Connectionism and psychological notions of similarity

Kitcher (1996) offers a critique of connectionism based on the belief that connectionist information processing relies inherently on metric similarity relations. Metric similarity measures are independent of the order of comparison (they are symmetrical) whereas human similarity judgments are asymmetrical. We answer this challenge by describing how connectionist systems naturally produce asymmetric similarity effects. Similarity is viewed as an implicit byproduct of information processing (in particular categorization) whereas the reporting of similarity judgments is a separate and explicit meta-cognitive process. The view of similarity as a process rather than the product of an explicit comparison is discussed in relation to the spatial, feature, and structural theories of similarity

AIDS and income distribution in Africa. A micro-simulation study for Cˆote d’Ivoire

We develop a demo-economic micro-simulation model able to simulate over a fifteen years period the impact of AIDS on household and individual incomes. When focusing on the labor supply effects of over- mortality, the main effect of AIDS in Cˆote d’Ivoire is a shrinking of the size of the economy by around 6% after 15 years, leaving average income per capita, income inequality, and poverty roughly unchanged. The dependency ratio is not much modified by the epidemic. These conclusions do not seem to depend on the degree of heterogeneity and clustering of the HIV/AIDS-infections over the population.AIDS, labor supply, income distribution

Socio-economic status, sexual behavior, and differential AIDS mortality Evidence from Cˆote d’Ivoire

Lack of knowledge about differential AIDS mortality seriously hampers the study of the economic impact of AIDS in developing countries, at both the macro and micro-economic levels. In this paper, we derive, we think, reasonable assumptions on mortality differentials by age, education, and other micro-economic characteristics by exploiting variables from the Ivorian Demographic and Health Survey. Finally these differentials are calibrated on UN demographic projections to obtain disaggregated mortality tables. Our model is based on econometrically estimated equations using commonly available individual characteristics, therefore it can be used to forecast mortality differentials for other surveys as well. A main result of our model is that educated people have a higher risk of dying of AIDS, because they are more likely to have several sexual partners. This effect is however partly offset by a higher probability of condom use relative to less educated people. The identification of the socio-economic characteristics of low and high risk groups seems indispensable to set up adequate AIDS prevention and therapy policies in developing countries.AIDS, Demographic and Health Survey, differential mortality, sexual behavior