Modernising operational risk management in financial institutions via data-driven causal factors analysis: A pre-registered study

In an effort to contribute a quantitative, objective and real-time tool to proactively and precisely manage the factors underlying and exacerbating operational risks, this pre-registered study executes the empirical methodology approved in the associated pre-registered report (Cornwell et al., 2023). The application of the Bayesian network-based approach to an Australian insurance company shows that integrating a financial institution's loss and operational data in this way can effectively model the probability of an operational loss event within its interconnected operational risk environment. Further insights and efficiencies are gained by modelling multiple operational loss events together, rather than in isolation. A novel two-module framework derived specifically for causal factors analysis from the resulting operational risk model helps to highlight the relative importance of causal factors, their collective effects and critical thresholds requiring proactivity. These insights derived from the framework are expected to be strategically valuable in helping an organisation design intentional and targeted controls for and monitoring of operational risks. Given existing knowledge of the improvements quantitative risk management tools make to risk management effectiveness and subsequently firm value, the enhanced risk management and the operational efficiencies this tool seeks to afford should ultimately contribute to driving financial performance and firm value

Carbonate alteration of ophiolitic rocks in the Arabian–Nubian Shield of Egypt: sources and compositions of the carbonating fluid and implications for the formation of Au deposits

Ultramafic portions of ophiolitic fragments in the Arabian–Nubian Shield (ANS) show pervasive carbonate alteration forming various degrees of carbonated serpentinites and listvenitic rocks. Notwithstanding the extent of the alteration, little is known about the processes that caused it, the source of the CO2 or the conditions of alteration. This study investigates the mineralogy, stable (O, C) and radiogenic (Sr) isotope composition, and geochemistry of suites of variably carbonate altered ultramafics from the Meatiq area of the Central Eastern Desert (CED) of Egypt. The samples investigated include least-altered lizardite (Lz) serpentinites, antigorite (Atg) serpentinites and listvenitic rocks with associated carbonate and quartz veins. The C, O and Sr isotopes of the vein samples cluster between −8.1‰ and −6.8‰ for δ13C, +6.4‰ and +10.5‰ for δ18O, and 87Sr/86Sr of 0.7028–0.70344, and plot within the depleted mantle compositional field. The serpentinites isotopic compositions plot on a mixing trend between the depleted-mantle and sedimentary carbonate fields. The carbonate veins contain abundant carbonic (CO2±CH4±N2) and aqueous-carbonic (H2O-NaCl-CO2±CH4±N2) low salinity fluid, with trapping conditions of 270–300°C and 0.7–1.1 kbar. The serpentinites are enriched in Au, As, S and other fluid-mobile elements relative to primitive and depleted mantle. The extensively carbonated Atg-serpentinites contain significantly lower concentrations of these elements than the Lz-serpentinites suggesting that they were depleted during carbonate alteration. Fluid inclusion and stable isotope compositions of Au deposits in the CED are similar to those from the carbonate veins investigated in the study and we suggest that carbonation of ANS ophiolitic rocks due to influx of mantle-derived CO2-bearing fluids caused break down of Au-bearing minerals such as pentlandite, releasing Au and S to the hydrothermal fluids that later formed the Au-deposits. This is the first time that gold has been observed to be remobilized from rocks during the lizardite–antigorite transition

Focus issue introduction: 3D image acquisition and display: technology, perception and applications

This Feature Issue of Optics Express is organized in conjunction with the 2021 Optica (OSA) conference on 3D Image Acquisition and Display: Technology, Perception and Applications which was held virtually from 19 to 23, July 2021 as part of the Imaging and Sensing Congress 2021. This Feature Issue presents 29 articles which cover the topics and scope of the 2021 3D conference. This Introduction provides a summary of these articles

The New Horizons Spacecraft

The New Horizons spacecraft was launched on 19 January 2006. The spacecraft was designed to provide a platform for seven instruments that will collect and return data from Pluto in 2015. The design drew on heritage from previous missions developed at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and other missions such as Ulysses. The trajectory design imposed constraints on mass and structural strength to meet the high launch acceleration needed to reach the Pluto system prior to the year 2020. The spacecraft subsystems were designed to meet tight mass and power allocations, yet provide the necessary control and data handling finesse to support data collection and return when the one-way light time during the Pluto flyby is 4.5 hours. Missions to the outer solar system require a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) to supply electrical power, and a single RTG is used by New Horizons. To accommodate this constraint, the spacecraft electronics were designed to operate on less than 200 W. The spacecraft system architecture provides sufficient redundancy to provide a probability of mission success of greater than 0.85, even with a mission duration of over 10 years. The spacecraft is now on its way to Pluto, with an arrival date of 14 July 2015. Initial inflight tests have verified that the spacecraft will meet the design requirements.Comment: 33 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables; To appear in a special volume of Space Science Reviews on the New Horizons missio