Massive downgrading and defaults during the 2008/2009 financial crisis have led politicians, regulators, and the popular press to conclude that the rating agencies’ business model is fundamentally flawed. The popular argument goes as follows. Issuers of securities naturally prefer higher ratings for their issues, because these reduce their cost of capital. Because the issuer pays the rating age...

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is becoming a standard feature in many popular chat apps, but independent security assessments of these implementations are limited. In this paper we provide the first independent analysis of E2EE features in LINE, a messaging application popular in Asian markets, and identify a replay attack and an attack on a lack of forward secrecy. Based on our analysis and comm...

IPSec, proposed by IETF, is a popular tunneling technology adopted for the Virtual Private Network. It provides the network layer additional security functionality to transform multiple segments of a private network into one. This paper exploits the extension of IPSec to have secured tunnels for users who might move around dynamically without carrying the same machine. We not only explore imple...

Java Archive (JAR) file is a popular way to aggregate Java class files and resources into one package for distributing applications and/or libraries. JAR file format is developed based on the popular ZIP file format, while providing a convenient way to organize Java byte code for distribution in the open source community, JAR added extra layer of encapsulation and made it more difficult to tell...

Zellner’s g-prior remains a popular conventional prior for use in Bayesian variable selection, despite several undesirable consistency issues. In this paper, we study mixtures of g-priors as an alternative to default g-priors that resolve many of the problems with the original formulation, while maintaining the computational tractability that has made the g prior so popular. We present theoreti...

One of the most problematic issues in contemporary meta-analysis is the estimation and interpretation of moderating effects. Monte Carlo analyses are developed in this article that compare bivariate correlations, ordinary least squares and weighted least squares (WLS) multiple regression, and hierarchical subgroup (HS) analysis for assessing the influence of continuous moderators under conditio...

Once the challenge of developing and trading national cars has been overcome, the new challenge becomes the accessibility/costs ratio. The answer to it was 1.000 cc engine cars which are called popular cars in Brazil. Nowadays, this segment represents over 50.0% of the Brazilian fleet. Economical issues are the major concern in the Brazilian market, rather than attributes like safety, comfort a...

Zellner’s g-prior remains a popular conventional prior for use in Bayesian variable selection, despite several undesirable consistency issues. In this paper, we study mixtures of g-priors as an alternative to default g-priors that resolve many of the problems with the original formulation, while maintaining the computational tractability that has made the g-prior so popular. We present theoreti...

Do you read popular neuroscience? Do you think Oliver Sacks is spot on and use his books to engage students or do you reckon his patient reports are more like novels or science fiction? Are you taken by Antonio Damasio’s powerful arguments or do you think he did not get his philosophy exactly right? Do you enjoy the writings of William Calvin, Susan Greenfield, Vilayanur Ramachandran or do you ...

Important decisions about the financing, determining priorities in and provision of health services depend on beliefs about facts and relationships. It is argued in this paper that many popular beliefs are either logically wrong or are not supported by the evidence. Important errors exist in the beliefs about the effects of technology and ageing populations on health care costs, affordability o...