SLA Brokering and Bandwidth Reservation Negotiation Schemes for QoS-aware Internet

We present a novel Service Level Agreement (SLA)-driven service provisioning architecture, which enables dynamic and flexible bandwidth reservation schemes on a per-user or per-application basis. Various session level SLA negotiation schemes involving bandwidth allocation, service start time and service duration parameters are introduced and analyzed. The results show that these negotiation schemes can be utilized for the benefit of both end users and network providers in achieving the highest individual SLA optimization in terms of key Quality of Service (QoS) metrics and price. The inherent characteristics of software agents such as autonomy, adaptability and social abilities offer many advantages in this dynamic, complex, and distributed network environment especially when performing Service Level Agreements (SLA) definition negotiations and brokering tasks. This article also presents a service broker prototype based on Fujitsu's Phoenix Open Agent Mediator (OAM) agent technology, which was used to demonstrate a range of SLA brokering scenarios.

An Empirical Analysis of Scale and Scope Economies and Technical Change in an Irish Multiproduct Banking Firm

In contrast to most empirical investigations of the efficiency of multiproduct financial institutions, which either estimate scale and scope economies with a given state of technology, or only analyse technical change in the presence of overall scale economies, this study estimates overall scale economies, product-specific scale economies and scope economies in the presence of both neutral and non-neutral technical change. Also, in contrast to most other empirical studies in this area, standard errors are computed for all relevant statistics. The findings indicate diseconomies of scope; overall diseconomies of scale; product-specific economies are decreasing for investments and increasing for loans; in addition to substantial neutral technical change, biased technical change is labour- and capital-saving and deposits-using in character.

Information disclosure and depositor discipline in the Chinese banking sector

We investigate the relationship between information disclosure and depositor behaviour in the Chinese banking sector. Specifically, we enquire whether enhanced information disclosure enables investors to more effectively infer a banking institution's risk profile, thereby influencing their deposit decisions. Utilising an unbalanced panel, incorporating financial data from 169 Chinese banks over the 1998–2009 period, we employ generalised-method-of-moments (GMM) estimation procedures to control for potential endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and persistence in the dependent variable. We uncover evidence that: (i) the growth rate of deposits is sensitive to bank fundamentals after controlling for macroeconomic factors, diversity in ownership structure, and government intervention; (ii) a bank publicly disclosing more transparent information in its financial reports, is more likely to experience growth in its deposit base; and (iii) banks characterised by high information transparency, well-capitalised and adopted international accounting standards, are more able to attract funds by offering higher interest rates.

'Grooming' and the Sexual Abuse of Children:Institutional, Internet and Familial Dimensions

‘Grooming’ and the Sexual Abuse of Children: Institutional, Internet and Familial Dimensions critically examines the official and popular discourses on grooming, predominantly framed within the context of on-line sexual exploitation and abuse committed by strangers, and institutional child abuse committed by those in positions of trust.

Set against the broader theoretical framework of risk, security and governance, this book argues that due to the difficulties of drawing clear boundaries between innocuous and harmful motivations towards children, pre-emptive risk-based criminal law and policy are inherently limited in preventing, targeting and criminalising ‘grooming’ behaviour prior to the manifestation of actual harm. Through examination of grooming against the complexities of the onset of sexual offending against children and its actual role in this process, the author broadens existing discourses by providing a fuller, more nuanced conceptualisation of grooming, including its role in intra-familial and extra-familial contexts. There is also timely discussion of new and emerging forms of grooming, such as ‘street’ or ‘localised’ grooming, as typified by recent cases in Rochdale and Oldham, and ‘peer-to-peer’ grooming.

The first inter-disciplinary, thematic, and empirical investigation of grooming in a multi-jurisdictional context, ‘Grooming’ and the Sexual Abuse of Children draws on extensive empirical research in the form of over fifty interviews with professionals, working in the fields of sex offender risk assessment, management or treatment, as well as child protection or victim support in the four jurisdictions of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Impeccably presented and meticulously considered, this book will be of interest to criminologists and those working and studying in the field of policing and criminal justice studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners in the areas of child protection and sex offender management.

Loss-of-Mains Detection by Internet Based ROCOF

This paper considers the enhancement of loss-of-mains detection by use of a differential rate-of-change-of-frequency relay to reduce nuisance tripping and improve sensitivity to small excursions in frequency. The telecommunications media which might carry the differential ROCOF signal are reviewed with a focus on channel latency, bandwidth and security.