The tests created an artificial radiation belt around the Earth, which eventually disabled a third of all satellites in orbit at the time, TRAAC included.
Investigators, industry experts and engineers have said they did not believe any falsified tests created immediate hazards because most of the concrete poured in New York was of a high quality.
Rebel A. Cole, a former Fed economist and a professor of finance at DePaul University, said that the stress tests created too rosy a picture, drastically understating how a financial crisis would impact banks' balance sheets.
LONDON — About two dozen European banks were put under official pressure Friday to bolster their reserves, as the results of financial stress tests created more skepticism over the region's will to deal with its festering financial crisis.
The landscape is changing partly because tests created by U.S.D.A. scientists that can quickly pinpoint the presence in food of the "Big Six" E. coli are now being developed for commercial sale by test-kit companies.
E.T.S. has expanded rapidly in recent years, moving aggressively into the huge new market for state assessment tests created by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires that every student from third grade through eighth grade be tested every year.
