Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality.

Arising from M. A. Nowak, C. E. Tarnita & E. O. Wilson 466, 1057-1062 (2010); Nowak et al. reply. Nowak et al. argue that inclusive fitness theory has been of little value in explaining the natural world, and that it has led to negligible progress in explaining the evolution of eusociality. However, we believe that their arguments are based upon a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory and a misrepresentation of the empirical literature. We will focus our comments on three general issues.

Aplicaciones educativas de la teoría vygotskiana. El programa 'Key to learning' = Applications of vigotsky's theory to education. The 'Key to learning' proggram

En ciencias de la educación, las últimas décadas han estado marcadas por un interés en las ideas de Lev S. Vygotski. De hecho, a partir de esas ideas se han propuesto varias aplicaciones educativas. Una de ellas es el “Key to learning”. El artículo propone una visión general de este programa educativo desarrollado a partir de algunos trabajos e ideas de autores rusos contemporáneos. Primero, desarrollamos algunas ideas en torno a la noción de zona de desarrollo próximo (ZpD). Después, sugerimos la teoría de las habilidades de aprendizaje. En este sentido, el objetivo principal de “Key to learning” es mejorar las habilidades de aprendizaje cognitivas, comunicativas y directivas de niños de entre 3 a 7 años de edad. Para este propósito son creadas 12 unidades curriculares que componen el programa. Para concluir se enfatiza la creación de zonas de desarrollo próximo estructuradas como parte de un sistema de enseñanza y aprendizaje que vincula la actividad, la asistencia y la agencia

Corporate governance and corporate social performance

By integrating the agency and stakeholder perspectives, this study aims to provide a systematic understanding of the firm- and institutional-level corporate governance factors that affect corporate social performance (CSP). We analyze a large global panel dataset and reveal that CSP is positively associated with board independence, but negatively with ownership concentration. These results underscore the idea that the benefits of CSP do not flow to shareholders to the same extent as the costs and that the allocation of resources to CSP is lower when shareholders are powerful. Furthermore, these findings indicate that independent directors should be understood as agents in their own right, not only focused on defending shareholder interests. We also find that CSP is negatively related to investor protection and shareholder-oriented environments, while it is positively related to egalitarian environments. Finally, we jointly analyze firm-level drivers and institutional contexts.

Borcherds products and arithmetic intersection theory on Hilbert modular surfaces

We prove an arithmetic version of a theorem of Hirzebruch and Zagier saying that Hirzebruch-Zagier divisors on a Hilbert modular surface are the coefficients of an elliptic modular form of weight 2. Moreover, we determine the arithmetic selfintersection number of the line bundle of modular forms equipped with its Petersson metric on a regular model of a Hilbert modular surface, and we study Faltings heights of arithmetic Hirzebruch-Zagier divisors.

Social Cognition is not Reducible to Theory of Mind. When Children use Deontic Rules to Predict Others' Behaviors

The objective of this paper is to discuss whether children have a capacity for deonticreasoning that is irreducible to mentalizing. The results of two experiments point tothe existence of such non-mentalistic understanding and prediction of the behaviourof others. In Study 1, young children (3- and 4-year-olds) were told different versionsof classic false-belief tasks, some of which were modified by the introduction of a ruleor a regularity. When the task (a standard change of location task) included a rule, theperformance of 3-year-olds, who fail traditional false-belief tasks, significantly improved.In Study 2, 3-year-olds proved to be able to infer a rule from a social situation and touse it in order to predict the behaviour of a character involved in a modified versionof the false-belief task. These studies suggest that rules play a central role in the socialcognition of young children and that deontic reasoning might not necessarily involvemind reading.

MIGCLIM: Predicting plant distribution and dispersal in a changing climate

Many studies have forecasted the possible impact of climate change on plant distribution using models based on ecological niche theory. In their basic implementation, niche-based models do not constrain predictions by dispersal limitations. Hence, most niche-based modelling studies published so far have assumed dispersal to be either unlimited or null. However, depending on the rate of climatic change, the landscape fragmentation and the dispersal capabilities of individual species, these assumptions are likely to prove inaccurate, leading to under- or overestimation of future species distributions and yielding large uncertainty between these two extremes. As a result, the concepts of "potentially suitable" and "potentially colonisable" habitat are expected to differ significantly. To quantify to what extent these two concepts can differ, we developed MIGCLIM, a model simulating plant dispersal under climate change and landscape fragmentation scenarios. MIGCLIM implements various parameters, such as dispersal distance, increase in reproductive potential over time, barriers to dispersal or long distance dispersal. Several simulations were run for two virtual species in a study area of the western Swiss Alps, by varying dispersal distance and other parameters. Each simulation covered the hundred-year period 2001-2100 and three different IPCC-based temperature warming scenarios were considered. Our results indicate that: (i) using realistic parameter values, the future potential distributions generated using MIGCLIM can differ significantly (up to more than 95% decrease in colonized surface) from those that ignore dispersal; (ii) this divergence increases both with increasing climate warming and over longer time periods; (iii) the uncertainty associated with the warming scenario can be nearly as large as the one related to dispersal parameters; (iv) accounting for dispersal, even roughly, can importantly reduce uncertainty in projections.

Aggregation and errors in management accounting

Il est important pour les entreprises de compresser les informations détaillées dans des sets d'information plus compréhensibles. Au chapitre 1, je résume et structure la littérature sur le sujet « agrégation d'informations » en contrôle de gestion. Je récapitule l'analyse coûts-bénéfices que les comptables internes doivent considérer quand ils décident des niveaux optimaux d'agrégation d'informations. Au-delà de la perspective fondamentale du contenu d'information, les entreprises doivent aussi prendre en considération des perspectives cogni- tives et comportementales. Je développe ces aspects en faisant la part entre la comptabilité analytique, les budgets et plans, et la mesure de la performance. Au chapitre 2, je focalise sur un biais spécifique qui se crée lorsque les informations incertaines sont agrégées. Pour les budgets et plans, des entreprises doivent estimer les espérances des coûts et des durées des projets, car l'espérance est la seule mesure de tendance centrale qui est linéaire. A la différence de l'espérance, des mesures comme le mode ou la médiane ne peuvent pas être simplement additionnés. En considérant la forme spécifique de distributions des coûts et des durées, l'addition des modes ou des médianes résultera en une sous-estimation. Par le biais de deux expériences, je remarque que les participants tendent à estimer le mode au lieu de l'espérance résultant en une distorsion énorme de l'estimati¬on des coûts et des durées des projets. Je présente également une stratégie afin d'atténuer partiellement ce biais. Au chapitre 3, j'effectue une étude expérimentale pour comparer deux approches d'esti¬mation du temps qui sont utilisées en comptabilité analytique, spécifiquement « coûts basés sur les activités (ABC) traditionnelles » et « time driven ABC » (TD-ABC). Au contraire des affirmations soutenues par les défenseurs de l'approche TD-ABC, je constate que cette dernière n'est pas nécessairement appropriée pour les calculs de capacité. Par contre, je démontre que le TD-ABC est plus approprié pour les allocations de coûts que l'approche ABC traditionnelle. - It is essential for organizations to compress detailed sets of information into more comprehensi¬ve sets, thereby, establishing sharp data compression and good decision-making. In chapter 1, I review and structure the literature on information aggregation in management accounting research. I outline the cost-benefit trade-off that management accountants need to consider when they decide on the optimal levels of information aggregation. Beyond the fundamental information content perspective, organizations also have to account for cognitive and behavi¬oral perspectives. I elaborate on these aspects differentiating between research in cost accounti¬ng, budgeting and planning, and performance measurement. In chapter 2, I focus on a specific bias that arises when probabilistic information is aggregated. In budgeting and planning, for example, organizations need to estimate mean costs and durations of projects, as the mean is the only measure of central tendency that is linear. Different from the mean, measures such as the mode or median cannot simply be added up. Given the specific shape of cost and duration distributions, estimating mode or median values will result in underestimations of total project costs and durations. In two experiments, I find that participants tend to estimate mode values rather than mean values resulting in large distortions of estimates for total project costs and durations. I also provide a strategy that partly mitigates this bias. In the third chapter, I conduct an experimental study to compare two approaches to time estimation for cost accounting, i.e., traditional activity-based costing (ABC) and time-driven ABC (TD-ABC). Contrary to claims made by proponents of TD-ABC, I find that TD-ABC is not necessarily suitable for capacity computations. However, I also provide evidence that TD-ABC seems better suitable for cost allocations than traditional ABC.

Ispol'zovanie metodov teorii vosstanovleniia v modeliakh optimal'nogo dobyvaniia pishchi [Restoration theory in models of optimal feeding behavior]

The method of stochastic dynamic programming is widely used in ecology of behavior, but has some imperfections because of use of temporal limits. The authors presented an alternative approach based on the methods of the theory of restoration. Suggested method uses cumulative energy reserves per time unit as a criterium, that leads to stationary cycles in the area of states. This approach allows to study the optimal feeding by analytic methods.

Towards a theory of the credit-risk balance sheet

This article designs what it calls a Credit-Risk Balance Sheet (the risk being that of default by customers), a tool which, in principle, can contribute to revealing, controlling and managing the bad debt risk arising from a company¿s commercial credit, whose amount can represent a significant proportion of both its current and total assets.To construct it, we start from the duality observed in any credit transaction of this nature, whose basic identity can be summed up as Credit = Risk. ¿Credit¿ is granted by a company to its customer, and can be ranked by quality (we suggest the credit scoring system) and ¿risk¿ can either be assumed (interiorised) by the company itself or transferred to third parties (exteriorised).What provides the approach that leads to us being able to talk with confidence of a real Credit-Risk Balance Sheet with its methodological robustness is that the dual vision of the credit transaction is not, as we demonstrate, merely a classificatory duality (a double risk-credit classification of reality) but rather a true causal relationship, that is, a risk-credit causal duality.Once said Credit-Risk Balance Sheet (which bears a certain structural similarity with the classic net asset balance sheet) has been built, and its methodological coherence demonstrated, its properties ¿static and dynamic¿ are studied.Analysis of the temporal evolution of the Credit-Risk Balance Sheet and of its applications will be the object of subsequent works.

Towards a theory of the credit-risk balance sheet (II). The evolution of its structure

This article has an immediate predecessor, upon which it is based and with which readers must necessarily be familiar: Towards a Theory of the Credit-Risk Balance Sheet (Vallverdú, Somoza and Moya, 2006). The Balance Sheet is conceptualised on the basis of the duality of a credit-based transaction; it deals with its theoretical foundations, providing evidence of a causal credit-risk duality, that is, a true causal relationship; its characteristics, properties and its static and dynamic characteristics are analyzed. This article, which provides a logical continuation to the previous one, studies the evolution of the structure of the Credit-Risk Balance Sheet as a consequence of a business¿s dynamics in the credit area. Given the Credit-Risk Balance Sheet of a company at any given time, it attempts to estimate, by means of sequential analysis, its structural evolution, showing its usefulness in the management and control of credit and risk. To do this, it bases itself, with the necessary adaptations, on the by-now classic works of Palomba and Cutolo. The establishment of the corresponding transformation matrices allows one to move from an initial balance sheet structure to a final, future one, to understand its credit-risk situation trends, as well as to make possible its monitoring and control, basic elements in providing support for risk management.

On the efficiency of recursive evaluations with applications to risk theory

On the efficiency of recursive evaluations with applications to risk theoryCette thèse est composée de trois essais qui portent sur l'efficacité des évaluations récursives de la distribution du montant total des sinistres d'un portefeuille de polices d'assurance au cours d'un période donnée. Le calcul de sa fonction de probabilité ou de quantités liées à cette distribution apparaît fréquemment dans la plupart des domaines de la pratique actuarielle.C'est le cas notamment pour le calcul du capital de solvabilité en Suisse ou pour modéliser la perte d'une assurance vie au cours d'une année. Le principal problème des évaluations récursives est que la propagation des erreurs provenant de la représentation des nombres réels par l'ordinateur peut être désastreuse. Mais, le gain de temps qu'elles procurent en réduisant le nombre d'opérations arithmétiques est substantiel par rapport à d'autres méthodes.Dans le premier essai, nous utilisons certaines propriétés d'un outil informatique performant afin d'optimiser le temps de calcul tout en garantissant une certaine qualité dans les résultats par rapport à la propagation de ces erreurs au cours de l'évaluation.Dans le second essai, nous dérivons des expressions exactes et des bornes pour les erreurs qui se produisent dans les fonctions de distribution cumulatives d'un ordre donné lorsque celles-ci sont évaluées récursivement à partir d'une approximation de la transformée de De Pril associée. Ces fonctions cumulatives permettent de calculer directement certaines quantités essentielles comme les primes stop-loss.Finalement, dans le troisième essai, nous étudions la stabilité des évaluations récursives de ces fonctions cumulatives par rapport à la propagation des erreurs citées ci-dessus et déterminons la précision nécessaire dans la représentation des nombres réels afin de garantir des résultats satisfaisants. Cette précision dépend en grande partie de la transformée de De Pril associée.