Radical Islamic Terrorism in the Middle East and Its Direct Costs on Western Financial Markets

Close examination of the behaviour of participants in financial markets in the aftermath of terrorist attacks is a valuable line of enquiry. In this paper, we bring together insights from field of finance and politics. Specifically, we examine trading patterns on highly liquid insurance-type financial instruments around a specific terrorist event. This approach provides an insight into risk perception around political violence and allows us to answer a number of key questions on the impact of terrorist attacks on economies and societies. When examined and processed, intraday financial trade data yields valuable empirical evidence on immediate reactions to the threat posed by terrorist groups. The methodology applied in this paper also tells us much about the geographical resonance of terrorist events. We clearly show that fear of economic disruption can be activated in Western markets by events that are often geographically remote. Importantly, these datasets allow us to judge the vulnerability of financial markets to terrorist attack. This potentially allows public authorities to safeguard our interests more effectively. Financial markets are one important element of a "neglected home front" and the risks posed by disruption to those markets are such as to merit our urgent attention.

GEODYN operations description, volume 3

The operating and set-up procedures for the multi-satellite, multi-arc GEODYN- Orbit Determination program are described. All system output is analyzed. The GEODYN Program is the nucleus of the entire GEODYN system. It is a definitive orbit and geodetic parameter estimation program capable of simultaneously processing observations from multiple arcs of multiple satellites. GEODYN has two modes of operation: (1) the data reduction mode and (2) the orbit generation mode

An insight into the impact of arable farming on Irish biodiversity: A scarcity of studies hinders a rigorous assessment

peer-reviewedTo help understand and counteract future agronomic challenges to farmland biodiversity, it is essential to know how present farming practices have affected biodiversity on Irish farms. We present an overview of existing research data and conclusions, describing the impact of crop cultivation on biodiversity on Irish arable farms. An extensive literature review clearly indicates that peer-reviewed publications on research conducted in Ireland on this topic are quite scarce: just 21 papers investigating the effect of conventional crop cultivation on Irish biodiversity have been published within the past 30 years. Principally, these studies have concluded that conventional crop cultivation has had an adverse impact on biodiversity on Irish farms, with 15 of the 21 studies demonstrating negative trends for the taxa investigated. Compared to other EU states, the relative dearth of baseline data and absence of monitoring programmes designed to assess the specific impacts of crop cultivation on Irish biodiversity highlight the need to develop long-term research studies. With many new challenges facing Irish agriculture, a research programme must be initiated to measure current levels of biodiversity on arable land and to assess the main farming ‘pressures’ causing significant biodiversity loss or gains in these systems.This work was funded under the EPA ERTDI Research Programme (Grant 2006-B-MS-46)

Taxing thoughts: Ireland, tax competition and the cost of intellectual capital

peer-reviewedThis paper examines the impact of tax competition on the commodfication of ideas, and points towards a particular set of negative consequences that affect the developing world. As multinational business becomes increasingly independent of national borders, the power relationship between business and government has shifted from one in which governments imposed tax on business in return for the privilege of operating within its jurisdiction, to one in which governments distort their tax system to suit business, in the hope of enticing them to locate on their shores. The race to the bottom in terms of tax rates has been well-chronicled in studies such as Christensen et al (2004), and Murphy (2006) Countries which were successful at the first round of tax competition are now finding that tax rates alone will not hold the multinationals on which they have become so dependent. The economic growth associated with their earlier success has brought high operating and wage costs. Multinationals who have remained lightly rooted in the soil of these countries can easily move their manufacturing to cheaper, emerging economies, taking with them their coveted jobs and exports. In order to retain them, these first round winning countries are now encouraging multinationals to locate their research and development as well as their production facilities with them. They hope that this is a less mobile activity, less easily replicated in a developing country, and so will anchor the multinational firmly in their territory. In this new level of the tax competition game, incentives are given not only for gross production, but for the production of knowledge. As a consequence, knowledge itself becomes commodified, and intellectual capital widely defined and privatised. This means that ideas previously shared must now be bought, and products previously sold at a price determined by the local market may now only be sold if the market can support their original, patent-protected form. This paper tracks the development from the old to the new rules of tax competition, using the example of Ireland to illustrate the strategies adopted at each stage. The rational, self-serving response of multinationals is explored, and the immediate downstream effects for developing countries discussed. The writings of Michel Foucault are used to gain perspective on the idea of intellectual capital. Finally, the sustainability of the new form of tax competition is questioned, and some hypotheses are formed about the longterm consequences.PUBLISHEDpeer-reviewe

Systolic and diastolic ventricular function in zebrafish embryos: Influence of norepenephrine, MS-222 and temperature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Zebrafish are increasingly used to study the influences of gene mutation and manipulation on cardiac development, structure and function. In this study, a video edge detection system was used to characterise, continuously, cardiac ventricle function in 2–5 days old zebrafish embryos embedded in 0.6% agar and examined under light microscopy at room temperature (22°C). Using video edge detection software (IonOptix Inc), the motion of a small region of the cardiac ventricle wall was converted to a continuous chart trace allowing analysis of wall motion amplitude (WMA) and myocardial wall velocity during systole (MWVs) and diastole (MWVd).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Cardiac wall motion characteristics changed progressively from day 2 to 5 (WMA, 2-days, 17.6 ± 4.4 μm vs 5-days, 24.6 ± 4.7 μm, p < 0.01). MWVd was more rapid than MWVs at all developmental time points. Embryonic hearts were also assessed after increasing concentrations of norepenephrine (NE) and the anaesthetic agent MS222 (tricaine) were added to the bathing water. In response to NE, WMA increased significantly more in 4 day embryos compared with 2 day embryos (change in WMA,13.6 ± 8.2 μm vs 4.0 ± 8.8 μm, p = 0.01, respectively) while the decrease in WMA in response to MS222 was similar in both 2 and 4-day embryos. Heart rate, MWVs and MWVd were significantly higher at 28°C compared with 22°C. No differences in cardiac function were observed between AB and Golden strains.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Video edge detection appears sufficiently sensitive to detect subtle changes in diastolic and systolic cardiac function during development and changes resulting from pharmacological and environmental interventions. Such measurements could be valuable in assessment of altered cardiac function after genetic manipulation.</p

GEODYN programmer's guide, volume 2, part 2

A computer program for executive control routine for orbit integration of artificial satellites is presented. At the beginning of each arc, the program initiates required constants as well as the variational partials at epoch. If epoch needs to be reset to a previous time, the program negates the stepsize, and calls for integration backward to the desired time. After backward integration is completed, the program resets the stepsize to the proper positive quantity

E-Scooter Rider Detection and Classification in Dense Urban Environments

Accurate detection and classification of vulnerable road users is a safety critical requirement for the deployment of autonomous vehicles in heterogeneous traffic. Although similar in physical appearance to pedestrians, e-scooter riders follow distinctly different characteristics of movement and can reach speeds of up to 45kmph. The challenge of detecting e-scooter riders is exacerbated in urban environments where the frequency of partial occlusion is increased as riders navigate between vehicles, traffic infrastructure and other road users. This can lead to the non-detection or mis-classification of e-scooter riders as pedestrians, providing inaccurate information for accident mitigation and path planning in autonomous vehicle applications. This research introduces a novel benchmark for partially occluded e-scooter rider detection to facilitate the objective characterization of detection models. A novel, occlusion-aware method of e-scooter rider detection is presented that achieves a 15.93% improvement in detection performance over the current state of the art