A Study in Market Micromanagement: The Asymmetrical Effects of the 2008 Short Sale Ban on Stocks With and Without Traded Options

This study provides an empirical analysis of the 2008 short sale ban. The evidence suggests that the presence of tradable options plays a crucial role in determining the effect of a short sale ban. Results show that if there are no traded options on a stock, the short sale ban brought abnormal returns of roughly +8%. However if there are traded options on a stock, the market maker exemptions nullify the positive effects of the ban. Furthermore, for the banned stocks that do experience positive abnormal returns during the ban, the lifting of the ban causes a prompt reversal of these returns. Findings suggest short sale bans cause an underrepresentation of negative opinions for as long as the ban lasts and that the presence of tradable options eliminates that underrepresentation by providing an alternative for pessimistic investors

Exploiting Graphic Card Processor Technology to Accelerate Data Mining Queries in SAP NetWeaver BIA

Within business Intelligence contexts, the importance of data mining algorithms is continuously increasing, particularly from the perspective of applications and users that demand novel algorithms on the one hand and an efficient implementation exploiting novel system architectures on the other hand. Within this paper, we focus on the latter issue and report our experience with the exploitation of graphic card processor technology within the SAP NetWeaver business intelligence accelerator (BIA). The BIA represents a highly distributed analytical engine that supports OLAP and data mining processing primitives. The system organizes data entities in column-wise fashion and its operation is completely main-memory-based. Since case studies have shown that classic data mining queries spend a large portion of their runtime on scanning and filtering the data as a necessary prerequisite to the actual mining step, our main goal was to speed up this expensive scanning and filtering process. In a first step, the paper outlines the basic data mining processing techniques within SAP NetWeaver BIA and illustrates the implementation of scans and filters. In a second step, we give insight into the main features of a hybrid system architecture design exploiting graphic card processor technology. Finally, we sketch the implementation and give details of our vast evaluations

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 10, No. 02-03

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1183/thumbnail.jp

Co-designing and scaling sustainable intensification of mixed farming systems in Laos

For over a decade, rural Lao households have been undergoing a transformation from subsistence-oriented production systems to agricultural commercialization, facilitated by a series of Lao government policies opening the economy to international markets coupled with improved connectivity. The extent and depth of this process is accelerating, particularly in upland (non-paddy) farming systems that were formerly part of a swidden landscape. Sustainable intensification of these mixed crop-tree-livestock systems (mixed farming systems, MFS) is critical for competitiveness in global markets, long-term productivity and efficiency of resource use, without undermining resilience and ecosystem services for rural households. Cassava and cattle are amongst the most recent in a series of commodity booms in which increased market demand and farm-gate prices has seen farmers engaged in a process of specialization and monocultures to capture market opportunities. This research explores MFS's policy and market context, its impacts on farming practices and the opportunities and entry points for co-designing sustainable intensification, focusing on cattle in Northern and cassava in Southern Laos. We conducted interviews with local government staff, farmers and other stakeholders in three provinces in Laos with diverse agricultural commercialization and markets. Initial results reveal the cassava boom has been driven by the high price of cassava root and chips, access to the local and global markets and the establishment of starch factories in Laos and neighboring countries; the cattle boom has been driven by government policy, high demand for cattle export to China and Vietnam and the decline of maize production and price. Farmers practice MFS based on their available inputs and labor with insufficient technical and innovation skills, although some larger landowners have adopted good practices such as crop rotation and silvopasture. The cassava and cattle booms contribute to converting forest areas into agricultural commercial landscapes and affect the availability of ecosystem services such as access to land for grazing, soil fertility, erosion control and watershed protection. To reduce negative impacts on the environment and agroecosystems, improving farmers’ technical and innovation capacities, co-design and supportive policies and regulations are needed to optimize resources. Agro-silvo-pastoral systems are crucial for this pathway

Environmental entitlements: institutional influence on mangrove social-ecological systems in Northern Vietnam

Environment and development issues are complex and interdependent. Institutions underpinning state, private sector and civil society actions at various levels must address complexity to ensure social-ecological system integrity. However, responses often operate at only one governance level, with limited interactions with other levels, restricting their ability to support communities who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. This paper explores institutional factors influencing household entitlements to mangrove system provisioning goods on Vietnam’s northern coast. The environmental entitlements framework is used to identify: (1) current formal and informal institutional structures relating to mangrove systems; (2) the influence of state, private sector and non-governmental organisation actors at various levels; and (3) how actions occurring at and among various levels of governance shape mangrove system entitlements at the local level. Employing a case study approach, this research utilises qualitative methods and a multi-level governance approach to understand prevailing institutional contexts. Results indicate that reforms occurring within weak regulatory frameworks led to the concentration of power at the meso level, reducing the endowments of marginalized households. Market forces facilitated inequality and environmental degradation, negatively impacting household entitlements. Finally, a lack of formally recognised civil society constrained household capabilities to participate in mangrove planning. Mangrove dependent households must be integrated into mangrove planning at the local level, as processes at higher institutional levels affect household environmental entitlements and threaten sustainable outcomes. Ensuring views from the local level feed into the multi-level governance process is vita

Governing agriculture-forest landscapes to achieve climate change mitigation

This introduction to the special section on Governing Agriculture-Forest Landscapes to Achieve Climate Change Mitigation reviews external interventions to improve forest conditions and reduce deforestation, and by extension, influence carbon storage in agriculture-forest landscapes. The review is based on a careful survey of 123 cases of project-based and policy interventions to influence land use and forest cover outcomes. We propose that outcomes of interventions can be explained in terms of rights, incentives, and technologies related to land use and apply this framework to examine 12 types of interventions in agriculture-forest landscapes. The analysis of the identified 123 cases raises concerns about consistency of data and comparability of cases. Our preliminary evidence suggests limited association between the stated objective of an intervention and its success. This evidence also suggests that smaller scale and effective enforcement may be positively associated with improved forest outcomes. But the effectiveness of interventions across different agriculture-forest landscapes varies and available evidence does not permit easy generalizations. The variable effects of interventions across different agriculture-forest landscapes point to the need to better understand the forms and functions of interventions and to problems associated with assessing their relative efficacy