Introduction.  Despite being thought of as common and having serious consequences, falls have not been extensively studied in Parkinson’s disease (PD).  Prior to this study commencing there were no published large-scale prospective studies looking at the risk factors for falls in PD.  This study aimed to accurately establish the incidence of falls in PD and investigate predictive risk factors for fallers from baseline data in all patients known to a district general hospital PD service.  In addition cardiovascular investigation, autonomic function and osteoporosis in PD were assessed. Methods.  Baseline data was gathered on a cohort of 109 patients with idiopathic PD and the number of falls prospectively ascertained over the following year.  The multidisciplinary baseline assessment included historical data, disease specific rating scales, physiotherapy assessment, tests of visual, cardiovascular and autonomic function and bone densitometry. Results.  Falls occurred in 68.3% of the subjects. Previous falls, disease duration and loss of armswing were independent predictors of falls and recurrent falls.  There were also statistically significant associations between disease severity, balance impairment, depression cognitive impairment and falling.  Males were more likely to suffer from recurrent falls.  Cardiovascular disorders, autonomic dysfunction and osteoporosis were also highly prevalent but not associated with falls. Conclusions.    Falls are a common problem in PD.  Some of the risk factors are potentially modifiable.  Although there are intrinsic factors inherent to PD that can cause falls, patients with PD that fall should be thoroughly assessed to look more closely at the reason for falling in those individuals.  Potential primary prevention of falls should be considered in all patients with PD.  In the future, multi-centre intervention studies will be necessary to further investigate potential methods of decreasing falls and their effects in PD.

Det senmoderna samhällets komplexitet och höggradiga differentiering har gjort risker alltmer svåranalyserade, vilket har lett till att sociala system måste ha en förändringsförmåga för att överleva. Det normala riskanalysarbetet i sociala system (exempelvis företag och organisationer) görs på den nivå eller i de interna sektorer där riskerna slår igenom. Uppsatsen ger exempel på befintliga riskhanteringsmodeller för detta och presenterar författarens egen, mer övergripande modell, konstruerad utifrån de tre systemteoretiska begreppen AGIL, autopoiesis och feedback loops. Modellen illustrerar en dialog mellan systemets definitioner, behov och omvärld samt andra system. Uppsatssyftet är att belysa sociala systems förändringsförmåga och beredskap för riskhantering samt hur de genom att använda modellen kan förbättra dessa. Uppsatsen är en litteraturstudie av sociologisk systemteori (funktionalism) och den framlagda modellen är på grund av abstraktionsnivån behäftad med problem rörande den praktiska tillämpningen.

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Das Konzept Value at Risk (VaR) scheint sich als Standard im Rahmen von internen Risikomanagementmodellen in der Praxis durchzusetzen. Als quantitatives Risikomaß setzt es sich aus einem Volatilitätsmaß, der Modellierung von Verteilungen von Wertpapierrenditen und einem Bewertungsmodell zusammen. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht nun empirisch welche Bedeutung diese Komponenten für den VaR eines einfachen Aktienportefeuilles haben. Dabei zeigt sich, daß die Wahl des Volatilitätsmaßes keinen signifikanten Einfluß auf die Ermittlung des VaR für ein Aktienportefeuille hat. Sowohl die Annahme über die Verteilung der Aktienrenditen als auch der Bewertungsansatz mit dem das Aktienportefeuille abgebildet wird, können gravierende Änderungen im VaR nach sich ziehen. Diese Ergebnis läßt daher den Schluß zu, daß bei der Ermittlung der Eigenkapitalvorsorge im Rahmen der Kapitaladäquanzrichtlinie die Wahl des geeigneten Bewertungsmodells als auch der Verteilungsfunktion von großer Bedeutung sind. (Autorenreferat) / Series: Working Papers SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

This dissertation utilizes a Foucauldian perspective to explore the relationship between at-risk youth and the acceptance and integration of long-term conventional goals and values held by the general population. I posit that orthodox theories, which argue that youth who engage in delinquent behaviors do so because they either reject the goals and values of society, or they realize they have no legitimate means of goal attainment, fail to adequately explain why some youth appear to integrate and strive for these goals. I argue that Foucault's work on power and knowledge, more specifically the use of bio-power and the technologies of normalization, can be used as an explanation for how at-risk youth come to integrate and accept these conventional goals and fully participate in the creation of themselves as "docile bodies". This issue is explored through an analysis of two sets of data collected through the development and implementation of two separate surveys; one given to the general population of youth and the other to at-risk youth. As well, I explore the findings of personal interviews collected with youth incarcerated in Kilburn Hall, a remand centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. What these data show is that, far from rejecting the conventional goals and values of society, at-risk youth appear to integrate both the goals and a strong ideology of personal responsibility for the attainment, or failure to achieve these goals.

Estimating tail risk measures such as Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional Tail Expectation (CTE) is a vital component in financial and actuarial risk management. The CTE is a preferred risk measure, due to coherence and a widespread acceptance in actuarial community. In particular we focus on the estimation of the CTE using both parametric and nonparametric approaches. In parametric case the conditional tail expectation and variance are analytically derived for the exponential distribution family and its transformed distributions. For small i.i.d. samples the exact bootstrap (EB) and the influence function are used as nonparametric methods in estimating the bias and the the variance of the empirical CTE. In particular, it is shown that the bias is corrected using the bootstrap for the CTE case. In variance estimation the influence function of the bootstrapped quantile is derived, and can be used to estimate the variance of any bootstrapped L-estimator without simulations, including the VaR and the CTE, via the nonparametric delta method. An industry model are provided by applying theoretical findings on the bias and the variance of the estimated CTE. Finally a new capital allocation method is proposed. Inspired by the allocation of the solvency exchange option by Sherris (2006), this method resembles the CTE allocation in its form and properties, but has its own unique features, such as managerbased decomposition. Through a numerical example the proposed allocation is shown to fail the no undercut axiom, but we argue that this axiom may not be aligned with the economic reality.

Background: The regulation of banks is increasing in order to stabilize the financial market. Despite this increase in regulation, financial crises still continue to occur. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is gradually increasing the capital requirements for banks, yet the increase in capital requirements doesn’t seem to solve the problem. This raises the question: how does capital regulation affect banks?   Purpose: The purpose of this study is, primarily to illustrate the effects that capital regulation has on risk and efficiency on banks within the European Union, but secondary also study the relationship between risk, efficiency and capital regulation. Method: To achieve the purpose of this study, a deductive approach has been used, where the problem is assumed to be due to an agency problem. The agency problem is expected to occur due to the intermediation approach and profit maximization is set against portfolio choice theory and the regulatory hypothesis. The research method is based on a quantitative method using panel data from commercial banks within the European Union, between the years 2005 – 2012. Conclusions: Regulation of bank on one hand and profit maximization on the other, will drive one eternal circle flow between regulation, risk and efficiency. Thus, the banks Moral Hazard behavior has to be stopped if the capital regulation is to have any real effect. / Bakgrund: Regleringen av banker ökar i syfte att stabilisera marknaden, trots detta fortsätter de globala finanskriserna att skaka världen. Baselkommittén ökar succesivt kapitalkraven på bankerna, ändå verkar det inte lösa problemen. Den stora frågan är hur kapitalregleringen egentligen förhåller sig till bankerna.   Syfte: Syftet med studien är främst att belysa vilka effekter kapitalreglering har på risk och effektvitet, i bankerna inom den Europeiska unionen, men även att studera samband mellan risk, effektvitet och kapitalreglering.   Metod: För att uppnå syftet har en deduktiv forskningsansats använts, där problemet antas ha sin grund i ett agentproblem. Agentproblemet förväntas bero på att intermediation approach och vinstmaximerings beteende, ställs mot portföljvalsteori som sedan ställs mot den reglerande hypotesen. Forskningsmetoden är kvantitativ och bygger på paneldata från bankaktiebolag i EU-medlemsländer mellan åren 2005 – 2012.   Slutsatser: Reglering av banker på ena sidan och vinstmaximering på den andra, kommer att driva ett evigt kretslopp mellan reglering, risk och effektivitet. Således måste bankernas Moral Hazard beteende brytas för att kapitalreglering ska få någon verklig effekt.

This thesis explores the ways in which the ‘at-risk’ designation of marginalized and disadvantaged youth within youth-serving agencies contributes to a program of governance within a neoliberalized welfare state. I argue that while there is considerable resistance to the risk designation within youth-serving agencies, officially accepting funding for programming designed to target at-risk youth continues to individualize the troubles youth face and responsibilizes youth to become their own risk managers. Through these structural funding constraints, youth-serving agency staff inadvertently disseminates expert knowledges that validate the notion of ‘at-risk’ youth as a growing problem while legitimating the perspective that social problems can and should be addressed through individual treatment rather than social policy. This both disciplines youth to become better liberal subjects while leaving structural constraints unaddressed. I conclude with some examples of resistance that show promise of working outside of these technologies of governance.

This study is designed to investigate the nature of pathologically significant placentas and their corresponding fetal and neonatal outcomes in term infants. We aim to examine the correlation between specific placental pathologies and neonatal clinical conditions, including brain injury, requiring admission to a neonatal care unit and subsequent follow-up in our High Risk Newborn Follow-up Program (HRFU). A retrospective cohort study was conducted through review of maternal and neonatal reports. Overall 48 neonates had placentas submitted for examination. Sixty-one percent of placentas in the HRFU group and 62% of placentas in the non-HRFU group had findings consistent with ischemic changes, meconium staining and calcifications. Three infants had hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. This study found no difference in placental pathology between non-HRFU infants and infants enrolled in the HRFU Program. This raises questions and warrants further study on the efficacy for placental submission as a predictive measure for neonatal outcomes.

This paper is a study how students at a high school in Falun, Sweden, estimates their performance in an upcoming math test which is then compared with the actual grade the student performed. The students who participated also answered questions related to “risk situations” to examine whether there is a correlation between how students estimate their performance in the context and their risk behavior, and if the students act like economic models assume. In agreement with previous studies, the boys in the survey tended to be overconfident in their performance. The girls in the study were neither over- nor underconfident in her performance and no significant difference in the estimation of one's performance between the sexes could be proven. The proportion of boys who considered themselves to take greater risk than class average was greater than the proportion of girls in the question. No linear relationship between estimation of performance and risk behavior or differences in risk behavior could be found between the sexes.