Reforming finance in transitional socialist economies : avoiding the path from shell money to shell games

In the late 1980s, transitional socialist economies (TSEs) in Central and Eastern Europe were only somewhat more sophisticated than shell money systems: savings books or currency had to be used for most transactions and there was no risk assessment, information monitoring and acquisition, or portfolio management. The TSEs have moved toward a two-tiered banking system but they lag in the development of competitive, market-based financial systems. In several TSEs the financial system seems to be part of a shell game to hide the losses of the real economy. The authors argue that rapid, successful economic reform requires putting the shell game to an end. They review several contentious issues of financial reform in the TSEs, especially issues involving macrofinance, corporate finance, the internal debt problems, and the need to build efficient banks. The authors contend that the banks should be"cleaned up"when they are privatized, to prevent the quick reemergence of debt problems. They believe that either of the proposed alternatives for shaping financial systems in the TSEs - very highly capitalized banking or narrow banking - would minimize the need for future support. Either alternative would reduce leverage in the TSEs and provide more financial stability. But taking concerns about moral hazard to an extreme - prohibiting debt finance - could starve new firms for credit and limit economic growth.Economic Theory&Research,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation

Stochastic feedback control of quantum transport to realize a dynamical ensemble of two nonorthogonal pure states

A Markovian open quantum system which relaxes to a unique steady state $\rho_{ss}$ of finite rank can be decomposed into a finite physically realizable ensemble (PRE) of pure states. That is, as shown by Karasik and Wiseman [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 020406 (2011)], in principle there is a way to monitor the environment so that in the long time limit the conditional state jumps between a finite number of possible pure states. In this paper we show how to apply this idea to the dynamics of a double quantum dot arising from the feedback control of quantum transport, as previously considered by one of us and co-workers [Phys. Rev. B 84, 085302 (2011)]. Specifically, we consider the limit where the system can be described as a qubit, and show that while the control scheme can always realize a two-state PRE, in the incoherent tunneling regime there are infinitely many PREs compatible with the dynamics that cannot be so realized. For the two-state PREs that are realized, we calculate the counting statistics and see a clear distinction between the coherent and incoherent regimes.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Assessment of crisis readiness to move a patient from the airport with suspected Ebola

The aim of this article is to verify the readiness of patient transport from the airport with symptoms for Ebola disease by the rescue services of the Integrated Rescue System of the Czech Republic. Detection of possible risks and causes of risks during patient transport. In one part of the article, the part is devoted to the current legislation regulating the cooperation of IRS, economic measures for crisis situations, functions of state material reserves management, material security of selected IRS components and the work of BIOHAZARD TEAM. The main part of the article describes the course of the extraordinary event. There is a chapter devoted to the analysis and evaluation of risks during transport. It also deals with the issues of transport, risks and problems that may be encountered by the intervening members of the IRS units. In conclusion, the proposed measures to help minimize risks in the transport of infected patient

Soil and Water Contamination due to Illegal Artisanal Refinery Activities: A Case Study of Okarki Community, Niger Delta Area, Nigeria

Using a combination of field visits, laboratory experiments and analyses, this study examined the impacts of illegal artisanal crude oil refineries on the environment. Total Hydrocarbons (THC) and heavy metals in the soil and water bodies as well as pr were determined and compared with both national international standards. The study found THC and heavy metals such as Iron and Manganese to be significantly high in both soil and water samples. It was found that the artisanal crude oil refining activities in the Niger Delta Area of Nigeria generate and discharge environmental safety hazards that are far beyond the statutory and intentional acceptable limit

Current Approaches of Occupational and Safety Health Management in Work Environments Containing Nanoparticles

The development of nanotechnology is particularly in recent years very dynamic and is applied in many not only technical branches. This is not possible to say about monitoring of possible health and environmental undesirable influence. The first area of possible risk assessment is work environment because there is a lot of possible ways to exposition. The aim of the paper is to analyze current situation in the field of occupational safety and health management in the workspace with occurrence of nanoparticles not only like the engineered nanomaterials. Because there is a lot of influence which could have the negative impact on the employee's healt

The Molecular Pathology of Prion Diseases

Prion diseases, or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), are a group of invariably fatal neurodegenerative disorders. Uniquely, they may present as sporadic, inherited, or infectious forms, all of which involve conversion of the normal cellular prion protein (PrPC) into a pathogenic likeness of itself (PrPSc). Formation of neurotoxic PrPSc and/or loss of the normal function of native PrPC result in activation of cellular pathways ultimately leading to neuronal death. Prion diseases can affect both humans and animals, with scrapie of sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease being the most notable. This review is intended to provide an overview of the salient scientific discoveries in prion research, mainly from a molecular perspective. Further, some of the major outstanding questions in prion science are highlighted. Prion research is having a profound impact on modern medicine, and strategies for prevention and treatment of these disorders may also find application in the more common neurodegenerative diseases.peer-reviewe

Prion diseases are efficiently transmitted by blood transfusion in sheep

The emergence of variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, following on from the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) epidemic, led to concerns about the potential risk of iatrogenic transmission of disease by blood transfusion and the introduction of costly control measures to protect blood supplies. We previously reported preliminary data demonstrating the transmission of BSE and natural scrapie by blood transfusion in sheep. The final results of this experiment, reported here, give unexpectedly high transmission rates by transfusion of 36% for BSE and 43% for scrapie. A proportion of BSE-infected tranfusion recipients (3 of 8) survived for up to 7 years without showing clinical signs of disease. The majority of transmissions resulted from blood collected from donors at more than 50% of the estimated incubation period. The high transmission rates and relatively short and consistent incubation periods in clinically positive recipients suggest that infectivity titers in blood were substantial and/or that blood transfusion is an efficient method of transmission. This experiment has established the value of using sheep as a model for studying transmission of variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease by blood products in humans. (Blood. 2008; 112: 4739-4745

The Development of Penetration Charges for Increasing the Efficiency of the Interventions of Fire Rescue Service Units

During building fires is often necessary to deliver nozzles with water to the desired point of intervention and the wall or ceiling must be penetrated for energy supply and the entrance of persons. Access openings for extinguishing are created with hand tools or explosives, but it is a very time-consuming activity and fragmented material may endanger persons. Another possibility is the use of charges with a water layer, which absorbs the shock wave of the explosion at the back and at the same time significantly suppresses the fragmentation of the building element on which the charge acts. The penetration charge developed in two versions allows a sufficient penetration of the partitio

Glauber coherence of single electron sources

Recently demonstrated solid state single electron sources generate different quantum states depending on their operation condition. For adiabatic and non-adiabatic sources we determine the Glauber correlation function in terms of the Floquet scattering matrix of the source. The correlation function provides full information on the shape of the state, on its time-dependent amplitude and phase, which makes the coherence properties of single electron states essential for the production of quantum multi-particle states.Comment: 4+ pages, 4 figure

Questionnaire Survey of the Skills of Water Tender Drivers at the Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic

The paper summarizes results of the study aimed to evaluate the change of firefightersengineers’ driving skills after attending the one-day training course. The research focused at drivers of firefighting water tenders. These trucks represent the first-response vehicles in case of emergency rides. The water tenders form the majority of firefighting vehicles at units of the Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic with the highest mileage per year. They represent the most important fire appliances at each professional fire station. Water tender drivers’ primary task is to transport both firefighters and vehicles safely without any traffic accident to the intervention point. Therefore, the drivers should acquire the best driving skills. The results of the survey shows both a positive impact of the course - driving skills improved after passing the course, and a negative finding - the insufficiently short duration of training rides on the polygon. Drivers’ skills were examined after a certain time from passing the course. This third phase of our survey showed that “avoiding a sudden obstacle when emergency driving” occurred as a most frequent critical situation. This fact relates with the most frequent cause of firefighting trucks’ traffic accidents in last four years, according to the Statistics of traffic accidents