Developing an effective regulatory framework for virtual currencies in Mauritius

It is widely accepted that virtual currencies have the potential of revolutionising the global finance sector. The potential of bitcoin has been recognised by corporate organisations and governments. With the continuing growth of bitcoin as a cryptocurrency, its regulatory regime has become crucial in determining the fate of this novel system of exchange. The global economic crisis and pandemic situation of 2020 is turning industries towards adoption of digital and virtual currencies. Although bitcoins have been regarded as the pioneer of decentralized peer to peer virtual currencies, there remains uncertainties in various countries as to whether they should embrace, devise new regulations or completely outlaw the digital currency. It has been recognised that Mauritius has the potential of acting as a Financial Technology (Fintech) hub for the African and surrounding regions through the rapid development and adoption of technology.For this to become possible, the current regulatory framework of Mauritius must be updated to reflect the continuing innovating changes in this area. So far, Mauritius has not yet implemented any specific regulations to address the use of Blockchain, bitcoins and cryptocurrencies in its jurisdiction. The only related legal framework currently being used in this area is the Regulatory Sandbox Licensing Scheme implemented by the Board of Investment Mauritius ("BOI"). It offers the possibility for investors to conduct their businesses in an area where there exists no legal framework or inadequate provisions under existing Mauritian legislation. In this research paper, the different regulatory frameworks of United States,Canada and China will be assessed to serve as a comparative analysis to examine the nature of their regulatory regimes.These jurisdictions have been chosen as they have been in the forefront of bringing significant regulatory changes, which has not been the case in any countries in Africa or Indian Ocean. These will be used to address the question as to whether there are any existing legal frameworks from other jurisdictions that can be customised or adapted for incorporation into the jurisdiction of Mauritius

A Bayesian Subset Analysis Of Sensory Evaluation Data

In social sciences it is easy to carry out sensory experiments using say a J-point hedonic scale. One major problem with the J-point hedonic scale is that a conversion from the category scales to numeric scores might not be sensible because the panelists generally view increments on the hedonic scale as psychologically unequal. In the current problem several products are rated by a set of panelists on the J-point hedonic scale. One objective is to select the best subset of products and to assess the quality of the products by estimating the mean and standard deviation response for the selected products. A priori information about which subset is the best is incorporated, and a stochastic ordering is modified to select the best subset of the products. The method introduced in this article is sampling based, and it uses Monte Carlo integration with rejection sampling. The methodology is applied to select the best set of entrees in a military ration, and then to estimate the probability of at least a neutral response for the judged best entrees. A comparison is made with the method, which converts the category scales to numeric scores

Evaluation of Right Here: A Young People's Mental Health Initiative of the Paul Hamlyn and Mental Health Foundations

Right Here was a five-year initiative of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Mental Health Foundation that aimed to improve preventative and early intervention approaches to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people in the UK.The initiative ran from 2009 - 2014 and was delivered across four local sites: Brighton and Hove, the London Borough of Newham, Sheffield and Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Itoffered a blend of activities to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing; build confidence and resilience through physical, creative and therapeutic activities; influence policy and practice locally; and deliver products and services that had been developed by young people.A central Right Here team with responsibility for coordinating the initiative also convened a National Youth Panel to contribute to the initiative's governance and influencing agenda; arranged showcasing and dissemination opportunities for the projects' work; and provided consultancy support to the grantholders.Youth participation was critically important to the initiative; both local projects and the central team had a variety of ways of involving young people in the planning of activities, projects and the initiative as a whole. Partnership was also an informing principle at local and national level. The initiative sought to develop new insights around these areas

Making Ethics Effective in Higher Education in Africa and Beyond: A Programme Led by a Visionary Leader, Prof. Obiora Ike

This article tracks the development of the Globethics.net Foundation’s work on ethics in higher education, mainly as a focus on the University administration and good practices. Ethics in university management and organisation is a center of focus since the new strategic focus of the Foundation in 2016, paying tribute to the leadership of Globethics.net Executive Director Obiora F. Ike.  Prof. Dr Ike pioneered the work and laid firm foundations for its continuation and global implementation. In addition to the Globethics.net resources of library, publications and online education through its academy, Globethics.net launched processes and tools to inspire and equip higher education institutions to reach true ethics excellence in their organisation as institutions

Small area estimation of general parameters with application to poverty indicators: A hierarchical Bayes approach

Poverty maps are used to aid important political decisions such as allocation of development funds by governments and international organizations. Those decisions should be based on the most accurate poverty figures. However, often reliable poverty figures are not available at fine geographical levels or for particular risk population subgroups due to the sample size limitation of current national surveys. These surveys cannot cover adequately all the desired areas or population subgroups and, therefore, models relating the different areas are needed to 'borrow strength" from area to area. In particular, the Spanish Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) produces national poverty estimates but cannot provide poverty estimates by Spanish provinces due to the poor precision of direct estimates, which use only the province specific data. It also raises the ethical question of whether poverty is more severe for women than for men in a given province. We develop a hierarchical Bayes (HB) approach for poverty mapping in Spanish provinces by gender that overcomes the small province sample size problem of the SILC. The proposed approach has a wide scope of application because it can be used to estimate general nonlinear parameters. We use a Bayesian version of the nested error regression model in which Markov chain Monte Carlo procedures and the convergence monitoring therein are avoided. A simulation study reveals good frequentist properties of the HB approach. The resulting poverty maps indicate that poverty, both in frequency and intensity, is localized mostly in the southern and western provinces and it is more acute for women than for men in most of the provinces.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/13-AOAS702 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Bubble-free oxygen and carbon dioxide mass transfer in bioreactors using microporous membranes

Increasing gas-liquid mass transfer in bioreactors is a major goal for performance improvement in bioprocesses. The effects of bubble-free oxygen and carbon dioxide mass transfer using microporous membranes were tested in a flat module and a hollow fiber module for applications in a bio-fuel cell and cultivation of microalgae. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient, KLa, was compared to conventional bubbling. Liquid agitation rates influenced the mass transfer, as the limiting factor was the liquid boundary layer thickness. The KLa increased as the membrane hydrophobicity increased. The effect of pore size was found to be negligible for the hydrophobic membranes studied. The KLa for bubble-free aeration was found to be 2-3 times greater than bubbling at reduced power input. The growth rates of Chlorella vulgaris were found to be approximately 1.4 times higher than bubbling when utilizing bubble-free aeration in a hollow fiber module and in a novel flat membrane module

Global Ethics Forum 2011

What is the value of values in business? Corporate responsibility, when genuine, serves the long-term self-interest and reputation of the corporation and serves the community and society as well. It serves the cause of sustainable development, not just by safeguarding the environment or avoiding social harm, but by promoting businesses that are themselves sustainable. The Global Ethics Forum 2011 is part of a three-year project involving research, documentation and exchange. The project aims, by engaging all different stakeholders, to provide innovative practical solutions to the problems of corporate responsibility faced by the business community and society as a whole. The proliferation of initiatives by a broad array of stakeholders requires convergence on shared objectives, policies and practices. The forum brought together 260 participants from all sectors and continents to promote this convergence. In the first keynote address, Ambassador Michel Doucin asked what have we learned from the crisis for tomorrow’s corporate behaviour. At the heart of the forum’s work were three sets of four workshops: the first, on practical tools and continental diversity; the second, on global standards and solutions for implementation; and the third, on multistakeholder cooperation and the role of key players. In the second keynote address, Mark Drewell, CEO of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative, spoke on the challenge of institutionalising responsibility in corporations. The forum produced eighty recommendations for action. These were refined into twelve practical projects that will begin immediately and last until 2013

Discussion of five papers at JSM2023 in an invited session in honor of Joe Sedransk

At JSM2023, I organized an invited session of five speakers on {\bf Contributions to Inference from Survey Samples: In Honor of Joe Sedransk}. I also served as the discussant of these five papers, which were presented by Qixuan Chen, Lu Chen, Glen Meeden, Mary Meyer and Mary Thompson in this order. This paper is a summary of my discussions at the meeting. The first 2.5 minutes was used to say congratulation to Professor Joe Sedransk, and because my time was limited to 15 minutes, I spoke about $2.5$ minutes on each paper, and I made a small point about each paper. I highlighted some of Joe's contributions and my collaborations with him