Microsoft’’s’’ popular game console, the Xbox, combined the possibility of compelling training efficiencies with formidable obstacles to development, both in terms of the business model, the limitation of the Windows 2000 computer inside it and the system’’s standard humanmachine interface. In its mission to leverage the capabilities of the entertainment industry to develop next-generation simu...

The Box-Cox quantile regression model using the two stage method suggested by Chamberlain (1994) and Buchinsky (1995) provides a flexible and numerically attractive extension of linear quantile regression techniques. However, the objective function in stage two of the method may not exists. We suggest a simple modification of the estimator which is easy to implement. The modified estimator is s...

One of the newest initiatives in the evolution of the World Wide Web (WWW) is the specification of standards and technologies to create the Semantic Web. Whereas most of today’s WWW is targeted primarily at human readers, the Semantic Web will support human readers while providing enriched data descriptions to enable software agents to perform automated reasoning, creating a Web of knowledge. I...

Motion Picture sets are traditionally built using decorated modular wall components called “flats”. The FlatWorld project (Pair et al., 2003) at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies merges this practice with immersive technology by creating a system of displays coupled with physical props which can be scaled to simulate entire buildings and streets. A single...

The Institute for Creative Technologies is a federally funded research center set up three years ago at the University of Southern California to advance the state of the art in immersive training. Teaming researchers in artificial intelligence, graphics, animation and immersive audio with Hollywood writers, directors and special effect artists, the ICT brings a unique mix of hightechnology and ...

It is well known that atmospheric turbulence can severely degrade performance of various optical systems including the laser beam projection systems discussed here. These systems are designed to create and maintain a laser spot of the smallest possible size on a remotely located object in the atmosphere. Compensation (mitigation) of turbulence effects in the laser beam projection systems is typ...

In this paper, the remote sensing monitoring of natural and technological objects is represented as a concept of integrated modelling and simulation of the processes of the complex technical–organizational system (CTOS). The main goal of the study is to use in practice predetermined modelling. The paper considers the technology of remote sensing monitoring of the natural and technological objec...

Previous empirical papers find that single mothers respond to EITC changes through the labor force participation (extensive) margin, not through the hours (intensive) margin. This is not predicted by standard labor supply models. My paper investigates labor supply effects of the EITC with a structural model, augmented with two factors that limit workers’ hours choices: costs of working and diff...

This paper studies the impact of income taxes on intensive and extensive labor supply decisions for older workers. The literature provides little evidence about the responsiveness of the older population to tax incentives, though the tax code is a potentially important mechanism for affecting retirement behavior. We estimate the intensive and extensive margins jointly with a new approach accoun...

Temporal explanations to the Fermi paradox state that the vast scale of the galaxy diminishes the chances of establishing contact with an extraterrestrial technological civilization (ETC) within a certain time window. This argument is tackled in this work in the context of exploration probes, whose propagation can be faster than that of a colonization wavefront. Extensive computational simulati...