Price stability has been the foremost task of monetary policy. The information relating to the response of prices to monetary policy shocks is essential for conducting monetary policy in general and for inflation targeting of central banks in particular. Most of the published empirical studies analyze the response of an aggregate price index like CPI or a consumption deflator and their r...

We investigate the extent to which redundancy (including with diversity) can help mitigate impact of cyber attacks that aim reduce system performance. Using analytical techniques, we estimate impacts, in terms monetary costs, penalties from breaching Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and find optimal resource allocations minimize overall costs arising attacks. Our approach combines attack analys...

The present study on politeness is an attempt to examine (dis)agreeing strategies utilized by EFL learners while chatting on the internet. Subjects of the study were forty male and thirty-three female Iranian natives whose internet relay chat (IRC) interactions, composed of 400 excerpts, were collected between December 2007 and September 2008. Data analysis was based on the general taxonomy of ...

Antitrust law condemns price-fixing cartels and seeks to encourage private suits against the conspirators by automatically trebling antitrust damages and by providing for joint and several liability. Because the Supreme Court has held that there is no right to contribution among antitrust violators, this creates the risk of a single defendant being saddled with damages significantly greater tha...

Background In times of financial hardship, making innovative treatments affordable for society, accessible for patients and profitable for pharmaceutical companies is a challenge. Reimbursement is often threatened by uncertainties about the financial impact or evidence for a treatment. A contractual agreement between the payer and pharmaceutical company can link reimbursement to financial thres...