 Stéphanie Eugster, Standardisierte Datentypen (Data Items) als integrierendes Element in einer komponenten-basierten Architektur, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2007. (Master's Thesis)
UBS Wealth Management and Business Banking (WM&BB) builds its software development on its component-based origins. The interface of these software components should therefore also be based on standardized data items. In this paper, the current situation is analyzed and the requirements according to standardized data-management are recorded and evaluated. The main problems are identified as fragmented configuration management and unsatisfactory metadata quality. The discussion shows that in regards to Front-End and communication problems, a solutions process is offered through the implementation of validators and mediators. For the most important requirements, a transformation plan is drafted. The proposed solution has been validated in assistance with a prototype. |
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Manuel Meyer, Design and Implementation of a Remote Update Tool for X-Ray Tutor, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2007. (Master's Thesis)
This thesis is about the evaluation of an architecture and a design for an extension of the X-Ray Tutor Network Administration Tools. X-Ray Tutor is a learning tool for airport police officers who visually assess x-ray images of passenger baggage in order to identify threat items. X-Ray Tutor is used at many hundred airports worldwide and is the leading training solution in the field of x-ray image assessment training. An X-Ray Tutor Environment consists of a headquarter server, a site server for each airport and several Tutor workstations at each airport. The Tutor workstations communicate with the site servers and the site servers communicate with the headquarter server. The goal of the thesis is to elaborate the architecture and design and to implement a program suite which can be used to create and remotely distribute image library updates to connected airports. Before this project took place, image library updates needed to be installed locally at every airport. Obviously, since airports are usually very far away from each other, a solution for remote updates is very desirable. The focus during the development lay on the reliable transmission of packages, secure network connections and a design that allows easy extension for future modifications. Using stateof-the-art programming techniques and following object oriented paradigms the X-Ray Tutor Image Updater Program Suite solves the problem of the geographic distribution of the sites, which is inherent to airport locations. |
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Dustin Wüest, Fluid Particle Interaction with Complex Boundaries, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2007. (Bachelor's Thesis)
This bachelor thesis improves a particle-based fluid simulation by adding collision detection for complex boundaries. Routines to load and display mesh models given in the PLY file format are integrated. For the interaction of the fluid particles with complex models, the mesh data must be stored in an appropriate format. Collision detection and response are then implemented as well as a simple boundary force model to prevent particles from sticking to walls. Finally some approaches are discussed to address the problem of particle deficiencies near the boundary and the free surface, which leads to incorrect particle densities in these regions. The density correction should not use ghost particles. |
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Daniel Egloff, Markus Leippold, Paolo Vanini, A simple model of credit contagion, Journal of Banking and Finance, Vol. 31 (8), 2007. (Journal Article)
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A Protocol to Support Multi-domain Auditing of Internet-based Transport Services, In: 2nd International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection (ICIMP 2007), IEEE, Silicon Valley, U.S.A., 2007. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
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Nick Netzer, Florian Scheuer, Taxation, insurance, and precautionary labor, Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 91 (7-8), 2007. (Journal Article)
We examine optimal taxation and social insurance with adverse selection in competitive insurance markets. In a previous literature, it has been shown that, with perfect insurance markets, social insurance improves welfare since it is able to redistribute without creating distortions. This result has been taken as robust to the introduction of adverse selection as this would only provide additional justifications for social insurance. We show, however, that adverse selection can weaken the case for social insurance compared to a situation with perfect markets. Whenever social insurance mitigates private underinsurance, it also causes welfare-reducing effects by decreasing precautionary labor supply and hence tax revenue. In addition, adverse selection may reduce the redistributive potential of social insurance. We illustrate our general results using different equilibrium concepts for the insurance market. Notably, we derive conditions under which a complete renunciation of social insurance is optimal and the government only relies on income taxation to achieve its redistributive objectives. |
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Dirk Engelmann, Jakub Steiner, The effects of risk preferences in mixed-strategy equilibria of 2 × 2 games, Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 60 (2), 2007. (Journal Article)
We consider the effects of risk preferences in mixed-strategy equilibria of 2 × 2 games, provided such equilibria exist. We identify sufficient conditions under which the expected payoff in the mixed equilibrium increases or decreases with the degree of risk aversion. We find that (at least moderate degrees of) risk aversion will frequently be beneficial in mixed equilibria. |
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Katinka Gyomlay, Thorsten Hens, Emotionen sind kein Nachteil, In: NZZ am Sonntag, 29 July 2007. (Media Coverage)
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Burkhard Stiller, Ottawa!? Auto-why? Auto-y, Auto-x!, In: Dagstuhl Seminar on "Autonomic Management of Networks and Services". 2007. (Conference Presentation)
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Burkhard Stiller, Multi-provider Accounting, In: Dagstuhl Seminar on "Resilient and Survivable Networks, Infrastructure, and Services". 2007. (Conference Presentation)
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Helmut Max Dietl, Egon Franck, Wer ist der beste Tour-Fahrer aller Zeiten?, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 166, p. 46, 20 July 2007. (Newspaper Article)
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Martin Waldburger, Burkhard Stiller, Legal compliance in commercial service provisioning across administrative domains, In: 13th EUNICE Open European Summer School and IFIP TC6.6 Workshop on Dependable and Adaptable Networks and Services (EUNICE 2007), Springer, 2007-07-19. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
Internet design principles do not focus on commercial service provisioning. Hence, support mechanisms need to be implemented in order to ensure that value added services can be offered in a competitive context. Commercial product offerings base on contractual agreements concluded between service providers and service customers. Contracts need to reflect business-driven requirements originating from involved contract parties, while they are invariably required to respect those regulations imposed by commerce law. Legal compliance, thus, determines the available range of applicable contractual terms—irrespective of whether such a contract governs commercial value added services in the Internet or not. Legal determinations are valid in a limited geographical area. The Internet, however, lacks a distinct notion of location. Consequently, technical means to overcome this fundamental design gap are investigated, in order to ensure that legally compliant contracts can be concluded. |
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Sven Seuken, Shlomo Zilberstein, Improved Memory-Bounded Dynamic Programming for Decentralized POMDPs, In: Proceedings of the 23rd Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), Vancouver, Canada, 2007. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Memory-Bounded Dynamic Programming
(MBDP) has proved extremely effective in
solving decentralized POMDPs with large
horizons. We generalize the algorithm and
improve its scalability by reducing the complexity
with respect to the number of observations
from exponential to polynomial. We
derive error bounds on solution quality with
respect to this new approximation and analyze
the convergence behavior. To evaluate
the effectiveness of the improvements, we introduce
a new, larger benchmark problem.
Experimental results show that despite the
high complexity of decentralized POMDPs,
scalable solution techniques such as MBDP
perform surprisingly well. |
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Martin Waldburger, Burkhard Stiller, Legal Compliance in Commercial Service Provisioning Across Administrative Domains, In: 13th EUNICE Open European Summer School and IFIP TC6.6 Workshop on Dependable and Adaptable Networks and Services (EUNICE 2007), 2007. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
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Andrea Schenker-Wicki, Bologna-Reformen – Arbeitsmarktrelevanz, Personalchefs der Auslandbanken in Zürich, In: Coutts Bank von Ernst AG. 2007. (Conference Presentation)
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Stéphane Guérard, Ann Langley, Shifting logics of legitimation in the diffusion of a complex innovation, In: European Group for Organizational Studies. 2007. (Conference Presentation)
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T Hübner, Renato Pajarola, Single-pass multi-view volume rendering, In: IADIS International Conference on Computer Graphics and Visualization, 2007-07-05. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
In this paper, we introduce a new direct volume rendering (DVR) algorithm for multi-view auto-stereoscopic displays. Common multi-view methods perform multi-pass rendering (one pass for each view) and subsequent image compositing and masking for generating multiple views. The rendering time increases therefore linearly with the number of views, but sufficient frame-rates are achieved by sub-resolution rendering, at the expense of degraded image quality. To overcome these disadvantages for DVR, our algorithm calculates multiple views directly on a per-fragment basis on the GPU in a single rendering pass, including sub-pixel wavelength selective views for high-quality auto-stereo display systems. Moreover, our approach retains full resolution rendering, preserving best possible image quality, while achieving higher frame rates than present multi-view rendering methods. We describe our multi-view volume rendering algorithm and its implementation using programmable fragment shaders. Experimental results demonstrate our algorithm's improvement compared to prior multi-view volume rendering solutions. |
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F Paolucci, E Schut, Konstantin Beck, S Gress, C Van de Voorde, I Zmora, Supplementary health insurance as a tool for risk-selection in mandatory basic health insurance markets, Health Economics, Policy and Law, Vol. 2 (2), 2007. (Journal Article)
As the share of supplementary health insurance (SI) in health care finance is likely to grow, SI may become an increasingly attractive tool for risk-selection in basic health insurance (BI). In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework to assess the probability that insurers will use SI for favourable risk-selection in BI. We apply our framework to five countries in which risk-selection via SI is feasible: Belgium, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. For each country, we review the available evidence of SI being used as selection device. We find that the probability that SI is and will be used for risk-selection substantially varies across countries. Finally, we discuss several strategies for policy makers to reduce the chance that SI will be used for risk-selection in BI markets. |
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Peter Racz, Juan E Burgos, Nuno Inacio, Cristian Morariu, Vicente Olmedo, Victor Villagra, Rui L Aguiar, Burkhard Stiller, Mobility and QoS Support for a Commercial Mobile Grid in Akogrimo, In: 16th IST Mobile /&/ Wireless Communications Summit, s.n., Budapest, Hungary, 2007-07-02. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
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Hans Degryse, Steven Ongena, The impact of competition on bank orientation, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Vol. 16 (3), 2007. (Journal Article)
How do banks react to increased competition? Recent banking theory significantly disagrees regarding the impact of competition on bank orientation-i.e., the choice of relationship-based versus transactional banking. We empirically investigate the impact of interbank competition on bank branch orientation. We employ a unique data set containing detailed information on bank-firm relationships. We find that bank branches facing stiff local competition engage considerably more in relationship-based lending. Our results illustrate that competition and relationships are not necessarily inimical. |
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