1,049 research outputs found
The Buenos Aires water concession
The signing of a concession contract for the Buenos Aires water and sanitation system in December 1992, attracted worldwide attention, and caused considerable controversy in Argentina. It was one of the world's largest concessions, but the case was also interesting for other reasons. The concession was implemented rapidly, in contrast with slow implementation of privatization in Santiago, for example. And reform generated major improvements in the sector, including wider coverage, better service, more efficient company operations, and reduced waste. Moreover, the winning bid brought an immediate 26.9 percent reduction in water system tariffs. Consumers benefited from the system's expansion and from the immediate drop in real prices, which was only partly reversed by subsequent changes in tariffs, and access charges. And these improvements would probably not have occurred under public administration of the system. Still, the authors show information asymmetries, perverse incentives, and weak regulatory institutions could threaten the concession's sustainability. Opportunities for the company to act opportunistically - and the regulator, arbitrarily - exist, because of politicized regulation, a poor information base, serious flaws in the concession contract, a lumpy and ad hoc tariff system, and a general lack of transparency in the regulatory process. Because of these circumstances, public confidence in the process has eroded. The Buenos Aires concession shows how important transparent, rule-based decision-making is to maintain public trust in regulated infrastructure.Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Conservation,Water and Industry,Decentralization,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Water Conservation
Multifractal dimensions for critical random matrix ensembles
Based on heuristic arguments we conjecture that an intimate relation exists
between the eigenfunction multifractal dimensions of the eigenstates of
critical random matrix ensembles ,
. We verify this relation by extensive numerical calculations. We
also demonstrate that the level compressibility describing level
correlations can be related to in a unified way as
, thus generalizing existing relations with
relevance to the disorder driven Anderson--transition.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figure
Automated context aware composition of Advanced Telecom Services for environmental early warnings
This paper presents one of the main components of a framework for automated composition of Advanced Telecom Services for environmental early Warnings. The framework, called AUTO, is composed by three main modules: a request processing module that transforms natural language and context information into a planning instance; the automated planning module, based on PELEA, an architecture for planning and execution; and the Service Execution Environment Advance Telecom Services. This paper focuses on the description of the translation of the user request in natural language and his context into planning instances. These planning instances represent service composition tasks based on Automated Planning. The advantages of this approach, like the automatic inclusion of context and user preferences in the composition of services, will be presented. Also, the current implementation will be described and some experimentation will prove the viability of AUTO
Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Child Version (OCI-CV) in a Spanish community sample of children and adolescents
There is a growing interest in designing instruments to
assess obsessive-compulsive symptoms in children. The Obsessive-
Compulsive Inventory-Child Version (OCI-CV) has showed to be a valid
in the evaluation of OCD in clinical and nonclinical populations. The
main goal in this study was to analyze factor structure and psychometric
properties of the OCI-CV in a community Spanish sample. Method: Data
were collected from 914 children/adolescents with a mean age of 13.01
(SD = 1.96; Males = 51.3%). Exploratory factor analysis was carried out
in order to study the internal structure of the OCI-CV Spanish version.
Further, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent and
discriminant validity of the total score and the factors obtained were
examined. Finally, age and gender differences were also explored. Results:
Exploratory factor analysis yielded a similar structure to the original
OCI-CV with the following six factors: Washing/Checking, Obsession,
Ordering, Doubting, Neutralizing, and Hoarding. The internal consistency
was strong for the total score, but moderate for the subscales. The Spanish
version of the OCI-CV showed evidences of test-retest reliability and
convergent and discriminant validity. Conclusion: The Spanish version
of the OCI-CV is an instrument with adequate psychometric properties to
assess obsessions and compulsions in Spanish children/adolescents.Psicologí
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