Liquidity in global markets.

The latest episode of turbulence has been marked by an extended period of illiquidity in a large number of markets –ranging from traditionally highly liquid interbank money markets to the less-liquid structured credit markets. The event began with what was widely perceived as a credit deterioration in the US subprime mortgage market. However, this quickly raised uncertainty about the valuation of securities related to this market, thus affecting their liquidity. The rapidity with which this market illiquidity has been transmitted into funding illiquidity has been both striking and unprecedented. The event has raised questions about how market liquidity in a variety of instruments is determined in both primary and secondary markets and how mechanisms act to transmit illiquidity across markets during a period of stress. The article seeks to identify how standard concepts of liquidity can be applied to various types of markets across the globe with a view to interpreting how liquidity deteriorated so quickly. Several attributes of liquidity –types of market structures (including existence of formal intermediaries and trading venues), the construction of the instruments, and the types of investors– are used to guide the analysis. One feature that appears to be important for liquidity is the degree to which information about the risks underlying the financial instrument are well understood by both buyers and sellers. Another insight is that the expectations of market participants about liquidity and their ability to monitor it also have an impact on liquidity itself. These attributes suggest that the growth in securitization and complex structured credit products –new developments in the transfer of credit risk– may carry with them a predilection to adverse liquidity events that will require further examination. In light of the analysis, the article identifies ways of mitigating some of the problems that arose in this latest bout of illiquidity. Because liquidity is created and maintained by the market participants themselves, most of the room for improvement rests with the private sector. It is already clear that some market practices and policies will need to change and in this context some suggestions for enhancements to financial institutions’ liquidity risk management are outlined. However, given that both market and funding liquidity are intimately related to financial stability, a public good, there is also a potential role for the public sector. Hence, the tools used by central banks to maintain their role in effi cient monetary policy transmission together with financial stability will need to be reviewed.

Do patients with suspected heart failure and preserved left ventricular systolic function suffer from "diastolic heart failure" or from misdiagnosis? A prospective descriptive study

OBJECTIVES: To characterise the clinical features of patients with suspected heart failure but preserved left ventricular systolic function to determine if they have other potential causes for their symptoms rather than being diagnosed with 'diastolic heart failure.' DESIGN: Prospective descriptive study. SETTING: Outpatient based direct access echocardiography service. PARTICIPANTS: 159 consecutive patients with suspected heart failure referred by general practitioners. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Symptoms (including shortness of breath, ankle oedema, and paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea) and history of coronary heart disease and chronic pulmonary disease. Transthoracic echocardiography, body mass index, pulmonary function tests, and electrocardiography. RESULTS: 109 of 159 participants had suspected heart failure in the absence of left ventricular systolic dysfunction, valvular heart disease, or atrial fibrillation. Of these 109, 40 were either obese or very obese, 54 had a reduction in forced expiratory volume in 1 second to </=70%, and 97 had a peak expiratory flow rate </=70% of normal. Thirty one patients had a history of angina, 12 had had a myocardial infarction, and seven had undergone a coronary artery bypass graft. Only seven patients lacked a recognised explanation for their symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: For most patients with a diagnosis of heart failure but preserved left ventricular systolic function there is an alternative explanation for their symptoms-for example, obesity, lung disease, and myocardial ischaemia-and the diagnosis of diastolic heart failure is rarely needed. These alternative diagnoses should be rigorously sought and managed accordingly

A novel CFD model for design and performance prediction of recuperators for Indirect Evaporative Cooling

Indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) appears to be a highly promising technology for incorporating and/or substituting traditional air conditioning systems, as it can guarantee good cooling performance with a reduced environmental impact. In this study, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model for design and performance prediction of recuperators for IEC systems with dry primary and secondary channels was developed. The model was validated against experimental data for a cross-flow recuperator, obtaining a maximum difference between numerical and experimental results of 4.9% for the secondary air outlet temperature, 5.3% for the primary air outlet temperature, and 8.1% for the dry-bulb effectiveness. After validation, the model was used to find a new plate geometry which guarantees a 12.5-15.9% improvement in the dry-bulb effectiveness, without an excessive increase in the pressure losses along the channels

Diversification strategies for the service sector

An analysis of the American economy shows that the service sector overshadows the manufacturing sector, both in size and in state of tunnoil. The tunnoil is due to Ute rapid expansion of franchise chains, computerization, evolving professional standards, and competitive pressures. From the consumer's perspective, as client sensitivity intensifies and professional malpractice suits become more threatening, the issue of understanding and examining services becomes more important. In line with Wind's (1982) observation, service decisions in a finn are not limited to individual services. A finn should take into account its service line (a number of related services), service mix (combination of service lines), and service portfolio (assortments of service mixes). The lines of demarcation among these tenns are not always clear because they depend on organizational position as well as personal preferences in defining classification systems. At the most basic level, an institution offers only a singular service. Extensions of offerings within a restricted and related group of service categories constitute a service line, an exanlple of which is the tax consulting services market where an accountant may file a tax form on behalf of a client either by mail or through computer services linked up with the IRS office.peer-reviewe

Modeling of Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems: A Review

Air-to-air indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) systems are particular heat exchangers that use the latent heat of evaporation of water to cool down an air stream, without increasing its specific humidity, thus guaranteeing adequate thermohygrometric conditions in the refrigerated environment with low energy consumption. Dew-point indirect evaporative cooling (DIEC) systems are based on the IEC technology, but they recirculate a part of the air taken from the room to be refrigerated, in order to possibly achieve a lower air temperature. IEC and DIEC systems are becoming increasingly common these years, as they can ensure a good efficiency, minimizing the environmental impact of the air-conditioning system. Consequently, it has been necessary to develop models, both analytical and numerical, to quickly and accurately design this type of system and to predict their performance. This paper presents a review of the analytical and numerical models developed specifically for IEC and DIEC systems, highlighting their method, main innovations and advantages, and possible limitations. From this analysis, it emerged that analytical models have been developed since the late 1990s and only few of them are suitable for DIEC heat exchangers, while numerical models for both IEC and DIEC systems are gaining popularity in recent years. Almost all the analyzed models have been validated by comparison with numerical and/or experimental data, showing a maximum discrepancy within 10% in the majority of the cases. However, the validations were performed for a few specific cases, so in real applications it might be difficult to associate the model boundary conditions and the heat exchangers operating conditions, such as nozzles orientations, plates materials, water flow rates, and configurations. Another common limitation concerns the modeling of some properties, as wettability factor and air density, which might affect the accuracy of the results

Additional Saturday occupational therapy for adults receiving inpatient physiotherapy rehabilitation : A prospective cohort study

Background The first aim of this study was to investigate the impact of providing an additional four hours of Saturday occupational therapy to patients receiving Saturday physiotherapy in an inpatient setting on length of stay, functional independence, gait and balance. The second aim was to conduct an economic evaluation to determine if the introduction of a Saturday occupational therapy service in addition to physiotherapy resulted in a net cost savings for the rehabilitation facility. Methods A prospective cohort study with a historical control was conducted in an Australian private mixed rehabilitation unit from 2015–2017. Clinical outcomes included the Functional Independence Measure (Motor, Cognitive, Total), gait speed (10 Meter Walk test) and five balance measures (Timed Up and Go test, Step test, Functional Reach, Feet Together Eyes Closed and the Balance Outcome Measure of Elder Rehabilitation). Economic outcomes were rehabilitation unit length of stay and additional treatment costs. Results A total of 366 patients were admitted to the rehabilitation unit over two 20-week periods. The prospective cohort (receiving Saturday occupational therapy and physiotherapy) had 192 participants and the historical control group (receiving Saturday physiotherapy only) had 174 participants. On admission, intervention group participants had higher cognitive (p < 0.01) and total (p < 0.01) Functional Independence Measure scores. Participation in weekend therapy by the intervention group was 11% higher, attending more sessions (p < 0.01) for a greater length of time (p < 0.01) compared to the historical control group. After controlling for differences in admission Functional Independence Measure scores, rehabilitation length of stay was estimated to be reduced by 1.39 (p = 0.08) days. The economic evaluation identified potential cost savings of AUD1,536 per patient. The largest potential savings were attributed to neurological patients AUD4,854. Traumatic and elective orthopaedic patients realised potential patient related cost savings per admission of AUD2,668 and AUD2,180, respectively. Conclusions Implementation of four hours of Saturday occupational therapy in addition to physiotherapy results in a more efficient service, enabling a greater amount of therapy to be provided on a Saturday over a shorter length of stay. Provision of multidisciplinary Saturday rehabilitation is potentially cost reducing for the treating hospital

Experimental Characterization of the Wettability of Coated and Uncoated Plates for Indirect Evaporative Cooling Systems

Indirect Evaporative Cooling (IEC) is a very promising technology to substitute and/or integrate traditional air conditioning systems, due to its ability to provide cooling capacity with limited power consumption. Literature studies proved that a higher wettability of the IEC plates corresponds to better performance of the system. In this work, wettability of three different surfaces used for IEC systems plates—uncoated aluminum alloy (AL), standard epoxy coating (STD), and a hydrophilic lacquer (HPHI)—is studied and characterized in terms of static and dynamic contact angles. The static contact angle resulted to be the lowest for the HPHI surface (average 69°), intermediate for the STD surface (average 75°), and the highest for the AL surface (average 89°). The analysis of the dynamic contact angles showed that their transient behavior is similar for all the surfaces, and the advancing and receding contact angles obtained are consistent with the results of the static analysis. These results will be useful as input parameters in models aimed at predicting the IEC system performance, also using computational fluid dynamics

Differences in stigma reduction related to injection drug use between people expressing conservative, moderate and progressive values following an online intervention

Introduction: Contact interventions have shown short-term effectiveness in reducing stigmatising attitudes and behaviours of the public towards marginalised population groups, including people who inject drugs. We theorised that the effectiveness of an intervention differs according to peoples' underlying social values and undertook a study to test this. Methods: We recruited participants from the Australian public by social media and measured their attitudes, desire to maintain personal distance, and support for structural stigma towards people who inject drugs before and after a brief online video intervention (n = 314). We divided participants into tertile groups according to their responses to a conservatism scale and compared group differences in post-intervention stigma scores (n = 242–244), controlling for pre-intervention scores and demographic variables. Results: Adjusting for baseline levels, the post-intervention scores in all measures showed significant improvement but scores of the moderate group were consistently most improved. Stigmatising attitudes in the moderate group were significantly reduced when compared with the conservative and progressive groups. However, reductions in desire for personal distance and support for structural stigma did not significantly differ by conservatism group. Discussion and Conclusions: A brief online contact intervention showed immediate effectiveness in reducing stigma towards people who inject drugs. As people with moderate values were found to be more amenable to changing their perspectives, audience social values may need consideration when designing and evaluating stigma interventions. More research is needed to understand how to influence people with more conservative values, and how to increase public support for policies and practices that reduce stigma