Rubella rheumatism

A journal article on an outbreak of Rubella Rheumatism in urban areas of Southern Rhodesia in the 1950's

Monitoring and controlling bank risk: does risky debt serve any purpose?

To examine whether mandating banks to issue subordinated debt would enhance market monitoring and control risk-taking, the authors extract the credit-spread curve for each banking firm in their sample. After controlling for changes in market and liquidity variables, they find that changes in credit spreads do not reflect changes in bank risk variables. The result is robust to firm type, examination rating, size, leverage, and profitability, as well as to different model specifications. They also find that issuing subordinated debt does not alter banks' risk-taking behavior. They conclude that a mandatory subordinated debt requirement for banks is unlikely to provide the intended benefits of enhancing risk-monitoring or controlling risk-taking.Bank capital ; Risk

Analogy making and the structure of implied volatility skew

An analogy based option pricing model is put forward. If option prices are determined in accordance with the analogy model, and the Black Scholes model is used to back-out implied volatility, then the implied volatility skew arises, which flattens as time to expiry increases. The analogy based stochastic volatility and the analogy based jump diffusion models are also put forward. The analogy based stochastic volatility model generates the skew even when there is no correlation between the stock price and volatility processes, whereas, the analogy based jump diffusion model does not require asymmetric jumps for generating the skew

A review of multi-component maintenance models with economic dependence

In this paper we review the literature on multi-component maintenance models with economic dependence. The emphasis is on papers that appeared after 1991, but there is an overlap with Section 2 of the most recent review paper by Cho and Parlar (1991). We distinguish between stationary models, where a long-term stable situation is assumed, and dynamic models, which can take information into account that becomes available only on the short term. Within the stationary models we choose a classification scheme that is primarily based on the various options of grouping maintenance activities: grouping either corrective or preventive maintenance, or combining preventive-maintenance actions with corrective actions. As such, this classification links up with the possibilities for grouped maintenance activities that exist in practice

"Salisbury fever": a review of a febrile disorder probably virus origin commonly observed in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia

A research paper on a peculiar malady commonly found within the confines of the then Southern Rhodesia capital of Salisbury in the 1950's..During the past decade it has become increasingly evident in medical practice in Salisbury that there exists a large group of diseases mainly affecting children for which no adequate explanation can be given. Attempts have been made to determine the cause and the clinical picture has been described,1’2 but no satisfactory explanation has yet been given. Owing to the absence of local facilities for virus studies, little progress at the present time is being made on this important subject. It is the purpose of this review to marshal all the available facts concerning the clinical features of this disease and to discuss its probable cause. The opinions and experiences of other workers practising in Central Africa will be welcomed. The diseas