University of Westminster

About: University of Westminster is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Politics. The organization has 2944 authors who have published 8426 publications receiving 200236 citations. The organization is also known as: Westminster University & Royal Polytechnic Institution.

A simulation study of the winter bed crisis

Abstract: The winter bed crisis is a cyclical phenomenon which appears in British hospitals every year, two or three weeks after Christmas. The crisis is usually attributed to factors such as the bad weather, influenza, older people, geriatricians, lack of cash or nurse shortages. However, a possible alternative explanation could be that beds within the hospital are blocked because of lack of social services for discharge of hospital patients during the Christmas period. Adopting this explanation of why the bed crisis occurs, the problem was considered as a queuing system and discrete event simulation was employed to evaluate the model numerically. The model shows that stopping discharges of rehabilitating patients for 21 days accompanied by a cessation of planned patients for 14 days precipitate a bed crisis when the planned admissions recommence. The extensive "what-if" capabilities of such models could be proved to be crucial to the designing and implementation of possible solutions to the problem.

Who studies abroad? Evidence from France and Italy

Abstract: This article uses data from representative samples of university students in France and Italy in an attempt to investigate the determinants of participation in foreign exchange programmes. Empirical results indicate that selection into these programmes is mainly driven by student's academic and foreign language skills. On the other hand, parents' occupation does not seem to have any significant effect on the probability of studying abroad.

Connectedness and hedging between gold and Islamic securities: A new evidence from time-frequency domain approaches

Abstract: This paper investigates the dynamic connectedness between gold, sukuk and Islamic equities at multiple investment horizons, it also computes optimal hedge ratios and portfolio weights for these assets. Our findings suggest that gold hedges the risk of sukuk in the short and medium terms, and that gold plays an average but stable role in hedging and diversifying Islamic equities across all investment horizons. Moreover, we document a diversification benefits of portfolios combining gold and Islamic equities in the short term. These empirical findings highlight the important role that gold plays in the diversification and hedging of Islamic assets.