Network modelling for road-based Faecal Sludge Management

Improvements in the collection and treatment of sewage are critical to reduce health and environmental hazards in rapidly-urbanising informal settlements. Where sewerage infrastructure is not available, road-based Fecal Sludge Management options are often the only alternative. However, the costs of fecal sludge transportation are often a barrier to their implementation and operation and thus it is desirable to optimise travel time from source to treatment to reduce costs. This paper presents a novel technique, employing spatial network analysis, to optimise the spatio-topological configuration of a road-based fecal sludge transportation network on the basis of travel time. Using crowd-sourced spatial data for the Kibera settlement and the surrounding city, Nairobi, a proof-of-concept network model was created simulating the transport of waste from the 158 public toilets within Kibera. The toilets are serviced by vacuum pump trucks which move fecal sludge to a transfer station from where a tanker transports waste to a treatment plant. The model was used to evaluate the efficiency of different network configurations, based on transportation time. The results show that the location of the transfer station is a critical factor in network optimisation, demonstrating the utility of network analysis as part of the sanitation planning process

Gazelles, Industry Growth and Structural Change

This paper examines to what extent gazelles are the drivers of the growth of industries and structural change. To this purpose we analyze gazelles over a 12 year period (annually from 1997 until 2008) in the Netherlands, and relate them to the dynamics in employment per industry. We use a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model to explore the relations between the presence of gazelles and industry (employment) growth (with 43 two digit industries). An increase in the presence of gazelles in an industry appears to have a positive effect on the subsequent growth of the industry. We do not find evidence for an inverse causal relation: there are no long run positive effects of increases in industry growth on the presence of gazelles. There is also no relation between the overrepresentation of gazelles and subsequent industry growth

The capital adequacy regulation of US broker-dealers: a comparative analysis - part 1

As financial markets across the world become more integrated, the potential for financial shocks to be transmitted both from one jurisdiction to another and from one financial sector to another increases. At the same time differences in national regulatory arrangements can be the source of important competitive distortions between financial institutions. Against this background national authorities have been seeking to coordinate the regulation of securities firms and of banks undertaking securities business. This paper, which is published in two parts, aims to clarify some of the policy issues arising from recent convergence initiatives by examining the US capital adequacy rules for US investment firms and contrasting the US approach with European securities regulation as formulated in the Capital Adequacy Directive