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Central bank responses to coronavirus pandemic in Europe
No full textBeginning in January 2020, the spread of the coronavirus in Europe picked up quickly, forcing several European governments, like most other affected countries, to enact “lockdown” measures. This led many businesses to close, at least temporarily, especially those in the restaurant, leisure, travel, and retail industries. Due to the lengthy lockdown period—which lasted for months—many enterprises failed and others suffered large losses, resulting in a sharp decline in GDP over the following few years. Consumer spending and investment also fell sharply, and despite government efforts to help, the problem’s size and limited resources have made a recovery time-consuming. This study aims to discuss and evaluate the numerous activities supported by financial regulators and central banks in Europe and the US to raise financial institutions’ understanding of the tools and resources at their disposal during the challenging pandemic conditions. We assemble a list of these programs that the Bank provides for International Settlements (BIS), the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England (BOE), and the Federal Reserve (Fed) in the United States. After outlining these categories, we provide some conclusions and suggestions for best practises among treasury departments in financial institutions that must comply with this rule
Goal-modeling privacy-by-design patterns for supporting GDPR compliance
Get PDFThe introduction of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has imposed obligations on organisations collecting data in the EU. This has been beneficial to citizens due to rights reinforcement achieved as data subjects. However, obligations heavily affected organisations, and their privacy requirements analysts, having issues with interpreting and implementing GDPR principles. This paper proposes visual GDPR Patterns supporting analysts through Privacy-by- Design (PbD) and GDPR compliance analysis. In order to achieve that, we extended a requirements modeling tool, SecTro, which is used to assist analysts in creating visual requirements models. Specifically, we extended SecTro with novel visual GDPR patterns representing GDPR principles. We evaluated the patterns in a healthcare case study. The evaluation results suggest that the GDPR patterns can help analysts in PbD modeling analysis, by representing GDPR principles and considering relevant ready-to-use alternatives, towards achieving GDPR compliance
Hotting ip. Geopolitical rivalry and environmental security in the Arctic
No full textTraditionally the Arctic has been on the margins of international political interest, either geopolitically or environmentally. Climate change, though, has changed this by appearing to open up new economic opportunities in the region. Interest in the High North has subsequently increased, both from the states of the region and beyond. To date, though, there has appeared no likelihood of this escalating into resource wars, despite this prospect being widely heralded a decade and a half ago. Instead, governance in the region, centered on the Arctic Council, has proved an exemplar of intergovernmental cooperation, even in the face of increased tensions between Russia and the West over the past two decades. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, though, has frozen this blossoming co-management of the High North and put its future in doubt. This is likely to have some negative consequences in terms of the environment and maritime safety in the region. However, despite a heightening of tensions, there remains little reason to expect a Russian military initiative in the region since all non-Russian territory will soon be under NATO protection and Moscow would have far more to lose than they could gain from such an act
Layered double hydroxides, an effective nanomaterial to remove phosphorus from wastewater: Performance, mechanism, factors and reusability
No full textSystematic understanding of phosphorus adsorption performance, mechanism, factors and reusability of layered double hydroxides (LDH) remains limited. Thus, iron (Fe), calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg)-based LDH (FeCa-LDH and FeMg-LDH), were synthesized with a co-precipitation method to improve phosphorus removal efficiency during the wastewater treatment process. Both FeCa-LDH and FeMg-LDH showed a considerable ability to remove phosphorus in wastewater. When the phosphorus concentration was 10 mg/L, the removal efficiency reached 99 % (FeCa-LDH: 1 min) and 82 % (FeMg-LDH: 10 min), respectively. The phosphorus removal mechanism was observed to be electrostatic adsorption, coordination reaction and anionic exchange, which was more evident at pH = 10 for FeCa-LDH. Co-occurrence anions that affected phosphorus removal efficiency, were observed in the following order: HCO > CO ≈ NO > SO . After five adsorption-desorption cycles, phosphorus removal efficiency was still up to 85 % (FeCa-LDH) and 42 % (FeMg-LDH), respectively. Together, the present findings suggest that LDHs were high-performance, strongly-stable and reusable phosphorus adsorbents
Development of BA Creative Digital Design professional degree apprenticeship
No full textDegree apprenticeships offer new routes into Higher Education and employment. However to date apprenticeships in the Art and Design space have mostly been offered at levels 3 and 4. This has changed with the development of the BA Creative Digital Design Professional Degree Apprenticeship. In this presentation we explore the challenges and opportunities that this present HEIs, using our own experience of developing and rolling out the BA CDDP as a case study
Enhanced classification of network traffic data captured by intrusion prevention systems
Get PDFA common practice in modern computer networks is the deployment of Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPSs) for the purpose of identifying security threats. Such systems provide alerts on suspicious activities based on a predefined set of rules. These alerts almost always contain high percentages of false positives and false negatives, which may impede the efficacy of their use. Therefore, with the presence of high numbers of false positives and false negatives, the analysis of network traffic data can be ineffective for decision makers which normally require concise, and preferably, visual forms to base their decisions upon. Machine learning techniques can help extract useful information from large datasets. Combined with visualisation, classification could provide a solution to false alerts and text-based outputs of IPSs.
This research developed two new classification techniques that outperformed the traditional classification methods in accurate classification of computer network traffic captured by an IPS framework. They are also highly effective. The main purpose of these techniques was the effective identification of malicious network traffic and this was demonstrated via extensive experimental evaluation (where many experiments were conducted and results are reported in this thesis). In addition, an enhancement of the principal component analysis (PCA) was presented as part of this study. This enhancement proved to outperform the classical PCA on classification of IPS data.
Details of the evaluation and experiments are provided in this thesis. One of the classification methods described in this thesis achieved accuracy values of 98.51% and 99.76% on two computer network traffic dataset settings, whereas the Class-balanced Similarity Based Instance Transfer Learning (CB-SBIT) algorithm achieves accuracy values of 93.56% and 96.25% respectively on the same dataset settings. This means the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithm.
As for the PCA enhancement mentioned above, using its resulting principal components as inputs to classifiers leads to improved accuracy when compared to the classical PCA
Effect of butachlor on microcystis aeruginosa: cellular and molecular mechanisms of toxicity
No full textThe rapid development of agriculture increases the release of butachlor into aquatic environments. As a dominant species causing cyanobacterial blooms, Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa) can produce microcystin and poses threats to aquatic ecosystems and human health. However, the impact of butachlor on M. aeruginosa remains unclarified. Therefore, the physiochemical responses of M. aeruginosa to butachlor were investigated, and the relevant underlying molecular mechanism was highlighted. There were no significant changes (P > 0.05) in the growth and physiology of M. aeruginosa at the low concentrations of butachlor (0-0.1 mg/L), which evidenced a high level of butachlor tolerance in Microcystis aeruginosa. For the high concentrations of butachlor (4-30 mg/L), the inhibition of photosynthetic activity, disruption of cell ultrastructure, and oxidative stress were dominant toxic effects on M. aeruginosa. Additionally, the impaired cellular integrity and lipid peroxidation may be attributed to the substantial elevations of extracellular microcystin-LR concentration. Downregulation of genes associated with photosynthesis, energy metabolism, and oxidative stress was inferred to be responsible for the growth suppression of M. aeruginosa in 30 mg/L butachlor treatment. The upregulation of gene sets involved in nitrogen metabolism may illustrate the specific effort to sustain the steady concentration of intracellular microcystin-LR. These findings dissect the response mechanism of M. aeruginosa to butachlor toxicity and provide valuable reference for the evaluation of potential risk caused by butachlor in aquatic environments
The driving factors of corporate carbon emissions: An application of the LASSO model with survey data
Get PDFCorporate carbon performance is a key driver of achieving corporate sustainability. The identification of factors that influence corporate carbon emissions is fundamental to promoting carbon performance. Based on the carbon disclosure project (CDP) database, we integrate the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression model and the fixed-effect model to identify the determinants of carbon emissions. Furthermore, we rank determining factors according to their importance. We find that Capx enters the models under all carbon contexts. For Scope 1 and Scope 2, financial-level factors play a greater role. For Scope 3, corporate internal incentive policies and emission reduction behaviors are important. Different from absolute carbon emissions, for relative carbon emissions, the financial-level factors’ debt-paying ability is a vital reference indicator for the impact of corporate carbon emissions
Adventures requiring care and recklessness: a playful archive
Get PDFThis chapter offers a Playful Archive which t(h)reads a path through research undertaken in childhood studies over the author’s past decade, insisting that uncertainty, speculation, and curiosity displace conventions that rest upon a search for knowability, linearity, and solutions. The intention is for this Playful Archive to weave the promise of postfoundational inquiry through a series of provocations and propositions. The partial glimpses offered through images, poetry, and accounts of speculative research practices gesture towards the potential that doing research differently can make in pursuit of making a difference in the world – research is understood as affective, unruly, and ultimately activist in the difference it makes in how it comes about, in the act, and how it lingers and haunts long after. The chapter works with a range of feminist theories and philosophies but is most heavily indebted to Haraway and her invitations to seriousplay, go visiting, and engaging in practices of worlding as a means to reorient both thought and practice. The chapter seeks to address the reorienting questions: What gets overturned or displaced when engaging in postfoundational research? What are you making room for? The chapter contends that complexifying what research is, how it is done, and what it generates involves bringing matter, affect, philosophy, ethics, and theory together to push aside taken-for-granted practices and pursue research in an altogether different key