Regulation, valuation and systemic liquidity.

It is a commonly held view that International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), adopted by the European Union in 2005 and by other jurisdictions, compounded the recent fi nancial crisis. Application of the IAS 39 rule that governs loan-loss provisions and extends mark-to-market valuation of assets meant that when credit prices fell sharply in 2007 and assets were revalued using the new lower prices, it triggered a need for institutions to raise capital by selling assets, which pushed prices down further, causing more revaluations and more selling in a vicious circle. Mark-to-market volatility added to this unstable dynamic by keeping new buyers away. Fair value accounting rules are pro-cyclical and can contribute to the systemic disappearance of liquidity.1 The price of assets if they were to be sold immediately fell substantially below the price of the same assets if they were to be held to maturity or for some time period beyond the crisis. This liquidity premium was no longer a fraction of a percentage point, but tens of percentage points. A number of observers have concluded that mark-to-market accounting should be suspended during a crisis. On its own, I believe this initiative would further weaken incentives for responsible lending in the good times. Nor would it solve the problem in bad times. The pro-cyclical use of market prices is not the preserve of accounting standards –it also lies at the heart of modern financial regulation. Financial crashes are not random. They always follow booms. Offering forbearance from mark-to-market accounting or other rules during a crisis, yet using these rules at other times, such as during the preceding boom, would promote excessive lending and leverage in the good times. This asymmetry would contribute to more frequent and severe crashes. Second, crises are a time where a rumour becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, as panic and fear spread. It is, arguably, not the time to generate a rise in uncertainty by changing accounting standards. There is room for a revision to the application of mark-to-market rules, but not a revision based on relying on the messenger’s every last word in good times and shooting him in the bad times. But the mechanisms that lead market participants to greet price declines with sell orders have not all to do with value accounting. Current prices, including spot and forward prices, play an important role in the market risk and credit risk management systems approved by financial regulators. Risk limits and sell orders are triggered in response to a rise in price volatility and/or a fall in price. The very philosophy of current banking regulation –risk sensitivity– is about incorporating market prices into the assessment and response to risk. It should be no surprise that if prices, both prices for current and future delivery, are pro-cyclical, then placing an increasing emphasis on price in the management and regulation of risk, will lead us to systemic collapse. This article examines the role of valuation and systemic liquidity and argues that an approach to how we apply mark-to-market accounting and market prices or risk that is driven more by an economic view can improve the systemic resilience of the fi nancial system.

The Role of Policy and Banking Supervision in the Light of the Credit Crisis

The zeitgeist of finance over the last decade was "marketization": the switch from bank finance to market finance as loans were originated and securitized by banks, rated by agencies and then relocated to investors. A cynic may say that a better description of what went on was regulatory arbitrage. Risks were transferred, on paper at least, from the regulated sector to the unregulated sector. But it is important to recall that bank supervisors in Europe and elsewhere welcomed the marketization of financial risk. They saw it as a way of spreading risks. They saw risks being removed and distributed away from a small number of large and systemically important banks to a large number of investors. The marketization of finance was as much a conspiracy of the Gnomes of Basle as it was of the Gnomes of Zurich. It is part and parcel of the approach to banking embedded in the new Basle accord on credit risk (Basle II)

Laser cooling of new atomic and molecular species with ultrafast pulses

We propose a new laser cooling method for atomic species whose level structure makes traditional laser cooling difficult. For instance, laser cooling of hydrogen requires single-frequency vacuum-ultraviolet light, while multielectron atoms need single-frequency light at many widely separated frequencies. These restrictions can be eased by laser cooling on two-photon transitions with ultrafast pulse trains. Laser cooling of hydrogen, antihydrogen, and many other species appears feasible, and extension of the technique to molecules may be possible.Comment: revision of quant-ph/0306099, submitted to PR

Detection of low energy single ion impacts in micron scale transistors at room temperature

We report the detection of single ion impacts through monitoring of changes in the source-drain currents of field effect transistors (FET) at room temperature. Implant apertures are formed in the interlayer dielectrics and gate electrodes of planar, micro-scale FETs by electron beam assisted etching. FET currents increase due to the generation of positively charged defects in gate oxides when ions (121Sb12+, 14+, Xe6+; 50 to 70 keV) impinge into channel regions. Implant damage is repaired by rapid thermal annealing, enabling iterative cycles of device doping and electrical characterization for development of single atom devices and studies of dopant fluctuation effects

Processing Issues in Top-Down Approaches to Quantum Computer Development in Silicon

We describe critical processing issues in our development of single atom devices for solid-state quantum information processing. Integration of single 31P atoms with control gates and single electron transistor (SET) readout structures is addressed in a silicon-based approach. Results on electrical activation of low energy (15 keV) P implants in silicon show a strong dose effect on the electrical activation fractions. We identify dopant segregation to the SiO2/Si interface during rapid thermal annealing as a dopant loss channel and discuss measures of minimizing it. Silicon nanowire SET pairs with nanowire width of 10 to 20 nm are formed by electron beam lithography in SOI. We present first results from Coulomb blockade experiments and discuss issues of control gate integration for sub-40nm gate pitch levels

Absolute calibration of GafChromic film for very high flux laser driven ion beams.

We report on the calibration of GafChromic HD-v2 radiochromic film in the extremely high dose regime up to 100 kGy together with very high dose rates up to 7 × 1011 Gy/s. The absolute calibration was done with nanosecond ion bunches at the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment II particle accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and covers a broad dose dynamic range over three orders of magnitude. We then applied the resulting calibration curve to calibrate a laser driven ion experiment performed on the BELLA petawatt laser facility at LBNL. Here, we reconstructed the spatial and energy resolved distributions of the laser-accelerated proton beams. The resulting proton distribution is in fair agreement with the spectrum that was measured with a Thomson spectrometer in combination with a microchannel plate detector

Spatial and temporal characteristics of historical surface climate over the Northwest Territories, Canada

Climate change is putting many of the Northwest Territories (NWT) ecosystems, its people and animal populations at risk due to accelerated warming, permafrost thaw, and changing precipitation regimes. As the NWT continues to warm, at disproportionately higher rates when compared to the rest of Canada, threats to the stability of NWT’s ecosystems are expected to increase. Consequently, understanding how climate warming has changed historically and its implications on natural ecosystems requires point-to-region-specific, long-term climatic data to elucidate important drivers of observed changes relevant to decision makers at community, Indigenous, Territorial and Federal government levels. However, in situ climate data are limited temporally and spatially across the NWT. Hence, the overarching goal of this research is to enhance and improve the understanding of historical surface climate variables trends and patterns (air temperature, precipitation, and shortwave radiation) and its implications at local and regional scales in the continental NWT by using interpolated, reanalysis and remote sensing climate data. Gridded climate datasets such as interpolated and reanalysis data, can provide reliable estimates for in situ observations to compensate for data scarcity, but it is critical that researchers understand how biases in these datasets can impact runoff simulation in the NWT. Thus, the objective of this dissertation was to assess the similarity between daily in situ station observations and three gridded datasets (ANUSPLIN, ERA-Interim and MERRA-2) from 1980 to 2013 to support hydrological modelling in the NWT subarctic. The ANUSPLIN maximum and minimum temperature at eight locations aligned closely to the corresponding in situ observations and had mean daily biases of less than 0.58°C and 1.33°C, respectively. Precipitation estimates showed that the alternative datasets captured year-to-year variability, but large seasonal biases mainly during spring and summer were evident when precipitation magnitudes were estimated. In addition, this study used gridded data as a substitute for in situ observations in the Cold Regions Hydrological Model (CRHM) to simulate runoff. Simulated runoff generated when using ANUSPLIN and ERA-Interim data as inputs in CRHM captures the timing and magnitude of freshet and baseflow generally well at Scotty Creek. This study suggests that gridded datasets can provide reasonable estimates of in situ climate data in data sparse regions and reinforced that the accuracy in representing in situ observations over the NWT improves as the spatial resolution of interpolated dataset increases. This research also highlighted that when comparing datasets, it is important use multiple metrics and graphical methods to discern systematic biases. The presence of oceanic-atmospheric teleconnections patterns can influence weather patterns in northern regions which may lead to an increase in climate related wildland fires. The impact of the Arctic Dipole (AD) anomaly, a northern atmospheric teleconnection, on NWT’s surface climate has not been explored. Hence, the second objective of this dissertation used the ANUSPLIN dataset to assess the effects of the AD anomaly on local climate (air temperature, precipitation, and snowmelt) during a 66-year period (1950-2015). For all seasons, from 1950 to 2015, the occurrence of 64 strong positive and 56 strong negative AD modes were identified. The AD pattern revealed significant year-to-year fluctuation, with more frequent strong negative modes observed in the 2000s. In summer, when AD is in its strong negative mode, there is increased variance in the range of local air temperature, which is amplified in the southern, lake and foothill regions of the Taiga Plains. During strong positive AD modes, local air temperature anomalies increased (\u3e0.8°C) when compared to long-term mean temperature during summer months. Positive AD modes also lead to earlier commencement of snowmelt by an average of 3 to 5 days. The air temperature/snowmelt onset north–south amplification to the AD is linked to the position and intensity of the geopotential heights ridge axis over the continental NWT. A weak correlation was found between the AD and seasonal precipitation despite high correlation association between the AD and local air temperature in summer. Finally, the spatiotemporal patterns of incoming surface shortwave radiation (SSR) were analysed and quantified for the continental NWT to enhance understanding of northern ecosystems energy balance that are undergoing environmental changes. The third objective of this dissertation addressed this knowledge gap by assessing annual and seasonal trends in SSR receipt and to explore relationship between SSR and lake surface water temperature (LSWT) during the warm season. Consequently, the quantity of SSR that reaches Earth’s surface may vary. In this study, it is observed that SSR trends display a significant temporal and spatial dependency on NWT’s ecozones between 1980 and 2020. The annual mean SSR since 1980 decreased by ~0.8 Wm-2decade-1 in the Taiga Plains and Northern Arctic ecozones, with mixture of increasing and decreasing trends in both Taiga Shield and Southern Arctic ecozones. Seasonally, SSR decreased significantly in the summer since 1980 over the majority of the Taiga Plains ecozone, with a reduction rate that ranged between 0.6 and 14.6 Wm-2decade-1. The LSWT in small lakes was positively associated with SSR, while the LSWT in medium and large lakes showed a mix of positive and negative correlation coefficients. The linkage between total cloud cover and SSR in the NWT was largely negative for spring, summer and autumn seasons, with the Taiga Plains ecozone displaying the largest negative correlation. Long-term changes in SSR in the NWT will have an impact on the seasonal and annual energy balance of the region\u27s lakes. The impact of SSR changes on lake energy balances will have a wide range of consequences, particularly for NWT communities that rely on lakes for their transportation networks. These networks are already being adversely impacted by climate change-driven alterations in warming lake ice phenology. The collective findings of this study demonstrate the feasibility of using gridded and remote sensing datasets to characterize historical changes in local and regional weather and climate, building an understanding of northern climatology and providing best estimates of long-term trends with implications for ecosystem change in the future, such as increased rates of shrubification and frequency of wildland fires. In the absence of consistent in situ climate data, these gridded and remote sensing datasets aid our understanding of the physical links between climate change and northern ecosystems, which must be accounted for in forecast models used to predict future hydroclimate scenarios and to provide enhance climate services in northern regions. Improved understanding of how local and regional climate has changed in the NWT will inform policymakers in their efforts to develop and improve climate adaptation and mitigation policies in local communities across the territory

Analysis of Third Premolar Flange Length in Male African Papionin Taxa: An Investigation of Possible Dental Differences Between Parapapio and Papio

Parapapio and Papio are abundant throughout the African Plio-Pleistocene fossil record, however because of their overlap in dental size it can be hard to distinguish between the two genera. This paper utilizes dental measurements (relative flange length/molar and premolar size) in attempt to distinguish between the two genera

Optimizing Beam Transport in Rapidly Compressing Beams on the Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment - II

The Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment-II (NDCX-II) is an induction linac that generates intense pulses of 1.2 MeV helium ions for heating matter to extreme conditions. Here, we present recent results on optimizing beam transport. The NDCX-II beamline includes a 1-meter-long drift section downstream of the last transport solenoid, which is filled with charge-neutralizing plasma that enables rapid longitudinal compression of an intense ion beam against space-charge forces. The transport section on NDCX-II consists of 28 solenoids. Finding optimal field settings for a group of solenoids requires knowledge of the envelope parameters of the beam. Imaging the beam on scintillator gives the radius of the beam, but the envelope angle dr/dz is not measured directly. We demonstrate how the parameters of the beam envelope (r, dr/dz, and emittance) can be reconstructed from a series of images taken at varying B-field strengths of a solenoid upstream of the scintillator. We use this technique to evaluate emittance at several points in the NDCX-II beamline and for optimizing the trajectory of the beam at the entry of the plasma-filled drift section

Careif Position Statement on Migration and Mental Health

People have moved from one place to another within the same country or across national borders for millennia. The reasons for such movements have varied, as does the duration for which people migrate. With globalisation and global connections across countries, migration has increased. The process of migration and its impact on the mental health of individuals has been and will remain heterogeneous. The responses of migrants to the process vary, depending upon a number of factors. Individuals may migrate individually, with their families or in groups. They may move to avoid political or religious persecution and seek political asylum in another country (forced migration) or migrate for personal, employment, economic or educational reasons (voluntary migration). Although these two categorisations are often a little more complex than this. Not all migrants will feel negatively affected by migration. People may migrate on a seasonal, recurrent, permanent or temporary basis. It may be within or across generations. Many migrants will never access mental health services, whilst others may use these in varying ways and with diverse requirements or presentations. The experiences and requirements of voluntary and involuntary migrants may differ. Mental health Services may need to ensure that they are accessible and appropriate to all members of society including those who have migrated. This paper makes some suggestions in relation to this