The Data Breach Dilemma: Proactive Solutions for Protecting Consumers’ Personal Information

Data breaches are an increasingly common part of consumers’ lives. No institution is immune to the possibility of an attack. Each breach inevitably risks the release of consumers’ personally identifiable information and the strong possibility of identity theft. Unfortunately, current solutions for handling these incidents are woefully inadequate. Private litigation like consumer class actions and shareholder lawsuits each face substantive legal and procedural barriers. States have their own data security and breach notification laws, but there is currently no unifying piece of legislation or strong enforcement mechanism. This Note argues that proactive solutions are required. First, a national data security law—setting minimum data security standards, regulating the use and storage of personal information, and expanding the enforcement role of the Federal Trade Commission—is imperative to protect consumers’ data. Second, a proactive solution requires reconsidering how to minimize the problem by going to its source: the collection of personally identifiable information in the first place. This Note suggests regulating companies’ collection of Social Security numbers, and, eventually, using a system based on distributed ledger technology to replace the ubiquity of Social Security numbers

IP-based NGNs and Interconnection: The Debate in Europe

Historically, interconnection in the world of the Internet has been approached significantly differently from interconnection in the fixed Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the mobile Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN). As fixed and mobile networks evolve to Next Generation Networks (NGNs) based on the Internet Protocol (IP), it becomes increasingly necessary to merge these perspectives in order to achieve a unified and integrated approach to network interconnection. There is a rich history of economic analysis of IP-based and of conventional switched networks that began to converge early in this decade. In 2008, this issue is coming to a boil, as regulators seek to provide regulatory certainty for the build-out of NGNs, even in the face of substantial uncertainties, and even though practical experience with NGNs is still in a very preliminary state. What can we learn from the historical evolution of the theory of interconnection for Internet, NGN, PSTN and PLMN? What issues are "in play" today? What is the appropriate destination in the long term? What nearer term measures are appropriate?interconnection, NGN, Internet Protocol (IP), bill and keep, Calling Party's Network Pays (CPNP), peering, transit.

Alcohol Consumption in Relation to Risk and Severity of Chronic Widespread Pain : Results from a UK population-based study

Acknowledgements The study was funded by Arthritis Research UK, Chesterfield, UK (Grant award number 17292). The funder did not have any role in the design, conduct of the study, in the collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, nor in the preparation, review or approval of the manuscript. We are grateful to the following practices and their patients for participating in the study: in Aberdeen: Carden Medical Centre, Elmbank Medical Practice, Great Western Medical Practice, Garthdee Medical Group, and in East Cheshire: Readesmoor Medical Group Practice, Lawton House Surgery, Bollington Medical Centre, Park Lane Surgery. The Scottish Primary Care Research Network facilitated access to patient information at the practices in Aberdeen city. Investigators on the MUSICIAN study were: Gordon J Prescott, Paul McNamee, Philip C Hannaford (all University of Aberdeen), John McBeth, Karina Lovell, Phil Keeley, Deborah PM Symmons (all University of Manchester) and Steve Woby (Penine Acute NHS Trust). Charlie Stockton was the study manager during the setting up and for part of the conduct of the study and Chrysa Gkazinou for the remainder of the study. Elizabeth Jones was part of the study team and undertook her PhD using data from the study (unrelated to the current analysis). John Norrie was originally an investigator of the MUSICIAN study while Director of the Centre for Health Care Randomised Trials (CHART) at the University of Aberdeen. We are grateful for the input of members of the Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) at The University of Aberdeen in the conduct of the study: Alison MacDonald and Gladys McPherson. The study was conceived by GJM who also drafted the manuscript. MB undertook the data analysis and critically reviewed the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An Equilibrium Theory of Excess Volatility and Mean Reversion in Stock Market Prices

Apparent mean reversion and excess volatility in stock market prices can be reconciled with the Efficient Market Hypothesis by specifying investor preferences that give rise to the demand for portfolio insurance. Therefore, several supposed macro anomalies can be shown to be consistent with a rational market in a simple and parsimonious model of the economy. Unlike other models that have derived equilibrium mean reversion in prices, the model in this paper does not require that the production side of the economy exhibit mean reversion. It also predicts that mean reversion and excess volatility will differ substantially across subperiods.

Jackknife Estimation of Stationary Autoregressive Models

This paper reports the results of an extensive investigation into the use of the jackknife as a method of estimation in stationary autoregressive models. In addition to providing some general theoretical results concerning jackknife methods it is shown that a method based on the use of non-overlapping sub-intervals is found to work particularly well and is capable of reducing bias and root mean squared error (RMSE) compared to ordinary least squares (OLS), subject to a suitable choice of the number of sub-samples, rules-of-thumb for which are provided. The jackknife estimators also outperform OLS when the distribution of the disturbances departs from normality and when it is subject to autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity. Furthermore the jackknife estimators are much closer to being median-unbiased than their OLS counterparts.

Corporate Pension Policy and the Value of PBGC Insurance

This paper derives the value of PBGC pension insurance under two scenarios of interest. The first allows for voluntary plan termination, which appears to be legal under current statutes. In the second scenario, termination is prohibited unless the firm is bankrupt. Optimal pension funding strategy under each scenario is examined. Finally,empirical estimates of PBGC liabilities are calculated. These show that a small number of funds account for a large fraction of total prospective PBGC liabilities, that those total liabilities greatly exceed current PBGC reserves for plan terminations, and that PBGC liabilities could be substantially reduced by the prohibition of voluntary termination.