Cultures of sharing in 3D printing: What can we learn from the licence choices of Thingiverse users?

This article contributes to the discussion by analysing how users of the leading online 3D printing design repository Thingiverse manage their intellectual property (IP). 3D printing represents a fruitful case study for exploring the relationship between IP norms and practitioner culture. Although additive manufacturing technology has existed for decades, 3D printing is on the cusp of a breakout into the technological mainstream – hardware prices are falling; designs are circulating widely; consumer-friendly platforms are multiplying; and technological literacy is rising. Analysing metadata from more than 68,000 Thingiverse design files collected from the site, we examine the licensing choices made by users and explore the way this shapes the sharing practices of the site’s users. We also consider how these choices and practices connect with wider attitudes towards sharing and intellectual property in 3D printing communities. A particular focus of the article is how Thingiverse structures its regulatory framework to avoid IP liability, and the extent to which this may have a bearing on users’ conduct. The paper has three sections. First, we will offer a description of Thingiverse and how it operates in the 3D printing ecosystem, noting the legal issues that have arisen regarding Thingiverse’s Terms of Use and its allocation of intellectual property rights. Different types of Thingiverse licences will be detailed and explained. Second, the empirical metadata we have collected from Thingiverse will be presented, including the methods used to obtain this information. Third, we will present findings from this data on licence choice and the public availability of user designs. Fourth, we will look at the implications of these findings and our conclusions regarding the particular kind of sharing ethic that is present in Thingiverse; we also consider the “closed” aspects of this community and what this means for current debates about “open” innovation.

Flood risk information, actual floods and property values: A quasi-experimental analysis

Hedonic property price analysis tells us that property prices can be affected by natural hazards such as floods. This paper examines the impact of flood-related variables (among other factors) on property values, and examines the effect of the release of flood risk map information on property values by comparing the impact with the effect of an actual flood incidence. An examination of the temporal variation of flood impacts on property values is also made. The study is the first of its kind where the impact of the release of flood risk map information to the public is compared with an actual flood incident. In this study, we adopt a spatial quasi-experimental analysis using the release of flood risk maps by Brisbane City Council in Queensland, Australia, in 2009 and the actual floods of 2011. The results suggest that property buyers are more responsive to the actual incidence of floods than to the disclosure of information to the public on the risk of floods.

Modeling and Forecasting Implied Volatility: Implications for Trading, Pricing, and Risk Management

Modeling and forecasting of implied volatility (IV) is important to both practitioners and academics, especially in trading, pricing, hedging, and risk management activities, all of which require an accurate volatility. However, it has become challenging since the 1987 stock market crash, as implied volatilities (IVs) recovered from stock index options present two patterns: volatility smirk(skew) and volatility term-structure, if the two are examined at the same time, presents a rich implied volatility surface (IVS). This implies that the assumptions behind the Black-Scholes (1973) model do not hold empirically, as asset prices are mostly influenced by many underlying risk factors. This thesis, consists of four essays, is modeling and forecasting implied volatility in the presence of options markets’ empirical regularities. The first essay is modeling the dynamics IVS, it extends the Dumas, Fleming and Whaley (DFW) (1998) framework; for instance, using moneyness in the implied forward price and OTM put-call options on the FTSE100 index, a nonlinear optimization is used to estimate different models and thereby produce rich, smooth IVSs. Here, the constant-volatility model fails to explain the variations in the rich IVS. Next, it is found that three factors can explain about 69-88% of the variance in the IVS. Of this, on average, 56% is explained by the level factor, 15% by the term-structure factor, and the additional 7% by the jump-fear factor. The second essay proposes a quantile regression model for modeling contemporaneous asymmetric return-volatility relationship, which is the generalization of Hibbert et al. (2008) model. The results show strong negative asymmetric return-volatility relationship at various quantiles of IV distributions, it is monotonically increasing when moving from the median quantile to the uppermost quantile (i.e., 95%); therefore, OLS underestimates this relationship at upper quantiles. Additionally, the asymmetric relationship is more pronounced with the smirk (skew) adjusted volatility index measure in comparison to the old volatility index measure. Nonetheless, the volatility indices are ranked in terms of asymmetric volatility as follows: VIX, VSTOXX, VDAX, and VXN. The third essay examines the information content of the new-VDAX volatility index to forecast daily Value-at-Risk (VaR) estimates and compares its VaR forecasts with the forecasts of the Filtered Historical Simulation and RiskMetrics. All daily VaR models are then backtested from 1992-2009 using unconditional, independence, conditional coverage, and quadratic-score tests. It is found that the VDAX subsumes almost all information required for the volatility of daily VaR forecasts for a portfolio of the DAX30 index; implied-VaR models outperform all other VaR models. The fourth essay models the risk factors driving the swaption IVs. It is found that three factors can explain 94-97% of the variation in each of the EUR, USD, and GBP swaption IVs. There are significant linkages across factors, and bi-directional causality is at work between the factors implied by EUR and USD swaption IVs. Furthermore, the factors implied by EUR and USD IVs respond to each others’ shocks; however, surprisingly, GBP does not affect them. Second, the string market model calibration results show it can efficiently reproduce (or forecast) the volatility surface for each of the swaptions markets.

Essays on the Linkages Between Financial Markets, and Risk Asymmetries (summary section only)

During the last few decades there have been far going financial market deregulation, technical development, advances in information technology, and standardization of legislation between countries. As a result, one can expect that financial markets have grown more interlinked. The proper understanding of the cross-market linkages has implications for investment and risk management, diversification, asset pricing, and regulation. The purpose of this research is to assess the degree of price, return, and volatility linkages between both geographic markets and asset categories within one country, Finland. Another purpose is to analyze risk asymmetries, i.e., the tendency of equity risk to be higher after negative events than after positive events of equal magnitude. The analysis is conducted both with respect to total risk (volatility), and systematic risk (beta). The thesis consists of an introductory part and four essays. The first essay studies to which extent international stock prices comove. The degree of comovements is low, indicating benefits from international diversification. The second essay examines the degree to which the Finnish market is linked to the “world market”. The total risk is divided into two parts, one relating to world factors, and one relating to domestic factors. The impact of world factors has increased over time. After 1993, when foreign investors were allowed to freely invest in Finnish assets, the risk level has been higher than previously. This was also the case during the economic recession in the beginning of the 1990’s. The third essay focuses on the stock, bond, and money markets in Finland. According to a trading model, the degree of volatility linkages should be strong. However, the results contradict this. The linkages are surprisingly weak, even negative. The stock market is the most independent, while the money market is affected by events on the two other markets. The fourth essay concentrates on volatility and beta asymmetries. Contrary to many international studies there are only few cases of risk asymmetries. When they occur, they tend to be driven by the market-wide component rather than the portfolio specific element.

Determinants of Profit Sharing in the Finnish Sector

This study investigates the role of factors that determine individual employee’s and firms participation in profit sharing schemes. Using a large panel data of Finnish employees for the period 1996-2000 we analyse individual and workplace characteristics that make firms employ profit sharing schemes and workers susceptible of receiving profit sharing bonuses. In particular two links between profit sharing schemes and workers performance have been analysed. First, in looking at profit sharing as an incentive device the results show a positive link between firm size and monitoring costs. Second, we find that younger individuals with higher mean salary and capacity to bear risk are more susceptible to profit sharing schemes. The industrial sector in which the individual is employed is also an important determinant factor. We find weak evidence of a relationship between performance of firms and employment of profit sharing schemes at the industrial sector level.

Risk Minimizing Option Pricing for a Class of Exotic Options in a Markov-Modulated Market

We address risk minimizing option pricing in a regime switching market where the floating interest rate depends on a finite state Markov process. The growth rate and the volatility of the stock also depend on the Markov process. Using the minimal martingale measure, we show that the locally risk minimizing prices for certain exotic options satisfy a system of Black-Scholes partial differential equations with appropriate boundary conditions. We find the corresponding hedging strategies and the residual risk. We develop suitable numerical methods to compute option prices.

Resource Pricing for Fair and Efficient Link Sharing with a Finite Data Model

The literature on pricing implicitly assumes an "infinite data" model, in which sources can sustain any data rate indefinitely. We assume a more realistic "finite data" model, in which sources occasionally run out of data. Further, we assume that users have contracts with the service provider, specifying the rates at which they can inject traffic into the network. Our objective is to study how prices can be set such that a single link can be shared efficiently and fairly among users in a dynamically changing scenario where a subset of users occasionally has little data to send. We obtain simple necessary and sufficient conditions on prices such that efficient and fair link sharing is possible. We illustrate the ideas using a simple example

Testing the Forecasting Performance of Ibex 35 Option-implied Risk-neutral Densities

Published also as: Documento de Trabajo Banco de España 0504/2005.

Option-Implied Preferences Adjustments and Risk-Neutral Density Forecasts

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the value of information contained in prices of options on the IBEX 35 index at the Spanish Stock Exchange Market. The forward looking information is extracted using implied risk-neutral density functions estimated by a mixture of two-lognormals and three alternative risk-adjustments: the classic power and exponential utility functions and a habit-based specification that allows for a counter-cyclical variation of risk aversion. Our results show that at four-week horizon we can reject the hypothesis that between October 1996 and March 2000 the risk-neutral densities provide accurate predictions of the distributions of future realisations of the IBEX 35 index at a four-week horizon. When forecasting through risk-adjusted densities the performance of this period is statistically improved and we no longer reject that hypothesis. All risk-adjusted densities generate similar forecasting statistics. Then, at least for a horizon of four-weeks, the actual risk adjustment does not seem to be the issue. By contrast, at the one-week horizon risk-adjusted densities do not improve the forecasting ability of the risk-neutral counterparts.

Consumer Expertise or Credit Risk? An empirical analysis of mortgage pricing

Loan mortgage interest rates are usually the result of a bank-customer negotiation process. Credit risk, consumer cross-buying potential, bundling, financial market competition and other features affecting the bargaining power of the parties could affect price. We argue that, since mortgage loan is a complex product, consumer expertise could be a relevant factor for mortgage pricing. Using data on mortgage loan prices for a sample of 1055 households for the year 2005 (Bank of Spain Survey of Household Finances, EFF-2005), and including credit risk, costs, potential capacity of the consumer to generate future business and bank competition variables, the regression results indicate that consumer expertise-related metrics are highly significant as predictors of mortgage loan prices. Other factors such as credit risk and consumer cross-buying potential do not have such a significant impact on mortgage prices. Our empirical results are affected by the credit conditions prior to the financial crisis and could shed some light on this issue.

El ADPIC y la corrupción de la industria farmacéutica: el acceso a los medicamentos en los países del Norte y del Sur

Resumen (Castellano): El acceso a los medicamentos ha sido en las últimas décadas un tema a debatir tanto en los países del Sur como en los países del Norte. Los precios impuestos por la industria farmacéutica para enfermedades tan graves como el VIH-SIDA han sido excesivos y consecuentemente inalcanzables para los países más pobres. Sin embargo, actualmente los países más ricos del Norte están sufriendo estas mismas consecuencias a causa del nuevo tratamiento contra la hepatitis C, cuyos precios astronómicos han excluido a numerosos enfermos del acceso al mismo. El derecho humano a la salud está siendo vulnerado, y las principales responsables son las empresas farmacéuticas, las cuales han corrompido los sistemas de salud. La fijación de precios monopólicos, tras el fortalecimiento de las patentes farmacéuticas con la firma del Acuerdo sobre Derechos de Propiedad Intelectual relacionados con el Comercio (ADPIC), ha constituido un obstáculo para la realización del mismo, agrandado por las disposiciones ADPIC-plus incluidas en los tratados de libre comercio . No obstante, la consolidación de la industria de medicamentos genéricos ha logrado competir contra ellas, suministrando medicamentos asequibles y promoviendo los intereses de los más necesitados.

A relação entre indústria farmacêutica e a assistência farmacêutica no âmbito do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS): a compra estadual e municipal de medicamentos no Rio de Janeiro

Esta dissertação tem como objeto o estudo da relação estabelecida entre a indústria farmacêutica e a assistência farmacêutica no âmbito do SUS. O objetivo é avaliar como estão sendo feitas as compras de medicamentos para os programas de assistência farmacêutica básica para hipertensão, diabetes e asma e rinite. A captura de dados foi realizada nas Secretarias de Saúde do estado e do município do Rio de Janeiro. Realizou-se comparação dos preços unitários dos medicamentos adquiridos no estado, no município do Rio de Janeiro e no Banco de Preços em Saúde (BPS), no período de janeiro de 2000 a dezembro de 2006. Em alguns momentos foram utilizados dados da Revista ABCFARMA, sobre preços unitários do mercado varejista. A pesquisa tornou possível registrar que o Estado do Rio de Janeiro compra medicamentos a um preço unitário mais alto do que aqueles praticados pela prefeitura e pelo Banco de Preços em Saúde. A hipótese apresentada é que o preço unitário mais alto se deve às inúmeras compras emergenciais realizadas, que estimulam os fornecedores a compensar o risco com preços maiores. Como a maioria dos fornecedores é distribuidora de medicamentos, elas estariam onerando os preços unitários, pois tiveram problemas no passado com o cumprimento da dívida pelo estado. Segundo autoridades estaduais da Secretaria de Estado de Saúde, esta situação indesejável está sendo superada através de uma nova forma de aquisição de medicamentos. A prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro, por outro lado, tem realizado as compras de medicamentos por licitações na modalidade concorrência. Esta forma possibilitou a aquisição de medicamentos a preços inferiores aos outros entes pesquisados. A maioria dos fornecedores da prefeitura é a própria indústria de medicamentos, o que, em princípio, torna o preço mais baixo. Conclui-se, então: que o Estado do Rio de Janeiro passou por crises de desabastecimento ou abastecimento irregular dos programa de assistência farmacêutica básica, o que contribuiu para a elevação dos preços praticados; e que a prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro tem conseguido comprar medicamentos em condições mais favoráveis que o governo de estado.

Risk based lifetime costs assessment of a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system design: Methodology and case study

Space heating accounts for a large portion of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs) are a technology which can reduce carbon emissions from heating and cooling. GSHP system performance is however highly sensitive to deviation from design values of the actual annual energy extraction/rejection rates from/to the ground. In order to prevent failure and/or performance deterioration of GSHP systems it is possible to incorporate a safety factor in the design of the GSHP by over-sizing the ground heat exchanger (GHE). A methodology to evaluate the financial risk involved in over-sizing the GHE is proposed is this paper. A probability based approach is used to evaluate the economic feasibility of a hypothetical full-size GSHP system as compared to four alternative Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system configurations. The model of the GSHP system is developed in the TRNSYS energy simulation platform and calibrated with data from an actual hybrid GSHP system installed in the Department of Earth Science, University of Oxford, UK. Results of the analysis show that potential savings from a full-size GSHP system largely depend on projected HVAC system efficiencies and gas and electricity prices. Results of the risk analysis also suggest that a full-size GSHP with auxiliary back up is potentially the most economical system configuration. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.

Cross-Border Unitization and Joint Development Agreements: An International Law Perspective

Okoye, Adaeze, et al, 'Cross-Border Unitization and Joint Development Agreements: An International Law Perspective', Houston Journal of International Law (2007) 29(2) pp.355-425 RAE2008

Established cardiovascular disease and CVD risk factors in a primary care population of middle-aged Irish men and women

Contemporary Irish data on the prevalence of major cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors are sparse. The primary aims of this study were (1) to estimate the prevalence of major cardiovascular disease risk factors, including Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, in the general population of men and women between the ages of 50 and 69 years; and (2) to estimate the proportion of individuals in this age group at high absolute risk of cardiovascular disease events on the basis of pre-existing cardiovascular disease or as defined by the Framingham equation. Participants were drawn from the practice lists of 17 general practices in Cork and Kerry using stratified random sampling. A total of 1018 people attended for screening (490 men, 48%) from 1473 who were invited, a response rate of 69.1%. Cardiovascular disease risk factors and glucose intolerance are common in the population of men and women aged between 50 and 69 years. Almost half the participants were overweight and a further quarter met current international criteria for obesity, one of the highest recorded prevalence rates for obesity in a European population sample. Forty per cent of the population reported minimal levels of physical activity and 19% were current cigarette smokers. Approximately half the sample had blood pressure readings consistent with international criteria for the diagnosis of hypertension, but only 38% of these individuals were known to be hypertensive. Eighty per cent of the population sample had a cholesterol concentration in excess of 5 mmol/l. Almost 4% of the population had Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, of whom 30% were previously undiagnosed. A total of 137 participants (13.5%) had a history or ECG findings consistent with established cardiovascular disease. Of the remaining 881 individuals in the primary prevention population, a total of 20 high-risk individuals (19 male) had a risk of a coronary heart disease event 30% over ten years according to the Framingham risk equation, giving an overall population prevalence of 2.0% (95% CI 1.3 - 3.0). At a risk level 20% over ten years, an additional 91 individuals (8.9%) were identified. Thus a total of 24.4% of the population were at risk either through pre-existing CVD (13.5%) or an estimated 10-year risk exceeding 20% according to the Framingham risk equation (10.9%). Thus a substantial proportion of middle-aged men are at high risk of CVD. The findings emphasise the scale of the CVD epidemic in Ireland and the need for ongoing monitoring of risk factors at the population level and the need to develop preventive strategies at both the clinical and societal level.