Arguments on designation of big nonbanks to be SIFIs

Normally a policy just published is controversial because a variety of people beneficially involved. But this list which has not been actually a policy attracts wide attention among people.

Recently AIG and Prudential, two insurers confirmed they are designated as “systemically important financial institutions” (SIFIs) by the new Financial Stability Oversight Council, a regulatory department. And so did GE Capital, the big group GE’s financial arm. These firms and perhaps others, have joined America’s largest banks and clearinghouses in being labeled as “SIFIs”. These on the list of being designated SIFIs will be regulated by the Fed and subjected to tougher capital and operational requirements. Jack Lew, the treasury secretary, said the designations would “protect taxpayers, reduce risk in the financial system, and promoted financial stability."This signals because they are thought to be significant to effect America’s economy, they should get special attention. Some are worried about it. Putting these institutions in the charge of the Fed will inevitably undermine their ability to innovate, says Peter Wallison, a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. And joining the group of entities perceived to be too big to fail means they will enjoy an implicit government guarantee. That will put them at a funding advantage against smaller companies, he says, and imply that their products are government-backed, a huge help for insurers in particular.

Oalib

Malpractice claims should not hold up in court

Analysis about patients suing doctors for malpractice may improve information management system.

A study shows that the most common reason patients give for their doctors is a delay or failure to diagnose a disease.

The study reviewed information on medical malpractice claims against primary care doctors in the United States, Australia, France and Canada and found that the most frequently missed disease were cancer and heart attacks in adults and meningitis in children.

The second most common reason for a lawsuit was medication errors, such as prescription-related errors or adverse drug reactions.

Although the majority of the medical malpractice claims should not hold up in court, understanding malpractice suits can help doctors identify situations that may result in adverse events for patients, as well as systems that can be put into place to help prevent errors from happening.

Ultimately the study analyzing malpractice claims can contribute to improving the quality of medical practice. For example the doctor who received malpractice claims might talk it to other doctors.

The new study may also help identify areas of medicine that may benefit from better risk management systems, such as computer systems that let doctors check what medications a patient is already taking before prescribing another drug.

by Oalib

Material with record-breaking surface area was made

Material with record-breaking surface area was made

A new material with world record-breaking surface area and other properties has been synthesized by researchers from Uppsala University, Sweden, which was thought to be impossible. The magnesium carbonate material was formed in an unexpected way and the results have been published in PLOS ONE.

For the past 100 years, it has been claimed in the scientific literature that magnesium carbonate with disordered form is extremely hard to make.

"A Thursday afternoon in 2011, we slightly changed the synthesis parameters of the earlier employed unsuccessful attempts, and by mistake left the material in the reaction chamber over the weekend. Back at work on Monday morning we discovered that a rigid gel had formed and after drying this gel we started to get excited," says Johan Goméz de la Torre.

The magnesium carbonate material that has been given the name Upsalite is foreseen to reduce the amount of energy needed to control environmental moisture in the electronics and drug formulation industry as well as in hockey rinks and ware houses. It can also be used for collection of toxic waste, chemicals or oil spill and in drug delivery systems, for odor control and sanitation after fire.

Lock-in effect may not exist

Today a researcher put on his blog that the fact underwater borrowers have been locked out of moving to new jobs may be not true. It is highly recognized that the housing market has had a lot to do with the size and stubborn nature of the Great Recession. A lock-in effect for underwater borrowers was used to explain the inner relationship. A lock-in effect is the phenomenon that people could not move because homeowners are underwater borrowers and unwilling to face the costs. He said in fact , being underwater might lead people to feel liberated from their houses.

He argued with a done paper by by Yuliya Demyanyk, Dmytro Hryshko, María José Luengo-Prado, and Bent E. Sørensen that the most locked in homeowners are those that have only a small amount of equity in their houses. Those with lots of equity are more likely to move to another city than those with little equity when their local economies receive a positive employment shock, and very slightly less likely to move when their local economies received a negative shock. But those with negative equity are more likely to move under all circumstances. Perhaps such people feel like they have nothing to lose, so they might as well move.

Perceiving a 4 year old body leads to child’s memory

Mel Slater of the University of Barcelona in Spain and his team did a experiment in which they put 30 people in a virtual reality environment in the body of a 4-year-old child. They thought they had the body of a 4-year-old child. For example, they believed they were tall as the child. The virtual body moving in sync with movements of the real body, could be viewed from a first-person perspective and in a mirror in the virtual reality environment. In the virtual environment all objects are bigger than they actually were, but they judged their body to be as a 4-year-old child.

It suggests that we reference our own body size to judge the size of the environment we are in. The researchers also has shown that these illusion may has the same effect on higher-level cognitive process, like memory of childhood.

The team’s previous research shows that when a person acquires a body type they have never experienced, social and cultural expectations often influence how they relate to the new body.

Things we experience in a virtual landscape can also have profound effects on our behaviour in the real world: in a separate study by researchers at Stanford University in California, giving people superhero powers in a virtual environment made them behave in a more helpful manner in real life.

The researchers say that brain imaging studies would help them to understand the reorganisation that occurs when assimilating a new body. The motivation springs from a project looking at how to embody people in child-sized robots. "We thought we ought to look at the consequences of that first," says Slater.

What contribute to air pollution responsible for more than 2 million deaths each year

Climate changes are the central issues when people argue air pollution. New study suggested that a changing climate can strengthen the effects of air pollution and increase death rates, but this is a small effect and only accounts for a small proportion of current deaths related to air pollution.

The study has been published on 12 July, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters.

The study showed that around 2.1 million deaths are caused each year by human-caused increases in fine particulates matter (PM2.5) and 470,000 because of human-caused increases in ozone. And many of these deaths are assumed to happen in East Asia and South Asia, where population is high and air pollution is severe.

Based on the study, the number of these deaths that can be attributed to changes in the climate since the industrial era is, however, relatively small. It estimates that a changing climate results in 1500 deaths due to ozone and 2200 deaths related to PM2.5 each year.

Climate change affects air quality in many ways, possibly leading to local increases or decreases in air pollution. For instance, temperature and humidity can change the reaction rates which determine the formation or lifetime of a pollutant, and rainfall can determine the time that pollutants can accumulate.

Higher temperatures can also increase the emissions of organic compounds from trees, which can then react in the atmosphere to form ozone and particulate matter.

Asian Origins of Native American Dogs Confirmed by DNA

Native American dogs were thought to have been extinct because early Europeans brought diseases to them. According to recent research that traces these breeds to ancient Asia orgins and they are preserved and they are thriving.

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas has generally been thought to have led to the extinction of indigenous dog breeds; but a comprehensive genetic study has found that the original population of native American dogs has been almost completely preserved, says Peter Savolainen, a researcher in evolutionary genetics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

In fact, American dog breeds trace their ancestry to ancient Asia, Savolainen says. These native breeds have 30 percent or less modern replacement by European dogs, he says.

"Our results confirm that American dogs are a remaining part of the indigenous American culture, which underscores the importance of preserving these populations," he says.

Savolainen's research group, in cooperation with colleagues in Portugal, compared mitochondrial DNA from Asian and European dogs, ancient American archaeological samples, and American dog breeds, including Chihuahuas, Peruvian hairless dogs and Arctic sled dogs.

They traced the American dogs' ancestry back to East Asian and Siberian dogs, and also found direct relations between ancient American dogs and modern breeds.

"It was especially exciting to find that the Mexican breed, Chihuahua, shared a DNA type uniquely with Mexican pre-Columbian samples," he says. "This gives conclusive evidence for the Mexican ancestry of the Chihuahua."