Climate finance and disclosure for institutional investors: why transparency is not enough

The finance sector’s response to pressures around climate change has emphasized disclosure, notably through the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The implicit assumption—that if risks are fully revealed, finance will respond rationally and in ways aligned with the public interest—is rooted in the “efficient market hypothesis” (EMH) applied to the finance sector and its perception of climate policy. For low carbon investment, particular hopes have been placed on the role of institutional investors, given the apparent matching of their assets and liabilities with the long timescales of climate change. We both explain theoretical frameworks (grounded in the “three domains”, namely satisficing, optimizing, and transforming) and use empirical evidence (from a survey of institutional investors), to show that the EMH is unsupported by either theory or evidence: it follows that transparency alone will be an inadequate response. To some extent, transparency can address behavioural biases (first domain characteristics), and improving pricing and market efficiency (second domain); however, the strategic (third domain) limitations of EMH are more serious. We argue that whilst transparency can help, on its own it is a very long way from an adequate response to the challenges of ‘aligning institutional climate finance’

Impact of UAV Hardware Options on Bridge Inspection Mission Capabilities

Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) constitute a rapidly evolving technology field that is becoming more accessible and capable of supplementing, expanding, and even replacing some traditionally manual bridge inspections. Given the classification of the bridge inspection types as initial, routine, in-depth, damage, special, and fracture critical members, specific UAV mission requirements can be developed, and their suitability for UAV application examined. Results of a review of 23 applications of UAVs in bridge inspections indicate that mission sensor and payload needs dictate the UAV configuration and size, resulting in quadcopter configurations being most suitable for visual camera inspections (43% of visual inspections use quadcopters), and hexa- and octocopter configurations being more suitable for higher payload hyperspectral, multispectral, and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) inspections (13%). In addition, the number of motors and size of the aircraft are the primary drivers in the cost of the vehicle. 75% of vehicles rely on GPS for navigation, and none of them are capable of contact inspections. Factors that limit the use of UAVs in bridge inspections include the UAV endurance, the capability of navigation in GPS deprived environments, the stability in confined spaces in close proximity to structural elements, and the cost. Current research trends in UAV technologies address some of these limitations, such as obstacle detection and avoidance methods, autonomous flight path planning and optimization, and UAV hardware optimization for specific mission requirements

Multiple arrhythmogenic substrate for tachycardia in a patient with frequent palpitations

We report a 26-year-old woman with frequent episodes of palpitation and dizziness. Resting electrocardiography showed no evidence of ventricular preexcitation. During electrophysiologic study, a concealed right posteroseptal accessory pathway was detected and orthodromic atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia incorporating this pathway as a retrograde limb was reproducibly induced. After successful ablation of right posteroseptal accessory pathway, another tachycardia was induced using a concealed right posterolateral accessory pathway in tachycardia circuit. After loss of retrograde conduction of second accessory pathway with radiofrequency ablation, dual atrioventricular nodal physiology was detected and typical atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia was repeatedly induced. Slow pathway ablation was done successfully. Finally sustained self-terminating atrial tachycardia was induced under isoproterenol infusion but no attempt was made for ablation. During 8-month follow-up, no recurrence of symptoms attributable to tachycardia was observed

Mid-term follow-up of patients with Brugada syndrome following a cardioverter defibrillator implantation: A single center experience

BACKGROUND: Brugada syndrome is an arrhythmogenic disease characterized by an ECG pattern of ST-segment elevation in the right precordial leads and an increase risk of sudden cardiac death. Risk stratification for the life-threatening arrhythmic events in Brugada syndrome is not yet established. In the present study, we report our experience in patients with Brugada syndrome, following an ICD implantation. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 12 patients (11 men, 1 woman) with a mean age of 46.5±11.8 were studied. At diagnosis, 7 patients had syncope of unknown origin, 2 patients were asymptomatic, 2 patients were survivors of cardiac arrest, and 1 had documented clinical VT requiring direct cardioversion for termination. Age was similar between the symptomatic and asymptomatic patients (46.6±13 vs. 46±2.8, respectively). Two patients reported a family history of sudden cardiac death. In 3 patients, spontaneous coved-type ECG was found at baseline. In 9 patients, a class I antiarrhythmic drug administration unmasked the characteristic type I ECG. In 4 patients (2 symptomatic with syncope at presentation and 2 asymptomatic), who underwent PES, sustained polymorphic VT or VF was induced. VF was induced by single extrastimuli in 2 symptomatic patients (1 from RV apex and 1 from RVOT). In 2 asymptomatic patients, VF was induced by two and triple ventricular extrastimli (1 from RV apex and 1 from RVOT). None of them experienced an event during follow-up. No significant difference was found between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients (p=NS). The mean follow-up period for the entire study population was 27.83±11.25 months. During follow-up, 2 patients (one with prior cardiac arrest and another with syncope) had VF. Both of them had a type I ECG after provocation with a class I antiarrhythmic drug. None of them had undergone programmed ventricular stimulation. Five patients (41.7 %) had inappropriate ICD interventions during follow-up. The cause of inappropriate therapy was sinus tachycardia in 2 patients, AF in 2 patients and T wave oversensing in 1 patient. CONCLUSION: Knowledge about Brugada syndrome is steadily progressing but there are still unanswered issues dealing with the risk stratification and the management of patients

Coexistence of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia and idiopathic left ventricular outflow-tract tachycardia

Double tachycardia is a relatively rare condition. We describe a 21 year old woman with history of frequent palpitations. In one of these episodes, she had wide complex tachycardia with right bundle branch and inferior axis morphology. A typical atrioventricular nodal tachycardia was induced during electrophysiologic study, aimed at induction of clinically documented tachycardia. Initially no ventricular tachycardia was inducible. After successful ablation of slow pathway, a wide complex tachycardia was induced by programmed stimulation from right ventricular outflow tract. Mapping localized the focus of tachycardia in left ventricular outflow tract and successfully ablated via retrograde aortic approach. During 7 month's follow-up, she has been symptom free with no recurrence. This work describes successful ablation of rare combination of typical atrioventricular nodal tachycardia and left ventricular outflow tract tachycardia in the same patient during one session

A Gaussian Sliding Windows Regression Model for Hydrological Inference

Statistical models are an essential tool to model, forecast and understand the hydrological processes in watersheds. In particular, the modeling of time lags associated with the time between rainfall occurrence and subsequent changes in streamflow, is of high practical importance. Since water can take a variety of flowpaths to generate streamflow, a series of distinct runoff pulses from different flowpath may combine to create the observed streamflow time series. Current state-of-the-art models are not able to sufficiently confront the problem complexity with interpretable parametrization, which would allow insights into the dynamics of the distinct flow paths for hydrological inference. The proposed Gaussian Sliding Windows Regression Model targets this problem by combining the concept of multiple windows sliding along the time axis with multiple linear regression. The window kernels, which indicate the weights applied to different time lags, are implemented via Gaussian-shaped kernels. As a result, each window can represent one flowpath and, thus, offers the potential for straightforward process inference. Experiments on simulated and real-world scenarios underline that the proposed model achieves accurate parameter estimates and competitive predictive performance, while fostering explainable and interpretable hydrological modeling

NaNet: a Low-Latency, Real-Time, Multi-Standard Network Interface Card with GPUDirect Features

While the GPGPU paradigm is widely recognized as an effective approach to high performance computing, its adoption in low-latency, real-time systems is still in its early stages. Although GPUs typically show deterministic behaviour in terms of latency in executing computational kernels as soon as data is available in their internal memories, assessment of real-time features of a standard GPGPU system needs careful characterization of all subsystems along data stream path. The networking subsystem results in being the most critical one in terms of absolute value and fluctuations of its response latency. Our envisioned solution to this issue is NaNet, a FPGA-based PCIe Network Interface Card (NIC) design featuring a configurable and extensible set of network channels with direct access through GPUDirect to NVIDIA Fermi/Kepler GPU memories. NaNet design currently supports both standard - GbE (1000BASE-T) and 10GbE (10Base-R) - and custom - 34~Gbps APElink and 2.5~Gbps deterministic latency KM3link - channels, but its modularity allows for a straightforward inclusion of other link technologies. To avoid host OS intervention on data stream and remove a possible source of jitter, the design includes a network/transport layer offload module with cycle-accurate, upper-bound latency, supporting UDP, KM3link Time Division Multiplexing and APElink protocols. After NaNet architecture description and its latency/bandwidth characterization for all supported links, two real world use cases will be presented: the GPU-based low level trigger for the RICH detector in the NA62 experiment at CERN and the on-/off-shore data link for KM3 underwater neutrino telescope

Latent atriofascicular pathway participating in a wide complex tachycardia: Differentiation from ventricular tachycardia

Accessory pathways with anterograde decremental conduction properties usually are characterized by presence of antegrade preexcitation during atrial pacing. We report a 38-year-old man with frequent episodes of palpitation. No evidence of ventricular preexcitation was seen during sinus rhythm or atrial pacing. All electrophysiologic maneuvers were compatible with an antidromic tachycardia using atriofascicular pathway as the antegrade limb and the atrioventricular nodal pathway as retrograde limb. Radiofrequency ablation at recording site of accessory pathway potential resulted in cure of tachycardia with no recurrence during 3-month follow-up. This report indicated that atriofascicular pathway-mediated tachycardia should be considered in differential diagnosis of all cases of wide complex tachycardia with left bundle branch morphology and left axis. © 2006, The Authors

Frequency and Predictors of Courses Repetition, Probation, and Delayed Graduation in Kashan Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery

Background: Course failing and delayed graduation are important concerns in educational systems. The reasons of these educational failures need to be clarified. Objectives: This study was designed to determine the academic failure rate and its predictors in Nursing and Midwifery Students in Kashan University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the records of all the students graduated in Nursing and Midwifery faculty during 18 years (1986 - 2003) were evaluated (1174 graduates). The demographic variables and the educational situation were recorded. The frequency of course repetition, probation, and delayed graduation were determined and the data were analyzed using the chi-square and logistic regression tests. Results: The frequency of course repetition, probation, and delayed graduation was reported to be 19.25%, 3.9% and 19.85%, respectively. Gaining Low grade in high school, transferring from other universities, having special quota, and transferring temporarily to other universities were mentioned as the risk factors of academic failure. The major had a significant relationship with academic failure. Day time students had more course failure and night time students stayed longer in the university. Conclusions: The individual characteristics, educational background and admission criteria had showed relation with academic failure. Vulnerable students should be identified and educational supports should be provided for these students