cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
A Joint Inversion of Sources and Seismic Waveforms for Velocity Distribution: 1-D and 2-D Examples
Creators: name: Yu, Han
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Waveform inversion is theoretically a powerful tool to reconstruct subsurface structures, but a usually encountered problem is that accurate sources are very rare, causing the computation unstable and divergent. This challenging problem, although sometimes ignored and even imperceptible, can easily create discrepancies in calculated shot gathers, which will then lead to wrong residuals that must be migrated back to the gradients, hence jeopardizing the inverted tomograms. In practice, any shot gather may correspond to its own source even if some of them can be transformed alike after data processing. To resolve this problem, we propose a collocated inversion of sources and early arrival waveforms with the two submodules executing alternatively. Not only can this method produce a decent wavelet that approaches the true source or an equivalent source, but more importantly, it can also invert for credible background velocity models with the optimized sources. Part of the cycle skipping problems can also be mitigated because it avoids the trial and error experiments on various sources. Numerical tests upon a series of different conditions validate the effectiveness of this method. Restrictions on initial sources or starting velocity models will be relaxed with this method, and it can be extended to any other applications for engineering or exploration purposes.
description: Part of the content in this manuscript has already been published in the journal Near Surface Geophysics (2024), which includes a real data example
Capital Controls in a Time of Crisis
Creators: name: Grabel, Ilene
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



The startling resuscitation of capital controls during the global crisis has substantially widened policy space in the global north and south. The paper highlights five factors that contribute to the evolving rebranding of capital controls. These include: (1) the rise of increasingly autonomous developing states, largely as a consequence of their successful response to the Asian crisis; (2) the increasing confidence and assertiveness of their policymakers in part as a consequence of their relative success in responding to the global crisis at a time when many advanced economies have and still are stumbling; (3) a pragmatic adjustment by the IMF to an altered global economy in which the geography of its influence has been severely restricted; (4) the intensification of the need for capital controls during the crisis not just by countries facing fragility or implosion, but also by those that fared “too well”; and (5) the evolution in the ideas of academic economists and IMF staff. The paper explores tensions around the rebranding of capital controls. These are exemplified by efforts to develop a hierarchy in which controls on inflows that are a last resort and are targeted, temporary, and non-discriminatory are more acceptable than those that are blunt, enduring, discriminatory, and that target outflows. In addition, tensions have increasingly focused on whether controls should be used by capital-source rather than just capital-recipient countries.
Automatic Generation of Web Censorship Probe Lists
Creators: name: Tang, Jenny
name: Alvarez, Leo
name: Brar, Arjun
name: Hoang, Nguyen Phong
name: Christin, Nicolas
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Cryptography and Security (cs.CR)
subject: Computation and Language (cs.CL)
subject: Computers and Society (cs.CY)
subject: Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Domain probe lists--used to determine which URLs to probe for Web censorship--play a critical role in Internet censorship measurement studies. Indeed, the size and accuracy of the domain probe list limits the set of censored pages that can be detected; inaccurate lists can lead to an incomplete view of the censorship landscape or biased results. Previous efforts to generate domain probe lists have been mostly manual or crowdsourced. This approach is time-consuming, prone to errors, and does not scale well to the ever-changing censorship landscape.
 In this paper, we explore methods for automatically generating probe lists that are both comprehensive and up-to-date for Web censorship measurement. We start from an initial set of 139,957 unique URLs from various existing test lists consisting of pages from a variety of languages to generate new candidate pages. By analyzing content from these URLs (i.e., performing topic and keyword extraction), expanding these topics, and using them as a feed to search engines, our method produces 119,255 new URLs across 35,147 domains. We then test the new candidate pages by attempting to access each URL from servers in eleven different global locations over a span of four months to check for their connectivity and potential signs of censorship. Our measurements reveal that our method discovered over 1,400 domains--not present in the original dataset--we suspect to be blocked. In short, automatically updating probe lists is possible, and can help further automate censorship measurements at scale.
description: To appear in the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies 2024
Profit-Led Growth and the Stock Market
Creators: name: Michl, Thomas R.
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



This paper presents a simple stock-flow consistent model of corporate capitalism with a financial market for firm equities issued by managers as part of their investment plan with the investment rate in turn sensitive to the q-ratio, workers who save for life-cycle motives, and capitalist rentier households who save from a bequest motive. The model assumes full capacity utilization; saving and investment decisions are co-ordinated through changes in the valuation of the capital stock or q-ratio. Changes in valuation can induce enough investment and capitalist consumption to fill the demand gap left by a reduction in the wage share. But unless there is a strong sensitivity of investment to the q- ratio, the increased profitability will be dissipated in a profit-led stock market boom. The model helps resolve the neoliberal paradox of rising profitability with little growth. It also clarifies the relationship between classical and Keynesian growth models which can be seen as special cases arising from limiting values of the investment sensitivity to the q-ratio.
The Gospel of Co-operative Capitalism: Acolytes and Apostates
Creators: name: McColloch, William E.
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



The present paper seeks to locate the Bhaduri-Marglin (B-M) model as an historical outcome of the Left's internal disputes over the prospects for social democracy. In better contextualizing the B-M model as a historical response to the perceived political economic failings of the social compromises upon which the growth of post-War advanced capitalist economies had rested, both the model’s popularity and its potential limitations can more easily be understood. Though the B-M framework has frequently come to be referred to as the neo- or post-Kaleckian growth model, such labels perhaps obscure the model's diverse ancestry. The model constituted an attempt to reconcile seemingly incompatible theoretical perspectives, and to highlight those special conditions that made possible a ‘Golden Age’ of social democracy. Moreover, they sought to show that the conclusions of Keynesian social democrats and of radical Marxists could be viewed as two possible outcomes of the same broadly Keynesian theoretical framework in which investment played a leading role. While this synthesis has fostered a vast literature and useful dialogue, it is argued that it should, nevertheless, be seen as the outcome of a generation Left social scientists that had become deeply skeptical of the possibility of egalitarian redistribution under capitalism, and of the political ambitions of Keynesian and social democratic parties.
title: Pardoning War Criminals: The Trump Administration, the Duty to Prosecute, and the Duty to Protect Human Rights
Creators: name: Stewens, Paul
Publisher: name: Fachinformationsdienst für internationale und interdisziplinäre Rechtsforschung
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Pardon
subject: War Criminals
subject: Trump Presidency
subject: 341

description: During former U.S. President Trump’s last months in office, one rather prominent issue among the numerous controversies surrounding the presidency was the use of the presidential pardon. Especially the seven pardons for military service members and private contractors charged with or convicted of homicide during U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan sparked criticism. This paper assesses the pardon’s conformity with the duty to prosecute grave violations of international humanitarian law, i.e., grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and war crimes under customary international law. Besides, it considers whether the pardons were compatible with a duty to prosecute serious human rights violations as an emanation from the duty to protect human rights, particularly the right to life. The analysis finds that most of the pardons represent a failure to appropriately punish human rights offenders, while all of them undermine the deterrent effect of criminal prosecution and weaken respect for international humanitarian law. The U.S. hence violates its international legal obligations.
description: IFHV Working Paper Series, vol. 12.4
title: Effet de l'enseignement explicite sur la progression en production de l'écrit en contexte de transition école-métier
title: Effet de l'enseignement explicite sur la progression en production de l'écrit en contexte de transition école-métier
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Meylan, Marion
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 0
Subjects: subject: production de textes
subject: difficultés d’apprentissage
subject: enseignement explicite
subject: métacognition
subject: dictée à l’adulte
subject: écriture collaborative

description: La production de textes est une tâche complexe qui demande à l’élève d’activer des connaissances et compétences multiples simultanément. Elle est encore plus compliquée pour des élèves ayant des difficultés/des troubles d’apprentissage liés au langage (dyslexie, dysorthographie, dysgraphie, dyspraxie : avec ou sans troubles associés) mais l’acquisition de compétences dans ce domaine est nécessaire pour intégrer une formation et, plus largement, dans la vie quotidienne. Ces élèves arrivent souvent dans les structures de « préformation » avec de grosses lacunes en production de textes. Les origines de ces lacunes peuvent être diverses et variées mais ce n’est pas ce qui est étudié dans ce travail. Effectivement, le but de cette recherche est de savoir si ces manques peuvent être comblés en faisant bénéficier les élèves d’un enseignement explicite favorisant le développement de stratégies métacognitives. Au vu de l’importance des difficultés de mes élèves, il était important pour moi de réduire au maximum les obstacles rencontrés afin qu’ils puissent se concentrer uniquement sur les objectifs spécifiques de la production d’un texte. Je leur ai ainsi enlevé la dimension d’écriture (geste graphomoteur) en mettant en place la méthode de la dictée à l’adulte qui se prête bien à la mise en place de l’enseignement explicite. Nous avons donc écrit deux textes narratifs en collaboration. Cette dernière dimension a été choisie afin que les élèves puissent s’aider les uns et les autres, autant sur la partie création/imagination que sur la partie rédactionnelle (construction de phrases « écrivables »). Un pré-test et un post-test ont cependant été menés en individuel afin de constater l’évolution de chaque élève dans deux aspects différents : la qualité de leurs textes et l’utilisation des stratégies de rédaction.
Chromosomal Structural Abnormality Diagnosis by Homologous Similarity
Creators: name: Li, Juren
name: Fu, Fanzhe
name: Wei, Ran
name: Sun, Yifei
name: Lai, Zeyu
name: Song, Ning
name: Chen, Xin
name: Yang, Yang
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Pathogenic chromosome abnormalities are very common among the general population. While numerical chromosome abnormalities can be quickly and precisely detected, structural chromosome abnormalities are far more complex and typically require considerable efforts by human experts for identification. This paper focuses on investigating the modeling of chromosome features and the identification of chromosomes with structural abnormalities. Most existing data-driven methods concentrate on a single chromosome and consider each chromosome independently, overlooking the crucial aspect of homologous chromosomes. In normal cases, homologous chromosomes share identical structures, with the exception that one of them is abnormal. Therefore, we propose an adaptive method to align homologous chromosomes and diagnose structural abnormalities through homologous similarity. Inspired by the process of human expert diagnosis, we incorporate information from multiple pairs of homologous chromosomes simultaneously, aiming to reduce noise disturbance and improve prediction performance. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets validate the effectiveness of our model compared to baselines.
Opening the Farm Gate to Women? Sustainable Agriculture in the United States
Creators: name: Paul, Mark
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



This paper analyzes the relationship between the growth in the number of women farmers and the rise in sustainable agriculture using the US Census of Agriculture. Assessing full time farmers, we show that farms operated by women earn much lower farm incomes than farms operated by men, such that the gender gap in agriculture is amongst the largest in any occupation. While this inequity can be partly explained by the patrilineal inheritance of land and capital, farms headed by women generate nearly 40 percent less income after controlling for farm assets, work time, age, experience, farm type, and location. We investigate whether three different forms of sustainable agriculture improved incomes for women farmers during 2012. We find that only farms engaging in Community Supported Agriculture experience a marked decline in the gender gap. We argue that the diverse set of principles associated with Community Supported Agriculture results in women selecting into that form of farming, and that the men involved in it may be more supportive of women farmers.
Navigating the Needs of CBDC: Exploring the Objective and Design of CBDC in the Indonesian Context
Creators: name: Fauri, Adinova
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Digitalisation
Digitalization
CBDC
Indonesia
Digital Rupiah
Cryptocurrency

description: This is a presentation of Adinova Fauri from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Indonesia during his PRODIGEES research secondment to the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Italy.

It focuses on the following research questions:

To what extent can CBDC effectively attain its objectives, considering its design and the prevailing financial and economic conditions in Indonesia?

What complementary policies are required to reach these goals? Are there more efficient alternative policies?

What are the potential benefits and risks brought about by CBDC?
description: H2020 MSCA-RISE, GA873119. PRODIGEES
The Bonus-Driven “Rainmaker” Financial Firm: How These Firms Enrich Top Employees, Erode Shareholder Value and Create Systemic Financial Instability, Economic Crises and Rising Inequality
Creators: name: Crofty, James
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



We recently experienced a global financial crisis so severe that only massive rescue operations by governments around the world prevented a total financial market meltdown and perhaps another global Great Depression. One precondition for the crisis was the perverse, bonus-driven compensation structure employed in important financial institutions such as investment banks. This structure provided the rational incentive for key decision makers in these firms (who I call “rainmakers”) to take the excessive risk and employ the excessive leverage that helped create the bubble and made the crisis so severe. This paper presents and evaluates extensive data on compensation practices in investment banks and other important financial institutions. These data show that rainmaker compensation has been rising rapidly, is very large, and has asymmetric properties that induce reckless risk-taking. Since boom-period bonuses do not have to be returned if rainmaker decisions eventually lead to losses for their firms, since large bonuses continue to be paid even when firms in fact suffer large losses, and since governments can be counted on to bail out the largest financial firms in a crisis, it is rational for rainmakers to use unsustainable leverage to invest in recklessly risky assets in the bubble. A review of the modest literature on financial firm compensation practices in general and those of investment banks in particular demonstrates that the giant bonuses of the recent past are not appropriate returns to human capital – they are unjustified rents.


The paper discusses possible answers to the challenging question: what is the source of rainmaker rents and how are they sustained over time? Answers can help guide debates over the appropriate regulation of financial markets. They are also necessary inputs to the development of an adequate theory of the “rainmaker” financial firm that can help us understand how these firms were able to maximize the compensation of their key employees through policies that eroded shareholder value and created systemic financial fragility that led to a series of financial crises culminating in the global crisis that began in 2007-08. To my knowledge, no such theory currently exists.
No Country for Young Girls: Market Reforms, Gender Roles, and Pre-natal Sex Selection in Post-Soviet Ukraine
Creators: name: King, Lawrence
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



Amartya Sen’s seminal “100 Million Missing Women” brought to light the rapid increase of sex-selective infanticide in India. Since then, interest in the related problem of pre-natal sex-selection has proliferated. Most analyses of the phenomenon, however, have been restricted to developing countries and been carried out at the national or large sub-national region. Pre-natal sex selection is understood as a product of the pull to reduce family size caused by a “demographic transition” combined with the swift spread of modern scanning technology within a still traditional culture or kinship structure that prioritizes male children. This article opens up the analysis of sex-selective abortion geographically, methodologically and theoretically. Using household surveys, we demonstrate high levels of sex-selection in Ukraine, a country without any tradition of son preference. Detailed analysis of household data suggests that pre-natal sex selection can be understood in the altruistic acts of mothers seeking to protect their unborn daughters from the hardships associated with being a woman under postcommunist capitalism. Thus, theoretically, we move away from a reliance on demographic, cultural and technological explanations towards a political economy analysis.
A Theory of Economic Policy Lock-in and Lock-out via Hysterisis: Rethinking Economists’ Approach to Economic Policy
Creators: name: Palley, Thomas I.
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



This paper explores lock-in and lock-out via economic policy. It argues policy decisions may near-irrevocably change the economy’s structure, thereby changing its performance. That causes changed economic outcomes concerning distribution of wealth, income and power, which in turn induces locked-in changes in political outcomes. That is a different way of thinking about policy compared to conventional macroeconomic stabilization theory. The latter treats policy as a dial which is dialed up or down, depending on the economy’s state. Lock-in policy is illustrated by the euro, globalization, and the neoliberal policy experiment.
The Economics of Just Transition: A Framework for Supporting Fossil Fuel-Dependent Workers and Communities in the United States
Creators: name: Pollin, Robert
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



We develop a Just Transition framework for U.S. workers and communities that are currently dependent on domestic fossil fuel production. Our rough high-end estimate for such a program is a relatively modest $600 million per year. This level of funding would pay for 1) income, retraining and relocation support for workers facing retrenchments; 2) guaranteeing the pensions for workers in the affected industries; and 3) mounting effective transition programs for what are now fossil-fuel dependent communities. The paper first summarizes the evidence on how much the U.S. fossil fuel industry will need to contract to achieve CO2 emissions reduction targets consistent with the global targets established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We then consider the impact of fossil fuel cutbacks on five ancillary U.S. industries, including support activities for coal and oil/gas as well as oil refining, electric power generation, and natural gas distribution. Section 3 presents estimates on job cuts that will occur in the fossil fuel and ancillary industries due to U.S. fossil fuel production cutbacks. Combining all fossil fuel and ancillary industries, we show that fully 83 percent of the job losses can be covered through attrition-by-retirement. To address the remaining 17 percent of job losses through fossil fuel industry cutbacks, we propose reemployment guarantees in the growing clean energy industries for displaced workers. As part of this job guarantee program, we estimate the costs of three provisions for the displaced workers: 100 percent compensation insurance for five years; retraining; and relocation support. Section 4 reviews the status of pension programs in the fossil fuel and ancillary industries and propose measures to maintain these pension programs at full funding into the future. Section 5 examines measures to support communities that are presently heavily dependent on the U.S. fossil fuel industry. The concluding section 6 brings together our cost estimates for the three components of our Just Transition program.
Media Representations of Climate Change Politics at COP21: The End of the Beginning
Creators: name: Brüggemann, Michael (ed.)
Publisher: name: Universität Hamburg
Year: 2016
Subjects: climate change
climate politics
media coverage
cop21

description: This working paper preserves all contributions to the "Media Watchblog" as they appeared during the UN climate conference in Paris 2015 (and as they are still available at https://climatematters.blogs.uni-hamburg.de/media-watch-blog/all-articles/). The idea of the Media Watch Blog was to provide space for presenting an analytical view of the media coverage and the debates surrounding COP 21 through the lens of academic observers from social and climate sciences, and allowing for comments in our role as citizens that we would not include in our academic publications. The point of the blog is not to bash the media: Covering
 climate change is a demanding challenge for journalists and we do not pretend that we could do better than journalists do. Yet, as outside observers of the debate, we hope to add new perspectives to a debate that deserves humanity’s most alert attention. The blog is at the University of Hamburg. Going beyond Hamburg, its authors are climate researchers, social scientists and also some journalists from a range of different backgrounds united by an interest in the interdisciplinary study of climate change.
Classical and Quantum Cosmology in Einstein-aether Scalar-tensor gravity: Noether Symmetry Analysis
Creators: name: Laya, Dipanakr
name: Bhaumik, Roshni
name: Dutta, Sourav
name: Chakraborty, Subenoy
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The present work deals with Einstein-aether Scalar tensor gravity in the background of homogeneous and isotropic flat FLRW space-time model. The Noether symmetry vector identifies a transformation in the augmented space so that the field equations become solvable. The cosmological solutions are analyzed from the observational point of view. Finally, for quantum cosmology, the Wheeler-DeWitt (WD) has been formulated and solutions have been determined by identifying the periodic nature of the wave function using conserved (Noether) charge.
description: 15 pages, 4 figures
The FIH and the Paradox of Debt: A Microeconometric Approach for Latin America
Creators: name: González, Alejandro
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 



Hyman Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis (FIH) argues that as part of the normal functioning of capitalist economies robust financial structures tend to evolve into highly leveraged fragile financial structures. The paradox of debt challenges the very foundation of Minsky’s FIH as it sustains that upward and downward phases of the business cycles need not be characterized by processes of respective leveraging and deleveraging. Using a panel of firm-level data and seemingly unrelated regressions we analyze the relationship between debt and investment for twelve Latin American countries for the years 2005 (expansion) and 2009 (contraction). We reject the Paradox of Debt in favor of the FIH, regardless of our model specification or the choice of external financing. The FIH seems to intensify in expansions with respect to recessions, and its intensification during expansions is explained by a larger fraction of firms acquiring debt and new investment projects, rather than from further leveraging for those firms already engaged in fixed investment.
Reinvestigating the PreBisch-Singer Hypothesis 1900-2015
Creators: name: Chakraborty, Shouvik
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2016

description: 

This paper analyses the empirical validity of Prebisch-Singer hypothesis using the time series Grilli-Yang Commodity Price Index data spanning from 1900 to 2015. The methodology employed is encapsulated in a three fold approach: a) endogenous detection of structural breaks; b) estimation of trend through piecewise linear regression; and c) validation of the statistical significance of the trends applying the Mann-Kendall test. The four structural breaks endogenously determined, primarily, coincides with four important historical/economic events over the last century: (a) World War I (1914 to 1918) and, thereafter, the Great Depression (1929 to 1939), (b) World War II (1939-1945) and immediate post war rebuilding (1950s), (c) First Oil Crisis (1973-74) and (d) Commodity Price Boom (late 1990s). From the trend results, the inference derived on the validity of Prebisch-Singer hypothesis is mixed. If the overall period of study is considered, then the empirical evidence in support of PS hypothesis is weak. However, if the terms of trade movement over the last century is considered, especially the second half, then the evidence in favor of Prebisch-Singer hypothesis is strong. The other important finding is that it also depends on the nature of the commodities i.e. the terms of trade of agricultural commodities are more prone to secular decline than metals.
Environmental destruction in the new economy: Offshore finance and mangrove forest clearance in Grand Cayman
Creators: name: Jurn, Katrina
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description:
Mangrove forests, which provide critical ecosystem services in tropical and subtropical coastal regions around the world, are increasingly threatened, with total mangrove area declining from 18.8 million hectares to 15.2 million hectares globally between 1980 and 2005. Focusing on the mangrove wetlands of the Cayman Islands, we use GIS spatial analysis to document past trends and project future trends of mangrove clearance, and a near-exhaustive series of 57 interviews with key business and political figures as well as leaders of environmental NGOs to identify the social forces driving these trends. Analysis of the satellite images shows that mangrove loss on Grand Cayman has been dramatic and that mangroves could be extinct by 2097, with potentially dire consequences for the island’s inhabitants. The interviews indicate that the destruction of mangrove forests is primarily attributable to consumption generated by Grand Cayman’s financial sector. The demand for real estate by financial professionals employed on the island along with international investors who come to ‘visit their money’ has resulted in the mangrove forest clearance. These dynamics have persisted due to the alignment of political forces that has emerged in their defense: a state structurally-dependent on development fees for revenues and dependent for political support on landowners. To explain our findings, a political economy approach is put forward, highlighting the shortcomings of both ecological modernization and neo-Marxist theories of social impacts on the environment.
Policy briefing: Wellbeing in the lives of young refugees in Scotland
Creators: name: Kohli, Ravi KS
name: McGregor, Sharon A
name: MacKinnon, Kate
Publisher: name: University of Bedfordshire
Year: 2024
Subjects: refugee integration
young refugees
relational wellbeing
Scotland integration
Drawing Together project

description: This policy briefing focuses on wellbeing and integration for young refugees in Scotland. It is based on the Drawing Together research project. This project explored how 53 young refugees rebuild their everyday lives in Scotland, Finland and Norway. The findings from Scotland provide insights that will equip Scottish policy makers and practitioners to promote the wellbeing of young refugees.
Fixing the Euro’s Original Sins: The Monetary-Fiscal Architecture and Monetary Policy Conduct
Creators: name: Palley, Thomas
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



The euro zone (EZ) was created in January 1999. Its weak economic performance is significantly due to the euro’s neoliberal monetary architecture and the design of monetary policy. Those features undermine national political sovereignty and consign the EZ to severe economic under-performance, which in turn fosters political demands for exit from the euro. Escaping this dynamic requires restoring fiscal space to EZ countries, and also changing the design of EZ monetary policy. The paper shows how this can be done. It decomposes the challenge of reform into generic problems related to the neoliberal construction of monetary policy, and specific problems concerning the euro as a currency union. The currency union problems are further decomposed into money – fiscal policy architecture problems and specific monetary policy conduct problems.
A description of classical and quantum cosmology for a single scalar field torsion gravity
Creators: name: Laya, Dipankar
name: Bhaumik, Roshni
name: Dutta, Sourav
name: Chakraborty, Subenoy
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In the background of homogeneous and isotropic flat FLRW space-time, both classical and quantum cosmology has been studied for teleparallel dark energy (DE) model. Using Noether symmetry analysis, not only the symmetry vector but also the coupling function in the Lagrangian and the potential of the scalar field has been determined. Also symmetry analysis identifies a cyclic variable in the Lagrangian along the symmetry vector and as a result the Lagrangian simplifies to a great extend so that classical solution is obtained. Subsequently, in quantum cosmology Wheeler-DeWitt(WD) equation has been constructed and the quantum version of the conserved momenta corresponding to Noether symmetry identifies the periodic part of the wave function of the universe and as a result the Wheeler-DeWitt equation becomes solvable. Finally, quantum description shows finite non-zero probability at the classical big-bang singularity.
description: 16 Pages, 4 figures
The Wages of Care: Bargaining Power, Earnings and Inequality
Creators: name: Folbre, Nancy
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



The uneven bargaining power of both firms and workers may be contributing to increased earnings inequality in the U.S. Econometric analysis of earnings from the 2015 Current Population Survey shows that the earnings of managers and professionals employed in care industries (health, education, and social services), characterized by high levels of public and non-profit provision, are significantly lower than in other industries. Overall, earnings in care industries are more compressed, with lower ratios of earnings at the 90th percentile to those at the 50th and 10th percentiles. The specific features of care work, including moral commitments, the difficulty of capturing added value, and the importance of teamwork help explain these patterns.
title: L'amélioration de la gestion d'une classe de développement grâce au soutien au comportement positif, à la gestion de l'attention et à l'amélioration du sentiment d'efficacité personnelle
title: L'amélioration de la gestion d'une classe de développement grâce au soutien au comportement positif, à la gestion de l'attention et à l'amélioration du sentiment d'efficacité personnelle
titleType: AlternativeTitle
Creators: name: Etter, Sandra
Publisher: name: Unknown
Year: 0
Subjects: subject: soutien au comportement positif
subject: gestion de classe
subject: gestion de l’attention
subject: sentiment d’efficacité personnelle
subject: sanction
subject: difficultés de comportement

description: A travers ce mémoire, j’ai eu envie de réfléchir à ma pratique professionnelle et d’identifier les différents éléments susceptibles de l’améliorer. Mon idée initiale était de comprendre comment éviter les sanctions et les punitions dans ma classe de développement de degré 7-8H grâce au soutien au comportement positif. Suite aux observations effectuées dans ma classe en début de recherche, j’ai remarqué que mes élèves avaient peu de difficultés de comportement. Leurs difficultés se situaient plus au niveau de la gestion de leur attention, l’organisation de leurs affaires ainsi que la motivation face au travail scolaire. Ces observations initiales m’ont permis de poser le but de ma recherche qui consiste à essayer d’améliorer la gestion de l’attention et les difficultés de comportement chez les élèves d’une classe de développement. Pour atteindre ce but, je me suis intéressée au lien qu’il pouvait y avoir entre gestion de classe, difficultés de comportement, gestion de l’attention et sentiment d’efficacité personnelle. Sachant que le sentiment d’efficacité personnelle de l’enseignant influence sa manière de gérer et remédier aux difficultés de comportement en classe, je me suis intéressée au SEP de mes collègues ainsi qu’à mon propre SEP. Du côté de mes élèves, j’ai essayé de leur faire améliorer leur SEP scolaire, ainsi que de faire diminuer leurs difficultés de comportement grâce à des interventions ciblées sur la gestion de l’attention ainsi que sur le soutien au comportement positif. Les résultats de ma recherche n’ont pas été entièrement positifs et ne vont pas entièrement dans la direction de la littérature actuelle. Mais j’ai pu expliquer cet écart de résultat par différents facteurs, notamment par le peu de temps à disposition pour mettre les pistes d’interventions en place, ainsi que par le fait que mes élèves sont en rupture scolaire depuis de nombreuses années. Ce qui me semble important de retenir à la fin de ce mémoire est le rôle fondamental que joue la relation entre les élèves et les enseignants dans la réussite scolaire de nos élèves. L’enseignant doit donc se remettre en permanence en question, et ne pas tenir l’élève comme étant seul responsable de ses difficultés.
Asymmetric Exchange Rate Policy in Inflation Targeting Developing Countries
Creators: name: Benlialper, Ahmet
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



In the last decades, many developing countries abandoned their existing policy regimes and adopted inflation targeting (IT) by which they aimed to control inflation through the use of policy interest rates. During the period before the crisis, most of these countries experienced large appreciations in their currencies. Given that appreciation helps central banks curb inflationary pressures, we ask whether central banks in developing countries have different policy stances with respect to depreciation and appreciation in order to hit their inflation targets. To that end, we analyze central banks’ interest rate decisions by estimating a nonlinear monetary policy reaction function for a set of IT developing countries using a panel threshold model. Our findings suggest that during the period under investigation (2002-2008), central banks in developing countries implementing IT tolerated appreciation by remaining inactive in case of appreciation, but fought against depreciation pressures beyond some threshold. We are unable to detect a similar asymmetric response for IT advanced countries suggesting that asymmetric policy stance is peculiar to IT developing countries. Although there is a vast literature on asymmetric responses of various central banks to changes in inflation and output, asymmetric stance with regards to exchange rate has not been analyzed yet in a rigorous way especially within the context of IT developing countries. In this sense, our study is the first in the literature and thus is expected to fill an important gap.
In Kind Benefits as Partial Payment of Wages: A Review of Laws Around the World
Creators: name: Anker, Richard
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: This paper is concerned with in kind benefits received by workers and how they are treated in national laws – in particular whether the value of in kind benefits are considered as partial payment of wages and, if so, under what conditions and how their monetary value is determined. This review is based to a large extent on information on national laws in 162 countries from around the world. This analysis is supplemented by analysis of how in kind benefits are treated in International Labor Organization ("ILO") conventions; laws and regulations of the federal government and five states in the United States; and collective bargaining agreements from six developing countries. Despite data limitations, this is, as far as we know, the most comprehensive and systematic international review of in kind benefits and how they are treated as partial payment of wages.
CREATION OF A NEW ANTI-INFLAMMATORY AGENT BASED ON ACHILLEA FILIPENDULINA L.
Creators: name: Khadjimetova, Sevara
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: In this article entitled technology for obtaining a dry extract of a achillea filipendulina the process of obtaining a dry extract from the aerial parts of these plants is presented In experiments, the effect of extraction time and frequency, process temperature, hydromodule and degree of spray grinding on the yield of flavanoids and extractives was studied. The technological properties of the composite dry extract were also studied, the optimal composition was selected and the technology for the tablet dosage form was developed.
Public Debt and Growth: An Assessment of Key Findings on Causality and Thresholds
Creators: name: Ash, Michael
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



We provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between public debt and GDP growth in the postwar advanced economies. We use the timing of changes in public debt and growth to account for endogeneity, and find little evidence of a negative relationship. Semi-parametric estimates do not indicate any threshold effects. Finally, we reconcile our results with four recent, influential papers that found a substantial negative relationship, especially when public debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP. These earlier results appear to derive mostly from peculiar parametric specifications of nonlinearities, or use of small samples which amplify the influence of outliers.
Trump’s International Political Economy: Neocon Neoliberalism Camouflaged with Anti-Globalization Circus
Creators: name: Palley, Thomas
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



This paper explores the likely contours of Trump’s international economic policy. A key element of Trump’s political success has been his masquerade of being pro-worker, which includes being anti-globalization. However, his true economic interest is the exact opposite. That creates conflict between Trump’s political and economic interests. Understanding the calculus of that conflict is critical for understanding Trump’s international economic policy. Trump will strongly criticize globalization but the bark will be worse than the bite because globalization has increased corporate profits. Trump also expresses neocon unilateralist tendencies that are not a one-off temporary political aberration. Instead, they reflect intrinsic and enduring features of the current US polity. That has profound implications for the international relations order, and is something foreign governments may not yet have digested.
The Empirical Analysis of Minsky Regimes in the U.S. Economy
Creators: name: Davis, Leila E.
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



In this paper we analyze Minskian dynamics in the US economy via an empirical application of Minsky’s financing regime classifications to a panel of nonfinancial corporations. First, we map Minsky’s definitions of hedge, speculative and Ponzi finance onto firm-level data to describe the evolution of Minskian regimes. We highlight striking growth in the share of Ponzi firms in the post-1970 US, concentrated among small corporations. This secular growth in the incidence of Ponzi firms is consistent with the possibility of a long wave of increasingly fragile finance in the US economy. Second, we explore the possibility of short-run Minskian dynamics at a business-cycle frequency. Using linear probability models relating firms’ probability of being Ponzi to the aggregate output gap, which captures short-term macroeconomic fluctuations exogenous to individual firms, we find that aggregate downturns are correlated with an almost zero increased probability that firms are Ponzi. This result is corroborated by quantile regressions using a continuous measure of financial fragility, the interest coverage ratio, which identify almost zero effects of short-term fluctuations on financial fragility across the interest coverage distribution. Together, these results speak to an important question in the theoretical literature on financial fragility regarding the duration of Minskian cycles, and lend support, in particular, to the contention that Minskian dynamics may take the form of long waves, but do not operate at business cycle frequencies.
How Saving Data Is Estimated
Creators: name: Ozgur, Gokcer
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



Gross national saving is one of the widely used economic data in empirical studies, and it used in for saving-investment debate, economic growth and similar studies. However, there is a discrepancy between the general definition of saving and gross national saving data. Gross national saving does not represent a certain amount of funds, it is estimated or derived ex post. This study will focus on two different methods of the estimation of gross national saving and the methodology of these estimations. These findings show that using gross national saving cannot be used in empirical studies for saving-investment debate or similar studies.
Renewable Energy Investment and Employment in China
Creators: name: Chen, Ying
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



The potential trade-off between environmental protection and employment stability has been a concern in the literature. However, in the case of China, the employment issue has not been adequately addressed despite government’s big push on investing in renewable energy since 2007. This essay addresses the employment issue through estimating the relative employment impacts of renewable energy investments versus spending within the traditional fossil fuel sectors based on input-output modeling with China-specific data of sector and sub-sector weighting techniques. I find that spending within three segments of the renewable energy sectors—solar, wind and bioenergy, will produce in combination about twice as many jobs per dollar of expenditure than an equal amount of spending on fossil fuels. I also find that, more than 70% of jobs from renewable energy sectors are created in the informal economy. This raises questions about the quality of the jobs created through renewable energy investments.
Dynamics of the Rate of Surplus Value and the “New Normal” of the Chinese Economy
Creators: name: Qi, Hao
Publisher: name: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Year: 2017

description: 



This paper builds homogenous series of the rate of surplus value for the Chinese economy over the extended period 1956-2014 with a Marxian approach. It finds that the high profitability that stimulated capital accumulation in the decade before the 2008 crisis had relied on the continuous growth in the rate of surplus value. Given that the global crisis and changes in the domestic economy undermine all the conditions maintaining the accumulation model (an expanding external market, a relatively large reserve army of labor, and a low debt-income ratio), the rate of surplus value has failed to increase and profitability declined since 2008. Thus this paper interprets the so-called “new normal” of the Chinese economy as a stage of declining profitability that results mainly from the stagnant rate of surplus value and the rising value composition of capital.