5,708 research outputs found
The Japan-Singapore “New Age” Economic Partnership Agreement: Background, Motivation and Implications
No full textFree Trade Pacts have become an integral part of Singapore’s new commercial trade strategy which in turn is the cornerstone of the city-state’s larger international economic policy. Such trade pacts appear to be increasingly regarded by policymakers as effective and expeditious instruments for achieving trade liberalization among “like minded” trading partners. Of particular relevance is the Japan-Singapore pact which has recently been agreed to and is in the process of being implemented. The trade pact has been termed the Japan-Singapore Economic Partnership Agreement (JSEPA). This paper discusses the extent of the two countries’ bilateral economic linkages in terms of merchandise trade and trade in services and investments and examines available details of the JSEPA.
Sen-Lab-LMS/Senescence_nuclear_features: Publication_version_2.0
No full text<p>Author checklist.</p>
A Direct Product Theorem for One-Way Quantum Communication
No full textWe prove a direct product theorem for the one-way entanglement-assisted quantum communication complexity of a general relation f ⊆ ××. For any 0 < ε < δ < 1/2 and any k≥1, we show that
Q¹_{1-(1-ε)^{Ω(k/log||)}}(f^k) = Ω(k⋅Q¹_{δ}(f)),
where Q¹_{ε}(f) represents the one-way entanglement-assisted quantum communication complexity of f with worst-case error ε and f^k denotes k parallel instances of f.
As far as we are aware, this is the first direct product theorem for the quantum communication complexity of a general relation - direct sum theorems were previously known for one-way quantum protocols for general relations, while direct product theorems were only known for special cases. Our techniques are inspired by the parallel repetition theorems for the entangled value of two-player non-local games, under product distributions due to Jain, Pereszlényi and Yao [Rahul Jain et al., 2014], and under anchored distributions due to Bavarian, Vidick and Yuen [Bavarian et al., 2017], as well as message compression for quantum protocols due to Jain, Radhakrishnan and Sen [Rahul Jain et al., 2005]. In particular, we show that a direct product theorem holds for the distributional one-way quantum communication complexity of f under any distribution q on × that is anchored on one side, i.e., there exists a y^* such that q(y^*) is constant and q(x|y^*) = q(x) for all x. This allows us to show a direct product theorem for general distributions, since for any relation f and any distribution p on its inputs, we can define a modified relation f̃ which has an anchored distribution q close to p, such that a protocol that fails with probability at most ε for f̃ under q can be used to give a protocol that fails with probability at most ε + ζ for f under p.
Our techniques also work for entangled non-local games which have input distributions anchored on any one side, i.e., either there exists a y^* as previously specified, or there exists an x^* such that q(x^*) is constant and q(y|x^*) = q(y) for all y. In particular, we show that for any game G = (q, ×, ×ℬ, ) where q is a distribution on × anchored on any one side with constant anchoring probability, then
ω^*(G^k) = (1 - (1-ω^*(G))⁵) ^{Ω(k/(log(||⋅|ℬ|)))}
where ω^*(G) represents the entangled value of the game G. This is a generalization of the result of [Bavarian et al., 2017], who proved a parallel repetition theorem for games anchored on both sides, i.e., where both a special x^* and a special y^* exist, and potentially a simplification of their proof
Liberalisation of International Trade in Financial Services in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand
No full textThis paper outlines the analytical rationale in favour of liberalisation of trade in services with particular reference to the key infrastrucutural sub-sectors of financial services and discusses the empirical evidence thereof. The paper goes on to offer an overview of the state of deregulation and the schedule of liberalisation of the two service sub-sectors in four middle-income Southeast Asian countries, viz. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. An attempt is also made to synthesize the individual country experiences and extract common themes from them.Banking, Financial Services, GATS, Insurance, Liberalisation
The Contributions of Professor Amartya Sen in the Field of Human Rights
No full textThis paper analyses the work of the Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Amartya Sen from the perspective of human rights. It assesses the ways in which Sen's research agenda has deepened and expanded human rights discourse in the disciplines of ethics and economics, and examines how his work has promoted cross-fertilisation and integration on this subject across traditional disciplinary divides. The paper suggests that Sen's development of a 'scholarly bridge' between human rights and economics is an important and innovative contribution that has methodological as well as substantive importance and that provides a prototype and stimuli for future research. It also establishes that the idea of fundamental freedoms and human rights is itself an important gateway into understanding the nature, scope and significance of Sen's research. The paper concludes with a brief assessment of the challenges to be addressed in taking Sen's contributions in the field of human rights forward.Amartya Sen, human rights, poverty, freedom, obligation, capability approach, meta-rights, entitlements, opportunity freedom, liberty-rights
Tolerant bipartiteness testing in dense graphs
No full textBipartite testing has been a central problem in the area of property testing since its inception in the seminal work of Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Ron.
Though the non-tolerant version of bipartite testing has been extensively studied in the literature, the tolerant variant is not well understood. In this paper, we consider the following version of the tolerant bipartite testing problem:
Given two parameters , with , and access to the adjacency matrix of a graph , we have to decide whether can be made bipartite by editing at most entries of the adjacency matrix of , or we have to edit at least entries of the adjacency matrix to make bipartite. In this paper, we prove that for , tolerant bipartite testing can be decided by performing many adjacency queries and in time complexity. This improves upon the state-of-the-art query and time complexities of this problem of and , respectively, due to
Alon, Fernandez de la Vega, Kannan and Karpinski,
where hides a factor polynomial in
Inequalities, Agency, and Well-being: Conceptual Linkages and Measurement Challenges in Development
No full textdevelopment, inequality, gender, well-being, agency, capability, distribution, Sen
Out-of-equilibrium chemical logic systems: Light- and sound-controlled programmable spatiotemporal patterns and mechanical functions
No full textLiving systems at different scales function through the sensing of multiple external signal inputs, which are further processed based on binary or more complicated computational models and networks. Inspired by such behavior, here, we show that the information processing in out-of-equilibrium chemical systems utilizing binary Boolean logic can be exploited to obtain transient functions such as spatiotemporally controlled chemical gradients and patterns in response to specific combination of multiple physical or chemical inputs (light, audible sound, and O-2). We further explore systems that are able to execute highly complicated functions such as guiding a cargo through a maze by processing the information from multiple external stimuli. Our approach of integrating and encoding binary Boolean logic within out-of-equilibrium chemical systems for the extraction of mechanical work to execute transient biomimicking functions can expand the realms of systems chemistry and related research and help us design smart materials.11Nsciescopu
OVERCOMING POSITIVISM IN ECONOMICS: AMARTYA SEN'S PROJECT OF INFUSING ETHICS INTO ECONOMICS
No full textLogical Positivism, which arose in philosophy early in the twentieth century, proclaimed the sharp distinction between facts and values. Despite objections at the time, positivism was imported into economics in the 1930s. Over time, objections lessened; economics was transformed and ethical considerations were driven out of its core. In the 1950s, debates about positivism arose within the discipline which had exported it. According to the American philosopher Hilary Putnam, the fact/value distinction is now discredited in philosophy. If that is so, the methodological foundations of contemporary economics are also discredited. In this article I examine Amartya Sen’s moral science of economics. First, I will present his historical account of the connections between economics and ethics. Sen claims that there was a close connection between the two until positivism was imported. Second, I will sketch some of Sen’s ethical objections to modern economics, which is still suffering from positivism. Finally, I will lay out some of his ideas on how economics can be returned to an ethical path. Once the ground has been cleared of positivism, ethics can re-emerge in economics in various ways. One path has been marked out by Sen.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,
A Computational Framework for Multivariate Convex Regression and Its Variants
No full textWe study the nonparametric least squares estimator (LSE) of a multivariate convex regression function. The LSE, given as the solution to a quadratic program with O(n²) linear constraints (n being the sample size), is difficult to compute for large problems. Exploiting problem specific structure, we propose a scalable algorithmic framework based on the augmented Lagrangian method to compute the LSE. We develop a novel approach to obtain smooth convex approximations to the fitted (piecewise affine) convex LSE and provide formal bounds on the quality of approximation. When the number of samples is not too large compared to the dimension of the predictor, we propose a regularization scheme—Lipschitz convex regression—where we constrain the norm of the subgradients, and study the rates of convergence of the obtained LSE. Our algorithmic framework is simple and flexible and can be easily adapted to handle variants: estimation of a nondecreasing/nonincreasing convex/concave (with or without a Lipschitz bound) function. We perform numerical studies illustrating the scalability of the proposed algorithm—on some instances our proposal leads to more than a 10,000-fold improvement in runtime when compared to off-the-shelf interior point solvers for problems with n = 500. Keywords: Augmented Lagrangian method; Lipschitz convex regression; Non parametric least squares estimator; Scalable quadratic programming; Smooth convex regressionUnited States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-15-1-2342
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