Liquidity effects on oil volatility forecasting: From fintech perspective.

Fin-tech is an emerging field, inspiring revolutionary innovations in the financial field. It may initiate the evolutionary episode of the financial research, where volatility forecasting is a crucial topic in finance. For forecasting volatility, GARCH model is a prevailing model, however, further improvement of the GARCH model is still challenging. In this paper, we demonstrate how Fintech can play a part in volatility forecasting by employing a metaheuristic procedure called Genetic Programming. On the basis, we are able to develop a new volatility forecasting model, which can beat GARCH family models (including GARCH, IGARCH and TGARCH models) in a significant way. Since genetic programming is an evolutionary algorithm based on the principles of natural selection, this innovative work will be a breakthrough point in the financial area. The innovation of this paper demonstrates how GP technology can be applied in the financial field, attempting to explore the volatility forecasting area from the combination of new technology and finance, known as fintech. More importantly, when the formula of volatility forecasting is unknown as we introduce a new factor, namely, the liquidity factor, we unveil that how GP method can be helpful in determining the specific volatility forecasting model format. We thereby exhibit the liquidity effects on volatility forecasting filed from the fintech perspective.

Health, Wealth and the Price of Oil.

The correlation between health and wealth is arguably a very solidly established relationship. Yet that relationship may be reversing. Falling oil prices have raised (average) per capita incomes, worldwide. But from a long-run perspective they are a public health disaster. The latter is easy to see: low oil reduces the incentive to develop alternative energy sources and "bend the curve" of global warming. Their principal impact on incomes has been redistributional - Alberta and Russia lose, Ontario and Germany gain, etc. Zero net gain. But the price has fallen because technical progress in extracting American shale oil has forced the Saudis' hand. These efficiencies have real benefits for (average) incomes, but costs for long-run health. A compensating carbon tax is an obvious response.

Fuel poverty and the health of older people: the role of local climate.

BACKGROUND: Fuel poverty is a risk factor for ill-health, particularly among older people. We hypothesized that both the risk of fuel poverty and the strength of its detrimental effects on health would be increased in areas of colder and wetter climate. METHODS: Individual data on respiratory health, hypertension, depressive symptoms and self-rated health were derived from the 2008/09 wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Climate data for 89 English counties and unitary authorities were obtained from the UK Met Office. Multilevel regression models (n = 7160) were used to test (i) the association between local climate and fuel poverty risk, and (ii) the association between local climate and the effect of fuel poverty on health (adjusted for age, gender, height, smoking status and household income). RESULTS: Individual risk of fuel poverty varied across counties. However, this variation was not explained by differences in climate. Fuel poverty was significantly related to worse health for two of the outcomes (respiratory health and depressive symptoms). However, there was no significant effect of climate on fuel poverty's association with these outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Although there is regional variation in England in both the risk of fuel poverty and its effects on health, this variation is not explained by differences in rainfall and winter temperatures.

Pressure cooker ownership and food security in Aurangabad, India.

OBJECTIVE: To explore associations between household food security and home gardening, use of soya and pressure cooker ownership in low-income households affected by HIV/AIDS in Aurangabad, India. DESIGN: Cross-sectional pilot study which assessed household food security using the validated US Department of Agriculture's food security core-module questionnaire. Questions were added to explore household environment, education, occupation, home gardening, use of soya and pressure cooker ownership. Households with very low v. low food security were compared using logistic regression analysis, controlling for confounding by socio-economic status. SETTING: Aurangabad is an urban setting situated in a primarily agricultural dependent area. The study was carried out in 2008, at the peak of the global food crisis. SUBJECTS: Adult caregivers of children affiliated with the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Aurangabad. RESULTS: All except for one of 133 households were identified as food insecure (99.2 %). Of these households, 35.6 % had to cut size or skip a meal in the past 30 d. Households that cut meal size due to cooking fuel shortages were more likely to have very low food security (OR = 4.67; 95 % CI 1.62, 13.44) compared with households having no cooking fuel shortages. Owning a pressure cooker was shown to be protective against very low food security after controlling for confounding by socio-economic status (OR = 0.27; 95 % CI 0.11, 0.64). CONCLUSIONS: Only pressure cooker ownership showed a protective association with low household food security. Pressure cookers save household fuel costs. Therefore, future interventions should explore pressure cookers as a sustainable means of improving household food security.

Power to the people: working-class demand for household power in 1930s Britain.

The 1930s witnessed an intense struggle between gas and electricity suppliers for the working class market, where the incumbent utility­gas­was also a reasonably efficient (and cheaper) General Purpose Technology for most domestic uses. Local monopolies for each supplier boosted substitution effects between fuel types­as alternative fuels constituted the only local competition. Using newly-rediscovered returns from a major national household expenditure survey, we employ geographically-determined instrumental variables, more commonly used in the industrial organization literature, to show that gas provided a significant competitor, tempering electricity prices, while electricity demand was also responsive to marketing initiatives.

Probabilistic estimation of the economic effect of operating accidents in the oil and gas industry.

Performance of the company staff is determined by the proficiency of available personal resources. Some of the respective key indicators could be influenced by planner, but most of them are out of direct control. This opens the strong demand on reliable prediction modeling. Decision maker is interested not only in knowing of labor supply/demand situation, but also about the proficiency and reliability of employees. Presented work is intended to find out, which statistical methods are suitable for certain aspects of the staff planning process. General broad modeling of stochastically changing workforce availability numbers could be considered like a description of the random events observation. These events could be categorized and forecasted by the mean of further development of NPI (nonparametric predictive inference) method suggested by Augustin and Coolen. Its capability to learn from multinomial data, especially such as strongly influenced by business environment, geography, state policy, etc., extracted from market reports, and induced from managerial experience seems to be promising. After demand and supply of workforce is forecasted, manager must start the process of hiring. Individual staff evaluation is also quite challenging because of lack or incorrectness of initial information about possible profile type of the candidate. Dempster-Shafer Theory may be good one, but speaking of "gambles" could disappoint many HRspecialists. So, adaptation of the Theory of Adaptive Utility proposed by Houlding and Coolen is assumed as perspective tool for solving this problem. HR decision maker can also follow this kind of sequential process. When the completion of team and groups is done, the labor activity begins. Here, each employee demonstrates his performance rate, qualification and reliability. In this case interaction between workers is strongly matters. Conditional probability is in charge of that kind of evaluation and therefore Bayesian schemes and Walley technique are further developed and applied. Dismissed employees flowing out of the firm again into workforce market and will be available for other companies, also for competitors. Feedback to initial step is recommended.

Impacts of biofuels on climate change, water use, and land use.

Governments worldwide are promoting the development of biofuels in order to mitigate the climate impact of using fuels. In this article, I discuss the impacts of biofuels on climate change, water use, and land use. I discuss the overall metric by which these impacts have been measured and then present and discuss estimates of the impacts. In spite of the complexities of the environmental and technological systems that affect climate change, land use, and water use, and the difficulties of constructing useful metrics, it is possible to make some qualitative overall assessments. It is likely that biofuels produced from crops using conventional agricultural practices will not mitigate the impacts of climate change and will exacerbate stresses on water supplies, water quality, and land use, compared with petroleum fuels. Policies should promote the development of sustainable biofuel programs that have very low inputs of fossil fuels and chemicals that rely on rainfall or abundant groundwater, and that use land with little or no economic or ecological value in alternative uses.

Medium- to long-run implications of high food prices for global nutrition.

The combined food, fuel, and financial crises of 2007-2009 had severe and widespread negative impacts around the world. Two key questions challenging governments were: how long would the high prices last and with what effects on food security and nutrition over the longer run? This paper considers the drivers of the crisis and explores if, unlike past shocks, the recent price increases reflect structural changes in food price formation that will have lasting global implications. New cross-commodity relationships allowed prices to spike, although there was no shortage of food at the global level nor indeed a significant downturn in recent yields. Yet recent record levels of farm production were also mirrored by growing numbers of people chronically undernourished and/or micronutrient deficient. The gap between supply and need was underpinned by growing urban demand, consumption of processed and higher-value foods (including meat), biofuel policy, and purchasing power erosion, but also by short-term market-distorting policies implemented by governments responding to perceived shortages of food. Thus, the impact of future food price crises will depend largely on what policymakers chose to do in response to the peaks and what they do not do during the troughs. Appropriate investments are urgently needed not just in smallholder developing country agriculture, but in effective food policies and targeted programming that can reverse the recent negative trends in nutrition and that support access globally to improved diet quality as well as food quantity.

Using census data to travel through time in New Zealand: patterns in journey to work data 1981-2006.

AIM: Little comprehensive longitudinal evidence exists regarding the association between work-related travel modes and oil prices for the New Zealand population. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to document work-related travel behaviours in New Zealand adults and oil prices over time. Examining this relationship may lead to a greater understanding regarding how best to promote sustainable transport modes, which is important for improving public health outcomes, such as increasing physical activity engagement, enhancing air quality, and reducing traffic-related injuries. METHOD: Work-related travel data were obtained from the New Zealand census of population and housing conducted quinquennially from 1981-2006. These travel data were compared with 2006-adjusted oil prices. RESULTS: Private motor vehicle was the dominant travel mode across years (54.8%-79.9%). The proportions of trips by public transport (approximately 4%) and active transport (8.9%-14.2%) were low across all time points and steadily declined. Oil prices decreased from 1981 to 1996, and increased from 1996 onwards. CONCLUSION: A decline in work-related sustainable transport modes over the last 25 years in New Zealand was evident. Work-related private motor vehicle travel may be sensitive to oil prices, however, further research is required to fully understand this relationship. Future research in this field should seek to increase levels of sustainable work-related transport modes, further understand oil price elasticity across different groups, and to determine whether behaviour changes are short-term or have a lag. Public health agencies should seek to advocate for infrastructure that supports sustainable transport modes and conduct further research in this field.

Indirect assessment of economic damages from the Prestige oil spill: consequences for liability and risk prevention.

The social losses arising from the Prestige oil spill exceed the compensation granted under the IOPC (International Oil Pollution Compensation) system, with losses estimated at 15 times more than the applicable limit of compensations. This is far above the level of costs for which those responsible for hydrocarbons spills are liable. The highest market losses correspond to sectors of extraction, elaboration and commercialisation of seafood. However, damages to non-commercial natural resources could constitute an outstanding group of losses for which further primary data are needed: these losses would only be compensable under the current system by means of a refund for cleaning and restoration costs. Results show that, in Europe, the responsibility for oil spills in maritime transport is limited and unclear. The consequence of this is net social losses from recurrent oil spills and internationally accepted incentives for risky strategies in the marine transport of hydrocarbons.

Are fuel poverty reduction schemes associated with decreased excess winter mortality in elders? A case study from London, U.K.

The London Borough of Newham, London piloted the Warm Zone, a government-led fuel poverty reduction scheme. Fuel poverty is often cited as a factor in excess winter mortality (EWM) in the U.K. This study reported in this paper assessed whether EWM decreased for people aged > or =65 years in Newham as compared to all London, employing data from before and throughout the duration of the Warm Zone project. The paper also discusses the difficulties surrounding the measurement and interpretation of health impact relating to fuel poverty. We calculated and compared the yearly EWM indices for people aged > or =65 years for all of London, and for Newham over 12 years (1993-2005). The yearly EWM ratio for Newham in relation to all London was then calculated and compared. No definitive evidence to support the effect of the War Zone on EMW were noted. Relationships between EWM and fewer poverty reduction schemes are difficult to interpret, as many factors are entangled. These include cold strain and biological, genetic, gender, physiological, thermoregulation, environmental, meteorological, socio-economic, healthcare provision/expenditure, lifestyle and co-morbidity aspects, besides the challenges of sample sizes and whether other fuel poverty reduction schemes were simultaneously in operation. Those in privately owned housing might be ;masked' (underestimated) in their vulnerability to fuel poverty. Redefining the specific criteria for eligibility for fuel poverty grants and tackling heat inefficiency in privately owned homes not eligible for home heating improvement despite fulfilling other criteria for vulnerability requires attention. The implications are discussed.