Computer trading and systemic risk: a nuclear perspective

Financial markets have evolved to become complex adaptive systems highly reliant on the communication speeds and processing power afforded by digital systems. Their failure could cause severe disruption to the provision of financial services and possibly the wider economy. In this study we consider whether a perspective from the nuclear industry can provide additional insights

The Self-Calibrating Hubble Diagram

As an increasing number of well measured type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) become available, the statistical uncertainty on w has been reduced to the same size as the systematic uncertainty. The statistical error will decrease further in the near future, and hence the improvement of systematic uncertainties needs to be addressed, if further progress is to be made. We study how uncertainties in the primary reference spectrum - which are a main contribution to the systematic uncertainty budget - affect the measurement of the Dark Energy equation of state parameter w from SNe Ia. The increasing number of SN observations can be used to reduce the uncertainties by including perturbations of the reference spectrum as nuisance parameters in a cosmology fit, thus "self-calibrating" the Hubble diagram. We employ this method to real SNe data for the first time and find the perturbations of the reference spectrum consistent with zero at the 1%-level. For future surveys we estimate that ~3500 SNe will be required for our method to outperform the standard method of deriving the cosmological parameters.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Update to revised version accepted for publication in JCA

ANDRILL's Success During the 4th International Polar Year

One of the scientific programs of the Fourth International Polar Year (Allison et al., 2007; www.ipy.org), the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) Program (Fig. 1) demonstrated ability to recover high quality marine and glacimarine sedimentary drill cores from high latitude ice-covered areas. ANDRILL's inaugural 2006 and 2007 drilling seasons resulted in the two deepest drill holes on the Antarctic continental margin, recovering high-quality and nearly continuous 2400 meters of sediment cores. A chief scientific objective of this collaborative effort of scientists, engineers, technicians, students, educators, drillers, and support personnel from Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States is the recovery of sedimentary archives from which past climatic and environmental changes in the southern high latitudes can be reconstructed. More than 120 individuals have been involved in each of the two drilling projects, eighty of whom worked in Antarctica during each austral summer season

Pluri-Canonical Models of Supersymmetric Curves

This paper is about pluri-canonical models of supersymmetric (susy) curves. Susy curves are generalisations of Riemann surfaces in the realm of super geometry. Their moduli space is a key object in supersymmetric string theory. We study the pluri-canonical models of a susy curve, and we make some considerations about Hilbert schemes and moduli spaces of susy curves.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the intensive period "Perspectives in Lie Algebras", held at the CRM Ennio De Giorgi, Pisa, Italy, 201

Routine Crime in Exceptional Times: The Impact of the 2002 Winter Olympics on Citizen Demand for Police Services

Despite their rich theoretical and practical importance, criminologists have paid scant attention to the patterns of crime and the responses to crime during exceptional events. Throughout the world large-scale political, social, economic, cultural, and sporting events have become commonplace. Natural disasters such as blackouts, hurricanes, tornadoes, and tsunamis present similar opportunities. Such events often tax the capacities of jurisdictions to provide safety and security in response to the exceptional event, as well as to meet the “routine” public safety needs. This article examines “routine” crime as measured by calls for police service, official crime reports, and police arrests in Salt Lake City before, during, and after the 2002 Olympic Games. The analyses suggest that while a rather benign demographic among attendees and the presence of large numbers of social control agents might have been expected to decrease calls for police service for minor crime, it actually increased in Salt Lake during this period. The implications of these findings are considered for theories of routine activities, as well as systems capacity

1 Corinthians and Work

Introduction to 1 Corinthians All are called (1 Cor 1:1-3) Spiritual Resources Available (1 Cor 1:4-9) The Need for a Common Vision (1 Cor 1:10-17) Friends in Low Places (1 Cor 1:18-31) It Takes All Sorts (1 Cor 3:1-9) Do Good Work (1 Cor 3:10-17) Leadership as Service (1 Cor 4:1-4) Working with Nonbelievers (1 Cor 5:9-10) Bloom Where You are Planted (1 Cor 7:20-24) Maintain the Proper Perspective (1 Cor 7:29-31) Everyone Gets Their Fair Share (1 Cor 9:7-10) God\u27s Glory is the Ultimate Goal (1 Cor 8 & 10) Gifted Communities (1 Cor 12:1-14:40) Our Work is Not in Vain (1 Cor 15:58) We Share Our Resources with Those in Hardship (1 Cor 16:1-3) Summary to 1 Corinthians Key Verses and Themes in 1 Corinthian

2 Corinthians and Work

Introduction to 2 Corinthians Thank God for Relationships (2 Corinthians 1:1-11) Transparency (2 Corinthians 1:12-23) Working for the Joy of Others (2 Corinthians 1:24) The Priority of Relationships (2 Corinthians 2:12-16) Sincerity (2 Corinthians 2:17) A Genuine Reputation (2 Corinthians 3) Leading and Serving (2 Corinthians 4) Performance and Accountability (2 Corinthians 5:1-15) Reconciling the Whole World (2 Corinthians 5:16-21) Transparency Revisited (2 Corinthians 6:11) Working with Nonbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14-18) The Encouragement of Praise (2 Corinthians 7) Generosity Is Not Optional (2 Corinthians 8:1-9) Timely Fulfillment of Obligations (2 Corinthians 8:10-12) Sharing the Wealth (2 Corinthians 8:13-15) You Can\u27t Out-Give God (2 Corinthians 9) Assessing Performance (2 Corinthians 10-13) Conclusion to 2 Corinthians Key Verses and Themes in 2 Corinthian

Virtual outreach: economic evaluation of joint teleconsultations for patients referred by their general practitioner for a specialist opinion

Objectives To test the hypotheses that, compared with conventional outpatient consultations, joint teleconsultation (virtual outreach) would incur no increased costs to the NHS, reduce costs to patients, and reduce absences from work by patients and their carers.Design Cost consequences study alongside randomised controlled trial.Setting Two hospitals in London and Shrewsbury and 29 general practices in inner London and Wales.Participants 3170 patients identified; 2094 eligible for inclusion and willing to participate. 1051 randomised to virtual outreach and 1043 to standard outpatient appointments.Main outcome measures NHS costs, patient costs, health status (SF-12), time spent attending index consultation, patient satisfaction.Results Overall six month costs were greater for the virtual outreach consultations (pound724 per patient) than for conventional outpatient appointments (pound625): difference in means pound99 ($162; is not an element of138) (95% confidence interval pound10 to pound187, P=0.03). if the analysis is restricted to resource items deemed "attributable" to the index consultation, six month costs were still greater for virtual outreach: difference in means pound108 (pound73 to pound142, P < 0.0001). In both analyses the index consultation accounted for the excess cost. Savings to patients in terms of costs and time occurred in both centres: difference in mean total patient cost 8 pound (5 pound to 10 pound, P < 0.0001). Loss of productive time was less in the virtual outreach group: difference in mean cost pound11 (pound10 to pound12, P < 0.0001).Condusion The main hypothesis that virtual outreach would be cost neutral is rejected, but the hypotheses that costs to patients and losses in productivity would be lower are supported