Risks of Friendships on Social Networks

In this paper, we explore the risks of friends in social networks caused by their friendship patterns, by using real life social network data and starting from a previously defined risk model. Particularly, we observe that risks of friendships can be mined by analyzing users' attitude towards friends of friends. This allows us to give new insights into friendship and risk dynamics on social networks.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. To Appear in the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM

Deregulation and productivity growth: a study of Indian commercial banking

This paper examines the impact of regulatory reform on the performance of Indian commercial banks. Using a balanced panel data set covering from the beginning of the deregulation period (1992) to the most recent years (2004) and employing a DEA-based Malmquist index of total factor productivity change, this paper attempts to quantify the magnitude of total factor productivity change and identify its main sources. We also explore whether deregulation has had a different impact on the performance of public, private and foreign banks and whether it affected the risk-taking behaviour of market participants. The empirical results seem to indicate that, after an initial adjustment phase, the Indian banking industry experienced sustained productivity growth, driven mainly by technological progress. Banks’ ownership structure seems to have an impact on bank efficiency but does not appear to have an influence on total factor productivity change. Although ownership per se does not seem to matter as much as increased competition, during the deregulation process foreign banks appear to have acted as technological innovators, thereby increasing even further the competitive pressure in the Indian banking market. Finally, our results also indicate an increase in risk-taking behaviour along with the whole deregulation process.Deregulation; Indian banking; Productivity Change; Malmquist Index

Political institutions and central bank independence revisited

We build on earlier studies regarding Central Bank independence (CBI) by relating it to political, institutional and economic variables. The data suggest that CBI is positively related to the presence of federalism, the features of the electoral system and parties, the correlation between the shocks to the level of economic activity in the countries included in the sample and, for a sub-sample of economies, the convergence criteria to join the European Monetary Union (EMU).ICentral Bank independence; institutional systems; variable selection

Retirement Systems, Demography, Happiness and Welfare Redistribution

This research investigates whether an equity improvement within retirement-systems domain may positively influence demography, people’s happiness and their financial conditions. In particular, a fertility-boosting policy has been tested, acting on the contributory rate. This project has been carried out by using software simulation and with specific Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE) methodology. Two virtual worlds have been created, in order to try to reproduce Italian society. In the first model, (W1), vertical equity has been improved, while in the second one, (W2), it is has not. Five further variants of these two worlds have been produced by altering some parameters, in order to test our hypothesis through several simulations. The research outcomes prove that an equity improvement can positively influence demographic trends, can increase the level of happiness in the society, and can grant a more homogeneous welfare redistribution.Retirement systems, demography, happiness, wealth distribution, equity, software simulation, Agent Based Computational Economics

Genomic selection in white lupin

Genomic selection in white lupi

SocialCloudShare: a Facebook Application for a Relationship-based Information Sharing in the Cloud

In last few years, Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become one of the most used platforms for sharing data (e.g., pictures, short texts) on the Internet. Nowadays Facebook and Twitter are the most popular OSN providers, though they implement different social models. However, independently from the social model they implement, OSN platforms have become a widespread repository of personal information. All these data (e.g., profile information, shared elements, users' likes) are stored in a centralized repository that can be exploited for data mining and marketing analysis. With this data collection process, lots of sensitive information are gathered by OSN providers that, in time, have become more and more targeted by malicious attackers. To overcome this problem, in this paper we present an architectural framework that, by means of a Social Application registered in Facebook, allows users to move their data (e.g., relationships, resources) outside the OSN realm and to store them in the public Cloud. Given that the public Cloud is not a secure and private environment, our proposal provides users security and privacy guarantees over their data by encrypting the resources and by anonymizing their social graphs. The presented framework enforces Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC) rules over the anonymized social graph, providing OSN users the possibility to selectively share information and resources as they are used to do in Facebook

Thomas de Kent, Le Roman d’Alexandre ou le Roman de toute chevalerie

L’Alexandre anglo-normand de Thomas de Kent n’a pas connu un succès comparable à celui du roman d’Alexandre de Paris ou de l’adaptation en prose de l’Historia de Preliis; rédigé entre 1175 et 1185 en laisses d’alexandrins, il est conservé uniquement dans trois manuscrits complets et deux fragments du deuxième quart du XIIIe siècle et de la première moitié du XIVe, et sa circulation a été vraisemblablement limitée aux territoires insulaires. A la différence de son contemporain Alexandre de Par..