The symbolic politics of delegation: macroprudential policy and independent regulatory authorities

This paper investigates the motivations that led policy-makers to delegate macroprudential authorities to newly created independent systemic regulatory authorities (SRAs). Three case studies are examined: the US Financial Stability Oversight Council, the European Systemic Risk Board and the UK\u2019s Financial Policy Committee. Policy-makers\u2019 motivations are captured by examining the specific institutional features of the newly created SRAs and by tracing the legislative debates that surrounded their creation. The findings of this empirical analysis call into question several of the conventional claims that are used to justify delegation to technocratic agencies from the functionalist and ideational scholarship. Given the limitations of the explanations based on efficiency considerations and socialisation of welfare losses, this paper suggests that the delegation of powers to SRAs was ultimately motivated by what is referred to as the \u2018logic of symbolic politics.\u2019 It is argued that the main motivation that emerges from the legislative debates for delegating this important task is that the SRAs provided a quick institutional \u2018fix\u2019 to signal to the public that in the wake of the international crisis of 2007\u2013 2009, policy-makers were redressing regulatory mistakes made prior to and during the crisis that had caused a severe deterioration of public\u2019s wealth

The Euro Area Crisis: Origins, Prospects and Implication for the World Economy and Global Governance

European nations have adopted a common currency and created regional institutions but they are also undergoing the greatest crisis in the integration since the end of World War II. This presentation will explore Europe’s regional integration, assess this process in light of the current crisis, and consider lessons to be learned for other regions, notably Asia

Governance Mechanisms in Food Community Networks

How do consumers and farmers organize credence food transactions? This paper discusses this issue through the concept of Food Community Network (FCN). A FCN is defined as an organization where consumers and farmers integrate their goals organizing a network. FCN is based on pooling specific resources and using membership-based contracts, to assign decision and property rights. It implies an organization based on a combination of several democratic and communitarian elements, with few market-like and bureaucratic ones. Based on those concepts this paper proposes a research to analyse the FCN governance mechanisms. Real case studies collected through an internet-based investigation on Community Supported Agriculture in North America have been found. Applying (i) new institutional economics and (ii) organizational science arguments, the case studies were used to determine features that are useful to describe how FCN governance works. On one hand we used (i) new institutional economics based features such as pooling resources and contracting; (ii) on the other hand market-like, bureaucratic, communitarian and democratic elements represent the organizational science approach. The results indicate a great variety of FCN organizational forms emerging in North America

Identifying and Resolving Inter-creditor and Debtor-creditor Equity Issues in Sovereign Debt Restructuring

Most discussions of inter-creditor issues vis-à-vis sovereign debt restructuring focus on the collective action problems that lead to individually and collectively suboptimal outcomes. Some studies also highlight, or at least imply, that creditor interests are often relatively aligned with debtor interests, insofar as both groups want to avoid crises and, when they occur, resolve them with minimal disruption. This, of course, is not always the case, in particular when creditor groups are non-homogenous. In many cases, significant conflicts of interest exist and can undermine inter-creditor, as well as debtor-creditor, equity and cooperation during debt restructurings. This policy brief draws on a joint workshop with Columbia University on Frameworks for Sovereign Debt Restructuring, held in New York on November 17, 2014. It narrows in on a specific set of salient issues that affect debt restructuring processes and outcomes: those related to inter-creditor and creditor-debtor equity. It also offers a few policy considerations for beginning to resolve these issues in ways that contribute to fairer and more effective debt restructurings

Fixity of Piles in Liquefiable Soils

Recent researches have shown that piles are laterally unsupported in liquefiable soils during most strong earthquakes. If this unsupported length is significantly large, the high axial load on piles may make them more vulnerable to buckling instability. Calculation of buckling instability requires the full unsupported length of pile, which is the sum of pile length above the ground, pile length in the liquefied soil and a depth of fixity below the liquefied soil layer. In this paper, the length of fixity of pile foundations embedded in liquefiable soils has been investigated using a simple numerical method. The finite element program SAP2000 V12 has been used to carry out the parametric analysis. The soil has been modeled using Winkler spring approach, which models the lateral restraining effect of the soil as a set of discrete one-dimensional spring distributed along the length of the pile. The buckling loads of the piles embedded in the soil are evaluated using the eigenvalue analysis. The results are then compared and validated with previous analyses based on empirical, analytical and numerical methods. The sensitivity of the buckling load of the embedded piles are studied with respect to the factors such as the depth of liquefaction, the stiffness of the liquefied soil and the unsupported length of the pile, and the results are discussed

Enhanced Josephson coupling in hybrid nanojunctions

We have fabricated NbN/Au nanogaps and bridged them with an Al superconductor using Ti as an interlayer. The nanodevices show a critical current density at 300 mK as high as 3 7106A/cm2, which is 30% higher than that of Al nanowires with the same lateral dimensions as the NbN-based devices. The response of the critical current as a function of the external magnetic field clearly showed a Fraunhofer-like behavior, indicating a Josephson coupling between the NbN electrodes through the Al barrier. The superconducting transport evolves into different transport regimes as a function of the temperature. These findings demonstrate the importance of using superconducting barriers in hybrid nanodevices to achieve very high Josephson current in nanodevices of great relevance in superconducting circuits requiring high integration density

Construction of simplified design <i>p-y</i> curves for liquefied soils

In practice, laterally loaded piles are most often modelled using a ‘Beam-on-Nonlinear-Winkler-Foundation’ (BNWF) approach. While well calibrated p-y curves exist for non-liquefied soils (e.g. soft clay and sands), the profession still lacks reliable p-y curves for liquefied soils. In fact, the latter should be consistent with the observed strain-hardening behaviour exhibited by liquefied samples in both element and physical model tests. It is recognised that this unusual strain-hardening behaviour is induced by the tendency of the liquefied soil to dilate upon undrained shearing, which ultimately results in a gradual decrease of excess pore pressure and consequent increase in stiffness and strength. The aim of this paper is twofold. First it proposes an easy-to-use empirical model for constructing stress-strain relationships for liquefied soils. This only requires three soil parameters which can be conveniently determined by means of laboratory tests, such as a cyclic triaxial and cyclic simple shear tests. Secondly, a method is illustrated for the construction of p-y curves for liquefiable soils from the proposed stress-strain model. This involves scaling of stress and strain into compatible soil reaction p and pile deflection y, respectively. The scaling factors for stress and strain axis are computed following an energy-based approach, analogous to the upper-bound method used in classical plasticity theory. Finally, a series of results from centrifuge tests are presented, whereby p-y curves are back-calculated from available experimental data and qualitatively compared with that proposed by the authors

Passive transfer status and growth performance in newborn buffalo calves allowed to nurse the dam

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of passive transfer status, determined by measuring serum IgG concentration 24 hours after parturition, on growth performance in buffalo calves fed milk replacer or allowed to nurse the dam during the first month of life. Experiment consisted of 24 healthy buffalo calves from birth to 30 days old. Significant quadratic associations were detected between serum IgG concentration 24 hours after birth and day-30 weight (P < 0.05; R2 = 0.62) and between serum IgG concentration 24 hours after birth and the mean daily gain from birth to day 30 (P < 0.01; R2 = 0.74) in buffalo calves allowed to nurse the dam. No significant association was detected between serum IgG concentration 24 hours after birth and measures of growth performance in buffalo calves fed milk replacer. Results indicated that passive transfer status, determined as serum IgG concentration 24 hours after birth, was a significant source of variation in growth performance when buffalo calves nursed the dam. Maximizing passive transfer of immunity by allowing buffalo calves to nurse the dam increased the growth performance during the first month of life

Recommender systems: a novel approach based on singular value decomposition

Due to modern information and communication technologies (ICT), it is increasingly easier to exchange data and have new services available through the internet. However, the amount of data and services available increases the difficulty of finding what one needs. In this context, recommender systems represent the most promising solutions to overcome the problem of the so-called information overload, analyzing users' needs and preferences. Recommender systems (RS) are applied in different sectors with the same goal: to help people make choices based on an analysis of their behavior or users' similar characteristics or interests. This work presents a different approach for predicting ratings within the model-based collaborative filtering, which exploits singular value factorization. In particular, rating forecasts were generated through the characteristics related to users and items without the support of available ratings. The proposed method is evaluated through the MovieLens100K dataset performing an accuracy of 0.766 and 0.951 in terms of mean absolute error and root-mean-square error

Quality assessment of medical record as a tool for clinical risk management: a three year experience of a teaching hospital Policlinico Umberto I, Rome

Introduction: The medical record was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "the information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information on a patient during a single hospitalization episode". Retrospective analysis of medical records is a tool for selecting direct and indirect indicators of critical issues (organizational, management and technical). The project’s aim being the promotion of an evaluation and self-evaluation process of medical records as a Clinical Risk Management tool to improve the quality of care within hospitals. Methods: The Authors have retrospectively analysed, using a validated grid, 1,184 medical records of patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital “Umberto I” in Rome during a three-year period (2013-2015). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Windows © 19:00. All duly filled out criteria (92) were examined. “Strengths” and "Weaknesses" were identified through data analysis and Best and Bad Practice were identified based on established criteria. Conclusion: The data analysis showed marked improvements (statistically significant) in the quality of evaluated clinical documentation and indirectly upon behaviour. However, when examining some sub-criteria, critical issues emerge; these could be subject to future further corrective action