Geomagnetic effects on cosmic ray propagation under different conditions for Buenos Aires and Marambio, Argentina

The geomagnetic field (Bgeo) sets a lower cutoff rigidity (Rc) to the entry of cosmic particles to Earth which depends on the geomagnetic activity. From numerical simulations of the trajectory of a proton using different models for Bgeo (performed with the MAGCOS code), we use backtracking to analyze particles arriving at the location of two nodes of the net LAGO (Large Aperture Gamma ray burst Observatory) that will be built in the near future: Buenos Aires and Marambio (Antarctica), Argentina. We determine the asymptotic trajectories and the values of Rc for different incidence directions, for each node. Simulations were done using several models for Bgeo that emulate different geomagnetic conditions. The presented results will help to make analysis of future observations of the flux of cosmic rays done at these two LAGO nodes.Comment: 9 page

Dynamics of two interacting particles in classical billiards

The problem of two interacting particles moving in a d-dimensional billiard is considered here. A suitable coordinate transformation leads to the problem of a particle in an unconventional hyperbilliard. A dynamical map can be readily constructed for this general system, which greatly simplifies calculations. As a particular example, we consider two identical particles interacting through a screened Coulomb potential in a one-dimensional billiard. We find that the screening plays an important role in the dynamical behavior of the system and only in the limit of vanishing screening length can the particles be considered as bouncing balls. For more general screening and energy values, the system presents strong non-integrability with resonant islands of stability.Comment: REVTEX manuscript, 4 figures (1 ps + 3 gif, Postscript versions available upon request). Also available at http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/~ulloa/ulloa.htm

Does it Pay to be First? Sequential Locational Choice and Foreclosure

We analyze the sequential choices of locations in the Hotelling [0, 1] space of variety-differentiated products. n firms locate in sequence, one at a time. In stage n+1, all firms choose prices simultaneously. Firms anticipate correctly the decisions of subsequent entrants, as well as the equilibrium prices, so we analyze subgame-perfect equilibria. We analyze two games. In the first, the number of firms is fixed. In the second, the number of firms is determined by free entry, i.e., entry continues until the last entrant makes nonnegative profits. When the number of firms is fixed, the ordering of profits follows the order of action. When the number of firms is determined by free entry, for a range of fixed costs, early entrants choose their positions strategically so as to keep out potential entrants. For a range of fixed costs, early actors reduce the distances among them to foreclose entry even though these actions reduce their profits given the number of active firms. For low enough fixed costs, entry cannot be prevented any more and a new firm enters resulting in a complete disruption of the locational pattern. In the game with a fixed number of firms, we find that the order of the profits of the firms is the same as the order of action, so that it pays to be first. In contrast, in the free entry game it does not always pay to be first. We also note that entry of a new firm significantly reduces the pre-entry profits of incumbents. Thus, if a technology is available that would increase the costs of both incumbents and entrants ( raising both rivals and own costs ), it will be used to deter entry

BANCOSOL: THE CHALLENGE OF GROWTH FOR MICROFINANCE ORGANIZATIONS

This paper focuses on the difficulties inherent in the prudent management of growth of microfinance organizations and on potential limits to the increased efficiency, profitability, and sustainability expected from growth and large size. The paper addresses both positive and negative implications of rapid growth for microfinance organizations. The experience of BancoSol in Bolivia is used to illustrate these questions. Building upon the successful experience of PRODEM, BancoSol was chartered as a private commercial bank in 1992. The paper discusses the intangible assets inherited from PRODEM that gave BancoSol a head start and the additional advantages that resulted from formalization as a bank, in particular from the authorization to mobilize deposits. BancoSol shows outstanding success in terms of breadth, depth, and quality of outreach and in terms of sustainability. It is the microfinance organization with the largest number of clients in Latin America and it reaches poor clients who could never expect to gain access to conventional financial institutions. The paper discusses the incentive structure associated with a lending technology that has resulted in low loan arrears and the cost- effective supply of small loans. Success is explained by a strong concern with financial viability, development of a lending technology appropriate for the market niche, a long learning period, and upgrading into a formal intermediary. As it grew, BancoSol had to face a reduction of revenues as a proportion of productive assets and an increase in the average cost of funds, which combined reduced its operating margin by 13 percentage points. This challenge was fully met by reducing operating expenses as a proportion of productive assets. While growth of PRODEM had been mostly constrained by too rigid access to donor funds, growth of BancoSol has been constrained by threats on asset quality and by diminishing marginal economies of size. Portfolio efficiency has grown steadily. This growth has been the net outcome, however, of reductions in transactions efficiency and of increases in average loan size after transformation into BancoSol. The paper explores the sources of increases in average loan size and it concludes that mission drift has not occurred at BancoSol, which continues to focus on small loans to microentrepreneurs. The evolution in transactions efficiency is related, in turn, to sources of extensive (installed capacity) and intensive (productivity) growth. Extensive growth has been rapid at BancoSol and it tends to dampen productivity increases. Finally, the paper reviews the pressures from growth on the original informal culture of the organization and the gradual establishment of more formal structures.Agricultural Finance,

MICROCREDIT AND THE POOREST OF THE POOR: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM BOLIVIA

We construct a theoretical framework that puts the social worth of a microfinance organization (MFO) in terms of the depth, worth to users, cost to users, breadth, length, and scope of its output. We then analyze evidence of depth of outreach for five MFOs in Bolivia. Most of the poor households reached by the MFOs were near the poverty line�they were the richest of the poor. Group lenders had more depth of outreach than individual lenders. The urban poorest were more likely to be borrowers, but rural borrowers were more likely to be among the poorest.Financial Economics, Food Security and Poverty,

Microfinance Market Niches and Client Profiles in Bolivia

This paper presents and interprets descriptive statistics generated from data obtained in a survey of clients of five microfinance organizations believed to be among the best in Bolivia. These lenders represent different combinations of organizational design, lending technology, and market area of operations. Two are regulated financial intermediaries and three are NGOs. Two operate in rural areas (PRODEM and Sartawi) and three operate in urban areas (BancoSol, FIE, and Caja Los Andes). Two offer individual loans and three grant loans through joint liability groups. The paper discusses household-enterprise profiles of a sample of 622 clients and identifies terms and conditions of loan contracts with these organizations to evaluate the depth and quality of their outreach.Marketing,segmentation,Bolivia,competition,microfinance

MICROFINANCE MARKET NICHES AND CLIENT PROFILES IN BOLIVIA

This paper presents and interprets descriptive statistics generated from data obtained in a survey of clients of five microfinance organizations believed to be among the best in Bolivia. These lenders represent different combinations of organizational design, lending technology, and market area of operations. Two are regulated financial intermediaries and three are NGOs. Two operate in rural areas (PRODEM and Sartawi) and three operate in urban areas (BancoSol, FIE, and Caja Los Andes). Two offer individual loans and three grant loans through joint liability groups. The paper discusses household-enterprise profiles of a sample of 622 clients and identifies terms and conditions of loan contracts with these organizations to evaluate the depth and quality of their outreach. The interpretation seeks to establish connections between key characteristics of the clients and features of the lending technologies that lead to the matching of classes of borrowers with particular organizations and that influence the choice of market niches. Data on loan sizes suggest the existence of different but broadly overlapping market niches associated with three tiers of clients. The sharpest distinction is between urban and rural clients. The matching between clients and organizations also reflects a weak but positive correlation between levels of poverty and loan sizes. According to an index of basic needs fulfillment of their clients, these organizations can be ranked as: FIE and Caja Los Andes (first tier), BancoSol (second tier), and PRODEM and Sartawi (third tier). The same ranking is obtained when clients are ordered according to loan size, the ratio of loan size to the value of sales, and the value of monthly sales. The three tiers of clients are associated with different socio-economic features of their household-enterprises: sex, education, household size, access to electricity, water supplies, and sewage facilities, employment-generating capacity of the enterprise, informality and separation of household and enterprise, occupations and the like. The development of lending technologies that do not rely on standard financial statements and collateralizable assets is a formidable innovation that explains the outreach and sustainability of these organizations. Differences in the guarantees required for loans dominate distinctions in lending technology. Trade-offs between loan size, interest rates, and guarantee requirements attract different subsets of the clientele. Joint liability seems to be appropriate for very poor people, but group borrowers eventually outgrow this relationship. Caja Los Andes and FIE have shown that it is possible to supply individual loans to poor people and be profitable. Most clients are satisfied with the services received. The lowest satisfaction concerns loan sizes and loan-size rationing may be widespread. At least in urban areas, increasing competition will force these organizations to improve their services and adjust loan sizes. All of these organizations are expanding the frontier of microfinance by developing lending technologies for a much poorer clientele than is reached by collateral-based lenders. This is a formidable achievement.Financial Economics,

Enhancing controller's tuning reliability with multi-objective optimisation: From Model in the loop to Hardware in the loop

[EN] In general, the starting point for the complex task of designing a robust and efficient control system is the use of nominal models that allow to establish a first set of parameters for the selected control scheme. Once the initial stage of design is achieved, control engineers face the difficult task of Fine-Tuning for a more realistic environment, where the environment conditions are as similar as possible to the real system. For this reason, in the last decades the use of Hardware-in-The-Loop (HiL) systems has been introduced. This simulation technique guarantees realistic simulation environments to test the designs but without danger of damaging the equipment. Also, in this iterative process of Fine-Tuning, it is usual to use different (generally conflicting/opposed) criteria that take into account the sensitivities that always appear in every project, such as economic, security, robustness, performance, for example. In this framework, the use of multi-objective techniques are especially useful since they allow to study the different design alternatives based on the multiple existing criteria. Unfortunately, the combination of multi-objective techniques and verification schemes based on Hardware-In-The-Loop presents a high incompatibility. Since obtaining the optimal set of solutions requires a high computational cost that is greatly increased when using Hardware- In-the-Loop. For this reason, it is often necessary to use less realistic but more computationally efficient verification schemes such as Model in the Loop (MiL), Software in the Loop (SiL) and Processor in the Loop (PiL). In this paper, a combined methodology is presented, where multi-objective optimisation and multi-criteria decision making steps are sequentially performed to achieve a final control solution. The authors claim that while going towards the optimisation sequence over MiL -> SiL -> PiL -> HiL platforms, the complexity of the problem is unveiled to the designer, allowing to state meaningful design objectives. In addition, safety in the step between simulation and reality is significantly increased.The authors would like to acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for providing funding through the project DPI2015-71443-R and the grant BES-2012-056210. This work has been partially supported by the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil (CNPq) through the BJT/304804/2014-2 and PQ-2/304066/2016-8 grants.Reynoso Meza, G.; Velasco-Carrau, J.; Garcia-Nieto, S.; Blasco, X. (2017). Enhancing controller's tuning reliability with multi-objective optimisation: From Model in the loop to Hardware in the loop. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence. 64:52-66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2017.05.005S52666

Efecto en los Estados Financieros tras la Fusión y Adquisición Lafarge-Holcim en el año 2015

Proyecto de Graduación (Maestría en Administración de Empresas con énfasis Finanzas) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. Escuela de Administración de Empresas, 2017.The merge of Lafarge-Holcim in 2015 created the world lead company in construction materials. This document shows the analysis and assessment of the financial performance and operational after the merge, for the periods 2014(Lafarge), 2015 and 2016 (Lafarge-Holcim), by the application of financial ratios and other financial tools such as Z-Altman, Du Pont, Economic Value added, EBITDA etc. Although local and global resources were successfully mobilized to achieve this transformation, the global economy has been experiencing a slower recovery than expected, especially in key markets for the Lafarge-Holcim group were major economic issues were experienced. Despite all these adverse signs, Lafarge-Holcim was successful in increasing cement sales volume and achieved synergies as result of the merge, quantified in 30 million of Swiss Franc, exceeding the sales target for the year. In a similar way, the EBITDA results, adjusted after the merge, restructuring costs and others events decreased 3 p.p in 2016 vs prior year. Regarding the financial structure of this merge, shows a slight increase in 2016 the current assets increased but increasing the efficiency in the accounts receivables and inventories turnover, the cash and other assets available for sale had a significant increase in 2016 vs prior year. In 2016, the bank loans and the trade payables had a significant decrease translated into a lower financial leverage. The total liabilities decreased a 7% in 2016 vs 2015 whilst the cumulative profit account has a reduction of 3% in 2016 due to the loss the company has in 2015. After the merge, for the year 2016 the gross operating margin stands at 11% whilst the net operating margin stands at 8%. The Gross margin in 2016 is 42% of sales 6 The values for EBITDA in 2016 has almost duplicate in relation with 2015 this mainly driven by the benefits of the merge and due to a prudential use of the debt levels

Controller tuning by means of multi-objective optimization algorithms: a global tuning framework

© 2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.A holistic multi-objective optimization design technique for controller tuning is presented. This approach gives control engineers greater flexibility to select a controller that matches their specifications. Furthermore, for a given controller it is simple to analyze the tradeoff achieved between conflicting objectives. By using the multi-objective design technique it is also possible to perform a global comparison between different control strategies in a simple and robust way. This approach thereby enables an analysis to be made of whether a preference for a certain control technique is justified. This proposal is evaluated and validated in a nonlinear multiple-input multiple-output system using two control strategies: a classical proportional- integral-derivative control scheme and a feedback state controller.This work was supported in part by the FPI-2010/19 Grant and the Project PAID-06-11 from the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia and in part by the Projects DPI2008-02133, TIN2011-28082, and ENE2011-25900 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.Reynoso Meza, G.; García-Nieto Rodríguez, S.; Sanchís Saez, J.; Blasco, X. (2013). Controller tuning by means of multi-objective optimization algorithms: a global tuning framework. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology. 21(2):445-458. https://doi.org/10.1109/TCST.2012.2185698S44545821