Analysis, by simulation, of the impact of a technical default of a payment system participant.

Payment systems play a very important role in ensuring the safe and efficient transfer of deposits and financial instruments. Consequently, the failure of these systems may have a destabilising impact. Business continuity plans have thus been developed to ensure their robustness. However, their smooth functioning is also contingent on the capacity of participants to submit their payment orders. The Banque de France, in its role of overseer of the French payment systems, conducted a study with a view to enhancing its understanding of the consequences and the impact of the technical default of a participant in such systems. This study, carried out using a simulator of the functioning of the Paris Net Settlement (PNS) large-value payment system, operated by the CRI (Centrale des Règlements Interbancaires), shows that the technical default of a participant in this system has negative consequences on the smooth running of the system. Indeed, a situation in which a major participant, in the wake of a technical incident, is unable to submit its payment orders in a normal fashion to its counterparties in PNS, could further exacerbate congestion in the system and result in almost 10% of payments being rejected among non-defaulting participants. The consequences of a technical default could nevertheless be greatly reduced if the participants set their bilateral sender limits at a lower level than that currently observed and if they reacted rapidly to information indicating a technical default by reducing their bilateral limits with the defaulting participant (defaulter).

Tight Bounds for Blind Search on the Integers

We analyze a simple random process in which a token is moved in the interval $A=\{0,...,n\$: Fix a probability distribution$\mu$over$\{1,...,n\$. Initially, the token is placed in a random position in$A$. In round$t$, a random value$d$is chosen according to$\mu$. If the token is in position$a\geq d$, then it is moved to position$a-d$. Otherwise it stays put. Let$T$be the number of rounds until the token reaches position 0. We show tight bounds for the expectation of$T$for the optimal distribution$\mu$. More precisely, we show that$\min_\mu\{E_\mu(T)\=\Theta((\log n)^2)$. For the proof, a novel potential function argument is introduced. The research is motivated by the problem of approximating the minimum of a continuous function over$[0,1]$ with a ``blind'' optimization strategy

Political Radicalization as a Communication Process

Based on data taken from 412 adult education students in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, this research attempts to show that attitudes toward French Canadian Separatism by the sample members can be accounted for by differentiaf communication processes. Results show that attitudes held by sample members are well explained (R2 = .64) by a weighted average of the information they received from interpersonal and media sources. The resultant attitude shows substantial effects on behaviors related to separatism for the same respondents.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67215/2/10.1177_009365027400100301.pd

Cost variability of suggested generic treatment alternatives under the Medicare Part D benefit

BACKGROUND: The substitution of generic treatment alternatives for brand-name drugs is a strategy that can help lower Medicare beneficiary out-of-pocket costs. Beginning in 2011, Medicare beneficiaries reaching the coverage gap received a 50% discount on the full drug cost of brand-name medications and a 7% discount on generic medications filled during the gap. This discount will increase until 2020, when beneficiaries will be responsible for 25% of total drug costs during the coverage gap. OBJECTIVE: To examine the cost variability of brand and generic drugs within 4 therapeutic classes before and during the coverage gap for each 2011 California stand-alone prescription drug plan (PDP) and prospective coverage gap costs in 2020 to determine the effects on beneficiary out-of-pocket drug costs. METHODS: Equivalent doses of brand and generic drugs in the following 4 pharmacological classes were examined: angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), bisphosphonates, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors (statins), and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). The full drug cost and patient copay/coinsurance amounts during initial coverage and the coverage gap of each drug was recorded based on information retrieved from the Medicare website. These drug cost data were recorded for 28 California PDPs. RESULTS: The highest cost difference between a brand medication and a Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS)-suggested generic treatment alternative varied between $110.53 and$195.49 at full cost and between $51.37 and$82.35 in the coverage gap. The lowest cost difference varied between $38.45 and$76.93 at full cost and between -$4.11 and$18.52 during the gap. CONCLUSION: Medicare beneficiaries can realize significant out-of-pocket cost savings for their drugs by taking CMS-suggested generic treatment alternatives. However, due to larger discounts on brand medications made available through recent changes reducing the coverage gap, the potential dollar savings by taking suggested generic treatment alternatives during the gap is less compelling and will decrease as subsidies increase

Solute Reservoirs Reflect Variability of Early Diagenetic Processes in Temperate Brackish Surface Sediments

Coastal marine sediments are a hotspot of organic matter degradation. Mineralization products of early diagenetic processes accumulate in the pore waters of the sediment, are subject of biological uptake and secondary biogeochemical processes and are released back into the water column via advective and diffusive fluxes across the sediment-water interface. Seven representative sites in the shallow coastal area of the southern Baltic Sea (15–45 m water depth), ranging from permeable sands to fine grained muds, were investigated on a seasonal basis for their key mineralization processes as well as their solid phase and pore water composition to identify the drivers for the variability of early diagenetic processes in the different sediment types. The sandy sediments showed about one order of magnitude lower organic carbon contents compared to the muds, while oxygen uptake rates were similar in both sediment types. Significantly higher oxygen uptake rates were determined in two near-shore muddy sites than in a deeper coastal muddy basin, which is due to higher nutrient loads and the corresponding addition of fresh algal organic matter in the near-shore sites. Pore water concentration profiles in the studied sediments were usually characterized by a typical biogeochemical zonation with oxic, suboxic, and sulfidic zones. An up to 15 cm thick suboxic zone was sustained by downward transport of oxidized material in which dissolved iron and phosphate indicate an intensive reduction of reactive Fe with the release of adsorbed phosphorus. While the geochemical zonation was stable over time in the muds of the studied deeper basin, high variability was observed in the muds of a near-coastal bay probably mainly controlled by sediment mixing activities. The sediments can be characterized by essentially two factors based on their near-surface benthic solute reservoirs: (1) their organic matter mineralization and solute accumulation efficiency and (2) their redox-state. Benthic solute reservoirs in the pore waters of the top decimeter were generally higher in the muddy than in the sandy sediments as the more permeable sands were prone to an intensive exchange between pore water and bottom water. The three studied muddy sites showed great dissimilarities with respect to their predominating redox-sensitive metabolites (dissolved iron, manganese, and sulfide). Surface-near advective transport like irrigation of permeable sands and rearrangement of cohesive muds had a particularly strong influence on early diagenetic processes in the studied sediments and were probably the most important cause for the spatiotemporal variability of their benthic solute reservoirs

In Search of a Field-Based Relationship Between Benthic Macrofauna and Biogeochemistry in a Modern Brackish Coastal Sea

During several cruises in the southern Baltic Sea conducted in different seasons from 2014 to 2016, sediment cores were collected for the investigation of pore-water biogeochemistry and associated nutrient fluxes across the sediment-water interface. Six stations were positioned along a salinity gradient (ranging from 22 to 8) and covered various sedimentary habitats ranging from mud to sand. Integrated fluxes of nutrients in the supernatant water and sediment oxygen consumption were additionally derived from incubations of intact sediment cores. Subsequently, sediment from the pore-water and incubation cores was sieved for taxonomic identification and estimation of benthic macrofauna density. This combined dataset was used to determine the dominant factors influencing the vertical distribution of geochemical parameters in the pore-waters of the studied habitats and to find similarities and patterns explaining significant variations of solute fluxes across the sediment-water interface. A statistical relationship between the thickness of sulfide-free surface sediments, solute fluxes of sulfide, ammonium, and phosphate as well as oxygen consumption and taxonomic and functional characteristics of macrobenthic communities were tested. Our data and modeling results indicate that bioturbation and bioirrigation alter near-surface pore-water nutrient concentrations toward bottom water values. Besides sediment properties and microbial activity, the biogeochemical fluxes can further be explained by the functional structure of benthic macrofauna. Community bioturbation potential, species richness, and biomass of biodiffusers were the best proxies among the tested set of biotic and abiotic parameters and could explain 63% of multivariate total benthic flux variations. The effects of macrobenthos on ecosystem functioning differ between sediment types, specific locations and seasons. Both, species distribution and nutrient fluxes are temporally dynamic. Those natural patterns, as well as potential anthropogenic and natural disturbances (e.g., fishery, storm events), may cause impacts on field data in a way beyond our present capability of quantitative prediction, and require more detailed seasonal studies. The data presented here adds to our understanding of the complexity of natural ecosystem functioning under anthropogenic pressure

Impact Factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?

A review of Garfield's journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters Impact Factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures, 6 table

The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world