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The article contains a list of contact persons of the DMV (German Mathematical Society) at various German universities and colleges. It also mentions some dissertation topics and their supervisors. Furthermore, scientific papers and research projects by mathematicians at various universities are listed. Information about the DMV, its board and presidency, as well as contact details and membership fees, are also provided. However, no further information is given about the content of the papers or research projects. [Extracted from the article]

Price-based irrigation water-conservation policies are often designed as fixed per unit fees. In groundwater commons, however, this approach presupposes that irrigators assign the same value to each unit of water withdrawn, irrespective of the scarcity levels they individually face. This ignores spatial interdependencies in groundwater commons. In this paper, I examine the effect this possible tax structure misspecification has in measuring the performance of such Pigouvian taxes. I model the price of irrigation water as a non-constant marginal cost function dependent on the constant per unit fee and a variable cost-metric measure of scarcity, namely depth-to-water. Using a difference-in-difference econometric framework with irrigation data from San Luis Valley, results show that irrigators' response to the constant marginal fee significantly depends on the scarcity levels individual irrigators face. More importantly, the results suggest that models that overlook the spatial element of scarcity would overestimate irrigators' response to such pumping fee—which can misguide policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the valuation of equity-linked investment products embedded with a high-water mark (HWM) fee structure. Under the HWM fee structure, the insurance company charges threshold fees at a constant rate from the policyholder's account whenever the account value is lower than a pre-specified level, and levies HMW fees at another constant rate whenever the account is hitting new record highs that are higher than another pre-specified level. The dynamics of the logarithmic value of the policyholder's account, before fees, is assumed to follow either a two-sided jump-diffusion process with double exponential jumps, or a down-ward jump-diffusion process with exponential jumps. For the two-sided jump-diffusion model with HWM fees, using the Wiener–Hopf factorisation theorem and the duality lemma, we derive an explicit expression for its potential measure. For the down-ward jump-diffusion model with both threshold fees and HWM fees, we are facilitated with the excursion theory to derive an explicit expression of the potential measure. Using the above newly derived potential measures, we are able to obtain formulas for valuing the equity-linked annuity under the HWM fee structure. Finally, we illustrate our results with some numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the valuation of variable annuities with a guaranteed minimum maturity benefit under a regime-switching Lévy model. The model allows policyholders to surrender their annuities and receive a surrender benefit at predetermined tenor times before maturity. Additionally, we consider a state-dependent periodic fee structure where fees are deducted from the policyholder's account if it exceeds a certain level at discrete time points. Incorporating this fee structure, the Fourier cosine series expansion method based on characteristic functions is employed to determine the values and optimal surrender strategies for variable annuity contracts. Finally, we provide a comprehensive set of numerical examples to demonstrate and assess the effectiveness of our approach thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, China promoted county-wide photovoltaic projects (CWPVs) in 2021. A large number of distributed photovoltaic (DPV) installations have expanded the scale of prosumer. It also brings the inequity problem of prosumer, distribution network system operator (DSO) and consumer--DSO and consumer bear the costs such as access cost and depreciation of stock investment caused by DPV access. Combined with China's current electricity tariff system and the promotion of photovoltaic scale development, this paper proposes a standby fee model based on the principle of "beneficiary apportionment". In this model, the standby fee mechanism for self-owned power plants is applied to DPV to reduce the implementation cost of the mechanism, and the principle of "beneficiary apportionment" is adopted to ensure the profitability of DPV. This paper takes the CWPV in Hunan Province, China as an example, calculates the standby fee under various electricity metering methods, and determines the most appropriate standby fee by considering factors such as output uncertainty of DPV. Finally, the difficulties in the implementation of standby fee are sorted out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Budget reconciliation is a special procedure in Congress that exempts policy from the Senate’s sixty-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster. A central condition is the Byrd Rule’s exclusion of nonbudgetary provisions, or provisions which produce outlays or revenues that are “merely incidental” to their “non-budgetary” components. This paper makes two arguments about this exclusion. First, Congress should classify provisions as “budgetary” or “non-budgetary” based on substance rather than form, treating implicit transfers as budgetary. This is justified by underlying economic realities and administrative costs. Second, even under a formal definition of “non-budgetary,” an implicit transfer can be restructured to comply with the letter and the purposes of the Byrd Rule. This is done by explicitly subsidizing the implicitly-taxed population and substituting a more general explicit tax. This paper’s recurring example is a 2021 Byrd Rule decision by the Senate Parliamentarian ruling that Democrats could not include a grant of legal permanent resident status to Dreamers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile money has been a key innovation in Africa that has increased the financial resilience of vulnerable households by providing an easy way to send and receive remittances. While recent literature has focused on the link between mobile money and its function as a social protection mechanism for the vulnerable population, less is known about the extent to which the costs of using the service affect the transaction behaviour of these people. By exploiting a natural experiment in the form of an excise fee that was imposed on mobile-money transactions in Kenya, this paper estimates the differential effect of a price hike in mobile-money transaction fees on transaction behaviour of households with a daily income below 1.25 USD and households above this threshold. The study finds that households with an income below 1.25 USD reduced their monthly mobile-money transactions volume by 25 per cent compared to households above this threshold. Additionally, the paper finds suggestive evidence that the tax also led to a relative reduction in mobile-money remittances received by households below an income of 1.25 USD. The loss in received remittances was not substituted by an increase in remittances sent by cash or in-kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This letter to the editor highlights methodological and interpretational issues with a recent paper on private outpatient psychiatric consultation fees in Australia. The authors argue that the study's data collection is incomplete and does not accurately reflect real-world clinical practice. They also point out that the paper fails to acknowledge certain factors, such as state-to-federal cost-shifting and government subsidies, which can affect the estimation of out-of-pocket costs for patients. The authors question the validity of the study's findings and criticize the discussion for proposing actions that are not supported by the data. They suggest that broader consideration of the healthcare context and access to cost subsidies may be necessary to improve equitable accessibility to care. [Extracted from the article]

Ride-hailing is a source of opportunity and consternation for cities, adding both expanded mobility options and added challenges such as increased congestion. In an effort to curb congestion—and to tap a new source of revenue—some US cities and states have imposed fees on ride-hail trips. Fees are far from uniform; the fee bases, amounts levied, and use of these funds once collected range considerably between cities and states. Despite previous research that transportation fee and revenue outlay structures affect equity outcomes, no research to date has examined the equity implications of ride-hail fees. This paper addresses this gap in understanding and asks: 1) what are the geographic equity implications of ride-hail fee structures; and 2) how might equity outcomes vary by how fee revenues are allocated? I answer these questions using ride-hail fee policies from 24 US cities and states, and trip-level data from over 97 million ride-hail trips taken in 2018 and 2019 in the City of Chicago. Examining trips serving low-, middle-, and high-income neighborhoods, I analyze geographic equity implications under five different fee scenarios. Variable fee structures that reflect trip factors including trip distance, pooling, location, and time of day offer the most promising geographic equity outcomes. The examined fee scenarios would raise between $30 and $122 million per year for the City of Chicago; more than three-quarters of ride-hail fee revenues are generated from trips that begin or end in high-income areas and could represent a substantial redistribution of resources from high-to low-income areas and/or travelers depending on how revenues are spent. Cities or states seeking to implement or adjust ride-hail fees should identify concrete equity goals and design fee structures and revenue streams to meet these objectives. • Ride-hail range considerably across cities and states in the US. • Five fee scenarios evaluated using 97 million ride-hail trips in Chicago. • Variable fees offer greater geographic equity outcomes vs flat fares. • Most fee revenues generated in high-income neighborhoods. • Cities should design fee structures and revenue outlays to meet equity goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do voters punish incumbent legislators for raising service costs? Concern about electoral punishment is considered a leading obstacle to increasing taxes and fees to fund service provision, but empirical evidence of such backlash is surprisingly sparse. This paper examines whether voters hold local elected officials accountable for raising water service costs. Using 10 years of panel data on municipal elections and water rates in North Carolina, we find rate increases do not reduce incumbent city council members' vote shares. Local politicians may overestimate their electoral risk from raising taxes and fees to fund public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiprocessor systems offer numerous configurations in terms of a different number of cores and frequency levels that may become optimal with respect to energy, performance, or other metrics. On FPGAs, a convenient solution for designing and building a multiprocessor system is the use of soft-core processors. The soft-core processor configuration and frequency are customizable and configurable at design time and according to the FPGA capacity, the number of cores and its configuration can be changed. In this research, different workloads have been studied and results shown that the amount of speedup would be different for each workload due to their behavior in an MPSoC fashion and it was revealed that in a multiprocessor system based on soft-core on an FPGA platform, increasing the number of processors and their operating frequency will not always improve the system energy-delay product (EDP). Hence, identifying an optimal configuration with respect to a given metric such as EDP is a complex process due to a large number of workloads and configurations. To achieve this, we use the power consumption and execution time information to identify the optimal configuration for different workloads with respect to EDP. We also perform an extensive workload characterization using performance counters available on the target platform. Using these performance counters, a vast amount of characterization data for each workload was collected. Then, we used this characterization data to choose the optimal configuration for each workload. This paper proposes a characterization method for parallel workloads that can be used to determine the optimal core and frequency configuration of an FPGA-based homogenous soft-core multiprocessor system with respect to EDP as a function of the workload (It is a datatype. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s).). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The execution of smart contracts (SCs) relies on consensus algorithms that validate the miner who executes the contract and gets a fee to cover her expenditure. In this sense, miners are strategic agents who may focus on executing those contracts with the largest fee, to the detriment of other SCs' execution times, which also harms the blockchain's reputation. This paper analyzes the impact of miners' competition on SCs' execution times in a public blockchain. First, we explain that the Proof-of-Work mechanism casts similarities with a time auction, where the one who first adds blocks is the one who executes the contract and gets the fee. At equilibrium, costs negatively affect execution times, while the opposite holds concerning fees. However, this result does not capture the competition for other contracts; hence, we apply the Naïve Bayes method to classify SCs by considering a simulated database that comprises miners' competition for several contracts. We observe that simultaneous competition generates patterns that differ from the ones expected by the auction solution. For example, miners' valuation does not accelerate contracts' execution, and high-cost smart contracts do not necessarily execute at last places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transactive energy management (TEM) in smart grids is a promising approach for enhancing the participation of consumers in managing their energies and developing decentralized energy market models using peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. The present paper designs and models a fully decentralized P2P energy market considering the technical constraints of the physical electricity network to redesign electricity markets as consumer-centric markets. As the sellers and buyers trade energy via the electricity grid, allocating power losses and transaction fees to players in P2P transactions is of utmost significance. The proposed market allows prosumers to engage directly in bilateral energy trading without requiring intermediaries. In addition to local P2P markets, the buyer prosumers can purchase energy from the upstream market and participate in the demand response (DR) program during hours of local generation shortage. A fairness index is applied to evaluate the players' satisfaction with fairness and participation in the proposed market. Finally, an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is utilized to clear the proposed decentralized market. Numerical studies are performed on a standard IEEE 13-bus distribution network with multiple prosumers. The simulation results verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed decentralized market and its clearing approach. • Fully decentralized P2P energy market with loss and transaction fee consideration. • Models for power loss and transaction fee allocation, assessing performance. • Penalty to minimize network losses and encourage local transactions. • Prosumers' ability to access the upstream market and participate in DR programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the experience of psychodynamically oriented therapists in private practice as they contemplate raising their fees. Raising fees stirs up competing self-interest, transference-countertransference reverberations, financial fantasies and realities, ethical concerns, and uncomfortable as well as satisfied self-reflection. These dynamics are discussed under the following categories: exercise of power; incurring guilt; inappropriate entitlement; fear of loss; modeling of self-care; rapaciousness; unconscious factors; and self-esteem. A cautionary case example is provided. Six suggestions are offered to make therapists' contemplation of raising fees less stressful. The author hopes that this article will foster more open discussions among therapists about the tensions involved in raising fees and, in the process, lead to an enhanced understanding, acceptance, and detoxification of the feelings involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study lifetime ruin minimization problem by considering investment in two hedge funds with high-watermark fees and drift uncertainty. Due to multi-dimensional performance fees that are charged whenever each fund profit exceeds its historical maximum, the value function is expected to be multi-dimensional. New mathematical challenges arise as the standard dimension reduction cannot be applied, and the convexity of the value function and Isaacs condition may not hold in our probability minimization problem with drift uncertainty. We propose to employ the stochastic Perron's method to characterize the value function as the unique viscosity solution to the associated Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equation without resorting to the proof of dynamic programming principle. The required comparison principle is also established in our setting to close the loop of stochastic Perron's method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effects of cooperation between rail and air infrastructures in setting per-passenger fees prior to competition among airlines and high-speed rail (HSR) in a transport network. It is shown that, for a sufficiently low degree of substitution, cooperation results in lower fees and greater HSR traffic than under competition. Besides, it leads to more connecting passengers. An empirical application allows for a quantitative assessment of cooperation. Gains to passengers and operators are sizeable when cooperation either involves all infrastructure managers or the rail and the hub airport managers. Welfare gains are in the range of 10.4–11.1%. Our contribution offers an ex-ante analysis about the benefits of intermodal cooperation at the upstream level. • An integrated intermodal network involves rail and air infrastructure providers. • Upstream cooperation may lead to lower fees and more rail traffic than competition. • An empirical application offers a quantitative assessment of cooperation. • Cooperation among infrastructure providers benefits passengers and operators. • Welfare gains are sizeable noting how cooperation may encourage high-speed rail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Investigate the daily commuting patterns allowing both late arrival in the morning and early departure in the evening. • Derive all possible equilibrium traffic flows. • Develop a combined regime of time-varying road toll and linear location-dependent parking fee. • Design a parking reservation regime joint with time-varying road toll. This paper extends the work of Zhang et al. (2008) to investigate the daily commuting patterns allowing both late arrival in the morning and early departure in the evening in a linear city. Given the fixed parking locations of morning commuters, the Nash equilibrium principle is employed to formulate commuters' departure time choice in the evening and the user equilibrium principle in terms of daily travel cost is adopted to formulate the departure time choice of morning commuters. A combined regime of linear location-dependent parking fee and time-varying road toll is then proposed to reduce the total social cost (TSC) for the linear city. All the possible equilibrium traffic flows are analytically derived. The analytical results show that (1) commuters, who arrive at work early in the morning, may not depart early in the evening, but their evening trip costs must be lower; (2) when the parking spaces become denser, the evening commute starts earlier and the morning commute starts later; (3) a linear location-dependent parking fee could either advance or postpone the earliest departure time in the morning; (4) three parking modes, distinguished by the order in which commuters park, occur successively as the parking fee rate increases; and (5) an appropriate parking fee can always improve the system efficiency, but no matter how the parking fee is changed, it is impossible to completely eliminate the efficiency loss in the morning. Furthermore, a parking reservation regime joint with time-varying road toll is designed to minimize the TSC for the linear city. Finally, a set of numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the model's properties and these proposed regimes' performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that academic editors at journal NeuroImage and its affiliated journal have resigned over the owner, Elsevier fee charged to make papers open access and the departing editors asked Elsevier to reduce NeuroImage fee to provide papers free to read upon publication, but it refused.

Small Modular Reactors are gaining significant interest for their reduced footprint, lower power output, modularity, and innovative features. The licensing of SMRs is key to their successful deployment. However, the literature on this subject area is limited and often fragmented among other characteristics of the SMRs, thus failing to address the licensing aspects distinctly. The paper employs a systematic literature review to identify the potential nuclear licensing barriers and challenges that can influence the deployment of SMR and to provide an overview of their implications. The authors differentiate between licensing barriers and challenges as follows. The licensing barriers are likely to affect the deployment of SMRs for over a decade and necessitate the collaboration of multiple organisations. The licensing challenges can be resolved within ten years and can be led by a single organisation to deliver the solution. The licensing barriers are: (1) existing legal and regulatory framework; (2) prescriptive regulatory framework; (3) novelty in the technology; (4) regulatory fragmentation; and (5) absence of in-factory certification. The licensing challenges are: (1) fees charged by regulators; (2) regulatory capability gaps; and (3) lengthy licensing duration. The identified barriers and challenges have implications on the project timeline and cost, consequently affecting the overall economics of the SMR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper is the first study on the consequences of applying for international labor migration, before migration occurs. • In Fiji, a recruitment agency defrauded about 20,000 people of application fees for labor migration to the Middle East. • I conducted a rural household survey after people made application decisions and before they became aware of the fraud. • I address the endogeneity of job application by using a fraud-specific factor––proximity to the fraudster––as instruments. • Job application decreased transfers received from other households, due to the substitution for prospective remittances. The process of international labor migration is often initiated when potential migrant workers apply for jobs offered by recruitment agencies. This paper reports the first study on the consequences of this initial process of applying for labor migration, before migration occurs. In Fiji, a private recruitment agency defrauded approximately 20,000 people of application fees for labor migration to the Middle East. I conducted a rural household survey after people made application decisions and before they became aware of the fraud. I address the endogeneity of job application by using a fraud-specific factor––proximity to the fraudster––as an instrumental variable. Households with a job applicant received less domestic transfers from other households. The reallocation of transfers was a result of the substitution for prospective but not realized international remittances. Thus, the impacts of international labor migration and remittances extend beyond actual migration and remittances studied in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about healthcare affordability have grown in France as physician additional fees have increased threefold in the last 20 years. In this paper, we develop an innovative structural spatial framework to provide new insights into free-billing physician pricing behavior. We empirically test a closed-form solution of a circular city model with heterogeneous physicians by using a unique geolocalized database that covers more than 4000 private practitioners in three specializations (ophthalmology, gynecology and pediatrics). We highlight a positive spatial dependence in prices for all specialties that increases with physician density. This result reflects markets in which both prices are strategic complements and incentives for quality competition are low. We also find evidence of potential noncompetitive behavior for two specialties for which price and competition measures are positively related. These findings in the context of a growing spatial concentration of free-billing physicians emphasize key mechanisms explaining the increasing of additional fees. • We analyze the pricing behavior of more than 4000 free-billing physicians in France. • We find that physicians' prices are strategic complements. • We show that the strength of strategic complementarity increases with physician density. • We do not find evidence for quality competition but for potential noncompetitive behavior. • We highlight key mechanisms to explain the continuous (and heterogeneous) rise of additional fees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a website that offers an illicit way for scientists to furnish their curriculum vitae. The site, operated from Russia, openly offers to sell authorship slots on soon-to-be-published scientific papers for fees ranging from several hundred dollars to nearly $5000. The site, www.123mi.ru, has posted more than 1000 advertisements posted and 419 that seemed to match manuscripts that later appeared in different journals.

A wide dynamic range (ratio of maximum detectable signal to noise floor) front end electronics (FEE) readout ASIC ANUINDRA has been developed in 0. 35 μ m standard N-well CMOS technology for the prototype forward calorimeter (FOCAL), a silicon–tungsten (Si–W) electromagnetic (EM) calorimeter, proposed as part of the ALICE upgrade at CERN. It is a 16 channel pulse processing ASIC with a multiplexed serial output along with all the individual channel's responses available as output pins. Each channel consists of a charge sensitive amplifier (CSA), semi-Gaussian pulse shaper, gain-stage, and Track & Hold stage. The ASIC has been designed with a linear operating range of 2.6 pC w.r.t the input charge and a measured charge gain of 1.34 mV/fC. ANUINDRA ASIC shows a noise level (ENC) of 820 e − with 0 pF of detector capacitance. A baseline recovery of better than 1% within 5 μ s can be attained by adjusting the pole–zero locations with the help of external voltage control. The fabricated and packaged ANUINDRA was successfully tested and characterized in the laboratory and with a high energy particle beam at the SPS beamline in CERN. The design details of ANUINDRA ASIC along with the test results are presented herewith in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]