Generic Contract Research Articles

An Intent-Driven Closed-Loop Platform for 5G Network Service Orchestration

The scope of the 5G network is not only limited to the enhancements in the form of the quality of service (QoS), but it also includes a wide range of services with various requirements. Besides this, many approaches and platforms are under the umbrella of 5G to achieve the goals of end-to-end service provisioning. However, the management of multiple services over heterogeneous platforms is a complex task. Each platform and service have various requirements to be handled by domain experts. Still, if the next-generation network management is dependent on manual updates, it will become impossible to provide seamless service provisioning in runtime. Since the traffic for a particular type of service varies significantly over time, automatic provisioning of resources and orchestration in runtime need to be integrated. Besides, with the increase in the number of devices, amount, and variety of traffic, the management of resources with optimization becomes a challenging task. To this end, this manuscript provides a solution that automates the management and service provisioning through multiple platforms while assuring various aspects, including automation, resource management and service assurance. The solution consists of an intent-based system that automatically manages different orchestrators, and eliminates manual control by abstracting the complex configuration requirements into simple and generic contracts. The proposed system considers handling the scalability of resources in runtime by using Machine Learning (ML) to automate and optimize service resource utilization.

Contract duration: Barrier or bridge to successful public-private partnerships?

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are predominantly executed through the use of formal contracts which define the relationship between a public agency and private supplier. As such, a PPP is not a generic contract between buyer and supplier but rather a specific contractual arrangement between a public buyer and private supplier. The contract captures the responsibilities of each party in achieving a specific set of performance objectives. Given budgetary pressures faced by public agencies, there is an increasing need for suppliers to make investments which could reduce future-year costs of meeting contract performance objectives. This research addresses two overarching questions specific to the issue of private, supplier-side investment. First, “how does public agency and private supplier perception of risk influence contract duration?” and second, “how does contract duration influence private investment?” To answer these questions, structured interviews were conducted with those in public agencies and private, supplier firms actively engaged in PPPs. Factors suspected to contribute to the risk position of public and private actors were evaluated. Additionally, linkages between public buyer-private supplier risk position, contract duration and private, supplier-side investment were addressed. Outcomes suggest properly structured long-term contracts may: 1) provide the risk mitigation mechanisms needed for both public and private actors, and 2) facilitate private, supplier-side investment.

Preparedness for clinical research during pandemics: a perspective from the Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-)emerging Epidemics (PREPARE)

BackgroundA new or re-emerging infectious disease pandemic ranks among the highest priorities for civic contingency planning. Despite advances in preclinical and clinical research methods, patient-centered clinical research is not effectively embedded in outbreak responses to inform clinical management of patients and public health responses. Prefunded clinical research networks offer a solution but require well-specified processes for rapid response. We aimed to define a model for how a prefunded clinical research network, Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-)emerging Epidemics (PREPARE), could rapidly respond at the earliest stages of a new or re-emerging infectious disease outbreak. MethodsTo develop and test the operational framework, we consulted with multiple stakeholders and facilitated tabletop simulation exercises in Lisbon (May 3, 2017), Brussels (Oct 3, 2017), and Berlin (May 14, 2018). Delegates simulated clinical research planning and delivery, based on PREPARE's operational capabilities, in response to infectious disease outbreak scenarios. Meeting outcomes informed iteration of an operational framework. FindingsWe developed an operational framework to detail how PREPARE is triggered, and escalates and de-escalates a response. On receipt of a valid trigger signalling an infectious disease outbreak, a rapidly convened expert committee determines the scale and scope of a proportionate clinical research response in one of three outbreak response modes (preparation, mobilisation, response). Modes are defined by the risk to the health and security of European citizens and the need for clinical research contribution. An operational team develops and delivers bespoke outbreak-relevant research plans through research-active clinical research networks across Europe. Simulation exercises have rehearsed the consortium's response to a hypothetical influenza pandemic and estimate it would take up to 3 weeks for existing sites to be open to patient recruitment. A tiered approach and amendment of existing protocols, contracts, and study materials enable a rapid response. However, ethical, regulatory, administrative, laboratory, and logistic bottlenecks present an ongoing challenge to rapid research deployment. Pragmatic solutions have been mapped, including expedited regulatory review, generic contracts, and modified research enrolment procedures. InterpretationPREPARE's outbreak capability is an important step forward in delivering clinical research during an infectious disease pandemic. When properly aligned with public health activities, both patient outcomes and public health responses will benefit from sustained clinical networks. PREPARE's operational framework may be adapted for use by clinical trial networks operating in different global regions. FundingPREPARE is funded by the European Commission's FP7 programme (grant agreement 602525).

A strongly polynomial Contraction-Expansion algorithm for network flow problems

This paper addresses the solution of the capacitated minimum cost flow problem on a network containing n nodes and m arcs. Satisfying necessary and sufficient optimality conditions can be done on the residual network although it can be quite time consuming as testified by the minimum mean cycle-canceling algorithm (MMCC). We introduce a contracted network which exploits these conditions on a much smaller network. Since the construction of this contracted network is very flexible, we study its properties depending on the construction choice. A generic contraction algorithm is then produced around the contracted network. Interestingly enough, it turns out it encapsulates both the MMCC and primal network simplex algorithms as extreme cases. By guiding the solution using a particular expansion scheme, we are able to recuperate theoretical results from MMCC. As such, we obtain a strongly polynomial Contraction-Expansion algorithm which runs in O(m3n2) time. There is thus no improvement of the runtime complexity, yet the expansion scheme sticks to very practical observations of MMCC’s behavior, namely that of phases and jumps on the optimality parameter. The solution time is ultimately significantly reduced, even more so as the size of the instance increases.

Book Review: Justin A. Williams, Rhymin’ and Stealin’: Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop

Book Review: Justin A. Williams, Rhymin' and Stealin': Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop. University of Michigan Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0472-11892-2 (Hardcover). 280 pages. $60.00.[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2014 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]Misattributed to Elvis Costello and proliferated on the web, the quote Writing about music is like dancing about is pertinent to in both the quote's intention and its misinformation. If there is any newly developed academic field as adamant in its purpose but murky in its definition, surely studies qualify. No one taking up a pad and pen to analyze does so without having a clearly stated mission to demystify and invariably to celebrate a African American music culture that is as ubiquitous as it is hard to identify. But what is also at stake, especially when a study attempts to recognize a sensible chronology of the aesthetics of culture, are thorny issues of cannon and essentialism. Maybe the question we should ask is this: can we write about the architecture of a music that makes people dance?Justin William's Rhyming and Stealing: Musical Borrowing in HipHop takes up this cause wielding the sometimes obtuse but imaginative theories of ethnomusicology. After digesting the heavy verbiage of William's approach, we are left with an inventive take on the imagined community of that values not only production of the music by its creators but its reception by audiences. Further, it is an analysis of the industry itself from recording techniques through advertising campaigns to the places and spaces in which the listener experiences the music. As new technologies and/or the shifting socio-economic landscape alter production and reception, Williams deftly notes the change in the sound and ideas of music from the 1970s to the turn of the century.The lens of William's focus is the concept of borrowing, an inescapable feature of culture. From its inception in the Bronx in the mid 70s, whether lyrically, musically or visually, has deliberately and defiantly recycled culture for its own ends. Swarms of post modernists and copyright lawyers alike have reacted with valueladen responses and actions that sometimes imbue purpose and intention to these borrowed acts for their own ends. William's work here refreshingly discusses this topic with objectivity and an elaborate eye for cultural associations. As he proclaims, hip-hop is a vast intertexual network that helps to form and inform the generic contract between audiences and groups and artists. (14)The author is able to detail this network with painstaking and thorough research - both of theoretical nature and actual recordings. Far too often academic studies of equate cultural shift with popularity, essentializing the role of the record industry. As the author puts it, focusing on the metagenre overlooks the nuances of the culture, unintentionally duplicating patterns of reductive analysis prone often to mass media. His intention is purposely devoid of establishing an authenticity hierarchy or to praise ideal types of expression in contrast to others. Williams does not ignore popular rap recordings but rather carefully contextualizes each recording or artist he discusses with less famous examples via footnote, bibliography or selected discography. While this is commonplace for most disciplines, Rhymin ' and Stealin ' is noteworthy alone for this organization of studies sources.As a result, Williams pieces together an important chronology of the development of hip-hop's musical aesthetics. First, Williams identifies the primacy of the break beat, the original records used by south Bronx DJs in outdoor parks or public housing recreational rooms. …

Derivative pricing under asymmetric and imperfect collateralization and CVA

The importance of collateralization through a change of funding cost is now well recognized among practitioners. In this article, the authors have extended previous studies of collateralized derivative pricing to more generic situations, i.e. asymmetric and imperfect collateralization with the associated counterparty credit risk. By introducing the collateral coverage ratio, their framework can handle these issues in a unified manner. Although the resultant pricing formula becomes a nonlinear forward–backward stochastic differential equation and cannot be solved exactly, its first-order approximation is provided using the Gateaux derivative. The authors have shown that it allows one to decompose the price of a generic contract into three parts: a market benchmark, a bilateral credit value adjustment (CVA), and a collateral cost adjustment (CCA) independent of the credit risk. Each term is studied closely, and the significant impact is demonstrated of asymmetric collateralization through CCA using numerical examples.

La organización “Londres 38”: De la memoria extenuada al antagonismo de los cuerpos colectivos

It is analyzed how the position of Londres 38 (Yucatán quarter) as part of the terrorist device of the State, entails the prioritization of the containment of a specific type of socio-political forces connected with communities of indigenous peoples, peasants, shantytowns, fabric workers, and other forms of humble life. All this was causing a process in which these socio-political forces became exterior to the constitutive dichotomies of the humanist socialism that was part of the "cold war" (class/party, ideology/conscience, the political/the social). It is emphasized that violations were practiced primarily on human bodies, and not rights, understanding in general terms the state terrorism, that between these bodies a concrete materiality is extended (not a simple abstract social or generic contract) that made it possible to replace the common body of society. This notion of a common body, allows a different understanding of the transcendence of the struggles for memory fought in relation to Londres 38. It is not only sought to preserve the memory of state terrorism, but, fundamentally, to expose memory as a collective resource, of what remains common, powerfully refractory to the principle of individual private property, potentially socialist.

Derivative Pricing under Asymmetric and Imperfect Collateralization and CVA

The importance of collateralization through the change of funding cost is now well recognized among practitioners. In this article, we have extended the previous studies of collateralized derivative pricing to more generic situation, that is asymmetric and imperfect collateralization with the associated counter party credit risk. By introducing the collateral coverage ratio, our framework can handle these issues in an unified manner. Although the resultant pricing formula becomes non-linear FBSDE and cannot be solve exactly, the fist order approximation is provided using Gateaux derivative. We have shown that it allows us to decompose the price of generic contract into three parts: market benchmark, bilateral credit value adjustment (CVA), and the collateral cost adjustment (CCA) independent from the credit risk. We have studied each term closely, and demonstrated the significant impact of asymmetric collateralization through CCA using the numerical examples.

In Search of Reasonable Executive Compensation

This article makes several observations on the extent of executive compensation and the forms it takes, relating these to the recent literature. I argue that the magnitude of executive compensation seems excessive in light of a wide range of academic studies. I then propose specific regulatory measures that make compensation transparent and predictable for shareholders. Next, a simple taxation of executive compensation above a certain threshold is proposed; I argue that it is a much more efficient way to deal with the issue, than the current legislation in the United States. Turning to the ‘pay for performance’ paradigm, I argue that it must be applied with great care, as, along with the incentives to exert effort it also provides powerful perverse incentives, which are not immediately obvious, may vary dramatically across firms, and may not be well understood by the compensation committees and academics. I outline the design of several generic contracts appropriate for different environments. Finally, I stipulate that the downside of providing too much ‘pay for performance’ is especially evident in financial industry, which is opaque and subject to contagion, thus compensation contract should play a more important role in financial regulation. (JEL codes: G30, K22, M50)

Long memory testing for Fed Funds Futures’ contracts

In this paper, the evaluation of the long memory in returns and volatilities of returns of the daily prices of closing of 6 future generic contracts of Fed Funds negotiated in the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) is performed. This evaluation is also made for the spreads between prices of these generic contracts for the evaluation of the transmission of the effects of shock in the interest rates for the various horizons of expectations until 6 months. The study uses the classical R/S analysis for the determination of the Hurst exponent and the bootstrap through moving blocks for the determination of the standard error of the exponent. Long memory for the returns and for the volatility of the returns of the studied future contracts was identified, which suggests that the Monetary Authority of the United States has been able to maintain the stability of the interest rates in spite of shocks, or that the American economy is not significantly affected by shocks. The results of this paper also suggest that the adjustments of the expected interest rates of the Fed Funds occur quickly for the various horizons, not presenting long memory for the returns of the spreads, but for volatility.

Contracting with health-care customers and specialists for the provision of telemedicine services across European borders: the TEN-Telemed Legal Project.

Two generic contract models have been developed to resolve the legal and ethical issues that arise when contracting for telemedicine services across Europe. Model 1 relates to the risks and responsibilities of the expert providing and specialist opinion and the telemedicine service organization, while model 2 outlines the risks and responsibilities from the perspective of the client seeking the advice and (again) the telemedicine service organization. These contracts express the legal rights and responsibilities of each of the parties involved.

Monstrous Opera: Rameau and the Tragic Tradition, and: English Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London: Stephen Storace at Drury Lane (review)

Reviewed by: Monstrous Opera: Rameau and the Tragic Tradition, and: English Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London: Stephen Storace at Drury Lane William Weber Charles Dill. Monstrous Opera: Rameau and the Tragic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). Pp. xx + 197. $39.95 cloth. Jane Girdham. English Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London: Stephen Storace at Drury Lane (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Pp. xiv + 272. $89.00 cloth. These two studies have more in common than one might suppose. Rameau and Storace may seem apples and oranges, but Charles Gill and Jane Girdham each studies an opera composer in reference to larger social contexts, and generally to good effect. And they both approach the music in intelligent critical terms, trying to establish what was better and worse in the musician’s work. Charles Dill’s Monstrous Opera is a broad, original, and very interesting work. Its main goal is to study the relationship of Jean-Philippe Rameau to his public, starting from Jeffrey Kallberg’s conceptualization of the contract between composer and listeners. “What makes Rameau’s operas significant is at least in part that they serve as a ground upon which the composer [End Page 157] and his audiences contested the issues related to authorship” (xv). He begins with the puzzle of what Rameau’s omission of recitative from the edition of Les Indes Galantes had to do with his interaction with the public; he ends up concluding that, “however entertaining it might have been, Rameau’s work represented the failure of the generic contract between composer and public, the failure of the circuit through which artist and audience communicated” (138). Dill’s argument is that Rameau began his work on tragédie en musique with a dramatic approach that went far beyond its origins in the productions of Jean-Baptiste Lully and that challenged his audiences to listen on an unusually serious plane. But when he made revisions to these works he drew back from that goal, providing either simple word painting or light divertissement. Dill quotes Friedrich Melchior Grimm in arguing that the 1756 version of the 1748 Zoroastre amounted to a “trivialization” of the story by Cahusac (119). What that involved was the tension between music and poetry in the French context, the pressures to keep music in a subservient position to the drama. Dill makes a lucid discussion of the problem, showing the complexities by which Voltaire approached opera. The problem with this thesis, however, is that it draws a terribly exaggerated dichotomy between tragedy and what Dill persists in calling mere “entertainment.” In using that term he draws upon the extreme cultural values of our massified society; he makes Rameau’s revised scores serve virtually as background music. He does not go so far as to say that people did not listen, and indeed illustrates the vitality of the audience’s engagement with what it heard. But he fails to grasp how vague and contradictory eighteenth-century people were in defining the more casual or serious genres and cultural experiences. Dill neglects to draw upon work by historians on the public, indeed the public sphere. My article on revivals of old works at the Opera, for example, published in the Journal of Modern History in 1984 (not cited), shows that after the 1750s Rameau’s works were performed far more impressively than he suggests. Nor are any of the important publications by the musicologist Elisabeth Bartlet named. Jane Girdham makes a marvelous contribution in studying the career in the London theatre made by Stephen Storace, a still much too little-known composer of significance. She does not approach her subject with quite the imagination that Charles Dill displays, but she accomplishes her tasks with great care and discernment. She starts from the premise that composing for the musical theater was by definition a collective effort for which one cannot ask too much idealism. She defines nicely just how Storace conducted his business, with whom, and under what practical circumstances. The book is a handy guide to the important details one might want to know about how English opera institutions operated. One of the more current issues Girdham takes up is borrowing—how Storace inserted...

Contraction numbers for additive correction methods

Generic contraction numbers are derived for a class of additive correction methods based on orthogonal projection. The only assumption on the range of the projector is that it contains the residual. This generalizes previous work of the authors on positive definite operators and provides convergence results for restarted generalized conjugate gradient methods under a variety of conditions.

A note on contraction numbers for additive correction methods

A generic contraction number is derived for the error of a class of additive correction methods based on orthogonal projection. The only assumption on the range space of the projector is that it contain the residual of the initial approximation.