Volatility Surface and Skewness in Live Cattle Futures Price Distributions with Application to North American BSE Announcements

options markets, live cattle, volatility, pricing density function, Financial Economics, Livestock Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,

The GST and Financial Services: Pausing for Perspective

The treatment of financial services has long been viewed as one of the more technical, and difficult, areas in value added taxation. Financial intermediaries add value by reducing transaction costs for clients. While in principle this value added should be taxed under a comprehensive VAT, this has proven to be difficult to do in practice because of measurement issues.  The predominant approach adopted in most countries — albeit with several variations on the theme — has thus been to exempt most financial services from VAT. This was the approach adopted in Canada at the initiation of the GST just over twenty years ago. While this approach is far from perfect, and introduces several distortions into the economy, it has by and large been concluded that it is the most practical approach to dealing with financial services under a VAT. Two decades of legal wrangling and Ottawa’s habit of retroactively legislating changes to the GST as it relates to financial services have served to muddy the waters in Canada.  Recent changes have significantly altered the scope for exemption and resulted in an uneven playing field across financial services. This paper argues that the best solution for Canada is to stick with the exemption approach, but to go back to basics with an eye for reducing existing distortions and restoring a semblance of neutrality. Specifically, the paper calls for a reset of the “arranging for” exemption for financial services; the creation of a new GST-recovery system for financial services; a new structure for taxing imported supplies; and a limit to retroactive legislative amendments and minimum requirements for future amendments. The authors also argue that consideration should be given to zero-rating “business to business” financial transactions so as to remove the GST embedded in transactions between financial institutions and businesses

LL601 Contamination and Its Impact on U.S. Rice Prices

LL601 is a genetically modified rice variety and unapproved for commercial use. Its presence was found in commercial shipments of U.S. rice in 2006. This article explores its impact on prices and volume marketed for both the United States and Thailand, the major export competitor. The results show a significantly adverse but short duration effect on the U.S. rice market and little to no effect on the Thai rice market.cointegration, error correction model, event study analysis, GM contamination, LibertyLink Rice 601, U.S. rice exports, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, C10, C32, Q11, A52,

Kinetic Resolution in Asymmetric Epoxidation using Iminium Salt Catalysis

The first reported examples of kinetic resolution in epoxidation reactions using iminium salt catalysis are described, providing up to 99% ee in the epoxidation of racemic cis-chromenes

Implementation of geriatric assessment in oncology settings: A systematic realist review

Older adults with cancer are more likely to have worse clinical outcomes than their younger counterparts, and shared decision-making can be difficult, due to both complexity from adverse ageing and under-representation in clinical trials. Geriatric assessment (GA) has been increasingly recognised as a predictive and prehabilitative tool for older adults with cancer. However, GA has been notoriously difficult to implement in oncological settings due to workforce, economic, logistical, and practical barriers. We aimed to review the heterogenous literature on implementation of GA in oncology settings to understand the different implementation context configurations of GA and the mechanisms they trigger to enable successful implementation. A systematic realist review was undertaken in two stages: i) systematic searches with structured data extraction combined with iterative key stakeholder consultations to develop programme theories for implementing GA in oncology settings; ii) synthesis to refine programme theories. Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, ASSIA, Epistemonikos, JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, DARE and Health Technology Assessment were searched. Four programme theories were developed from 53 included articles and 20 key stakeholder consultations addressing the major barriers of GA implementation in oncology practice: time (leveraging non-specialists), funding (creating favourable health economics), practicalities (establishing the use of GA in cancer care), and managing limited resources. We demonstrate that a whole system approach is required to improve the implementation of GA in cancer settings. This review will help inform policy decisions regarding implementation of GA and provide a basis for further implementation research

Seagrass mapping synthesis: a resource for coastal management in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area

This project provides an up to date synthesis of the available information on seagrass in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA). It brings together more than 30 years of spatial information and data collection into easy to use spatial GIS layers that provide key information on species, meadow type and age and reliability of the data. The project provides: Seagrass site and meadow-specific data in Geographic Information System (GIS) layers to provide seagrass data to inform research analysis and management advice. A site layer that includes >66,000 individual survey sites with information including latitude/longitude, Natural Resource Management region, site depth, seagrass presence/absence, dominant seagrass species, presence/absence of individual species, survey date, survey method, and data custodian. A meadow layer that includes 1169 individual and/or composite seagrass meadows with information including individual meadow persistence, meadow location (intertidal/subtidal), meadow density based on mean biomass and/or mean percent cover, meadow area, dominant seagrass species, seagrass species present, range of survey dates, survey method, and data custodian. Metadata to enable interpretation of the information and to identify the original data custodians for assistance with interpretation. Outcomes: This study consolidates all available seagrass spatial data for the GBRWHA collected from 1984 to December 2014 by the TropWATER Seagrass Group and CSIRO in a GIS database. It assembles and documents the state of spatial knowledge of seagrass in the GBRWHA. The spatial data is based on methods developed by TropWATER and CSIRO for seagrass habitat surveys of subtidal meadows, and TropWATER methods for intertidal surveys. Methods include sampling by boat (free divers, underwater video camera, grabs, sled with net sampling), helicopter and walking. 447,530 hectares of seagrasses were mapped (modelled deep water seagrass areas are not included in area figures in this report) within the GBRWHA; much of which provides habitat for commercial and traditional fishery species, and an important food resource for dugong and green turtle populations. Data is included for twelve seagrass species from three families. Seagrass was present at 39% of all sites visited. The study identifies areas where much of the data available for management is more than 20 years old or where there are specific habitats unsurveyed. Large areas of central and northern Queensland require updating. Several key habitat types such as reef platform seagrass meadows are poorly represented in the data

Underdiagnosis of mild cognitive impairment: A consequence of ignoring practice effects

INTRODUCTION: Longitudinal testing is necessary to accurately measure cognitive change. However, repeated testing is susceptible to practice effects, which may obscure true cognitive decline and delay detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). METHODS: We retested 995 late-middle-aged men in a ∼6-year follow-up of the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging. In addition, 170 age-matched replacements were tested for the first time at study wave 2. Group differences were used to calculate practice effects after controlling for attrition effects. MCI diagnoses were generated from practice-adjusted scores. RESULTS: There were significant practice effects on most cognitive domains. Conversion to MCI doubled after correcting for practice effects, from 4.5% to 9%. Importantly, practice effects were present although there were declines in uncorrected scores. DISCUSSION: Accounting for practice effects is critical to early detection of MCI. Declines, when lower than expected, can still indicate practice effects. Replacement participants are needed for accurately assessing disease progression.Published versio

Mobilizing User-Generated Content for Canada’s Digital Content Advantage

The goal of the Mobilizing User-Generated Content for Canada’s Digital Content Advantage project is to define User-Generated Content (UGC) in its current state, identify successful models built for UGC, and anticipate barriers and policy infrastructure needed to sustain a model to leverage the further development of UGC to Canada\u27s advantage.This poster session is based on the report, Mobilizing User-Generated Content For Canada’s Digital Advantage (http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/fimspub/21/) and is related to the Brown Bag presentation also presented on March 23, 2011 (http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/fimspres/11/)