PATHS OF INFLUENCE FOR INNOVATIONS IN FINANCIAL IS AND TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEMS

Predicting technological innovations in financial information systems (IS) and technology ecosystems has been challenging for technology forecasters and industry analysts due to their underlying complexity. Technology-based financial innovations over the past four decades, such as programmed trading in the 1980s, risk-adjusted return on capital-based financial risk management systems in the 1990s, high-frequency trading and Internet banking in 2000s, and now mobile payments in the 2010s, have all led to transformations in the financial services industry. What basis can be identified to predict such new innovations? And what areas of financial services will they affect? This study applies the technology ecosystem approach, extended to incorporate stakeholders’ strategic actions, to analyse the paths of influence for mobile payment technologies. Our ecosystem model brings together three core elements: emerging technology components, technology-based services, and technologysupported business infrastructure. We will also discuss its applicability to high-frequency trading in the equity markets

Optical study of MgTi2_2O4_4: Evidence for an orbital-Peierls state

Dimension reduction due to the orbital ordering has recently been proposed to explain the exotic charge, magnetic and structural transitions in some three-dimensional (3D) transitional metal oxides. We present optical measurement on a spinel compound MgTi$_2$O$_4$ which undergoes a sharp metal-insulator transition at 240 K, and show that the spectral change across the transition can be well understood from the proposed picture of 1D Peierls transition driven by the ordering of $d_{yz}$ and $d_{zx}$ orbitals. We further elaborate that the orbital-driven instability picture applies also very well to the optical data of another spinel CuIr$_2$S$_4$ reported earlier.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

A Metrics Suite of Cloud Computing Adoption Readiness

First online: 06 February 2016</p

Ozone Air Quality During the 2008 Beijing Olympics: Effectiveness of Emission Restrictions

A series of aggressive measures was launched by the Chinese government to reduce pollutant emissions from Beijing and surrounding areas during the Olympic Games. Observations at Miyun, a rural site 100 km downwind of the Beijing urban center, show significant decreases in concentrations of O3, CO, NOy, and SO2 during August 2008, relative to August 2006–2007. The mean daytime mixing ratio of O3 was lower by about 15 ppbv, reduced to 50 ppbv, in August 2008. The relative reductions in daytime SO2, CO, and NOy were 61%, 25%, and 21%, respectively. Changes in SO2 and in species correlations from 2007 to 2008 indicate that emissions of SO2, CO, and NOx were reduced at least by 60%, 32%, and 36%, respectively, during the Olympics. Analysis of meteorological conditions and interpretation of observations using a chemical transport model suggest that although the day-to-day variability in ozone is driven mostly by meteorology, the reduction in emissions of ozone precursors associated with the Olympic Games had a significant contribution to the observed decrease in O3 during August 2008, accounting for 80% of the O3 reduction for the month as a whole and 45% during the Olympics Period (8–24 August). The model predicts that emission restrictions such as those implemented during the Olympics can affect O3 far beyond the Beijing urban area, resulting in reductions in boundary layer O3 of 2–10 ppbv over a large region of the North China Plain and Northeastern China.Engineering and Applied Science