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This paper uses a unique survey data set of 105 central banks to investigate whether investment policies for central bank foreign reserve portfolios are linked to the governance arrangements for reserve management. The paper evaluates whether a central bank's investment decision-making structure impacts how much risk institutions take in their reserve management operations and the level of diversity in their reserve portfolios. Additionally, it explores the implications of the broader governance environment on reserve management. The analysis yields four key findings. First, internal governance arrangements matter for foreign reserve portfolio investment policy; the empirical results indicate that reserve portfolios are more diversified in central banks in which the middle office directly reports to the board. Second, controlling for the level of reserves, the macroenvironment, and the broader governance environment, reserve portfolios are more diversified in central banks where the back, middle, and front offices are separated. Third, the regression analysis also reveals that central banks in countries where the Ministry of Finance has an obligation to cover negative equity have fewer eligible currencies and are therefore less diversified. Fourth, central banks where boards actively exercise portfolio oversight usually have portfolios with more risk and diversification. Portfolios with longer investment horizons, more currencies, and a broader set of asset classes have performed better historically while limiting downside risk. Given that the analysis controls the broader governance environment, the data indicate that any central bank can improve its internal governance regardless of the external governance environment. This paper contributes to the literature on central bank foreign reserves management and on understanding the importance of governance arrangements in investment policy.

Central Bank --- Central Bank Governance --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Crisis Management and Restructuring --- Financial Structures --- Macroeconomic Management --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Public Investment Management --- Public Sector Development --- Reserve Management Policy --- Risk Tolerance

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The book brings to light how Latin American states have traditionally stood before the field of International Investment Law and Arbitration. It delves into their posture of resistance to critically examine how their perspective has gradually changed and how they have adapted and molded their investment agreements so as not to leave their position as players in the field of International Investment Law. Many Latin American states have appeared as defendants before international investment tribunals and some of these, like Venezuela, Bolivia or Ecuador, have denounced their international investment agreements. Deeming the law field as imbalanced, they have looked for alternatives to continue providing legal protection to foreign investors while protecting their right to regulate in the name of public interest. Some interesting investment agreements models, sometimes of a different ilk, have consequently flourished and have arrested the attention of those studying or working with international investment law. The main objective of this book is to critically discuss how Latin American states have accepted, resisted, or adapted themselves to international investment law and arbitration. Accordingly, the general connection between these states and international investment law are explained in an introduction which examines the general trends as per which Latin American states have offered a legal protection to foreign investments. The first part enters the merits of where international investment law and arbitration stand in some Latin American states whereby the experience of Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Uruguay are discussed. The following parts explain the trends in international investment law and arbitration in Latin America. These trends are namely related to dispute settlement and governance, to the connection between investment law and human rights and finally to regionalization. In these parts, the experience of states like Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico are perused.

Arbitration and award --- Investments --- Law and legislation --- International law. --- Trade regulation. --- Mediation. --- Dispute resolution (Law). --- Arbitration (Administrative law). --- Economic history. --- International Economic Law, Trade Law. --- Dispute Resolution, Mediation, Arbitration. --- Economy-wide Country Studies.

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With the recent development in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) technologies, these platforms appear as a credible alternative to conventional solutions in applications such as inspection, surveillance, crop yield analysis or goods delivery. However, it has been shown that commercial drones still lack in reliability when in critical environments/missions. For its space applications, SABCA has developed the Control Loop Processor (CLP), a deterministic processor, that could help tackle the lack in reliability. The determinism of this system ensures its complete behavior predictability, a key feature for tomorrow intelligent systems in charge of mission-critical tasks (autonomous cars, surgical robots, unmanned airplanes, etc). In the framework of this master thesis, I developed and tested a quadrotor UAV control system demonstrator with a colleague, based on the CLP in order to evaluate the system control performance and architectural relevance. This demonstrator is able to hover and manoeuver above the ground in an autonomous and a relatively stable manner. The CLP is capable of accomplishing this, the implementation however lacks and needs improvement in performance and robustness. The performance can be improved with further testing and development on the quadrotor UAV. The control done by the control algorithm has room for improvement and additional sensors can add to the reliability of the attitude and elevation estimation. To improve the robustness, we need to identify failure modes and mitigate them in our implementation. To go further, a more strict development process can be followed, such as the DO-178C standard or the European cooperation for space standardization(ECSS) from the European space agency(ESA), the development and testing will follow an international standard, which will guarantee safety and dependability of the software.