Law and the Demand for Property-Casualty Insurance Consumption

This paper examines the importance of legal rights and enforcement in influencing property-casualty insurance consumption. We extend the existing literature by examining the role of legal factors in determining insurance density across countries. Also, measures of risk aversion, loss probability and price, which overcome limitations of proxies used in the existing literature on insurance demand are analysed. Using a panel data set we apply a Generalized Methods of Moments dynamic system estimator, which relaxes the assumption of strict exogeneity of the regressors and produces unbiased and efficient estimates. The results show a strong positive relationship between the protection of property rights and insurance consumption, which is robust to various model specifications and estimation techniques. Moreover, the results show the purchase of property-casualty insurance is significantly and positively related to loss probability and income, as well as providing weaker evidence of a negative relationship with price.

Sequence effects in the categorization of tones varying in frequency

In contrast to exemplar and decision-bound categorization models, the memory and contrast models described here do not assume that long-term representations of stimulus magnitudes are available. Instead, stimuli are assumed to be categorized using only their differences from a few recent stimuli. To test this alternative, the authors examined sequential effects in a binary categorization of 10 tones varying in frequency. Stimuli up to 2 trials back in the sequence had a significant effect on the response to the current stimulus. The effects of previous stimuli interacted with one another. A memory and contrast model, according to which only ordinal information about the differences between the current stimulus and recent preceding stimuli is used, best accounted for these dat

Immunoregulatory soluble CTLA-4 modifies effector T cell responses in systemic lupus erythematosus

Acknowledgments This work was supported by Arthritis Research UK (Grant no. 19282). We are grateful to Dr. Nick Fluck for his invaluable support in recruiting patients for the study, and Mrs. Vivien Vaughan for her invaluable expertise in recruiting study participants and maintaining ethical documentation.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Harmonic Space, Self-Dual Yang Mills and the N=2N=2 String

The geometrical structure and the quantum properties of the recently proposed harmonic space action describing self-dual Yang-Mills (SDYM) theory are analyzed. The geometrical structure that is revealed is closely related to the twistor construction of instanton solutions. The theory gets no quantum corrections and, despite having SDYM as its classical equation of motion, its S matrix is trivial. It is therefore NOT the theory of the N=2 string. We also discuss the 5-dimensional actions that have been proposed for SDYM.Comment: 23 Page

Atrial fibrillation and survival in colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Survival in colorectal cancer may correlate with the degree of systemic inflammatory response to the tumour. Atrial fibrillation may be regarded as an inflammatory complication. We aimed to determine if atrial fibrillation is a prognostic factor in colorectal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A prospective colorectal cancer patient database was cross-referenced with the hospital clinical-coding database to identify patients who had underwent colorectal cancer surgery and were in atrial fibrillation pre- or postoperatively. RESULTS: A total of 175 patients underwent surgery for colorectal cancer over a two-year period. Of these, 13 patients had atrial fibrillation pre- or postoperatively. Atrial fibrillation correlated with worse two-year survival (p = 0.04; log-rank test). However, in a Cox regression analysis, atrial fibrillation was not significantly associated with survival. CONCLUSION: The presence or development of atrial fibrillation in patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer is associated with worse overall survival, however it was not found to be an independent factor in multivariate analysis

‘Smart Cities’ – Dynamic Sustainability Issues and Challenges for ‘Old World’ Economies: A Case from the United Kingdom

The rapid and dynamic rate of urbanization, particularly in emerging world economies, has resulted in a need to find sustainable ways of dealing with the excessive strains and pressures that come to bear on existing infrastructures and relationships. Increasingly during the twenty-first century policy makers have turned to technological solutions to deal with this challenge and the dynamics inherent within it. This move towards the utilization of technology to underpin infrastructure has led to the emergence of the term ‘Smart City’. Smart cities incorporate technology based solutions in their planning development and operation. This paper explores the organizational issues and challenges facing a post-industrial agglomeration in the North West of England as it attempted to become a ‘Smart City’. In particular the paper identifies and discusses the factors that posed significant challenges for the dynamic relationships residents, policymakers and public and private sector organizations and as a result aims to use these micro-level issues to inform the macro-debate and context of wider Smart City discussions. In order to achieve this, the paper develops a range of recommendations that are designed to inform Smart City design, planning and implementation strategies

Submission to inquiry on ‘Environmental risks of fracking’ by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee

This is a submission by the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science and the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. It focuses in particular on the implications of fracking for the UK’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This submission builds on the evidence collected in the course of the study ‘A UK ‘dash’ for smart gas’ (Bassi et al., 2013). The main points of this submission: Shifting from coal to natural gas – either from conventional or unconventional domestic sources, or from imports – for electricity generation could help the UK power sector to decarbonise in the near term. Gas-fired power plants could also play an important back-up role as the share of renewable electricity in generation increases. In the longer term, gas-fired power plants will have to be either replaced by low-carbon alternatives or fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) if the UK is to comply with its emission reduction targets. A lower risk option would be a ‘dash’ for smart gas, where natural gas, including domestic shale gas, is used judiciously in those areas where it offers the greatest value in decarbonising the power sector, preventing the undesirable lock in of infrastructure for fossil fuels

Terahertz generation in Czochralski grown periodically poled Mg:Y:LiNbO3 via optical rectification

Using a canonical pump-probe experimental technique, we studied the terahertz (THz) waves generation and detection via optical rectification and mixing in Czochralski-grown periodically poled Mg:Y:LiNbO3 (PPLN) crystals. THz waves with frequencies at 1.37 THz and 0.68 THz as well as 1.8 THz were obtained for PPLN with nonlinear grating periods of 0.03 and 0.06 mm, respectively. A general theoretical model was developed by considering the dispersion and damping of low frequency phonon-polariton mode. Our results show that THz waves are generated in forward and backward directions via pumping pulse rectification. The generated THz waves depend on the spectral shape of the laser pulses, quasi-phase mismatches and dispersion characteristics of a crystal.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure