João Ferreira do Amaral

Complexity as interdependence in input – output systems

In this paper we propose a new index of connectedness for an input–output system which is considered useful for quantifying economic complexity as the level of interdependence between the component parts (sectors) of a national (or regional) economy. This index is empirically applied in a tentative answer to the following questions: Should we expect to find a natural shift towards greater complexity as an economy grows and develops? Is a larger economy necessarily more complex than a smaller one? The interindustry tables of several OECD countries provide the material support for making international and historical comparisons of economic complexity as a level of interrelatedness.

External dependency, value added generation and structural change: an inter-industry approach

The external dependency of many industries and the corresponding low value added generated in production, combined with a relatively weak export potential, create high external deficits and growing debt to GDP ratios in several open economies. In this paper we propose an empirical method to assess the evolution of these vulnerabilities, based on a new treatment of interindustry production multipliers. The (gross)output growth potential given by the column sums of the Leontief inverse matrix (backward linkage indicators) results from three terms: interindustry consumptions, value added and imported inputs. After a convenient arrangement of these terms, the evolution of backward linkage indicators can be used to detect structural changes, particularly quantifying a (net) growth effect (more value-added generation) and an external dependency effect (more imported inputs), and to classify the productive sectors accordingly. An application to the Portuguese Economy is made, using input-output tables for the years 1980, 1995 and 2005. This method can also be useful as a simple, but suggestive, device to compare the evolution of two or more economies, along their development processes in time.

Assessing economic complexity as interindustry connectedness in nine OECD countries

Economic complexity can be defined as the level of interdependence between the component parts of an economy. In input–output systems interindustry connectedness is a crucial feature of analysis, and there are many different methods of measuring it. Most of the measures however, have important drawbacks to be used as a good indicator of economic complexity, because they were not explicitly made with this purpose in mind. In this paper, we present, discuss and compare empirically different indexes of economic complexity as intersectoral connectedness, using the inter-industry tables of nine OECD countries. According to most of the measures of connectedness large economies (USA, Japan) tend to be more complex than small economies (for example, Denmark). But if another type of measures is considered, the opposite conclusion is drawn, signalling a hidden characteristic of interdependence that so far has not been detected by conventional measures. This result should qualify the widespread idea that more interconnected productive structures propagate more intensely exogenous shocks and/or economic policy measures.

The Structure and Evolution of Production, Employment and Human Capital in Portugal: an Input ‑Output Approach*

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the structure and evolution of production, employment and human capital in Portugal, using an inter-industry approach. A descriptive analysis of the sector composition of gross output, value added and employment is made, followed by a quantification of changes in relative labour productivity and primary input content of final demand components. Next, the evolution of employment multipliers is quantified, as well as the structure of labour force qualifications by sector. Although remarkable improvements have been achieved in the past, the low educational levels of its workers, on average, remains one the main vulnerabilities of Portugal in the global and knowledge economy of our days. In this context, the main contribution of the paper is the quantification of human capital requirements of final demand changes by component. Using an input-output approach combining sector productivities and labour qualifications, output multipliers and final demand structure, it is possible to quantify the growth in employment by level of qualification resulting from a unitary growth of private and public consumption, investment and exports. This exercise is made for 1995 and 2008, using input-output domestic flow tables from INE and DPP and employment qualifications from Quadros de Pessoal database.

Self-Defeating Austerity? Assessing the Impact of Fiscal Consolidations on Unemployment

The great recession of 2008/2009 had a huge impact on unemployment and public finances in most advanced countries, and these impacts were magnified in the southern Euro area by the sovereign debt crisis of 2010/2011. The fiscal consolidation imposed by the European Union on highly indebted countries was based on the assumptions of so-called expansionary austerity. However, the reality so far provides proof to the contrary, and the results outlined in this article support the opposing view of a self-defeating austerity. Based on a model of the input–output relations of the productive system, an unemployment rate/budget balance trade-off equation is derived, as well as the impact of a strong fiscal consolidation based on social transfers and the notion of a neutral budget balance. An application to the Portuguese case confirms the huge costs of a strong fiscal consolidation, both in terms of unemployment and social policy regress. The conclusion is that too much consolidation in anyone year makes consolidation more difficult in the following year.

AB0013 Is there immune disregulation in non-sjÖgren sicca syndrome? a study of blood lymphocyte subpopulations

Background A large number of patients with sicca syndrome not fulfilling Sjögrens syndrome (SS) classification criteria, present manifestations of autoimmunity, like arthritis, Raynauds, rash or hematologic disturbances, and have anti-nuclear antibodies, lacking however more specific antibodies. The designation Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease was coined to refer to those patients, and some will eventually progress to a definite disease, of which SS would be a likely candidate. Immune cell disturbances could be progression markerr, since diseases like pSS have distinct lymphocyte profiles. Objectives We aim to study the circulating lymphocyte subsets in non-Sjögren sicca patients (n-SS), and compare them with pSS and healthy controls. Methods We included 65 n-SS patients, 53 pSS patients (2002 AECG criteria) and 22 healthy controls. Lymphocyte subsets were characterized by flow cytometry, including follicular and regulatory T cells and naïve, mature, memory, plasmablasts and regulatory B cells. Statistical analysis was performed with GraphPad, and significance was considered for p<0.05 Results Comparing to controls, n-SS patients had lower counts of T cells (p=0.016), with lower CD4 (p=0.0028), however that difference was not as pronounced as between SS and controls. n-SS patients had higher percentages of CD4 (p=0.0005) and lower CD8 percentages (p=0.0009) than pSS. Additionally, there was a decrease in absolute counts of Tregs (p=0.0028) in n-SS patients compared to controls, which was less pronounced than the comparison between SS and controls (p=0.0008). Th17 cells were decreased in SS compared to controls (p=0.0005), but not in-SS patients. Compared with controls, both n-SS and SS patients presented decreased absolute count (p=0.0001 and p<0,0001, respectively) of CXCR5+ Tfh cells, with no differences between n-SS and SS patients. However, higher levels of IL21+CD4 T cells and Tfh1 cells were found comparing SS patients with both controls (p=0,0209 and p=0,0092 respectively) and n-SS patients (p=0,0051 and 0,0028 respectively). Absolute counts of memory, unswitched and switched memory cells in n-SS patients present intermediate levels between controls with significantly higher levels, and SS patients with significantly lower levels. Accordingly, using the Bm1–5 classification, we have found decreased Bm1 (p=0.004), eBm5 (Abs, p=0.0273) and Bm5 cells (Abs, p=0.0444) in n-SS patients compared to controls. Though not significant, there was an increase in eBm5 (Abs, p=0.063) and Bm5 cells (Abs, p=0.05) in n-SS compared to SS patients. Again, CD24+CD27+ Bregs were also decreased in n-SS patients compared to controls (p=0.036), but increased in n-SS compared to SS patients (p=0,0007). Conclusions Our data showed that n-SS patients present immune disregulation, represented by alterations in the B cell compartment but also in Tfh subset, known to modulate the humoral immune response. Although less pronounced, these modifications resemble the ones found in SS patients. Wether n-SS is a stage in the evolution to SS remains to be clarified. The identification of a characteristic disregulation of the immune system in n-SS could be usefull for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Disclosure of Interest None declared

Accelerating differential power analysis on heterogeneous systems

Differential Power Analysis (DPA) attacks allows discovering the secret key stored into secure embedded systems by exploiting the correlation between the power consumed by a device and the data being processed. The computation involved is generally relatively simple, however, if the used power traces are composed by a large number of points, the processing time can be long. In this paper we aim at speeding up the so called correlation power analysis (CPA). To do so, we used the OpenCL framework to distribute the workload of the attack over an heterogeneous platform composed by a CPU and multiple accelerators. We concentrate in the computation of the Pearsons correlation coefficients, as they cover approximately 80% of the overall execution time, and we further optimize the attack by minimizing the data transfers between the host processor and the GPUs. Our results show performance improvements of up to 9x when compared with the reference parallel implementation.