Meat industry and trade -- Environmental aspects.

Minter, Adam, 1970- -- Travel.

Young people across the globe marched, protested, and signaled calls to action today in the name of climate change. Here's what it looked like.

Paris : J.-B. Baillière, 1829-1846.

Segmentation of cardiac images, particularly late gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (LGE-MRI) widely used for visualizing diseased cardiac structures, is a crucial first step for clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, direct segmentation of LGE-MRIs is challenging due to its attenuated contrast. Since most clinical studies have relied on manual and labor-intensive approaches, automatic methods are of high interest, particularly optimized machine learning approaches. To address this, we organized the "2018 Left Atrium Segmentation Challenge" using 154 3D LGE-MRIs, currently the world's largest cardiac LGE-MRI dataset, and associated labels of the left atrium segmented by three medical experts, ultimately attracting the participation of 27 international teams. In this paper, extensive analysis of the submitted algorithms using technical and biological metrics was performed by undergoing subgroup analysis and conducting hyper-parameter analysis, offering an overall picture of the major design choices of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and practical considerations for achieving state-of-the-art left atrium segmentation. Results show the top method achieved a dice score of 93.2% and a mean surface to a surface distance of 0.7 mm, significantly outperforming prior state-of-the-art. Particularly, our analysis demonstrated that double, sequentially used CNNs, in which a first CNN is used for automatic region-of-interest localization and a subsequent CNN is used for refined regional segmentation, achieved far superior results than traditional methods and pipelines containing single CNNs. This large-scale benchmarking study makes a significant step towards much-improved segmentation methods for cardiac LGE-MRIs, and will serve as an important benchmark for evaluating and comparing the future works in the field.

Crowdsourcing is a popular approach to collect annotations for unlabeled data instances. It involves collecting a large number of annotations from several, often naive untrained annotators for each data instance which are then combined to estimate the ground truth. Further, annotations for constructs such as affect are often multi-dimensional with annotators rating multiple dimensions, such as valence and arousal, for each instance. Most annotation fusion schemes however ignore this aspect and model each dimension separately. In this work we address this by proposing a generative model for multi-dimensional annotation fusion, which models the dimensions jointly leading to more accurate ground truth estimates. The model we propose is applicable to both global and time series annotation fusion problems and treats the ground truth as a latent variable distorted by the annotators. The model parameters are estimated using the Expectation-Maximization algorithm and we evaluate its performance using synthetic data and real emotion corpora as well as on an artificial task with human annotations

Gregory Cox.

Source: The Annals of Statistics, Volume 48, Number 1, 584--606.

Abstract:
This paper establishes the argmin of a random objective function to be unique almost surely. This paper first formulates a general result that proves almost sure uniqueness without convexity of the objective function. The general result is then applied to a variety of applications in statistics. Four applications are discussed, including uniqueness of M-estimators, both classical likelihood and penalized likelihood estimators, and two applications of the argmin theorem, threshold regression and weak identification.

To view more press releases, please visit http://www.snl.com/irweblinkx/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

Speech by Mr Agustín Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, at the Eurofi Financial Forum, Helsinki, 12 September 2019.

Lecture by Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary and Economic Department, at the University of Zürich, Zürich, 19 November 2019.

In the past 20 years, malnutrition in mothers and children has decreased by almost half. But despite this progress, child undernutrition is still the greatest nutrition-related health burden in the world. One of the biggest problems with child undernutrition is that it continues the cycle of stunting: stunted girls grow up to be stunted mothers, and stunted mothers are much [...]

The photos below were entries in the XIV World Forestry Congress ‘Forests and People’ photo contest. Take a tour with us around the world and learn interesting facts on forests and the socioeconomic benefits they provide to people around the world. 

Radio culture is gaining more and more ground as millions of listeners take to audio podcasts as a convenient and accessible way to learn new information.  Which is why FAO is stepping up into the medium to bring you insights into some of the issues concerning food and agriculture worldwide. Here are the first seven audio offerings of FAO’s new podcast [...]

Visitors can get up close and personal with augmented reality versions of historic globes recently digitized by the British Library

From virtual museum tours to space exploration, ancient worlds and natural phenomena, this hub has you covered

FSI Briefs No 3, April 2020. In response to the 2007-09 Great Financial Crisis (GFC), accounting standard setters introduced a new methodology to value loans based on expected credit losses (ECL). The previous approach, based on incurred losses, was viewed as procyclical and inconsistent with prudential objectives. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, several prudential authorities and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), introduced a series of measures to clarify how banks should consider various public and private debt relief programmes in their ECL estimates and in their calculation of regulatory capital. These measures are intended to incentivise banks to continue supporting the real economy, while reducing pressure on banks' ECL provisions, earnings and regulatory capital. Supervisory initiatives that provide capital relief should be augmented by severe constraints on the payment of dividends, bonuses and share buybacks. These joint actions will simultaneously expand banks' lending capacity and enhance their ability to absorb losses. Prudential authorities face difficult trade-offs as they confront the most severe economic crisis in modern times. Encouraging the use of flexibility in applicable accounting standards, while preserving market trust and transparency in the reported financial statements of banks, will be key in fostering both economic and financial stability.

Recent literature has highlighted that international trade is mostly priced in a few key vehicle currencies, and is increasingly dominated by intermediate goods and global value chains (GVCs). Taking these features into account, this paper reexamines the business cycle dynamics of international trade and its relationship with monetary policy and exchange rates.

Architects and planners from the Netherlands are advising coastal cities worldwide on how to live with water

Markets Committee calls for wider adoption of global code of conduct for foreign exchange markets (Press release, 30 January 2020)

No global real estate market despite higher price synchronisation and growing role of international investors, central banks find (Press release, 18 February 2020)

Press release "Saudi G20 Presidency and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub invite global innovators to solve RegTech and SupTech challenges", 27 April 2020

US dollar credit to non-bank borrowers outside the United States grew by 4% year on year at end-June 2019, to reach $11.9 trillion. Foreign currency credit denominated in euros and Japanese yen continued to expand at a faster pace than that in US dollars, growing at annual rates of 9% and 8%, respectively. US dollar credit to emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) grew at an annual rate of 2% (to reach $3.7 trillion), though growth varied substantially across regions.

US dollar credit to non-bank borrowers outside the United States grew by 5% year on year at end-September 2019, to reach $12.1 trillion. Euro-denominated credit outside the euro area continued to expand at a fast pace (9%). In contrast, the growth rate of yen-denominated credit outside Japan fell to 1%. Strong debt securities issuance drove expansions in US dollar and euro credit to emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). US dollar credit to EMDEs grew at an annual rate of 3% (to reach $3.8 trillion); euro credit to EMDEs expanded by 9% (to reach €0.7 trillion).

US dollar credit to non-bank borrowers outside the United States grew by 6% in 2019, to reach $12.2 trillion at end-2019. The annual growth rate of euro-denominated credit outside the euro area slowed to 6%, while that of yen-denominated credit outside Japan turned negative (-1%). In 2019, euro-denominated credit overtook US dollar-denominated credit as the largest stock of foreign currency credit to emerging Europe. The debt securities share in US dollar credit outside the United States has risen considerably over the past decade across a number of major borrowing regions.

The term global liquidity is used by the BIS to mean the ease of financing in global financial markets. Credit is among the key indicators of global liquidity, and is the focus of the quarterly indicators estimated by the BIS.

Remarks by Benoît Cœuré, Head of the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, at the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee - Chamber of Digital Commerce webinar on "The world economy transformed", 17 April 2020.

Remarks by Mr Olli Rehn, Governor of the Bank of Finland, at the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee Panel Discussion on "The world economy transformed: Reflections on policy responses and the future post pandemic monetary architecture", in the context of the virtual IMF Spring Meetings, Washington DC, 17 April 2020.

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Bank for International Settlements BIS Working Papers by David Cook and Nikhil Patel

The head of the International Monetary Fund said Friday that previous estimates for the world economy to contract by three percent this year were too optimistic.

Over 180 people of all ages unite in Costa Rica for the annual international outreach of OM Central America.

Global carbon emissions from energy are expected to fall by almost 8% in 2020 in the biggest drop in history as a result of the pandemic, experts said.

THE Herald has reported (May 6) on another economically and socially “lost generation” of children and young people due to Covid-19.

The effectiveness of intravenous immunoglobulin treatment of patients with Kawasaki disease within 9 days of illness has been established. However, the effectiveness of such treatment ≥10 days after illness onset has not yet been clarified.

Intravenous immunoglobulin treatment ≥10 days after illness onset was observed to be effective for achieving inflammation resolution. Patients who are strongly suspected to have Kawasaki disease and demonstrate ongoing inflammation should therefore be treated as soon as possible. (Read the full article)

The Global Trigger Tool uses a sampling methodology to identify and measure harm rates. It has been shown to effectively detect adverse events when applied in the adult environment, but it has never been evaluated in a pediatric setting.

The Global Trigger Tool can be used in the pediatric inpatient environment to measure adverse safety events. We detected a 2 to 3 times higher harm rate than previously found with different metrics in this setting. (Read the full article)

There is concern about the potential exploitation of children who are enrolled into clinical trials in developing and transition countries. Previous studies of globalization have only examined pediatric drug trials, and only 1 study has provided patient-level data by country.

The involvement of developing and transition countries depends on the product or indication under investigation and is greater for vaccines than for drugs or biologicals. Compared with our previous analysis, involvement of these countries in pediatric drug development has decreased. (Read the full article)

Universal hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination is a cost-effective strategy to control HBV infection. Giving hepatitis B immunoglobulin to neonates of HBV carrier mothers additionally reduces transmission but is not widely used because of its expense and infrastructure requirements.

Maternal screening for hepatitis B surface antigen and hepatitis B immunoglobulin treatment of neonates of hepatitis B virus carrier mothers could be a cost-effective addition to universal vaccination in settings in which health infrastructure can support such an intervention. (Read the full article)

Global health is of increasing interest and relevance to North American pediatric trainees. Opportunities for resident global health training and exposure are most often limited to electives or trainees in dedicated global health tracks.

A series of short, structured, participatory global child health modules improved knowledge and were well received and integrated within academic programs. Such modules enable global health learning for all residents, including those who never intend to practice overseas. (Read the full article)

Fewer clinical trials are performed in children compared with other patient populations. It is unknown how well existing pediatric clinical trials are aligned with the needs of children, both in high-income countries and globally.

There is only moderate correlation between clinical trial activity and pediatric burden of disease, with certain conditions substantially underrepresented in the current research portfolio. Our findings provide a benchmark for prioritizing conditions for study, analyzing gaps, and identifying funding priorities. (Read the full article)

Although immunoglobulin replacement is recognized as effective in children with primary immunodeficiency, pneumococcal infection may occur. There is no available prospective clinical study evaluating levels of protective serospecific antibodies in patients and products.

Protective (0.2 µg/mL) antibody levels for the most frequent pneumococcal serotypes were measured in children treated for primary immunodeficiencies. A linear relationship was demonstrated between peak and trough levels of serospecific antipneumococcal antibodies in patients and infused immunoglobulins. (Read the full article)

Direct antiglobulin titer (DAT) positive, blood group A or B newborns born to group O mothers have a high incidence of hyperbilirubinemia, attributable to increased hemolysis.

DAT ++ readings were associated with a higher incidence of hyperbilirubinemia and a greater degree of hemolysis than DAT ± or DAT + counterparts. DAT strength should be taken into consideration when planning treatment strategies or follow-up of ABO-heterospecific newborns. (Read the full article)

Fifteen percent of tuberculosis cases globally are resistant to the drug isoniazid. Isoniazid resistance puts patients with tuberculosis at risk for poor treatment outcomes and threatens the effectiveness of isoniazid preventive therapy in people with latent tuberculosis infection.

We present the first global and regional estimates of the proportion of children with tuberculosis who have isoniazid-resistant disease, showing large geographic variations in risk of resistance. We estimate the number of annual incident cases of isoniazid-resistant tuberculosis in children. (Read the full article)

Studies on the consequences of abnormal prenatal hemoglobin (Hb) concentration have focused on maternal morbidities and adverse birth outcomes. To date, very little is known about the association between prenatal Hb concentration and infant cognitive and motor functions.

There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between maternal Hb concentration and infant gross motor function. Hb concentration between 90 and 110 g/L appears to be optimal for early gross motor function of children. (Read the full article)