, validating the monetary approach to balance of payment, our results show that national monetary disequilibrium does play a crucial role in short-run reserve movements. An excess of money demand (supply) induces an inflow (outflow) of international reserves with an elasticity of 0.56 which also implies that Reserve Bank of India responds to correct the domestic money market disequilibrium; and did not just leave it completely on the mercy of reserve inflows.     

Rank and response: A field experiment on peer information and water use behavior

Perception of peer rank, or how we perform relative to our peers, can be a powerful motivator. While research exists on the effect of social information on decision making, there is less work on how ranked comparisons with our peers influence our behavior. This paper outlines a field experiment conducted with 3896 households in Castro Valley, California, which uses household mailers with various forms of social information and peer rank messaging to motivate water conservation. The experiment tests the effect of a visible peer rank on water use, and how the competitive framing of rank information influences behavioral response. The results show that households with relatively low or high water use in the pre-treatment period responded differently to how rank information was framed. I find that a neutrally-framed peer rank caused a small “boomerang effect” (i.e., an increase in average water use) for low water use households, but this effect was eliminated by competitive framing. At the same time, a competitively-framed peer rank demotivated high water use households, increasing their average water use over the full period of the experiment. This result is supported by evidence that the competitive frame on rank information increased water use for households who ranked “last” in the peer group – a detrimental “last place effect” from competitively-framed rankings.     

Least squares estimation of varying‐coefficient hazard regression with application to breast cancer dose‐intensity data

To enhance modeling flexibility, the authors propose a nonparametric hazard regression model, for which the ordinary and weighted least squares estimation and inference procedures are studied. The proposed model does not assume any parametric specifications on the covariate effects, which is suitable for exploring the nonlinear interactions between covariates, time and some exposure variable. The authors propose the local ordinary and weighted least squares estimators for the varying‐coefficient functions and establish the corresponding asymptotic normality properties. Simulation studies are conducted to empirically examine the finite‐sample performance of the new methods, and a real data example from a recent breast cancer study is used as an illustration. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 37: 659–674; 2009 © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Inference of non-centrality parameter of a truncated non-central chi-squared distribution

Non-central chi-squared distribution plays a vital role in statistical testing procedures. Estimation of the non-centrality parameter provides valuable information for the power calculation of the associated test. We are interested in the statistical inference property of the non-centrality parameter estimate based on one observation (usually a summary statistic) from a truncated chi-squared distribution. This work is motivated by the application of the flexible two-stage design in case–control studies, where the sample size needed for the second stage of a two-stage study can be determined adaptively by the results of the first stage. We first study the moment estimate for the truncated distribution and prove its existence, uniqueness, and inadmissibility and convergence properties. We then define a new class of estimates that includes the moment estimate as a special case. Among this class of estimates, we recommend to use one member that outperforms the moment estimate in a wide range of scenarios. We also present two methods for constructing confidence intervals. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed point and interval estimates.     

THE FAILURE TO PREDICT THE GREAT RECESSION—A VIEW THROUGH THE ROLE OF CREDIT

Much has been written about why economists failed to predict the latest crisis. Reading the literature, it seems that this crisis was so obvious that economists must have been blind not to see it coming. We approach this failure by looking at one of the key variables in this analysis, the evolution of credit. We compare the conclusions reached in the recent literature with those that could have been drawn from an ex‐ante analysis. We show that the effect of credit on the business cycle cannot be exploited from a policymaker's point of view.     

分布式室内移动机器人的定位与导航

针对当前移动机器人定位与导航成本较高的问题,提出了一种低成本、高性能的分布式导航方案。以性价比较 高的RPLIDAR激光传感器为核心,采用分布式软件的设计思想,设计了传感器的软件接口;采用DWA方法进行局部路 径规划。设计实现了移动机器人的定位与导航。实验结果表明该方案具有可行性与高效性。     

改进离散人工蜂群算法规划异形满版服饰图案切割路径

服饰图案切割路径规划是服饰图案自动切割技术的关键部分之一。文中用改进的离散人工蜂群算法实现了激 光切割系统对异形满版服饰图案的切割工艺路径规划优化。首先,把满版服饰图案激光切割路径规划转化为广义旅行 商问题求解,证明了路径规划转化成普通TSP问题比转化成第一类广义TSP问题更为有效,并给出了路径规划中“图案 始切割点”的优化选择方法。然后结合部分匹配交叉和启发式变异搜索方法的人工蜂群算法求解TSP问题,证明了与 A*算法及遗传算法相比,该方法更为优越。并且该方法已应用于激光切割机切割异形满版服饰图案路径规划的生产实 践,运行可靠,比未规划时的工艺路线平均提高效率33.7%。该方法提供了一种解决TSP问题的新方法,具有一定的理 论意义和价值     

生态翻译视域下隐喻翻译研究——以《围城》英译本为例

隐喻作为一个非常巧妙的语言应用现象,非常值得研究。本文拟从生态翻译学对其进行研究。生态翻译学是一个从生态学角度研究翻译活动、翻译现象和翻译理论的新的研究范式。本文着重从适应/选择,三维转换和整体/关联的角度对《围城》这一文学巨著中典型的隐喻现象的翻译进行讨论,旨在开拓隐喻研究的新视角