Juridical and financial considerations on the public re capitalisation and rescue of financial institutions during periods of financial crises (Part I)

As well as a consideration of why the lender of last resort facility should be used for emergency situations and systemically relevant institutions in particular, an interesting point which will be considered in this paper is the comparison between the European Central Bank (ECB) Recommendation and its application by the Commission in the Re capitalisation Communication, specifically with its Annex, where the Commission explains how it determines the price of equity or own funds1 (ordinary or common shares) - balancing the “real value” with the “market value” within a crisis context. This paper will also consider how to transform the Crisis into an opportunity in order to minimise tax burdens to taxpayers – as well as making financial markets more efficient. Furthermore, whether the Commission and Member States have applied the methodology (the determination of the price of equity – as stated in the Annex to the Re capitalisation Communication) in determining the price of equity with respect to the capital of banks acquired by Member States, will be addressed. Such consideration could provide a vital key to determining the real value of State Aid and the best possible price for which capital could be sold. Given the scale of government intervention and State rescues which occurred during the recent crisis – as well as the prominence accorded to measures aimed at preventing and limiting distortions of competition, calls have been made for competition authorities to take on more formidable roles in designing and implementing exit strategies. In order to foster competition as much as possible, it is proposed that ”governments should provide financial institutions with incentives to prevent them from depending on government support once the economy begins to recover.”Financial Crisis; State aid; re capitalisation; MEIP; guarantees; Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP); fundamentally sound institutions; rescues; restructuring; recovery

Juridical and financial considerations on the public re capitalisation and rescue of financial institutions during periods of financial crises (Part I)

As well as a consideration of why the lender of last resort facility should be used for emergency situations and systemically relevant institutions in particular, an interesting point which will be considered in this paper is the comparison between the European Central Bank (ECB) Recommendation and its application by the Commission in the Re capitalisation Communication, specifically with its Annex, where the Commission explains how it determines the price of equity (ordinary or common shares) - balancing the “real value” with the “market value” within a crisis context. Whether the Commission and Member States have applied this methodology in determining the price of equity with respect to the capital of banks acquired by Member States, will also be addressed. Such consideration could provide a vital key to determining the real value of State Aid and the best possible price for which capital could be sold. Given the scale of government intervention and State rescues which occurred during the recent crisis – as well as the prominence accorded to measures aimed at preventing and limiting distortions of competition, calls have been made for competition authorities to take on more formidable roles in designing and implementing exit strategies. In order to foster competition as much as possible, it is proposed that ”governments should provide financial institutions with incentives to prevent them from depending on government support once the economy begins to recover.”Financial Crisis; re capitalisation; guarantees; Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP); fundamentally sound institutions; rescues.

Accelerating 3D printing for surface wettability research

The wettability of a surface is affected by its physical and chemical properties, but it can be modulated by patterning it. Researchers use many different techniques for surface patterning, each one with different trade-offs in terms of cost, flexibility, convenience and realizable geometries. Very high-resolution 3D printing technologies (such as stereolithography by two-photon absorption) have the potential to greatly increase the range of realizable surface geometries, but they are currently not in wide use because they are too slow for printing the relative large surface areas required for wetting experiments. To enable the use of these 3D techniques, we are developing new slicing algorithms able to speed up 3D-printing technologies.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Multiresolution Layered Manufacturing

PURPOSE: Two-photon polymerization (TPP) has become one of the most popular techniques for stereolithography at very high resolutions. When printing relatively large structures at high resolutions, one of the main limiting factors is the printing time. The goal of this work is to present a new slicing algorithm to minimize printing times. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Typically, slicing algorithms used for TPP do not take into account the fact that TPP can print at a range of resolutions (i.e. with different heights and diameters) by varying parameters such as exposure time, laser power, photoresist properties, and optical arrangements. This work presents Multiresolution Layered Manufacturing (MLM), a novel slicing algorithm that processes 3D structures to separate parts manufacturable at low resolution from those that require a higher resolution. FINDINGS: MLM can significantly reduce the printing time of 3D structures at high resolutions. The maximum theoretical speed-up depends on the range of printing resolutions, but the effective speed-up also depends on the geometry of each 3D structure. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: MLM opens the possibility to significantly decrease printing times, potentially opening the use of TPP to new applications in many disciplines such as microfluidics, metamaterial research or wettability. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: There are many instances of previous research on printing at several resolutions. However, in most cases, the toolpaths have to be manually arranged. In some cases, previous research also automates the generation of toolpaths, but they are limited in various ways. MLM is the first algorithm to comprehensively solve this problem for a wide range of true 3D structures.NANO3D (a BEWARE Fellowship from the Walloon Region, Belgium, part of the Marie Curie Programme of the ERC). IAP 7/38 MicroMAST (Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme from the Belgian Science Policy Office, the Walloon Region and the FNRS)

Improving the surface finish of concave and convex surfaces using a ball burnishing process

The ball burnishing process is done to improve the surface finish of workpieces that have been previously machined. In this article we present the results of tests performed with this process that was applied to workpieces with a convex or concave surface of two different materials: aluminum A92017 and steel G10380. An experiment to do the tests was designed. The results of measurements of surface roughness are presented in this paper as well. These results are compared to those measured in the workpieces before being burnished. After that conclusions are drawn about the improvement of surface roughness applied to the workpieces through the ball burnishing process. The main innovation of this paper is that we work with concave and convex geometries. We also obtain a table of recomended parameter values for the process

Assessment of coercive persuasion: the Scale of Detection of Coercive Persuasion in Group Contexts (EDPC)

Comunicación presentada en las Jornadas Internacionales ICSA 2017 sobre Dinámicas sectarias y radicalizaciónCoercive persuasion refers to the control and manipulation developed by abusive groups, through different aggressive strategies that influence changes in the environment of its members, distorting cognition, altering emotions and generating significant psychosocial damage. It is a subtle, gradual and powerful force that affects around 500,000 Spanish victims of cultic groups (Cuevas & Perlado, 2011; Cuevas, 2012). Attaining power is one of the main goals of these groups, being the control and exploitation of the individual a part of the process. This derives to individuals giving up their own goals, freedom, material possessions, family and social networks, health or even life itself (Rodríguez-Carballeira, Saldaña, Almendros, Martin-Peña, Escartín, & Porrúa-Garcia, 2015). Such strategies are often implemented in a planned, graduate way and using deceit, difficulting that people who targeted are able to detect their evident aggressiveness and the generated damage. If there is an obvious shortage of instruments measuring psychological abuse in different fields (partner violence, harassment, bullying, etc.), the development of tools to assess the presence of such strategies in group contexts is even more scarce (Almendros, Gámez-Guadix, Carrobles & Rodríguez Carballeira, 2011). One of those assessment tools, the Interview for Detection of Coercive Persuasion (Cuevas & Canto, 2006) contains a wide range of coercive and abusive practises taking place within manipulative group. It has been applied in Spain in the forensic field in prosecutions of abusive groups (Dharma Tradición, Casa Yoga, Miguelianos, Revelance, etc.). The main objective of this recently validated tool (Cuevas, 2016) was to identify and provide evidences of the systematic application of coercive persuasion techniques on victims of abusive groups (Cuevas, 2012, 2016). Deriving from this instrument, sharing objectives, a new scale of 40 items and validated in Spanish population: the Scale of Detection of Coercive Persuasion in Group Contexts, or EDPC (Cuevas, 2016 ). To validate the EDPC, a Spanish sample of 134 people who identified themselves as having been abused or having been overly controlled by a group was selected. To assess criterion validity of the instrument, other different instruments (BSI MOS-SSS, RSE, SLEQ, ICP and EDS) were used. The group psychological abuse scale GPA (Chambers, Langone, Dole, & Grice, 1994), Spanish modified version (Almendros et al.,2004; Almendros et al., 2009) was used to assess the convergent validity of the instrument. The EDPC showed appropriate psychometric properties. In respect to reliability, the standardized Cronbach alpha coefficient reached a value of 0.97. The exploratory factorial analysis indicated the presence of a factor (coercive persuasion), establishing the suitability of a one-dimensional model. This scale aims to be useful in clinical and forensic fields, in order to assess the control and manipulation exercised in group contexts. Using it could be relevant to provide evidences of coercive groups practises, helping at trying to determinate the relationship between damage on the victims and the specific actions taken by groups or individuals who perform the abusive behaviors.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

“Living on the edge” : the role of field margins for common vole (Microtus arvalis) populations in recently colonised Mediterranean farmland

Acknowledgments RRP was supported by a PhD-studentship from the University of Valladolid (co-funded by Banco Santander, RR 30/04/2014). Financial support was provided by ECOCYCLES (BIODIVERSA 2008, Era-net European project, EUI2008-03658 and NERC NE/G002045/1 to XL) and ECOVOLE projects (CGL2012-35348; Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Spain). The article also contributes to project ECOTULA (CGL2015-66962-C2-1-R). We held all the necessary licenses and permits for conducting this work (JJLL, FM and RRP held animal experimentation permits of level B for Spain, and a capture permit was provided by the Consejería de Fomento y Medio Ambiente, Junta de Castilla y León (Expte: EP/CYL/665/2014)). We thank two anonymous reviewers for providing and constructive comments to improve the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Propuesta de un marco de trabajo para el diseño de procesos de desarrollo bioinspirados basados en estructuras tensegritales

Los algoritmos evolutivos se inspiran en la evolución biológica como metáfora de su modus operandi: se consideran poblaciones (conjuntos) de individuos (soluciones a problemas), donde cada individuo se caracteriza por su genotipo (conjunto de parámetros que componen la solución), y se le asigna un fitness que mide cuán adaptado es (cómo de buena es la solución). La cuestión es que las distintas clases de algoritmos evolutivos aparecieron en la segunda mitad del siglo XX, en una época en la que la complejidad de los seres vivos se interpretaba como la complejidad de sus correspondientes genotipos [35]. Así, en los algoritmos evolutivos se suele poner el acento sobre el diseño de un buen genotipo, y la transformación de genotipo en fenotipo suele ser trivial, siguiendo el paradigma de esta interpretación biológica. Actualmente, se está descifrando el enigma del desarrollo de los seres vivos poco a poco, y el genotipo va perdiendo paulatinamente su papel estelar. La complejidad de los seres vivos se asigna cada vez más a su proceso de desarrollo, que el genotipo modula y coordina antes que dirige [35]. Esto ha motivado la aplicación de este paradigma a diversas disciplinas, como redes neuronales [1, 17], agentes autónomos [16], o diseño de hardware [15]. En este trabajo, nos proponemos explorar este paradigma desde el punto de vista del diseño computacional de estructuras. Concretando, en este trabajo pretende esbozar un marco de trabajo con el que estudiar procesos de desarrollo bioinspirados de estructuras tensegritales. El carácter de este trabajo se puede entender como una exploración del espacio de posibilidades en los estadios iniciales de la tesis