Bank Frauds and Tracking the Hidden Assets

Each year banks are the targets of insider and outsider fraudulent activity. Borrowers overstate their assets and holdings in order to obtain loans for which they would never otherwise qualify. Employees embezzle, steal, or conspire with crooked clients for a kickback, and billions are lost. Law enforcement agencies around the world are reporting increased instances of corporate, mortgage, and bank fraud. For example, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations ( FBI ) in its FY2007 Financial Crimes Report states that its corporate fraud cases doubled from five years earlier. Through FY2007, U.S. Grand Juries returned 183 indictments resulting in 173 convictions. Securities and commodities fraud cases increased from 937 cases in 2002 to 1,217 in 2007.5 With the increased attention, mortgage fraud is getting in the wake of the mortgage default crisis, the FBI in FY2008 had 1,204 cases under investigation, got 321 indictments, and 260 convictions. The number of mortgage fraud investigations has tripled over the last five-year period.7 In FY2007, the FBI\u27s health care fraud cases alone produced $1.12 billion in restitution orders. Corporate fraud alone in the United States amounts to over$1 billion per year. Denying the criminal the fruits of his unlawful enterprise is one of law enforcement\u27s main deterrents. To accomplish this, financial institutions, regulators, and law enforcement must be able to follow and find the ill-gotten assets and get them back, which is not an easy task. Even when assets are found, stumbling blocks often keep private parties from seizing them

The Near-Horizon Limit of the Extreme Rotating d=5 Black Hole as a Homogenous Spacetime

We show that the spacetime of the near-horizon limit of the extreme rotating d=5 black hole, which is maximally supersymmetric in N=2,d=5 supergravity for any value of the rotation parameter j in [-1,1], is locally isomorphic to a homogeneous non-symmetric spacetime corresponding to an element of the 1-parameter family of coset spaces SO(2,1)x SO(3)/SO(2)_j in which the subgroup SO(2)_j is a combination of the two SO(2) subgroups of SO(2,1) and SO(3).Comment: Some points clarified and misprints corrected. Version to be published in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Detection of Non-Technical Losses in Smart Distribution Networks: a Review

With the advent of smart grids, distribution utilities have initiated a large deployment of smart meters on the premises of the consumers. The enormous amount of data obtained from the consumers and communicated to the utility give new perspectives and possibilities for various analytics-based applications. In this paper the current smart metering-based energy-theft detection schemes are reviewed and discussed according to two main distinctive categories: A) system statebased, and B) arti cial intelligence-based.Comisión Europea FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IT

Lesões Bolhosas Palmares no Idoso

Relatamos o caso de um homem de 79 anos com história de lesões vesiculosas e bolhosas pruriginosas localizadas a nível palmar bilateral. Referia aparecimento há cerca de 2 anos, com resposta parcial a dermocorticóides de baixa-média potência e carácter recidivante. Ao exame objetivo apresentava múltiplas lesões vesiculobolhosas tensas com base eritematosa, a maioria em fase erosiva (Fig. 1). A nível plantar referia lesões no passado, que não apresentava no momento da consulta. Não apresentava outras alterações cutâneas ou mucosas. Foi enviada amostra para cultura de fungos que foi negativa. O estudo histopatológico de biópsia cutânea mostrou descolamento bolhoso subepidérmico com extensa reepitilização subjacente associado a infiltrado linfomononucleado perivascular rico em eosinófilos (Fig. 2). A imunofluorescência direta (IFD) de área perilesional mostrou depósitos lineares de C3 e IgG ao nível da junção dermo- epidérmica. Foram detectados anticorpos circulantes para BP180 (122 U/mL, normal >20 U/mL) por ELISA. Foi iniciado tratamento com prednisolona 30 mg/dia em desmame durante 2 semanas associado a dermocorticóide de alta potência com resolução das lesões e sem formação de novas bolhas em dois anos de follow-up

p-branes on the waves

We present a large family of simple, explicit ten-dimensional supergravity solutions describing extended extremal supersymmetric Ramond-Ramond p-branes embedded into time-dependent dilaton-gravity plane waves of an arbitrary (isotropic) profile, with the brane world-volume aligned parallel to the propagation direction of the wave. Generalizations to the non-extremal case are not analyzed explicitly, but can be pursued as indicated.Comment: 11 pages; v.2 minor notation changes, minor typos corrected (published version

Einstein-Maxwell gravitational instantons and five dimensional solitonic strings

We study various aspects of four dimensional Einstein-Maxwell multicentred gravitational instantons. These are half-BPS Riemannian backgrounds of minimal N=2 supergravity, asymptotic to R^4, R^3 x S^1 or AdS_2 x S^2. Unlike for the Gibbons-Hawking solutions, the topology is not restricted by boundary conditions. We discuss the classical metric on the instanton moduli space. One class of these solutions may be lifted to causal and regular multi `solitonic strings', without horizons, of 4+1 dimensional N=2 supergravity, carrying null momentum.Comment: 1+30 page

Ability of lipid accumulation product to identify metabolic syndrome in healthy men from Buenos Aires.

The metabolic syndrome is a constellation of cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors associated with insulin resistance, which predisposes individuals to diabetes, and appears to be a multifactorial risk factor for cardiovascular disease, although its clinical significance remains controversial (1). Since it may become useful to be able to predict who will develop metabolic syndrome, we explored the value of lipid accumulation product (LAP), a novel index of central lipid accumulation, which has been associated with cardiovascular disease (2) and diabetes (3). LAP is based on a combination of waist circumference and triglyceride: $$LAP = (WC − 65) × TG for men and (WC − 58) × TG for women$$ (2), where TG is triglyceride and WC is waist circumference. We conducted a cross-sectional population-based survey on metabolic syndrome in Argentinian healthy individuals in order to identify single

The Tensor Hierarchies of Pure N=2,d=4,5,6 Supergravities

We study the supersymmetric tensor hierarchy of pure (gauged) N=2,d=4,5,6 supergravity and compare them with those of the pure, ungauged, theories (worked out by Gomis and Roest for d=5) and the predictions of the Kac-Moody approach made by Kleinschmidt and Roest. We find complete agreement in the ungauged case but we also find that, after gauging, new Stueckelberg symmetries reduce the number of independent "physical" top-forms. The analysis has to be performed to all orders in fermion fields. We discuss the construction of the worldvolume effective actions for the p-branes which are charged with respect to the (p+1)-form potentials and the relations between the tensor hierarchies and p-branes upon dimensional reduction.Comment: LaTeX2e file, 20 pages, 1 figure Results refined by extension of the analysis to all orders in fermion

Investigating SSH Research and Publication Practices in Disciplinary and Institutional Contexts. A Survey-Based Comparative Approach in Two Universities

In this paper, we comparatively analyze, present and discuss the results from a survey on increasing the visibility of research achievements in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) that was carried out at the University of Vienna (Austria) and the University of Navarra (Spain) in 2016 and 2017. Covering four major topics—searching and finding literature, publishing, the visibility of research, and the assessment of research outputs—we ask the following questions: are there disciplinary differences to be identified, and how do they present themselves in the two institutional contexts? Discussing the results, we showcase how disciplinary and institutional traditions and contexts are important factors that influence research and publication practices in the SSH. Our results indicate that the practices of searching and finding literature as well as publication practices and behavior are shaped by disciplinary traditions and epistemic cultures. On the contrary, assessment and valuation of research outputs are influenced by institutional and national contexts in which SSH research is organized and carried out