Military Expenditure,Endogeneity and Economic Growth

Abstract

While not always a concern for the general economic growth literature, the debate over the effects of military spending on growth continues to develop, with no consensus, but a deepening understanding of the limitations of previous work. One important issue that has not been adequately dealt with is the endogeneity of military spending in the growth equation, mainly because of the difficulty of finding any variables that would make adequate instruments. This paper considers this issue, using an endogenous growth model estimated on a large sample of 109 non-high-income countries for the period 1998–2012. The empirical analysis is framed within an instrumental variable setting that exploits the increase in military spending that occurs when unrest in a country escalates to turmoil. The estimation results show that endogeneity arising from reverse causality is a crucial issue, with the instrumental variable estimates providing a larger significant negative effect of military spending on growth than OLS would. This result is found to be robust to different sources of heterogeneity and different time periods.     

Dundee-made harpoon gun associated with H. M. S. Challenger

Attention is drawn to the existence of a harpoon-gun putatively from H. M. S. Challenger, a ship whose three-and-a-half-year circumnavigation of the globe (1872–1876), marked the beginning of the science of oceanography. The harpoon gun in question was made by Dundee shipsmith and harpoon-gun maker, David Neave. Only a few other examples of his work are known to exist and this example with a Remington rolling-block action is unusual for a British harpoon gun. It is proposed that it came to Millport's Marine Station via links Sir John Murray (1841–1914) had with the Marine Biological Association of the West of Scotland.     

A note on a variance bound for the multinomial and the negative multinomial distribution

We prove a Chernoff‐type upper variance bound for the multinomial and the negative multinomial distribution. An application is also given.Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 179–183, 2014     

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时变线性微分方程的稳定性

研究了二维和三维时变线性微分方程的稳定性 ,给出了利用系数直接判定稳定性的若干结论     

一种改进的宏块层码率控制策略

利用DCT域中交流系数的均方和代替像素域的方差,作为宏块运动复杂度的表征,并将改进后的码率模型运用于H.264的码率控制策略.仿真结果表明,与现有的码率控制算法相比,改进方案可以在不同的目标码率下更有效地控制码率的波动,改善了PSNR增益.在图像质量方面更平稳,有效地改善了主观视觉质量.     

基于i.MX6无人机视频码率受控的压缩系统设计

针对无人机数据链视频数据信道带宽受限要求,采用飞思卡尔i.MX6的嵌入式视频处理硬件平台,设计无人机视频H.264压缩码率受控系统,解决压缩编码的运动估计搜索范围、最大关键帧间距问题,在数据传输中采用SPI接口缓冲区码率控制机制,控制系统SPI输出码率受限的设计。实验测试表明,设计的视频处理系统视频压缩数据受控,可根据无人机无线信道设计要求,完成无人机视频压缩编码码率可控视频传输。     

非线性时滞系统模糊控制的一种新方法

针对一类状态变量具有时滞的非线性系统，研究了其模糊控制器的设计问题。采用线性矩阵不等式（LMI）的方法，设计了与状态变量导数有关的模糊控制器，得到了系统存在模糊控制器的充分条件，并利用线性矩阵不等式的解给出具体的形式，最后通过仿真说明了控制器的有效性。     

基于多线程的CABAC并行编码方法

CABAC(Context based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding)是H.264/AVC主要档次以上配置中推荐采用的熵编码方法.相比其他的熵编码方法,CABAC能够节省编码码率,但其计算串行性强,不能较好适应片上多核环境.针对这一问题提出了基于多线程的CABAC并行编码方法.大量实验统计表明,该方法负载划分较为均衡,对序列熵编码的单独加速比最高可达1.78.