Corporate fraud culture: Re-examining the corporate governance and performance relation

We analyse the corporate governance and performance relation, when conditioning on corporate fraud, for fraud firms during 2000 – 2007. Fraud firms are identified as either self- reported fraud events, or subject to regulatory investigation. We use the inverse Mills ratio procedure to account for firms' (unobservable) fraud culture in the dynamic system GMM model of the performance- governance relation. We find that corporate governance is an endogenously determined characteristic that has no causal impact on firm performance when conditioning on fraud. Fraud is a significant regulatory event but its overall economic impact at the firm level is highly variable.

Numerical studies on CFRP strengthened steel circular members under marine environment

The durability of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) strengthened steel circular hollow section (CHS) members has now become a real challenge to researchers. In addition, various parameters that may affect the durability of such members have not been revealed yet. This paper presents brief experimental results and the first finite element (FE) approach of CFRP strengthened steel CHS beams conditioned in simulated sea water, along with an accelerated corrosion environment at ambient (24 OC ± 4 OC) and 50 OC temperatures. The beams were loaded to failure under four-point bending. It was found that the strength and stiffness reduced significantly after conditioning in an accelerated corrosion environment. Numerical simulation is implemented using the ABAQUS static general approach. A cohesive element was utilised to model the interface element and an 8-node quadrilateral in-plane general-purpose continuum shell was used to model CFRP elements. A mixed mode cohesive law was deployed for all the three components of stresses in the proposed FE approach, which were one normal component and two shear components. The validity of the FE models was ascertained by comparing the ultimate load and load vs deflection response from experimental results. A range of parametric studies were conducted to investigate the effects of bond length, adhesive types, thickness and diameter of tubes. The results of parametric studies indicated that the adhesive with high tensile modulus performed better and durability design factors varied from section to section.

Sustainable building envelope design by considering energy cost and occupant satisfaction

The built environment is a major contributor to the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, with a considerable amount of energy being consumed in buildings due to heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, space illumination, use of electrical appliances, etc., to facilitate various anthropogenic activities. The development of sustainable buildings seeks to ameliorate this situation mainly by reducing energy consumption. Sustainable building design, however, is a complicated process involving a large number of design variables, each with a range of feasible values. There are also multiple, often conflicting, objectives involved such as the life cycle costs and occupant satisfaction. One approach to dealing with this is through the use of optimization models. In this paper, a new multi-objective optimization model is developed for sustainable building design by considering the design objectives of cost and energy consumption minimization and occupant comfort level maximization. In a case study demonstration, it is shown that the model can derive a set of suitable design solutions in terms of life cycle cost, energy consumption and indoor environmental quality so as to help the client and design team gain a better understanding of the design space and trade-off patterns between different design objectives. The model can very useful in the conceptual design stages to determine appropriate operational settings to achieve the optimal building performance in terms of minimizing energy consumption and maximizing occupant comfort level.

What does built environment research have to do with risk mitigation, resilience and disaster recovery?

One could argue that the nature of our housing stock is a key determining factor in the ability of our citizens to manage risk, be resilient to various natural and human events, and to recover from these events. Recent research has been examining current challenges posed by our housing stock and exploring potential solutions from a range of perspectives. The aim of this paper is to discuss key findings from recent built environment research in Australia to initiate cross-sectorial discussion and debate about the implications and opportunities for other sectors such as emergency management and insurance. Three recent building research projects are discussed: - Heat waves The impact of heat waves on houses and occupants, and proposed changes to building regulations, air conditioning standards and building design, to reduce risks associated with heat waves. - Net zero energy homes Exploration of the potential benefits of a strategic optimization of building quality, energy and water efficiency, and household or community level distributed energy and water services for disaster management and recovery. - Building information Mapping of the flow of information about residential buildings, and the potential for national or regional building files (in a similar manner to personal medical records) to assist all parties to make more informed decisions that impact on housing sustainability and community resilience. The paper discusses how sustainability, environmental performance and resilience are inter-related, and can be supported by building files. It concludes with a call for increased cross-sectorial collaboration to explore opportunities for a whole-of-systems approach to our built environment that addresses a range of economic and environmental challenges as well as disaster and emergency management.

A heterogeneous computing approach to simulation of the Heston Stochastic Volatility Model

Stochastic volatility models are of fundamental importance to the pricing of derivatives. One of the most commonly used models of stochastic volatility is the Heston Model in which the price and volatility of an asset evolve as a pair of coupled stochastic differential equations. The computation of asset prices and volatilities involves the simulation of many sample trajectories with conditioning. The problem is treated using the method of particle filtering. While the simulation of a shower of particles is computationally expensive, each particle behaves independently making such simulations ideal for massively parallel heterogeneous computing platforms. In this paper, we present our portable Opencl implementation of the Heston model and discuss its performance and efficiency characteristics on a range of architectures including Intel cpus, Nvidia gpus, and Intel Many-Integrated-Core (mic) accelerators.

Lower limb biomechanical characteristics of patients with neuropathic diabetic foot ulcers: The diabetes foot ulcer study protocol

Background Foot ulceration is the main precursor to lower limb amputation in patients with type 2 diabetes worldwide. Biomechanical factors have been implicated in the development of foot ulceration; however the association of these factors to ulcer healing remains less clear. It may be hypothesised that abnormalities in temporal spatial parameters (stride to stride measurements), kinematics (joint movements), kinetics (forces on the lower limb) and plantar pressures (pressure placed on the foot during walking) contribute to foot ulcer healing. The primary aim of this study is to establish the biomechanical characteristics (temporal spatial parameters, kinematics, kinetics and plantar pressures) of patients with plantar neuropathic foot ulcers compared to controls without a history of foot ulcers. The secondary aim is to assess the same biomechanical characteristics in patients with foot ulcers and controls over-time to assess whether these characteristics remain the same or change throughout ulcer healing. Methods/Design The design is a case–control study nested in a six-month longitudinal study. Cases will be participants with active plantar neuropathic foot ulcers (DFU group). Controls will consist of patients with type 2 diabetes (DMC group) and healthy participants (HC group) with no history of foot ulceration. Standardised gait and plantar pressure protocols will be used to collect biomechanical data at baseline, three and six months. Descriptive variables and primary and secondary outcome variables will be compared between the three groups at baseline and follow-up. Discussion It is anticipated that the findings from this longitudinal study will provide important information regarding the biomechanical characteristic of type 2 diabetes patients with neuropathic foot ulcers. We hypothesise that people with foot ulcers will demonstrate a significantly compromised gait pattern (reduced temporal spatial parameters, kinematics and kinetics) at base line and then throughout the follow-up period compared to controls. The study may provide evidence for the design of gait-retraining, neuro-muscular conditioning and other approaches to off-load the limbs of those with foot ulcers in order to reduce the mechanical loading on the foot during gait and promote ulcer healing.