Electromagnetic Corrections to Charged Pion Scattering at Low Energies

The electromagnetic corrections to the low energy scattering amplitude involving charged pions only are investigated at leading and next-to-leading orders in the two-flavour chiral expansion. As an application, the corresponding variation in the strong $2S-2P$ level shift is evaluated. The relative variation is of the order of 5%.Comment: LateX2e, 10 pages, 2 figure

The integration between corporate social responsibilty and sustainable development goals

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one of the modern concepts in the management field which become a catalyst in developing the future of the business sector. Several major academic and practical milestones have influenced the development of the concept of CSR. One of the most important milestones that shaped the future of CSR was the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). UNGC's missions and principles formed an application framework for integrating social and environmental approaches into corporate business activities. It has been proved through this paper the interrelationship between the principles of CSR theories and the principles of UNGC. Followed by an analysis of the effectiveness of the UNGC principles in adopting sustainable development goals and enhancing enterprise competitiveness

Study of the use of enforceable undertaking by Australian Securities and Investments Commission

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Law.Enforceable undertaking is one of the many sanctions that are available to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). It is a promise enforceable in court. The alleged offender, known as the promisor, promises the regulator to do or not to do certain actions. As a consequence, the result achieved in the enforceable undertaking reflects the compromise that is agreed upon by the parties involved. This penalty is widely used in the regulatory community for it allows the regulators to reach plausible solutions to alleged offences without spending the resources of their agencies or the resources of the courts. This thesis looks at the way ASIC uses enforceable undertakings through a study of all the undertakings that were given by the corporate regulator between 1998 and 2004. It points out the goals behind the use of enforceable undertakings and checks if those goals are in conformity with the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission. It also notes if there is fairness, stability and consistency in the treatment of the alleged offenders in the undertakings. Furthermore, it observes the method by which ASIC monitors the undertakings. Finally, it considers whether the courts encourage ASIC to enter into enforceable undertakings

Competition in financial services

In the financial services sector, the failure of a single institution can have a compounding effect on the sector, and on national and global economies. In particular, there is systemic risk from inter-institution lending, and this effect is more complex in Australia due to the small number of major players. In retail banking in Australia, following a similar practice in most developed countries, if an unsecured creditor is a retail depositor, their deposit is insured by the government. That is, if a retail bank fails, the Federal Government will make the depositors whole. The regulatory system, particularly the prudential regulatory system, is designed to protect depositors’ and borrowers’ interests, and this protects the interest of the government. The effect is that regulatory policy on banking has prioritised stability in consideration of the sovereign risk associated with the risk of retail bank failure. However, this approach also creates a policy dilemma. The dilemma concerns the extent to which the retail banking sector can attain the benefits of the vigorous rivalry from effective and efficient competition, without unduly risking stability and the potential of a devastating call on the public purse. Specifically, in the context of effective and efficient competition, there is limited competitiveness in retail banking in Australia. This is reflected in the static state of market share between the four major banks, and very slow and marginal improvements gains even by strong second tier competitors. Furthermore, the retail banking sector’s capacity for product and service innovation is limited. Although the absence of vigorous rivalry is conducive to stability within the retail banking sector, it is likely to detract from the welfare of retail banking consumers. Furthermore, the level of innovation may not be as high as is feasible and barriers, including prudential regulatory barriers to entry or expansion, mean that the extent of rivalry is unlikely to change without some form of promotion of competition. The paper consequently makes a four-point recommendation for the removal of the ‘four pillars’ policy:  The four major banks are protected by an implicit government guarantee that impacts market operation with little observable benefit to consumers, and may be a source of consumer disutility.  The four pillars policy has prompted increased vertical integration within the sector, particularly in the area of mortgage products.  There are sufficient merger protections provided by Part IV of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).  Competition and contestability arise when there are reasonably low barriers to entry and exit from the sector. It is not clear that low barriers to entry exist in Australia, and evidence to support this view comes from the failure of international banks to gain a significant toehold in the retail banking sector in Australia. One deterrent to entry is the regulatory focus on the four pillars. The authors recognise that this position is at odds with the view of the Financial System Inquiry. However, the rationale in the report of the Inquiry was to prevent mergers, and the current competition law achieves this objective. The paper recommends two specific policies to promote competition in retail banking without the structural intervention that would otherwise be required to improve the intensity of competition in the retail banking sector:  Introduce bank account number portability. This would use ‘know your customer’ and central database systems in a similar form to those that have been used for mobile number portability in Australia for the last decade and a half.  Introduce customer access to data held by banks to allow third parties to compare bank offerings across all banks.  Significantly, these two recommendations are consistent with the productivity proposals issued by the UK Government in July 2015. The research paper also examines crowd equity funding as a disruptive force in the banking sector, and recommends that crowd equity funding be permitted with the following safeguards:  ASIC should take an active role in monitoring crowd equity funding and be willing to sue in case of fraudulent action.  Any intermediary online platform should have a financial services licence with limited duty of care.  There should be a cap for business raisings through crowd equity funding of $2 million in a 12-month period.  Crowd equity funding is a social phenomenon. Through its use of social media, it has attracted people who have previously never been interested in investing in companies. Instead of being feared, this interest should be nurtured through the promotion of investors’ financial education

An Analysis of Heterogeneity in Futuristic Unmanned Vehicle Systems

Recent studies have shown that with appropriate operator decision support and with enough automation aboard unmanned vehicles, inverting the multiple operators to single-vehicle control paradigm is possible. These studies, however, have generally focused on homogeneous teams of vehicles, and have not completely addressed either the manifestation of heterogeneity in vehicle teams, or the effects of heterogeneity on operator capacity. An important implication of heterogeneity in unmanned vehicle teams is an increase in the diversity of possible team configurations available for each operator, as well as an increase in the diversity of possible attention allocation schemes that can be utilized by operators. To this end, this paper introduces a resource allocation framework that defines the strategies and processes that lead to alternate team configurations. The framework also highlights the sub-components of operator attention allocation schemes that can impact overall performance when supervising heterogeneous unmanned vehicle teams. A subsequent discrete event simulation model of a single operator supervising multiple heterogeneous vehicles and tasks explores operator performance under different heterogeneous team compositions and varying attention allocation strategies. Results from the discrete event simulation model show that the change in performance when switching from a homogeneous team to a heterogeneous one is highly dependent on the change in operator utilization. Heterogeneous teams that result in lower operator utilization can lead to improved performance under certain operator strategies.Prepared for Charles River Analytic

Parental safety concerns and active school commute: correlates across multiple domains in the home-to-school journey

Abiodun O. Oluyomi, Eileen Nehme, and Deanna M. Hoelscher are with The Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living, UT School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Austin, TX USA -- Chanam Lee is with the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Architecture, Texas AM University, College Station, TX USA -- Diane Dowdy and Marci G. Ory are with the School of Rural Public Health, Texas AM HeaBackground: Empirical evidence of the relationship between safety concerns and walking to school (WTS) is growing. However, current research offers limited understanding of the multiple domains of parental safety concerns and the specific mechanisms through which parents articulate safety concerns about WTS. A more detailed understanding is needed to inform environmental and policy interventions. This study examined the relationships between both traffic safety and personal safety concerns and WTS in the U.S. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis examined data from the Texas Childhood Obesity Prevention Policy Evaluation (T-COPPE) project, an evaluation of state-wide obesity prevention policy interventions. All study data were from the survey (n = 830) of parents with 4th grade students attending 81 elementary schools across Texas, and living within two miles from their children's schools. Traffic safety and personal safety concerns were captured for the home neighborhood, en-route to school, and school environments. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to assess the odds of WTS controlling for significant covariates. Results: Overall, 18% of parents reported that their child walked to school on most days of the week. For traffic safety, students were more likely to walk to school if their parent reported favorable perceptions about the following items in the home neighborhood environment: higher sidewalk availability, well maintained sidewalks and safe road crossings. For the route to school, the odds of WTS were higher for those who reported "no problem" with each one of the following: traffic speed, amount of traffic, sidewalks/pathways, intersection/crossing safety, and crossing guards, when compared to those that reported "always a problem". For personal safety in the en-route to school environment, the odds of WTS were lower when parents reported concerns about: stray or dangerous animals and availability of others with whom to walk. Conclusions: Findings offered insights into the specific issues that drive safety concerns for elementary school children’s WTS behaviors. The observed associations between more favorable perceptions of safety and WTS provide further justification for practical intervention strategies to reduce WTS barriers that can potentially bring long-term physical activity and health benefits to school-aged children.Public [email protected]

Audio Decision Support for Supervisory Control of Unmanned Vehicles : Literature Review

Purpose of this literature review: To survey scholarly articles, books and other sources (dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to the use of the audio supervisory control of unmanned vehicles.Prepared for Charles River Analytic

Perceptions of immunity and vaccination certificates among the general population: a nested study within a serosurvey of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (SEROCoV-POP).

At a time when COVID-19 immunity certificates are debated and vaccination certificates might potentially be made available if an effective vaccine is established, we conducted a study to elucidate public opinion on this issue. Our objective was to determine social and individual perceptions of COVID-19 immunity certificates through a population-based study. A nested survey within the SEROCoV-POP study, a population-based serosurvey of anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in Geneva, Switzerland, was conducted with a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was proposed to 1520 SEROCoV-POP participants. Measures included percentage of participants agreeing or disagreeing with statements on immunity and vaccination certificates. Stratification by age, gender, education and work status was used to examine socio-demographic variations. Of the 1520 SEROCoV-POP participants, 1425 completed the questionnaire (response rate 93%; mean age ± standard deviation 52 ± 15.1 years; 51.9% women). About 80% of participants agreed that knowing one’s serology status would lead to a change in one’s behaviour. In the event that the presence of antibodies correlated with immunity, 60% of participants reported that certificates should be offered to the general population. The results showed variations in perceptions of certificates depending on the context (73% agreed on certificates’ utility for travel, 72% for entering a country, and 32% for the right to work). Provided an effective vaccine was available, 55% of participants agreed that vaccination should be mandatory and 49% agreed that a vaccination certificate should be mandatory. About 68% reported a potential risk of discrimination and 28% a risk of deliberate infection. Differences were seen with age, gender and education level. This study shows that the general adult population in Geneva, Switzerland can envisage scenarios where COVID-19 immunity, and eventually vaccination, certificates would be useful. Seroprevalence estimates of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies remain low to date, and the interpretability of serological testing and immunity remains undefined. However, the information from this study is important, especially the differences based on context and the socio-demographic variations, and should be taken into account if COVID-19-related certificates are to be implemented