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In large parts of the world, income inequality has been rising in recent decades. Other regions have experienced declining trends in income inequality. This raises the question of which mechanisms underlie contrasting observed trends in income inequality around the globe. To address this research question in an empirical analysis at the aggregate level, we examine a global sample of 73 countries between 1981 and 2010, studying a broad set of drivers to investigate their interaction and influence on income inequality. Within this broad approach, we are interested in the heterogeneity of income inequality determinants across world regions and along the income distribution. Our findings indicate the existence of a small set of systematic drivers across the global sample of countries. Declining labour income shares and increasing imports from high-income countries significantly contribute to increasing income inequality, while taxation and imports from low-income countries exert countervailing effects. Our study reveals the region-specific impacts of technological change, financial globalisation, domestic financial deepening and public social spending. Most importantly, we do not find systematic evidence of education’s equalising effect across high- and low-income countries. Our results are largely robust to changing the underlying sources of income Ginis, but looking at different segments of income distribution reveals heterogeneous effects.

Economic mobility means different things to different people, but four major classes of mobility measures have been identified in the literature: positional, directional, mobility as an equaliser of long-term earnings, and earnings risk (or flux). We illustrate some advantages of a multifaceted approach by comparing German and American earnings mobility using multiple indices from each of the four major classes for three panels of 10-year intervals. We anticipate and confirm that due to extensive differences in the German and American labour markets and in other social institutions that influence labour market outcomes, each country dominates in one facet of mobility but not in the others. Thus, a multifaceted approach contributes to a better understanding of the strengths and weakness of the two systems.

The automation of complex handling and assembly operations can be achieved by the introduction of industrial robots, computer‐controlled and equipped with simple tactic sensors. A difficult problem in such robots are emergency situations when a defective component part is encountered. The lack of the capability for an automatic emergency recovery is a serious limitation of the present industrial robots. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and illustrate these emergency situations and the problem of emergency recovery, and to propose a solution by suitable software. It is also pointed out that some features of Artificial Intelligence programming languages are suitable for solving this problem in an industrial robot. The problem of suitable software for such robots is then approached on the basis of the obtained results implemented on a UNIVAC 1108 computer, by simulating the behaviour of a SIGMA robot.

Big data analytics (BDA) and machine learning (ML) can be used to identify the influencing factors of online service supply chains (OSSCs) and can help in the formulation of optimal pricing strategies. This paper analyzes the influencing factors of customer online shopping from the demand-side perspective and formulates optimal pricing strategies from the supply-side perspective.

This paper uses ML and the Stackelberg game approach to discuss OSSC management. ML's feature selection algorithm is used to identify the important influencing factors of 12,330 customers' online shopping intention data using four different classifiers. The Stackelberg game approach is used to analyze the pricing strategies of integrators and suppliers in OSSCs.

First, the feature selection algorithm can improve the efficiency of optimization in big data samples of OSSCs. Second, the level of visualization and the quality of information (page value) will affect the purchase behavior of customers. Finally, the relationship between the optimal pricing and the level of visualization is obtained through the Stackelberg game approach.

This paper reveals the phenomenon of “mystery customers,” and the results of this paper can provide insights and suggestions regarding the decision-making behavior of integrators and suppliers in OSSC management.

Considering customer behavior intention, this paper uses a data-driven method to explore the influencing factors and pricing strategies of OSSCs. The empirical results enrich the existing OSSC management research, proposing that the level of product visualization and information quality plays an important role in OSSCs.

This paper presents an interactive system, called POINTY. The goal of this system is to solve problems encountered when a high‐level manipulator lanaguage, as AL, is employed. Those problems are related to the necessity of supplying any manipulation program with a complete description of the objects involved. The object description has an important role in any task description oriented language. In these languages the procedural part, which expresses the assembly steps, is reduced by increasing correspondently the descriptive part, which expresses the knowledge a program has about the physical world. An approach to the generation of object models is presented, and the system based on it is illustrated. The basic idea is to point to the objects with the manipulator for building an incremental model of the world, and then to generate the AL corresponding instructions. The preliminary experiences using it demonstrate that the object model part of an AL program can be easily obtained and tested.

This paper is devoted to a manipulation theory for industrial robots. The proposed knowledge representation model is based on a simple algebraic formalism and is shown to be adequate and suitable for actual applications in the field of assembly robots and manipulators. A FORTRAN system is illustrated which supports the proposed model and is implemented on a LABEN 70 minicomputer used for on‐line control of the SUPERSIGMA multipurpose assembly robot developed at the Milan Polytechnic Artificial Intelligence Project. The experimental work done is reported.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some considerations about the problem of Natural Language Understanding with respect to the particular semantic domain of Robotics. The goal that makes realistic this research direction is the programming of a robot in Natural Language. A system called DONAU (Domain Oriented NAtural Language Understanding system) written in LISP and in MICROPLANNER has been developed on the UNIVAC 1108 computer of the MP‐AI Project, and experimental results have been obtained. This system represents an advanced contribution in the domain of Robotics and it is also a base for developing a more general Natural Language Understanding System.

An intelligent agent‐based information warfare advisor is being developed for the Strategic Crisis Exercise at the US Army War College. This paper will provide some background on intelligent agents and will then describe the proposed architecture for building this intelligent agent‐based information warfare (IW) advisor (called “Bob‐in‐a‐box” ‐ named after our IW domain expert, Bob Minehart).

The successful implementation of an optimal online system for specification and procurement has been impeded by the existence of semi‐structured or non‐structured product information held in catalogues in various formats. Consequently, a significant amount of time is spent in gathering relevant information. Proposes introducing a successful optimal online specification and procurement system for construction products.

The design and specification of the prototype were based on the analysis of closely related agent‐based implementations in various domains.

In the development phase it emerged that agent infrastructure is still maturing, even when a stable development environment is finally available. This is consistent with the latest research in this area which places the highest value on internet agents within the context of the semantic web.

This research demonstrated how agent technology can be used alongside other paradigms such as web services and XML to make the specification and procurement of construction products more effective and more efficient.