Reopening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic: governments must balance the uncertainty and risks of reopening schools against the clear harms associated with prolonged closure.

Evidence to support the effectiveness of global school closures in controlling COVID-19 is sparse. There is continued uncertainty about the degree to which school children are susceptible to and transmit COVID-19. Balancing the potential benefits with harms involves explicit trade-offs for governments, but there has been little recognition that low-income and middle-income countries face a very different set of trade-offs around school reopening from those in wealthy countries

Educational Attainment at Age 10–11 Years Predicts Health Risk Behaviors and Injury Risk During Adolescence

Purpose: To examine the effect of educational attainment in primary school on later adolescent health. Methods: Education data attainments at age 7 and 11 were linked with (1) primary and secondary care injury consultation/admissions and (2) the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey. Cox regression was carried out to examine if attainment in primary school predicts time to injury in adolescence. Results: Pupils that achieve attainment at age 7 but not at age 11 (i.e., declining attainment over time in primary school) are more likely to have an injury during adolescence. These children are also more likely to self-report drinking in adolescence. Conclusions: Interventions aimed at children with declining attainment in primary school could help to improve adolescent health

Primary hyperparathyroidism diagnosed after surgical ablation of a costal mass mistaken for giant-cell bone tumor: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Primary hyperparathyroidism is a common endocrine disorder characterized by elevated parathyroid hormone levels, which cause continuous osteoclastic bone resorption. Giant cell tumor of bone is an expansile osteolytic tumor that contains numerous osteoclast-like giant cells. There are many similarities in the radiological and histological features of giant cell tumor of bone and brown tumor. This is a rare benign focal osteolytic process most commonly caused by hyperparathyroidism.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the unusual case of a 40-year-old Caucasian woman in which primary hyperparathyroidism was diagnosed after surgical ablation of a costal mass. The mass was suspected of being neoplastic and histopathology was compatible with a giant cell tumor of bone. On the basis of the biochemical results (including serum calcium, phosphorous and intact parathyroid hormone levels) primary hyperparathyroidism was suspected and a brown tumor secondary to refractory hyperparathyroidism was diagnosed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Since giant cell tumor is a bone neoplasm that has major implications for the patient, the standard laboratory tests in patients with bone lesions are important for a correct diagnosis.</p

Strengthening corporate governance regulations

10 page(s

Preserving market integrity

The work of equity research analysts has come under considerable scrutiny in the wake of a number of scandals involving serious misconduct by high profile members of the profession. The work undertaken by analysts is an important component of the market mechanism, and in particular, the efficiency and integrity of that mechanism. A number of recent regulatory reforms and policy pronouncements suggest improvements to the manner in which analyst activity and recommendations are managed, in the context of broader investment banking organisations in which many analysts are embedded. This paper reviews a number of these prescriptions, and also sets out the results of a survey of practices adopted at a number of investment banks employing equity analysts operating in the Australian market place. Some relevant policy prescriptions are yielded from this work and set out in the concluding section of the paper.10 page(s

Monotonicity in Distress Risk Portfolios

Abstract: Is Default Risk Priced? Empirical Evidence in the Presence of Fat Tails Originality: It is common to study and measure risk premiums, such as that associated with the risk of financial distress, in terms of the differential between mean returns of the extreme portfolios (i.e. high and low distress risk). Not only are such approaches sensitive to model specification, distributional assumptions and the measurement error, they do not address directly the question of whether risk exposures and measured risk premiums are monotonically related - as would be expected if distress is viewed as a systematic source of risk. The current study applies the recent methodology of Patton and Timmerman (2010) as a direct test of the monotonicity hypothesis. Findings: Using a formal test of monotonicity this paper finds little evidence of a systematic relationship between expected return and distress risk premiums. Statistically significant distress-related equity premiums appear observable at the extremes of exposure only.2 page(s

Estimating of the default risk premium and non-normality

Purpose: To highlight the difficulties in calculating the default risk premium given irreconcilable results in the literature which fail to agree on the sign or magnitude of the expected return differential between distress risk portfolios of relatively high and low exposure. Originality: In contrast to previous work, we study the pricing of the default risk premium based on measures of central tendency derived from the multivariate-t distribution - a class of distribution that accommodates important empirical features of monthly equity returns on distress-risk based portfolios. Findings: Our findings suggest that estimates of the default risk premium are sensitive to the measure of central tendency and show that the time series of returns on distress-risk sorted portfolios provides very little information about the magnitude of the true distress premium under a data generating process that is consistent with observed returns.2 page(s

Interpretative violence and Jacques Derrida’s professed love of ruins

In this paper I examine two texts by Jacques Derrida, written at the beginning of 1990s, his “Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority” and Memoirs of the Blind: The Self Portrait and Other Ruins written on the occasion of the exhibition Derrida curated at the Louvre. In the first text Derrida claims that deconstruction is justice because it is associated with the quest for reinterpretation of all criteriology, including all rules, associated with law. He goes on to explain how implementing the law in the name of justice is a violent procedure and necessarily entails at times a reinterpretation at other times a suspension or even destruction of law. I analyze his reading of Memoirs of the Blind: The Self Portrait and Other Ruins in the context of the preceding arguments about the force of law. Placing blindness at the origin of all drawing, favoring memory and not perception and arguing that sight and eyes are meant for crying, rather than seeing, Derrida promotes a violent reversal of values in art theory, in the name of justice. Promoting the marginal and the repressed is a result of an interpretative violence: Derrida puts at the highest rank of values criteria which are in a state of ruin, after years of repression and marginalization. Our filiations with them are consequently impure, contaminating, negotiated, bastard and violent. However, the ruin is not meant as a negative thing but as an index of mortality and an object of love.Στο κείμενο αυτό εξετάζω δύο κείμενα του Jacques Derrida τα οποία συντάχθηκαν στις αρχές του 1990, αφενός το «Ισχύς του νόμου. Η μυστική θεμελίωση της εξουσίας», αφετέρου το Μνήμες τυφλών. Η αυτοπροσωπογραφία και άλλα ερείπια που γράφτηκε με αφορμή την έκθεση που επιμελήθηκε ο Derrida στο Λούβρο. Στο πρώτο κείμενο ο Derrida ισχυρίζεται ότι η αποδόμηση είναι δικαιοσύνη διότι συνδέεται με το αίτημα για επανερμηνεία όλων των κριτηρίων και κανόνων που σχετίζονται με το νόμο. Ο Derrida εξηγεί πώς η εφαρμογή του νόμου στο όνομα της δικαιοσύνης είναι μια βίαιη διαδικασία που απαραιτήτως συνεπάγεται πότε μια επανερμηνεία του νόμου πότε μια αναστολή και καταστροφή του. Προβαίνω σε μια ανάλυση του κειμένου του Μνήμες τυφλών. Η αυτοπροσωπογραφία και άλλα ερείπια βασιζόμενος στις αναλύσεις του Derrida για την ισχύ του νόμου. Θεωρώντας την τυφλότητα ως την καταγωγή του σχεδίου, ευνοώντας την μνήμη έναντι της αντίληψης και προβάλλοντας το επιχείρημα ότι η όραση και τα μάτια δεν είναι για να βλέπουν αλλά για να κλαίνε, ο Derrida ουσιαστικά επιχειρεί μια βίαιη ανατροπή των μέχρι τώρα αξιών στη θεωρία της τέχνης, στο όνομα της δικαιοσύνης. Προάγοντας ό,τι μέχρι τώρα ήταν στο περιθώριο και είχε υποστεί καταπίεση είναι το αποτέλεσμα μιας ερμηνευτικής βίας: ο Derrida βάζει στην κορυφή, αξίες και κριτήρια που είναι σε κατάσταση ερειπίου μετά από χρόνια καταπίεσης και περιθωριοποίησης. Οι ίδιες οι σχέσεις μας με τις αξίες και τα κριτήρια αυτά, δεν είναι ως εκ τούτου αμιγείς αλλά είναι μολυσματικές, διαπραγματεύσιμες, μπασταρδεμένες και βίαιες. Ωστόσο το ερείπιο δε νοείται αρνητικά αλλά ως δείκτης θνητότητας και ως αντικείμενο αγάπης.ai201

Is default risk priced? Empirical evidence in the presence of fat tails

1 page(s