Climate Risk in the American Financial System - A Bottom Up Approach

Climate change will inevitably lead some companies to default on their debt, putting stress on banks and financial institutions. To ensure financial stability, financial institutions must prepare for climate risk appropriately. Although the first step to mitigating climate risk is quantifying that risk, researchers have not come to a consensus on the magnitude of climate-related credit risk. This thesis builds on prior research by taking a bottom-up approach to modeling climate risk in the American financial system. I find that risk is concentrated in certain companies, industries, regions, and financial institutions. Although these findings do not provide evidence that there is systematic climate risk in the American financial system, they do indicate that certain parts of the financial system are vulnerable and warrant regulation.Bachelor of Business Administratio

Modified Parameter Attacks: Practical Attacks against CCA2 Secure Cryptosystems and Countermeasures

We introduce the concept of Modified Parameter Attacks, a natural extension of the idea of Adapative Chosen Ciphertext Attacks (CCA2) under which some CCA2 secure systems can be shown to be insecure. These insecurities can be addressed at the application level, but can also be addressed when cryptographic schemes are being designed. We survey some existing CCA2 secure systems which are vulnerable to this attack and suggest practical countermeasures

Decreased Immunoreactivities and Functions of the Chloride Transporters, KCC2 and NKCC1, in the Lateral Superior Olive Neurons of Circling Mice

Objectives. We tested the possibility of differential expression and function of the potassium-chloride (KCC2) and sodium-potassium-2 chloride (NKCC1) co-transporters in the lateral superior olive (LSO) of heterozygous (+/cir) or homozygous (cir/cir) mice.Methods. Mice pups aged from postnatal (P) day 9 to 16 were used. Tails from mice were cut for DNA typing. For Immunohistochemical analysis, rabbit polyclonal anti-KCC2 or rabbit polyclonal anti-NKCC1 was used and the density of immunolabelings was evaluated using the NTH image program. For functional analysis, whole cell voltage clamp technique was used in brain stem slices and the changes of reversal potentials were evaluated at various membrane potentials.Results. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed both KCC2 and NKCC1 immunoreactivities were more prominent in heterozygous (+/cir) than homozygous (cir/cir) mice on P day 16. In P9-P12 heterozygous (+/cir) mice, the reversal potential (E(gly)) of glycine-induced currents was shifted to a more negative potential by 50 mu M bumetanide, a known NKCC1 blocker, and the negatively shifted EA, was restored by additional application of 1 mM furosemide, a KCC2 blocker (-58.9 +/- 2.6 mV to -66.0 +/- 1.5 mV [bumetanide], -66.0 1.5 mV to -59.8 +/- 2.8 mV [furosemide+bumetanide], n=11). However, only bumetanide was weakly, but significantly effective (-60.1 +/- 2.9 mV to -62.7 +/- 2.6 mV [bumetanide], -62.7 +/- 2.6 mV to -62.1 +/- 2.5 mV [furosernide+bumetanide], n=7) in P9-P12 homozygous (cir/cir) mice.Conclusion. The less prominent immunoreactivities and weak or absent responses to bumetanide or furosemide suggest impaired function or delayed development of both transporters in homozygous (cir/cir) mice

Brains swinging in concert: cortical phase synchronization while playing guitar

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Brains interact with the world through actions that are implemented by sensory and motor processes. A substantial part of these interactions consists in synchronized goal-directed actions involving two or more individuals. Hyperscanning techniques for assessing fMRI simultaneously from two individuals have been developed. However, EEG recordings that permit the assessment of synchronized neuronal activities at much higher levels of temporal resolution have not yet been simultaneously assessed in multiple individuals and analyzed in the time-frequency domain. In this study, we simultaneously recorded EEG from the brains of each of eight pairs of guitarists playing a short melody together to explore the extent and the functional significance of synchronized cortical activity in the course of interpersonally coordinated actions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>By applying synchronization algorithms to intra- and interbrain analyses, we found that phase synchronization both within and between brains increased significantly during the periods of (i) preparatory metronome tempo setting and (ii) coordinated play onset. Phase alignment extracted from within-brain dynamics was related to behavioral play onset asynchrony between guitarists.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings show that interpersonally coordinated actions are preceded and accompanied by between-brain oscillatory couplings. Presumably, these couplings reflect similarities in the temporal properties of the individuals' percepts and actions. Whether between-brain oscillatory couplings play a causal role in initiating and maintaining interpersonal action coordination needs to be clarified by further research.</p

The Association between Supraphysiologic Arterial Oxygen Levels and Mortality in Critically Ill Patients. A Multicenter Observational Cohort Study.

Rationale: There is conflicting evidence on harm related to exposure to supraphysiologic PaO2 (hyperoxemia) in critically ill patients.Objectives: To examine the association between longitudinal exposure to hyperoxemia and mortality in patients admitted to ICUs in five United Kingdom university hospitals.Methods: A retrospective cohort of ICU admissions between January 31, 2014, and December 31, 2018, from the National Institute of Health Research Critical Care Health Informatics Collaborative was studied. Multivariable logistic regression modeled death in ICU by exposure to hyperoxemia.Measurements and Main Results: Subsets with oxygen exposure windows of 0 to 1, 0 to 3, 0 to 5, and 0 to 7 days were evaluated, capturing 19,515, 10,525, 6,360, and 4,296 patients, respectively. Hyperoxemia dose was defined as the area between the PaO2 time curve and a boundary of 13.3 kPa (100 mm Hg) divided by the hours of potential exposure (24, 72, 120, or 168 h). An association was found between exposure to hyperoxemia and ICU mortality for exposure windows of 0 to 1 days (odds ratio [OR], 1.15; 95% compatibility interval [CI], 0.95-1.38; P = 0.15), 0 to 3 days (OR 1.35; 95% CI, 1.04-1.74; P = 0.02), 0 to 5 days (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.07-2.13; P = 0.02), and 0 to 7 days (OR, 1.74; 95% CI, 1.11-2.72; P = 0.02). However, a dose-response relationship was not observed. There was no evidence to support a differential effect between hyperoxemia and either a respiratory diagnosis or mechanical ventilation.Conclusions: An association between hyperoxemia and mortality was observed in our large, unselected multicenter cohort. The absence of a dose-response relationship weakens causal interpretation. Further experimental research is warranted to elucidate this important question

Exploring the Political-Economic Factors of Participatory Journalism: Views of Online Journalists in 10 Countries

This comparative study of user-generated content (UGC) in 10 Western democracies examines the political economic aspects of citizen participation in online media, as assessed by journalists who work with this content. Drawing on interviews with more than 60 journalists, we explore their perceived economic motivations for an ongoing redefinition of traditional journalistic roles, as UGC becomes an increasingly dominant feature of news websites

Critical Care Health Informatics Collaborative (CCHIC): Data, tools and methods for reproducible research: A multi-centre UK intensive care database.

OBJECTIVE: To build and curate a linkable multi-centre database of high resolution longitudinal electronic health records (EHR) from adult Intensive Care Units (ICU). To develop a set of open-source tools to make these data 'research ready' while protecting patient's privacy with a particular focus on anonymisation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We developed a scalable EHR processing pipeline for extracting, linking, normalising and curating and anonymising EHR data. Patient and public involvement was sought from the outset, and approval to hold these data was granted by the NHS Health Research Authority's Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG). The data are held in a certified Data Safe Haven. We followed sustainable software development principles throughout, and defined and populated a common data model that links to other clinical areas. RESULTS: Longitudinal EHR data were loaded into the CCHIC database from eleven adult ICUs at 5 UK teaching hospitals. From January 2014 to January 2017, this amounted to 21,930 and admissions (18,074 unique patients). Typical admissions have 70 data-items pertaining to admission and discharge, and a median of 1030 (IQR 481-2335) time-varying measures. Training datasets were made available through virtual machine images emulating the data processing environment. An open source R package, cleanEHR, was developed and released that transforms the data into a square table readily analysable by most statistical packages. A simple language agnostic configuration file will allow the user to select and clean variables, and impute missing data. An audit trail makes clear the provenance of the data at all times. DISCUSSION: Making health care data available for research is problematic. CCHIC is a unique multi-centre longitudinal and linkable resource that prioritises patient privacy through the highest standards of data security, but also provides tools to clean, organise, and anonymise the data. We believe the development of such tools are essential if we are to meet the twin requirements of respecting patient privacy and working for patient benefit. CONCLUSION: The CCHIC database is now in use by health care researchers from academia and industry. The 'research ready' suite of data preparation tools have facilitated access, and linkage to national databases of secondary care is underway.NIH

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far