What do Basel Capital Accords mean for SMEs?

This paper analyses the impact of the new Basel Capital Accords (Basel II and Basel III) on the bank’s capital requirements in a portfolio of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) when the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach is used. To do this, the study uses a large database of Spanish firms and covers the period from 2005 to 2009. We also examine the effect on the credit risk premium charged by banks of the guarantee offered by a Loan Guarantee Association (LGA) to a SME; and whether this foreseeable decrease in the interest rates applicable to the SME is compensated by the cost of this guaranteeBank capital requirements, Credit risk mitigation, Bank financing of SMEs, Basel II, Basel III Loan Guarantee Association

What do Basel Capital Accords mean for SMEs?

This paper analyses the impact of the new Basel Capital Accords (Basel II and Basel III) on the bank’s capital requirements in a portfolio of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) when the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach is used. To do this, the study uses a large database of Spanish firms and covers the period from 2005 to 2009. We also examine the effect on the credit risk premium charged by banks of the guarantee offered by a Loan Guarantee Association (LGA) to a SME; and whether this foreseeable decrease in the interest rates applicable to the SME is compensated by the cost of this guarante

Validation and Clinical Application of a New Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS) Method for Dalbavancin Quantification in Human Plasma

Dalbavancin (DBV) is an intravenous long-acting second-generation glycolipopeptide antibiotic with high efficacy and excellent tolerability, approved for use in the treatment of Gram-positive skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI). Nevertheless, little is known about its pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) properties in real life, which is also due to technical challenges in its quantification in human plasma, preventing an effective application of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM). In fact, DBV has a high affinity to plasma proteins, possibly resulting in poor recovery after extraction procedure. The aim of this study was to validate a simple, cheap and reliable HPLC-MS method for use in TDM, in accordance with FDA and EMA guidelines. The optimized protein precipitation protocol required 50 μL of plasma, while chromatographic analysis could be performed in 12 min/sample. This method fulfilled the guidelines requirements and then, it was applied for routine DBV TDM in patients receiving off-label high doses (two 1500 + 1500 mg weekly infusions instead of 1000 + 500 mg), with normal renal function or undergoing hemodialysis: continuous hemodiafiltration caused a relevant reduction in DBV exposure, while intermittent dialysis showed comparable DBV concentrations with those of patients with normal renal function. This confirmed the eligibility of the presented method for use in TDM and its usefulness in clinical practice

Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 11

In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi, and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Aneura, Aulacomnium, Dumortiera, Fossombronia, Hennediella, Hygrohypnella, Pohlia, Porella, Riccardia, Tortella, and Tortula, the fungal genera Cortinarius, Mycena, Naucoria, Trichoglossum, and Tubaria and the lichen genera Agonimia, Blastenia, Chaenotheca, Cladonia, Endocarpon, Gyalecta, Lecanographa, Parmeliella, Porpidia, Stenhammarella, and Thelidium

Analyzing the role of mutual guarantee societies on bank capital requirements for small and medium-sized enterprises

This paper analyzes the impact of the guarantee provided by mutual guarantee societies (MGSs) on the risk premium that banks should charge for small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) loans under the new Basel Capital Accords (Basel II and III). We also examine whether the foreseeable decrease in the theoretical credit risk premium would be compensated by the cost of the MGS guarantee. To do so, we develop a rating system for SMEs that uses a large sample of Spanish firms over the period from 2005 to 2009. We find hat the final effect of the guarantee on the SME risk premium depends on the values taken by the credit variables of the MGS (essentially, the probability of default).Fil: Cardone Riportella, Clara. Universidad Pablo de Olavide. Departamento de Economía Financiera y Contabilidad; España;Fil: Trujillo Ponce, Antonio. Universidad Pablo de Olavide. Departamento de Economía Financiera y Contabilidad; España;Fil: Briozzo, Anahi Eugenia. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ciencias de la Administración; Argentina; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientí­ficas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico - CONICET - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur; Argentina

COPD, but Not Asthma, Is Associated with Worse Outcomes in COVID-19: Real-Life Data from Four Main Centers in Northwest Italy

Introduction: Asthma, along with inhaled steroids, was initially considered a risk factor for worse clinical outcomes in COVID-19. This was related to the higher morbidity observed in asthma patients during previous viral outbreaks. This retrospective study aimed at evaluating the prevalence of asthma among patients admitted due to SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as the impact of inhaled therapies on their outcomes. Furthermore, a comparison between patients with asthma, COPD and the general population was made. Methods: All COVID-19 inpatients were recruited between February and July 2020 from four large hospitals in Northwest Italy. Data concerning medical history, the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and the hospital stay, including length, drugs and COVID-19 complications (respiratory failure, lung involvement, and the need for respiratory support) were collected, as well as the type of discharge. Results: patients with asthma required high-flow oxygen therapy (33.3 vs. 14.3%, p = 0.001) and invasive mechanical ventilation (17.9 vs. 9.5%, p = 0.048) more frequently when compared to the general population, but no other difference was observed. Moreover, asthma patients were generally younger than patients with COPD (59.2 vs. 76.8 years, p < 0.001), they showed both a lower mortality rate (15.4 vs. 39.4%, p < 0.001) and a lower CCI (3.4 vs. 6.2, p < 0.001). Patients with asthma in regular therapy with ICS at home had significantly shorter hospital stay compared to those with no treatments (25.2 vs. 11.3 days, p = 0.024). Discussion: Our study showed that asthma is not associated with worse outcomes of COVID-19, despite the higher need for respiratory support compared with the general population, while the use of ICS allowed for a shorter hospital stay. In addition, the comparison of asthma with COPD patients confirmed the greater frailty of the latter, according to their multiple comorbidities

Notulae To The Italian Native Vascular Flora: 11

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of native vascular flora in Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes to the Italian administrative regions. A new combination in the genus Pilosella is proposed. Nomenclatural and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrigenda are provided as Suppl. material 1

April 18th - 22nd, 2022, Córdoba, Argentina

Del 18 al 22 de abril de 2022 se llevó a cabo el XI Encuentro FoF en el Auditorio “Mirta Mosconi” del Observatorio de Córdoba. Fue la primera edición híbrida de este evento anual. Se han cubierto siete áreas de la astronomía: instrumentación y herramientas, sistemas planetarios, el sol y la física solar, astrofísica estelar, astronomía galáctica, astronomía extragaláctica y cosmología y gravitación. La reunión registró 177 participantes individuales, entre los cuales 88 fueron presenciales mientras que el resto participó de forma remota. En cuanto a la distribución de género de los participantes, el 57 por ciento eran hombres. Esta edición incluyó 12 conferencias magistrales (50-50% hombres-mujeres), 38 charlas breves aportadas (55-45% hombres-mujeres), 17 e-posters (65-35% hombres-mujeres), 7 talleres/prácticas sesiones y 2 mesas redondas. Todas las actividades han sido grabadas y los videos publicados en YouTube. En este cuadernillo incluimos los resúmenes de las charlas y e-posters presentados en el XI encuentro FoF.From 18 to 22 April 2022, the XI edition of the FoF meeting took place at the "Mirta Mosconi" Auditorium of the Córdoba’s Observatory. It was the first hybrid edition of this annual event. Seven areas of astronomy have been covered: Instrumentation and Tools, Planetary Systems, the Sun and Heliophysics, Stellar Astrophysics, Galactic Astronomy, Extragalactic Astronomy, and Cosmology & Gravity. The meeting registered 177 individual participants, among which 88 were in-person attendees while the remaining participated remotely. Regarding the gender distribution of participants, 57 per cent were male. This edition included 12 keynote addresses (50-50% male-female), 38 contributed short talks (55-45% male-female), 17 e-posters (65-35% male-female), 7 workshop/hands-on sessions, and 2 round table discussion sessions. All the activities have been recorded, and the videos published on YouTube. In this booklet, we include the abstracts of talks and e-posters presented at the XI FoF meeting.List of Abstracts – Talks: Chemical Abundances in Planetary Nebulae: Collisionally Excited Lines vs. Recombination Lines / M. Peña Cárdenas -- Automated classification of eclipsing binary systems in the VVV Survey / V. Daza Perilla -- Strong non-dipolar magnetic fields in millisecond pulsars? / J. Pelle -- Formation and Evolution of central stars of Planetary Nebulae / M. Miller Bertolami -- Exploration of magnetic activity indices in M dwarfs / C. Oviedo -- Plasma Correction in the “Cosine Relation” for Pulsar Pulse Profile / G. Briozzo -- Regolith ejection on the asteroid Didymos due to its fast rotation / N. Trógolo -- Orbital evolution of circumbinary planets due to creep tides / F. Zoppetti -- The physical and chemical signatures of young protostars and planet-forming disks / E. Artur de la Villarmois -- The host galaxies of binary compact objects across cosmic time / M.C. Artale -- Gravastars in f(R,L) gravity / C. Vieira Gomes -- The integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect in 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity / M. Ghodsi Yengejeh -- Wiener filter for CMB maps using Neural Networks / M. B. Costanza -- NumCosmo halo tools: application to cluster cosmology and cluster mass estimation / M. Penna-Lima -- Giant HII Regions and HII Galaxies as tracers of the Hubble expansion and its use in cosmology / D. Fernandez-Arenas -- Cosmology with baryons: modelling the cosmic matter distribution for Large-Scale Structure analyses / G. Aricò -- On dynamo theories for cosmological magnetic fields / M. Rubio -- Universal renormalization procedure for higher curvature AdS gravity in up to 5 dimensions / I. Araya Quezada -- Clues on the formation of giant low surface brightness galaxies / G. Galaz -- Low Surface Brightness Galaxes in the IllustrisTNG Simulation / L. Peréz-Montaño -- 2D Surface Brightness Modelling of Large Galaxies: Photometry, Structural Parameters and Black Hole Scaling Relations / E. Ríos-López -- Formation of Ultra-Diffuse galaxies in different environments / J. Benavides-Blanco -- Influence of environment on the AGN-starburst connection in small galaxy systems / F. Duplancic -- AGN & Voids. The role of active objects in cosmic voids / M. L. Ceccarelli -- Spin alignment around Illustris voids / F. Dávila Kurbán -- Fermionic dark matter halos from a maximum entropy principle / C. Argüelles -- Pairwise velocities in the strongly nonlinear regime of large-scale structures / J. Garcia-Farieta -- Modelling the formation of the GD-1 stellar stream inside a host with a fermionic dark matter core-halo distribution / M. F. Mestre -- On the influence of halo mass accretion history on galaxy properties and assembly bias / A. Montero Dorta -- EMPIRE: A new semi-empirical model for the Galaxy-Halo connection / A. Rodriguez-Puebla -- Dark-matter-deficient galaxies in the Illustris-TNG simulations / E. Tau -- Spiral galaxies with ring structures / S. Alonso -- Bar properties in dwarf barred galaxies from Virgo / V. Cuomo -- MaNGA/SDSS-IV: Archaeological reconstruction of the radial and global growth of galaxies / V. Ávila-Reese -- Gas shocks around galaxy clusters / A. Rost -- A deep near-infrared view of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster / G. Coldwell -- Kinematics of the Local Group gas and galaxies in the Hestia simulations / L. Biaus -- The physical origin and impact of stellar-gas misalignments in galaxies from the CIELO simulation / C. Casanueva -- Nearby galaxies – insights into galaxy evolution / K. Menéndez-Delmestre -- New and upcoming astronomical instrumentation: opportunities for collaboration between Latin American astronomers / T. Goncalves -- Chemical evolution of galaxies / P. Tissera -- On the Magellanic Clouds stellar clusters characterization from their integrated spectra / F. Simondi Romero -- The dynamics of the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud / N. Garavito Camargo -- Star clusters study in the inner region of the Small Magellanic Cloud / B. De Bortoli -- The internal structure of clusters in the Magellanic Clouds / J. Rodríguez -- Machine learning for membership determination in open clusters / P. Hasan -- CAPOS: Distance, reddening and global metallicity determination of Bulge Globular Clusters / S. Villanova -- A statistical study of the compressible energy cascade rate in the solar wind: MAVEN and PSP observations / M. Brodiano -- Large amplitude oscillations in solar filaments / M. Cécere -- Pseudostreamer influence on flux rope evolution / A. Sahade ; List of Posters: Analysis of the eclipsing times variations of an evolved binary / M. Ramos -- The effect of galaxy orbits on the outer regions of clusters:connections with the splashback radius / A. De Almeida -- Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in IllustrisTNG / L. Peréz-Montaño -- Age determination of 3 star clusters belonging to the Magellanic Clouds / M. Tapia Reina -- Is a 4U 0114+65 a wind-accreting magnetar? a glimpse of NuSTAR and NICER / E. Saavedra -- Galaxy pairs in S-PLUS DR2 / C. Cerdosino -- Kinematics of the Local Group gas and galaxies in the Hestia simulations / L. Biaus -- Ultralight Dark Matter: A very short review / M. Díaz Araque -- Galaxy rotation curve fitting using state-of-the-art machine learning tools / S. Collazo -- Chemical signatures of planetary formation and evolution in the WASP-160 binary system / E. Jofré -- A determination of the local Hubble constant using Giant HII Regions and HII Galaxies / D. Fernández-Arenas -- Early-type dwarf galaxies in low-density environments: the case of CGCG014-074 / N. Guevara -- Black Holes Shadows in Konoplya-Stuchlik-Zhidenko metrics / G. Briozzo -- Skylight: a new code for general relativistic ray tracing and radiative transport in arbitrary spacetimes / J. Pelle -- Low-Frequency Detection of Diffuse Radio Emission from Low-mass PSZ Clusters / S. Salunkhe -- Study of Stellar Populations Properties in Simulated Galaxies / A. Cornejo Cárdenas -- The Integrated Sachs-Wolfe Effect in 4D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Gravity / M. Ghodsi Yengejeh.Daza Perilla, Vanesa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; Argentina.Trógolo, Nair. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Zoppetti, Federico. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Benavides Blanco, José. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Benavides Blanco, José. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; Argentina.Ceccarelli, María Laura. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Ceccarelli, María Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; Argentina.Dávila Kurbán, Federico. Conicet. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; Argentina.Simondi Romero, Federico Oscar. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Cécere, Mariana. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; ArgentinaCécere, Mariana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; Argentina.Sahade, Abril. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Sahade, Abril. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; Argentina.Ramos, Matías. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Tapia Reina, Martina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina.Jofré, Emiliano. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba; Argentina