abstract: In the middle of the 20th century in the United States, transportation and infrastructure development became a priority on the national agenda, instigating the development of mathematical models that would predict transportation network performance. Approximately 40 years later, transportation planning models again became a national priority, this time instigating the development of highly disaggregate activity-based traffic models called microsimulations. These models predict the travel on a network at the level of the individual decision-maker, but do so with a large computational complexity and processing time requirement. The vast resources and steep learning curve required to integrate microsimulation models into the general transportation plan have deterred planning agencies from incorporating these tools. By researching the stochastic variability in the results of a microsimulation model with varying random number seeds, this paper evaluates the number of simulation trials necessary, and therefore the computational effort, for a planning agency to reach stable model outcomes. The microsimulation tool used to complete this research is the Transportation Analysis and Simulation System (TRANSIMS). The requirements for initiating a TRANSIMS simulation are described in the paper. Two analysis corridors are chosen in the Metropolitan Phoenix Area, and the roadway performance characteristics volume, vehicle-miles of travel, and vehicle-hours of travel are examined in each corridor under both congested and uncongested conditions. Both congested and uncongested simulations are completed in twenty trials, each with a unique random number seed. Performance measures are averaged for each trial, providing a distribution of average performance measures with which to test the stability of the system. The results of this research show that the variability in outcomes increases with increasing congestion. Although twenty trials are sufficient to achieve stable solutions for the uncongested state, convergence in the congested state is not achieved. These results indicate that a highly congested urban environment requires more than twenty simulation runs for each tested scenario before reaching a solution that can be assumed to be stable. The computational effort needed for this type of analysis is something that transportation planning agencies should take into consideration before beginning a traffic microsimulation program. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Civil Engineering 2010

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The topic of convergence in real GDP per capita has become a very sensitive issue, its results often depending on how the sample group, time period, estimation approach and theoretical concept are chosen. This dissertation presents a study and a convenient explanation of the Mankiw, Romer and Weil's (1992) augmentation of the Solow's (1956) neoclassical growth model and its subsequent empirical application to the EU27 over the period 1970-2010. The application is based on the convergence models designed by the Augmented Solow's model and studies convergence speed and patterns among the EU27 countries. The evidence indicates that the pace of convergence within the EU27 is much slower than what the model predicts. Nevertheless, the analysis shows that an increase in human capital has a stronger impact on per capita GDP and, by extension, on convergence than a similar increase in physical capital.

Das vorliegende Skript ist aus dem Lehrveranstaltungszyklus Theorie und Methodik der Statistik hervorgegangen, den ich an der Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften der TU Dresden im Hauptstudium der Diplomstudiengänge und in den Masterstudiengängen gehalten habe. Es gibt 16 ältere Auflagen, die während mehr als 15 Jahren kontinuierlich überarbeitet, erweitert und korrigiert wurden. Für Hinweise auf Fehler und für Erweiterungs- und Verbesserungsvorschläge danke ich mehreren Studenten und allen Mitarbeitern, die in dieser Zeit am Lehrstuhl für Quantitative Verfahren, insbesondere Statistik beschäftigt waren. Die 30 Kapitel verteilen sich auf die fünf Teile Grundlagen, Schätzen und Testen, Korrelation und Regression, Stochastische Prozesse und Multivariate Verfahren, die jeweils Grundlage einer Lehrveranstaltung waren. Viele Kapitel haben einen abschließenden Abschnitt "Weiterführendes" mit zusätzlichem und ergänzendem Material, das in der Vorlesung nicht behandelt wurde, sowie zusätzlichen Eräauterungen, Beispielen und Anmerkungen. Zur verwendeten Notation und zu mathematischen Grundlagen siehe Anhang A.