The impact of the euro on money and bond markets

The paper provides an analysis of the euro area money and bond markets and their infrastructure since the introduction of the euro. Significant development in terms of integration took place in both markets in general to a various degree for the different segments. However, there remain room for further integration after the first year of Stage III of EMU notably regarding the bond market which lags behind in terms of liquidity, market completeness and overall size compared to the US corporate bond market. Analysis of the barriers to integration, which do not seem to be specific to these markets but apply more generally to euro securities infrastructure, identifies fields where further action is required. This covers (i) the lack of availability of cross-border settlement on a DVP basis, (ii) the lack of standardised legal documentation for repos, (iii) the lack of common practices concerning settlement procedures, (iv) the lack or harmonisation of collateralisation processes between national central banks and interbank operations, (v) the heterogeneity in fiscal and accounting procedures and, (vi) the need for a clearing house.money market, bond market, securities market, financial market integration, euro area, monetary policy.

Scenarios and research issues for a network of information

This paper describes ideas and items of work within the framework of the EU-funded 4WARD project. We present scenarios where the current host-centric approach to infor- mation storage and retrieval is ill-suited for and explain how a new networking paradigm emerges, by adopting the information-centric network architecture approach, which we call Network of Information (NetInf). NetInf capital- izes on a proposed identifier/locator split and allows users to create, distribute, and retrieve information using a com- mon infrastructure without tying data to particular hosts. NetInf introduces the concepts of information and data ob- jects. Data objects correspond to the particular bits and bytes of a digital object, such as text file, a specific encod- ing of a song or a video. Information objects can be used to identify other objects irrespective of their particular dig- ital representation. After discussing the benefits of such an indirection, we consider the impact of NetInf with respect to naming and governance in the Future Internet. Finally, we provide an outlook on the research scope of NetInf along with items for future work

EDUCATION AS A SOLUTION TO COMBAT RISING CYBERCRIME RATES AGAINST CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS

Ninety seven percent (97%) of people between the ages of 3 and 18 are found to be users of technology and internet services daily. This number also correlates with rising cyber crime rates against people in this age bracket. It is found that people between 3 and 18 years old are found to be technologically savvy but often lack the knowledge of how to protect themselves in online environments. Researchers have suggested that cybersecurity awareness training is an effective method at combating common forms of cyberattack such as social engineering. Social engineering attacks are found to make up 98% of successful cyberattacks and it is crucial that users of these internet and technology services are knowledgeable in protecting themselves. Cybersecurity education materials are commonly found in enterprise and higher education environments, but there is a gap of available research that evaluates the effectiveness of this education in the K-12 environment. Therefore, this project evaluates the following research questions to help address the gap: (Q1) What affective methods to educate children and teenagers on cybersecurity concepts? (Q2) What are best practices for topic selection when it comes to cybersecurity education in the 3–18-year age range? (Q3) What are unique challenges that may be encountered when implementing this type of education nationwide? The research will discover the answers for the proposed research questions by analyzing existing literature and reviewing case studies of successful cybersecurity education in K-12 schools. The selected case studies went through an inclusion and exclusion criteria which required the following items to be present: publishing by a reputable journal or conference, contain empirical data in form of pre and post assessment, why the method of teaching was selected, and explain limitations. The findings and conclusions from the case studies are: (Q1) Students are receptive to learning cybersecurity principles via multiple teaching styles. The case studies displayed self-guided, collaborative, and traditional instruction methods and students were shown to improve greatly in post assessment results. (Q2) Best practices for selecting topics in the case studies was to utilize age-appropriate cybersecurity educational materials published by government agencies. A finding from this is that these materials are not readily available for educators and must be sought out as they are considered optional items. (Q3) Scaling of these type of cybersecurity workshops is difficult due to resource constraints faced by many schools found in lower income and rural districts. The availability of cybersecurity professionals and university campus’s willingness to host these camps is scarce and leaves this type of experience out of reach for many students. Areas of further study are researching methods on how to effectively scale this sort of education by utilizing a remote learning model and the creation of a standardized age-appropriate curriculum

Analytical approach to ground heat losses for high temperature thermal storage systems

A new approach to estimate the heat loss from thermal energy storage tank foundations is presented. Results are presented through analytical correlations based on numerical solutions for the steady-state heat conduction problem for thermal energy slab-on-grade tanks with uniform insulation. Model results were verified with other well-established benchmark problems with similar boundary conditions and validated with experimental data with excellent agreement. In addition to the TES foundation heat loss, new correlations for the maximum temperature and for the radial evolution of the temperature underneath the insulation layer are also provided, giving important information related to the tank foundation design. The correlated variables are of primordial importance in the tank foundation design because, due to the typical high operating storage temperatures, an inappropriate tank foundation insulation would lead not only to a not desired loss of energy but also to an inadmissible increase of the temperatures underneath the insulation layer, affecting the structural stability of the tank. The proposed correlations provide a quick method for the estimation of total tank foundation heat losses and soil maximum temperature reached underneath the insulation layer, saving time, and cost on the engineering tank foundation design process. Finally, a comprehensive parametric analysis of the variables of interest is made and a set of cases covering a wide range of tank sizes, insulation levels, depths to water table, and storage temperatures are solved

Test Set-up for Power Factor Correction Boost Converter Circuits

This thesis will be the second part of a project whose goal is to build a test set-up of a DC-DC boost converter in the power electronics lab at h-da. Thanks to this set-up, future students will be able to see the differences between several control techniques with Power Factor Correction (PFC) in a boost converter. The main specification of the project is to transform the input energy into an output voltage of 50 DCV with a limitation of maximum 60 DCV. Since the power factor has become an element to take into account especially when it comes to charging batteries, it is very important to use power factor correction techniques. And this converter will be made by means of two different types of PFC control circuits: Continuous Conduction Mode (CCM) and Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM). So, the goal of this project is to test if this build-up works, to improve the safety circuit, to research about the different types of PFC circuits and to design and build them the in some interchangeable PCBs in order to make the circuit more didactic for students