Should financial institutions mark-to-market?

There has been a spirited debate about the merits of mark-to-market accounting for financial institutions for some time now. Many argue that market prices provide the best estimate of value available and should always be used. However, others suggest that in times of crisis market prices are not a good reflection of value and their use can lead to serious distortions. This article explains the circumstances where market prices do reflect future earning power and those where market imperfections imply that they do not. We suggest that in financial crisis situations where liquidity is scarce and prices are low as a result, market prices should be supplemented with both model-based and historic cost valuations. The rest of the time and in particular when asset prices are low because expectations of future cash flows have fallen, mark-to-market accounting should instead be used.

Occurrence and fate of heavy metals in large wastewater treatment plants treating municipal and industrial wastewaters.

This paper deals with a detailed study on the occurrence and fate of heavy metals (plus As, Fe and Al) in five Italian large wastewater treatment plants treating municipal and industrial wastewaters. The study showed that some of the compounds (As, Hg and Cd) were present at trace levels, while others were dispersed in a broad range of concentrations and were sometimes under the detection limit. The occurrence followed the order Hg = As < Hg < Pb < Ni < Cu < Cr < Fe < Zn < Al. Metals were mainly present bound to particulate organic matter in municipal wastewaters while they were often present in soluble phase in industrial wastewaters. Some heavy metals, like Hg and Pb, showed clear correlations with Al and Fe, therefore the last could be used as control parameters. Metals were removed with good efficiency in the treatment works, with the order As < Cd = Cr = Zn < Pb < Hg < Ni = Al < Cu < Fe. Metals then concentrated in waste activated sludge and accumulated after sludge stabilisation because of volatile solids degradation, therefore some problems may arise with limit for agricultural application, in particular for Hg, Cd and Ni

Deposits and bank capital structure

In a model with bankruptcy costs and segmented deposit and equity markets, we endogenize the cost of equity and deposit finance for banks. Despite risk neutrality, equity capital earns a higher expected return than direct investment in risky assets. Banks hold positive capital to reduce bankruptcy costs, but there is a role for capital regulation when deposits are insured. Banks could no longer use capital when they lend to firms instead of investing directly in risky assets. This depends on whether the firms are public and compete with banks for equity capital or are private with exogenous amounts of capital

Angiotensin type-2 (AT-2)-receptor activation reduces renal fibrosis in cyclosporine nephropathy: evidence for blood-pressure independent effect

Compound 21 (C21), selective agonist of AT2 receptors, shows antinflammatory effects in hypertension and nephroprotection in diabetes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of C21 in cyclosporine nephropathy, which is characterized mainly by tubulo-interstitial fibrosis. Ten days before and during the experimental periods, low-salt diet was administered to Sprague Dawley rats. Cyclosporine-A (15mg/kg/day, i.p.) and cyclosporine-A plus C21 (0.3 mg/kg /day, i.p) were administered for 1 and 4 weeks. Control groups was left without any treatment. Blood pressure (plethysmographic method) and 24 hour albuminuria were measured once a week. At the end of the experiments, the kidneys were excised for histomorphometric analysis of renal fibrosis and for immunohistochemical evaluation of inflammatory infiltrates and type I and IV collagen expression.After 1 and 4 weeks, the rats treated with cyclosporine showed a significant increase (p <0.01) in blood pressure, no significant changes in albuminuria, a significant increase (p <0.01) in glomerular and tubulo-interstitial fibrosis and inflammatory infiltrates as compared to the control rats. Treatment with C21 did not modify the cyclosporine dependent increase of blood pressure, which was higher than in control rats, but after 4 weeks of treatment significantly reduced (p <0.01) glomerular and tubulo-interstitial fibrosis, type 1 collagen expression and macrophage infiltration, as compared to rats treated with cyclosporine.The administration of C21 showed a protective effect on cyclosporine nephropathy, decreasing renal fibrosis and macrophage infiltration. These data suggest that C21 may counteract tubulo-interstitial fibrosis, the most potent predictor of the progression of renal diseases

IL CONTROVERSO INQUADRAMENTO DELL'OPPOSIZIONE ALLO STATO PASSIVO FALLIMENTARE

The purpose of the study conducted was to identify the rules governing the procedure for opposing the bankruptcy statement of liabilities, expressly provided for in Articles 98-99 of the bankruptcy law, as a possible remedy against the decree of enforceability of the statement of liabilities issued by the delegated judge. The issue under consideration was of particular interest because, first of all, it made it possible to analyse the profound changes that the proceedings in question have undergone since the issue of R. D. 267/1942, followed by the reform carried out with D.lgs 5/2006 corrected with D.lgs 169/2007 and culminating in the Dlgs 14/2019. Secondly, it allowed a critical evaluation of the troubled legislative process mentioned, which did not always comply with the intention of creating a complete set of rules suitable to speed up the process. Therefore, the beginning of the dissertation is constituted by a comparison between the discipline of the verification of credits as outlined by the legislator of 1942 and the modifications introduced in the two-year period 2006-2007. First of all, the first phase of the judge's activity was examined, which, in its original structure, on the border between the administrative and the jurisdictional nature, was dominated by the summary nature and by the inquisitorial principle, and was linked to a singular breadth of powers granted to the judge in order to simplify the procedure. The second phase, on the other hand, unlike the first, was subject to the discipline of the ordinary rite of cognition, although introduced with an appeal, instructed by the same delegated judge, a rite in which the parties had to respect the endo-procedural terms provided for by art. 183 ss c.p.c.. At that time, the nature of the appeal was recognised as having devolutive effect: in other words, the provisions of Article 345 c.p.c. had to be applied. With the novel, the legislator wanted to assign to the delegated judge and the receiver a profoundly different role from the past, outlining the procedure of verification of claims as a procedure that is of a contentious jurisdictional nature, albeit with summary knowledge, and that is based on the principle of the application and the exception, in which the receiver assumes the role of party and the judge pronounces according to the rules and in compliance with the rules of evidence. The procedure relating to "appeals", on the other hand, has been maintained as a judgment on the merits with full knowledge of the facts, even though it is characterised by a single rite for the treatment of the three different means of appeal. Moreover, the discipline of this rite is no longer automatically classifiable within the scope of the norms that mark the ordinary process of cognition, since, with the reform, the references to the code of ordinary rite no longer exist. Having defined the essential features of the reforms mentioned, the second and third chapters focus on the search for the legal nature of the opposition procedure. And so, first of all, we have adhered to the conviction that the remedy de quo can be counted within the category of the means of appeal, not being able to consider it as a simple continuation, with full knowledge, of the summary phase of verification. This classification is not without consequences on the level of discipline, which has made it necessary to study the devolving effect and the prohibition of ius novorum, and then to proceed to a comparison with the model described in Articles. 339 ss. C.p.c., which concludes with the impossibility of overlapping the two remedies. Specifically, the different attitudes of the devolving phenomenon, of the exceptions, of the evidence that can be deduced, of the prohibition of reformatio in peius and, above all, of the possibility of lodging incidental appeals were analysed. Having identified the characteristics of the opposition as a model of appeal that cannot be equated with the judgment on appeal, the third chapter devoted itself to the controversial nature of the remedy in question. And so, anticipating the conclusion relating to the section under examination, we have now adhered to the orientation that recognizes the rite of opposition as a chamber judgment, specifically, the outcome of a detailed comparison with the procedural model governed by Articles. 737 c.p.c. which involved the introductory phase of the judgement, the subsequent phase of treatment as well as the decisional phase, it has been reached to believe that the chamber of commerce is not to be found only and exclusively in the formal aspects, that is, in the form of the introductory act (appeal) and in that of the conclusive measure (decree). In fact, an essential trait of the chamber rite is its simplicity and slimness, freed from rigorous temporal scans and rigid applications of the rules of evidence. Therefore, it was considered that these peculiarities are actually present in the proceedings under Article 99 of the Bankruptcy Law, subject to certain exceptions. The latter consist first of all in the way in which the introductory phase of the judgement is marked, which is studded with rigid foreclosures, apparently in open contrast with the typical deformalization of the chamber procedure; to this is added the express non-recognition of powers of investigation by the judge, who (as a result of the corrective decree of 2007) is no longer explicitly recognized the possibility of "assuming information". However, these last elements do not call into question the landing reached, as they are a necessary adaptation to allow the procedure in the chamber of the council the contentious protection of the rights. In other words, the legislator wanted to ensure the quantum of minimum guarantees of due process necessary to shape the chamber proceedings for the purpose of judicial protection of subjective rights in litigation. Such a conclusion was opportune to understand whether the meagre discipline of the rite, as enucleated by art. 99 of the bankruptcy law, can or cannot be integrated through a reference to the norms inherent to the ordinary rite of knowledge which, as has been said, is no longer recalled by the regulations. Through an analysis of the jurisprudence, it will be considered that the chamber model de quo is special, because only the rules contained in the Royal Decree 2671942 are applicable to it, and it is precisely this recognised speciality that will be considered necessary to act as a yardstick whenever there is doubt about the possible reference to a rule belonging to the rite referred to in Articles. 163 ss c.p.c. Well, the uncertainties that still overshadow both the discipline and the framework of the opposition to the bankruptcy proceedings are extremely topical if only we consider the karst trend of the jurisprudence that sometimes denies and sometimes affirms the imputability of the rite to the ordinary one. Whether these uncertainties have been dispelled by the legislator of the reform with a clarifying intervention is subject to review in the fourth and final chapter. In other words, as mentioned above, the D.lgs 14/2019, in the declared intention to enhance the profiles accelerators of the procedure, intervened on the discipline under Article 99 of the bankruptcy law. translating it into the new Article 207 CCII and innovating it in several respects, first of all the recognized admissibility of incidental (timely and) late appeals. However, the legislator did not take the opportunity to resolve some problematic issues that affect mainly the investigation phase, which has remained unchanged from the regime currently in force. Specifically, the greatest concerns are raised on the one hand by some contradictory choices made by the legislature, especially in the perspective of accelerating the rite, and on the other hand by the failure to take an express position on the powers of investigation concretely available to the bankruptcy judge, remaining the subject of free interpretation, as evidenced by still conflicting jurisprudential guidelines, a symptom of a serious vulnus to legal certainty. What we want to emphasize is that the chamber nature of the rite has not been sufficiently valued, well having been able to the legislator of the reform exalt this framework, while respecting the rules of evidence, through the enhancement of the activism of the judge in the use of investigative powers on materials already acquired. This would have allowed the rite de quo to be placed in a more epistemic perspective of the trial, therefore more inclined to the pursuit of material truth, in line with a trend that is now widespread in both internal and supranational courts

Accurate and fast 3D interactive segmentation system applied to MR brain quantification

This work presents an efficient interactive segmentation system for volumetric data-sets based on advanced 3D morphological analyses and an interaction paradigm that allows a good match with user intentions. This system has been designed to produce accurate results under the complete control of the user, to minimize the interaction time and to address a generality of 3D segmentation tasks. The system has been tested and compared with other softwares on normal MR brain structure quantification and on a challenging clinical setting pointed to the detection of the presence of subtle brain atrophy associated to primitive immunodeficiency (PID)

Birth and Death in a Continuous Opinion Dynamics Model. The consensus case

We here discuss the process of opinion formation in an open community where agents are made to interact and consequently update their beliefs. New actors (birth) are assumed to replace individuals that abandon the community (deaths). This dynamics is simulated in the framework of a simplified model that accounts for mutual affinity between agents. A rich phenomenology is presented and discussed with reference to the original (closed group) setting. Numerical findings are supported by analytical calculations.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Recent expansion of dengue virus serotype 3 in West Africa

Due to non-existing or limited surveillance in Africa, little is known about the epidemiology of dengue illness in the continent. Serological and virological data obtained from returning European travellers is a key complement to this often flawed information. In the past years, dengue 3 virus has emerged in West Africa and has been detected in travellers returning to Europe. The first dengue epidemic in Cape Verde with more than 17,000 cases from September to December 2009 demonstrated that dengue virus is still expanding worldwide to new territories.S

Scaling of the Critical Function for the Standard Map: Some Numerical Results

The behavior of the critical function for the breakdown of the homotopically non-trivial invariant (KAM) curves for the standard map, as the rotation number tends to a rational number, is investigated using a version of Greene's residue criterion. The results are compared to the analogous ones for the radius of convergence of the Lindstedt series, in which case rigorous theorems have been proved. The conjectured interpolation of the critical function in terms of the Bryuno function is discussed.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures, 13 table