The forward and the equity premium puzzles: two symptoms of the same illness?

The Forward Premium Puzzle (FPP) is how the empirical observation of a negative relation between future changes in the spot rates and the forward premium is known. Modeling this forward bias as a risk premium and under weak assumptions on the behavior of the pricing kernel, we characterize the potential bias that is present in the regressions where the FPP is observed and we identify the necessary and sufficient conditions that the pricing kernel has to satisfy to account for the predictability of exchange rate movements. Next, we estimate the pricing kernel applying two methods: i) one, du.e to Araújo et aI. (2005), that exploits the fact that the pricing kernel is a serial correlation common feature of asset prices, and ii) a traditional principal component analysis used as a procedure 1;0 generate a statistical factor modeI. Then, using on the sample and out of the sample exercises, we are able to show that the same kernel that explains the Equity Premi um Puzzle (EPP) accounts for the FPP in all our data sets. This suggests that the quest for an economic mo deI that generates a pricing kernel which solves the EPP may double its prize by simultaneously accounting for the FPP.

Shell beds as paleoecological puzzles: A case study from the Upper Permian of the Parana Basin, Brazil

Microstratigraphic, sedimentological, and taphonomic features of the Ferraz Shell Bed, from the Upper Permian (Kazanian-Tatarian?) Corumbatai Formation of Rio Claro Region (the Parana Basin, Brazil), indicate that the bed consists of four distinct microstratigraphic units. They include, from bottom to top, a lag concentration (Unit 1), a partly reworked storm deposit (Unit 2), a rapidly deposited sandstone unit with three thin horizons recording episodes of reworking (Unit 3), and a shell-rich horizon generated by reworking/winnowing that was subsequently buried by storm-induced obrution deposit (Unit 4). The bioclasts of the Ferraz Shell Bed represent exclusively bivalve mollusks. Pinzonella illusa and Terraia aequilateralis are the dominant species. Taphonomic analysis indicates that mollusks are heavily time-averaged (except for some parts of Unit 3). Moreover, different species are time-averaged to a different degree (disharmonious time-averaging). The units differ statistically from one another in their taxonomic and ecological composition, in their taphonomic pattern, and in the size-frequency distributions of the two most common species. Other Permian shell beds of the Parana Basin are similar to the Ferraz Shell Bed in their faunal composition (they typically contain similar sets of 5 to 10 bivalve species) and in their taphonomic, sedimentologic, and microstratigraphic characteristics. However, rare shell beds that include 2-3 species only and are dominated by articulated shells preserved in life position also occur. Diversity levels in the Permian benthic associations of the Parana Basin were very low, with the point diversity of 2-3 species and with the within-habitat and basin-wide (alpha and gamma) diversities of 10 species, at most. The Parana Basin benthic communities may have thus been analogous to low-diversity bivalve-dominated associations of the present-day Baltic Sea. The 'Ferraz-type' shell beds of the Parana Basin represent genetically complex and highly heterogeneous sources of paleontological data. They are cumulative records of spectra of benthic ecosystems time-averaged over long periods of time (10(2)-10(4) years judging from actualistic research). Detailed biostratinomic reconstructions of shell beds can not only offer useful insights into their depositional histories, but may also allow paleoecologists to optimize their sampling designs, and consequently, refine paleoecological and paleoenvironmental interpretations.

From inflation to dark energy through a dynamical Λ: an attempt at alleviating fundamental cosmic puzzles

After decades of successful hot big-bang paradigm, cosmology still lacks a framework in which the early inflationary phase of the universe smoothly matches the radiation epoch and evolves to the present “quasi” de Sitter spacetime. No less intriguing is that the current value of the effective vacuum energy density is vastly smaller than the value that triggered inflation. In this paper, we propose a new class of cosmologies capable of overcoming, or highly alleviating, some of these acute cosmic puzzles. Powered by a decaying vacuum energy density, the spacetime emerges from a pure nonsingular de Sitter vacuum stage, “gracefully” exits from inflation to a radiation phase followed by dark matter and vacuum regimes, and, finally, evolves to a late-time de Sitter phase.

Solutions to the Chronological Puzzles in Book 1 of the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa

The chronological inconsistency in the first book of Matthew of Edessa's Chronicle is well-known. Some of his are dates accurate to the day, while others err by up to 50 years, with no immediately apparent pattern of error. In this talk I will examine some of these chronological puzzles, by untangling the five main themes that run through the book. By demonstrating how these chronological errors may have arisen, and why certain events in the chronicle are dated much more accurately than others, light may be shed on the sources and methodologies that Matthew used to compose his chronicle.

Number puzzles before the log fire, being those given in the Number stories of long ago.

Mode of access: Internet.

The psychology of efficiency; an experimental study of the processes involved in the solution of mechanical puzzles and in the acquisition of skill in their manipulation,

Vita.

Enhancing Library Instruction with Crossword Puzzles in Kinesiology Classes

The poster was presented at the 2016 Tri-Chapter Meeting (MACMLA, NY-NJ and PHIL Chapters), The 3Ls - Librarians, Leadership and Learning on September 25, 2016 in Philadelphia, PA (http://macmla.libguides.com/tri-chapter2016-posters).

Programación de videojuegos de puzzles en 2D usando Unity: tutorial y ejemplo práctico del juego.

Unity3d es un motor gráfico para la implementación de videojuegos creado por Unity3d Technologies que tiene el honor de ser una de las principales herramientas que propició el auge de los estudios independientes. Pese a estar enfocado al desarrollo de videojuegos en 3D, los desarrolladores lograban crear contenido en 2D a base de manipulaciones como la cámara y de utilizar herramientas no nativas. Afortunadamente, a partir de la versión 4.3 Unity3d integra herramientas nativas que facilitan esta tarea. Este proyecto consiste en la creación de un tutorial sobre la implementación de un videojuego del género puzles en 2D y enfocado a plataformas móviles, empleando para ello Unity3d y concretamente las nuevas herramientas nativas para 2D. La implementación de un videojuego es una tarea muy complicada y extensa, es por ello que en el tutorial se va a tratar la fase de diseño del videojuego y a nivel de implementación centrarse en dichas herramientas para el 2D, mostrando al final una versión jugable del videojuego implementado. Por otra parte, al ser numerosas las herramientas, es imposible tratar cada una de las herramientas aunque se intentará abarcar lo máximo posible y mencionar las que no se incluyan dentro de la implementación del videojuego. El resultado generado de este proyecto puede constituir una referencia para otras personas interesadas en aprender cómo usar Unity3d para programar videojuegos en 2D, lo cual les allanará seguramente el camino y les suavizará la curva de aprendizaje.

What Determines the Innovativeness of Polish Family Firms? Empirical Results and Theoretical Puzzles

This article will review and synthesize the existing research on the innovativeness of Polish family firms in order to separate universal factors that influence the degree of innovativeness of firms from the factors which distinctively influence the innovativeness of family firms. To better assess the innovation propensity of family firms the author will work out the typology by combining the variety of innovations with particular features of family firms and the industrial context. A more nuanced approach will help to understand why the academic literature is inconclusive with regards to the question of whether family firms are anti-innovative (as some authors claim), pro-innovative or ambivalent with regard to innovations. In particular it will be argued that when assessing family firms’ innovativeness special attention needs to be paid to the impact of the management of intergenerational change on the propensity to innovate, as this process relates to the capacity for investments into innovativeness and the time horizon of the owner’s decisions.

Modelling Denial of Service Attacks on JFK with Meadow's Cost-Based Framework

We present the first detailed application of Meadows’s cost-based modelling framework to the analysis of JFK, an Internet key agreement protocol. The analysis identifies two denial of service attacks against the protocol that are possible when an attacker is willing to reveal the source IP address. The first attack was identified through direct application of a cost-based modelling framework, while the second was only identified after considering coordinated attackers. Finally, we demonstrate how the inclusion of client puzzles in the protocol can improve denial of service resistance against both identified attacks.

Protocol engineering for protection against denial-of-service attacks

Denial-of-service attacks (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) attempt to temporarily disrupt users or computer resources to cause service un- availability to legitimate users in the internetworking system. The most common type of DoS attack occurs when adversaries °ood a large amount of bogus data to interfere or disrupt the service on the server. The attack can be either a single-source attack, which originates at only one host, or a multi-source attack, in which multiple hosts coordinate to °ood a large number of packets to the server. Cryptographic mechanisms in authentication schemes are an example ap- proach to help the server to validate malicious tra±c. Since authentication in key establishment protocols requires the veri¯er to spend some resources before successfully detecting the bogus messages, adversaries might be able to exploit this °aw to mount an attack to overwhelm the server resources. The attacker is able to perform this kind of attack because many key establishment protocols incorporate strong authentication at the beginning phase before they can iden- tify the attacks. This is an example of DoS threats in most key establishment protocols because they have been implemented to support con¯dentiality and data integrity, but do not carefully consider other security objectives, such as availability. The main objective of this research is to design denial-of-service resistant mechanisms in key establishment protocols. In particular, we focus on the design of cryptographic protocols related to key establishment protocols that implement client puzzles to protect the server against resource exhaustion attacks. Another objective is to extend formal analysis techniques to include DoS- resistance. Basically, the formal analysis approach is used not only to analyse and verify the security of a cryptographic scheme carefully but also to help in the design stage of new protocols with a high level of security guarantee. In this research, we focus on an analysis technique of Meadows' cost-based framework, and we implement DoS-resistant model using Coloured Petri Nets. Meadows' cost-based framework is directly proposed to assess denial-of-service vulnerabil- ities in the cryptographic protocols using mathematical proof, while Coloured Petri Nets is used to model and verify the communication protocols using inter- active simulations. In addition, Coloured Petri Nets are able to help the protocol designer to clarify and reduce some inconsistency of the protocol speci¯cation. Therefore, the second objective of this research is to explore vulnerabilities in existing DoS-resistant protocols, as well as extend a formal analysis approach to our new framework for improving DoS-resistance and evaluating the performance of the new proposed mechanism. In summary, the speci¯c outcomes of this research include following results; 1. A taxonomy of denial-of-service resistant strategies and techniques used in key establishment protocols; 2. A critical analysis of existing DoS-resistant key exchange and key estab- lishment protocols; 3. An implementation of Meadows's cost-based framework using Coloured Petri Nets for modelling and evaluating DoS-resistant protocols; and 4. A development of new e±cient and practical DoS-resistant mechanisms to improve the resistance to denial-of-service attacks in key establishment protocols.

Beyond airport enclaves : insights for overcoming turf wars

Airports, over time, have emerged as separate independent entities often described as ‘enclaves’. As such airports regularly planned and implemented developments within their boundaries with limited inclusion of local actors in decision making processes. Urban encroachment on airport boundaries has increasingly focused the planning interests of airports to consider what their neighbouring cities are doing. Likewise city planners are progressively more interested in the development activities of airports. Despite shared interests in what happens on the either side of the fence line, relationships between airports and their neighbouring cities have often been strained, if not, at times, hostile. A number of strategies and conceptualisations for the co-existence of urban and airport environs have been put forward. However, these models are likely to have a limited effect unless they can be implemented to maximise opportunities for both cities and airports, and at the same time not confound their long-term interests. The isolation of airport planning from local and regional planning agencies, and the resulting power struggles are not new. Under current conditions the need to ‘bridge the gap’ between airports and their urban surrounds has become an increasing, yet under explored imperative. This paper examines the decision making arena for airport-region development to define the barriers, enablers, tensions and puzzles for the governance of airport-region development, from a cross-country perspective. Findings suggest that while there are many embedded rule structures that foster airport-region tensions, there are nonetheless a number of pathways for moving airports beyond decision making enclaves, to more integrated mechanisms for city and regional planning. In providing preliminary answers for overcoming the barriers, tensions and intractable issues of mutually agreeable airport and city development, the research makes a primary contribution to the ground level governance of collaborative planning. This research also serves as a launching point for future, more detailed research into the areas of airport-region decision making and collaborative planning for airport-regions. This work was carried out through the Airport Metropolis Research Project under the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Projects funding scheme (LP0775225).