Evidence-based practice

Summary

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the idea that occupational practices ought to be based on scientific evidence. While seemingly obviously desirable, the proposal has been controversial, with some arguing that results may not specialize to individuals as well as traditional practices. Evidence-based practices have been gaining ground since the formal introduction of evidence-based medicine in 1992 and have spread to the allied health professions, education, management, law, public policy, architecture, and other fields. In light of studies showing problems in scientific research (such as the replication crisis), there is also a movement to apply evidence-based practices in scientific research itself. Research into the evidence-based practice of science is called metascience. The movement towards evidence-based practices attempts to encourage and, in some instances, require professionals and other decision-makers to pay more attention to evidence to inform their decision-making. The goa

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_practice

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This thesis uses machine learning techniques and text data to investigate the relationships that arise between the Fed and financial markets, and their consequences for asset prices.The first chapter, entitled Market Expectations and the Impact of Unconventional Monetary Policy: An Application to Twitter Data, is an answer to (Greenlaw et al., 2018), who show, by looking at a large set of monetary policy announcements made between November 2008 and December 2017 - FOMC meetings, release of minutes and speeches of the Fed Chair - that long term yields tended to increase following these events. By doing so, the authors challenge common wisdom according to which the central bank intervention in the aftermath of the financial crisis lowered long term rates (Gagnon, 2016). Using machine learning and twitter data, this chapter develops a novel measure of market expectations of monetary policy, and shows that the increase in yields was simply due to a marginal adjustment of market expectations following announcements being less dovish than expected.The second chapter, entitled Informational Feedback Loop, Monetary Policy Decisions and Asset Prices Dynamics, investigates the consequences of a Fed that uses (1) its own private signal and (2) fed funds futures to take its monetary policy decision. Fed funds futures aggre- gate private information received by financial markets participants - traders - but they also depend on traders' expectations about the Fed's behavior, which makes futures endogenous in the central bank decision. The theoretical model shows that the surprise generated by monetary policy announcements and the subsequent adjustment in short term U.S. treasury yields depend on the precision of the signals received by each agent. When the signal received by traders is more precise than the central bank's, the latter relies more on fed funds futures to take its decision, and the surprise and adjustment of short term yields are smaller. By contrast, long term yields adjust only because the announcement provides traders with new information about the state of the economy, by revealing the central bank's private signal. Finally, when the Fed is averse to financial markets volatility, it tends to put some weight on fed funds futures even if they are not informative about the state of the economy. The empirical part of the paper provides some evidence supporting these channels, by using a topic and tone approach (Hansen and McMahon, 2016) to extract the precision of the signals received by the central bank and traders from FOMC minutes and tweets respectively.

EPFL2022

Land use and soil texture effects on organic carbon change in dryland soils, Senegal

Claire Guenat, Assize Touré

Soil organic carbon (SOC) losses due to poor soil management in dryland are now well documented. However, the in- fluence of soil properties on organic carbon change is not well known. The groundnut plant (Arachis hypogaea L.), and the dominant crop system in the Senegal’s Soudanian zone, have been compared with semi-natural savanna. Leaves, stems and roots biomass were measured, and soil characteristics were analysed. The total leaves and stems biomass was 1.7 and 2.7 Mg ha−1 dry matter in groundnut fields and savanna respectively. Total SOC stocks were low (8 to 20 Mg C·ha−1 within upper 0.2 m depth, 20 to 64 Mg C·ha−1 within upper 1 m depth) and were significantly lower (P < 0.05) in sandy soils than in sandy clayey soils, and lower (approximately 27% - 37%) in groundnut fields than in savanna soils. δ13C values show that SOC quality is transformed from the savanna plants (C4/C3 mixed-pools) to C3-pools in groundnut cultivated zone, with the organic matter signature more preserved in the clayey soils. This study confirms that converting woodland to groundnut fields provokes texture transformation and SOC loss. The results call for the extreme necessity to regenerate the wooded zone or encourage practices that favour SOC restitution.

2013

British Red Squirrels Remain the Only Known Wild Rodent Host for Leprosy Bacilli

Charlotte Avanzi, Philippe Busso, Stewart Cole

Eurasian red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in the British Isles are the most recently discovered animal reservoir for the leprosy bacteria Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Initial data suggest that prevalence of leprosy infection is variable and often low in different squirrel populations. Nothing is known about the presence of leprosy bacilli in other wild squirrel species despite two others (Siberian chipmunk [Tamias sibiricus], and Thirteen-lined ground squirrel [Ictidomys tridecemlineatus]) having been reported to be susceptible to experimental infection with M. leprae. Rats, a food-source in some countries where human leprosy occurs, have been suggested as potential reservoirs for leprosy bacilli, but no evidence supporting this hypothesis is currently available. We screened 301 squirrel samples covering four species [96 Eurasian red squirrels, 67 Eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), 35 Siberian chipmunks, and 103 Pallas's squirrels (Callosciurus erythraeus)] from Europe and 72 Mexican white-throated woodrats (Neotoma albigula) for the presence of M. leprae and M. lepromatosis using validated PCR protocols. No DNA from leprosy bacilli was detected in any of the samples tested. Given our sample-size, the pathogen should have been detected if the prevalence and/or bacillary load in the populations investigated were similar to those found for British red squirrels.

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2019

EPFL2022