Testing Creditor Moral Hazard in Sovereign Bond Markets: A Unified Theoretical Approach and Empirical Evidence

This paper critically evaluates the existing empirical literature on creditor moral hazard in sovereign bond markets, proposes a unified theoretical approach to test for IMF-induced creditor moral hazard, and provides empirical evidence, using daily sovereign bond market spreads of Indonesia and Korea. The results suggest that IMF-related news regarding program negotiations and approval may be associated with creditor moral hazard, but their impact on spreads is short-lived, indicating that creditor moral hazard could be best described as a short-run phenomenon.Creditor moral hazard, financial markets, the IMF, and news

A single meal has the potential to alter brain oxylipin content.

Our objective was to determine whether consumption of a single meal has the potential to alter brain oxylipin content. We examined the cerebrum of mice fed a single high-fat/high-sucrose Western meal or a low-fat/low-sucrose control meal, as well as fasted mice. We found no changes in fatty acid composition of cerebrum across the groups. The cerebral oxylipin profile of mice fed a Western meal is distinct from the profile of mice fed a low-fat/low-sucrose meal. Cerebral gene expression of cyclooxygenase 1, cyclooxygenase 2, and epoxide hydrolase 1 were elevated in Western meal-fed mice compared to low-fat/low-sucrose meal-fed mice. Mice that consumed either meal had lower gene expression of cytochrome P450, family 2, subfamily j, polypeptide 12 than fasted mice. Our data in this hypothesis-generating study indicates that the composition of a single meal has the potential to alter brain oxylipins and the gene expression of the enzymes responsible for their production

Ultimate behavior of idealized composite floor elements at ambient and elevated temperature

This paper is concerned with the ultimate behavior of composite floor slabs under extreme loading situations resembling those occurring during severe building fires. The study focuses on the failure state associated with rupture of the reinforcement in idealized slab elements, which become lightly reinforced in a fire situation due to the early loss of the steel deck. The paper describes a fundamental approach for assessing the failure limit associated with reinforcement fracture in lightly reinforced beams, representing idealized slab strips. A description of the ambient-temperature tests on isolated restrained elements, carried out to assess the influence of key material parameters on the failure conditions, is firstly presented. The results of a series of material tests, undertaken mainly to examine the effect of elevated temperature on ductility, are also described. A simplified analytical model is employed, in conjunction with the experimental findings, to assess the salient material parameters and their implications on the ultimate response at both ambient and elevated temperature. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Effectiveness of 3 doses of Intermittent Preventive Therapy with Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine in Pregnancy

Background: In 2014, Nigeria scaled up to at least 3 doses of intermittent preventive therapy in pregnancy with Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine (ITPp-SP). While the fact of existing evidence as to the superiority of SP3 over SP2 was shown by WHO back in 2012, the Nigerian Government domesticated it in her Federal Ministry of Health guideline for the prevention of Malaria in pregnancy of 2014. Studies leading to the pronouncement were mainly in East African Countries where the density / pattern of infection as well as the species of the plasmodium tend to vary with what is occasionally obtainable in West African sub-region including, Nigeria. There was an apparent need for the measurement of the effectiveness in hyper / holo-endemic country like Nigeria. Aim : To determine the efficacy and safety of 3-doses compared with 2-doses of intermittent preventive therapy in pregnancy with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) for the prevention of placental malaria and associated low birth weight. Subjects and Methods: Nine hundred and twenty (920) pregnant women were randomised to receive either 2 doses (SP2) or 3 doses (SP3) of sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine between December 2013 and August, 2014. Pre-delivery blood samples were collected for maternal haemoglobin as well as placenta blood samples for placenta parasitaemia. The Neonates were weighed and followed-up. Prevalence of placental parasitaemia, low birth weight (LBW), preterm birth and anaemia were analysed using intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol (PP) analysis. Results: Data from 910 women were analysed (458 in the SP2 and 452 in the SP3 group). Overall, the incidence of placenta parasitaemia, low birth weight and pre-delivery anaemia in pregnancy were significantly lower among the SP3 group compared with those that had two doses (Sp2), p < 0.001for all factors. There was no neonatal jaundice in either group. Conclusion: Addition of a third dose of SP to the current popular two doses of IPT-SP demonstrated a better outcome in the reduction of placenta parasitaemia, LBW and, anaemia in pregnancy among many more advantages. It would be worthwhile to domesticate the at least, 3 dose of IPTp-SP to all pregnant women in our current practice.Keywords: Malaria, Prevention, Pregnancy, Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamin

The Added Value of Water Footprint Assessment for National Water Policy: A Case Study for Morocco

A Water Footprint Assessment is carried out for Morocco, mapping the water footprint of different activities at river basin and monthly scale, distinguishing between surface- and groundwater. The paper aims to demonstrate the added value of detailed analysis of the human water footprint within a country and thorough assessment of the virtual water flows leaving and entering a country for formulating national water policy. Green, blue and grey water footprint estimates and virtual water flows are mainly derived from a previous grid-based (5×5 arc minute) global study for the period 1996–2005. These estimates are placed in the context of monthly natural runoff and waste assimilation capacity per river basin derived from Moroccan data sources. The study finds that: (i) evaporation from storage reservoirs is the second largest form of blue water consumption in Morocco, after irrigated crop production; (ii) Morocco’s water and land resources are mainly used to produce relatively low-value (in US$/m3 and US$/ha) crops such as cereals, olives and almonds; (iii) most of the virtual water export from Morocco relates to the export of products with a relatively low economic water productivity (in US$/m3); (iv) blue water scarcity on a monthly scale is severe in all river basins and pressure on groundwater resources by abstractions and nitrate pollution is considerable in most basins; (v) the estimated potential water savings by partial relocation of crops to basins where they consume less water and by reducing water footprints of crops down to benchmark levels are significant compared to demand reducing and supply increasing measures considered in Morocco’s national water strateg

D-branes with Lorentzian signature in the Nappi-Witten model

Lorentzian signature D-branes of all dimensions for the Nappi-Witten string are constructed. This is done by rewriting the gluing condition $J_+=FJ_-$ for the model chiral currents on the brane as a well posed first order differential problem and by solving it for Lie algebra isometries $F$ other than Lie algebra automorphisms. By construction, these D-branes are not twined conjugacy classes. Metrically degenerate D-branes are also obtained.Comment: 22 page

On acceleration of Krylov-subspace-based Newton and Arnoldi iterations for incompressible CFD: replacing time steppers and generation of initial guess

We propose two techniques aimed at improving the convergence rate of steady state and eigenvalue solvers preconditioned by the inverse Stokes operator and realized via time-stepping. First, we suggest a generalization of the Stokes operator so that the resulting preconditioner operator depends on several parameters and whose action preserves zero divergence and boundary conditions. The parameters can be tuned for each problem to speed up the convergence of a Krylov-subspace-based linear algebra solver. This operator can be inverted by the Uzawa-like algorithm, and does not need a time-stepping. Second, we propose to generate an initial guess of steady flow, leading eigenvalue and eigenvector using orthogonal projection on a divergence-free basis satisfying all boundary conditions. The approach, including the two proposed techniques, is illustrated on the solution of the linear stability problem for laterally heated square and cubic cavities