Macroprudential Indicators of Financial System Soundness

Following the severe financial crises of the 1990s, identifying and assessing financial sector vulnerabilities has become a key priority of the international community. The costly disruptions in global markets underscored the need to establish a set of monitorable variables for evaluating strengths and weaknesses in financial institutions and to alert authorities of impending problems. These variables, indicators, of financial system health and stability known collectively as macroprudential indicators, are the subject of this Occasional Paper by the Monetary and Exchange Affairs Department and the Statistics Department. Macroprudential indicators take measures at both the level of aggregated financial institutions and at the macroeconomic level; financial crises often occur when weaknesses are identified in both. The authors provide a breakdown and explanations of these indicators and a review of the theoretical and empirical work done thus far. Work at other international and multilateral institutions is included as well as the experiences of several national central banks and supervisory agencies. This paper provides a valuable reference source of current knowledge about macroprudential indicators and issues related to their analysis, identification, measurement, and possible dissemination.

Peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with latent autoimmune diabetes secrete higher levels of pro- & anti-inflammatory cytokines compared to those with type-1 diabetes mellitus following in vitro stimulation with β-cell autoantigens

Background & objectives: Type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) share similar pathological features but differ in age of onset and progression. There is a scarcity of information on differences in CD4+ T-cell responses, particularly, cytokine secretion, between the two forms of autoimmune diabetes. Here proliferative potential and concentration of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines secreted by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of T1DM and LADA patients were compared, after in vitro stimulation with β-cell autoantigens. Methods: A total of 19 patients with LADA, 37 with T1DM and 20 healthy controls were compared on the basis of lymphocyte proliferation and secretion of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines belonging to different T-helper types after in vitro stimulation of PBMCs with insulin and glutamic acid decarboxylase 65 (GAD65). Results: Following insulin stimulation, LADA group secreted higher concentration of interleukin-17 (IL-17) (P=0.02) and had higher proportion of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) secretors (P<0.001) than T1DM group. Post-GAD65 stimulation, higher proportion of LADA patients secreted IL-23 than T1DM group (P=0.02). Proportion of responders , as well as levels of secreted IL-10, were significantly higher in LADA than T1DM group, following stimulation with both insulin (P=0.01) and GAD65 (P=0.03). A significant positive correlation was observed between body mass index and IL-17 levels (r=0.41, P=0.04) and fasting plasma C-peptide with IL-10 levels (r=0.37, P=0.04). Interpretation & conclusions: There are differences in the portfolio of cytokine secretion in diabetic subjects with varying rates of β-cell destruction as LADA subjects secrete higher levels of both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines on exposure to β-cell autoantigens, thus highlighting another distinguishing feature in the pathophysiology of the two forms of autoimmune diabetes

Cytolytic circumsporozoite-specific memory CD4+ T cell clones are expanded during Plasmodium falciparum infection

Abstract Clinical immunity against Plasmodium falciparum infection develops in residents of malaria endemic regions, manifesting in reduced clinical symptoms during infection and in protection against severe disease but the mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we compare the cellular and humoral immune response of clinically immune (0-1 episode over 18 months) and susceptible (at least 3 episodes) during a mild episode of Pf malaria infection in a malaria endemic region of Malawi, by analysing peripheral blood samples using high dimensional mass cytometry (CyTOF), spectral flow cytometry and single-cell transcriptomic analyses. In the clinically immune, we find increased proportions of circulating follicular helper T cells and classical monocytes, while the humoral immune response shows characteristic age-related differences in the protected. Presence of memory CD4+ T cell clones with a strong cytolytic ZEB2+ T helper 1 effector signature, sharing identical T cell receptor clonotypes and recognizing the Pf-derived circumsporozoite protein (CSP) antigen are found in the blood of the Pf-infected participants gaining protection. Moreover, in clinically protected participants, ZEB2+ memory CD4+ T cells express lower level of inhibitory and chemotactic receptors. We thus propose that clonally expanded ZEB2+ CSP-specific cytolytic memory CD4+ Th1 cells may contribute to clinical immunity against the sporozoite and liver-stage Pf malaria