Nature

• Is it because we don’t have enough information about how ecosystems respond to change?
• Specifically, we investigate solutions to environmental and societal problems that stem from the disparities between scientific research, policy and management responses to environmental issues.

Our work’s standing among global research aimed at stopping ecosystem collapse has been recognised as one of 23 national champions in this year’s Frontiers Planet Prize.

Read more:
Our oceans are in deep trouble – a 'mountains to sea' approach could make a real difference

More holistic solutions

• The challenges focused on environmental issues were deliberately created to concentrate on separate ecosystem and management domains (marine, freshwater and land).
• We focus on solutions where social and ecological connections are at the forefront of environmental management practices and decisions.

• Most of the microplastics found along coasts and in harbours are blown or washed off the land.
• This leads to lags in decision making which create undesirable environmental outcomes that are difficult to return from.

Cyclones as a real-world example

• The exposed soil associated with clear felling was left draped in woody debris to protect it from rain.
• However, Cyclone Gabrielle hit in February last year, with extreme rainfall washing both soil and woody debris into streams.

• The debris also clogged harbours and coastal beaches, smothered seafloor habitats, destroyed fisheries and affected cultural and recreational values.
• This real-world example demonstrates the severe consequences of lags in information flow and management responses.

Living with nature, not off it

• Living within planetary boundaries requires a paradigm shift in behaviours, including the way we link science and management to on-the-ground action.
• Crucially, we need to increase the speed at which new research is taken up and rapidly transition this into action that improves environmental outcomes at local scales.
• This behavioural shift underpins the way to a more integrated, broad-scale ability to act and stay within planetary boundaries.

• Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher receives funding from philanthropy, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), including from the National Science Challenges, the Marsden Fund and the Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships.
• Conrad Pilditch receives funding from Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), including the National Science Challenge Sustainable Seas, Marsden Fund and regional councils.

• Abstract
  We evaluate the effects of contagion and common exposure on banks? capital through
  a regression design inspired by the structural VAR literature and derived from the balance
  sheet identity.
• Contagion can occur through direct exposures, fire sales, and market-based
  sentiment, while common exposures result from portfolio overlaps.
• First, we document that contagion varies in time, with the highest levels
  around the Great Financial Crisis and lowest levels during the pandemic.
• Our new framework complements
  traditional stress-tests focused on single institutions by providing a holistic view of systemic risk.
• While existing literature presents various contagion narratives, empirical findings on
  distress propagation - a precursor to defaults - remain scarce.
• We decompose systemic risk into three elements: contagion, common exposures, and idiosyncratic risk, all derived from banks? balance sheet identities.
• The contagion factor encompasses both sentiment- and contractual-based elements, common exposures consider systemic
  aspects, while idiosyncratic risk encapsulates unique bank-specific risk sources.
• Our empirical analysis of the Canadian banking system reveals the dynamic nature of contagion, with elevated levels observed during the Global Financial Crisis.
• In conclusion, our model offers a comprehensive lens for policy intervention analysis and
  scenario evaluations on contagion and systemic risk in banking.
• This
  notion of systemic risk implies two key components: first, systematic risks (e.g., risks related
  to common exposures) and second, contagion (i.e., an initially idiosyncratic problem becoming
  more widespread throughout the financial system) (see Caruana, 2010).
• In this paper, we decompose systemic risk into three components: contagion, common exposures, and idiosyncratic risk.
• First, we include contagion in three forms: sentiment-based contagion, contractual-based
  contagion, and price-mediated contagion.
• In this context,
  portfolio overlaps create common exposures, implying that bigger overlaps make systematic
  shocks more systemic.
• With the COVID-19 pandemic starting
  in 2020, contagion drops to all time lows, potentially related to strong fiscal and monetary
  supports.
• That is, our
  structural model provides a framework for analyzing the impact of policy interventions and
  scenarios on different levels of contagion and systemic risk in the banking system.
• This provides a complementary approach to
  seminal papers that took a structural approach to contagion, such as DebtRank Battiston et al.
• More generally, the literature on networks and systemic risk started with Allen and Gale
  (2001) and Eisenberg and Noe (2001).
• The matrix is structured as follows:
  1

  In our model, we do not distinguish between interbank liabilities and other types of liabilities.

• In other words, we can and aim to estimate different degrees
  of contagion per asset class, i.e., potentially distinct parameters ?Ga .
• For that, we build three major
  metrics to check: average contagion, average common exposure, and average idiosyncratic risk.
• N i j

  et ,
  Further, we define the (N ?K) common exposure matrix as Commt = [A

  (20)

  et ]diag (?C
  ?L

  such that average common exposure reads,
  average common exposure =

  1 XX
  Commik,t .

• N i j

  (22)

  20

  ? c ),

  The three metrics?average contagion, average common exposure, and average idiosyncratic risk?provide a comprehensive framework for understanding banking dynamics.

• Figure 4 depicts the average level of risks per systemic risk channel: contagion risk, common exposure, and idiosyncratic risk.
• Figure 4: Average levels of contagion (Equation (20)), common exposure (Equation (21)), and idiosyncratic risk
  (Equation (22)).
• The market-based contagion is the contagion due to
  investors? sentiment, and the network is an estimate FEVD on volatility data.
• For most of
  the sample, we find that contagion had a bigger impact on the variance than common exposures.

• His unparalleled legacy, epitomised by the discovery of the Higgs boson, continues to profoundly shape the future of particle physics like no other discovery before it.
• When Higgs was born in 1929, our understanding of matter was completely different.
• Physicists had developed a simple model of matter with three fundamental, or elementary, particles (those that can’t be broken down into smaller particles).
• At the time Higgs began working on his ideas in the 1960s, the question of how elementary particles acquired mass was a central issue in physics.

• However, for a theory that should explain mass, a viable solution couldn’t depend on a specific medium or material.
• Later, Higgs and other theorists developed a model that overcame this difficulty.
• On July 4 2012, images of Higgs, moved to tears by the announcement, went around the world.

• In the decade since its discovery, many of these interactions have been observed at the LHC.
• If current measurements of that particle are correct, the universe isn’t stable in its current state.
• To answer these questions, Europe, the US and China have proposed plans for building new particle colliders focused on studying the Higgs boson.
• It would be entirely fitting if Peter Higgs’ legacy, which transformed our understanding of particle physics, also transformed our approach to research.

Martin Bauer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Imagine seeing the face of Helen of Troy staring back at you, from within the ashes of a 2,000-year-old city.
• And these ashes aren’t the scars of a city burned down for the sake of “the face that launch’d a thousand ships”.
• Helen is depicted in stunning detail (alongside Paris, the prince of Troy) in one of the paintings on the recently discovered fresco wall of the winter dining room of a Pompeian villa.
• Read more:
  Pompeii’s House of the Vettii reopens: a reminder that Roman sexuality was far more complex than simply gay or straight

The women of Troy

• It’s not just their unusual style, which shows the painters experimenting with new techniques and representing the latest artistic fashions.
• It’s the trio of women from Greek myth collected together in a way that makes us see the Trojan war myth anew – and puts the stories of women at the forefront.
• It shows that, just like us, Pompeii’s elite were well versed in – and eager for – stories of the women of ancient Greek myth.

The role of the fresco

• Sit on one side, and you’d be faced with the image of Helen’s very first encounter with Paris.
• Is there a sense that Helen is lingering, uncertain, with that back foot scraping behind her?
• You can just imagine the Pompeian literati quaffing glasses of expensive wine as they gazed at Helen’s face and debated the subject.
• This is the price of ownership over your body as a woman in Greek myth – the loss of your voice.
• As the grim skeletons discovered in the villa show, just like the Trojans, Verus and his guests didn’t listen to Cassandra either.

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Emily Hauser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.