Bandwidth selection by cross-validation for forecasting long memory financial time series

The paper addresses the issue of choice of bandwidth in the application of semiparametric estimation of the long memory parameter in a univariate time series process. The focus is on the properties of forecasts from the long memory model. A variety of cross-validation methods based on out of sample forecasting properties are proposed. These procedures are used for the choice of bandwidth and subsequent model selection. Simulation evidence is presented that demonstrates the advantage of the proposed new methodology.

'The End of the Irish Poor Law?: Welfare and Healthcare Reform in Revolutionary and Independent Ireland'

This book explores welfare provision in Ireland from the revolutionary period to the 1940s, This work is a significant addition to the growing historiography of twentieth-century Ireland which moves beyond political history. It demonstrates that concepts of respectability, deservingness, and social class where central dynamics in Irish society and welfare practices. This book provides the first major study of local welfare practices, policies, and attitudes towards poverty and the poor in this era.

This book’s exploration of the poor law during revolutionary and independent Ireland provides fresh and original insights into this critical juncture in Irish history. It charts the transformation of the former workhouse system into a network of local authority welfare and healthcare institutions including county homes, county and hospital hospitals, and mother and baby homes. This book provides historical context to current day debates and controversies relating to the institutionalisation of unwed mothers and child welfare policies.

This book undertakes two cases studies on county Kerry and Cork city; also, Irish experiences are placed against the backdrop of wider transnational trends.

This work has multiple audiences and will appeal to those interested in Irish social, culture, economic and political history. This book will also appeal to historians of welfare, the poor law, and the social history of medicine. It also informs modern-day social affairs.

Banking compliance and dependence corruption: towards an attachment perspective

Why did banking compliance fail so badly in the recent financial crisis and why, according to many, does it continue to do so? Rather than point to the lack of oversight of individuals in bank compliance roles, as many commentators do, in this paper I examine in depth the organizational context that surrounded people in such roles. I focus on those compliance personnel who did speak out about risky practices in their banks, who were forced to escalate the problem and 'whistle-blow' to external parties, and who were punished for doing so. Drawing on recent empirical data from a wider study, I argue that the concept of dependence corruption is useful in this setting, and that it can be extended to encompass interpersonal attachments. This, in turn, problematises the concept of dependence corruption because interpersonal attachments in organisational settings are inevitable. The paper engages with recent debates on whether institutional corruption is an appropriate lens for studying private-sector organisations by arguing for a focus on roles, rather than remaining at the level of institutional fields or individual organisations. Finally, the paper contributes to studies on banking compliance in the context of the recent crisis; without a deeper understanding of those who were forced to extremes to simply do their jobs, reform of the banking sector will prove difficult.

On the Viability of Microservers for Financial Analytics

Energy consumption and total cost of ownership are daunting challenges for Datacenters, because they scale disproportionately with performance. Datacenters running financial analytics may incur extremely high operational costs in order to meet performance and latency requirements of their hosted applications. Recently, ARM-based microservers have emerged as a viable alternative to high-end servers, promising scalable performance via scale-out approaches and low energy consumption. In this paper, we investigate the viability of ARM-based microservers for option pricing, using the Monte Carlo and Binomial Tree kernels. We compare an ARM-based microserver against a state-of-the-art x86 server. We define application-related but platform-independent energy and performance metrics to compare those platforms fairly in the context of datacenters for financial analytics and give insight on the particular requirements of option pricing. Our experiments show that through scaling out energyefficient compute nodes within a 2U rack-mounted unit, an ARM-based microserver consumes as little as about 60% of the energy per option pricing compared to an x86 server, despite having significantly slower cores. We also find that the ARM microserver scales enough to meet a high fraction of market throughput demand, while consuming up to 30% less energy than an Intel server

The impacts of management reform on irrigation water use efficiency in the Guanzhong plain, China

This paper examines the efficiency of the 1998 irrigation management reform in the Guanzhong Plain, Shaanxi, China, at farm and canal level. Stochastic frontier analysis is applied to estimate irrigation water use efficiency, based on panel data for 800 farmers, spread over 80 irrigation canals, for the period 1999–2005. Analysis of determinants of water use efficiency shows that at farm level, water price and disclosure are important factors. Compared to the base case of unreformed, management reform has a positive impact with water user association having the largest effect, followed by joint-stock co-operative and private company. The canal model is in line with the farm level model, although estimates are less significant.

Docking the value of pigmeat? Prevalence and financial implications of welfare lesions in Irish slaughter pigs.

Expansion of the meat inspection process to incorporate animal-based welfare measurements could contribute towards significant improvements in pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) welfare and farm profitability. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of different welfare-related lesions on the carcase and their relationship with carcase condemnations (CC) and carcase weight (CW). The financial implications of losses associated with CC and CW reductions related to the welfare lesions were also estimated. Data on tail lesions, loin bruising and bursitis, CW and condemnation/trimming outcome (and associated weights) were collected for 3,537slaughter pigs (mean [± SEM] carcase weight: 79.2 [± 8.82] kg). Overall, 72.5% of pigs had detectable tail lesions, whilst 16.0 and 44.0% were affected by severe loin bruising and hind limb bursitis, respectively. There were 2.5% of study carcases condemned and a further 3.3% were trimmed. The primary cause of CC was abscessation. While tail lesion severity did not increase the risk of abscessation, it was significantly associated with CC. Male pigs had a higher risk of tail lesions and of CC. The financial loss to producers associated with CC and trimmings was estimated at €1.10 per study pig. CW was reduced by up to 12 kg in cases of severe tail lesions. However, even mild lesions were associated with a significant reduction in CW of 1.2 kg. The value of the loss in potential CW associated with tail lesions was €0.59 per study pig. Combined with losses attributable to CC and trimmings this represented a loss of 43% of the profit margin per pig, at the time of the study, attributable to tail biting. These findings illustrate the magnitude of the impact of tail biting on pig welfare and on profitability of the pig industry. They also emphasise the potential contribution that the inclusion of welfare parameters at meat inspection could make to pig producers in informing herd health and welfare management plans.

Time for Reform? Refugees, Asylum-seekers and Protection Under International Human Rights Law

The aim is to explore the protection that international human rights law offers to refugees, asylum-seekers, and the forcibly displaced. The ambition of the global rights framework is to guarantee a defined range of rights to all human beings, and thus move the basis for normative entitlement from exclusive reliance on national membership to a common humanity. This comprehensive and international perspective remains formally tied to states - acting individually or collectively - in terms of creation and implementation. The norms must find an entry point into the empirical world, and there must be clarity on responsibilities for practical delivery. It should remain unsurprising that the expectations raised by the normative reach of the law are frequently dashed in the complex and difficult human world of instrumental politics, power, and conflict. The intention here is to outline the international human rights law context, and indicate the value and limitations for the protection of refugees and asylum-seekers. A question is then raised about possible reform.

Financial reintegration assistance for veterans of the Irish revolution (1916-23): post-conflict policy in an historical setting

In the aftermath of the Irish revolution and Civil War the governments of independent Ireland introduced various compensation schemes to provide financial reintegration assistance to revolutionary veterans. This would be recognised today as part of a programme for DDR. This paper will examine various service and disability pensions paid to veterans in the context of literature on post-conflict reintegration. It will examine various challenges to reintegration in an effort to analyse the success of revolutionary compensation as a post-conflict reintegration mechanism in independent Ireland after 1922.

Quango Reform: The Next Steps

The Coalition Government elected in 2010 in the UK pursued a programme of quango reform focusedon reducing the number and expenditure of arm’slength bodies, increasing transparency, improvingaccountability and maximising efficiency and effectiveness. In this article we revisit Flinders andSkelchers’ 2012 article ‘Shrinking the quango state: five challenges in reforming quangos’ to assessprogress to date and consider future challenges. Drawing insights from the UK programme ofquango reform , as well as similar developments in Ireland, we identify five new challenges for governments: ‘regulating’, ‘managing’, ‘reconciling’, ‘co‐ordinating’ and ‘reflecting’.

A Transition Study to Support Curriculum Reform

This paper presents details of a project to support the transition from school to university for engineering students in the UK. The initial phases have already been disseminated by the project collaborators. The background, rationale, objectives and outcomes of this latter phase of the project are presented and specific data from a web-based transition diagnostic is discussed which verifies specific learning issues amongst engineering students enrolling in their first year of study. This prompted further investigations into these specific learning issues, which produced relevant data pertinent to enhancing learning through curriculum reform with the ultimate goal of accommodating the transition from school to university, improving the learning experience and increasing retention.