Pressure

• A test version of a Roomba vacuum collects images of users in private situations.
• The general public depends on software engineers and computer scientists to ensure these technologies are created in a safe and ethical manner.
• What’s more, some appear apathetic about the moral dilemmas their careers may bring – just as advances in AI intensify such dilemmas.

Aware, but unprepared

• We asked students about their experiences with ethical challenges in engineering, their knowledge of ethical dilemmas in the field and how they would respond to scenarios in the future.
• When asked, however, “Do you feel equipped to respond in concerning or unethical situations?” students often said no.
• “Do YOU know who I’m supposed to go to?” Another was troubled by the lack of training: “I [would be] dealing with that with no experience.

Other researchers have similarly found that many engineering students do not feel satisfied with the ethics training they do receive. Common training usually emphasizes professional codes of conduct, rather than the complex socio-technical factors underlying ethical decision-making. Research suggests that even when presented with particular scenarios or case studies, engineering students often struggle to recognize ethical dilemmas.

‘A box to check off’

• A study assessing undergraduate STEM curricula in the U.S. found that coverage of ethical issues varied greatly in terms of content, amount and how seriously it is presented.
• Additionally, an analysis of academic literature about engineering education found that ethics is often considered nonessential training.
• [Misusage] issues are not their concern.” One of us, Erin Cech, followed a cohort of 326 engineering students from four U.S. colleges.
• Following them after they left college, we found that their concerns regarding ethics did not rebound once these new graduates entered the workforce.

Joining the work world

• When engineers do receive ethics training as part of their degree, it seems to work.
• Along with engineering professor Cynthia Finelli, we conducted a survey of over 500 employed engineers.

• Over a quarter of these practicing engineers reported encountering a concerning ethical situation at work.
• Yet approximately one-third said they have never received training in public welfare – not during their education, and not during their career.

Elana Goldenkoff receives funding from National Science Foundation and Schmidt Futures. Erin A. Cech receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

• As someone who started marathon running in mid-life, I know how many aches and pains (and doubts) you can have if you take on the challenge to start running at an older age.
• Hobbling around my orthopaedic hospital after my first marathon actually led me to do research on runners.
• The high-resolution MRI scans found most of the 115 middle-aged participants had abnormalities in their knees before starting marathon training.
• But while osteoarthritis is more common after middle age, it may actually be a lack of activity that leads to osteoarthritis.

• Reduced muscle use, whether it is through inactivity or sarcopenia or both, also reduces the production of anti-inflammatory myokines from the muscles.
• These chemicals are released when we exercise, and help reduce joint swelling and calm irritated joint linings.
• This effect is pronounced in runners because running uses some of the largest muscles in the body – such as the glutes, quadriceps and hamstrings.

Where to begin

• If you want to start running, the main message is to ease into it to reduce the risk of injury.
• One of the best ways to ease into running in mid-life is the NHS Couch to 5K running programme.
• It’s a free guide that will help you gradually work up towards running 5km in just nine weeks.
• If you’ve experienced any of these problems, you’ll want to be careful when exercising to avoid further damage.

Alister Hart receives funding from 3 charities: The Rosetrees Trust, Arthroplasty for Arthritis and The Maurice Hatter Foundation.

• Working Paper Series
  Federico Maria Ferrara

  Central bank asset purchases
  and auction cycles revisited:
  new evidence from the euro area

  No 2927

  Disclaimer: This paper should not be reported as representing the views of the European Central Bank
  (ECB).

• Abstract
  This study provides new evidence on the relationship between unconventional monetary
  policy and auction cycles in the euro area.
• The findings indicate that Eurosystem?s asset purchase flows mitigate
  yield cycles during auction periods and counteract the amplification impact of market volatility.
• The dampening effect of central bank asset purchases on auction cycles is more sizeable and
  precisely estimated for purchases of securities with medium-term maturities and in jurisdictions
  with relatively lower credit ratings.
• On the other hand, central banks may influence price dynamics in these markets, most notably
  through their asset purchase programmes.
• If so, do central bank asset purchases
  affect bond yield movements around auction dates?
• Auction cycles are present when secondary market yields rise in
  anticipation of a debt auction and fall thereafter, generating an inverted V-shaped pattern around auction
  dates.
• ECB Working Paper Series No 2927

  3

  1

  Introduction

  The impact of central bank asset purchases on government bond markets is a focal point of economic and
  financial research.

• If so,
  do central bank asset purchases shape yield sensitivity around auction dates?
• The paper provides new evidence on the effects of Eurosystem?s asset purchases on secondary market
  yields around public debt auction dates.
• The analysis builds on previous research based on aggregate data
  on central bank asset purchases and a shorter analysis period (van Spronsen and Beetsma 2022).
• Using
  granular data on Eurosystem?s asset purchases offers an opportunity to shed light on the mechanisms linking
  unconventional monetary policy and auction cycles.
• Given this legal constraint, the study
  hypothesises that the effect of asset purchases on 10-year auction cycles is mostly indirect, and goes via price
  spillovers generated by purchases of securities outside the 10-year maturity space.
• Taken together, these results provide new evidence about auction cycles in Europe and contribute to a
  larger literature on the flow effects of central bank asset purchases on bond markets.
• Section 4 offers descriptive evidence about auction cycles in the euro area.
• Auction cycles are defined by the presence of an inverted V-shaped pattern in secondary market yields
  around primary auctions.
• That is, government bond yields rise in the run-up to the date of the auction and
  fall back to their original level after the auction.
• Their limited risk-bearing capacities and inventory management operations are
  seen as key mechanisms driving auction cycles (Beetsma et al.
• ECB Working Paper Series No 2927

  7

  Second, central bank asset purchases can alleviate the cycle by (partly) absorbing the additional supply
  of substitutable instruments in the secondary market (van Spronsen and Beetsma 2022).

• This expectation is
  supported by several analyses on the price effects of central bank bond purchases (D?Amico and King 2013;
  Arrata and Nguyen 2017; De Santis and Holm-Hadulla 2020).
• Empirically, previous research has provided evidence of auction cycles taking place across different jurisdictions.
• (2016) detect auction cycles for government debt in Italy, but not in Germany, during the European
  sovereign debt crisis.
• Research on the impact of central bank asset purchases on yield cycles around auctions is still limited.
• Their paper provides evidence
  that Eurosystem?s asset purchases reduce the presence of auction cycles for euro area government debt.
• Nonetheless, several questions remain open about auction cycles and unconventional monetary policy
  in the euro area.
• Therefore, they
  provide only a partial picture of auction cycles and central bank asset purchases in Europe.
• The use of granular data on central bank asset purchases is especially important in light of the modalities
  of monetary policy implementation of the Eurosystem.
• Altogether, these elements motivate further investigation of the relationship between central bank asset
  purchases and auction cycles in the euro area.
• Taken together, these results confirm that Eurosystem?s asset purchases mitigate yield cycles during auction periods and counteract the amplification impact of market volatility.
• The findings confirm that the flow
  effects of central bank purchases on yield movements around auction dates are driven by lower-rated countries.
• Additional analyses provide evidence for an indirect effect of purchases on auction cycles and highlight
  the presence of substantial heterogeneity across jurisdictions and purchase programmes.
• Flow Effects of Central Bank Asset Purchases on Sovereign Bond
  Prices: Evidence from a Natural Experiment.
• Federico Maria Ferrara
  European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; email: [email protected]

  ? European Central Bank, 2024
  Postal address 60640 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  Telephone
  +49 69 1344 0
  Website
  www.ecb.europa.eu
  All rights reserved.

• The IDF says it has been working on information gleaned from questioning Palestinian fighters captured in the fighting.
• According to a report in the Jerusalem Post on April 17, the Palestinian fighters were hiding out in schools in the area.
• The investigation, by online Israeli magazines +927 and Local Call examined the use of an AI programme called “Lavender”.

• It’s important to note that the IDF is not the only military to be working with AI in this way.
• But one function of the way the IDF is harnessing Lavender in this current conflict is its use alongside other systems.
• Read more:
  Israel accused of using AI to target thousands in Gaza, as killer algorithms outpace international law

The Iranian dimension

• Away from the charnel house that is the Gaza Strip, the focus has been on the aftermath of Israel’s strike on the Iranian embassy in Baghdad on April 1.
• As is his wont, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed revenge, declaring: “The Zionist regime will be punished by the hands of our brave men.
• And this was very much how it was to turn out when Iran’s drones and missiles flew last weekend.
• Read more:
  Could Israel's strike against the Iranian embassy in Damascus escalate into a wider regional war?
• Read more:
  Why Iran's failed attack on Israel may well turn out to be a strategic success

The nuclear option?

One of the possibilities being widely canvassed is that Israel could mount some kind of attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. This has been revitalised in the years since Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama.

• He walks us through the history of Iran’s nuclear programme, a story littered with the bodies of Iranian nuclear scientists and the wreckage of its nuclear facilities thanks to fiendish cyberattacks such as the Stuxnet virus developed by Israel and the US that was launched against Iran in 2010.
• Since Trump quit the nuclear deal, Iran has gone full-steam ahead in ramping up its nuclear weapons programme, while reportedly hiding its key installations in deep underground bunkers that are thought impossible to destroy from the air.