The statutory ground to award security for costs against an impecunious company: should we mourn its passing?

Analyses the approach of the courts to their jurisdiction to make an order for security for costs against an impecunious company under the Companies Act 1985 s.726 and under the CPR r.25.13(2)(c). Compares the courts' interpretation of the two jurisdictions with regard to their extent, their application to counterclaims and interim proceedings, the standard of proof of impecuniosity required, and the circumstances taken into account by the courts when exercising each jurisdiction. Assesses the likely impact of the repeal of s.726 expected on October 1, 2009

Probabilistic and parallel algorithms for centroidal Voronoi tessellations with application to meshless computing and numerical analysis on surfaces

Centroidal Voronoi tessellations (CVT) are Voronoi tessellations of a region such that the generating points of the tessellations are also the centroids of the corresponding Voronoi regions. Such tessellations are of use in very diverse applications, including data compression, clustering analysis, cell biology, territorial behavior of animals, optimal allocation of resources, and grid generation. A detailed review is given in chapter 1. In chapter 2, some probabilistic methods for determining centroidal Voronoi tessellations and their parallel implementation on distributed memory systems are presented. The results of computational experiments performed on a CRAY T3E-600 system are given for each algorithm. These demonstrate the superior sequential and parallel performance of a new algorithm we introduce. Then, new algorithms are presented in chapter 3 for the determination of point sets and associated support regions that can then be used in meshless computing methods. The algorithms are probabilistic in nature so that they are totally meshfree, i.e., they do not require, at any stage, the use of any coarse or fine boundary conforming or superimposed meshes. Computational examples are provided that show, for both uniform and non-uniform point distributions that the algorithms result in high-quality point sets and high-quality support regions. The extensions of centroidal Voronoi tessellations to general spaces and sets are also available. For example, tessellations of surfaces in a Euclidean space may be considered. In chapter 4, a precise definition of such constrained centroidal Voronoi tessellations (CCVT\u27s) is given and a number of their properties are derived, including their characterization as minimizers of a kind of energy. Deterministic and probabilistic algorithms for the construction of CCVT\u27s are presented and some analytical results for one of the algorithms are given. Some computational examples are provided which serve to illustrate the high quality of CCVT point sets. CCVT point sets are also applied to polynomial interpolation and numerical integration on the sphere. Finally, some conclusions are given in chapter 5

On the use of self-organizing maps to accelerate vector quantization

Self-organizing maps (SOM) are widely used for their topology preservation property: neighboring input vectors are quantified (or classified) either on the same location or on neighbor ones on a predefined grid. SOM are also widely used for their more classical vector quantization property. We show in this paper that using SOM instead of the more classical Simple Competitive Learning (SCL) algorithm drastically increases the speed of convergence of the vector quantization process. This fact is demonstrated through extensive simulations on artificial and real examples, with specific SOM (fixed and decreasing neighborhoods) and SCL algorithms.Comment: A la suite de la conference ESANN 199

Zooplankton patchiness

This review considers three general aspects of research on zooplankton patchiness: the detection of patchiness, the description of patchiness and the causes of patchiness

The Future of Global Reinsurance

To provide a map to the future, we need a realistic appraisal of how we got where we are. This is the story of how humans have hedged risks. There are two basic and distinct approaches: statistical and economical. The former is typical of the insurance industry; the latter typifies the securities industry. Both are needed to manage today's catastrophic risks. Neither alone will do. I will show below how a combination of both leads to efficient outcomes, and is the way to be the future. Hedging unknown catastrophic risks requires a blend of skills from the securities and the insurance industries. By tapping large and liquid capital markets, reinsurers will be better able to deal with correlated, catastrophic risks. At the end of the intelligent customized use of derivatives and technology will separate the winners from the losers.hedging; hedge risk; reinsurance; catastrophe; catastrophic risks; securitization; environmental risks; global finance; catastrophe bundles; pricing

Managing unknown risks: the future of global reinsurance

It has been said that insurance is the last of the financial services to accept radical change (Denney [1995-1996]). Yet there has been a fundamental shift in the geographic location and in the organization of the reinsurance industry in the last six years (Chichilnisky [19966]). Global environmental risks are partly responsible for this change; increased weather volatility and catastrophic risks are difficult to diversify using traditional insurance practices. To provide a map to the future, we need a realistic appraisal of how we got where we are. This is the story of how humans have hedged risks. There are two basic and distinct approaches: statistical and economic. The former is typical of the insurance industry; the latter typifies the securities industry. Both are needed to manage today's catastrophic risks. Neither alone will do. We show how a combination of both leads to efficient outcomes, and is the way to the future (Chichilnisky [1996a, 1996b, 1996d]).insurance; risk; global finance; environment; catastrophe bundles; climate change

The Third Party Non-Signatory\u27s Ability to Compel International Commercial Arbitration: Doing Justice without Destroying Consent

This article analyzes the legal theories and other mechanisms employed in international commercial arbitration to achieve a workable compromise among the above-cited propositions. In so doing it touches on larger, more complex questions like the position of third parties in contract law, the jurisdictional foundations of arbitration, and the role of choice-of-law issues in determining the validity of the arbitration agreement. However important these broader concerns may be, they should not undermine the importance of the issue in its own right

Particle swarm optimization with sequential niche technique for dynamic finite element model updating

Peer reviewedPostprin