STUDY ON FINANCIAL COMMUNICATIONS FROM PUBLIC RETAIL COMPANIES: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS – MILANO STOCK EXCHANGE AND BUCHAREST STOCK EXCHANGE

The economic and financial crisis that hit the world economy has shown that for retail companies, growth continued to record only for those who held full control over every point of sale. The objective of our work is focused on the analysis of the most important financial indicators that a retail company should focus on and include in communication with external stakeholders. We make the connection with problems of the real economy through a comparative study of Romania and Italy, in which we analyze retail companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) and a similar number of retail companies listed on the Milan Stock Exchange (MSE). The importance of the topic stems from the fact that it is essential for understanding how consumers relate the various retail companies and how the latter model their structure or behavior depending on the requirements and needs of the former

SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS FOR MEASURING AND FORECASTING THE CASH GENERATING UNIT FLOWS RELATED TO INTANGIBLE ASSETS

In light of the difficulties encountered in assessing the value of the CGU (Cash Generating Unit) and of the cash flows associated with goodwill or other intangible assets of a company and after performing the impairment test as provided by the IAS 36-Intangibile Asset and the forecasts related to it, the aim of this paper is to identify and suggest software instruments that would assist in the measurement and forecasting of these elements. The employment of the SPSS and the NeuroShell programmes in analyzing and forecasting the changes in CGU and CGU flows has helped compare the results and the ensuing error margins, thus giving the business entity the possibility to select the best software option, depending on certain variables identified on a micro or a macroeconomic level that may affect the depreciation or the increases in value of the underlying assets for CGU or CGU flows

Dynamics of immigrant entrepreneurship in Romania

Immigrant entrepreneurship may represent a means for diminishing the negative effects specific to the migration phenomenon and for emphasising the positive ones, contributing to the development of strong regions. The present paper outlines a series of information gathered through an ongoing complex and comprehensive research on immigrant entrepreneurship in Romania, approached from economic, social, institutional, and cultural perspectives. The major aim of the research is to provide a wide image on the investigated phenomenon in order to raise awareness among policymakers of its importance and complexity. The paper puts forward a series of empirical results obtained through the development of an econometrical analysis of statistical data and interview-based research. Results highlight a strong positive correlation between the number of enterprises (total and newly registered) and the number of immigrants in Romania. In this context, the hypothesis of the existence of another variable - especially related to the socio-economic and legislative environments - with an impact on both the number of enterprises and the one of immigrants may arise. Furthermore, in-depth explanations are provided by the carried out interviews. Debated issues refer to motivations, incentives, and obstacles in business development, cultural and social norms, commercial infrastructure, regulatory aspects, etc

Model Checking Tap Withdrawal in C. Elegans

We present what we believe to be the first formal verification of a biologically realistic (nonlinear ODE) model of a neural circuit in a multicellular organism: Tap Withdrawal (TW) in \emph{C. Elegans}, the common roundworm. TW is a reflexive behavior exhibited by \emph{C. Elegans} in response to vibrating the surface on which it is moving; the neural circuit underlying this response is the subject of this investigation. Specifically, we perform reachability analysis on the TW circuit model of Wicks et al. (1996), which enables us to estimate key circuit parameters. Underlying our approach is the use of Fan and Mitra's recently developed technique for automatically computing local discrepancy (convergence and divergence rates) of general nonlinear systems. We show that the results we obtain are in agreement with the experimental results of Wicks et al. (1995). As opposed to the fixed parameters found in most biological models, which can only produce the predominant behavior, our techniques characterize ranges of parameters that produce (and do not produce) all three observed behaviors: reversal of movement, acceleration, and lack of response

Neural Simplex Architecture

We present the Neural Simplex Architecture (NSA), a new approach to runtime assurance that provides safety guarantees for neural controllers (obtained e.g. using reinforcement learning) of autonomous and other complex systems without unduly sacrificing performance. NSA is inspired by the Simplex control architecture of Sha et al., but with some significant differences. In the traditional approach, the advanced controller (AC) is treated as a black box; when the decision module switches control to the baseline controller (BC), the BC remains in control forever. There is relatively little work on switching control back to the AC, and there are no techniques for correcting the AC's behavior after it generates a potentially unsafe control input that causes a failover to the BC. Our NSA addresses both of these limitations. NSA not only provides safety assurances in the presence of a possibly unsafe neural controller, but can also improve the safety of such a controller in an online setting via retraining, without overly degrading its performance. To demonstrate NSA's benefits, we have conducted several significant case studies in the continuous control domain. These include a target-seeking ground rover navigating an obstacle field, and a neural controller for an artificial pancreas system.Comment: 12th NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM 2020

Lumpability for Uncertain Continuous-Time Markov Chains

The assumption of perfect knowledge of rate parameters in continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) is undermined when confronted with reality, where they may be uncertain due to lack of information or because of measurement noise. In this paper we consider uncertain CTMCs, where rates are assumed to vary non-deterministically with time from bounded continuous intervals. This leads to a semantics which associates each state with the reachable set of its probability under all possible choices of the uncertain rates. We develop a notion of lumpability which identifies a partition of states where each block preserves the reachable set of the sum of its probabilities, essentially lifting the well-known CTMC ordinary lumpability to the uncertain setting. We proceed with this analogy with two further contributions: a logical characterization of uncertain CTMC lumping in terms of continuous stochastic logic; and a polynomial time and space algorithm for the minimization of uncertain CTMCs by partition refinement, using the CTMC lumping algorithm as an inner step. As a case study, we show that the minimizations in a substantial number of CTMC models reported in the literature are robust with respect to uncertainties around their original, fixed, rate values

Attacking the V:On the resiliency of adaptive-horizon MPC

Inspired by the emerging problem of CPS security, we introduce the concept of controller-attacker games. A controller-attacker game is a two-player stochastic game, where the two players, a controller and an attacker, have antagonistic objectives. A controller-attacker game is formulated in terms of a Markov Decision Process (MDP), with the controller and the attacker jointly determining the MDP’s transition probabilities. We also introduce the class of controller-attacker games we call V-formation games, where the goal of the controller is to maneuver the plant (a simple model of flocking dynamics) into a V-formation, and the goal of the attacker is to prevent the controller from doing so. Controllers in V-formation games utilize a new formulation of model-predictive control we have developed called Adaptive-Horizon MPC (AMPC), giving them extraordinary power: we prove that under certain controllability conditions, an AMPC controller can attain V-formation with probability 1. We evaluate AMPC’s performance on V-formation games using statistical model checking. Our experiments demonstrate that (a) as we increase the power of the attacker, the AMPC controller adapts by suitably increasing its horizon, and thus demonstrates resiliency to a variety of attacks; and (b) an intelligent attacker can significantly outperform its naive counterpart

Пренатальная диагностика мышечной дистрофии и спинальной мышечной атрофии за последние 4 года и эффективности существующей методологии пренатальной диагностики в Республике Молдова

IMSP Institutul Mamei şi Copilului Centrul de Sănătate a Reproducerii şi Genetică MedicalăIntroduction. The severity of hereditary diseases is already well known throughout the world. The monitoring and prevention of hereditary diseases are the current tasks of medical genetics and health. Prenatal diagnosis (PD) is one of the methods proposed to prevent the birth of children with congenital malformations incorrigible, monogenic and chromosomal pathologies. Muscular dystrophy Duchenne / Becker and spinal muscular atrophies are neuromuscular hereditary X-linked and respectively autosomal recessive disorders and that are frequently encountered in Moldova and can be detected through prenatal diagnosis. Materials and methods. The research was held in the scientific department of the Centre for Reproductive Health and Medical Genetics, Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics. After medico-genetic consultation pregnant women who are at risk of having a pregnancy affected by a hereditary disease, namely Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy (DMD/B) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) undergo prenatal diagnosis (PD), which Moldova is achieved by methods such as multiplex PCR, PCR / RFLP, the primer sets specific and polymorphic sites. Purpose. The purpose of the work is to present data of prenatal diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders with high frequency in Moldova during the last four years. Results. In total were performed 14 prenatal diagnoses: 9 - DMD/B and 5 for SMA during 2011-2014. Making the prenatal diagnosis of DMD/B and SMA has allowed the direct analysis of deletions or RFLP test and were detected 4 affected fetuses, 3 of them were with DMD / B and 1 with SMA. Have been analyzed the strategies for prenatal diagnosis of these diseases in different countries and their methods. Conclusions. Prenatal diagnosis is an important strategy and an effective way to prevent the birth of children with hereditary monogenic diseases in families at risk. This strategy applies to all populations, but with different methodologies. The methods of modern molecular genetic prenatal diagnosis raise the efficiency and precision to 98%. The efficiency of prenatal diagnosis in Moldova is 71,4%. Analyzing different diagnostic methods used in the world was proposed as the method which will be better implemented in Moldova.Введение. Тяжесть наследственных заболеваний хорошо известна во всем мире. Лечебно-диагностические стратегии и методы анализируются и затем ставятся акценты в их развитии. Ключевой особенностью является неравномерного их распределение. Мониторинг и предотвращение наследственных заболеваний являются текущими задачами медицинской генетики. Пренатальная диагностика (ПД) является главным методом предотвращения рождения детей с моногенной и хромосомной патологии. Миодистрофия Дюшенна / Беккера и спинальная мышечная атрофия являются наследственными нервно-мышечными болезнями, которые часто встречаются в Р. Молдова и проведение ПД этих заболеваний возможно в нашей стране. Материалы и методы. Исследования проводились в научном отделе Центра Репродуктивного Здоровья и Медицинской Генетики, в лаборатории молекулярной генетики человека. После медико-генетического консультирования беременных женщин с высоким риском наследственных болезней, а именно МДД/Б и СМА проводится ПД. Мультиплексная ПЦР и анализ сцепления (ПЦР- ПДРФ) используются в Республике Молдова. Цель. Анализ результатов пренатальной диагностики, проведенных за последние четыре года в Лаборатории молекулярной генетики человека и оценка эффективности ПД в РМ. Результаты. В течение 2011-2014г. было сделано 14 пренатальных диагностических тестов: 9ПД на МДД/Б и 5 на СМА. Используя прямой поиск протяженных делеций методом МПЦР и анализ сцепления (ПЦР- ПДРФ) позволило выявить 4 плода с наследственными болезнями: 3 плода с МДД/Б и одного c СМА. Проанализировано стратегии и методы ПД, использующиеся в разных странах в настоящее время и проведен анализ эффективности применения существующих методов ПД в РМ. Эффективность составляет 71,4%. Выводы. Пренатальная диагностика является важной стратегией и эффективным способом предотвратить рождение детей с наследственными моногенными заболеваниями. Стратегия ПД применяется во многих популяциях, но с использованием различных методов. Применение молекулярно-генетических методов при современной ПД повышает эффективность и точность до 98% по данным литературы, но эффективность ПД в РМ составляет 71,4%. Предложены современные молекулярно-генетические методы ПД, которые повысят эффективность и точность ПД

Design of coupling for synchronization in time-delayed systems

We report a design of delay coupling for targeting desired synchronization in delay dynamical systems. We target synchronization, antisynchronization, lag-, antilag- synchronization, amplitude death (or oscillation death) and generalized synchronization in mismatched oscillators. A scaling of the size of an attractor is made possible in different synchronization regimes. We realize a type of mixed synchronization where synchronization, antisynchronization coexist in different pairs of state variables of the coupled system. We establish the stability condition of synchronization using the Krasovskii-Lyapunov function theory and the Hurwitz matrix criterion. We present numerical examples using the Mackey-Glass system and a delay R\"{o}ssler system.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures; Chaos 22 (2012