Amazon.com

About: Amazon.com is a company organization based out in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Service (business) & Service provider. The organization has 13363 authors who have published 17317 publications receiving 266589 citations.

Tracking Greenspan: systematic and unsystematic monetary policy revisited

Abstract: This Paper proposes a new framework to analyse systematic and unsystematic monetary policy within the same econometric model. As in Bernanke and Boivin, 2001, the model aims at capturing the following facts: monetary authorities use information from a large number of data series to extract a signal on current economic activity, which is typically measured with error. Due to strong collinearity between macroeconomic time series, relevant information is obtained by regressing the observables on few aggregates. Collinearity implies that a large panel of time series, which constitutes the information available to policy makers, can be represented as a dynamic factor model {it a la} Forni and Reichlin, 1998, Stock and Watson, 1999 and Forni et al., 2000. Here we show how, in this framework, shocks can be identified structurally and the parameters of monetary policy rules, conditional on these shocks, can be estimated. Our results for the US economy between 1982 and 2001 show that: (i) Two shocks capture 80% of the variance of key variables such as output and inflation at all horizons; (ii) The monetary shock mainly affects the term structure of interest rates, but has virtually no effect on output and inflation so that monetary policy affects the economy through its systematic behavior rather than by surprising agents; (iii) Since demand and technology have been the main forces for the dynamics of cyclical output and inflation during the Greenspan era, while supply shocks have been negligible, monetary authorities did not face any tradeoff between inflation and output. By stabilizing inflation conditionally on demand shocks, they also achieved output stabilization; (iv) Conditionally on demand, Greenspan followed the Taylor principle while, conditionally on technology, monetary policy did not respond; (v) Systematic monetary policy had a substantial role in output and inflation stabilization.

Distributed load balancer

Abstract: A distributed load balancer in which a router receives packets from at least one client and routes packet flows to multiple load balancer (LB) nodes according to a per-flow hashed multipath routing technique. For a given packet flow, the LB nodes randomly select a server node as a target for the packet flow from among multiple server nodes and send a connection request to the server node. A load balancer module on the server node makes the decision on whether to accept or reject the connection based on one or more metrics indicating a respective server's current load. If the module accepts the connection request, a connection is established between the server and the client. Otherwise, the load balancer nodes may select another server node and try again. The connections established between clients and servers pass through the load balancer nodes, but are not terminated at the load balancer nodes.

Sound source localization using multiple microphone arrays

Abstract: An augmented reality environment allows interaction between virtual and real objects. Multiple microphone arrays of different physical sizes are used to acquire signals for spatial tracking of one or more sound sources within the environment. A first array with a larger size may be used to track an object beyond a threshold distance, while a second array having a size smaller than the first may be used to track the object up to the threshold distance. By selecting different sized arrays, accuracy of the spatial location is improved.

Diet of the northern bearded saki (Chiropotes satanas chiropotes): A neotropical seed predator.

Abstract: Data on the diet of Chiropotes satanas chiropotes, the northern bearded saki, has been collected during several years of primate field observations in the Raleighvallen-Voltzberg Reserve in Suriname. This species feeds predominantly on immature seeds and ripe fruit, mainly the former. Chiropotes is especially fond of the members of the Brazil nut family, Lecythidaceae, and other species with exceptionally hard or tough seed pods. Concomitantly, Chiropotes shows striking dental and gnathic adaptations that facilitate opening and ingesting these well-protected food items. Seed predation in the Old World colobine, Colobus satanas, has been discussed primarily as a strategy for survival in forests characterized by leaves with low nutrient content and high toxicity; however, it now appears that arboreal seed predation is a relatively widespread primate dietary strategy found among higher primate species in a variety of forest types on three continents. It is yet another way of “making a living” in a tropical rain forest.

A Secure Link State Routing Protocol for NDN

Abstract: The Named-data Link State Routing protocol (NLSR) is a protocol for intra-domain routing in Named Data Networking (NDN). It is an application level protocol similar to many IP routing protocols, but NLSR uses NDN’s interest/data packets to disseminate routing updates, directly benefiting from NDN’s built-in data authenticity. The NLSR design, which was first developed in 2013 and deployed on the NDN test bed in August 2014, has undergone significant changes. Following an application-driven design approach, NLSR’s development helped drive the development of the trust/security functionality of NDN libraries as well as a number of features in NDN’s forwarding daemon and ChronoSync. In this paper, we describe the current design and implementation of NLSR, with emphasis on those features that differentiate it from an IP-based link state routing protocol: 1) naming: a hierarchical naming scheme for routers, keys, and routing updates; 2) security: a hierarchical trust model for routing within a single administrative domain; 3) routing information dissemination: using ChronoSync to disseminate routing updates; and 4) multipath routing: a simple way to calculate and rank multiple forwarding options. Although NLSR is designed in the context of a single domain, its design patterns may offer a useful reference for future development of inter-domain routing protocols.