Children aged 9-14 living in disadvantaged areas in England: Opportunities and barriers for cycling

The aim of this paper is to take a holistic perspective to explore levels of cycling and opportunities and barriers to increase children’s safer cycling in disadvantaged areas in England. The study was one part of a larger study which explored the factors underlying the high level of road traffic casualties especially among children in the most disadvantaged areas of England and to explore how this impacts on mobility and quality of life. The methods involved a cross sectional survey comprising school based questionnaire surveys with children aged 9-14 and focus groups with parents who had children within this age range. The surveys were conducted in 2007 and the focus groups during 2008. 4286 children completed the survey and eight focus groups were held. Bike ownership (77%) was high, use in previous week moderate (39%) but only 2% cycled to school. Ownership was significantly lower in minority ethnic groups. Despite young children’s strong preference to travel by cycle (30%) than walk or go by car, most parents felt it was too hazardous. It is unlikely that these findings would be any different from the rest of England, however the combination of environmental and social factors may elevate the risks for young cyclists in these areas. This paper concludes that a number of barriers exist to increasing levels of cycling among children living in disadvantaged areas particularly amongst ethnic groups. These barriers could be addressed by environmental modifications to reduce speeds and by reducing the levels of antisocial driving and riding in residential areas and around destinations where children travel, by providing cycle training to improve children’s skills and parent’s confidence, and by providing secure storage facilities for bikes. Until these barriers are addressed it is unlikely that cycling will increase despite the strong preferences children have to travel by bike. Such preferences to cycle provide an opportunity for local authorities to act on.     

Responsible Leaders as Agents of World Benefit: Learnings from “Project Ulysses”

Research from the fields of criminology and social psychology suggests that the deterrent effect of security countermeasures is not uniform across individuals. In this study, we examine whether certain individual characteristics (i.e., computer self-efficacy) or work arrangement (i.e., virtual status) moderate the influence of␣security policies, security education, training, and awareness (SETA) program, and computer monitoring on information systems misuse. The results suggest that computer savvy individuals are less deterred by SETA programs and computer monitoring, while these countermeasures are also less influential (from a deterrence perspective) on employees that spend more working days outside the office. Implications for both the research and practice of information security are discussed.     

Multidimensional quasi-Monte Carlo Malliavin Greeks

The aim of this paper is extensively investigate the performance of the estimators for the Greeks of multidimensional complex path-dependent options obtained by the aid of Malliavin Calculus. The study analyses both the computation effort and the variance reduction in the Quasi-Monte Carlo simulation framework. For this purpose, we adopt the approach employed by Montero and Kohatsu-Higa to the multidimensional case. The multidimensional setting shows the convenience of the Malliavin Calculus approach over different techniques that have been previously proposed. Indeed, these techniques may be computationally expensive and do not provide enough flexibility for variance reduction. In contrast, the Malliavin approach provides a class of functions that return the same expected value (the Greek) with different accuracies. This versatility for variance reduction is not possible without the use of the generalized integral by part formula of Malliavin Calculus. In the multidimensional context, we find convenient formulas that permit to improve the localization technique, introduced in Fournié et al. and reduce both the computational cost and the variance. Moreover, we show that the parameters for the variance reduction can be obtained on the flight in the simulation. We illustrate the efficiency of the proposed procedures, coupled with the enhanced version of Quasi-Monte Carlo simulations as discussed in Sabino, for the numerical estimation of the Deltas of call, digital Asian-style and exotic basket options with a fixed and a floating strike price in a multidimensional Black-Scholes market. Given the fact that the gammas of a call option coincides, apart from a constant, with the deltas of digital options, this setting also covers the analysis of formulas tailored for the second order Greeks of call options.     

Modelling the Risks Associated with the Increased Importation of Fresh Produce from Emerging Supply Sources Outside the EU to the UK

The risk of non‐indigenous plant pests entering the UK via international trade in fresh produce is increasing. The objective of this article is to identify existing and emerging supply sources for UK fresh produce importers and examine the extent to which they could provide invasion pathways. We tested the hypothesis that increased imports of fresh produce from new sources outside the European Union could increase the risks of non‐indigenous insect pests. We use a bio‐economic model approach in which the number of species arrivals is a function of the volume of imports, whereas the volume of imports itself is a function of gross domestic product, relative import prices and seasonality. The study has identified clear trends, which show import volumes of fresh produce and species detections increasing from new supply sources. If this trend continues in the future, then the UK inspection agency should expect to confront species from new suppliers in much greater numbers, given that import volumes of fresh produce are income elastic.     

Mit BAföG ins Studium

Finanzielle F?rderung der akademischen Fort- und Weiterbildung - Die Aussicht auf eine berufliche Weiterentwicklung macht ein Studium auch für ausgebildete Pflegekr?fte attraktiv. An der Finanzierung muss der Plan nicht scheitern. Denn wer sich vor seinem 30. Geburtstag einschreibt, kann meist mit staatlicher Ausbildungs f?rderung rechnen.     

Determinants of Traditional Sustainability Reporting Versus Integrated Reporting. An Institutionalist Approach

The aim of this study is to analyze similarities and differences between companies with traditional sustainability reporting (TSR) and those that publish integrated reports. Based on institutional theory we identify potential determinants of integrated reporting (IR) and test their relevance empirically in a sample of 309 companies. Our analysis shows that IR companies are different from TSR companies with regard to several country‐level determinants. In particular, investor and employment protection laws, the intensity of market coordination and ownership concentration, the level of economic, environmental and social development, the degree of national corporate responsibility and the value system of the country of origin proved to be relevant. Based on these results, both implications for practice and future studies are derived. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The Role of Professional Codes in Regarding Ethical Conduct

This paper investigates the regulation of ethical behavior of professionals. Ethical perceptions of South African professionals operating in the business community (specifically accountants, lawyers and engineers) concerning their need for and awareness of professional codes, and the frequency and acceptability of peer contravention of such codes were sought. The existence of conflict between corporate codes and professional codes was also investigated. Results, based on 217 replies, indicated that the professionals believe that codes are necessary and are relatively aware of the contents of such codes. Despite these ethical tendencies, respondents (particularly lawyers) believe that their peers contravene their professional codes relatively often. No significant differences in ethical tendencies between professionals consulting to and those working in business were found. Many respondents were regulated by more than one code of ethics, but few experienced conflict between such codes. In the events of conflict occurring professionals chose to adhere to their professional code above others.     

On optimal unemployment compensation

The design of an optimal unemployment compensation scheme is analyzed, using a dynamic principal-agent relationship between a risk-neutral planner (the principal) and risk-averse workers (the agents), where the planner's inability to observe workers’ job-search efforts creates a moral hazard problem. To design an implementable scheme, we require that each agent is guaranteed a minimum level of expected discounted utility, regardless of his past history. In contrast with previous studies, we find that the optimal contract is quite close to actual unemployment compensation schemes, both qualitatively and quantitatively.     

Shaping buyer–supplier relationships in manufacturing contexts: Design and test of a contingency model

Although the idea that buyer–supplier partnerships can yield considerable benefits to firms is largely diffused among researchers and practitioners, the approach adopted in this paper is that no “one best way” exists in buyer–supplier relationships, but rather a “best way” for each specific exchange context. Hence, this paper proposes a contingency model for shaping and managing buyer–supplier relationships in manufacturing contexts. In order to test the model, an empirical study was performed on a sample of 45 buyer–supplier relationships within the Italian white goods industry. A three-dimensional performance indicator was computed to compare supplier performance achieved within relations matching the model's suggestions with those set differently. The results strongly suggest that suppliers involved in relationships set accordingly to the contingency model are likely to enjoy superior performance.