Operations research in consumer finance: challenges for operational research

Consumer finance has become one of the most important areas of banking both because of the amount of money being lent and the impact of such credit on the global economy and the realisation that the credit crunch of 2008 was partly due to incorrect modelling of the risks in such lending. This paper reviews the development of credit scoring,-the way of assessing risk in consumer finance- and what is meant by a credit score. It then outlines ten challenges for Operational Research to support modelling in consumer finance. Some of these are to developing more robust risk assessment systems while others are to expand the use of such modelling to deal with the current objectives of lenders and the new decisions they have to make in consumer financ

I-11: Sustainable Supercorridor

Recently enacted Federal transportation legislation known as MAP-21 — Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century — has brought renewed attention to a proposed interstate corridor connecting Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. Part of the much larger Interstate 11 proposal linking Mexico and Canada (otherwise known as the CANAMEX or Intermountain West Corridor), a new type of corridor has the potential to signal a break from the 1950s model of road building and the start of a new, technologically advanced and sustainably minded network of smart infrastructure. Using I-11 as a case study, the intent of this larger research effort is to explore three key ways otherwise status quo infrastructure can be transformed into innovative sustainable solutions: by intervening in the design and planning process, by transforming the existing mono-functional freeway prototype, and by evolving the freeway paradigm from an “engineering only” to a “sustainability first” model. In collaboration with partner schools along the route (University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas), researchers and design affiliates from architecture, planning, landscape architecture, engineering, and environmental studies are coinvestigating the possibilities of transforming the proposed I-11 freeway from a limited use, auto-dominant roadway into a sustainable, multi-functional, ecologically and socio-economically focused Supercorridor. This presentation will focus on seven sites selected between Casa Grande and Nogales, Arizona and the next generation infrastructure prototype design proposals developed in the 2014 interdisciplinary urban design studio

Testing the orthodoxies of land degradation policy in Swaziland

This paper explores Swaziland's National Action Programme (NAP) to combat desertification; the country's main strategy for implementing the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). It considers whether this policy tackles real problems supported by micro-level scientific evidence and local experiences, or whether it further reinforces popular orthodoxies about land degradation. Data from one case study chiefdom in Swaziland are used to test two key orthodoxies identified within the country's NAP: (1) the presentation of degradation as a neo-Malthusian problem resulting from population pressure and (2) the assumption that the poor are responsible for degradation of their environment, in particular, the over-use of forest areas and the degradation of soils. It is found that diverse rural livelihoods inherently deliver patches of degradation at the micro-level but it is not necessarily population pressure or poor people that cause the degradation. Households with varying assets simultaneously degrade and conserve different parts of the land resource through pursuing different livelihood activities. The data indicate that while the NAP focuses on mythical problems grounded in the orthodoxies, policy attention is directed away from the more serious land degradation issues affecting rural livelihoods. The findings of this study provide a more nuanced understanding of the gaps between land degradation policy, local conservation practice and environmental and livelihood outcomes, and suggest that policymakers need to evaluate more critically the outdated and simplistic degradation orthodoxies on which much current policy is based. Stronger links need to be made between scientific and policymaking communities, while more credence should be given to land users’ own knowledges, perspectives, concepts and categories surrounding issues of soil conservation and degradation. It is suggested that steps need to be taken towards the development of broadly applicable benchmarks and indicators that bring together local and scientific knowledges across levels. Without this, popularised orthodoxies will continue to provide a basis for inappropriate land policy

"Low-state" Black Hole Accretion in Nearby Galaxies

I summarize the main observational properties of low-luminosity AGNs in nearby galaxies to argue that they are the high-mass analogs of black hole X-ray binaries in the "low/hard" state. The principal characteristics of low-state AGNs can be accommodated with a scenario in which the central engine is comprised of three components: an optically thick, geometrically accretion disk with a truncated inner radius, a radiatively inefficient flow, and a compact jet.Comment: 8 pages. To appear in From X-ray Binaries to Quasars: Black Hole Accretion on All Mass Scales, ed. T. J. Maccarone, R. P. Fender, and L. C. Ho (Dordrecht: Kluwer

The Future Implications of the Usedsoft Decision

Those were the days! Up to a decade ago exhaustion in copyright was strictly limited to the distribution of (multiple) hard copies of copyright works. Anything else was considered to be outside the exhaustion rules. E.g. multiple showings of a movie in movie theatres was seen as the essence of movie copyright and exhaustion had therefore no role to play in that area according to the Coditeldecision. [1] How wrong were we though when we assumed that the digital revolution that turned so many things upside down in copyright would have no impact in this area. Admittedly, the decoder cases [2] were potentially only about hard copies. Hard copies in the sense of cards for decoders for satellite broadcasts of football matches could easily be subjected to the exhaustion rules that enforce the free movement of goods provisions of the EU Treaty. But if the decoder cards that had been obtained in Greece could be used in the UK, such use gave access to the broadcasts. The real impetus to accept this and to breach the uncontested logic of the Coditel approach may have been in competition law in the decoder cases, but they show clearly that the logic of copyright is not the dominant factor in the digital era. [3] That dominance is on the basis of the EU Treaty given to the rules on free movement and on competition law. Usedsoft [4] clearly fits in with that evolution. The Usedsoft v Oracle case [5] was all about computer software wich Oracle develops and markets. Oracle is the proprietor of the exclusive user rights under copyright law in those programs. It distributes the software at issue in 85% of cases by downloading from the internet. The customer downloads a copy of the software directly to his computer from Oracle’s website. The user right for such a program, which is granted by a licence agreement, includes the right to store a copy of the program permanently on a server and to allow a certain number of users to access it by downloading it to the main memory of their work-station computers. UsedSoft markets used software licences, including user licences for Oracle computer programs. For that purpose UsedSoft acquires from customers of Oracle such user licences, or parts of them, where the original licences relate to a greater number of users than required by the first acquirer. Usedsoft’s practices involve the making of a copy of the computer program, which raises the question of the infringement of the right of reproduction. A further question that arises is whether the right to distribute a copy of the computer program is exhausted. A positive answer to the question may help to justify Usedsoft’s business model. And effectively, in the CJEU’s judgment one see the application of exhaustion rules, despite the absence of a sale of hard copies. But the special rules that are contained in the software Directive are, for fairly obvious reasons, rather omnipresent in the decision. Could it therefore be that Usedsoft is entirely software specific [6] and that even in that context a small change to existing business practices can overcome the impact of the decision? Or is this only a first example of the exhaustion logic to come and will the Court of Justice of the European Union apply the same logic to other copyright works? On-line distribution of music and licences granting access to on-line databases are then obvious candidates that attract attention. In essence I am asked whether I have a crystal ball and whether I can gaze in it. The straightforward answer is that I do not have a crystal ball. But let me nevertheless try to identify some guiding principles. [1] Case 62/79 Coditel SA v Ciné Vog Films SA [1980] ECR 881. [2] Case C-403/08 Football Association Premier League Ltd v QC Leisure and Case C-429/08 Murphy v Media Protection Services Ltd [2012] FSR 1, [2012] 1 CMLR 29. [3] For a fuller analysis, see P. Torremans, Holyoak and Torremans Intellectual Property Law, OUP (7th ed, 2013), pp. 344-349. [4] Case C-128/11 Usedsoft GmbH v Oracle International Corp., [2012] 3 CMLR 44, [2012] ECDR 19 and [2013] RPC 6. [5] Ibid. [6] In the first two cases that followed the CJEU’s decision the German Courts seem to give an affirmative answer to this question. The OLG Frankfurt confined the decision to cases based on the Software Directive (which was treated as lex specialis in relation to the Information Society Directive), see OLG Frankfurt, 18th December 2012 -11 U 68/11, [2013] GRUR 279-285. And the LG Bielefeld explicitly refused to apply the Usedsoftapproach to the on-line distribution of e-books, as the Software Directive did not apply to that case, see LG Bielefeld, 5th March 2013, [2013] GRUR Prax 207 (summary)

Forage cuts as a by-product in organic seed production

A major problem in organic grass seed production on arable farms is to provide for a sufficient nitrogen supply. A nitrogen-fixing crop may be able to cover the nitrogen requirement - wholly or partly. However mixed cropping of a grass seed and a nitrogen-fixing crop is expected to reduce the establishment of the seed crop, especially for species that require a long establishment period. One way to achieve a satisfactory establishment of the seed crop can be to introduce an intervening year for cutting forage between cover crop harvest and seed harvest. This will enhance tillering, since the light supply for the undersown grass is increased after each cut. However excessive biomass will hinder drying of the crop at maturity and therefore the growth of the nitrogen-fixing crop must be terminated or reduced in the seed production year. One of the first organic seed experiments at Research Centre Flakkebjerg focused on the above-mentioned factors

Set Theory or Higher Order Logic to Represent Auction Concepts in Isabelle?

When faced with the question of how to represent properties in a formal proof system any user has to make design decisions. We have proved three of the theorems from Maskin's 2004 survey article on Auction Theory using the Isabelle/HOL system, and we have produced verified code for combinatorial Vickrey auctions. A fundamental question in this was how to represent some basic concepts: since set theory is available inside Isabelle/HOL, when introducing new definitions there is often the issue of balancing the amount of set-theoretical objects and of objects expressed using entities which are more typical of higher order logic such as functions or lists. Likewise, a user has often to answer the question whether to use a constructive or a non-constructive definition. Such decisions have consequences for the proof development and the usability of the formalization. For instance, sets are usually closer to the representation that economists would use and recognize, while the other objects are closer to the extraction of computational content. In this paper we give examples of the advantages and disadvantages for these approaches and their relationships. In addition, we present the corresponding Isabelle library of definitions and theorems, most prominently those dealing with relations and quotients.Comment: Preprint of a paper accepted for the forthcoming CICM 2014 conference (cicm-conference.org/2014): S.M. Watt et al. (Eds.): CICM 2014, LNAI 8543, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014. 16 pages, 1 figur