Introduction to Recent Developments in Alternative Finance: Empirical Assessments and Economic Implications

This paper is the introduction to the forthcoming book, Recent Developments in Alternative Finance: Empirical Assessments and Economic Implications, Proceedings of Second International Symposium in Computational Economics and Finance. The conference was held in Tunis, Tunisia, March 15-17, 2012. The volume will appear as volume 22 of the Emerald Press monograph series, International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics. The topic of the conference was alternative approaches to finance

Preliminary study of haplotypes linked to the rare cystic fibrosis E1104X mutation

The analysis of some extra- and intragenic markers within or closely linked to the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) gene is useful as a molecular method in clinical linkage analysis. Indeed, knowing that the molecular basis of cystic fibrosis (CF) is highly heterogeneous in our population, the study of haplotype association with normal and CF chromosomes could be very helpful in cases where one or both mutations remain unidentified. In this study, we analysed with PCR-RFLP and capillary electrophoresis some extra (pJ3.11, KM19 and XV2C) and intragenic (IVS8CA, IVS17bTA and IVS17bCA) polymorphic markers in 50 normal and 10 Tunisian patients carrying the rare E1104X mutation in order to determine the haplotype associated with this mutation. For the extragenic markers, 8 haplotypes were identified. The most frequent of them are the 221 and 112 accounting for 80% of total haplotypes. For the intragenic markers, five haplotypes were present on the E1104X chromosomes. One of them 16-31-13 accounted for 50%. To our knowledge, this is the first work to be interested to the haplotypes linked to the E1104X mutation. This preliminary study of haplotypes could be a helpful method to determine the molecular lesions responsible of this pathology

Process capability indices and X , R control chart limit adjustments by taking into account measurement system errors

This paper investigates the effects of measurement system variability arising from evaluations of process capabilities. In this work, relationships between true process capability indices, Cp,True and Cpm,True, and their corresponding observed indices, Cp,Obs and Cpm,Obs, are developed depending on the levels of type I and II errors. Moreover, the method for adjusting control chart limits used to monitor the process is proposed based on measurement system variability. An industrial case study is used to highlight the findings of this investigation and to discuss the adjustment levels that should be conducted depending on the values of type I and type II errors

Introduction to Recent Developments in Alternative Finance: Empirical Assessments and Economic Implications

This paper is the introduction to the forthcoming book, Recent Developments in Alternative Finance: Empirical Assessments and Economic Implications, Proceedings of Second International Symposium in Computational Economics and Finance. The conference was held in Tunis, Tunisia, March 15-17, 2012. The volume will appear as volume 22 of the Emerald Press monograph series, International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics. The topic of the conference was alternative approaches to finance

Towards better understanding of the complex industrial systems: Case of production systems

Growth of the world population and the globalization of trade are the origins of the fourth industrial revolution, called “Industry 4.0”. What engineers call systems are becoming more and more complex as businesses strive to stay competitive and meet ever-changing demand. While automation and information digitization and transmission technologies are increasingly becoming major assets in modern industries, the changes they bring are having an impact on the management of occupational health and safety. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the progress achieved in the understanding of complex systems and to test some of the published theory by comparing it to a case study. The major scientific databases were searched to retrieve the literature on complexity, and a large company in the steel products business was queried to determine how its complexity as perceived by its managerial staff compares to the theory of complex systems. Our main conclusion is that, based on the data gathered in the case study, the perception that the managerial staff has of the company corresponds closely to the current definition of complex systems as proposed by researchers. However, it remains to be determined whether this correspondence holds over the range of business sizes

Causal Relationships between Inflation and Inflation Uncertainty

Since the publication of Friedman’s (1977) Nobel lecture, the relationships between the mean function of the inflation stochastic process and its uncertainty, and between inflation uncertainty (IU) and real output growth have been the subject of much research, with some studies justifying this causality and some reaching the opposite conclusion or finding an inverse correlation between mean inflation and inflation volatility with causation in either direction. We conduct a systematic econometric study of the relationships between the first two moments of the inflation stochastic process and between IU and output growth using state-of-the-art approaches and propose a time-varying inflation uncertainty measure based on stochastic volatility to consider unpredictable shocks. Further, we extend the literature by providing a new econometric specification of this relationship using two semi-parametric approaches: the frequency evolutionary co-spectral approach and continuous wavelet methodology. We theoretically justify their use through an extension of Ballʼs (1992) model. These frequency approaches have two advantages: they provide the analyses for different frequency horizons and do not impose restriction on the data. While the literature focused on the US data, our study explores these relationships for five major developed and emerging countries/regions (the US, the UK, the euro area, South Africa, and China) over the past five decades to investigate the robustness of our inferences and sources of inconsistencies among prior studies. This selection of countries permits investigation of the inflation versus inflation uncertainty relationship under different hypotheses, including explicit versus implicit inflation targets, conventional versus unconventional monetary policy, independent versus dependent central banks, and calm versus crisis periods. Our findings show a significant relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty, which varies over time and frequency, and offer an improved comprehension of this ambiguous relationship. The relationship is positive in the short and medium terms during stable periods, confirming the Friedman–Ball theory, and negative during crisis periods. Additionally, our analysis identifies the phases of leading and lagging inflation uncertainty. Our general approach nests within it the earlier approaches, permitting explanation of the prior appearances of ambiguity in the relationship and identifies the conditions associated with the various outcomes

State of the art and challenges for occupational health and safety performance evaluation tools

In industrialized nations, occupational health and safety (OHS) has been a growing concern in many businesses for at least two decades. Legislation, regulation, and standards have been developed in order to provide organizations with a framework for practicing accident and illness prevention and placing worker well-being at the center of production system design. However, the occurrence of several accidents continues to show that OHS performance evaluation is subject to interpretation. In this review of the literature, we outline the scope of current research on OHS status and performance evaluation and comment on the suitability of the instruments being proposed for field use. This study is based on a keyword-based bibliographical search in the largest scientific databases and OHS-related websites, which allowed us to identify 15 OHS performance evaluation tools. Our principal conclusion is that researchers in the field have shown little interest in generalizing the instruments of OHS performance evaluation and that none of the 15 tools examined is properly applicable to any real organization outside of the sector of activity, economic scale, and jurisdiction for which it was designed

Combining Litter Observations with a Regional Ocean Model to Identify Sources and Sinks of Floating Debris in a Semi-enclosed Basin: The Adriatic Sea

Visual ship transect surveys provide crucial information about the density, and spatial distribution of floating anthropogenic litter in a basin. However, such observations provide a ‘snapshot’ of local conditions at a given time and cannot be used to deduce the provenance of the litter or to predict its fate, crucial information for management and mitigation policies. Particle tracking techniques have seen extensive use in these roles, however, most previous studies have used simplistic initial conditions based on bulk average inputs of debris to the system. Here, observations of floating anthropogenic macro debris in the Adriatic Sea are used to define initial conditions (number of particles, location, and time) in a Lagrangian particle tracking model. Particles are advected backward and forward in time for 60 days (120 days total) using surface velocities from an operational regional ocean model. Sources and sinks for debris observed in the central and southern Adriatic in May 2013 and March 2015 included the Italian coastline from Pescara to Brindisi, the Croatian island of Mljet, and the coastline from Dubrovnik through Montenegro to Albania. Debris observed in the northern Adriatic originated from the Istrian peninsula to the Italian city of Termoli, as well as the Croatian island of Cres and the Kornati archipelago. Particles spent a total of roughly 47 days afloat. Coastal currents, notably the eastern and western Adriatic currents, resulted in large alongshore displacements. Our results indicate that anthropogenic macro debris originates largely from coastal sources near population centers and is advected by the cyclonic surface circulation until it strands on the southwest (Italian) coast, exits the Adriatic, or recirculates in the southern gyreVersión del edito

Intérêt de la technique de Koyanagi dans le traitement de l’hypospadias posterieurchez l’enfant

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