University of Luxembourg

About: University of Luxembourg is a education organization based out in Luxembourg, Luxembourg. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & European union. The organization has 4744 authors who have published 22175 publications receiving 381824 citations.

Indirect Measures of Sexual Interest in Child Sex Offenders A Multimethod Approach

Abstract: Although there is strong meta-analytical evidence that deviant sexual interest in children is a major risk factor for recidivism in child sex offenders, the assessment of deviant sexual interest with self-report or phallometric measures is problematic. As an alternative approach for assessment, the Explicit and Implicit Sexual Interest Profile (EISIP) is introduced. It features direct self-report and indirect latency-based measures (Implicit Association Tests [IATs] and viewing time measures) of sexual interest in adults and children. The reliability and validity of the EISIP was investigated using a selected sample of child sex offenders (n = 38) and offender (n = 37) and nonoffender (n = 38) controls. Among the indirect measures, viewing time measures showed higher reliability and convergent and criterion validity than the IATs. However, the IATs independently accounted for criterion variance in multivariate analyses. The combined indirect measures showed good discriminative validity between child sex offenders and controls.

Future water quality monitoring: improving the balance between exposure and toxicity assessments of real-world pollutant mixtures

Abstract: Environmental water quality monitoring aims to provide the data required for safeguarding the environment against adverse biological effects from multiple chemical contamination arising from anthropogenic diffuse emissions and point sources. Here, we integrate the experience of the international EU-funded project SOLUTIONS to shift the focus of water monitoring from a few legacy chemicals to complex chemical mixtures, and to identify relevant drivers of toxic effects. Monitoring serves a range of purposes, from control of chemical and ecological status compliance to safeguarding specific water uses, such as drinking water abstraction. Various water sampling techniques, chemical target, suspect and non-target analyses as well as an array of in vitro, in vivo and in situ bioanalytical methods were advanced to improve monitoring of water contamination. Major improvements for broader applicability include tailored sampling techniques, screening and identification techniques for a broader and more diverse set of chemicals, higher detection sensitivity, standardized protocols for chemical, toxicological, and ecological assessments combined with systematic evidence evaluation techniques. No single method or combination of methods is able to meet all divergent monitoring purposes. Current monitoring approaches tend to emphasize either targeted exposure or effect detection. Here, we argue that, irrespective of the specific purpose, assessment of monitoring results would benefit substantially from obtaining and linking information on the occurrence of both chemicals and potentially adverse biological effects. In this paper, we specify the information required to: (1) identify relevant contaminants, (2) assess the impact of contamination in aquatic ecosystems, or (3) quantify cause–effect relationships between contaminants and adverse effects. Specific strategies to link chemical and bioanalytical information are outlined for each of these distinct goals. These strategies have been developed and explored using case studies in the Danube and Rhine river basins as well as for rivers of the Iberian Peninsula. Current water quality assessment suffers from biases resulting from differences in approaches and associated uncertainty analyses. While exposure approaches tend to ignore data gaps (i.e., missing contaminants), effect-based approaches penalize data gaps with increased uncertainty factors. This integrated work suggests systematic ways to deal with mixture exposures and combined effects in a more balanced way, and thus provides guidance for future tailored environmental monitoring.

Does bank competition alleviate credit constraints in developing countries

Abstract: Whether competition helps or hinders firms’ access to finance, particularly in the developing world, is in itself a much debated question in the economic literature and in policy circles. This paper considers the consequences of bank competition on credit constraints using firm level data covering 69 developing and emerging countries. In addition to the classical concentration measure, competition is assessed by computing three non-structural measures (Boone indicator, Lerner index and H-statistic). The results show that bank competition alleviates credit constraints and that bank concentration measure is not a robust predictor of a firm’s access to finance. The study highlights that bank competition not only leads to less severe loan approval decisions but also reduces borrower discouragement.

Rotational cryptanalysis of ARX

Abstract: In this paper we analyze the security of systems based on modular additions, rotations, and XORs (ARX systems). We provide both theoretical support for their security and practical cryptanalysis of real ARX primitives. We use a technique called rotational cryptanalysis, that is universal for the ARX systems and is quite efficient. We illustrate the method with the best known attack on reduced versions of the block cipher Threefish (the core of Skein). Additionally, we prove that ARX with constants are functionally complete, i.e. any function can be realized with these operations.