Complete monotonicity of the probability of ruin and de Finetti’s dividend problem

This paper studies the complete monotonicity of the probability of ruinψin the the classical risk model and the classical risk model that is perturbed by a diffusion.As a byproduct,the authors give an alternative proof to a result on the optimal dividend problem due to LoefFen(2008).     

Measuring the Performance of a Research Strategic Plan System Using the Soft Systems Methodology’s Three ‘Es’ and the Viable System Model’s Indices of Achievement

We explore problems involving the measurement of the performance of a system. We outline two systemic approaches that have come from different epistemological positions: one from the interpretivist paradigm (soft systems methodology) and the other from the cybernetic paradigm (viable systems model). These two systemic methodologies that have tackled problems involving performance measurement are considered and discussed: (a) Checkland’s systems ideas of ‘managing and controlling’ a system throughout a set of three measures of performance: efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness; and (b) Beer’s concepts of Actuality, Capability, Potentiality of the firm and his claims that the performance of a system needs to be quantifiable and resumed on ‘pure’ numbers which should reflect the survivability of the firm. A parallel is drawn between the two approaches concluding that although the paradigms underpinning them are in some way different, the practicalities of these approaches to control, measure and improve the performance of a system are very similar. A case involving the measurement of a proposed research strategic plan for a Manchester Metropolitan University Business School’s department is used to illustrate the systemic approaches.     

“Towards Re-Inventing Psychohistory”:Predicting the Popularity of Tomorrow’s News from Yesterday’s Twitter and News Feeds

Rapid advances in machine learning combined with wide availability of online social media have created considerable research activity in predicting what might be the news of tomorrow based on an analysis of the past.In this work,we present a deep learning forecasting framework which is capable to predict tomorrow’s news topics on Twitter and news feeds based on yesterday’s content and topic-interaction features.The proposed framework starts by generating topics from words using word embeddings and K-means clustering.Then temporal topic-networks are constructed where two topics are linked if the same user has worked on both topics.Structural and dynamic metrics calculated from networks along with content features and past activity,are used as input of a long short-term memory(LSTM)model,which predicts the number of mentions of a specific topic on the subsequent day.Utilizing dependencies among topics,our experiments on two Twitter datasets and the HuffPost news dataset demonstrate that selecting a topic’s historical local neighbors in the topic-network as extra features greatly improves the prediction accuracy and outperforms existing baselines.     

Heilbronn’s Problem of Eight Points in the Square

Journal of Systems Science and Complexity - In this work the authors consider the problem of optimally distributing 8 points inside a unit square so that the smallest area of the...     

A Conceptual Framework Based on Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer to Explore the Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology

This paper explores Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) through the lenses of a theoretical framework that incorporates key concepts from Maturana’s Ontology of the Observer (OoO) with the view of complementing Checkland’s SSM application process. We outline and examine paradigmatic compatibility between: Checkland’s ontological position (reality is problematic/chaotic) together with his interpretivist epistemology (multiple perceptions enrich the ever-changing reality); and Maturana’s OoO (we are immersed in the praxis of living in an ontological multi-universe). We argue that OoO resonates with key SSM theoretical underpinnings. After establishing compatibility between these two influential systems thinkers, we advance a conceptual framework in which Checkland’s SSM learning process is re-visited through a the framework grounded on Maturana’s OoO. The proposed framework illustrates how key ideas drawn from Maturana’s OoO can shed light into the way in which some of the main SSM devices (i.e.: Root definitions, Conceptual model) are used in the SSM process. By doing that, SSM is enriched and becomes more flexible as the stakeholders involved are placed within the domain of constitutive ontologies from which, a deeper dialogue can be promoted in a domain of coexistence in mutual acceptance. We argue that this is a suitable way to have more flexible and holistic views for a SSM intervention in particular to promote the learning process and debating proposed changes amongst the stakeholders involved. The proposed framework, when applied, may enhance the power of SSM learning process and when adopted can have substantial implications to complement the SSM process.

     

The Vanguard Method as Applied to the Design and Management of English and Welsh Children’s Services Departments

This paper follows several case studies where the children’s services departments of English and Welsh local authorities have fundamentally redesigned the way they worked following the application of the Vanguard Method (Seddon, Systems thinking in the public sector, 2008), a particular form of systems thinking. After first studying the way the children’s social care service worked as a system, the social workers in these authorities were able to demonstrate the way that government-prescribed IT and performance measures were restricting the way they could do what was shown to matter to the children in their care. The paper will document how, after being granted ministerial permission to suspend the use of their old performance measures and IT, a new set of operating principles was developed and employed. The redesigned system has shown encouraging early results. Evidence from these case studies (following Yin 2009) is presented in the form of recorded operational improvements and statements from participants. The paper will be of topical relevance to all involved in social care in the light of the government-commissioned Munro Review (Munro, The Munro Review of child protection: final report, 2011). The issues discussed will also be germane to the many other public sector partner agencies involved in the delivery of social care services (e.g. police, health, housing associations).     

Evaluating the Impacts of Universal Two-Child Policy on Beijing’s Population

This paper explores the impacts of the universal two-child policy on Beijing's population in the long term. It gives a detail estimation of Beijing population considering the latest fertility and immigration policy and can help related government department management population. The cohortcomponent method based on a net migration was applied to project population by age for Beijing from2020 to 2050 in four fertility scenarios. The innovation is the estimation method of the mortality rate with the life table linked with life expectancy. The results show that, though the basic development trend of Beijing's population will not change essentially under the universal two-child policy, low birth rate and aging problems will be improved. Compared with the partial policy relaxation, the total population will be 876,478 persons more than that in 2050, the share of population aged 0–14 will increase 1.1 percentage points, and the aged dependency ratio will decrease 1.96 percentage points.Some measures should be taken to encourage more couples to have a second child and introduce more young talents to promote Beijing's prosperity.     

Chover’s law of the iterated logarithm for negatively associated sequences

<正> Consider a sequence of negatively associated and identically distributed random variableswith the underlying distribution in the domain of attraction of a stable distribution with an exponentin(0,2).A Chover's law of the iterated logarithm is established for negatively associated randomvariables.Our results generalize and improve those on Chover's law of the iterated logarithm(LIL)type behavior previously obtained by Mikosch(1984),Vasudeva(1984),and Qi and Cheng(1996)fromthe i.i.d,case to NA sequences.     

Impact of Crowdsourcee’s Vertical Fairness Concern on the Crowdsourcing Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Its Incentive Mechanism

This paper examines in detail the impact of the crowdsourcee's vertical fairness concern on the knowledge sharing incentive mechanism in crowdsourcing communities. The conditions for the establishment of the incentive mechanism are analyzed and the impact of fairness concern sensitivity on expected economic revenues of both sides as well as the crowdsourcing project performance is studied by game theory and computer simulation. The results show that the knowledge sharing incentive mechanism can only be established if the ratio between the performance improvement rate and the private cost reduction rate caused by shared knowledge is within a certain range. The degree of the optimal linear incentives, the private solution efforts, and the improvement of knowledge sharing level are positively correlated with the sensitivity of vertical fairness concern. In the non-incentive mode, the ratio between the performance conversion rate of private solution effort and the performance conversion rate of knowledge sharing effort plays an important role in moderating a crowdsourcing project's performance. The authors find that the number of participants is either conducive or nonconducive to the improvement of performance. The implementation of knowledge sharing incentive can achieve a win-win situation for both the crowdsourcer and the crowdsourcee.     

Leadership and Learning: A Critical Reexamination of Senge’s Learning Organization

From its inception the concept of the learning organization has been identified with a particular type of organization or new forms of organizational learning. But it is often forgotten that Senge’s ‘system thinking’ formulation of the learning organization was inseparable from an attempt to reformulate a new way of thinking about change agency and leadership in organizations. Here it is argued that Senge’s learning organization can be re-conceptualised as a partial fusion of ‘systems thinking’ and learning theories that leads to a concept of organizational learning as a form of ‘distributed leadership’. However, the concept is critically flawed because it cannot theorise the organizing practices by which learning to lead and leading to learn are shared or distributed in organizations. It is concluded that Senge’s under-theorized focus on distributed leadership consistently neglects issues of practice and issues of power. As such his work does not provide an exploration of the possibilities for increasing the dispersal of human agency, power, knowledge and autonomy within the workplace.     

The Coupling Relationships and Influence Mechanisms of Green Credit and Energy-Environment-Economy Under China’s Goal of Carbon Neutrality

Under the goal of carbon neutrality, it is critical for China to give full play to the role of green credit, and promote the coordinated development of energy-environment-economy (3E) system. Based on the data of China from 2000 to 2020, the authors build the environmental pollution index, energy transformation index and high-quality economic development index. By using Bayesian network model (BN), the authors investigate the coupling relationships and influence mechanisms of green credit and 3E system. The results show that the main cause of environmental pollution is the annual increase of carbon dioxide emissions. Green credit can reduce carbon emissions to a certain extent, and alleviate environmental pollution through energy structure, technological progress and per capita GDP. Clean energy utilization and per capita GDP growth also help to control environmental pollution. Green credit can stimulate technological progress and accelerate energy transformation together with technological progress. Clean energy utilization can facilitate the upgrading of industrial structure, industrial structure upgrading and green credit can restrict the level of opening up. Technological progress promotes per capita GDP growth. Per capita GDP growth can reduce energy intensity and improve urbanization and per capita energy consumption.

     

A Hybrid Approach for Studying the Lead-Lag Relationships Between China’s Onshore and Offshore Exchange Rates Considering the Impact of Extreme Events

Understanding the characteristics of the dynamic relationship between the onshore Renminbi (CNY) and the offshore Renminbi (CNH) exchange rates considering the impact of some extreme events is very important and it has wide implications in several areas such as hedging. For better estimating the dynamic relationship between CNY and CNH, the Granger-causality test and Bry-Boschan Business Cycle Dating Algorithm were employed in this paper. Due to the intrinsic complexity of the lead-lag relationships between CNY and CNH, the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm is used to decompose those time series data into several intrinsic mode function (IMF) components and a residual sequence, from high to low frequency. Based on the frequencies, the IMFs and a residual sequence are combined into three components, identified as short-term composition caused by some market activities, medium-term composition caused by some extreme events and the long-term trend. The empirical results indicate that when it only matters the short-term market activities, CNH always leads CNY; while the medium-term impact caused by those extreme events may alternate the lead-lag relationships between CNY and CNH.     

Self-evident Automated Proving Based on Point Geometry from the Perspective of Wu’s Method Identity

The algebraic methods represented by Wu’s method have made significant breakthroughs in the field of geometric theorem proving. Algebraic proofs usually involve large amounts of calculations, thus making it difficult to understand intuitively. However, if the authors look at Wu’s method from the perspective of identity,Wu’s method can be understood easily and can be used to generate new geometric propositions. To make geometric reasoning simpler, more expressive, and richer in geometric meaning, the authors establish a geometric algebraic system (point geometry built on nearly 20 basic properties/formulas about operations on points) while maintaining the advantages of the coordinate method, vector method, and particle geometry method and avoiding their disadvantages. Geometric relations in the propositions and conclusions of a geometric problem are expressed as identical equations of vector polynomials according to point geometry. Thereafter, a proof method that maintains the essence of Wu’s method is introduced to find the relationships between these equations. A test on more than 400 geometry statements shows that the proposed proof method, which is based on identical equations of vector polynomials, is simple and effective. Furthermore, when solving the original problem, this proof method can also help the authors recognize the relationship between the propositions of the problem and help the authors generate new geometric propositions.

     

The Changing Structural Dynamics of the Scottish Tourism Industry Examined Using Stafford Beer’s VSM

The structure of the Scottish tourism industry underwent a significant change upon the demise of the Area Tourist Board (ATB) on the 1st April 2005. The membership based ATB provided a means for engagement between institutional policy makers and private sector businesses. This engagement appears to have dissolved with the replacement structure being ineffective in bridging between the two parties. The aim of this paper is to examine the structural dynamics of the Scottish tourism industry focusing upon events that rotate around the demise of the Area Tourist Board (ATB) and attempt to explain why there has been an apparent breakdown in engagement. The material is drawn from interviews with industry participants and also primary documentary sources, many of which are available online. The analysis is conducted using Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM). The findings highlight the current incoherent structure at the level of the ‘Area’. Upon the demise of the ATB, Area Tourism Partnerships (ATPs) were set up, not to replace ATBs, but to provide a mechanism to serve Area needs. However, the demise of the ATB created a vacuum for an effective mechanism to deal with individual practitioner issues. This has led to the formation of groups but at the level of the locality. These local tourism groups are autonomous and analytically viable. The ATP is inadequate to bridge the gap between VisitScotland and these local groups. Whilst direct engagement between VisitScotland and these local groups has been enabled with the Challenge Fund, the conditions attached to an award compromise the autonomy of the groups. However, two ATPs have proposed the need for membership based groups to operate at the Area level. This suggests the return to a pseudo-ATB style structure.

The Analysis of the Auction Disposal and Pricing Decision of AMC＇s Non-performing Assets with Game Theoryd

Based on the analysis of the characteristics of AMC＇s non-performing asset auction, this paper puts forward a model of AMC＇s non-performing asset disposal with the Game Theory thinking, explored the Nash Equilibrium solution to the pricing model of AMC＇s non-performing asset auction, discussed the impact of the actual value of non-performing assets, auction disposal costs and other relevant elements on auction price, analyzed the pricing and decision-making mechanism of AMC＇s non-performing asset auction with Game Theory, and provided a theoretical guide for AMC to auction the non-performing assets in practice.     

A Systemic Approach to Eliciting and Gathering the Expertise of a ‘Knowledge Guardian’: an Application of the Appreciative Inquiry Method to the Study of Classical Dressage

This paper reports on a study in which an interpretive systems-based approach to knowledge elicitation, the Appreciative Inquiry Method (AIM), is used to elicit and record the expertise of what is referred to as a ??knowledge guardian??. A ??knowledge guardian?? is an individual who is a current repository and representative of some culturally-embedded knowledge which, for generations, has been passed on through teaching and apprenticeship, and continues to be so. Such knowledge is rich, complex and precious and merits protection. The knowledge guardian in this study is a Portuguese rider and teacher of Classical Dressage. His expertise relies heavily upon the ability to ??feel?? and explain such feeling in his teaching. The view of Classical Dressage that emerges from the study emphasises the importance of the individual??s psychological development and motivation to participate in the art due to a desire to experience ??brilliance??. The paper describes the process undertaken during the elicitation sessions and provides the models developed and used to facilitate the discussion. These models (Root Definition and Conceptual Model) are of the type commonly associated with Soft Systems Methodology. The paper also provides comments on the use of AIM, the knowledge recorded about Classical Dressage and the reflections of the two collaborators involved in the study.     

A Set of Conventions,a Model: An Application of Stafford Beer’s Viable Systems Model to the Strategic Planning Process

In contemplating better ways to manage, Stafford Beer says the big problem is that you are not determining absolute facts: you are establishing a set of conventions. Hence his view, that a model is neither true nor false: it is more or less useful. And while this paper suggests Beer’s Viable Systems Model (VSM) is overwhelmingly more, rather than less useful, that the VSM and its founding theories are virtually unknown at the level of everyday management begs the question, why? Over time we have learned about the usefulness of the VSM compared to other management theories, when used in the contest of the organisational strategic planning process. Thus through a sequence of diagrams based on Beer’s original drawings, we show how the VSM came to underpin a process for strategic planning in one organisation. The paper has three aims; to attach an everyday ‘common speak’ understanding to some of Beer’s work, to demonstrate how we have learned to appreciate the usefulness of the VSM and its associated diagrams and conventions and to suggest a link between the Action Research change methodology and Beer’s work.     

Towards an Effective Multi-Stakeholder Consultation Process: Applying the Imagine Method in Context of Abu Dhabi’s Education Policy

This paper is concerned with the many interleaving issues that emerge when engaging multiple stakeholders in decision-making. Whilst recognising the intrinsic value of group work and keeping in mind the numerous issues that obstruct group work (including multiple roles for participants, bias due to domination and distortion emerging from uneven group inputs), we applied the Imagine method to propose a new framework—the ‘Multiple Formation Consultation Framework’ (MFCF)—for organising effective multi-stakeholder consultations along the Policy Sciences Framework. Our proposed framework was applied in the context of education policy in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, where 24 small group formations were tasked and assessed in a systemic manner. Evidence from the exercise suggests that: (1) when moving participants from heterogeneous to homogenous groups, the working of the groups became more focused and the outcomes gained greater clarity in terms of the thinking of group members. (2) Yet, when groups moved from homogenous formations to heterogeneous, they became more inquisitive and explored broader aspects of the tasks at hand. (3) A repeat of the process over 2-day period where different members of the groups experience both homogenous and heterogeneous formations back and forth (in order to capture the unique value emerging from each composition) have led to more efficient and effective working and outcomes of the groups.     

An application of Ritt-Wu’s zero decomposition algorithm to the pseudo null Bertrand type curves in Minkowski 3-space

The Bertrand curves were first studied using a computer by Wu (1987). The same problem was studied using an improved version of Ritt-Wu’s decomposition algorithm by Chou and Gao (1993). This paper investigates the same problem for pseudo null Bertrand curves in Minkowski 3-space $ \mathbb{E}_1^3 $ \mathbb{E}_1^3 .     

The Continuous Improvement Grid: An Empirical Investigation into the Effectiveness of a Systems,and Action Research,Based Continuous Improvement Intervention,for ‘New’ Organisation Development

This paper is a rare example of a large scale (n = 1310), positivist, evaluation of an action research program. It documents how the Royal Navy used the principles of scholarly consulting and pragmatic science to develop, apply and review a systems based tool, and associated ‘new organisation development’ intervention, to help staff explore and share perceptions of working practices, in order to expand their awareness of their current work situation and so uncover opportunities for improvement. Survey results suggest that the majority of individuals found the interventions valuable and participants in the events enjoyed significantly higher levels of understanding of the organisation, and greater collective, and individual, benefit from it. Findings also provide empirical evidence of the importance of involvement to making successful change, especially when dealing with the change averse. Overall the experience, of which the action research based study and associated positivist survey were part, reinforce the importance of what is described as ‘normative realigning pedagogy’—helping people change by facilitating their generation of new forms of understanding.