Interrelationships among international stock market indices: Europe, Asia and the Americas

In this paper, we investigate the price interdependence between seven international stock markets, namely Irish, UK, Portuguese, US, Brazilian, Japanese and Hong Kong, using a new testing method, based on the wavelet transform to reconstruct the data series, as suggested by Lee (2002). We find evidence of intra-European (Irish, UK and Portuguese) market co-movements with the US market also weakly influencing the Irish market. We also find co-movement between the US and Brazilian markets and similar intra-Asian co-movements (Japanese and Hong Kong). Finally, we conclude that the circle of impact is that of the European markets (Irish, UK and Portuguese) on both American markets (US and Brazilian), with these in turn impacting on the Asian markets (Japanese and Hong Kong) which in turn influence the European markets. In summary, we find evidence for intra-continental relationships and an increase in importance of international spillover effects since the mid 1990’s, while the importance of historical transmissions has decreased since the beginning of this century

Interdependence between emerging and major markets

In this paper, we investigate the price spillover effects among two developed markets, (the US and the UK ), and two developing markets, (Irish and Portuguese), using a new testing method suggested by Lee (2002). We find that there are interrelationships between any two of the Irish, the UK and Portuguese markets and that the co-movements between the emerging markets and the US are statistically significant but weak. We also found that the US market is slightly influenced by the UK but not vice versa

Modelling drug coatings: A parallel cellular automata model of ethylcellulose-coated microspheres

Pharmaceutical companies today face a growing demand for more complex drug designs. In the past few decades, a number of probabilistic models have been developed, with the aim of improving insight on microscopic features of these complex designs. Of particular interest are models of controlled release systems, which can provide tools to study targeted dose delivery. Controlled release is achieved by using polymers with different dissolution characteristics. We present here an approach for parallelising a large-scale model of a drug delivery system based on Monte Carlo methods, as a framework for Cellular Automata mobility. The model simulates drug release in the gastro-intestinal tract, from coated ethylcellulose microspheres. The objective is high performance simulation of coated drugs for targeted delivery. The overall aim is to understand the importance of various molecular effects with respect to system evolution over time. Important underlying mechanisms of the process, such as erosion and diffusion, are described

Apples and oranges: the difference between the reaction of the emerging and mature markets to crashes

We study here the behavior of the eigenvalues of the covariance matrices of returns for emerging and mature markets at times of crises. Our results appear to indicate that mature markets respond to crashes differently to emerging ones and that emerging markets take longer to recover than mature markets. In addition, the results appear to indicate that the second largest eigenvalue gives additional information on market movement and that a study of the behavior of the other eigenvalues may provide insight on crash dynamics

Businesswomen's views on occupational/work success in the early 21st century

Includes bibliographical references.Women have made tremendous strides in the workforce over the past thirty years. More women than ever are receiving college business degrees and are entering the workforce at a ample rate. However, women only hold a small percentage of top-level positions in business. For example, women run only two of the Fortune 500 companies. This project looks to examine and possibly explain why definitions of success may be one of the possible reasons women are not reaching top executive positions. Many people today assume, ometimes unknowingly, that success is based upon money, position, or status. However, upon closer examination it appears that women and men may define success differently, which may help explain the lack of women in top executive positions. This study compares the results of a questionnaire sent out to approximately 2,000 businesswomen and other articles previously published that address this issue. Many companies are now questioning why extremely talented, top-level businesswomen are leaving their company. In the past, women withdrawing from the corporate race have been assumed to lack ambition and simply desire to have a family. This study suggests another reason- women do not necessarily strive for or define success simply by money or position. Rather they look to factors such as self-fulfillment, social contributions and family/work balance to define their success.B.S. (Bachelor of Science

The Effects of Geospatial-Intelligence on United States-Mexico Border Security

Following the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terror attacks on American soil, politicians and the media drew a parallel between US-Mexican border security issues such as illegal immigration, and terrorism, highlighting an increased need to secure our southern border in an effort to prevent another 9/11-style terror attack (Maril 2011). Under securitization theory, the linking of border security issues such as illegal immigration to terrorism can be defined as a securitization act or more simply put, the portrayal of a specific issue as a threat to national security (Balzcaq 2011). Once an issue has been deemed a threat (“securitized”), the use of a specific securitization instrument or tool to counter said threat can be justified (Balzcaq 2011). This dissertation assesses the applicability of securitization theory to US-Mexico border security by studying the effects of a particular securitization instrument and tool fielded along the US-Mexico border, Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT). Through the use of securitization theory, and more specifically a comparative case study involving the use of descriptive data, content analysis and interview data, four cases (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) were evaluated. This study considers the operational and technical aspects of GEOINT in these states, as well as the political and symbolic characteristics of this tool and finds that GEOINT provides critical information to border security experts and planners by providing pattern-of-life information pertaining to high-traffic illegal border crossing areas and, that the presence of GEOINT resources along the border plays a role in reproducing the narrative associated with the threat of illegal immigration along the US-Mexico border (Balzacq 2008). Further, this study finds that securitization theory is not only applicable to the US-Mexico border security problem set but also provides a framework for evaluating both the operational and symbolic effects of securitization instruments

The Accidental Academic Library: Meeting the Needs of a Health System–Affiliated University

Background: In 2017 a small liberal arts college affiliated with a large western health system was re-branded, and a School of Health Professions was created to prepare for future staffing shortages and to train the next generation of healthcare workers. Instead of relying solely upon its own library, University administration reached out to the health system library to meet the information needs of this new group of students, most of whom were active employees of the healthcare enterprise. Thus, a group of hospital librarians found themselves as accidental academic librarians.Description: Library leadership researched academic library bench-marking to propose a budget for collections and FTE. Library staff brushed up on library trends and copyright issues specific to academic libraries and prepared to serve a new type of user. Vendor negotiations became newly complex as they brought in both the corporate and academic sides of the business and raised the issue of how to properly license for the University. Operational challenges included subscription IP overlaps and how to provide remote access to non-employed students and faculty. Librarians had to adjust to the different service level needs for students as compared to employees, many of whom were one and the same.Conclusion: Nearly 3 years later and the health system library has yet to receive any additional funding or FTE to support the University and has built the collection and services on its existing budget. Publisher contracts are revisited on an annual basis as the growth of the school of health professions puts pressure on agreed-upon pricing models, as well as library staffing capacity. Library staff has adapted instructional materials and service expectations to the student population, shifting the balance from a value-add fish FOR a person to a TEACH to fish approach

Techniques for clustering gene expression data

Many clustering techniques have been proposed for the analysis of gene expression data obtained from microarray experiments. However, choice of suitable method(s) for a given experimental dataset is not straightforward. Common approaches do not translate well and fail to take account of the data profile. This review paper surveys state of the art applications which recognises these limitations and implements procedures to overcome them. It provides a framework for the evaluation of clustering in gene expression analyses. The nature of microarray data is discussed briefly. Selected examples are presented for the clustering methods considered