Assessing the Resilience of ASEAN Banking Systems: The Case of the Philippines

Since the global financial crisis in 2008/09 there has been heightened concern about the resilience of banking systems in Southeast Asia. This paper proposes a methodology that uses a macroprudential perspective to assess the resilience of banking systems in member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It then proceeds to apply this methodology to examine the resilience of the Philippine banking system. Data on financial soundness in the Philippine banking system are utilized in a vector autoregression model to study the dynamic relationships that exist among financial and macroeconomic indicators. Using impulse response functions, a simulation of financial ratios in the banking system is conducted by assuming unlikely but plausible stress scenarios to determine whether banking system credit and capital could withstand the impact of such circumstances. In the stress scenarios, the estimated impact of macroeconomic shocks on nonperforming loan and capital adequacy ratios is generally minimal. The results, however, do suggest that the Philippine banking system has some vulnerability to interest rate and stock market shocks. The results of such stress testing provide a better understanding of the level of preparedness required for managing risks in the financial system, especially in the wake of continuing global economic uncertainty.Banking System; Macroprudential; Stress Testing; Philippines; Panel VAR

Use of automatically collected data for the preliminary impact analysis of the East London Line extension

Thesis (S.M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-154).Data from public transport automated data collection (ADC) systems are now widely used in academic research and are beginning to be used for planning purposes. ADC systems provide ubiquitous and inexpensive, if limited, data streams for planning purposes. Since ADC data systems have been around for some time and are deployed by many large public transport agencies, the resulting data can be used for before and after impact analyses of changes in the transportation system. This research explores the use of automatically collected data to understand the impacts of a major public transport infrastructure investment on a complex existing network. The research presents the methods, using automatically collected data, to determine the impacts on multiple modes of transportation and the preliminary results of the impact of the introduction of the East London Line Extension. The East London Line is still in the early stages of growth and first and second order impacts continue to develop. The line is carrying an average of approximately 70,000 passengers per day and ridership continues to increase monthly. The East London Line is an important public transport crossing of the Thames River and a crucial role as a distributer to and from intersecting rail lines. It was estimated that between 28 to 32 percent of the daily weekday passenger journeys are new journeys to the public transport system. There is a change in ridership on many bus routes that run through the area served by the East London line. A more detailed analysis on four bus routes that run parallel to the East London Line and two bus routes that act as feeder routes show mixed results by route, direction, and time period. The mixed results lead us to believe that based on this preliminary impact analysis, the East London line can have a positive and negative impact on bus ridership but the impacts are most likely route, route segment, time of day, and direction specific. Analysis of disaggregate data showed that journey frequency of East London Line patrons increased at a higher rate than for the control panel. It is clear that ADC system data provides a cost effective means to capture a breath and depth of data suitable for impact analyses.by Albert Ng.S.M.in Transportatio

Development of Sustainable High-Strength Self-Consolidating Concrete Utilising Fly Ash, Shale Ash and Microsilica

With high flowability and passing ability, self-consolidating concrete (SCC) does not require compaction during casting and can improve constructability. The favourable properties of SCC have enabled its widespread adoption in many parts of the world. However, there are two major issues associated with the SCC mixes commonly used in practice. First, the cement content is usually at the high side. Since the production of cement involves calcination at high temperature and is an energy-intensive process, the high cement content imparts high embodied energy and carbon footprint to the SCC mixes. Besides, the exothermic reaction of cement hydration would cause high heat generation and early thermal cracking problem that would impair structural integrity and necessitate repair. Second, the strength is usually limited to around grade 60, which is considered as medium strength in nowadays achievable norm. With a view to develop sustainable high-strength self-consolidating concrete (HS-SCC), experimental research utilising fly ash (FA), shale ash (SA), and microsilica (MS) in the production of SCC has been conducted, as reported herein

The INCF Digital Atlasing Program: Report on Digital Atlasing Standards in the Rodent Brain

The goal of the INCF Digital Atlasing Program is to provide the vision and direction necessary to make the rapidly growing collection of multidimensional data of the rodent brain (images, gene expression, etc.) widely accessible and usable to the international research community. This Digital Brain Atlasing Standards Task Force was formed in May 2008 to investigate the state of rodent brain digital atlasing, and formulate standards, guidelines, and policy recommendations.

Our first objective has been the preparation of a detailed document that includes the vision and specific description of an infrastructure, systems and methods capable of serving the scientific goals of the community, as well as practical issues for achieving
the goals. This report builds on the 1st INCF Workshop on Mouse and Rat Brain Digital Atlasing Systems (Boline et al., 2007, _Nature Preceedings_, doi:10.1038/npre.2007.1046.1) and includes a more detailed analysis of both the current state and desired state of digital atlasing along with specific recommendations for achieving these goals

Multiple channel maximum entropy spectral estimator and its application.

Thesis. 1977. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences.Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science.Bibliography : leaves 52-54.M.S

Membrane Fouling Characterisation in Aerobic Submerged Membrane Bioreactors

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH