230 research outputs found

    Between Scylla and Charybdis: reconciling competing data management demands in the life sciences

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    Background: The widespread sharing of biological and biomedical data is recognised as a key element in facilitating translation of scientific discoveries into novel clinical applications and services. At the same time, twenty-first century states are increasingly concerned that this data could also be used for purposes of bioterrorism. There is thus a tension between the desire to promote the sharing of data, as encapsulated by the Open Data movement, and the desire to prevent this data from ā€˜falling into the wrong handsā€™ as represented by ā€˜dual useā€™ policies. Both frameworks posit a moral duty for life sciences researchers with respect to how they should make their data available. However, Open data and dual use concerns are rarely discussed in concert and their implementation can present scientists with potentially conflicting ethical requirements. Discussion: Both dual use and Open data policies frame scientific data and data dissemination in particular, though different, ways. As such they contain implicit models for how data is translated. Both approaches are limited by a focus on abstract conceptions of data and data sharing. This works to impede consensus-building between the two ethical frameworks. As an alternative, this paper proposes that an ethics of responsible management of scientific data should be based on a more nuanced understanding of the everyday data practices of life scientists. Responsibility for these ā€˜micromovementsā€™ of data must consider the needs and duties of scientists as individuals and as collectively-organised groups. Summary: Researchers in the life sciences are faced with conflicting ethical responsibilities to share data as widely as possible, but prevent it being used for bioterrorist purposes. In order to reconcile the responsibilities posed by the Open Data and dual use frameworks, approaches should focus more on the everyday practices of laboratory scientists and less on abstract conceptions of data

    Quantum Metrology Triangle Experiments: A Status Review

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    Quantum Metrology Triangle experiments combine three quantum electrical effects (the Josephson effect, the quantum Hall effect and the single-electron transport effect) used in metrology. These experiments allow important fundamental consistency tests on the validity of commonly assumed relations between fundamental constants of nature and the quantum electrical effects. This paper reviews the history, results and the present status and perspectives of Quantum Metrology Triangle experiments. It also reflects on the possible implications of results for the knowledge on fundamental constants and the quantum electrical effects.Comment: 36 pages, 8 figure

    Too Big to Fail ā€” U.S. Banksā€™ Regulatory Alchemy: Converting an Obscure Agency Footnote into an ā€œAt Willā€ Nullification of Dodd-Frankā€™s Regulation of the Multi-Trillion Dollar Financial Swaps Market

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    The multi-trillion-dollar market for, what was at that time wholly unregulated, over-the-counter derivatives (ā€œswapsā€) is widely viewed as a principal cause of the 2008 worldwide financial meltdown. The Dodd-Frank Act, signed into law on July 21, 2010, was expressly considered by Congress to be a remedy for this troublesome deregulatory problem. The legislation required the swaps market to comply with a host of business conduct and anti-competitive protections, including that the swaps market be fully transparent to U.S. financial regulators, collateralized, and capitalized. The statute also expressly provides that it would cover foreign subsidiaries of big U.S. financial institutions if their swaps trading could adversely impact the U.S. economy or represent the use of extraterritorial trades as an attempt to ā€œevadeā€ Dodd-Frank. In July 2013, the CFTC promulgated an 80-page, triple-columned, and single-spaced ā€œguidanceā€ implementing Dodd-Frankā€™s extraterritorial reach, i.e., that manner in which Dodd-Frank would apply to swaps transactions executed outside the United States. The key point of that guidance was that swaps trading within the ā€œguaranteedā€ foreign subsidiaries of U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers were subject to all of Dodd-Frankā€™s swaps regulations wherever in the world those subsidiariesā€™ swaps were executed. At that time, the standardized industry swaps agreement contemplated that, inter alia, U.S. bank holding company swaps dealersā€™ foreign subsidiaries would be ā€œguaranteedā€ by their corporate parent, as was true since 1992. In August 2013, without notifying the CFTC, the principal U.S. bank holding company swaps dealer trade association privately circulated to its members standard contractual language that would, for the first time, ā€œdeguaranteeā€ their foreign subsidiaries. By relying only on the obscure footnote 563 of the CFTC guidanceā€™s 662 footnotes, the trade association assured its swaps dealer members that the newly deguaranteed foreign subsidiaries could (if they so chose) no longer be subject to Dodd-Frank. As a result, it has been reported (and it also has been understood by many experts within the swaps industry) that a substantial portion of the U.S. swaps market has shifted from the large U.S. bank holding companies swaps dealers and their U.S. affiliates to their newly deguaranteed ā€œforeignā€ subsidiaries, with the attendant claim by these huge big U.S. bank swaps dealers that Dodd-Frank swaps regulation would not apply to these transactions. The CFTC also soon discovered that these huge U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers were ā€œarranging, negotiating, and executingā€ (ā€œANEā€) these swaps in the United States with U.S. bank personnel and, only after execution in the U.S., were these swaps formally ā€œassignedā€ to the U.S. banksā€™ newly ā€œdeguaranteedā€ foreign subsidiaries with the accompanying claim that these swaps, even though executed in the U.S., were not covered by Dodd-Frank. In October 2016, the CFTC proposed a rule that would have closed the ā€œdeguaranteeā€ and ā€œANEā€ loopholes completely. However, because it usually takes at least a year to finalize a ā€œproposedā€ rule, this proposed rule closing the loopholes in question was not finalized prior to the inauguration of President Trump. All indications are that it will never be finalized during a Trump Administration. Thus, in the shadow of the recent tenth anniversary of the Lehman failure, there is an understanding among many market regulators and swaps trading experts that large portions of the swaps market have moved from U.S. bank holding company swaps dealers and their U.S. affiliates to their newly deguaranteed foreign affiliates where Dodd- Frank swaps regulation is not being followed. However, what has not moved abroad is the very real obligation of the lender of last resort to rescue these U.S. swaps dealer bank holding companies if they fail because of poorly regulated swaps in their deguaranteed foreign subsidiaries, i.e., the U.S. taxpayer. While relief is unlikely to be forthcoming from the Trump Administration or the Republican-controlled Senate, some other means will have to be found to avert another multi-trillion-dollar bank bailout and/or a financial calamity caused by poorly regulated swaps on the books of big U.S. banks. This paper notes that the relevant statutory framework affords state attorneys general and state financial regulators the right to bring so-called ā€œparens patriaeā€ actions in federal district court to enforce, inter alia, Dodd- Frank on behalf of a stateā€™s citizens. That kind of litigation to enforce the statuteā€™s extraterritorial provisions is now badly needed
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