bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Novel Real-Time Speech Summarizer System for the Learning of Sustainability
Authors: Wang Hsiu-Wen , Cheng Ding-Yuan , Chen Chi-Hua , Wu Yu-Rou , Lo Chi-Chun , Lin Hui-Fei
Published: April 2015

As the number of speech and video documents increases on the Internet and portable devices proliferate, speech summarization becomes increasingly essential. Relevant research in this domain has typically focused on broadcasts and news; however, the automatic summarization methods used in the past may not apply to other speech domains (e.g., speech in lectures). Therefore, this study explores the lecture speech domain. The features used in previous research were analyzed and suitable features were selected following experimentation; subsequently, a three-phase real-time speech summarizer for the learning of sustainability (RTSSLS) was proposed. Phase One involved selecting independent features (e.g., centrality, resemblance to the title, sentence length, term frequency, and thematic words) and calculating the independent feature scores; Phase Two involved calculating the dependent features, such as the position compared with the independent feature scores; and Phase Three involved comparing these feature scores to obtain weighted averages of the function-scores, determine the highest-scoring sentence, and provide a summary. In practical results, the accuracies of macro-average and micro-average for the RTSSLS were 70% and 73%, respectively. Therefore, using a RTSSLS can enable users to acquire key speech information for the learning of sustainability.
Structural Evolution of Household Energy Consumption: A China Study
Authors: Wang Qingsong , Liu Ping , Yuan Xueliang , Cheng Xingxing , Ma Rujian , Mu Ruimin , Zuo Jian
Published: April 2015

Sustainable energy production and consumption is one of the issues for the sustainable development strategy in China. As China’s economic development paradigm shifts, household energy consumption (HEC) has become a focus of achieving national goals of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction. The information entropy model and LMDI model were employed in this study in order to analyse the structural evolution of HEC, as well as its associated critical factors. The results indicate that the information entropy of HEC increased gradually, and coal will be reduced by clean energies, such as natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. The information entropy tends to stabilize and converge due to rapid urbanization. Therefore, from the perspective of environmental protection and natural resource conservation, the structure of household energy consumption will be optimized. This study revealed that residents’ income level is one of the most critical factors for the increase of energy consumption, while the energy intensity is the only driving force for the reduction of HEC. The accumulated contribution of these two factors to the HEC is 240.53% and −161.75%, respectively. It is imperative to improve the energy efficiency in the residential sector. Recommendations are provided to improve the energy efficiency-related technologies, as well as the standards for the sustainable energy strategy.
The Perception of Symmetry in Depth: Effect of Symmetry Plane Orientation
Authors: Farell Bart
Published: April 2015

The visual system is sensitive to symmetries in the frontoparallel plane, and bilateral symmetry about a vertical axis has a particular salience. However, these symmetries represent only a subset of the symmetries realizable in three-dimensional space. The retinal image symmetries formed when viewing natural objects are typically the projections of three-dimensional objects—animals, for example—that have a symmetry in depth. To characterize human sensitivity to depth symmetry, experiments measured observers’ ability to discriminate stereo displays that were symmetrically distributed in depth and those that were asymmetrically distributed. Disparity values were distributed about one of four planes passing through the z-axis and differing in frontoparallel orientation. Asymmetrical patterns were generated by perturbing one of these disparities. Symmetrical-asymmetrical discrimination thresholds were lowest for symmetry about the vertical plane and highest for the horizontal plane. Thresholds for discriminating repetitions and non-repetitions of depth values did not differ across the four planes, whereas discriminations for depth gradients differed from both the symmetry and repetition cases. The heightened sensitivity to symmetry in depth about the vertical plane is a 3-D analog of 2-D mirror-image symmetry performance and could be its source.
Apigenin Restricts FMDV Infection and Inhibits Viral IRES Driven Translational Activity
Authors: Qian Suhong , Fan Wenchun , Qian Ping , Zhang Dong , Wei Yurong , Chen Huanchun , Li Xiangmin
Published: April 2015

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of domestic and wild ruminants that is caused by FMD virus (FMDV). FMD outbreaks have occurred in livestock-containing regions worldwide. Apigenin, which is a flavonoid naturally existing in plant, possesses various pharmacological effects, including anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antioxidant and antiviral activities. Results show that apigenin can inhibit FMDV-mediated cytopathogenic effect and FMDV replication in vitro. Further studies demonstrate the following: (i) apigenin inhibits FMDV infection at the viral post-entry stage; (ii) apigenin does not exhibit direct extracellular virucidal activity; and (iii) apigenin interferes with the translational activity of FMDV driven by internal ribosome entry site. Studies on applying apigein in vivo are required for drug development and further identification of potential drug targets against FDMV infection.
Glycosylation of KSHV Encoded vGPCR Functions in Its Signaling and Tumorigenicity
Authors: Wu Hui , Liu Liqun , Xiao Jun , Chi Mengdie , Qu Yixiao , Feng Hao
Published: April 2015

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a tumor virus and the etiologic agent of Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS). KSHV G protein-coupled receptor (vGPCR) is an oncogene that is implicated in malignancies associated with KHSV infection. In this study, we show that vGPCR undergoes extensive N-linked glycosylation within the extracellular domains, specifically asparagines 18, 22, 31 and 202. An immunofluorescence assay demonstrates that N-linked glycosylation are necessary for vGPCR trafficking to the cellular membrane. Employing vGPCR mutants whose glycosylation sites were ablated, we show that these vGPCR mutants failed to activate downstream signaling in cultured cells and were severely impaired to induce tumor formation in the xenograph nude mouse model. These findings support the conclusion that glycosylation is critical for vGPCR tumorigenesis and imply that chemokine regulation at the plasma membrane is crucial for vGPCR mediated signaling.
Tenth International Foamy Virus Conference 2014–Achievements and Perspectives
Authors: Materniak Magdalena , Kubiś Piotr , Rola–Łuszczak Marzena , Khan Arifa , Buseyne Florence , Lindemann Dirk , Löchelt Martin , Kuźmak Jacek
Published: April 2015

For the past two decades, scientists from around the world, working on different aspects of foamy virus (FV) research, have gathered in different research institutions almost every two years to present their recent results in formal talks, to discuss their ongoing studies informally, and to initiate fruitful collaborations. In this report we review the 2014 anniversary conference to share the meeting summary with the virology community and hope to arouse interest by other researchers to join this exciting field. The topics covered included epidemiology, virus molecular biology, and immunology of FV infection in non-human primates, cattle, and humans with zoonotic FV infections, as well as recent findings on endogenous FVs. Several topics focused on virus replication and interactions between viral and cellular proteins. Use of FV in biomedical research was highlighted with presentations on using FV vectors for gene therapy and FV proteins as scaffold for vaccine antigen presentation. On behalf of the FV community, this report also includes a short tribute to commemorate Prof. Axel Rethwilm, one of the leading experts in the field of retrovirology and foamy viruses, who passed away 29 July 2014.
Human Pirh2 is A Novel Inhibitor of Prototype Foamy Virus Replication
Authors: Dong Lanlan , Cheng Qingqing , Wang Zhihao , Yuan Peipei , Li Zhi , Sun Yan , Han Song , Yin Jun , Peng Biwen , He Xiaohua , Liu Wanhong
Published: April 2015

Prototype foamy virus (PFV) is a member of the unconventional and nonpathogenic retroviruses. PFV causes lifelong chronic infections, which are partially attributable to a number of host cell factors that restrict viral replication. Herein, we identified human p53-induced RING-H2 protein (Pirh2) as a novel inhibitor of prototype foamy virus. Overexpression of Pirh2 decreased the replication of PFV, whereas knockdown of Pirh2 with specific siRNA increased PFV replication. Dual-luciferase assays and coimmunoprecipitation demonstrated that Pirh2 negatively influences the Tas-dependent transcriptional activation of the PFV long terminal repeat (LTR) and internal promoter (IP) by interacting with the transactivator Tas and down-regulating its expression. In addition, the viral inhibitory function of Pirh2 is N-terminal and RING domain dependent. Together, these results indicated that Pirh2 suppresses PFV replication by negatively impacting its transactivator Tas and the transcription of two viral promoters, which may contribute to the latency of PFV infection.
Urban Flood Mapping Based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Remote Sensing and Random Forest Classifier—A Case of Yuyao, China
Authors: Feng Quanlong , Liu Jiantao , Gong Jianhua
Published: April 2015

Flooding is a severe natural hazard, which poses a great threat to human life and property, especially in densely-populated urban areas. As one of the fastest developing fields in remote sensing applications, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can provide high-resolution data with a great potential for fast and accurate detection of inundated areas under complex urban landscapes. In this research, optical imagery was acquired by a mini-UAV to monitor the serious urban waterlogging in Yuyao, China. Texture features derived from gray-level co-occurrence matrix were included to increase the separability of different ground objects. A Random Forest classifier, consisting of 200 decision trees, was used to extract flooded areas in the spectral-textural feature space. Confusion matrix was used to assess the accuracy of the proposed method. Results indicated the following: (1) Random Forest showed good performance in urban flood mapping with an overall accuracy of 87.3% and a Kappa coefficient of 0.746; (2) the inclusion of texture features improved classification accuracy significantly; (3) Random Forest outperformed maximum likelihood and artificial neural network, and showed a similar performance to support vector machine. The results demonstrate that UAV can provide an ideal platform for urban flood monitoring and the proposed method shows great capability for the accurate extraction of inundated areas.
L’information statistique en perspective : six grands changements
Authors: Charpin Jean-Michel
Published: April 2015

Statistical Information Revisited : Six Big Changes.

Led by a growing demand, benefiting from its major role in the public debate, supported by technological progress, statistical information experiences big changes. Improved governance enables to consolidate the independence of production and dissemination of statistics from political and other external interference. International normalization is spreading, particularly in Europe. The traditional trade-off between surveys and administrative sources is shifting to the advantage of the latter ones. The internet modifies the conditions of dissemination and renews invoicing strategies. At the same time, the credibility of statistics is being questioned, in particular for inflation and real income measures, and the search for improved relevance pushes into going beyond present concepts of national accounts. By coping with these challenges, the professionals of statistical information will deserve the trust of users.

Classification JEL : C10, C80
Le poids du secteur financier : sa mesure et son impact sur la croissance. Quelques leçons de la crise
Authors: de Margerie Gilles
Published: April 2015

The Financial Sector’s Size and Impact on Growth : Some Lessons of the Crisis.

The financial crisis has triggered intense debates on the financial sector’s excessive role in the economy, and on its role in the economic and financial crisis. Recent studies realised in the framework of France’s National Council on Statistical Information (CNIS) have shown that, until the crisis, there was a growing gap between banks’ contribution to the GDP, which was very stable in recent times, and the rapid growth of their Net Banking Income (NBI). This evolution mainly results from the growing proportion of dividends received and fair value adjustments in banks’ results, which can be interpreted as particularly linked to the growing impact of their internationalisation and of their capital markets activities. The crisis has resulted in a decline of the gap between these data that largely stems from the reduction of the market value of some financial instruments. Nevertheless this does not enable to give a well-argued answer to the critical question of the mechanisms through which the financial crisis impacted the economy, an issue on which very substantial research is still to be done.

Classification JEL : C81, E32, M41.
Information financière : À la recherche du long terme
Authors: Denis Eudoxe , Pô Jean-Damien
Published: April 2015

Financial Information : in Search of the Long Term.

At the beginning of 2009, Institut de l’entreprise, a French think tank, tried to identify how to reach a better consideration of long term issues by companies. In this perspective, investor relations naturally seemed essential, as criticism of «short-termism » has been mainly directed at the financial markets. In order to guide investors’ behavior towards long-termism, companies should strive to renew the terms of the dialogue they establish with their shareholders. This renewal can be propped up by an evolution in the nature of the information the latter are given : existing financial indicators, forwardlooking indicators, data relative to the intangibles and more generally indicators on the health of the companies. Moreover, this renewal should enable the companies to mean clearly that they pursue, beyond their short-term performance goals, a long-term strategic project, the follow-up of which is based on reliable indicators, and that the management and the board of directors are concerned by its success.

Classification JEL : M14, M41, G24.
L’information économique et financière et la crise
Authors: Cazalé Alain
Published: April 2015

Economic and Financial Information and the Crisis.

Media and economists have been widely criticized for not having stigmatized enough some financial practices and alerted about the rising risks during the gestation period of the crisis initiated after the burst of the Internet bubble in 2000. More emphasis should be given to the observations and opinions that disturb or do not conform to the existing consensus Information has also played a major part in the brutality of the transmission of financial crisis to the real economy. In a world where information travels faster and reach broader audience, perhaps to the detriment of thorough thinking and critical approach, it plays a major role in the speed of onset of crises and their rapid spread. Public and private decision makers will have to take this into account in the future.

Classification JEL : E66, G14, G17.
Stratégies et pratiques des grandes entreprises en matière d’information et de formation économiques et financières
Authors: Knock-Méo Isabelle
Published: April 2015

Strategies and Practices of Large Companies in Terms of Economic and Financial Information and Formation.

Economic agents today must operate in an increasingly uncertain environment. As a result, economic and financial education (EFE) has become a major concern : citizens need tools to make sound economic and financial decisions under risk. Public actors typically enjoy the highest legitimacy in the public’s eye to carry out educational initiatives. However, they lack the financial resources to assume that responsibility alone. Large companies have a key role to play in improving economic and financial literacy among their employees and should also take part in a nationwide effort to teach every citizen about economics and personal finance. France lags well behind other countries -especially the Anglo-Saxon countries and some of the European countries -in terms of EFE. Up until now, most private educational initiatives have received limited media coverage. This article provides some insight on what could be done to allow a greater implication of the private sector, providing that governments act as catalysts to promote EFE.

Classification JEL : G18, M14.
Le rôle du CNIS dans l’expression des besoins d’informations statistiques
Authors: Duport Jean-Pierre , Dussert Françoise
Published: April 2015

The Role of the CNIS in Determining what Statistical Information Is Needed.

The main task of the National Council of Statistical Information (CNIS) is to encourage a dialogue between those who produce public statistics and those who use them. It forecasts and brings to light new needs, thus helping to establish a program of statistical studies and surveys each year that meets the needs of the protagonists in the social, economic, and financial sphere and makes an annual evaluation. Within this framework, the commission responsible for the financial sector and the financing of the economy organizes a dialogue between the Banque de France and the INSEE, the main producers of statistics, on one side, and those who use them on the other side. The context of the financial crisis has spotlighted certain deficiencies in the system of observation and the need to better describe the existing relations between the financial sector and the rest of the economy. By organizing the definition of the demand from the various social forces, as well as a constructive discussion on the answers found, the CNIS produces recommendations on how the statistical information system should evolve. These are generally followed through on within a reasonable amount of time. In this way the CNIS helps in setting up a statistical information standard for social questions.

Classification JEL : C82, G18.
L'information financière des salariés
Authors: Ferracci Pierre , Omari Mustapha
Published: April 2015

Financial Reporting for Employees.

The article screens financial reporting available for employees and considers that it remains inadequate. The current practices neglect employees’ needs (not only company’s revenues and profit but also its sustainability) and underestimate the difficulty for employees to assimilate the financial metrics. Indeed, the financial reporting suffers from the predominance of the shareholder value and from a short-term standpoint, in contrast with broader stakeholder value and with value creation in the long run. IFRS framework exacerbates this situation by neglecting useful metrics for the employees, like the value added and its sharing out among different stakeholders. The article advocates a broader scope of financial reporting and proposes a new lever to set up better corporate governance, i. e. the appointment of employees in the boards of all public companies and in those of companies with more than 1 000 employees.

Classification JEL : G34, J50, M12.
Information économique : la grande mutation
Authors: Crouïgneau Françoise
Published: April 2015

Economic News : the Great Change.

Journalists, as economists, are faced with the same paradox : the need and appetite for economic and financial information have rarely been so strong ; to make it intelligible has rarely been so difficult. Like many experts, journalists have to explain new phenomena and the fact that some economic theories are now questioned. Media are also confronted by a “crisis in the crises” with the fall of advertisement resources, a more serious challenge in France than in other developed countries, because of under-capitalized media groups. At a time when nobody can measure all the consequences of the digital revolution.

Classification JEL : L82.
L’éducation économique et financière : une question d’intérêt général qui doit dépasser l’approche partisane, consumériste ou mercantile
Authors: Petitjean Alexis
Published: April 2015

Economic and Financial Education : a Matter of General Interest more than a Matter of Politics, Consumer Protection or Market Efficiency.

The French view of world events, strongly tinged with humanism and a belief in the primacy of politics, has long been an obstacle to the development of a financial and economic culture and priority has been given information rather than on education. But in a globalized world with increasingly more complex issues, economic and financial education is becoming more and more obvious as the key to providing everyone with the means to not only understand their environment, but also to enable them to make decisions and plan for their future. Economic and financial education does indeed have the look of a matter of general interest, with both an individual as well as collective dimension. Raising the level of the financial and economic education in France should translate into a strong implication of our citizens in this debate but on a rational rather than emotional base.

Classification JEL : A10, A20.
La finance au sein de l’enseignement supérieur français en 2010
Authors: Levasseur Michel
Published: April 2015

Finance in the Higher Education Programs in 2010.

The author questions the fate of the higher education programs specially devoted to finance. After 40 years of growth fueled by the revolution in business finance and the tremendous increase in student enrolment, Universities and business schools will have to enter a stage of maturity. In a field characterized by the high uniformity of content at the international level, strategies to allow the courses offered to evolve must rely on relevant segmentation, greater importance placed on quality and the strength of brand images. In France it is high time to overhaul the process allowing education programs to splinter up. The essential point for universities and “ grandes écoles” is to work together, by means of alliances and networks of cooperation, in order to reach a critical size in the global education market.

Classification JEL : I20.
Y a-t-il du consensus entre économistes en France ?
Authors: Mayer Thierrry , Wasmer Étienne
Published: April 2015

Is There a Consensus among French Economists ?

This paper provides a summary of the results of a survey on French professional economists on 82 general economic questions. This survey is a replication and an extension of a similar one by Whaples (2006). The most striking results are that respondents have on average a moderate to large aversion to market forces, except for full professors and senior researchers who are on average more pro-market. Working abroad also leads to more confidence in market forces. The lessons of this survey don’t claim to stand for the opinion of French economists as a whole.

Classification JEL : A10, A11, B40, B41.
Quelle est la vision de la SFAF sur la formation économique en France ?
Authors: Legrand-Boucard Maïté , Pierret Jean-Paul , Wane Ibra
Published: April 2015

What Is SFAF’s Vision on Economical Training in France ?

The financial crisis has at least had the merit of making analysts and companies revise their fundamentals. One can assess that companies resisted fairly well and also contributed to saving the system as a whole. This article recalls the positions of SFAF (French Society of financial analysts) on this subject. Professional knowledge goes through better understanding of the corporate world, which shouldn’t be seen first and foremost under the angle of the risks it causes to the environment or to society as a whole. Finance is constantly changing and renewing itself which implies a permanent need to update one’s knowledge base. Faced with an increasingly vast offer of academic and professional training and the growing number of stakeholders, the emergence of highly marketed offers from business schools and universities, SFAF has thought ahead and now has the unequalled advantage of offering internationally recognized training courses (by 31 countries for ACIIA) as well as respecting the accounting and linguistic specifics from the main financial centers in the world. The society now uses this framework to enrich its training offer and accompany not only its members, but also a wider audience of economic policy-makers, throughout their careers.

Classification JEL : A20, A29, G29.
Les Français et l’entreprise : Qu'en pensent-ils ? Qu'en savent-ils ?
Authors: Boisivon Jean-Pierre
Published: April 2015

Les enquêtes d’opinion font état d’un divorce entre les Français et les entreprises, ces dernières étant soupçonnées de faire passer les intérêts de leurs salariés au dernier rang de leurs préoccupations et objectifs. Une enquête récente de la Fnege s’est intéressée à la connaissance réelle qu’ont les Français du fonctionnement des entreprises et de leur utilité sociale. Les résultats mettent en évidence les lacunes importantes de nos concitoyens sur le sujet. De plus, les médias et le système éducatif ne contribuent pas à corriger cette vision.

Classification JEL : A11, A21, M5.
Les avancées et retards du débat démocratique français sur l’économie
Authors: Chavagneux Christian
Published: April 2015

Headways and Delays of the French Economic Debate in Economy.

The way French people understand the economy depends on their beliefs. They are fed by the intellectual fads of the moment. A tiny part of the population benefits from an initial training in economics to support its choices : this possibility should be opened to all high school students, with an aim to discuss the big contemporary economic debates. French people indicate a concern to understand better these debates. They are helped by an economic press which does not have to blush any more in front of its Anglo-Saxon colleagues. But it is a handicap to them that just a small number of economists worry of maintaining permanently a democratic debate on economic issues. It is the objective of the magazine Alternatives Economiques. After 30 years of existence, it is now the second monthly economic magazine in terms of reception, reflecting the strong demand in economic educational methods from the French society.

Classification JEL : A10, L82.
Les investisseurs à long terme : vieille histoire, nouveaux paradigmes
Authors: Pastré Olivier
Published: April 2015

Long-term Investors : Long Story, New Paradigms.

Long-term investors, and in particular sovereign funds are one of the main topics of discussion in this period of crisis. To put this phenomenon into perspective, one needs to start by retracing the history of long-term investors. One then needs to define the new paradigms that are likely to shape the behaviour of long-term investors in the future. Long-term investors have always existed. What has changed over the decades is the origin of the funds invested for the long term. The importance of long-term investors is growing and likely to grow more over the timeframe of the coming decade. There are four levels at which cooperation between long-term investors is both possible and desirable : information, investment, financing and regulation.

Classification JEL : G23, G28.
Gestion déléguée des encours par les investisseurs institutionnels : description et évolution des pratiques
Authors: Le Quéré Françoise
Published: April 2015

Portfolio Management Delegation of Institutional Funds : Description and Evolution of Practices.

The aim of this study is to examine the way institutional investors delegate the management of their funds to asset managers. This delegation of management raises different problems because institutional
À quelles conditions la finance est-elle utile ? Enjeux d’une place financière puissante à Paris
Authors: Saint-Etienne Christian
Published: April 2015

Under Which Conditions Is Finance Useful ? Does France Want a Powerful Financial Market in Paris ?

When transparent and regulated, finance is mostly an activity of data processing and risk management. Finance has five key functions which must be correctly understood in order to regulate them in the collective interest. In spite of declarations of principle, Governments have not built an efficient regulatory environment. The stakes of the development of a powerful financial centre in Paris are huge but today the necessary conditions are not assembled.

Classification JEL : G10, G18, E61, F30.
Spéculation et marchés dérivés du pétrole
Authors: Chevallier Julien
Published: April 2015

Speculation and Oil Derivatives Markets.

This article provides economic and statistical tools to analyze oil derivatives markets, and more especially the “ peak” in prices recorded in July-August 2008. The main explanations of the literature are summarized, by emphasizing current trends. Overall, this article highlights a new articulation between “ physical” fundamentals of oil markets which have prevailed until the early 2000s, and the emergence of new “ financial” fundamentals following the reforms of derivatives markets in the U. S. in 2003 and the rise of “ non-commercial” agents on this market. Finally, some lessons of this recent experience are suggested through public policy recommendations in terms of regulating oil derivatives markets.

Classification JEL : G13, L71, Q3.
Quelle gouvernance pour la zone Euro ?
Authors: de Grauwe Paul
Published: April 2015

La crise de la dette publique en 2009 dans la zone euro est imputable à une gouvernance déficiente. Pour améliorer son fonctionnement, il est souvent mis en avant la nécessité pour les gouvernements nationaux de favoriser la convergence des économies. Or les phases de croissance et de dépression sont dues à des « esprits animaux nationaux » spécifiques aux différents pays et seul le contrôle du crédit au niveau national est en mesure d’influer sur les variables macroéconomiques nationales. Les propositions de l’UE pour traiter les divergences entre les membres doivent donc prendre en compte la responsabilité des autorités monétaires et pas seulement l’action des gouvernements. L’augmentation importante de l’endettement public a en effet débuté après le déclenchement de la crise financière et a été nécessaire pour réduire l’endettement privé qui menaçait d’entraîner les économies dans une spirale déflationniste. De ce point de vue, les propositions actuelles de la Commission sont mal conçues.

Classification JEL : E52, E58, F36, H63.
Crise financière et politique monétaire
Authors: Besson Benoît , Nguyen Benoît
Published: April 2015

Financial Crisis and Monetary Policy.

Since 2007, financial markets and economies have been faced with a multiform crisis, which originated from specific market sectors, such as the US subprime credit component, and led to a systemic risk at the heart of the financial markets, causing major disruptions in funding markets as well as more recently in sovereign debt market. At each step in the gathering crisis, central banks have intervened in a timely and pragmatic fashion. They have provided emergency liquidity support and aggressively cut official interest rates in order to mitigate the consequences of the crisis in the financial markets and in the real economy. As a result of the severity of the crisis, central banks have also adapted their operational framework and have implemented innovative non conventional monetary policies. The nature of their response was conditioned by their explicit mandate and by the structure of their domestic funding mechanisms. Nonetheless the common objective was to lower the financing costs for the real economy and to ensure the smooth transmission of monetary policy. However, whilst the primary requirement concerns accommodative monetary policy, it remains paramount that expectations for future inflation remain firmly anchored. To this end, Central banks have defined the path to exit strategies, to ensure the normalization of their interventions in a medium term horizon. The implementation of these exit strategies is one of the post-crisis major challenges.

Classification JEL : E02, G01, E52, E58.
Régulation et confiance
Authors: Noyer Christian
Published: April 2015

Regulation and Trust.

Trust is an asset of utmost importance for the smooth functioning of modern economies. The recent crisis witnessed the gradual devaluation of this asset among financial system’s participants. The notion of credit crunch is the economic manifestation of such a collapse in value. To combat it, public authorities have used their own credit and put it at risk. This intervention, necessary as it was, cannot substitute for robust and sound financial regulation. The latter is of fundamental importance to build and maintain agents’ trust in the financial system : it protects economic agents ; it addresses market failures ; it limits risk-taking when it exceeds what financial stability requires. A challenge when designing regulation is, however, to minimize the risks of unintended (adverse) consequences. For the future, three goals should drive our efforts : to restore trust in banks, a goal the recently agreed new Capital Accord significantly helps to achieve ; to expand trust in financial products and infrastructure, through greater standardization and more systematic use of robust and supervised clearing and trading venues ; to safeguard trust in regulators, without succumbing to the false assurance associated with automatic prudential rules.

Classification JEL : G28, P16.
La comptabilité mark-to-market en période de crise
Authors: Allen Franklin , Carletti Elena
Published: April 2015

Mark-to-Market Accounting in Times of Crisis.

Should mark-to-market accounting be used for financial institutions ? One argument is that market prices provide the best estimate of value available and should always be used. However, others suggest that in times of crisis market prices are not a good reflection of value and their use can lead to serious distortions. This article explains the circumstances where market prices do reflect future earning power and when market imperfections mean that they should not be used. In financial crisis situations where liquidity is scarce and prices are low as a result, market prices
Firme bancaire : quel nouveau paradigme après la crise ?
Authors: Pauget Georges , Saïdane Dhafer
Published: April 2015

Les crises financières sont fréquentes. Leur coût est de plus en plus élevé. La dernière, dite des subprimes, coûterait quasiment 1 000 milliards de dollars. Faut-il y voir des défaillances au niveau de la réglementation, de la gouvernance, du manque de transparence... et du divorce entre la théorie économique et la pratique de la banque ? Les économistes du XXème siècle se sont-ils un peu trop focalisés sur les Business Cycle et la macroéconomie réelle au point de minimiser le rôle de la banque et de la finance ? Cette rupture et ces choix ont sans doute encouragé le développement des stéréotypes sur la banque. Peut-on rêver d’une réconciliation entre la théorie et la pratique bancaire, bref d’un nouveau paradigme de la firme bancaire ? Notre ambition dans ce papier est simple. Elle vise à essayer d’offrir les éléments de réflexion permettant de mieux appréhender la complexité de la banque et à les intégrer dans un cadre théorique.

Classification JEL : E5, G21, G33.
Regards croisés sur le système monétaire international
Authors: Artus Patrick , Bénassy-Quéré Agnès , Cartapanis André , Flandreau Marc
Published: April 2015

Meeting Eyes on the International Financial System.

During the 27th Journées d’économie financière et monétaire (Bordeaux, June 2010 ; CNRS GdRE 335), the authors have been discussing different points of view relative to the International Financial System. Marc Flandreau analyzes how the acceptances market has been used by the Americain central bank, supported by a political will, to ease the emergence of the dollar as the international currency at the beginning of the 20th century. As for André Cartapanis, the dollar and the euro are into a stable hierarchical configuration : the dollar being an undisputed international currency and the euro a brilliant second. A purely economic analysis does not explain this supremacy, as the international currency also responds to specific political factors and the euro does not offer, on this level, the same attributes that the U. S. dollar. Patrick Artus gives an investor’s outlook : global imbalances will remain but will move due to the ongoing shrinking of the Chinese commercial surpluses and acute attention is now payed to the quality of the assets of central banks balance sheets. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré stresses the unbalances between the relative weights of the real and the financial sectors in both emerging and developed
Écarts d’inflation et soutenabilité de la zone euro : les enseignements des indicateurs des conditions monétaires
Authors: Maâlel Nabil , Zarrad Olfa
Published: April 2015

Inflation Gaps and Sustainability of the Euro Zone : What Do the Monetary Conditions Indexes Tell Us ?

The existence of inflation gaps across the euro zone countries is a real preoccupation for policy makers. Diverging levels of inflation across a monetary union lead to various gaps of real interest rates among the member countries. These gaps of real interest rates can contribute to maintain both inflation and output gaps. Therefore, the impact of real interest rates can be compensated by the movements of the real effective exchange rate. The motivation of this paper is to test the effect of real effective exchange rate movements on output gaps within the euro area countries. Using the standard version of the monetary conditions index (MCI), which is a combination of the changes of interest rate and exchange rate from some arbitrary base period, we find that there is a compensation between internal and external monetary conditions (interest rate and exchange rate) for many economies of the euro zone members.

Classification JEL : E31, E42, E52, F31.
Biogeographic effects on early establishment of an invasive alien plant
Authors: Sun Yan , Müller‐Schärer Heinz , Maron John L. , Schaffner Urs
Published: April 2015

• Premise of the study: Biotic resistance is often studied in the context of how interactions between native biota and invading species influence the success of those invaders. Seldom, however, is the strength of “resistance” compared biogeographically, where the ability of a species to impede invader establishment is contrasted between an invader's native and introduced recipient community.

• Methods: We conducted an experiment to examine how community diversity influences seedling recruitment of a plant invader where it is native and contrasted with results previously published from introduced ranges. In Switzerland, we created recipient communities that varied in species and functional richness and invaded them, or not, with seeds of Centaurea stoebe, a native European plant that has been previously used in an identical experiment in North America, where it is a prominent invader.

• Key results: The biogeographic comparison revealed that the recipient community largely prevented C. stoebe seedling establishment at home (Switzerland), but not away (Montana, USA), and that diversity of the resident vegetation did not contribute to the effects observed in the introduced range.

• Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that differences in the biogeographic conditions and/or overall level of competition of resident community between the native and introduced range considerably suppresses seedling recruitment of the invasive plant, rather than resident diversity itself. In the case of C. stoebe, the surprisingly low establishment success in the experiments conducted in the native compared with the introduced range is likely to be influenced by the higher level of competition with resident community, by abiotic environmental conditions or interactions between these two factors in the native range. Release from factors suppressing seedling recruitment at home may contribute to the successful invasion of C. stoebe in North America.
The preparation of new functionalized [2.2]paracyclophane derivatives with N-containing functional groups
Authors: Hopf Henning , Narayanan Swaminathan Vijay , Jones Peter G
Published: April 2015

The two isomeric bis(isocyanates) 4,12- and 4,16-di-isocyanato[2.2]paracyclophane, 16 and 28, have been prepared from their corresponding diacids by simple routes. The two isomers are versatile intermediates for the preparation of various cyclophanes bearing substituents with nitrogen-containing functional groups, e.g., the pseudo-ortho diamine 8, the bis secondary amine 23, and the crownophanes 18 and 19. Several of these new cyclophane derivatives (18, 19, 22, 26, 28) have been characterized by X-ray structural analysis.
« Élargir les espaces de rationalité ». Une proposition pastorale de Benoît XVI
Authors: Piola Alberto
Published: April 2015

À plusieurs occasions, dans les premières années de son pontificat, Benoît XVI a repris la thèse de la nécessité d’« élargir les espaces de la rationalité ». En fait, déjà avant d’accéder à la papauté, Ratzinger avait développé une riche réflexion sur le concept de raison, inséparable de la foi et qui ne peut s’auto-limiter à une rationalité positiviste. Une raison « élargie » : telle est celle qui fut proposée dans l’intervention célèbre de Ratisbonne en 2006 ; l’Église est appelée aujourd’hui à proposer une foi amie de l’intelligence, en particulier dans son rapport avec la science et face aux défis que lance l’athéisme scientifique.
Moines et moniales dans la ville. Les Fraternités de Jérusalem
Authors: Delfieux Pierre-Marie
Published: April 2015

Les Fraternités monastiques de Jérusalem ont été fondées en 1975 à Paris et ont essaimé, depuis lors, dans plusieurs villes d’Europe. Le Père Delfieux met ici en lumière quelques-unes des options de théologie spirituelle à la base des fraternités dans leur lien avec la ville : la valeur du désert, le travail, l’adoration, l’écoute de l’Écriture, une prière qui soit d’abord en Dieu, prière du Dieu Trinitaire en nous, et tout cela dans l’Église, Épouse du Christ et notre Mère.
Consumers' Involvement on (Re)Engineering Store Design
Authors: Di Blasi Gianpiero , Pantano Eleonora
Published: April 2015

The emerging need to make more attractive physical stores for catching new clients and maintaining the existing ones pushes retailers to develop efficient practices for acquiring knowledge from consumers and involving them in the points of sales' design. The final users' needs and preferences are considered a core in design process. This chapter proposes a system for involving consumers in the store design process through an innovative cloud participatory platform. It is a low cost hardware/software architecture offering a user-friendly interface able to be adopted by audiences with different background. Results show the consumers' interest to contribute in the design by using such technologies and providing a large amount of detailed information useful for future appealing stores' development. Finally, this chapter shows how the inclusion of modern low-cost game technologies in retail industry might provide ripper effects in several disciplines such as human-computer interaction, marketing, and management.
The Role of Social Media in U.S. County Governments
Authors: Cumbie Barry A. , Kar Bandana
Published: April 2015

This study investigates the influence of citizens' socio-economic characteristics on the presence of social media in county-level government. E-government is ostensibly citizen-driven and therefore variation in an area's demographics would likely impact a government's utilization of emerging technology, such as social media. Despite its transformative potential and widespread adoption, e-government development beyond basic stages has been sluggish. Social media is transforming the nature of interaction among individuals and organizations and has the potential to overcome some of the restrictive challenges of e-government. Understanding if, how, and to what end governments are harnessing social media will help make e-government a citizen-driven, democratic, transparent, and trustworthy platform. County governments are challenged by their size, resource scarcity, heterogeneous service area (urban and rural), and varying population density; thereby preventing them from gaining a critical mass of online users. By exploring social media's role in e-government as related to citizen demographic factors, this study reveals an important paradoxical role of social media in government: operational ineffectiveness as a necessary precursor for exception events. Additional results reveal the presence of digital divide - counties with higher median household income and educational qualification tend to have social media presence in their e-government sites, which is also not related to population growth of the counties.
Influential Factors for E-Government Success in the Middle East
Authors: Franke Roland , Kroenung Julia , Born Friedrich , Eckhardt Andreas
Published: April 2015

Due to strong budgetary restrictions on the one hand, and increasing citizens' demands on the other, e-government initiatives often represent a combination of prestige projects and financial necessity. However, to transform e-government initiatives from ambitious ideas into fruitful outcomes, several success factors have to be considered that vary from case to case, depending on the structural characteristics of the social, cultural, and political environment. Based on the e-government implementation success framework of and a case study of e-government implementation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this research extends the view of e-government implementations by focusing on the themes culture and demography and develops critical success factors subordinated to these themes. These include five factors determining the cultural component and four factors determining the demographic component, each of which influence the respective success or failure of large e-government projects.
Optimal Query Generation for Hidden Web Extraction through Response Analysis
Authors: Gupta Sonali , Bhatia Komal Kumar
Published: April 2015

A huge number of Hidden Web databases exists over the WWW forming a massive source of high quality information. Retrieval of this information for enriching the repository of the search engine is the prime target of a Hidden web crawler. Besides this, the crawler should perform this task at an affordable cost and resource utilization. This paper proposes a Random ranking mechanism whereby the queries to be raised by the hidden web crawler have been ranked. By ranking the queries according to the proposed mechanism, the Hidden Web crawler is able to make an optimal choice among the candidate queries and efficiently retrieve the Hidden web databases. The Hidden Web crawler proposed here also possesses an extensible and scalable framework to improve the efficiency of crawling. The proposed approach has also been compared with other methods of Hidden Web crawling existing in the literature.