Effective Practices of Macroprudential Stress Testing as a Tool of Increasing the Stability of Russian Financial System in the Context of Macroeconomic Shocks

The article examines the evolution of the prudential approach to banking regulation, examines the practical contribution of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to the development and implementation of internationally unified practices and procedures for stress testing and supervision. The authors share the point of view that the existing methods and practices of stress testing still need improvements and methodological improvements, since they regularly allow the practical implementation of adverse scenarios leading to financial shocks and global crises. As a significant disadvantage of many actively used stress testing models, it is noted that they are often focused on complex, highly bureaucratic procedures for the preparation and analysis of financial statements, the main purpose of which is to assess the probabilities and sizes of losses and identify scenarios for the development of the situation for each specific bank, and no risks for the financial system as a whole. The authors come to the conclusion that it is advisable to prioritize the use of alternative stress testing models in crisis and post-crisis conditions, the forecasts within which are based on the actual values of financial market indicators, macroeconomic variables, and other open data. Special attention is paid to the stylized CLASS model, based on simple econometric models, as well as stress testing the current market value of V-lab. Based on the results of the study, the authors come to a number of conclusions that the role of the macroeconomic component in the procedures, methods, and algorithms for macroprudential stress testing used in Russia should increase, the degree of involvement and the sphere of responsibility for its results of key institutional units of the public administration system should expand, and macroprudential stress testing itself should not be limited to supervisory stress testing in everyday practice.

Stress-Testing Framework for Urban Water Systems: A Source to Tap Approach for Stochastic Resilience Assessment

Optimizing the design and operation of an Urban Water System (UWS) faces significant challenges over its lifespan to account for the uncertainties of important stressors that arise from population growth rates, climate change factors, or shifting demand patterns. The analysis of a UWS’s performance across interdependent subsystems benefits from a multi-model approach where different designs are tested against a variety of metrics and in different times scales for each subsystem. In this work, we present a stress-testing framework for UWSs that assesses the system’s resilience, i.e., the degree to which a UWS continues to perform under progressively increasing disturbance (deviation from normal operating conditions). The framework is underpinned by a modeling chain that covers the entire water cycle, in a source-to-tap manner, coupling a water resources management model, a hydraulic water distribution model, and a water demand generation model. An additional stochastic simulation module enables the representation and modeling of uncertainty throughout the water cycle. We demonstrate the framework by “stress-testing” a synthetic UWS case study with an ensemble of scenarios whose parameters are stochastically changing within the UWS simulation timeframe and quantify the uncertainty in the estimation of the system’s resilience.

Hypertensive response to exercise in adult patients with repaired aortic coarctation

ObjectiveThe clinical and prognostic implications of a hypertensive response to exercise after repair of coarctation of the aorta (CoA) remain controversial. We aimed to determine the prevalence of a hypertensive response to exercise, identify factors associated with peak exercise systolic blood pressure (SBP) and explore the association of peak exercise SBP with resting blood pressure and cardiovascular events during follow-up.MethodsFrom the Dutch national CONgenital CORvitia (CONCOR) registry, adults with repaired CoA who underwent exercise stress testing were included. A hypertensive response to exercise was defined as a peak exercise SBP ≥210 mm Hg in men and ≥190 mm Hg in women. Cardiovascular events consisted of coronary artery disease, stroke, aortic complications and cardiovascular death.ResultsOf the original cohort of 920 adults with repaired CoA, 675 patients (median age 24 years (range 16–72 years)) underwent exercise stress testing. Of these, 299 patients (44%) had a hypertensive response to exercise. Mean follow-up duration was 10.1 years. Male sex, absence of a bicuspid aortic valve and elevated resting SBP were independently associated with increased peak exercise SBP. Peak exercise SBP was positively predictive of office SBP (β=0.11, p<0.001) and 24-hour SBP (β=0.05, p=0.03) at follow-up, despite correction for baseline SBP. During follow-up, 100 patients (15%) developed at least 1 cardiovascular event. Peak exercise SBP was not significantly associated with the occurrence of cardiovascular events (HR 0.994 (95% CI 0.987 to 1.001), p=0.11).ConclusionsA hypertensive response to exercise was present in nearly half of the patients in this large, prospective cohort of adults with repaired CoA. Risk factors for increased peak exercise SBP were male sex, absence of a bicuspid aortic valve and elevated resting SBP. Increased peak exercise SBP independently predicted hypertension at follow-up. These results support close follow-up of patients with a hypertensive response to exercise to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment of future hypertension.

Impaired Spontaneous Baroreceptor Reflex Sensitivity in Patients With COPD Compared to Healthy Controls: The Role of Lung Hyperinflation

Background and Objectives: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between pulmonary hyperinflation and baroreceptor reflex sensitivity (BRS), a surrogate for cardiovascular risk.Methods: 33 patients with COPD, free from clinical cardiovascular disease, and 12 healthy controls were studied. Participants underwent pulmonary function and non-invasive hemodynamic measurements. BRS was evaluated using the sequence method during resting conditions and mental arithmetic stress testing.Results: Patients with COPD had evidence of airflow obstruction [forced expiratory volume in 1 s predicted (FEV1%) 26.5 (23.3–29.1) vs. 91.5 (82.8–100.8); P &lt; 0.001; geometric means (GM) with 95% confidence interval (CI)] and lung hyperinflation [residual volume/total lung capacity (RV/TLC) 67.7 (64.3–71.3) vs. 41.0 (38.8–44.3); P &lt; 0.001; GM with 95% CI] compared to controls. Spontaneous mean BRS (BRSmean) was significantly lower in COPD, both during rest [5.6 (4.2–6.9) vs. 12.0 (9.1–17.6); P = 0.003; GM with 95% CI] and stress testing [4.4 (3.7–5.3) vs. 9.6 (7.7–12.2); P &lt; 0.001; GM with 95% CI]. Stroke volume (SV) was significantly lower in the patient group [−21.0 ml (−29.4 to −12.6); P &lt; 0.001; difference of the means with 95% CI]. RV/TLC was found to be a predictor of BRS and SV (P &lt; 0.05 for both), independent of resting heart rate.Conclusion: We herewith provide evidence of impaired BRS in patients with COPD. Hyperinflation may influence BRS through alteration of mechanosensitive vagal nerve activity.

Study on stress testing of ferromagnetic materials based on magnetic anisotropy

The stress testing and evaluation of ferromagnetic materials that are widely applied in engineering has always been a focus of, and presented difficulties for, non-destructive testing. As there is still no effective method for detecting the stress of ferromagnetic materials, this paper puts forward the idea of applying the magnetic anisotropy method based on the inverse magnetostriction effect in stress testing of ferromagnetic materials. According to the principle of the magnetic anisotropy method, this paper discusses the development of Mn-Zn ferrite probes of three different structures, the construction of a magnetic anisotropy testing system comprising an excitation system, a signal collecting system and a signal processing system and the way in which a testing experiment was conducted on a 16MnR steel plate specimen under different conditions of stress, frequency and excitation voltage. All three types of probe can effectively determine the stress location of the specimen and present different phenomena and characteristics of the test. According to the experiment, significant correlation is seen between the stress and the magnetic signal, which provides a new idea for stress testing of ferromagnetic materials.