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This article discusses factors that should be considered in the valuation of an independent insurance agency. Independent agencies have undergone significant ownership changes in recent years and this trend will likely continue. These changes will necessitate thousands of valuations for the purposes of internal propagation, sale, inheritance, and more. A valuator that does not understand the nuances of the independent insurance agency business may ignore significant trends affecting the agency, leading to miscalculation of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rules https://www.csoonline.com/article/647692/new-sec-reporting-rules-give-companies-four-days-to-report-cyber-incidents.html by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/08/04/2023-16194/cybersecurity-risk-management-strategy-governance-and-incident-disclosure have raised important considerations for security leaders of public companies ranging from grasping the rules themselves to managing [...]

Expedited market access for novel and efficacious drugs is warranted for patients. Since 2020, Swissmedic (The Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products) has been participating in Project Orbis, a collaborative parallel-review programme launched by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019 to expedite patient access to cancer drugs. This programme allows regulatory agencies to remain independent in their decisions. We aimed to evaluate the effect of the first 2 years of Project Orbis from the Swissmedic perspective. In this comparative analysis, we compared submission gap (time between submission at the FDA and Swissmedic), review time, approval and consensus decision rate, and the approved indications between Swissmedic and the FDA for marketing authorisation applications (MAAs) in oncology submitted to Swissmedic through Project Orbis (Orbis MAAs) or outside of Project Orbis (non-Orbis MAAs) from Jan 1, 2020, to Dec 31, 2021. Swissmedic review time was evaluated with a decision until June 30, 2022. For the decision comparison analysis, non-Orbis oncology MAAs submitted and evaluated from Jan 1, 2009, to Dec 31, 2018 (referred to as the pre-Orbis era) were also considered. Inferential statistics were done using Wilcoxon rank-sum test and the 95% CI for the median was based on binomial distribution. For each hypothesis testing, the significance level was set to 5%. No correction for multiple testing was performed. We analysed the submission gap, review time, and regulatory decision for 31 Orbis MAAs and 41 non-Orbis MAAs during the Orbis era. The median submission gap was 33·0 days (95% CI 19·0–57·0) for Orbis MAAs versus 168·0 days (56·0–351·0) for non-Orbis MAAs (p<0·0001). The median review time at Swissmedic was 235·5 days (198·0–264·0) for Orbis MAAs versus 314·0 days (279·0–354·0) for non-Orbis MAAs (p=0·0002). Approval rates at Swissmedic were consistent between Orbis MAAs (20 [77%] of 26) and non-Orbis MAAs (31 [76%] of 41). The rate of consensus decisions between Swissmedic and the FDA was 21 (81%) of 26 for Orbis MAAs and 31 (76%) of 41 for non-Orbis MAAs. Swissmedic approval rates were lower for indication extensions than for new active substances for Orbis MAAs (13 [72%] of 18 vs seven [88%] of eight) and non-Orbis MAAs (17 [71%] of 24 vs 14 [82%] of 17). Divergent decisions between agencies were predominantly observed for indication extensions (11 [73%] of 15 divergent decisions). During the pre-Orbis era, Swissmedic approved 61 (88%) of 69 MAAs for new active substances. Submission gap and review time for oncology applications at Swissmedic were significantly reduced by participation in Project Orbis, and approval consensus decisions were increased between agencies. These findings suggests that participating in Project Orbis could lead to faster patient access to drugs. None. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different streams of political research have pointed to two macro-phenomena that appear as opposite at first glance: On the one hand, the increasing delegation of competencies to jurisdictions beyond the central government, resulting in the denationalization of political authority. On the other, the passing of reforms that reassert the centre of the nation state through policy integration and administrative coordination. In this article, we argue that these two processes can be analysed under a unified framework in terms of multilevel dynamics, whereby delegation ultimately elicits recentring reforms at the national level. To examine this argument and break down the mechanisms at work, we develop two sets of hypotheses: first, we theorise how the delegation of competencies to international organisations, sub-national entities and independent agencies can eventually trigger recentring reforms; second, we propose that the capacity to act attributed to these actors also shapes such reforms. Our empirical analysis relies on an original dataset across four policy fields and 13 countries. By using multilevel regression models, we show that especially the delegation of competencies to agencies at the national level as well as the double delegation to European agencies increases the probability that governments pass recentring reforms. Furthermore, if these agencies have a stronger capacity to act, recentring becomes more likely. Our findings contribute to the development of multilevel governance as a dynamic theory of policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this exploratory research, we examine the effect of economic and noneconomic indicators on the creation of Chinese Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission policies using a VAR model. We find that CBIRC policies are predicted by State Council construction policies and policies set by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. This indicates that the CBIRC is inward-looking, observing what other regulators are doing rather than responding to changes in the real and financial economy. This may be a product of market distortions due to China's unique blend of state-oriented and market-based institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid rise in accessibility and portability of cameras has resulted in widespread reliance on the interpretation of images by analysts and investigators in criminal proceedings. Codes of practice, guidance and jurisprudence have evolved to facilitate the admission of opinions as to the identity of offenders (or persons of interest) at trial. In this article, we explain why allowing investigators to give opinions as to identity on the basis of familiarity with images or suspects acquired during the course of an investigation is incompatible with mainstream scientific research and advice, and conducive to error. It rests on the flawed assumption that investigators can reliably identify or recognise persons in images, articulate and document the basis of these 'identifications', and avoid the risk of contamination (really cognitive bias) from their knowledge of, or exposure to, domain-irrelevant information. Jurors, who may be invited to conduct their own comparison between an image and the defendant in the dock, are similarly vulnerable to assuming the task is straightforward, as well as many of the contextual and cognitive biases confronting investigators. Using the facts and evidence in R v Yaryare [2020] EWCA Crim 1314 as a case study, we show how case information available to investigators and imaging analysts both inform their interpretations of images and is (re-)presented at trial and on appeal as independent support for their opinions. We identify substantial threats to fairness, proof and rationality and propose that only witnesses with demonstrable expertise should be permitted to testify as to the identity of persons of interest in images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades the Latin American region has experienced various regulatory reforms, and distinctive normative changes have been introduced in the framework, instruments, or procedures adopted by independent regulatory agencies (IRAs). While there is evidence that the establishment of an IRA positively affects regulated sector performance, little is known about the effects of these additional legal dispositions when incorporated in primary or secondary legislation. However, normative changes may shape IRAs' actual regulatory activities and the signals they send to their stakeholders, potentially influencing sectoral performance. This research traces the evolution of several instruments and procedures legally adopted by IRAs located in Latin America and comprehensively assesses the influence of these normative changes on the performance dimensions of the electricity sector. We built indexes that describe the adoption of specific legal dispositions in the region. These indexes reveal that the evolution of the normative dispositions varies in terms of extent, context, and timing of adoption. In addition, the changes are not equally or even positively associated with specific performance dimensions. While economic regulatory instruments shape many performance dimensions, "soft" procedural dispositions also play an important role in perceptions of quality in the electricity sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Qur'an, as in the Bible, the young Moses is born in perilous circumstances, and with a promise of greatness that can only be fulfilled if he survives; and in both scriptural accounts, his life is repeatedly saved through the heroic efforts of the women around him: his mother, his sister, and the wife of Pharaoh, who adopts him. The article begins with an examination of the qur'anic account of Moses's early life and the women whose interventions ensure his survival and considers the way in which certain narrative details found in the qur'anic account, as well as the Qur'an's unique narrative style, serve to highlight the perspicacity, courage, and independent agency of these women. The second part of the article explores the exegetical treatment of this qur'anic narrative by the twentieth-century female Muslim exegete Nuṣrat Amīn (1895–1983), a conservative religious scholar who outwardly reached an unusually high level of religious authority for her time, but who also wrote about her own rich inner life of spiritual and mystical experience, and who devoted much of her life to building a network of institutions for women's religious education. Amīn's exegetical treatment of the qur'anic Mosaic account reads the narrative from the perspective a woman who, like the women around Moses, has experienced both motherhood and maternal loss, successfully navigated a patriarchal world through her own intelligence and determination, and appreciated the value of women working together to support one another toward religious ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how users of smart devices attribute agency both to themselves and to their devices. Statistical analyses, tag cloud analysis, and sentiment analysis were applied on survey data collected from 587 participants. As a result of a preliminary factorial analysis, two independent constructs of agency emerged: (i) user agency and (ii) device agency. These two constructs received further support from a sentiment analysis and a tag cloud analysis conducted on the written responses provided in a survey. We also studied how user agency and device agency relate to various background variables, such as the user's professional knowledge of smart devices. We present a new preliminary model, where the two agency constructs are used to conceptualize agency in human–smart device relationships in a matrix composed of a controller, collaborator, detached, and victim. Our model with the constructs of user agency and device agency fosters a richer understanding of the users' experiences in their interactions with devices. The results could facilitate designing interfaces that better take into account the users' views of their own capabilities as well as the capacities of their devices; the findings can assist in tackling challenges such as the feeling of lacking agency experienced by technologically savvy users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a similarity coefficient generation code system was established using the Monte Carlo Code for Advanced Reactor Design (McCARD) transport code and the MIG multi-correlated input sampling code. We considered the adjoint-based sensitivity and uncertainty (S/U) and stochastic sampling (S.S.) approaches to the generation of the ck similarity coefficient. To examine the code system, the ck similarity coefficients of 23 relevant critical experiments and the System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART) small modular reactor (SMR) target system were generated using ENDF/B-VII.1 covariance data with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) 30-group energy group structure. Our results show that the similarity coefficients between the 16 LEU thermal-spectrum-based critical experiments and SMART are more than 0.90, which is the recommended criterion of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). These results are very helpful for licensees and can be used to justify the determination of critical experiment benchmarks for computational bias estimations of the SMART target system. To examine the discrepancy in the similarity coefficient, ck, due to the covariance data, similarity analyses for a 24 × 24 benchmark matrix were performed using ENDF-VIII.0, JENDL-5.0, and JEFF-3.3 covariance data. The results show that the selection of the covariance data used for ck generation significantly impacts the similarity coefficient. Moreover, it was observed that the current results for the SCALE 6.1 covariance data show a consistent trend with the results reported in earlier studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dissociation and diminished sense of agency are experiential distortions of disintegration in the perception of self and action. Although one is often implied in the other, they are seldom studied together. Assessing their relationship and shared influences may allow for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of dissociative experiences. We aimed to examine their temporal (concurrent or directional) co-occurrence, and to elucidate their etiology, focusing on posttraumatic symptoms (PTS), poor sleep, and their hypothesized joint effect. N = 113 adults oversampled for the existence of trauma exposure history reported PTS and then, for a week, wore an actigraphic sleep monitor, reported subjective sleep quality each morning, and reported state dissociation (depersonalization, derealization, and absorption) and sense of agency four times each day. Data were analyzed using multilevel linear modeling. Higher state dissociation correlated with diminished state sense of agency, but only contemporaneously, not directionally. Both hypothesized etiological factors, namely, PTS (especially complex) and poor sleep (objective and subjective) predicted state dissociation and diminished state sense of agency, but psychological distress seemed to overshadow these main effects. However, robust interactive effects suggested that poor sleep predicted dissociation and disruptions in the sense of agency only among individuals with low PTS. These findings suggest that PTS and poor sleep quality are separate paths to dissociation and impaired sense of agency. General Scientific Summary: There is some controversy over the centrality of trauma exposure in the etiology of a range of dissociative experiences, and it has been suggested that sleep-related factors may account for the association between trauma and dissociation. The current study suggests that posttraumatic symptoms and sleep disturbances are two different pathways to dissociative experiences, as objectively assessed sleep quality predicted dissociation mainly among individuals who were low in posttraumatic symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What accounts for the creation, design, and outputs of quasi-judicial institutions in autocracies? Prior research demonstrates that autocrats co-opt electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions to curtail opponents' power and curry international patrons' favor. However, scholarship on co-optation neglects quasi-judicial mechanisms, such as truth commissions, that can [End Page 67] be useful for arranging a political narrative that bolsters a leader's image while undermining his rivals. In this article, we formalize the concept of autocratic truth commissions—which account for one-third of truth commissions globally—and develop and test a novel theory of their origins, inputs, and outputs. We theorize that autocrats establish self-investigating commissions in response to threats to their symbolic authority and install rival-investigating commissions in response to threats to both symbolic authority and regime survival. We further argue that these two commission types take on different institutional forms and produce different outputs. Self-investigating commissions are afforded narrow mandates and produce reports that obscure basic facts. Meanwhile, rival-investigating commissions are granted wide mandates and culminate in accurate reports of rivals' responsibility for abuses. We evaluate these expectations through comparative case studies of two autocratic truth commissions in Uganda, and find support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By Gregory Vial, Julien Crowe, and Patrick Mesana (Paul Garland) “HOW CAN WE PROTECT THE PRIvacy of our customers’ personal data while leveraging that data via AI and analytics?” This [...]