Cross-section finance studies virtually never test variables for unit roots, though econometric validity depends on testing. This paper develops a cross-section unit-root test and uses it on annual data for the return on equity and the return on invested capital, ROE and ROIC, key variables in the Edwards-BellOhlson (EBO) accounting and Free Cash Flow (FCF) finance valuation models. Conventiona...

This paper examines the inherited persistent behavior of particle swarm optimization and its implications to cognitive machines. The performance of the algorithm is studied through an average particle’s trajectory through the parameter space of the Sphere and Rastrigin function. The trajectories are decomposed into position and velocity along each dimension optimized. A threshold is defined to ...

An important assumption in the analysis of multienvironment cultivar trials is homogeneity of error and genotype 3 environment interaction variances. When variances are heterogeneous, the best estimators of performance are obtained by weighting inversely to variance components. However, because variances are almost never known and must be estimated, the additional error introduced into the mode...

Received wisdom: industrial-country floating exchange rates contain unit roots. In three types of tests, however, the data support nominal-rate mean reversion. First, SUR tests on panels of Group-of-Ten nominal rates frequently reject the null of unit roots in favor of mean reversion for various samples over the current float, the first such results in the literature. Second, in out-of-sample f...

In this paper, we apply artificial neural networks to control the targeting system of a robotic tank in a tank-combat computer game (RoboCode). We suggest an algorithm that not only trains the connection weights of the neural network, but simultaneously searches for an optimum network architecture. Our hybrid evolutionary algorithm (PSONet) uses modified particle swarm optimisation to train the...

Section 1, Neurobiology, will accept manuscripts on a broad range of experimental approaches which aim to understand the neuronal mechanisms that underlie vision. Relevant ideas include physiological optics, phototransduction, neurotransmitters, functional anatomy, electrophysiology, development and regeneration. The Editors seek submissions concerning structure and function at all levels of vi...

Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) and other artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been widely applied to time series forecasting since 1980s. However, for some problems such as initialization and local optima existing in applications, the improvement of ANNs is, and still will be the most interesting study for not only time series forecasting but also other intelligent computing fields. In this stu...

Nausea and vomiting. Nausea and vomiting is a major problem which occurs during and after the treatment with certain drugs like anesthetics, opioidanalgesics or cytostatics. Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is called the “big” little problem. As a consequence, the choice of the anesthetic drug(s) plays a role in preventing PONV [Apfel et al., Anesthesiology, 1999; Eberhart et al., Eur J...