Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Set theory / Congresses“

The Shapley-Owen value (SOV, Owen and Shapley 1989, Optimal location of candidates in ideological space. International Journal of Game Theory 125–42), a generalization of the Shapley-Shubik value applicable to spatial voting games, is an important concept in that it takes us away from a priori concepts of power to notions of power that are directly tied to the ideological proximity of actors. SOVs can also be used to locate the spatial analogue to the Copeland winner, the strong point, the point with smallest win-set, which is a plausible solution concept for games without cores. However, for spatial voting games with many voters, until recently, it was too computationally difficult to calculate SOVs, and thus, it was impossible to find the strong point analytically. After reviewing the properties of the SOV, such as the result proven by Shapley and Owen that size of win sets increases with the square of distance as we move away from the strong point along any ray, we offer a computer algorithm for computing SOVs that can readily find such values even for legislatures the size of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Russian Duma. We use these values to identify the strong point and show its location with respect to the uncovered set, for several of the U.S. congresses analyzed in Bianco, Jeliazkov, and Sened (2004, The limits of legislative actions: Determining the set of enactable outcomes given legislators preferences. Political Analysis 12:256–76) and for several sessions of the Russian Duma. We then look at many of the experimental committee voting games previously analyzed by Bianco et al. (2006, A theory waiting to be discovered and used: A reanalysis of canonical experiments on majority-rule decision making. Journal of Politics 68:838–51) and show how outcomes in these games tend to be points with small win sets located near to the strong point. We also consider how SOVs can be applied to a lobbying game in a committee of the U.S. Senate.

Based on the critical discourse analysis theory, the main purpose of this study is to highlight the social and psychological dimensions of the political discourse of Jordan through analyzing king Abdullah’s address to the American Congress in 2007 from socio-cognitive, socio-ideological, and socio-stylistic perspectives. Additionally, the paper uses the critical discourse analysis theory to examine selected quotations from the king’s address in order to see how the Jordanian political discourse is influenced by the status, ideologies, and attitudes of the congressmen to whom it is directed.

Socio-political significance and legal status of the institute of administrative justice are widely understood in the context of the thorough analysis of Soviet theory, legislation and practice of the first half of the last century. The choice of the subject matter of the study is preconditioned by the universally recognized periodization, according to which administrative justice in the Soviet period reached the highest level of development in the first half of the 20th century after the foundations of civil proceedings of the Union of the SSR and the Soviet Union Republics were approved in 1961. From this point of view, it is very interesting and useful to study the objective circumstances that took place in the first half of the last century. The study covers the beginning of the Soviet path of development and improvement of the institute of administrative justice, the lower border of which constitutes the final moment of the establishment of Soviet power, and the upper border covers the post-war period of the Soviet Union. The grounds, conditions and procedure of settlement of complaints against actions of Soviet institutions and officials are identified by various bodies. The selected subject matter was actualized during the development and adoption of the first Administrative Procedural Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as in the course of institutional reform aimed at ensuring the rule of law, including in the areas of public administration and local government.The purpose of this paper is to study the issues of regulation of public relations arising between the Soviet State represented by public authorities, their officials, state officials, on the one hand, and Soviet citizens and their associations, on the other. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are set: studying the normative legal acts of the Soviet power issued by the central election commissions, All-Russian congresses of councils, people's commissariats, workers'-peasants' inspectorates, councils of workers'-and-peasants' defenses and many other Soviet institutions regulating administrative justice in the first half of the 20th century; determination of grounds, conditions and procedure for appealing or challenging the legality of acts, decisions, actions or omissions to act on behalf of Soviet institutions and officials; analysis of the legal thought of the first half of the 20th century.

When Dr. Jorge asked me to write something about Professor Egon, given that we are close friends, my first reaction was to feel very honored by the request. I thought it would be easy to talk about our Professor, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. Professor Egon was highly praised at our Congress in Gramado recently, for his work and his legacy of training resident students in Orthopedics at our HC – and previously at the Santa Casa – and in the Traumatology Unit of the HPS, where he was a doctor until his retirement. What’s more, he received the greatest of all homages that anybody could wish for; that of his own son, who literally, followed in his footsteps. It was then that, thinking again, I decided to speak about Prof. Egon and my special relationship with him. I met the Master during the 4th year of my medical course, when he was Chair of General Surgery, Orthopedics discipline, on ward 33 at the Santa Casa de Porto Alegre. It was a theory class, on a Friday morning, which was the curricular time slot for theoretical activities of the Chair on that ward. He had come straight from a night on duty at the Emergency Room of the hospital to the scientific activity, without showing any signs of tiredness. This was the first time I had heard his teachings on the “hallux valgus”, and on its anatomy and physiopathology. His marvelous capacity for description and his teaching methods, which are characteristic to him, seemed to set my very neurons on fire, and I am certain it was then that I, already with a propensity for traumatology, was bitten by the “ambition bug”. I followed him for the rest of the course, whenever I got the chance. In the fifth year, here in Porto Alegre, we took the internship at the HPS for the entire year. In our various shifts between the departments of the Hospital and the days of the week, I found myself, in the second semester, in the Traumatology unit on Thursdays. There, my observation of the Professor’s conduct, both medical and personal, was what most attracted my attention. And care of the traumatological patient demands close attention. He was a good listener, and he was “hands on”, as they say, not only transferring practical skills to the intern students, but also teaching how to do, by doing, and speaking, and explaining the pathology and its course. And so time passed for all of us. We never grew apart. On the contrary, we strengthened family ties, always with a great deal of pride and honor. We were together at most of the Congresses here in the South and those of the ABTPé. We often dined together, and we were always together in the relaxation areas of the Congresses. By together, I mean with our families. When I finally decided on Foot Surgery, at Dr. Mauro’s Congress in Curitiba, in 1992, I joined the SBMCP, with Prof. Egon’s signature as my referee. I have already commented about that time, in one of our Bulletins. Dr. Marcio Benevento, when he received my enrolment form, opened his eyes wide and said: “with this signature here (pointing to the signature), you’re already in! Congratulations!” Unforgettable. We continued to meet at the outpatient clinic of the HC, where I had now graduated from the internship in the IOT in São Paulo. We restarted the Foot Committee in Rio Grande do Sul. We traveled around the state with the whole Committee, presenting themes to update doctor’s knowledge. And amidst all this “youthful” thirst for information and action, there he was, sitting in a van, travelling for three or four hours, from one city to the next, giving his lessons, accompanying everything until the end of the dinners that we were offered, always being searched out, and asked questions about conducts in all types of clinical cases brought by colleagues from the interior of the country. That was the Teacher. He has always been a Teacher. On one of these occasions, I heard him utter a phrase that, at least for me, was one that defines him: “if they invite me to a celebration, I’ll think about it, but if they invite me to a class, a conference or a surgery, I’m ready to go”. I learned that conservative treatment exists, and should be used to its full extent, and that only then should surgery be considered. I also learned that when we go into the theater to perform an operation, the surgery is the most important thing of all; we don’t go into surgery to get it over and done, we go in to perform surgery. And while he was operating, that is exactly what you saw: clean, anatomical surgery, carried out methodically, step-by-step; he was never in a hurry, and he was always talking, explaining and teaching. And that’s what Professor Egon is like, even now. A teacher. A father. An intellectual father to us all.

In my article, “Separation-of-Power Games in the Positive Theory of Congress and Courts” (Segal 1997) I compared the theoretical and empirical validity of the separation-of-powers model and the judicial attitudinal model as applied to U.S. Supreme Court decision making. I found that the preferences of the justices often fell inside the set of irreversible decisions, and that even when the preferences fell outside the set, the justices, with the exception of Earl Warren, showed little evidence of constraint. I concluded, consistent with the attitudinal model, that the justices overwhelmingly engaged in rationally sincere behavior.Tim Groseclose and Sara Schiavoni (1998), whom I thank for their efforts, have alerted me to two errors in my calculation of the set of irreversible decisions. First, I used the formula 2CC-G (where CC = the conference committee and G = the gatekeeper) for calculating indifference points in the constraint set rather than 2G-CC. Second, I implicitly allowed Congress to pass legislation that would be vetoed and could not be overridden. Correcting this error changes the optimal behavior of the conference committee, which will not propose legislation that can be vetoed but cannot be overriden, and the gatekeepers, who must consider the conference committee's actions.In this note I replicate the study using the corrected data and find first that the sets of irreversible decisions are a bit broader than I had originally found. This means that fewer justices could be constrained by Congress than I had originally concluded.

Signifcant scholarly work suggests mass media professionals largely set the voices in their coverage to mirror that of mainstream government debate. While it is a compelling assertion, this view is only intermittently supported by data. This paper suggests that such theories enjoy inconsistent support because they fail to consider the interaction between journalists' incentives and the political climate. An economic theory is advanced here that the political journalists' objectives to please their superiors, please themselves, limit negative feedback, and expend minimum energy, in other words to minimize their costs and maximize their benefits, lead them to rely on tactics that vary with the scope of consensus support for an issue. This theory is tested by analyzing newspaper coverage of four political issues debated in Congress.

The article describes the consequences of the «post-secular turn» in social sciences, in particular, in the history of law and the theory of international relations as applied to the study of the Congress of Westphalia and the Peace Treaty of 1648. The author shows how new approaches in the international theory (from realism to constructivism and neorealism) contributed to the criticism of the «secular myth of Westphalia». The author considers new perspectives on the religious issue at the Westphalian Peace Congress in terms of the evolution of public law in Europe. Westphalia is seen as a set of religion ideas, which caused a revolution in the concept and practice of sovereignty and Westphalia as the last Christian Peace. The article discusses the role of the legal principles of religious freedom and the confessional truce of the XVII century in the formation of the Westphalian system of security guarantees in Europe. The changes in the role of the Pope in international law during and after the Westphalian negotiations and the consequences of the Treaty for protestant and catholic conditions are indicated. The study reveals how various Christian denominations participated (ideologically and politically) in the Westphalian negotiations, while discussing the «special case» of Orthodoxy, taking into account the diplomatic rapprochement of Moscow, Stockholm and Paris before the Westphalian Peace Congress.

The U.S. House and Senate were designed to have an adversarial relationship. Yet, House members and senators often collaborate on the introduction of “companion” bills. We develop a theory of these cross-chamber collaborations, which asserts that companion bill introductions are driven by legislators’ desire to increase the probability of bill passage and the relational difficulties in developing companion bill partnerships. To test the expectations emerging from our theory, we develop a novel data set of every companion bill introduction in the 111th and 112th U.S. Congress. Then, using social networking techniques, we develop an empirical model of partner selection in companion bill introduction. Our results are supportive of our expectations, and suggest that companion bills are more likely to survive chamber deliberation and are typically introduced by senior members with secure electoral margins.

The Twelfth International Theatre Institute (ITI) World Congress met in New York City over 4–10 June 1967 at the same time as the Arab–Israeli War was taking place. This context very much framed the delegates’ debates over the idea of artists as national leaders. One panel in particular, The Responsibility of Theatre to the Progress of Society, on Friday 8 June, offered an opportunity for the delegates to wrestle with the concept. The participants focused on three key questions: how audiences were witnesses to national reinvention, how theatre could serve as a pedagogical form, and how the intersection of these two allowed audiences to see themselves as citizens. This article focuses first on ITI's place in the geopolitical moment and then on the contributions during the conference and after by a specific set of artists from diverse countries, including the US, India, France, Morocco and Nigeria. The conversations represented a profound articulation of how theatre was influencing the complex ways in which nations were identifying and defining themselves and their citizens.

A Dedekind algebra is an ordered pair (B, h) where B is a non-empty set and h is a "similarity transformation" on B. Among the Dedekind algebras is the sequence of positive integers. Each Dedekind algebra can be decomposed into a family of disjointed, countable subalgebras which are called the configurations of the algebra. There are many isomorphic types of configurations. Each Dedekind algebra is associated with a cardinal value function called the confirmation signature which counts the number of configurations in each isomorphism type occurring in the decomposition of the algebra. Two Dedekind algebras are isomorphic if their configuration signatures are identical. I introduce conditions on configuration signatures that are sufficient for characterizing Dedekind algebras uniquely up to isomorphisms in second order logic. I show Dedekind's characterization of the sequence of positive integers to be a consequence of these more general results, and use configuration signatures to delineate homogeneous, universal and homogeneous-universal Dedekind algebras. These delineations establish various results about these classes of Dedekind algebras including existence and uniqueness.

Abstract The Heritage Foundation’s founding legend tells an agenda-setting story, in which two staffers were upset with the American Enterprise Institute for releasing a report criticizing a federal spending program shortly after it was voted on. They decided to found a think tank that would respond quickly to changes in the policy agenda. This chapter tests that story using a data set of partisan think tank white papers and votes in Congress. It finds that while Heritage aggressively adjusts the reports it releases to meet the congressional agenda. Other partisan think tanks adopted a different strategy, maintaining more stable, long-term agenda on their party’s core issue priorities.

In modern physics the common relational approach should be extended to the concepts of element and set. The relationalization of the concepts of element and set means that in the final analysis the World exists as an indivisible whole, not as a set (of one or another kind of elements). Therefore, we have to describe quantum systems in terms of potentialities and probabilities: since quantum systems cannot be analyzed completely into sets of elements, we can speak only of the potentialities of isolating elements and sets within their structure. On the other hand this quantum property of the world as an indivisible whole accounts for the astonishing logical properties of the structure of the potentialities of quantum systems which it brings forth. This has been confirmed by quantum-correlation experiments (A.Aspect and oth.). These effects have a relational nature, not a physical-causal or material one, and they are brought forth by the changes (resulting from measurement or physical interaction) in the structure of the relations of the mutually complementary sides of reality. One of these sides expresses an actually existing structure of the system as a real (and physically verifiable) but only relatively separable set, and the other expresses the sets of potentialities in it which arise from the astonishing property of finite non-analyzability of the system into elements and sets (i.e. by the quantum property of the world as an indivisible unit).

Control theory is useful in a broad range of diverse applications that include mechanical, electrical and chemical systems. This work extends the application of control theory from achieving a desired technical outcome to achieving a desired pedagogical outcome. In this paper, the desired outcome is the teaching and learning of applied control systems theory. In the proposed model, the student is the plant, their skill set is the set point, the instructor is the controller, and either an exam or a project-based-learning (PBL) course is the sensor. The PBL course is used to evaluate the actual skill set of the students and the difference between the actual and desired skill set (error signal) is fed back to the professor to initiate curricular changes. This model is shown to be applicable at various levels. At the micro level, examinations within a course are used to optimize that course. At the intermediate level, a PBL course is used as the sensor for a conventional lecture-based course. At the macro level, the departmental program as a whole is matched to the needs of industry in pursuit of a 100% employment rate of its students.

This paper analyses the dynamics of policy-making among the various political institutions in Brazil. The authors find that the driving force behind policies in Brazil is the strong set of powers given to the President, though several institutions constrain and check this power, in particular the legislature, the judiciary, the public prosecutors, the auditing office, state governors and the Constitution itself. The electorate of Brazil holds the President accountable for economic growth, inflation and unemployment. At least for the past ten years, and particularly during the Lula administration, executive power has been aimed at pushing policy towards macro orthodoxy. Achieving stable macro policies required constitutional amendments as well as considerable legislation. To attain their goals, the past administrations used their property rights over pork to trade for policy changes. The rationale for members of Congress to exchange votes on policy for pork is that the electorates reward or punish members of Congress based on the degree to which pork lands in their district.

How much does money drive legislative outcomes in the United States? In this article, we use aggregated campaign finance data as well as a Transformer based text embedding model to predict roll call votes for legislation in the US Congress with more than 90% accuracy. In a series of model comparisons in which the input feature sets are varied, we investigate the extent to which campaign finance is predictive of voting behavior in comparison with variables like partisan affiliation. We find that the financial interests backing a legislator’s campaigns are independently predictive in both chambers of Congress, but also uncover a sizable asymmetry between the Senate and the House of Representatives. These findings are cross-referenced with a Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) linking legislators’ financial and voting records, in which we show that “legislators who vote together get paid together”, again discovering an asymmetry between the House and the Senate in the additional predictive power of campaign finance once party is accounted for. We suggest an explanation of these facts in terms of Thomas Ferguson’s Investment Theory of Party Competition: due to a number of structural differences between the House and Senate, but chiefly the lower amortized cost of obtaining individuated influence with Senators, political investors prefer operating on the House using the party as a proxy.

Banco de la República is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2023. This is a very significant anniversary and one that provides an opportunity to highlight the contribution the Bank has made to the country’s development. Its track record as guarantor of monetary stability has established it as the one independent state institution that generates the greatest confidence among Colombians due to its transparency, management capabilities, and effective compliance with the central banking and cultural responsibilities entrusted to it by the Constitution and the Law. On a date as important as this, the Board of Directors of Banco de la República (BDBR) pays tribute to the generations of governors and officers whose commitment and dedication have contributed to the growth of this institution.1 Banco de la República’s mandate was confirmed in the National Constitutional Assembly of 1991 where the citizens had the opportunity to elect the seventy people who would have the task of drafting a new constitution. The leaders of the three political movements with the most votes were elected as chairs to the Assembly, and this tripartite presidency reflected the plurality and the need for consensus among the different political groups to move the reform forward. Among the issues considered, the National Constitutional Assembly gave special importance to monetary stability. That is why they decided to include central banking and to provide Banco de la República with the necessary autonomy to use the instruments for which they are responsible without interference from other authorities. The constituent members understood that ensuring price stability is a state duty and that the entity responsible for this task must be enshrined in the Constitution and have the technical capability and institutional autonomy necessary to adopt the decisions they deem appropriate to achieve this fundamental objective in coordination with the general economic policy. In particular, Article 373 established that “the State, through Banco de la República, shall ensure the maintenance of the purchasing power of the currency,” a provision that coincided with the central banking system adopted by countries that have been successful in controlling inflation. In 1999, in Ruling 481, the Constitutional Court stated that “the duty to maintain the purchasing power of the currency applies to not only the monetary, credit, and exchange authority, i.e., the Board of Banco de la República, but also those who have responsibilities in the formulation and implementation of the general economic policy of the country” and that “the basic constitutional purpose of Banco de la República is the protection of a sound currency. However, this authority must take the other economic objectives of state intervention such as full employment into consideration in their decisions since these functions must be coordinated with the general economic policy.” The reforms to Banco de la República agreed upon in the Constitutional Assembly of 1991 and in Act 31/1992 can be summarized in the following aspects: i) the Bank was assigned a specific mandate: to maintain the purchasing power of the currency in coordination with the general economic policy; ii) the BDBR was designatedas the monetary, foreign exchange, and credit authority; iii) the Bank and its Board of Directors were granted a significant degree of independence from the government; iv) the Bank was prohibited from granting credit to the private sector except in the case of the financial sector; v) established that in order to grant credit to the government, the unanimous vote of its Board of Directors was required except in the case of open market transactions; vi) determined that the legislature may, in no case, order credit quotas in favor of the State or individuals; vii) Congress was appointed, on behalf of society, as the main addressee of the Bank’s reporting exercise; and viii) the responsibility for inspection, surveillance, and control over Banco de la República was delegated to the President of the Republic. The members of the National Constitutional Assembly clearly understood that the benefits of low and stable inflation extend to the whole of society and contribute mto the smooth functioning of the economic system. Among the most important of these is that low inflation promotes the efficient use of productive resources by allowing relative prices to better guide the allocation of resources since this promotes economic growth and increases the welfare of the population. Likewise, low inflation reduces uncertainty about the expected return on investment and future asset prices. This increases the confidence of economic agents, facilitates long-term financing, and stimulates investment. Since the low-income population is unable to protect itself from inflation by diversifying its assets, and a high proportion of its income is concentrated in the purchase of food and other basic goods that are generally the most affected by inflationary shocks, low inflation avoids arbitrary redistribution of income and wealth.2 Moreover, low inflation facilitates wage negotiations, creates a good labor climate, and reduces the volatility of employment levels. Finally, low inflation helps to make the tax system more transparent and equitable by avoiding the distortions that inflation introduces into the value of assets and income that make up the tax base. From the monetary authority’s point of view, one of the most relevant benefits of low inflation is the credibility that economic agents acquire in inflation targeting, which turns it into an effective nominal anchor on price levels. Upon receiving its mandate, and using its autonomy, Banco de la República began to announce specific annual inflation targets as of 1992. Although the proposed inflation targets were not met precisely during this first stage, a downward trend in inflation was achieved that took it from 32.4% in 1990 to 16.7% in 1998. At that time, the exchange rate was kept within a band. This limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, which simultaneously sought to meet an inflation target and an exchange rate target. The Asian crisis spread to emerging economies and significantly affected the Colombian economy. The exchange rate came under strong pressure to depreciate as access to foreign financing was cut off under conditions of a high foreign imbalance. This, together with the lack of exchange rate flexibility, prevented a countercyclical monetary policy and led to a 4.2% contraction in GDP that year. In this context of economic slowdown, annual inflation fell to 9.2% at the end of 1999, thus falling below the 15% target set for that year. This episode fully revealed how costly it could be, in terms of economic activity, to have inflation and exchange rate targets simultaneously. Towards the end of 1999, Banco de la República announced the adoption of a new monetary policy regime called the Inflation Targeting Plan. This regime, known internationally as ‘Inflation Targeting,’ has been gaining increasing acceptance in developed countries, having been adopted in 1991 by New Zealand, Canada, and England, among others, and has achieved significant advances in the management of inflation without incurring costs in terms of economic activity. In Latin America, Brazil and Chile also adopted it in 1999. In the case of Colombia, the last remaining requirement to be fulfilled in order to adopt said policy was exchange rate flexibility. This was realized around September 1999, when the BDBR decided to abandon the exchange-rate bands to allow the exchange rate to be freely determined in the market.Consistent with the constitutional mandate, the fundamental objective of this new policy approach was “the achievement of an inflation target that contributes to maintaining output growth around its potential.”3 This potential capacity was understood as the GDP growth that the economy can obtain if it fully utilizes its productive resources. To meet this objective, monetary policy must of necessity play a countercyclical role in the economy. This is because when economic activity is below its potential and there are idle resources, the monetary authority can reduce the interest rate in the absence of inflationary pressure to stimulate the economy and, when output exceeds its potential capacity, raise it. This policy principle, which is immersed in the models for guiding the monetary policy stance, makes the following two objectives fully compatible in the medium term: meeting the inflation target and achieving a level of economic activity that is consistent with its productive capacity. To achieve this purpose, the inflation targeting system uses the money market interest rate (at which the central bank supplies primary liquidity to commercial banks) as the primary policy instrument. This replaced the quantity of money as an intermediate monetary policy target that Banco de la República, like several other central banks, had used for a long time. In the case of Colombia, the objective of the new monetary policy approach implied, in practical terms, that the recovery of the economy after the 1999 contraction should be achieved while complying with the decreasing inflation targets established by the BDBR. The accomplishment of this purpose was remarkable. In the first half of the first decade of the 2000s, economic activity recovered significantly and reached a growth rate of 6.8% in 2006. Meanwhile, inflation gradually declined in line with inflation targets. That was how the inflation rate went from 9.2% in 1999 to 4.5% in 2006, thus meeting the inflation target established for that year while GDP reached its potential level. After this balance was achieved in 2006, inflation rebounded to 5.7% in 2007, above the 4.0% target for that year due to the fact that the 7.5% GDP growth exceeded the potential capacity of the economy.4 After proving the effectiveness of the inflation targeting system in its first years of operation, this policy regime continued to consolidate as the BDBR and the technical staff gained experience in its management and state-of-the-art economic models were incorporated to diagnose the present and future state of the economy and to assess the persistence of inflation deviations and expectations with respect to the inflation target. Beginning in 2010, the BDBR established the long-term 3.0% annual inflation target, which remains in effect today. Lower inflation has contributed to making the macroeconomic environment more stable, and this has favored sustained economic growth, financial stability, capital market development, and the functioning of payment systems. As a result, reductions in the inflationary risk premia and lower TES and credit interest rates were achieved. At the same time, the duration of public domestic debt increased significantly going from 2.27 years in December 2002 to 5.86 years in December 2022, and financial deepening, measured as the level of the portfolio as a percentage of GDP, went from around 20% in the mid-1990s to values above 45% in recent years in a healthy context for credit institutions.Having been granted autonomy by the Constitution to fulfill the mandate of preserving the purchasing power of the currency, the tangible achievements made by Banco de la República in managing inflation together with the significant benefits derived from the process of bringing inflation to its long-term target, make the BDBR’s current challenge to return inflation to the 3.0% target even more demanding and pressing. As is well known, starting in 2021, and especially in 2022, inflation in Colombia once again became a serious economic problem with high welfare costs. The inflationary phenomenon has not been exclusive to Colombia and many other developed and emerging countries have seen their inflation rates move away from the targets proposed by their central banks.5 The reasons for this phenomenon have been analyzed in recent Reports to Congress, and this new edition delves deeper into the subject with updated information. The solid institutional and technical base that supports the inflation targeting approach under which the monetary policy strategy operates gives the BDBR the necessary elements to face this difficult challenge with confidence. In this regard, the BDBR reiterated its commitment to the 3.0% inflation target in its November 25 communiqué and expects it to be reached by the end of 2024.6 Monetary policy will continue to focus on meeting this objective while ensuring the sustainability of economic activity, as mandated by the Constitution. Analyst surveys done in March showed a significant increase (from 32.3% in January to 48.5% in March) in the percentage of responses placing inflation expectations two years or more ahead in a range between 3.0% and 4.0%. This is a clear indication of the recovery of credibility in the medium-term inflation target and is consistent with the BDBR’s announcement made in November 2022. The moderation of the upward trend in inflation seen in January, and especially in February, will help to reinforce this revision of inflation expectations and will help to meet the proposed targets. After reaching 5.6% at the end of 2021, inflation maintained an upward trend throughout 2022 due to inflationary pressures from both external sources, associated with the aftermath of the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine, and domestic sources, resulting from: strengthening of local demand; price indexation processes stimulated by the increase in inflation expectations; the impact on food production caused by the mid-2021 strike; and the pass-through of depreciation to prices. The 10% increase in the minimum wage in 2021 and the 16% increase in 2022, both of which exceeded the actual inflation and the increase in productivity, accentuated the indexation processes by establishing a high nominal adjustment benchmark. Thus, total inflation went to 13.1% by the end of 2022. The annual change in food prices, which went from 17.2% to 27.8% between those two years, was the most influential factor in the surge in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Another segment that contributed significantly to price increases was regulated products, which saw the annual change go from 7.1% in December 2021 to 11.8% by the end of 2022. The measure of core inflation excluding food and regulated items, in turn, went from 2.5% to 9.5% between the end of 2021 and the end of 2022. The substantial increase in core inflation shows that inflationary pressure has spread to most of the items in the household basket, which is characteristic of inflationary processes with generalized price indexation as is the case in Colombia. Monetary policy began to react early to this inflationary pressure. Thus, starting with its September 2021 session, the BDBR began a progressive change in the monetary policy stance moving away from the historical low of a 1.75% policy rate that had intended to stimulate the recovery of the economy. This adjustment process continued without interruption throughout 2022 and into the beginning of 2023 when the monetary policy rate reached 12.75% last January, thus accumulating an increase of 11 percentage points (pp). The public and the markets have been surprised that inflation continued to rise despite significant interest rate increases. However, as the BDBR has explained in its various communiqués, monetary policy works with a lag. Just as in 2022 economic activity recovered to a level above the pre-pandemic level, driven, along with other factors, by the monetary stimulus granted during the pandemic period and subsequent months, so too the effects of the current restrictive monetary policy will gradually take effect. This will allow us to expect the inflation rate to converge to 3.0% by the end of 2024 as is the BDBR’s purpose.Inflation results for January and February of this year showed declining marginal increases (13 bp and 3 bp respectively) compared to the change seen in December (59 bp). This suggests that a turning point in the inflation trend is approaching. In other Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Perú, and Mexico, inflation has peaked and has begun to decline slowly, albeit with some ups and downs. It is to be expected that a similar process will take place in Colombia in the coming months. The expected decline in inflation in 2023 will be due, along with other factors, to lower cost pressure from abroad as a result of the gradual normalization of supply chains, the overcoming of supply shocks caused by the weather, and road blockades in previous years. This will be reflected in lower adjustments in food prices, as has already been seen in the first two months of the year and, of course, the lagged effect of monetary policy. The process of inflation convergence to the target will be gradual and will extend beyond 2023. This process will be facilitated if devaluation pressure is reversed. To this end, it is essential to continue consolidating fiscal sustainability and avoid messages on different public policy fronts that generate uncertainty and distrust. 1 This Report to Congress includes Box 1, which summarizes the trajectory of Banco de la República over the past 100 years. In addition, under the Bank’s auspices, several books that delve into various aspects of the history of this institution have been published in recent years. See, for example: Historia del Banco de la República 1923-2015; Tres banqueros centrales; Junta Directiva del Banco de la República: grandes episodios en 30 años de historia; Banco de la República: 90 años de la banca central en Colombia. 2 This is why lower inflation has been reflected in a reduction of income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient that went from 58.7 in 1998 to 51.3 in the year prior to the pandemic. 3 See Gómez Javier, Uribe José Darío, Vargas Hernando (2002). “The Implementation of Inflation Targeting in Colombia”. Borradores de Economía, No. 202, March, available at: https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/5220 4 See López-Enciso Enrique A.; Vargas-Herrera Hernando and Rodríguez-Niño Norberto (2016). “The inflation targeting strategy in Colombia. An historical view.” Borradores de Economía, No. 952. https://repositorio.banrep.gov.co/handle/20.500.12134/6263 5 According to the IMF, the percentage change in consumer prices between 2021 and 2022 went from 3.1% to 7.3% for advanced economies, and from 5.9% to 9.9% for emerging market and developing economies. 6 https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/noticias/junta-directiva-banco-republica-reitera-meta-inflacion-3

This AMS Policy Study examines explicitly the role that public policy plays in determining the sum societal value of Earth Observations, Science, and Services (OSS) as well as the allocation of that value and the costs of OSS production across society. It examines three policy frameworks of quite different origin, purview, and standing. The first is the 2003 Fair Weather Report developed by the National Academy of Sciences. That policy focuses on collaboration. The second is the 2017 Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act enacted by the U.S. Congress. It focuses on innovation. The third is the current World Meteorological Organization development of Resolution 42, which seeks to make international contributions to and access to data and information more equitable, and at the same time expand the domain of data and information sharing from weather per se to Earth observations, science, and services more broadly. The study takes as its point of departure views of individual stakeholders in the so-called Weather, Water and Climate Enterprise (loosely speaking, the community of U.S. providers of weather, water, and climate information and services) with respect to these policies. Their perspectives were captured through informally solicited public and private comments from senior members of the Enterprise. Individually and in aggregate the comments hint at or suggest opportunities for extending and improving Enterprise value by broadening collaboration, fostering innovation, and making the Enterprise more equitable.

The National Park Service (NPS) Natural Resource Condition Assessment (NRCA) Program administered by the NPS Water Resources Division evaluates current conditions for important natural resources and resource indicators using primarily existing information and data. NRCAs also report on trends in resource condition, when possible, identify critical data gaps, and characterize a general level of confidence for study findings. This NRCA complements previous scientific endeavors, is multi-disciplinary in scope, employs a hierarchical indicator framework, identifies and develops reference conditions/values for comparison against current conditions, and emphasizes spatial evaluation of conditions where possible. Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial (LIBO) was authorized by an act of Congress on February 19, 1962, (Public Law 87-407) to preserve the site associated with the boyhood and family of President Abraham Lincoln, including a portion of the original Tom Lincoln farm and the nearby gravesite of Nancy Hanks Lincoln. The 200-acre memorial commemorates the pioneer farm where Abraham Lincoln lived from the age of 7 to 21. The NRCA for LIBO employed a scoping process involving Colorado State University, LIBO and other NPS staffs to establish the NRCA framework, identify important park resources, and gather existing information and data. Indicators and measures for each resource were then identified and evaluated. Data and information were analyzed and synthesized to provide summaries and address condition, trend and confidence using a standardized but flexible framework. A total of nine focal resources were examined: four addressing system and human dimensions, one addressing chemical and physical attributes, and four addressing biological attributes. The quality and currentness of data used for the evaluation varied by resource. Landscape context ? system and human dimensions included land cover and land use, natural night skies, soundscape, and climate change. Climate change and land cover/land use were not assigned a condition or trend?they provide important context to the memorial and many natural resources and can be stressors. Some of the land cover and land use-related stressors at LIBO and in the larger region are related to the development of rural land and increases in population/housing over time. The trend in land development, coupled with the lack of significantly sized and linked protected areas, presents significant challenges to the conservation of natural resources of LIBO to also include natural night skies, natural sounds and scenery. Climate change is happening and is affecting resources, but is not considered good or bad per se. The information synthesized in that section is useful in examining potential trends in the vulnerability of sensitive resources and broad habitat types such as forests. Night skies and soundscapes, significantly altered by disturbance due to traffic, development and urbanization, warrant significant and moderate concern, respectively, and appear to be in decline. Air quality was the sole resource supporting chemical and physical environment at the memorial. The condition of air quality can affect human dimensions of the park such as visibility and scenery as well as biological components such as the effect of ozone levels on vegetation health. Air quality warrants significant concern and is largely impacted by historical and current land uses outside the memorial boundary. The floral biological component was examined by assessing native species composition, Mean Coefficient of Conservation, Floristic Quality Assessment Index, invasive exotic plants, forest pests and disease, and forest vulnerability to climate change. Vegetation resources at LIBO have been influenced by historical land uses that have changed the species composition and age structure of these communities. Although large tracts of forests can be found surrounding the park, the majority of forested areas are fragmented, and few areas within and around LIBO exhibit late-successional or old-growth characteristics. Vegetation communities at LIBO have a long history of being impacted by a variety of stressors and threats including noxious and invasive weeds, diseases and insect pests; compounding effects of climate change, air pollution, acid rain/atmospheric chemistry, and past land uses; and impacts associated with overabundant white-tail deer populations. These stressors and threats have collectively shaped and continue to impact plant community condition and ecological succession. The sole metric in good condition was native species composition, while all other indicators and metrics warranted either moderate or significant concern. The faunal biological components examined included birds, herptiles, and mammals. Birds (unchanging trend) and herptiles (no trend determined) warrant moderate concern, while mammal populations warrant significant concern (no trend determined). The confidence of both herptiles and mammals was low due to length of time since data were last collected. Current forest structure within and surrounding LIBO generally reflects the historical overstory composition but changes in the hardwood forest at LIBO and the surrounding area have resulted in declines in the avian fauna of the region since the 1970s. The decline in woodland bird populations has been caused by multiple factors including the conversion of hardwood forest to other land cover types, habitat fragmentation, and increasing human population growth. The identification of data gaps during the course of the assessment is an important NRCA outcome. Resource-specific details are presented in each resource section. In some cases, significant data gaps contributed to the resource not being evaluated or low confidence in the condition or trend being assigned to a resource. Primary data gaps and uncertainties encountered were lack of recent survey data, uncertainties regarding reference conditions, availability of consistent long-term data, and the need for more robust or sensitive sampling designs. Impacts associated with development outside the park will continue to stress some resources. Regionally, the direct and indirect effects of climate change are likely but specific outcomes are uncertain. Nonetheless, within the past several decades, some progress has been made toward restoring the quality of natural resources within the park, most notably the forested environments. Regional and park-specific mitigation and adaptation strategies are needed to maintain or improve the condition of some resources over time. Success will require acknowledging a ?dynamic change context? that manages widespread and volatile problems while confronting uncertainties, managing natural and cultural resources simultaneously and interdependently, developing disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge, and establishing connectivity across broad landscapes beyond park borders.

Semiconductors are critical to our Nation’s economic growth, national security, and public health and safety. Revolutionary advances in microelectronics continue to drive innovations in communications, information technology, health care, military systems, transportation, energy, and infrastructure. The potential for microelectronics to create transformational change is growing exponentially as they become smaller, faster, and more sophisticated—delivering unprecedented performance. Next-generation systems, devices, and related technologies are critical to addressing society’s most urgent needs. The nation that leads in microelectronics research, development, and manufacturing will lead in defining and reaping the benefits from dynamic shifts in technology. The ability to cost-effectively manufacture complex next-generation microelectronics devices and integrate them in novel systems and packages is a growing challenge, compounded by ever-greater requirements for performance, functionality, and security. To strengthen the U.S. position in semiconductors, Congress authorized a set of programs known as the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act (CHIPS Act) as part of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021 (Pub. L. No. 116-283). These programs would help restore U.S. leadership in microelectronics manufacturing and ensure America’s supply of leading-edge products by providing incentives and encouraging investment to expand production capacity and grow the innovation ecosystem for microelectronics research and development (R&D). Leveraging decades of experience in next generation devices, systems, and related technologies, NIST has a specific role authorized under the CHIPS Act to undertake critical metrology R&D that will strengthen the domestic semiconductor industry.