Notice Period Research Articles

NPA Woes SARFAESI – Brahmastra in Bankers’ Hands

One of the biggest challenges facing banks is the huge Non Performing Accounts. Even though the picture looks gloomy, there are effective tools in the hands of banks to recover NPA accounts. Among these tools, taking action under SARFAESI Act is the most powerful method to recover NPAs. Through SARFAESI action banks can recover their dues, without going through the hassles of filing a case in a civil court. The article presents the systematic approach for SARFAESI action and step-by-step procedure. There are certain eligibility criteria for taking action under SARFAESI, such as the minimum in account balance and the balance outstanding as a percentage of money already recovered from the borrower. The first step is to issue a Demand Notice giving 60 days’ time to the borrowers/mortgagors for paying the full dues. If the borrower/guarantor needs clarification on the contents of the notice, the bank has to send a reply for the same. After the notice period, the bank takes possession of the property. Such possession can be either actual possession or a symbolic possession. Possession notice is dispatched to the borrowers/mortgagors. It is also published in two newspapers. A fresh valuation is taken and the SARFAESI committee discusses and arrives at the floor price for auction. A sale notice is issued and the borrowers/ mortgagors are given 30 days’ time for repayment of dues. Steps are simultaneously taken for making the auction a success. E-auction is conducted and the sale is concluded. The sale proceeds are credited to the NPA account. The article gives certain Court judgments relating to banks taking action under SARFAESI Act. SARFAESI action will certainly bring the desirable results and the bank dues can be recovered within 100 days, if the steps are taken with utmost care and caution.

Predictive-Maintenance Approach Uses Machine Learning To Increase Efficiency

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper OTC 28990, “Increasing Production Efficiency Through Compressor-Failure Predictive Analytics Using Machine Learning,” by D. Pandya, A. Srivastava, A. Doherty, S. Sundareshwar, C. Needham, A. Chaudry, and S. Krishnalyer, Shell, prepared for the 2018 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 30 April–3 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Copyright 2018 Offshore Technology Conference. Reproduced by permission. This paper focuses on compressor systems associated with major production deferments. An advanced machine-learning approach is presented for determining anomalous behavior to predict a potential trip and probable root cause with sufficient warning to allow for intervention. This predictive-maintenance approach has the potential to reduce downtime associated with rotating-equipment failures. Introduction The first step in using a machine-learning system is to train the model to identify normal and abnormal operating conditions. The model can then classify real-time data from the equipment and indicate when the equipment’s performance strays outside the identified steady state. The ability to identify anomalies is a major difference between the proposed approach and traditional monitoring tools. With advances in digital technologies, correlations and warnings can be achieved in a matter of minutes, allowing engineers to take appropriate preventative action when they receive a failure warning. The authors used historical data for 2016 in their analysis of system efficiency in predicting failures. The proof-of-concept system correctly predicted 11 trip events over the course of the year, almost 50% of the 23 failures that occurred during that period. One of the more important findings was that the machine-learning model predicted many failures hours in advance. In one case, it gave 36 hours’ notice. The median period of notice for eight events that were subsequently analyzed was approximately 7 hours. Support Vector Machines (SVMs) SVMs are used in this study as a classifier for detecting abnormal machine states. SVMs were developed for binary classification. Some authors have argued that the SVM classifier has better results compared with techniques such as linear discriminant analysis and back-propagation neural networks. The compressor usually operates under normal working conditions. This poses a highly unbalanced problem for a two-class classification. Because of this, one-class classification using an SVM is implemented. The algorithm is trained on only normal data and creates a representation of this data. When the new points inferred are substantially different from the modeled class, they are labeled as outliers. Linear as well as radial kernel functions are explored. One of the properties of SVMs is that they may create a nonlinear decision boundary by projecting the data through nonlinear function to a space in higher dimension (Fig. 1). The one-class SVM creates a binary function that captures the region in the input space where most of the data exist. The function, thus formed, returns +1 for the region defined by training data points and –1 everywhere else.

Consumer exploitation and notice periods

Firms often set long notice periods when consumers cancel a contract, and sometimes do so even when the costs of changing or canceling the contract are small. We investigate a model in which a firm offers a contract to consumers who may procrastinate canceling it due to naive present-bias. We show that the firm may set a long notice period to exploit naive consumers.

The immediate futures of health law after Brexit: Law, ‘a-legality’ and uncertainty

The European Union (EU) is a rules-based international organisation with an exceptionally dense legal system. Likewise, the ways in which EU law has effects in domestic law are determined by (constitutional) law. The legal rights and obligations entailed for state and ‘third sector’ entities, companies and human beings of some 45 years of membership have had significant effects on domestic health law across the United Kingdom, even though health per se is a national competence. That said, the EU’s relationships with national legal orders are also determined by the politically possible. We therefore sketch the key legal questions for UK health law, and health law in each of the ‘devolveds’, in two possible immediate post-Brexit futures. By immediate future, we mean after 29 March 2019, the date on which the Article 50 TEU notification period ends. It will not be possible to answer these legal questions until the politics have crystallised into legal texts, which is not the case at the time we write. We go on to argue that the ways in which UK health law, policy and practice are currently determined by the UK’s membership of the EU, coupled with the short time frame within which the future EU-UK relationship must be determined, mean that law may be expected to be less of a determinant in immediate post-Brexit futures than it is at present. Our principal conclusion is that the uncertainties that surround the process of Brexit mean that at a level of specific policy and practice, such as in areas of health law, we might expect a period of ‘a-legality’, where the legal position of actors does not necessarily determine or explain their actions.

Estimating Deformations of Laboratory Structures Subjected to Loadings Using Images Collected with Phone Camerase

A Fundamental civil engineering knowledge is the ability to understand, explain and calculate deformations of/in civil structures. New civil engineers acquire this knowledge at universities in material science, engineering mechanics and introduction to structural engineering modules. Structural deformations can be calculated when knowing material properties, geometry and boundary conditions of a structure and loads that are applied on/to it. Inverse engineering can be employed if deformations of a structure are known, but some other parameters are not known. Theoretical formulae are then tested using laboratory test beds, usually beams. Laboratory technicians are responsible for the acquisition of deformation measurements of laboratory tests. Their time is often limited and so is the number of available measurement collection devices such as dial gauges and strain gauges. If devices that do not log measured deformations are employed, information of structural deformations or response might be lost or readings might not be collected at required intervals. However, all laboratories do not offer luxury of sensors that are available at hand and technicians, which would have time to install sensors and collect data when needed, especially if this has to be done within a short period of notice. This paper introduces a low-cost vision-based system for deformation estimations of laboratory structures.

Spatio-temporal variability of dryness/wetness in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin and correlation with large-scale climatic factors

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin (MLYR) are greatly affected by frequent drought/flooding events and abrupt alternations of these events in China. The purpose of this study is to analyze the spatial and temporal variability of dryness/wetness based on the data obtained from 75 meteorological stations in the MLYR for the period 1960–2015 and investigate the correlations between dryness/wetness and atmospheric circulation factors. The empirical orthogonal function method was applied in this study based on the monthly Standardized Precipitation Index at a 12-month time scale. The first leading pattern captured the same characteristics of dryness/wetness over the entire MLYR area and accounted for 40.87% of the total variance. Both the second and third leading patterns manifested as regional features of variability over the entire MLYR. The cross-wavelet transform method was applied to explore the potential relationship between the three leading patterns and the large-scale climate factors, and finally the relationships between drought/wetness events and climate factors were also analyzed. Our results indicated that the main patterns of dryness/wetness were primarily associated with the Nino 3.4, Indian Ocean Dipole, Southern Oscillation Index and Northern Oscillation Index, with the first pattern exhibiting noticeable periods and remarkable changes in phase with the indices.

Fábrica de Vidrios Los Andes, C.A. & Owens-Illinois de Venezuela, c.a. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, ICSID Case No. ARB/12/21, Award, 13 November 2017

In an ICSID decision dated 13 November 2017, the Fábrica tribunal took an approach on the interpretation of consent under Article 72 of the ICSID Convention contrary to other ICSID tribunals before it. The tribunal found that it lacked jurisdiction in the case despite the Claimants filing the application before Venezuela’s denunciation of the ICSID Convention was to take effect. The tribunal held that the Claimants had not satisfied the standard of consent and that consent under the ICSID Convention is not unilateral but must be perfected to establish jurisdiction under the Convention. Although other tribunals in contextually similar cases have instead interpreted Article 71 of the ICSID Convention to assert their jurisdiction, the tribunal in the present case differentiated between Articles 71 and 72 of the Convention to arrive at a contrary conclusion. The impact of this decision is likely to be extensive, as a State party has essentially been allowed to strategically withdraw from the ICSID Convention with immediate effect and without due regard to the six-month notice period. The success of the majority shareholders of the Claimant company in the parallel arbitration precludes the suggestion of a denial of justice. However, the tribunal’s decision on jurisdiction brings uncertainty to the formerly uncontested significance of observing the given notice period before a denunciation of the ICSID Convention can be effected.

Employment Protection Measures for Termination on Economic Grounds in Quebec and Canadian Federal Law

In Canada, an employer has a right, without prior administrative authorisation, to abolish a position or reduce its workforce on economic grounds. An employee who loses his/her job on such grounds is entitled to a period of notice of termination or compensation in lieu of such notice under the applicable ordinary law or, under employment standards legislation, to a statutory notice or compensation in lieu thereof in the case of individual or group termination. In certain provinces or under fe...

Reviewing The Effectiveness of Uk Drug Horizon Scanning Efforts & The Production of Nice Commentary Along Therapeutic Specialties

The National Institute for Health Research Innovation Observatory is responsible for notifying the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE) of new drugs & indications prior to market authorisation (MA). This constitutes the first step in NICE's topic selection, and the desired notification period is 600 days for new drugs, 450 for new indications. This research aims to explore the success of previous horizon scanning at meeting notification requirements as well as the speed at which NICE commentary was produced. All publically available NIHR horizon briefs between 2006 and Q12017 were collated and segmented by specialty area. Of the resulting 1060 briefings, 223 were examined across 5 distinct specialties. The product, briefed indication, and notification date were identified, and the pertaining MA status within the United Kingdom and availability of NICE commentary were determined for each product & briefed indication. Resulting notification & commentary time periods were compared across product, specialty and label groups. 114/223 of the examined products were authorised (or likely soon to be authorised) in the UK for their briefed indications. The average notification period across all specialties was ~790 days for new drugs (85/114) and ~640 days for new indications (29/114). For all relevant drugs with NICE commentary (99/114), the average period between MA and commentary was ~500 days. Clear differences in average notification & commentary periods were seen between specialties (e.g. 20/21 Infectious Disease products had quicker-than-average commentary periods). For both new drugs & indications, the average notification period was significantly better than required, but differences between products & specialties indicate that improvements across groups can be made. Likewise, differences in average commentary periods also suggest that efficiencies might be gleaned from certain specialty areas, though the precise cause of these differences (beyond the mere impact of the specialty group) would require further elucidation.

Money laundering: further clarity provided by the Court of Appeal on the operation of the consent regime

PurposeTo summarise a key development that provides clarity for banks on the operation of the money laundering provisions in the UK Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.Design/methodology/approachThe article provides the background leading up to the UK Court of Appeal hearing, the key issues in the appeal, the decision of the court and what this means for banks in the UK.FindingsThe Court of Appeal held that (i) where a bank suspects that money in its customer’s account is criminal property, freezes the account and seeks consent to deal with the money, the court should not intervene during the course of the seven-working-day notice period and 31-day Moratorium Period and (ii) in most cases the discretion to grant an interim declaration is unlikely to be exercised.Practical implicationsThis decision is important for banks and brings much-needed clarity. Prior to the Court of Appeal decision, it was open to customers to challenge a bank’s decision to freeze an account (pending a response from the NCA to a consent request) on the basis that, on a balance of convenience, payments from a bank account should be permitted to be made.Originality/valuePractical guidance from an experienced lawyer specialising in complex investigations, litigation dispute resolution and regulatory enforcement proceedings for financial institutions and large corporations.

Mobbing in Turkish labor law

Although the Labor Code is not a direct regulation of mobbing, the worker protective structure of the Labor Code creates a protective structure if it is inadequate against some behaviors that can be described as mobbing. A worker who is incompatible with the cost of equal treatment may claim another compensation for a compensation fee of up to four months. In accordance with Article 24/2 / b of the Labor Code, if the words to be said for the honor and honor of the worker are spoken or if they are committed, the worker's employment contract may be terminated for good cause before the end of the employee or without waiting for the notification period. The employer can also make mobbing by making constant changes in working conditions. According to the Labor Code m.22; If the employer makes a significant change in the working conditions, he must report the situation in writing to the worker. Changes that the worker does not accept in writing do not affect the worker.

Too Big to Ignore? Hedge Fund Flow and Bond Yields

This paper investigates the information content of aggregate hedge fund flow and its predictive power with respect to bond yields. Using a sample of 9,725 hedge funds from a combined data set of five hedge fund databases from 1994 to 2012, we find that dollar outflows have greater predictive power than inflows, and flows related to the largest 25% of hedge funds are more informative than flows of smaller funds. Dollar outflow from big funds predicts increases in both government and corporate bond yields, after controlling for other determinants of yield changes, suggesting that funds liquidate bonds in their portfolios to meet liquidity needs. After 2003, the strongest predictive power is associated with funds that impose short notice period prior to redemption, which is consistent with a fire sale hypothesis.

An Efficient Proposed MAC Protocol for M2M Networks

Machine to machine (M2M) communications refer to the technology that enables huge number of devices to be wired or wireless communication with each other’s. Neither the contention based medium access control (MAC) protocols nor the reservation based MAC protocols can provide a flexible, scalable solution for M2M networks. That is because of the huge number of communicating devices. In this paper, an efficient proposed MAC protocol for M2M networks is suggested. It is divided into three periods, namely the notification, the contention and the transmission periods. During the contention period, the contention is occurred with equal probabilities between the devices which have traffic to be sent. The non-persistent carrier sense multiple access protocol is selected for the contention strategy. In the notification period, the devices get information about the contention state. Furthermore, the transmission time slots location for the succeeded ones are announced. Finally, in the transmission period, the packets from each successful contended device are sent. This is done using time division multiple access (TDMA) strategy in the reserved time slot. Moreover, more than one device can transmit in one TDMA slot as long as the signal to interference plus noise ratio condition is not violated. In addition, the analytical analysis of the proposed MAC protocol is produced. Furthermore, extensive simulation programs are executed using MATLAB to measure the system performance. The system throughput, average delay time, and packet collision ratio are our performance metrics. Further, our MAC protocol outperforms other traditional ones.

Recovering Managerial Risk Taking from Daily Hedge Fund Returns: Incentives at Work?

Analyzing a sample of hedge funds that report daily returns to Bloomberg, we document a high nonlinearity and a strong seasonal pattern in managerial risk taking. During earlier months of a year, poorly performing funds reduce their risk. The risk reduction is stronger for funds with higher management fees, shorter notice periods prior to redemption, and recently deteriorating performance, which is consistent with a managerial aversion to early fund liquidation and to the loss of future management fees. Towards the end of a year, on the contrary, poorly performing funds gamble for resurrection by increasing risk. The risk increase is not purely driven by high-water mark provisions and incentive fees, which points towards the existence of other incentives, like reporting good performance at year end.

Significance of psychological stress response and health-related quality of life in spouses of cancer patients when given bad news

Objective:This study illuminates the degree of psychological stress response experienced by spouses of cancer patients when given bad news at three different times (notification of the name of the disease, notification of recurrence, and notification of terminality) as well as the factors that influence the response and the health status of the spouse as measured by health-related quality of life (QOL).Methods:A total of 203 individuals (57 men and 146 women) who had received the three types of news were surveyed using a self-report questionnaire on psychological stress response, marital satisfaction, and health-related QOL scales.Results:The degree of the psychological stress response was the highest for notification of terminality, followed by notification of the name of the disease, and notification of recurrence. The influencing factors varied depending on the notification period. Although no significant difference was observed for health-related QOL among the three notification types, significant differences were observed for certain items when compared with national standard values.Conclusions:When a notification of terminality, which produced the highest psychological stress response, is given, providing care that considers health-related QOL is necessary not only for patients but also for their spouses.

2017/6 Danish Supreme Court holds there is no duty to reassign an employee during the notice period (DK)

2017/6 Danish Supreme Court holds there is no duty to reassign an employee during the notice period (DK)

Atomic layer deposition of tantalum oxide thin films using the precursor tert-butylimido-tris-ethylmethylamido-tantalum and water: Process characteristics and film properties

In this work, the precursor tert-butylimido-tris-ethylmethylamido-tantalum (TBTEMT) was applied for the atomic layer deposition (ALD) of tantalum oxide (Ta2O5) thin films for the first time. Water was used as the second reactant. A self-limiting, and hence, ALD-like film growth was confirmed in the temperature range from 100 to 300°C. The temperature window of this process extends from 250 to 300°C and features a growth rate of about 0.56Å/cycle. For lower temperatures, the growth rate increases gradually up to 0.92Å/cycle at 100°C. At a deposition temperature of 200°C, the process showed perfect layer-by-layer growth with 0.64Å/cycle and without any noticeable incubation period on both silicon with native oxide and hydrogen-terminated silicon. In addition, the conformal coating of structures with an aspect ratio of 40:1 is demonstrated as well.According to XPS analyses, the films are oxygen rich (Ta:O ratio around 0.34±0.01 for films grown at 150–300°C) and contain a significant amount of carbon (6±2at.%) and some nitrogen (<3at.%). The film densities, refractive indices and dielectric constants increase with increasing deposition temperature and are as high as 8.0±0.1g/cm3, 2.25 and 31, respectively. Films grown at 200°C are amorphous and smooth. They exhibit a film density of 7.8±0.1g/cm3, a refractive index of 2.17 (at 550nm) and a dielectric constant of 26±1. However, the films suffer from high leakage currents (>10−4A/cm2). In addition, electrical measurements revealed the formation of an interfacial layer between the Ta2O5 films and bare silicon. By using substrates with a thin thermally grown silicon oxide, the leakage could be reduced by three orders of magnitude.Post-deposition annealing at 800°C in nitrogen resulted in the crystallization of the Ta2O5 films, which is also accompanied by an increase in film density and refractive index. Moreover, the crystallized films exhibit an enhanced dielectric constant of 48±2. Electrical measurements revealed the growth of an interfacial layer with an equivalent oxide thickness of around 2.4nm due to the 800°C annealing. While this interfacial layer degrades the effective permittivity of the dielectric (e.g. 20.5±0.5 for a 20nm Ta2O5 film), it also causes a reduction of the leakage currents by more than three orders of magnitude (e.g. to 1·10−7A/cm2 for a 20nm Ta2O5 film).

Procedural Requirements of Terminating Employees Contract b yEmployer without Employee Fault in Foreign Countries

Globalization in the economy affects the legal regulation, in particular the legal regulation of labour asone of the main business costs are the costs associated with employees, in particular wages, salary,other payments. Besides, investors are attracted by the ability to respond quickly to the changing situationin the economy. It depends in particular on the possibility to dismiss those employees abundant forenterprise development. At the current stage of world economic development, lawmakers have facedthe challenge to maintain the attractiveness of local labour law for employers and at the same timestrengthen the protection of labour rights, in particular termination the employment contract without employee’sfault. Foreign lawmakers solve this issue in different ways. The purpose of the legal regulationis balancing the interests of employer and employee. The means of ensuring that balance differ. In particular,it depends on the specific legal regulations in each country. The criteria for the comparison wereas follows: the form of preventing the termination of the employment contract; criteria for determiningthe notice period; the presence or absence of state authority notice of the employees; the need for coordinationdismissal of employees with the state body. The main provisions of the procedural requirementsfor individual dismissals in Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, Romania, France, Switzerlandwere analyzed. The legal regulation of the termination of the employment contract by the employer withoutthe employee’s fault in foreign countries is characterized by the following common features: the rightof an employer to dismiss an employee on the grounds stipulated by the legislation in compliance witha specific procedural requirements; the lack of a disciplinary offense as a reason to disciplinary action,under which an employer may take such kind of disciplinary action as dismissal; the presence of noticeto the employee to be dismissed. The analysis of legal regulation of terminating the employment contractallows selecting three models: the country with prevailing regulatory flexibility over rigidity; countrieswith dominating regulatory rigidity over flexibility; the country with a mixed approach.

Employment Protection Reform, Enforcement in Collective Agreements and Worker Flows

We analyze a reform of notice periods for employer‐initiated separations in Sweden, which reduced the notice periods for newly hired older workers substantially but implied minor or no changes in the advance notices for younger workers. The reform was initiated at different times depending on collective agreement. These circumstances provide ample opportunity for the identification of its effects. Our findings indicate heterogeneous effects on hirings and separations across collective agreements.

Hydrolysis of polylactide in aqueous media

ABSTRACTIn this study, two commercial polylactide (PLA) grades with different d‐lactate contents were subjected to hydrolysis in neutral, acidic, and alkaline aqueous media at temperatures above the glass transition. We monitored the hydrolysis process by means of tracking the changes in the molecular weight distribution, weight loss, water uptake, and PLA crystallinity as a function of time. In both, neutral and acidic media, hydrolysis showed an initial induction period over which no weight loss was observed, whereas the average molecular weight dropped drastically. After this initial period, the weight loss increased rapidly, whereas the molecular weight decreased slowly. Additionally, in alkaline media, hydrolysis occurred mainly through a surface‐erosion process; this resulted in a simultaneous molecular weight decrease and weight loss without a noticeable induction period. An autocatalytic mechanism was assumed in neutral and acidic media to describe the hydrolysis kinetics. The measured molecular weight decrease over time was successfully described by a two‐stage exponential model. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 44152.