Swarm intelligence is a new research paradigm that offers novel approaches for studying and solving distributed problems using solutions inspired by social insects and other natural behaviors of vertebrates. In this thesis, we present methodologies for modeling artificial, mobile systems within the swarm intelligence framework. The proposed methodologies provide guidelines in the study and design of artificial swarm systems for the following two classes of experiments: distributed sensing and distributed manipulation.
What is the new influenza A (H 1N1) virus that has been causing recent outbreaks globally? The recent outbreaks of disease in people globally are caused by a new influenza (or "flu") type A (H1N1) virus. There is a human H1N1 virus circulating and causing seasonal influenza and in the past, very occasionally, H1N1 viruses from swine have infected humans. The specific type of the H1N1 virus causing illness now is new or "novel" and in the current outbreak it is clear that this virus is able to infect humans and be passed from person to person. Although part of the virus may have originated from pigs, there is no evidence that the current spread of infection is coming from that source.
A common view supported by the empirical research is that the efficient allocation of capital is a key factor for economic growth and sustainable development in developed, developing and post-communist countries. However, the interactions between the efficiency of the external capital market and the internal capital markets for group firms (parent firms and their subsidiaries) are not clear. On the other hand, the literature on the internal capital markets stress on their two opposing effects on the investment performance of subsidiaries. First, authors argue that internal capital markets may substitute for missing external capital markets, especially in less developed countries. (Khanna and Palepu, 1999). In the presence of capital market imperfections, subsidiaries are able to access the external markets that parents provide (Inderst and Muller, 2003), they benefit from the access to finance from other affiliates within the multinational network (Stein, 2003). Parents may also impose discipline on subsidiaries by reallocating funds to those with investment proposals with a positive net present value and lower internal cash flows (Stein, 2002). Second, other authors reveal, however, that the redistribution of capital between subsidiaries may weaken classical managerial incentives and lead to wasteful business activities (Milgrom and Roberts (1988); Meyer, Milgrom and Roberts (1992). Under the conditions of soft budget constraints, internal capital markets allocate too many resources to firms with bad investment opportunities and too few to firms with high investment opportunities (Shin and Stulz, 1998; Rajan, Servaes and Zingales, 2000; Scharfstein and Stein, 2000).
Recently, Carlin, Charlton and Mayer (2006) present evidence in favour of the existence of internal capital markets that reallocate finance to member firms with superior investment opportunities. The stake held by the parent, the geographical distance, as well as the financial development of the subsidiary country play a role in alleviating cash constraints. The main advantage of this study is that listed subsidiaries allow the calculation of subsidiary Tobin's Q and thus investment opportunities. However, the exclusion of unlisted subsidiaries is also its main drawback. First, unlisted subsidiaries far outweigh listed subsidiaries in importance thus the largest part of the picture is blanked out. Second, the reasons why internal capital markets exist is to substitute for missing external capital markets with respect to the financing and control (i.e. corporate governance) functions within a firm. Thus, unlisted subsidiaries are most likely to face cash constraints and/or control problems as if they were stand alone firms, and thus benefit most from the workings of an internal capital markets. Those firms have not gone to the stock exchange in the first place and potential reason for that would be the particularly severe asymmetry of information leading to under pricing of assets and consequently prohibiting an IPO. Looking only at listed subsidiaries is thus likely to severely limit the analysis.
