Pump, Dump, and then What? The Long-Term Impact of Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes

The pump and dump scheme is a form of market manipulation attack in which coordinated actors drive up the price of an asset in order to sell at a higher price. Due in part to a lack of enforcement, these schemes are widespread within the cryptocurrency marketplace, but the negative impact of these events on the coins they target is not yet fully understood. Drawing upon a novel dataset of pump events extracted from Telegram channels, an order of magnitude larger than the nearest comparable dataset in the literature, we explore the differing tactics of pumping channels and the long-term impact of pump and dump schemes across 765 coins. We find that, despite a short-term positive impact in some cases, the long-term impact of pump and dump schemes on the targeted assets is negative, amounting to an average 30% relative drop in price a year after the pump event

'Looking Back, Facing Forward: Mistakes and Metaphors'

Research exploring representations of the changing city as a political metaphor for concepts of modernity and history utilising painting, printmaking, photography, poetic text and drawing. Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Prints & Drawings by Pete Clarke. Victoria Gallery & Museum, Liverpool Universit

Circumferential guided wave EMAT system for pipeline screening using shear horizontal ultrasound

The use of guided waves is now widespread in industrial NDT for locating metal loss in pipelines, that manifests as pitting, corrosion and general wall thinning. In this paper, a screening technique is assessed in terms of defect detection and defect sizing capability. Shear Horizontal (SH) guided waves propagate circumferentially around the pipe whilst the scanner is moved axially along the length. This type of tool is preferable to other methods, being applied to the exterior of the pipe, without requiring full circumferential access, and is able to operate through thin coatings (up to 1 mm thick). It is designed to provide a pipe screening tool for petrochemical pipelines both topside and subsea, particularly for detecting defects at pipe support areas. The system's efficacy in terms of detection and sizing of defects is considered via experimental measurements on artificially induced defects and in service corrosion patches, with results compared to finite element modelling of the interaction of the guided waves with artificial defects. Finite element modelling has been used to better understand the behaviour of different wave modes when they interact with defects, focusing on the mode conversions and reflections that occur

National Party Politics and Supranational Politics in the European Union: New Evidence from the European Parliament

Political parties play an important role in structuring political competition at different levels of governance in the European Union (EU). The political parties that contest national elections also participate in the EU legislative institutions, with the governing parties at the national level participating in the Council of Ministers and a broad range of national parties represented in the European Parliament (EP). Recent research indicates that national parties in the EP have formed ideological coalitions -- party groups -- that represent transnational political interests. These party groups appear to manage legislative behavior such that national interests -- which dominate the Council of Ministers -- are subjugated to ideological conflict. In this paper, we demonstrate that the roll-call vote evidence for the impact of party groups in the EP is misleading. Because party groups have incentives to select votes for roll call so as to hide or feature particular voting patterns, the true character of political conflict is never revealed in roll calls.

Ionic liquid thermal stability: implications for cellulose regeneration

During the course of the past twenty years, the applications of contemporary ionic liquids have become increasingly widespread and varied; as solvents or catalysts for sustainable synthetic processes, as battery electrolytes, and for the dissolution and deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass. These ionic liquid-assisted procedures frequently operate at high temperatures, therefore a comprehensive understanding of ionic liquid thermal stability is of great practical value. It has been demonstrated that ionic liquids incorporating carboxylate anions are capable of dissolving a substantial quantity of cellulose, the world’s most abundant bio-renewable resource. The thermal stabilities of carboxylate ionic liquids are thoroughly characterised in this contribution, employing a broad range of experimental and computational methods. The impact of structural modification of the cation/anion on thermal stability is evaluated, and the prevailing thermal decomposition mechanisms are elucidated. Subsequently, the reactivity and decomposition pathways of cellulose and carbohydrate model compounds, dissolved in carboxylate ionic liquids, are uncovered. Thermal stabilities of carboxylate ionic liquids are found to be highly sensitive to relatively modest changes in the ion chemical structure (e.g. via fluorination or substitution of sulfur into the carboxylate group), and the experimental conditions. Furthermore, the prevailing thermal decomposition mechanisms are dependant on the electronic and steric properties of the ions. Crucially, the prototypical carboxylate ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate is susceptible to transient and reversible formation of an N-Heterocyclic Carbene species through abstraction of the ring C2 proton, enabled by the basicity of the anion. This ‘non-innocent’ behaviour of carboxylate ionic liquids is critical in initiating a sequence of undesirable degradation pathways with dissolved carbohydrates, yielding imidazolium-derived adducts bearing hydroxyalkyl substituents. Strikingly, the analogous ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride does not initiate the unwanted series of reactions, yet is capable of dissolving a significant quantity of cellulose.Open Acces

Sero-surveillance and risk factors for avian influenza and Newcastle disease virus in backyard poultry in Oman

AbstractAvian Influenza (AI) and Newcastle disease (ND) are the most important reportable poultry diseases worldwide. Low pathogenic AI (H9N2) and ND viruses are known to have been circulating in the Middle East, including in Oman, for many decades. However, detailed information on the occurrence of these pathogens is almost completely lacking in Oman. As backyard poultry are not vaccinated against either virus in Oman, this sector is likely to be the most affected poultry production sector for both diseases. Here, in the first survey of AI and ND viruses in backyard poultry in Oman, we report high flock-level seroprevalences of both viruses. Serum and oropharyngeal swabs were taken from 2350 birds in 243 backyard flocks from all regions and governorates of Oman. Information was recorded on location, type of bird and housing type for each sampled farm. Individual bird serum samples were tested using commercial indirect antibody detection ELISA kits. Pooled oropharyngeal samples from each flock were inoculated onto FTA cards and tested by RT-PCR. Samples came from chickens (90.5%), turkeys (2.1%), ducks (6.2%), guinea fowl (0.8%) and geese (0.4%). The bird-level seroprevalence of antibody to AI and ND viruses was 37.5% and 42.1% respectively, and at the flock level it was 84% and 90% respectively. There were statistically significant differences between some different regions of Oman in the seroprevalence of both viruses. Flock-level NDV seropositivity in chickens was significantly associated with AIV seropositivity, and marginally negatively associated with flock size. AIV seropositivity in chickens was marginally negatively associated with altitude. All oropharyngeal samples were negative for both viruses by RT-PCR, consistent with a short duration of infection. This study demonstrates that eight or nine out of ten backyard poultry flocks in Oman are exposed to AI and ND viruses, and may present a risk for infection for the commercial poultry sector in Oman, or wild birds which could carry infection further afield

Development and validation of a protocol to identify and recruit participants into a large scale study on liver fluke in cattle

Abstract Background Liver fluke infection caused by the parasite Fasciola hepatica is a major cause of production losses to the cattle industry in the UK. To investigate farm-level risk factors for fluke infection, a randomised method to recruit an appropriate number of herds from a defined geographical area into the study was required. The approach and hurdles that were encountered in designing and implementing this study are described. The county of Shropshire, England, was selected for the study because of the variation between farms in exposure to fluke infection observed in an earlier study. Results From a sampling list of 569 holdings in Shropshire randomly drawn from the RADAR cattle population dataset, 396 (69.6%) holdings were successfully contacted by telephone and asked if they would be interested in taking part in the study. Of 296 farmers who agreed to receive information packs by post, 195 (65.9%) agreed to take part in the study. Over the period October 2014 – April 2015 visits were made to 100 dairy and 95 non-dairy herds. During the farm visits 40 faecal samples +/− bulk-tank milk samples were collected and a questionnaire administered. Composite faecal samples were analysed for the presence of F. hepatica eggs by sedimentation and bulk tank milk samples were tested with an antibody ELISA for F. hepatica. Forty-five (49%) of non-dairy herds were positive for liver fluke infection as determined by the finding of one or more fluke eggs, while 36 (36%) dairy herds had fluke positive faecal samples and 41 (41%) dairy herds were positive for F. hepatica antibody. Eighty-seven (45.8%) farmers said that they monitored their cattle for liver fluke infection and 118 (62.1%) reported that they used flukicide drugs in their cattle. Conclusions Using a protocol of contacting farmers directly by telephone and subsequently sending information by post, 79% of the target sample size was successfully recruited into the study. A dataset of farm-specific information on possible risk factors for liver fluke infection and corresponding liver-fluke infection status was generated for the development of statistical models to identify risk factors for liver fluke infection at the farm-level

A second look at legislative behavior in the European Parliament: roll-call votes and the party system

'Jüngste Forschungen zum Wahlverhalten im Europäischen Parlament (EP) kommen zum Schluss, dass die Fraktionen der unterschiedlichen politischen Parteien das legislative Verhalten beeinflussen. Dadurch wird politischer Wettbewerb im EP entlang ideologischer und nicht nationaler Linien organisiert. Daraus folgt, dass das EP eine geeignete Arena für transnationale politische Auseinandersetzungen darstellt. Die Autoren überprüfen nochmals verschiedene empirische Resultate, die diese Schlussfolgerungen unterstützen. Basierend auf der Analyse eines neuen Datensatzes behaupten die, dass die empirische Basis für diese Schlussfolgerungen bedenklich ist. Denn die namentlichen Abstimmungen, welche bisher als Basis zu Studien zum legislativen Abstimmungsverhalten gedient haben, stellen ein verzerrtes Sample für eben solche dar. Es stellt sich somit die allgemeine Frage, inwiefern die bisherige Beschreibung von Parteikohäsion oder die Charakterisierung von Parteienwettbewerb in der Legislative noch Gültigkeit besitzen. Die Resultate weisen außerdem darauf hin, dass die Fraktionen den Großteil ihrer legislativen Abstimmungen vor den Wählern verbergen und somit ihr legislatives Verhalten verschleiern. Obwohl das EP häufig als Quelle für demokratische Legitimation in der EU-Politikgestaltung genannt wird, zeigen die Resultate, dass in der Praxis die verschiedenen Fraktionen die Kontrollmöglichkeiten der Bürger signifikant behindern.' (Autorenreferat)'A great deal of recent research on voting behavior in the European Parliament (EP) concludes that party groups dominate legislative behavior, effectively organizing political competition along ideological rather than national lines. As a result, some argue that the EP is a suitable arena for transnational political contestation. We re-examine several empirical findings used to support these conclusions. Based on an analysis of a novel set of data regarding EP votes that are unrecorded, we argue that the empirical basis for these conclusions is dubious. The fundamental finding is that roll call votes, which form the basis of studies of legislative voting behavior, are a biased sample of legislative votes. This calls into question the accuracy of any description of party unity or the character of party competition on legislation that is gleaned from roll call votes in the EP. In addition, our findings indicate that party groups hide the vast majority of legislative votes from the eyes of voters, therefore obfuscating legislative behavior. Thus, while the EP is often identified as a source of democratic accountability for EU policy-making because its members are directly elected, our findings suggest that in practice party groups significantly obstruct this channel of popular control over policy-making.' (author's abstract)