7,827 research outputs found
The liberalization of capital outflows in CIBS. What opportunities for other developing countries?
This paper examines the implications of the liberalization of capital outflows in China,
India, Brazil, and South Africa (CIBS) for other developing countries. It focuses on their
prospects of attracting not only foreign direct investment (FDI), but also portfolio capital
flows from CIBS. To inform the discussion, two steps are taken: first, in order to identify
the type of capital flows that might come from CIBS, the paper briefly describes capital
account liberalization measures undertaken by CIBS to date and future intended
liberalization. Second, it maps geographic distribution of outward FDI and foreign portfolio
investment in the recent past, which are taken as possible predictors of future flows. The
paper shows that portfolio investment goes mainly to OECD countries and offshore
financial centres, and only a small share to developing countries. But, within developing
countries, CIBS’ neighbouring countries have shown a greater ability to attract this type of
investment, compared with other developing countries
Implementation of Basel Rules in Brazil: what are the implications for development finance?
This paper is set to examine the developmental impact of international Codes and Standards (C&S) as they are applied to the banking system in Brazil. It is driven by the questions: to what extent has compliance with international C&S affected, or may affect in the future, credit to the SMEs and the poor? Through what mechanisms? What changes (institutional, other) have occurred as a result? The paper focuses on the implementation of the Basel rules – Basel I
and II. It finds strong indications that, as a result of implementation of Basel I in Brazil, credit as a proportion of the country’s GDP declined gradually between 1994 (when Basel I was adopted) and early this century. The paper also argues that Basel I probably contributed to the decline in the number of banks in Brazil since 1994, and to banking concentration as well. Furthermore, the paper shows that although Basel I has affected credit in Brazil, there is no clear evidence that credit to the SMEs, to rural producers or to the urban poor was negatively affected, at least not in a major way. The paper suggests that a main reason for
this outcome is that credit patterns during the period under Basel I have been influenced by directed credit policy, which in a number of cases were intended to protect the less favoured segments. In relation to Basel II, the paper shows
that Brazil’s regulators are proposing a gradual approach for the full implementation of these new banking rules. The paper sees this approach as appropriate for a developing country like Brazil where banks need time, resources and capacity building to be able to adopt Basel II in its entirety. But it also argues that the proposed framework lacks any countervailing mechanisms or instruments to address three key potentially negative implications concerning the new Basel rules: possible further banking concentration, concentration of banks’ portfolios away from SMEs and towards big corporations, and accentuated bank credit pro-cyclicality
Dynamical Backreaction in Robertson-Walker Spacetime
The treatment of a quantized field in a curved spacetime requires the study
of backreaction of the field on the spacetime via the semiclassical Einstein
equation. We consider a free scalar field in spatially flat Robertson-Walker
space time. We require the state of the field to allow for a renormalized
semiclassical stress tensor. We calculate the sigularities of the stress tensor
restricted to equal times in agreement with the usual renormalization
prescription for Hadamard states to perform an explicit renormalization. The
dynamical system for the Robertson Walker scale parameter coupled to the
scalar field is finally derived for the case of conformal and also general
coupling.Comment: Obtained equation of motion for non-conformal coupling, not just
counter terms as in previous version. Typos fixed, renormalization term
proportional to R adde
The Role of Endoscopic Ultrasound in M-Staging of Gastrointestinal and Pancreaticobiliary Cancer
AbstractEndoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is an inevitable tool for locoregional staging of upper gastrointestinal, rectal, and pancreaticobiliary cancer. Transabdominal ultrasound (TUS) and computed tomography (CT) are the most important methods used for the detection of liver metastases and other distant metastases. However, despite its limited operation range, EUS and EUS-guided fine-needle biopsy (EUS-FNB) may add value to TUS and CT by detecting and proving ‘occult’ liver metastases and malignant ascites as well as nonregional lymph node metastases, adrenal metastases, and pleural carcinosis in approximately 5–20% of cases of pancreaticobiliary and upper gastrointestinal tract cancer. This article is part of an expert video encyclopedia
Computational and theoretical aspects of a grain-boundary model that accounts for grain misorientation and grain-boundary orientation
A detailed theoretical and numerical investigation of the infinitesimal
single-crystal gradient plasticity and grain-boundary theory of Gurtin (2008)
"A theory of grain boundaries that accounts automatically for grain
misorientation and grain-boundary orientation". Journal of the Mechanics and
Physics of Solids 56 (2), 640-662, is performed. The governing equations and
flow laws are recast in variational form. The associated incremental problem is
formulated in minimization form and provides the basis for the subsequent
finite element formulation. Various choices of the kinematic measure used to
characterize the ability of the grain boundary to impede the flow of
dislocations are compared. An alternative measure is also suggested. A series
of three-dimensional numerical examples serve to elucidate the theory
Robust Flows over Time: Models and Complexity Results
We study dynamic network flows with uncertain input data under a robust
optimization perspective. In the dynamic maximum flow problem, the goal is to
maximize the flow reaching the sink within a given time horizon , while flow
requires a certain travel time to traverse an edge.
In our setting, we account for uncertain travel times of flow. We investigate
maximum flows over time under the assumption that at most travel times
may be prolonged simultaneously due to delay. We develop and study a
mathematical model for this problem. As the dynamic robust flow problem
generalizes the static version, it is NP-hard to compute an optimal flow.
However, our dynamic version is considerably more complex than the static
version. We show that it is NP-hard to verify feasibility of a given candidate
solution. Furthermore, we investigate temporally repeated flows and show that
in contrast to the non-robust case (that is, without uncertainties) they no
longer provide optimal solutions for the robust problem, but rather yield a
worst case optimality gap of at least . We finally show that the optimality
gap is at most , where and are newly introduced
instance characteristics and provide a matching lower bound instance with
optimality gap and . The results obtained in
this paper yield a first step towards understanding robust dynamic flow
problems with uncertain travel times
Contribution of seasonal sub-Antarctic surface water variability to millennial-scale changes in atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> over the last deglaciation and Marine Isotope Stage 3
The Southern Ocean is thought to have played a key role in past atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2,atm) changes. Three main factors are understood to control the Southern Ocean's influence on CO2,atm, via their impact on surface ocean pCO2 and therefore regional ocean–atmosphere CO2 fluxes: 1) the efficiency of air–sea gas exchange, which may be attenuated by seasonal- or annual sea-ice coverage or the development of a shallow pycnocline; 2) the supply of CO2-rich water masses from the sub-surface and the deep ocean, which is associated with turbulent mixing and surface buoyancy- and/or wind forcing; and 3) biological carbon fixation, which depends on nutrient availability and is therefore influenced by dust deposition and/or upwelling. In order to investigate the possible contributions of these processes to millennial-scale CO2,atm variations during the last glacial and deglacial periods, we make use of planktonic foraminifer census counts and stable oxygen- and carbon isotope measurements in the planktonic foraminifera Globigerina bulloides and Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sinistral) from marine sediment core MD07-3076Q in the sub-Antarctic Atlantic. These data are interpreted on the basis of a comparison of core-top and modern seawater isotope data, which permits an assessment of the seasonal biases and geochemical controls on the stable isotopic compositions of G. bulloides and N. pachyderma (s.). Based on a comparison of our down-core results with similar data from the Southeast Atlantic (Cape Basin) we infer past basin-wide changes in the surface hydrography of the sub-Antarctic Atlantic. We find that millennial-scale rises in CO2,atm over the last 70 ka are consistently linked with evidence for increased spring upwelling, and enhanced summer air–sea exchange in the sub-Antarctic Atlantic. Parallel evidence for increased summer export production would suggest that seasonal changes in upwelling and air–sea exchange exerted a dominant influence on surface pCO2 in the sub-Antarctic Atlantic. These results underline the role of Southern Ocean dynamics, in particular their seasonal variations, in driving millennial-scale variations in CO2,atm.This work was supported by the Gates Cambridge Trust, the Royal Society and NERC grant NE/J010545/1.This was originally published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (J Gottschalk, LC Skinner, C Waelbroeck, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 2015, 411, 87-99
Configurable Process Models as a Basis for Reference Modeling
Off-the-shelf packages such as SAP need to be configured to suit the requirements of an organization. Reference models support the configuration of these systems. Existing reference models use rather traditional languages. For example, the SAP reference model uses Eventdriven Process Chains (EPCs). Unfortunately, traditional languages like EPCs do not capture the configuration-aspects well. Consider for example the concept of "choice" in the control-flow perspective. Although any process modeling language, including EPCs, offers a choice construct (e.g., the XOR connector in EPCs), a single construct will not be able to capture the time dimension, scope, and impact of a decision. Some decisions are taken at run-time for a single case while other decisions are taken at build-time impacting a whole organization and all current and future cases. This position paper discusses the need for configurable process models as a basic building block for reference modeling. The focus is on the control-flow perspective. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006
Reliability of autoregressive error models as post-processors for probabilistic streamflow forecasts
In this study, the reliability of different versions of autoregressive error
models as post-processors for probabilistic streamflow forecasts is
evaluated. Rank histograms and reliability indices are used as performance
measures. An algorithm for the construction of confidence intervals to
indicate ranges of reliable forecasts within the rank histograms is
presented. To analyse differences in performance of the post-processors,
scatter plots of the standardized residuals of the error models are
generated to assess the homoscedacity of the residuals with respect to
streamflow. A problem of distorted impressions may appear when such plots
are generated with a regular x-scale. The problem is analysed with both
synthetic and real data, and a rank scaled x-axis is proposed to remedy the
problem. The results of the study reveal large differences in the
reliability of the post-processors. Versions with empirical distribution
functions are clearly superior to those with standard normal distribution,
but for validations with independent data their rank histograms still lie
outside of the confidence bands for reliable forecasts
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