The Use and Abuse of Special-Purpose Entities in Public Finance

States increasingly are raising financing indirectly through special-purpose entities (SPEs), variously referred to as authorities, special authorities, or public authorities. Notwithstanding their long history and increasingly widespread use, relatively little is known or has been written about these entities. This article examines state SPEs and their functions, comparing them to SPEs used in corporate finance. States, even more than corporations, use these entities to reduce financial transparency and avoid public scrutiny, seriously threatening the integrity of public finance. The article analyzes how regulation could be designed in order to control that threat while maintaining the legitimate financing benefits provided by these state entities

Regulating Systemic Risk: Towards an Analytical Framework

The global financial crisis demonstrated the inability and unwillingness of financial market participants to safeguard the stability of the financial system. It also highlighted the enormous direct and indirect costs of addressing systemic crises after they have occurred, as opposed to attempting to prevent them from arising. Governments and international organizations are responding with measures intended to make the financial system more resilient to economic shocks, many of which will be implemented by regulatory bodies over time. These measures suffer, however, from the lack of a theoretical account of how systemic risk propagates within the financial system and why regulatory intervention is needed to disrupt it. In this Article, we address this deficiency by examining how systemic risk is transmitted. We then proceed to explain why, in the absence of regulation, market participants cannot be relied upon to disrupt or otherwise limit the transmission of systemic risk. Finally, we advance an analytical framework to inform systemic risk regulation

A Variational Method in Out of Equilibrium Physical Systems

A variational principle is further developed for out of equilibrium dynamical systems by using the concept of maximum entropy. With this new formulation it is obtained a set of two first-order differential equations, revealing the same formal symplectic structure shared by classical mechanics, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. In particular, it is obtained an extended equation of motion for a rotating dynamical system, from where it emerges a kind of topological torsion current of the form $\epsilon_{ijk} A_j \omega_k$, with $A_j$ and $\omega_k$ denoting components of the vector potential (gravitational or/and electromagnetic) and $\omega$ is the angular velocity of the accelerated frame. In addition, it is derived a special form of Umov-Poynting's theorem for rotating gravito-electromagnetic systems, and obtained a general condition of equilibrium for a rotating plasma. The variational method is then applied to clarify the working mechanism of some particular devices, such as the Bennett pinch and vacuum arcs, to calculate the power extraction from an hurricane, and to discuss the effect of transport angular momentum on the radiactive heating of planetary atmospheres. This development is seen to be advantageous and opens options for systematic improvements.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure, submitted to review, added one referenc

Does publication bias inflate the apparent efficacy of psychological treatment for major depressive disorder? A systematic review and meta-analysis of US national institutes of health-funded trials

Background The efficacy of antidepressant medication has been shown empirically to be overestimated due to publication bias, but this has only been inferred statistically with regard to psychological treatment for depression. We assessed directly the extent of study publication bias in trials examining the efficacy of psychological treatment for depression. Methods and Findings We identified US National Institutes of Health grants awarded to fund randomized clinical trials comparing psychological treatment to control conditions or other treatments in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder for the period 1972–2008, and we determined whether those grants led to publications. For studies that were not published, data were requested from investigators and included in the meta-analyses. Thirteen (23.6%) of the 55 funded grants that began trials did not result in publications, and two others never started. Among comparisons to control conditions, adding unpublished studies (Hedges’ g = 0.20; CI95% -0.11~0.51; k = 6) to published studies (g = 0.52; 0.37~0.68; k = 20) reduced the psychotherapy effect size point estimate (g = 0.39; 0.08~0.70) by 25%. Moreover, these findings may overestimate the "true" effect of psychological treatment for depression as outcome reporting bias could not be examined quantitatively. Conclusion The efficacy of psychological interventions for depression has been overestimated in the published literature, just as it has been for pharmacotherapy. Both are efficacious but not to the extent that the published literature would suggest. Funding agencies and journals should archive both original protocols and raw data from treatment trials to allow the detection and correction of outcome reporting bias. Clinicians, guidelines developers, and decision makers should be aware that the published literature overestimates the effects of the predominant treatments for depression

Human Herpesvirus Replication and Abnormal CD8+ T Cell Activation and Low CD4+ T Cell Counts in Antiretroviral-Suppressed HIV-Infected Patients

Most HIV-infected patients receiving virologically suppressive antiretroviral therapy continue to have abnormal, generalized T cell activation. We explored whether the degree of ongoing cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) replication was associated with higher virus-specific T cell activation and the failure to achieve normal absolute CD4+ T cell counts in the face of long-term suppressive antiretroviral therapy.Longitudinally collected PBMC and saliva specimens obtained from HIV-infected patients on effective antiretroviral therapy for at least one year (plasma HIV RNA <75 copies/mL) were examined using a multiplex CMV, EBV and KSHV DNA PCR assay. Eleven cases were chosen who had CD8+ T cell CD38+HLA-DR+ expression >10% and plateau absolute CD4+ T cell counts <500 cells/microL. Five controls from the same study had CD8+ T cell CD38 expression <10% and plateau absolute CD4+ T cell counts >500 cells/microL.Among all subjects combined, 18% of PMBC samples were positive for CMV DNA, and 27%, 73% and 24% of saliva samples were positive for CMV, EBV and KSHV DNA, respectively. No significant differences or trends were observed between cases and controls in proportions of all CMV, EBV or KSHV DNA positive specimens, proportions of subjects in each group that intermittently or continuously shed CMV, EBV or KSHV DNA in saliva, or the median number of genome copies of CMV, EBV and KSHV DNA in saliva. Overall, number of genome copies in saliva were lower for KSHV than for CMV and lower for CMV than for EBV. Although replication of CMV, EBV and KSHV persists in many antiretroviral-suppressed, HIV-infected patients, we observed no evidence in this pilot case-control study that the magnitude of such human herpesvirus replication is associated with abnormally increased CD8+ T cell activation and sub-normal plateau absolute CD4+ T cell counts following virologically suppressive antiretroviral therapy

When to Start Antiretroviral Therapy

The question of when to start combination antiretroviral therapy for treatment-naïve patients has always been controversial. This is particularly true in the current era, with major guidelines recommending very different treatment strategies. Despite a lack of clarity regarding the optimal time to begin therapy, there has been a recent shift toward earlier initiation. This more aggressive approach is driven by several observations. First, effective viral suppression with therapy can prevent non-AIDS-related morbidity and mortality. Second, therapy can prevent irreversible harm to the human immune system. Third, therapy may prevent transmission of HIV to others, and thus have a potential public health benefit. For patients who are motivated and willing to initiate early treatment, the collective benefits of early therapy may outweigh the well-documented risks of antiretroviral medications

Dysregulated Cytokine Expression by CD4+ T cells from Post-Septic Mice Modulates both Th1 and Th2-Mediated Granulomatous Lung Inflammation

Previous epidemiological studies in humans and experimental studies in animals indicate that survivors of severe sepsis exhibit deficiencies in the activation and effector function of immune cells. In particular, CD4+ T lymphocytes can exhibit reduced proliferative capacity and improper cytokine responses following sepsis. To further investigate the cell-intrinsic defects of CD4+ T cells following sepsis, splenic CD4+ T cells from sham surgery and post-septic mice were transferred into lymphopenic mice. These recipient mice were then subjected to both TH1-(purified protein derivative) and TH2-(Schistosoma mansoni egg antigen) driven models of granulomatous lung inflammation. Post-septic CD4+ T cells mediated smaller TH1 and larger TH2 lung granulomas as compared to mice receiving CD4+ T cells from sham surgery donors. However, cytokine production by lymph node cells in antigen restimulation assays indicated increased pan-specific cytokine expression by post-septic CD4+ T cell recipient mice in both TH1 and TH2 granuloma models. These include increased production of TH2 cytokines in TH1 inflammation, and increased production of TH1 cytokines in TH2 inflammation. These results suggest that cell-intrinsic defects in CD4+ T cell effector function can have deleterious effects on inflammatory processes post-sepsis, due to a defect in the proper regulation of TH-specific cytokine expression