On the time spent in the red by a refracted L\'evy risk process

In this paper, we introduce an insurance ruin model with adaptive premium rate, thereafter refered to as restructuring/refraction, in which classical ruin and bankruptcy are distinguished. In this model, the premium rate is increased as soon as the wealth process falls into the red zone and is brought back to its regular level when the process recovers. The analysis is mainly focused on the time a refracted L\'evy risk process spends in the red zone (analogous to the duration of the negative surplus). Building on results from Kyprianou and Loeffen (2010) and Loeffen et al. (2012), we identify the distribution of various functionals related to occupation times of refracted spectrally negative L\'evy processes. For example, these results are used to compute the probability of bankruptcy and the probability of Parisian ruin in this model with restructuring

Hydrothermal coupling in a rough fracture

Heat exchange during laminar flow is studied at the fracture scale on the basis of the Stokes equation. We used a synthetic aperture model (a self-affine model) that has been shown to be a realistic geometrical description of the fracture morphology. We developed a numerical modelling using a finite difference scheme of the hydrodynamic flow and its coupling with an advection/conduction description of the fluid heat. As a first step, temperature within the surrounding rock is supposed to be constant. Influence of the fracture roughness on the heat flux through the wall, is estimated and a thermalization length is shown to emerge. Implications for the Soultz-sous-For\^{e}ts geothermal project are discussed

Between order and disorder: a 'weak law' on recent electoral behavior among urban voters?

A new viewpoint on electoral involvement is proposed from the study of the statistics of the proportions of abstentionists, blank and null, and votes according to list of choices, in a large number of national elections in different countries. Considering 11 countries without compulsory voting (Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland), a stylized fact emerges for the most populated cities when one computes the entropy associated to the three ratios, which we call the entropy of civic involvement of the electorate. The distribution of this entropy (over all elections and countries) appears to be sharply peaked near a common value. This almost common value is typically shared since the 1970's by electorates of the most populated municipalities, and this despite the wide disparities between voting systems and types of elections. Performing different statistical analyses, we notably show that this stylized fact reveals particular correlations between the blank/null votes and abstentionists ratios. We suggest that the existence of this hidden regularity, which we propose to coin as a `weak law on recent electoral behavior among urban voters', reveals an emerging collective behavioral norm characteristic of urban citizen voting behavior in modern democracies. Analyzing exceptions to the rule provide insights into the conditions under which this normative behavior can be expected to occur.Comment: Version 1: main text 19 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables; Supporting Information: 19 pages. Version 2: minor correction