Contribution to The World Goes Pop exhibition catalogue

Biographies for artists Barel, Joav (p.174), Brudascu, Cornel (p.177), Bucan, Boris (p.178), Chicago, Judy (p.182), Ivekovic, Sanja (p.197), Komar and Melamid (p.200), Lach-Lachowicz, Natalia (p.203), Otasevic, Dusan (p.212), Overstreet, Joe (p.214), Pininska - Beres, Maria (p.215), Rosler, Martha (p.222), Schifano, Mario (p.223), Self, Colin (p.224), Tajiri, Thinkichi (p.228), Tanaami, Keiichi (p.229), Tilson, Joe (p.231), Vardea, Chryssa (p.233), Yokoo, Tadanori (p.234), Zelibska, Jana (p.235) and Zielinski, Jerzy (p.236).

Commodity risks and the cross-section of equity returns

The article examines whether commodity risk is priced in the cross-section of global equity returns. We employ a long-only equally-weighted portfolio of commodity futures and a term structure portfolio that captures phases of backwardation and contango as mimicking portfolios for commodity risk. We find that equity-sorted portfolios with greater sensitivities to the excess returns of the backwardation and contango portfolio command higher average excess returns, suggesting that when measured appropriately, commodity risk is pervasive in stocks. Our conclusions are robust to the addition to the pricing model of financial, macroeconomic and business cycle-based risk factors.

Green infrastructure and ecosystem services - is the devil in the detail?

Background - Green infrastructure is a strategic network of green spaces designed to deliver ecosystem services to human communities. Green infrastructure is a convenient concept for urban policy makers, but the term is used too-generically and with limited understanding of the relative values or benefits of different types of green space and how these complement one another. At a finer scale/more practical level– little consideration is given to the composition of the plant-communities, yet this is what ultimately defines extent of service provision. This paper calls for greater attention to be paid to urban plantings with respect to ecosystem service delivery and for plant science to engage more-fully in identifying those plants that promote various services. Scope - Many urban plantings are designed based on aesthetics alone, with limited thought on how plant choice/composition provides other ecosystem services. Research is beginning to demonstrate, however, that landscape plants provide a range of important services, such as helping mitigate floods and alleviating heat islands, but that not all species are equally effective. The paper reviews a number of important services and demonstrates how genotype choice radically affects service delivery. Conclusions – Although research is in its infancy, data is being generated that relates plant traits to specific services; thereby helping identify genotypes that optimise service delivery. The urban environment, however, will become exceedingly bland if future planting is simply restricted to monocultures of a few ‘functional’ genotypes. Therefore, further information is required on how to design plant communities where the plants identified:- a/ provide more than a single benefit (multi-functionality) b/ complement each other in maximising the range of benefits that can be delivered in one location and c/ continue to maintain public acceptance through diversity. The identification/development of functional landscape plants is an exciting and potentially high impact arena for plant science.

Implementation and role of device management Solutions to the end users

This research is based on consumer complaints with respect to recently purchased consumer electronics. This research document will investigate the instances of development and device management as a tool used to aid consumer and manage consumer’s mobile products in order to resolve issues in or before the consumers is aware one exists. The problem at the present time is that mobile devices are becoming very advanced pieces of technology, and not all manufacturers and network providers have kept up the support element of End users. As such, the subject of the research is to investigate how device management could possibly be used as a method to promote research and development of mobile devices, and provide a better experience for the consumer. The wireless world is becoming increasingly complex as revenue opportunities are driven by new and innovative data services. We can no longer expect the customer to have the knowledge or ability to configure their own device. Device Management platforms can address the challenges of device configuration and support through new enabling technologies. Leveraging these technologies will allow a network operator to reduce the cost of subscriber ownership, drive increased ARPU (Average Revenue per User) by removing barriers to adoption, reduce churn by improving the customer experience and increase customer loyalty. DM technologies provide a flexible and powerful management method but are managing the same device features that have historically been configured manually through call centers or by the end user making changes directly on the device. For this reason DM technologies must be treated as part of a wider support solution. The traditional requirement for discovery, fault finding, troubleshooting and diagnosis are still as relevant with DM as they are in the current human support environment yet the current generation of solutions do little to address this problem. In the deployment of an effective Device Management solution the network operator must consider the integration of the DM platform, interfacing with many areas of the business, supported by knowledge of the relationship between devices, applications, solutions and services maintained on an ongoing basis. Complementing the DM solution with published device information, setup guides, training material and web based tools will ensure the quality of the customer experience, ensuring that problems are completely resolved, driving data usage by focusing customer education on the use of the wireless service In this way device management becomes a tool used both internally within the network or device vendor and by the customer themselves, with each user empowered to effectively manage the device without any prior knowledge or experience, confident that changes they apply will be relevant, accurate, stable and compatible. The value offered by an effective DM solution with an expert knowledge service will become a significant differentiator for the network operator in an ever competitive wireless market. This research document is intended to highlight some of the issues the industry faces as device management technologies become more prevalent, and offers some potential solutions to simplify the increasingly complex task of managing devices on the network, where device management can be used as a tool to aid customer relations and manage customer’s mobile products in order to resolve issues before the user is aware one exists. The research is broken down into the following, Customer Relationship Management, Device management, the role of knowledge with the DM, Companies that have successfully implemented device management, and the future of device management and CRM. And it also consists of questionnaires aimed at technical support agents and mobile device users. Interview was carried out with CRM managers within support centre to further the evidence gathered. To conclude, the document is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of device management and attempt to determine the influence it will have over customer support centre, and what methods could be used to implement it.

Cloud computing - Moving to the cloud

Cloud computing innebär användning av datorresurser som är tillgängliga via ett nätverk, oftast Internet och är ett område som har vuxit fram i snabb takt under de senaste åren. Allt fler företag migrerar hela eller delar av sin verksamhet till molnet. Sogeti i Borlänge har behov av att migrera sina utvecklingsmiljöer till en molntjänst då drift och underhåll av dessa är kostsamma och tidsödande. Som Microsoftpartners vill Sogeti använda Microsoft tjänst för cloud computing, Windows Azure, för detta syfte. Migration till molnet är ett nytt område för Sogeti och de har inga beskrivningar för hur en sådan process går till. Vårt uppdrag var att utveckla ett tillvägagångssätt för migration av en IT-lösning till molnet. En del av uppdraget blev då att kartlägga cloud computing, dess beståndsdelar samt vilka för- och nackdelar som finns, vilket har gjort att vi har fått grundläggande kunskap i ämnet. För att utveckla ett tillvägagångssätt för migration har vi utfört flera migrationer av virtuella maskiner till Windows Azure och utifrån dessa migrationer, litteraturstudier och intervjuer dragit slutsatser som mynnat ut i ett generellt tillvägagångssätt för migration till molnet. Resultatet har visat att det är svårt att göra en generell men samtidigt detaljerad beskrivning över ett tillvägagångssätt för migration, då scenariot ser olika ut beroende på vad som ska migreras och vilken typ av molntjänst som används. Vi har dock utifrån våra erfarenheter från våra migrationer, tillsammans med litteraturstudier, dokumentstudier och intervjuer lyft vår kunskap till en generell nivå. Från denna kunskap har vi sammanställt ett generellt tillvägagångssätt med större fokus på de förberedande aktiviteter som en organisation bör genomföra innan migration. Våra studier har även resulterat i en fördjupad beskrivning av cloud computing. I vår studie har vi inte sett att någon tidigare har beskrivit kritiska framgångsfaktorer i samband med cloud computing. I vårt empiriska arbete har vi dock identifierat tre kritiska framgångsfaktorer för cloud computing och i och med detta täckt upp en del av kunskapsgapet där emellan.

The Adequacy of Health Care Services for the Elderly in China

This study examines the adequacy of health care services for the elderly in China, specifically focusing on the influence of location, method of payment, living situation, and financial status. The study finds that rural residents, respondents living alone and respondents unable to meet all of their daily costs have a lower probability of reporting the availability of adequate health care. It also investigates the reasons why elderly respondents do not visit the hospital when it is necessary, concluding that financial and distance constraints are main deterrents. Finally, changes in the reported adequacy of health care over time are taken into consideration, and are found to follow a likely pattern given the history of the health care system in China. This is an important investigation given the historical background of health care in China, the current cost problems facing residents, and, consequently, the policy changes that will need to be implemented by the Chinese government in the near future.

Monetary policy and the cross-section of stock returns: a FAVAR approach

We use a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) to estimate the impact of monetary policy shocks on the cross-section of stock returns. Our FAVAR combines unobserved factors extracted from a large set of nancial and macroeconomic indicators with the Federal Funds rate. We nd that monetary policy shocks have heterogeneous e ects on the crosssection of stock returns. These e ects are very well explained by the degree of external nance dependence, as well as by other sectoral characteristics.

Notes on cyclical tendency to the overvaluation of the real

This note addresses the question “To what extent financial regulation in Brazil was effective in neutralizing the tendency to the overvaluation of the exchange rate in Brazil since the 1994 Real Plan?” Aiming at answering this question, this note is organized as follows: after this short introduction, we briefly describe the Brazilian exchange rate behavior after the Real Plan, emphasizing its key role in keeping prices stable. In section 3, the recent measures adopted by the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB) aiming at avoiding the overvaluation of real will be summarized. In section 4, we argue in favor of a new policy mix that could avoid overvaluation of the currency. Finally, some issues will be raised in order to effectively neutralize the overvaluation of real.

Application of wavelets to the evaluation of phantom images for mammography quality control

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Karyotypic diversification and its contribution to the taxonomy of Eleocharis (Cyperaceae) from Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Prediction of R plus R-2 gravity for the deflection of a photon passing close to the Sun

The cross-section for the scattering of a photon by the Sun's gravitational field, treated as an external field, is computed in the framework of R + R-2 gravity. Using this result, we found that for a photon just grazing the Sun's surface the deflection is 1.75 which is exactly the same as that given by Einstein's theory. An explanation for this pseudo-paradox is provided.