Liquidity spillovers in sovereign bond and CDS markets: an analysis of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis

At the end of 2009, countries in the Eurozone (euro area) began to experience a sudden divergence of bond yields as the market perception of sovereign default risk increased. The theory of complete markets suggests that sovereign debt and credit default swap (CDS) credit spreads should track each other closely. In addition, liquidity risk should be priced into both instruments in such a way that buying exposure to the same default risk is identically priced. We use a time-varying vector autoregression framework to establish the credit and liquidity spread interactions over the 2009-2010 crisis period. We find substantial variation in the patterns of the transmission effect between maturities and across countries. Our major result is that, for several countries, including Greece, Ireland and Portugal the liquidity of the sovereign CDS market has a substantial time varying influence on sovereign bond credit spreads. This evidence is of particular importance in the current policy context. © 2011 Elsevier B.V

Sex Trafficking Awareness Among Adolescents

Sex Trafficking is a growing concern for the United States of America. This research investigation identifies the level of awareness from a group of individuals about 14 to 18 years old, allowing for the improvement of prevention methods for younger populations. The data for this study reported an overall trend in which students had an insufficient understanding for sex trafficking and its occurrences. Student responses contained higher mean scores as the grade levels increased. The data supports the argument that students are not as aware as they may need to be; however, 10th grade students responded either “slightly agree” or “strongly agree” more frequently than the 9th, 11th, and 12th grade students, leading them to have higher averages. This group of students in particular deviated from the trend established by the other grade level; on average, 10th grade students had higher mean scores than the other grade levels. Survey results summarize a lack of awareness that may originate from ineffective, or nonexistent, awareness programs from the students’ middle schools. Individuals should be informed prior to their entrance into high school. The data followed a distribution in which students were becoming progressively more aware through each school year. During the developmental period between the ages of 11 and 15, individuals often seek closer relationships with perceived friends. Sex traffickers often take the form of a close friend, allowing for an an uninformed individual to put their trust in an potential trafficker

A tile-based method for geodesic buffer generation in a virtual globe

<p>Geometric buffers are important for spatial analysis in many applications of geographic information systems (GISs), such as environmental measurement and management, human health, urban planning, etc. Geometric buffer generation algorithms are well studied in the Euclidean space where the buffer distance is measured by Euclidean metrics; however, very few algorithms are available for generating geometric buffers on the terrain surface in a virtual globe where the buffer distance is measured by geodesic metrics. This paper proposes a tile-based method for geodesic buffer generation according to the characteristics of a virtual globe. It extends the vector tile model (VTM) to organize terrain and vector data, and the XYH algorithm is improved to build geodesic distance fields for terrain meshes. Based on the data organization and the improved XYH algorithm, a geodesic buffer is generated via three main steps: selecting and assembling tiles, updating geodesic distance fields and tracing the boundaries of buffer zones. This method is implemented with multi-scale terrain and vector data, and the experimental results show that it is valid and exact and can be applied in practical applications.</p

Density and Viscosity Data for Mixtures of Ionic Liquids with a Common Anion

The density and viscosity of binary ionic liquid mixtures with a common anion, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate + 1-propyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate + 1-propyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate, and 1-propyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate + 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate were determined in the temperature range of (298.15 to 343.15) K. The excess molar volumes were calculated and correlated by Redlich–Kister polynomial expansions. The viscosities for pure ionic liquids were analyzed by means of the Vogel–Tammann–Fulcher equation, and ideal mixing rules were applied for the mixtures

Quantitative Determination of Trisiloxane Surfactants in Beehive Environments Based on Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Mass Spectrometry

Organosilicone surfactants are increasingly being applied to agricultural agro-ecosystems as spray adjuvants, and were recently shown to impact the learning ability of honey bees. Here we developed a method for analyzing three trisiloxane surfactants (single polyethoxylate (EO) chain and end-capped with methyl, acetyl, or hydroxyl groups; TSS-CH₃, TSS-COCH₃, or TSS-H) in beehive matrices based on liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC–MS) and the QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) approach from less than 2 g of honey, pollen, or beeswax. Recoveries for each oligomer (2–13 EO) were between 66 and 112% in all matrices. Average method detection limits (MDL) were 0.53, 0.60, 0.56 ng/g in honey, 0.63, 0.81, 0.78 ng/g in pollen, and 0.51, 0.69, 0.63 ng/g in beeswax. Five honey, 10 pollen, and 10 beeswax samples were analyzed. Trisiloxane surfactants were detected in every beeswax and 60% of the pollen samples. Total trisiloxane surfactant concentrations were up to 390 and 39 ng/g in wax and pollen. The described method is proved suitable for analyzing trisiloxane surfactants in beehive samples. The presence of trisiloxane surfactants in North American beehives calls for renewed effort to investigate the consequence of these adjuvants to bee health and the ongoing global bee decline

Structures of high-density and low-density water

Accelerating urbanization has been viewed as an important instrument for economic development and reducing regional income disparity in some developing countries, including China. Recent studies (Bloom et al. 2008) indicate that demographic urbanization level has no causal effect on economic growth. However, due to the varying and changing definition of urban population, the use of demographic indicators as a sole representing indicator for urbanization might be misleading. Here, we re-examine the causal relationship between urbanization and economic growth in Chinese cities and provinces in recent decades, using built-up areas as a landscape urbanization indicator. Our analysis shows that (1) larger cities, both in terms of population size and built-up area, and richer cities tend to gain more income, have larger built-up area expansion, and attract more population, than poorer cities or smaller cities; and (2) that there is a long-term bidirectional causality between urban built-up area expansion and GDP per capita at both city and provincial level, and a short-term bidirectional causality at provincial level, revealing a positive feedback between landscape urbanization and urban and regional economic growth in China. Our results suggest that urbanization, if measured by a landscape indicator, does have causal effect on economic growth in China, both within the city and with spillover effect to the region, and that urban land expansion is not only the consequences of economic growth in cities, but also drivers of such growth. The results also suggest that under its current economic growth model, it might be difficult for China to control urban expansion without sacrificing economic growth, and China’s policy to stop the loss of agricultural land, for food security, might be challenged by its policy to promote economic growth through urbanization

MOESM2 of Systematic engineering of pentose phosphate pathway improves Escherichia coli succinate production

Additional file 2. Sequences of regulatory elements in engineering of PPP

Semi-quantified Immunohistochemical staining Intensity.

<p>Chon: Chondrogenic; HS: Heat Shock; Col: Collagen; n = 3 for average ratio.</p

MOESM5 of Systematic engineering of pentose phosphate pathway improves Escherichia coli succinate production

Additional file 5. Solving metabolic burdens through multivariate modular engineering

Solid Phase Extraction of N‑Linked Glycopeptides Using Hydrazide Tip

Glycoproteome contains valuable information where biomarkers may be discovered for disease diagnosis and monitoring. Nowadays, with the ever-increasing performances of mass spectrometers, the emphasis is shifting to the sample preparation for better throughput and reproducibility. Therefore, to facilitate high throughput N-linked glycopeptide isolation, in this study, a novel hydrazide tip was devised and an integrated workflow of N-linked glycopeptide isolation using hydrazide tips was presented. With the use of bovine fetuin as a standard glycoprotein, the incubation time was determined for each major step of glycopeptide isolation. With the use of commercially available human serum, multiple parallel isolations of glycopeptides were performed using hydrazide tips with a liquid handling robotic system. We demonstrated that, with the hydrazide tips, the processing time was significantly decreased from 3 to 4 days to less than 8 h with excellent reproducibility. The hydrazide pipet tips have great potential in achieving automation of N-linked glycopeptide isolation for high-throughput sample preparation when used in combination with liquid handling robotic systems