Two-tier Systems Research Articles

Governance Innovation and Enhancement: The New One-Tier Model of UBI Banca

On the basis of their experience and capitalism model, every country has developed different systems of corporate governance. For many years, in various European countries, there were debates on the opportunities and methods of harmonising European company law; in Italy, one of the most important change was the possibility for limited companies to choose between three management and supervision models: the Italian traditional model, the two-tier model (of German origin), and the one-tier model (of Anglo-Saxon origin). In our study we analyse one-tier and two-tier systems, first theoretically and legislatively and theirs application in Italian quoted companies in the banking sector. We selected this sector because limited banking companies were created in Italy in a recently period (2006-2007), as a result of national amalgamation and merger operation. We illustrate an important case in depth, namely the governance system at UBI Banca as a phenomenological case. Main study’s objective is to analyse transition of UBI Banca from the two-tier model (2007) to the one-tier model (2018), identifying the main causes and reasons for this choice.

Marked effects of lateral displacement on the optical transmission properties of stacked artificial dielectric systems composed of metallic sub-wavelength slit arrays

Metallic sub-wavelength slit-array slabs act just like dielectrics when the incident wavelength is longer than the slit interval. However, their stacked structures do not always exhibit optical properties equivalent to conventional dielectric multilayers, which should be due to the lateral periodicity. This work investigated in detail the lateral displacement dependence on the characteristics of the Fabry–Perot-like waveguide resonance modes of two-tier systems. Simulation studies clarified the behavior of the resonance modes and the physical mechanism underpinning the transmission disappearance by the lateral displacement. Furthermore, we determined that the critical frequency, above which the even-order modes exhibit blue-shifts with increases in the air gap spacing, can be predicted very accurately using a simple equation including the lateral displacement. Additionally, the transmission characteristics assessed experimentally were compared with the simulation results. The geometrically-tunable unique optical characteristics are expected to promote the future applications of artificial dielectrics operating in low-frequency optical regions.

Analysis of price competition in two-tier service systems

This article focuses on the issue of price competition of two private service providers (SPs) in a market with a free public SP. The two private SPs, differentiated by service quality and capacity, choose the optimal prices to maximise their own profits. It has been shown that such a price competition between the private SPs in a market with a public SP reaches a pure Nash equilibrium. Such a system with both private and public SPs is called a two-tier service system. We investigate the impact on the social welfare of the two-tier service system of the competition and collaboration between the two private SPs. In addition, we also examine the impact of the public SP’s competitive advantage on customer service and the private SP’s pricing strategies and their performance. Numerical examples are presented to generate managerial insights for practitioners.

On influence and compromise in two-tier voting systems

We examine two aspects of the mathematical basis for two-tier voting systems, such as that of the Council of the European Union. These aspects concern the use of square-root weights and the choice of quota.Square-root weights originate in the Penrose square-root system, which assumes that votes are cast independently and uniformly at random, and is based around the concept of equality of influence of the voters across the Union. There are (at least) two distinct definitions of influence in current use in probability theory, namely, absolute and conditional influence. These are in agreement when the underlying random variables are independent, but not generally. We review their possible implications for two-tier voting systems, especially in the context of the so-called collective bias model. We show that the two square-root laws invoked by Penrose are unified through the use of conditional influence.In an elaboration of the square-root system, Słomczyński and Życzkowski have proposed an exact value for the quota q=q∗ to be achieved in a successful vote of a two-tier system, and they have presented numerical and theoretical evidence in its support. We indicate some numerical and mathematical issues arising in the use of a Gaussian (or normal) approximation in this context, and we propose that other values of q may be as good if not better than q∗. We discuss certain aspects of the relationship between theoreticians and politicians in the design of a two-tier voting system, and we reach the conclusion that the choice of quota in the square-root system is an issue for politicians informed by theory.

INVESTIGATION OF THE DYNAMICS OF NONLINEAR MECHANICAL SYSTEMS WITH LONG POWER LINES THROUGH DIGITAL MODELING

Many of the mechanisms used in industry contain input and output links connected by long lines of force. Increasing the efficiency and service life of mechanical systems with long lines is of great importance for the country's economy. For a more rational use of these devices, it is important to maintain these operating modes with maximum accuracy, usually including the required speed of the actuator and the voltage in the lines. Such parameters can spontaneously change depending on the operating conditions of the system. In the presence of various influences, similar tasks to determine the marked regimes and parameters indicating the need for their change can be solved only with the help of the corresponding theory and research methods. The article presents the problems and the method of studying two-tier mechanical systems with an infinite number of degrees of freedom on the basis of the equations of momentum and moment of momentum in differential form. Transformations with the use of well-known wave equations are proposed, which made it possible to explicitly take into account the oscillations of the speeds of motion and stresses in the force lines of mechanical systems when describing dynamic processes. The solution of systems of partial differential equations is given using the Laplace transform, which made it possible to obtain general equations of motion and, after some simplifications, proceed to ordinary differential equations that take into account the dynamic features of systems with distributed parameters. The modernized Runge-Kutta method obtained solutions and carried out numerical simulation of transient processes in the hydraulic drive, the results of which have good convergence with full-scale experiments.

A Two-Tier System for On-Demand Streaming of 360 Degree Video Over Dynamic Networks

360° video on-demand streaming is a key component of the emerging virtual reality and augmented reality applications. In such applications, sending the entire 360° video demands extremely high network bandwidth that may not be affordable by today’s networks. On the other hand, sending only the predicted user’s field of view (FoV) is not viable as it is hard to achieve perfect FoV prediction in on-demand streaming, where it is better to prefetch the video multiple seconds ahead, to absorb the network bandwidth fluctuation. This paper proposes a two-tier solution, where the base tier delivers the entire 360° span at a lower quality with a long prefetching buffer, and the enhancement tier delivers the predicted FoV at a higher quality using a short buffer. The base tier provides robustness to both network bandwidth variations and FoV prediction errors. The enhancement tier improves the video quality if it is delivered in time and FoV prediction is accurate. We study the optimal rate allocation between the two tiers and buffer provisioning for the enhancement tier to achieve the optimal trade-off between video quality and streaming robustness. We also design periodic and adaptive optimization frameworks to adapt to the bandwidth variations and FoV prediction errors in realtime. Through simulations driven by real LTE and WiGig network bandwidth traces and user FoV traces, we demonstrate that the proposed two-tier systems can achieve a high-level of quality-of-experience in the face of network bandwidth and user FoV dynamics.

On Downs–Thomson paradox in two-tier service systems with a fast pass and revenue-based capacity investment

A two-tier service system consists of free and toll channels with its toll revenue reinvested in service capacity. In this study, we develop two models with revenue reinvestment in either the free or the toll system. Similar to the congestion problem in an urban transportation network, we investigate whether the Downs–Thomson paradox occurs in the cases where an additional free service capacity is increased. Based on the relations between the major performance measures (such as the customer waiting time, toll system revenue, and total social cost) and the key system parameters and decision variables (such as the traffic intensity, proportion of revenue invested in capacity expansion, toll system price, and service cost of the free or toll system), we find that the Downs–Thomson paradox in terms of total social cost may exist. The findings provide managerial insights if an additional budget is invested to expand the free service capacity.

TDDFS

With the rapid increase in the amount of data produced and the development of new types of storage devices, storage tiering continues to be a popular way to achieve a good tradeoff between performance and cost-effectiveness. In a basic two-tier storage system, a storage tier with higher performance and typically higher cost (the fast tier) is used to store frequently-accessed (active) data while a large amount of less-active data are stored in the lower-performance and low-cost tier (the slow tier). Data are migrated between these two tiers according to their activity. In this article, we propose a Tier-aware Data Deduplication-based File System, called TDDFS, which can operate efficiently on top of a two-tier storage environment. Specifically, to achieve better performance, nearly all file operations are performed in the fast tier. To achieve higher cost-effectiveness, files are migrated from the fast tier to the slow tier if they are no longer active, and this migration is done with data deduplication. The distinctiveness of our design is that it maintains the non-redundant (unique) chunks produced by data deduplication in both tiers if possible. When a file is reloaded (called a reloaded file) from the slow tier to the fast tier, if some data chunks of the file already exist in the fast tier, then the data migration of these chunks from the slow tier can be avoided. Our evaluation shows that TDDFS achieves close to the best overall performance among various file-tiering designs for two-tier storage systems.

Corporate governance in Indonesia: One decade perspective

This study aim in describing the development of research on corporate governance in Indonesia. The sample of the study consists of 101 articles from 10 Indonesian accredited journals at 2007-2017 periods. This research applies to chart the field method that classifies articles based on topic, disciplines and research methods. Most of the article (40 out of 101 articles) study the consequences of the emergence of corporate governance, such as the performance of the company and most of the article applies the analytical method (96 articles). However, the discussion on Indonesia institutional context, such as two-tier board systems, is still rare. The study mostly focuses on the monitoring function of the Board of Commissioners. Most of the study also investigated the effect of corporate governance practice on firm performance. Followed by the effect of corporate governance practice on disclosure. Further, most of the study conducted research on short periods (3.5 years). It is expected that this article provides a review of the recent development of corporate governance research in Indonesia and the opportunity to conduct the study. JEL Classification : G31, G32, G34 DOI : https://doi.org/10.26905/jkdp.v23i1.2182

Waveguide resonance mode response of stacked structures of metallic sub-wavelength slit arrays

Detailed measurements of the optical properties of two-tier systems composed of metallic plates perforated with periodic sub-wavelength slit patterns were carried out using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. We demonstrate that the transmission properties observed experimentally for various configurations can be reproduced successfully by simulations based on the finite-differential time-domain method. Fabry–Perot-like waveguide resonance mode behaviors specific to this quasi-dielectric system were then investigated. For structures with no lateral displacement between the slit-array plates, mode disappearance phenomena, which are caused by destructive interference between the odd-order mode and the blue- or red-shifted even-order modes, were observed experimentally. The uncommon behavior of the even-order modes was examined precisely to explain the slit-width dependence. For structures with half-pitched displacement between the plates, extraordinarily strong transmission was observed experimentally, even when the optical paths were shut off. This result was interpreted in terms of the propagation of surface plasmon polaritons through very thin and labyrinthine spacings that inevitably exist between the metallic plates. Furthermore, the optical mode disappearance phenomena are revealed to be characterized by anticrossing of the two mixing modes formed by even- and odd-order modes. These experimental observations that are supported theoretically are indispensable to the practical use of this type of artificial dielectric and are expected to encourage interest in optical mode behaviors that are not typically observed in conventional dielectric systems.

DNA vaccination for cervical cancer: Strategic optimisation of RALA mediated gene delivery from a biodegradable microneedle system

Dissolvable microneedles can be employed to deliver DNA to antigen presenting cells within the skin. However, this technology faces two main challenges: the poor transfection efficacy of pDNA following release from the microneedle matrix, and the limited loading capacity of the micron-scale devices. Two-tier delivery systems combining microneedle platforms and DNA delivery vectors have increased efficacy but the challenge of increasing the loading capacity remains. This study utilised lyophilisation to increase the loading of RALA/pDNA nanoparticles within dissolvable PVA microneedles. As a result, delivery was significantly enhanced in vivo into an appropriate range for DNA vaccination (∼50 μg per array). Furthermore, modifying the manufacturing process was not detrimental to the microneedle mechanical properties or cargo functionality. It was demonstrated that arrays retained mechanical and functional stability over short term storage, and were able to elicit gene expression in vitro and in vivo. Finally, treatment with this novel formulation significantly retarded the growth of established tumours, and proved superior to standard intramuscular injection in a preclinical model of cervical cancer.

The Dialogue between the Chairman of the Board and Investors: The Practice in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany and the Future of the German Corporate Governance Code Under the New Chairman

The dialogue of the board and its chairman with investors is an established practice in many countries, such as the United Kingdom, the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and recently also Germany. In the UK this dialogue covers the whole range of relevant board topics, certainly including good corporate governance aspects such as the composition of the board and the remuneration of the directors as well as good corporate culture and ethics in the corporation. In Germany this dialogue may also take place between the chairman of the supervisory board and institutional investors; this is firmly established in the practice of most of the DAX-30-corporations, and some other corporations follow the trend. This practice is taken up by many codes of good corporate governance, for example in the UK Corporate Governance Code 2014 and the UK Stewardship Code 2012 as well as in the Corporate Governance Codes of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the USA and since 2017 also in the German Code. The investor dialogue involving the chairman of the board, both in the one-tier and the two-tier systems, is legal and legitimate, but it has three main limits: insider trading and market abuse, company secrets, and equal treatment of the shareholders. The latter limit creates practical problems which are met by the various codes in different ways. While the competence for investor relations is primarily with the CEO viz. the chairman of the management board, the chairman of the (supervisory) board should also be available – within reasonable limits – to discuss supervisory board-related issues with investors. This has been rightly suggested by the German Corporate Governance Code, though it has met with certain doctrinal concerns. In many countries this dialogue is not restricted to the chairman of the board but extends to other board committe chairmen, to the senior independent directors and sometimes to all directors. It can be expected that the chairman of the board’s dialogue with investors will sooner or later not only become a general practice, but that it will also be considered to represent good corporate governance.

Network Slicing Based 5G and Future Mobile Networks: Mobility, Resource Management, and Challenges

5G networks are expected to be able to satisfy users' different QoS requirements. Network slicing is a promising technology for 5G networks to provide services tailored for users' specific QoS demands. Driven by the increased massive wireless data traffic from different application scenarios, efficient resource allocation schemes should be exploited to improve the flexibility of network resource allocation and capacity of 5G networks based on network slicing. Due to the diversity of 5G application scenarios, new mobility management schemes are greatly needed to guarantee seamless handover in network-slicing-based 5G systems. In this article, we introduce a logical architecture for network-slicing-based 5G systems, and present a scheme for managing mobility between different access networks, as well as a joint power and subchannel allocation scheme in spectrum-sharing two-tier systems based on network slicing, where both the co-tier interference and cross-tier interference are taken into account. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed resource allocation scheme can flexibly allocate network resources between different slices in 5G systems. Finally, several open issues and challenges in network-slicing-based 5G networks are discussed, including network reconstruction, network slicing management, and cooperation with other 5G technologies.

Robust power allocation based on hierarchical game with consideration of different user requirements in two-tier femtocell networks

In this paper, we focus on optimal power allocation for uplink transmission in two-tier femtocell networks, where femtocells share the same frequency with macrocells. Due to dynamic communication environment, channel gains are actually uncertain. A probabilistic constraint is formulated to describe the uncertainty closely. To satisfy the different service requirements and design objectives for macrocell users and femtocell users, we adopt the framework of hierarchical game with a multiple-leader-multiple-follower model. The purpose of the problem under investigation is to propose a robust hierarchical game method with the targets of enhancing the robustness of two-tier network systems and maximizing the utilities of all users. A distributed iterative power algorithm is provided for the problem to obtain the game equilibrium. Moreover, it also demonstrates the game equilibrium is unique. Finally, numerical results are given to illustrate the performance of this scheme.

Investigation on IMCP based clustering in LTE-M communication for smart metering applications

Machine to Machine (M2M) is foreseen as an emerging technology for smart metering applications where devices communicate seamlessly for information transfer. The M2M communication makes use of long term evolution (LTE) as its backbone network and it results in long-term evolution for machine type communication (LTE-M) network. As huge number of M2M devices is to be handled by single eNB (evolved Node B), clustering is exploited for efficient processing of the network. This paper investigates the proposed Improved M2M Clustering Process (IMCP) based clustering technique and it is compared with two well-known clustering algorithms, namely, Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchical (LEACH) and Energy Aware Multihop Multipath Hierarchical (EAMMH) techniques. Further, the IMCP algorithm is analyzed with two-tier and three-tier M2M systems for various mobility conditions. The proposed IMCP algorithm improves the last node death by 63.15% and 51.61% as compared to LEACH and EAMMH, respectively. Further, the average energy of each node in IMCP is increased by 89.85% and 81.15%, as compared to LEACH and EAMMH, respectively.

YIELD UNCERTAINTY AND MILK SUPPLY RESPONSE IN TWO-TIER PRICE SYSTEMS

AbstractIn two-tier price systems, yield uncertainty creates incentives to overproduce quantity-restricted outputs even when prices for surplus output are very low. These incentives arise from precautionary motives against expected losses from quota shortfalls. Using an approach augmented for multiple input applications, the likelihood of excess production and the relative importance of price changes in different markets are estimated for Icelandic dairy farms. The results indicate that the average farm plans to exceed its quota, and price changes in the surplus milk market are approximately three times more effective in generating supply response than price changes in the quota milk market.

Energy Allocation and Cooperation for Energy-Efficient Wireless Two-Tier Networks

In this paper, we consider the resource allocation in two-tier wireless systems in which small-cell base stations harvest energy from renewable sources in addition to the conventional power grid. Moreover, we assume that each cell has access to an energy storage system with a limited battery capacity. We introduce new mechanisms that enable an efficient allocation of the available energy over time across the network. In doing so, we take into account the time-varying fading channel, the inter-cell interference and the fluctuations of harvested energy. In particular, we propose convergent offline algorithms to maximize the network energy efficiency while satisfying an average sum-rate constraint at each cell. Furthermore, we extend the resource allocation scheme by enabling an energy cooperation between the cells. By cooperating, they can exchange their harvested energy through a smart-grid power infrastructure. Using numerical simulations, we verify the convergence of the proposed algorithms and analyze the efficacy of the resource allocation and energy cooperation schemes.

Robust power control for femtocell networks under outage-based QoS constraints

This paper studies a robust uplink power control scheme with imperfect channel state information (CSI) in two-tier femtocell network systems. Aiming at enhancing the system’s robustness, we formulate an outage-based robust optimization problem. Specifically, we focus on two scenarios including partial CSI feedback and no CSI feedback. In the former scenario, channel gain error vectors obey multivariate Gaussian distributions. We propose a novel transformation method, which is based on Q-radial distribution, to obtain the closed-form expressions. In the latter scenario, channel gain includes path loss attenuation and Rayleigh fading. For the complex channel models, a novel method is given to extract closed-form approximations. Then, two iterative algorithms are provided. Also, admission control algorithm is applied. Finally, simulation results are given to show the validity of our proposed algorithms.

Internal quality control in point-of-care testing: where's the evidence?

ISO 22870 standards require protocols for performance of internal quality control for all point-of-care testing devices and training of users in its theory and practice. However, the unique setting of point-of-care testing (i.e. processes conducted by non-scientific users) means that laboratory internal quality control programmes do not easily translate to point-of-care testing. In addition, while the evidence base for internal quality control within the laboratory has been increasing, the equivalent literature surrounding point-of-care testing is very limited. This has led to wide variation in what is considered acceptable practice for internal quality control at the point of care. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that internal quality control is an area of deficiency in point-of-care testing. Internal quality control protocols used at point-of-care testing should be defined based on risk management. The protocol will therefore be dependent on analyser complexity and availability of inbuilt system checks, the risk associated with release of an incorrect patient result as well as frequency of use. The emphasis should be on designing an effective internal quality control protocol as opposed to the inherent tendency of introducing high-frequency quality control. Typically a simple pass or fail criterion is used for internal quality control in point-of-care testing based on whether internal quality control results fall within assigned ranges. While simply taught, such criteria can require broad internal quality control ranges to decrease the probability of false rejection (also reducing the probability of error detection). Customized internal quality control ranges, two-tier acceptance systems and assay-specific internal quality control can be used to improve error detection rates.

Analysis of two-tier public service systems under a government subsidy policy

Some public service systems such as healthcare systems consist of both free public service provider with a long wait time and paid private service provider with a short wait time. Such service systems are often called a two-tier service system. In general, more customers will choose the free service provider (SP). To reduce the congestion in the free system, the government may encourage customers to use the pay system by offering them a subsidy. This paper studies whether such a subsidy can reduce the free system’s waiting time and improves the social welfare. While the objective of the free system is to maximize its own total customers’ utility, the objective of the pay system is to maximize its profit. We develop a mixed duopoly game to analyze the Nash equilibrium for the competition between the free and toll systems. Two scenarios with unregulated and regulated prices are considered. When the pay system price is unregulated (the private SP can set prices freely), we find that if customers are less sensitive to the service delay, the subsidy policy can effectively reduce the expected waiting time for the free system and increase the customer utility surplus of the entire two-tier system. However, if customers are more sensitive to the service delay, the subsidy policy may have the opposite effect. When the pay system price is regulated (the price determined by government), the subsidy policy can effectively reduce the expected waiting time for the free system and improve the social welfare of the two-tier system. And there exists an optimal regulated price to maximize the social welfare of the entire public service system.