A Crisis of Ethics: Moral Hazard and Banking Regulation in Ireland

This think piece argues that before Ireland's banking crisis, the regulatory emphasis was focused on the integrity of the banking system as a whole and the behaviour of individual banks was largely ignored. Regulators placed their faith in market data and believed assurances by banks that they were well capitalised. The banks adopted an approach that placed sustaining markets over professional ethics. The opinion piece shows that corporate governance improvements wee often cosmetic and banks themselves knew about the impending crisis far earlier than they admitted to government

Government Policy and the Banking Crisis: Vindicated, Misled or Flying Blind?

Almost three years after the onset of Ireland's banking criris public disenchantment continues to increase, aggravated in part by the government's failure to provide a transparent examination for the crisis and an endless stream of revelations on the increasing cost of stabilising the banking system. The government claimed that it acted on the "best available advice" and as a consequence has been able to pin the blame for the crisis on events beyond its control. This think piece argues that the government has long been uncomfortable relying on its own analysis and data. It argues that research available to the government from the Central Bank identified a serious funding gap facing the banking sector from as early as 2006. These dangers were not hidden on the banks' balance sheets as is often claimed

Modelling the Northeast Atlantic circulation : implications for the spring invasion of shelf regions by Calanus finmarchicus

The appearance in spring of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus in continental shelf waters of the northeastern Atlantic has been hypothesized to be mainly attributable to invasion from across the continental slope rather than in situ overwintering. This paper describes the application of a hydrodynamic circulation model and a particle-tracking model to Northeast Atlantic waters in order to assess the influence of the flow field and ascent migration parameters on the spring invasion of C. finmarchicus. For hydrodynamic modelling, the Hamburg Shelf-Ocean Model (HAMSOM) was applied to the North Atlantic and Nordic Seas and forced with daily mean atmospheric data. Simulated flow fields from HAMSOM serve as forcing functions for a particle-tracking model of the same region. The robustness of the simulated shelf invasion in three target boxes of the Northeast Atlantic Shelf was assessed by means of a sensitivity analysis with respect to variations in four key migration parameters: overwintering depth, ascent rate, ascent timing, and depth during residence in upper layers. The invasion of the northern North Sea and Norwegian Shelf waters is more sensitive to ascent migration parameters than invasion of the Faroese Shelf. The main reason for enhanced sensitivity of the North Sea invasion is the time and space-dependent flow structure in the Faroe-Shetland Channel. Dense aggregations of overwintering C. finmarchicus are found in the Channel, but because of the complex flow field only a proportion of the overwintering stock has the capacity to reach the North Sea

The densities of fiber follicles in the Karakas, Norduz, and Zom sheep and a comparative analysis

This study aimed to determine the densities of fiber follicles in the skin of the Karakas, Norduz, and Zom sheep breeds and to carry out a comparative analysis between them. The study included a total of 36 animals aged 1-2 years and 3-4 years. Skin samples were obtained through biopsies taken from the right sides of the animals to determine the densities and ratios of the fleece follicles. Examination of these samples revealed that the primary follicle densities of the three sheep breeds (Karakas, Norduz and Zom) were 3.11 ± 0.42, 3.14 ± 0.49 and 3.34 ± 0.59, while the secondary follicle densities were 8.42 ± 1.48, 8.51 ± 1.54 and 6.36 ± 1.44. The secondary to primary (S/P) follicle ratios of the sheep were 2.71 ± 0.70, 2.79 ± 0.69 and 1.85 ± 0.36, respectively. The primary follicle densities of the Karakas, Norduz and Zom sheep were statistically similar for both age groups. The density of secondary follicles and S/P ratio decreased with age in both age groups. The similarity of the S/P ratios to those from other local sheep breeds suggest that Karakas, Norduz, Zom sheep can be included in the sheep group that has coarse fleece

Winter distribution of Calanus finmarchicus in the Northeast Atlantic

Data from plankton sampling and Optical Plankton Counter deployments during six cruises between December of 1994 and 1999 have been used to derive a composite three-dimensional distribution of the abundance of Calanus finmarchicus during winter (December-January) in the Norwegian Sea and Northeast Atlantic. There are two centres of abundance, one in the eastern Norwegian Sea and Faroe-Shetland Channel, associated with the interface between Norwegian Sea Deep Water and Intermediate Water layers, and another in the Irminger Sea southwest of Iceland in association with Labrador Sea Water. In the open Northeast Atlantic, the concentration of wintering animals is around 30% of that in the Norwegian Sea and the vertical distribution ismore diffuse and on average deeper. Modelling studies have shown that the overwinter distribution and transport are key factors determining the spatial persistence of C. finmarchicus but, apart from the data presented here, there is little knowledge of these large-scale properties

Persistent Organic Pollutant in the Venetian coastal environment

The Venetian coastal area is characterized by a strong anthropogenic impact and its quality is very important because of local economical activities, such as tourism or fishing. In the context of the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC), the aim of the project Q-ALiVe (Qualità dell’Ambiente Litoraneo Veneto) is to check the environmental quality of the Venetian coastal area and whether rivers contamination could influence it. We studied an area going from the mouth of the Adige river to the Malamocco inlet of the Venice lagoon (including the mouth of the Brenta river and the Chioggia lagoon inlet), to distance from the coast of up to about a kilometer. In this work we presented the data relative to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) as PCBs, PBDEs and PAHs, in samples of seawater. Samples were collected during four different sampling campaigns, in different seasons (June 2011, August 2011, September 2011, November 2011); in each sampling campaign we collected 10 samples of surface water. Analytical samples procedures for POPs include liquid-liquid continuous extraction, followed by an automated purification step, with neutral silica columns. Analysis were made by HRGC-HRMS (PCBs) or HRGC-LRMS (PAHs and PBDEs). Quantification was made by isotope dilution. Results suggest a negligible influence of rivers contamination to the quality of the sea facing the city of Chioggia and the Venice lagoon. Funds for this work were provided, in the framework of Q-ALiVe Project, by the Regione del Veneto - L.R. 15/07

Exploring Case-Control Genetic Association Tests Using Phase Diagrams

Background: By a new concept called "phase diagram", we compare two commonly used genotype-based tests for case-control genetic analysis, one is a Cochran-Armitage trend test (CAT test at $x=0.5$, or CAT0.5) and another (called MAX2) is the maximization of two chi-square test results: one from the two-by-two genotype count table that combines the baseline homozygotes and heterozygotes, and another from the table that combines heterozygotes with risk homozygotes. CAT0.5 is more suitable for multiplicative disease models and MAX2 is better for dominant/recessive models. Methods: We define the CAT0.5-MAX2 phase diagram on the disease model space such that regions where MAX2 is more powerful than CAT0.5 are separated from regions where the CAT0.5 is more powerful, and the task is to choose the appropriate parameterization to make the separation possible. Results: We find that using the difference of allele frequencies ($\delta_p$) and the difference of Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium coefficients ($\delta_\epsilon$) can separate the two phases well, and the phase boundaries are determined by the angle $tan^{-1}(\delta_p/\delta_\epsilon)$, which is an improvement over the disease model selection using $\delta_\epsilon$ only. Conclusions: We argue that phase diagrams similar to the one for CAT0.5-MAX2 have graphical appeals in understanding power performance of various tests, clarifying simulation schemes, summarizing case-control datasets, and guessing the possible mode of inheritance