Are the Asian Equity Markets more Interdependent after the Financial Crisis?

This paper examines the impact of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis on the linkages between the Singapore and five Asian-Pacific stock markets. We show that the interdependence between these markets has intensified after the crisis. Before the crisis, only the Malaysian stock market is found to be cointegrated with Singapore. However, after the onset of the crisis, the stock markets of Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and the US are found to be cointegrated with the Singapore stock market.

Heavy Netals determination in Tea and its removal utillising Cattals, Typha Spp

In this work, dried Typha angustifolia (T A) leaves also known as the common cattail were used as an adsorbent in Pb(II) adsorption in synthetic aqueous solutions. Adsorption studies were conducted in batch mode. Batch adsorption studies using T A were conducted and proved to be able to adsorb Pb(II) effectively with the optimized dosage of 0.6g. Adsorption equilibrium was achieved within 8 hours with an effective removal percentage of 86.04%. Adsorption kinetics was further evaluated using four kinetic models such as the pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order, intraparticIe diffusion and Elovich model. Fitting of the data were done based on linear regression analysis. The sorption kinetic data fitted best to the pseudo-second order model with an R2 of 0.9979 followed closely by the Elovich model with an R2 of 0.9952. For the isothenn studies, the adsorption system fitted the Langmuir model best as compared to the Freundlich, Temkin and D-R model. The R2 achieved for the Langmuir model was 0.9903. The maximum adsorption capacity calculated from the Langmuir model was 51.02 mg/g with a maximum removal after 24 hours at 89%. This proves that adsorption occurred via monolayer coverage of the adsorbate at the outer layer of the adsorbent. The optimized adsorption conditions were then applied to tea infusion that has been initially spiked with a fixed concentration of lead. Three types of brands of teas were used which were Lipton, Boh and Sabah tea. In all 3 brands, the concentration of lead found was below 0.2 mg/g. Each brand was then spiked with different concentrations of lead to investigate the effects of the presence of caffeine in tea towards the adsorption performance of the leaves. It was found that the adsorption performance of the leaves increased with increasing amounts of lead in the tea infusion which was contrary to in distilled water. The percentage of removal achieved in tea infusion was 38.22% (Lipton), 36.23% (Boh) and 29.86% (Sabah tea) as compared to water at 6% for 1000 mg/L of lead. From the study, dried Typha angustifolia successfully adsorbed lead in both water and tea infusion with the performance improving in the presence of tea

Temporal Changes in Extracellular Vesicle Hemostatic Protein Composition Predict Favourable Left Ventricular Remodeling after Acute Myocardial Infarction

The subset of plasma extracellular vesicles (EVs) that coprecipitate with low-density lipoprotein (LDL-EVs) carry coagulation and fibrinolysis pathway proteins as cargo. We investigated the association between LDL-EV hemostatic/fibrinolysis protein ratios and post-acute myocardial infarction (post-AMI) left ventricular (LV) remodeling which precedes heart failure. Protein concentrations of von Willebrand factor (VWF), SerpinC1 and plasminogen were determined in LDL-EVs extracted from plasma samples obtained at baseline (within 72 h post-AMI), 1 month and 6 months post-AMI from 198 patients. Patients were categorized as exhibiting adverse (n = 98) or reverse (n = 100) LV remodeling based on changes in LV end-systolic volume (increased or decreased ≥15) over a 6-month period. Multiple level longitudinal data analysis with structural equation (ML-SEM) model was used to assess predictive value for LV remodeling independent of baseline differences. At baseline, protein levels of VWF, SerpinC1 and plasminogen in LDL-EVs did not differ between patients with adverse versus reverse LV remodeling. At 1 month post-AMI, protein levels of VWF and SerpinC1 decreased whilst plasminogen increased in patients with adverse LV remodeling. In contrast, VWF and plasminogen decreased whilst SerpinC1 remained unchanged in patients with reverse LV remodeling. Overall, compared with patients with adverse LV remodeling, higher levels of SerpinC1 and VWF but lower levels of plasminogen resulted in higher ratios of VWF:Plasminogen and SerpinC1:Plasminogen at both 1 month and 6 months post-AMI in patients with reverse LV remodeling. More importantly, ratios VWF:Plasminogen (AUC = 0.674) and SerpinC1:Plasminogen (AUC = 0.712) displayed markedly better prognostic power than NT-proBNP (AUC = 0.384), troponin-I (AUC = 0.467) or troponin-T (AUC = 0.389) (p \u3c 0.001) to predict reverse LV remodeling post-AMI. Temporal changes in the ratios of coagulation to fibrinolysis pathway proteins in LDL-EVs outperform current standard plasma biomarkers in predicting post-AMI reverse LV remodeling. Our findings may provide clinical cues to uncover the cellular mechanisms underpinning post-AMI reverse LV remodeling

Baseline characteristics of participants in the Pre-Diabetes Interventions and Continued Tracking to Ease-out Diabetes (Pre-DICTED) Program

OBJECTIVE: The Pre-Diabetes Interventions and Continued Tracking to Ease-out Diabetes (Pre-DICTED) Program is a diabetes prevention trial comparing the diabetes conversion rate at 3 years between the intervention group, which receives the incentivized lifestyle intervention program with stepwise addition of metformin, and the control group, which receives the standard of care. We describe the baseline characteristics and compare Pre-DICTED participants with other diabetes prevention trials cohort. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Participants were aged between 21 and 64 years, overweight (body mass index (BMI) ≥23.0 kg/m2), and had pre-diabetes (impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and/or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT)). RESULTS: A total of 751 participants (53.1% women) were randomized. At baseline, mean (SD) age was 52.5 (8.5) years and mean BMI (SD) was 29.0 (4.6) kg/m2. Twenty-three per cent had both IFG and IGT, 63.9% had isolated IGT, and 13.3% had isolated IFG. Ethnic Asian Indian participants were more likely to report a family history of diabetes and had a higher waist circumference, compared with Chinese and Malay participants. Women were less likely than men to meet the physical activity recommendations (≥150 min of moderate-intensity physical activity per week), and dietary intake varied with both sex and ethnicity. Compared with other Asian diabetes prevention studies, the Pre-DICTED cohort had a higher mean age and BMI. CONCLUSION: The Pre-DICTED cohort represents subjects at high risk of diabetes conversion. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based incentivized lifestyle intervention program in an urban Asian context.Peer reviewe

Project ACM : an integrated marketing solution for the Asian Civilisations Museum.

Project ACM is a report aimed at revealing how integrated marketing communicaitons can be effective in promoting a museum, and satisfying its publics, specifically the youth market aged 13 - 25.Bachelor of Communication Studie

Conformational flexibility of the dengue virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase revealed by a complex with an inhibitor

We report a highly reproducible method to crystallize the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) domain of dengue virus serotype 3 (DENV-3), allowing structure refinement to a 1.79-Å resolution and revealing amino acids not seen previously. We also present a DENV-3 polymerase/inhibitor cocrystal structure at a 2.1-Å resolution. The inhibitor binds to the RdRp as a dimer and causes conformational changes in the protein. The improved crystallization conditions and new structural information should accelerate structure-based drug discovery.Published versio

Plasma tissue factor coagulation activity in post-acute myocardial infarction patients

10.3389/fendo.2022.1008329FRONTIERS IN ENDOCRINOLOGY1