Development Scenarios for Eastern European Cities and Regions in the New Europe

In this paper we focus on urban growth dynamics of Eastern European cities and regions in the past and in the new Europe. This work is a part of on-going research in the field of urban and regional development, carried out in Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. Eastern European cities experienced similar and very turbulent historical and political development during 20th century. The policies during the communist period with planned economy has clearly reflected in the land use pattern development, e.g. the absence of large suburbs and underdeveloped transport networks around cities. In contrast to other European cities, no or very few commercial zones and commercial centres were built in suburban areas. In addition, satellite cities were built only on a limited scale. With the collapse of communist regimes cities and regions in Eastern Europe have entered into a new phase of urbanisation, which changes dramatically land use patterns. The liberalization of economy and the membership of the EU has led to the growing involvement to the European market and EU development schemes (e.g. TEN/T, ERDF, etc.). In spite of the expected decrease of population in the new EU countries the average gross domestic product is projected to triple and the number of households per capita is projected to double between 2000 and 2030 (EEA, 2005¬/4). Among the consequences of socio-economic development the continuous growth of urban areas can be foreseen. What shapes urban sprawl will take and will it cause new threads to sustainability remains to be seen. In this paper we focus on two study cases (1) the Dresden – Prague transport corridor in Germany and in the Czech Republic (Barredo et al, 2005) and (2) the Harjumaa region and the city of Tallinn in Estonia. The objective of this work is to test the impact of diverse economic development trends on urbanisation processes. Several development scenarios are produced in order to model the spatial pattern of urban land use. The MOLAND urban and regional growth simulation model (Lavalle et al, 2004), based on “cellular automata†(CA), is a key instrument in the forecasting land use development. The model operates at two levels. At the micro- level, the CA-based model determines the fate of individual land use cells based on the type of the activities in their neighbourhood. At the macro- level, various additional factors such as overall land use demand, effects of the transportation network as well as legislative, environmental and institutional characteristics (e.g. environmental protection, zoning) constrain the behaviour of the CA-model. This approach allowed us to integrate “physicalâ€, environmental, socio-economic development as well as institutional aspect of territorial development. The scenarios offer a useful approach to analysing and understanding urban land use dynamics and can also serve for landscape management at the local and regional scales, complementing existing policies and programmes. In both study cases we evaluate the impact newly developed motorways’ supported by EU Structural Funds. Very important feature of Dresden-Prague corridor is the extreme flood events in 2002. The increasing vulnerability to natural hazards due to rapid urban development in flood-prone area is also discussed in the paper.

FX basket options

We explain the valuation and correlation hedging of Foreign Exchange Basket Options in a multi-dimensional Black-Scholes model that allows including the smile. The technique presented is a fast analytic approximation to an accurate solution of the valuation problem. --Foreign Exchange Optios,Basket Options,Correlation Risk,Volatility Smile Modelling,Ito-Taylor Expansion

Forward-start options in the Barndorff-Nielsen-Shephard Model

We derive a semi-analytical formula for pricing forward-start options in the Barndorff-Nielsen- Shephard model. In terms of computational time, this formula is equivalent to one-dimensional integration. --Affine Models,Barndorff-Nielsen-Shephard Model,Forward-Start Options

The Role of Settlement Structures Within the Concept of Sustainability - The Arnum West Case Study

Today catch phrases like too much energy consumption, energy shortage and declining energy supplies can be heard throughout the “western†world. Given that oil and natural gas are non-renewable resources, it is inevitable that at some point there will be a peak first in worldwide oil and later in natural gas production. In times of limited energy resources, decision makers and planners should draw their attention to long lasting structures – such as settlements – and make them sustainable. Historic cities, which we perceive as “niceâ€, “quaint†and “worth livingâ€, emerged from the satisfaction of different human needs in the scale of self-regulating internal body energy consumption. Some examples of grown cities are Toledo, ES; Siena, IT; Hallein, AT and Nurnberg (centre), DE. With the advent of external energy usage at the end of the 19th century, the scale of settlements exploded, leading to the now evident urban sprawl. The separation of functions envisioned in the “Charter of Athens†led to low density housing subdivisions, shopping- and recreational centres, office parks, civic institutions and endemic car usage in between. As a result, area-wide provision of public transport often becomes infeasible, forcing city planners to build large highway networks and parking infrastructure. The evident problem is the excessive level of motorized transport and its adverse effects, which to this extent can no longer reasonably be sustained. Current attempts to solve this issue are under way, but they do not use the right level of impact. One way to resolve the problem in the long run is to change the way settlements are organised. Arnum is located in the southern periphery of Hannover, Germany. In the course of a proposed extension of the city railway from Hannover to Arnum, an architectural contest was undertaken for Arnum West. Our paper will be a follow up and a complement to our contribution to that competition. We will identify sustainable settlement structures and their main indicators. After analysing a variety of different instruments, we will highlight effective tools to make settlements sustainable – such as integration of functions, preference of pedestrians, cyclists and public transport or parking space management – and show ways how they can be implemented in the context of the Arnum West case study. Furthermore, we will demonstrate the impacts of different settlement structures on the environment using three scenarios: business as usual, business as usual with the impact of the sustainable Arnum West case study as part of the existing settlement – a state of transition so to speak – and a fictitious sustainable settlement as a whole. We want to show ways how to change the settlement structure, because it forms the basis for human behaviour. On a long-term basis, it is imperative to change the behaviour towards a sustainable way of living.

Foreign exchange quanto options

A quanto option can be any cash-settled option, whose payoff is converted into a third currency at maturity at a pre-specified rate, called the quanto factor. There can be quanto plain vanilla, quanto barriers, quanto forward starts, quanto corridors, etc. The valuation theory is covered for example in [3] and [1]. --

e-Participation in Austria: Trends and Public Policies

The paper is a first step to assess the status of e-participation within the political system in Austria. It takes a top-down perspective focusing on the policy framework related to citizens´ rights in the digital environment, the role of public participation and public policies on e-participation in Austria. The analysis of the development of e-participation in Austria as well as of social and political trends regarding civic participation in general and its electronic embedding, show a remarkable recent increase of e-participation projects and related initiatives. The paper identifies main institutional actors actively dealing with or promoting e-participation and reviews government initiatives as well as relevant policy documents specifically addressing and relating to e-participation or e-democracy. Finally, it takes a look at the state of the evaluation of e-participation. A major conclusion is that e-participation has become a subject of public policies in Austria; however, the recent upswing of supportive initiatives for public participation and e-participation goes together with ambivalent attitudes among politicians and administration towards e-participation.e-participation, e-democracy, citizens´ rights, institutional actors, public policies, government initiatives, evaluation