The COVID-19 pandemic and stock market performance of transportation and travel services firms: a cross-country study

This paper examined the firm-specific abnormal returns of transportation and travel services sectors from the USA, UK, France, China, India, Mexico, Turkey, and Thailand in response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) using event study methodology. Our results revealed that investors in developed countries provide significant long term abnormal returns for the first 101 days. Furthermore, no significant cumulative average abnormal returns (CAAR) were found in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, travel restrictions, lockdown, stimulus package, and historical decline in oil prices except in the case of the USA. It is concluded that with the gradual increase in new cases and deaths, abnormal returns are also adjusted, making the effects of these events insignificant at the time of their occurrence. Results also showed that firms in developing countries recognized significant negative abnormal returns in response to the second wave of COVID-19. These results are useful for investors in devising investment strategies relevant to contextual settings

Efficacy of Balloon Kyphoplasty in Compression Fractures of the Thoracolumbar Spine

Objective:  To study the Efficacy of Balloon Kyphoplasty in compression fractures of the thoracolumbar spine. Material and Methods:  This study was conducted on 95 patients with thoracolumbar wedge fractures from 2017 to 2022. Complete neurological examination and CT and MRI scans of the spine of all patients were done. All patients have been treated with a balloon kyphoplasty procedure. Data was collected on VAS score, SF-36 score, kyphotic angle and percentage of vertebral body destruction both preoperatively and post-operatively. Statistical analysis was done by using paired sample t-test. Results:  The mean age was 57 years. Males were 58.9% and females 41.0%. Osteoporosis was the cause of fracture in 90.5% and trauma in 9.4% of patients. VAS improved from 7.42 ± 1.24 to post-procedure 3.24 ± 1.51, P < 0.0001. SF-36 improved from 35.31 ± 17.4 to post-procedure 49.23 ± 19.2, P < 0.0001. Kyphosis angle restoration from 18.42 ± 7.41 to post-procedure 10.61 ± 6.32, P value < 0.0001. Percentage loss of vertebral height from 32.91% to postoperatively 17.64% (SD-17.2 and P < 0.0001). 10.5% of patients developed cement leakage and there is no leakage in 89.4%. The adjacent level fracture occurred in 4 patients. Conclusion:  Balloon Kyphoplasty is an effective procedure for thoracolumbar wedge fractures. It improves pain, activities of daily living, kyphosis angle improvement, and restoration of vertebral height

Testing stock market efficiency from spillover effect of Panama Leaks

Artigo publicado em revista científica internacionalOn 3 April 2016, Mossack Fonseca provided the historically most significant leak of its shareholder’s data for owning offshore companies. Shareholders include many political and influential figures around the globe, which causes a moral hazard. The study analyses the effects of Panama leak events on five stock exchanges to ensure the market efficiency and investor perception related to the Panama leaks. Event study methodology is used on five occasions associated with Panama papers, i.e., the resignation of the Prime Minister of Iceland on 5 April 2016, Jurgen Mossack’s resignation on 7 April 2016, the resignation of the Spanish Minister of Industry on 15 April 2016, the 450 personalities of Pakistan that were nominated in Panama papers on 15 April 2016, and the formation of an inquiry commission to inquire into the matter. The market efficiency of five stock exchanges was checked, i.e., the KSE 100 of Pakistan, the OMXIPI exchange of Iceland, the IBEX 35 of Spain, the New York stock exchange (NYSE), and S&P 500. The market remains efficient for most events and investor behaviour changes for one or two days around the event day (this event has concise term significant abnormal returns in all stock exchanges or concise term significant abnormal macroeconomic effects are observed in all stock exchanges).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Impediments of Green Finance Adoption System: Linking Economy and Environment

Environmental deregulation has become a severe concern for public health around the world. Increased pollution and ecological degradation have diverted attention towards adopting green practices, which can be possible if the sustainable green finance system is implemented in its true spirit. But previous studies reported certain factors affecting its implementation process, particularly in developing countries. This study aims to identify and quantify the barriers to adopting a green finance system. First, it identified twenty barriers through an extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews with experts in the fields of financial management, economics, and environmental sciences. Later, eighteen factors were finalized by the consensus of panel experts, which was further used to analyze their interrelationship through Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM). Using MICMAC analysis, these barriers were categorized based on their diving-dependence powers. Finally, the conceptual ISM model is developed that provides a clear picture of the impediments to the green finance adoption system and their flow relationship among the identified barriers at different levels. The findings suggest that global level factors: lack of pressure from international organizations and unavailability of globally acceptable green criteria are critical to the prevalence of other factors that indicate its centrality to effectively implementing the green finance system. The developed model helps in designing, implementing, and promoting eco-friendly projects. It is also recommended that an appropriate framework is required to be developed at global, country, organizational, and individual levels to deal with the barriers of the green finance adoption system. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2022-06-02-02 Full Text: PD

Revisiting mGMSB in light of a 125 GeV Higgs

We explore the implications of a 124-126 GeV CP-even Higgs boson on the fundamental parameter space and sparticle spectroscopy of the minimal gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (mGMSB) scenario. The above mass for the Higgs boson yields stringent lower bounds on the sparticle masses in this class of models. The lightest neutralino and stau masses lie close to 1.5 TeV and 800 GeV respectively, while the majority of the sparticle masses are in the several to multi-TeV range. We show that with a single pair of 5+\bar{5} SU(5) messenger multiplets, the lower limit on the gravitino mass is \sim 360 eV. This is reduced to about 60 eV if five pairs of 5+\bar{5} messenger fields are introduced. Non-standard cosmology and non-standard gravitino production mechanisms are required in order to satisfy cosmological observations.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; some references adde

Estimation of biocidal potential of desert phytopowders for the management of citrus canker

Citrus is one of the most important fruit crops, throughout the world. It is a rich source of antioxidants and vitamin C. Citrus canker is a potential threat to its successful production. In current study, ten desert phytopowders including Xanthium strumarium, Dipterygium galucun, Leptadenia pyrotechnica, Haloxylon recurvum, Suaeda fruticosa, Salsola baryosma, Citrulus colocynthis, Abutilon indicum, Aerva javanica, and Calotropis procera at three different concentrations (5.0, 7.5 and 10.0%) were evaluated under in vitro conditions against Xanthomonas citri pv. citri. Among all phytopowders, X. strumarium and S. fruticosa, showed maximum inhibition zone (40 mm) followed by S. baryosma (38.50 mm) C. colocynthis (37 mm), Abutilon indicum (34 mm), H. recurvum (32 mm), D. galucun (30.5 mm), A. javanica, (29.50 mm), L. pyrotechnica, (29.5 mm) and C. procera (28 mm) as compared to control. Then, effective phytopowders were applied under greenhouse and field conditions @ 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0% against citrus canker. Combination of X. strumarium + S. baryosma showed minimum disease severity (22%) followed by X. strumarium (26%), X. strumarium + S. fruticosa (27%), S. fruticosa (27%), X. strumarium + S. baryosma (27%), and S. baryosma (29%) as compared to control. While in field experiment, the combination of X. strumarium + S. fruticosa showed significant results with minimum disease severity (32%) followed by S. fruticosa + S. baryosma (32%), X. strumarium + S. baryosma (33%), S. baryosma (35%), X. strumarium (36%) and S. fruticosa (36%) as compared to control. It is concluded that application of X. strumarium + S. baryosma phytopowders will be helpful for farmers to combat citrus canker

Effects of a high-dose 24-h infusion of tranexamic acid on death and thromboembolic events in patients with acute gastrointestinal bleeding (HALT-IT): an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background: Tranexamic acid reduces surgical bleeding and reduces death due to bleeding in patients with trauma. Meta-analyses of small trials show that tranexamic acid might decrease deaths from gastrointestinal bleeding. We aimed to assess the effects of tranexamic acid in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. Methods: We did an international, multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 164 hospitals in 15 countries. Patients were enrolled if the responsible clinician was uncertain whether to use tranexamic acid, were aged above the minimum age considered an adult in their country (either aged 16 years and older or aged 18 years and older), and had significant (defined as at risk of bleeding to death) upper or lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Patients were randomly assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Patients received either a loading dose of 1 g tranexamic acid, which was added to 100 mL infusion bag of 0·9% sodium chloride and infused by slow intravenous injection over 10 min, followed by a maintenance dose of 3 g tranexamic acid added to 1 L of any isotonic intravenous solution and infused at 125 mg/h for 24 h, or placebo (sodium chloride 0·9%). Patients, caregivers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. The primary outcome was death due to bleeding within 5 days of randomisation; analysis excluded patients who received neither dose of the allocated treatment and those for whom outcome data on death were unavailable. This trial was registered with Current Controlled Trials, ISRCTN11225767, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01658124. Findings: Between July 4, 2013, and June 21, 2019, we randomly allocated 12 009 patients to receive tranexamic acid (5994, 49·9%) or matching placebo (6015, 50·1%), of whom 11 952 (99·5%) received the first dose of the allocated treatment. Death due to bleeding within 5 days of randomisation occurred in 222 (4%) of 5956 patients in the tranexamic acid group and in 226 (4%) of 5981 patients in the placebo group (risk ratio [RR] 0·99, 95% CI 0·82–1·18). Arterial thromboembolic events (myocardial infarction or stroke) were similar in the tranexamic acid group and placebo group (42 [0·7%] of 5952 vs 46 [0·8%] of 5977; 0·92; 0·60 to 1·39). Venous thromboembolic events (deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) were higher in tranexamic acid group than in the placebo group (48 [0·8%] of 5952 vs 26 [0·4%] of 5977; RR 1·85; 95% CI 1·15 to 2·98). Interpretation: We found that tranexamic acid did not reduce death from gastrointestinal bleeding. On the basis of our results, tranexamic acid should not be used for the treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding outside the context of a randomised trial

Testing Stock Market Efficiency from Spillover Effect of Panama Leaks

On 3 April 2016, Mossack Fonseca provided the historically most significant leak of its shareholder’s data for owning offshore companies. Shareholders include many political and influential figures around the globe, which causes a moral hazard. The study analyses the effects of Panama leak events on five stock exchanges to ensure the market efficiency and investor perception related to the Panama leaks. Event study methodology is used on five occasions associated with Panama papers, i.e., the resignation of the Prime Minister of Iceland on 5 April 2016, Jurgen Mossack’s resignation on 7 April 2016, the resignation of the Spanish Minister of Industry on 15 April 2016, the 450 personalities of Pakistan that were nominated in Panama papers on 15 April 2016, and the formation of an inquiry commission to inquire into the matter. The market efficiency of five stock exchanges was checked, i.e., the KSE 100 of Pakistan, the OMXIPI exchange of Iceland, the IBEX 35 of Spain, the New York stock exchange (NYSE), and S&P 500. The market remains efficient for most events and investor behaviour changes for one or two days around the event day (this event has concise term significant abnormal returns in all stock exchanges or concise term significant abnormal macroeconomic effects are observed in all stock exchanges)

Molecular Cross-Talk between Gravity- and Light-Sensing Mechanisms in Euglena gracilis

Euglena gracilis is a photosynthetic flagellate. To acquire a suitable position in its surrounding aquatic environment, it exploits light and gravity primarily as environmental cues. Several physiological studies have indicated a fine-tuned relationship between gravity sensing (gravitaxis) and light sensing in E. gracilis. However, the underlying molecular mechanism is largely unknown. The photoreceptor photoactivated adenylyl cyclase (PAC) has been studied for over a decade. Nevertheless, no direct/indirect interaction partner (upstream/downstream) has been reported for PAC. It has been shown that a specific protein, kinase A (PKA), showed to be involved in phototaxis and gravitaxis. The current study reports the localization of the specific PKA and its relationship with PAC