Rating agencies and sovereign credit risk assessment

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) have not consistently met the expectations placed on them by investors and policymakers. It is difficult, however, to improve the quality of ratings through regulatory initiatives. In the short term, changes to the CRAsâ?? regulatory environment, in a context of high market uncertainty, may add to market stress. The role of credit ratings in regulation should be reduced but eliminating it entirely would have significant downsides, at least in the short term. The transfer of ratings responsibility to public authorities, including the European Central Bank, is unlikely to be a good alternative because of inherent conflicts of interest. The notion of risk-free sovereign bonds is challenged by the crisis, but the most straightforward way to address this challenge in the euro-area context would be the establishment of a euro-area-wide sovereign bond instrument. This Policy Contribution was prepared as a briefing paper for the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committeeâ??s Monetary Dialogue

Environmental risk assessment of GE plants under low-exposure conditions

The requirement for environmental risk assessment (ERA) of genetically engineered (GE) plants prior to large scale or commercial introduction into the environment is well established in national laws and regulations, as well as in international agreements. Since the first introductions of GE plants in commercial agriculture in the 1990s, a nearly universal paradigm has emerged for conducting these assessments based on a few guiding principles. These include the concept of case-by-case assessment, the use of comparative assessments, and a focus of the ERA on characteristics of the plant, the introduced trait, and the receiving environment as well as the intended use. In practice, however, ERAs for GE plants have frequently focused on achieving highly detailed characterizations of potential hazards at the expense of consideration of the relevant levels of exposure. This emphasis on exhaustive hazard characterization can lead to great difficulties when applied to ERA for GE plants under low-exposure conditions. This paper presents some relevant considerations for conducting an ERA for a GE plant in a low-exposure scenario in the context of the generalized ERA paradigm, building on discussions and case studies presented during a session at ISBGMO 12

Provider risk assessment and management

This document describes how the Skills Funding Agency will integrate the high-level ‘New Challenges, New Chances’ approach into its operational processes

Estimating the burden of disease attributable to low fruit and vegetable intake in South Africa in 2000

Objectives. To estimate the burden of disease attributed to low fruit and vegetable intake by sex and age group in South Africa for the year 2000. Design. The analysis follows the World Health Organization comparative risk assessment (CRA) methodology. Populationattributable fractions were calculated from South African prevalence data from dietary surveys and applied to the revised South African burden of disease estimates for 2000. A theoretical maximum distribution of 600 g per day for fruit and vegetable intake was chosen. Monte Carlo simulationmodelling techniques were used for uncertainty analysis. Setting. South Africa. Subjects. Adults ≥ 15 years. Outcome measures. Mortality and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), from ischaemic heart disease, ischaemic stroke, lung cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer and oesophageal cancer. Results. Low fruit and vegetable intake accounted for 3.2% of total deaths and 1.1% of the 16.2 million attributable DALYs. For both males and females the largest proportion of total years of healthy life lost attributed to low fruit and vegetable intake was for ischaemic heart disease (60.6% and 52.2%, respectively). Ischaemic stroke accounted for 17.8% of attributable DALYs for males and 32.7% for females. For the related cancers, the leading attributable DALYs for men and women were oesophageal cancer (9.8% and 7.0%, respectively) and lung cancer (7.8% and 4.7%, respectively). Conclusions. A high intake of fruit and vegetables can make a significant contribution to decreasing mortality from certain diseases. The challenge lies in creating the environment that facilitates changes in dietary habits such as the increased intake of fruit and vegetables. South African Medical Journal Vol. 97 (8) Part 2 2007: pp. 717-72

Alameda County Placement Risk Assessment Validation

The Alameda County Probation Department was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Justice in 1998 to develop a risk assessment for probation placement cases. The goal of the project was to implement a system-wide classification and placement system that would address the public concern for safety and effectiveness in dealing with juvenile crime. It would use a structured process that would assess the risk of future recidivism in combination with the severity of the current offense. This risk assessment project would develop a scientific and rational basis for making classification and placement decisions. It would ensure that extra-legal factors were not used in classification and decision making. Further, it would structure the process such that juveniles would be held accountable for delinquent behavior

Leveraging Epidemiology to Improve Risk Assessment.

The field of environmental public health is at an important crossroad. Our current biomonitoring efforts document widespread exposure to a host of chemicals for which toxicity information is lacking. At the same time, advances in the fields of genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, genetics and epigenetics are yielding volumes of data at a rapid pace. Our ability to detect chemicals in biological and environmental media has far outpaced our ability to interpret their health relevance, and as a result, the environmental risk paradigm, in its current state, is antiquated and ill-equipped to make the best use of these new data. In light of new scientific developments and the pressing need to characterize the public health burdens of chemicals, it is imperative to reinvigorate the use of environmental epidemiology in chemical risk assessment. Two case studies of chemical assessments from the Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Risk Information System database are presented to illustrate opportunities where epidemiologic data could have been used in place of experimental animal data in dose-response assessment, or where different approaches, techniques, or studies could have been employed to better utilize existing epidemiologic evidence. Based on the case studies and what can be learned from recent scientific advances and improved approaches to utilizing human data for dose-response estimation, recommendations are provided for the disciplines of epidemiology and risk assessment for enhancing the role of epidemiologic data in hazard identification and dose-response assessment

Design and initial validation of the Raster method for telecom service availability risk assessment

Crisis organisations depend on telecommunication services; unavailability of these services reduces the effectiveness of crisis response. Crisis organisations should therefore be aware of availability risks, and need a suitable risk assessment method. Such a method needs to be aware of the exceptional circumstances in which crisis organisations operate, and of the commercial structure of modern telecom services. We found that existing risk assessment methods are unsuitable for this problem domain. Hence, crisis organisations do not perform any risk assessment, trust their supplier, or rely on service level agreements, which are not meaningful during crisis situations. We have therefore developed a new risk assessment method, which we call RASTER. We have tested RASTER using a case study at the crisis organisation of a government agency, and improved the method based on the analysis of case results. Our initial validation suggests that the method can yield practical results