A new conflict rule for securitization and other cross-border assignments : a potential threat from Europe

One of the dangers of harmonisation and unification processes taking place within the framework of the EU is that they may result in the codification of the lowest common denominator. This is precisely what is threatening to happen in respect of assignment. Referring the transfer of receivables by way of assignment to the law of the assignor’s residence, as article 13 of the Proposal does, would be opting for the most conservative solution and would for many Member States be a step backward rather than forward. A conflict rule referring assignment to the law of the assignor's residence is too rigid to do justice to the dynamic nature of assignments in cross-border transactions and it is unjustly one-sided. It offers no real advantages when compared to other conflict rules; it even has serious disadvantages which make the conflict rule unsuitable for efficient assignment-based cross-border transactions. It is not unconceivable that this conflict rule would even be contrary to the fundamental freedoms of the ECTreaty. The Community legislators in particular should be careful not to needlessly adopt rules which create insurmountable obstacles for cross-border business where choice-of-law by the parties would perfectly do. Community legislation has a special responsibility to create a smooth legal environment for single market transactions

Formal features as a design factor of video segments in interactive video programmes

Video segments may be characterized by formal design features with respect to factors such as complexity of narration, mutual influence of picture and sound, use of superimposed texts, information load due to technical terms, and animation. The paper suggests ways to operationalize these factors and reports about an experiment in which the influence of these formal features was studied with respect to perceived information load of video segments by learners. The length of a segment was thereby counted as the number of information elements it contains. An information element is defined as one uninterrupted statement of the narrator about which one factual question can be presented. The experiment was carried out by using an experimental videodisc programme about cheesemaking that contains 252 information elements which form a connected discourse of 36 min if the programme is played linearly without stopping. Subjects had the task to divide this programme into segments by deciding for themselves how often they would stop before completing the programme. At every stopping place, the subjects were questioned about the content of the just completed segment.\ud \ud The results of the experiment suggest that: (a) subjects tend to perceive narrated sentences as one whole, regardless of the number of facts implied, (b) content-related technical terms seem not to determine difficulty level, (c) superimposed texts show a trend to help subjects who prefer short segments to choose longer segments and subjects who prefer long segments to choose shorter segments, (d) animation is positively (but moderately) correlated with mean self-chosen segment length

Trends in rooting media in Dutch horticulture during the period 2001-2005: The new growing media project

An overview of the developments in the area and volume of substrates used for horticultural rooting media in Holland in the period 2001 to 2005 is given. The overview is followed by a discussion of some trends in society and technology including the interest of public and society in a possible substitution of peat, an increase in the use of locally produced renewable carbon based substrates and an increase in nutrient recirculation for soil grown crops. In reaction to growing public concern about peat harvesting for horticultural purposes in parts of Europe, Dutch growers, researchers, potting soil producers, an auction and traders initiated in 2003 a research program named the New Growing Media Project. The aim was: To assess the technical and economical potential of peat alternatives. Develop experience and knowledge of growing on alternative mixtures. During 2004 and 2005, fifteen growers cultivated green and flowering container plants on alternative mixes. The 2004 season was used to test larger numbers of potting soils with relatively small numbers of plants. The 2005 season was used to test the most promising potting soils with larger numbers of plants. The results showed that for Hedera and Schefflera, the ultimate alternative mix was superior to the commercial standard used. For five species, Anthurium, Chrysanthemum, Gerbera, Spathiphyllum and Castanospermum, the alternative mix proved equal to the commercial standard. For eight species, Azalea, Guzmania, Poinsettia, Rosa, Saintpaulia, Adiantum, Crassula and Ficus, results were poorer than on the standard medium. The growers however, felt confident the alternative mixes could do better if the growing system, often the irrigation frequency, could be adapted to the experimental growing medium. Begonia gave poorer results with the new mix. The percentage peat used in the mixes was reduced from 77% on average in the commercial standard mixes to 30% on average in the new mixes. The most popular alternatives were coir products which increased from 17 to 40%. Other alternatives used were various barks, rice hulls, perlite, wood fiber, composts, and rockwool granulate. Those alternatives were used in mixtures from 5 to 30%. General conclusions include a growing interest in locally produced composts, granulates and fibers and for materials with properties such as a high initial air content combined with an improved rewetting rate

The Advantage of Hiding Both Hands: Foreign Exchange Intervention, Ambiguity and Private Information

This paper analyzes a dynamic exchange rate policy game in which the central bank has private information about its short-term exchange rate target, on the one hand, and in which the market is faced with a certain degree of ambiguity concerning the actual intervention volume, on the other. Sterilized interventions are shown to derive their effectiveness from the fact that they transmit information about the short-term exchange rate target to the market. In this respect, we provide an explanation for the presumed inconsistency between intervention secrecy and the effectiveness of the signalling channel since our model predicts that interventions will be more effective on average if the central bank retains some degree of ambiguity. Moreover, it is also shown that sterilized interventions will not exert a lasting effect on the exchange rate. Finally, we have also investigated the extent to which some political and economic parameters determine the size of the intervention bias.

Improving customer churn prediction by data augmentation using pictorial stimulus-choice data

The purpose of this paper is to determine the added value of pictorial stimulus-choice data in customer churn prediction. Using Random Forests and 5 times 2 fold cross-validation, this study analyzes how much pictorial stimulus choice data and survey data increase the AUC of a churn model over and above administrative, operational and complaints data. The finding is that pictorial-stimulus choice data significantly increases AUC of models with administrative and operational data. The practical implication of this finding is that companies should start considering mining pictorial data from social media sites (e.g. Pinterest), in order to augment their internal customer database. This study is original in that it is the first that assesses the added value of pictorial stimulus-choice data in predictive models. This is important because more and more social media websites are focusing on pictures