Terrorism Activities Influence on Financial Stock Markets: An Empirical Evidence from United Kingdom, India, France, Pakistan, Spain and United States

The study investigats the impact of terrorism activities on five economies (Developing and Developed) financial stock markets. Spain, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, America and France were chosen for the analysis. The variables considered were terrorist activities and market return of the financial stock markets. Daily time series data for the period from 1st Jan 2001 to 31st Dec 2018 was analyzed by applying simple linear regression model to estimate the effects of terrorist activities on financial stock market returns of the selected countries. The results suggest that the market return is affected by the terror events and the model is overall statistically significant. The results of this study are consistent with findings of Freytag et al. (2009) and Basuchoudhary and Shughart (2010). Significant influence of terrorist activities on financial market returns offer financial markets stakeholders not only an understanding of the direction of market swing following terror factors on stock market but also offers guidance towards investment decision making and timing. Study further discussed how terrorism activities influence the overall market return

The Effect of Bank Capital Buffer on Bank Risk and Net Interest Margin: Evidence from the US

This study used a balanced panel data set of USA well, adequately, under, significantly under and critically undercapitalized large commercial banks in pre, during and post-crisis period to investigate the effect of the capital buffer, tier one capital buffer and common equity buffer on risk and net interest margin. The Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) two-step estimation was applied. The conclusions showed that the capital buffer, common equity buffer, tier one capital buffer and total risk are negatively correlated. The findings of period dummies and subgroups dummies showed that capital buffer is influencing the total risk and net interest margin differently in pre, during and post-crisis. The results indicated that the interest margin is lower in pre-crisis and during crisis period than in the post-crisis period, which signifies the impact of capital restrictions imposed by regulators in Basel-III. The outcomes showed that the influence of capital buffer on the net interest margin is not similar in all the subgroups. In addition, the results indicated that there is a positive relationship between bank risk and net interest margin. The findings also displayed that the lagged risk and current risk are positively related

Prevalence of anal fistulas in Europe: Systematic literature reviews and population-based database analysis

Introduction: Despite the fact that perianal fistulas are associated with significant morbidity and impaired quality of life, their prevalence in Europe is unknown. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of perianal fistulas in Europe, overall and according to etiology. Methods: Two independent literature reviews were performed using different search strategies to maximize the identification of potentially relevant studies. Data from relevant articles were used to estimate the prevalence of perianal fistulas in Europe. The robustness of the estimate was evaluated using data from a large population-based database from the UK. Results: A total of 26 studies provided epidemiological data on perianal fistulas, of which 16 provided suitable data to estimate the prevalence. Estimations using these data yielded a total prevalence of 1.69 per 10,000 population. Cryptoglandular infection and Crohn’s disease (CD) were the predominant etiologies, with prevalence rates at 0.86 and 0.76 per 10,000 population, respectively. Comparison of prevalence data from the UK population-based database with the European population resulted in a standardized prevalence estimate of all perianal fistulas of 1.83 per 10,000 population, confirming the robustness of the literaturebased estimate. Conclusion: Although in terms of incidence cryptoglandular fistulas were clearly predominant, the prevalence of fistulas in CD and cryptoglandular infection appeared more balanced. This is due to the longer duration and higher frequency of relapses of fistulas in CD. The estimated prevalence implies that perianal fistulas meet the criteria to be considered as a rare condition in Europe (prevalence less than 5 per 10,000 population).This study was funded by Takeda Pharmaceutical U.S.A., Inc. and TiGenix SA

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Uwarunkowania bezpieczeństwa gospodarczego strefy euro : w jaki sposób przezwyciężyć ryzyko płynności i kosztowej niewydolności wiodących banków Wielkiej Brytanii i Niemiec

Among many factors affecting economic security of the Eurozone, performance of banks play especially important role. The aim of this study is to investigate factors influencing performance of banking sector in UK and Germany. Performance is being estimated using indicators of liquidity and cost efficiency in the biggest banks of both indicated countries. For analysis data of eight banks from each country have been used, two periods of years 2009-2010, and 2012-2014 have been distinguished. Fixed effect model has been employed. The obtained results revealed some significant relationships. Specifically, liquidity is negatively influenced by interest margin in banking sector of both countries during both considered periods, what initiated more active lending. That, in its turn, reduced banks’ liquidity and conditioned lower margins. Bank size did affect liquidity (loan to asset ratio) neither in UK, nor in Germany. Obtained results can be used for respective policy implications directed to sustaining better performance of banks, and therefore for increased economic security of the Eurozone economies.Wśród wielu czynników wpływających na bezpieczeństwo ekonomiczne strefy euro szczególną rolę odgrywają wyniki banków. Celem niniejszgo badania jest analiza czynników wpływających na wyniki sektora bankowego w Wielkiej Brytanii i Niemczech. Wyniki są szacowane na podstawie wskaźników płynności i efektywności kosztowej w największych bankach obu wskazanych krajów. Do analizy wykorzystano dane z ośmiu banków z każdego kraju, wyróżniono dwa okresy z lat 2009-2010 i 2012-2014. Wykorzystano model poprawionego efektu. Uzyskane wyniki ujawniły kilka istotnych związków. W obu krajach, w obu okresach szczególnie negatywny wpływ na płynność ma marża odsetkowa w sektorze bankowym, co zapoczątkowało aktywniejszą akcję kredytową. To z kolei zmniejszyło płynność banków i uwarunkowało niższe marże. Wielkość banku nie wpłynęła na płynność (stosunek kredytów do aktywów) ani w Wielkiej Brytanii, ani w Niemczech. Uzyskane wyniki mogą być wykorzystane do odpowiednich implikacji politycznych ukierunkowanych na utrzymanie lepszych wyników banków, a tym samym do zwiększenia bezpieczeństwa ekonomicznego gospodarek strefy euro

Effect of nonlinear thermal radiation and homogeneous-heterogeneous reactions on peristaltic propulsion of Johnson-Segalman fluid

The basic aim of this research is to investigate the main features of the peristaltic flow of Johnson-Segalman fluid in a curved flow channel in the presence of a homogeneous-heterogeneous reaction. The fluid is considered electrically conducting with a radial magnetic field effect. The constitutive relation for energy is formulated with the addition of viscous dissipation and nonlinear thermal radiation. The slip and flexible wall boundary conditions are taken into consideration. The lubrication technique is used for the mathematical the modelling of the problem. The solution of the resulting nonlinear system of ODE’s is computed numerically through NDSolve command of Mathematica, and graphical results are prepared for flow variables. It has been clearly noticed that flow is accelerated in the planer medium as compared to the curved channel, and the velocity of the fluid increases with a larger Weissenberg number. Moreover, the thermal profile has an inverse relation to the parameters, i.e., radiation, temperature ratio, and curvature. Furthermore, it is also observed that the magnitude of heat transfer coefficient rises significantly when a comparatively less curved channel is utilized, however, a reduction in concentration profile is witnessed in this case. Alternative impact of homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions on concentration profile are observed through graphical results. Application of the study include the usage of peristaltic pump in chemical industry and in pharmacology industry for the purpose of drug deliveries

Distribution of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) Mitotypes in Commercial Cotton Fields in the Punjab Province of Pakistan

The Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyroridae) sibling species group is comprised of genetic variants defined by biological differences or a fragment of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene sequence (mitotype) that allows for phylogeographic affiliation. Some mitotypes may cause damage to crop plants by feeding and transmission of plant viruses. In Pakistan, cotton-vegetable agroecosystems are vulnerable to whitefly-transmitted virus (genus Begomovirus; family Geminiviridae) infection. The identity and distribution of the whitefly B. tabaci mitotypes associated with the cotton crop were studied in 8 districts in the Punjab Province from 2014 to 2016. Phylogenetic analysis of the 3(sic)-fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene indicated the predominant haplotypes belonged to the Asia II-1 mitotype, with pairwise distances ranging from 0.15 to 3.2%. Pairwise distances showed that B. tabaci haplotype diversity varied by district, with the Khanewal harboring the highest divergence at 1.37%, compared to the lowest at 0.50% in the Dera Ghazi Khan district. The median-joining network analysis showed genetic expansion, or a 'recovery' trend, following the declining genetic diversity that occurred during the late 1990s to the early 2000s. The Asia II-1 mitotype group was the predominant whitefly vector species in Punjab Province. The haplotype network provides documentation of continued genetic expansion among the B. tabaci populations in the Punjab, which is consistent with previously reported trends among whiteflies sampled in the same or nearby districts from 2012 to 2014. Genetic expansion varied among districts and could be explained by factors unique to each district, i.e., management practices that influence B. tabaci mitotype composition, whitefly susceptibility to cotton leaf curl disease complex, and cotton genotypeOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Enhancing saline stress tolerance in soybean seedlings through optimal <tex>NH_{4}^{+}/NO_{3}^{-}$</tex> ratios : a coordinated regulation of ions, hormones, and antioxidant potential

Abstract: Background Nitrogen (N) availability is crucial in regulating plants' abiotic stress resistance, particularly at the seedling stage. Nevertheless, plant responses to N under salinity conditions may vary depending on the soil's NH4+ to NO3- ratio. Methods In this study, we investigated the effects of different NH4+:NO3- ratios (100/0, 0/100, 25/75, 50/50, and 75/25) on the growth and physio-biochemical responses of soybean seedlings grown under controlled and saline stress conditions (0-, 50-, and 100-mM L- 1 NaCl and Na2SO4, at a 1:1 molar ratio). Results We observed that shoot length, root length, and leaf-stem-root dry weight decreased significantly with increased saline stress levels compared to control. Moreover, there was a significant accumulation of Na+, Cl-, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and malondialdehyde (MDA) but impaired ascorbate-glutathione pools (AsA-GSH). They also displayed lower photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-b), K+ ion, K+/Na+ ratio, and weakened O-2(center dot-)-H2O2-scavenging enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidase, monodehydroascorbate reductase, glutathione reductase under both saline stress levels, while reduced ascorbate peroxidase, and dehydroascorbate reductase under 100-mM stress, demonstrating their sensitivity to a saline environment. Moreover, the concentrations of proline, glycine betaine, total phenolic, flavonoids, and abscisic acid increased under both stresses compared to the control. They also exhibited lower indole acetic acid, gibberellic acid, cytokinins, and zeatine riboside, which may account for their reduced biomass. However, NH4+:NO3- ratios caused a differential response to alleviate saline stress toxicity. Soybean seedlings supplemented with optimal ratios of NH4+:NO3- (T3 = 25:75 and T = 4 50:50) displayed lower Na+ and Cl- and ABA but improved K+ and K+/Na+, pigments, growth hormones, and biomass compared to higher NH4+:NO3- ratios. They also exhibited higher O-2(center dot-)-H2O2-scavenging enzymes and optimized H2O2, MDA, and AsA-GSH pools status in favor of the higher biomass of seedlings. Conclusions In summary, the NH4+ and NO3- ratios followed the order of 50:50 > 25:75 > 0:100 > 75:25 > 100:0 for regulating the morpho-physio-biochemical responses in seedlings under SS conditions. Accordingly, we suggest that applying optimal ratios of NH4+ and NO3- (25/75 and 50:50) can improve the resistance of soybean seedlings grown in saline conditions

Decreased availability of nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide is a hallmark of COVID-19

BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is involved in a global outbreak affecting millions of people who manifest a variety of symptoms. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 is increasingly associated with cardiovascular complications requiring hospitalizations; however, the mechanisms underlying these complications remain unknown. Nitric oxide (NO) and hydrogen sulfide (HS) are gasotransmitters that regulate key cardiovascular functions. METHODS: Blood samples were obtained from 68 COVID-19 patients and 33 controls and NO and HS metabolites were assessed. HS and NO levels were compared between cases and controls in the entire study population and subgroups based on race. The availability of gasotransmitters was examined based on severity and outcome of COVID-19 infection. The performance of HS and NO levels in predicting COVID-19 infection was also analyzed. Multivariable regression analysis was performed to identify the effects of traditional determinants of gasotransmitters on NO and HS levels in the patients with COVID-19 infection. RESULTS: Significantly reduced NO and HS levels were observed in both Caucasian and African American COVID-19 patients compared to healthy controls. COVID-19 patients who died had significantly higher NO and HS levels compared to COVID-19 patients who survived. Receiver-operating characteristic analysis of NO and HS metabolites in the study population showed free sulfide levels to be highly predictive of COVID-19 infection based on reduced availability. Traditional determinants of gasotransmitters, namely age, race, sex, diabetes, and hypertension had no effect on NO and HS levels in COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSION: These observations provide the first insight into the role of NO and HS in COVID-19 infection, where their low availability may be a result of reduced synthesis secondary to endotheliitis, or increased consumption from scavenging of reactive oxygen species