International Initiatives for Regulating Access to Genetic Resources

In light of the various international instruments and international agencies that are actively engaged in resolving the issue of ABS, the present work tries to find an answer to the larger question how far the above agencies have succeeded in regulating access and make sure of benefit sharing. In this process, the work comprehensively analyses the work of different agencies involved in the process. It tries to find out the major obstacles that stand in the way of fulfilment of the benefit sharing objective and proposes the ways and means to tackle them. The study first traces the legal foundations of the concept of property in GRs and associated TK.For this, it starts with analysis of the nature of property and the questions related to ownership in GRs as contained in the CBD as well as in various State legislations. It further examines the notion of property before and after the enactment of the CBD and establishes that the CBD contains strong private property jurisprudence.Based on the theoretical foundation of private property right,Chapter 3 analyses the benefit sharing mechanism of the CBD, i.e. the Nagoya Protocol. It searches for a theoretical convergence of the notion of property as reflected in the two instruments and successfully establishes the same. It makes an appraisal of the Nagoya regime to find out how far it has gone beyond the CBD in ensuring the task of benefit sharing and the impediments in its way.Realizing that the ITPGRFA forms part of the CBD system, Chapter 4 analyses the benefit sharing structure of ITPGRFA as revealed through its multilateral system. This gives the work the benefit of comparing two different benefit sharing models operating on the same philosophy of property. This chapter tries to find out whether there is conceptual coherence in the notion of property when the benefit sharing model changes. It alsocompares the merits and demerits of both the systems and tries to locate the hurdles in achieving benefit sharing. Aware of the legal impediments caused by IPRs in the process of ABS, Chapter 5 tries to explore the linkages between IPRs and GRs and associated TK and assesses why contract-based CBD system fails before the monopoly rights under TRIPS. Chapter 6 analyses the different solutions suggested by the international community at the TRIPS Council as well as the WIPO (World Intellectual property Organisation) and examines their effectiveness. Chapter 7 concludes that considering the inability of the present IP system to understand the grass root realities of the indigenous communities as well as the varying situations of the country of origin, the best possible way to recognise the CBD goals in the TRIPS could be better achieved through linking the two instruments by means of the triple disclosure requirement in Article 29 as suggested by the Disclosure Group during the TRIPS Council deliberations. It also recommends that considering the nature of property in GR, a new section/chapter in the TRIPS dealing with GRs would be another workable solution.

Open Access Movement for Managing Intellectual Informatics

The present work focuses on various facets of open access movement for managing intellectual output that eventually becomes available and accessible in public domain. Thus, purpose of this paper is to document and share the real time experience of managing and sharing of intellectual wealth of academia of Cochin University of Science & Technology by using open source platforms. This paper is trying to explore different intellectual information resources in the current era and also aims to suggest cost effective strategy of implementing new open access tools and technology for effective managing ofintellectual informatics

Arbitrage Pricing Theory and Return Generating Process: A Macroeconomic Approach to Indian Stock Market

A study focusing on the identification of return generating factors and to the extent of their influence on share prices the outcome will be a tool for investment analysis in the hands of investors portfolio managers and mutual funds who are mostly concerned with changing share prices. Since the study takes into account the influence of macroeconomic variables on variations in share returns by using the outcome the government can frame out suitable policies on long term basis and that will help in nurturing a healthy economy and resultant stock market. As every company management tries to maximize the wealth of the share holders a clear idea about the return generating variables and their influence will help the management to frame various policies to maximize the wealth of the shareholders.

Knowledge management and open access e-theses: Indian initiatives

This paper aims to describe recent developments in the services provided by Indian electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) repositories. It seeks to explore the prospect of knowledge formation and diffusion in India and to discuss the potential of open access e-theses repositories for knowledge management.This study is based on literature review and content analysis of IndianETDrepository websites. Institutional repositories and electronic thesis and dissertation projects in India were identified through a literature survey as well as internet searching and browsing. The study examines the tools, type of contents, coverage and aims of Indian ETD repositories.The paper acknowledges the need for knowledge management for national development. It highlights the significance of an integrated platform for preserving, searching and retrieving Indian theses. It describes the features and functions of Indian ETD repositories.The paper provides insights into the characteristics of the national repository of ETDs of India, which encourage and support open access to publicly-funded research

Smallholder farmers’ access to credit in the Amathole District Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Provision of credit has being identified as an important instrument for improving the welfare of smallholder farmers directly and for enhancing productive capacity through financing investment by the farmers in their human and physical capital. This study investigated the individual and household characteristics that influence credit market access in Amathole District Municipality, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, using a cross sectional data from smallholder farmers’ household survey. The aim is to provide a better understanding of the households’ level socio-economic characteristics, not only because they influence household’s demand for credit but also due to the fact that potential lenders are most likely to base their assessment of borrowers’ creditworthiness on such characteristics. The results of the logistic regression suggest that credit market access was significantly influenced by variables such as gender, education, households’ income, value of assets, savings, dependency ratio, repayment capacity and social capital. Implications for rural credit delivery are discussed.

A Nonparametric Approach to Pricing and Hedging Derivative Securities via Learning Networks

We propose a nonparametric method for estimating derivative financial asset pricing formulae using learning networks. To demonstrate feasibility, we first simulate Black-Scholes option prices and show that learning networks can recover the Black-Scholes formula from a two-year training set of daily options prices, and that the resulting network formula can be used successfully to both price and delta-hedge options out-of-sample. For comparison, we estimate models using four popular methods: ordinary least squares, radial basis functions, multilayer perceptrons, and projection pursuit. To illustrate practical relevance, we also apply our approach to S&P 500 futures options data from 1987 to 1991.

Coordinating Inventory Control and Pricing Strategies with Random Demand and Fixed Ordering Cost: The Finite Horizon Case

We analyze a finite horizon, single product, periodic review model in which pricing and production/inventory decisions are made simultaneously. Demands in different periods are random variables that are independent of each other and their distributions depend on the product price. Pricing and ordering decisions are made at the beginning of each period and all shortages are backlogged. Ordering cost includes both a fixed cost and a variable cost proportional to the amount ordered. The objective is to find an inventory policy and a pricing strategy maximizing expected profit over the finite horizon. We show that when the demand model is additive, the profit-to-go functions are k-concave and hence an (s,S,p) policy is optimal. In such a policy, the period inventory is managed based on the classical (s,S) policy and price is determined based on the inventory position at the beginning of each period. For more general demand functions, i.e., multiplicative plus additive functions, we demonstrate that the profit-to-go function is not necessarily k-concave and an (s,S,p) policy is not necessarily optimal. We introduce a new concept, the symmetric k-concave functions and apply it to provide a characterization of the optimal policy.

Coordinating Inventory Control and Pricing Strategies with Random Demand and Fixed Ordering Cost: the Infinite Horizon Case

We analyze an infinite horizon, single product, periodic review model in which pricing and production/inventory decisions are made simultaneously. Demands in different periods are identically distributed random variables that are independent of each other and their distributions depend on the product price. Pricing and ordering decisions are made at the beginning of each period and all shortages are backlogged. Ordering cost includes both a fixed cost and a variable cost proportional to the amount ordered. The objective is to maximize expected discounted, or expected average profit over the infinite planning horizon. We show that a stationary (s,S,p) policy is optimal for both the discounted and average profit models with general demand functions. In such a policy, the period inventory is managed based on the classical (s,S) policy and price is determined based on the inventory position at the beginning of each period.

Static Pricing for a Network Service Provider

This article studies the static pricing problem of a network service provider who has a fixed capacity and faces different types of customers (classes). Each type of customers can have its own capacity constraint but it is assumed that all classes have the same resource requirement. The provider must decide a static price for each class. The customer types are characterized by their arrival process, with a price-dependant arrival rate, and the random time they remain in the system. Many real-life situations could fit in this framework, for example an Internet provider or a call center, but originally this problem was thought for a company that sells phone-cards and needs to set the price-per-minute for each destination. Our goal is to characterize the optimal static prices in order to maximize the provider's revenue. We note that the model here presented, with some slight modifications and additional assumptions can be used in those cases when the objective is to maximize social welfare.

Facilitate international repository networks: the Pan-European OpenAIRE project and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR)

Primera conferencia. Bibliotecas y Repositorios Digitales: Gestión del Conocimiento, Acceso Abierto y Visibilidad Latinoamericana. (BIREDIAL) Mayo 9 al 11 de 2011. Bogotá, Colombia.

Open Access

A current movement for organising and disseminating the world’s research through Web technology