1,720,963 research outputs found
Why privatize? : the case of Argentina's public provincial banks
Get PDFArgentina has been a leader among developing countries in restructuring its banking sector. The authors analyze the performance of those banks before and after privatization and estimate fiscal savings associated with privatizingArgentina's banks rather than keeping them public and later recapitalizing them. The authors describe the process of privatization, including the creation of residual entities for the assets and liabilities of public provincial banks that private buyers found unattractive and the creation of a special fund (the Fondo Fiduciario) to convert the short-term liabilities of the residual entities into longer-term obligations. They argue that the Fondo, created through cooperation between the Argentine federal government and the World Bank, was key in making privatization of the banks politically feasible. Argentina privatized roughly half of its public provincial banks. The Argentine experience suggests that bank privatization may succeed only when accompanied by a sound, incentive-compatible system of prudential regulation. The regulatory environment affects a bank s solvency. Improved regulation and supervision alone does not deliver the same benefits as improved regulation and supervision with privatization. The provincial banks that remained in the public sector did not demonstrate the same performance gains as privatized provincial banks. The decision to maintain a public provincial bank is a costly one. Policymakers should expect privatization to pass through some or all of the following steps: 1) With respect to pre-privatization audits, expect losses hidden in these banks to be larger than those indicated in prior audits. 2) If residual entities are created, expect them to hold a large share of the old public provincial bank, if the quality of its loan portfolio was low. 3) Do not expect the price paid for the privatized entity (the so-called good bank) to be great, at least compared with assets and liabilities in the residual entity. 4) If the residual entity is large, the province will be confronted with substantial short-term liabilities. But with assistance and an aggressive asset recovery strategy, governments should be able to navigate their way through short-term difficulty. 5) The costs of privatization are less than the costs of future recapitalization, even if the near-term management of the residual entity does not go well.Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism
A Robust Approach for Enhanced Autonomous Robot Navigation
No full textA Master of Science thesis in Mechatronics Engineering by Sherif Khaled Mohamed Issa Ismail entitled, “A Robust Approach for Enhanced Autonomous Robot Navigation”, submitted in March 2024. Thesis advisor is Dr. Mamoun Abdel-Hafez. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).The demand for robust and precise autonomous navigation systems for mobile robots has become increasingly imperative. These systems find applications across a spectrum of industries, from logistics and transportation to agriculture and defense. Autonomous navigation offers the promise of enhanced efficiency, reduced operational costs, and a safer work environment, making it a vital component in the ever-evolving landscape of modern automation. This research aims to enhance the localization accuracy of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) with cost-effective Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) sensors by proposing a variation of the Kalman Filter (KF) for sensor fusion. This algorithm is used in this work for a low-cost loosely coupled GPS/INS integration. To achieve this objective, we propose the utilization of the Variational Bayesian-based Maximum Correntropy Cubature Kalman filter (VBMCCKF). This filtering technique demonstrates exceptional adaptability and resilience, making it particularly well-suited for the dynamic and often unpredictable environments that autonomous vehicles must navigate. The research strategy encompasses a dual-phase approach. Initially, a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of EKF, CKF, VBCKF, and VBMCCKF algorithms is conducted in a distinct application, namely Li-ion battery estimation. This preliminary phase is aimed at establishing the efficacy of these algorithms. Subsequently, in the core application, an offline estimation will be carried out using experimentally derived vehicle trajectories to ensure meticulous accuracy verification. It is noteworthy that the VBCKF as well as the VBMCCKF are being applied in this particular application for the first time. Following this, a transition was made towards real-time deployment for the localization of the autonomous navigation of a UGV. Throughout this phase, a thorough assessment of practicality and resilience are undertaken in dependable operational scenarios.College of EngineeringMultidisciplinary ProgramsMaster of Science in Mechatronics Engineering (MSMTR
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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