Working Paper 118 - Assessment of the Trade Finance Market in Africa Post-Crisis

The financial crisis, which began to hit the trade finance markets in 2008, caused a sharp slow-down in trade in 2008 and 2009. The tightening of global credit reduced capital inflows and curtailed the availability of trade finance. This sudden shortage of trade finance negatively impacted African economies. In response, the African Development Bank (AfDB) established, on March 2009, a multiphase USD 1 billion Trade Finance Initiative (TFI). As part of the Trade Finance Initiative, AfDB commissioned a trade finance survey conducted three times between 2009 and 2010. The financial institutions contacted during these market surveys are listed at the end of this document. During this research, banks in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Rwanda were contacted. In addition, financial institutions active in the international and regional trade finance markets based in the USA, UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands were contacted. Finally, development finance institutions active in supporting trade both within Africa and without were interviewed. Generally trade operations officers, international department management, treasury officers or senior commercial bankers were contacted. Participants were asked to: • Describe their trade finance related activities • Describe the state of the market for trade finance products • Describe how availability of facilities has changed •Describe how terms and conditions of facilities have changed •Discuss overall economic activity in their markets • Discuss potential roles for AfDB to play to facilitate access to trade finance The overall conclusions of these surveys are: • African trade grew rapidly during the pre-crisis period, spurred by growing south-south trade and the emergence of Asia as a major purchaser of African raw materials and primary products. Anecdotally, it appears that trade finance was increasingly available during this period. • The crisis has had a negative impact on African trade due to falling demand for African primary product exports. Trade finance availability was sharply constrained during the initial crisis period. • It is difficult to discern real trends in African trade finance as markets remain highly volatile. Liquidity and risk appetite vary widely across markets and counterparties. Across all markets, trade finance tenors have shortened. • There is an overall decrease in demand for trade products due to decreased economic activity but a higher proportion of the current transactions are using trade instruments. • International commercial banks that historically provided confirmation lines for trade instruments remain risk averse and seek to maintain/increase returns. • Low income countries and the smaller Regional Member Countries are hit hardest by the lack of availability of trade finance due to higher perceived risk, even for low risk transactions. • Basel II related capital allocation rules will have a negative impact on the cost and availability of trade finance across the continent. • Multilateral Development Banks in other regions play a variety of roles to support trade finance availability, from which AfDB could learn some lessons. • The African Development Bank can have a significant impact on trade finance availability and, consequently, RMC economic performance over the short/medium term.

Characterisation of response to antiepileptic drugs

This study aimed to construct a database of 1500 newly diagnosed patients with epilepsy referred to the epilepsy unit at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow between 1982 and 2005. These patients commenced their first ever epilepsy treatment at the unit. The database included demographic, clinical and investigational information together with a detailed account of every drug regimen applied starting from the first AED prescribed until the last follow up appointment. Using this database, I was able to identify the efficacy and tolerability of different AEDs in relation to various demographic, clinical and pharmacological characteristics. This analysis provides a better understanding of the natural history of treated epilepsy, an informational aid for the future prescription choice of drug and/or drug combination according to different patient characteristics and facilitates the study of patients with intractable seizures from a pharmacological point of view

CARBON BASED CONDUCTIVE FIBERS FOR FUEL CELL APPLICATION

A novel catalyst consists of a group of metals (Ni, Co and Cu) deposited on carbon fiber support and was prepared for oxidation using methanol and ethanol in alkaline medium. The carbon fiber support was fabricated by carbonization of electrospun composite made with an average diameter of 0.2 μm and 0.3 μm respectively and prepared by using electrospinning a mixture of polyacrylonitrile (PAN), polyaniline (PANi) and graphene. Moreover, the composites fibers were characterized with transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). We believe it to be a promising material in the near future. This work focused on the structure of polymeric fibers, which are produced from polymer materials by using electrospinning, such as polyacrylonitrile (PAN), and then verified the conversion of the electrospun fibers to carbon fibers (CFs). This study is divided into several sections: Section 1, Summarized introduction and literature review on theory of electrospinning, parameters and factors affecting the process of electrospinning, applications of this technique, the support materials used and the use of electro-oxidation as a primary factor in fuel cell applications. Section 2, Mainly concerned with the various materials and techniques of the experiments, which were used to study and to reach the target of this thesis. Section 3, Discussion on the results of this thesis, which is separated into three main parts (A, B, and C). Part A, focuses on the preparation of electrospun fibers. It covers the investigation on the effect of various processing parameters and fiber composition preparation and improving a novel approach to fabricate nanocomposite mats. Part B, focuses mainly on the characterization of polymer fibers and carbon fibers composites, based on polyacrylonitrile (PAN). Part C, this part will focus on electrochemical characterization which was used to show the effectiveness of the prepared catalysts represented in (nickel, cobalt and copper) which are deposited by electrochemical technique with chronoamperometry process on carbon fiber ink (cast over glass carbon electrode). Section 4, Includes the conclusion derived from this study followed by References. Section 5, Includes discussion on future work

Identification of Enterococcus faecium genes involved in resistance to oxidative stress and virulence

The Enterococcus faecium clonal complex (CC17) is an example of how a cumulative evolutionary process improves relative fitness of bacteria in the hospital setting. As a result, a better knowledge of pathogen resistance mechanisms is required to forecast and prevent its spread. The research described here was aimed to test if zebrafish larvae and planarian infection models could be used to study the survival rates, colonisation, and pathogenicity of E. faecium E1162 and its isogenic mutants: 201c, 59N, Mabc, 183N, and 47N, which had transposon insertion in a gene that encoded respectively one of the following a serine/threonine protein kinase, a putative muramidase, a putative permease component of an ABC transporter, a cystathionine beta-synthase domain protein, and a putative tyrosine decarboxylase. In zebrafish larvae, mutants 201c, 59N, Mabc, and 183N were less virulent than E. faecium E1162. Killing was much later than E. faecium E1162 when planarians were co- incubated with mutants 59N, 47N and Δesp (deletion of the enterococcal surface protein gene). Also in this study the E. faecium E1162 transposon mutant library was screened for mutants with reduced oxidative stress sensitivity against superoxide generator menadione and/or the organic peroxide generator cumene hydroperoxide. Three mutants were identified: MS1 with an insertion in EfmE1162_1492 encoding a putative tyrosine decarboxylase involved in acid adaptation, MS2 with an insertion in Efm E1162_1516 encoding a putative conserved hypothetical protein, a tRNA-modifying enzyme, and MS3 with an insertion in efmE1162_2615 encoding a putative transposase a response stimulator. Mutant MS1 and MS2 were significantly more sensitive to 3.38 mM cumene hydroperoxide than E. faecium E1162. Compared to E. faecium E1162, the killing rate with MS2 decreased significantly in the first two days of infection in the Galleria mellonella (p > 0.025). In addition, mutant 59N was found to be more susceptible to menadione and cumene hydroperoxide than E. faecium E1162, and the wild-type virulence was restored in the G. mellonella infection model when mutant 59N was complemented in trans with the wild-type putative muramidase encoding gene. In conclusion, the genes mentioned above may play an important role in the pathogenesis of E. faecium infections. In addition, zebrafish larvae and planarian models are useful for studying E. faecium pathogenicity

A Proposed Model for Predicting Employee Turnover of Information Technology Specialists Using Data Mining Techniques

This article proposes a data mining framework to predict the significant explanations of employee turn-over problems. Using Support vector machine, decision tree, deep learning, random forest, and other classification algorithms, the authors propose features prediction framework to determine the influencing factors of employee turn-over problem. The proposed framework categorizes a set of historical behavior such as years at company, over time, performance rating, years since last promotion, and total working years. The proposed framework also classifies demographics features such as Age, Monthly Income, and Distance from Home, Marital Status, Education, and Gender. It also uses attitudinal employee characteristics to determine the reasons for employee turnover in the information technology sector. It has been found that the monthly rate, overtime, and employee age are the most significant factors which cause employee turnover

HYPOTENSIVE ACTIVITY OF THYMOQUINONE IN NORMOTENSIVE RATS AND ITS RECEPTOR MECHANISMS

Objective: The objectives of the current study were to confirm the blood pressure lowering effect of thymoquinone (TQ) and to investigate its mechanism through muscarinic and β-adrenergic receptors.Methods: Mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) was recorded using the non-invasive blood pressure tail-cuff technique. A dose-response relationship was obtained after using 3 TQ doses (2.5, 5 and 10 mg/kg) intraperitoneally to 3 different groups (n =5) of adult rats under pentobarbital anesthesia. MAP was then measured for another 2 animal groups pretreated either with atropine (P-at) or propranolol (P-pro) followed by 10 mg/kg TQ.Results: TQ produced a significant dose-dependent blood pressure and heart rate lowering effect. TQ-induced MAP reduction was significantly less pronounced in P-at (12±2.8 mmHg) than non-pretreated group (29±3.2 mmHg) with P<0.01. Conversely, TQ-induced MAP reduction in P-pro (28±3.4 mmHg) did not demonstrate a significant difference from the non-pretreated group (29±3.2 mmHg) with P>0.05.Conclusion: This study confirms the dose-related hypotensive effect of TQ and provides an evidence for the traditional use of Nigella sativa for the treatment of hypertension. The mechanism of TQ-induced hypotension involves at least in part activation of vascular muscarinic receptors, but not β-adrenergic receptors